What the hell is going on?
It was the only thought Zarek could have. It felt like he was stuck in a limbo, his body trapped in a vat of swirling energies.
He was weightless, and almost at the point where he felt like he lacked any sort of substance at all. It was the sort of feeling that could make a man feel as though there was nothing left to live for, as though their life was about to come to an end.
Enough to make one despair.
Zarek felt like he was still alive, like he still had a chance, but he didn't know where it could come from. Confusion colored his features and he couldn't grasp what was happening at all.
"I have never seen something like this before…"
The voice was calm, but it came from everywhere at once as though it was omnipresence itself. It seeped into the cracks and crevices of reality, weaving into space and time and echoing across the ages.
It could have been right in front of Zarek, or it could have been words spoken from a history long past or a future yet to come, and he would have no idea at all.
Zarek tried to speak but found he had no mouth to do so. He frowned, or rather maybe he thought he did, but he had no face either.
However, he had always been quick on the uptake. After a brief moment, he realized that if this was just his soul, it was probably just a matter of using any one of the numerous silent communication Skills he had learned throughout his lifetimes. If you're not on M*VLEM*PYR, you're viewing a copy.
He didn't know any of them, unfortunately. But he still had Axiograft. If he could just…
The thoughts came almost too easily. Zarek found that he almost didn't have to use Harmonic Recall at all. It was like everything had already been ingrained into him in ways he couldn't even fathom.
'What the hell…'
He didn't have the time to think about it.
"Who is speaking?"
"Who?" the voice mused. "I don't think even I'm sure anymore."
Zarek rolled his eyes before cursing. 'Dammit, I really have to get my body back. This whole doing an action and not doing it at the same time is making my head ring.'
"Alright, can we skip the mysterious ghost act please? It doesn't sound like you have much time to work with, and I definitely don't. So to the nitty-gritty, shall we?"
The voice seemed taken aback for a moment before it chuckled.
"Fair. Maybe I've forgotten how to set priorities. It's hard to do that when you stretch infinitely. I'm who they call Hero."
Zarek was going to make some snarky comment about how lame the name was again, but then he decided against it. At some point, the title on Earth had become more for children's comic books than anything else. But at the start of it… was it really like that?
This man who called himself Hero was probably the very first to earn such a title. The weight it held back then… was probably more than Zarek understood.
And right about now, this Hero was probably the only person who both knew what was happening to him and could explain it.
"You seem to have followed the path to becoming a Hero by unconventional means. You stumbled onto one of the opportunities I left behind. But your Hero Spirit…" the voice chuckled again, but it seemed like he was only half amused, while the other half of him was trying to understand the sheer audacity of it all. "… Curious indeed. It seems that this might be the doing of the system in many ways. But I doubt that that is all."
Zarek decided to be patient this time instead of pressing. He wanted to know just what this man was talking about, and he felt that interrupting now might only make it take longer for him to get to the point.
"A Hero Spirit, young man, is an Echo of the past. True Heroes have not been born in a long time. The system does not allow it—not due to any fault of its own, but by virtue of its existence to begin with.
"The system was created by my hand to forge a future where more Heroes could rise up. But I had not realized at the time that it was an oxymoron. It's impossible for a Hero to be born while relying on the kindness of others. Heroes are forged through fire and must burn through the pits of hell before they can be forged.
"So, I had to find another path. Spreading myself out through the bounds of space and time, I connected the system I forged with it, allowing a new path for Heroes to be formed by relying on those of the past. This became the Hero Spirit.
"Those that reached the standard could commune with one. Those that were stronger could commune with two. Some true monsters could commune with three, and these Heroes… these Heroes became even stronger than their predecessors.
"I thought that I had succeeded. I not only managed to find a path toward making the common man powerful, but I connected them with the path of Heroes as well. And all it took was my own sacrifice. It was worth it."
Zarek had fallen to complete silence.
He didn't have it in him to sacrifice for people he didn't even know like this. He only cared about one person and one person only. So long as she was safe, he didn't care if the rest of the world burned down.
This sort of sacrificial spirit was one that he could respect, and it deserved his somber silence. But it wouldn't be something that he was capable of at all…
Especially since he could already guess by the tone of the man that things didn't end up the way he hoped.
"Unfortunately, I made a mistake. The system I created was insatiable by design. All it sought was a path to creating stronger and stronger creatures. And in the end, it mutated.
"The Lurkers, the Demons of the night… we were meant to be the last bastion of hope against them. But instead, the system began to copy them. Not sure that we were the best model of improvement, it started its attempt to see more, to try and trigger an evolution that could boost us beyond those demonic creatures.
"However, we were already so powerful, there simply wasn't much of a ceiling left to break through. So… the system decided to break everything down.
"The Hero Spirits that we relied on to become so powerful in this age were born in an age of hardship. So the system recreated that hardship… using their blood."
Zarek's eyes flashed.
Godsfall.
"It forced mutations onto innocent worlds without the strength to combat it, turning them into the very demons we were meant to fight. But their evolutions came swifter, faster, stronger. At the same time, the oppression they forced onto the people who did manage to resist it made them grow faster as well.
"It was the best of both worlds to the system. On the one hand, the weak who couldn't withstand the Blood of Heroes were set on a new path, one where they had a chance to grow themselves while not only not interfering with their superiors, but spurring on their growth even further.
"However, this came with its own troubles. Other than the terrible hardship and cruel torture forced onto those before they were ready, there were also two other things that happened.
"Sensing Hero Spirits became far more difficult as their essences were diluted for this cruel experiment. Their bodies, donated after their deaths for the betterment of their people, instead became the bloody rain that fell from the skies, turning the worlds they had given everything to into horrid hellscapes for their descendants.
"And second… the process caused the frontline warriors who were once able to keep our enemies at bay for a small cost to be pushed back, shrinking our region of the universe into a smaller and smaller corner until we were barely hanging on.
"The gamble of the system is still playing out even now. In fact, it's only gone further, bending and twisting the laws of time to give those it finds the most promising more than just a single chance at life, another opportunity to reach the level it expects of its children.
"But while this opportunity seems like a great thing, the complicated weaving of timelines, the creation of Pillars, the cascading effects that lead to the Cursed…
"All of this chaos is only creating a world where Lurkers thrive, a sinking hole of despair that will only cost us more and more until the world has nothing left to give at all."
Zarek's soul had reached a silent lull when the Hero got to this point in his story. He could understand it all, and all of the confusing questions he had carried around for so long seemed to be being answered one after another. In fact, now he seemed to know exactly why it was the system hated him so much.
Unfortunately for it, it had already put into motion a series of events it wouldn't get a chance to undo… until he had no more lives to live.
"And then that leaves you, Ashborn. You have successfully awakened a Hero Spirit, one of the very few that will manage to do so in this generation. But, you are special… a product of the system's sins…
"But because of that, you seem to have found a new path. One where the Hero Spirit you've awakened is actually…
"None other than yourself.
"The Ashborn Demon."