Re:Cursed

Chapter 141 140: Orbital Soul Collisions

Nineteen names orbited a core. Nineteen pieces of her soul spun on their own axis, their fragments tumbling in sync. Spirals within a spiral.

The orbital centre remained as dark as the void around it. Unquestionably distinct from its satellites, the core lacked its own inner swirl. Observable and decipherable swirls. One was N̚oth; a thousand little floating pieces that spun in a wide disk. Another was Tstll; a concentrated orb of rapidly spinning motes of light. All were unique. All held variance in number, size, intensity, shape, and spin. All besides the core name.

Nỷx̱il lacked the variables entirely.

She wasn't certain if it was because the heart of her name was cursed, or simply because that was where her awareness lay. As she gazed out at the impossible distances between her names floating in the void, they were as clear in her mind as if they were right before her. Yet her core remained reluctant. Only her soul's touch perceived the name; a sensation completely separate than the void she found herself.

Unlike her past evolutions, Nyxil was lucid. She didn't have that state of semi-consciousness filtering out the oddest parts of the experience. Here, she noticed everything; from the way her names shifted like a series of protoplanets and asteroid clouds, to the sheer absence of everything beyond them. It was as if she was beyond the reach of Coral, without the blanketing dark hole or the stars within the Iris.

Nyxil doubted this was the intended effect of the ritual. It was too visceral… too real to be anything such a low creed Fleshsmith had access to. As she had slipped into the void, she felt her core grasp her soul. Most likely, it was her second evolution name and curse sense that brought her here, to the truth of her soul.

Impatient to get on with what she was here for, Nyxil called for her evolution.

Countless ghostly reflections split from the spiralling bodies. Anywhere she looked, translucent versions of her names circled each other in a vast collection of possibilities. They did not combine nor collide, yet they waited. A million combinations laid themselves before her, ready to create the next stages of her soul. With so many possibilities, it was impossible to count them all. At least, it should have been. Nyxil instinctively knew the exact number.

One million, forty eight thousand, five hundred and seventy five.

It seemed she had a few options.

Compared to the eight thousand she'd had during her last evolution, it was an obscene increase. The jump between thirteen names and twenty was so large that Nyxil had to toss aside any idea of browsing for good names — as had previously been somewhat feasible — entirely. As she gazed out at her options, she realised she needed to sharpen her method to narrow down the ideal, lest she waste weeks searching for it.

Nyxil already had a decent understanding on similar names combined. Most of the additives she had were body enhancement, and would suit well combined with N̚oth. Many of the individual effects of the names would likely be lost, but they would each integrate to empower the most influential ones. N̚oth, holding the largest components, would likely remain as the core.

Kqui and Gova were the perfect example. As additives that gifted a similar effect — a brief burst of muscular strength, and what her best guess was outwardly perceived increases in mass — they combined to bestow a focus for the evolution of the greater name.

N̚oth-Kqui-Gova

The body is a stable trunk in a storm of heavy winds. The body is a fragile twig in an ocean of raging currents. A stable trunk is unmoving. A fragile twig shifts quickly. If the ideal is a rooted trunk that shifts with purpose and speed, then the natural way cannot be tolerated. Guide the body how it was never intended to be.

The result of the combination reflected how heavily N̚oth influenced the change. Their combined description was almost word for word what it had been prior to the name's first evolution, except for a few key lines. This potential evolution put greater emphasis on speed. That wasn't all that surprising. What Nyxil was concerned about, was the loss of the terminology that the tree took on the aspects of the twig that let it leave its binding earth behind.

She wouldn't take this evolution — the lack of its previous mention of freedom soured it — but it showed the course of how names would affect others. Understanding that, Nyxil didn't need to read all million plus options to get an idea of what she wanted.

Kqui and Gova combined could add brief instances of enhanced strength and weight; something that would incredibly well to the rhythm aspect of N̚oth should she balance out the boost to her mutations. Maybe Kqui by itself could encourage a name towards instantaneous abilities. The description for Kqui and Gova combined seemed to indicate that. Well, she could see both names being good on their own. Gova had affected the pharaoh's telekinesis rather substantially, and with how little she weighed, it might be smart to keep the name isolated so that she didn't lose its effect.

Honestly, as she looked over her names, so many of them held effects she didn't want to get rid of… no matter how much stronger she knew combined names could become than the sum of their origin.

Even Ossuul, which was another name she'd come to rely so heavily on, seemed to lose any mention of its reality bending aspects when combined with N̚oth. They were both body enhancement type names with similarly convoluted descriptions. So why did one dominate the other so heavily?

The answer was not difficult to discover. Just looking at their swirling forms — though even their names should have been enough — gave away the reason: one was evolved, and the other wasn't. If Nyxil didn't want to have Ossuul reduced to some slightly beneficial flexibility element of N̚oth, then she would have to evolve it in line with the other name. Maybe if she was patient, Nyxil would evolve Ossuul, put the name through its paces, then come back and evolve it when it was ready. She wasn't. Unfortunately, she didn't have the time to be leaving some of her names to wait for others to catch up.

Despite that, Nyxil had plenty of additives she didn't care too much about losing to enhance N̚oth at least somewhat more than the evolution alone would. Top of that list was El. The idea of using someone's bones in a ritual for their own sacrifice was attractive — so long as they were a cultist — but the opportunity never manifested.

Before committing to any evolution involving N̚oth, Nyxil considered the other methods to approach evolutions that had been nestled in her mind since Sekhhath'Ra fell. What if instead of focusing on the names that worked together, she combined those that held no apparent relation?

Ossuul-eiyp-tsair

Blood spills and blood smears. Through stains it remains. When crusty and congealed, blood howls as blood hears. Only in cremains it is given reins.

If her skill at interpreting descriptions was getting any better — and she really hoped it was — then this combination let her hear through blood. Assuming she wasn't completely mistaken, it offered an interesting way to spy on others. It was also completely different from any of the origin names. Elements of those names remained, like the blood from Eiyp, but the effect was so completely distinct that Nyxil could only imagine choosing such a name if she wasn't happy with those she already had.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

And she wasn't about to lose Ossuul to some glorified hearing aid.

She wouldn't get rid of Tsair either. The additive of hiding was such a difference from the rest of her names that anything it combined with would greatly alter its shape. Nyxil might not have gotten much of any practice out of it yet, but she had plans for the ability come the end of the Trials. Of all her names, that would be the first to evolve alone.

For a little while, Nyxil simply mashed some different names together to see what would happen. What she could interpret, at least. When she finally reached her two Feats, she discovered something strange.

Both Feats were the most intense spirals of the lot. They spun faster in a more dense collection of parts than any other. Nyxil could tell without even evolving them, that any other additive she would try to throw into the mix would be overwhelmed by the energy in their spiral. And when she tested their combinations, she was proven right. Not even N̚oth altered the given description when added to Lyotep or Tstll.

It showed just how much more impressive the achievements were than what she had accomplished to gain Zylth.

So combining the Feats with any other name would essentially remove that name. Then… what of the two Feats together?

Lyotep-Tstll

United in infancy, individual potential is distorted forevermore.

Each battle bets the soul. Strike to build strength. Slash to recover. Kill to consume and empower. But should you lose, even death would seem preferable; a solution no longer within reach.

Well, that was about as clear as a description could be. These Feats did not want to combine. More than that, this was outright confirmation that sometimes it was better to leave some names pure. While more powerful names resulted of combinations, it was worth waiting a few evolutions to create an ultimately better final name.

Except… there would always be more names to come, and Nyxil needed all the power she could get as soon as she could get it.

Despite the warnings, Nyxil couldn't help but legitimately consider the name. It may not be its best form, but it sounded like a massive improvement to the healing she already got from Lyotep. Sure the consequence of losing a fight sounded terrible, but she was already doomed to be consumed by the Eidolon Gods should she fail. Nothing a simple name could do would stop one of those beings shredding her soul apart.

Empower herself without rituals? Gain strength just by fighting? She couldn't imagine a better name. Not for when she began her hunt. The only thing that gave her pause… was how comprehensible it was. She may not understand what the consequences were, but the rest? It was legible. That was not great considering the two names it came from.

How much power would be lost, flung into the ends of the void, if they tried to evolve together now?

For the next few minutes, she flipped between which combinations she actually wanted to make until she finally settled on something she was happy with. A touch more forward facing than she would have liked, but with the prize of the Trials being so close, she figured there was little loss. She wasn't going to lose.

The names that would be kept pure were her Feats, along with Tsair, her hiding name; Gova, the mass boost that gave Sekhhath'Ra trouble; and Thaḁren, her blade Talent. It was more than what she intended coming in, but hopefully it would allow each to expand in their own way.

N̚oth would get Youn and some insignificant names going into it. Three body enhancements that not even a sickly child would care for. It was the same for her core name, albeit with sensory focused names. As much as she would love to improve the core of her soul, she was happy to leave her ability to unleash curses untouched. There really wasn't anything else like it.

For Ossuul, she was adding Kqui. Nyxil was wary of this one, as she didn't want to lose the reality bending nature of the name, but Ossuul did overpower Kqui by quite the margin. Besides, Kqui was all about brief bursts of strength. The brief instances where reality ceased its hold was the part of Ossuul she used most. That had to account for something.

The rest? Well, they were the miscellaneous names that she didn't really care for. El, her bone candles, and Eiyp, the blood obsession, along with oddities amongst the weakest names would all be mashed together to create something new. Hopefully something useful.

Bodiless and unable to take a breath, Nyxil initiated her evolution.

For an instant, but what could have easily been an eternity, Nyxila lost her sense. Her vision went from a twenty scattered names not even near each other, to most of them having settled into new forms. Only two still churned in an unstable spiral.

She recognised one immediately as Ossuul. What was once Ossuul. Nyxila hadn't expected the name to change much at all with the addition of Kqui, yet she now witnessed how the puzzle pieces that made her flexibility additive now fractured and made way for parts of its supposedly lesser name. It soon settled and thankfully, it didn't appear too greatly effected, even if Ossuul had shifted more than expected.

Before Nyxila could breathe with releif, her focus was brought to the final unfinished evolution. One that was not going the way she wanted. Not even nearly.

Instead of breaking down in the flow as dozens of name components crashed into one another and gradually altered the their original shape into something new, Eiyp almost entirely kept its form through the chaos. Unlike Ossuul, which was simply to powerful to be broken apart by the smaller names it was combined with, Eiyp was no larger, faster, nor did it hold intensity. Somehow, Eiyp's components slipped through the debris field formed from every other miscellaneous name's clash. Each orbit, the names relatively few parts continued to slip through the space where a single collision would break down the definition of the name and force it into some new shape.

Nyxila felt like she sat there for hours, simply waiting for the name to form. The pieces never collided. Instead, the gravity of Eiyp eventually dragged all other parts into its spin. Instead of fighting the other names for dominance, it waited, and pulled them in line once they held no more strength.

When the miscellaneous names finally settled into the equilibrium of their new form, Nyxila called her name.

N̪ỷx̱ila-n̚o̲th-thaḁren͉-o̅ssuqul-Lýotep-gov̝a-eiypi̬ny-tsair̡-Ts͂tll

N̪ỷx̱ila — Curse

N̚o̲th — The ancient tree was an unfellable thing. A trunk as thick as entire forests. Branches that touched the skies. Roots that went beyond the deepest pits. This tree's body surpassed all its brothers, sisters, and cousins, yet it was dissatisfied. It could not move. It could not flow in the wind like its children. The streams that endlessly shifted over its roots were both intimate, and forever out of reach. Trapped by its very nature, it strove for more. It forged its roots to walk the land. It bent its branches so it could sail the oceans. When it achieved all it desired, the ancient tree strove for more.

Thaḁren͉ — From early stages of evolution, to the hardened razors of the forge, these weapons have proven themselves time and time again. But a killing edge is only as good as its wielder.

O̅ssuqul — Sever thy worldly possessions. Order and structure remain an unending scourge, ever unquestioned, ever intrusive. They interfere with the hidden, yet ubiquitous nature of things. Only by capturing the instant, the momentary, and all that lingers within, can such sinister oppression be overcome.

Lýotep — Perseverance. Survival. Slaughter. Knowingly matched with the impossible, each are equal without compromise. There lies no middle ground for those of unmitigated desire, lest the soil crumble and the sky, fall.

Gov̝a — To be small means to be meddled. A fish, caught in the tug of a net. A mouse, trapped in man's hand. But some… some of the small learn to be large. Snap the net and weigh down the hand; a boulder hiding within a pebble.

Eiypi̬ny — When one spends their life obsessed with blood, blood will eventually return the obsession. EVEN. IF. YOU. REFUSE. OUR. LOVE.

Tsair̡ — Always hiding, but never hidden. Always noticed, but never seen. Any obstruction is a tool. A haven. And a siren shrieking its existence to the world.

Ts͂tll — Fell the great. Fell the immortal. Fell the gods on pillars above. Realms pose no barrier, yet death is an eternal chase. A predator without teeth hunts but never eats. No more. No more. One who has toppled the heavens has earned the right of bypass. For this being, battle is no longer an act; it is law. Pierce the soul, and both shall be bound by oath: Accept death, or become death.

Okay… what the fuck is going on with Eiypiny?