Soul Corruption: System Unavailable [Apocalypse LitRPG]

Watching the gaping hole in his soul that led to the Red Clan Powerguard, Adam frowned. He imagined he could feel a breeze coming through it, bringing in stale, funky energy that mixed with his own. Then his energy, which he envisioned as pure and fresh, was blown into the Powerguard's soul.

Of course, if Adam had considered it, he was the one that had the corrupted energy, with red, black, and gray flecks floating within. And now the Powerguard was corrupted by him too, since their energy mixed. It had taken a few months for the energy to really synchronize in the case of Cruxannith, so Adam didn't doubt the Powerguard's would be more difficult to work with.

Since the Soul Bond had worked, Adam inspected it. The merging of the boundaries between himself and the Powerguard were smoother than Cruxannith's had been for a long time. The tatters of the border had wrapped around each other, looking almost intentionally woven. The smoothness from Cruxannith's and Adam's souls 'healing' together was already in the beginning stages with the Powerguard.

It was still a raw wound, but a clean one that should finish repairing faster than it had taken with Cruxannith.

That meant that for Adam's hopeful plan to work, he needed to bring part of the Powerguard's class into his own soul. There were several differences that he needed to think through than the previous time he did this.

First, when he initially connected Cruxannith's class to his own empty space, it had been rejected. The rejection had been so severe that Adam almost died and had to destroy Cruxannith's class before the [System] built his originally selected option, the [Protector].

Adam wanted to prevent almost killing himself again. He didn't have the [System] to help this time, and while he might be able to manage it, he'd rather not take that chance. After all, there was a nice and useful Tier 3 strength-based class sitting there already. Destroying it would be a waste. Adam wanted to integrate it instead.

That led to the second difficulty. If Adam had to destroy it, then he didn't know the shapes of warrior classes. Adam doubted he'd be able to cobble together a working strength-based class considering the difficulties he had working with Hammond.

Which would be better, to join the Powerguard class with Adam's existing class area, like he did with Cruxannith, or to create a new class space for him to draw on. Which would be more energy efficient? If he had two classes, would he burn through XP too quickly using the varied skills, or would he manage to moderate the skill uses.

He practically had three sets of class skills already, and Adam knew the memory based pseudo-skills were more controllable than the defined class skills. That meant consistent amounts of energy to activate and repeatable results from ones gained through classes.

Traveling through the opening into the Powerguard's soul, Adam followed the energy flow. His energy reached a point inside where it swirled together with the invader's energy before dispersing in different directions to be used.

Adam had already inspected this invader's soul many times, so he knew where everything was located, and he meandered to the contained class. The [System Conduit] had already been replaced with Adam's, just to ensure the [System] couldn't, or wouldn't, interfere.

While Adam inspected the Powerguard class and its skills, trying to take in the shapes, sizes, and densities of all the constructs, he nodded.

"Yup, I can't see it clearly at all."

Everything remains blurry or indistinct, just like all the other times he inspected them. He didn't expect to get a good understanding of the constructs until he could already use them. It was inconvenient and Adam had to admit that he was more than a little concerned about it.

However, before Adam could do anything else, there was a bigger issue he needed to work out. Possibly the deadliest problem of all.

"What do I do about the memory space? I need more room for them, or I won't have space to set up the new class connections."

The options for Adam with his memory were extremely limited based on what he could think of. His soul was bloated with most of the space taken up by memories. There was no other choice but to find a way to split his memories into another space. That meant doing the same as he had done with the class in Cruxannith. He would need to clear out the memory space for the Powerguard and then connect it to his existing space.

There was too much that Adam didn't know. Could his memories spread out that much without him losing them? Could he do it without hand picking which memories would be moved, since that would take more time than he had available? Would using someone else's memory space affect how he stored and referenced his own memories?

All those questions were why it was such a risk. It didn't even take into account that if anything happened to the Powerguard, more of Adam would be lost without hope of repairing or replacing.

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Even with all those concerns, Adam was at an impasse. He couldn't move forward with the class until he dealt with the memories.

Of course, there was also the possibility that once he claimed the Powerguard's memory region for himself, then the cobbled arrangement would all work perfectly.

Adam laughed at even the thought of this going well.

Experience said it wouldn't. Yet, if it didn't, then Adam was screwed. It was pretty much a one attempt gamble. Succeed and he moves on to the next death challenge, fail and the invaders take the Earth. No need to even blow it up should Adam fall.

All those thoughts decided it for Adam. He knew how to make the connecting tube, and he had improved at sensing when things were going wrong while shaping the soul and compensating for it.

He started in the Powerguard's memory region. Using the same method as he did when he erased Cruxannith's memories, he pulled his own energy into the region and surrounded the inside of the boundary. When enough energy was built up and he used [Soul Shatter], it crackled and disintegrated the memories while leaving the boundary as it was.

One of the reasons Adam chose to do this to another from the Red Clan, was because Cruxannith had proven that she would instinctively take in sustenance even without memories. Since the Red Clan consumed blood and gained energy from it, they were convenient creatures even without memories or independent thought.

Adam wasn't sure that other races who only ate food would be able to survive without being able to think for themselves.

It took longer than Adam remembered to shatter all the Powerguard's memories into energy. That was probably due to how cautiously he did it this time, whereas it had been a desperate attack when he wiped out Cruxannith's memory region.

Once he erased the memories, Adam spent more time traveling around the region. Without anything in it, the size shrank a bit, but it was still expansive enough, and Adam knew the Red Clan had larger souls than other races.

Upon losing all the memories, Adam felt the weight of the body shift in his arms. With a quick look from his body, he saw that the Powerguard had gone slack. All his muscles relaxed, and his eyes glazed over and stared blankly at the floor. Carefully, Adam put him on the ground, using the Rift Menu to create a reclined chair for the Powerguard. Then Adam made a chair for himself and returned to his work.

The energy from the memories became the fuel and material that Adam used to form a stretchy tube. The tube was connected to the outside of the memory space and Adam wouldn't open the hole in the boundary until he was satisfied that everything was shaped and formed adequately. He left it ethereal at first, instead of increasing the density, as he formed the shape. It fit nicely within the Powerguard, but he noticed an issue when he arrived at the gaping hole between their souls.

The pressure inside Adam's soul was too great to form the tube in. His soul was definitely too full to create any more constructs within it.

"Is there a problem, Adam?" asked Abbey.

With a disappointed exhale, Adam answered, "yes. I think I need to disconnect my Protector class to create enough leeway to work."

"Is that dangerous?" asked Nick.

"Is it ever not dangerous?" retorted Adam. "I can't think of another option, and I should be able to reconnect it afterwards. Have someone watch Cruxannith to make sure she's alright."

"On it," volunteered Lamar.

With that stated, Adam went into his own class region. He built a new barrier from where the tube connecting his class area to Cruxannith's was. Then he created a second barrier within the tube.

As soon as he used [Soul Shatter] to cut the connection, the tube snapped like a rubber band and was drawn back into Cruxannith's soul. The sensation made Adam gasp, and gave him a slight feeling of relief, with his soul less bloated. Of course, he also had to reassure his friends that he was ok.

That gave him the room to continue building the tube to his memory region, where he attached it, but waited to open it.

"Here goes everything," said Adam. He could feel the tension in his body and the anxious mood of the people around him.

When he cut the boundary between his memories and the tube, and then the cap he had placed at the end of the tube, a new sensation caused him to choke. Both Adam's soul body and the physical one bent over.

Hands grabbed Adam to keep him from falling, and he lost focus within the soul. It wasn't painful, but there was a very different sensation.

"I gotta…" started Adam, before he realized he didn't remember how he was going to finish the sentence. He frowned.

"It's like when I…" Once again, he couldn't quite remember.

Adam looked around. Everything felt familiar, but fuzzy, like he was trying to remember a dream.

"Things aren't what they should be," he said lamely, all his friends looking at him with concern.

"What's happening, darling?" asked Andrea.

"I don't know," admitted Adam. "I'm having trouble thinking and remembering. It's like only half…"

"…of the thoughts are there," finished the Powerguard.

The sound of weapons being drawn echoed out, and then five blades were aimed at the Powerguard. He looked up at them from the chair he was on, his expression hard to read on such an alien face, but it seemed mild and indifferent.

Adam squinted at the Powerguard and then looked at his friends in confusion. He was having difficulty concentrating on things he should know, the thoughts sliding out of his reach as soon as he tried remembering.

"What's going on?" he asked with a stutter. "Why the weapons, guys?"

"This invader went from a vegetable to talking," said Tom with venom.

"Shouldn't he be too dumb to speak?" asked Joseph.

Once more, Adam squinted at the Powerguard. He was just as hideous as Adam remembered him…remembered. Adam concentrated, his face screwed up from the difficulty. Then a thought flashed through his mind about invaders and anger.

"He's pretty scary looking. Is that a monster mask?" asked Adam.

"Don't hurt him," ordered Brittney. "Remember, anything we do to him will hurt Adam too."

"That's a problem," said Nick, looking full of concern.

"Yes, you definitely don't want to hurt me," said the Powerguard, holding still as he looked at the people, and weapons, around him.

"You should be brain dead," said Andrea. "How did you come back?"

"I probably should have realized this before working on our souls," said the Powerguard.

"I didn't think a Powerguard had the ability to work on souls," wondered Elias.

"They don't," responded the invader.

"Then who are you?" asked Lucas, his sword still aimed at the hideous head.

The Powerguard let out a warbling chuckle, his teeth getting in the way of the sounds. No one else looked amused.

Then he answered.

"I'm Adam. Adam Clemens."

"Oh, hell no!" cursed Abbey in shock.