Desolation…
A concept Jake knew a lot about yet felt like he barely understood. Not because he was a moron – though that could be debated - or didn’t have the affinity for the concept, but because he was only a C-grade. The concept of desolation was simply not something Jake had ever expected to see in a context like this.
Not to say the concept couldn’t be used by those at C-grade or even at lower grades, but this was desolation in its purest form. It wasn’t just a part of some skill that had some aspects of desolation added to it. No, this was far scarier. One thing was certain… Jake was a lot more apprehensive about this ”I” character now than before. If it was a creature that could actually control the concept of desolation to this extent, this system event had just gotten a lot more dangerous than before.
One of the distinct aspects of the concept of desolation was its ability to cause ”permanent” damage. As was shown when Villy removed the arm of the one from the Azureflight back in the Order, the concept wouldn’t just erase the arm itself but the part of the Soulshape it usually inhabited. That meant there was no easy way to heal it, and no amount of potions or meditation would help.
Not to say it couldn’t be healed… but Jake had no idea how to, and he doubted anyone on Earth knew how either. The only surefire way of healing something like that was through evolution, where you were effectively reborn. Jake had no desire to lose any limbs or anything like that, though, but the mere fact such a risk existed for him and the others from Earth was unsettling. If someone did get injured, they would likely have to wait till the event was over and find someone worth healing them in one of the larger factions in another universe.
Standing up, Jake really took in the environment and its effects on him. His energy was slowly being drained, but what’s more, his resources weren’t regenerating at all. Jake even felt that should he sit down and meditate, he would only be draining himself further.
Turning to the Prima Vessel, he decided to inspect it more closely. He found that the damage caused to it was primarily surface-level, but the mere fact it had taken any damage at all was surprising. After inspecting the Vessel a bit further, he found its entrance that was unlocked after killing the Prima Guardian, which he honestly wasn’t sure if he could even enter.
However, when he got close, the barrier allowed him inside. Jake even noted how it didn’t seem to check his key at all but just let him enter, which definitely wasn’t how it worked on other planets. At least not those with living World Leaders.
The inside of the Prima Vessel was pristine for the most part, except for one thing. Down the hallway leading to the three different rooms, a set of footprints could clearly be seen. They had left imprints that gave off the same concept of desolation as the world outside. When Jake used his foot to wipe away one of the footprints, he saw they had all been made up of gray dust and that the Vessel itself hadn’t been affected.
Jake continued further into the Vessel and saw more traces of the creature that had entered it. From the form and size of its footprints and other minor clues, he estimated it was some kind of humanoid being. Oddly, it also seemed to have some kind of limp. He couldn’t gather much more from what was left behind, except for the fact he only felt the concept of desolation and nothing else from all its traces.While desolation was an incredibly powerful concept, it was also very limiting. It tended to not work well together with other affinities or concepts due to its nature. In fact, its properties made it so very few creatures natively able to use the affinity existed. In many ways, something being alive or at least possessing a soul was counter-intuitive to the concept in the first place. Desolation was all about not only non-existence but the continued state of non-existence, and a creature existing while being all about non-existence was weird.
There were some creatures and people in the multiverse well-versed with the affinity, though… Jake’s very own Patron being one of its most well-known users.
To the Malefic Viper, the concept had been a part of his Path for a long time. Likely all the way back to when he was known as the Wyvern of the Desolates. At least Jake doubted it was a coincidence the snake god was known under that name back then while also being well-versed in the concept of desolation now.
Later on, desolation became one of the fundamental aspects of the malefic affinity, which was an affinity Jake couldn’t even begin to understand yet. He said that, despite his own constant usage of the affinity through Touch of the Malefic Viper, the glowing dark green color broadly considered a signature aspect of the affinity.
Jake had never felt the existence of desolation when using Touch, though. He was sure it would come one day.
Arriving at the control room within the Prima Vessel, Jake saw everything was still active and working, with the only traces of the creature a bit of gray dust here and there. After only a moment of hesitation, he began seeing if he could control the Vessel. This also didn’t prove any trouble, as Jake did something potentially risky and teleported the Prima Vessel down to the center of the planet.
Having seen the state of the planet’s surface, he could only begin to suspect what the core looked like. That’s also why he knew this wouldn’t be without risk. The core room was bound to be far more dangerous than the surface of the planet, but Jake felt like he had to risk it to better understand what he was dealing with.
Going to the exit of the Prima Vessel, Jake began preparing himself. He started by summoning his Scales of the Malefic Viper, covering his entire body, followed by several powerful layers of stable arcane barriers. While doing this, Jake even used Arcane Awakening in its stable defensive form, increasing relevant stats by 50% while forming yet another layer of defense in the form of the small membrane of protective arcane energy right above the scales.
Feeling about as ready as one can be when about to enter a very hazardous environment, Jake exited the Prima Vessel. Instantly, he felt a shiver run down his spine as a sense of wrongness overwhelmed him. Everything within the core room was gray, even Jake himself and his arcane mana; the concept of color itself seemingly made desolate.
As he looked at his defensive barrier, it quickly began fading away. Desolation was not destructive or showy. It just drained everything and anything, allowing nothing to exist. Jake looked on with wide eyes as his barriers simply faded away one after another. He had to focus while he still could as he scanned the core room.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
The colorless and lightless room made it difficult to spot anything in particular. However, locating the Planetary Core wasn’t difficult. It was by far the greatest source of desolation, and Jake focused his eyes as he saw the cracked gray core that had once been the Planetary Pylon. It had been reduced to a Planetary Core and was now nearly unrecognizable.
Seeing this core brought Jake all the way back to the Tutorial, where he corrupted a Quintessence to poison all the water in the lake of those big boars. The item had been intrinsically bound to the lake, and as long as he sufficiently corrupted that, the corruption would spread to the entire lake automatically, effectively turning it poisonous permanently.
This was no different. The Planetary Core was bound to the entire planet. It was what caused the atmosphere to exist, regulated affinities, maintained balance, and was the source of constantly spawning new energy for the world. Now, it had been corrupted. Rather than do all those things, it had become the source of the planet’s total destruction. It permeated desolation into every single part of the planet until, one day, the constantly growing power of desolation inside the core would become too much, making it crumble alongside the rest of the planet.
As Jake focused on the core, his final arcane barrier broke as the energy of desolation made contact with his scales of the Malefic Viper. Jake was ready to quickly charge back into the safety of the Prima Vessel as something unexpected happened. For the first time within the core room, he saw not only color but light.
His scales subtly lit up with a dark green color as the energy of desolation was stopped in its tracks entirely. That wasn’t all, as Jake felt something even more unexpected next: Mana. A little bit of mana traveled from Jake’s scales and into his body, restoring his mana pool.
Jake was in disbelief at what happened as he quickly recalled parts of the description of his Scales of the Malefic Viper:
”The scales are legendarily resistant to magic and will store excess mana from any magical attacks that would have otherwise damaged you... this mana will be slowly refined and be absorbed or dispersed into your surroundings.”
In truth, this mana-restoring feature wasn’t new; it was just pretty bad so he didn’t really ever think about it. It mainly sucked because Jake didn’t really get hit a lot by small constant attacks to absorb a bit at a time, but when he did get hit, it was by powerful attacks where the scales could only offer some extra resistance and nothing more. The mana he did absorb would simply be too powerful with too much quantity, resulting in the effect pretty much not doing anything.
Unless it was certain affinities, that is. Scales were incredibly potent at absorbing the light affinity, as one example, and for any poison-based mana, it was straight-up overpowered.
Now, he’d discovered another affinity that the scales were incredibly effective against, and it had come at just the right time as Jake smiled.
The formerly scary environment Jake was incredibly apprehensive about even approaching had, in an instant, turned from a danger into an opportunity. With gusto, Jake tried opening his mouth as he breathed some of the desolate energy in, and-
Jake felt all the energy drain from his internals; his tissue began to die as it was emptied of all energy, and one of his lungs had a part of it begin to smolder like it was made of ash. Never before had Jake shut up so fast, as luckily, new energy flooded in and restored the damage done in an instant, leaving no traces except for a lesson learned:
This place was still fucking dangerous even if he now had a method to exist there. In retrospect, it was a bit as if he was wearing a space suit and decided to open the helmet and take a deep breath… in other words, really moronic.
Having learned not to be too much of an idiot, Jake focused on the sensation of his scales absorbing the desolate energy. It was odd to imagine that the concept of nothingness could be turned into mana like that, and Jake seriously didn’t understand how it worked… but it seemed like he was on his way to finding out.
The process by which his scales made the constant attack of desolate energy into mana wasn’t only dependent on the scales but a skill specialized in turning harmful energies into resources: Palate of the Malefic Viper.
In other words, Jake wasn’t just absorbing mana from the environment; he was also absorbing knowledge and Records related to the concept of desolation. A little bit at a time, and with how complicated the concept was, this wouldn’t be a fast process if he wanted to actually learn anything useful. If he stayed in this core chamber for a prolonged period, Jake did believe he would benefit, but he just didn’t have that kind of time in the middle of a system event. If he wanted to really benefit, he reckoned he would have to stay there for a few years at least, which did suck as this wasn’t the kind of opportunity one could come across often.
Encountering a C-grade version of the concept of desolation wasn’t something Jake had ever expected. This was at a level where Jake stood a chance at absorbing and understanding it. An environment like this wasn’t something the Viper or anyone else could artificially create, and even if there likely were quite a few members of the Order who could use the concept of desolation to some extent, he doubted any of them could use such a pure version as he was experienced right now.
Leaving a place like this was truly a waste… but he didn’t have much of a choice.
Going to this planet had still been totally worth it, though. Jake had learned something very useful about his Scales of the Malefic Viper, learned a bit about the creature known as ”I,” and now even absorbed some Records related to desolation.
Not to say he was fully ready to leave quite yet. With his scales, he felt confident to get closer to the core, as he still wanted to learn more about how this entire planet had become this way. Floating within the monochrome chamber, Jake approached the core as the energy began to overwhelm him when he got too close. His scales definitely had a threshold, and Jake had to stop a bit away as he carefully inspected the core, trying to get a feel for what the creature had done to it.
Making use of his stupidly high Perception, Jake scanned the core. It turned out he didn’t really have to try that hard to figure out what had happened, though, as he shook his head. ”Crazy fucking bastard.”
Jake had many theories about how ”I” had corrupted a Planetary Core. Everything from grand rituals to being in possession of some incredibly powerful item akin to Eternal Hunger… yet the answer was far more simple. What the lunatic creature had done was by far the most simplistic and risky method… it infused its very soul into the Planetary Core, using itself as the catalyst of corruption.
This not only left the creature vulnerable during the entire corruption process, but risked losing parts of its soul in the process. Especially when dealing with a concept as dangerous as desolation. Even if Jake was taken aback had to admit this discovery was quite a relief.
It proved the creature wasn’t some ritual expert or anything like that. Shit, Jake was confident he would be better at corrupting a World Core. A lot faster, too.
Continuing to look at the core, Jake took in the intense and powerful energy it gave off. As he stood there staring, an idea began to form in his head. Turning around, Jake headed back into the Prima Vessel and to the teleportation room there. There, he made sure it worked as he checked to see if he could teleport back to Earth, something he could, and he didn’t even have to put in an application but could teleport straight there.
Having confirmed that, Jake headed back out of the Vessel once more. Floating toward the Planetary Core, Jake was thinking as he shook his head before muttering out loud.
”No… it would be too much…”
But… with the cracks already in the core and its unstable nature and clearly lowered durability…
”Yeah… I should be able to handle a good mouthful of it, at least.”