NOVEL NEXT Chapter 83: He Who Never Gave Up
Louis could feel the drops of water trickling gently down his body. Their path, guided by gravity, took them relentlessly to his feet, where they joined a small puddle. Surely the only drinkable one in the whole dome, he thought.
Everywhere, the lethal deluge was falling. Even without Priam's warning, Louis had directly felt the immense weight of the cloud. The source of the rain was a cloud in appearance only. Louis saw it as a vast, heavy mountain. Or perhaps the graveyard of a million weapons, like a battlefield.
"What a bloody day..."
Every drop hid a sword, a dagger, a bullet. Louis had lived through many wars, and liked none of them. He appreciated the violence of a good fight. That was why he had devoted his life to the martial arts. Their violence was pure and full of philosophy.
The violence of war disgusted him. It killed more innocents than warriors.
Louis was always ready to put his life on the line. But he had no desire to confront the weak and oppressed. His passion made him hate the apathy of war.
"Lives cut short by indifference..."
Perhaps that was what he hated most about this new world - and this cloud. All around him, the drops were falling, raising appalling screams. They quickly died away, like silent testimonies to the horror of the rain. In the adjacent streets, the water running down the gutters was red. The steel rain was finishing off the bodies of those who had not heeded the new Lord's advice.
From the roof of the building that housed his friends, Louis looked down on his street. The rain was attacking the white of the bones of what had only a few minutes ago been a young woman. He hadn't been able to save her. With the exception of a few bones, teeth and hair, nothing was left of her. A drop had penetrated her skull, then passed through her brain and on. The power had dissipated only after digging a hole through her intestines. A quick death.
A useless one.
On the streets of New Earth, hundreds of anonymous people were disappearing at this very moment. In someone else's war.
Louis sighed as he felt his strength decline. Each drop was imprinted with the concept of steel. The concept gave them steel properties, making them artificially heavy, hard, piercing and deadly. Without the concept, they were just standard drops of water. That was how Louis felt about them.
The old man had spent almost his entire life perfecting his art. Practicing a kind of mixed martial art, Louis had traveled the world to perfect his movements and techniques. Lucid, he had never sought to be the best fighter. He wasn't tall enough to have excellent reach, or sufficiently imposing to take the most powerful blows. An MMA champion would have beaten him nine times out of ten.
However, Louis' body remained a formidable weapon. Coupled with his reflexes, techniques and knowledge, he was a Master. He had spent his life observing the bodies of others - and his own - meditating and following the philosophy of his art.
He'd never thrown the fastest punches, but he knew how to execute the best submission holds. At almost ninety, he was supple, agile, dexterous, lively and optimistic.
Upon arrival, the System had given wings to an old tiger.
The curtain of rain continued to obscure the world, and while Priam fought his way to the top of the dome, some inhabitants tried to take advantage of the situation. Three hundred meters from Louis, a man pressed up against the buildings, moving slowly towards a house. A woman's silhouette was silhouetted against one of the house's windows. When the man knocked on the door, the shadow froze.
After a few seconds, the man pulled out a crowbar he'd been holding, hidden under his baggy clothes.
"Hard times reveal human nature," mumbled Louis.
Maybe the man wanted to steal an empty house. Maybe he was there for the woman. Louis thought for a moment of Mirscella. She didn't need his protection. In this new world, gender conferred little advantage. The burglar was possibly attacking a tigress. But when in doubt...
Raising his right hand, Louis caught a drop of water on the fly. His Mastery annihilated the steel fragment inside, transforming the drop into ordinary water. In one swift movement, Louis positioned it on the nail of his index finger before infusing it with his will. His whole body was dangerous, but the man could also work with tools and weapons. It was the ability he had unlocked when reaching stage 1 of his Mastery.
Today, this drop would be his weapon.
[Mastery - Body]. [Fire-arm].
With a flick of the wrist, the drop flew away. Louis' mastery allowed it to retain its shape and speed, crossing the air as if in a vacuum. Two seconds later, as the door opened under the burglar's action, the drop hit him in the back of the neck.
The man stood still for a moment before collapsing to the ground. Tipping backward, his body fell halfway into the gutter. In a few minutes, there would be nothing left of him.
Louis nodded before turning away. It was time to go home.
As he placed his hand on the handle of the roof door, his instinct shook.
A second later, the sky lit up.
Priam felt no pain as the attack vaporized his body. Vaporize was perhaps too strong a word. After all, the beam of light had some difficulty in annihilating him.
He didn't really count, but his Constitution, resistances and various Titles enabled him to gain three or four seconds. Seconds during which his nerves screamed in pain before liquefying. [Three-Headed Hydra] gained him another second, trying to regenerate his bones.
The breath of a wyvern, calibrated to be the fourth Tribulation of a Tier 0, had the power to sublimate the armored door of a bank vault. From solid metal to gas in a matter of moments. Priam had withstood disintegration for several seconds - giving him significant benefits. Diamonds are created under intense pressure...
Lvl Up: [Osmosis] lvl 5
PHY +1
META (AFFI) +4
Synergy detected with your talent [Humanity adapts] and your Titles [Three-Headed Hydra] and [Veteran].
Lvl Up: [Star Iron Body] lvl 8,9
CONST +6
Lvl Up: [Infantile Phoenix Metabolism] lvl 2,3,4
VIT +6
CONST +3
You have gained the skill: [Light Resistance - Common].
[Light Resistance] - Light is a phenomenon that has enabled the birth of most civilizations. It has a strong symbolic value and is associated with knowledge. However, you know that light, as electromagnetic radiation, constitutes only a tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Source of life, hope... and sometimes destruction. By approaching the sun, you've burnt your wings. Will you continue your journey, or will the intensity of your dreams blind you?
The architecture of your cells changes to better resist the effects of intense light. Your molecules vibrate rapidly and remain in excited states to not absorb most photons.
You have the green light to face your enemies.
CONST +1
...
Priam mentally smiled as he watched the notification list continue to grow. Finally, he ignored the scrolling rewards with a thought. His next resurrection would bring another batch of level-ups, and he'd have time to analyze them later. For now, there was something more important.
His body had disappeared, leaving his mind floating in the void. One of his first Titles allowed him to survive without a body. [Brainless] gave him a few seconds before death closed its fingers on him. Before he eluded it again.
The Damocles cloud regenerated after the wyvern's violent breath. It seemed surprised. Its adversary had disappeared, but the System Order remained active. The Tribulation had not finished its mission.
For a moment, Priam marveled at still being able to feel the wyvern's presence. His eyes - and all other sensory organs - were gone. His mind was blind, yet he could perceive his surroundings. Partly thanks to [Aether Perception], but mostly thanks to his mist.
Priam deactivated [Aether Perception]. Here and now, it was his mist that interested him. It was his mist that would allow him to unlock his Domain or not. To live or to die.
Only his mist now informed his Perception. It was his only link with the outside world. Priam smiled as he deployed his sense. He could feel the world so clearly... Perhaps even better than before.
Around him, air currents were evident. Other data was arriving continuously. Water molecules, in the form of vapor or suspended micro-droplets, vibrated periodically. A moment later, Priam's liveliness translated the phenomenon: the wyvern was roaring, creating a sound wave that propagated near him.
His senses were so acute that he could feel the disturbances in the air associated with sound. He realized it was the obvious consequence of living in a human body. The five main senses - vision, hearing, smell, touch and taste - as well as the lesser-known senses - heat, pressure, location,... - were constantly flooding his brain with tons of information. His Perception further increased the volume of data delivered. After that, a new sense - his mist - could only be stifled.
Freed from his body, Priam finally opened his eyes - figuratively - and enjoyed the sensitivity of his mist. When a man went blind, his other senses developed to take over. His hearing became sharper, his sense of smell finer and his touch more sensitive. That's why humans sometimes closed their eyes to enjoy music.
Undisturbed, the mist was now free to confide its secrets to Priam. And what secrets... A second after his death, Priam could already feel the vibrations of the molecules, more or less important according to the temperature gradient. Some vibrated more rapidly as they picked up photons, before calming down as they left their excited state. Priam's scientific knowledge enabled him to understand what his mist was feeling.
As the seconds passed, his Perception automated these processes, creating new connections within his brain. It was the true power of an attribute that had surpassed three hundred points. It was moving towards a qualitative evolution...
The world was regaining color and sound. It was changing. Only Priam and his perception had changed, but that was enough to make his world evolve. Every water molecule in the atmosphere was an eye. It changed everything.
As Priam marveled at his new abilities, an unearthly pain shot through his body. Panicking for a moment, Priam almost severed the link with his mist. The pain amplified, until it became terrifying. For a moment, Priam wished all would stop. His formidable will awakened him.
Screaming mentally, he spent his Potential in [Focus]. The pain gradually receded and Priam understood. His mind was dissipating. He wasn't meant to live without a body. It was his corporeal envelope that usually protected his spirit.
Passively attacked by the world, by fundamental particles and by a billion different electromagnetic radiations, the shape of his mind was failing. Reactivating [Aether Perception] for a moment, Priam observed himself.
Crap.
His spiritual body, still vaguely human in form a few moments ago, was now perforated, eroded, and exhausted by the hostile environment. It looked like an iron statue deposited fifty years ago at the bottom of an ocean.
Panic set in, and Priam forced himself to calm down. There had to be a solution, and he would find it. He was no longer the young man who had been captured by an alien System and plunged into a bloody Tutorial. He had survived and learned. And I'll survive again.
[Meditation] and [Focus] helped him to clear his mind. [Emotional Discipline] helped him put aside his fear. Priam first activated his Potential. If the resource was useless for creating his Domain, it could give him a clue to stabilizing his mind. He didn't need to regenerate it, just survive long enough to make his Domain.
POT -5
POT -5
POT -5
Had he still possessed sweat glands, Priam would have been perspiring profusely. His Potential drained away, disappearing like rum entrusted to a pirate, and his mind continued to dissipate. His disappearance had barely slowed.
[Bullet Time]. Priam needed time. His aether reserves seemed to have disappeared and activating the skill caused him to grimace mentally. Time had slowed down, but his body was fading as fast as ever. Or rather, time had slowed in proportion to the acceleration of his disappearance.
The obvious became clear to Priam. Without an aether reserve, his mind consumed the surrounding aether to activate his skills. It was good news because he could activate his skills without a bodily envelope. It was horrible news because the ambient aether dissipated his body when it came into contact with him.
An aether-intensive skill could kill him as surely as the wyvern's breath.
Priam deactivated [Bullet Time], [Focus], and all his other active skills. Floating in front of the wyvern, who continued to stare at him, he sighed with relief. Without spending any aether, his spirit body seemed able to stay for a few seconds longer.
Thirty seconds... That was how long he had before he disappeared. Perhaps less - the disappearance of more than half his mind would perhaps cause his cognitive functions to shut down.
With no active skill, Priam concentrated. There was only one thing left to do: improve [Brainless]. Mentally, Priam cut himself off from his Perception and mist. The world disappeared as Priam felt his mind gradually dissipate. As if immersed in acid, his ego eroded. The world condemned him. It rejected his presence. His identity.
Priam wished he had a body to shout out his defiance. He existed, and his body was not the most important thing. His spirit was the sacred refuge of his soul. He had the right to be. And if the world denied him that right, he would take it.
The System responded to his request.
[Brainless] is ready for evolution. No presence of a catalyst detected. Use 2963 Potential to trigger evolution?
He refused. He could pay, of course. But who paid for a right? He would fight for them. Selling them was the beginning of the end. Priam concentrated on his spiritual body. On his memories. On his rage and his will to live. Maybe it was his imagination, but the destruction of his mind seemed to slow down.
Priam clung to this hope like a castaway to a buoy. It might have been a mirage in the desert, but he wanted to believe it. In any case, in this new world, perhaps a spirit's solidity came from its experiences? It was what his instincts, boosted by Potential, were telling him.
Priam thought back to his experiences. He thought back to his frantic flight, pursued by his Tribulations. To his fight against the wyvern and the Earl. To Anatole and the sacrifices he was willing to make for his daughter. To his father, who was waiting for him somewhere in this city. To his sister, absent from the Reunion. Priam wanted to go and find her… What was her name?
The destruction of his mind was eroding his memories. The System held out another hand.
[Brainless] is ready for evolution. No presence of a catalyst detected. Use 1574 Potential to trigger evolution?
Priam refused. His rage for life, his resistance to death, to the onslaught of the world, was having an effect. Eroded by the world, fractured under pressure, his spirit was solidifying. A diamond in the making.
He kept thinking about all his battles. His desire to survive. His passion for exploration. To his ideals of freedom. He knew he was still young. He wanted to be free, but didn't really know what that meant. He remembered his shaky speech to Anne and Albin. At the time, his ideas were confused. Even now, he didn't have enough experience or philosophical knowledge to grasp what freedom was. But what did it matter for now? He had the right to change his mind, learn, and grow.
His mind was weakening and the sensation now felt like a mental asthma attack. A feeling of intense oppression took hold of him, like a press trying to crush all hope.
His ego struggled. He wanted to live. He realized he didn't even know his own name but knew he wanted to live. For he had seen death. The real thing. At the end of the Tutorial, he had contemplated the horrible truth. He'd failed, and without them, he'd be dead.
He could forget everything but that. After contemplating the consequences of his failures and death, he was ready to fight with all his might. With all his soul.
Some struggles were worth every sacrifice. Because defeat was worse than anything else.
Nameless, he threw himself into battle one last time. As a fragment of spirit, he fought against the world.
To live. For life was freedom and hope.
[Brainless] is ready for evolution. No presence of a catalyst detected. Use 458 Potential to trigger evolution?
Yes...
[Brainless] is evolving...
Status: (Average value for a Homo sapiens male before integration: PHY 10 / MEN 10 / META 0)
PHYSICAL:
Strength 173 (+1)
Constitution 301 (+12)
Agility 210 (+1)
Vitality 319 (+10)
Perception 380 (+1)
MENTAL:
Vivacity 183
Dexterity 236
Memory 50
Willpower 335
Charisma 176
META:
Meta-affinity 188 (+4)
Meta-focus 111
Meta-endurance 101
Meta-perception 51
Meta-chance 114
Potential: 3371 (-496)
Tier 0
[He Who Eludes Death] charge: PRIMED.