[ The Daemon Sultans initiate a deep recalculation. ]
The air turned colder, as the voice resounded through everywhere and nowhere at all.
[ The Daemon Sultans debate the validity of your claim. ]
[ The Daemon Sultans debate the validity of your claim. ]
"Yeah, the cosmic evaluation… that seems important, but why are they seriously doing this?"
[ Your existence violates standard Selection parameters. ]
[ However, parameters adapt instead of rejecting. ]
"Wait… what did it say again? Is that even possible… I mean it could be since I am a rare specimen."
[ The Daemon Sultans expresses this has only happened once before. ]
The voice drummed through my ears as I looked forward, toward the spiral of darkness hovering just above the ground.
A slow circling void, like something waiting to swallow whatever dared to stand too close.
The Daemon Sultans held the power to partially decide to whom the Inner Chaos went. A secret I fully intended to exploit.
My plan was simple.
Show them how extraordinary my presence was.
Drip the right information at the right moments.
Then demand the Inner Chaos.
However…
[ You are indeed selected. ]
I had never expected that.
My heart was beating like crazy.
The adaptation of standard Selection parameters, this wasn't a coincidence.
Something else was at play, someone else maybe, but right now I couldn't even begin to guess the verdict forming behind the scenes.
All I could do was accept it as it was.
Besides, the excitement of receiving the Inner Chaos was far more dominating than the frustration bubbling inside me this time.
The sky tore apart.
Not a crack.
Not a streak.
A full deliberate rupture, a wound opening across the heavens like something enormous had dragged its claw through reality.
From the tear, a single drop of colorless liquid fell in front of me.
A thin soundless rip spread across the horizon as it landed with a splash.
Then the rupture split wider, jagged edges pulling apart until the sky looked peeled open.
And from it, an immeasurable torrent of that same liquid came pouring down, not descending but reversing gravity, thundering downward like an inverted waterfall collapsing onto the Dreamlands.
The weight of it was overwhelming.
The Dreamlands was drowning.
And honestly… so was I.
[ Daemon Sultans are in awe at the sheer scale of the "Storm of Concept" for the 47th recorded time. ]
"Not liquid again," I thought bitterly as I flailed, trying to keep my head above the surface.
But it hit me fast that my body wasn't strong enough for this, not even pathetically close.
The liquid swallowed me whole.
I sank deeper and deeper, but my vision didn't blur or distort.
Everything stayed crystal clear, sharp, almost hyperreal, turning the sensation less like drowning and more like floating just a few meters above the ground and watching the world unfold beneath me.
I kept falling until I nearly touched the bottom, my body thrown around like a stray volleyball, yet I never hit anything solid.
Because there was nothing to hit at all.
Speaking of that, the very next moment the voice resounded, stating that the Daemon Sultans refused to interfere within the vicinity.
The whole liquid twisted around me, and I felt myself lowering as it spiraled in endless circles.
The motion was so continuous and strangely rhythmic that I felt I might fall asleep if I stared at it any longer, hypnotizing along with its destructive properties.
Since the liquid was transparent, it felt like watching reality through endless layers of nothingness.
Then from within that swirling storm something churned.
It took on a shape, though I couldn't make out what it was since it overlapped with the layers behind it.
I couldn't even tell if it was approaching me or not.
But that was the best part, I didn't need to.
I already knew a talon like elongated hand was reaching toward me at the speed of a snail for dramatic effect, and I was far too familiar with this process from the novel.
Then, as expected, what felt like five distinct holes tore through my chest in a single brutal motion, so sudden my mind couldn't even register the pain at first.
The hand kept pushing through everything inside me, each organ pierced cleanly, the sensation passing through in sharp flashes like it was blitzing past obstacles it barely acknowledged.
I gritted my teeth, bracing myself for what came next, and it came fast.
Hundreds more of those talon like hands drove through my body from all eight directions, bursting out the other side with sickening precision.
The pain that flooded me was nothing short of heart wrenching, a deep crushing agony that threatened to break me, but I still managed not to scream.
Some of the hands that remained buried in my chest began to shift, moving in a steady and almost ritualistic motion, as if they were trying to mold or weave something with practiced familiarity.
[ Daemon Sultans refuse to interfere with the process. ]
"F f-fuck… what the hell is this pain," I thought to myself as the movements inside me grew harsher.
More and more hands kept piercing through me until it became impossible to tell whether I was made of flesh or those invisible talons.
I bit down on my lower lip, or whatever was left of it, desperate to keep myself from losing consciousness.
[ The Inner Chaos descends. ]
[ The vessel stands unbroken. ]
[ Inner Chaos has settled within the vessel. ]
[ Host physiology overwritten. ]
[ Inner Chaos has been successfully received. ]
The voice felt like a melody to my ears right now, and for a moment it was as if the pain had simply stopped doing its job.
I had endured all that gut wrenching pain for this one thing alone.
The movement inside my chest finally came to a halt as I felt those talon like hands retract, tearing through my internal organs again with the same intensity they had when they entered before slipping back into the storm.
I was sure of it, those hits, they were on purpose.
The damn storm did it intentionally.