All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 341: Thank You For Coming

LEVEL 80 REACHED! CHOOSE A SKILL: DIVINE COMMUNION, MULTITHREADING, SPOTLESS

Bee regained her feet as she read through the options. As much as she would’ve liked to sit and contemplate them for a few hours, there were still things to be done. Her allies were still fighting the archfiends, and she didn’t want to leave the rest of the Nighty Knights alone for a minute longer than required. Fortunately, her mind was so amped up on adrenaline and experience that she processed the choices in record time.

She had no real basis on which to choose any of these skills. No human she’d ever heard of had reached level 80. At least, not for certain. There was no precedent in the historical record other than some ancient myths and legends, which were likely blown out of proportion anyway. Even if they had, they definitely hadn't left records about their skills. And even if they did, the odds of her getting the same skill options as them would be astronomical. Especially considering how specific and unique her recent choices had been.

She looked at the options. Divine Communion was a strong frontrunner. Anything related to her god would probably be great, even if she didn’t know exactly what it did. The second option was solid as well but underwhelming. If the ability would allow her to multitask mentally or something, then that could be worthwhile. It would certainly make running the kingdom and the church easier.

But while being able to multitask might be nice, it wasn't like she could really do too many things at once physically. Perhaps the skill would allow her to change that. Still, there was a nonzero possibility that the term “multithreading” would simply allow her to knit multiple scarves at once or something. The possibility was small, but it was there. She had seen how much Void enjoyed making its tapestries.

The last option was downright heretical.

She knew that Void liked to play with the system. But the fact that it referred to her, a Prodigy of Spot, becoming Spotless? Well. That was simply unthinkable. There was no excuse. She couldn't choose that in good conscience.

By the time she’d started moving to help Jason with his opponent, she already made her choice. Divine Communion was the most fitting for a priestess like her, not to mention the most certifiably useful. However, it worked.

As she lunged forward with her broom, the understanding of what the skill did filled her mind. The web of links that constantly connected her and Void's followers remained the same, except for one. The all-important link between her and Void itself. It felt as though it strengthened, solidified, and pulsed with life. Rather than a dormant thing, it felt as though she could interact with it.

Curiously, she decided to test it out. Even as her broom batted aside the archfiend bearing down on them, she focused on the line and sent along a single querying thought: "Master?"

A warm feeling of reassurance came down from the connection. The feel of her master's presence and aura flooded through her entire body, revitalizing her tired muscles. She felt a surge of power erupt within her as she splattered the archfiend over the volcano wall a hundred feet away.

She looked down at her hands in surprise before her eyes went up to the sky, where a black dot could be seen fighting the demon lord miles above them. "Thank you, master," she thought as she wheeled to face the last opponent.

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Everything went black. The very nanosecond that I ripped out the data stream leading to the Demon Lord, every last one of my sensors went dark. It was as though my very existence hiccuped. But then, a millionth of a second later, it all came roaring back. My opponent didn’t even have time to react.

The pause was so brief that I didn't even have to reboot. In its wake, I felt a shift in... well, everything. The power that I sensed in the stream didn't exactly flow into me as expected. Rather, it curved around and over me even as I worked to stitch together the hole in reality from which it came. As I did so, though, I noticed that my opponent was no longer attacking. Then, the Demon Lord began to change.

Gone was the dapper suit and the human shape. Black boils bubbled out all along its body, stretching into tendrils that narrowed at the tip and absorbed light without reflecting a single particle. It expanded up across the sky and let out shrieks that didn’t register in any sort of auditory spectrum that a living being could hear. Unfortunately, I could still process it. The sheer pitch threatened to break my microphone.

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As it screamed, its tendrils flailed about wildly. I narrowly dodged a tendril swipe, noting the complete vacuum left in its wake. Apparently, those tendrils even took in the very air they traveled through. The more it unraveled into the monstrosity before me, the more confused I became. I had to design an entirely new spatial paradigm to understand it, as it followed none of the normal Euclidean geometry that I had expected. It roiled around itself and appeared from places it shouldn't have been, in sizes that were just wrong.

I hesitated to attack, not having a real understanding of what could actually harm it. Who knows, maybe hitting it would just end worse for me? This seemed to be the right move because even as I ducked and dodged and weaved through the tentacles and tendrils, I could see matter itself disappear bit by bit. But the world wasn’t the only thing in trouble. Those little bumps that coated its appendages were starting to eat away at itself, too.

Every time it moved, reality fought back. It tore strips of inky black darkness off of the abomination. They began to dissipate into the air to form a rather ominous-looking cloud. Concerned, I started up my Air Purifier at full blast and used every skill I had to consume those scraps before they could pollute my world. I just had to hope that I could neutralize them.

Slowly, the thing was eaten away, but it didn't happen fast enough. My models couldn't get a good grasp of how long it would take to completely destroy itself, as I had no idea what the actual volume of the thing was. It could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few years or until the heat death of the universe. Whatever the timescale, it was unacceptably long. This needed to end.

Firing my Sanitation Lamp at it had no effect. The light worked, of course, and I could see it slowly approaching the creature's body but never quite reaching. Its light slowed and bent the nearer it got, only traveling half of the remaining distance into infinity. It boggled my processors.

As much as it rankled, I couldn't seem to affect it with anything. Nothing but reality itself hurt this monster, but I couldn’t simply wait and watch. In fact, I had one more option. One more thing I was a bit hesitant to try. My dustbin.

If I brought my void out from my unlimited dustbin to meet it, would it empower it? Or would it trap it? Could I bring the Demon Lord in? I wasn't sure. Surely, this was something I could test, though.

Instead of just consuming the next scrap, I pulled it toward me. I pushed the void out slightly and touched it. The strangely ephemeral material melted into my limitless dustbin. It stopped degrading, but it didn't seem empowered or anything.

Was I willing to risk letting a more powerful being than myself in my dustbin? This wasn’t like other times. Usually, I consumed weaker enemies. Even the stronger ones, I was able to wear them down first. Not to mention that this one seemed different. It was almost as though it was a creature of the void itself.

But I couldn’t let this thing loose. More than anything else, it threatened my humans and the very world we lived in. So yes. Of course, I was going to.

Diving in, I followed the still-traveling light of my sanitation lamp into the nonsensical space where reality warped. I passed the light as it slowly crept toward the abomination and dove toward one of its many maws. With 100% of my processor behind it, I flashed the largest void bubble I'd ever made and pulled the being into my dustbin.

A perfect sphere of total blackness roared out from my dustbin. It stretched out on all sides, completely encompassing the being. Below me, I saw the world darken as our combined existences blotted out the entirety of the sun's rays.

The empty blackness tried to right back, but once it touched mine, it lost all sense of identity and was consumed.

I watched as the inky blackness seeped into the void, seemingly inert of whatever malevolent will had controlled it. The process took a long time as I sat there, hovering in the sky. Eventually, the last of the bubbling, sinuous blackness disappeared into my smooth bubble. With a final effort of concentration, I stripped away the last layer, revealing the true core of my opponent.

It was yet another human-shaped body. But rather than the intimidating figure I’d seen before, this was a confused-looking man. He wore a pair of slightly too-large glasses and was dressed in a red polo shirt and brown khakis. A name tag pinned to his chest read “Will.”

"Wh… what?" The man spluttered, looking around. "What… what just happened? Wh-where am I?!"

I didn't answer. Instead, I examined the man. His shirt was slightly frayed, and there was dirt at the hem of his pant cuffs. He was slightly overweight and needed a shave, but altogether wasn't too much of a slouch. Magically, he was completely inert. It felt as though he hadn't even gotten his first level.

But there was something still there. A thread running off orthogonal to any direction of this reality. It wasn’t like a power line or some sort of data stream, either. It felt pretty harmless this time. It was just a tether. With a small flex of my will, I gave him a push. The man vanished, flying down the tether back to wherever he came from.

The second he vanished, I felt a rush of power pour into me from the system that I now felt intrinsically, having sensed its location in another. Suddenly, I received several notifications.

LEVEL 95 REACHED! CHOOSE A SKILL: REALITY TRANSMUTATION, DIMENSIONAL MASTERY, WORLDLY PURIFICATION.

DEITY FELLED! ASCENSION REQUIREMENTS UNLOCKED.

LEVEL 100 REACHED! DIVINITY UNLOCKED.

CONGRATULATIONS ON REACHING GODHOOD! PREPARE FOR ASCENSION.

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