Chapter 194 - Realm Forger

Eric shuddered with the desperate need to embrace that rapture, and much to his shame, it was as much the memory of his sisters haunted gaze as she trembled with sickness, need, and hatred for her own weakness, when Eric withheld the bottle of pills she had fallen so low to claim.

The horror of her shame, his desperate desire to help her, had humbled him almost as much as she had been humbled. Gazing into the eyes of so many people he had hardly thought of twice in the months that followed, people with their own failings, weaknesses, hopes, dreams, and often times painful roads to recovery, Eric somehow finding himself attending meetings with her squeezing his hand so tightly by his side. Burning with regret, anhedonia, shame. But as weeks turned to months, they both felt a growing sense of hope for the person she was becoming. Grateful for every morning she could wake up with a smile, able to feel joy in the simple sensation of sunlight warming her face, excitement for her next lesson, her next project. Finally able to let memory’s burden become more a lesson and less a torment. Most of all, Elonia was learning to forgive the needy, vulnerable girl who had taken such a hard fall, as she strove to live a life she could be proud of, one day at a time.

And anyone who would judge her for past mistakes made and painful lessons endured? Was worthy of neither her friendship nor her time.

At that moment Eric wanted to laugh at the hypocrisy of it all as he burned with a desperate need that filled his veins with fire.

And all he needed to ‘get better’ was to consume an entire pocket realm.

He laughed so hard that tears of fire bled from the eyes of his soul.

His poor sister shamed for the scars on her arms.

And his prize for shooting up an entire realm in his veins?

Potency beyond his darkest dreams. Wild revels revealing a crooked path to Bronze, Silver, and beyond... where he would ascend in power like the darkest of kings.

And still…

It was all he could do to turn away from the too handsome voice of an Interface that promised absolute rapture.

And he wouldn’t even have to sell his body.

Just the lives of Samuel and Pavel, and a vital piece of his soul.

He took no comfort in the Interface’s odd pause when he finally tore his eyes free of the crimson fruit singing its siren song of corruption. If anything he felt ashamed for how close he had come to surrender.

He was only surprised to see his sister’s bemused countenance gazing into his own, her features near identical to the flawless exquisite features that were their mother’s own, no trace of vice, pain, or history marred her still flawless countenance, though the awful scar on her neck that should have been regenerated but somehow wasn’t, and the bemused goodnatured warmth was entirely her own.

“Stop with the brooding guilt, brother. You managed to stay sober for one more day. Good for you! You know the drill at least as well as I do.”

Eric swallowed and nodded even as he talked to himself, taking comfort in the vision before him. “Leave the past in the past and let tomorrow take care of itself. Focus on living today as best I can, and go to sleep free of regret, proud of a day well-lived.”

“Exactly!” she said, green eyes twinkling, before giving a throaty chuckle. “As if you didn’t look like the idealized prince in all of Mother’s movies, already. With those eyes, brother, half the surviving nobles of our alliance would marry you in a heartbeat!”

Eric chuckled softly. “I already got one high-pressure almost-proposal, and Mother’s games are one thing I’m going to try to stay free of for as long as possible.”

Elonia flashed a cheeky smile, eyes widening as she sensed the secrets of his soul. “An entire realm you can build up like our favorite games! What perks will you pick, brother?”

Eric grinned, finding himself seated beside her at their dual monitor game station, both of them reading the interface together.

Congratulations! With your doomed sister’s help, you’ve managed to avoid Oblivion’s call!

You have successfully claimed one Pristine Cultivation Realm!

Your growing potency as a contender now allows you to grant your realms three Tier 1 (minor) and one Tier 2 (Major) Perk!

List of available perks:

- Lost secrets revealed! Perhaps the ancient ruins of the Golden Sun cult are more than the ruins so many assume! Perhaps the founding elders, gripped by desperate visions, took steps to preserve at least a few of their most sacred treatises and manuals for worthy cultivators to find in future centuries to come, so all there secrets would not be lost to time!

- Or perhaps there are Surviving Remnants of that doomed clan… the most promising youths locked in eternal suspension with an elder cultivator’s dying breaths, their limited knowledge and unlimited potential (and perhaps a future romantic interest as well?) needing only a single divine peach to unlock the fires of their soul and bring them all to life once more!

And should one be willing to invest a Major Perk, perhaps an entire academy FROZEN IN TIME might be found! Locked by a mystic key needing only 7 Divine Fruit to unlock, like the final seven you had claimed before claiming your enemy’s heads, that by miraculous fortune ended up by your companion’s sleeping forms as the Devourer turned hero made his final exit from this mystic realm!

Who can imagine what glorious adventure your companions might share as they unlock the mystery of a lost sect, and become the heroes of an entire thriving cultivation academy!

And their story need not end there!

A Sentinel Guardian perk will less your pocket realm with a guardian equal in size and majesty to the realm you forge! )

And who says you have only one Divine Fruit tree? Perhaps you have half a dozen? A Major Endless Bounty Perk might even reveal an entire grove of glorious fruit even Immortal-tier Silver cultivators wouldn’t shy from claiming for themselves!

And rare and precious as the gates between realms are, a single Lesser Perk assures Eternal Stability! Countless gates might wax and wane over centuries, but a single Perk assures that your realm will always and forever remain in perfect, harmonious sync with Earth!

And who knows? A major perk might just reveal a pocket realm that didn’t fragment after all.

A world intact, even if a single spirit fruit grove was all that was ever cultivated in a realm filled with mystery, wonder, and unknown peril!

Or perhaps your Pocket realm is filled with countless dozens of varieties of pristine spirit fruit? A Hawaii-sized paradise forever your own! A glorious boon for any aspiring cultivator and adventurer, just a single Major Perk away!

Eric’s eyes widened as he gazed at the various options, a few in particular blazing themselves upon his mind’s eye as he was forced to accept responsibility for an entire realm in an odd state of interdimensional flux, a probability wave capable of collapsing in whatever direction he so chose.

The boon of a Contender was that of creation itself, it seemed. As if he were, for that single impossible unending moment he shared with his fraternal twin, just as they had shared the first eleven months of their own existence, a god deciding the fate of an entire world.

It was a truth that somehow transcended causality itself, even as he was lost in dream, seeing himself back home in familiar surroundings once more. Elonia, right beside him, now shaking her head in amazement before turning to meet his gaze, looking pretty as a picture in her grey pencil skirt and belly hugging blouse, flashing a teasing grin his way.

“Wow. Shaping worlds to your whim! Those are some pretty awesome perks to choose from, brother. So, are you going to bring an entire sect back from the ashes of oblivion?”

Eric smiled sadly at his sister, squeezing her hand, swallowing at the sight of inflamed track marks all over her arm. “How bad is it?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat, tears falling down her cheeks. “Bad,” she whispered. “The pain of having to freeze my nodes, embracing the elemental magics that are Mother’s pride and joy cause me constant pain. As if my insides tear and bleed whenever I move.” She choked back a sob. “And the pain of my neck… the magics they had to use just to keep my head from blowing off… I pay a price in pain every day I live.”

She squeezed back tears, gazing sadly at her own arm. “But we both survived the pods. Thank god for that. So even taking doses that would have killed a younger junkie me just to numb the pain? It all heals up after a single night’s sleep.” She choked back a sob. “I’m not shooting up, Eric. I just feel so fucking guilty, and I can’t hide all the drugs I take, doctor prescribed, ha ha, in my dreams. Now if only I could turn back time. Stop that plasma blast from hitting my throat. Stop all the other near misses that nearly cost me my life. Stop the fact that the only Essence I could evolve is agony itself.”

She clenched her jaw, eyes flashing with bitter regret. “If only I could have stopped myself from taking a class that only Purebloods can take without feeling any Node strain at all.”

She laughed bitterly. “Mother says that the agony is because I’m blessed with a Royal Set of Meridian Channels, completely intact, and have only frozen a tiny handful of them. Once all twelve are rigid as Ice, like hers, I will feel nothing but cool satisfaction. And for the Mortal Wound that scarred my soul? That too will numb in time.” She choked back a sob. “I’m in constant pain, I’m taking so many fucking pills again, and every day I’m terrified of getting my head blown off by a fucking sniper! And Mother says to just grow the fuck up and deal!”

Elonia flashed a bitter smile. “Even if she’s the one supplying what I need, all the colorful doctor prescribed bottles, holding off on my fix until after I’ve practiced every single one of those goddamned spells so many times each day that my Arcane channels are burning just as bad as my need for relief!”

Eric swallowed. “Is there anything I can do?”

She sighed, shaking her head. “No, brother. I don’t know how you escaped Mother. I don’t even know if you’re really alive, or I’m just dreaming those final days of sanity, escaping to games in our family bunker, wanting to avoid those premiers and so many eyes judging the former junkie behind their smiles that were so many reporters, sycophants, and fans. But if you are alive, brother, please… stay away.”

She bit her lip. “We’re doomed, Eric. We’ve lost so many territories… Those orcs might be savage slaver brutes. But all it took was goblin hit squads joining them, assholes that should have no access to fucking sniper blasters, and there are three packs gunning for me every time I show my face to save my people! And that act of illicit fuckery might just earn them the entire board!”

Elonia shook her head and sobbed. “We are so fucked, Eric. Why the hell are those assholes allowed to cheat like that? Why the hell did this happen to us? Why?”

Eric’s heart roared as he held his sister tight. Squeezing back tears, he gently kissed her brow. “I’m coming for you, sister. I swear it.”

Her eyes widened with awe when the game monitor was replaced with a massive territory map.

“Now show me what happened. Where is our… I mean your territory is, versus the orcs.”

Elonia swallowed back her tears and gave an impressed smile. “How did you...” She quickly shook her head. “No, best I not ask.”

Trembling fingers pointed to a handful of territories, each roughly 400 square miles in size, either square or rectangular shaped, surrounded by either blue or unclaimed grey territory. Eric felt a certain amount of relief seeing so many blue tiles… like a massive T cutting through the northwest of the former US.

Then his gut clenched as one territory after another turned red. One by one. As the Sylvan Alliance’s impressive holding slowly ground away. The T of claimed territory amidst a Sea of grey sectors slowly went from blue with just a few reds at the tip, foes well on the way to being wiped off the board of this state at least, slowly transform nearly the entire swath of territory red as blood, save for the rightmost corner, the only two blue territories left being Gilton and the woodlands behind it.

Eric trembled at the sight, fist clenched tightly shut, shaking his head in disbelief. “What… what the hell happened when I was gone?”

Elonia chuckled bitterly. “The goblins played fucking ‘gold tier’ cards, as if taking over Earth was some kind of goddamned game! And somehow it was then legal for those fuckers to bring in multiple groups of assassins with weapons it’s forbidden for anyone else to carry. So thank god you were gone. Thank god they weren’t trying to hunt you down with those things too.” Elonia sighed and shook her head. “I had hoped that you and Rica and her little girl had fled together, and you were somewhere safe and happy with your new family, free of this madness.”

Eric lowered his gaze. “No, Elonia. I… I haven’t seen Rica or her daughter since...”

Elonia squeezed her eyes shut. “I am so fucking sorry, Eric. I didn’t know! Mother made it clear that she was going to let you to live your own life after the disaster that was Freetown, declaring that she was, in fact, proud of you for taking on a father’s responsibilities, and had nothing but nice things to say about your girlfriend.” Elonia snorted. “Of course, she never actually swore she would leave you be. Only implied it.”

Rica clenched his jaw, gazing his sister’s way. “Rica...”

She squeezed his hand. “The moment you hung up the phone, mother was the picture of grace and elegance, apologizing for any misunderstanding, even leaving her a card, promising to help without reservation, if Rica or her daughter needed anything.” Elonia flashed a cheeky smile, nodding her approval. “Rica really is a sweetheart, and strikingly beautiful. I knew you had good taste. She just laughed off our concerns and said that everything was okay, and that she hoped you and mom would ‘patch things up.’”

Elonia swallowed and looked away. “I… I knew she was afraid. I did my best to reassure her. To promise her that we wouldn’t be back, that I’d make sure Mother didn’t make any more ‘surprise visits.’ I think… I think she felt better, hearing those words come from me.”

Eric knew his sister, or the memory of his sister, was trying to reassure him. Yet he couldn’t take his eyes off the interface conquest map, seeing the territories slowly turn red with blood and tears and the screams of his nearly butchered sister, one piece of land at a time.

His eyes widened when he noted his own blinking light, the portal to the very pocket realm he was about to transcend, was now deep in red territory.

“I’m coming for you, Elonia,” he declared whispering into her hair as he held her close, his sister no longer able to hold back her sobs. Eric’s heart broke at the sound of her despair.

“And I’m taking those bastards out. One goddamned territory at a time.”

Elonia’s eyes widened with alarm. “Eric, you can’t! They have—” She blinked in disbelief as Eric flashed an ice cold smile, showing her his own surprise.

“I know. They already tried to kill me. Once.”

He didn’t hesitate to show her his instrument of death. “Now it’s my turn.”

Her look of awe became one of fear. “Eric, you’re just one person! Even with that thing… It’s a miracle you’re fucking alive. If something happened to you...”

Eric held her gaze for long moments. “Be safe, Elonia. Don’t play the hero, sticking your head out, casting spells under sniper fire with any last stand.” Sapphire blue eyes burned into emerald green. “I’m coming for you, Elonia. Do you hear me? Stay safe. Stay alive. Make the pain worth it. Promise me.”

“Eric, I—”

“Promise me you will live!”

She sobbed and nodded, giving him a tear-filled smile. “I will. I will! And you damn well better do the same, Eric Silver.”

Even then he could sense her peril, how tenuous her grip was to the mortal realm. Gazing into her anxious eyes he made his choices, forced to defer the sweetest of prizes when the crimson boon he denied revealed just how incredible the potential of this lost realm was.

Because no territory would have granted him an absolutely absurd 200 stat points.

That wasn’t the gift of a fruitful dungeon.

It was the dying scream of an entire world.

A world he’d bring to life once more, no matter how fruitless his struggles in his own world might be.

Even as he sensed the mocking laughter of twisted fate, knowing he could never return, his own cultivation path more clouded than ever, he made his choice.

And whether he lived or died in the battles to come, knowing he would be forced to embrace an ever more ruthless path, at least there was one act of virtue that would always be his own.

With that bittersweet resolve blazing firmly in his heart, a tiny pocket realm was born.

Earth’s hidden twin.

A mirror-world Venus that had never been, as the smug intonations of the Interface itself began to resonate with something suspiciously close to awe.

Pocket Realm 6783Z has been been fully restored.

Concise words saying so much, containing not clue as to the agony searing through Eric’s soul at that moment as he dared to channel the divine fire now burning through his veins, grasping ahold of the flood of runes filled with transcendent meaning that his epiphany had given him in his final moments upon that world.

Sigils that could now be used to stabilize a realm whose true size Eric could just barely conceive.

The prize he paid in pain was nothing compared to the agony his sister was now forced to endure, nothing compared to the hope this unexpected sanctuary might forge for an entire race of lost peoples whose original world had been lost to the depredations of clans far more powerful and ruthless still.

His howl was a silent cry in the void of space as he dared to channel every iota of his being into bringing back a realm that, by a retroactive twist of fate, had never been destroyed, after all.

Only hidden as ancient Silver tier magics cascaded in such a way that did not rupture an entire world’s core, throwing endless fragments across countless mirror realities… but merely hid all in storms of Spiritual energy so violent, so overwhelming, that the world had been effectively hidden from all galactic players.

Until now.

Now, as the storms at last receded, and a tiny pocket realm forever curling upon itself to give the illusion of being a single woodland grove slowly unfurled into a Venus-sized world once more. A realm of billowing white clouds, cobalt blue skies, and a golden sun rich with the forces of life and spiritual energy, sparkling down upon endless verdant plains and lush green forests free of the touch of mer or man, broken up only by clear blue lakes and majestic snow-capped mountains. Vast, magnificent continents separated by deep blue seas home to majestic creatures. Grand, Silver tier Spirit beasts that had gained wisdom and power unthinkable in the centuries their world had been lost to wild storms of spiritual energy.

Energy coalescing into the not dead but merely comatose guardian. The final remnant of a once mighty clan, beloved mascot turned spirit beast turned sentinel of a final intact grove… before waking to its own birthright once more.

No longer the sentinel of a singular grove, that mighty graceful tusker now served as the guardian of an entire world.

Your status as a Contender and Royal Cultivator has allowed you to channel your Divine Infusion in ways that transcend even the unorthodox! A path so crooked, it bridges all points, like a wormhole through space and time!

Warning! SEVERE anomalies detected.

A lost realm has been reclaimed!

Not lost to oblivion after all, but merely hidden by storms, your brilliant insight and channeling of powers far beyond your abilities has allowed for the complete restoration of Mystic Fruit Guardian!

Synergism detected! Guardian’s power is proportional to size of Pocket Realm.

Your realm has become Earth’s twin!

Guardian has achieved the ranks of Majestic Silver, just a half-step away from the divine peaks of Gold!

You have forged a guardian that is now the equal of the Winter Queen herself!

Ware that your mother never finds out!

You have chosen the Eternal Stability Perk for your gate between realms! Almost as if you knew, on some level, the disaster that would be caused if two Earth-sized planets dared to share resonance! This gate assures not only stability of what should been an infinitesimally tiny pocket realm of no consequence, it also assures that your insane daring won’t doom the very worlds you’re so eager to rescue!

The surge of euphoria, of triumph humming through his soul, making the agony of meridian channels strained beyond all conceivable limits within his capacity to endure as he dared to channel the flow of an entire world, transformed to a sickening sense of dismay as his worst fears, the tiny niggling doubts he had, were revealed to be nothing less than the truth.

In revealing an entire lost world (forged from nothing!) he had dared throw chaos into established order, near fatally jeopardizing both worlds that would have, over centuries or millennia, eventually entered a death spiral before crashing into one another. He could visualize it so clearly, as if it was the inevitable price he was destined to pay for his folly.

Before he felt the reassuring whiskers of the massive tusker gazing down at him with something shockingly close to paternal pride. The very guardian of this realm whose might alone, gently pressed against Eric’s white-hot meridian gates, was all that kept him from going supernova from his own daring, even as the ascended creature took in so much of Eric’s pain as its own.

Surprisingly human looking eyes peered deeply to Eric’s own, radiating the oddest sense of assurance, satisfaction, and pride.

Because as unlikely as he had thought it, even though he had just seen himself as the clever gamer covering all his bases, Eric at least had had the gamer’s savvy to invest a full world evolution in doing nothing more than stabilizing that gate, making sure that twisted tales of doomed fate and folly would NOT be the bane of their worlds’ shared connection. Eric had done all he could to make sure that whatever fortunes or folly might befall them both, mutually assured destruction would never be one of them, even as the stars themselves would age and transform over countless billions of years.

The immense awareness that was as close to divine as Eric’s mortal mind could comprehend dipped its massive tusked head, paying impossible respect for a lowly, barely awakened immortal only touching the barest whispers of power that Eric in that moment had become.

“Be well, disciple.” Final words from a being vast and mightier than any mountain, Eric struck with a sudden sense of profound awe when he sensed, in that endless moment of time, Samuel, Pavel, even Lai Wei uniting as friends, mentor and disciples, ultimately kung fu brothers, bound by oaths and a desire for redemption, captivated by the birth of a magnificent realm as they uncovered secrets to a sanctuary far more profound than a dusty catch of lost tomes, but the lost keys to an entire cultivation academy as Eric’s final Lesser Perk resonated not with the limited potential of a ten mile diameter peach grove, but the majestic potency of an entire world.

Eric felt tears in his eyes as he sensed just a taste of the adventures, revelations, and glory awaiting his friends.

Before he was ruthlessly yanked free of the golden dream of a realm reborn, with a final parting gift, now blazing in his mind’s eye.

The secret of runes, of hidden meaning and inner truths he had just begun to taste, when forever pulled free of the world he had been, for a priceless moment, as attuned to as any creator.

For he was now both a Contender and a Forger of worlds. And the bittersweet truth that held constant, no matter how unspeakably powerful one become, was that no realm could hold the weight of the one who had forged it.

The twin planet he had catalyzed back into existence as if it had always been, unlike his own twin, would forever be closed off to him.

It was the price of power even the mightiest of titans was forced to pay.

You have had a System Revelation! Your profound unorthodox experiences have allowed you to tap into the hidden meanings of an entire realm!

You have TRANSCENDED 100% Upper Dantian Saturation!

System Limit-Breaker is now in effect!

The RUNE MASTERY Node Perk will be available to you upon class evolution!

WARNING! Rune Mastery Node Perk is incompatible with most high tier evolutions!

If Eric could find one bit of solace as he found himself hurled, screaming, into hostile red territory, crashing into the ground before a jaded-looking goblin glaring at the gate and a handful of orcs tossing knucklebones made from elves they had tortured and killed, it was that his sentinel would measure the worth of every soul that would dare to enter his realm.

Bitter comfort that did little but allow him to shift all his focus on the present moment without distraction, as he braced himself for impact, crashing down upon the forest floor with a force that would have shattered the bones of the boy he once had been.

Fortunately he was now anything but fragile, he thought with a fierce smile as he bounced through the air from his impact upon the thankfully loamy ground, catching sight of a shrieking goblin, running for all he was worth as the confused handful of orcs seemed to blink in slow motion, massive tusked skulls only slowly turning up to catch sight of Eric’s tumbling form, now the farthest thing from the fragile, near dead youth he had been, less than a year ago.

Now, he was the farthest thing from the broken, terrified boy that had struggled just to survive a handful of rats, Eric thought,

“I’m coming for you, Elonia!” He roared before as his blood sung with the fury of battle to come, hissing with pain as his hip socket snapped back into place, just a heartbeat before he crashed back to the ground for the final time, gazing up at not one but three orcs, now glaring down at him with their beady red eyes.

“Intruder! Kill him!” The closest orc roared.

The last words it would ever say.