A low hum shot through my head. Frequencies played inside of my mind until they coalesced into something far greater than their individual parts, then blossomed into something real. I grit my teeth and forced my eyes to stay open as I was pelted with a barrage of weakened techniques.

The horrible sound echoed out. Like the shockwave of an explosion or a sonic boom, it crashed through me and instantly unsteadied my footing. Then came the reality. A simple grey rectangle burst free from the cruel world’s partition, rumbling through the hall and smashing into the bits of hydra with terrible efficiency.

As it washed over me, I felt its power. The sting of force against my armor. Pressure like nothing I’d ever felt pressed against my visor and forced me to drop my weapon. Then came the ripping and tearing. I turned to see the effects of the shockwave on the hydra, but found only a mass of torn roots and flying liquid. The cruel world’s apocalypse had, quite literally, torn the hydra to shreds.

And the sprouts fared no better. Splatters of luminescent goo decorated the walls as it was swept off the floor, barely recognizable as the pieces of a larger whole they had once been. I frowned at the fact that the demolition no longer made a sound, then turned to see Jun standing at the edge of the room as the shockwave washed harmlessly over her.

She stumbled backwards and fell to the ground, but I could tell it was out of surprise, not pain. She sat there, arms held out behind herself to support her, and just did nothing for a little while. Exactly what I was doing in the wake of the absolute devastation the cruel world’s apocalypse had wrought.

“That’s a lot of damage.” I chuckled, then froze. I knew I’d spoken, but I couldn’t hear my voice echo around my helmet. Hell, I hadn’t heard myself speak at all. “What the fuck? Jun, can you hear me?”

Nothing. I looked down at my communicator, which was flashing as if I should’ve been receiving a message, but I couldn’t hear anything. I opened my interface and swiped over to my status screen, which showed a symbol that anyone could recognize. An ear with an oversized ‘X’ crossing it out.

I shook my head and sighed. “So I’m temporarily deaf. That’s annoying as hell.” I glanced over at Jun, who was in the process of pushing herself to stand on wobbly legs. “Well, at least I know the whole ‘allies are immune’ part of that function is only half true. Deafening and disorienting a bunch of people who’re fighting on my side sounds like a good way to lose to anyone with one strong defensive function.”

But it had worked. The hydra was dead as dead could be, confirmed by a notification that //CREATION had activated. I designated myself as the recipient, looked around for where the hydra’s main body had fallen, and found a pile of crystallized experience right next to a chunk of bone wrapped in roots. It looked absolutely pristine compared to everything else, and as I summoned the new core to my hand, I knew that it was the hydra’s core. At least the blast had done the dirty part for us.

{I’m going to try out that Mind-Shear Reprieve consumable.} I tapped a text message to Jun and Mortician through Okeria’s communicator, then sat down and crossed my legs. {You’re probably temporarily deaf too, Jun, so Mortician’s gonna have to keep an eye on all the hydra stuff. Just in case it tries to get back up.}

It was time to say goodbye to the scorched bloodcoral concoction. Pure stat boosts weren’t as important anymore, and I knew I could find a higher boost if I looked hard enough. But a massive increase in all recoveries for five minutes was a pretty damn good boost, so I stripped away the bloodcoral concoction and subbed in the Mind-Shear Reprieve.

//Mind-Shear Reprieve activated.

//Core Mastery does not meet the minimum acceptance of 70. Movement frozen.

//All beneficial processes accelerated by 1120%. Duration: 11.2 minutes.

Oh. Right. I’d forgotten that //ENDLESS made all of my consumables just that much better. I tried to flex my fingers, but found that I was indeed completely frozen in place. With a thought I summoned my armor stats to see how my integrity and battery stores were faring. The numbers shot up at levels that almost looked like they were under the effect of some healing function.

I guess that’s what happens when every second gives more than ten times the amount of recovery. I mentally swiped over to my inventory and opened endless’ subscreen to check what kind of effect it had on my cooldowns, and was happily surprised to see that they all looked like they were counting down a lot faster. So over the entire eleven minute duration, I’d have just over two hours of effective cooldowns.

Not bad, if I did say so myself. And that wasn’t including the extra cooldown reduction for having Sotrien’s Sin available. If I factored that extra 25% into the equation, then the cooldowns of my other two consumables were being accelerated by two and a half-ish hours. Depending on how long a cooldown this consumable had, this could completely change how I fought.

Never having to rest was a monstrous boon. One that I had a feeling I’d very much need in the coming days.

I tried to sit up, even though less than a minute had passed. I grunted in annoyance and activated Sotrien’s Sin to make sure I was getting the most of it, which increased the level of the oilblossom-bulwark by 22. A pretty huge jump, but it hadn’t been that high of a level to start with. I swiped over its description to see if it was just like all the other armor pieces, and confirmed that it did just give me 3 resilience for every currently active oil-powered armor piece I had.

Then I swiped over to the new core. It appeared on my interface in a burst of prismatic colours, like someone had thrown a rainbow in a bucket at my visor. The bone and roots shone with a constantly shifting inner light, and I just sat there for a minute watching it breathe. It was hypnotizing in a calming sort of way. I tried to shake my head to no avail, then ordered my interface to consume the core.

//Function Obtained: Prismatic Burgeoning. For further details, check the core-subscreen of your interface.

A new function? I hadn’t gotten one of those in… a long time, actually. I watched as far less experience and fewer nodes than I thought the hydra had been worth dribbled in, then swiped over to the screen that actually interested me. I opened my core, recoiled at the absolute excess of empty nodes I had in there, then swiped over to my pitiful amount of functions.

//Prismatic Burgeoning.

//Core Mastery Requirement: 40.

//Shape: Elongated Spiral.

//Consume battery to summon a pool of lightsap at a target destination within (5) meters. The pool summons a hydra based on the colour of light assigned to it, with stats based on the stats of the bearer.

//Skill Synergies for Corruption: Floodpetal-Scales.

//Resource Synergies for Corruption: Blood-Oil.

Synergies specifically for corruption? Did that mean I could corrupt the function, then it would work with my one other corrupted function? Or would Floodpetal-Scales just completely consume this new function altogether? I had an idea of how the blood-oil stuff would work, but it felt like it was a gamble for some reason. I could summon all the different kinds of hydras the one big fucker had turned into, or I could corrupt it and risk the function itself.

Actually, there was one really easy way to check if the function was worth having. I closed my eyes, which was apparently allowed under ‘not being able to move’, and set the function into my core. Then I poured battery into it and focused on the ground right in front of me.

A pittance of battery drained out of me as I felt the function working. Something quietly whispered for me to select a colour, and the first thing that came to mind was the teleportation effect that the metallic black head had used. Confirmation hissed through my core, and a little more battery joined the pittance to create something real.

I opened my eyes and saw a tiny pool of metallic black liquid light. An even smaller head poked out of the stuff, made entirely of the same roots as the hydra had been. It turned towards me and opened its mouth to reveal a marble-sized sphere of the same liquid black, but it felt… so weak. Even compared to the smallest annoyance we’d just fought.

It spat the glob at me, but Mortician’s shield popped into being before it hit. A carbonated fizzle was all that sounded, and the black pathetically dissolved away to nothing. I stared at the thing, and it stared back at me, then disappeared into its little puddle. Then its puddle disappeared.

//CREATION Activated: Target designated as prismatic burgeoning.

//Potential consumed.

//Blood-Oil consumed.

//Floodpetal-Scales used as a reference for CORRUPTION.

I watched as the function dissolved into my core, split into a myriad of strange shapes, then came back with a vengeance. A long-ass function, with three separate ‘heads’, each of which were strangely translucent, whereas everything else was perfectly opaque. The thing actually looked like the shark-hydra hybrid we’d just gotten done fighting, and I had to completely make a new wing of my core to make the thing fit.

//(//CORRUPTED,Ancillary.) Floodpetal-Burgeoning.

//NODE LENGTH: 43. SHAPE: HYDRA.

//CORE MASTERY REQUIREMENT: 40.

//Must be equipped alongside Floodpetal-Scales, and must have a Blood-Oil stat to function.

//Create a mass of petal-scales at a target location. They will convert into a hydra with a command, and the properties of the hydra change based on which season of petal-scales was used to construct it. The more petal-scales used to create the hydra, and the greater the blood-oil powering this function, the stronger the creation will be.

//Can currently sustain up to (2) heads at once.

//Floodpetal Effect–Spring: A hydra created with these scales will constantly regenerate itself until it runs out of battery or blood-oil.

That sounded like an upgrade, but I couldn’t be sure until I tried it for myself. I designated the ground in front of me as the target once more, then activated the function. Instead of immediately firing, I found myself staring at another subscreen. This one asked exactly how much oil I wanted to grant the hydra, and if it wanted to save that amount for future use. I designated one vial worth of oil as the power, and that I didn’t want to save it for now.

Only then did the ground become coated in a vortex of oily blue and white petal-scales. I watched in interest as the pool grew… and grew… and grew. The little puddle the other function had made looked like a shot glass in comparison to the kiddy pool that this new one had made. A thick hand emerged from the vortex, tipped with wicked claws made from tightly overlapped petal-scales. Followed by an arm that wasn’t quite as thick, but was made of solid-looking bones-like pipes that connected the hand to a skeletal body.

Then came the necks. Twin long, spine-like things that ended in heads that looked exactly like great white shark skulls. Except they were completely made of compressed petal-scales. A shudder worked its way up through the hydra as balls of energy worked their way up from the chest to the skulls. When they reached their destination, a single ball of oily blue and white shone from inside the skull with a dangerous light.

The hydra shook its heads and looked straight down at the very much immobile me. One ball gave a glow to two eyes. Two heads both opened wide and drew power from that ball.

Uh-oh.