Chương 32: Up, Up, Up, Down

Just like Nothing, this being's words were subtitled in boxes, though unlike Nothing, it was not black text on a black background. Instead, a blue textbox with white lettering appeared before him to accompany the words he heard. This wasn't Nothing speaking, but something using its voice just as Onward Evermore had with Aaron's. Based on how these subtitles held the same coloration as his Status, it was obvious who'd taken control of Nothing- at least, control in this particular place.

Hovering before him was a fragment of the System that'd been pulled down, one more alive than the throne had been, and with an obvious task given to it by the System- to secure Aaron and the cannibals, then take them back to the surface, to either secure the packet within him, or for testing on how the Underworld had changed him. Nothing had told him that the System pulled Earth apart to make its invasion more efficient, so would there even be a planet to return to anymore?

He contemplated trying to escape, to slip past it and force it to choose between chasing him and the cannibals. After all, if it hadn't killed him yet, maybe it needed him alive? Before he could act on his thoughts, he flinched as a thunderous explosion pushed him back into the underglass wall behind him. Within the nebulae's grip, Aaron saw the System creature's golden stardust cover a near-invisible figure, large enough that it took up almost all the space in the corridor.

A wave of pigment rolled through the inky blackness, revealing the feathers of a green and red Mushki, its teeth mere feet from the central sphere; if not for the golden stardust tendrils prying its mouth open, holding its body down, and binding its arms, the thrashing Mushki would doubtlessly have bitten deeply into the System creature.

Now that he'd actually seen the Mushki's "Camouflage" in action his jaw dropped, and he knew he never would've spotted it on his own; he hadn't sensed its signature at all, nor had he seen it when it was so close. Nothing said that Mushki remained still when camouflaged to ambush, but he supposed that didn't always apply, not to this one.

He could also tell it was the same Mushki back for revenge, though there was a notable addition- its lower-left arm was now made of silver, several golden lines running through it and a series of torture implements sticking out. It resembled the throne he'd seen before… a little too closely.

'Did the Mushki find and absorb the Place of Power?!' {Oversample Secure. Vastinal's Throne Recovered. Returning to Overworld.} Golden dust covered him and the cannibal's vehicle as well, putting them in the same solidly irresistible prison as the Mushki. {Purging Veil.} A wave of light rolled outwards slowly, and Aaron watched the underglass recoil, burning away in all directions.

His Primary flinched, and Aaron saw through Sensitivity as his signature and that of everyone else's within the ring of light vanished instantly, the space they existed in not even registering; it was as if there was a void around them wherein the Underworld couldn't see, and he knew what this was almost certainly how the System was going to get them out. They were in a pocket of non-existence, if there was anything that could escape the Underworld, it would likely be stepping out of the universe entirely.

Yet as the seconds stretched on, and nothing happened, them simply floating in the bubble, doubt started crept into his mind that the Underworld was as helpless as he first imagined. The angel, it seemed, also reassessed its situation {Slipped Reality Failed. Attempting Manual Resistance.} {Underworld Gateway Definition: Down.} {Moving: "Up."} An airy feeling rose in his chest, like he was falling at an extreme speed, but his eyes told him that they'd started to inch upwards.

The conflicting information made his stomach lurch. He wanted to close his eyes, but couldn't risk missing something important. With the angel's attention split, the Mushki's bindings were apparently not as "Solid" as they'd been moments ago, and it began to vibrate in place, its open jaw doing all that it could to crush down and finish its attack on the angel, but falling short. From the angle he had, it was easy to see inside its mouth, and how it still had no tongue.

'Hehe.' Yet, it was not entirely unsuccessful. Its lower left arm, the metal one with golden lightning, was able to move, gradually pushing through the stardust. Cracks began to spread through the angel's aura, but it didn't immediately do anything to change the situation, allowing it to happen, or perhaps choosing to keep moving rather than stop to mitigate the damage From outside the bubble, pitch darkness seeped through, filling invisible cracks in the air as it bled into the angel's domain.

Where the darkness touched, Sensitivity reactivated, the hooks of space grabbing at them once more. A pressure built in his head, and a deep sense of vertigo spiked, his vision blurring. He heard Nothing's voice again, but no subtitles this time. {Optional Quest Offered: Underworld: Escape its grip. Reward: An Imprint that will eventually save your life.} He clicked his tongue,'So ascent really will mean death, one way or the other.'

He could admit that he wasn't trying to escape as harshly as he could've; Nothing said that the System would reward and nurture him for his part, which he understood. Yes, he was a sample, yes, it would experiment on him, but what good was he dead? It could doubtlessly collect more information from him by dunking him down, letting him run about, then reeling him in repeatedly. He could always figure out an escape later- when he wasn't five feet in front of the fragment of a cosmic being.

He wasn't happy about being taken, but he was fine with it, as he considered it the lower risk. But the Underworld presented a striking opposition. From everything he knew about talking to Nothing, wording was the most important; this didn't say "Could" save his like, it said"Will," meaning that if he didn't have this Imprint, he would need it later, not have it, and die. Maybe the System could recreate it, but did it really want him to live that long?

Already, it'd given him a flawed Imprint, just to see what happened. Maybe it would try and learn from his death, too. He'd have to take his fate into his own hands.

"Come on lads!" he shouted across his internal space to all three of his Imprints.

"With everything we have! No holding back, load it all in the chamber!" His Windwhips disintegrated, its energy feeding into Aaron. Mycelaric Expanse's links pulsed, multiple unrealized seeds all around the Underworld disintegrating, each providing a blip of energy that slowly build up to something more; even the dandelions he'd left behind in a ring found their energy siphoned away, wilting, though notably not quite dying. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

His current energy rose by thirty percent, much of it threatening to leak out of his body, only held in place by his Resistance. It was a lot, but not nearly enough. Onward Evermore produced what it could as efficiently as it could, but it was limited. Normally, its processes were invisible to Aaron, but a combination of their current close link and Onward Evermore straining itself to absorb every wisp of fuel it could from him let him see… a truth. {Sensitivity: 1. 3} -> {Sensitivity: 1. 31} He already knew that Primaries fed on his emotions; it was obvious just by how they got more powerful every time he felt a spike of emotion, but he also knew that his Primary didn't influence his emotions in any way. Onward Evermore really did only consume his excess, allowing him to feel unhindered, without his rage being suppressed or his joy siphoned.

Now, with his Primary knocking at the edge of his mind, he saw exactly why; it was difficult to put into words, but with his Sensitivity, he felt a kind of barrier around his mind that Onward Evermore coated the surface of. Waves and pulses of emotion broke through the porous surface, being consumed by his Primary.

But he could see clearly that his Primary only grasped at scraps; barely a rounding error of emotion was more than enough to not only sustain it, but bring forth the wonders he'd gained access to thus far. His Sensitivity turned outwards, to the monument of power that was the angel, a being he couldn't even begin to parse through the energy of. Then, back in, to what he could see was the fuel for Onward Evermore. His emotions would regenerate.

He didn't think for a second what he was about to do would come without consequence, but firmed his resolve. Thirty percent extra power wasn't enough. Just as he could whisper his intent to the underglass, with Sensitivity, he whispered his intent to… himself? His mind? Or perhaps, to his subconscious. He wasn't sure how to put it into words, but he expressed his intent, and felt it ripple through him much as it did the underglass.

On his skin, a distortion rolled across his body, and internally, he felt a gentle push a small portion of his emotions out of the barrier. Less than a percent. Far, far more than his Primary had ever gained access to… maybe in the entire time that he'd had it.

'Maybe I should've warned it,' he thought right before the first of his emotions were ejected. His Primary, doing all that it could to collect the specs of dust, screamed out as it found its collection process completely overwhelmed. The gentle, efficient conversion exploded, a wave of concentrated energy bursting forth.

His Primary pulled back instantly, not even taking in all the emotional energy it could and simply focusing on what it had, but the power didn't stop pouring out and, added to what he already had, Aaron quickly found his body overwhelmed with energy, flavored in both his and his Primary's; yet, still, he held in the tide for as long as he could. He wasn't even sure if he could get out with energy alone, as it'd never been able to influence other people directly, but he would try.

He lit up like a neon sign, his skin being obscured by a twisting layer of gold and yellow as he became too bright to look at directly for anyone else. A powerful hum clicked into place, reminding him of a nuclear reactor powering up. The angel clenched onto him harshly, and he even felt several bones crack under the pressure. Barely two seconds passed in a limbo of him keeping the wave contained, feeling like his head was about to crack down the middle.

He pushed his mental muscles to their limit, seeing red as his blood pressure ratcheted up several magnitudes. Yet, still, unfathomable power filled him… Until he simply gave out. Every muscle had its limit, and not even the force of his will could keep him running forever. His eyes rolled back into his head, and the world went dark. * What transpired next wasn't seen by Aaron, but unmissable to everyone else. He went completely neon green and yellow, like a human sun, then exploded. Literally.

Though, luckily, not into fire. A forest of dandelions grew from him in all directions, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty one feet long, each of them splitting into even more. By the end, he resembled little more than a still, spiky star, a green smoke billowing thickly over its form. The angel pushed the dandelions away from its main spherical body, preventing even those from touching its divine form, though that was the extent by which it appeared to be able to touch Aaron.

Its stardust swirled thickly around his billowing shape, but every time it took hold of the outer layer, whatever dandelions or energy it grabbed would simply wilt and break away in its hands. He began to slip downwards. It utilized every resource it was willing to spare in order to retrieve him, grasping his sinking form in every possible way, but no matter what it did, he slipped through its metaphorical fingers.

Even cupping a bowl beneath him, it found itself slowly pushed out of the way by his billowing smoke, all of it a tangibly powerful force that interfered with everything around it, to the point that the angel risked destabilizing its transportation in holding onto Aaron. So, it ran its calculations, and dropped him. Aaron's odd shape fell, escaping the angel's field… and slipping through the underglass. He'd already been desynched with the Underworld, completely removed from its layer of reality.

As he fell into the dark blackness beneath Floor 0, the Mushki's hand finally tapped against the central core of the angel, and the resonant warbling of a tuning fork was heard from all directions, as well as the Voice of Nothing to all within earshot. {The Mushki, a Chosen Champion of The Leviathan, First God of the Beasts.} {Versus.} {Alupalriatarghatriltiputhavihasthichkatchi, The Shattered Hand of System.} Aaron would've heard it, had he been conscious, but it quickly faded from his perception anyway as his leafy shape gently fell into the darkness Above him, a tangle of tunnels could spread wide, the walls of each easily transparent, despite being opaque from the inside, as if all of Floor 0 was made from one-way mirrors that those residing in the darkness outside could look through, but not cross.

Aaron fell, and if he'd been in any position to, he would've seen the endless expanse of the zeroth floor gradually shrink from view. After a few minutes, it vanished entirely, leaving him in a massive, empty, nothingness. Not even waking to the feathery sensation of falling, the buried remnants of Aaron's body at the center of it all continued to smoke and billow as the burnt-out Onward Evermore simply continued to convert the last of the emotional fuel overflowing its existence.

Not only his Primary, but all residents in his body were in no position to move or take advantage of any excess of resources. Aaron's actions, while ultimately having saved him, took little into account; a decision made on flawed or incomplete information, the consequences of it would've been detrimental if not for a few of the unique traits of System-implemented Primaries. The dandelions continued to grow larger, into precarious and even unbelievable territory.

As they did, the billowing green smoke's trail slowly alleviated into a stream, then trail, trickle… then nothing. Though the tinted smoke was still being produced, almost all visible of its mass was immediately consumed by the dandelions, fuelling their growth even further. * Eventually, the billowing ceased, and the growth of the dandelions along with it.

Onward Evermore was its equivalent of unconscious, utterly incapacitated by the grand endeavor it'd just undergone, the unimaginable energy that scorched its channels completely crippling it. It should have starved. Unable to create its own food, his Primary should have slowly wasted away- and it would not have been alone in this. Aaron's weakened existence would've quickly atrophied, if not for the very dandelions growing out of them.

As their growth stagnated, the dandelions began drawing from the latent energies of the Underworld, all of their roots hooked at the center, sharing resources with one another. Having donated a significant amount themselves, Aaron and his abilities were included in the colony's calculations and, slowly, they produced the sugars and acids required to sustain him. Past a certain point they even learned to create protein and other required nutrients in order to not only keep him alive, but healthy and strong.

His Primary and Secondaries, though, were gently fed the required energies, a certain amount of effort put forth to stimulate their healing. Aaron and his abilities would not heal quickly, but they would at least be given the chance. * After some unmeasured amount of time- maybe even a single instant, considering his nature as mostly outside of reality, and thus, the passage of time- the defined shapes of something else slowly appeared beneath them.

Equally as unmeasurably large as Floor 0, this new place could accommodate even the largest of debris that might land upon its surface from above. Yet, few took it as a challenge to test the limits of its expansiveness or the durability of its surface. One might even be able to speculate that something of sufficient weight, size, and speed would be able to punch straight through and into the next of whatever series it was a part of.

As the sky cracked open, and a green and gold moonlet crawled through, a new myth was created for all those able to feel and see it- the tale of the Eldritch Forest and its immortal reign, long may it live and praise be it for its gift of the strange blue textboxes that allowed for all to understand and control their imprints more easily. {Welcome to floor 1, The Mirror. A reflection of all that came before, is of now, and will soon be.}