Chapter 88: Chapter 83: Window

Pain immunity advanced to level 37

I was glad I'd decided to sit for the next hour rather than stand, because a couple of minutes after picking my class, once the mild delirium of having my brain screwed around with had faded, the migraine had set in. I was reduced to lying on my silk mat with my eyes closed. Light was supposed to be bad for migraines, so shouldn't that mean that the inverted light cast from the black torches would help them? The logic was all well and good, but the real world vehemently disagreed.

I wasn't sure about levelling pain immunity, though. What if it turned into pain absorption, like poison immunity had? Wouldn't that have the same effect as the perverted masochist class?

"Urgg," groaned the other me, the second mind that shared my soul, lying next to me in the same condition. "Why did you have to share everything with me?"

"Sorry... I was... drunk?"

"Alcohol sounds good... Wonder how it would interact with your poison absorption, though?"

"Oh heck. That would be bad. Instead of blunting the world, wouldn't it make it all clearer? Clearer sounds bad right now."

"Mmm," she agreed. "Do not want."

I tried to distract myself by looking at my skill choices.

Pathfinder: Knowing your destination is useless should you not also know the path to get there.
Unnoticeable: You are beneath Their notice.
Vessel: The Void dwells within you.
Fixed: Your form is inveterate.
Farseer: The shadows are transparent to you.

Not a single untranslatable word in there. Sort of. Not only were the descriptions unhelpful, but there was something funky going on, because each time I looked at my options, they changed.

Wayfinder: The Void is not a maze to you, but a straight road.
Veiled: Your presence is thinned, and your form lacks interest.
Homestead: Your form is a dwelling for Them.
Inviolable: Your form does not submit to unwilling change.
Piercer of veils: The curtains between worlds do not obstruct your view.

Even my class name was doing the same thing. Each time I looked at my status, my third class was different. Realm-walker. Touched-by-Void. World-hopper. Ascendant. But I understood the meaning, just like I understood the meaning of those skills. And I needed to squeeze two of them into my single unlocked slot.

Vessel was an epic nope. That was effectively a suicide button. It was also approximately what had happened to the black dragon; with my new knowledge, I knew he had been a sixth-floor monster. The only one that had survived the cracks in the world, but he had not survived unscathed.

Unnoticeable would be handy if I was going to do something so stupid as staring into the Void and expecting it not to stare back. I wasn't intending to do something so stupid, though, so that skill was unneeded.

Farseer would be handy if I wanted to travel the realms at random, and wanted to ensure that, for example, the world I was about to step into had laws of physics that were compatible with my continued existence. Not to mention lesser things, like having breathable air. Or air at all. I wasn't intending to do so; I had two locations to travel to, and I knew where they both were. That was all the realm-walking I wanted.

That left pathfinder, to ensure I could get to the worlds I wanted to get to, and fixed, to ensure that when I got there, I still had my powers.

That second one was where the dragon had betrayed me. Or, at best, had left me uninformed. If I made it back to shouty-guy's world without any sort of preparation, I would no longer have the class and level system I had here. It was a part of the 'me' in this world, forged by my wish. It was not a part of the 'me' that would arrive in any other world. The dragon would have known that, but had never mentioned it.

The dragon had already told me he didn't care if the other world was destroyed. I should have given that statement more consideration. His goal was to remove me from this world, not aid me in destroying the demon lord. He apparently needed to trick me into cooperation; he couldn't just banish me. But once I was gone, it would have been over.

I suppose the flip-side of it was that the dragon wouldn't care if I did keep my powers. It would probably be a bad idea to pick a fight. I'd just have to express my displeasure through less violent means, like sarcasm.

Of course, the trade-off of taking fixed would be that I knew for certain that should I take that skill, I wouldn't regain my human form when I returned to Earth. That was... something I would deal with when the time came. Superhero Katie was still on the table, while I was fairly sure lab-experiment Katie couldn't happen. I would be immune to anaesthetics, and if anyone tried to physically restrain me, I doubt Earth had any sort of material that could stand up to dragon breath.

Perhaps I could get away without pathfinder. This world must be close to shouty-guy's, given the window on the top floor, so hopefully I could leap from one to the other without maps. No, I knew there was a link there; it was how the fox-kin and every other intelligent being here worked; the same way as the other copy of me. It wasn't that they were soulless, but that they were shallow copies of real people elsewhere. People on the other side of the window. There had to be an active link for the setup to work.

I wouldn't know for certain until I went back to look at it, but I was fairly sure I could just leap through the window upstairs. And shouty-guy had offered to send me back to Earth, so I shouldn't need to expend any effort there, either.

But that only applied if my goal was to defeat the demon lord. If my goal was to get back to Earth, I could take pathfinder and hop right this second, be human again when I got there, and I'd never have to look shouty-guy in the face again.

Fallen hero I may be, but I hadn't fallen that low. I picked fixed.

Nothing changed, but I hadn't expected it to. It wasn't that sort of skill.

"Mmm," said my other body, agreeing with my decision before I'd even told her I'd made it. I guess I didn't need to.

"No, you don't," she said, answering my thoughts. "Just think of me as a free parallel processing skill."

I giggled, despite my migraine. No need for a communication device now. "We're bat-shit crazy, aren't we?"

"Yup. There was never any doubt. So, what's next?"

"I need more power. The toughest demon in the arena can still kill me before I have a chance to blink, and now I've picked a class that doesn't add to my combat potential at all. I've maxed out most of my skills, but I can probably evolve a few more by fighting different demon types, and using the potions in the alchemist's. I can buy better weapons, armour and accessories, too."

"Why the heck did I tell you to pick that class, anyway? I mean, it's a good job that I did, but with the dragon providing transport and the class not giving you combat power, it wasn't the most logical choice with the information we had."

"Maybe you subconsciously didn't trust the dragon? Or I didn't, and it rubbed off on you? Or because it was the best option for getting you out of here, and you care about that more than you let on?"

"I hope that's all it was... What about the fox-kin?"

I sighed. Smoke and mirrors. The whole world was an illusion, but one that reflected reality. I knew now exactly how real the fox-kin were. And the demons, and the other intelligent life in the world. What had the dragon called them? Echoes. Second minds spun from an existing soul and inserted into faux bodies, memories tampered with to control their behaviour. Was there a fox-kin town back in shouty-guy's world that had been copied wholesale?

There was an implication there; even the Goddess could not create souls. Or else she had decided not to, for some reason. Perhaps so that the result wouldn't be so bad if I killed them? The originals would survive, after all.

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"I'll try my strategy of offering up more crystals to their shrine. If that doesn't achieve anything, I'll leave them. I need more crystals, though."

"If only there was some facility downstairs that generated infinite numbers of powerful, magic using demons. Oh, wait."

"Yes, yes, you can drop the sass. You're only sassing yourself."

Pain immunity advanced to level 38

Thankfully, the migraine was dissipating, so I pulled myself back to my feet and made my way back to the shrine.

"Testing, testing, one, two, three," thought my other self as I walked, continuing to use the link I'd opened between us to communicate.

"Receiving you loud and clear," I replied, tapping the statue and jumping to the top floor. I needed to look at the window properly.

Shouty-guy had moved. It wasn't much, but I remembered his previous expression of surprise, and it had changed. His mouth had closed into a frown, his eyebrows furrowed, but he was still standing in the same location. One of the knights had lowered an arm, and was perhaps starting to take a step forward. How much time had passed for them since I'd last looked? A handful of seconds? Enough to show that time wasn't paused, but also not enough to be a concern. I could still spend plenty of time here.

And when my time was spent, getting out would be easy. I reached out and ran my hand against the window, the glass rippling slightly at my touch. A window into another world. All I needed to do was smash it. That was a relief.

I left it for now and returned to the abyss.

"Did you catch all that, [Wielder-of-the-black-flame|Ruler-of-shadow|Abyssal-lord|Scaled-woe|Void-touched|Lord-of-demons|Bob|...]," I said, which made my jaw hurt. It wasn't a Name, it was a bloody Description. Just how many words did I need to speak simultaneously? It was no wonder it was so hard to pronounce. I was pretty sure I still couldn't, and it was just an intent thing. Void-stuff was weird, and made even less sense than magic.

Admittedly, Bob wasn't supposed to be part of it. I just added that in for fun, in the hopes it would annoy him.

Regardless of my deliberate mispronunciation, he still responded, sucking me in with his weird void magic.

"Oh, so that's where you keep your hoard," I said, looking in a direction that left my neck bent at an unnatural angle. Necks are only supposed to twist through three dimensions, after all. "Nice pocket dimension you've got going on here, though."

"Divine powers are unfair," growled the newly christened Bob.

"I'm pretty sure you'd still beat me in a fight," I said with a shrug. "And I still intend to keep to my side of the bargain, despite your lie of omission. I hope that you'll do the same."

Bob narrowed his eyes in an annoyed glare. "I'm starting to think my brother took the better option by outright ignoring you. You have the ability to leave this world on your own. I ask that you do so at your earliest convenience."

"Not until I'm strong enough. Unless you feel like convincing the real you to help out."

The dragon's eyes reopened, along with his mouth, forming the universe's most toothy smirk.

"So, still you do not see all," he commented. "But it does not matter. I fear that when you meet my true body, it shall be in combat. But worry not; I know not the exact strength of my mirror, but I am certain that I am the stronger of the pair of us."

My heart lurched as I finally made the connection as to why this dragon was the ruler of the abyss. A city of demons. It was in his Name, for goodness' sake! "You are the demon lord!"

The smirk widened.

"Know this, human. Despite your opinions, I have always wished for your success. I would have done my best to return you with your powers intact, although I will freely admit it was a secondary goal compared to my primary purpose of ridding this world of you. I didn't mention it to you because it might have increased your reluctance to play along. But your new ability is more reliable than anything I could have hoped to achieve, so I will leave it up to you. I want you to win."

"You still should have told me. Is there anything else you've skipped over?"

"Nothing you don't already know. Everything I gained from the Void is available to you now. But, if it will placate you, take this."

Bob reached into his hoard, withdrawing a ring, a simple band of gold into which was set a black gem.

Ring of eternal isolation
This ancient artefact was built as a torture device, tearing the mind of its wearer from their body and imprisoning it within. People have questioned how a device that causes no pain can be used for torture, but such people have never had their senses and body taken from them, trapped alone in darkness for centuries or millennia, with no stimuli and only their own thoughts for company.

"Why would I..." I started by reflex before it clicked. It said 'mind' and not 'soul'. "I could take my zombie twin with me, and find her a new, unblighted vessel on the other side! Even if it left her self aware, if I put it in my item box, no time would pass. From her point of view, she would only be trapped for a few minutes."

"Exactly."

I peered at the dragon suspiciously. First he started helping me, and now he was giving me items from his hoard? To placate me? Either he was hiding something else, something that had convinced him that pissing me off would be a seriously bad career move, or else he was the world's biggest tsundere.

"Thanks then. But with the time dilation, how many thousands of years would it be for you before the fight was settled?"

"Tens of thousands, at least," he replied. "But I am nothing if not patient."

His magic sprung up around me once more, returning me to the abyss, but not before he managed to squeeze in a few ominous last words.

"After all, I've already made my preparations. Once this is all over, I will become the real one."

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