NOVEL NEXT Chapter 14 (Even In Death)
Looking at the barrage of new and unknown information, I honestly wasn’t even upset. It was fairly clear to me that the system operated at its own pace, and I guess even if I was on the verge of death, that didn’t change. I suppose I was a little grateful that it at least decided to show up now, even if it was a little late, and the information it gave was something I neither understood nor was in the right state of mind to try and understand. As much as I wanted to scold the system for taking its time with something so important, it was fairly clear what had to be done now, though I had little idea how I was supposed to do it. The ant was only lying a short distance away with one of its tentacles lying within arm's reach. The thing that might save me was so close, and yet I was too weak to even move a muscle towards it. Each second that I tried to inch closer felt like hell. My body was in total agony from the wounds I suffered, as the initial shock that dulled the pain had now worn off with the movements reinvigorating the pain.
This type of thing was something I wasn’t used to, but when the alternative was death via the good intentions of those three figures aiming to move me further away from the corpse, even if it meant pain, I had to seize the only opportunity I had.
Summoning what little spirit I had left, I lurched my wound-riddled body a few inches further, just barely managing to lightly lay my fingers on the fleshy tentacles in front of me. This caused no immediate reaction with the system, and much to my horror, the man who had been slowly approaching almost as if in an attempt to move me gently before, had now reacted to my sudden movements by quickly attempting to pick me up and move me away from the ant, just as I felt the warm embrace of his hands wrap around my chest. The area around me changed drastically in such a short period that it forced the man back, as I felt a pressure beginning to surround my body.
I felt oddly light, as forcing my quickly draining consciousness back to processing information, I saw that I seemed to be floating in a thin ball of wavy light all around me. With some reluctance, the man who was trying to help me stepped back, followed by a series of curses from the entire group as they glanced at me with a mixture of surprise, annoyance, and sympathy.
Those faces were the last things I saw before the light flashed in my vision, sending me spiraling into unconsciousness
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I opened my eyes to what felt like a dream. Looking around me I saw an endless expanse of stars dotting a vast void. The place felt entirely unreal a realm beyond my own, I couldn’t recognize where I was not that it mattered it was clear this was some sort of dream only thought up my a hazy mind, in this space I felt myself changing my body warping in strange directions as a all around me cubes of bright colors floated up, as they did singing filled my ears from a place I didn’t recognize as the my head throbbing from being fed the foreign language, strange images filled my brain of worlds of flesh and and eyes, of golden trumpets being played to a being of great evil, they hazy ideas of delirium repeated for only a moment before everything faded once more into darkness. In that darkness I felt the warping of my shape, of myself in it’s entirely I felt no pain only a great fear, I didn;t know where I was, I didn’t know if anything I saw was real, my body didn’t exist my mind was a swirling vortex of incomprehensible ideals and notions none of which were my own, all there was was fear of what was happening not fear o death, but just the terror of the unknown. Just as I thought I was going to be swallowed in this state, my consciousness was awoken to a new realm by a series of loud system messages.
Waking up from the strange dream my mind was hazy, I could not exactly remember what had happened when I had fallen into unconsciousness, but my mind still felt some bit of fear, though I could not place why, all I could recall was closing my eyes, and being woken up by the cheerful noises of the system. my eyes opened to a strange new place, one which felt off, but somehow I knew this time I was awake. All around me was an endless plane of white, strikingly similar to the place that I had first ended up before coming to all of this trouble. With some horror in my eyes, I wondered if I’d meet that Goddess here again.
Letting out a gasp, as the tension in my body suddenly relaxed, I immediately realized something; I seemed to be healed. My throat, which before had, barely even been able to groan, was now breathing steadily with a sweet sound. My body, which had been racked with pain, now felt light and free. Focusing further, I realized the space which I was in was not so grand as the one in which I had met the Goddess. Rather the place was curved around me in a limited, defined way, in such a way that I figured I could touch something if I stuck my hands out far enough. This common decency to respect the bounds of space did little to make the space less mysterious. In this place I had a body, my thoughts were clear, still it felt strange, I felt as if I should have more thoughts, as if I should be more curious about the place around me, but despite having a clear mind my thoughts felt sluggish, and tiring.
Looking now at the series of system messages, I felt an odd feeling from what was displayed there.
System:
{Completed quest [king maker]
... [Issuing reward] {Soul Mutation chance} {Soul Integrity 3%+]
ding
... [Successfully raised soul integrity 3%]
... [Attempting to change the structure of the host's soul with the provided energy +Unknown]
ding
[Success]
[Subject's soul is undergoing mutation. Time left until completion {Unknown}]
I looked at the systems message blankly for a short while not really understanding what was being conveyed by them I wondered half stupidly what it was trying to say about a mutation, my groggy mind almost found the idea funny, but slowly I realized it wasn’t something I should consider so lightly, had my body really been changed so haphazardly by such a system, and if so in what way, maybe if I had been of better consciousness I would have coursed widely as such sketchy modification done without consent, but now I could barely hold my eyes open as I once again slipped into a state of unconsciousness
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[Unknown Female voice]: “[Hey! Hey are you alright, hey please open your eyes, ah you’re awake, haha did you drink too much, hey hey, it’s okay no need to look so frightened, but really Miss you shouldn’t fall asleep in a sketchy place like this!”
{Current Time until apocalypse: 213rs, 27m, 53s} .