Alien Evolution System

Chapter 174 - A Dark Vision

The Collector clicked its mandibles and assessed what this fighter specimen spoke of. The Collector possessed the Void affinity, it knew this, but it seemed that to truly tap into it required a state of artificially induced 'nothingness' detailed by the specimen.

"And you have obtained this state of discarded base carnal and mental desires so as to reach the state of the 'Void'?" said the Collector.

Kui shook his head firmly. "Not even close. Perhaps closer than most, but to truly enter the Void? To leave the confines of my body and ascend my consciousness throughout space and time? No.

The closest I came to this was when I underwent a journey of meditation in the realm of Zerul, before it was closed off after the Red Night."

"Explain to me what this phenomenon known as the 'Red Night' is," said the Collector.

"You do not know?" Kui raised a brow, indicating that this 'Red Night' was some monumental event that any and all should know of, but then nodded, not questioning any further. "The Red Night occurred in 1549. There, under a blood red moon, the realm of Zerul invaded all others. The Gatekeeper Kinthas, king of the daemons, spread daemons and vampyrs across the realms, and they caused great misery and destruction before they were defeated by the rest of the Common Body.

The conflict last just shy of ten years, and at its end, Zerul was sealed off from realm travel by the gods for the last act of Kinthas was to unleash an impenetrable concentration of Undeath.

But I know little else other than this bare summary. I was excommunicated from the Common Body almost a decade prior."

"The measurements of your years yield little knowledge to me for I possess no temporal reference to base these numerical classifications from," said the Collector.

"The current year is 1570," sad Kui. He continued on with his prior line of speech. "In Zerul, the forces that bind all of us down to the earth are not so constant. In some areas, one becomes weightless, floating, in others, they became even more rooted to the earth.

There is a spire of myth known among martial artists known as the Undir in Zerul. A small mountain enshrouded in permanent darkness and danger that takes an orbit beyond the range of this world itself. For a brief moment, the Undir becomes the highest point of this world, ascending even beyond it, floating free in the darkness of the starry void itself.

Many martial artists have desired to sit atop it and meditate as it enters the void, for they believe that in the starry void itself, they may obtain the closest connection to the Void proper.

Yet, the way to the Undir is dangerous and unwieldy, and even I lost my life nearly more than once. But in the end, I succeeded, and as I sat upon the end of that spire, watching as I beheld nothing but the void of stars, reaching my consciousness out as far as I could, that was when I heard the whispers.

The whispers of the Devourer.

Thus, I came to know that the Devourer not only hunts prey who are not protected by the Worldwill's aura, but also that it is a disaster that comes from the void.

Many philosophers, astronomers, and mages have debated the nature of other worlds visible in the skies and whether lives such as ours teem on them. They wonder of the other stars, so many of them in the night sky, all of them likely possessing worlds of their own, and yet, why has it that no other life has reached us?

The answer is unknown, but I believe it is the Devourer. All life that reaches to the point that they take over their Worldwill and drain it leave themselves bare to the Devourer, and the Devourer consumes them.

Thus, there is only the emptiness of death across the void of stars and worlds."

"And the nature of this threat spurred you to search for a being that could bring forth the demise of the gods?" said the Collector.

Kui loosed a derisive laugh. "No, when I took this pilgrimage, I was still of the Common Body. This was years before Zerul was sealed off, at the height of my fame among the Common Realms. I took my knowledge to the Azure Emperor who ruled over my home of the time.

I was laughed off, and perhaps I would have resigned the whispers that had affected me so deeply to merely being figments of my imagination. But the Shade, ascendants of the gods that move in the shadows, assassinating and coercing to secure their rule, approached me, warning to keep my silence.

That drove me only to search for more answers, and in time, I happened upon a movement hidden well among the realms, one that sought to topple the gods from within, because a select few knew: it was not that the gods had simply chosen to ignore the decay of the world to Undeath.

No, they possessed a solution to it.

One called the Selection.

The Realms, now forcibly connected for so long, are irrevocably tied together, but there is not enough power in the Worldwill to sustain seven entire realms together in the same space. Undeath will continue so long as the realms remain as they are now, and it is too late to undo the Convergence.

Thus, the gods have chosen the reverse. They intend to maximize the Convergence, to bring forth every realm into a single one, but the results would be disastrous. Seven entire worlds worth of lives crammed into the space of one world is a nigh impossibility.

Hence, the Selection. The gods choose which lives to enter Aetheria with them, and when they have chosen all the loyal souls they need, they will merge the realms, purging all those that were not selected. This, too, would also rid them of the problem of Zerul and the Undead, for they would simply purge the realm and all Undead to begin anew." 

"I see," said the Collector as it clicked its mandibles. "And in reducing the population and surface area of land, they would also be able to utilize enough of this 'Worldwill's' inherent energy to properly nourish the new populace and singular realm while also shrouding them from the entity known as the 'Devourer'," said the Collector.

"Precisely so," said Kui. "When I came to know of this, the Shade, too, knew of my knowledge. My family was taken apart piece by piece, and the Shade, too, attempted to seize my life. I took theirs instead, and many, many more.

I forsook the ways of the Gentle Current and let the tempests of rage wash over me. It is a day that I of regret, and the day in which I was excommunicated."

Kui wiped his bloody hands on the snow and got up. His arm was in better condition by now, though still far from fully healed, but notably, the Collector observed that the light blue robes he wore had patched up on their own, the fabric seemingly reforming from the fall of snow adhering to it.

"Let us cross the Rift," said Kui. "For is it not your purpose to do so? And I have promised to accompany you and protect your people."

"I must recharge my magical energy reserves," stated the Collector.

"Hm. You are so capable of replicating and reading techniques of an exceptional level, and yet you do not know of how to meditate and draw in mana whilst moving?" said Kui as he put a hand to his scraggly beard. "No matter. I shall teach you."

==

The Collector did not choose to cross the Rift, but instead chose to accompany the swarm along with the fighter known as 'Kui' down to the dungeon of the mountain they had been exploring. For the Collector was curious of the nature of these 'Old Gods' and the possibility that remnants of their presence or biomass would be present in the heart of these larger mountains that possessed complex dungeons within them.

In the meanwhile, the fighter did teach the Collector how to restore mana while moving, and it was an easy technique that the Collector replicated after one observation. It involved utilizing bursts of [Flow] to circulate mana strongly within the body, building up heat and power, and then rapidly dissipating it in an instant.

Done properly, this would not leak any mana externally, but it would cause mana from the environment to gather into the Collector faster in a manner similar to osmosis.

However, this was not a technique sustainable in the middle of combat. It merely allowed for movement while recharging mana.

"That you are capable of mastering the [Gathering Stream] after one observation is astounding," said Kui. "It takes a decade for the average trainee to intensify the flow of mana in their body and then dissipate it in quick instants without losing mana of their own. The timing and focus required for such is one that is learned and trained, but you have merely observed and known."

"Such is the inefficiencies of your tinkering kind," said the Collector as it floated forwards, now in the cavern where the elites and the Amorak had been before they had retreated to the Collector. "You require extensive time and training for even the most basic applications of your natural abilities.. Yet, I cannot deny that at the highest ends, your kind through training may thoroughly exceed the limitations of their bodies and minds."