Chương 74: Interlude: Alicia

Alicia had been walking for eight hours. It was now nearly nighttime. No one had followed her. She slowed, before sitting down beneath the canopy of a tree. There was no sweat on her skin. No breath. No pulse. Nothing at all. Of course. She was already dead. Walking corpses did not require either. Eight hours ago, she hadn't known they could even walk. Alicia raised her hand, turning it slightly as she examined it. The flesh responded immediately, smooth, intact, and completely unchanged. Good.

The reconstruction was stable. She would not fall apart unexpectedly. … Likely. She lowered her hand. The lack of body temperature was notable. The lack of emotion was not. It was all still there, grief, pain, and most of all, wrath. They had not faded. They had simply settled. None of it dulled. None of it distant. If anything, it was clearer now, stripped of distraction, sharpened into something precise. She did not suppress it. There was no need.

Her gaze shifted, unfocused for a moment as the memory surfaced, not as a blur, but with perfect clarity. The moment it all ended. Her expression did not change. Alicia exhaled—an unnecessary motion, but a familiar one—and straightened slightly. The system had been trying to get her attention for some time now. Alicia pulled up her status.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Alicia Health: 820 / 820 Stamina: 1123 / 1640 Mana: 5290 / 5290 Race: Wight (Level 50 | Tier 1) Class: Waning Bloom Mage [Uncommon] (Level 50 | Tier 1) Aspect: Decay Traits: [Intuition] [Wrath] [Living Calamity] Titles: [Witch of Retribution] Stats Vitality: 82 [+11] Strength: 32 [+4] Dexterity: 164 [+21] Perception: 127 [+17] Wisdom: 437 [+57] Intelligence: 529 [+69] Charisma: 63 [+8] Free Points: 44 Class Skills (8/8): [Decay Lance (Rare)] [Rotseed Implant (Uncommon)] [Accelerated Decay (Uncommon)] [Witherleaf Gatling (Rare)] [Rotthorn Burst (Uncommon)] [Decay's Embrace (Epic)] [Entropy Cycle (Rare)] [Fading Bloomstep (Epic)] General Skills (8/8): [Inspect (Uncommon)] [Running (Rare)] [Mana Control (Epic)] [Mana Construction (Rare)] [Spell Weaving (Rare)] [Nature Manipulation (Epic)] [Herbalism (Uncommon)] [Decay Manipulation (Rare)] Racial Skills: Undead Physiology Decay Absorption Evolution Available.

Class Advancement Available. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Alicia read through it once. Then again. There was… a lot to unpack. Most of it was unfamiliar. Her name, her Intuition trait, and her general skills were the only constants. Everything else had changed. Her race. Her class. Her aspect. Her class skills. And now— Two additional traits, plus a title. Her gaze lingered on them for a moment. New. Significant. The next step was obvious. Inspect.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Wrath] The refusal to stop once action has begun. Wrath is the assertion of force beyond reason. When invoked, the user abandons restraint, pushing past limitation through sheer momentum. Power rises not from clarity, but from continuation. The longer it persists, the more it demands—and the less it allows the user to yield. It does not guide action, nor does it distinguish between correct and incorrect paths.

It only ensures that once chosen, those paths are carried forward without hesitation.

Effects: • Grants a 50% increase to all base stats while active • Grants a 50% increase to all forms of regeneration while active • Effects intensify over time, further increasing output and regeneration the longer Wrath is sustained • Allows the user to survive an otherwise fatal event once per month (Inactive) • Grants Judgement, which may be invoked to empower a single action with the full force of Wrath, greatly amplifying its outcome. Immediately ends Wrath upon use Wrath accumulates strain while active.

Upon ending: • All accumulated damage and physical strain resolve at once • Severe reduction to all regeneration effects for a short duration • Temporary instability in control of abilities and movement • Repeated or prolonged use increases severity of aftereffects Power taken through Wrath is not granted freely. It is borrowed, and it is always reclaimed. Anchors physical form to self-defined ideal; prevents natural degradation and permanent deviation.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Alicia remained still as she finished reading. So that was why the knights had fallen so easily. Powerful. Increased output. Sustained escalation. A single-use amplification. As well as what had allowed her to live again. There were consequences, as expected. Her gaze shifted to the second trait. The concerning one. She inspected it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Living Calamity] You are no longer merely a participant in the System.

Your presence alone is capable of reshaping events, environments, and the fate of those around you. Wherever you walk, destruction, upheaval, and irreversible change are likely to follow. This trait cannot be removed. This trait cannot be downgraded. This trait can be disabled. No direct effects. Calamity Classification: Epochal The tides of fate bend in your wake. Your path will carve the shape of the future. This classification is granted exclusively to those who embody Sin.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Alicia read it once. Then again. As expected, it was concerning, although not in effect. It had none. Instead, it was concerning in implication. This was not a function. It was a designation, and it would certainly have consequences. Her Intuition trait made that much clear. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. … There was something else beneath it. Not resistance or rejection.

Rather, a faint pull towards something. Or perhaps… someone. Dangerous, but not entirely so. Alicia disabled it and moved on to her race. What she had become. She inspected it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Wight [Tier 1] An apex undead form aligned with Decay. Wights do not sustain themselves through conventional means, existing in a state where natural processes no longer apply.

Their bodies are held together through decay-aspected mana, granting unnatural persistence and resistance to disruption, but rendering them vulnerable to opposing forces of Light, Holy, and Life. Wights passively draw in surrounding decay, converting it into restoration. Environments rich in death or deterioration strengthen them, allowing recovery of health, stamina, and mana without direct action. In the absence of such influence, their condition remains stable, but does not naturally improve.

Future tiers deepen decay alignment and refine the conversion of entropy into power. Stat Growth per Level: → Vitality +4 → Strength +1 → Dexterity +3 → Perception +4 → Wisdom +6 → Intelligence +5 → Free +5 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Powerful. … Again. Extremely powerful, being nearly triple her previous growth. Alicia let the numbers settle, committing them to memory before speaking under her breath.

"…And all it took was dying." A brief pause.

"… Unfortunate." The loss of her humanity registered. She did not like it, but she accepted it anyway. The gain outweighed the cost. It would have to. She would need every advantage available if she intended to kill whoever ordered the massacre of her village. This provided one. A significant one. Alicia moved on. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Undead Physiology A complete severance from natural life functions.

The user exists independent of biological necessity, sustained through decay-aspected mana rather than living systems. Vital organs no longer govern survival, and conventional lethality is rendered incomplete. (Passive) Negates all standard biological requirements, including breathing, circulation, and organ function. The user cannot be killed through conventional means and will continue functioning at zero health. True destruction occurs only if the head is destroyed or the body is sufficiently compromised.

Greatly increases vulnerability to Light, Holy, and Life-aligned effects. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Decay Absorption An intrinsic alignment with entropy. The user passively draws in surrounding decay, converting it into sustaining energy. Environments marked by death, deterioration, or prolonged conflict become sources of restoration. (Passive) Absorbs ambient decay to restore health, stamina, and mana over time.

Effectiveness increases in areas rich in death or structural degradation, and is minimal in stable or pristine environments. Does not require conscious activation. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ … Alicia read through both entries twice. Then once more. The implications were… extensive. No vital organs, no conventional death, and sustained by the environment rather than conventional means. Her gaze lowered slightly, unfocused.

"Humans are… fragile." It was not an insult. Simply... factual. Alicia nodded once.

"They cannot compete. Noted." The applications formed immediately. Taking lethal damage to create openings. Ignoring attrition entirely in favorable environments. Sustaining prolonged engagements without decline. The only effective counter would require knowledge. Knowledge of her race. Knowledge of her limits. Neither would be easily obtained. Her title ensured that much. Alicia moved on. She inspected it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Witch of Retribution] What is taken will be answered.

What is done will not be undone.

• Increases all base stats by 15% • Grants Witch's Edict, an oppressive field of retributive intent that marks those who invoke the user's hostility, amplifying the weight of their actions and inducing escalating dread • Grants Retributive Escalation, causing damage taken to increase the potency of subsequent actions for a short duration • Grants Judged Outcome, causing targets suffering from accumulated damage or instability to receive significantly amplified effects Harm inflicted upon the user is not easily resolved.

Intimidation effects can be toggled. This Title is publicly visible upon inspection. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"… I see." So that was the source of the modifiers. Alicia considered it for a moment. The synergy was… obvious. Wrath encouraged continuation. Decay ensured degradation. This— Completed the loop. Letting her act unchecked would result in death. Opposing her would accelerate it. Unless she was overwhelmed immediately, the outcome would not change. Convenient. She moved on.

Inspecting her class would be inefficient. It would change soon. Her skills, however— Those mattered. Alicia opened the list. Her eyes moved quickly, taking in each entry. Decay Lance. Direct penetration with structural degradation. Rotseed Implant. Delayed internal collapse. Accelerated Decay. Amplification. Witherleaf Gatling. Sustained erosion. Rotthorn Eruption. Area destabilization. Decay's Embrace— She paused briefly. Binding. Continuous breakdown. Punishes resistance. … Useful. Entropy Cycle.

Escalation through repetition. Fading Bloomstep. Mobility with destabilization. Alicia closed the list. There was no need to reread them in full. The pattern was clear. Everything reinforced the same principle. Apply decay, escalate it, and ensure it could not be resisted. The same frameworks she had grown accustomed to, only now filled with Decay instead of Nature. Her expression did not change. Which left only a few things remaining. Alicia's hand hovered over the Evolution notification for a brief moment.

Then, she pressed it. Everything went black....... Alicia opened her eyes to a world that was no longer alive. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Evolution activated. You have (1) Evolution option. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ There was no sky. Not above her, not at the horizon, only a heavy, suffocating dark pressing in from every direction, as if the space itself had been sealed inside something vast and unseen. The ground beneath her feet was smooth black stone, faintly fractured.

Thin veins of dull red light bled through the cracks, pulsing slowly. And everywhere— Crimson flowers. They stretched to the edge of perception, countless and silent. Long, delicate petals curled outward like reaching fingers, swaying gently despite the absence of wind, breath, or anything that could realistically justify their movement.... Emma would have disliked them. She had always enjoyed brighter colors. White. Blue. Occasionally pink. Alicia let out a breath.

There was no value in continuing that line of thought. She looked around and realized that she was not alone. Figures stood among the flowers. Dozens. Hundreds. More, the further her gaze traveled. They were frozen mid-motion, caught in fragments of moments with no beginning and no end. A man reaching forward, desperation locked into the strain of his body. A woman turning away, one step from escape. Another with an arm raised, something unseen gripped tightly in hand. Some knelt. Some ran.

Some stood on the edge of a scream that would never come. All of them were familiar. Her birth parents. Her first home. Alicia frowned, then stepped forward. The flowers parted without resistance, their petals brushing lightly against her legs before settling back into place as if she had never disturbed them. The figures did not react. Among them stood others. Faceless. Their forms were indistinct, features erased, identity stripped away.

Only thin strands of crimson light remained, faint, pulsing threads anchored within their chests, extending outward before vanishing into nothing. Alicia's gaze lingered on one. The glow was steady and measured. Then she moved on. Beyond her family lay the village that had taken her in. Their final moments, preserved. Martha, hands clasped, pleading. Walter, back straight, defiant, weapon raised despite the certainty of failure. Thomas. Eleanor.... Emma. Alicia looked away. She couldn't bear the sight.

Instead, she continued onwards. Further still— The knights, frozen in the act of slaughter. The crimson strands within them burned brighter, heavier, dragging downward into the fractured stone beneath their feet, stretching far deeper than the others. Claimed. Alicia did not stop. Ahead, the endless field broke. A raised platform of black stone rose from the flowers, its surface unbroken by the creeping fractures below. At its center stood a single pedestal. And atop it— A book. Alicia's gaze settled on it.

Only one option. She approached, unhurried, and rested her fingertips against the cover. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Wight [Tier 2] A further evolution of the apex undead aligned with decay. At this stage, the user's form stabilizes within instability, no longer deteriorating under strain in the manner of living beings. Decay-aspected mana circulates continuously through the body, reinforcing function even as damage accumulates. Wights no longer falter as condition worsens.

Degradation does not impede action, and performance remains consistent regardless of damage sustained. Their presence deepens their alignment with entropy, allowing them to persist where others would collapse. Future tiers deepen decay integration and refine the conversion of instability into power. Stat Growth per Level: → Vitality +6 → Strength +2 → Dexterity +5 → Perception +6 → Wisdom +11 → Intelligence +10 → Free +10 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Powerful, as expected.

The ability to continue operating at full capacity while heavily damaged was… useful. The stat growth was less "useful" and more— Absurd. Alicia considered it for a moment.

"… Racial advantages are ridiculous." A quiet conclusion. An accurate one. Her fingers closed around the book. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Evolution confirmed. Wight [Tier 1] has evolved into Wight [Tier 2]. You have gained the Racial Skill [Hollow Persistence]. You have gained +35 Free Points. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Alicia regained consciousness beneath the tree. The transition was immediate. No disorientation. No delay. She took a moment anyway, confirming position, surroundings, and state.

Then she opened her status and inspected the new skill. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Hollow Persistence An unnatural continuity of function. The user's form no longer responds to damage through conventional decline, maintaining cohesion through decay-aspected reinforcement rather than structural integrity. (Passive) Prevents loss of performance due to accumulated damage. Injury, strain, and degradation does not reduce movement, casting stability, or combat effectiveness while the user remains capable of action.

Effects that would impair function are diminished unless they directly prevent action entirely. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"… I see." A brief pause.

"The system is trying very hard to ensure that stopping is no longer an option." Still— The synergy was obvious.... Again Wrath encouraged continuation. This removed the cost of it. Alicia closed the window and moved on. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Class Advancement activated. You have (3) Class Advancement options. [Harbinger of Ruin (Epic)] An embodiment of inevitable collapse. Harbingers of Ruin do not simply apply decay—they accelerate it beyond recovery.

Their presence drives systems toward failure, overwhelming defenses through relentless escalation. This class favors decisive engagements, turning prolonged conflict into rapid deterioration and forcing opponents into states where survival becomes unsustainable. Aspect: Decay Stat Growth per Level: → Vitality +4 → Strength +1 → Dexterity +7 → Perception +7 → Wisdom +10 → Intelligence +10 → Free +6 [Gravebound Arcanist (Epic)] A mage who binds decay directly into structure and form.

Gravebound Arcanists create persistent manifestations of entropy, shaping the battlefield through constructs that erode, restrain, and destabilize anything they touch. Their power lies not in immediate destruction, but in the creation of environments where resistance becomes increasingly futile.

Aspect: Decay Stat Growth per Level: → Vitality +4 → Strength +1 → Dexterity +5 → Perception +5 → Wisdom +10 → Intelligence +11 → Free +6 [Entropy Channeler (Rare)] A practitioner who refines decay into controlled application. Entropy Channelers focus on consistency, efficiency, and precise manipulation of decay-aspected mana, ensuring that every action contributes to a gradual but unavoidable collapse.

Rather than overwhelming force, this class favors sustained pressure and disciplined execution, allowing the User to dismantle opponents through controlled degradation. Aspect: Decay Stat Growth per Level: → Vitality +4 → Dexterity +5 → Perception +5 → Wisdom +8 → Intelligence +9 → Free +6 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ All three classes were unfamiliar. There was no direct continuation of her current path. No indication of what conditions had led to these options. Only variations of the same concept. Decay.

Alicia reviewed them once more. Three different approaches. … The choice was obvious. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Class Advancement confirmed. Waning Bloom Mage [Uncommon] has been upgraded into [Harbinger of Ruin (Epic)]. You have gained the Class skill [Terminal Bloom (Epic)]. Skill has been automatically placed into your Skill Storage. [Entropy Cycle (Rare)] has been upgraded into [Entropy Cascade (Epic)]. You have gained +30 Free points. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Alicia blinked.

Two more epics, acquired without resistance.

"… Helpful." She opened her skill storage immediately, replacing Rotthorn Burst with Terminal Bloom without hesitation. The weaker option. Obsolete. Then she inspected both new entries. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Terminal Bloom (Epic)] All things end. This ensures they do so at once. (Active) Forces targets suffering from accumulated decay or instability into rapid collapse. Consumes and amplifies existing effects, dealing massive damage scaling with total degradation.

Targets near failure may trigger secondary collapses, spreading decay to nearby enemies. Can only be used once per target. Scales with Wisdom and Intelligence. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Entropy Cascade (Epic)] Decay no longer acts in isolation. Each application feeds the next, spreading instability across all that it touches. (Passive) Consecutive uses of decay-aligned skills significantly increase their effectiveness.

Decay effects applied to a target partially propagate to nearby targets and reinforce existing effects, accelerating overall degradation. Multiple affected targets amplify each other, causing collapse to escalate more rapidly in clustered engagements. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Alicia nodded slowly. Entropy Cascade was a direct improvement over its previous form, expanding its function from individual targets to entire groups and allowing decay to propagate and reinforce itself across multiple enemies.

Terminal Bloom, by contrast, was decisive, a finishing technique designed to convert accumulated degradation into immediate collapse. Used in tandem with Judgement, it would concentrate everything into a single, overwhelming result. Finally finished with the system, Alicia rose and stretched lightly. … Something was off. She glanced down at herself. The cuff of her sleeve sat higher than it should have.

When she moved, the fabric of her tunic pulled tight across her back, and her collar rested closer to her neck than she remembered.

"… I've grown." She reviewed the recent changes, tracing the cause quickly. Wrath. Anchors physical form to self-defined ideal. Alicia studied herself more closely. A few inches taller. Subtle shifts in proportion. Her auburn hair—once long enough to be inconvenient—now ended just above her shoulders, out of the way. Convenient. Clothing would need to be replaced. A proper reflection would confirm the rest. Neither was urgent. One final test.

Alicia drew in mana, shaping it into the familiar pattern of nature-aspected energy. It resisted. Burned, even. The sensation was immediate and unpleasant as it moved through her channels, but she continued regardless, guiding it to her fingertips. A faint green glow formed and a flower forced its way through the ground below her. White and beautiful. She cut the flow at once. Her gaze settled on her hand.

"Still possible," she murmured.

"But inefficient." A brief pause.

"Nature is life-adjacent. Incompatible." Noted. Expected. She let the thought go and lifted her gaze toward the darkened horizon. Her hand closed slowly into a fist.

"I am still too weak." More power was required. Still, wandering aimlessly into a dungeon was not an option. If what happened to her village was not isolated, then other places might already be facing the same fate. She considered it for a few seconds, before dismissing the thought.

"I will decide once I reach the next settlement." A simple and direct plan. Her new title would complicate matters. Alicia allowed herself the faintest hint of amusement at the thought of someone reading it. Then she stepped forward, choosing a direction without hesitation. Movement was better than stillness.

"... Plus food and water," she added after a moment, more out of preference than necessity. Old habits remained. Some of them were worth keeping.