The first time Lukas opened his eyes, he was blinded. Everything felt too white. It felt quite jarring to his senses and he closed his eyes. He spent a few minutes feeling his body for any injuries before opening his eyes again. This time he found the familiar darkness awaiting him, with the green bioluminescence upon the walls—a sight he had gotten used to seeing.

“Back to the world of living, I guess…” he murmured. For better or worse, his pain seemed to lessen. There was an ever-constant throbbing on the left side of his head, right above the ear, but nothing he couldn’t deal with. His fingers slowly traced along his stomach, trying to feel the wounds that should have been there.

They weren’t.

He tried to move his right leg, inwardly preparing himself to feel jolts of pain from broken bones. He felt his chest, and around his neck. His fingers quested out and touched the pendant there, just as solid and unbreakable as he remembered. There was no laceration in his arm either.

Everything seemed fine. It was as if he hadn’t been hurt at all.

“It is not complicated, mortal,” Inanna murmured in his ear. “I saved your life.”

Lukas blinked. Something was wrong with that statement. “You—” It hurt to speak. “You saved my life?”

“Yes.”

“…Why?”

Genuine amusement flooded through him. “Is that how you humans react upon being saved? Questioning your savior?”

“But you don’t do anything for free.”

“It was not, as you said, for free,” Inanna chided. “Do you not remember your last words?”

Prey Found You

Lukas was barely able to open his eyes when—

PAIN!

It came from three different strikes, all at once, and lashed against his body. The first slashed at his right arm, severing his biceps in half. The second came at his abdomen, tearing through the skin and muscles like a hot knife through butter. The final one slashed against his knee. It was probably his luck that it hit his knee, fracturing it. Had it hit muscle, he would have been devoid of a leg.

Three strikes in one go. There was no time to react. There was no rage, no question, nothing, just pain, pain, and endless pain. A reddish shade engulfed his mind, much like the blood spurting out of his body, and Lukas let out an agonized whimper…

“Help…me…”

The only thing he could see through the reddish hue was the tall, hawk-faced man with dark brown hair.

“I asked you to save me?”

“You did.”

Her words took the wind out of his sails. Lukas pushed himself up straight, stretching tiredly. If this went on, he might as well just give up in his attempts to secure his independence and accept her offer.

“It would certainly do away with having to keep track of every favor you owe me.”

And wasn’t that true? Apart from the hilariously suicidal task of finding Ereshkigal’s domain, sneaking into it and acquiring Inanna’s trapped form—a job that would likely cost him the remainder of his life—he was also obligated to allow her to perform a spell, of her choice, at a time of her choice. And last but not least, he was obligated to channel the power of the core of this Crypt of Fiendish Worms into the pendant.

Assuming he managed to do that in the first place.

Yeah, he was right in not wasting time on a five-year plan.

“How did you do it this time though?” he asked, pushing himself up. “Alleviation again?”

Inanna said nothing. After all, why use words when silence would suffice?

His mind went back to that lethal experience—the pain assaulting his nerves, the mental breakdown from all that agony all at once. He remembered that image—the brown-haired man with a hawk-like face. And finally that attack…

He shivered.

Just who the hell was that guy? And why had he attacked him out of nowhere?

“There is something you would find interesting,” the goddess remarked. “You were attacked with water. More specifically, helical blades crafted out of it, moving in random trajectories and converging upon you. Given the level of damage, the pressure had to be significant.”

Lukas scowled. He knew where this was going. He could use a fire whip, but that involved Fire Manipulation and Temperature Modulation. Fire was a dangerous thing on its own without needing to involve the pressure component in its equation. And while he did mold lifeforce into specific shapes during combat, just Raw Lifeforce Manipulation skill had been more than enough for that.

But water was different. Water required pressure, not temperature. Though if he could apply the Temperature Modulation skill to water to make it scalding hot, the effect would be twice as dangerous. That, or perhaps cool it to ice? Water was a fluid medium, and most susceptible to changing forms.

His fists clenched. “Think it was a yokai that attacked me?”

“Unlikely, considering how your protectors attacked this individual.”

That took him by surprise.

“…Protectors?”

“The ether crafter from before. And the creature that brought you meals.”

Malon and Mizo, Lukas remembered. The ones Solana had offered to send with him. No wonder the two of them had maintained their distance from him. But that would mean—

“They observed you battling the monsters. Gaining skills. Becoming…more.”

“Huh,” he said, cleaning his left ear with his pinky. “Well, can’t say I didn’t see that coming. At least they can’t see my Soulscape. Or you, for that matter.”

“But they can hear you talk. To yourself. A lot.”

“Considering the alternative, being thought of as crazy is the least of my issues.”

He had the sneakiest suspicion that the goddess wanted to tell him something, to point out a flaw in his otherwise impeccable logic, but had decided otherwise.

“Who do you think that guy was?” he asked. If he wasn’t a yokai, then perhaps one of those Asukans? Bremetans? Whatever. Perhaps one of those with a kami?

It was definitely within the realms of possibility. The yokai captured bremetan soldiers that came close to their territory. It was not impossible to believe that these kami-wielders were also present inside this anomaly. Though why anyone from that crowd would want to attack him was beyond him at the moment. Still, it was a phenomenal offensive technique, one that could be his if he could chance upon a water-type kami.

“You are allowing your greed to take over again, mortal,” the goddess chided. “If anything, this experience alone should tell you what you truly need.”

And wasn’t that true? His skills had rapidly expanded in a multitude of directions and while it had brought versatility and unpredictability to his arsenal, he had attained it through sacrifice of potential mastery of selective skills.

“I did not reach the zenith of Kinetomancy by grabbing at everything I could. I took one path and walked.”

Her words had merit. Specialization was always the key to growth, even in terms of humanity. Lawyers, doctors, scientists, bankers—none of them reached the zenith of their profession by reaching out to everything, but chose a way and focused on it forward.

But that doesn’t apply to me, Lukas found himself thinking. I’m not an individual, but a World. The greater the variety, the greater I’ll be. Adding souls to my unlimited array of prototypes, all of them part of the greater whole that is me. I will give rise to an endless number of species. I’ll see them grow, see them populate and reach new zeniths of potential. With their rise, I shall ascend into the brightest star, no matter what some chisel-jawed pretty goddess was going to—

He closed his eyes out of frustration. Hunger, growth, expansion—none of that was him. That was the omphalos talking through him.

“Sorry,” he muttered sullenly.

To his luck, Inanna hadn’t reacted in any way, to his thoughts, or his anger, or his apology. She just studied him. “I wish to impart advice to you. I am not trying to make you do anything, but you need to hear it.”

“…I’m listening.”

“I am a predator, as are you. We prey on the weak, and those that are stronger prey on you. No one is free from this cycle. Not gods, not demons, not beasts, no one. It is the nature of life. The stronger you get, the more specialized you get, the lesser the chances of you being preyed upon.”

“I understand.”

“Anomalies, on the other hand, are worlds. Creators. Givers. Makers. They hold the Mud of Creation and give birth to it. No one, god or not, can compare even to the smallest anomaly, when it comes to the aspect of Creation. The better it gets at creating greater and more complex life-forms, the quicker it ascends.”

Lukas frowned. “I already know this.”

“Do you? Because you’ve certainly not noticed what you’re becoming.”

“What do you mean?”

“You are Lukas Aguilar. An individual. A predator. You are also an anomaly of Lostbelt Earth. A creator. A maker. What do you not recognize is that somewhere along your journey to become more, you are embodying aspects of both, and not necessarily in a positive way.”

His blood ran cold. “I’m not.”

“You are. You strive for growth, but by usurping from others. You want to create, but want to grab useful skills first to create better prototypes. Not to become a master of creation, but to create a better, well-equipped arsenal that would aid you to usurp more. An invader.”

Lukas didn’t want her words to be true.

“Going into denial isn’t going to help. I have seen how you justify things. You look at it as an anomaly when it serves your benefit, and revert to the human approach when it doesn’t.”

“You think I’ll turn into some mindless beast that will keep killing and consuming everything in my sight?”

“Yes,” she said unrepentantly. “If you do not recognize what motivates you and control it, you will. Perhaps not today, perhaps not tomorrow. But eventually. If you ignore your instincts, they will catch you off guard. And when they do…”

Lukas silently frowned at the floor. “I’ve…been messing things up, haven’t I?”

“That is the nature of the beast,” Inanna softly replied. “We all create our own demons. I became a butcher of gods and demigods and entire pantheons. It is possible it was because, somewhere along the line, I gave in to my instincts. The core concept that drives me.”

“Which is?”

“Desire.”

Desire? “A desire for what?”

Her voice lowered to an icy whisper. “Everything. The good, the bad. Power and prejudice. To rule over the heavens, yet commit the worst sins. Desire. Lust. Depredation.”

Lukas could relate to that. While not as broad as her vision, he had often felt something similar on an anomaly level. To have an unlimited array of monsters…to create them, breed them, manufacture newer and deadlier and more sophisticated creatures and expand outward until the entire realm was his own and—

He bit his tongue. The sudden jolt of pain broke him from the line of thought.

“You feel it, do you not? You relish the concept of owning everything. Of invading. Bringing everything unto yourself. This nature of yours is what makes me believe how well you would serve under me. My nature resonates with yours. My goal aligns with your ambition. Together, we could be unstoppable. All you need to do is…”

“Accept your offer.”

She nodded. “Give up this foolish stubbornness. Preserve your life. Your rationality. Taste power like none you’ve ever known.” Her voice was a narcotic promise. “There is much I can teach you.”

There was no retort this time around. No jesting, or pop-culture reference to show how useless her sales tactic was. Instead, there was this little voice inside him that wanted to throw the rules away, stop trying to be responsible, and just take what he wanted.

For a passing moment, he wondered what it might feel like to accept her offer.

Inanna was a goddess. She had access to skills that would take a lifetime to acquire, provided he managed to live that long. He already owed her a considerable number of debts, and given how things were progressing, it would only increase with time. But if he gave in and accepted her offer, he wouldn’t have to worry about it any longer. She would teach him everything he needed. She’d make him strong. She’d—

Be out of my reach.

Somewhere at the very bottom of his heart, there was this mad desire to have her. She was the most sensual thing he had ever chanced upon, and their daily interactions had only doubled that primal need. He had kept his urges down, but if he accepted it, if he accepted her employment, he’d be subservient to her. He’d—

He’d—

No. A primal fury rose through his heart. That would not do. Why would he want to be subservient? He was a World. She was a goddess. A pinnacle of Potential. She belonged to him, not the other—

“My, my.” Inanna let out a low, throaty laugh. “What a greedy one you are.”

Lukas struggled to control the flow of his thoughts. “I—”

“I will not make you apologize,” said the goddess. “Let this be another portent of what you are becoming. Not long ago, you stood on this very ground, skeptical about my very existence. Now you not only accept me, but also want to make me yours.”

“You also told me to open my eyes and evolve, and now I have to constrict myself to a singular path?”

“For your own benefit.”

“As an individual, not an anomaly,” Lukas fired back. “I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but even I can see this. You can dominate over me, as a person. But as an anomaly? A World? Not so much. That’s why you need my word to enact things. That’s why you commit these bargains.”

“You would choose to put your trust in a mindless schema overme?” Inanna probed.

“It’s not about trust. No matter which way you slice it, you’re using me, as is this omphalos inside me. The only difference is, you can manipulate one aspect of me, while the omphalos chooses the other. And I have to live with both. I can’t throw the omphalos in me out, just as my heart won’t allow me to betray my given word to you.”

“Is that your excuse?”

“It is a fact.” Lukas sighed, feeling decades older all of a sudden. “I didn’t choose to put this omphalos in me, or to bring myself to this world. I didn’t choose to be presented with certain death on one side and a bargain with a goddess on the other. You did all those things at your own leisure without my knowing. I’ve simply been trying to stay afloat and survive.”

“I see.” Inanna’s voice became stiff. “It seems I have misjudged you yet again.”

“Probably,” Lukas replied, more calmly than he felt. “It’s easy to make false assumptions based on your personal standards. But…” He trailed off. “You’ve healed me, and I’m thankful for that. Now I owe you another favor. What do you want in return?”

“What do I want?” the goddess replied wistfully. “Nothing you can provide for now. Willingly, at least. A favor, then? One to be repaid in the future?”

Lukas shrugged. “A favor for a favor. Seems legit. And it isn’t like—”

The rest of his words were drowned in chaos as the air was split with the screams and battle cries of monsters—hissing noises of neothelids, strangled moans of bouda, and the wild ululations of formless ghol, and even chittering sounds of cinderfaces. But even those noises fell into a thin spectrum compared to the tremendous roar that followed behind them.

Whatever it was, it was big. And loud.

And they were all coming toward him.

Lukas glanced at his surroundings. Running through the narrow passage when something was chasing you was generally a terrible idea. The larger the passage, the greater the chances of it opening up into newer ones rather than a dead end. Unfortunately, the moss-covered walls around him were rather slippery, and trying to hang on to them would only get him killed faster. Fighting the monsters with fire would probably kill some, but it would enrage the rest. It would paint a bright neon sign on his back.

No, the only real option was to fight in a way that held the maximum chances of survival and potential gain.

And right now, he could only think of one.

Lukas grabbed two of the metal tail-ends he had amputated from the thoggua. He was no metallurgical expert, but he knew for sure that the metal was stronger and sharper than anything else he had seen in his life. It was incredibly light, yet sharp enough to cut through rocks like they were soggy paper. A lifeforce-enhanced slash of his hand could hack into flesh, but a casual flick from this thing could splinter bone.

Vatuatil. That was what the Screen called it. An unfamiliar name, but he’d not be surprised if it held special powers. Something this sharp and hard had no business being so featherlight, but who was he to judge?

A surge of adrenaline spiked through him as the creatures began to get closer and closer. This was the very first time he was going to face so many of them, in such variety, in melee combat. The feeling was both foreign and welcome at the same time.

“Activate Alpha Condition. Select Thoggua.”

MONSTER PROTOTYPE: THOGGUA

SKILLS

LEVEL

SOUL CAP CONSUMED

Seismic Sensing

2

500

Raw Lifeforce Manipulation

1

50

Shatterpoint Intuition

2

500

Activating Monster Prototype Thoggua

Initiating Consciousness Shift

Enact

Space splits.

Cracks appear. Cracks diffuse. Cracks get larger. Brighter. Cracks converge. Diverge. Shatter. Reform.

His mind devolves.

Human instincts dull. Thoggua instincts arise.

Perceptions clash. He is not human. He has no body. No eyes. No hands. No legs. No structure.

He is slime. He is formless. Yet he rises. Yet he falls.

There is no sight. There is no sound. There is only…

VIBRATION.

Fire is a vibration. As is light. As is pressure. As is pain.

He has tails. Hands that feel like tails. Not very stretchable, but he can work with it. The metal ends feel familiar.

Power rushes through them.

Yes.

He will hunt.

He will kill.

He will kill them all.

He’d remember the next few moments the same way a man would remember being caught in a raging storm.

Surrounded from all sides, assaulted from every angle, his human brain had shut down and switched to a simplistic, primal and yet wildly alien level of perception. Details were lost amid a swirl of imagery. Solid information was washed over by a sea of blurred pictures. His eyes closed, sinking him into an ocean of blackness, and yet, he could sense the world’s contours on a level that was beyond imagination.

Strings everywhere. Vibrations.

From the slightest shift of his feet, to the sliding of dust, to the sudden impact of a monster’s feet within his sensory range, he could sense them all. Everything came down to two basic things. To sense their precise location, and then to apply Shatterpoint Intuition to guide his tails at the exact spot. To muscle memory that was not his. To reflexes and reaction times that were strained far beyond mortal breaking point. The surroundings became an afterthought. The environment, a lazy blur. Everything became indistinct, muddled, and that included those he fought against.

He parried blows from a thick, bony paw before slashing through its neck. He deflected claw strikes from a quadruped. Projectiles showered at him from every direction—energies, sonic waves, poison, acid. Craters were blasted upon the ground near his vicinity and electrical discharges narrowly missed him. Instinctively he knew what they were, what caused them, and how they would affect him if they made contact, but his mind was too dimmed to care.

All that mattered was killing. Standing his ground. It was about guiding his tails, and slashing into prey with the pointed ends. He gave as good as he got. His actions became mechanical in nature, his limbs—limbs?—moving as automatic extensions of will onto his body. His opponents were strong. Tough. Powerful even. But they were not the best. Not even close.

A tremendous roar shook the cavern. The mighty force crashed against the stone walls, reverberating to such an extent that he was effectively blinded as the resonating sound smashed against his hypersensitive ears. The blades dropped from his hands, and his tails—hands—hands with fingers in them—moved up and covered his…ear? His Eyes…? Visual receptors activated and suddenly everything was lost. Everything was a mess. Everything was—

He did not have lips. He did not have vocal cords. Yet, he yelled—

“DEACTIVATE!”

Monster Prototype Thoggua Deactivated

Reverting Consciousness Shift to Base Host

Enact

Lukas opened his eyes.

Surrounding him were body parts. Dead body parts. Heads. Claws. Forelimbs. Hindlimbs. Tails. Slime creations shredded to large globules. Serpentine monsters, sliced in six pieces but somehow joined together by a thin layer of tissue.

+1514 Experience gained

Level Up?

That was good news compared to the sudden attack on his senses. Leveling up meant more Soul Capacity. More Soul Capacity meant more accumulation of skills. It would mean—

A second wave of resonant noise crashed.

That was when he noticed.

Water.

Water was everywhere.

Water was flooding inside the chamber. And it was coming from the—

“…Fuck me!”

A tsunami smashed through the walls of the cavern, shattering through stone as an enormous watery arm pushed its way through it, inundating half the chamber with blue-green water.

“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?”

?

78% Spiritual Similarity with Yokai Species. Lack of physical body. Energy Core employs Water Mana.

The aquatic monster raised one of its giant, watery arms, its girth comparable to a thick tree trunk, and smashed it in his direction. Lukas leaped out of the attack radius and prepped himself up. Winning against this thing would be far more difficult than the kasha, against whom he had both the advantage of unpredictability and surprise. Besides, the kasha had been humanoid, not this gargantuan water titan. Trying to deflect that much motion would get him killed faster than he could say “Oops!”

“Look!” he exclaimed, altering his speech to Feacani, the language Solana had used to speak to the other yokai privately. “Whatever you think I did—”

The monster faltered, if only for a moment, before lunging at him again.

A swirling shaft of water, rotating at incredible speed and pressure, came rushing at him. And no, he wasn’t stupid enough to stop it. Too much energy and momentum. If Quonnan’s final blow had been a five out of ten, this would probably classify as an eight.

Lukas focused on the nature of the beast. Fluidity was an essential attribute of water. Much more than fire. “If this works and I don’t get myself killed, I’m gonna look really awesome while doing it.”

The blades went back into his belt. His fists unclenched. His fingers relaxed. Lukas raised both hands at shoulder level, and readjusted his posture to create the path of least resistance.

The water torrent came, but he didn’t resist it.

Instead, he welcomed it. Embraced it. Guided it.

Closing his eyes, he felt the motion of the water gushing at him. The force, the power, the momentum—there was something absolutely beautiful and lethal about it. He felt himself meld with the motion of the spinning water currents. Felt himself connecting to the pressure driving the jet forward.

Closing his eyes, he mimicked the graceful spin that Inanna often employed during their spars. He weaved a layer of pure motion around him, siphoning the water currents into it. Lukas spun around. And around and around until he was completely surrounded by a cylinder of water, enclosing him from all sides. The sheer volume of water was getting more and more difficult to maintain with every passing second, but he needed to keep going.

Just a bit more, he told himself.

He could see the kami swooshing and wailing around as the pressure kept decreasing. Quite natural, because one couldn’t endlessly produce water. And if he had understood it right, trying to conjure water inside this anomaly in the middle of a desert was doubly difficult. The fact that this creature—kami, Lukas guessed—was capable of this much water creation was testament to its capabilities.

With a final spin, Lukas let out a roar and sent the swirling currents, now amplified by his own momentum, toward the kami. Suddenly, there was a large, obdurate, and extremely solid wall of water rushing at the kami like an oncoming freight train, shedding a trail of water in its wake.

The creature recognized the danger a second too late. Call it surprise or the lack of experience of fighting a kinetomancer, even one as amateurish as he was—the kami wasn’t ready for it. It had focused entirely on offense, not on protecting itself as well, and couldn’t come up with a counter in time.

The wall of water hit it with the same force as an oncoming garbage truck, and blew it right into the wall farther ahead. Water splashed against water to become one large, wet explosion, and suddenly the entire place looked like a massive flood zone. There were no voices, no scratches or movements whatsoever. It was as if whatever sentience the water possessed had entirely vanished, leaving nothing but a pool in its wake.

Boy, was he wrong.

Something yanked at his feet, dropping him down headfirst into the ground. It was only his instincts that allowed him to instantly slow down his perception, shifting his body to land on his arm instead of his head. But the moment of distraction cost him from seeing the greater picture.

A wave of water engulfed him, and something plunged into him.