I awoke on a stone floor with water dripping on my forehead. Tap, tap, tap, the water went inside my chest was a feeling like someone had gouged out the center and placed one made of ice. I felt something pushing against my face the familiar feeling of Anastasia poking me roused me and I moved.
I felt a bit dispondent for a moment and I finally paid attention to the screens grabbing at my attention.
...
[Tutorial Level Completed]
Rewards Granted
...
[Alert!]
You have experienced soul damage beyond the conventions placed upon the tutorial. You will enter hibernation until the maximum allowed damage threshold has been reached.
Recompense Offered: please select one
[Remove XP Penalty]
Or
[Title/Achievement]
Or
[Class Stone(Uncommon)]
...
[Tutorial Quest Generated]
The Scalefolk shamans have detected your Divine energy and have begun a ritual of evocatio. You have two paths this is part of your recompense from the Tutorial.
Path One: Blood for Your Throne
The Scalefolk Rituals are bloody affairs you can accept their ritual granting your Divine Half the form of a Scalefolk and you can use this period to heal from the remaining soul wounds. This will grant you an associated domain of [Sacrifice].
Requirements: Wait for the Ritual to be complete.
Rewards: Divinity, Soul Healing, Scalefolk form: [Blood Scale]
Path Two: Freed the Shackled
Alternatively the slaves of the Scalefolk who were born into the lower castes have heard whispers of your arrival and hope for liberation you will still gain a new Reptilefolk form. You will gain an associated domain of [Liberty].
Requirements: Free the Enslaved caste, upheave the Lizard Folk empire.
Rewards: Divinity, Soul Healing, Scalefolk Form: [Hydra Scale]
...
[Aliment Active]
-[Soul Damaged]
Your soul is damaged and so for the duration that this damage endures you may not be able to access your full store of mana and interactions with your Divine and Eldritch half have been temporarily cut off.
...
"Ah fuckkkkk" I mumbled as I read through the messages. This was definitely the easiest so far as one of the options was to sit on my ass and do nothing. However that would mean having a whole sacrifice ritual in my name and that bothered me on a personal level. The other option was definitely the moral choice, and while I may not always have the luxury of morality I would take it when I could. Though I didn't know how Noble would feel about gaining a lizardfolk form...
Also what was an associated domain? It seems like I learn more about how little I know then I actually learn anything.
'you okay boss?' Anastasia asked me her many eyes looking up at me in worry. I thought before answering and responded.
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'got a bit of a whiplash and all that and I feel like shit but I think I'm going to be okay.' I stated and looking around I saw the pile of stuff along with the ranks of Puppets.
Alright standing up I moved forward scanning the corridors with my magic I winced as it felt like moving a pulled muscle trying to use my magic but I did nonetheless. Finding an empty area not to far away I began to move towards it.
'Yeah, Anastasia can you get the puppet with the Geomancy to make the fort, my Mana ain't doing so hot after the soul damage' I asked her and the small spider looked up and she nodded.
'of course Kien got heal up as much as possible for smashing heads.' Anastasia responded to me.
...
Plain of Unconscious Thought, Divine Plains
...
I was in one of the many regions not controlled or created by a Divine, it was essentially the wilds of the Divine plains. Here proto-deities were the life forms without true sapience and made of a conglomeration of ideas, thoughts, and beliefs that couldn't be properly distilled into an actual divine. I had long since forged my own armor to go along with my sword, and now I was hunting for proto-divines with the same or adjacent divine energies as I had, and while I might be the only divine of the Depths their were an abundance of proto divines with small slivers of it. I crept through the shifting tunnels where my presence kinda of stabilized the ground around me into a stable shape.
Moving through I caught a whiff so to speak of a proto divine with some Divinity in protection. So I began to track it, luckily once I got close enough it began to barrel towards me. Reading my arming sword I watches the incoming armadillo like creature mixed with a variety of animals to the point where it only resembled an armadillo due to it the plates running along its body. Pushing forward I thrust the sword into a chink and thin ichor bled from its wounds.
Turning around I caught its claw in my shield and pushed off cutting its ape like appendage. Once again ichor like water with gold flecks spew from its wound. Moving forward again I struck at it again. The creature whirled about claws baying teeth attacked me and I was pushed onto the backfoot and began to give ground as I waited for the mindless beast to make a mistake and so it did it overextended its arm and I took the opportunity to spear it in the side. My blade snuck into its rib cage and the beast roared and it's plates of armor glowed for a moment as it burst with strength and tackled me. Caught off guard I angled my blade so as it fell upon me and began to try and rip my face off my blade entered through its ribs, through its lungs and into its heart. It spewed blood onto my helmet and as I shrugged it off me I looked at it. Wouldn't make too bad of an armor...
Lifting its massive bulk I began to drag my hunt back into my domain.
It was a game of dodging various divine monstrosities wither it be a giant serpent with the head of a preying mantis or moletaur or would it be a minomole, either way it was a half human half mole that had the intelligence of a mole. They had no Divine energies that I would find remotely useful so I ignored them. Eventually I made it to my neck of the woods.. my domain had a small passage that I had to slip through and my spoils barely fit. Dragging the corpse into the drop off where the Elderessa took it from me.
"You continue hunting we'll render it for you" the Elderessa said smiling though she was clearly still sad about the foolishness of the former king who's attack unknowingly shattered his soul and Kien was still healing from it.
"Thank you, I'll be back" I said before turning back and exiting my domain. The region I had exited before was not the same I had left instead of dirt caves I was in a wilderness of alien woods prepared I stalked through the area looking for anything that might lead me to my next prey. I caught a whiff of similar divinity something I could use...
Tracking wasn't easy it liked to move from the trees to the ground and was fast. It didn't help that the other twisted deziens like lovecraftian squirrel with a death wish. The way that Dothrinoxtin explained it was that their were how to you say layers of the collective Unconscious thoughts with the darkest parts being no better then the hells. With proto divines of unimaginable power no more intelligent than animal but with power to sunder suns. What I was hunting was what amounted to a mix of the wilds, decay, growth, and fear all potent but I only needed one maybe two of those divinities. Proto-divines were also lumped up with divine Beasts but they were completely different in that beasts were divines in the form of animals.
I stopped as my quarry came into view, it had the arms of a gorilla with coarse black fur, it had the skull of an antelope with two long fangs its body was that of a horse and its hind legs like that of jaguar. It would have looked somewhat goofy it wasn't covered in golden blood and guts. It has an eerie call like a broken wind chime blowing in thunderstorm. Then it turned slowly its dark hollow depressions where their should be eyes where nothing but pitch black. In that darkness I saw something stir. I heard screams of those I had tried to forget schoolmates, far away family, Mr. Gonzalez, those whose bones I had seen in that Goblin Chiefs macabre hall. Then I saw flashes of me standing over my enemies killing them, but it was not glorious and soon fictional scenes of humans screaming for mercy just to be ended by my sword held high.
Then I felt an insidious pain and I snapped out of it the fucker was biting into me it's fangs drinking deeply and I snapped and grapsed at its skull like head and began to batter it with my fist and then I grasped its horn and pulled and pulled until it ripped off and the beast let go and took the opportunity to stab it in its rib cage right where its heart should be. I felt a burst of divine energy travel through the nearby foliage and then the beast collapsed.
