Optional Music to Accompany the Chapter:
Rok Nardin - Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (Epic Version)
https://youtu.be/A6Y82YjXMhU
Early Morning - Early Summer : 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 time.. it seemed like nature had already reclaimed whatever clues I was meant 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 time, the only one to grace me with its presence was the one before me...
A vast sea of rubble home to a single standing pillar that protected a small bed of flowers...
They were beautiful.. blue and red, yellow and orange.. but just the same, they bloomed atop the grave of a civilization whose only remnant was tower of rocks...
"Haah..." To say it was a bad sign was an understatement...
It wasn't the first time I had come 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 something here the god wanted to protect.. a memoir, an artifact, or even a skeleton.
But.. there was nothing. Below the few centimeters 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 some place with this ivy...-
But.. that chance never came...
As I eventually stood back up to get moving again, my system caught me.
*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.. something about it felt off. -G10... isn't that where the wyvern was?-
Opening my map after a moment of thought, I spun the globe to find the wyvern's dot moving. -Southeast...- Tracing the line it seemed to be moving, it was headed straight for the field I experimented on Bella in. -Did he use an exploit to find the carcasses or something..?-
At first, I thought nothing of it...
But that was when I zoomed 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—nameless and empty.
It read.. -'Unregistered'..?-
The word hung in my mind like a wrench thrown between gear wheels.
At first, my mind questioned if someone arrived from another world. Perhaps a mercenary who accepted a quest as I had in many worlds past.
But that theory was dusted the moment a yellow bar appeared above the panel itself: 'Level and stats cannot be determined until user finishes system initiation.'
It wasn't someone coming here from another world.. it was someone 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 something spawned from the carcasses of the monsters I killed.. the new user had to be her...
The lost soul clinging to metal 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 kilometers 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 consumes everything it can to answer it.
But.. when the time comes.. it always answers itself.
*Rrrrrrrumble...* The moment 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 me.
But with every passing moment, it felt all-the-more fleeting...
*Rrrrrrumble...* Looming over the body I was hiding in, it was smelling 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 me to run.. but in that instant, something deeper held me in place—held me still...
And a moment 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 moment of hope, a breath passed my lips. "Hoh..." It was hardly even a noise.. the isolated movement of an air pocket buried deep beneath flesh...
But the moment it escaped, I froze...
I didn't know how.. but I could feel it... Through the meters of flesh and organs I laid in, its gaze landed on me...
It found me...
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 me trembled as the thing outside drew in a slow, controlled inhale.
The world narrowed to a single point—its pupil—pressing through meat 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 met, the more heat pushed into the cavity, a furnace-heated breath that curled the fat-clotted air against my whiskers.
My circuitry screamed 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 something 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 moment.. even my thoughts quivered. -I.. don't want to die...-
*Vvvvvvv...* The meat around me 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...
Metal, flesh, and bone—ground shut.
Do not rattle. Do not breathe.
-Do. Not. Budge.-
But the moment the heat surged, the deeper voice holding me 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 metal-melting heat exuding from it washed over me.. and its bright, flame-like slitted pupils pierced mine.
I wanted to scream.. I wanted to run...
But I couldn't...
In that moment, 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 me.. that crack in space that devoured all light.. it consumed all hope...
As the organs I hid in slid out onto its paw—searing and cooking—I was merely presented before it like a mouse on a platter.
The very moment I defined life.. it flashed before me...
-Is this.. fate..?- In that moment, recollection returned.. memories of the sights, smells, and sensations that replayed in my reincarnation.. in my birth just moments prior.. it all came back to me...
But.. it was too late.
As the looming wyvern, over twice the size of the mountainous carcass beside me opened its maw.. fear suffocated thought.
I wasn't the towering monster I was within my memory.. 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 me wasn't something I ever could have rivaled.
I was just.. disappointed it had to end the moment light graced me...
The moment.. I remembered...
*CCCRRRRACKK*
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