The Jester of Apocalypse

Neave woke up back in reality and instantly knocked himself back out.

Once he was back in the nightmare realm, he took a moment to focus and spotted a faint influence in the air. He turned to face the opposite direction of the cave and ran there at full speed.

He kept part of his focus on the faint power floating in the air. Eventually, he couldn’t sense it anymore but kept running to ensure it was gone.

After a while, he came across quite a few corrupt demons. He dispatched all of them as quickly as possible, and in less than ten minutes, he had peace.

Neave sat on the ground and thought.

When he was down in the caves where he planned to start his experiment, Astrador appeared. It was a projection of sorts, but it evidently allowed him to observe what Neave was doing. Neave was almost confident that the unusual influence he could sense in the air was the range within which Astrador could watch him.

Could Astrador move this influence? Perhaps it wasn’t impossible, but Neave could bet everything he had that would involve moving his anchor. This would mean that he would have to leave the underground chamber unprotected while looking for Neave.

So Neave was quite confident that as long as he moved out of the range of the field, he would be free to do whatever he wanted, and Astrador wouldn’t be able to observe him.

Now, it was time to think about his plans.

First thing first, how fucked was he at the moment?

Neave didn’t have a frame of reference for what a god could do. Did Astrador’s threat mean someone would be after Neave in days? Hours? Even if it was weeks, Neave would ensure he spent as much time as possible within the nightmare realm.

There was no indication of how powerful the ‘messenger’ coming after him would be. So Neave had to prepare himself to his utmost as quickly as possible to ensure he had the power to defend himself.

Or run away. Both of those were valid options.

Unless Astrador was a mind-reader, he couldn’t possibly know about Marven and the others. Not that Neave would care that much if they got hurt…

He frowned. He wanted to tell himself that he wouldn’t care, but to be entirely honest, he was growing fond of them. They… Tolerated him. It wasn’t just fear of his power either.

Neave put such thoughts aside and focused on his current plans.

He could currently knock himself out for only an instant. If he did this trick with thunder nerves, he could blackout for less than a second and immediately wake up, which meant that he could technically turn every second outside into as long as he could survive inside.

The time he could spend inside this realm was considerably less limited than it used to be. With his energy reserves, his survival was guaranteed for a long time. The problem was that most things he needed to do inside this realm required him to spend a lot of energy.

Neave had temporarily gained a considerable confidence boost after managing to injure Astrador. A confidence boost that quickly came crashing down.

Astrador allowed Neave to injure him. Not only that, but Neave blew through his entire reserve of life force, which, at the time, was immense. All that resulted in was a faint red mark on Astrador’s chest. Of course, Neave did destroy his robes, but those robes were just plain cloth.

What kind of power would a heavenly messenger possess? Astrador’s power was limited in this realm, as far as Neave could tell, but even then, it was far beyond anything Neave expected to reach in a short period. That wasn’t even accounting for the fact that he had no equipment.

The more he thought about it, the more Neave realized that if he wanted to guarantee his safety, he would have to do some severe powering up.

After the fight against Astrador… Well… Not the fight, but after the conversation…

Neave was in trouble. His spirit powers came with a hidden downside that he hadn’t considered yet. They came with many downsides, actually.

Astrador, a god bound by a soul oath, had advised Neave to eliminate the powers. And this bit of advice managed to satisfy the optimal requirement.

That was some deep shit he found himself in.

Neave couldn’t remove the powers, though. Well, he did memorize the technique Astrador had given him, but using it was out of the question. Although, the power could still come in useful, given that it seemed to avoid the side effects Neave’s method usually left behind. 

The main problem was that Neave didn’t have the time. He remembered what he had read in the book about spirit powers. While in the capital library, he had also read a few alchemy-adjacent books that covered some spirit powers in greater depths.

Side effects of spirit powers were pervasive, especially for powers that one had evolved. Neave tested his powers in the nightmare realm first, but even with that privilege, he was still fortunate that some of the hidden side effects hadn’t caused more significant damage.

To intentionally create a better set of powers, he would have to remove the ones he had and then likely spend months gathering a more optimal group and testing it extensively within the nightmare realm.

The vast majority of monster cores he had inspected so far were suboptimal. The powers he absorbed were among those as well. Neave still had a vibrating liver that was utterly useless. According to Astrador, the other powers weren’t much better either.

Neave sighed.

He would have to figure out a way to minimize the side effects of his current powers.

But how?

Perhaps he could acquire a power that made him resistant to fire and heat. This would help with both ignite and thunder nerves. Such powers, however, frequently came with the side effect of the inability to breathe and death by hypothermia.

Neave took another deep breath.

Think, Neave, think.

The pressure was getting to him. He didn’t want to be taken away into the higher realms by Astrador. This conundrum was affecting his rationality and making it difficult to think. What he needed to do now was take a step back and build a plan for the future.

First, what were his options?

Neave listed all of the things he could do in his head.

I could gather more spirit powers or acquire others to negate some side effects. Difficult, but not impossible, currently low on the priority list. Physical training is out of the question. Too much time in the real world. Weapon crafting… A definite yes, but that will require terraforming the nightmare realm first. I can’t create anything but useless dogshit outside, so I must first practice here. Same with alchemy. Same with everything I have to master, actually.

Neave quickly reached a decision. Terraforming the nightmare realm came first. Neave built a plan in his head. What he would do once he was back outside was devour as many monsters as he could. Maximizing the ‘fuel’ he had in nutrient capacity and life force was essential before he started the terraforming in earnest.

Once he was done with that, which hopefully shouldn’t take too long, he could grab another slime and get back inside the realm.

He could plan everything else step by step when he left the realm and returned inside.

Neave felt paranoid about losing even a single second of outside time, so he ran through his options. Was there anything he needed or wanted to do before returning to the outside?

There was.

Neave felt a little scared at this one. It was likely among the highest priority goals he had. But he was damn near fully confident that it would be impossible to achieve without drastic compromise.

Cultivation.

But, well, there was no harm in giving it a go.

Neave sank into his spirit and observed his core.

Holy shit…

Upon entering, he first noticed the near-pure white surrounding his spirit. The strands of qi were layered so thick that Neave couldn’t even begin counting them. He floated around his spirit for a while, moving his senses through the fluffy cloud of unrealized potential.

He plucked a strand out and carefully placed it into his qi core.

Everything grew hazy.

Neave felt his spirit being shredded to bits. Then he woke up in the real world.

…

Yup. That is exactly what I expected.

The life force within his body, the spirit powers, and whatever the fuck else that last thing was jumped on his spirit like a pack of hungry wolves and tore it to bits in an instant.

Why? Well, all of the foreign entities possessing Neave were constantly trying to do that, but Neave’s core was simply too stable. Sadly, even a shred of instability allowed the invading forces to grasp Neave’s spirit.

Before he could advance on the path of cultivation, he would have to find a way to stabilize his spirit first.

An idea crossed his mind for a moment. Perhaps he could isolate his spirit first, then allow it to stabilize in peace? This idea was squashed immediately as Neave realized this was precisely what he did to Gabrias. That resulted in all of the spirit powers being scrubbed clean.

There was no time to waste on the trivial stuff. Neave was back in the real world, and time was passing again. He didn’t hesitate.

Neave morphed his body into the worm form and dug straight underground.

The underground was overabundant with golem-type creatures. While Neave could extract some beneficial qi and life force from them, earth and metal weren’t very nutritious.

So this time, he completely ignored the golems and went straight for anything organic. His targets were bug-type monsters and abominids. While Neave wasn’t slow before, he was much faster at eating creatures now.

A little too fast. Integrate couldn’t keep up with all the monsters he was consuming, so he constantly stretched his stomach wider to make more space for extra meat.

Eventually, he grew too big to even move in the caves.

Should I chew more before swallowing?

Neave felt something pricking and scratching his skin from behind. Turning around was a massive challenge, but he managed after a while of shuffling.

It was a shredder slime. A metallic slime that could sprout countless blades from its body that were supremely sharp. Generally considered a high gold-rank if not even platinum-rank threat in some cases.

Neave was too tough to take any damage from it. He suddenly got a brilliant idea. He flopped over and swallowed the slime whole. Immediately, he felt it going haywire on all the monsters in his stomach. His integrate power was too occupied with all the other monsters that it couldn’t properly digest the slime.

Thus, Neave acquired the perfect digestion tool.

He thought this until he came across a bundle of giant acid slimes.

Once they joined the fray, Neave found digesting the monsters much more manageable.

Neave wasn’t confident at what point this happened, but all the monsters started running away from him somewhere along the line. Unsurprising, given that he was a walking, or, well, bouncing disaster.

Countless monsters were sucked into his gaping maw and joined their brethren in the pit of hell that was his stomach.

Neave slurped up a gigantic centipede like a noodle. At this point, he grew a little self-conscious of his current appearance and actions.

He shrugged and moved on. It was the most efficient method, so he wouldn’t knock it because it looked ridiculous.

He thought, as even hordes of monsters living in perpetual danger ran before him as if a devil had arrived.