Alien Evolution System

Chapter 201 - A Choice

"All of this is the destiny of Ragnar-Uruk," said the voice from the rune. There was a distinctive shift in the voice's tone that the Collector immediately noticed. The voice went from powerful projection more fit to inspire action among subordinates to one of softer tone generally indicative of personal speech patterns among tinkerers.

"But know well that this need not be your destiny," said the voice. "We, the Jotnar, and life upon this world and its realms, would find you as a shining star of hope should you undertake this destiny.

If you can rid this world of the New Gods in great End and bring forth a new Beginning from which life can truly flourish once more, then yes, we would feel heartened that there was one that could use our Shard and our might to realize what we could not have.

Yet, I, Eru Wun Thamir, last king of the Jotnar, do tell this to you, O great Successor, Successor that comes from the Outer.

Destiny fulfills itself, but it is not anyone's master.

It does not force you to follow its steps. It does not bind you to what it desires.. It is a flowing river whose currents are gentle. You can follow them to their end, you can resist them, or you can step to the side and watch the waters flow without resisting or following.

It is up to you, Successor, up to your choice to do with the power you have been invested with. Ragnar-Uruk is foretold, and whether it will be a great End that sets this world back to nothingness, waiting millions of years for life to sprout back once more, or one that ends merely with the fall of the New Gods is up to you.

Whether you even decide to bear this destiny is up to you.

You are free to do with the Shard and the remnants of our scattered powers however you wish. I know from my visions that you are not of the Common Body, not of any known body known to me, and that makes you free.

Freedom – this, I have learned is the greatest treasure of life and one that has lost its meaning over time, both in the Common Body and the Wild as powers converge against each other, forcing one to side with this or that or fight here or there or against that man or that woman.

But though I make you aware of the destiny of Ragnar-Uruk, I also will not take your freedom away from you. It is your choice to bear the destiny or use our power for your own purposes. I cannot stop you.

None of us can, for we are all aslumber for the faulty of our weakness.

The Origin Rune is shaped in form of a Spiral, and whether you choose to follow the ends inwards to a destiny converged of Ragnar-Urukk by many other threads of fate, or whether you choose to escape the spiral outwards, to create your own destiny of infinitely expanding possibility, is up to you.

Above all, know this, Successor, before I grant you this Origin Rune after my long rambling: there is always, always, a choice."

With that, the voice of the rune faded away.

The Collector stood in front of the enormous rune, its pale white hyperalloy carapace tinted a faint shade of blue from the light emanating from the massive letter. The holographic pillar of light suspending the rune in animation in the air began to flicker.

As the light flickered, so too did the surroundings of this vault. It began to crumble apart, the crystals in the ceiling beginning to shatter. Cracks started to line the walls of the vault, and surges of flickering blue magical energy crackling around the air indicated to the Collector that this space was on the verge of collapsing.

It had been created entirely by Unity-type mana and removed into its own dimensional space through Jotnar magic, with its extra-dimensional nature sustained by the magical energy of the Origin Rune. With the Origin Rune displacing itself, this temporary dimension now collapsed due to a lack of magical anchors.

The Origin Rune shot forth arcs of crackling energy, and they latched on to the Collector's body. The dark blue spiral pattern emanating outwards from its shinchu light core started to glow, drawing in the threads of energy from the run, and it was as if the Collector's body became a magnet for the rune.

The rune started to hover towards the Collector and as it approached, it shrank rapidly, fitting the size of the Collector's own body. When the rune was a meter in front of the Collector, it was just about its own size, and there, it broke apart into pure energy, pooling into threads of glimmering blue light that fed into the Collector's four eyes.

The Collector felt an enormous surge of magical energy rush through its body in a raging whirlwind. Its carapace cracked, its muscles tore, and blood vessels popped, spurting blood as the power overwhelmed the boundaries of its body.

White blinded the Collector's vision, and the Collector regulated the surging flow of magical energy within itself as best as it could. It did not try to resist the energy for it was fundamentally nourishing. It was similar to the Breath of Life in that it was energy that enriched the cells, and in the Collector's case, it functioned exactly like biomass.

Thus, the Collector circulated the torrent of energy through its body as best as possible, attempting to nourish every single one of its cells to their absolute limit. Threads of white magical energy tinted at their ends with blue sparked out from cracks in the Collector's carapace, and its body began to glow brightly as the vault around it darkened and collapsed.

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*Biomass Gained (+100)*

Biomass Level: 8/100 > 108/100

>>> 

An ordinary being would have likely spent hours attempting to process this power, but the Collector absorbed it within the span of ten seconds. The damage it had undertaken in doing so quickly patched up with explosively boosted regeneration.

The Collector now glowed with a permanent aura of white, making its hyperalloy carapace nearly incandescent in its shine. Its four eyes were still colored a bloody red, but where before they lacked pupils, they now possessed black pupils fashioned in the shape of black spirals.

The spirals faded away as the Collector made the Origin Rune dormant. It seemed that they were essentially like markers for biometric scanning, and if the Collector desired to use the rune to access Jotnar technology or magic, then it would have to manifest the Origin Rune in its eyes.

In addition, the Origin Rune granted the Collector an exceptional boost to its Breath of Life adaptation. From an analysis of the ability, the Breath of Life was a personal adaptation among Jotnar that differed in functionality based on each individual, tied to the unique expression of their core.

In the case of the Collector's current core, the Breath of Life nourished cells and healed damage. Now, however, the Collector could access what was essentially a collection of all the Breath of Life abilities that the Jotnar as a species had developed.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of these abilities were entirely unsuited to combat, functionally being the exact same as the Collector's current breath except significantly weaker in output. There were, however, a few Breath of Life expressions that were of noteworth.

It also came to know that these Breaths were named, uniquely grown and specialized with the Jotnar that had trained them.

The Collector tallied that a total five Breath of Life variants were both strong enough and useful to keep at hand, for the Collector could only ready one Breath of Life expression at a time, with a switch out requiring several hours to prepare.

Life Bringer: This was the Collector's current Breath of Life enhanced to its maximal potential with the Origin Rune. It enhanced the body strengthening process and allowed those nourished by the breath to freely use the ice bound to their cells, generating weaponry or armor with them.

Death Mist: This involved funneling the breath into a deadly fog that would accelerate the growth of destructive, not nourishing ice crystals within the body, causing rapid death from the inside out.

Immortal Legion: Among the Jotnar, it seemed that many possessed the ability to use their breaths to form their ice crystals into golems. This provided the fundamental base by which they could create and maintain their golems.

The vast majority of these Breaths were underwhelming, capable of only creating weaker golems, but there was one named Legion that stood far above all others.

This was capable of constructing immensely powerful golems known as Einherjar, though it seemed for them to be cost-efficient, they required the aid of Jotnar technology to stabilize them with a proper 'core' so that the Collector would not have constantly funnel them with energy.