Myth//OS - Chapter 84 (Patreon)

Umbra and I were allowed into a private room to take care of the purchase. I didn’t pay much attention to the shadowmancer. My attention was almost entirely taken up by the sword humming with almost a malevolent amount of miasma. 

“All yours.” Umbra backed toward the door into the room alongside the attendant. “You can see yourself out, right?”

”Yep.” It wouldn’t be an issue. 

“Good. I’ve got more important things to deal with.” He casually lied. A tremble of disgust went through me, though I didn’t bother calling him out on it.

Once they left, I moved closer to the sword and ran a shaky hand down its length. As soon as I even touched the blade, I felt miasma infuse deep into my body.

[Corrupted Sword of the Abyss]

[“This blade once signified the Royal Knight Commander. For hundreds of years, ———— ——-, —— ——- ——, and — have eaten away at the once valiant blade.”]

[Corrupted Sword of the Abyss - A blade infused with miasma. Even a small cut can act as the most lethal of poisons.]

[Bind?]

Yep. As soon as the OS got my confirmation, the sword dissolved into waves of ether. Only, it wasn’t like the other times I’d seen items disappear. Miasma was deeply woven into the blade, and as it dispersed, so too did a heavy malevolence spreading through the air.

[Aylin Io

Titles: Nyx, Moon

Innate Trait: [Dream Shift], [Adaptive Ebonshroud], [Discerning All-Speech]

Skills: [Echoing Reinforcement], [Brace-6], [Sky Stride], [Ether Physique-4], [Radiance-1], [Darkest Night], [Stormsurge]

Boon: Nighteye - [Guiding Moonlight]

Bound: [Will Wire], [Thorn’s Defiance], [Stormcaller], [Corrupted Sword of the Abyss]]

With my sword reclaimed, I slipped out of the private room and exited out onto the streets. Once I got far enough away, I moved through an alley and transformed back into Moon. White cloaked my body, and I wore a totally different outfit compared to what I had on as Nyx.

I walked away further, and then called a cab to head back home. The auction was… draining, to say the least. Unfortunately, my night was just beginning.

— — —

Kali wasn’t home when I arrived. It was already a bit late tonight, so she probably got caught up at work. I had the whole apartment to myself. I snagged Nivia from my bed, and made myself comfy on the couch.

I pulled out the D-rank evo core I got from Sky Skipper. It was an orange polyhedral shape with light pulsing faintly out of it like a heartbeat. A subtle warmth poured out of the object, and it was much more vibrant than the F-rank cores had been.

There was also that myth shard that I needed to run by Rabyyte, but I doubted she’d be open tonight. I could do that tomorrow just before I went to go see Lucia.

[Consume Evo Core?]

Yep? The core melted, and a flood or orange merged into my body. My information updated with one evo point. I already knew where I wanted to put it though, so I didn’t bother with the other two Trait’s and just focused on Adaptive Ebonshroud.

[Adaptive Ebonshroud]

Mimicking Ebonshroud

Become everything, become nothing.

Sentient Ebonshroud

Life flows even in the darkest of waters.

Hyperdurable Ebonshroud

Let nothing get through.

I eyed my options for a minute. Hyperdurable Ebonshroud was out. It couldn’t compare to the other two, though it did still seem quite helpful. It’d be a straight boost to my defensive capabilities, but it probably wouldn’t matter much if I was, say, attacked by an S-class.

The other two options were so much more intriguing. Mimicking Ebonshroud was likely an upgrade to the type of materials I could imitate with Ebonshroud. The black ooze was good at copying metals, cloth, and that kind of thing. I had some serious trouble copying chemicals and biological matter.

Hmm… if I grabbed Mimicking, would I be able to make food? I wouldn’t have to worry about starving—oh, right. I already didn’t have to worry about starvation. Still, I could feed a ton of people if I snagged that. I might even be able to make coffee anytime, anyplace. That alone was seriously attractive. 

Aside from the niche of making food and drinks, I’d probably be able to make gunpowder, yep? I could become my own walking armory. Infinite ammo, infinite guns, and infinite firepower was very attractive.

Despite how good of an option Mimicking Ebonshroud was, Sentient gave me pause. I could bring my companion of over a thousand years to life… It was terrifying, but so deeply intriguing. What if it hated me? What if my Ebonshroud, upon coming to life, attacked me and tried to kill me?

I could do so much without having to micromanage each part of Ebonshroud, too. I was a bit worried about Lucia all the time when she was off by herself. I couldn’t hover around her constantly, though. With Sentinet, though, I could leave a glob of Ebonshroud with her and not have to worry nearly as much.

In combat, it’d also be nice. It took a ton of focus to patch up my injuries and hold myself together with the black ooze. I was pretty good at splitting my focus like that after practicing it for so long, but it was still a consuming process. If I had Sentient, it could flow on its own and I wouldn’t have to split my focus as much.

Not to mention there was an old fighting style that I used to employ where I made and controlled minions of Ebonshroud. That’d be so much easier to do now. My Ebonshroud quantities were finally returned to the point that I could start to employ that kind of tactic once more, too.

Ugh, I don’t know which one to go for. I grabbed Nivia and hugged her tightly to my chest. She felt even more familiar and safe after my short stint with Schizofennec back in Serhymn. Honestly, I probably would’ve gone crazy again without her.

”Which one?” I asked the stuffed bunny. 

Nivia stared back up at me in confusion. Ah, right, I hadn’t explained anything. With my limited speech, I slowly went through my options with the bunny. She sat in my arms, and watched me the entire time while we tried to work through which would be the best.

After a long back and forth, I finally picked Sentient Ebonshroud.

[Code: EC-1-2]

[Updating…]

A spread of warmth surged through my body. It slowly spread through the Ebonshroud hidden in my body, and eventually pressed up against my mind softly. My head throbbed for a moment before the warmth fully enveloped me. I sank back into the couch with a soft sigh.

So how does this work? I didn’t feel any different compared to before the evo core. I dredged up a tendril of Ebonshroud, and held it out over my hand. It just sat there, obediently waiting for my will as it always did. Did the evolution not work?

After a few moments, I felt a connection start to form with the tendril. My mind felt like it was expanding, and something probed at the back of it. The probe slowly faded, and the tendril of Ebonshroud twitched. It stood up on its own, and looked around at the surrounding area.

A moment later, the Ebonshroud tendril turned white and thickened. Its shape rapidly changed into that of a soft, fluffy bunny. It wasn't a perfect imitation of Nivia, but I could see what it was trying to do. A questioning probe slid through my thoughts, and the bunny rubbed up against my arm affectionately.

”Heh.” A small laugh bubbled out of me, which only seemed to encourage the bunny more. I dropped a hand onto its head and lightly ruffed its ears. Its face, originally a malformed amalgamation of a bunny and a human, slowly fixed itself and a contented expression filled it.

I messed around with the bunny of Ebonshroud for a while longer to get a sense of its capabilities. It had the intelligence of a little kid, from the best I could tell. It was insanely good at imitating things once it ‘saw’ them, though. There was a good chance it’d become more intelligent with each passing day.

Although it had a mind of its own, it wasn’t truly detached from me. If anything, it was a bit like a hive mind? I could still freely control and distort the ooze however I wanted. It was still Ebonshroud just like it’d always been. Only now it could act and move by itself once I imbued it with will. 

That was the important part, though. Not every bit of Ebonshroud was automatically sentient. I had to grant it. A quick test of how many I could make stopped at just three separate Ebonshroud entities. Any more, and it felt like my head might actually explode. Even when I took the ooze back under control, the mind controlling it didn’t disappear, though. It just… went to sleep, almost?

In my bedroom, away from any potentially prying eyes, I channeled out a glob of Ebonshroud, and woke up one of the wills to take control. It bobbed casually, and waved a tendril at me. “Become human?”

The glob froze, and then slowly started to change. A subtle probe hit me, and I allowed more Ebonshroud to flow out. The Ebonshroud glob became bigger and bigger, and started to take shape. Broken limbs stuck out, only to slowly correct themselves. A face flowed out of the mass, and steadily became more and more human-like.

The shape was a bit off, and wouldn’t be able to pass as human if it really tried, but it was close. With a bit more practice… it still probably wouldn’t be able to pass as a human. The ooze was discernably not human even at a glance. 

I took control once more and polished out the shape. Instead of seven fingers, I manipulated the ooze into a proper ten. The outer layer of the body slowly shifted and became a loose flowing fabric. Fixing up the minor details felt a little weird like helping my daughter get dressed and ready to go. The entire time, it sat there obediently while I worked to fix it up.

I changed the face a little, and cut off some of the height to make it a bit shorter. I didn’t even like looking in a mirror, so it was a bit uncomfortable to see myself like that. I shifted some places from black to white, which made it look so much less like an ooze now that it wasn’t monoshade.

By the time I was done, it might’ve been able to pass for some kind of dark slime-like species. 

[Nighteye watches with wide eyes. She’s cute! What’s her name?]

You think I should name it? I eyed the ooze for a moment. I could feel its thoughts moving around just underneath mine. With the slightest twitch of my mind, I could end its thinking and once more take in the ooze. It was a terrifying amount of power over something so fragile.

Was this… was this going to drive me crazy? Having split minds like this definitely wasn’t good. I hesitated for a moment, and then asked, “can you speak?”

The ooze paused, and then slowly shook its head. A wet suctioning sound came out of its mouth, like air being forced out without any control. “Glug glug.”

Should I give it a name? Would it even matter? Referring to it as Ebonshroud didn’t quite feel right when it had its own sentience, though. I don’t even know how I feel about this to begin with. At the very least, it doesn’t seem to hate me.

I watched the ditsy slime-girl for a moment. It was a bit… stupid? It seemed like it copied some of my memories, but not too many of them. I pulled out my Glass, and handed it over. The slime fumbled to hold onto it, and it sunk slightly into the dark ooze. “Learn?”

”Glug?” It held up the device and tapped on it randomly. 

With a bit of instruction, I eventually managed to teach it how to operate the device. Once it was all set up, I stood up and left the humanoid ooze on my bed. “Stay here.”

”Glug glug.” The slime stretched out a hand, and grabbed mine. Her eyes widened—too wide. It broke her face, and made my instincts sharpen slightly at the every so slightly off features.

I took a breath and patted the slime’s hand. It really was like a small child, wasn’t it? I hesitated for a moment longer and pulled away. Maybe giving it my Glass wasn’t a great idea. “Be back. In a bit.”

It still looked a little reluctant… I think. The slime’s expressions were all over the place like it didn’t quite know how to convey emotion quite yet. I could feel them pressing up against the back of my mind, though. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a great role model for expressions given my usually blank stare. 

I gently grabbed the Glass, and started episode one of Glitch Scouts. Right, they were a much better role-model than I could ever be. “Watch this?”

The slime’s eyes narrowed, and it focused on the tv show. I watched it—her? My hand rubbed at my temples. I needed some space to think, and I knew where to go to get peace and quiet.

— — —

AN: In my notes, I actually planned for Mimicking Ebonshroud. Sentient Ebonshroud seems so much more fun, though, doesn’t it? Hopefully going against the plan doesn’t horribly blow up in my face.