Chapter 285: Day 625 – The Almighty System Acts Very Almighty

Chapter 285: Day 625 – The Almighty System Acts Very Almighty

We entered Truth and began making our way to the plaza in the early morning after having traveled all night. It was good to be on solid ground again.

“If you perished and I survived, how would I even rescue you?” I asked since that had been bothering me.

“I left a message behind. I would tell you where it is, if the situation got desperate,” the Astrologer replied.

“And you would expect me to follow through?” I asked.

“That Michael is a question that is impossible to answer until you are confronted with it. But I suspect you would be motivated by my saving you,” the Astrologer said. That was a load of garbage, but it wasn’t a lie perse’.

“Do I have a living tumor in me?” I asked.

“No, but I have my assurances. Ask me no questions, and I will tell you no lies.” That confirmed he did have something over me. Ahhh! I screamed in my head since he was telling me he was going to force my hand and possibly betray me. But killing him would do nothing except hurt me from getting more knowledge.The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøv€l-B1n.

“You really are impossible,” I muttered. The Astrologer didn’t respond. The worst part was that I was dealing with something inhuman. I had no doubt it would not reveal things it didn’t want to. A human might slip up, but this thing was more computer program than human even with its emotional outbursts, I was struggling to understand its thought process combined with its actions.

The only thing I could do was to either flip the board and make him an enemy or go along. I had expected more of a reaction from increasing my other stats besides Spirit and Absorption, but he just had acted disappointed instead. I didn’t believe that for a second.

It was the same thought process I had become stuck in while grinding. I had ideas, but in the end it came down to power. The Astrologer was a big unknown and helpful. I needed power to turn the tables on him when the time finally came.

The fact that I had a living tumor inside of me was creepy and when did he even manage to put it in? He had clearly said no, but I wasn’t believing that for a second. You don’t come up with new things if they worked the first time. It was probably in my head too, which meant it would be impossible to remove. When did he put it in was the real question?

We reached the plaza. I went over to the pillars and put my hands on them to access the store. I purchased a restoration, and nothing happened. No messages or alerts like when the pillar had broken. “Looks like you were wrong, the System isn’t going to do anything,” I said to the Astrologer.

“How odd. I was sure something would happen.” We stood there in silence in the deserted city each contemplating our own thoughts. The ground started to shake.

“Or it just took...time,” the Astrologer trailed off as he looked about and began waving his arms. “Oh, this is very bad. Beneath the golem crys-“

That wasn’t a surprise since he had the skills of the original, if I had to guess. There was a biological skill in there somewhere and he could adjust his skills using his power word, Shatter. Why was the effect of the City Shield and that wave monochrome and why did the ground shake?

Well, the ground probably shook from the power of the wave correcting or adjusting the Systemic Land. I had no clue about the monochrome effect and had never managed to ask the Astrologer about it. Since the Almighty System intervened, it could be a sign of its focus or an exertion of its power.

I frowned, that didn’t explain the monochrome. Level 4 monsters had color. The Ritualist had lacked color, maybe. His body had turned silver and the white eyes, weren’t colorful to begin with. I wasn’t sure about him, but the level 4 monsters still had some color.

They had more energy, and were better able to resist the effects of the City Shield. So perhaps the lack of color was how the Almighty System perceived things and that was leaking over? Like the gaze of God sweeping over the land.

Then back to the Astrologer. He had burst into flames. White flames that went out when the effect passed. Why flames? There was nothing else to think about as I dragged the thing that was the Astrologer back to Purgatory.

There was power in understanding how these interactions worked. I felt that. If I could grasp how energy was interacting with other energy, then I would have incredible power. Unfortunately, I was no Ritualist. Inspiration did not exit my rectum and surround in its worldly glow, allowing me to make intuitive leaps.

Fire was the result of purging something, combustion. The color of the fire was probably the result of the monochrome wave. If the body was primarily of the life type and the wave was null type, then perhaps it created a fire type. Or something was being purged from the Astrologer.

I had felt off kilter ever since learning about meta-points and how wrong I had been about the one million point mark and Death. Maybe the one million point mark was a trigger for the System. Still I had felt so hesitant about being so confident again. My foundations were tilted and as I carted the Astrologer I felt more off kilter.

I was right about using crystal powder, but that felt like a small consolation in the grand scheme of things. I thought I was going to die, going with the Astrologer over the void to peak at a physical shard of energy, but nothing bad had happened. I was wrong about the System not intervening.

I was wrong more often than I was right. It was depressing and made it hard to have confidence in any of my deductions. Normally Naran would have been here as well to bounce my ideas off of and make sure I didn’t get off kilter. Now I only had myself once again.

It was hard to believe in myself when there was such a long list of failures, and the list of successes was much shorter. The Astrologer was welcome company for his insight no matter how untrustworthy he was. Whatever this lump of flesh was, it hadn’t betrayed me yet, but knew of plans to betray me. Like a dog obeying its master it was in even a worse position than me, since its existence was only measured by what it could accomplish for the main body of the Astrologer.

I couldn’t even imagine such an existence and it cemented in my mind that the Astrologer was no friend of mine. It also hadn’t escaped my notice that while he didn’t lie or make a big scene about it, he put himself as an equal or superior to the Divine Empress and only talked down about her to pressure me.

Why had no one else gotten meta-points in these ten years? Why was there no one to help him from outside the range of the calamity? He had sent the Ritualist at that Uday character to eliminate him, not to help rescue the Astrologer from wherever he was trapped. Well, the letter secreted away in my belongings should be an interesting read. And I had this thing.

Resonance was a thing. Perhaps a way to find and search for remnants of this Astrologer. If I had any in me, this hunk of flesh might provide a way to extract or locate them. The good doctor had a new research project to work on.