It was a blob.

Crafted out of aqāru, with a large, malevolently purple tongue too large for its body.

And it purred like a cat.

“Well, that’s a first,” Tanya said from behind. She took several steps towards him and was peering down from his shoulder. “Usually you end up screaming your lungs out the moment you touch those bands. And then you fall back unconscious.”

Huh. Wonder why that happened.

Almost instinctively, he placed his palm against the blob’s face.

It swept its long and wide tongue out and licked his palm before rubbing its ‘face’ against his skin and purring. No, he wasn’t imagining it. This thing was purring.

It was a walking, talking, meowing mass of contradictions. Naturally, it fitted right in place with all the crazies that happened around him.

Inanna would have laughed her head off, he thought ruefully. And then she’d have made a sarcastic quip about how it fitted him to a tee.

“Uh,” Tanya offered, “Why is it purring?”

The Hell do I know, Lukas mused. There was a strange sense of familiarity about the entire thing that he found hard to describe. Oh, he understood its origins right, but there was this nagging sensation at the back of his head telling him there was more to it.

Much, much more.

Then it happened.

His fingers intrinsically grabbed the Blob, which twisted itself, reverting into being an arm-band, before projecting itself forward, imitating one of his vatuatil daggers in a fraction of a second. The length-by-weight ratio felt perfectly right.

And then they went back to being bands without so much as a prompt.

It was only a second after that he realized he shouldn’t have known how to do that. The knowledge came to him as completely and immediately as if it was his own. Pure information.

He paused and stared up at Tanya, who was gawking at him, unblinking.

“Uh, I didn’t know that was going to happen.”

His words broke her silence. “... Sure you didn’t.”

Disbelief. Well, it was not unexpected. Nobody was going to buy the idea that there was no connection between him and the aqāru, after seeing the Crypt craft its Failsafe based on him.

He regarded the bands on his extremities.

What are you?

Nexus Established

Accessory Confirmed

Reading Data…

Lukas had barely processed what he just read before it sandblasted his head with an impossible amount of information. There was a rush of images and alien perceptions, flashes of processes in action, images of monsters, both complete and in process. There were images of featherglass crystals, their constituents forged by a power so intense and coherent that it had its individuality and awareness. He saw the ponderous dance of the Crust, rearranged and twisted to serve the purpose of this alien awareness, and assimilation of not a hundred or thousand, but tens of thousands of monster prototypes — crafted or assimilated, ready to deploy or left uncomprehended; vast reserves of impossible soul information, whole and broken and so much more.

Lukas fought to contain those impressions, trying to see beyond this tumultuous wave. But the more he tried, the more he sensed its futility. This? This was a disorganized mess — no structure, no clarity, no nothing. Information on how to craft vatuatil out of nothingness broke halfway to continue with stuff on netopyr goo.

It was like taking Wikipedia and shuffling its contents. The information was still there, but finding it was like finding a needle in the world’s greatest haystack.

“It is that thing from the anomaly, isn’t it?”

Lukas frowned at her words. Tanya wasn’t right, but she wasn’t wrong either. This wasn’t the doppelgänger he had fought and tried to siphon at the end. This was—

The Crypt of Fiendish Worms itself.

Or whatever remained of it, anyway.

Yes. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Unleashing that memory back then as a last-ditch attempt had been too damaging for both of them to bear.

When a monster died, its soul returned to the Omphalos that created it. As long as the ‘kill’ happened within the Anomaly territory. And as an acknowledgment of the ‘kill’, the ‘killer’ gained a certain amount of ‘Experience’ that was further harvested to form Soul Capacity for him or her.

But if an Omphalos itself died? Then all that information, all that knowledge, had to go somewhere. Conveniently, aqāru was a perfect recipient of such spiritual stuff.

Lukas stared at it for a long moment, forcing himself to breathe. All that information. The ability to craft metals and alloys, organic and inorganic through pure conjuration, the ability to synthesize new monster prototypes and the ability to create life — all of that were right there, sitting in front of him.

As a metallic, purple-tongued, meowing blob.

If knowledge was power, then this was power with a capital P. Deadly in the wrong hands, and exactly what he needed to bring Inanna back. He had long ago learned to unlock the ‘Assimilation’ and ‘Rejuvenation’ properties of his Omphalos. This… was going to help him understand ‘Creation’ and ‘Mutation’. Inanna had mentioned how she used her Divinity to reforge him. That alone meant that her ‘History’ was still there inside it.

The very sounds of Creation still echo through the vast darkness. The universe remembers.

Inanna’s words pervaded through his mind.

Analysis Complete

Rendering….

The sudden notification brought him out of his reverie.

TYPE

HETEROMORPH

CONSTITUENT

AQARU

Deciphering Spiritual Constitution…

Decoding…

Rendering Complete.

Nature

Conglomerate

Number of skills

16159

Number of Monster Prototypes

Null

Information Corrupted

Lukas suppressed the urge to whistle. Over sixteen thousand skills? There was no doubt where they had come from. This blob held the skills of the monsters ‘owned’ by the Crypt. Except that it was all random and cluttered and utterly useless unless he reverted it back into a usable state.

Reversing Corruption will require +597,531,354 units of power.

+47% chance of success.

Initiate Rollback Protocol?

Lukas blinked. That was… fast. But the amount of power required was staggering. He’d have to throw away a majority of his Omphalos Energy Reserves in an attempt. But if he did it, it’d be an immense help.

Did he want to do that? Now? With just a 47% chance of success?

⸻ “Where is your sense of adventure?”⸻

He inhaled.

…

…

No, no, it wasn’t her voice. It was just—

Just what she’d say.

Exhaling, he regarded the Screen.

Command Acknowledged

Rollback Protocol Deactivated until further prompt from PRIME HOST

“...ven listening?”

Lukas blinked and turned around. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I asked, what is it?”

Hard lines appeared on her otherwise smooth features.

Lukas tilted his head in acknowledgement. This… would require a careful play of words. It was his good fortune that Tanya herself provided a neat excuse for him to build upon.

“When I fought the anomaly at the end, I tried something that would have destroyed that doppelgänger. I guess I screwed things up, and this thing ended up latching on me.”

“You’re telling me you shared your soul capacity with an inanimate metal and turned it into this?”

“Inanimate? This metal monster conversed with all of us and tried to kill me.”

That shut her up.

He considered the Blob again.

“Can’t say I’m annoyed by this, though.”

“You aren’t?”

Oh, hell no. This was a fortune. Provided he figured a way to organize the mess inside it.

He twisted his neck and looked at her. “Should I be?”

“It tried to kill you.” She deadpanned.

“You tried to kill me, too. You don’t see me holding that against you.”

She let out a surprised breath that might have been the start of a laugh. Then she extended her hand out. “Now come on. You need to get refreshed and fed.”

Lukas grinned and grabbed it.

The meal was a ripe assortment of saffron and green and pink, with a healthy bit of what tasted like an exotic mesh of tomato salsa and avocado. He put all of that on a large, round flatbread and rolled into one, a far cry from the meaty and greasy tacos he used to feed himself every morning back home.

Lukas inhaled it within a minute.

Upon realizing that she had underestimated how hungry he was, Tanya had given him over half of her breakfast while she went to get some more.

It was gone before she got past the door.

Tanya took it as a challenge and raided the kitchen, returning with a breakfast monster. There were a lot of soft grains in the main course, giving a soft pink background to the plate, with another assortment of leaves, petals, and what looked like blue roots. The beverage he drank felt like a mix of milk with cinnamon and turmeric, but carried a wild aroma that flared his nostrils.

This could feed an entire party.

Lukas demolished it. His stomach gurgled and his roaring hunger rushed through him, and before he knew it, he had gobbled it up.

“Huh…” said Tanya, tilting her head in his direction, “I’m glad I don’t have to pay for your meals. You’d murder my bank account in days.”

Lukas gave her a goofy grin. His body was still functional despite being dead for over a month, with lifeforce trying to compensate for the lack of actual food. Now that he was awake, his body wanted the genuine stuff.

Tanya watched him, amused.

“Got it all over my face?”

“It means you enjoyed the cooking,” she said, lifting a napkin to his face and wiping at it. “It’s nice to know you’ve come into focus.”

Focus. Yeah. That was one way of putting it. He had taken a nice, long bath earlier. His lower extremities were still weak, barely allowing him any movement without a crutch. Tanya supported him on his way to the bathroom and back. It made him wonder if she had taken care of his bowel issues when he was unconscious, but hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to ask her about it.

Some things were better left unsaid.

“I hope you have forgotten none of your skills. That would annoy Zuken.”

Lukas rolled his eyes. He couldn’t care less about Mr. Important. He might be a hotshot in this town, but power wise, he was closer to average. Weaker than Ryu, but closer to Quonnan’s level. Even from his very limited understanding of manacrafting, Lukas knew that being in a cavern magnified Zuken’s terramancy powers, and despite that, he was above average. Compared to that, fighting him in a neutral setting would be a walk in the park.

“I think I’ll manage just fine,” He said, focussing on the blend of sweet and sour. And was that a bit of grapefruit he tasted?

Absently, he thought of his Schema.

SOULSCAPE

NAME

Lukas Aguilar

Type

Prime Host

Level

8

Experience

239

Current Threshold

2560

Utilized Soul Capacity

14979 / ∞

Mildly slurping through the beverage, his eyes wandered across the information displayed, absently marveling at the unfamiliar words his Schema showed up. Validating it as just another bunch of trivia, he bobbed his head calmly. Closing his eyes, he continued to drink with that tiny smile still on his face. At a slow pace, his brain processed and processed yet again. It then clicked abruptly. Opening his eyes instantaneously, he swiftly inspected the last line again. Eyes popped, he spewed out the contents of his mouth all over the food.

Infinite. Soul. Capacity.

Totally missing the sour look from Tanya, Lukas stared at his Schema and scanned it thoroughly. Prime Host. Not Base but Prime. It was certainly not the Warmonger Protocol that made the difference. Was Inanna’s actions at work here? He had leveled up again. Not surprising. But infinite soul capacity? This was the perfect thing he needed to assimilate ⸻

His expression soured.

Kinetomancy.

He wanted to find a knife and repeatedly stab something with it.

Of course, he had been the recipient of all that Free Soul Capacity that the Crypt’s Omphalos had contained within itself. The Blob had absorbed the ‘used’ Soul Capacity, while the ‘free’ had reached out to him, giving him what he had always wanted.

Only Inanna was no longer there. It was a cold and cruel irony that made him feel like someone had twisted a knife through his very heart.

“Something wrong?” She asked, unable to keep the sourness off her face.

Lukas didn’t blame her. He had spit in her food.

“Just… a cruel surprise. But no, it’s all good.”

And it was.

ESSENCE

Maximum Lifeforce Output

5075

Replenishment Rate

700 / hour

LEY LINE NETWORK

Maximum Mana Output

6325

Synthesis Rate

810 / hour

His lifeforce and mana synthesis and output had grown significantly, strengthening him. The Level-Up would have also molded his body according to his skill set, making it easier than ever for him to perform his skills with maximum efficiency. And as for the differences—

PRIME HOST

Unconditionally superlative among all Monster Prototypes.

Alpha Condition Raised to Maximum (Level 5) granting an absolute mind free from external influence from Monster Prototypes.

Amplified Resistance to mental intrusion and enthrallment.

He widened his eyes in gleeful surprise. As for the monster prototypes, having an infinite capacity meant the ability to ‘download’ as many skills as he wanted without care. There was no saying what kind of dastardly plans Solana was hatching against him and there was no Inanna with him any—

“You’re making that face again!”

Damnit.

“…. the others,” He said, “Where are they?”

The delight faded from her face, replaced by a serious calm. “I thought you wanted some time alone.”

“I did, but sitting on my ass will not get me anywhere.”

“Well, Zuken’s out for some business, and he’s taken Elena with him. They’ll probably return tomorrow morning. I’m not familiar with Olfric’s whereabouts at this moment, since he’s mostly away on jobs. Apart from the maids and the groundskeeper, I doubt there’s anyone else inside the mansion.”

“And you stayed back to play nurse?”

“Someone had to take care of you. Among all of us, I know you best.”

Definitely. She had seen him in action way more than the others. Lukas wondered if this nurse-business was merely a facade to put him at ease, while the others carefully monitored his behavior.

At least, that was what he’d have done.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“What happened after I — I fell unconscious?”

“I think you mean dead,” she said. “We saw the discharge of raw power. Whatever you did, it was powerful. Powerful. It nearly buried us alive. We only had enough time to grab you and escape. Originally, we thought you were dead. Banksi almost shifted you to one of his dungeons. And then we found out your heart was beating. It was… strange.”

“How did the others react to that?”

Tanya snorted. “Olfric thought you were a demon and wanted to purge you with Holy Light. Not that I think it’d matter, given how you were being all ‘look-at-me-casting-a-shadow-under-Eternal-Light’ earlier. Elena’s on the fence about you, but only because she can’t sense your mind.”

“Huh? What was that?”

“Who, Elena? What about her?”

“That last thing — about sensing—”

Tanya dropped her shoulders. “Elena’s damn good at sensing and manipulating emotions. Like, genuinely good. But she can’t sense yours, and it pisses her off.”

Lukas wondered why that was.

“And Banksi?”

“Zuken’s complicated. I think he was just disappointed at losing his ‘Outsider’. He was like a kid with a broken toy when we found you weren’t breathing.”

“And what did you think?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does to me.”

Tanya didn’t move a muscle for several heartbeats. “I thought it was just one of your… Outsider-things.”

Lukas arched an eyebrow at her response.

“You’ve already shown you can ignore the Eternal Light at will. Without amassing Sin, you killed an Anomaly. You’re not bremetan nor yokai, but can use both lifeforce and conjure mana, both in and out of combat. And you’ve got mad healing skills. None of that is normal.”

“So?”

“So if the normal rules don’t apply to you, why would ‘death’?”

Lukas blinked. Twice. Her logic felt cold and inhuman, but immaculate at the same time. He had proved to be an extraordinary person. It was only natural that even ‘ordinary’ things took an ‘extraordinary’ shape around him.

Neither of them spoke for several seconds.

“Lukas…”

“Yeah?”

“What was that about resurrecting gods?”

“What gods?”

She leveled a deadpan stare at him.

He sighed. “Can I convince you to forget that question?”

“No.”

“Bother!” He exhaled. “Yes, I want to resurrect a goddess. A Goddess whom I follow, and consider my… associate, of sorts.”

Yeah, ‘associate’ felt like an apt description. Inanna would have thrown a fit if he even so much insinuated that they were ‘friends’.

“You’re a High Priest.”

“I am not.”

“What are you?”

“I told you, an associate.”

“What kind?”

Lukas exhaled again and squared his shoulders. “We… had a bargain. I promised her something and in return, she helped me. But circumstances happened, and She… perished?”

“You seem unsure.”

He nodded. “I’m not sure how death works as far as gods are concerned. I’m hoping to find something on the subject here. You guys have your own gods, I mean.”

“That we do.”

“Any ideas where I could start?”

This time, it was her turn to shrug. “I know little about gods, either. But I don’t think we can revive them after their deaths. I mean, the Asukan Pantheon lost many of its members during the Great War, or so they tell us.”

She had a point. But mythology also showed about gods getting resurrected time and time, often by beings greater than them. He wasn’t sure if Christ’s Resurrection fitted the bill, but other religions had thematic similarities with the process. Baldur was the prime example of that, having prophesied to be resurrected after Ragnarok. There was also the tale of Zeus resurrecting Dionysus, and Shiva resurrecting his son Ganesha and so on.

But asking direct questions could be dangerous. He needed to find the line between what was safe to ask and what wasn’t. Solana hadn’t minded talking about Nordic people. That didn’t mean the Asukans would feel the same.

Information. He needed information. About the world, about the town, the Empire, its customs and beliefs. Maybe he could get started with the Asukan Pantheon and figure a way out from there.

“You could ask Zuken though…” Tanya offered, hesitation in her tone. “If there is anyone with access to information that’s non-compliant to Asukan theology, it’d be him.”

The ends of his lips drooped downward, as he glanced at the aqāru slime sitting next to him, rubbing its head against his knee like a kitten. It’d graze its metallic tongue across the floor, only to sneeze, morphing into a cone and throwing itself into the air, only to float down like a deflated balloon and reform on the ground.

Yeah, this thing was going to give him a headache.

“It’s attached to you,” Tanya observed. “It nearly snapped Olfric’s head off when he tried to pull it off from your body. Poor guy wouldn’t come to the dungeons for days after that.”

Huh. So it had reacted while he was dead — erm, unconscious. Good to know.

“Zuken was rather interested in its morphing ability. I’ve never seen a metal act like that. Like, the svartalfars have metal golems in their armies, but they’re more like automatons and not actual creatures.”

Lukas did a double take. “There are svartalfars living in the Empire?”

Tanya gave him a weird look. “In their Keeps, yes. Not very approachable either.”

Well, wasn’t that surprising? So far, it looked like this world had two factions — the Asukans and the Yokai. The former ruled the lands, and the latter survived in cracks and patches, hiding from the Eternal Light and possessing people to survive.

But that wasn’t all. There were nordic elements around. And Elena — Elena was a changeling. Celtic mythos painted her kind as offspring of the fae with mortals. He had yet to hear any references to the Ulster Cycle or the Tuatha, so chances were that the term could refer to offsprings between the elves and mortals too.

And he had entered this mythology carnival with a Sumerian War Goddess taking up space inside his freaking head.

Joy.

“What are you scheming?”

Lukas blinked at that. “Who, me?”

“Oh no, I was talking to the wall. It goes all cloudy-eyed and stiff from time to time.”

He rolled his eyes at her deadpan. “Just wondering where to go from here. I know I told you about needing a new life, but I didn’t plan on that.”

Tanya shrugged. “You’re strong. You’ve skills. Zuken’s interested in hiring you. I don’t see how that’s a terrible start.”

“What does he want from me?”

She shrugged again. “Damned if I know. Zuken hasn’t sent me on any new missions since the Anomaly. On the plus side, I’m no longer hunted.”

“Your people hunted you because of your Sin, right?”

Tanya instantly went defensive. “You know nothing about me!”

Lukas brought his hands up in apology. Clearly, his mouth had gotten the bad habit of running off without consulting the rest of him. Another part of him licked his chops at finding a chink in her psychological armor. It wanted to take advantage of this weakness and manipulate her away from her allies.

“Maybe it isn’t my place to comment, but I find your situation ironic.”

“In what way?”

“You got shunned because you committed a Sin. No one wanted to hire you. And then, Banksi, an influential man, hires you to commit Sin. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“You’re right,” Tanya said after a few minutes.

“About what?”

She leveled him a gaze. “That it isn’t your place to comment on it.”

She straightened her back, her lips twisted in disdain. “I was on the run. Living the life of an outcast. Now? I’m free. I’m not shunned, and my work conditions are better. Many people would call that progress.”

“Many people would also call that exchanging one prison for another.”

“Big words coming for someone who’s joined the same prison.”

“Oh, I plan to break out. The question is — do you?”

“So that’s what this is about. Me.”

His jaw fell open, surprised. “...’xcuse me?”

“No, it makes sense,” said Tanya, rattled by her own deductions. “We fought. You won. But you’ve ensured I’m satisfied. First by your attempts after I woke up, and then during negotiations with Zuken. No wonder they think I’m lying about you. They think you and I are older acquaintances. And now this—”

It was like watching glass shatter. Lukas almost winced at seeing her pleasant mask shatter, leaving behind a wary neutrality.

“So what is it? Ezzeron? My frost powers? Yes, that must be it. Isn’t it? You subdued my powers back in the Anomaly. It’s why when I look at you all I want to do is to—”

She broke her tirade at the last possible moment and looked away.

Lukas knew he had only a single chance to keep himself from spoiling his one ace in this new world. And so he acted.

“Yes.”

Tanya looked at him, her questions clear on her face.

“Yes,” he clarified. “I brought your Frost under control.”

She switched her hands, moving the bottom one to the top as if she worried about wrinkling her dress. Her mouth twisted. “Of course. I knew that was the case.”

“I want you to know I will not hold that one over you.”

“Why?”

“Because I respect you.”

He couldn’t interpret her expression when he said that. There could have been anger in it, or suspicion or terror or blank curiosity.

“You don’t believe me.”

It wasn’t an accusation. The truth was pasted on her face.

“I’ve lived my entire life in the Empire. I don’t believe anyone.”

⸻”Trust breeds betrayal. I’ve seen it as a babe. I’ve seen it in Ereshkigal.

Your words will not shake me.”⸻

In that one moment, Lukas didn’t think he had ever met someone so lovely, yet entirely alone. Call it a hunch, but at a very fundamental level, he understood her. He didn’t know whether it was because he had seen both the monster lurking within her and the scared little girl that lashed out against the big, wicked world outside. Someone who had walked into an anomaly, ready to commit a Sin, believing it was her only choice. But Lukas had learnt the hard way that sometimes, a choice wasn’t a choice at all. And yet she had done it. And survived. That told him she had a lot of inner strength, and that was a quality he always found attractive in a woman.

He could really get to like this girl.

Which, of course, was why Zuken Banksi had kept her there, caring for him. From Tanya’s words alone, Banksi and the others suspected their relationship, and now he was luring Tanya in front of Lukas to get him to act and reveal his true agenda.

How did he know that? Because it was what Lukas himself would do in his place.

Webs of intrigue everywhere, not caring who or what they ensnare. My power and skills can help, but without information — without information I’m blinded.

Lukas closed his eyes, as if in prayer.

What would you’ve done?

Silence was the only reply he got.