Trash: Chapter 163 Altered States (Three Minutes Ago) (Patreon)

Chapter 163

Altered States

(Three Minutes Ago)

Somethings off. My mind awakens from a darkness fueled state, only to blink and realize I have choice before me.

You ever have one of those moments where you are basically given something that you need, exactly when you need it, and are given the opportunity to turn it down. The closest I ever got to this experience in my past life was when my parents got me a starter car for college. Mainly due to my parents not wanting to have to drive me to and from campus at the start and end of each semester. With this new vehicle, I was given autonomy to show up at school when I chose. Now to say it was a starter vehicle was an understatement, the car was used, had two hundred thousand miles, registered in a state with loose morals about lost or missing titles, after what had likely been flood damage was cleaned from the exterior, but not from underneath the floorboards. While I was given the option to turn down the vehicle and enjoy those long four hour drives each way with my parents, where we could talk about expectations for the upcoming new semester, I opted for the starter car.

Which was great, until it wasn’t. The phrase you are constantly moving from one start closer to when your vehicle will never start again cannot be truer. Most of the time one does not think of these issues, except when they are in their starter vehicle, which I named Kyle after the one temperamental friend from high school who seemed to vibe most with my vehicle. He was pretty on the outside, seemed like he had everything going for him, but deep down he was lazy, complacent, and above all always let me down when I needed him the most. Of all the thoughts my mind has when being offered a chance at a new and completely unproven Skill dealing with magic, I think of Kyle. The car Kyle, not the person who turned their life around, after we broke up and made something of himself. Maybe this is my mind trying to warn me, or just a result of breathing deep mold fumes and burning mists of purple mind magic, but I have the momentary thought of doubt crosses my mind for a moment.

Then I feel my body naturally react as I feel my body’s Maximum Mana Conversion* activate on its own. The moment I feel the unnatural chemicals break down in my body, is the moment I can think again, and am no longer flooded with the haunting memories of my past. Of being stranded and alone in a hundred-degree heat, while the rest of society seems to pass me by, while Kyle gurgles at me with a plume of white caustic steam that rises from the radiator. Feeling my mind cleanse itself of the mental sludge that had been holding my mind hostage, I realize I need to act.

With sudden bone chilling clarity, I see a SySTEM message that I never thought I would see.

Are you sure you wish to continue purging the Healing Flames* (Unique) Skill from your Class Slots?

Warning: Once you delete this Skill, you will never be able to learn this Skill again.

Crashing awake, I feel like I have just gone from cruising on the highway with Kyle, to suddenly having all four ties blow out, causing me to veer out of control and to slam into the guardrail. A thin curved piece of metal that is all that exists, protecting me from staying on the road, or falling off the hill to my death.

Realizing just how close, I came to losing it all to this mental fog, I feel the last few seconds come back to me. And yes, fortunately it was only a few seconds, but these were seconds that I didn’t have control over my body, mind, or system.

I don’t even wait for my mind to fully process where I am, why my back and arms burn like I am being pierced with dozens of golf ball sized leeches. Instead, I focus on the most important thing. Reading the description before me and making sure that my selecting the no option will be the right answer in helping me keep my new Skill. The Skill I wanted but somehow found myself all but forced to delete. Well, I almost deleted.

The moment I mentally select no, the warning boxes disappear from my view, leaving me with the description of the Skill I just acquired. The last system message I received, before I almost lost my mind.

New Skill Accepted: Healing Flames (Unique): Requires Life & Holy Affinity

Heal the living with holy flames. Burn the dead so that they might find peace. The spark of life can be more than just a metaphor.

Cost: 1 Life Affinity, 1 Holy Affinity

Effect: Life & Holy Mana Fusion.

Healing Flames: Life Mana Attribute* (+0.1 per level) Str, Dex, Sta, Per, Int, Mana, Pyrokinesis (+0.05 per level)

Pyrokinesis*: Ability to direct and control flames.Taking a calming breath, as I realized just how close I had come to crashing through that guard rail and spiraled off the one winding road to school, I paused for a second. That second was all I needed to take in my world around me.

I was now pierced with multiple spirit veins. The same veins that the wall flower master used to dominate her minions were the same ones that now pierced me. Holding still, I try to take a second to take in my surroundings. The brute that had been free, is now once again bound by a giant pulsing vein going straight to the brute’s forehead. While I on the other hand have no less than five veins piercing me. Two on my arms, two on my back, and one in my stomach. Glancing over, at the wallflower, I can see that she is deep into her voodoo as her eyes are glowing with a bright mystical purple-pinkish hue. Seeing her in such a state, mounted to the wall with thick weblike veins and structures leading from her, I almost have a mental image of a larger and far scarier version of a spider wrapping me in a cocoon, before sucking me dry of my powers, before making me yet another minion. An image that is further reinforced by the thick veins that are wrapping around me now, pinning me in place, while more mind controlling substances are being pumped into my body. While I have broken free for the moment, I realize this is likely due to the matriarch having to split her attention between me and regaining control over her brute.

Realizing that I only have a few seconds to act, before the matriarch turns her full attention back to me, I decide to go all in with this new Skill. My bloodline seems to be stopping the veins from going too deep into my skin, likely another point in why I was able to break free of the mental control, which only heightens my need to act.

Seeing no other choice, surrounded by wriggling and coiling slimy veins that are oppressively cold to the touch, I do the only thing possible. I create a fire.

Starting deep from within, I feel the spark of life begin within me. Then as I imagined it, I wrap that spark with holy light that is dense and compact enough to cause friction and finally I feel that spark combust into flames around me.

Almost instantly there is a deep resonating surge of life energy around me, as the tentacle like veins that had been wrapping around me, suddenly spark to life burning with an intensity that seems contradictory. As if the life energy was somehow angry that death energy was there, in its presence at all. This is the fireside equivalent of throwing a kerosine soaked log onto a barely visible flame. In next to no time, bright green mist rises, burning away the spirit veins around me, the same way I felt my own skin reacting to the necrotic flames from earlier. Unlike me though, these veins have no chance of stopping my flames, no Trash Skill that can be used to remove the source of the flames. Instead, it does the exact opposite of what I’ve always read about Necrotin Flames. Flames that are so intense that they will burn everything they touch, until finally they end up burning their way through all organic material and finally flicker out on the ground.

Just producing one spark of this flame is taxing, as I can feel my energy reserves drop quickly from its use. But I don’t stop, aided by my Maximum Mana Conversion* and my Golden Life Ratio Mana Regeneration* I become an unstoppable force. Burning anything spiritual that is still touching me. For a moment, I feel fear swell inside me, as my mind tells me that I should be afraid of the flames. Particularly as it has a deep resonating greenish hue, like the burning gaze of the Death Eaters that I’ve faced in the past.

Seeing the flames, I am reminded of that one moment at the arena, where I stared down the burning gaze of a Death Eater. One who was drawn to my own spark of life that I possessed, one that I masked long enough to have that very greed for life be the final act that ultimately destroyed the Death Eater. Now, I am creating that very flame whose description seems to be accurate, in that this might very well be the true spark of life.

With the flames burning so intensely around me, I feel fear for a moment, before I feel the flames coat my body and heal my wounds. Nothing internal, for that seems to be separate, but the puncture wounds caused by the spirit veins piercing me are slowly healing, being cauterized in a process that feels completely unnatural.

There is movement from my left, as the brute that is barely under the control of the master charges forward, grabbing me. Well not me exactly, but at the deep pulsing and withering spirit veins that are melting under the intense heat of my flames. Melting the way plastic water bottles would over an open fire, just as noisily and leaving behind an acrid smell that will no doubt linger far longer than the flames will last. With a meaty paw of a hand, the brute reaches down, pulling away the burn vein remains. But this only gives me a new direction to spread my flames, as I have not moved. This new process, the creation of burning flames is intense and something that takes every ounce of my focus to pull off. Which is why I just use the newly opened pocket of air to create even more flames, spraying greenish-golden liquid out at the brute’s exposed hand and arm. Within a second, the stream catches fire, causing an intense flame to erupt on the brute’s arm.

Yet, this time there is a change, unlike earlier when the brute would simply fight through the pain, this time there seems to be some sentience. There is a lingering trace of self-protection in the overly large brute, as it pulls its hand back and instinctively pulls the burning part into its body, thinking that this will be enough to stop the flames. Not realizing that these flames are different, and that all it is doing is spreading the flammable material. Causing flames to erupt on the brute’s chest and ultimately destroying the residual outer coating that had served as the final protection of the large brute.

I watch.

I watch while my body still produces flames around me, burning and shriveling away all the writhing spiritual veins around me. I watch as the brute that had seemed so impossible to defeat a moment ago slowly melts and shrivels away on the floor. I even watch as I think the brute finally smiles, when its melting form drops, and what looks like its lingering spirit is finally able to free itself from its forced enslavement and escape.

Seeing its look of relief, I almost feel bad. Then I realize this too could still be my fate, if I don’t take care of the master lurker. The one that is clearly in pain while mounted on the wall, but starting at me the way a predator would watch its prey that has gotten loose. Focusing on the monster before me, and on keeping my flames continuing to burn I feel my mind split as I raise up my right leg, freeing it from the paper-thin resistance that remains of the once unbreakable coils around me, then I step forwards. Only take another step, each step taking me closer to my goal. To killing this monster that has managed to remain here unchecked for who knows how long.

Realizing that this monster will stop with just controlling me, but with also doing the same to Lucia and Luna above, I move forward. Knowing that if I fail here, all three of us will be the new replacements for the brutes I just destroyed.

Reaching up my burning hand, I reach out to grab at the clearly quivering but still bound by their own webbing mastermind of this whole laboratory. I can see the look of panic and fear filling its eyes, as it looks at me, and for the first time in who knows how long, truly seems to fear what it is looking at. Whether it is the look of intense determination and anger on my face, or the intense glow of the golden green flames that have consumed every part of it to this point, burning away anything spiritual the way spider webs would when exposed to a flame. Seeing it squirm, I reach out and realize one thing. I hate spiders, and I hate monsters that imitate spiders even more.

Flames launch out and erupt from my hand, causing a numb spike of exhaustion to drill its way into my skull, as I feel just how taxing this new Skill of mine truly is. But I don’t care.

At this point, I don’t care if it is the last thing I do, I will burn this spider spirit to the ground, if it is the last thing I do.