Beyond The System

Chapter 298: Worship

“Where do I get it?” Drybel repeated the question the moment I asked.

I nodded, pressing anyway. “Yeah. That stuff you coated my body with, and keep supplying my World Seed with.”

“That—uhhh… hmmm.” He continued making strange little sounds for a while, like he was chewing on something.

“You don’t know?” I asked.

“No, no, it’s not that,” he corrected. He mulled it over a bit more. “It’s… how to explain it to you that’s giving me trouble.”

“Complicated?” I asked.

“Not… really, no,” he said.

I couldn’t see what the issue was, so I asked the only question that mattered. “Do I even have to understand it?”

He went quiet again, longer this time. “It would be best if you could, or rather, perhaps—I’d like you to.”

That caught me off guard. Like me to? Why would he care about something like that?

“You could call it something of a… ritual,” he finally said. “Though it’s not as if my powers manifested until I was like this.” A tentacle swung around for emphasis. “But the Elder… I believe he could perform some miracles.”

There it was. Another word that felt a little too… attached.

Miracles.

Care.

Ritual.

The words clicked together in a way that made something in my head shift. “How you manifested your abilities—your energy—it isn’t something like a religion?”

“It isn’t something like a religion,” he denied.

“Oh. Then I’m lost. What—”

“It’s exactly a religion.”

…That was a joke, right?

He can joke.

Must be in a good mood.

Or maybe he’s adjusting to conversation.

Either way, well played.

“And you’re a believer,” I said, trying not to push too hard now, not wanting to repel him more than this topic already seemed to. “You believe in it?”

“I would say more so than ever,” he replied, “and at the same time, in no way whatsoever.”

And honestly, I couldn’t tell if he was being deliberately un-transparent, if it simply made no sense, or if I just had zero comprehension of human language.

Could be all three.

“What exactly was the object of worship?”

He waited several minutes this time, long enough that I started to wonder if he hadn’t even heard me. But he had, and he answered right as I was about to speak again.

“The same thing that brought me to you. To Kazriel. And even to death.” After listing that off, he continued. “And at the same time… what you’ve explained to the bird woman to have been defeated. Exterminated by a man by coming together with it.”

Lightbulb. I think I started to get what he was going on about.

But he wasn’t finished.

“But it doesn’t make sense, does it?” he continued. “If Force is the embodiment of my worship anew, why don’t I use it? I’m so different from you. The miracles were different from yours—others too. The Elder could, according to tales from my father, shape our environment to suit us perfectly, and yet…” His voice seemed to tilt toward something bitter. “Look what happened.”

“Fate?” I asked at last. “You worship fate?”

“And for a time,” he said, “A very long time, I was abandoned by it.”

I’d heard of predeterminism, of course, but worshipping the concept itself still felt… alien.

“Of course,” Drybel added, “the name you give it is far different from mine. Even different clans would call it differently.”

“Oh?” I let out.

“The Heavens. Point of Origin. Guidance.” He spoke them out one after another. “We had plenty of ways of referring to it. But it always behaved the same way. We are born to serve a role. That role can be resisted, but never avoided. Fate. In the end,” he said, “upon my death, my body was infused with it—absorbs it—and allows me to instinctually use it. So it must be real.” His voice flattened slightly. “But I see now… believing in the reality of something is not the same as believing in

it.”A beat.

“So again,” he finished, “I believe it more than ever… but hold no belief in it.”

Peter let the words hang, turning them over one by one.

He’d never seen himself as particularly religious—. Especially not after everything he’d seen, everything he’d lived. Even Drybel’s existence felt miraculous: a living presence stretched across a span of time Peter couldn’t even measure.

And beyond that…

He’d witnessed the creation of not one, but two entire universes.

One born through the violet energy Kazriel controlled, and the other forged when reborn apprentices of some “Master” returned as beasts, their existence rewriting the fabric of reality.

“I may—” Peter started, then stopped, choosing his words more carefully. “It’s probably impossible for me to understand these things the way you do. But if you can… please try to explain it. How to do it.” He drew a slow breath. “Your power could save my life. The lives of others.”

Drybel answered immediately this time, like he’d been expecting the request.

“I imagine it won’t be impossible,” he said. “For your body, at least.”

“Then you’ll do it?” I asked.

A short breath in a pause of consideration. “Yes. Your body is likely meant for me to take. It may even be more suitable than my original one.” His tone shifted, uncertain but firm beneath it. “It’s a guess, but… it feels right.”

I nodded, my gaze softening. “Thank you. Then—” I swallowed, taking in my fourth, no fifth, sixth? Who knows—teacher. “I’m under your care.”

He spent the remainder of our time together explaining what he could remember in detail. An amount that honestly surprised me, even as he tried to deny it every time I acknowledged it.

A chant, which he admitted was heavily paraphrased.

Materials to build an altar. Though from what he explained, different regions and tribes used what their environment offered, so there weren’t many strict requirements… except for one.

Movements. Positions. And Focuses.

But what came next, he wasn’t sure.

As he’d said before, the powers didn’t come until his death. And as a living being, this had all been just as he explained before. Worship and Ritual. There was no massive change that occurred in his body, or even others.

Miracles performed by the elder was wrapped in mystery and only told of by his own father. Both of which, he had no clear idea of their age. To his knowledge, any impressive feat may have occurred long before his birth.

And just as he finished, I felt a pull on my body. A tug from someone on the outside world.

“I have to go,” I told him, already trying to organize the thoughts into something I could attempt soon. “Thank you.”

“Thanks for listening to me.”

My eyes opened with not much real training completed. Yet I still woke with more information than I’d had before, and with a greater level of purification reached. Great gains, but as usual, only adding more to an already packed list.

To get my Beast Transformation consistent, Ritual’s were added. And unfortunately, that too was only an educated guess. Thea was the one who shook me awake, her eyes boring into mine, sparkling with purpose.

“Yes?” I asked, leaning back slightly.

She leaned closer. “We haven’t in a while.”

“Oh… umm.” My mind stumbled in the dark, immediately filling gaps. I looked around at the scattered tents. A few lanterns glowed faintly inside some of them, but mostly it was pure darkness. “Not that I’m complaining, but… there’s a lot of people.”

She shook her head like that wasn’t even a factor. “They won’t mind.”

Bold.

Still not complaining.

“Sensory Veil,” I said, still trying to catch up. “I’ve only really done it with sound blocked.”

Her head cocked. Her eyes changed into confusion. “What?”

“Well, I guess we could just go off somewhere for a bit,” I offered quickly, not trying to refuse her sudden request at all. “It’s not like we can’t come back quick enough—”

“Peter…” she sighed, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Sparring.” She enunciated it like I was slow. “We haven’t sparred in a while.” Then she added, almost casually, “I’ve trained. And it would be nice to lock in the gains a bit more quickly.”

Oh.

“Oh!” Heat rushed into my face as the misunderstanding finally clicked into place. “Yeah. Sure—uhh.” I cleared my throat. “Well… same thing. We should go off a bit.”

She nodded, chuckling softly.

That was the end of my stuttering—decision made. I stood, angled us toward the forest, and bolted. Thea moved with me, matching my pace without effort, footsteps barely making sound.

After only a few minutes at full speed, the camp’s faint lights were gone behind the trees. The noise of people faded too, swallowed by low breath of the night.

We broke into a clearing wide enough to move, but uneven enough to punish sloppy footing. Pale moonlight sifted down in thin strips, catching on leaves and the edges of grass. 

I slowed and took a spot near one end, shaking out my arms, letting my senses widen. Thea drifted to the opposite side, feet set, and shoulders loose.

“Ready?” I asked.

She nodded. “Of course.”

We charged in.