Chapter 142 - Aftermath

A cackle resounded, and she felt it attack her mind directly. Blood dribbled from her nose.

Mio blinked. Then she blinked again. Breathing out as she stumbled forward, a limb of shadow replacing her dismembered one, she clutched her crushed ribs, quelling the flares of pain each brain caused her. Slowly, her eyes panned around the area.

Pure destruction surrounded her in every direction. Steam wafted up from the remnants of charred earth and disintegrated flora. Heat pervaded the atmosphere, the very air itself warm from the friction of the two combatants’ movements.

Then, as she studied every piece of ravaged earth and scorched landscape and recalled the exact move, she had seen destroy it, her eyes fell back to the corpse lying ahead of her. The darkness had long vacated the man’s form, revealing the remains of someone pale and stiff, the blood drained from their veins.

Her gaze focusing and unfocusing from her own blood loss, Mio glanced at the face of the dead. It was Brock Carter’s. She had already known, but still, the confirmation made her insides churn. She stifled a tear and resisted the urge to throw up the contents of her stomach.

Clenching her teeth, she hobbled toward him.

Tentacles of darkness occasionally rose up and righted her as her dissonant limb caused her to lose balance, and eventually, she found herself kneeling down beside the corpse of her young matriarch’s sibling.

Mio’s… friend.

Probably one of the closest she’d had in a long while. She knew they hadn’t known each other long, and she knew she could be terrible, but… he’d stuck with her, and he’d never complained, at least to her face. And for that, she felt she could consider him something more than a companion.

And now, as her eyes picked apart the pieces of bone and brain amongst his caked blood, she could call him one of the fallen. Another taken to the cruel machinations of the System. Another corpse among many. This time, a tear did fall from her eye.

A wisp of black rose up from his body, and she flinched. Visions of the dark creature she’d seen replace him flashed in her mind. She knew that it wasn’t Brock, she knew he hadn’t been in control there. She was knelt beside his corpse after all.

So, it made her wonder. What the fuck was that monster?

Oddly, she felt it somewhat resembled her own shadows, dark and shifty. While it had appeared to her in the very few glimpses she had gotten, it had seemed solid yet entirely viscous, like it had no true form. She glanced to her shadows for comfort as the wisp of darkness dispersed to the breeze.

“Brock,” she looked down at his face, his eyes glazed, and his head crumpled from the back. For a moment, she swore she saw blue and green lightning flicker in his iris, “you aren’t a monster. You… you were a hero to a lot of people.”

As she had expected, no response came back.

**

[You have died.]

“Oh.”

Unsure of what to say, Brock looked to the prompt floating ahead of him. His emotions felt… dull, his thoughts foggy. His body was entirely rid of sensation. He felt neither pain, nor heat. He couldn’t even feel the beat of his own heart.

Oh yeah. I’m dead.

That explained that last part.

Slowly, he tore his eyes from the text and glanced out to the darkness surrounding him endlessly. It was just… pure black. A ceaseless mass of nothingness. His eyes flicked back to the prompt, but it was gone, leaving him alone amongst the void. He tried to move, but felt his body was unresponsive.

He knew it was because it wasn’t really his body, but his soul.

He found it strange how… peaceful he felt. He didn’t feel an urge to fight to resurrect himself, if that was even possible, nor did he feel his survival instincts begging him to. In fact, now that he thought about it, he could even remember what had killed him.

All he could remember was a flare of agony upon the back of his skull and the brief sensation of wetness before everything became black. Idly, he reached back and tried to touch his head. His arm still refused to move. He attempted to sigh, but that too failed.

Time passed, and nothing occurred. Brock had no idea how long he’d been like this, paralysed and floating aimlessly, but it felt like years. Time seemed to have no sway over the place he found himself in. Is this… death? The after life…? It… sucks.

He didn’t truly feel any emotion toward the place, and instead felt entirely neutral about it, but he felt his living self would have felt that it sucked quite strongly. More time passed, and his thoughts turned to his friends and family. He couldn’t remember their faces, nor their voices, just their husks in moments he vaguely recalled occurring.

Finally, he felt something. It was dread. He was going to be trapped here. Forever.

[System override…]

Text flickered to life in his vision, and Brock froze. Well, his mind did at least. Slowly, his eyes read over it, and a surge of hope flared within him. It was dull, so much so that he almost didn’t notice it, but it was there. He felt something… connect to his very being.

[Entity: Brock Carter found.]
[Current State: Soul.]
[Time until reincarnation: 872,481 Cosmic Rotations.]

872,481… fuck…

[Injecting the Original Life…]

A tingling enveloped the entirety of his body, and his eyes darted down to watch as electricity flickered over his form. Rapidly, the tingling became sensation. Agony. He tried to scream, but no noise would escape his throat.

Brock’s chest throbbed. He felt his heart beat a single time, both his Ascendancy and his own. As lightning ravaged his body, his fingers twitched, and the back of his skull ached. Quickly, that shifted to an insanity inducing itch as he felt his bone regrow and his flesh knit itself back together.

The man sucked in a breath as his lungs regained their existence. The System… is reviving me?

Slowly, he too felt his emotions return in full force. Fear, horror, dread, hope, joy. They crashed into him with the abruptness of a tsunami, ravaging his mind with a maelstrom of conflicting emotions. He sucked in another breath, and he felt the sensation of something delicate touch his cheek.

It touched it again, this time far harder. Am I… being slapped?

“…ock.”

A voice. Then the lightning stopped, and Brock drifted. He could move his body, although not by much. He felt heat against his skin, as well as that of the breeze. He was aware of his nakedness due to how he could feel it everywhere.

Yet, still he was tra-

Pain enveloped his entire soul.

[Reinjecting Sou-

**

“AAARRUUGHGHGHHHH!!”

The world appear to him in flashes of colours and sensations. The sounds of his own scream, the quiet noise of someone else trying to soothe him. Hands on his face, shadows on his arms and legs. Heat lapped against his skin and arid soil grated against his back. His new, pink flesh send tingled of sensitivity down his spine.

“Brock!” The agony began to fade, and soon, Brock found himself looking up at the night’s sky. A single face peeked over in his vision, her feature scrunched with heartfelt worry. He squinted through the tears.

Mio…?

Her arms wrapped around him, and he winced, still feeling the phantom pain of his back. Memories flooded back into his head; faces he’d forgotten. The events of the entire fight entered his brain and he recalled every blow, every success and fail that had led to his death.

The back of his head ached as he remembered exactly howhe’d died. He shuddered, his jerking demise playing in his head over and over and over and over and over and over and-

“Brock? Snap out of it.”

He jolted and looked over to the source of the voice. He hadn’t noticed in his stupor, but Mio had disengaged from their embrace and looked just about ready to forget it had ever happened. Her arms were crossed, and absentmindedly, Brock noted that one of her legs seemed to be formed of shadow. Her entire body was coated in her own blood.

His throat felt hoarse, “Mio…? Are you… ok?”

He tried to get to a seat position, but he was onset with a sudden dizziness. His brain was still fresh. Never thought I’d be able to say that…

“You’re fucking unbelievable,” Mio deadpanned, “You died Brock. I don’t need you to worry about me anyway.”

Brock didn’t miss the way she shifted her weight onto her flesh leg, as if trying to forget her own injuries. The injuries that were his fault. He gritted his teeth and felt a pressure in mind as memories attempted to return to a place that they didn’t belong. I left without Harry and Fon because I didn’t want them worrying about me getting hurt.

And now Mio is missing a leg. The fact that his own arm seemed to have been regenerated by the System didn’t help his guilt at all. It felt… unfair despite being in his favour. The pressure in his mind redoubled and he winced. What the…

The memories broke through.

…fuck…?

Speed so great it left his mind numb. Strength so boundless it made his muscles quiver. The perfection in aura manipulation. The flawless way Augments were weaved and utilised. Blackened limbs. An uncertain form. A world rendered in shades of infrared.

Brutality. Hunger. A cackle.

These… Brock shuddered and crawled backward as Mio called out to him with worry. These memories aren’t mine… they… they aren’t…

The horror on Zin Keene’s face as both his arms were torn off and his chest was punctured by a dark hand. His screams as his powers were sapped from his own ethereal self. Brock froze, and he opened his status screen.

His eyes widened. His gaze snapped to Mio, who was slowly approaching him like he was a terrified animal, “Don’t tell anyone about what happened today. Ever. This,”

He gestured toward himself, to her and to their surroundings, “stays between us.”

Brock’s eyes quivered, and he dismissed his status screen. If anyone found out about what happened today… if anyone knew what he truly was…

Would they still look at him the same?

**

Zin Keene’s arrival was punctuated by the resounding noise of space tearing. He stumbled as he landed on his feet, and fell back, resting himself against a wall. His heart throbbed in his chest. His eyes felt itchy with how bloodshot they were. His primordial dread began to soothe itself.

Slowly, he rose to his feet.

Around him lay several workbenches, with various diagrams nailed to the walls and dozens of different experiments and contained creatures displayed in glass cases. Zin breathed in and stiffened. The air smelled of blood. Old blood.

This… is a secure location…

His scientist had told him so, urged him that it was. He wouldn’t have been so brazen as to attempt to capture that monstrosity of an Error otherwise. Licking his bloodied lips, he called out, “Orix! Come here!”

An aura brushed against his own, and he fell to his knees. A voice resounded. That of a women. Hoarse. Powerful, “I expected better of you, Inquisitor Keene.”

Zin tried to turn and run, but his entire lower body was unresponsive. She had control of his body now. Her aura had infested every cell. Tears began to drip from his eyes. He… he didn’t want to die. From the darkness of a doorway, the form of High Inquisitor Erykah revealed itself.

With a motion that sent air pressure buffeting the demon’s hair, she threw a corpse his way. It slammed onto the ground, its innards trailing out behind it. Flies buzzed within the cavity left behind. Zin begged himself to move, yet still found himself frozen.

“You didn’t just attempt to betray my organisation,” Erykah’s slitted pupils flashed, and suddenly, Zin’s sight was gone. White goo dribbled out from his empty eyeholes. He screamed, “but you failed. Both in your mission and your foolish endeavour.”

Zin felt her aura flicker, and he hit the ground face first, his legs severed. He glanced up, toward the sound of footfalls as Erykah crouched before him and grasped his jaw. With a tug, she removed it from his face. He gurgled out his agony, his blood staining the flooring.

He felt fingers wrap around his neck as his body slowly fell apart into cubes of meat. The agony was blinding, “You’re idiocy bafflesme, and I’ve lived for 2 million years.”

Just as the shredding reached his shoulder blades, she pulled, and his head tore off. His brain could still be used to extract his memories and knowledge. She wished to know what could have reduced him to such a state on a newly integrated planet.

The light fled from his eyes, and she snarled, leaving his corpse to rot.

“I hope the afterlife treats you well.”

Her eyes flashed and she felt the veil of reality quivered. Her aura picked up billions of auras as they blipped out.

The demon’s entire planet could join him.