Chương 171: Chapter 176: Core

I felt uncomfortable. It was dark and bright at the same time, my thoughts were spinning, I was spinning… What the hell is happening? I tried to open my eyes, but there were no eyes to open, all around me was a kaleidoscope of images, people, places, faces… I felt like vomiting, something was wrong with me, I couldn't remember the last thing that happened before finding myself here, but where was here?

"Where am I?" I asked nobody, I felt like I was in a dream, but there was no dream, just a series of lights and constantly flowing images, no… not images, memories… I could see some faces I recognized in those flowing, flashing lights. Alya… she was wearing a different face, armor, but it was her, eyes blazing in fury as her sword fell on… someone. My head… why was it so painful to remember?

I saw flashes of my past, my family, my first kiss, my first spell, the first time I travelled outside of Raght, my homeworld. My what? No! What was that? I needed to see! I needed to know! The flashes changed, different memories, a different life, marred by a curse, a different family, a harsh father, a depressed mother, a brother… my brother. Was he still alive? Were they all still alive? Or did the tutorial swallow them? I had no idea, wait!

The tutorial, I was in the tutorial, I held onto that thought like a drowning man to driftwood. It grounded me, I continued to look around, images still flowed in front of me, and behind, up and down and in every other angle… images flowed into me. It was overwhelming, the memories coming back to haunt me, were they all my memories? They didn't feel like mine, there was too much here that I didn't remember, or did I?

"Calm down." The voice came from everywhere, crystalline and pure, with a kind of ethereal quality to it that I couldn't place. And it wasn't a real voice, more like a thought, a thought that entered me, encompassed me whole.

"Who are you?" I asked, my own voice was strange, it was hard, much harder than I usually spoke.

"The real question is who are you mister! This is so fascinating!" What was she talking about, she? Yes, the voice, I started to recognize it, it was Miflin, but who was Miflin?

"Oh darn, you are regaining consciousness too fast, can you relax for a moment longer? If you let me take a look I may be able to help you with your problem." If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I didn't feel like relaxing, I felt like lashing out, but I did it anyway, I knew that her words were true, sincere, how I didn't know, but I knew. As soon as I let go of something, my mind became sluggish again.

I hated it, this lack of control, but I retained part of me, part of my consciousness, enough to feel the voice doing something, checking me maybe?

"What are you doing?" I asked, my voice a tad mellower than before.

"Just taking a look at your soul, that's a really nasty curse you got there! And it took root so deep too, I'm afraid even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to do anything about it, but maybe… let me try something…" What was she talking about? What curse? And what about my soul?

"Just wait a moment longer…" I felt her voice straining as she said that.

"How is it so hard? This is ridiculous… hey mister! Do you feel better if I do this?" A moment after she finished talking a searing pain spiked in a place I couldn't understand, but I could feel. I tried to scream, but I couldn't, it was so strong, so powerful, I never knew a pain like this, not even when that Niskari envenomed me, never had I felt such pain, it made my mind go blank, I could feel my essence quiver, recoiling from the pain.

"Oops, that's not the anchor, sorry, let me try here…" No, please don't try it again, it's too much… Another spike of pain encompassed me, so violent, so pure, that the flowing images became nothing more than a mirage, it was impossible now to understand anything more than the pain. I couldn't speak, I couldn't communicate in any way, I couldn't even think straight… I just wanted it to end, please make it end. As if the voice heard me the pain suddenly stopped.

"Aha! I found it! Bear with me for a moment longer, I know I know it's the worst thing that you ever felt but it's necessary! More or less, mother would have been able to do it a tad smoother, well, ok, much smoother, but she's not here right? You got me, and I'm the best you can find, actually it should cost you more than you'd be able to scrounge in your lifetime for this service, so be grateful and don't squirm too much." No! NO! Please no more!

I tried to fight back, like an animal in a cage, prodded by a cruel master I could do nothing, I tried to, I really tried, but there was nothing for me to do, I couldn't see where she was, I couldn't feel where she was, or what she was doing, I couldn't feel even myself, just the pain, that immense agony that would have made me scream my throat raw if I was in control of my body. Then, suddenly it passed, and with it a weight that I didn't know the existence of went away with it.

I found myself able to think once more, to speak, even if I had no mouth to speak with.

"What did you do to me?" I was angry, and my voice reflected that, the space I was in seemed to be angry too, the flow of memories changed, they were all memories of battles: fighting, killing, punching, casting…

"I fixed you mister! You should be much more grateful for it you know? Well, I fixed you temporarily at best, but I did! And you'd see the effect as soon as you return to your body." She didn't make sense… fix what? What was that weight? And where was my body?

"Just don't do it again, the pain… I can't."

"Yeah, I know it's not pleasant, but you took it like a champ! Now I can bring you back, but first try to touch the core, trust me, it would be immensely useful for you. I'll open the way." Core? Which co- Suddenly the curtain of images, memories, everything parted to let me see. I saw it then, a sphere but it wasn't a sphere… it was me, but I was only a small part of it, there was much more that wasn't me, so much more…

It was gigantic in my perspective, I started plunging into it, it felt like falling from space into the atmosphere, coming closer and closer to crash into that… thing. That dark and twisted thing, it was just wrong… there was something wrong. I wanted to scream to the voice to wait, to not do it, I couldn't go there, I knew it would be something I wouldn't be able to come back from, but I couldn't speak, I couldn't move on my own, I could only plunge into that churning darkness. Then, I was no more.