novelraw Chapter 292 281: Enduring Transformation
Chapter 292 281: Enduring Transformation
Chaos Space never felt stranger and more chaotic after dipping into an old, strange door. It was not Elsewhere. Murai saw all sorts of things, and now faced a small, weird accident. At least it was not fraud. Like himself. The space churred in tides of space, not the time, and orders of Nowhere and Somewhere, which weren't in most eras, scattered to obscuritz as something snatched him into a new direction.
This was no mere term of dangerous places, yet with one more Hidden Realm up his sleeve, and falling to one hella special space, he didn't see the point in being worried about anything.
He just remembered.
Then shirked.
Then realized he didn't know.... well, everything.
There were very nasty Laws residing in these spaces, breaking and ensuring the Reality wouldn't break, but it was not a home, nor was it anywhere near a Hidden Realm. Still, the sense of reason indicated that anything 'real' had to be surrounded by real objectifications. Which was not the point of Hidden Realms, so the Chaos Space was of a different magnitude, or maybe a cause for space and a point of expansions, or existence. It has to exist for something to exist.
Murai was here with his real body—a little shaken duck flaring and falling within boundless lines of moving rooms and areas, wishing he cared enough to see their points, but he didn't give a shit about any of them.
It wasn't a hiding space, acting like the rest of them, housing and giving strange creatures, beings, and life a way. It wasn't evil or righteous. Divides had their sides, and their judgment wasn't making sacrifices and divisions among that which was dead.
Acting between the gaps and destruction, the energies were strange, to say the least. For roads and portals to work from within, such actions required unfathomable patience and skill, and this one was shaken like the most forced type of magic imaginable.
Maybe it wasn't even magic. Maybe it was a natural path and distinction leading to a place in Chaos Space, or maybe to a place between the gaps he couldn't picture or recognize anymore.
Murai at least trusted he was alive, and Lisa pushed him into this place at exactly the same time Razmund had arrived. Everything about that portal was odd, pointing somewhere, at someone. One mistake and one could get lost forever, so he tried to keep his shit together, even if he knew this wasn't an elegant endeavor.
He wasn't under too much stress. He kept falling and directing his sight before. In different lives. In the curses of his life. At this one, a bound or boundless line marked his fall, yet there were no paths.
There were bizarre monsters out there, shadowy, outlined, and gazing and flowing like gargantuan sea and space monsters. Most were trying to hide upon watching this eldritch soul, though describing such chaos beasts and ancient horrors as fearful was like grading life as mistaken. Murai didn't want to do that, so he followed those broken lands and fled gods knows where.
He didn't need to meet and regard incomprehensible cultures living here longer than any god was alive. Lifeless, lawless, and timeless glories following the shatters of the Epochverse, looming and blooming. It came back sooner or later, forming new lines and giving back rights, or stealing everything back.
They would get by. It always did. Turning anew wasn't for Chaos Space, where the one side of Divides once originated and spent infinitum to make one singular point; to fight back against whatever was right and wrong.
Most dangers were subjective here, either an entrapment, or the living beings in Somewhere began to use its mysteries and secrets to their advantage. Such marks, mistakes, and details dated all the way back to the First Epoch, where the rules of the cosmos were fresh and hanging by a thread of True Immortals.
Murai hated those and Void, but the actual universe and its endless potential showed its limits. Like insanity. The Void was more ominous, hiding the stretch that created endless eternity. From stars to muddled waters called by many names, to asteroids and ancient historical centers, there was a variety of ideas about the Third Epoch, which had been ongoing for millions of Chaos Cycles.
Murai flew like a lost animal. It wasn't very clean, put-together line, and he had no idea who had used it before, or when, or what for. It startled him how it progressed, and how the lights and very rapid, intense turns and twists started to fall after a whole day of this shitty travel.
Maybe he hated the idea of thinking about his own head, thoughts, and why the fuck did Lisa do that thing? She pushed him off right when Razmund was in his area, and then… she was gone. She didn't come back to him, and for a whole day, at that.
Could this end soon? Frankly, he didn't even step in willingly to feel this conflicted. He also knew there were no choices. Lisa ensured he got one thing right, while what was lying beyond it was another thing altogether.
His life was perhaps one giant mistake either way. Sure, he saw that portal with his own eyes, but it wasn't the same as having an idea where to go or what it used to be.
It was about dedication! Laws! Trust...
And Lisa tossed it like a dice herself, before a flash of light came for her neck. Murai had no idea what she did next; he just hoped this damned Chaos Space calmed down and became better, and she would haunt him back in Reality, or wherever this line ended.
It took some time. Not just anyone could live or travel here, and one could even encounter obstacles or lockdowns the moment one entered the wrong spaces. That either meant this line was protected and mandated, or his species as a whole was durable enough, even if he wasn't very powerful. That one was subjective.
He had trouble breathing within hours—or what it felt like it—and if it weren't for his mana and flesh and Brightlife, he bet his life would be beyond desperation.
The Sun God might be the primary source, but Murai had no idea whether it even involved him. This might be a work of Levandis, the one who forced him through those mines since the start. She prepared it!
He flickered his wings and tried to remain in the treacherous spot of ancient beliefs. It might even date to the previous Epochs, though it was hard to say it with certainty, since no one truly understood the depth of these spaces or when they commenced. Stating the passage of time was even harder, since living through the shift in Epoch was neither a gift nor a curse.
There was definitely no significant art about it. There were patterns of perpetuity and bottomlessness, as if another universe were within the other. It wasn't even cracking apart or doing terrible mishaps.
It was honest in its own way, for life was not rare. It was made. Cultivated.
A terrible sight around him was just another perspective, coming from the eyes that no human had. Then there was his silly head, shiny beak, and two Cores in his mana space that didn't take this place lightly. They actually saved him enough energy and merits to remain conscious, while the line itself wasn't breaking and reaching a slow end in sight.
It was not the end he imagined.
Nothing caught up to him or sought him out of their lines. There were insanities leaning towards this idea, or at this line, but that might not be for them. Considering a falling duck as an enemy was laughable. That core idea reminded Murai too much of dying, but he was still sane and enduring his flesh and living substance.
It felt worse from time to time until he established rules, sought out magic, his past, and retrofitted ideas and marks of his cursed living. Life by life, he ended many of them with glory and pain. Now, he considered himself a fairly capable duck, which was...
"Fuuuuuck!" Murai cried out, quacking in a loud-pitched noise that carried out his emotions to an unknown distance. Nothing shook. Not even the line or boundless patterns of light and colors around him, flowing into an endless depth.
There were visible storms, colorful clouds, geotropic activities, and even broken pieces of land and planets. Lifeless wasn't a word attached to the majority of the Chaos Space, but many magicians described it as broken sky mixed with densely packed galaxies, layers of space, and, ever so rarely, exotic and dangerous territories.
Around seventy percent was lifeless, but how true was it, if it was essentially boundless? In a way, it was full of life if one looked at it the right way. Cultures created and explained it over eras, and anyone could say one word and a fact because there was no way to verify everything. At least not in the current Epoch.
Murai knew how some things were meant to be, how they should stop and play with the rules, or end. He hated all Epochs regardless, while rules and magical nonsense were nothing but a hindrance.
To where it led, no ghost might answer to that. Murai genuinely felt there was a remedy in trying really hard to bang against this shitty door of his living and dying lives, no matter what. It was gnarly, but he should never expect to come clean towards the end, since what was it if not one dying, sinful, wishful thinking?
Losing his mind, he was screaming at the top of his lungs. He had long since lost it.
He couldn't die for shit and giggles. There was no loophole. He got totally and resolutely scammed! That's what his soul expressed to him: nothing was right as a broken tool by hundreds of lives breathed for him.
He needed no Lisa for that, whispering to his ears like a devilish ghost of the past that he couldn't even remember. She wasn't even ridiculous. She was helpful and pushy, but perhaps that alone evoked lives long lost, or Murai just couldn't think of her in any other way.
She tried to change things, and she did talk and make multiple efforts to get him…. where, exactly? Doubts. Doubts. Silly doubts.
Murai sometimes wished to stop thinking, but that was not possible. Light and swelling darkness were before him, and not as a line, or like a black hole. Still, something came to him, and a bright spotlight turned and grasped the status of his path upside down, overturned, and then fell to the absolute, false bottom.
Shortly afterward, Murai fell and stumbled to a wooden floor, screaming in shrill quacks, and feeling like his mind had broken into thousands of pieces. Gravity returned as his beak and feathers slid across the shiny, ancient-looking wood. It was a delightful end to his journey, if it weren't for the meandering curses that soon followed.
There were no plans ahead, or calmness.
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He kept gliding for dozens of seconds, until a massive pillar stopped him. He glanced around, heavy in circumstances that rushed into him like breathing in sick air, and then… he breathed and realized he was definitely Somewhere. Where? How? He didn't know, but he wasn't broken, hurt, or out of his body.
He was no longer in the Battleworld, let alone in the Levandis Temple, or Hellscape. It was no Paradise either, though that word had so many interpretations that no one should trust anyone who named anything in that way. It was also no place close to an actual Hell, which was another indication of a poor naming capacity and sinful ideas.
"Scornful road... Blog! Fulaiga! Cretinous rivets! I've finally found a grounded enemy. A floor... No stairs. Is that shitty deep Chaos Space even worse?" Murai complained, resting on the ground, until he felt wrong. He couldn't get up no matter what he tried. At least his eyes worked, so he got to work on it and realized one particular issue.
It wasn't a pillar that stopped him. It was a freaking table leg, and the rest of it wasn't far.
"Great... A crippled duck tries to get up, but fails. Should I call it miraculous? Ah, I became a sitting duck. How wonderful of an achievement! NO! I have done that on top of Bagus for days! Ah…"
Upon a closer inspection, it wasn't wrong to cuss. It was about the perception of twisted days in the Chaos Space and getting used to yet another shitty space.
The worst thing was that Murai couldn't see it very well due to the sheer heavy energy. Mana felt wrong. He felt like a twisted dimension... yet there was a floor, that table, and stuff.
Blinking lessened it, and overcoming his darn head was done in gruesome grunts. Fluffing up his feathers and head, Murai got to his feet, wavered like a broken toy, and glanced around like a gangster met with a foolish errand.
His tiny legs kept trembling, shaking, and his quivering beak stressed the shit out of his neck because of its heftiness. Gravity was a broken law here, but his body wasn't a natural side of perfection. It was no wonder. His picturesque definition of perfection was far from having feathers, a beak, and no hands whatsoever.
Typical race stuff was simply far better, and… yeah, he shouldn't think about it as someone who bore a life of a magical rock and even a fucking leaf.
Ducks were more complex, wrong, and straightforward animals, and while his current disposition and appearance were fairly decent—for a duck, of course—his vision and magical perspective and soul were far more threatening.
"Am I strong... or weak? What is this place?" He quacked, and his eyes prevailed over his main problem. His mana finally twisted back in its form, his eyes shone, and within him, the Robust Spirit opened its eyes as well. That probably meant something special, or it should have always been open, giving Murai a Will to live and breathe in this place. It didn't work that way all the time.
Murai wasn't aware of a lot of things. He just got things done or clearer without knowing what the fuck he was doing.
But every little thing also belonged under his arsenal and life, showing marks to his flesh and magic, and they weren't too cheap or fake. They were simple gifts and marks of Boosts and division of power that set Battleworld apart from the others. Like Godly Blessings, truly, but with a world in mind. He kind of liked how cool it sounded, since worlds were worlds and some shitty gods shouldn't get a bad idea about him.
But they did, and not just a little bit.
At these times, he was more than glad for his cursed existence and having enough variety to get used to the most unexpected, crazy situation anyone could find. Flexing his shaken flesh and muscles and feathers, Murai got his eyes up to his 'watchful' task. Air was weird, ambient mana stressed and dense, and… everything was vast.
He was in a room hundreds of meters tall, which meant a wall and ceiling, an overwhelming table and chair, and… a building, perhaps. The walls were smooth and looked ancient, forgotten in time and space. Ordinary was the style prospect.
This reality was gigantic, and almost broke Murai's perspective. Everything did make him smaller than a duck, however.
He couldn't grasp the gravity of his situation. Literally. The laws of this place were against him, and he was unable to take a step forward or back. Even turning his neck was a task on its own, yet Murai was stubborn and fought against it with everything he had. It was easier and better with time, since nothing amiss was near him.
Until he moved and faced the ground, moaned, quacked, and felt how his Attributes were consumed and powerless like his mana and flesh. His body winced on the spot, and he growled like a wounded beast.
His spine wrecked him, and there… in his depth, Brightlife sizzled and sent all sorts of shocks through his body until he firmed his feet in shock and fell to the ground again. He continued trying to get away and up, and this cycle went on for dozens of shots and harms.
Out of his mind, mana, and body attributes, he fought against the mother nature and started to pick up small victories here and there.
His beak made a sharp clicking sound as he pushed against the floor, while bright, sizzling mana began to leak out of his Beast Core on its own, glistering like a golden soup mixed with white sauce.
A big sign of an upgrade, he knew, yet… how the hell did it work? Self-Found Ways were still new to him, but Lisa told him a lot about them and how they worked along the Boosted Ways, or… the rest of his things?
As a Blessed, he was supposed to be somewhat broken and acknowledged as such, yet… he was still a Cursed One.
"Fucking hell! Not now... It got better on its own? Ah, shit... my Heavenly Defying Fusion Technique! I can't allow this to happen!" Murai complained and shoved his intent toward his mana space.
For a long time, he wasn't sure what was up with that Brightlife or what it was supposed to do after getting out of that Hidden Realm. Beast Core felt a sudden enlightening upgrade, though it was more like an advancing power of Brightlife inflicting him instead. It was far more elevated Elemental Affinity of quite a haughty tier and grace, and it didn't want anything to do with his Artificial Core.
But the Beast Core?
Murai had long impeded his Beast Core from advancing at every step, so the Initialization Core was still in a rather specified, poor stage. It wasn't too hard or bad, as he made up for it with his skill and expertise in mana. So what about this weird equilibrium and transition made him feel like a furnace and a breaking vase?
It happened, and he got an opportunity ahead of him regardless of his wants. The major change was the mana itself, which held an endless amount of properties, much like his sense of reason and Murai himself.
Being very pure wasn't an advantage or an unacceptable trait. Elements had their mark, and purity had its controllability and decent quantitative values.
Murai's case was not about purity from the start, as he had wilderness marks of his species, and also Universal Affinity, which, to his awareness, hadn't gone through any processing. It was natural, etched into his bloodline and species as a whole, and he would never be able to change it.
However, he could change what sort of elemental affinities he could try to focus on, and Brightlife invaded that belief as a seed of quite interesting weapons.
That was the reason he got four affinities to his core and worked with them. Elements were powerful flavors for all the stages of the Mana Cores. They created helpful skills, techniques, varieties, and features.
The first three successes described simple stages.
Later on, at the Revolving Core Stage, true changes developed, and one success turned even fools into a transforming, lethal storm.
Murai obviously didn't feel this storm right now, let alone changing the core to a Revolving Core. It needed care, handling, and shaping from the ground up.
He couldn't afford it at the moment, so what the hell was this Brightlife doing? He felt like a reversed waterfall when the Brightlife felt at home, seeking revenge or a new start. It grew, mended into the sparkling Flame and Sharpness, while the Water added a neat texture and fell back.
Murai used Water Element sporadically, yet even that converged into a four-elemental sequence within his mana space and core. The natural continuum came forth next, yet only one of them was mysterious. Not as Murai's existence, that is.
The surroundings—different and not because of his mana—flickered in countless fluctuations and powerful patterns, and Murai was like a smidge compared to them. It was a precursor to a transition, awakening, and change in magic. The Brightlife bloomed its first petal, and Murai recognized he was in a weird holy land, being fucking cleansed from inside out but not… harmed, or any of that sort.
His body felt at peace. It was his soul that felt absolutely, positively crazy, livid, and panicked. It wanted nothing of this. Nothing.
He couldn't do a thing about it because of the sheer terror and intimidation of this space. Securing his Artificial Core was a success, so that was good news. His remaining senses tingled all over, tightening his feathers and weighing on his feelings and attempts to keep his Core Defying Fusion Technique alive. That went on until he leaned more into this area, thanks to the returning mana dancing in joy in the air, or… not.
It was Brightlife once more. It pivoted the flow and manifested powers he couldn't really understand. It influenced mana like wilderness, but on much more personal principles.
His flesh and body worked against the gravity, while his spirit fought like an enduring planet faced with heavenly invasions.
Murai lost like before, grew from it, accepted it, and felt pity for himself.
Discerning the Brightlife came with no answers, so he lay there for a while and tried to feel it.
"Alright… Let's settle down really freaking quickly, shall we?" Murai argued to himself. "Brightlife… a thing of that Realm and gift and insensible force done by that shitty king. It is here, within me, and doing stuff. Right…. so?"
With a single push of Sonar, he tried to sense and look near him, but his Sonar felt like a punch to the sea. It didn't work well at all against this heavy space, so he glanced at where it started after figuring out that he kind of acclimated to this place like Brightlife to him, or vice versa.
Either way, he rather focused on what was clearer.
The table was enormous and thick, made of incredible wood with no visible grain. It was polished to the extreme, or it wasn't a wood at all. Ancient stone, or even a metal, felt more reasonable.
Aside were vast arrays of light and sense-breaking mana, coming from promenades of tools and materials, all arranged in an orderly manner within vitrines.
The place resembled a gigantic shop. Then Murai considered it a giant's warehouse, and further in, there were even doors leading to other rooms.
He even noticed a broken portal in a corner, resembling a hiding spot for mice or a hole for cleaning. It was small and out of place. There sure was an enormous groom aside from it, and it looked more majestic than any Divine Artifact he had ever seen. Then there was more stuff and boxes, all big and glowing from openings, half-open sides, or windows.
"What the hell is this place?"
It was vast and incredible in the magic of creation. From the aura alone, it was a separate dimension even Amelius could never compare with. Its structure was old, ethereal, and absolutely out of the normal worlds.
Or the Epoch itself, maybe?
"Where the hell did that portal send me?! Is it really a stash of that sun son of… well, Mindarch called some rewards out, and I beat that golem well enough, if I say so myself. Alright."
Murai growled again, stood back on his feet, and used his Sonar at absolute maximum! Every wave surged, shook his mana space, and gave his internals massive shockwaves. Like before, he didn't admit defeat and tried to feel what Brightlife was doing. It was weird, empowerment ability influencing overall flow and potential Flame and Sharpness, but for now, what it could do or did was nothing but Murai's guess. He only read very little about these sorts of attributes, as they sounded fused and unique. In short, limited and not easy to grasp.
It needed more testing, so he did it with the most basic thing imaginable. He surged his Sonar more and more, shaking his feelings and feeling how his mana got lower and lower, then up and down like a freaking rollercoaster.
He wasn't sure what was going on with it and him, or whether he was really gathering natural mana from this place or the Brighlife was converting it for him or itself instead. One thing was certain: if it weren't for his Robust Spirit and its neat, broken, self-activated abilities and Brightlife, he would have been very sorry instead of cursing.
Bit by bit, the range of his Sonar increased, and then… he felt large, open land. A giant must be living here, but that sounded wrong just from his imagination. There were a variety of substantial beings from his memory alone that were more suitable, and this wasn't about an ordinary one for sure.
The table was dozens of meters tall, and the room's length exceeded its height. What of colors? Materials? He couldn't compare them to his feelings or mana, let alone see them from the inside out.
Most chunks of his Sona refused to cooperate with his feelings anyway. It was like a blind rage of looking at the sun and asking what time it was.
Murai immediately tensed up and cursed the seventh hell to the eighth.
"Right fucking right. I forgot how this goes... Oh, you freaky Levandis, I haven't even met you yet, and you do this to me... Is this a fucking godly dwelling? Am I in a god's vault? Is this a fine job, or an attempt to swindle me and send me to Death? Fucking bitch. This isn't access to the Sun God bathroom... It's... No. I can't judge it either way. Whatever it is called, I am a mere fraud against what is right and wrong!"
A step later, he stumbled to the ground again.
"Someone is laughing... I swore on it in my soul! Ah, this isn't about equipment or artifact choices! It's a circus. This world is nowhere. I am nowhere, so... yes. This is familiar enough to mean hell. My HELL!" he mumbled to himself, shed a tear, and soon afterward, another step caused another sharp sound, followed by a loud quack.
Lisa flew from that portal, striking him on his beak and bursting into thousands of weird pieces. She shrieked, with many of her parts flying through him like ghosts, until she rearranged and flew upwards, frowning and feeling as if she had drowned for years and learned to swim again.
"Eh? What the…" she muttered and had trouble grasping her hands and arranging her face and size.
"Welcome to hell..." Murai quacked his welcome, glad she survived, and his beak was back in the ground, where his body lay in a fetal position.