Chapter 3
Emerging Dimension #567. The "Balance of Souls" universe. The world of Eternal Night.
The Hueco Mundo Desert. The same thing has always happened here for more than ten centuries. For ten centuries, spirits that have lost a part of themselves have been trapped in this horrible place and, if they are lucky, they manage to be reborn into hideous monsters that often lose their minds. Empty. All they want is the meat of their kin, all they desire is to fill their emptiness. They hunt, they fight, they kill, they eat. An endless cycle that began ten centuries ago, and will continue a hundred times longer, if not indefinitely. The same thing. But in an instant everything changed, the sound of cracking glass echoed across the desert. Many creatures raised their faces to the sky to see a shooting star in the empty sky, with a lonely moon.
At first there was pain in my chest, it burned where people's heart is. Gradually the pain spread to the whole body, everything hurt. The agony lasted for what seemed like an eternity, but it was over in an instant, leaving behind a strange lightness in his whole body.
Zing!
Congratulations! You've been reborn as the Nether Void!
The system analyzed your last life and changed your body according to the laws of this dimension and the universe.
Attention! Be vigilant! If you are eaten, your identity will be erased.
Have a nice life!
-What the H@^&*%-NRYA! Mryau so much hope, so much fear and pain, and for what! Nrya! To get a body like this! I tried to pour out everything I think about the situation. How would you behave if instead of the newborn body you were expecting, you got this? And the worst part is not that I look like a big cat. It's that I'm actually a fucking HEALTHY Furry MURPHY!
Oh yes, our hero had a peculiar appearance. A big, four-legged creature, fluffy, although the steel-colored fur was most likely very strong, with a gorgeous tail, a Persian cat mask on his face and a hole in his chest would cause a stupor in any creature who is familiar with such a breed of cats as Persians.
A large hollow was rampaging on the dunes of Hueco Mundo. A leap, a swipe of his paw, and a great cloud of dust rose up, another leap, a swish of his tail, and the curious lizard was blown to pieces. But here was something that made the hollow man calm down. He stopped with his paw, lay down on his belly, covered his eyes and thought about something.
Okay meow, calm down meow..... I'll look at the status again.
In the upper left corner was a picture of a gorgeous, fluffy, steel-colored cat, with a mask on its face so detailed that it looked like it wasn't a mask at all, but white skin. On the right side was all the information about Void. The last time I'd woken up, just looking at the picture had shifted my mind a little. It felt like rage was literally starting to consume me. Which, for a former suicidal invalid, is unusual. Thanks to that animal that I accidentally mauled, if it hadn't been for the experience message, I'd probably be walking around the desert right now with a rabid two-meter tall mutant cat.
Level 1
Up to level 2: 1/200 Experience
Flesh: 260 OJ
Spiritual Power: 230 OD
Mental Strength: 40 OM
Name: [Blocked].
Race: Inferior Void
The Inferior Voidlings are the weakest form of life in the expanse of Hueco Mundo. They are mostly mindless animals, once human, intent on one thing and one thing only: eating more of the delicious essence of their kind. In time, if you're lucky, a void will begin to develop the beginnings of intelligence, and some of the lower void have various abilities.
Absorb a minimum of 0/0/1000 units of essence to evolve. [Blocked]. [Locked]
When defeating your own kind, eat them or they will eat you. Additional conditions are required for evolution: [Blocked] or [Blocked].
Class: None
Class will be determined after four of any characteristic reach fifty units.(possible choice).
Specialization: [Blocked].
The first Specialization will be available after level 50, the second after level 75,
Profession: Hunter 1ur., Fisherman 1ur., Master of Concealment 1ur., Assassin 1ur., Spy 1ur., Legendary Cat 1ur.
Ancient instincts have awakened in you. Since your soul originally "rose" from the soul of an ancient mountain cat, the whole range of professions of this legendary animal will be available. For detailed information about the professions, read the help.
Major Characterization Categories:
Flesh
Strength 16 (15-1+2): Strength determines how much you can increase the pseudo physical and physical damage you inflict by explosively injecting Spiritual Force into and out of your flesh. Increases your sprinting speed.
Endurance 13 (15-1-1):Endurance increases the amount of spiritual power that integrates with flesh, thereby increasing its density, volume, and regeneration. Stamina also increases physical, pseudo-physical, and some spiritual stability. Slightly increases movement speed.
Dexterity 24 (25-1): Ability to quickly redistribute portions of spiritual power within the body. Responsible for general mobility, stretching, and muscle memory. Speed of movement is directly related to Agility.
Reason
Intelligence 18 (5+10*+1+2): Controlling large amounts of spiritual power outside the body, directing spiritual pressure. Speed of information processing, speed of learning. Intelligence determines your reaction speed and the maximum amount of information you can use at one time. Intelligence also increases mental strength.
Wisdom 14 (5+6*+2+1): Determines the minimum amount of spiritual power you can control outside of the body, the ability to point DCs at other living and pseudo-living organisms depends on wisdom. High wisdom allows you to process information more fully, make informed decisions based on this information. Enhances intuitive thinking. Increases mental powers and speed of their recovery.
Willpower 8(5+3): Resistance of your mind and spirituality to the effects of harmful mental and spiritual forces. Willpower slightly increases the amount of spiritual power. Decreases the cost of using skills based on mental powers. Increases the amount of mental power.
Soul
The integrity of your soul is 34%:
Spiritual Power Color: [Colorless]:
[Blocked]
Vice: [Blocked].
[Blocked]
[Blocked]: *&^$^%%%$#?{{
[Blocked]
Spiritual Force Aggressiveness: 2%
Spiritual Force Aggressiveness directly affects the damage of Negative-based skills and abilities.
Spiritual Force Softness: 3%
Spiritual Power softness directly affects the effectiveness of Positivity-based skills and abilities, increases all regenerative characteristics.
Spirit 10(10): Spirit is one of the three most important characteristics in this universe. It determines the volume and density of your spiritual power.[Blocked].
Sensorics 15(15): Sensorics are one of the three most important characteristics in this universe. The ability to hide one's own and effectively detect hostile spiritual power. [Blocked].
Management 5(5): Control is one of the three most important characteristics in this universe. Control is responsible for your ability to manipulate spiritual power. Increases the effectiveness of spiritual genetic abilities. [Locked].
Mystical category
Warning. You cannot put characterization points into the mystic category until level 25.
Charisma 32 (30+2): The so-called power of personality. Responsible for interaction with society, in general, and its individual representatives, in particular. High Charisma will allow you to work more effectively with forces.
Luck 0(-5+5): Mystical characteristic, responsible for random phenomena.
Beauty 10(10): The vision of beauty, the ability to create beautiful things, to move, dress and speak beautifully. The effectiveness of Beautiful actions is increased.
Free characteristic points: 0
Statuses:
[Legendary shrink]
[Angry Friend]
[Master of languages]
[Bookworm]
[Martyr of Pure Reason]
[Triune]
[RPG Life].
[Ancient Mountain Cat]
-How am I supposed to figure all this out? And there are professions and skills that I haven't even looked into. I'm so sick of mnyakin' mnyakin'! Fuck! The cat got up on his paws, looked to the right, to the left, to the moon and spoke to himself in a shrill metallic voice.
-I need to do something, because I'm pretty weak so far. Level one isn't level 100. You should try hunting first, what about abilities and skills?
Skills:
[Beginning Cat Kung Fu]{Passive} 1st level: This martial art is based on the concept of first strike. There is also a strong emphasis on tail work and acrobatics.
Paw strike +10% damage
Claw Strike +15% damage
Tail Strike +10% damage
Hidden Strike +10% damage
[Stealth]{Passive} 1st level: The ability to conceal your presence.
+5% you won't be seen
+5% that you won't be heard
+5% they won't smell you
+5% they won't feel your DC.
[Tracking]{Passive} 1st level: The ability to find signs of presence. Track a target and be undetected.
+10% find residual traces (visual, odor, DC)
+10% chance of tracking the target
[Assassination]{Passive} 1ur: True assassins always know where to hit to instantly eliminate a target.
A vision of the target's weaknesses is available.
Hidden Strike +50% damage
+1% chance of killing the target instantly
[Espionage]{Passive} 1ur: This skill allows you to gain additional information while observing a target.
[Observation]{Active} 1st level Cost 1 OM: When activated, will provide information about the target.
[Bait]{Active} 1st level Cost 4 OM: Use your tail to bait a fish, or a mouse.
35 meters, 15% chance of triggering
[Mental Health Treatment]{Passive} 1ur: Can you tell me more about what's bothering you?
The chance to cure a negative mental effect with a simple conversation is 5%
Chance to inflict a random mental buff when speaking 5%
Chance to apply a negative mental buff when speaking 5%
-What is it? A strange sensation caught my attention, and my body tensed involuntarily. I looked around and saw a humanoid silhouette that was speeding toward me. The distance was far, but even from here I could see that the creature was about four meters tall, no less.
-I guess I'll get a chance to test my kung mofu. What if I try to learn more about the creature? [Observation]
Zing!
Bottom empty
Level 3
Flesh 340
DS 100.
MS 1
Nutritional 20 E.C.
This gorilla is two months old. He's very strong. He's dumb. He's hungry.
Won four empty-nesters.
-Correct description, or is it because of my low level in espionage? - I reasoned, looking at the running wonder of nature. The big green gorilla was almost to the body of the bureaucrat.
- There was something about DC in the description of the characteristics. I should try to fill my limbs and tail with this damn Spiritual Force. So let's concentrate on all four paws, visualize my energy filling all five limbs. The creature is close. It's raising its arm sharply to strike. I'm moving a little to the left. Shit, it feels like a log went by. If it gets hit, it's gonna be bad. He's pulling forward, because he's got a lot of power in his punch. I shift even more to the left, transfer all imaginary energy to the left front paw, jump up and to the left, and with all my might hit the creature on the fly on the mask, but no, not hit, the gorilla lowered his head and the blow came to the back of his head. Half of the skull was blown off and already started to celebrate the victory, when everything was mixed up. I woke up in the sky, while flying looked at how much life and DS I had left. What I saw did not please: 59/260 OJ, 100/230 OD and 25/40 OM. Even my mental had dropped a bit. The thing must have shoulder-butted me while I was celebrating my victory. What's he got left? [Observation]
Zing!
Lowest empty
Level 3
Flesh 198
DS 31.
MS 0
This gorilla is two months old. He's very strong. He's dumb. He's hungry. He's in pain. He's furious
Won four empty-nesters.
Landing softly on my paws ( thanks to my tail), I began to watch the empty man's actions carefully.
- I don't want to go near him.
The creature seemed to have lost its mind. Covered in black blood, with eyes blazing with rage and madness, without the back of its skull, it was a monster that inspired respect. "Calm down, you're no longer an invalid paralytic, you're a monster too. On instinct alone, with no experience in controlling this body, you even managed to mage a mego-strike with your paw and take off half of the head of a four-meter tall human ancestor. There's still time, we need to come up with a plan." As the gorilla waddled over to the poor cat. Fluffy's brains were going through various options.
"Looks like we're going to have to get close again, probably the best thing to do would be to lunge forward, and on the approach I'd be better off with a paw on his leg, I could even use my claws, and charge at the mask with my tail, it obeys me perfectly."
The two enemies were preparing for the second round of their confrontation. Green Void approached the four-legged man who had so enraged him. It was the first time the gorilla-like monster had experienced so much pain and fear in his two months of life, and he was determined to avenge everything on his abuser.
A jerk! The two creatures meet. The gorilla strikes downward with his right hand sharply, quickly and very hard ... But misses, the enemy is too agile. The blow raises a cloud of dust and the Green Monster has lost sight of his opponent, but the cat is there, already under the gorilla with a paw on which five claws shine with gray fire. A quick and light movement and the leg of the tall creature separates from the body, bounces off the second hand and, at the same time, the tail with a whiplash blows the mask of Green.
-Yeah! Victory! Fuck! Now who's cooler than me? А? You'll know how to take on ordinary mountain cats.
"Whew, that was scary. I gotta see what that message is flashing."
Congratulations!
You have won your first victory.
Don't forget to collect the essence.
Results of the fight:
+1 Sense, +2 Strength, +3 Wound, +4 Catch, +3 Int., +2 Wisdom, +3 Spirit, +4 Control,
[Beginning Cat Kung Fu] level up
[Beginning Cat Kung Fu] level up
[Beginning Cat Kung Fu] level up
[Beginning Cat Kung Fu] level up
[Beginning Feline Kung Fu] 5th grade:
Paw strike +14% damage
Claw Strike +19% damage
Tail Strike +14% damage
Hidden Strike +14% damage
>[Espionage] level up
[Espionage] 2nd level.
[Observation] level is elevated
[Observation] 2 level.
[Murder] level up
[Murder] level up
[Assassination] 3rd level. : Visions of the target's weaknesses are available.
Hidden Strike +60% damage
+1.4% chance of killing the target instantly
175 experience points gained
It's still 24 ops away from the next level.
-Well, I'll go see what's wrong with the corpse, then. As I approached the dead monkey, I realized how to get the essence. The monkey had to be eaten. It wasn't that I didn't want to, or was disgusted by cannibalism. On the contrary, the corpse smelled great, and if there was a thought at the bottom of my RPG brain that this action was wrong, it was quickly pushed to the back of my mind by anticipation and hunger. I pounced on the enemy's ex, tearing it apart and swallowing it, drinking what the creature had instead of blood and purring with pleasure. But the corpse was eaten, and the thought never left the depths of my mind, but in its place came the confidence in the correctness of the belly feast.
Zing!
You learned a skill with a special action
[Devouring]{Passive} 1 level: Eating delicious things is the meaning of life for any intelligent being, and whoever claims otherwise, let him live on one bread and water.
+10% of the beneficial elements of the ingested food
The flavor of the food is improved.
+4% chance to get a random characteristic when eating a meal
Congratulations!
You absorbed your first essence.
The way of the belly is the way of evolution
Absorb a minimum of 22/22/1000 units of essence to evolve.
I lay on the white sand of this strange place and thought about the current situation. "It's not as bad as it seemed at first glance. So I became a cat, so I have speech defects, but it's nothing compared to the way I used to live. And even though my body is no longer of the humanoid type, and now my character seems to have changed a lot. But. I can walk, I can run, I can feel the faint breeze ruffling my fur, the sand caressing the pads of my feet, the white moon caressing my back with its faint light. Definitely I forgive the Horned Ones for their deception. After all, from what I understand, the chance of regaining a soul in this world is high. Just hunt and eat your game. Even the thought of stalking my victim, watching him, looking for weaknesses, and in the end I will fight on my own terms, not killing him at once, but stretching the "game" for a long time, letting him realize his insignificance and eating him in the end - makes me so excited that I want to purr.
-Murrr. There's definitely something wrong with me, mrya. I'm so sick of this metallic clang instead of a voice! I want my beautiful soul voice back! Mrya!
Zing!
A new assignment is available!
"Enchanting Vocals."
After becoming the lowest void, having gained much you have lost the important - [Voice].
Restore it.
Job Rank: Bronze, Granite
Reward: 1500 OP, Skill, Beauty +50
Failure: none
"There is a way means. It doesn't matter. The task endures, especially since it's likely that to restore the voice, the percentage of soul integrity needs to be increased... But here, how to increase it is a great mystery.
Before I go hunting, I need to understand what I can do. So, imagine that energy is circulating inside me, it fills the whole body evenly. There's a response! As if the whole body became metallic, so, now imagine that the metal is liquid and flows into the tail, fills it to the brim, penetrates every hair of the hair. Ugh, it's so hard, I'm gonna increase the concentration a little bit more, a little bit more....."
-Fuck! -Take that!
Spinning around, I hit the nearest dune with my tail, at the same time releasing all the spiritual power from its tip.....
It was epic: the tail glowed with a gray light, leaving a trail as it went. The moment the force was released, the light disappeared, only to be replaced the next instant by a bright white star at the end of the tail. Upon colliding with the dune, the star simply blew it away, and continued to fly forward for a while leaving a melted track in the sand. After flying about three hundred meters, the small white dwarf burst into flames, illuminating the desert with a bright white light. All this happened completely silently, which gave the phenomenon a special beauty.
- Wow.... Two hundred and one like a cow.
Zing!
By a special action, under special conditions, you have created a unique spiritual gene, do you want to integrate it? Attention! At this stage of development it is possible to have only one spiritual gene!
[Star's Wish]
One day a ten-year-old girl asked me, "Grandpa, you know about space, don't you? Can you explain what the stars wish for?" Then I told her a beautiful fairy tale that we mere mortals cannot understand the wishes of the stars, that they are like angels helping us and other nonsense. To what the child answered: "You know nothing, grandpa....Stars wish only one thing - To die in the brightest flash, that people, watching their suicide, would realize - they are only people". Later I found out that the girl had bone marrow cancer, and she knew her fate, so she wanted just like the stars to flash at the last moment of life, like her favorite stars. And I quit astrophysics and had kids.
The characteristics {Strength}, {Ability}, {Control} affect [Star Desire] and the effectiveness of skills and abilities based on this spiritual gene.
When integrating: The composition of the spiritual force will change, the color of the spiritual force will change
+4% Aggressive DS
+6% Soft DS
DC Color: Melted Silver
It is possible to develop Soft and Aggressive DS without restrictions
Mixing of aggressive and mild DS is available to you
+100% to the growth rate Eq.
+100% to Krt growth rate
The cost of integrating a 10 E.C. gene.
The [Polaris Strike] ability will be available.
[Polaris Strike]{Active Ability*} 1st level Min. 100 OD-Max 250 OD Concentrate Soft and Aggressive OD, in a 2/3 ratio, into a limb as quickly as possible. Instantly release the entire mixture of OA from a point of minimum size.
Star at Min. OD: 50 Positive + 75 Negative +25 Cold Glow(1 meter) damage.
Star radius: 0.25 meters
Star velocity: 2.5 meters per second
Supernova at Min. DC: damage 100 Positive + 150 Negative
+50 Cold Glow(25 meters)
Supernova's radius is 10 meters.
Star at Max. DC: damage 60 Positive + 300 Negative
+ 100 Cold Glow(2 meters)
+ 75 Space Distortion (Max DC only)(1 meter)
Star radius: 0.3 meters
Speed of the Star: 2.5 meters per second.
Supernova at Max. DC: damage 110 Positive + 500 Negative
+ 150 Cold Glow(25 meters) + 100 Space Distortion (Max DC only)(20 meters)
Supernova radius: 10 meters
+2 Catch, +3 Exercise, +3 Force, +2 Krt.
"I have my doubts, such a gingerbread for a penny. My intuition screams that there's a catch. Well, it can not be that a novice cat cannibal level 1 with ZERO luck, after the first experiment with DS turned out to be THIS. "To take or not to take? To take or not to take?"
A while later.
-Should I or shouldn't I? To do or not to do?
For a long time I can't make up my mind, it's weird. As soon as I find an argument for it, my feline brain immediately produces a couple of arguments against it. I analyze the arguments against, I get "insight" in the form of arguments for.
-That's it. I've said it all, no pros and cons, or I'll get lost in thought and miss another animal. I'll take it. Meow.
The process of integrating the gene into your body has begun!
The process is very painful.
The process strains the soul, it can destroy you.
Attention.....Analysis...Printing
Chance of successful integration under current parameters 7%
Chance of soul destruction 77%
Would you like to continue?
Yeah. No.
[Auto]Yes
-Miaow?
***
" What would I....
....each....
...once...fell for it....
.... na...free....
.oh-ho-ho-ho...am...still...alive? So.... lucky, huh?
A beautiful silver fluffy cat rose to its feet, looked around the neighborhood with a cloudy look and staggered towards the moon, squeaking something under its nose and occasionally staring into the void.
He didn't know. Nor would he ever know what a good day he was having. For at the moment of his arrival, he was falling from the sky with a punctured, but working, [Field of Denial], which could not be damaged by definition. Impossible, improbable, unfathomable, unfathomable, but it was so. This divine defense negates and then reflects back all forces in all dimensions of creation. It is Absolute. But the man who once was Vlad Aleksandrovich Yazykov and the fallen shadow god "Crash" Anubis broke the Absolute.
The [Field of Denial] is a Gift of the Golden City, and like all things created by the Gods, it is intelligent. And at the time of contact with the treaty loop, it was analyzing:
-Soul didn't make a contract, the only way to bypass Lucifer's field-dar Lucifer's not chosen-the defense has to work.
-Lucifer's gift is used through a contract-the protection must be turned off.
-Dar, like the Demon God, no longer exists-the defense must work.
-Soul contracted with the Shadow, the gift of the Shadow utilized--providing a link to the loop of the Shadow's contract.
-Soul did not make a contract with the Shadow, the contract was made with the body, by deception- contact of the field with the shadow, analyze the host of the loop, send a report to the Golden City- analyze the solution- the solution is 99% correct. Proceed to execution.
.....And at the moment of contact with the loop, the unexpected happened....
-Attention Error! Loop performs Dar Ten...Oshi...zefer*:%:%:????:;%;¹
-Denial of the threat of the inner sector, denial of the Soul Breath:%;;:??:%%;%%;%# Denial of the [Field of Denial]
Vlad was the only one of the four thousand three hundred and fifty-six who hadn't agreed to sign the contract. And Anubis was cunning, he knew that Lucifer's Gift could be fulfilled by deception, so he forced the body to live until the terms of the contract were fulfilled. Then performed the only ritual in existence, shielded from the influence of everything.
The law of the universe was broken, it was impossible to use the Gift that was erased, but it was used four thousand five hundred and fifty-five times. To restore the balance, the forces were forced to create Lucifer and restore his Gift. Everything happened too quickly, and Vlad's situation was missed, and the Field, without connection with the Golden City, went crazy and began to deny not as it should: from inside to outside, but unnaturally from inside to inside, then from inside to outside.
And falling into the dead world, the field first reflected the cold light of the ghost moon inward, soaking the damaged soul, and then, denying pieces of the innocent soul soaked power that died.
And billions of desperate spirits in the desert below saw the miracle of the Shooting Star for the first time in their existence. For a split second, experiencing a fleeting touch of innocence, they prayed, prayed to the Miracle. The faith of billions, their desire, unformed but still a desire, made a particle of dead power come to life and transform into a seed, and then germinate, thus stabilizing the crumbling soul.
However, the monster, once Vlad Alexandrovich Yazykov, and before that the proud mountain cat Nighttail, was unknowingly swearing, cursing such an unlucky day.