10 Nightmare and Letter

Opening his eyes, Max found himself weightless. Looking around, it felt like his eyes were closed, yet looking into the distance, he could make out faint spots of light like fireflies in the night sky.

It took him a moment to put two and two together and realise he was in space. 

'Sh*t, I'm in the cosmos!'

Max also noticed how the back of his hands and legs were bright red, as though in a club under a red light or…

Turning around, Max saw a blob of flowing blood rippling all over a giant circle, and as soon as he saw it, he felt as though it saw him too. Countless murmuring flooded into his mind like an unstoppable torrent of chaos, allurement, and strangely the moon itself. It also felt a little evil as though he was looking at an abyss, but restrained not just in power level, but also as though the abyss had been chained up.

'Mother Goddess of Depravity… well, what is left of her.' Max thought as he recalled how she had apparently 'Lost' her moon and mother pathways on Earth, and was also now eating up the moon or something.

Anyways, this was an Outer God, an Ex- Pillar who lost about half her powers? Max was not exactly sure, but he was sure that he should not be meeting this being while he is not even a Beyonder. More importantly, the ravings he had just heard that had already settled into his mind should not have been transferred so easily. 

No, being a normal human, they should have either caused him to die from his organs being blended into mush and leaking out all his holes, being turned into some corrupted form of a mythical creature related to the Mother Goddess of Depravity, or just exploded into chunks of flesh.

But nothing like that happened. Instead, he got a lot of information from her, a lot of which he already knew, but some of it was actually useful information. Furthermore, he could also feel some amount of curiosity, interest, and strange enough hope as well within the information that had been transferred to him. 

Nodding slightly at the red mass of the moon, Max tried to speak but found that there was no air in his lungs to speak. All of a sudden he began conscious of the fact that he had not been breathing since he was in space, and began to panic as he tried to forcefully take breaths, until he suddenly opened his eyes.

He was back in his bedroom; the gas light was turned on and the Old Man's worried face appeared in front of him.

"…ax…Ma…Max! Max! Are you alright? Can you hear me? What is wrong!"

"Ah, huh? Old Man, what happened. Why do you look so worried?"

"You suddenly began yelling for help, and I came in, then you opened your eyes and were no longer yelling for help, but you had also stopped breathing! It seemed as though you were talking with someone, but there was no one in the room. Then you nodded and then came back. Now, can you explain to me what happened? What did you encounter? What is your name, and where did you live before you came here."

'Holy sh*tballs, it was not a dream of me imagining making friends with outer Gods since my pathway would lead me to becoming one of them as well. It actually happened. And the information. That ritual. It's all still there! No, wait, first I need to explain something to the old man.'

"Calm down old man. I am still me. I was kidnapped, then sold, then the slavers who were transporting me were killed by Evernight believers, who were then killed by Red robed individuals who were Beyonders. In this process I escaped and came across you, who took me in. See, it is still me."

Old Max Uxas loosened his grip around Max's shoulders allowing him struggle free and sit up on his bed, realising that he was covered from head to toe in sweat, leaving not just his clothes wet but also the bed and blanket.

"As for what I encountered, it was just a bad dream I had after seeing that tentacle you summoned out of thin air." Max said, discretely putting the blame on the old man to he does not as more questions. And this seemed to work as he old man sighed and slowly stood up, realising he had forgotten to close his door when performing the summoning ritual.

"Alright, let me get some water" he said as he stood up and straightened his clothes and hair before heading out of Max's room.

Max felt a bit of sadness at seeing the worried expression on the old man, but the feeling was not as strong as before, and he was glad. At some point in time, not too long away from now, he was bound to leave the old man, and having any form of remaining connection to him would put him in grave danger as he advanced the sequences and made enemies of powerful Beyonders, even worse, he might even make some Beyonder friends, who would be even more dangerous to the old man.

After settling down the old man and both of them going back to sleep in their respective rooms, Max woke up the next day to return to his routine of exercising, practising how to wield the knife as well as how to maintain it, before running off for groceries and investigating the location of the final missing item of his Bender Sequence 9 potion; the Blue Tailed Sea Bass' eyes.

Unfortunately, even after around 5 days, he does not find it.

May 26th, 1348 of the Fifth Epoch

However, on this particular night, Max finds something amiss in the old man's room, who had just left to go to the bathroom. Over the past few days, he seemed to have aged a whole lot, with more wrinkles on his face and his eyes looking as though they were terrified yet held onto a single strand of hope. Max had chalked it up to the bald Cedric Negan who had said the mission was three days ago and had not returned as of now.

The old man had just gone to the bathroom, and Max noticed a green tentacle briefly appearing, seeing no one around, it pulled out a yellow envelope and placed it on the table before vanishing like it was never there in the first place.

Max slowly got out of bed and headed to the envelope, hoping it was news that the Bald Cedric was alive and safe, so the old man could return to being normal and move on in life. It seemed that his attachment to the old man, despite being with him only for just short of a month, was still enough for him to worry about the old man, even after the feeling of betrayal he had felt as the old man lying to him about being a Beyonder.

Opening the envelope with his knife, careful not to tear anything, Max began reading. By now, he was considerably fluent in Leon, which was rather spectacular for a normal person, and Max was happy with it. After all, he was not a freak of nature like Klein who could learn multiple languages in a matter of weeks.

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My Dearest Uxas, the one so close to my heart and soul, 

I do not swing that way though~

If you are receiving this letter, it means that I am either dead, trapped indefinitely, trapped temporarily, or captured by someone or something. I cannot write any details as to what happened, but I set my messenger up with multiple safeties in case of anything, one of them being to deliver this letter to you if I was ever to meet you before going missing.

…