You may also evolve your class.
Try as I might, the text won’t go away. The voices, at least, only speak every now and again rather than remaining as a constant drone in my head.
I wonder if there’s any merit in listening to it. Last time, the thing in my dream-space took over my body, but I was able to wrestle myself back. Now, I have even more skills to fight against it along with a bevy of traits, and I’m more prepared.
Most importantly, I still have a soul this time. Soulpyre burns my soul energy to use, but it’s unique in that it doesn’t only need to consume mine. So long as I have fuel for it, whether it’s my soul or an enemy’s, the fire will stay lit.
Though all I have is conjecture for the time being, I think that the lack of a soul played a major role in my near complete inability to fight back last time.
I still don’t want to risk it. Not yet. Not unless I need to.
There’s an immediate goal to achieve.
Though the system hasn’t exactly had my best interests in mind this entire time, our interests are aligned here. 3000 XP will guarantee that I advance to level 16, and though I’m not sure if it’ll take me to 17 or not, it should get me close.
Also, it’ll gain me the resource of the deep dweller swarm. Limited though they may be at the moment, they’ve still survived. I don’t know how effective they will be, but Sapphire is still gradually approaching, and I do not want to be here when she arrives.
Bloodpath isn’t enough to get me out of here, so I’m going to have to rely on the dwellers. They can build, and that means opportunities.
Putting my faith in someone else is an unfamiliar feeling. I don’t think I like it. Especially not with these dwellers, who have already demonstrated the capability and desire to overwhelm me and… and me to their swarm? I’m not exactly sure what their grouped skill would’ve done to me.
“Where is my target?” I ask the swarm, not letting a hint of my thoughts show on my face. Acting does a lot on that front.
“Nowhere,” the swarm replies. “Everywhere. Search and you will find.”
That is entirely unhelpful, which is about as much as I expected out of them.
“Will you be accompanying me?” I ask.
That gets me a disconcerted buzz from the hundred or so dwellers. “No. The mother… consumes.”
Oh, lovely. “Then where will I find you?”
In the darkness of the first level, I almost miss the characteristic glint of polished steel. Enough of my blood is scattered around the area that I sense the coin-sized lump tumbling end over end through the air.
I can’t tell which one of the dwellers threw it, but I catch it easily enough. Their aim is immaculate. It probably would’ve bounced off my forehead if I hadn’t sensed it with my dispersed cloud of blood drops.
The metal disk is almost uncomfortably warm in my hands, and I get the strong sensation that it wants something from me.
“Mana compass,” the swarm chitters, as if that explains anything.
Passing a bit of magic power into it creates a burning dot in my mind, just like how Locate Person operates. Even with my eyes screwed shut, I can identify the target.
They’ve packed a skill to track themselves into an item.
“Got it,” I say, turning around. “I’ll be back.”
They must trust me a lot. Why would anyone ever hand a stranger the ability to locate them in perpetuity?
Maybe the item stops functioning if they choose to disable it. Maybe they’re stupid and blindly put faith in strangers, which would explain their apparently-diminishing numbers.
Maybe they’re just that desperate.
Whatever the case, I’ve got an objective to complete. The Forgotten Queen, that’s my target. I have no idea how to get to her. I don’t even know what she looks like.
It is kindred.
I sigh, stepping over a patch of broken rusty spikes as I crest yet another scrap heap. Around me, I have my blood sense checking for any creatures that might be sneaking up on me, but it appears that the “little ones” really do stay away from the dweller swarm.
“Are you going to be useful?” I ask the irritating system text. I know that this isn’t the primary system. I know that what’s waiting for me there is the creature that hijacked my mind before.
But if it wants to offer information, I’m not going to say no. I doubt anything it tells me is going to be fully accurate, but I don’t even know where to start here.
Then again, it hasn’t exactly communicated back yet. I don’t know if it can even hear me.
A goddess, broken but still powerful in its own right. You may also choose to evolve your own class.
“Stop fucking doing that,” I hiss. “Stop trying things.”
I’m half tempted to just go for it and accept the class evolution, taking my chances against my passenger. Given that Sapphire is only forty miles away now, that’s growing increasingly tempting.
Not now, though. For once, my passenger is actually being helpful. It’s actually communicating.
“If you know where it is, then guide me,” I say. “Show me the way.”
You may also choose to evolve your class.
I spoke too soon.
“Fine,” I tell the air. “I’ll find her myself.”
Not that I have any idea of where I’m going. I suppose I’ll operate like I did way back at the lab. I’ll wander around until I run into problems, practicing whatever skills I can as I go.
Antimemetic Resistance isn’t leveling up, but I hope that’s because I haven’t seen any monsters that hide themself from my perception, not because there are anomalies that entirely evade me.
As I walk through the heaps of ruined metal, a thin cloud of blood surrounding me to serve as my eyes, I consider my skills and try to determine which one I should replace with Antimemetic Cloak.
The other skills I have to choose from are Electric Shield, Electromagnetism, and of course the classic Fireball. While they’re all viable choices, Antimemetic Cloak is just by far the superior option.
Antimemetic Cloak (Rare)
Tier: Silver
Become mundane enough to be part of the scenery. For up to 6 minutes per hour, you will appear entirely unremarkable to vulnerable onlookers.
It’s limited, and anyone with Antimemetic Resistance like I do is likely going to be able to break through it at a basic level. I’ll miss the defensive capabilities that Electric Shield could offer and the ranged attacks that the latter two would give me. I don’t have any ranged attacks stronger than Shape Blood and Misty Mirage, but the ability to just completely hide myself is just too strong to give up.
Which skill should I give up? I look down the list.
I think one of Stealth, Disguise Self, Paralyzing Bite, or Firearms can go. I’m loathe to give up any of them, but of the list of extremely useful skills I have, those are probably the ones that I can afford to lose.
Antimemetic Cloak will eventually serve the same purpose as Stealth and Disguise Self. Paralyzing Bite is useful, but I’m getting into situations where I can’t viably bite my enemy more and more frequently.
Ultimately, I choose Firearms. It’s a Bronze tier skill at only level 8, and I haven’t had the chance to actually use a gun in a hot second.
Crucially, I know for a fact that I can pick up the skill again just by practicing with a gun. That’s how I got it in the first place, after all.
Firearms (Bronze) was replaced by Antimemetic Cloak (Silver)!
It’s not until I’m finished swapping out the skills that I realize I’ve been walking without any particular direction in mind for nearly five minutes, and I still haven’t found a single enemy.
Is it the dweller-finding item? I reach into my pockets to feel for it, and the location of the swarm pops into mind. They moved in the opposite direction as me, which means I should be well out of the radius of their anomaly-repelling effect.
Why is nothing attacking? For that matter, why can’t I even detect anything running away? I don’t have that much blood, so the radius that my Shape Blood affects is only a couple hundred feet, but there still should be something.
They run from me. The Forgotten Queen will not raise her voice while you are weak.
Somehow, I’m not surprised. Irritated, maybe, but surprised?
I sigh. “You are the most useless divine being I’ve ever met.”
That said, I finally decide to bite the bullet.
I accept the class evolution.
The few lights in the darkness around me fade , replacing itself with a painfully familiar void.
A single star stares back at me.
The last time this occurred, I waited for what the system says was a total of eighteen years. My patience has not changed, especially since I know that time isn’t passing very quickly outside, but my tolerance for my passenger’s bullshit absolutely has.
I can’t control my blood in here. None of it was brought in.
But my skills work, and so do my resistances. Last time, I came in with a broken soul and a complete lack of ability to affect this broken place.
This time, I know what I’m up against.
“Manifest yourself,” I tell the air.
When it doesn’t respond, I activate my Soulknife.
Crushing pressure bears down on me, attempting to snuff out my skill like a candle, but I have something I didn’t last time.
Divine Resistance advanced to level 12!
The skill sputters in my hands, and the blade only half-forms, leaving me holding a broken golden dagger, but that’s more than enough.
Where the stars formed last time, ever so slowly creating the shape of my dream-mirror, the passenger did something. It exploited the broken parts of my soul to slip in and hijack the class evolution.
This time, I tear the void apart myself. It feels wrong to attack what should be my own soul using a weapon formed out of the same material, but I need to remind myself that the space I’m in isn’t truly part of me. It’s a trap that I’ve fallen for once.
Not this time.
My golden blade tears through the darkness, and the void around me bleeds.
Soulknife advanced to level 9!
It doesn’t bleed blood. Of course it doesn’t. The broken god in my head isn’t a being of flesh and blood. If it was, it wouldn’t need to take my body.
Instead, it’s like the utter darkness of the void is a cloth covering the world beyond. Each slash tears darkness away, revealing the familiar sterile white of the room where my normal and broken evolution occurred.
Soulknife advanced to level 10!
Just as before, a twisted copy of myself waits beyond the darkness. Rather than waiting years for the stars to assemble themselves into her, though, I break the void bit by bit by bit until only fragments of the darkness remain.
You have grown stronger, my clone says. As before, her voice is not mine. It’s the same cacophony of a thousand voices that it usually is.
This time, though, one of those voices feels louder.
“And you’re not touching me this time,” I reply.
Are you sure about that?
The overlapping voices screech, and the noise briefly stuns me.
My twisted copy disappears. At the same time, a hand comes to rest on my shoulder.
Twisting chaos snakes into my soul, a sensation that I’ve felt only once before.
This time, though, it’s slower. Rather than a sudden and total violation of my self, I can feel the tendrils trying to break through my defenses.
My defenses. I have those now.
I stab backwards with a fury that surprises even myself.
The blade connects with air, but the hand on my shoulder disappears.
When the fake Evelyn reappears in front of me, the sensation of its corruption dissipates as well. I watch as tendrils of black energy drift away from me, returning to the thing in front of me.
“Stop trying that,” I say. “If you’re going to offer something, then offer.”
It was worth an attempt.
I huff out an irritated sigh. A second here is practically no time at all in the real world, but this piece of shattered divinity is wasting my time.
I can show you the way to the Forgotten Queen. All you must do is give in.
And that, finally, is too much. The simmering mess of resentment and rage formed from the perfect storm of shit piled upon threats to my life.
“You forget your place,” I snarl, stepping towards it. The fake copy of myself doesn’t move. “You call me weak and yourself strong. You tell me that you’re my only hope.
“Both of us fell into this abyss, and I’ll remind you that only one of us clawed out. It wasn’t you. You can’t get to me anymore. You couldn’t even get to me when my soul was broken and I had nothing.
“And before you think you can outlast me, you can’t. I spent eighteen fucking years waiting for you to emerge last time, and don’t you dare think that I’ll spend any less time fighting you off if I need to. I can hurt you. I can hurt the place you live in.
“I will gladly burn my soul to a crisp if that’s what it takes to be rid of you. Try me.”
It tries me.
The fake version of me dives forward, vanishing into dark nothingness as it does, and I stab outwards. I don’t connect with it, but it doesn’t hit me either.
I activate Blood Echo. My clone steps away from me—then fades away, the artificial blood dissipating into thin air.
There is nothing in this space but you and I. No conjuration will succeed here.
That gives me more information than the broken deity thinks it does.
Just like with the Titan, this place is a construct of the soul. It’s not the real world. My copy can’t kill me here, and I can’t die. My magic doesn’t follow normal rules either, and neither does my stamina.
And it’s my soul that this place is anchored to, not the deity’s.
So I tear my skin apart with sharpened nails, slicing my arms to freely access my own blood. Though conjurations might not work in a place that doesn’t exist physically, the fluid is still part of me. This soulspace will consider it to be part of me.
Which part of my amalgam even fed me that information? Why do I know more about souls now? This would’ve been useful a while ago.
Whatever. I have a god to subdue.
Shape Blood gives me a sense of space in the void and a method to attack my enemy, and I make full use of it. Somehow, it makes the area feel more real. While the two of us were kind of just drifting in a featureless space before, grounding the place with my extra senses changes something physically.
I step on a floor that shouldn’t exist, and the inferior copy of me tries to infect me again.
Divine Resistance advanced to level 13!
And again.
Divine Resistance advanced to level 14!
And again.
Divine Resistance advanced to level 15!
When I told it that I was willing to spend any amount of time here, I wasn’t lying. Yes, it’s an utter waste, and there’s no telling what’s happening to my body out in the real world.
But this piece of shit will never have a say in what I do again.
Again and again and again and again it tries. I don’t even bother keeping track of time this go around. My system will catch up with it, I’m sure.
Divine Resistance advanced to level 18!
Its attempts start to blend together. Over hours, days, weeks, I learn its patterns. It manages to lay a hand on me several times over the course of our battle, but the infection never holds.
Divine Resistance advanced to level 23!
As time passes, it starts to get predictable. I start landing hits. I nick it once with the Soulknife, then again with a sharpened piece of my blood. Another time, it manages to wrap a hand around my neck only for me to Shape Self and grow spikes out through its fingers, paralyzing it for long enough for me to land a hit of my own.
It recovers from everything, which doesn’t surprise me. When I crawled out of the abyss back in Ravendale, I Devoured this thing over and over until it stopped moving, and it’s evidently still here.
The broken god won’t die, and I won’t give in.
You cannot win, it says.
“Neither can you,” I reply.
And so we fight and we fight and we fight.
At some point that could be three hours or days or years in, a memory flashes through my mind, unbidden.
There’s just one problem with gods. Powerful though they may be, they can never learn.
Divine Resistance advanced to level 30!
Sure enough, even as I adapt to its attacks, even as my defenses gradually rise, my foe never innovates itself.
I may not be able to win, but…
“Eventually, something is going to kill me,” I say. “Time passes differently in here, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t passing outside.”
Correct, the Evelyn-swarm says. It doesn’t even bother opening my clone’s mouth. Surrender, and we shall survive.
“Not seeing a reason to,” I grunt. “When the system threw me against a clone of myself to advance, she was superior in every way. You… are not her. You’re a pale imitation of it. You can’t even match up to me.
“And when I die, you’re going to go down with me. Don’t pretend like you selected a host because you were thriving on your own.”
I tap the bloody trails that my nails have dug in my arms. “This won’t kill me. You won’t kill me. So stop fucking wasting my time, or the two of us are going to die together.”
It stops moving.
Nearly three hours later, it finally replies. It doesn’t even hold up the pretense of being me anymore, choosing instead to dissolve into a latticework of divine material.
I yield.
“Fantastic,” I say. “Now, do something useful before I decide to burn us both.”
It takes time to ponder on that too. Less than before, thankfully.
I will lead you to the Forgotten Queen.
I blink, and I am once again standing in the lowest level of Novarath. The void-spattered white of the soulspace is completely gone now, replaced by much more mundane darkness.
I have found the Queen.
“Good,” I whisper, creating a Soulknife in my hand and studying its dim light. “Just remember this: you will never defeat me.”
Trait earned: Heretic
You have subdued a god, albeit one that is a shadow of its former self. You gain the Divine and Demonic magic affinities at stage 3.
New skills available!
You may gain up to one Gold-tier skill from the following list.
Smite
Bless
Retribution
You may gain up to one Gold-tier skill from the following list.
Corrupt
Soulrend
Abyssal Echo
You may also evolve your class.
Try as I might, the text won’t go away. The voices, at least, only speak every now and again rather than remaining as a constant drone in my head.
I wonder if there’s any merit in listening to it. Last time, the thing in my dream-space took over my body, but I was able to wrestle myself back. Now, I have even more skills to fight against it along with a bevy of traits, and I’m more prepared.
Most importantly, I still have a soul this time. Soulpyre burns my soul energy to use, but it’s unique in that it doesn’t only need to consume mine. So long as I have fuel for it, whether it’s my soul or an enemy’s, the fire will stay lit.
Though all I have is conjecture for the time being, I think that the lack of a soul played a major role in my near complete inability to fight back last time.
I still don’t want to risk it. Not yet. Not unless I need to.
There’s an immediate goal to achieve.
Though the system hasn’t exactly had my best interests in mind this entire time, our interests are aligned here. 3000 XP will guarantee that I advance to level 16, and though I’m not sure if it’ll take me to 17 or not, it should get me close.
Also, it’ll gain me the resource of the deep dweller swarm. Limited though they may be at the moment, they’ve still survived. I don’t know how effective they will be, but Sapphire is still gradually approaching, and I do not want to be here when she arrives.
Bloodpath isn’t enough to get me out of here, so I’m going to have to rely on the dwellers. They can build, and that means opportunities.
Putting my faith in someone else is an unfamiliar feeling. I don’t think I like it. Especially not with these dwellers, who have already demonstrated the capability and desire to overwhelm me and… and me to their swarm? I’m not exactly sure what their grouped skill would’ve done to me.
“Where is my target?” I ask the swarm, not letting a hint of my thoughts show on my face. Acting does a lot on that front.
“Nowhere,” the swarm replies. “Everywhere. Search and you will find.”
That is entirely unhelpful, which is about as much as I expected out of them.
“Will you be accompanying me?” I ask.
That gets me a disconcerted buzz from the hundred or so dwellers. “No. The mother… consumes.”
Oh, lovely. “Then where will I find you?”
In the darkness of the first level, I almost miss the characteristic glint of polished steel. Enough of my blood is scattered around the area that I sense the coin-sized lump tumbling end over end through the air.
I can’t tell which one of the dwellers threw it, but I catch it easily enough. Their aim is immaculate. It probably would’ve bounced off my forehead if I hadn’t sensed it with my dispersed cloud of blood drops.
The metal disk is almost uncomfortably warm in my hands, and I get the strong sensation that it wants something from me.
“Mana compass,” the swarm chitters, as if that explains anything.
Passing a bit of magic power into it creates a burning dot in my mind, just like how Locate Person operates. Even with my eyes screwed shut, I can identify the target.
They’ve packed a skill to track themselves into an item.
“Got it,” I say, turning around. “I’ll be back.”
They must trust me a lot. Why would anyone ever hand a stranger the ability to locate them in perpetuity?
Maybe the item stops functioning if they choose to disable it. Maybe they’re stupid and blindly put faith in strangers, which would explain their apparently-diminishing numbers.
Maybe they’re just that desperate.
Whatever the case, I’ve got an objective to complete. The Forgotten Queen, that’s my target. I have no idea how to get to her. I don’t even know what she looks like.
It is kindred.
I sigh, stepping over a patch of broken rusty spikes as I crest yet another scrap heap. Around me, I have my blood sense checking for any creatures that might be sneaking up on me, but it appears that the “little ones” really do stay away from the dweller swarm.
“Are you going to be useful?” I ask the irritating system text. I know that this isn’t the primary system. I know that what’s waiting for me there is the creature that hijacked my mind before.
But if it wants to offer information, I’m not going to say no. I doubt anything it tells me is going to be fully accurate, but I don’t even know where to start here.
Then again, it hasn’t exactly communicated back yet. I don’t know if it can even hear me.
A goddess, broken but still powerful in its own right. You may also choose to evolve your own class.
“Stop fucking doing that,” I hiss. “Stop trying things.”
I’m half tempted to just go for it and accept the class evolution, taking my chances against my passenger. Given that Sapphire is only forty miles away now, that’s growing increasingly tempting.
Not now, though. For once, my passenger is actually being helpful. It’s actually communicating.
“If you know where it is, then guide me,” I say. “Show me the way.”
You may also choose to evolve your class.
I spoke too soon.
“Fine,” I tell the air. “I’ll find her myself.”
Not that I have any idea of where I’m going. I suppose I’ll operate like I did way back at the lab. I’ll wander around until I run into problems, practicing whatever skills I can as I go.
Antimemetic Resistance isn’t leveling up, but I hope that’s because I haven’t seen any monsters that hide themself from my perception, not because there are anomalies that entirely evade me.
As I walk through the heaps of ruined metal, a thin cloud of blood surrounding me to serve as my eyes, I consider my skills and try to determine which one I should replace with Antimemetic Cloak.
The other skills I have to choose from are Electric Shield, Electromagnetism, and of course the classic Fireball. While they’re all viable choices, Antimemetic Cloak is just by far the superior option.
Antimemetic Cloak (Rare)
Tier: Silver
Become mundane enough to be part of the scenery. For up to 6 minutes per hour, you will appear entirely unremarkable to vulnerable onlookers.
It’s limited, and anyone with Antimemetic Resistance like I do is likely going to be able to break through it at a basic level. I’ll miss the defensive capabilities that Electric Shield could offer and the ranged attacks that the latter two would give me. I don’t have any ranged attacks stronger than Shape Blood and Misty Mirage, but the ability to just completely hide myself is just too strong to give up.
Which skill should I give up? I look down the list.
I think one of Stealth, Disguise Self, Paralyzing Bite, or Firearms can go. I’m loathe to give up any of them, but of the list of extremely useful skills I have, those are probably the ones that I can afford to lose.
Antimemetic Cloak will eventually serve the same purpose as Stealth and Disguise Self. Paralyzing Bite is useful, but I’m getting into situations where I can’t viably bite my enemy more and more frequently.
Ultimately, I choose Firearms. It’s a Bronze tier skill at only level 8, and I haven’t had the chance to actually use a gun in a hot second.
Crucially, I know for a fact that I can pick up the skill again just by practicing with a gun. That’s how I got it in the first place, after all.
Firearms (Bronze) was replaced by Antimemetic Cloak (Silver)!
It’s not until I’m finished swapping out the skills that I realize I’ve been walking without any particular direction in mind for nearly five minutes, and I still haven’t found a single enemy.
Is it the dweller-finding item? I reach into my pockets to feel for it, and the location of the swarm pops into mind. They moved in the opposite direction as me, which means I should be well out of the radius of their anomaly-repelling effect.
Why is nothing attacking? For that matter, why can’t I even detect anything running away? I don’t have that much blood, so the radius that my Shape Blood affects is only a couple hundred feet, but there still should be something.
They run from me. The Forgotten Queen will not raise her voice while you are weak.
Somehow, I’m not surprised. Irritated, maybe, but surprised?
I sigh. “You are the most useless divine being I’ve ever met.”
That said, I finally decide to bite the bullet.
I accept the class evolution.
The few lights in the darkness around me fade , replacing itself with a painfully familiar void.
A single star stares back at me.
The last time this occurred, I waited for what the system says was a total of eighteen years. My patience has not changed, especially since I know that time isn’t passing very quickly outside, but my tolerance for my passenger’s bullshit absolutely has.
I can’t control my blood in here. None of it was brought in.
But my skills work, and so do my resistances. Last time, I came in with a broken soul and a complete lack of ability to affect this broken place.
This time, I know what I’m up against.
“Manifest yourself,” I tell the air.
When it doesn’t respond, I activate my Soulknife.
Crushing pressure bears down on me, attempting to snuff out my skill like a candle, but I have something I didn’t last time.
Divine Resistance advanced to level 12!
The skill sputters in my hands, and the blade only half-forms, leaving me holding a broken golden dagger, but that’s more than enough.
Where the stars formed last time, ever so slowly creating the shape of my dream-mirror, the passenger did something. It exploited the broken parts of my soul to slip in and hijack the class evolution.
This time, I tear the void apart myself. It feels wrong to attack what should be my own soul using a weapon formed out of the same material, but I need to remind myself that the space I’m in isn’t truly part of me. It’s a trap that I’ve fallen for once.
Not this time.
My golden blade tears through the darkness, and the void around me bleeds.
Soulknife advanced to level 9!
It doesn’t bleed blood. Of course it doesn’t. The broken god in my head isn’t a being of flesh and blood. If it was, it wouldn’t need to take my body.
Instead, it’s like the utter darkness of the void is a cloth covering the world beyond. Each slash tears darkness away, revealing the familiar sterile white of the room where my normal and broken evolution occurred.
Soulknife advanced to level 10!
Just as before, a twisted copy of myself waits beyond the darkness. Rather than waiting years for the stars to assemble themselves into her, though, I break the void bit by bit by bit until only fragments of the darkness remain.
You have grown stronger, my clone says. As before, her voice is not mine. It’s the same cacophony of a thousand voices that it usually is.
This time, though, one of those voices feels louder.
“And you’re not touching me this time,” I reply.
Are you sure about that?
The overlapping voices screech, and the noise briefly stuns me.
My twisted copy disappears. At the same time, a hand comes to rest on my shoulder.
Twisting chaos snakes into my soul, a sensation that I’ve felt only once before.
This time, though, it’s slower. Rather than a sudden and total violation of my self, I can feel the tendrils trying to break through my defenses.
My defenses. I have those now.
I stab backwards with a fury that surprises even myself.
The blade connects with air, but the hand on my shoulder disappears.
When the fake Evelyn reappears in front of me, the sensation of its corruption dissipates as well. I watch as tendrils of black energy drift away from me, returning to the thing in front of me.
“Stop trying that,” I say. “If you’re going to offer something, then offer.”
It was worth an attempt.
I huff out an irritated sigh. A second here is practically no time at all in the real world, but this piece of shattered divinity is wasting my time.
I can show you the way to the Forgotten Queen. All you must do is give in.
And that, finally, is too much. The simmering mess of resentment and rage formed from the perfect storm of shit piled upon threats to my life.
“You forget your place,” I snarl, stepping towards it. The fake copy of myself doesn’t move. “You call me weak and yourself strong. You tell me that you’re my only hope.
“Both of us fell into this abyss, and I’ll remind you that only one of us clawed out. It wasn’t you. You can’t get to me anymore. You couldn’t even get to me when my soul was broken and I had nothing.
“And before you think you can outlast me, you can’t. I spent eighteen fucking years waiting for you to emerge last time, and don’t you dare think that I’ll spend any less time fighting you off if I need to. I can hurt you. I can hurt the place you live in.
“I will gladly burn my soul to a crisp if that’s what it takes to be rid of you. Try me.”
It tries me.
The fake version of me dives forward, vanishing into dark nothingness as it does, and I stab outwards. I don’t connect with it, but it doesn’t hit me either.
I activate Blood Echo. My clone steps away from me—then fades away, the artificial blood dissipating into thin air.
There is nothing in this space but you and I. No conjuration will succeed here.
That gives me more information than the broken deity thinks it does.
Just like with the Titan, this place is a construct of the soul. It’s not the real world. My copy can’t kill me here, and I can’t die. My magic doesn’t follow normal rules either, and neither does my stamina.
And it’s my soul that this place is anchored to, not the deity’s.
So I tear my skin apart with sharpened nails, slicing my arms to freely access my own blood. Though conjurations might not work in a place that doesn’t exist physically, the fluid is still part of me. This soulspace will consider it to be part of me.
Which part of my amalgam even fed me that information? Why do I know more about souls now? This would’ve been useful a while ago.
Whatever. I have a god to subdue.
Shape Blood gives me a sense of space in the void and a method to attack my enemy, and I make full use of it. Somehow, it makes the area feel more real. While the two of us were kind of just drifting in a featureless space before, grounding the place with my extra senses changes something physically.
I step on a floor that shouldn’t exist, and the inferior copy of me tries to infect me again.
Divine Resistance advanced to level 13!
And again.
Divine Resistance advanced to level 14!
And again.
Divine Resistance advanced to level 15!
When I told it that I was willing to spend any amount of time here, I wasn’t lying. Yes, it’s an utter waste, and there’s no telling what’s happening to my body out in the real world.
But this piece of shit will never have a say in what I do again.
Again and again and again and again it tries. I don’t even bother keeping track of time this go around. My system will catch up with it, I’m sure.
Divine Resistance advanced to level 18!
Its attempts start to blend together. Over hours, days, weeks, I learn its patterns. It manages to lay a hand on me several times over the course of our battle, but the infection never holds.
Divine Resistance advanced to level 23!
As time passes, it starts to get predictable. I start landing hits. I nick it once with the Soulknife, then again with a sharpened piece of my blood. Another time, it manages to wrap a hand around my neck only for me to Shape Self and grow spikes out through its fingers, paralyzing it for long enough for me to land a hit of my own.
It recovers from everything, which doesn’t surprise me. When I crawled out of the abyss back in Ravendale, I Devoured this thing over and over until it stopped moving, and it’s evidently still here.
The broken god won’t die, and I won’t give in.
You cannot win, it says.
“Neither can you,” I reply.
And so we fight and we fight and we fight.
At some point that could be three hours or days or years in, a memory flashes through my mind, unbidden.
There’s just one problem with gods. Powerful though they may be, they can never learn.
Divine Resistance advanced to level 30!
Sure enough, even as I adapt to its attacks, even as my defenses gradually rise, my foe never innovates itself.
I may not be able to win, but…
“Eventually, something is going to kill me,” I say. “Time passes differently in here, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t passing outside.”
Correct, the Evelyn-swarm says. It doesn’t even bother opening my clone’s mouth. Surrender, and we shall survive.
“Not seeing a reason to,” I grunt. “When the system threw me against a clone of myself to advance, she was superior in every way. You… are not her. You’re a pale imitation of it. You can’t even match up to me.
“And when I die, you’re going to go down with me. Don’t pretend like you selected a host because you were thriving on your own.”
I tap the bloody trails that my nails have dug in my arms. “This won’t kill me. You won’t kill me. So stop fucking wasting my time, or the two of us are going to die together.”
It stops moving.
Nearly three hours later, it finally replies. It doesn’t even hold up the pretense of being me anymore, choosing instead to dissolve into a latticework of divine material.
I yield.
“Fantastic,” I say. “Now, do something useful before I decide to burn us both.”
It takes time to ponder on that too. Less than before, thankfully.
I will lead you to the Forgotten Queen.
I blink, and I am once again standing in the lowest level of Novarath. The void-spattered white of the soulspace is completely gone now, replaced by much more mundane darkness.
I have found the Queen.
“Good,” I whisper, creating a Soulknife in my hand and studying its dim light. “Just remember this: you will never defeat me.”
Trait earned: Heretic
You have subdued a god, albeit one that is a shadow of its former self. You gain the Divine and Demonic magic affinities at stage 3.
New skills available!
You may gain up to one Gold-tier skill from the following list.
Smite
Bless
Retribution
You may gain up to one Gold-tier skill from the following list.
Corrupt
Soulrend
Abyssal Echo
