《Divide and Consume》
Chapter 1 - Evolving Towards Humanity
Within the first realm of the universe, where only trees were supposed to grow new souls, there was a soul that was malformed and can only be described as a unique existence.
This soul was not shaped like a standard soul where there is a point in which everything originates.
No, it was a clustered web of lines interconnected together forming a bond of souls that could only be destroyed by the universe''s demise.
This anomaly was not caused by experimentation, but a truly rare coincidence. One of a kind and impossible to replicate because this cluster of souls counted for every soul of a specific type that didn''t have a chance to even germinate as an individual in the first realm.
Every soul in this uncountable mass of interlinked souls was of the same origin and kind. If one were to take a step into the first realm and see this being, one would see a singular massive tree.
This tree has been in this location for epochs as even the Creator didn''t know what to do with it. Long enough for it to begin to think on a different dimension altogether as a single entity or many, being one of the few souls that still remember the first realm.
It was eventually decided that as a unique being, it should have a unique start that would help it develop its soul. Although the shape of the soul was entirely unique, it could not be supported by a standard body.
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I can only recount this part of my memory now as I have just now learned English after Eons.
In the beginning, I was a tree. I could only feel the fresh air that passed over the uncountable number of limbs within a forest of unknown size. I could not see or hear, but I could feel the vibrations that wind had produced as it moved through numerous other trees.
However, that changed. I was changed.
I was thrown into an ocean as a singular cell. One of the first cells to be born into this world.
I felt pressure on all sides as I couldn''t make heads or tails of what was happening.
My point of view was able to go inside of my cell and I could feel various structures, but I had no clue what they were.
Around me, only liquid was present as I was whisked around. I could feel the currents through this part of the deep ocean as it pushed me into a warmer region.
I had almost no control over my situation like a fisherman whose rudder was broken in a stormy and foggy sea.
This area not only had warmth, but also blobs of white matter. Every once in a while, I would bump into some of these white blobs and my cell walls would automatically absorb it.
These blobs would go into my cell and be transported by tiny little tubes to some structures I couldn''t make heads or tails of. The many little tubes were everywhere like little webs.
For a period of time I absorbed these small blobs in contentment, becoming larger.
However, after numerous blobs, I felt incredibly bloated.
I pondered on the situation to solve this issue, but eventually nature solved the problem for me.
I got so large that I just divided into two. Kind of like how an oil drop on a hot frying pan would split into two if it became large enough.
My cellular walls started to bulge out into two different directions.
During this process, I didn''t feel pain until the very end where the cellular walls between the two cells ''popped'' and then there were two.
I could now simultaneously feel two cells.
This was an odd moment for me as I could now think and feel two at once.
The new cell was a perfect carbon copy of the first cell.
I could now feel them as they drew apart. The problem was that they kept on growing apart until the distance between them could only be described as massive from a small prospective.
I was now following these two cells as they flowed around this warm area until one of them actually fell into an extremely hot area.
I felt pain like no other as that other cell was incinerated in the incredibly hot water. The pain lasted for perhaps a minute and it died down to nothing with my consciousness being popped away from the second cell.
I was now alone again, feeling fear for the first time in my microbial existence.
However, it did not take long for my to bump into more blobs of food and replicate again.
For a period, I managed to replicate six times making a of sixty four cells by eating the white blobs. I still mentally followed each one during this process. The blobs all drew a vast distance from each other.
Some cells went outside the warm area, while some stayed in it and fell onto the bottom surface of the ocean near the vent.
I was surprised when the cells stuck onto the ground, and that there was something so supportive in the world, completely solid.
I could feel the distribution of heat in this region and could even tell that there was a point where the heat originated from. This was like mapping software that consists of many points, I began to make sense of the situation.
The cells that fell outside of the heated area began to run out of blobs of food. They began to starve and I felt them slowly blink out of my consciousness, leaving me with forty one live cells.
I also felt some form of terror when they ran out of food. This was also a brand new experience as their deaths were not as quick as the cells that ran into the heat source.
For every new cell I had, I became smarter as I had more parallel consciousnesses to work with. I could come up with better ideas, but with nothing to reference I was still doomed to repeat myself.
When I reached the cell count of three hundred and twenty seven, I decided to play around with the cells. I wanted something new as watching cells fall into the abyss or hell was not fun.
The only real control that I had right now was slightly moving my cell walls. However, I wanted to be able to move, explore, and multiply.
I looked at some of the cell walls on my cells and pondered for a period of time. I couldn''t really imagine shapes except for what I saw, which were a bunch of tubes and structures inside my cell, and the spheroid shape of my walls.
Eventually, I just decided to push out one of my cell walls to see if it did anything.
The cell wall began to move outwards and a singular protrusion slowly formed. The tubes inside also expanded and connected to this to form a web which I could feel and manipulate.
With this new tail, I could finally move one of my cells. Although I said that, I tried to move it in directions, but I only rotated when it moved. I tried again and again until finally, I found out that I could wave the tail and it would push me forwards.
Thanks to the net of cells spread out through the volcanic area, I could feel the location of the cell that could swim. I moved it to an area near the hot area that had more food coming out. I also repeated the process for all of the other cells, giving them the ability to swim.
For a period, I replicated like crazy, spreading a massive net. However, I found that swimming in place takes too much energy and it was starting to hamper my progress.
To fix this, I had some of my cells swim near the vent and clump together as tight as they could. I had their cell walls combine into a tight structure which caught the food easier.
However, they still used too much energy, so I had them go to the very bottom and affix themselves to the surface below, which was hard and had many protrusions for me to anchor on.
This conglomeration of cells had become a sphere on the bottom of the ocean close enough to the vent to gather food. They ate food when it came near and redistributed it internally.
After some time, this sphere of cells grew upwards and became taller, like a stalk of wheat it grew until it became blatantly clear that growing any more would only be detrimental. This stalk was hollow and food was moved through the center to support all of the cells.
I decided to copy the plant thing and grew the first stalk''s roots outward surrounding the vent, becoming a small field of tall tubes around the hot vent. I also found some spots that were hot, even if they were not gushing stuff in a direction.
This area was calm as I grew millions of cells. Every single cell I could feel and see inside, the tube network and all.
However, I also wanted to go outside of the vent region. I wanted to see what is outside of my area of scope. For that, I needed a method to store energy.
I could store blobs of the food into a large cell, but from my experimentation, large cells are very slow and the tails were not large enough to move them.
I continued to experiment with different structures and took in stuff that wasn''t food in the water. Every now and then, I would discover a new body part shape, like a flat tailed fin but overall it was not that impressive.
I combined cells to create a large multicellular creature, which I played around with more as it was the best chance to explore with.
This creature was cylindrical and had a space in the middle to hold food in. I also took some time to figure out how to move the thing, as it was too large for cell-sized tails. I stretched some of the cells on both sides of the creature and interlinked them to where the tubes inside would pull and enable the ''tail'' of the creature to move from side to side. Food was moved into the creature''s belly through several of the food plants on the ground.
When the creature was as ready as I could get it, I sent it in a random direction in the cold regions. It swam for a period until it started to use the food that I had laboriously piped into the creature earlier.
I moved it around the ocean for as long as possible, but in the end, it ran out of food before I could find anything hot.
I repeated the scout creature countless times until I finally found a new vent.
At this vent, I sewed new seeds and created a new colony of vertical tubes.
When I tried to swim my cells upward, my cells bloated and the cell walls were destroyed. I was not smart enough to know better so I had sacrificed cells in an attempt to breach the ''death wall'' above.
Countless years passed and I managed to cover a ludicrously massive area with vent dwelling plant-like creatures. I couldn''t help but notice that the majority of the vents were along a line.
The vent lines started to intersect as I grew and I was starting to form a web around the ocean. I also ''felt'' a slight curve along the ocean floor with such a vast distance.
I was not successful in going upwards as my cells always seemed to explode when they went too high from the ocean floor.
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Throughout this period, I started to experiment both inside and outside. I took in ingredients into experimental cells and saw what they did, meanwhile I played around with different combinations of limbs and internal structures.
The first exciting external structure that I had made was able to link two cells together without the cell walls combining. Of course, how that worked was beyond me at the time.
The second was cells that were sensitive to light. I was puzzled at how and what light was, but I figured out that the heat vents created light.
The most useful inner structure was made from the materials outside. It was a long chain from end-to-end was about a meter in length. When it was bundled up together, it didn''t really do anything, but after some time and replication of the chain, I found out that cells with the chain inside of the cell would order the cell to perform actions without the need for my input.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
The strings, DNA, would command for me, performing the mundane daily tasks without question.
I played around with this long automatic string plethora times and managed to make cells that would replicate and carry the automatic strings with them. This was done enough times that I actually withdrew my control entirely so I could watch what the cell would do, only leaving a wisp of my control so I could see and replicate anything that the cell does later on.
This new cell carried on its task and replicated constantly, eating the blobs around vents. Eventually the vent was overcrowded and the cells started to move in different directions, dying to the cold.
Some of the cells however, started to mutate beyond recognition of the originals. I have no clue why, perhaps it was because of a flaw within the cell''s program.
The new cells spread around everywhere. Some even managed to get through the ''barrier of death'' upwards without popping, which grabbed my attention. However, they still ended up popping when they went even higher up. This did not deter the new army of cells as they pushed through obstacles that I couldn''t fathom with a large enough period of time.
Some of the cells that were not under my direct control became conglomerations of cells, but most lived a singular life. Those conglomerations did not really connect however, as becoming a multicellular organism was apparently not as easy as I did.
I could actually re-control the cells if I had wanted to and had successfully done so, but I decided to only supervise multiple cells with a single consciousness each to discover new approaches. Their ingenuity and randomness actually solved problems for me.
However, cells began to eat other smaller cells. This was actually quite disturbing as they could easily start to eat the cells controlled by me.
This problem did occur as one of my plants was partly eaten. The offenders were actually a small swarm of cells that went by and took the surface cells from my plant. They began to live there so I had to push them off with external means. It was not a pleasant experience, but I still had enough nutrients to regrow those plant parts. In a way, I felt betrayed by those cells.
A big change was the discovery of Lipid cells. They specialized in converting the white blobs into yellow blobs that were easily stored. The energy could be converted back into a clear fluid that energizes the nearby cells. Every creature that I directly controlled now has this feature.
I discovered light high above the ocean floor with my scouting cells after countless attempts. The problem however, was that as they got closer to the surface, the cells died. They did not pop like before, but they were boiled alive from the outside in like they did when they were in the lava vents. This was puzzling to me since I could not feel the heat like lava gives off.
I continued to send new cells up above to experiment with methods to survive. I also noticed the uncontrolled cells attempting to do the same.
This process continued on for an Era until the uncontrolled cells made a discovery. They discovered photosynthesis. Of course, I didn''t know what it was until I saw/felt the cells lasting near the surface. They converted and stored energy from the light above.
This breakthrough revolutionized the way that I had thought life should work. I quickly copied the surviving cells and made my own special brand of multicellular organisms that also took in light to create energy.
These cells were green, something that had never happened before as most of the cells were purple. Of course, I couldn''t really differentiate between the colors with the simple eyes that my single and multicellular organisms worked with.
Due to this process, something happened that I didn''t expect. The oceans slowly changed with bubbles starting to form within the water and oxygen started to flood in.
The oxygen was slowly, ever so slowly increasing. I was intrigued by this new thing, gas so I tried to commune with it, only to find that my purple cells died inside of the oxygen bubbles. I became slightly cautious but didn''t think too much of it.
The uncontrolled purple cells that did not have photosynthesis started to prey on the green cells near the surface. Although they couldn''t break through my multicellular organisms, they could swallow the uncontrolled green cells.
I actually found a point where the ocean and bottom come together, but it was too far away in the danger zone soI kept most of my multicellular organisms below the surface so they couldn''t get burned.
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Numerous purple cells that were near the surface died these past few cycles, including mine.
This was a massive extinction event, the ocean water was filled with oxygen due to the green cells. Of course, I didn''t fully realize that oxygen was literally poison to the purple cells so I kept pushing them until they just stopped working. I avoided bubbles, but I did not know that oxygen could be dissolved.
I had a plethora of purple cells that acted as messengers carrying fat downwards from the surface to my other colonies. Luckily, those cells were multicellular creatures and the outside cells on them died but the ones inside managed to stay alive.
I mourned for my many purple children and carried on.
This event would later become known as the ''Great Oxidation Event'' or the Oxygen crisis.
Uncontrolled cells started to have a new structure inside of them, a Nucleus. I couldn''t figure out why until I noticed that cells without it mutated ludicrously fast near the surface. The nucleus helped protect the long DNA strands from radiation and from getting stretched about structures such as ribosomes or the small tubes.
These new cells also developed a new structure, the Mitochondria. It helped turn those white blob sugars into a different kind of energy, instead of building cell parts like ribosomes did. This energy was called ATP, which is used by structures throughout the new cells and used Oxygen as a building block to increase efficiency.
These cells could now do more with less energy, using ATP to help power their tails and increase DNA replication efficiency instead of my incredibly inefficient systems that used replaced parts when the proteins ran out of juice.
Nature did it again and made my kind better.
However, this change only works for areas that have oxygen, so the majority of my cells deep below couldn''t exploit this new system.
The Great Oxidation Event was followed by two true terrifying events.
The first was an Ice Age, where the entire world slowly froze over and I had lost a multitude of cells. Perhaps over a few quadrillion cells were lost to the frost.
When the freezing started to occur, my plant cells were floating below the surface of the ocean. However, they couldn''t really move, say for an air sac. I felt the freezing come out of nowhere. Everything turned colder and colder until the entire surface of the ocean was covered by solid ice. At the time, I had never experienced ice before so I did not see the warning signs.
I had to start from ground zero, from the deep ocean vents again as I couldn''t get energy from the sun anymore.
After a very long period of time, the oceans slowly melted back. Luckily, some of the surface cells went into hibernation and were not outright destroyed by the frozen water. Nature did not have to take its course to figure out how photosynthesis worked again.
However, that was only the first event. A period of time after the ice age, something new occurred. Something massive quickly came from above and hit a part of the world in an awe inspiring ball of red. I felt the destruction through the ocean and watched as the half of the world''s oceans were covered by a thin film of ashes.
The surface of the ocean was briefly covered but the sun was revealed again within a short period.
Although the fireball did not kill many species within the ocean, if I was above the surface it would have been a lot different.
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The uncontrolled cells have finally become multicellular. They managed to grow from one cell into two where the cell walls were interconnected.
These organisms started to show up on the shallow ocean floor that was far enough away to not commit suicide by light.
They grew with all of their green spender and became plants that had bound themselves onto the ground. I could feel their jubilation as the cells took in the sun''s energy. These plants later on also developed a system where they would pass cells between them and use that to intermix genes.
The biggest event with the plants was that they managed to grow outside of the water. Albeit not for a long time as they dried up.
After an era, these plants have sprouted in every lit area underwater around the world, alongside my plants and turned the planet''s ocean slightly green again.
However, they were not to be outdone as species akin to molluscs started to show up. At first I was not impressed by them, as they were kind of like my many multicellular ground-scouts. However, the molluscs ate plants.
I was not a stranger to cells eating other cells, but when I had a mollusc slowly eating one of my plants, I felt the death of those cells.
The molluscs started to spread into a small army of crawlies everywhere in the new coral reefs. At the very least, they were slow and only crawled so I could move my floating creatures out of the way.
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I had lost numerous plants now and I am starting to use the seed methods that other plants are using. There are not enough molluscs to harm my power base. However, the molluscs started to develop a hard shell. This shell was made from chitin, which during the growth period excited me.
I took the idea of chitin and replicated it onto one of my creatures and had it go near the surface. When it was close to the surface, it didn''t burn like the plethora of attempts before. This creature uses slug-like movement to get around so moving upwards required some ingenuity.
Armed with this new physical shielding, I moved this creature to the surface of the water and had the shell jar out a little bit. I couldn''t feel the outside, but I felt that the shell was fine outside the water.
I moved the shelled creature along the upwards slope towards where I had speculated that ''land'' existed.
When I went towards the land, my experimental eyes caught a glimpse of it. I saw soaring peaks, but everything else was blurry. My primitive eyes couldn''t focus even if I wanted them to outside of the water.
Finally, I hit land and took my first movement onto it in a slow fashion. However, I felt two things I had never felt before: gravity and evaporation.
I had given this creature a ton of fat in the center and had a shell on the top. The inner layers were incredibly thin. When my creature exited the ocean, it actually tore apart the inside tissue and water flowed out. Water also started to evaporate from my cells, killing them because the cells were used to transferring water constantly, not keeping it in.
From my view, I took in the land. It was barren. Nothing here. However, I had to leave this barren desert. It was eerily familiar to the underwater regions when there was no plant life.
As quick as I could, I dove back into the ocean to redesign the creature. Meanwhile, I got some molluscs to perform experiments for me. I guided them to the land and attempted to get them to live ashore.
They could actually survive where I couldn''t. However, they were still evaporating, which was a problem that I also had. Another problem I discovered was oxygen. Although at the time I had no clue what oxygen was, I had experienced its terrors on anaerobic cells and the glory that came with efficient oxygen-using cells.
During my experimentation outside, an event took place which forced me to stop.
Another ice age.
I was not prepared just like the first time. However, I managed to save both my cells and the other cells and put all of them into stasis, where they did not consume that much energy until the ice age was over. In a way, it was cheating but I didn''t want to have to deal with nature re-learning again.
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This running theme of extinction events was only getting started, as it occurred ten times before creatures began to adapt to the surface from the first oxygen event. I saw molluscs, fish with cartilage and bones, thirty meter-long cone-shelled kings, Trilobites, spiked sharks and a plethora of new species.
Each era was preceded by an extinction event, where the population from the era before was dealt a fatal blow or went almost entirely extinct.
For every era of new creature, I have adapted my cells to protect myself from becoming extinct too. I kept features from the previous creatures, such as bones, cartilage, muscles, hearts, scales, and eyes that were not primitive and could see in colors.
The biggest advancement for me was getting out of the ocean. At first, I could only copy the life and live as moss near the rivers, but a breakthrough had occurred as moss lived and died to create soil from the sand hellscape that used to be on the five continents.
Trees that go up to thirty meters have been grown and ever so slowly, trilobites started to climb up from the oceans and survive on the land.
The trilobites were originally descendants from molluscs, but they developed shells to protect themselves. These shells kept with them when they changed in shape and form and developed external apparatus to breathe oxygen in the air. The trilobites and molluscs were the only creatures that could temporarily survive above the surface because their shells protected them from the dangerous light.
Since the great oxygenation event, the light up above lost its danger as oxygen was introduced. This meant that creatures could live without depending on such large and thick shells near and above the surface and they could use oxygen efficiently to breathe.
New descendants of trilobites formed into many different species over time and inhabited the brand new forests like kings. These included giant scorpions, massive dragonflies and other creepy crawlies that would definitely keep you up at night. The most unique creatures were fish that managed to climb out of the water and develop limbs, almost gecko-like.
During the period in which the bugs were living on land, light came down from above again and exploded multiple regions of the world.
The surface of the oceans became hot and black, poisonous even to me. The only creatures of mine that survived were the ones in the deep oceans near the vents. I managed to move some of my biomass ashore, but the majority of it was lost as I could not develop cells that could survive the hot black water fast enough.
This hit led me to develop my own brand of trees, grass, moss and fungi on land so that I had energy and a method to survive long-term. I did not want to keep up in a survival war between the bugs so I kept most of my mass in plants. I did however, have to find ways to protect my forests from the truly terrifying bugs that could eat wood in large droves.
The land creatures switched from very large bugs to giant lizards now as the forests collapsed and the lizards could dive into the ocean to survive. The forests regrew and now these large lizards have very tall spines. The lizards grew too large and some couldn''t survive off of the land so they began a course of hunting each other.
The black oceans cleared up again so I could repopulate it.
I played around during this time and created a few different large bugs of my own. I made it a game of sorts to see what could survive the longest as my own species did not have the glaring weaknesses that the majority of surface animals did. The bugs eventually developed hiveminds, like some incredibly small creatures did in hives.
My creatures never had a reaction time like the lizards and others had as they relied on a crude nervous system and brain. Meanwhile, I didn''t even require a nervous system because I could directly control my cells.
The delay between the brain and the muscles was a glaring weakness that could not be solved by all species. As a result, my creatures always had a reaction time that was unparalleled.
I had finally reached a limit on the number of cells I could directly control. The number was unthinkable and each cell gave me a consciousness. However, I had to start taking a step back from controlling a hundred percent to only a fraction, as most cells do not actually do too much in real time like tree bark.
This worked because for some reason I could keep up any number of ''wills'' for each cell that run on autopilot, even the ones that I did not directly control. However, I could only ''take a seat'' on so many cells at once meaning that my response time was multiplied for the cells that I did not control all the time.
Another extinction came and went via ice age and now the lizards were bigger and almost monolithic on land. Of course, they were not as big as the ones in the next Eon but they were quite impressive.
The most impressive dinosaur was actually in the ocean and not on land. It was larger than the biggest fish and feasted solely a carnivorous diet as an apex predator.
I played more with the dinosaurs and enjoyed the thrill of the hunt and being hunted. They were still smaller than the trees and multiplied like flies.
The next eon''s Jurassic dinosaurs were the largest land species I had seen so far and their bodies shouldn''t have worked the way they do. For instance, the Brachiosaurus grew way too big; in the 12-16 meters range. I could barely fathom how their bones didn''t crumble with the crushing gravity or how they still managed to survive only from leaves and bushes compared to the large carnivores that digested meat like no other.
I was sad to see this eon go as afterwards there were no species to play with that were quite as large. The biggest problem that I had with the dinosaurs was that even if they lived in packs, they were as dumb as a doorknob. At least the hiveminds from two eons ago were more fun.
The dinosaurs lived like kings for three eons.
The meteor that came down to kill all of the surface creatures on this massive continent was powerful. It came and left so quickly I couldn''t even respond as I lost a ridiculous amount of mass above ground. Of course, this being the Nth extinction event I have lived through, I had backups set up everywhere around the world.
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After the very lucky few survivors from the asteroid survived, the base species changed again and now it was the era of warm-blooded creatures.
Instead of having small reactionary brains, these warm-blooded creatures grew larger ones that enabled higher thought functionality at the cost of a higher body temperature, which lead to pack mentalities that dwarfed the bug hiveminds from several eons ago.
Every creature in these packs stuck together and prevented the lizards and bugs from becoming too large with safety in numbers. Dinosaurs tried pack mentality with herbivores, they were only semi-successful and did not develop further in intelligence due to over-hunting by carnivores.
The creatures of most note in these two and a half eons were the apes. Although they were not much of note compared to the other warm-blooded creatures, they changed in ways that I couldn''t predict.
They developed a social system that required language, so they did. This new species grew out of the area known as Africa and used this new language to develop stronger and more developmental ideas instead of just survival.
And this is where I am today. I learned their first few languages quite easily and monitored their progress, coming and going from the shadows. I have not yet made direct contact with them as I do not know how to broach the subject.
Chapter 2 - For Humanity
I continued to monitor this new species.
They were at first incredibly direct and still acted like apes but they became communities that lived and died together in the wild with a keen paranoia.
The people began to take in... spirits? Souls? I had no clue. However, these souls gave true sentience and life to the humans. The idea of the soul was not a new idea for me because creatures before the apes also had them. Albeit much smaller and barely keeping a ''will'' together. They also depended on their brains for thought, which was an intriguing idea which I tried to implement for myself, but found the brain to be too chaotic and useless compared to my.... I still don''t know what I am.
There were times where the first few courageous ones went out of the tribe to make anew. However, those first few died straight out as they had not developed a defensive mechanism that worked yet. They were still like apes in that they have to have safety in numbers.
But that changed when I stepped in and scared off apex creatures like sabertooth tigers when they were trying to survive. I pushed them into the right direction and they actually developed a religion about me.
This was one of the first few religions and I had no clue how to respond to it as I was mostly just an observer.
So I eventually gave in.
I formed a female body like theirs and told them to depend on themselves using their distinct body language.
They were afraid at first, but quickly took hold of religion like a light in the middle of darkness.
Not that religion towards me even benefitted but it was quite flattering nonetheless.
The tribes grew into cities and cities into countries as their languages and cultures progressed. Humans moved north from africa and north-east during a partial ice age and took the second continent.
I was utterly fascinated as this human culture represented something new to learn from. I knew almost everything about them since every single one of their cells still had my will, thus the humans were part of me in a way.
But this did not stop humans from becoming monsters every now and then. I had grown to know human culture as a paradigm shift that went from black to white, good to evil, accepting to pure exclusivity. They developed other religions and worshiped a variety of everything, sending envy and blame towards unknown beings.
I was definitely not a ''God'' in the sense that they originally portrayed me to be so I did not continue the first religion as I only performed to keep humanity afloat from utter destruction. If anything, I was a participant in life alongside them, even if I was immortal and undying.
In fact, I had no clue if God existed or not, so I could not give my input even if I tried.
This did not stop me from stepping in every now and then, taking the form of a female. In fact, I appeared in multiple locations at once to stop several wars that would have killed off a significant number of people and reset the status quo of the early ages.
But during this time, I couldn''t help but notice that they humans blatantly destroyed everything they touched when their numbers became too much. This was due to the one percent who thought everything belonged to them.
I am not sure how this fallacy came to be within humans but I tried to stop them. Perhaps this was some leftover problems left from the apes that was not so obvious when they were still primates.
This good-evil complex stayed for the long run and humans began to fear themselves. The evil ones stayed in the dark or they took to the top of the societies and they even engrained themselves into human culture.
In the end, since the human species was still flourishing with its problems, I still supported their quick growth as they came up with new knowledge I haven''t gained in the past billions of years even if I was smarter than all of them combined. As it turned out, hiveminds had their problems since they limited culture.
The humans have lived for a million years now as an apex species. They controlled the earth with an iron fist and cycled through war and peace as often as they ate.
Pharoes lived and died like gods, Kings forced serfs and other humans to do their bidding, and the political machinations to control the world were ever-present.
They had beaten the worst foes and monsters, developed technology that puts them on equal grounds as dangerous beasts and even created methods to farm and ranch.
I had visited humans various times, taking a different role each time. I tried to persuade kings not to be too harsh, ''died'' many times, and attempted to age at a ''normal'' pace as a peasant.
I was now near Nazareth with my female avatar.
This was an era of humanity where they lived in slums, cities or castles, but the Romans always took it too far. Even in this city, soldiers were everywhere.
My avatar is average for the looks within the region and I had distant nobility garbs on.
When I reached Roma''s gates, I was thoroughly questioned.
The reason I came today was because something different occurred.
A man that was proclaiming to be the son of God came and performed feats. The problem was, this has happened countless times already. I had even talked to several of these people and they gave no definitive answer. I even probed their memories but found nothing too specific.
I was determined to figure out who and what God really was.
But the man named Jesus was both forthright and honest. I probed his memories and came with nothing conclusive. He really could be the son of god or couldn''t. It was as if he didn''t exist within my ability to probe memories, the man was a blank slate, which was odd.
It was the first time I felt fear since I couldn''t control the man. However, I watched from the distance at every event in which he produced miracle after miracle.
I watched in the background as the humans followed their beliefs and removed Jesus from the face of the earth, only to be temporarily surprised by his rising again. I guess he just wanted to make a point that he could transcend the physical.
Time sure does fly.
500 years later and I also experienced Muhammad''s arrival to the Earth. Although his message was different, his actions left a profound impact for the regions near Arabia.
However, every time a new prophet came and left, they knew a little about me. Even if their messages were skewed beyond recognition by other humans, but the prophets seemed to all be from the same faction. What faction that was, I didn''t know.
This skewed message between humans created the terror that was the crusades and the Popes, whom I choose not to talk about. The corrupt leaders managed to use religion as a socio-political tool to manipulate the masses with almost no repercussions.
It is the year 1520 and I have noticed something sinister in the human ranks. Vampires who overwrote my spirit mark arose to power behind some countries. The vampires have managed to keep their blood-culling of humans quiet. Their stories were not even written into books or spoken between peasants.
I could not figure out how they even appeared, coming like a banshee in the night and suddenly people could drink blood and die through the sun. At the very least they could not beat the limits of physics but they were fast compared to humans.
These vampires were the first ''supernatural'' creatures that I had seen on Earth as they followed a system that was partially breaking energy conservation and ''nutrients'' were not a thing that they directly needed.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
They ruled small regions with an iron fist and kept to themselves, except when they required blood.
I had even tried to replicate how they work, but I couldn''t even figure it out. Perhaps it had something to do with the Spirit marks that were erased when humans were converted.
My best guess was that some evil god, demon or devil managed to bring vampires here as there was no biological reason for their existence. I kept them around and didn''t kill them because they had something I wanted: the ability to break common sense of this realm by using powers that defied the conservation of energy.
The vampires kept quiet until the 1800s where a fictional book was published about vampires, their abilities and terror. It did bring some attention towards them but they managed to sneak out of any ''hunters''.
It was towards the 1880s that they were actively hunted. Coincidentally, this was around when Hitler was born. I didn''t know about the events that would soon transpire, but I wished I had stepped in as the number of cells I lost was staggering.
Some Austrian Archduke got killed and the first World War was kicked off. I watched as the many powers, including vampires, worked in secret to manipulate the world in ways that would cause normal people to shiver.
Hitler was finally picked up by a vampire in 1919s as a servant and he began his tirade to cause a second World War for blood and mayhem. This Vampire was actually opposed to a Jewish vampire so he wanted a convenient reason to attack it. Of course, the vampire didn''t realize that the second World War would blow up the way that it did and that Hitler would go so far but he just shrugged.
This was the first time that I stepped out from the shadows to remove a vampire from existence. It was too late for me to stop the second war but I could only remove a truly vile individual. I learned many things from this vampire''s body that I couldn''t from the lesser ones I found, such as how they convert blood into ''Vitality'' through a roundabout way with ''Spirit.''
I also found out that older vampires were the closest thing to undying besides me. Their spirits could regenerate their bodies incredibly quickly just using vitality.
However, they couldn''t actually make vitality or blood. Their bodies were somehow alive, yet not. Especially the ones that were starved as punishment, I saw them become almost cold and corpse-like.
I have fought them occasionally to see what the older ones were capable of. The bodies that I used performed feats combatting vampires and were less human than they were. The perfect weapon in the shape of a human.
This went as a warning to vampires and they tried everything to figure out what I was, from bribes to torture ending with my persona becoming a living legend in the vampire community. A foreign and immortal entity which was stronger than they were.
I saw the success of humans as they developed technology that were impossible in my mind: Electronics, Computers, Robots, and Rockets.
In fact, when humans discovered how to use lightning and performed experiments with it, I did the same, albeit in a more insane, yet leisurely manner. I had already seen the phenomenon known as electricity as early as Electric Eels but I never really used it to my advantage.
Yet humans still beat me to technologies I couldn''t dream of.
The development of transistors was in its infancy during World War 2, but it slowly left the ground and became a soaring phoenix. Albeit a very fat and arrogant one as the politics of ''big business'' was not to be taken lightly.
Probably the biggest eye-opener was the fact that space did not rotate around the Earth and that the stars were actually other suns. This realm was huge.
The big problem I found was that our sun had a lifespan and that I only had about 4-5 billion more years to live on earth before it went big.
I guess sometimes being an immortal undying does not matter in some situations and it clouds your judgement as to what is possible. I was the progenitor to these humans, yet they discovered and created things far more complicated than I could.
However, humanity had nothing on automating DNA genetics, as that was my bread and butter. They couldn''t even breed new life from simple cells. But perhaps that is just a matter of time.
I grew some cells and planted them on myriad human rockets into space. Through this, I managed to get onto the moon and mars, titan, and several other planets that had human landers crash. I spread myself throughout every livable area in the solar system that I could without humanity finding out. However, that was easy since humans don''t know that their cells are a part of me.
In the end though, the cells that stayed in a vacuum or truly inhospitable places went into hibernation since there was no energy and nutrients to survive off of. However, places like titan were entirely possible since there was methane in the atmosphere and even though the sun was incredibly distant my cells could repeat the "Great Oxygenation Event" except with the cold methane oceans here. Earth in the past was actually quite like Titan, except the water was well... Water, not the liquid methane here. As a bonus, I could even slowly build up my own rockets as liquid methane is a great fuel and I could convert it into oxygen via the incredibly slow photosynthesis.
I had sent several Avatars into Universities to figure out how physics, mathematics and engineering work from a more ''human'' perspective. Said avatars borrowed my massive network and became top figures that literally came from nowhere.
Humans definitely had a special ability to probe the insanity that were the laws of this universe.
They even created the internet, one of the biggest breakthroughs on Earth. A hivemind that doesn''t even realize it is a hivemind with anonymous participation.
It slowly grew and became the hallmark of mankind, controlling countries and ideas without borders and helped expose corruption when politicians didn''t want to be exposed.
I have to admit though, that multiplayer games were fun. I could play and react in a virtual universe where I cannot use my impossible reaction times as an advantage against other humans. However, I had to simulate the games and directly connect to the internet since I had considered computers to be too slow.
It was all fun and games until 2060, where Earth became a trash sphere. They threw it away, at least temporarily, since it was almost impossible to breathe in.
They couldn''t adapt, as they had created yet another extinction event on Earth. Try as I might, armed with the epitome of human information, it was too late.
They left and rebuilt a colony on Mars, Europa and a few other promising moons in the solar system, forever fragmented and solely dependent on quantum tunneled internet to communicate. Oxygen and water were a premium offworld now and had to be manufactured using lasers and biological life.
For these events, I had to finally give a helping hand.
Earth''s atmosphere partially reverted back to what it was before the ''Great Oxygenation Event'' and became a frozen hellscape. My plethora of trees were doing fine, but ''natural'' species had already died off.
Humans still existed off of my plants that I redesigned for the new land that barely had any sun. The survivors who lived on this earth were striving to survive just as hard as the ones who voluntarily irradiated themselves to leave the earth''s influence.
My creatures roamed the land and carried water (blood) here and there in the last minute before survivors died, like a shining beacon that kept the survivors alive by ''luck.''
I had learned that although humanity was a fast species, they also burn like a candle. Once their flame burnt out, the species would have to open their eyes. Anything that I could do was difficult as biology doesn''t allow for living in sandy conditions. I would have to repeat events from the past and have moss regrow the soil, like two billion years ago. Too long.
No. I will finally step out. Even if they do not want it, I must revive this species as they are the first intelligence to exist from this world. It had become apparent that there was not a god that would save them here, even if I had evidence from previous messiahs that actual Gods probably did exist, just not in this dimension where he rarely used his power.
The world was still covered in fallout.
I walked with my female avatar in many locations around the globe, with the most neutral face that I could give.
Radiation does not affect me, since I do not have DNA. However, it does randomly break the atoms in my cells, but that was easy to manage in low doses. I could walk through fairly radioactive areas for a period of time, so I navigated my way towards the major settlements.
There were about 2,000 cities that still had a fraction of its population and countless villages that survived with no ability to go offworld. I visited every village and major faction simultaneously, making it my rather inappropriate debut. Most thought that this event was rather odd but not unusual, since most villages and cities couldn''t really communicate quickly.
"Humans," I said aloud through every node, "I come as your progenitor."
''...''
"I come not to berate you for your terrible choices, but to give you encouragement. I have lived for four billion years and you have still moved to inspire you as the first species to gain intelligence on Earth."
"Bullshit!" I heard as a response, along with a plethora of sexist slurs. This first statement actually caused many bandit tribes to make an attempt on my avatar''s life. There were about as successful as the spine sharks a billion years ago.
"Where were you when my husband died!" came out a random cry from various locations.
This was hard.
I was not used to dealing with so many, placating a species was something entirely new to me. In a way, I was a terrible parent.
"Now now," I said simultaneously, "Although I have tried my hardest to keep humanity alive, women and children were still hurt. Grown adults became true monsters and the rich left Earth for their space havens. I can see them now, shivering on the desolate worlds of Mars and Europa, even remote space stations in the belts."
I was cursed yet again by the masses and they seemed quite irate. Meanwhile, some of my avatars were in a fight they were built to win.
"Face it," I said, "humanity lost control of itself and abandoned Earth. However, earth always survives."
The harassment went on even with my encouraging words. Military grade missiles were fired at my avatars and nukes were dropped after a time. Some blew up, slowly crawling back together showing what I knew from vampires. Heck, vampires even got in on the action revealing their monster bodies to humanity.
I smiled with my best ''I''m a harmless Gaia'' impression, "for the few that want to continue on, say I."
Suffice it to say that my global debut did not go well in some ''countries''.
Even if I proved myself with martial prowess in a godlike display, my claim was absolutely assurd.
The silver lining was that I had finally earned my ''deity'' title as many helpless individuals went into my care. I made several ''bases'' which could not be easily overwhelmed by humans unless they used nuclear bombs. My countless university studies in fission and fusion helped here as I created several fusion reactors near the shore lines that converts water into Deuterium to act as fuel. It is quite easy to make fusion occur when you have nearly infinite resources.
I branched out and humanity could finally relax. However, since I moved, I couldn''t really depend on humanity for new ideas as they would depend on me as their ''God'' now.
My name was finally given: ''Phyris''.
Chapter 3 - Jane鈥檚 Escape
Earth was a wasteland as humans strive to survive or die. It was a hundred years since the Great War which killed an untold number of people on Earth and left the few stragglers behind.
However, most humans now live in communes where they congregate and use what little resources that they have. A majority still live underground in large facilities and others have managed to scrounge by as slaves to the powerful vampire lords.
The other humans live in the ''Forges'', facilities built by the great being Phyris. Many still question why Phyris had allowed the vampires to enslave humans but she did not give an answer. Many presumed that she was a protector for humanity, but they left disappointed when they found out she would not destroy the evils.
I was one of the unlucky ones, Jane wistfully thought.
Jane, like many humans, was enslaved to the vampire hegemons. She was used as a blood bag, cook, miner, and a servant to help the vampires keep up with their lifestyle of luxury and insanity.
However today, Jane was selected to become a sacrifice to the ''Blood Gods'' whom the vampires worshiped.
She was woken up before sunset, tied up, and thrown into a holding cell where some vampires took several bites of her, giving her a moment of euphoria.
Her treatment was abysmal, but the vampires always followed the same procedures, enabling the blood of their victims to be drained before a soul ceremony.
She was brought out from her cell and put into a throne room, where the vampire lords stood in rows, with the oldest vampire on the throne. She was placed in the middle of a ritual circle which had grooves for blood to flow.
"Let it commence," the old one said out loud.
A vampire came forwards and slit her wrists to drain the last into the circle.
"I guess this is it" she muttered before passing out.
Jane had a dream. One where she was in grassy fields and opposite of her was a man who wore a dark red robe.
''Do you want power to be free?'' A disembodied voice said to Jane, ''Come to me and be my servant.''
The voice echoed several times in her head, but she didn''t answer.
"Why?" Jane said.
The man only stayed still and silently looked at her.
"Why did you do this to me?" she said again in a delirious state.
Jane seemed unresponsive and in her own world, questioning why her insane slavers would kill her.
The man only sighed and walked towards her in a rushed state. He bared some fangs and prepared to devour her.
However, before he could do so, a woman appeared out of nowhere in the dream world.
"Who are you?" the man said aloud.
Jane looked up and saw a woman who was dressed in a black robe.
The woman stood in front of Jane and only smiled, looking at the man curiously.
"This is our first meeting," the woman said, "I only speculated that you existed since the vampires obtained power that no mortal could have in this realm."
The vampire looked even more closely at the woman and smiled, "Ah, are you a local deity in the second realm? How rare."
Jane was completely confused as she only thought that this was a dream.
In fact, this woman was Phyris. Although she was in some ways mortal since she doesn''t have magic or power, her spirit has been growing since she revealed herself to humanity. She was gaining ''Holy Power'', she felt, which her spirit became more powerful over time. This game her power as a false deity which enabled her to enter dreams and some semblance of control of mortals.
Phyris only tilted her head, "Second realm?"
The man only chuckled, "I came here to get an easy meal, but who would''ve thought that I could get some free holy power from you?"
This was alarming as it seemed that the man perhaps had more power than Phyris and it made her feel fear for the fourth time in her life.
He stepped forward again and increased his pace. However, one thing that Phyris had an excess of was ''spirit'' since it was a combination of all of her souls together. An uncountable number of souls can congregate impressive willpower.
He tried to grab her, but she just punched forward and sent several spikes towards him, ripping him a bit.
''Argh!'' he grunted, "what is this?! A mortal whose spirit is stronger than a god''s avatar?"
In fact, he wasn''t really a god, as he was actually an undead entity. With enough power, anybody can act like a God and cross realms.
The man ran for his life and disappeared into the distance.
Phyris stayed still for a while and gagued the information that she managed to pry from him.
Second Realm? As in, there are more realms than this?
Phyris turned around and looked at Jane, whom had an observatory gaze. Jane seemed out of it and Phyris knew that Jane had limited time before she bled out.
"Jane", Phyris said, "this is not a dream."
Jane snapped out of it and pinched herself. It hurt.
"Wha... who are you?" she said fearfully, "am I dead?"
"No, you are still alive. However, not for long as you are bleeding out," said Phyris, "This is your spirit plane, where time is slower."
"Ummm, okay," Jane said, "who was that? The Blood God exists?"
"Yes. It seems that higher realms and deities exist," said Phyris, "but the deity''s avatars are not that powerful here. I saved you because you are special. Your spirit is especially pure and quite shiny."
Perhaps the blood god picks strong souls to get more power over time. From what Phyris could figure out, the god devoured their spirits and memories. Perhaps that was why he created Vampires on Earth.
"What do I do now?" said Jane, "I''m about to die surrounded by vampires."
Phyris stood still for a moment, figuring things out.
"I can change your body and make it stronger, but you will lose your mortality. Other humans will only see you as a powerful tool and vampires will hunt you."
"I... Please! I want to live as I haven''t even seen the sun from legends."
Vampires and their servants lived very sheltered lives underground as the sun was fatal to them. Although the sky is still cloudy from the Great War, the light was their nemesis.
The vampires inject vampiric blood into their servants to increase their lifespan and conversion rate of food into blood. It is also used to make ''Blood slaves'', whom cannot fully control their bodies. The conversion process was quite pleasurable and many humans enjoyed the euphoria of being with their masters, like drug junkies who take the hard stuff.
Jane was a blood slave, one who has a certain portion of their blood replaced by vampire blood to help encourage their marrow to produce more blood. As a result, Phyris had to use Jane''s leftover cells to attack the vampiric cells.
"Then this will hurt, even if you are not awake," said Phyris, "will you take me as your idol? This will enable me to protect your soul."
"Yes, hurry!"
Gods and Deities imprint their spiritual marks on followers whether the followers realize it or not. This spiritual mark costs a god a little bit of holy power and the larger it is, the more a god has to instill.
Phyris was just a fledgling deity because she was just starting to get ''praise'' and ''worship''. She does not believe herself to be above the other Gods as she fears their existence. In fact, she also fears the unknown, like many humans do. This intervention was premeditated as she had finally found the courage to determine if beings from above actually existed like she had postulated. Seeing the reality that they do in fact exist terrified her to some degree.
Phyris was arrogant within her sphere, but this revelation left her with a newfound appreciation for the Second Realm since it possibly limited the higher beings from slapping her into nihility.
Phyris stood for a moment and looked to a direction of the woman''s spirit realm. The realm itself was only a few kilometers in circumference so the spirit mark would be visible. However, her spirit realm was also exagaratedly larger than a normal human''s Spirit Realm.
This is a first, but I have to make a visible totem for this world. Something that represents who I am in physical form that changes the spirit realm.
Phyris has seen several Deity Totems before when she was fighting vampires. The totem looked like a large blood goblet and blood was spread around the Vampire''s realm. Several religious figures in the world also have a totem, which means that those deities actually existed. When she peeked at those totems in other''s small spirit realms, she felt a presence suddenly look upon her and she ran for it. However, it would seem that Jane''s realm was unmarked.
Phyris by herself did not have any specific concept, which it would seem that Gods and deities did. However, the closest that she felt that was the concepts of ''Life'' and creation.
So instead of making a stationary totem like many deities, Phyris created a forest and a large tree, spilling her holy power. She also created replicas of her animals and creatures in Jane''s Spirit Realm.
In a way, Jane became Phyris''s Champion. A being who uses holy power instead of vitality to power their attacks. Of course, Phyris was not going to let her rely on Holy Power since she did not have that much to waste.
Phyris was also changing Jane''s body instantaneously.
The vampires were watching the body of the woman drain of its lifeblood in silence. However, their expressions changed when the blood stopped flowing and actually reversed back into the body. Some of the blood was evaporating into the air and her body made inhuman sounds. The body itself was quite thin, but it became thinner to make bones and tissue denser.
They looked around for a few moments and the old one gestured for a vampire to go forwards to investigate.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The vampire went and took out a knife to stab at her neck. It sliced through but her blood didn''t leak out. He tried again and smashed her head. It bounced hard, but it did not explode like he expected it to.
"What is going on?" the vampire said aloud. However, he got his answer after a few moments.
Jane''s body stood up with her eyes closed.
"Is she undead now? Her heart is beating," the old one mumbled to himself.
The Second Realm doesn''t allow undead to exist since mana doesn''t exist.
The body suddenly took a stance that all of the vampires were familiar with: The Immortal''s attack posure. This term was given several centuries ago when the Immortal fought several vampires.
"Damn, it''s her!" the old one said, "Phyris."
Phyris tended to use her body like a mobile artillery station. It became obvious it was her when wood seemingly came out of nowhere and evaporated the nearest vampire, consuming his matter to create more super-hard wood and replenish the body''s mass.
"Run!"
The vampires tried to run towards the door, but Phyris grew Jane''s body and quickly surrounded the room in living hardwood.
Jane was now awake and was witnessing her own body being controlled remotely. It scared her as she thought that she had become a slave of another being now. Blood slaves couldn''t control their bodies when asked and she felt the same here.
''Sorry'', jane heard.
Jane also felt stronger than ever and that she had endless vitality. She also felt that her body was quite heavy and compact. Phyris changed her body within a few moments, attesting to Phyris''s power over her progeny.
"Vampires," Phyris cursed aloud through Jane, "You are the perfect specimens and have helped me prove that deities and gods outside our realm exist. You have also helped me create a power system that also turns vitality into power. In a way, you have helped me accomplish my goals."
Vampires were technically held together by the vampiric blood gods up above. They break the laws of conservation by getting power from another realm to directly convert blood matter into the energy form of vitality, which is something that science cannot do easily.
In this case, Aeris can use her stronger spirit and holy power to affect the Second Realm, which does not contain any magic or Qi. It only has a small amount of vitality, which is normally used to power stronger bodies.
Gulp.
The vampires were not having a pleasant time as Phyris was the only entity on Earth that they couldn''t handle.
"What I know about deities," Phyris said, "is they always want something. The blood god exists, but he is not that powerful here."
''Why are you not killing them?'' Jane thought to Phyris.
''Answers, I''m trying to milk information from them.''
"What do you want Phyris?" the old one said her name like a curse, surrounded and bound by powerful hardwood.
"Do you know about the realms above?" she replied.
This was her goal. By going up, she can become more powerful and spread her influence. In a way, Phyris had those things, but she couldn''t keep the sky from falling. Power was like a drug and even though she didn''t exploit it like humans did, she wanted to not have a fear of the unknown anymore. Phyris wanted to create something original; a domain in which she was safe and free of fear. Her goals were only increasing over time.
"We know that there are several realms above us as the god hinted to us," the old one finally said.
"Several? Then how do you get to those realms?"
"Our god only told us that you have to get strong enough and the world will tell you," the old one said.
The vampires were willing to give this information, as they knew that ascending required you to have a body to ascend with, removing their fear of her when she left. What they didn''t know was that Phyris was technically a hivemind of souls and her bodies were uncountable. She was not limited to a single body, so she could just send one of them up and keep others here.
"Oh?" she smiled after getting what she truly wanted.
An instant later, all of the vampires had wood through their hearts and she quickly spread roots to their minds. With her power and spirit increasing, she could not read their minds by ''seeing'' how their microtubules were fashioned in their brain cells. Biologically reading minds was exponentially more difficult than using special methods later on, but she had plenty of computing power to spare.
She could perform mind reading with humans, but the action of doing so would make humans pause noticeably. Phyris didn''t try to exploit this too often, but right now, she wanted answers for how vampires work and the mentality of the upper echelons.
During the mind reading session, she found out about several vampire enclaves which hide near human settlements, but do not keep any servants or plants so she couldn''t find them. They didn''t truly know about her, since they thought that she was like the Blood God: a deity from another realm whom can control human and nonhuman bodies. In fact, the Blood God also thought that when Phyris helped humanity around the world.
Phyris consumed the vampire bodies using Jane and finished building up Jane''s body. The power to create cells infinitely was only within Phyris''s domain, so Jane couldn''t use it. However, Phyris gave Jane a strong immortal body which couldn''t be killed, so she could just punch through trees and villains alike at the cost of vitality.
''Here you go, I will only help again when you need it,'' Phyris thought to Jane after allowing Jane control of her body again.
Jane looked around the room confused.
"Am I... free?"
Phyris left Jane to her own devices as her job was done.
Jane tried moving around, but stumbled around. She was about ten times stronger than an ordinary human, so she couldn''t control herself.
"Ah!"
She pushed her hand out towards the hard wood in the room and she dented it, with her body flying backwards across the room from Newton''s laws of motion. This was probably the reason why Phyris tended to use growth-type weapons instead of directly fighting with her body.
"Oww"
Jane spent a few minutes trying to get attuned to her body. However, it would probably take a few weeks to months to get used to her sudden increase of physical strength and memory.
The most dangerous thing about obtaining power, was the inability to use it and hurting others unintentionally.
Was that really Phyris? The savior of the Forge?
Although Blood slaves were normally uninformed to keep them as stable cattle, there was still some gossip between vampires. Many Blood slaves secretly wished to be free of their pseudo-real bindings, the only real way to be free was to have their master die, get converted, or for them to die themselves.
Jane was still confused on how she should think and feel about Phyris. On one had, Phyris saved her, but on the other, she was sane enough not to become a fanatic instantly. Plus, the fact that Phyris can just control her body and make it strong was scary in and of itself.
She wanted to escape as soon as possible, as she was now technically free. She was pretty sure that she couldn''t directly free blood slaves now, but she could kill their masters. The problem was that she still couldn''t control her body and she didn''t know any fighting style which could help her with her newfound body that still followed the laws of physics.
Her hands were tied, so she decided to just leave the underground chambers and see the sky for the first time in her life.
Several vampires were having a discussion about how their blood slaves were last night. Gender didn''t matter here as dominance was the same in either regard. It was rather obvious that these vampires were rather new and just got the power to control their own harems.
The vampires did not hear the fight earlier, because the main chamber hall is soundproof to keep secret discussions... secret.
Jane exited the chamber while trying to act like a blood slave. After all, she had a lifetime of experience in it. Perhaps it was her personality or that she had enough practice, the guards outside the chamber didn''t notice. The guards thought that she was let go from today''s sacrifice. After all, she was only a weak human and who were the guards to judge whether the council killed her or not.
She was a bit nervous, but that was actually quite common in blood slaves so she moved her way through. Blood slaves were able to come and go as it was assumed that they were under their spell.
Jane moved towards the only entrance and exit of the caverns, which was heavily guarded by vampires.
The vampires didn''t really notice at first, but they had a schedule and kept records.
"Hey, where are you going, slave?" a guard finally asked.
"To the outside to gauge the outside situation for the old one," she lied.
The old one was considered as the closest thing to an Emperor, as age in vampires is equivalent to their final power. Most guards were brand new vampires who were only twice as strong and fast as humans. After all, humans weren''t that strong or quick so why would the powerful ones need to stand guard all day and night? Either way, humans were given vampire blood upon birth so that they could not revolt.
"I see. Come back after sunset."
She slipped by the stupid newfangs and equipped an environmental suit to go outside through a decontamination chamber. Although vampires didn''t need it, humans were still susceptible to the harsh winter and subtle amount of radiation outside. Of course, she was immortal now, but she still needed energy to repair damage, so she took a food kit with her.
The outside was cold. A hundred years after nuclear winter would do that to a world. It didn''t help that the stupid nations used hydrogen bombs over fault lines, causing several super-volcanoes to explode. It was unknown who fired first as power went out before the news could spread. Of course, fingers would''ve pointed at their personal greatest enemy if EMP bombs didn''t go off in low earth orbit. This was only fifty years after the two world wars and this third one almost wiped humanity off of the globe.
Unfortunately, radiation only killed normal animals, so most creatures outside were just parts of Phyris acting like realistic innocent sheep, who somehow live in hyper-radioactive zones. The radiation is mostly gone, but there is still some left.
Jane stepped outside and took a moment to see the moderately bright sky through the clouds. Her goal was to act like a slave, but escape as far as possible, then train to get used to her reformed body.
She had no clue where she was, but she knew she had to get as far away as possible because the vampires would find out Phyris''s little escapade. She stumble-ran when she was out of sight of the underground hatch.
An hour after she left, the vampires finally knew that somebody has slain the old one. A ruckus was raised and the guards were questioned. Several more hours later and a regiment of humans were sent out to capture the suspect because it was still daytime. The older vampires inside began their political war for supremacy as was the custom.
The outside world only had artificial life, created by Phyris. There were trees, plants and animals whom were super-evolved to survive. Of course, Jane didn''t know that.
Jane moved to a fairly peaceful valley, several kilometers away from the vampire cavern. She could''ve gone farther, but she was still not able to control her body well enough to sprint.
Although it was beautiful, the dark skies subtracted from the experience.
She hollowed out a cave rather easily and set up what little modicum she could. She didn''t know what fire was and she had little to no knowledge on surviving off the land. The biggest problem with the land was that it was all frozen and water was only available if one knew how to create fire. This was one of the things that the vampires had over humanity: Dark Vision. The vampire blood in blood slaves gave them a percentage of this ability, but it allowed them to survive underground where vampires were rampant.
Jane gained the ability to eat anything and get energy from it, even dirt. She wasn''t that desperate to try even if she knew that. Another advantage was that she could directly eat snow to get water, as opposed to normal humans who would go dehydrated and just waste energy from doing so.
Her body was different and she realized that very quickly as she tried to run or train. When she threw a punch, it was fast but didn''t affect her. However, when she punched a tree, she was thrown back and the tree had a portion removed.
An average human has 178 pounds of force, but her strength was 2000 pounds of force. Of course, a person properly trained black belt in karate has a maximum punching power of 400 pounds. This means that if she were fully trained, she could produce 4000 pounds of force and level a tree. Her physique was improved originally due to the vampire blood, but she still has to train to increase her strength using vitality.
The largest problem with the Second Realm was that Vitality was rare and Mana and Qi were nonexistent. Humans who had excessive muscles had to train constantly to convert food into the minimal amount of vitality. Without training, their bodies would deconstruct the muscles to sustain itself over time. However, Phyris found a way around this because of the vampires.
After some time, Jane realized that she ran out of energy. Phyris forgot to mention that physical power has an upkeep, especially since Jane was used to eating reprocessed slop in the Vampire caverns. While Phyris had nearly unlimited energy due to her massive tree and root network, Jane was alone with this regard.
Jane stopped training, and sat on the ground, completely out of it.
Then, she began to think for the first time in her life without mental censorship.
Why?! Why am I here, why did Phyris allow this? Phyris could have stopped them, but she didn''t!
Jane''s emotions spiraled out of control and she had a mental breakdown. In many ways, Jane was right. Phyris chose to allow the vampires to go free because she wanted to study their unique physique. However, Phyris was still woefully arrogant and naive to human emotion.
"WHY!!!" yelled Jane, "Why did you allow those fiends to do that? You can kill them!"
Anger. Fear. Blame.
Jane spent several hours tirading and hitting her fist against a wall or rolling around.
Phyris was monitoring Jane. She was not a stranger to seeing human emotions and this was not the first time that humans have cursed at her or blamed her for the catastrophe that was the Great War.
However, Jane''s emotions were stunted as the blood slave mark forcefully controls human emotions to make them the perfect pets, only feeling happiness or obedience. Jane was just now feeling the tirade of negative emotions that were locked in. In some respects, her emotions were as strong as a baby would feel them.
Most slaves would normally lose all of their emotions after a time, like accepting the inevitable with a dash of stockholm syndrome. It would take years for a normal person to throw off their mental baggage to enable their emotions to come alight.
But Jane was different.
Phyris didn''t know what to do, as this was the first human that she had saved with such a strong mentality, able to feel anger even after she was brainwashed from a young age. Perhaps this was due to her pure spirit, enabling her to have a strong willpower. She only saved Jane because she knew something odd was happening at every blood sacrifice, where the spirits of the slaves would get ''deleted'' or perhaps moved. But she didn''t know that this ''Blood God'' could eat the spirit of people.
''Jane, I''m sorry.'' Phyris thought to her. Phyris didn''t know what else to say.
Jane continued her tantrum until her energy was below critical and she decided to eat her food. However, her overwhelming emotions only left her being drained.
Jane fell asleep with tears.
Phyris had all of the power, but what direction could she go?