Chương 27: [LD-1] 26. Tale

XXVI Tale The gust of wind travelling across the ocean wrapped around my body. My eyes opened and the lonely sun greeted me. A mountain of experience was waiting for me to condense it.

'I'll get to you soon.' Kil spawned in my soul sea as I stood up.

"Are you ready, Master?"

"Yes. What do I do?" First, what does Master know about abilities? I hummed.

"They're divine abilities. Skills the gods give us for our service. They're much more powerful than regular abilities."

"All true. Anything else?" To which I shook my head. He bobbed around me, happy that he had more explaining to do.

"What Master just said is the meta explanation."

"A meta explanation?"

"How miracles work on a higher level," he explained.

"On a micro level, miracles are entirely different from regular skills."

"How so?"

"Because they're stories." My brow raised.

"Every miracle is a unique tale of a god. By channelling that miracle, you're reciting their story and releasing their power." …That didn't make it any easier to understand.

'Reciting a tale?' Was I reading a story out of a novel?

"Don't worry, Master. It will become clearer the more you practice and try to understand the skill." He closed his single eye." Resonance." The thoughts pouring into me were not defined. Nothing exact to ascribe a single term to. A miracle, it seemed, was not so easily parsed or shared with another. It was up to me to understand it. However, Kil had given me a base to start from. I tried my best to collect the disorganised thoughts into a collective idea… there was a man. Drifting through the darkness on a boat.

He held a fishing rod, whose line sank into the deep dark.

"It has something to do…with fishing?" I turned to Kil, but the eyeball did his impression of a shrug.

"Though a miracle is the tale of a god, its interpretation will vary based on the person reciting it. If you think it's about fishing, then that's what it's about, Master."

'Way to make this harder than it already is,' I sighed.

"Okay," I said.

"So. Fishing…how am I supposed to fish here?" Like, I was in an ocean, but it wasn't as if I had a boat and some fishing equipment lying around.

"Don't forget that this is your inner world, Master. You can create any items that you wish." I glanced at the sphere floating near us.

"Doesn't that take experience?" Valuable experience I needed to level. He shook his head.

"That's only required when creating permanent items in one's soul space. Temporary artefacts can be created through manipulating energy that's already there. It's also that same energy that limits what you can shape." The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. It's the one thing in his explanation that kind of made sense.

'Like taking some bricks lying around and trying to build a house.' The energy I'd already used to level were the bricks. I could take it and turn it into anything I wished, though temporarily.

"But you have an advantage, Master. Your legendary skill should help you shape what you think is necessary to use it." That was some good news, at least. With a huff, my gaze cast out over the ocean.

'Lure. Kil had called it a lure, hadn't he?' The fragment really was bait. I linked my fingers.

"Do I just think of making a boat?"

"Yes!" My eyes closed. Building the boat was not a complicated process. Like Kil said, the skill helped me, so once I communicated my desire for the object of my choosing, the energy in the world collected with little input on my part. When my eyes opened, the boat was there. It was a canoe of sorts. Just wide and long enough for me to stretch comfortably, with planks for seats. Laid out across those planks was a single fishing rod, matte black in design, and a pulsing, black crystal.

'The fragment.' That's everything. So I turned to the sea. There was something surreal about drifting in the space of your own soul. I looked behind me, where the 'central area' of my spirit—the place my consciousness always spawned and where my earned experience floated—became smaller and smaller with each second. Kil had assured me that a single thought could return me to the hub. Despite that, the deep darkness I drifted into made me shiver. I leaned out of the boat and ran a finger over the water.

'It's colder out here.' Though the sea wasn't inviting, I had to keep going until the fragment pulsed. Only then would I be able to 'fish' the crystalis out of the ocean. So I continued to drift. There was no need to paddle as my mind pushed the boat forth. Everything was quiet. Light muted more and more. At a certain point, I closed my eyes and lied down across the benches. My position likened me to a corpse being sent off before an arrow set their last transport aflame. Imagine it, my memories whispered.

The void. I didn't need to imagine it. It was right here in my very soul—a deep plane of shadow that extended beyond the boundaries that any one mind could imagine. Death was a companion to me. So it had always been, and so it would always be. A clarity followed that thought. One that flushed out the faint buzzing in my ears. Slowed my heart rate. Softened the fear of the vastness around me welling up in my stomach. The fragment pulsed. My head turned. A dark glow beat within the crystal.

I did not reach out for it. As I kept staring at the pulsating fragment, questions played in my mind. Death —what was it truly? The loss of life, the passing of the soul into the plane beyond nothingness? What did it mean for a being to be a god of death? That they decided who lived and died? That they shepherded every soul, damned and the saints, toward the future awaiting them? … And why was the skill called Reaper's Condolence? Now the shard beat so quickly that the glow was nearly permanent.

'A miracle is a tale.' I turned away from the fragment and looked up into the sky. For a moment, I could see him in front of me again. Lord Null. The giant of a being, all wrapped up in chains, with a scythe going through his heart. How long had he sat there by himself while he slowly bled out? My eyelids closed partially.

'Condlence… maybe…' The shard trembled and rocked against the bench. I huffed and let the thoughts I was holding onto go. I attached the crystal to the pole's hook. The material of the shard gave way before the end of the curved surface. I'd never cast a fishing line. However, foreign instincts guided me into a decent throw. With a plop, the fragment disappeared beneath the water. I balanced the fishing rod on the boat's side, and my butt touched the seat again. It was a matter of waiting now— The surface broke.

Before I'd even reached for the pole again, a single claw pushed out the centre of the wave, rippling out through the body of water. Then another. Without me even needing to pull the line, the crystalis exited the water fully. It floated over the surface, its cloak covering its wide torso and ending around the hips, so one could clearly see its legs ending in a single point that hovered an inch over the water. Dozens of heartbeats passed while the beast and I stared at each other.

'Alien fragment,' the system had said. Only now did I fully understand the name—this thing was not of our realm. The beast's spirit did not belong here, and the edges of its form frayed as its metaphysical presence fought to remain stable in the foreign realm it occupied. But it was like a steaming cup of coffee left out in the open; there was no fighting the loss of heat. The crystal had returned what was rightfully theirs. If it wanted to stay, a covenant must be made. And one could be made.

Yet I had no idea what it wanted. To spread death, perhaps? To feast on the living? Any of those or related ideas, I could only offer within bounds. Would that be enough? My lips parted to broker the deal— A swirl of shadow shifted behind one of its eyes… and stole my breath. The sight was enrapturing. Like the reflection of a fish a little too far below the surface. You couldn't quite tell it was there, so you leaned in closer in an attempt to ensure what you were seeing was correct.

The beast closed the distance between us. A thrum travelled from its core, which pierced into my stomach. It was a question. Similar to the one Kil had first asked when he wanted to enter my soul sea for the first time. —I closed my mouth. And smiled.

"Welcome to the team," I whispered.