Soulless - Chapter 20 (Patreon)

Chapter 20 – “It All Begins Here”

This time around, it wasn't really a contest. The first simply felt like an empty promise, a fake ideal of 'perfection', and as such, he instantly discarded it.

The third was also rejected as a possibility since it in no way fit with Kai. Whenever he would even try and sense it, it was like a deep wrongness overcame him, so that was a no-go.

In the end, the choice wasn't hard when the second one out of two already declined ones simply felt right for him. It was neither a sense of power nor a sense of enticement, rather the option gave off an intense sensation of affinity and harmony.

Reaching out for the glyph, the world winked out of existence and he was once again met with the countless sights of things moving and working together in harmony.

Life bringing death, death-bringing life. The ever-expanding universe, originating from one single entity. From one comes two, and from two comes four. The fuse means to move closer to origin...

Coming back to himself, Kai felt like his entire body began ever so slowly meld together in harmony. There was no sense of wrongness or discomfort, and everything was worked to enhance and support one another. Something he had never felt before.

It was only after Kai came down from his elevation that he read the prompt awaiting his attention.

"Well, that seems rather useful." Kai chuckled, realizing that there was also importance in not only that his augments were powerful but also that they held synergy so he wouldn't end up shooting himself in the foot by them all being incompatible with each other.

Satisfied, Kai didn't waste any time and immediately went onto the last of the augment slots he had.

Now, this is where it got hard. The third choice definitely seemed like an augment that could weaponize his literal mind, and Kai couldn't think of something cooler than that. However, what that the correct choice for him?

Going over the augments he had already picked, it became clear that something like that wouldn't fit in per se. And after having just gotten his [Genesis] it had become more than clear that something like compatibility between my augments since this [Bodytype] would be dependent on the final result of their merge.

With that in mind, Kai couldn't bring himself to choose that one, no matter how cool it sounded.

While the first choice was obscure and he couldn't really get any reading off it, the second choice seemed to be something that would help him view the world of the spiritual with his very own eyes. This could both be potentially a god's sent or a useless skill as Kai hadn't the faintest idea of what good it would do him.

Besides, the spiritual was closely related to the soul, and since he was specifically lacking in that regard, Kai didn't want to take such a risk.

That then came down to the obscure first choice. But Kai didn't hesitate for long about his choice as it seemed the harder the choices were to read and sense, the potentially more powerful they may be. [Gluttony of the Heavenly Fiend] is a prime example of exactly that.

Entering another vision, Kai furrowed his brows as he suddenly stood in an abyss-black mountainous landscape that could only be distinguished from the corona of soft orange light. It was as if sundown on this abyssal planet, however, no sun was to be seen anywhere.

Kai was brought out of his apprehensive thoughts as the sudden eerie humming shook the world all around him, making the landscape tremble with a haze of afterimages.

Feeling nauseous and struck with a sudden onset of vertigo, Kai felt ever more panicked as he looked out to far in the distance, beyond the abyssal mountains. There an absolutely titanous figure rose.

Black as void too, the humanoid figure's outline only revealed its hundreds of arms and the thousands of glowing eyes that covered its body.

The face was featureless, however, when it slowly turned to face Kai, he felt like he was staring at something beyond anything remotely divine. The mere pressure of the monstrosity's presence felt like it would crush Kai's mind to dust.

He could only stare into those terrible eyes as his body utterly failed to heed the commands of his frantic mind. But to his relief, the vision stopped at that moment, allowing his body to move once again as collapsed into his bed.

"What - the - fuck... was that...?" He groaned, now beginning to become rather tired of some of these visions.

As Kai stared finished reading the prompt with a long-suffering sigh, he looked around in his room only to suddenly let his jaw fall wide open. Everything... was so much clearer.

Although his vision had only been slightly enhanced, just this was enough to completely changed how Kai looked at the world around him.

Smiling contently, all stress and apprehension from just meeting various cosmic monsters, vanished into thin air as he pulled up his [Interface] and checked out all the changes of this "third boon".

It was quite a lot to take in, but there didn't seem to be any other changes than his [Bodytype] having changed from "None" to "Unawakened".

Although no more information presented itself, Kai did still scanned the screen thoroughly, and to his delight, one prompt was rewarded for his continued persistence.

"Well, that's good to know..." Kai muttered absentmindedly. "Not only does it mean that my Body Type will actually have a grade, but it also just made it that more prevalent that synergy between my augments was essential as it would ultimately define the effect strength of each augment... halleluja for [Genesis]."

Sighing, he shook his head as it was starting to be overcrowded by the ponderings of this world's intricacies and secrets.

"Well, it's about goddamn time I began cultivating," Kai muttered as he stared into the ceiling of his room, a predatory smile creasing his lips.