CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR

  Growth Percentage of Recovery: Remarkable

  Growth Percentage of Control: Remarkable

  Other factors such as Body Prestige, Soul Grade, and Level have been weighed and considered in the assessment of your deeds.

  System achievements, and possible rewards, have been placed on hold until after the evolutionary process has concluded.

  […]

  Analysis Complete.

  Please Choose One Of Three Evolutionary Paths Available To You.

  — 1st F Grade Evolution: Rudimentary Mana Channel.

  Develop a singular rudimentary mana channel, leading from your mana core, and down the length of one extremity. Width, positioning, and mana conductivity dependent on prior deeds.

  — 2nd F Grade Evolution: Standard Mana Channels.

  Develop five standard mana channels, leading from your mana core, along the length of the spine and down all four extremities. Width and mana conductivity dependent on prior deeds.

  — 3rd F Grade Evolution: Hyper-Conductive Mana Channels.

  Develop five extremely conductive mana channels, leading from your mana core, along the length of the spine and down all four extremities. Width dependent on prior deeds.

  The heaping pile of wriggling hands made for an interesting sort of backdrop, Richard had to admit. It left him utterly blind to the outside world. And yet, it was for that very reason that the suffocating mass of grasping fingers served as the ultimate blank canvas. Really made those system screens pop. So you could say, as far as situations one might find themselves on a random Tuesday went, it was something of a mixed bag.

  Thumbs dug into his larynx, trying their best to crush his windpipe. They clawed at his face, his eyes, anything they could get their grubby little fingers on. Barging into places they most certainly were not welcome, and deciding to make themselves at home. Even as he fought to release the scream building at the back of his throat, he remarked on how this had to be what being eaten alive by insects felt like. Only, you know, with a lot more hands.

  Then, abruptly, something changed. A radiant wave of silvery light pulsed out and away from him, accompanied by a wave of force, and a lingering feeling of… something, so weirdly familiar. The gathering of hands were shoved away violently, taking bits of skin and half an earlobe with them as they went. His world suddenly bathed in an aurora of shifting moonlight. A repelling force which periodically punted any skittering hands which dared come near.

  The gathering of primordial deities, for their part, didn’t seem surprised by this new development, so much as annoyed.

  Solsol - The Thing of Grasping Hands was the first to speak. Although “speak” was a bit of a misnomer. What came out was more akin to the friction of an uncountable number of hands. A multilayered cacophony which, through the merit of its sheer vastness, could’ve drowned out a football stadium mid Super Bowl. And yet, thanks in no small part to his Master of Myriad Languages skill, what he heard was more like…

  “MIIIIIINE!”

  A series of grasping hands sprouted forth from its churning fleshy mass. Angling forward on elongated forearms to batter away at his flimsy light barrier, like a monkey with a rock wailing away on a stubborn coconut. The blows rained down like hailstones. Hundreds of hands, quickly followed by thousands. Until his entire field of view was eclipsed by a sea of fists and open palms. And yet… someway, somehow, the defensive bubble held. It bowed ever so slightly. Threatened to pop with every moment that passed. Yet, against all odds, hold it still did.

  The blows suddenly ceased, the arms retracting back into the mass of grasping hands as if nothing had ever happened.

  Purrenthkesk – The Merchant of Myriad Faces, made a deep-chested rumbling noise, which Richard rightly took for amusement. When he spoke, his voice came out cultured and velvety smooth.

  “Curious. It seems this kitten has claws. About time someone curbed that devilish appetite of yours.”

  The Thing of Grasping Hands replied in the same manner as it had the first. This time, however, it’s words—well, word—carried with it a decidedly… whiny undertone? No that couldn’t be right.

  “MIIIIIINE…!”

  “Yes yes, well, it’s not as if you can go around eating every little thing you come across.”

  “MIIIIIINE!”

  The eldritch entity apparently disagreed.

  Suth – Upon Which Curtains Fall, moaned through the stitches sealing her lips closed. Strangely enough, his translation skill failed to pick up whatever it was she said. Purrenthkesk, on the other hand, apparently, had no such difficulties.

  “That’s exactly my point! Consume all there is to consume, and very quickly you’ll find you’ve run out of things worth consuming.”

  “MIIIIIINE?”

  “No, you can’t eat what’s left over. The whole idea is that there wouldn’t be anything left over to eat. It really is such a simple concept. I swear, for every eon that goes by, it’s more and more of a wonder you haven’t wrapped your many hands around it.”

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  Ormotten – The Abstraction of Absence, suddenly interrupted the eldritch bickering. When he spoke, it was the grinding of stone on stone, the whir of innumerable unseen mechanisms, and the steady clunk, clunk, clunk, of grinding gears the size of entire continents. What Richard heard, however, was little more than a child’s dry monotone.

  “The girl. What of the girl?”

  Sherieth – She Who Slumbers in Agony, spoke up next. Her voice the pensive cry of whale-song. A solitary lament. Only growing more desperate as time went on. Never to be acknowledged by another of its kind. Knowing as much to its very core. Yet choosing to continue to reach out in vain, as the alternative was just so much worse. It was a grim picture to have forced upon your mind. And the actual words she spoke weren’t all that much better. She rasped…

  “Led astray by false beliefs and falser promises. Sturdy towers crumble when unforeseen becomes rote. The path twice tread must twice be followed. Else the tallyman comes to collect.”

  And though her words might as well be gibberish to him, Richard couldn’t shake the sense of foreboding which came over him at their utterance.

  “Ugh. Why so dramatic?” came the sultry tones of Purrenthkesk. “I swear, I think we’d all prefer it if you let those naps of yours drag long every once in a while. Not every little occasion requires a dire prophecy.”

  “Sleep is agony!”

  “Yes, yes. So you say. Doesn’t stop you though, does it?”

  “To feel great pain is to know that you are alive!”

  Suth – Upon Which Curtains Fall, let out another long moan, causing more bright red droplets to drip from her chin.

  “Mmmph!”

  Purrenthkesk, raised his paws in the universal sign of surrender.

  “Okay! Alright, I can tell when I’m outnumbered. It was only a jest.”

  “The girl,” the blond boy intoned, myriad pupils flashing with impatience. “Is that not why we convened in the first place? The girl. What of the girl? What of Void’s Herald?”

  “Yes, well, as Sherry here so eloquently put it,” Purrenthkesk nodded towards the eldritch jelly fish entity. “It isn’t she who poses the problem, but instead our fair haired gentleman here.”

  Richard stiffened. He didn’t even have hair in this life, let alone hair that could be considered fair. In his previous one however. Richard locked eyes with the unfathomable entity taking on the guise of an anthropomorphized cat. Its slitted golden pools so large, he felt he could drown in them. It was as far from the romanticized interpretation as one could get.

  “Oh. You’ve been a naughty naughty boy, haven’t you? Keep going as you have been and, well, I’d say you’re liable to step on more than a few toes in the process. Already, that wily patron of yours has thrown something of a wrench in things. Resetting the board really is such childish behavior. Not that it’s especially off-brand for her—you need only look at that barrier of yours for instance—but I digress. Better for everyone we nip this potential problem in the bud here and now, I say.”

  Then the eldritch horror shrugged.

  “Really it’s nothing personal.”

  While Richard’s eyes were still transfixed. His mind was moving a mile a minute. He noted how, despite being completely under the eldritch beings power, the systems prompts were still precisely where they had been.

  “Oh! And don’t worry,” the void god of The Unseen gestured behind him at the wall of wailing faces that rose high into infinity. “When I’m done with you, trust me, you’ll have plenty of company.”

  Unsure of whether it would work, or if it would merely hasten his demise, Richard selected the third F Grade evolutionary path.

  You Have Selected the 3rd F Grade Evolution: Hyper-Conductive Mana Channels.

  F Grade Evolution in Progress…

  Current Progress: 1%

  Current Progress: 3%

  Immediately, his skin began to glow with an inner light, as azure lines were drawn along his spine and down his extremities. Purrenthkesk’s eyes thinned at the sight of this.

  “Now why would you go and do something like that? Do you really think that barrier of hers will hold long enough to save you?”

  The entity flashed a maw of unfathomably sharp teeth.

  “Well, I suppose we’ll just have to find out, now won’t we?”

  In the next moment, all five of the eldritch entities attacked, and the world became bathed with blinding silver radiance.

  +++

  Current Progress: 67%

  Current Progress: 69%

  Current Progress: 71%

  Cracks riddled the dome of swirling silver moonlight separating Richard from the swift kiss of oblivion. A spiderweb of fissures which only grew more and more pronounced as the seconds dragged on. Richard, powerless as he was, transformed into a mere spectator. An impotent witness with regards to his own fate.

  A toy sailboat bobbing along the endless ocean blue, fixated on surviving the next wave and not much else. Seeing as the clash of primordial forces, well outside his control, held no tangible impact on his decision making whatsoever. Either the dome held and he would live, or it wouldn’t, and he would immediately die.

  Funny. When you boiled things down to absolutes like that, it was almost comforting in a way.

  There came a sudden flash. Well, one among dozens. His entire field of view dominated by a gaudy, over the top light show. It was an epileptic’s worst nightmare, and Richard wasn’t having too great a time either. Another crack marred the silver barrier. Spearing towards him like a jagged arc of lightning. Only stopping when it came within a bare few inches of his nose. They were getting dangerously close. It wouldn’t be long now.

  Current Progress: 83%

  Current Progress: 85%

  And yet the evolution still insisted on taking its sweet time! Was this it? Was this how he died?

  Current Progress: 89%

  Current Progress: 91%

  More and more cracks were appearing, extending further and further as they speared forth. Jagged fissures which quickly transformed from a cool moonlight silver, to the dark black of pitch. As if dye dropped into a glass of pristine water. Suddenly, an inky substance began to seep in through the tainted cracks. Pitter pattering against his bare skin. Whereupon they sizzled and spat angrily, eating away at his flesh like acid. This time, Richard did scream. Rubbing his throat raw with his cries. It was agony only comparable to the initial creation of his soul palace.

  Black droplets swiftly burrowing deep inside his flesh. And it didn’t end there, either. Whatever it was, this acidic gunk, it was spreading. Somehow merging with the stuff of his mana channels. Dark veins spreading rapidly along the glowing azure lines.

  Current Progress: 93%

  Current Progress: 95%

  Even as he thrashed and howled, a part of him, the rational part, recognized that the silver dome would not hold. It would come close, agonizingly close, but no cigar. As he watched, the entire protective barrier began to shudder and shift. Collapsing in on itself under the combined assault. He gave himself two seconds before it failed completely.

  And in those two seconds he had, he did the only thing he could think to.

  |Liora’s Embrace| [Legendary]

  What happened next occurred in such quick succession, that it might as well have happened all at once.

  The silver barrier fell. A golden bubble sprung up in its place. A pressure unlike anything it was ever meant to withstand descended. The progress bar reached 100%. And the impenetrable bubble, that was meant to resist all forms of damage, was split cleanly down the middle.

  Somewhere among the stars, far from such petty problems, and even pettier squabbles, a goddess’s shrill scream resounds throughout the ether.

  F Grade Evolution Complete!

  Please Hold While We Transport You…

  In the next moment, Richard vanished. Transported back to the Super Easy Mode Tutorial. Safe, if not entirely sound.