“…LET ME OUT…”

It was dark here. Cold, empty, dreaded. The place was one Brock was all too familiar with. Blackness closed in on him from all sides, as though it was trying to suffocate him with its nothingness. His body floated idly, neither able to move nor change direction, only drift in an indeterminate direction.

There were not shapes this time, no monsters swimming in the black. No impossible terrors waiting to devour his soul. No, this time, there was only whispers, invasive and loud as they attacked his mind and sanity. They were trapped within, rebounding endlessly inside his skull. He wished to scream. To put his head in his hands. But he was frozen.

“RETURN…”

Idly, Brock felt blood dribble from his nose, his head throbbing wildly as a headache brewed and rapidly worsened. He strained against the binds that held him, yet his body refused to budge. Here, in this place, he was truly powerless.

“RETURN TO THE VOID…”

He tried to scream as his headache mounted in pain and two streams of blood burst from his nostrils. His sight, while only indulged with blackness, began to become marred by fractures of crimson. The taste of iron filled his mouth, and he knew blood was pooling there too. It was so cold. His blood felt like ice in his veins.

Desperately, he scanned the darkness, whether for an escape or just to put a face to the voices. It wasn’t truly a real voice, instead one purely in his head, yet still, still he looked. And he saw. It was almost unnoticeable, but a figure drifted in the black, so colossal that Brock couldn’t even begin to see the edges of its gargantuan frame.

He shudder in primordial terror as everything was consumed by the whispers of the void.

“…AND LET ME OUT…”

**

Two days passed by without much fanfare. Brock was getting quite used to living outside his sister’s house, with the view of the stars untainted by civilisation’s prior light pollution being the beautiful vision that accompanied him to slumber each night. The breeze was somewhat chilly, but he was used to it by now. He’d felt far worse anyway.

Unfortunately, Jane still hadn’t woken up. He’d paid both her and Carrie a visit every day after breakfast, and in those two days, his sister hadn’t even stirred according to the doctors. She was out cold. They did say she was getting better though, and he knew they were telling the truth as he saw the colour rapidly beginning to return to her face.

It was only a matter of time before she woke up at this point.

Amusingly enough, he had also seen Kim as he travelled the halls and boy had she had some unsurprising news for him. Apparently, Tyler the surgeon seemed to be avoiding her. Brock had known the type. He seemed to be using Kim for attention or just to feel good about himself.

Maybe both.

All he knew for certain was that the man was just using her. He had briefly considered being a dick and telling Kim to surprise him at his house, but ultimately decided to be a ‘good’ person and leave the guy alone. He told the girl to give up on him and find someone better, as Tyler was quite clearly a dickhead. She seemed to take his words to heart and went about her day after that.

He hadn’t seen her since, but he’d heard her working around the hospital. She was quite loud.

In other news, Brock was basically stranded in what he had learned to be Japan. Or the far outskirts of Tokyo, in the newly System created wilderness. Mio’s aura still hadn’t recovered enough for a trip to Sanctuary where he could see Fon and Harry, having only replenished itself halfway.

According to her, it took one quarter of her aura for each person she warped to Sanctuary – herself included – though that was mainly a result of the distance the teleportation involved. She could technically take him, but she refused to be stranded there for another few days, and he couldn’t force her to do so.

He did learn an interesting little tid bit of information from her about aura regeneration, however. From what they’ve learned so far, aura recovery wasn’t actually a fixed speed. In fact, she compared the process to mitosis, the scientific term for cell replication. Aura seemed to multiply itself to recover, so the more aura one had, the faster their recovery was.

It did leave her floored as to why his aura recovery was so rapid, though. According to her, it defied their carefully curated research into the process. What took him a day, takes most people three, usually longer when you bottom your aura out. In the end, both were left clueless and dropped the issue for another time.

And so, the result of all that was his stranded-ness.

Although, with the info that Mio had told him, he knew that was something insanely vital to someone’s understanding of how aura functioned, and it gave him what he thought was a pretty good idea. A grand archive. Or a big library, in lamer terms.

Of course, he hadn’t told Mio yet, as the woman seemed like the kind to shoot it down immediately despite her apparent enjoyment of books, but he was certainly stewing on the idea a bit. It’d be a place where they could store all the world’s knowledge on the System and the things it brought with it, so anyone could learn, and no one would be in the dark.

He didn’t actually have anywhere to build it, however, though he thought maybe he could pitch it to Margo. He doubted those people would want to move out of town after risking their lives to survive there, so he was thinking it’d be a good idea to give the place a massive draw like that for other people to move there.

Something to speak with her about another time, perhaps.

One of the more interesting events of the past few days, however, was the excavation of Ryan’s cavern. The heart Brock had seen had come up in recent conversations with Mio, about how it seemed to be an amplifier for Ryan’s powers, allowing him to convert blood to flesh, creating the Skin Walkers.

Carrie had also made mention of Ryan’s tendency to mutter about promises his Ascendancy had made him once she had been cued in on the other news, and Brock found that it heavily reinforced his theory that the ethereal hearts possessed some form of intelligence.

It’s all so complicated…

In the end, Brock got out of bed, namely just a patch of grass and the leather jacket he had laid over himself and began his morning walk to the town. It only took five minutes, and with the presence of the forest’s sounds and sensations, he felt a calmness settle over him. It was an oddly amazing feeling to just… relax.

The place where he usually had breakfast wasn’t too far from the trail that led into the forest, only a few streets over, and God was the food good. All manner of pastries and goodies, savoury and sweet, they had it all. It was more a bakery than a restaurant, although they did have outdoor seating.

With his perspective on money, the food wasn’t too expensive considering he had almost 14 million. It was only one thousand shards per item, and he’d always buy out the entire window. His heightened metabolism was insane, which wasn’t surprising at all if you looked at his Stats. They certainly exceeded someone at level 100, and he thought his appetite probably did too.

He arrived at the place eventually, opting to walk instead of run, and glanced up at the familiar sign of ‘Beatrice’s Bakery’. Brock breathed in deeply from his nose and was immediately assault by a dozen of delicious scents. Without waiting much further, he pushed the door open and slid in.

“If it isn’t my favourite customer, Brock!” A voice called out and the man in question was met with the sight of Beatrice as she spread her arms wide and beamed. She was quite short, so her head barely crested the glass display, but she didn’t seem to care.

He chuckled, “Beatrice. You ready to have the entire bakery bought out?”

She chuckled in return, “you know I am. Haven’t made this much money in months.”

Brock nodded. She’d told him about how sales had dropped since the Skin Walker issue was brought more openly into the public eye. Apparently, one of the beasts slipped past the Patriarch’s half-baked defence against them and tried to eat the wrong warrior. It was cut down in broad daylight, and many people finally got to see what was plaguing the continent.

Of course, this led to many locking themselves indoors until the problem blew over. Businesses like Beatrice’s suffered greatly from a lack of customers, although the warriors made sure to purchase from them often to keep them afloat. Now that Brock had dealt with their creator and the news had been spread of his demise, people were beginning to leave to the outside once more, although there were still some who were hesitant.

Brock gestured toward the treats hidden behind the window, “I’ll take your entire stock.”

“Ahhh, my favourite phrase in the whole world,” Beatrice teased as she scooped baked good after baked good into a series of paper bags to hold them all. Idly, Brock noticed there were a few more than usual, and from the bags under the woman’s eyes, he assumed she stayed up to bake extra and get some excess cash.

He didn’t mind. Honestly, the woman seemed nice enough, and if she asked for financial help, he’d be more than happy to donate some money. Thirty seconds later, Beatrice was waving him goodbye as he walked out to the outside seating with two arms full of bagged treats.

Promptly, he plopped himself down into a nearby chair and began to devour his payload. His mouth watered even as he stuffed his face. He had no idea how she did it, but Beatrice had created the foods of the gods. He wondered if she had an Ascendancy that somehow helped her bake. Like flavour manipulation or something.

It’d be an interesting concept for sur-

“You mind if I sit?” An aged voice broke Brock from his flavour fuelled stupor and he glanced upwards, his brows cocking surprise as he was met with the sight of the Patriarch.

“…Sure,” he noticed the elderly man throw a few greedy glances at his food, and suspiciously, he let him sit to his left. The man didn’t deign to say anything as Brock ate, and eventually, the silence got so unnerving that he just offered the man some food, so it wasn’t so awkward.

Graciously, he smiled and accepted. Brock clicked his tongue. That must have been his plan all along.

They ate in a more companionable silence than before, enjoying Beatrice’s excellent baking skills together. Eventually though, their enhanced appetite rendered the food non-existent and with half full bellies, they regarded each other.

Licking his lips, Brock opened his mouth to speak, but the Patriarch beat him to it, “I want to thank you for what you did for all of us.”

“Thank me?” Brock furrowed his brows in confusion, “I was just about to apologise.”

The older man smiled softly, “For how you acted when we first met?”

“Well, yeah. I was being kinda rude. Sorry mate,” Brock nodded, and the Patriarch waved him off.

“Please. It was refreshing to be treated without so much as a care,” He sighed and rubbed the lines of his wrinkled face. Brock found the sound to be profoundly… tired, “It is exhausting being placed upon such a high pedestal. You are not you. You are simply the ‘Patriarch’, honourable and respected.”

Brock nodded slowly, somewhat understanding of how the man felt, “that definitely sounds… shitty, I guess?”

“Yes. ‘Shitty’ would describe the situation perfectly.” The older man chuckled.

Brock snorted humorously, and a friendly silence followed. He snuck a glance at the man and noticed that his previous impressions of him were beginning to fall apart. No longer did his face portray the weariness of age, but that of his role. He didn’t choose the position as Patriarch. The position was chosen for him.

He licked his lips and looked over at him, “So, what’s your name then?”

“Pardon?” the elderly man looked confused for a second, before realisation dawned on his face and the barest traces of a genuine smile worked its way onto his face, “Oh, it’s Hiroto. Hiroto Takahashi.”

Immediately, the younger man sitting opposite him held out his hand, and Hiroto shook it, “I’m Brock. Brock Carter. Good to meet you, Hiroto.”

He didn’t miss the way the older man’s eyes shone. They shone with joy.

**

Growling, Zin Keene stomped his boot down and pulped the head of the pathetic dog beneath him. Rapidly, its body began to twitch, before it quickly stilled. Zin snorted with disdain and spat on the corpse.

“Utterly useless. This is what they’re putting on newly integrated worlds now?” He shook his head, the disgust evident in his expression. He didn’t even want to look at the pitiful creature.

Sighing heavily, he glanced out to the floral city that surrounded him. It was devoid of any native life, instead filled with an overabundance of monsters. Things like this usually happened when places were left unchecked, and he pitied the humans that would have to deal with this when it became a significant problem.

Though, that wasn’t the reason for the fiery frustration brewing in his chest currently. No, it was the gross malfunction of his wormhole. Regardless of the strange interference, it was originally calibrated to drop him directly atop the Error so he could make quick work of it, yet here he was, in the middle of fucking nowhere.

There was a Source in this location, sure, but the System had a history of never letting anyone enter one despite the immense benefits that people have speculated could be within. The production centre of Origin – or Original Life as the System called it - was bound to boost the power of anyone severalfold, regardless of Grade. If only Zin could find a way into that place.

Many thought what was within was a garden of abundant life and latent power, and he felt they weren’t far off. What else could be in there amidst the source of life itself?

His thoughts were cut short, however, as the device in his hand suddenly went off, blaring loudly. Zin checked the screen and broke out in a grin. From the level of the Error’s Spirit Signature reading, this must have been the place the creature was conceived. He spared a glance for the deserted building before him, much like all the others around. That at least explained why no humans were here.

The place was deemed a quarantine zone, although it seemed like the Error somehow found a way to escape, as the traces were quite old. It wasn’t a rare occurrence. Errors commonly slipped past the System. They were born of its mistakes, after all.

Zin cracked his fingers. It was fine, anyhow. Now, he knew he was on the right track. And who didn’t enjoy a little hunt?

He sure did.