Quest Complete

[Host must implant the eye into their socket to complete the quest]

Endyr fell silent for a moment as she briefly pondered on the System's instructions. While the inevitable pain would be a pittance compared to what she went through to escape the chains in Bartholomeus' laboratory, she was still hesitant to harm someplace so close to her brain.

[Host is being too dramatic. Host will not suffer any brain damage by putting the eye in their socket as long as they are not horrendously incompetent.]

Endyr scowled at the jab but had nothing to say in return. Indeed, it was just popping a ball into a hole: nothing difficult or complex about it. So she should just do it now and get it over with.

"..."

Taking a deep breath, Endyr slapped herself across the face and opened lid on the container, fishing out the Abomination's eyeball. Two identical eyes stared at each other as Endyr brought it up to her face, paused, and brought it back down again. This repeated several times before she slumped her shoulders in defeat.

Her hesitation was not just an aversion to pain, but a deeper fear of the potential consequences that implanting the eye would bring. The reward for completing the Quest was still question marks, and Endyr knew from experience that the System and her view of benefits didn't always align. The symbolic weight of taking an Abomination's eye as her own was quite the heavy one, and she feared it would change her on a fundamental level.

[Host is overreacting once more. Nothing negative will happen to them if Host implants the eye. Host will still be the same as always, so they should hurry up and do it now!]

Jolting at the System's harsh tone, Endyr swallowed her words upon detecting a presence closing in on her, one she now knew quite well. The Almigty had detected her intrusion, and once again brought Serapis along with "Him".

Out of time and options, Endyr sucked in a deep breath and grit her teeth as she raised her hand...and shoved in the eye. Almost instantly, she felt the flesh in her socket squirm and grow, connecting to the eyeball and establishing a bridge. Her left side, which has shown only pure blackness for the last few minutes, gradually receded into blobs of light and vague outlines. Falling to her knees as dizziness clouded her mind, Endyr was vaguely aware of the door behind her sliding closed and two presences entering the room.

Words were spoken, but Endyr heard none of them as she teetered on the edge of consciousness. Time seemed to slow down as new and bizarre scenes flashed before her left eye. Expansive nebulae made of resplendent stardust, stars dying and being born in violent explosions, coriolis storms raging across the surface of suns, desolate moons and comets flying through the cosmos...in that instant, this limited bubble of space-time, Endyr seemed to behold the entirety of the Infinite Universein all its glory. And then those scenes were gone, and new ones replaced them.

An unquenchable wave of violence was spreading through the Universe, spreading from one galaxy to another like unstoppable fire. Legions comprised of billions upon billions of souls clashed on planets, on moons, on suns...Everywhere you looked was bloodshed. And at the forefront of each charge was blurred figures wreathed in a purple haze. Denizens of Infinity.

There were others too: Celestials that looked like someone contained a galaxy inside a glass Human, dark blobs with dozens of spiked tentacles, six armed giants wearing silver blue armour and visors, beasts that seemed a mix between whales and a lion...all various Races that Endyr recognised to be the strongest in the Main Universe.

And meeting them were equally powerful figures in all shapes and sizes, battling with just as much if not greater ferocity than their counterparts. A bloody stalemate was drawn as neither side could cinch a decisive win despite the numerous casualties incurred. And then the scene changed once more.

Endyr was in a void where the sky and ground were both bleak grey expanses,an endlessly empty space where nothing had form. Though she had no sensory way of telling, somehow she knew time was rapidly passing. In what was only a few seconds but he instincts said was millennium, a change occurred in the empty space. Cracks began appearing in reality, and with it came creation. A colossal mass of grey goo with an immeasurable number of eyes and limbs popped out of no where, and with it came other lifeforms. Stunted and deformed, most perished with time or were absorbed by the Mass. The ones that remained fought amongst each other, consuming the dead and growing larger, then being eaten by the Grey Mass. After many more millenia (just seconds to Endyr) a change occurred. A new type of life was born from the Mass, one with a vaguely humanoid form and possessing greater strength than its peers. From that point on, all life born from the Grey Mass resembled that creature

Once the number of lifeforms reached a certain threshold, they began vanishing from the realm. Where they went, Endyr did not know nor could she find out...but she had a guess. An endless loop of creatures being born and vanishing ensued, with no end in sight. After a while though, Endyr noticed a small change: the Grey Mass was growing larger.

Though miniscule, each creature it consumed seemed to give it more mass than what it took to create them. It was impossible to tell its exqct level of growth, but it had certainly grown since the start. It was at this point that Endyr realised she could sense the emotions radiating from the Mass: pure and radiant hatred, a single minded desire to extinguish all that was separate from itself.

Then, Endyr was gone from that place and was floating in a black space just like the one where she conversed with Eros. She subconsciously knew the Denizen wasn't here this time, but that didn't mean she was along. Turning her head and having found footing at some point in time, Endyr spotted a magnificent but mottled temple made of gold flickering in and out of existence in the distance. She was back to where she started this Quest.

Advancing through the black void, she took in the pencil sketches that made up this reality, the shades of blacks and browns that comprised the fabric. She was a disembodied blur rather than a Human or Abomination this time, but that didn't mean anything to her. She knew what she had to do.

In just a few short steps she had reached the temple, and this time the doors swung upon to greet her. The inside was identical to the big altar where the eye was kept, but everything was destroyed or covered in vines. The walls had been defaced, the vast majority of their artwork shattered or illegible. The few banners that remained were tattered and torn, while the pews had all been reduced to kindling. At the back of the Chapel, the cross was dull and the top was broken off.

And floating in front of it was a pulsating black orb.

Reacting to her presence, the orb began throbbing at a steady rhythm, like a heartbeat. Dauntlessly advancing forward, Endyr walked towards the orb without a fluctuation of emotions. The rhythm sped up with each step she took, and was pounding like a drum by the time she stood in front of it.

Picking it up with her nonexistent hands, Endyr observed the orb before squeezing it harshly. With the sound of cracking eggs, the orb shattered into specks of light that promptly rushed at her, merging with whatever qualified for her body in this strange dimension. As the feeling of euphoria and fullness like nothing she'd ever experienced filled her, the black void shattered like glass around her as an equally triumphant notification from the System rang out.

[Congratulations Host! You have successfully located the source of your abnormality and escaped the Time Fragment! Calculating achievements and appropriate rewards...]

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Merits:

● Slew Epic {Bartholomeus Istrian}

● Uncovered infomation about the origins of Abominations

● Uncovered infomation on the Cosmic War

● Accomplished primary objective

Demerits:

● System Assistance x5

● Death x4

Final Score: Satisfactory!

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[Rewards have been calculated and will be given after Host has awoken. Please take this brief interlude to gather yourself and prepare to face the world once again!]