《Starvation March : Voidborn》Chapter 4 - Name
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Inside of a giant arena, similar to the roman colosseum with the only exception being it's size (100 times larger), a starved-looking girl weilding two giant warhammers was fighting against a horde of monsters.
Chimeras, trolls, ogres and all sorts of creatures from the abyss stormed forth like a tidal wave, only to be mercilessly crushed by either a warhammer or have it's head bitten off by the true monster in the colosseum: the girl.
Weilding the warhammers as if they were little sticks, she jumped around smashing and crushing whilst laughing maniacally.
This continued for a whole 5 hours. The once tidal wave of monsters had reduced to a mere trickling by now, and those that did come were, more often then not, scared silly and didn't even dare attack.
The bloodlust radiating off the girl alone was enough to render unconscious the weak of heart, and if that wasn't enough, the hundreds of thousands of corpses scattered around the pavement like grass were quite the impressive (read: disgusting) sight.
As the battle drew to a close, the ground split open and a titanic worm emerged, aiming it's 10 eyes and huge mouth at the girl, hissing violently.
The girl crackled and crushed the last monster before turning towards the worm. "Kekeke, you're but a worm, so die like one will you?" She asked sweetly, if one ignored the maniacal laugher that went along with it.
The worm roared, shaking the earth with the power of it's voice and viciously charged like a bull towards the girl, who slammed both of her warhammers on the ground, creating huge cracks and making the entire place shake violently, making the worm lose it's foot(?)hold and fall down with a thump.
Before it could get up, the girl jumped on top of it and began to violently smash her warhammers ten, hundreds, thousands of times in a couple of seconds. The hammer blurred as it turned the once titanic worm into a titanic meatpaste.
Once she was satisfied with the gore she created, the girl dropped her hammers uncerimoniously and carefreely walked away whilst wiping the single drop of sweat on her forehead.
Upon getting a couple hundreds of meters away from the worm, a man appeared besides her, his arms crossed whilst having a raised eyebrow.
"So? How did I do? I'm great, right?! Haha..." The girl began boasting the moment she saw the man, but stopped with an awkward expression when she saw his crunched up face.
"That was beyond terrible. You completely lack any sort of skill. Whilst you did better then both swords, spears and bows, you still suck. Go to the backyard, we'll have some lessons there, then go back home for etiquette class." The man said mercilessly, causing the girl to almost start crying.
After the man once again poofed out of existance, the girl stopped her crocodile tears and sighed sadly. "Never enough, never enough... And they said I was a genius... a genius my ass!" She said, stomping on the ground, causing it to violently shake.
Of course, what she meant were the tens of instructors she had learned under previously. They all claimed her to be an incredible genius, but how could they compare to someone who had existed since time immemorial? The mere amount of knowledge God (yes, that man) had was enough to fill several universes with books.
And his expectations matched his knowledge equally, if not more. He was never satisfied with her, no matter how hard she tried. Although she had absorbed some of his knowledge, it was like a drop in the ocean. Furthermore, it was all basic stuff.
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This had led her to be severely unsatisfied, feeling as though he was that grandpa that was constantly grumpy and never satisfied.
X's physical strenght could be said to only be rivalled by God himself. For example, just to break one of the tiles on the colosseum's pavement would require an overgod (gods that administer universes, essentially one step below God) to need to use all of their strenght and even then, it would leave them very tired.
For her to do it this casually was impressive, however, that was her only advantage.
Her magical abilities were null due to the fact that she would simply eat up any and all energy, be it Qi, mana or divine essence she absorbed.
Furthermore, although she could fight for days on end and any wound would be recovered almost instantly by her insane regeneration, she had to eat equivalently to those advantages, meaning a lot. Furthermore, she was constantly hungry, probably a leftover trait from her time as the Devourer, as she took to calling her previous self.
Releasing all tension in her body and trying to calm her chaotic mind, she began to revolve her core slightly. This somehow helped her relax a great deal and immensely helped in her meditation, and she really needed a bit of calm right now.
After 10 minutes of doing so, she headed out of the colosseum through a teleportation formation and reappeared in a room filled with all sorts of stuffed animals and torture devices, a strange combination indeed. And for as strange as it was, the girl liked it.
Jumping on her bed, she grabbed a stuffed animal with the shape of a cleshire cat. Some people may call it creepy, but to her it just seemed cute. After all, her own cleshire smile was far creepier then this pseudo-imitation.
Muttering devilish curses under her breath, she took her sweet time to relax. Although God had told her to go meet him, he too wasn't in any particular hurry. Immortals like them had all the time in the multiverse after all.
Blessed by the comfort of her plushie and the soft bed, the girl fell asleep only after a couple dozen minutes of heavy blasphemy.
Meanwhile, God was sitting on a chair in the middle of a vast courtyard filled with beautiful decorations and exotic plants whilst sipping on a soft drink.
Although on the outside he looked relaxed, inside he was in turmoil.
'As expected of an existance that can even rival me! Her progress is terrifying. If only she wasn't so crazy.' He sighed inside, feeling somewhat regretful that she had absorbed that particular personality.
It's not like he had anything against bloodthirsty psycopaths. In fact, he rather enjoyed the chaos they spread. However, that was limited to demigod or deity levels. Hell, he could even tolerate one at the overgod level, but one at his own level would be quite troublesome.
Of course, she had already sworn to always obey him and they had made an oath over Fate's watch. This was an absolute oath, and anyone that broke it was fated to die no matter how hard they struggled.
He had given her a lot of leeway and freedom, even promising to teach her and help her in any way he could as long as she did not do anything that would the multiverse. For example, destroying worlds was okay, destroying universes less so.
Although it didn't seem like it much due to his attitude, he was actually starting to enjoy the company of someone who wasn't truly a subordinate and didn't treat him like an existance far above them. Although they often argued and even fought (Mostly him just dodging her whilst constantly spewing insults), he thought they were at least starting to become friends.
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No, he was sure of it. He was one of the foremost researchers on humanoid emotion and psycology, so if he didn't understand what she was thinking he would just shame himself.
She was obviously unsatisfied at his you-suck-do-better attitude, but he had forced himself to keep it. After all, as long as she sought to do better she would improve and if she did improve, so did her chances of finally ridding her past self.
Huffing in annoyance, he wondered when life had become so complicated for him. He just sort of wished he could go back a couple billion years when all he did was watch reincarnees do their things and give the occasional advice to some overgod. That had been much more fun then having to constantly research X's mechanics and having to deal with a psyco.
Slumping on his chair, God began cursing to whoever was up there. Unexpectedly, God actually cursed himself.
~ Some hours later ~
As God was meditating, he suddently felt himself leave the chair, then hit the not-so-soft ground really hard. Opening his eyes in a dull motion, he stared at the culprit, whom in turn had a smug smile on her face and was looking down at him.
"That was a horrible grab. If I hadn't been in meditation, I could have instantly gotten free." He instantly shot down her attitude and swiftly threw himself to the left to avoid the warhammer that came down on his previous position.
X looked at God with a gaze that could kill, but he completely ignored it and began saying "You swing too hard in one direction and never consider the opponent's dodge. You also rely too much on your physical strenght..."
After a couple hours of lecture & practice (X assaulting God), he decided to finish up the lesson and teleported the both of them back to their house, which in truth was only 3 rooms: God's room (a white space), X's room and a living room.
Inside of the living room, X sat down on one of the sofas whilst staring boredly at God, who in turn materialized several books and threw them at her.
Catching them mid-air, she began reading them one by one. This was one of the options God had given her: Either have God transfer knowledge to her brain which she would have to analyze or simply read them, which was much easier. She chose the latter.
Math, history, chemics, divinity, magic, technology... all sort of knowledge was piled up in these books. Furthermore, although X could read a simple book in just a couple of minutes, these books were so packed with words and information it took her several hours just to go through half a book.
As they 'peacefully' did their own things, ignoring the occasional sneaky warhammer smash, God suddently spoke up.
"Hey, how are you feeling?"
X gave him a look that said 'you insane or something?'
"I'm fine. Why do you ask? Are you perhaps worried about me?" She asked with a smirk, only to be answered with a shake of God's head.
"Naw. I phrased it wrong. I wanted to say something like 'are you feeling... different?"
"Different? Huh?" She said with a tilt of her head and a frown.
Pondering over it, albeit uselessly, for a while, she ended up saying "Uh, what do you mean exactly?"
Sighing, God closed the book he was reading and looked straight at her "I mean it like this: How exactly are you different from your previous self?"
Seeing her suprised face, God smirked on the insides. He already knew where he wanted this conversation to go.
"Uh... Eh, I... I don't know? Like, I can actually think? I'm not as stupid?"
His smile getting wider, God answered to her retorical questions "Do you know a very strange thing that fate does on us?"
Seeing her confused face, God finished his sentence "Well, through much, much study and trials, I learned a very powerful thing. Do you know how demons have true names? It should be in the third edition of demonology."
Seeing her nod, God continued "Well, although not as powerful, names have a definite impact on a person's fate. A name defines who you are as a being, as a self and as a soul. A rock can have a name, although we won't know it. A name is what an entity can recognize themself by, and fate will take that recognition and use it."
X's eyes were wide open at this point. She was already starting to understand his intentions.
"Yo-you mean..."
"Yes, I mean it like this: As long as you keep going as X, you will never truly change. So, let me ask you a question..."
Getting up from his chair, God walked over to the girl and grabbed her chin a bit forcefully, getting her whole attention on himself.
"Do you want a name?"
~
God had to jump away really quick a moment afterwards, as two giant warhammers smashed where he previously stood, creating a giant earthquake.
"DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN YOU BASTARD! I'M NOT A FUCKING KID!" She screamed in rage, obviously unhappy at his rather... strange actions. Although in truth, she wasn't as angry as she made herself to be.
"Calm down! Calm down! I was just trying to be dramatic! There's no need to be angry damn it!" He screamed in response, feeling indignated at his dramatical ending going down the drain.
Sighing, the girl threw her hammers away once again. She could summon them on a whim from anywhere around the multiverse, so they would never get lost. Truly convenient.
"Drama apart, yeah, a name would be nice. X sounds bad anyways." She finally said, giving up.
"Mhm..." Nodding God took up a pensive look before saying "Since you inherited her personality, why not also take her name?"
Blinking, the girl asked "Who's personality?"
"That's a story for another time. Rather, how does Alysha sound?"
"That's..." The girl answered, feeling conflicted. On one hand, she wanted to know more and didn't want to be compared to someone else. On the other hand, the name sounded very nice.
"... Fine." She gave in, feeling as if something unrecognizable inside of her change.
Beaming, God answered "Great! Now, let's do a small history test... tell me all the events in details from the start of the 54th universe down to it's end..."
A pained groan was his only response...
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