Chapter 302: Death To The Usurpers

“...supposed to happen?” Windgiver’s voice was laced with [concern] as I pulled free from my prison of scale-flesh, leaving the glowing strands of what I’d been behind, but there was nothing to be concerned about - not anymore.

“...happens every time, I’m pretty sure. I wouldn’t worry about it,” not-Needle answered him.

I scented the air, mercifully free of blood and bile. I twisted my neck, catching sight of faithful and disciples alike, alive and free. I looked towards that invisible place in my mind, where a seed of something more waited to bloom.

I let out a hiss of relief.

By the Great Core’s might and mercy, it was all there. It was all back.

It was time to start anew.

Immediately, light twisted around me, pulled into place by [Illusion Spark]. It called the faithful and disciples towards me, beckoning them closer in the form of a great multitude of light-snakes that slithered in my direction.

At the same time, [Acceleration Gale] roared into existence, rapidly billowing outward. This time, I didn’t waste precious moments discovering what the Great Core had bestowed on me. There was no need for that.

Instead, within the wind’s embrace, I twisted light into shape. I foretold the future that would have been. I foretold the future that needed to be - one that would be, whether in this life or the next, or the next, or the next.

I waited patiently, already nested within the perspective of my faithful in preparation for the moment to strike. In front of my faithful, the first usurper paused. I already knew the sounds that he would make next, burrowed into my mind and memories like the crawling passage of a thousand bad-things. I could have made them alongside him, even without knowing what any of the noises meant.

“What’s this?”

It continued, even as I briefly pulled myself away from my faithful’s perspective to check on the positions of others. By the time that I reassured myself that all was well, the first usurper was making his next set of noises.

“No, really. What is this?”

A strike of the fangs, a burst of [pain], and my faithful cried out.

He didn’t cry out alone. It wasn’t like the first time, or the second, or the third, or even those few that came after that. There was a great crowd of Coreless watching, each and every one [helpless] to intervene. The faithful wasn’t alone.

Behind the usurper, his companion wasn’t as disinterested as he’d been in those false-lives. His face, unlike in those times that could have been, was fully covered by ore-flesh. There was a reason the watching Coreless felt so [helpless] - though, truthfully, they wouldn’t have been able to do much even if the two usurpers had lacked their ore-flesh entirely.

Still, it was important for them to be there.

They needed to see.

To understand.

“Interesting.”

The fang pressed down again, leaving behind a wound that faded nearly as suddenly as it arrived.

“It’s just a healing enhancement, Malken. It’s not that interesting,” the second usurper grunted. He faced the [unsettled] crowd, one hand wrapped around a fang at his side. When he made the next noises, they seemed directed toward that same crowd. “You know how outers are. Weak monsters. Weak enhancements. Weak people.”

The crowd of Coreless - a mixture of faithful and soon-to-be-faithful alike - seemed to ripple in response. I caught flares of [indignation] and [hatred] from the connections I felt to much of them.

“Oh, but you’re wrong about that,” the first usurper cackled. “This isn’t just a run-of-the-mill healing enhancement.”

It continued onwards like that, time passing in the same way that it had the first, though not the disastrous second and thirds and more when I’d been too obvious in the changes that I’d made. There was something about the first usurper that made him especially good at noticing the truth of things. If he was given a real chance, then he would see it.

It wasn’t until he totally lost himself in his blasphemous [curiosity] that he became blind.

While I could have avoided all of that by not starting with the attempt to kill him, I refused. The first usurper would also be the first to die - and he needed to do so spectacularly. Not in his sleep. Not in a secluded corner.

It needed to be at the site of his blasphemy, at the moment of his attempted usurpation.

The Great Core demanded it.

Finally, though, the time for waiting began to come to an end.

“Ooh. Is that it?”

It hit me all at once, my vision starting to split into two as the usurper’s fingers pressed against a [Little Guardian’s Totem] that was never meant for him. The faithful’s [rage] mixed with the usurper’s [curiosity]; [pain] with [inquisitiveness]; [helplessness] with [satisfaction].

I held myself back as the faithful’s vision closed in once again, already fading in the brief instant before I lost our connection, as the usurper tore away a blessing that never belonged to him.

“Ah. It’s just so nice to peel the layers back one by one, is it not? So very interesting.”

The tower-nest shook. It quaked beneath my rage; for though I had allowed this to happen, I was no less furious than before. It was simply what needed to happen. It was what my faithful needed to see.

It was what faithful and usurpers alike needed to understand - to witness.

If, in the first false-life, the tower-nest had vibrated in response to my rage, now it did far more. It quaked. It shivered. It trembled.

This time, the hissing of plant-flesh wasn’t just coming from the outside. It came from the inside as well, seeds of plant-flesh that the faithful had dropped over the previous days bursting into life and motion. In the very center of the tower-nest, where a great opening once stood with rings of stone surrounding it, an offspring of the Nature Core’s Darkwood Guardian burst into life. It surged upwards, ceasing to grow only when its canopy met with an intersection of stone far, far above. Vines twisted down through the space between the tower-nest’s many levels, filling them with bright greens and blues and golds that undulated in the air.

Elsewhere, I knew that my disciples and their chosen faithful would have been called to action by the blooming plant-flesh, moving from their hidden places within the tower-nest and its immediate surroundings. Now that things had come this far, there was no need to hide anymore.

“Skies above,” the usurper of faith exclaimed in [curious delight]. He - we - looked away from the [Little Guardian’s Totem] and back towards the bleeding faithful. It was strange; despite everything I’d changed, despite the clear threat…his response hadn’t changed. It was like he had been wrapped within the threads of his own unbearable [curiosity], even as his companion twitched in what I could only assume was alarm.

“Malken!”

“I think I’m in love. What happens if I…” the usurper continued, ignoring the noises of his fellow would-be usurper.

In the same way that it had in that first false-life, the connection between the two of us split as the [Little Guardian’s Totem] was pressed back against the faithful again. I watched through each of their eyes as the blackness that filled my faithful’s vision began to recede again, fleeing like a bad-thing before the Great Core’s light. It opened wide, revealing the usurper’s feverishly [curious] eyes again.

Ones that, if anything, my changes in this life had made even more feverish than they had been before.

A hint of strength returned to the faithful, enough for our shared lips to twist into shape. I almost shivered in anticipation of the coming sound. I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew enough from the previous few false-lives to know that it was deeply important. Important enough that I had made sure this all happened in the same way that it had the first time; important enough that I’d made sure there were more faithful around to hear the noises for themselves.

Important enough that, from the place where my scale-flesh was hidden above, I enhanced the sound with [Sound Shaping], making the noises audibly something more than they should have been without my help.

“The Little Guardian will curse you for this,” I felt my borrowed lips pronounce, backed by [faith] and [hatred] that forced the sounds they made to tremble in the air, even before I twisted them into something greater. “His coils will provide you no shelter. His scales will not shield you. His fangs will find you no matter how far you run.”

The crowd lurched.

Something inside of me twitched violently, responding to the hidden meaning within the noises of the dying faithful - and to the echoing [anger] and [faith] from the faithful that stood witness to the sounds themselves. The eyes moved closer, wide and unblinking. Behind him, the would-be usurper’s companion continued to twitch in alarm.

“...Malken! Now is not the fucking time!”

“Tell me more,” the blasphemer breathed, still ignoring the shouts of his ally. “Tell me about this…Little Guardian.”

The faithful opened his mouth again, blood dripping from its corners, and—

I struck.

My vision flickered as I released my hold on the [Little Guardian’s Totem], as my mind-self retreated back into the waiting scale-flesh of my physical form above. [Illusion Spark] pulled from the light around me, tearing away the camouflaging light I’d used to keep myself hidden. It didn’t matter anymore; the time for hiding was over.

The tower-nest around us dimmed; it darkened until only the light of the usurpers’ mana-enhanced ore-flesh remained, and then pulled away even that. [Illusion Spark VIII] proved more than enough to take control of it all, twisting the stolen light until it formed the shape that I wanted.

That shape was me, but it was a me that was greater. It was a me that was large; powerful, indomitable, and deadly. It was a me that could never fail. It was a me that the faithful had been waiting for.

It was, most importantly, a shape large enough that all of the faithful could see.

“He’s here…” the faithful coughed out, looking directly up at me from his position on the ground, and my insides pulsed.

[Clinging Grasp] released its hold on the stone high above my faithful. I fell downwards, light still twisting around me to form the unmistakable image of a snake far larger than myself, one bearing its fangs downwards. It fell with me, its maw spreading wide enough that I lost sight of the crowd of faithful - of anything but the usurper directly below me.

[Acceleration Gale] flared out around me like a second skin, and - in the eyes of all the Coreless watching - I plummeted through the air faster than before.

The first usurper finally looked up, his hands pulling away from the [Little Guardian’s Totem] that he had once stolen in another life - but not before I sensed his emotions through the fading connection.

The [curiosity], so overwhelming that it was a wonder he could ever feel anything else, finally gave way to [surprise]. Then [understanding]. Then, finally, [fear].

It was beautiful.

If there was one thing that I could give the first of the usurpers, it was that he was dangerously intelligent. If it hadn’t been for his blasphemous ways, that intelligence might have been enough for me to want him beneath the light of the Great Core. There was always a need for intelligence like that.

Now, though, I appreciated that intelligence for an altogether different reason.

Most Coreless wouldn’t have been able to make the leap from surprise, to understanding, to fear in the span of my [Acceleration Gale]-hastened drop. The first usurper, however, could.

It was beautiful.

It was beautiful because he understood, with what little time he had left, that he’d made a mistake - and even understood where that mistake had come from, and what exactly was punishing him for it.

I couldn’t ask for anything more satisfying than that.

As I fell, I pulled at nearly every ability that I had. [Weighted Blow] drew on the momentum of the fall, adding strength that the weight of my scale-flesh itself lacked. [Verdure Parasite] and [Spore Puppeteer] forced seeds that had been placed nearby to bloom and stretch out in the direction of the usurpers. [Streamlined Scales] helped me cut through the air even faster than I normally would, slipping through its resistance in the same way it did through water. [Enhanced Lungs] worked with [Sound Shaping] to expel and twist a shriek of sound into a disorienting blast. [Mana Fire] stretched outward from my maw immediately afterwards, eager to catch the waiting plant-flesh alight. [Death - Wither] waited in place behind my fangs, boosted to unreasonable degrees by [Mana Blood] and [Mana Restoration] used in tandem as I’d waited for this moment.

Then, as I struck down all at once, as the manifestation of a great serpent appeared to swallow the usurper beneath me, I felt a new flood of emotions from the once-dying faithful beside my target. From all of the faithful that were around to bear witness - that I had guided there to bear witness.

It was [hope]. It was [relief]. It was [awe].

It was [FAITH].

Deep within me, the waiting seed did more than twitch. It cracked, and something began to leak out like light from a wall-crack. The thought-light leaked out with it, shining in a moment of frozen time.

Prerequisites Acquired.

.̸̠̑/̷̧͖̮͚͐̕.̵͙̣͍̩̜͉̏/̸̩̖̐ͅ.̸̮̙̰̖̜̾̽͌̌̽͛̾͐/̸̛̗̘̼̳͕͔͕͚̈́̈̑̅̑̚.̴͉͉͌̃̊͆̈́̄͘.̶̱̔̌̓͊̚/̸̜̞͉͙͔͖̬̇͋͜.̵̘͔͇̘͇̄̓̃͜/̵̧̺̼͖̠̮̩͚̒͒̑̂̈̿̃͠ Cognitive Synchronicity Sufficient.

Unlocking Hidden Title Tier - ???.

Major Title: [Little Guardian] Tier Upgrade In Progress.

Applying Upgrade.

Current Progress: ….1%

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Current Progress: ….2%

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