Chapter 47: Alone in Hell
A strange, silent ship of green and silver soared through the profound darkness that had once been the Forgotten Shore, a solitary speck of alien technology moving against a canvas of the eternal night.
There was no stars in sight, nor even the moon.
For this land was dead.
The ship then approached the indistinct boundary of the dead region—a place where the oppressive darkness suddenly stopped as if cut by a knife.
Beyond that boundary, a new realm began with shocking abruptness.
It was An endless expanse of blinding white stretched to the horizon, dominated by a incandescent sun that bathed the landscape in eternal heat, contrast to The Forgotten Shore which had possessed no true sun, only the trapped, artificial light of the Spire.
The sands of the desert were flawlessly, painfully white, reflecting the glare until it hurt to look. The sky above was a deep, boundless azure that seemed to hide too many secrets...
In the distance, the ruins of some lost civilization rose from beneath the dunes—inky-black spires and shattered arches, scattered like the half-buried bones of a colossal giant. Such sights, while alien, were not impossible here.
After all, The Dream Realm was not a singular world but a fractured tapestry of countless conflicting regions somehow stitched together by the spell's magic.
This desert was one such piece and it was currently the ship's destination.
Within the ship, the sole occupant was a picture of listless despair. A tall, alien creature with light green skin and a mass of restless tentacles lay sprawled on the deck, staring blankly at the ceiling. On his wrist, a blue device with a familiar hourglass symbol glowed with a soft azure light.
On the other hand, he absently tossed a perfectly formed crystal ball into the air, caught it, and repeated the process over and over again becoming the only thing that was breaking the perfect silence of the vessel.
On one throw, his timing suddenly faltered. The crystal ball, sharp-edged and heavy, fell and struck him squarely on the forehead with a solid thunk.
A thin line of crimson blood welled up and trickled down his temple painting it red.
The creature didn't even bother to wipe it away. He just let out a long sigh that echoed in the empty chamber.
"It started when an alien device did what it did" the creature mummuered "And stuck itself upon his wrist with secrets that it hid" the creature whistled as the blood suddenly reached it's nose and mouth.
"Now he's got superpowers, he's no ordinary kid"
"So if you see him, you might be in for a big surprise"
The creature got up and suddenly started dancing with a mad smile on its face, spraying blood everywhere on the clean floor of the ship.
"He'll turn into an alien before your very eyes" he hummed moving his body in ridiculous ways " He's slimy, creepy, fast and strong, he's every shape and size
He's ––"
"Armed with powers, he's on the case
Fighting off evil from Earth or space
He'll never stop 'till he makes them pay
' Cause he's the baddest kid to ever save the day!"
The creature shouted, clapping it's hands in joy and excitement.
Suddenly Hugo fell to the ground due to a headache and saw his reflection on the smooth silver of the ship...
He nearly jolted upward in fear before he recognized that his own face...
The creature groaned as it rose to the ground and looked at the wall of the ship , where a calandre written in blood was displayed...
He added a new line to the calandre with a strange wistful expression on his face.
Today marked two months... Two months since the Sleepers of the Forgotten Shore had passed through the gateway, their laughter and cries and shared terror replaced by this all-consuming silence... Two months since he had uttered a word to another living soul and Two months of absolute solitude in a deadd world...
The Shore was dead in every sense of the word.
The final evolution of the Crimson Terror had acted like a spiritual vacuum snuffing out the lesser nightmares that had plagued the coast. No abominations stalked the labyrinth anymore and the dark city was already cleared of all creatures inside...
The Dark Sea was silent and sealed as well.
He was alone in a continental-sized graveyard.
This presented a lot of immediate problems...
The first was food and water, While his Tyrant biology was hardy and could survive on very little substance, it still needed some form of food.
He had scoured the entire dead region over the course of a month, finding only withered, inedible fungi and the bones of the dead...
It got to the point to where He even contemplated trying to break the seal on the Dark Sea, just to fish out something to fight and eat but the enchantments were woven with the power of at least a transcendant and so Hugo couldn't so much as scratch them.
The second problem was soul shards, or to be precise, the lack of it.
No enemies meant no soul fragments which caused His progression to stagnate.
'I'm so hungry…' The thought was a constant ache in his mind slowly destroying his mind...
Normally, the [Spirit Seed] could have sustained him by converting ambient harvested souls into ripe fruits But his damned Echo was still in that strange state of "evolution," wrapped around gunlaug sleeping form in his soul sea.
And so It was useless to him for now.
An Awakened Tyrant could endure much, but Hugo was pushing the limits of that statement
He was literally running on fumes.
With another sigh, he sat up once again crossing his legs in a meditative posture.
He closed his eyes and began the familiar, frustrating process of circulating his soul essence. He was attempting another shot at natural Awakening—or more accurately, an attempt to stabilize his foundation to allow for a future natural Ascension to the next rank.
After all, The Omnitrix was more than just a tool capable of changing his race.
Within its vast genetic and historical archives were thousands of methods, techniques, and philosophies from countless species across multiple realms regarding the path of supreme ascension.
He had learned of hundreds of culturs and arts regarding the gods and Nobel creatures of the ancient past.
Facts that would make researchers from the waking world kill to gain a glimpse of it.
For example, heart god followers believed that removing their hearts and replacing them with blessed wooden hearts would make them more powerful and give them an easier time walking the path of ascension.
There was also the fact that Nobel creatures were worshipped as minor deities because while they were not descendants of gods, they were creations of them.
The truth that humans were not born of the gods was deeply shocking to Hugo but the omnitrix refused to answer any of his questions regarding that topic which was a bit dissapointing.
Nonetheless he had learnt a lot of interesting things...
The most important ones were the informations regarding ascension.
For most, ascending from Awakened to Ascended was a clear, if difficult, path: refine your soul essence to perfection, harmonize your soul with your aspect and flaw, then lasty, fuse your soul with your body.
For Hugo, it was simply impossible.
"Omnitrix, remind me again why I can't ascend naturally?" he asked the empty air, his voice a dry rasp from disuse.
A neutral, mechanical tone responded in his mind.
[User's soul matrix and physical genotype are in an unstable condition as of this moment. Natural ascension would result in catastrophic deviation for the soul and body with the Success rate of: 0.0003%.]
He sighed again, deeper this time. The diagnosis was as accurate as it was infuriating...
His body right now could be described as a biological mess.
He was a hybrid—half human, half Chimera Sui Generis, a genetic cocktail that should have resulted in death if not for the [Mutant] attribute and the omnitrix using the chimera sui generis DNA to 'revive' him.
In short, his physical body was a dead corpse being moved by strings which was something that deeply unsettled Hugo.
His soul was no better. His Awakening had not been the gentle process of the nightmare Spell, instead It had been a violent ignition using the Omnitrix's emergency protocols and the stolen power of a Corrupted devil.
Meaning His five soul cores weren't the polished, stable orbs they were supposed to be.
as they were jagged, Unstable and burning with different energies held together by the Omnitrix's will and his own stubbornness.
They were powerful, yes, but deeply wrong.
Natural ascension required perfecting your essence and achieving a sublime unity between soul and body but his current existence did not allow for any of that.
This stagnation was maddening as He couldn't form new cores without soul shards and He also couldn't ascend in rank due to his instability...
This desperation had led him to seek another option, the Omnitrix's second playlist.
The omnitrix had already confirmed that the
ten DNA imprints within his [Playlist 2#] were species born naturally at the Ascended-rank due to their inherent overwhelming power.
Not only would acquiring them grant him incredible new forms, but it would also make him an ascended, meaning he will be able to return to the waking world.
At leastw that was Hugo's A naive hope....
But Reality, as always, was crueler.
He had spent days, then weeks, in a deep trance scouring the ever-expanding maze of his own soul sea. The mental landscape had grown even more vast and chaotic since becoming a Tyrant, reflecting the omnitri's powers. The Corridors shifted in impossible proportion, the doors appeared and vanished and appeared in different places at once.
The second DNA chamber, if it even existed, was hidden from him obscured by the storms of his own unstable essence.
The Omnitrix, when he asked it about the topic would only reply with:
[Information locked. .]
It was another door slammed in his face.
His only remaining option was the classic, brutal path of the Spell: find a Nightmare Seed and conquer a new Nightmare.
Preferably his Second Nightmare, of course as Hugo wasn't that arragont to think he could take on a third nightmare or higher.
But the Forgotten Shore had no seeds within them which was surprising.
A place like that should have had dozens of seeds considering it's dark history and the fact that no awakened existed meaning there would be no one who could clear them...
The regions surrounding the dead lands were terrifying even to scout from the sky: the strangely scorched forest west and the unnatural mist from the hollow mountain...
Which left only The desert to the east, while hostile felt… simpler.
It was more of "you will die in agony" rather then "Even death will not save you" and more importantly... his [Primus] trait of [Soul-bound] attribute was pointing at that direction whenever he activated it.
Hugo did not know what Primus was, if it was a person, a place or an item.
But he knew it was important to his survival... Or at least, it would play a big role in his life.
And so Hugo had chosen that area as his destination.
To prepare for whatever lay ahead, Hugo had thrown himself into two forms of training over the past two months.
First was Mastering the sixteen available transformations he currently possessed.
He needed to know every imprint in his active playlist like an extension of his own body and so Hugo had given them nicknames to make the training easier:
· Pyronite which he dubbed as Heatblast
· Petrosapien which Hugo called Diamondhead.
· Tetramand as sunny had named it in the labyrinth, Four Arms.
· Galvanic Mechamorph (Upgrade)
· Kineceleran (XLR8)
· Florana (Wildvine)
· Vulpimancer (Wildmutt)
· Ectonurite (Ghostfreak)
· Nosedeenian (Buzzshock)
· Arburian Pelarota (Cannonbolt)
· Galvan (Grey Matter)
· Piscciss Volann (Ripjaws):
The remaining four imprint—Klyntarian, Stone Saint, Blessed Herald, and Soul Serpent—kept their species names for the sake of simplicity as their natures felt too profound for casual nicknames.
This constant rotation of forms, of mindsets and physiologies was disorienting and caused Hugo's already fragile mind to crumble faster...
But it was the only way to improve currently available to him... It was a gruesome solution as Hugo slowly forget what his own face looked like...
Although this tortuous training did yeild some positive results, for example, His nascent battle art, born from countless fights in the Labyrinth and on the dark city , had evolved.
And it was because of The Stone Saint's innate mastery of combat —which surpassed even fourarms combat mastery— had blended with his own spear style perfectly.
Where before he had once used a single, relentless thrusting style that matched his size , he now had a dual-spear approach—one long, one short—allowing for defensive-offensive combinations that were suited for non humanoid creatures.
He was currently trying to add Nephis own battle style which focused on adaptation into his own style to try and make his battle art suitable for all his imprints but this was still a long term project.
Secondly, there was the fundamental part of Understanding His Nature...
Hugo spent equal time in meditation and contimplation trying to comprehend what it truly meant to be an Awakened Tyrant.
Firstly , he had asked himself this simply question: What was the fundamental difference between a human Awakened and a Nobel creature of the same rank?
For humans, power came from a sacred Trinity: one's Soul Core (with rare exceptions such as divine aspect wielders), one's Aspect (a unique, power), and most importantly, one's Rank.
This granted them incredible potential to slay beings of higher ranks and classes which is why humanity managed to survive the decent of the nightmare spell.
Noble Creatures—and by extension, corrupted Nightmare Creatures—followed a different path entirely.
They had no Aspects, instead They developed abilities organically, through the formation of Soul Cores.
Typically, forming four cores was a gradual process that would make a Nobel creature develop their body and souls to eventually create an unnatural ability unique to only them.
However, Hugo had skipped this organic process.
He'd lived as a Beast for only a month before being forcibly Awakened and then classed-up to a Devil.
The Omnitrix and the Spell had simply granted him knowledge of his imprints abilities and attributes causing him to not understand himself truly.
It was efficient but it left a gap in his understanding.
For example, How did Heatblast make fire?
It was quite simple, circulating soul essence through unique volcanic organ systems causes the ignition of geothermal gases from within the imprint's body.
By studying his Abilities and imprints, Hugo began to see the underlying principles behind each lifeform he transformed into which eventually lead him to reach one simple Discovery:
Most devil class abilities were a fusion of unique biology and soul essence manipulation.
The Tyrant class on the other hand was a deeper mystery...
To put it in the simplest term: Tyrants ruled.
Their power was amplified through their subjects.
This could manifest in two ways, the first was through "subjugation"
His Four Arms imprint's Tyrant ability allowed him to share his power through his blood which creates bonds that makes his followers draw strength from him and eventual feed a faint trickle of energy back to him building a functional "Domain" that relied only on him and his followers.
His heatblast, xlrl8, buzzshockshock, soul serpent and some others shared this process of tyrannical power.
The other manifestion of tyrant ability was through creating minions from their own body.
His Diamondhead form could literally shed shards of his own crystal body, imbue them with essence and animate them as loyal Beast class minions that were one rank below him.
Stone saint, ghostfreak, wildivine and blessed herald shared this process.
Hugo currently had a small swarm of them back on the ship to lessen his loneliness.
In conclusion, Tyrants were monarchs. Their strength grew not just from within, but from the creatures they subjugated.
Understanding this felt pivotal to Hugo, as it was a step further in understanding his own powers even better.
He felt a flicker of pride at reaching these conclusions...
And while The Omnitrix's AI had provided useful informatios, the understanding and conclusion was made by Hugo himself and was later confirmed by the divine relic so it was his efforts that mattered.
Hugo own mind was currently undergoing a transformation of its own as it slow became less human and more akin to that of a Nobel creature.
And He doesn't even realize it...
———
Hugo ended his meditation and rose to his feet.
He walked to the viewport, looking down at the endless, dunes below.
A grim, determined smile touched his alien features, this was a new undiscovered death zone filled with abominations beyond his imagination... But it was still better then nothing.
The ship had scouted this desert's edge for days and so, It was time to go ground-level.
"It's time to hunt..."
Azmuth's Ship slowly paused in the air, still invisible. The hatch suddenly opened, giving space for Hugo.
He activated his omnitrix and circled through the holograms untill he landed on Heatblast.
Without further delay he pressed the Omnitrix causing His body to became a humanoid silhouette of volcanic rock, with flames dancing across his shoulders and head.
The desert sun felt like a welcome embrace...
'strange... Could this place have relation to sun god?' he thought, it would make sense considering he felt slightly stronger here.
Without further thoughts, He leaped from the ship landing on the white sand which didn't turn into glass from the heat, strangely enough.
'this place is full of wonders...'
And the creatures within were undoubtedly full of wonders as well...
Unluckily for them, he too was a wondrous creature.
His plan was quite simple, audacious, and incredibly dangerous...
He would use himself as bait.
Hugo began to walk at a slow pace while letting his inner flame burn brighter, pumping small amounts of soul essence into it until he blazed like a signal fire, a beacon of pure, "holy" energy in a realm steeped in Corruption.
To any corrupted creature, he would smell like a delicious, abomination that should never be allowed to exist.
something that must be devoured at all costs.
He didn't have to wait for long.
A monstrous worm, over twenty meters long moved beneath the white dunes. Its scales were plates of polished white stone and its many eyes arranged in a ring around its fanged maw glowed with a sickly blue Corrupted light.
It felt the vibrant, painful soul-flame above making it's very soul shake with madness.
Such a thing was an affront to it. It had to be consumed, its light snuffed out no matter the cost.
The sand beneath Hugo's feet's suddenly parted away revealing The stone-scaled worm which was lunging at him.
its circular maw, lined with rows of crystalline teeth opened wide enough to swallow a house. It aimed to consume the fiery creature in one gulp.
Hugo, in his Heatblast form, didn't try to escape or Dodge, instead, He simply stood his ground.
As the shadow of the creature fell over him, his fiery skull contorted into something frenzied, a wide, manic grin of molten rock aimed directly at the worm.
For a single, fleeting instant, as it descended, the mindless Corrupted abomination felt something alien stir in its profane soul...
a spike of pure, instinctive fear.
But It was too late.
The worm swallowed him whole, it's massive jaws snapping shut with a crushing boom...
Hugo felt it all.
The Darkness, the Pressure and The grinding of stone teeth against his own rocky hide.
The acidic, suffocating atmosphere of the beast's gullet felt like interesting to Hugo as it was clearly of ascended quality, or to be accurate, of fallen quality...
'I wonder what I'll be like when I ascend..." he thought for a moment.
Then, Hugo unleashed his harrowing power. He stopped containing his heat and He let it explode in the worm's mouth.
His body was suddenly consumed by blinding light as Intense orange light seared out from him, heating the worm's interior from the inside.
It's Flesh cooked instantly starting with it's "tongue ", then crystal teeths superheated and cracked violently.
The worm's body lit up from within like a grotesque lantern, its silhouette visible from the outside as it writhed in agony on the sand.
A horrific, screeching sound echoed across the dunes as the abominable creature thrashed around in a violent mess, trying to vomit out the sun it had swallowed but it was futile...
[You have slain a Fallen Beast: Disciple of Doubt.]
Inside the beast, the inferno slowly ceased.
Hugo, superheated body burned whatever fluids made up the creature's body, but that was not enough for him.
And so he slammed his omnitrix once again.
Where Heatblast had been, now stood Wildmutt. The orange, eyeless canine-form was practically built for situations like these.
With a furious snarl, Hugo extended his powerful clawed limbs and started ripping apart the creature inside.
He tore through the steaming, cooked flesh from the inside, carving a ragged exit while tasting some of it's flesh.
He emerged from the carcass into the blinding sun, panting and covered in foul viscera.
He shook himself like a wet dog, sending the gore flying from his fur.
The hunting tactic was absolutely insane... If a Corrupted ank creature, or even a powerful Fallen creature had taken the bait, then he'd be dead now ...
He had no sure counter for that level of power yet unlike the previous corrupted creatures he fought against in the past...
But it had worked....
And now…
His bestial nose twitched slightly as he started smelling the flesh of the worm...
Beneath the stench of death and Corruption, there was the smell of cooked meat...
A lot of it.
His Wildmutt face split into a gruesome, toothy grin.
After all He was starving and He had a mountain of food Infront of him, however vile its source.
And so, without delay He fell upon the carcass with the tearing feasting of a wild beast...
It was tough considering the durability of the creature but it was also absolutely delicious.
Matter of fact, it reminded Hugo of the roasted turkey his mother used to make...
———
Later, sated for the first time in two months, Hugo absorbed the soul shard from the slain beast...
The next plan would be to get back on the ship... But Hugo felt a little adventurous today.
He didn't know if it was because of the fact he was cooped up in the ship for a month or because of his wildmut form affecting his mind...
But it did not matter
Hugo sent a mental command for the ship to follow him and began to run through the harrowingly beautiful sand.
He ran across the dunes, powerful legs propelling him in leaping bounds. The wind rushed through his fur, carrying a thousand scents: dust, strange minerals, distant ozone and the oppressive ever-present hint of Corruption.
But these were all tucked into the back of his mind for now.
Because, For the first time in two months, he felt a spark of something besides despair or
Mindless determination...
He felt free.
Truly and uttuerly free.
Here, There was no one to judge him, no one for him to save, no one to disappoint.
He was just a monster running through a monstrous land and for a moment, he embraced that alien feeling...
'I wonder if I'll find a Citadel out here...' he mused as he ran.
It was possible, This was an uncharted region of the dream realm after all and Discovering a lost stronghold would be a monumental find that would increase the forces of humanity and allows them to expand into new lands...
It was also a piece of history which possesesd the potential to contain a treasure trove of knowledge
Not that it would help his immediate predicament as he wouldn't be able to return to the waking world either way but it was still a nice thought to have.
Suddenly, Hugo came to a sudden stop, his supreme senses, [Echolocation], [Scent Tracking] [Thermal Vision] all merged into a seamless, 360-degree perception of the world that was actively scanning for any nearby danger...
He could hear the sand shifting miles away, smell the moisture trapped deep under a dune and see the heat haze distorting the horizon.
Then, just as he did thatw a shiver ran through his spine...
His senses had painted a picture for him, a dreadful one at that...
Around Five kilometers away, something stood on a high dune staring at one of the many buried buildings....
It was humanoid creature, roughly six feet tall, Its head was an unnatural fusion of a sharp, black beak like a carrion bird and a wolf...
Its body was covered in long, matted, ink-black fur adorned with worn down golden jewels that gave it an unnatural beauty...
It was also utterly still as if frozen in place.
But the most terrifying detail about it, the one that made the primal part of his Wildmutt brain freeze was its orientation.
It was facing him Directly.
And it was staring directly at him.
Before Hugo could slam the omnitrix and transform into ghostfreak to flee, the creature moved. .
One moment it was a speck on a distant dune, the next, the air in front of Hugo warped, as if the world itself folded around the figure.
The creature was simply there, standing five feet in front of him and looking at him with a dreadful expression on it's mouth.
Hugo's enhanced senses screamed at him.
It was telling him to run, or bury himself into the sand to avoid the creature's wrath...
It was at that moment, Hugo had realized something very important that should have been obvious...
He was alone in hell, and the devil has come to greet him.