Chapter 52 - A World Like No Other

“You… wish to see my world,” said Lukas, giving her an eerie stare. “What do you expect to see, Frost? Meynte called me a soulcrafter, and you’ve seen me devour souls and use their skills as my own. Do you really want more proof?”

Tanya agreed with his words. It was a grave invasion of his privacy to even ask for something like that, but she was equally curious about exactly what being a world truly meant. She had seen Lukas perform some absolutely bedazzling things, some very recently. Consuming souls into himself, and storing their spiritual information, only to use it to recreate them was a power that belonged to Anomalies and anomalies alone. While Lukas had certainly demonstrated the former dozens of times before, the only true creation that could be called alive was Blob, and it was, in a way, alive from the very beginning. Lukas only injected it with different souls, transforming it to look like them and behave like them, while remaining utterly obedient to him.

Like a flesh puppet.

Only unlike how Mujin enchanted the minds of his soldiers to become his loyal minions, Lukas owned them — mind, body and soul. They weren’t alive or dead, and maybe, weren’t even individual existences, just skills and instincts that were freely added to a metallic slime that took their physical shapes. Once created, they did their duty, and either died in the process, or were simply subsumed back into his world.

They existed for the world within him, and not the other way around.

Just like any other monster.

His ability to utilize both lifeforce and mana wasn’t exactly surprising. There were many species out there that did both, some of them capable of using multiple forms of mana along with lifeforce. In that respect, he was a hyper-specialized existence that could use all forms of mana without fail. His soul capacity was tremendous, but the same could be called for any King out there. His regeneration was remarkable, but again, nothing a Sage was incapable of. His ability to speak every single language they had encountered so far — Tanya didn’t know what being a world had to do with that, but she assumed it was a byproduct and moved on. His growth, the swift yet progressive development of his powers was fascinating to watch, and while Tanya didn’t know what exactly he was becoming, it wasn’t like he would undergo some overnight transformation that would overwhelm the mightiest entities out there.

That would have been just stupid and made no sense in the slightest.

This was real life. Not some silly fiction. Being something different wasn’t some sort of free pass to become or surpass the apex of the food chain. It just resulted in something slightly unique compared to everything else, but still in the end, could become something unremarkable, or at best, a set of fairly amusing tricks.

But sometimes, tricks were all that was needed to shake the world, and she had seen Lukas demonstrate that in more ways than one.

Using Hreidmar’s gravity control to master flight.

Devouring the bylestyr’s soul to gain tremendous boosts in power, flexibility and strength.

Creating a featherglass crystal to fool and entrap the shadow of an Empress.

Meandering through the Haze to gain access to an unlimited meshwork of worlds.

Altering the wardstones to create an explosion that even a Warlord would be hard-pressed to replicate.

And yet, the more time she spent with him, the more she realized that for all his claims about being a World, there were certain discrepancies between what should be and what was.

Lack of alien mindsets. Associating with her despite the knowledge that she was his ‘predator’. No uncontrolled or altered body parts. The desire to automatically consume new creatures (souls) that came within his (its) vicinity was curbed  or completely non-existent. His control over what he did develop was so exceedingly strong, that even in moments when he muted all his emotions and operated under tunnel vision, not once did he lose control of himself and let the world take over.

Instead during those events, he became, as Frost had aptly put it — an invader. A tyrant. One that would use every tool within his nigh unlimited arsenal and bring the enemy down, regardless of what happened or what kind of mysterious power he or she had. One only needed to look at the fate that befell Empress Meynte and Solana to recognize that fact.

At the same time, she knew that something very drastic had happened to him, affecting his inner-world to a significant degree. And it had happened during their stay in the yokai territory. What it was, Tanya didn’t know, but she knew it was too great a change. Too fast. Too significant. Too outstanding compared to the state the rest of his progression was in.

When it came to new skills, Lukas was almost like a kid, enamored by whatever new toy attracted his attention. He would use it over and over to often tiresome degrees, going so far as to invent an entirely different fighting style with them. At first, it had been those daggers, reinforced with his astonishing sharp accuracy, and swift reflexes. Then, it shifted to using metamancy and those corrosive flames. Gravity was further next, followed by his experiments on Blob. For someone like Tanya that believed in rigorous and continuous development of one’s skills to take them to the apex, watching Lukas evolve was practically insulting. He got almost to the point of mastery with a particular discipline, and then switched to another field, and never looked back again. It was as if he threw away everything he learned like yesterday’s trash. By Asukan philosophy, a man like that… would end up getting nowhere, stuck with a seemingly random but high number of medium-level skills — Level-3 at best. A jack of all trades, but a master of none. A self-crippling attitude like that — it was beneath contempt.

And yet, there he was, taking down one powerful opponent after another.

Lukas Aguilar… terrified her.

“A curiosity, if you will,” spoke Frost through her lips. “I am unique, the one and only in this entire Universe. Maybe Tanya will be the one to reach the zenith and gain the power of the End in its entirety, or maybe she will perish in the process. I, on the other hand, will be reborn, in some other form, some other existence, until I find a true avatar that will bring about the End. The world within you too, is unique. I wish to know if it is You that becomes the World, or are you just the current form it chooses to adorn, only to scrape off at the sight of something better.”

She wanted to know if Lukas Aguilar was the one in charge, or if he too, like Blob, was a puppet dancing to something else’s whims.

“Surely something so small and trivial demands little thought.”

Lukas breathed out slowly, as if gathering his thoughts. “That is neither small nor trivial, Frost. If we’re doing this, then I want you to show me everything you’re capable of using Ezzeron just as a downpayment for revealing my world.”

“Hah!” Laughed Frost. “Now that I consider a bargain. So long as it is within Tanya’s scope of power, I will. I doubt you want my frail other half to suffer because of our little bargain.”

“Don’t be a bitch, Frost!” Tanya all but yelled.

“I can’t help it,” said her other half. “I am, after all, a stone-cold, frigid bitch.”

There was no mistaking his frustration if his tightened fists, bared knuckles and rippling flesh on his arms were any indication. He took a moment to breathe in deeply, and calmed himself down. A part of her wondered why Frost was stressing so much on putting him through this right after he had woken up. Say what you would about her other half, but she was never as whimsical as she pretended to be.

“You say the sweetest things.”

“SHUT UP!”

“...Fine,” he said, leaning back against the headboard, before he stiffened.

“Something amiss?”

“...No, I just… haven’t done this before. So I’m not sure how it will turn out. This is as much a new experience for you as it is for me. When I open my eyes next, enter my mindscape the usual way. Whatever happens, do not attempt to fight it.”

“I am always up for a surprise.”

He snorted. “I’m glad you think so.”

He closed his eyes, and took another deep breath. When he spoke next, his voice carried itself with an undercurrent of power, a thrumming weight that exerted a form of gravity of its own.

“I am a World.”

Tanya felt the words reverberate through her like the ringing of a bell. She didn’t know why, but those words, as ordinary as they were, sounded anything but such. They were heavy, magical. So much so, that she felt the thoughts in her head derailed and grinded to a halt as they washed over her.

His body rippled, his flesh changing color faster than Tanya’s eyes could catch up. The usual pale shade shifted to a metallic green only to turn silver with flashes of dark crimson.

“I birth and I kill, I form and I shatter,”

A storm hit her mind. It tore at her perceptions, flooding them with random images and smells and sensations. It was like standing in a hailstorm, only instead of inflicting pain and cold, every random piece of ice was forcing her to go through an experience, a memory, so disjointed and intense and rapid that there was nothing to focus on, to hold on to. A flash sensation of raptors flying over a volcano. The feeling of a great glacier of ice crashing against a lone tree with thick, conical spines. An image of people watching their young ones play with something that looked like a thick orb. A royal court burning in crimson flames. A serpent gobbling a frog alive.

“I await for no salvation, no taste of glorious victory,”

“My trials have no meaning, yet they are what shape me.”

Tanya saw death and destruction, saw madness and senseless chaos. Flickering visions of hundreds of monsters falling left and right as a silhouette treaded through them changed to a crimson sky with boiling lava. Dead monsters adorned the floor, but the silhouette kept going. An odd perspective, with constant pain and a sort of hopeless resignation flooding through her. Like it was all a chore, one that would not matter, and yet, he had to keep doing it.

“I consume and I invade, to Infin —”

Before he could finish that chant, his entire body spasmed, and Tanya let out a scream as pillars of crystal, metal and rock pierced out of his back with a noise not unlike tearing paper. His flesh rippled and warped, morphing endlessly as if trying to reform into something else entirely. His fingers were extending out to become claws one moment, tentacles the next, and bladed wings right after. Tanya wanted to go grab him, tell him to stop, but her body didn’t budge.

Frost wouldn’t let her.

And before she could even voice her shock, Lukas opened his eyes — not brown like they used to be, not the flecks of green that were slowly taking over, but blank, almost reptilian and stormy gray. Tanya didn’t know what it was, but the THING before him was definitely not Lukas. She tried to hold herself back, but a whirling, gyrating sensation pulled her in, and she fell forward, drawn into Its eyes and —

Darkness.

….

….

….

Something tickled the end of her nose.

Tanya crinkled her face, but the feeling didn’t disappear, so she cracked her eyes open to glare at it but regretted almost immediately, as bright light shone directly into her eyes, forcing her to shut them again, and grimace in pain.

This time prepared, she forced her eyes open and glared at the culprit. It was a clump of crystal, translucent yet reflecting light, making it hard to see what was within it. She squinted her eyes, and grabbed the crystal, using it as support to push herself up. It was easily twice as tall as her, studded into the rocky floor beneath that felt as cold as ice. Frowning, she leaned closer, peering at the form inside the crystal, an outline — not very clear, but she could determine the bremetan-like shape, only way taller, with two bulging pairs of arms, each of them ending with vicious sets of sharp claws, and its intense, crimson eyes were open, aware, and staring at her in naked, undisguised attention.

“Fucking hell!” she shouted, staggering back in pure, panicked reflex. “That’s a—”

Before she could even finish the rest of the sentence, Tanya froze again, her back thumping against something solid and uneven. She spun around and met another crystal outgrowth, within it a large, manta-ray-like creature, with four pairs of wings and levitating within the crystal. Then another, an avian with two pairs of wings, and a fourth — a serpent that was larger than any she had seen in her life.

She looked around, and found herself surrounded by those outgrowths. Easily a dozen and more surrounded her, sprouting out of the ground, as if they were trees. There were so many of them that the light kept reflecting against them over and over, making it truly difficult to look around without hissing in pain.

Tanya forced herself up on her feet, wobbled for a moment, before regaining her balance as she planted both feet firmly on the ground. Satisfied, she looked at the scenery around her and what she saw was….

… an endless maze of crystals.

They rose out of the ground like tombs of a grave, standing tall, holding a specimen inside it. Each creature within it was a monster or demon of some sort — some of them tiny, barely above the size of the average shrub, others gigantic and taller than hills, with equally humongous, reptilian creatures within them. Across the endless terrain they lay, stretching out in every direction towards the distant horizon and beyond, farther than her eyes could see.

A gentle breeze flew past her, blowing the bangs of her hair past her face. This entire place was akin to an infinite graveyard, and not even the ever-reflecting radiance could make her forget the chill in the air around her.

Nothing here was alive. Nothing here was dead. They were just… there. Stuck in a perpetual wait, as if waiting for someone to come shatter those crystals and let them be free. Before she could ponder more on the matter, Tanya was distracted by a discordant humm coming from above. She looked up, and found herself staring at the starless, night sky. A velvety layer of blackness that traveled infinitely in every direction. She wondered where the intense light reflecting across these crystal tombstones was coming from and kept looking until —

“By the Great Goddess!” Tanya almost lost her balance as she leaned her head back to look at it. “Who is THAT?”

Amidst the massive, inky blackness, rose a gargantuan figure, a titanic bremetan silhouette, larger than the eye could see. Sitting cross-legged, hands resting against his knees, palms open and head held high. An aura of impenetrable calmness oozed from the figure, as if immersed in a meditation deeper than the ocean.

“Wrong!” a voice called out from her left. She turned and found Frost standing next to her, looking around in bewilderment. “This place… is wrong! This place is —”

When had she gotten here? Had Frost been there all along and she hadn’t noticed, or did she just appear? She watched as Frost tentatively tried to touch a crystal, only to freeze in contemplation, when a voice spoke up, interrupting her before she could touch it.

“My world,” the voice said.