Chapter Two-Hundred-and-Sixty-Three

Once Adam had slain all of the remaining statue elementals and harvested six cores, he flew into the deathguard chamber and found that Sven had indeed snubbed him of the ‘All Secrets’ bonus by grabbing the Solbor spear and sending it back to the weapon rack in his player house.

Son of a bitch…

Still, with the deathguard defeated, all of the statues dead, and five players’ worth of relics, several of which were legendary, Adam stood to make a lot of points from the stage. Far more than he’d ever gotten out of the Forbidden Altar in the past.

And to top it all off, I’ll get the speedrun and eradication bonuses I was missing from the completionist reward of the stage.

Adam looted the remains of the dead players, four of which had been reduced to just bones and flesh, thanks to Sven harvesting the blood of the others and using it for the powerful spell trap that had filled up the tunnel.

As soon as Adam had looted everything left on Gladwyn’s corpse, the fire and ash brooch activated, turning the remains to ash and leaving behind a soul seed. The same thing happened with the rest, even the blood splatter and core fragments that were left of Sven, giving him five more soul drops to harvest after they eventually bloomed.

Fortunately, the golden map was amongst Sven’s possessions.

I wonder what I should do with the skyblue pearl, since I didn’t need to use it on the statue. Selling it feels kind of stupid, and maybe it has some special function in stage nine.

Anyway, now I just need the mushroom that Sprite mentioned.

With full bags and time running low, Adam managed to find a Wiltercap in a hidden corner of the altar cavern. He made sure to grab it with his stone hand, since Sprite had said it was deadly toxic. It was unlikely it could harm him as a slime, but he didn’t take any chances.

Although Adam was already scorned from having put on the queen’s pendant at the start of the stage, he equipped the deathguard’s cold gaze just to be sure, which, coupled with the porcelain mask, made his face almost look human, now that his body had a beige-ish hue.

As the last seconds before he’d miss out on the speedrun bonus ran down, Adam landed on the altar.

< < Stage Alert > >

< Player Adam has claimed the Altar >

< < Stage Complete > >

< Tallying Score >

< < Score > >

< 9 Minutes 55 Seconds Completion Time >

< 5 Players slain >

< 1000 PointSecret Boss Bonus added >

< 800 PointFlawless Bonus added >

< 500 PointEradication Bonus added >

< 500 PointSpeedrun Bonus added >

< 0Damage Received >

< 11,800 Points Awarded >

Another personal best.

And, more importantly, I’ll be able to unlock the special denizen.

Adam frowned at his own immediate response.

Is that really where my priorities lie?

The most important thing is surely that I’ll be able to save this universe now…

Before he could examine his own thoughts further, he blinked and was deposited in the middle of the altar, the stone orb in front of him in the centre.

His relics stayed on his body, unlike every time before, and there was no cutscene controlling his motions. His strength was still the same as when he’d fought the others moments earlier.

Despite that, Parvillo was gone, just like how Shitbox always vanished during his previous selections.

Drip water filled the grooves in the altar platform and the fifteen plinths surrounded him, but only one was lit with potential energy. It was the last of the big four Absolutes.

Not even the Void is active.

I thought for sure it would light up.

I wonder what happens if someone is scorned but doesn’t meet the qualifications to worship the Chaotic Convergence.

Do they just die?

Do they get to continue without a patron?

Adam stooped to pick up the stone orb. It felt as light as a feather to him.

The water filling the platform’s grooves became completely still, turning the platform into a mirror.

Adam lifted his eyes and looked upon the only plinth available for him to choose.

< < Chaotic Convergence > >

< Lord of Chaos and Dimensions >

< The unpredictable coincidence, the wild evolution, and the first source of madness >

< Boon: Chaos >

I wonder what his realm will be like, Adam thought as he took his first step towards the plinth.

I really hope this one isn’t somehow worse than the Flayed Lady…

He hadn’t worshipped more than two different Absolutes so far, but both had been so-called ‘Ascendants’. Once mortal beings who had become unfathomable entities.

Is he like them as well?

The Tome Keeper and Flayed Lady both represented very human elements, like curiosity, greed, envy, and betrayal.

Chaos isn’t very human, though madness is.

Although… It says he is ‘the first source of madness’, so perhaps the Chaotic Convergence is the wellspring from which madness itself arose?

And ‘wild evolution’… Is that suggesting that he is the reason lifeforms evolved, eventually becoming humans?

I thought the First Light was responsible for all life, but, of course, life can be anything. It could be the basest form of existence. Microscopic beings. If so, there would clearly be a need for an Absolute representing evolution.

Guess there’s no other way to find the answers than to just do this.

Although Adam was cautious of getting involved with another unknown Absolute, and one of the most powerful at that, he knew that there was no alternative. As much as he was worried, he hated the Flayed Lady so much more, wanting nothing else than to expel her vile corruption from his soul and deny her dominion of this universe and others.

Adam easily lifted the orb over his head and placed it into the large recess in the top of the plinth.

< < Worship Chosen > >

< Chaotic Convergence >

Adam braced himself for the transportation to a crazy new realm.

But nothing happened.

The moment stretched.

Adam looked around, seeing nothing except the altar, with darkness surrounding it like an impenetrable barrier.

Did I do something wrong?

Then he saw something in the reflective water under his feet. It was a massive serpentine head staring down at him with glitchy red-glowing eyes.

Adam slowly panned his gaze upward.

The ceiling was gone, and in the darkness that surrounded the altar above, he saw the same thing that had been reflected below.

It was like a distant serpent staring down at him, its body covered in white feathers. Its maw had a beak-like shape to it, which reminded him a bit of a duck or a goose, though it was lined with huge fangs, giving it a vicious appearance.

Despite everything that Adam had faced, the sheer scale of the monster was enough to make him pause. Its head alone was large enough to swallow the entire cavern within which he was standing. It brought to mind the feral cloud leviathan, as well as Nwetrou’s true visage.

Then the darkness faded, along with the altar around him, and Adam was returned to the centre of Interim Island.

He set down his spidersilk bags, utterly confused about what had just happened.

Luvicidix came down from the clouds above, landing in front of him, but just as she opened her mouth, she was locked in place. Parvillo, who had reappeared with Adam, was also frozen, something that hadn’t happened to him before.

Then Adam saw the silhouette of a massive shape in the distant clouds.

It followed me to Interim Island!

He tried to fly up into the air, but was almost immediately stopped by an invisible barrier surrounding the centre of the island. Unlike with the Tome Keeper and Flayed Lady, there wasn’t an altar he could commune with, making him deeply unsure about what was happening.

Since he could do nothing else, he settled back down onto his feet and just watched as the enormous serpent broke through the clouds.

Its feathered head emerged into the sunlight, trailing an endless body covered in white feathers, and large swan-like wings sprouted from it at even intervals as it began to coil itself around the island.

Adam watched in awe and mounting dread as it circled again and again, each new revolution stacking its own body atop the layer below, slowly but surely blotting out the sky above the island with a dome made of its own impossibly-long body. Thanks to some alien property of its feathers, it wasn’t actually dark inside.

Once it had fully enveloped the island, its head blocked the apex of the dome, looking down at Adam with eyes that flickered like cursed TV screens.

It took him a moment to realise that the eyes weren’t those of a serpent nor a swan nor any sort of mammal. Instead, they were compound eyes, like those of a bug. Each individual segment was itself like a screen, flickering on its own, but also in unison with the rest to create waves of glitching patterns.

Staring at it was mesmerising in a way, but Adam couldn’t shake the fear that filled him.

This is what a real Absolute looks like, he thought.

Unfathomable, with no trace of humanity.

Simply a concept given physical form.

Adam recalled the words of the Tome Keeper, Parvillo, and even Nwetrou.

They had made the Absolute sound quite human.

As he looked up at the gigantic feathered serpent, he saw none of that.

Then the glitchy patterns of its eyes pulsated rhythmically and the dome formed of its body shifted, each layer of its serpentine body travelling clockwise as it lowered its enormous head down towards Adam.

He stared back up at it. He could do nothing else. His arms wouldn’t move and the invisible barrier kept him from escaping.

Next to him Luvicidix stood frozen and Adam got in front of her protectively.

The serpent’s head stopped twenty metres above the island’s centre, its red eyes staring down at him like miniature suns fallen to Earth.

The glitchy red that glowed in its eyes began to drip like tears of blood, all falling to hit the ground right in front of Adam. One after the next, the tears dripped down, creating a strange pillar of staticky red as they stacked upon each other rather than forming a puddle. The serpent’s eyes turned golden as the red element leaked out from them.

Once there were no more tears falling down from above, the feathered serpent’s head just hung suspended up there, staring down at Adam and the red pillar it had formed.

Then the red pillar started to twist and contort, growing limbs and a head, which morphed into sleek plate-like natural armour, reminding Adam of the insect denizens. But it wasn’t done, and continued to writhe and shake, its form changing to something smaller, until what was left behind was a chubby black boy wearing a grey suit with a glitchy red tie. Strangely, the boy didn’t have any ears, with just two holes on the sides of his head instead. On his back were small translucent-red moth wings.

“We meet at last,” the boy said.

Adam looked down at him with a frown. “Are you the Chaotic Convergence?” he asked.

The chubby kid looked up at him while adjusting his tie, which seemed insistent on escaping from being wrapped around his neck, like it was a living thing. “What’s with the suspicious tone?” He pointed up at the massive feathered serpent above. “Do you really need to ask after I gave you an entrance like that?”

“You’re just very different from what I imagined,” Adam remarked.

“Would you rather I just imitate your appearance to appear mystical?”

It was clearly a jab at how the All-Seeing System had represented itself towards Adam, and he couldn’t help but grin at the idea of such an immensely-powerful being bickering about something so pointless.

“I’ve gotta say though,” the Absolute started, lifting into the air on his tiny wings, which beat furiously, “your appearance is truly unpleasant. When I made the ‘Slime Emperor’s Crown’, I didn’t realise it was possible to obtain this sort of colour scheme. You look like a burn victim covered in twenty kilos of flesh-coloured playdough.”

Chaos folded his arms and looked at Luvicidix who Adam was still standing in front of protectively.

“I suppose I could have chosen a worse champion. Your heart at least seems to be in the right place, even if you’ve tarnished my beautiful gift.”

Adam frowned. “I didn’t do anything to the Loop Shard.”

“You let the Betrayer fiddle with your body. Don’t act like you didn’t have a hand in it.”

“I was doing it for a good reason,” Adam argued.

“The Boy’s little scheme? And for what, some half-assed solution to your search for friends? He’s not a dimensional expert. There was a high likelihood he would have simply destroyed the shard.”

A bit hypocritical calling the Tome Keeper a boy when he himself looks like that.

“You know I can hear you, right?” Chaos replied.

Adam sighed. “Don’t tell me this is your realm.”

“That’s a bingo!” the chubby kid replied, doing a finger guns gesture for some reason.

Suddenly, his body turned into that of a tall and buff male moth humanoid with cerulean-blue scales and thin silky wings so long they draped across the ground behind him.

“Alright, let’s fix up your shard so the Watcher will stop bugging me about it. Follow me to my office, please.”

Office? Adam wondered in confusion as he fell in behind the Absolute, heading north. He questioned just how much control over the island Chaos had, and whether they were going to find some newly-constructed building where none had been before.

“Did you create the Trials?” Adam asked.

“It was a collaborative effort,” Chaos replied. “The Watcher and I had our own separate pet projects in the past, but for one reason or another, neither worked out too well. My biggest mistake was thinking that I could leave bugs to handle everything. You wouldn’t believe the levels of nepotism and racial bigotry that caused…”

That probably means he’s responsible for the denizens being bugs.

“Don’t tell me you hate bugs too!” the Absolute remarked, turning around to point an accusatorial finger in Adam’s face.

“At first they freaked me out,” Adam admitted honestly. “Now, I see them as my friends.”

“Good. You know, I put a hidden curse on anyone who hurt my children.”

“What kind of curse?” Adam asked, glad he had never hurt any of the denizens.

“The best kind,” he replied with an evil smirk, though that was all he would say before turning around and continuing north.

They walked past Sylvia and Sprite who were both frozen in place, and Adam asked, “I thought only the Eternal Serpent could control time. How are you doing this?”

“It’s more like pressing pause on a remote controller,” he replied without turning or stopping.

“Why won’t you let the moth siblings meet?”

“I told you, it’s a collaborative thing, these Trials of Defiance. I had to make some concessions to even be allowed to put all my beautiful children here.”

“You’re beholden to the Watcher?” Adam asked.

“Clearly not,” Chaos replied, not rising to the bait. “If I were, it wouldn’t fall on me to solve all the trouble you’ve caused.”

“Isn’t that just because you’re responsible for me obtaining the dimensional shard?” Adam argued.

The Absolute paused and squinted at Adam. “Who snitched?”

“Basically everyone. The All-Seeing System, the Tome Keeper, and even Nwetrou.”

“I thought I was being clever, leaving no trace behind,” Chaos remarked, sounding a bit disappointed.

“I think it’s an easy conclusion to reach, given that you are the Absolute of dimensions and all that.”

“Hmm,” he muttered to himself. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

They arrived at the player house and Chaos opened the garden gate, gesturing for Adam to follow him to the building’s door.

“Is this your office?” Adam asked sceptically.

“Where else but here?” Chaos replied and opened the door.

As Adam walked across the threshold, he was suddenly transported to the inside of a busy office with cubicles stretching endlessly into the horizon, and the strange sounds of slapping echoing across the space. Next to him, the Absolute was suddenly wearing a white lab coat with the nametag ‘Dr. Chaos’ on it.

He’s warping Interim Island to his will with no effort at all. It really is his realm.

Adam followed the Absolute down past rows of cubicles within each of which were a computer monitor flashing words in quick succession, a single red button instead of a keyboard, and a cicada sitting in an office chair, slapping the button as soon as certain words appeared.

Before he could ask what was going on, ‘Dr. Chaos’ led him around the right corner of an intersection between the sea of cubicles, immediately teleporting them to a room with an alternating tile pattern of black and neon-pink. The room was full of free-standing wooden doors with silver door handles.

“Where did I put it?” the Absolute wondered, walking up to one of the doors and pulling it open, only to reveal the first stage with its green grass, dense treeline, and big apple tree.

“Not there…”

He opened another to reveal a dark abyss with blue-glowing leviathans swimming lazily across frame in the distance.

“Nope.”

The next one opened a different door inside the room they were already in, allowing them to see themselves from a side view, which was surreal.

After that the Absolute just opened one door after the next, revealing a school cafeteria covered in splatter from some epic food fight, a prison cell with insane scribbles carved into the stone walls, a ball pit within a creepy-looking indoor playground, a strange forest with children running around and playing while a stern-looking elphin woman in bone armour kept watch, and lastly a sterile operating room.

“Finally,” the Absolute muttered.

Adam looked at the open door suspiciously.

“It won’t hurt.”

“I highly doubt that,” Adam replied.

“Okay, it’ll hurt a lot.”

Adam let out a deep breath and approached the open door.

“What did that previous door lead to?” he asked before entering.

“You’ll meet her later,” the Absolute replied mysteriously. Then he followed Adam into the operating room. “Just lie down and think happy thoughts.”

“You can’t kill me here, right?” Adam asked.

“You’ll be fine.”

Adam lay down onto the operating table, mentally preparing himself for whatever was about to happen.

Then the Absolute pulled out a large construction drill.