Chapter 99: [Singularity]

Chapter 99: [Singularity]

Attention! Narrative irregularity detected. The current difficulty has escalated, now verging on %e^*@d difficulty.

The present difficulty level doesn't align with the pre-set configuration. The floor quest is nearing completion. The deviation is within permissible limits. Reward reduction will be minimal.

Congratulations! You've successfully completed the second floor's main quest in the fifth round of the tutorial for Hell difficulty. An entrance to the third floor has been created.

A hole in the air, similar to the entrance that appeared after I completed the first floor, materializes next to me.

The woman in front of me, Lissandra, continues to charge more and more mana, looking at me and not even noticing the entrance. Her eyes don’t even glance towards it. She is not feeling anything, not even with the room full of her mana, and even as she stands so close.

“That look of pity you're giving me is annoying, little pup.”

The defensive item she gave me already works at full power, shielding me against her mana. I'm sure I would be long dead if not for it, overwhelmed by the pressure.

And now, the choice stands in front of me. I can keep an extremely powerful defensive item. The most powerful defensive item on this planet. With it in my hands, the next few floors of the tutorial would become so much easier.

Or I can stay.

The hole, the door, the entrance to the third floor hangs in the air next to me, and I see what lies in front of me. Just like back on the first floor, I take a step.

Away from the door, closer to the woman in front of me. The woman who killed Ruby. The woman who murdered everyone she considered a friend, a family member. All without a hint of hesitation. All at the moment she fully accepted that she is not real.

I want to know more, I want to hear more, and I want to see more. Even if it means sacrificing an item in my hands, I'll gladly throw it away just to be able to satisfy my curiosity.

Even as powerful as she is, she is still only a toy in the hands of the system, so I want to observe more of it. For my own future.

“You are different than me, so I have only one request for you,” she says.

I watch as she does something similar to when I created a construct. She etches circuits and pathways into her body. They are as thin as hair and intricately complex to a dizzying degree. The pattern is so complex that it's hard to believe that something like this is possible for a human.

“Watch my last moments and the last moments of this world. Etch it all into your memory and live on as proof of my existence and of my determination not to be a slave to whatever this is.”

I hate her, my blood boils as I look at her, still remembering the last moments of the pitiful red-headed woman.

“What was her name?”

And more amazingly, the woman in front of me too.

Her eyes now burned out, her skin charred and her figure even thinner than before. Turned into a glowing shape only barely similar to that of a human.

Yet I still feel her mana on me and she continues to make sure I watch.

Lissandra dies. Her perceiving touch on me is gone. Her brain unable to endure all this mana.

The woman sacrificed her family, her friends, her body, and her own mind to reach her goal.

It's the single most captivating sight I've ever witnessed. A resolve so unyielding, it's willing to shatter its own mind upon making a decision. My eyes are glued to it, heart pounding, shaken by her absolute and unhesitating resolve.

Without hesitation, she slowly lost more and more of herself, as if wiping out her mind. Memories, thoughts, she gave it all up without a second thought, turning her body into a massive mana battery that continues to absorb mana from the world even now. Her heart is still beating, kept alive by an intricate web of circuits that cover what remains of her body.

The shield around me starts flickering, and I move closer to the entrance, yet I still watch as what remains of her finally activates the skill she had been charging the entire time, feeding it with mana.

[Singularity]

The skill activation is sudden, almost unfathomable. A core of darkness is emerging from the center of Lissandra's remains, akin to an obsidian pearl birthed from a shattered star.

It starts small, a mere point in space, but it's growing, nourished by an incessant stream of mana from the battered body. The shadows around it are warping and twisting, drawn towards it as if into a vortex.

The ground beneath it is buckling, groaning, and eventually shattering, unable to resist the unfathomable gravitational pull. It's like watching a star collapse in reverse, a world-ending event happening in slow motion.

The singularity, a black hole in its rawest form, is being unleashed. Space itself starts to bend around it.

Looking towards where she stood one more time, I step through the portal when I feel the item in my hands turning to dust.

The entrance behind me closes and so many notifications ring in my head. I have to shake them off, needing a moment to calm down, to absorb what I saw.

I look around, finding myself standing alone in a vast, desolate landscape. The remnants of what once must have been a bustling city lay in ruins around me. A cold wind cuts through the silence, carrying with it the scent of burnt wood.

In the distance, a small figure stands against the grey sky. A young girl, barely ten, with flames flickering around her body.

But I do not have time to rest. A circle of blue flames surrounds me, slithering like a serpent, the heat palpable on my skin.

Without any hesitation, the flames attack me and my [Redistribution] activates.