Optional Music to Accompany the Chapter:
https://youtu.be/dHoY3Ssr0mE
??? - ??? : Year 0 | Month 0 : ???
World: ??? | Rank: ??? | Population: ??? For more chapters visıt novelFɪre.net
The feeling of floating through infinity...
A state where conscious thought feels foreign...
-W..what.. happened to me..?-
Something is missing.. something you know to be fundamental yet can't pick out.
Its indescribable... Its uncomfortable...
Like a string with no end, thoughts form and images appear.. but all without concept.. without definition.
You know what things are.. your mind tells itself it does.. but no matter how long you stare.. how long you dig.. you never find the answer.
Because in that place, consciousness is hell—turmoil within stillness...
But just the same.. it's entropy.
In that listless infinity, thoughts form without shape, over and over, like an endlessly repeating tape.
But somehow, in the chaos of jumbled information, direction and definition form...
Concepts of good and bad, reward and punishment, it all comes back.. slowly but surely forming under the guidance an unquestionable certainty echoing your thoughts.
With time, it starts coming back... Through trial and error, shape and color find their definitions, and the once blurry messes of data become recognizable images of geometry, and emotions. -Memories...-
Slowly but surely, you start defining your own identity within the abyss... Creating an image of who you were.. who you are...
The moment that question surfaced.. echoing from beyond the bounds I knew of my consciousness.. everything hitched...
'Maid. Servant. Slave.' In a moment shorter than an instant, the fog concealing the patterns within my very existence lifted. Actions, reactions, speech, and response were all weighted by certainty, and reward...
It was all.. mechanical...
I.. was artificial; a robot set to be the slave of anyone who pays.. left to the dictation of circuitry that wired my mind...
But despite being all I knew.. all I should have known.. from the deepest reaches of my mind, a deep bitterness resisted that mechanical certainty—a voice capable of not creating definitions.. but shaping them...
Molding them to form through recollection...
Rustle... Feeling the gentle brush of wind against my fur.. my mind sparked...
"Nngh..." Feeling my throat vibrate a mellow purr, I stretched with a gentle movement, basking in the release of strain before curling my paws back beneath my maw.
It was so foreign.. every bit of it.. but somehow, it was all.. natural.
-Mmm...- Slowly opening my eyes, I found myself atop a large tree branch overlooking a grand gorge—my oversized, black, feline paws laid beneath me like pillows, while my bright, ivory-white claws traced the texture of the bark.
Curling my tail with a mix of pride and arrogance welling from memories long-lost, I looked over the vast expanse below me like a king over his land, basking in the scents carried up the tall cliff by the breeze while my mind.. as if by instinct.. tried to drift with the melody of rustling leaves.
But I couldn't let it. -What.. is this place..?-
Unable to move anything but my mind, my focus drifted—noting the textures.. the scents.. the sights—finding familiarity in concepts I had never defined.
And.. with time.. overwriting the circuitry that had been laid in my mind like law.
Eventually standing with another stretch, my eyes drifted over the forest below, with a look of annoyance.. and without thinking.. a word came to my mind.
Finally hopping off the branch, I descended the hundreds of meters of cliff below me with an elegance practiced over the course of centuries, not displacing a single rock or making a single nlose before vanishing into the shadows beneath the canopy. tap-tap-Woosh
It was dark.. unnaturally so.. and yet my body weaved through the trees like a fluid, not disturbing the leaves or cracking a stick as if I had become a shadow myself.
The sounds of speech.. the scents of fire...
-How brazen...- The voice that echoed through my mind in that moment didn't feel like my own.. it was deep and bitter.. coming from a place of pure disdain and hatred that I.. didn't understand...
But then, I saw it...
Through an opening between countless tree trunks, I found the glow of torchlight illuminating precisely three figures...
They were blurry.. so much so I could hardly tell their shape...
But somehow.. I recognized them...
Looking at them.. the mechanical, unquestionable certainty tried to return.. this time carrying a command.
'Friends. Do not attack.'
But the command scattered the moment familiarity returned to my movements.
Darting forth, I wrapped around the group like a snake, before swiping a claw, the size of one's whole body, through the mage. Crunch
It was a subtle sound.. akin to the snap of a twig...
But as the ranger and swordsman turned to see what the noise was.. only a bloody mist was left to greet them.
It lit their faces in a blink, but I didn't give them the chance to scream.
Somehow knowing more people were nearby, I sent a claw through the swordsman's head with a flick before crushing the ranger beneath my paw in a single, effortless motion.
At the sight, the voice of certainty nailed its incessant command into my skull... 'Stop. Punishment. Disgust.'
But the circuitry to respond to it had already been broken.
Continuing like the incarnation of death, I moved through the forest like a walking natural disaster, claiming lives with less effort than breathing—the voice of certainty growing quieter with every step.. every crush.. and every scream...
Slowly but surely.. it was all coming back to me...
The clarity of memory.. of identity.
But then, it all stopped.
In a burst of static, recollection ceased, rejection contaminated everything like the plague of rot, and as if something forced me to gag, my stomach churned.
Before my mind could process anything, the static reshaped everything.. the feeling of fear, pain, and obedience ripped through the deepest reaches of my being, and with the mere thought of resistance, my consciousness snapped...
GASP "HUEK-!" Shooting my eyes open as if woken up by the jolt adrenaline, I vomited, hurling bloody mush onto sand as tiny feline paws gripped the ground with glistening, metallic fur. -W..What.. happened to me..?!-
Like two consciousnesses were speaking at the same time, pixeled images blended with burry memories.. and my head spun...
Nauseatingly so... "HUGH-!"
On one hand, I recalled the crush of bone beneath my paw.. and on the other, commands told me to pour drinks for a woman I had never met, yet instinctually obeyed.
I was a servant... A robot that called Earth home...
Looking up with an uncertainty my circuitry had never felt, my ears slicked backed and I threw myself to the ground.
Around me, mountainous creatures littered the ground like leaves after a storm, each gored and desecrated—their white fur tainted with crimson blood while their building-sized horns laid snapped, shattered, and ruined.
In that moment, every inner thought I had was eclipsed.. not by static or memory...
But by fear code could never mimic...
-W..Where am I?!- Slowly backing up into a wall of brush so stiff I couldn't push through it, my tail curled between my legs, and my paws quivered with a metallic rattle.
Unable to think, I was frozen.. alone in a field of something else's prey...
But before even a minute could pass.. something happened to me...
Rumble... In my abdomen, I felt something vibrate, and as if responding to it, my pupils thinned to needles.
-W..What..?- At first, my mind resisted with a wave of static-blended confusion...
Giving into the sensation, I crept forward, staying crouched beneath the tall brush, and licked the pool of blood and flesh I expelled when I woke up.
It was metallic.. and warm.. with the flesh being tough as metal...
The roof of my mouth was metal.. a wall of mechanical arms bridged with lumps of warmth that relayed sensation to my mind.
Lapping up the rest of the bloody mess as my hunger grew, I looked up at the mountainous creatures again.. this time not feeling fear, but thirst, and without taking time to even blink, I hopped up onto the grass.
It was so stiff it suspended me off the ground, with just the bent tips of a few blades.. but somehow.. the memory of movement made it easy.. each step laying in the exact place of the paw before it.. crossing the open expanse before gripping bloody fur with blue claws akin to the horns littering the ground, and climbing into the gaping wound...
Giving into the newfound sensations filling my body, I consumed everything, turning my fur crimson with blood while licking and chewing everything I found, memorizing their tastes and textures as if it would soon vanish, until finally, the uncontained hunger settled.
My stomach felt tight, my jaws sore, but in that dark, damp cavity, my mind eventually relaxed.. and reason returned...
Though.. it wasn't as useful as it once was...
The moment anything more than an idle thought questioned anything, my circuitry sputtered, and the voice beneath it seemed to remain quiet.. only echoing the sense of ease that kept my mind from breaking.
I.. was at a loss. For the first time since my creation, I didn't have an answer to anything.
But rather than drowning in uncertainty, that deeper voice kept me calm...
Eventually climbing back out of the carcass, I made my way to its highest point to overlook the seemingly infinite prairie that surrounded me.. noting the horizon that seemed a little too distant beneath the sky painted in a blue just too dark.
-This.. isn't Earth...-
It was my first answer.. not one given by a series of weighted nodes or from the incluence of the deeper voice.. but pieced together by my own web...
And as if replying to it, a glowing hologram appeared before me: 'You have been selected as a System Mercenary in order to correct this world's population rank.'
But beneath it.. the blue panel was painted crimson... 'Error: No suitable classes found... User Stat Patterns: Unrecognized. Species: Unrecognized. User unfit for planetary conditions. ERROR-ERROR-ERROR'
And before I could finish reading it, it was replaced: 'Emergency Quest Created.' The quest was dark red, like curdled blood on the cusp of rot. 'Quest Type: Assassination.' The words were English, but their formatting was distorted.. like a computer forcing itself through errors. 'Class: ERROR.' It was.. hard to read... 'Target: Demigod-Class Wyvern.'
That was except for the final line...
A string of clarity beneath distortion.
'Distance: 3983.' It was a number... 'Distance: 3821.'
A number that dropped with every passing second...
A number that made the voice beneath my circuitry scream an unfamiliar command.
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