Optional Music to Accompany the Chapter:
Rok Nardin - Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (Epic Version)
syoutu.be/A6Y82YjXMhU
Early Morning - Early Sumr : Year 0 | Month 0 : Sector Q14
World: Leviathan | Rank: ERROR | Population: 23
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WOOOOOSH In that world, wind never ceased. Only broken up by the mountains to the west, the winds endlessly built speed over the plains. The farther east you went, the more ferocious they got.
No matter what you believed had to be the limit.
If you went far enough, the only things that could continue to grow were smaller weeds beneath the protection of the endless, steel-bladed grass.
No trees.. no hills.. no breaks.. no folds...
That was at least until you found a 'remnant': a city of one of the ancient civilizations that lost their fight with the System in their world. Typically containing vast swaths of abandoned gear and resources, they were what I usually looked for during the days I jumped between those desolate rocks.
But that day was different.
In this world I didn't want armor or a weapon...
I wanted information.
In this place, I was hoping to learn a bit about the gods that inhabited this world in hopes I could find where one was huddled. -Every world in the system has an administrator. If I can just find the one here, I can maybe figure out a way back to Earth...-
But this ti.. it seed like nature had already reclaid whatever clues I was ant to find.
Standing atop an ancient stone brick pillar only left standing thanks to the protection of the dense ivy infesting it, I looked over the vast swath of flowers blooming in its wake with a troubled look.
It had been a number of weeks since I arrived in the world at that point, but while I would have typically found hundreds of cities in that ti, the only one to grace with its presence was the one before ...
A vast sea of rubble ho to a single standing pillar that protected a small bed of flowers...
They were beautiful.. blue and red, yellow and orange.. but just the sa, they blood atop the grave of a civilization whose only remnant was tower of rocks...
"Haah..." To say it was a bad sign was an understatent...
It wasn't the first ti I had co across such a desolate world, far from it actually, but typically, even in the most destroyed worlds, steeples, churches, or other religious centers would remain, if only partially. Even in world-fall, the gods would protect their idols, not only to instill hope in the few worshippers that remained, but to ensure they never lost touch with what they once had.
However, in this empty expanse, there was nothing... No steeple or cross...
Just a shapeless column of stone at the edge of a vast field of rocks...
But, it wasn't all bad. -A god must still exists here...- Although the stone column and bed of flowers didn't give many hints, the ivy protecting the pillar wasn't natural. No where else on the continent I had explored did I see it grow. -This must be a place the god valued...- And as such, the ivy was the protection it granted.
-But.. why...- tap... Thump Hopping down into the flowers, I landed on a soft bed of soil, moist from the condensed fog curling around the pillar.
There must have been sothing here the god wanted to protect.. a moir, an artifact, or even a skeleton.
But.. there was nothing. Below the few centiters of soft soil, only a bed of rubble remained.
So, I was left to guess.
I had a few options in mind as to what it could be, but none of them I had much confidence in. -I really need to find another structure.. or so place with this ivy...-
But.. that chance never ca...
As I eventually stood back up to get moving again, my system caught .
Beep It was a yellow admin panel: 'Security breach detected. Exploiting user located in sector G10.'
-Huh? 'Exploiting user'..?- It wasn't a term I was particularly unfamiliar with, generally just being a label for system users that abuse loop holes and grey areas within the system, for their benefit.
But.. sothing about it felt off. -G10... isn't that where the wyvern was?-
Opening my map after a mont of thought, I spun the globe to find the wyvern's dot moving. -Southeast...- Tracing the line it seed to be moving, it was headed straight for the field I experinted on Bella in. -Did he use an exploit to find the carcasses or sothing..?-
At first, I thought nothing of it...
But that was when I zood in.
-Huh..?- At the edge of the sector, exactly where the carcasses laid, I saw a small white dot I had never seen before. -What is that? Did my presence bury it when I was in the area?-
Tapping on it without much more thought, a local system panel appeared in a blink—naless and empty.
It read.. -'Unregistered'..?-
The word hung in my mind like a wrench thrown between gear wheels.
At first, my mind questioned if soone arrived from another world. Perhaps a rcenary who accepted a quest as I had in many worlds past.
But that theory was dusted the mont a yellow bar appeared above the panel itself: 'Level and stats cannot be determined until user finishes system initiation.'
It wasn't soone coming here from another world.. it was soone being chosen by the system to stand for this one.
Exactly as I had been on Earth all those years ago.
-A new system user...- That was when it set in...
Unless sothing spawned from the carcasses of the monsters I killed.. the new user had to be her...
The lost soul clinging to tal parts with the hope of life. -Bella...-
I didn't waste another second. tap Hopping around the stone pillar, I bolted over the horizon in a streak of light. CR-WOOOOSH
It was a race.
I needed to cross twelve thousand kiloters into the wind, before the wyvern could cross four with it.
But I wasn’t worried...
At least.. that was the case before I hit my speed limit. -Shit...-
In recent weeks, I had grown used to travelling with the wind, and now that I was moving against it, I felt as bogged down as I did when the system first wiped.
And unfortunately, despite my efforts, I was getting out-paced more and more with every step...
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- Bella ~
What would you do if a creature the size of a mountain was trying to find you?
Run..? Hide..? Quiver?
Before it crests the horizon, that question digs through your mind, mustering every drop of focus and consuming every lingering thought... Your life depends on it, so your mind consus everything it can to answer it.
But.. when the ti cos.. it always answers itself.
Rrrrrrrumble... The mont you feel the ground quake from its breath, the question is given its answer...
If I ran, I would have already died...
Rattle... Unable to keep my paws from rattling, I crawled deeper and deeper into the carcass I once sat upon, using its hulking intestines to muffle whatever noises I was making in hopes it wouldn't be able to find .
But with every passing mont, it felt all-the-more fleeting...
Rrrrrrumble... Looming over the body I was hiding in, it was slling the air and nuzzling it's side as if hoping I would run out like a burrowed animal.
It knew I was in there...
Every fiber of my being told to run.. but in that instant, sothing deeper held in place—held still...
And a mont later, it turned... SLAM-CRUNCH
Forcing its paw through another nearby carcass, it crushed ribs larger than the pillars of skyscrapers like twigs, reducing the organs beneath them to mush before lowering its snout into the remains. Rrrrrumble...
I.. had a chance...
I just.. needed.. to stay.. still...
But in that mont of hope, a breath passed my lips. "Hoh..." It was hardly even a noise.. the isolated movent of an air pocket buried deep beneath flesh...
But the mont it escaped, I froze...
I didn't know how.. but I could feel it... Through the ters of flesh and organs I laid in, its gaze landed on ...
It found ...
Every instruction I had ever obeyed—serve, wait, fetch, apologize—instantly collapsed into nothingness as if by the scream deeper voice.
-Do. Not. Move.-
"Hhhhh-" I strangled the breath before it left, locking my lungs until they ached. The carcass around trembled as the thing outside drew in a slow, controlled inhale.
The world narrowed to a single point—its pupil—pressing through at and bone as if the distance of flesh between us didn’t exist.
-Don’t. Move.- The voice echoed.
Skrrrk-slush- But the longer our stares t, the more heat pushed into the cavity, a furnace-heated breath that curled the fat-clotted air against my whiskers.
My circuitry scread to flee, but the other voice—older, colder—pinned every muscle in place like nails through silk.
If I budged.. I was going to get eaten...
But with every passing second, the heat grew.. the flesh boiled, and sothing unfamiliar greeted my mind.
Pain.
Then, the world changed. Through the static, I grew acutely aware of the pressure of flesh against my side—the seeping of fluids through my exoskeleton—and the thrum of life in my chest.
-I...- In that mont.. even my thoughts quivered. -I.. don't want to die...-
Vvvvvvv... The at around vibrated as a low tone crawled through the carcass' bones. Not sound.. but a deeper frequency that creeped through flesh even air couldn't pass—like fingers combing through a field of grass.
I was frozen...
tal, flesh, and bone—ground shut.
Do not rattle. Do not breathe.
-Do. Not. Budge.-
But the mont the heat surged, the deeper voice holding in place took control of my body. Chink-SQUISH Lunging backward, I forced myself through the mass of flesh, and before an instant could pass, sunlight flooded the crevice I was squeezed in.
CR-RUUUNCH Swiping through the area I just was, a colossal, scaled paw carved through the carcass, searing flesh and boiling blood before the tal-lting heat exuding from it washed over .. and its bright, fla-like slitted pupils pierced mine.
I wanted to scream.. I wanted to run...
But I couldn't...
In that mont, even the voice beneath my circuitry, the one echoing from the very core of my being fighting to survive.. fell silent.
It.. didn't have an answer.
The dark void within the pupil staring at .. that crack in space that devoured all light.. it consud all hope...
As the organs I hid in slid out onto its paw—searing and cooking—I was rely presented before it like a mouse on a platter.
The very mont I defined life.. it flashed before ...
-Is this.. fate..?- In that mont, recollection returned.. mories of the sights, slls, and sensations that replayed in my reincarnation.. in my birth just monts prior.. it all ca back to ...
But.. it was too late.
As the looming wyvern, over twice the size of the mountainous carcass beside opened its maw.. fear suffocated thought.
I wasn't the towering monster I was within my mory.. but even if I were, it wouldn't have mattered...
Though snapshots were all I had.. my instincts.. inherited from the depths of my soul.. made it clear the being before wasn't sothing I ever could have rivaled.
I was just.. disappointed it had to end the mont light graced ...
The mont.. I rembered...
CCCRRRRACKK
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