Magic
Over my long existence, the countless horrendous acts I’ve committed weigh heavily, yet I’ve grown numb to remorse. My sister possessed the kind heart, not I. I remain a force of nature, the bender of realities. I am the Primordial of Magic itself, the weaver of the Source—or mana, as it’s otherwise known. Some might call me a maniputor of reality—a title Death often hurled at me as an insult. Perhaps that’s why, despite my nature, a pang of sorrow stirs within me for what I’m about to do—though I do not regret it.
The dungeon core’s power now thrums within the body of an Eldritch fragment—a Bck Pudding. The core, a relic of my sister’s creation—a tool she crafted to train her children to combat mine, used alongside the system she gifted them. They now stand as a testament to my own failures. But with her creations mixed with my own failures, they’re a potent fusion, ready to annihite the soul of the Titan I have ensnared within it.
The explosion of mana, supercharged and primed, will cascade through every yer of the ethereal pne, reaching out to my sister in her distant prison—a realm to which she was banished by my failed creations. That catastrophic act marked the end of the prehistoric war between the Titans and the Eldritch, ultimately extinguishing both in its aftermath.
I hope this surge of mana, fused with a child of Life and sent into that mana-less bubble of existence, will be enough to trigger a convergence, drawing Tartarus—Earth—here. Time may not be on my side, and I fear that my sister’s dwindling power may not suffice for her to retain consciousness. I doubt I would survive long there, likely evaporating into nothingness soon after arriving.
Nevertheless, a convergence is a delicate and drawn-out process, typically spanning several decades whenever I pull worlds into this realm. Unfortunately for Earth, I ck the patience to ensure its intact crossover. However, I have already initiated the process with another world—a demonic one, in fact. If I piggyback off that world’s convergence, I might be able to reduce the damage to Earth marginally, though it would likely result in the other world’s annihition. In my mind, it’s a worthwhile sacrifice. I refuse to let my sister suffer any longer in exile.
In my desperate quest to find my sister, I granted summoning magic to the species I brought into this realm, turning them into unknowing accomplices as they scouted other realities for me. This action also helped sustain our realm after Death unleashed her fury and destroyed everything. The cataclysm followed Life—my sister’s spouse—becoming enraged with the Eldritch. By the time Death’s wrath subsided, all had been reduced to nothingness. Thankfully, she didn’t annihite the entire multiverse in her rage, or my sister would have been permanently lost.
All that remained was myself, the st three of her children, a small pocket within the ethereal pne—the Realm of Dreams—and a lone Tree of Life floating in darkness, its pale white glow slowly fading. Desperate to save that single tree—the only remnant of my sister’s creation besides the three little gods she birthed by merging her essence with Death’s own—I pulled the first world into this realm through a convergence, ripping it from its bubble of reality in the multiverse.
On that small world, I pnted my sister’s tree. Yet the fragile sapling began to wither, its pale leaves losing their luster. Desperate, I infused it with my own mana. The tree absorbed my essence, and its once pure white glow transformed into swirling hues of blues and pinks. At least I had kept it alive, even if I had altered its appearance—a perversion born of necessity.
Determined to rebuild the realm, I drew the Source into a small star—or rather, a rge gaseous pnet—creating a new center of reality. I named it after the realm Death had destroyed, after the name the Titans had given my sister: V?luspá. Now, stolen pnets dot this reality like stars once did. Unbeknownst to me, remnants of my sister’s system lingered, infusing each stolen world with her power. Random individuals gained access to it, and these worlds became poputed with dungeon cores.
As for Death, she vanished like a specter into the void; I have no idea where she retreated to afterward. In her absence, the species I’d brought to this pne ceased to age. Without my sister, new souls were no longer born, nor were the souls of the departed reincarnating—at least not in any reasonable manner. Occasionally it happened, but the ethereal pne where souls wait became overcrowded, even spilling over into the Realm of Dreams, where one of the st three children of Life and Death reigns.
Everything’s an utter mess in a sense, and it’s all my fault—my jealousy of my sister. Still, I can’t undo what I’ve done without ruining one more thing.
I suppressed any cruelty in my voice; no smile crossed my face. All these thoughts ran through my head as I gazed at one of my sister’s children. “Know that with your sacrifice, you are saving your entire species. Goodbye, Bke, my Hopeless Crusader.”
It was true. Once all traces of my sister evaporated within that mana-less existence where she and the Titans are trapped, it would only be a matter of time before the Titans met their end. Without Life, their cycles of reincarnation would cease, and no new souls would emerge without a source of mana. Their demise was inevitable unless I saved them here and now. Though, in truth, it wasn’t them I wanted to save.
“You really are a cunt, you know that?” she spat, her eyes bzing as she gred at me. Then she fshed the most unnatural, shit-eating grin of defiance I’d ever seen.
There was no room for remorse in my heart; I could only hope that my sister might forgive me. Without further hesitation, I triggered the detonation. The Titan’s soul disintegrated into dust in a magnificent bst, and the essence of my sister’s child—infused with the power of a dungeon core—rippled through the multiverse back to her.
A smile crept across my face as I initiated Earth’s convergence.
Epilogue II
Lord Demidicus
“Please, don’t do this! I’m begging you! Please! Please, let me go,” cried the peasant girl, her wrists bound so tightly by chains that blood trickled from her raw skin.
Lord Demidicus, the ancient vampire, regarded the miserable humyn at the ritual’s center with growing impatience. She was a pitiful sight—cd in tattered rags, hair wild, and a stench that clung to the damp air—but his thoughts were elsewhere. He had initiated the summoning ritual multiple times; the wretched demoness should have vacated the previous body by now, allowing him to summon her anew.
“Why the dey?” he seethed.
The atmosphere thickened as mana surged, causing candles to flicker and snuff out one by one. As darkness crept in, a chilling frost outlined the summoning circle, inching toward the girl confined within. Her desperate cries grew louder, her voice quavering with terror. From the room’s darkest corner, Lord Demidicus’s eyes gleamed, a wicked smile barely visible beneath his hood.
“At st,” he murmured, sensing the imminent arrival of his prized servant.
Icy pulses radiated through the chamber, driving the encroaching frost closer to the captive. As the cold enveloped her, her voice faltered, despair silencing her pleas. She crumpled inward, curling against the inevitable—a stark contrast to the heroes of old tales. Lord Demidicus sneered; such weakness was both familiar and nauseating. This freezing embrace wasn’t the work of summoning magic but a sign of an entity draining every shred of warmth and mana, leaving only desotion in its wake.
Suddenly, the extinguished candles fred back to life, fmes reaching defiantly toward the crypt’s oppressive ceiling. The girl, momentarily freed from the cold’s grip, gasped. An unseen force compelled her to stand. Her eyes locked onto the ancient vampire, a malevolent smile curving her lips. Her pale skin shifted to an ethereal gray as her transformation began. Vivid pink hair cascaded down her back. Wings unfurled from her spine, and a sinuous tail swayed behind her. Horns crowned her head, and her form shifted—contours becoming more pronounced, an exaggerated silhouette that drew a gleam of approval from Lord Demidicus. Though still draped in the remnants of the girl’s attire, he could almost see her in the leather ensemble he had prepared.
“My lord, it’s a delight to find you well,” Niamh purred, though both knew it was empty fttery.
Despite his carnal desires for the demoness, Lord Demidicus had more pressing matters. “Report, demon,” he commanded.
Niamh sighed nguidly, raising a hand to admire her talon-like nails in the dim light. She lingered, savoring the moment, before letting her gaze slide over to him.
“Your... daughter?” Niamh mused, a wicked curl to her lips—or so it seemed. Beneath the veneer of amusement flickered fleeting emotions: pain, rage, perhaps a hint of anguish. It passed too swiftly for the vampire to notice. “She seemed rather... occupied with escaping the st time I saw her.”
His eyes sharpened, impatience palpable. “Aurelia is of no consequence right now. She’ll return to me, likely destroying the Sethians once again. No. Tell me of the abomination she summoned.”
Niamh’s smirk deepened as she recalled the creature. “Ah, the pudding? It didn’t just survive the trials, my lord—it thrived.” A flicker of rage darted through her eyes. “And the most intriguing part? It’s learned to don a guise quite... humyn.”
“That accursed goddess!” he spat, venom dripping from each word. “Has she chosen that abomination as her champion?”
Her grin widened, darkening. “It seems the creature told the Crone she didn’t want the title,” she mused with malevolent delight.
“What?!” he roared.
The succubus leaned forward, amusement cing her voice. “Funny, isn’t it? The very thing you’ve desired so fervently—the reason you sacrificed what was most precious to me—and that creature tossed it aside when offered.”
Lord Demidicus raised an eyebrow. “I don’t care about champions.”
Niamh’s brows furrowed.
“I did everything for my species to survive, even sacrificing our own daughter’s soul to gain access to the system,” he decred, thrusting his arms out in exasperation, ignoring her hate-filled gre. “I still don’t understand how those new types of summons—those humyns... no, humans, as they call themselves—managed to become Users, each acquiring access, while Aurelia did not. Her soul is from the same realm, isn’t she?” He shook his head with a click of his tongue, disappointment etched on his face.
Settling into his chair, his voice softened, weariness seeping in as he allowed his age to show. “If not for her overwhelming power, I would have attempted to repce her soul once more,” he murmured. “Being a champion was insignificant to me; it was merely a means to buy time and gain a deity’s support, so I could continue unraveling the mysteries of the system—all to prevent our extinction at the hands of the Ascended.”
Epilogue III
Ascended Gods
“Rejoice!” thundered the Ascended God Demoros, an awe-inspiring figure draped in otherworldly robes that seemed to ripple with their own energy. His golden crown shimmered with an unsettling luster, casting eerie reflections throughout the grand hall. “The Crone’s chosen has met her end!”
A lesser deity dared to speak, his voice barely a whisper in the vast chamber. “Can we confirm she was a champion?” But his question was swallowed as the next god’s voice rose.
Zarathos, the ascended dragon god, clenched his cws, his scales flickering like emerald fire. Rage smoldered in his eyes. “The Crone’s chosen dared to defile my own chosen, Orith—scarring her radiant form with the cruel kiss of a mana detonation. Not only did she destroy a sacred core, but she also obliterated a small armada of our airships.”
Lyzara, an ethereal vision with hair like cascading liquid silver and skin bathed in a soft, pale glow, intervened, her voice dripping with feigned ignorance. “Yet how, pray tell, did the Dungeon Core, under our ever-watchful gazes, go unnoticed for so long?”
Zarathos’s thunderous reply echoed through the vast expanse of the Citadel, his silhouette casting an oppressive gloom. His wings—dark tapestries of celestial despair—seemed to drain the surrounding light. “That is hardly a matter of concern when my champion is injured!”
Khyron, an imposing figure resembling a statue carved from the very shadows of the void, retorted with venomous contempt. “Will you stop menting over your precious chosen! We send forces every new moon to acquire the cores to solidify and expand our power. With so many moons, I’m surprised we haven’t missed more such cores.”
Lyzara’s ethereal gaze settled thoughtfully on the assembly. “What of the Primordial of Magic?” she probed, deftly shifting the flow of the discussion. Her voice wove a tapestry of genuine curiosity. “Would she not intervene in this dire predicament of a core’s destruction?”
The dragon god let out a disdainful snort, his emerald scales shimmering with a mix of amusement and exasperation. “She vanished into the annals of the past. As the st Primordial, she does not care about our wars. Her obsessions are... unconventional,” he huffed, steam escaping his nostrils. “She plucks entire worlds from the vast unknown, only to nestle them as moons in our very sky. A wasteful and pointless hobby, if you ask me.”
Khyron, with a quizzical frown, interjected, “Last Primordial? What became of Death?”
A voice belonging to a nondescript deity among the crowd piped up, “Death chose self-imposed exile. We have nothing to fear from her.”
Zarathos, casting a gnce toward the speaker, added gravely, “That predates our era as Ascended Gods, even before Magic’s peculiar penchant for abducting realms. To us, she’s barely more than whispers of old myths and legends.”
Lyzara’s luminous eyes clouded over, her voice carrying a hint of resignation. “Regardless of all that and the Crone’s role in this, I sense Magic’s restless stirrings. We must tread cautiously,” she paused, casting a wary gaze around the assembly, “for from that bygone era, old gods still linger. We would surely be destroyed, would we not?”
Hidden from the divine gazes of the Ascended Gods, a sly serpent slithered among them, waiting for the opportune moment to unleash his venomous wrath.
J?rmun’s grin grew dark and foreboding as he took pleasure in the ensuing pandemonium. Moving stealthily through the holy corridors of the Citadel of the Empire, shrouded by an ominous mist, he reveled in the cacophonous overture of these so-called gods’ frantic mentations.
As the council adjourned, J?rmun entered a magnificent office where Demoros happily poured himself a drink. “Ah, J?rmun, how long has it been?”
“Three hundred or so years,” J?rmun replied with a hint of venom in his tone. “Though I’ve not come to visit, but rather to keep my part of the bargain,” he said, pulling out a gss jar containing a bck liquid substance.
Demoros quickly snatched the jar. “Where did you find this fragment?” he asked, almost in awe.
“On Nyxoria, right before the explosion. Apparently, there was a second one as well, though, funny enough, infused with the soul of a Titan.”
“What?!”
Epilogue IV
A Nightmare Reborn
Beyond life and death, in a realm where wonder abounds and lost souls often wander, there exists an ephemeral yet eternal sanctuary. This ethereal domain, accessible to all yet rarely remembered, resides not beyond the veil but intricately woven within its fabric. Here, one can retrace long-forgotten memories or weave new tales as fanciful and whimsical as the soul can envision.
This realm, however, was never meant to contain its wanderers indefinitely. Once a fleeting refuge where the living came to dream and departing souls paused to whisper their st farewells before rebirth, its harmony has long been disrupted. The delicate bance and cycles that once governed it were shattered ages ago, tragically leaving lost souls to flood the Realm of Dreams—a pce now stripped of the hope and promise of rebirth, haunted by unknown nightmares.
At the heart of this veiled realm stood a seemingly unremarkable cottage, its humble exterior belying the castle-like significance it held for those who understood its true essence. Within dwelled a figure perceived differently by each beholder. To some, she appeared as a lonely old woman, devoid of love or family, her life seemingly bereft of warmth. To others, she was a skeletal figure cloaked in dark, mysterious robes, her face hidden beneath a veil embodying the very essence of darkness. Yet at times, she revealed her true self as she saw it—a youthful spirit brimming with love and affection, her nature concealed within the ever-shifting tapestry of dreams.
As countless eons unfolded, most of the siblings she once knew fell in a war shrouded in myth and legend, leaving only a few remaining. In their stead, new entities ascended, empowered by the magical construct left behind by the mother she had long lost. Through these vast and relentless changes, she remained steadfast, continuing her vigil from the solitude of her cottage. Her unwavering commitment anchored the perpetuity of the Realm of Dreams.
Yet the gods who rose to repce her fallen siblings saw her only as a crone, blind to the vastness of her true identity and the pivotal role she pyed in the cosmic tapestry. To these self-procimed deities, she was an entity to be shunned and cursed, not revered. This ignorance permeated the realm of the living, where her true name, Duskara, Goddess of Dreams, faded into near oblivion, overshadowed by the simplistic and dismissive bel of the Crone. This diminished moniker took root even among those who devoutly worshipped her, though they too were slowly fading away with the new wars that followed.
Duskara’s solitude seemed destined to extend into eternity as she toiled tirelessly to uphold a realm on the verge of colpse, its crucial cycle of reincarnation forever lost. With her mother, the Primordial of Life, gone in the cataclysmic aftermath of a war against the Eldritch that annihited so many of her siblings, the possibility of restoring the cycle had become nothing more than a dream. Compounding this was the self-imposed exile of her other mother, the Primordial of Death, who roamed the Realm of Dreams unseen by all except Duskara. Even in her presence, Death remained aloof, never revealing herself, for without Life, Death had no purpose. Though rebirth occasionally transpired, it was but a miracle as fleeting and elusive as capturing lightning in a bottle.
On this fateful day, an unprecedented disturbance rippled through the Realm of Dreams—one unlike any Duskara had ever felt. The annihition of a soul sent shockwaves echoing beyond her domain, yet it felt hauntingly familiar: a Titan’s soul that had recently visited her. She had found other Titans as well, which filled her with hope, for they were her long-lost half-siblings.
Reaching out with her essence, she discovered the soul had been obliterated into dust by a catastrophic soul-burst. The remnants formed an unmistakable trail leading straight to her aunt, the Primordial of Magic.
This egregious act incensed Duskara, compelling her to act. The Goddess of Dreams painstakingly gathered the soul’s tiny fragments, mere dust in her hands, endeavoring to reassemble them. Yet she soon realized the damage was more extensive than she had anticipated.
Her hands trembled as she realized the fatal fw in her endeavor: she could not fully restore the soul to its original state. No matter how intensely she focused, the soul remained shattered into countless fragments, each barely clinging to the next. The ethereal shards quivered, unstable—hinting at a fragile existence teetering on the brink of madness. For a fleeting moment, she considered letting the ruined soul fade into oblivion, but it was already too te to turn back.
Desperation fueled her actions. She closed her eyes and infused part of her own essence into the soul, her energy acting like a binding force to hold the fragments together. As she wove her essence through the shattered pieces, the magnitude of her actions dawned upon her, yet it did not deter her.
Unintentionally, she was forging a bond reminiscent of the one she shared with her mothers. Tears welled in Duskara’s eyes as she realized she was not merely repairing a soul but witnessing a rebirth before her. The Titan’s soul was no longer just a half-sibling; it was reborn as her daughter—unique and perhaps touched by insanity, but cherished all the same.
Duskara observed an extraordinary phenomenon in her daughter—a bond not created in her recent soul’s rebirth but tracing back across countless past lives: an eon-spanning link to another soul—a soulmate. Such connections were incredibly rare, typically formed when true souls were cleaved at their inception. Duskara recognized the uniqueness: a genuine twin soul perfectly complementing her daughter’s own fractured existence. This unbreakable soul-bound bond, transcending life and distance, irresistibly drew them together.
All finished, Duskara whispered to her newly born daughter, “Awake, my beloved child, my little Nightmare.”
Titan
V:\Ascension>SAFE_MODE
USER System Access Rebooting...
Notifying Secondary Admin.
Admin:\Death>Login_
Notification Sent.
_
V:\Ascension>SAFE_MODE
CharacterStatus
Name: Bke
Race: Eldritch Horror
Subrace: Bck Pudding
Hidden: Titan
Error.
Third Race Found.
Reinitializing...
Hidden Race Designation Granted.
Hidden: Demigoddess
Css: Undefined
Error.
Reinitializing...
Css Designation Granted.
Css: Nightmare
Level: 25
Titles:
- [Hopeless Crusader]
Error.
Title Not Found.
Reinitializing.
New Title Awarded.
- [Death’s Disciple]
Racial Skills:
- [Absorb]
- [Arcane Insight]
- [Corrosive]
- [Polymorph]
- [Thermal]
Spells:
- [Astral Insight]
- [Blight]
- [Fear]
- [Life Drain]
- [Mana Focus]
- [Necrotic Fme]
- [Paralysis]
- [Spirit Vessel]
- [Terror’s Infusion]
Abilities:
- [Burst]
- [Ethereal Mist]
- [Silk Webbing]
- [Spider Walk]
- [Spores]
- [Venomous]
Vulnerabilities:
- [Fire]
- [Holy]
Immunities:
- [Acid]
- [Darkness]
- [Disease]
- [Dread]
- [Fear]
- [Poison]
- [Sleep]
- [Sorrow]
Unique Traits:
- [Oracle]
- [Polyglot]
- [Stelr Void]
Error.
New Unique Traits Found.
Reinitializing.
New Unique Traits Awarded.
- [Divinity]
- [Dungeon Core]
Error.
Reinitializing...
- [Dungeon Core]
- [Stelr Void]
Error.
Error.
Error.
One Or More Unique Traits Were Permanently Damaged.
Reinitializing...
Merging The Following Unique Traits:
- [Divinity]
- [Dungeon Core]
- [Oracle]
- [Stelr Void]
Reinitializing...
New Unique Trait Awarded.
- [Divine Stelr Core]
Reinitializing New List...
Unique Traits:
- [Polyglot]
- [Divine Stelr Core]
Selectable Skills:
- [Acid Breath]
- [Dull Corrode]
- [Fear Harvest]
- [Fortress]
- [Leap]
- [Poison Spit]
- [Shield Proficiency]
V:\>