8 Chapter 7 : Frenzy in the world of whales (Part - III)

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I want all my readers to comment on this chapter whether you liked it or not. Because I gave a little extra effort on this one to make it an absolute banger.

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------------ The Void (dishonored) ------------

Alex held his head in his hands, his soul-body still spasming and trembling inconsistently. He felt that he was safe now from whatever the fuck had happened to him at that moment. It was like his soul had resonated with something and tried to mutate itself bit-by-bit to adapt to it, to fight for dominance over that abstract thing, thus resulting in the creation of a new persona inside of him which wanted to take control from him.

I don't think it has come to an end ,yet. I only managed to suppress it for a while, but it is not completely gone. It is waiting in its slumber to become 'me', the real 'me', while 'I' would end up being devoured, assimilated to sustain the sentience of 'it' who wants to become 'me'.

Alex breathed deeply while thinking of what he could do to prevent himself from falling to that terrifying fate.

"First of all, I need to regain full control of 'myself '. I mustn't allow this place to increase its influence on me. " He first tried to meditate with his soul body but felt that the simple meditation he practiced in the outer world wouldn't fulfill his requirements, so he tried to add something more. Instead of simple meditation, now it would be better to call what he was doing as " Cogitation ". He recalled what he had learned in his 1 year on the outer world.

' The initial steps of Cogitation is relatively simple. The practitioner must think of an object in his mind, something common, simple and easy. For the object, the practitioner should place all focus on it with repetition while creating the outlines. The first step of Cogitation: producing an object in your mind to divert your attention and turning the energy seepage inwards.'

He recalled a technique from one of his favourite webnovels, ' Lord of The Mysteries '.

" Entry: Let your brain go somewhat blank. Exchange the object you imagined. Use something that does not exist in this world, an object you imagine completely out of thin air. You have to follow this rule. Only by doing so can you enter Cogitation, only then can you exceed the concept of 'I'. The limitless 'I' will become one with the universe, giving you the ability to see and understand the truth. You will obtain knowledge only you yourself can understand.

Exit: Like before, think of an item to divert your attention. It will bring you out of Cogitation. Close your eyes and control your spirituality and repeatedly tell it to end. Of course, that is the most trivial and clumsy method. We can repeatedly hint to ourselves in Cogitation from practice to affect our spirituality. That way, you will have a simple switch. As for how you set it up, it depends on your habits and preferences. "

Alex emptied his thoughts and focused on creating a mental image of something that did not belong to this world. While he seemed to have been lost in this process for an eternity, he finally ' saw something '. His attempt was turning successful. He 'saw' a small blob of an unknown semi-fluid material enclosing a human figure inside while that blob itself was enclosed within ' something ' he was unable to keep in his mind. His eyes could 'see' the 'thing' enclosing the human, but his brain failed him.

It repeatedly rejected the information that was being recieved about the being, and therefore, Alex could only 'see' the human enclosed by the semi-fluid blob. Everything else was shrouded in pitch-black darkness, but he could feel that there was something behind the darkness, something irresistible.

[ Image for reference ]

" Weird, I imagined concentric spheres, not THIS! How the hell did this even come to my mental space? "

Alex was confused from the scenery in front of his soul body. He had tried to use the image of concentric spheres which followed a beautiful geometrical pattern that very much abided by the laws of nature and reality he knew from his previous life, but what had actually become of his mental space was something terrifyingly alien, something which definitely did not belong to the minds of a human, for he couldn't even comprehend the 'sight' in front of him, leading to it all being covered in a swathe of pure darkness. Alex was slowly being more and more terrified of himself, confused whether he even was 'him' or just someone like the other persona inside of him, which had won and replaced the previous 'him' whose level of correspondance to reality was a question in itself.

' The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown. '

- H.P. Lovecraft

Alex pushed these thoughts to the back of his mind, believing it to have been an influence of his 'system' and the meeting with the ROB. He knew he couldn't even fully comprehend it, much less do anything about it at his current level, and that he had something more important to do in his current situation, ' I need to leave this world alive while getting as many points as I can. '

He tried to finish his cogitation by imagining a steady influx of energy seeping inside of him, but what happened next was not something he had expected.

He felt a laminar, non-turbulent flow of energy entering his soul but it all began condensing into an infinitesimally small drop of a strangely multi-coloured liquid when it came out of the 'dark curtain ', something which he would have definitely missed had it not been inside of his mental space.

That infinitesimally small drop was slowly added to the semi-fluid blob, creating small ripples throughout the process. After a few moments it calmed down and returned to its previous state, with no noticeable difference at all, as if the process had never occurred.

Alex then felt some changes taking place inside the human. The semi-fluid blob had sent a very small stream of colourless energy to the human inside of it through the pores of his skin, something which belonged to a state that could be neither considered liquid, nor gas.

' Whether it is 'matter' or not is an unknown in the first place, I shouldn't expect it to come under the normal classification of matter. '

At the very next moment, Alex could feel a new energy inside of his soul, something which had always existed, but in such a small amount that it remained perpetually consumed by his soul to mainitain its necessary functions. Now that small amount had grown considerably.

Alex could feel that his soul was rejuvenated and satisfied. His 'spiritual power' or spirituality had increased. He let the process complete itself before ending his cogitation.

Alex carefully opened his eyes in the void.

He saw an entirely new version of the world enter his view, it was all just chaotic information, and only that, be it the floating rocks or the broken staircase structures here and there. He had gained his 'spirit vision', but it was different from the spirit vision mentioned in the novels. That one was about seeing the projection of what is known as the 'spirit world', but what Alex had gained was nothing like that.

It seems more like getting access to an 'information dimension', something very different from the 'spirit world'. Hmm, I remember seeing something about it in 'Low Dimension Game'. There it was more like a 'zeroeth dimension', something that was the source form of that world.

Alex knew the dangers that stem from such a vision of the world, especially in a setting like dishonored, so he quickly setup a switch to control this effect. He set it such that when he clicked the tip of his left ring finger with his thumb, it would turn ON/OFF. Any normal person would have been unable to succeed in this in his first attempt, but it was an easy thing for Alex. His practice and experience from meditation and hypnosis allowed him to leave a spiritual hint in himself to setup the switch.

I feel it was easier than something else I had done previously, but i can't remeber it clearly. Yet i get this instinctual understannding that compared to that, this feat is so trivial that it is not even worth mentioning. I do not understand what is happening to me now.

After doing that, Alex quickly ended this state of 'spirit vision' before he could end up seeing something he should not have, something that would be better left unseen.

After his vision returned to normal, Alex got up from his place and tried to explore the surrounding area to find those "Pierro's spiritual remedy" potions spread around the place. But very quickly he was met with a man with a very ordinary face, having short brown hair and black eyes. He wore a brown coat and blue-grey pants with black boots. Alex knew who the young man was.

'The Outsider '

The outsider smiled to him and quickly introduced himself in a not-so-friendly manner.

" Hello, young man. I am the one who is commonly known as 'the outsider'. It is my first time seeing someone intrude my place, the void, without my intentions. Your uniqueness intrigues me, human. I can feel a similar connection to you as I feel to the void. You feel slightly similar to me yet different as well. It seems like I will be having a very enjoyable time here.

Now get out of here. You need to stay alive to be able to entertain me. Be careful, or the void will corrupt you. We don't want that, do we? "

The outsider tried to send Alex out of the void, but it turned out to be more difficult than he had thought of.

He succeeded after utilizing a little more of his power, but it was not an instantaneous expulsion. It was more like a gradual process of teleportation, bit by bit transporting his soul body out of the void, back to the physical world.

While his body was slowly transferred out of the void, Alex smiled to the outsider, a smile full of craftiness, and said : " I hope we meet again, Mr. Outsider. I will prepare a suitable gift for you. Ha ha ha ha ha..... "

He was cut off mid-laugh because he had been sent out of the void. He now knew what he had to do in order to gain a large amount of rewards. He planned to 'take care of' the outsider.

The outsider stood there, confused by the ramblings of this human, when he suddenly felt alarmed, an unknown feeling of surprise and amazement, mixed with a feeling of loss and confusion. He had never thought he would be feeling these feelings. It was a new experience for him. He quickly inspected himself and his surroundings to find out the source of that strange feeling, and he found it soon enough.

What the...

He had discovered something that twisted his world-view. The ever-unchanging void, a fixed constant of the universe, had changed. It felt incomplete, yet renewed, its vastness unknown to the brightest of minds. It was not the void he had resided in, It had begun transmuting into something different.

This was a first for the outsider. He felt a mortal danger and discovered his connection to the void and its powers starting to weaken.

"It sure has gotten interesting."

-------- The real world (dishonored) --------

In the hall of the royal physician, Alex slowly opened his eyes, this time those of his physical body. The removal of the bullets had succeeded and everyone was waiting for him to wake up. He sat down on the bed when he was given a ' Sokolov's elixir ' to get to health quickly. He downed the elixir and got out of the bed while feigning weakness.

He quickly picked up his belongings, his weapons and health items, including the skin of Daud containing the mark of the outsider he had hidden in his armour. He went to the attached washroom to wear everything and to try his 'spirit vision' on the mark of the outsider.

He tapped the end of his left ring finger with his left thumb to activate his spirit vision and quickly focused it on the piece of skin in his hand, lowering the influence of other information as much as he could. It was not much, but he had successfully brought a certain uncanny 'order' to the rather chaotic information. The 'order' felt forced and strange, completely unnatural, and that was to be expected, for Alex was still confined by the limits of a human. He had not broken through the limits if this state of existence and could only achieve what a human was reasonably capable of.

From the skin, he discovered that the information was rapidly disintegrating, with only a little amount left. He focused on it and tried to understand the information when he suddenly felt pain from his eyes and mind. Blood began coming out of his eyes and mouth, he felt unknown knowledge entering his mind in an eldritch language. He couldn't speak it, read it or understand it. It wasn't 'he' who had gained the information. It was the 'information' which had spread itself to him.

It's real. ' That theory ' is really real. 'Memes' do exist, always trying to increase their spread to the world, whether naturally or supernaturally, bringing with itself an intense corruption and unknown effects. I need to be more careful from now on. I must keep my guard up against them.

Alex had discovered the truth of another peculiar theory from his previous life. 'Seriously, how did those people even guess of the existence of memes?'

After wiping the blood from his eyes and mouth, he quickly digested the information he had received. Most of it had been lost and he had only received a tiny amount. It was about the usage of " blink " and " possession ".

' Unfortunately I didn't get the other powers of " bend time " , "dark vision", " devouring swarm" and "wind blast". Two of them, bend time and dark vision were very good. '

Alex had changed the usage of the skin. He previously thought of forcefully stitching it to his hand to get a good discount on the powers of this world when purchased from God, but now the plan had changed. He had succeeded in getting the method of using two of the abilities and now that he had made a connection to the outsider, he could finally destroy him.

Alex came out of the washroom, fully dressed up and healed. He asked the royal physician how long he had been unconscious for, to which he got the answer as " 3 hours ".

In this time, Corvo had already ' strongly taught ' the 2 servants on how to instantly react and return any incoming projectile that was quite big in size, like grenades.

After Alex got together with corvo, they took the empress and Emily to her bedroom and began laying down the traps and fortifying her room. They got a decent amount of resources, including guns, bullets, grenades, sleep darts and crossbow bolts, water, and sokolov's elixirs inside the room.

The 2 servants were tending to the empress and Emily. They first checked the food and drinks for any poison or unwanted adulterations. After confirming that the food was safe and unadultered, they began having the food and drinks. In about another 2 hours, the traps had been fully laid out and all preparations had been completed. Now it was time to wait for the fateful battle that would decide their right to survive.

Alex, corvo and the newbie servants also had their fill of food and water then, before Alex told corvo to sleep for a couple hours. Corvo didn't say anything because he knew what Alex was hinting at. The battle might stretch out for a long duration so it was better if they right now than let their bodies and minds suffer from exhaustion. It wouldn't have mattered much had it been an average fight, but they lacked allies while the enemies were supposed to be coming in heavy numbers.

The empress Jessamine and Emily had slept on the bed while corvo had slept on a mattress on the floor. Alex and the 2 servants remained fully alert, waiting for the moment their enemies strike them.

Since everyone else except for the God space's participants had slept, Alex started practicing his 'blink' ability. He recalled the knowledge he had obtained

Blink :- By tracing a certain path using spiritual power or mana, it is possible to evoke the mysticism powers of the void to bend the fabric of space and do short distance teleportation. The larger the distance, the more the spiritual power is required to bend space and the less efficient it would be. It is also possible to transfer other living and non living objects as well by covering them in a proportionate amount of spiritual power.

Possession :- By injecting spiritual power or mana directly into the soul body of another living creature, it is possible to convert the physical body into a special symbolic existence with the help of the mystic powers of the void and graft it into the mental space of the creature whose soul body was injected with spiritual power. This will lead to two souls being put inside the same body, thus leading to a drastic increase in spiritual power till the possession has ended, though with a decrease in the efficiency of use. If there exists a big difference in the life-form existence level between the 2 involved parties, then the drastic increase in spiritual power would lead to the weaker party's soul body being disintegrated. If there exists only a small difference then only the duration of possession will be affected and the soul body of the invaded creature will be corrupted by the spirituality of the invader, leading to mental dissonance and other mysterious problems if not dealt with in time.

---------- At 11:30 P.M.,

In the empress's bedroom -------------

Everyone was wide awake and in an alerted state, waiting for the encounter with the enemies. Alex and a newbie were waiting by the main entrance with Alex's sword ready and crossbow with sleep and poison darts loaded. Corvo and the other newbie were near the window entrance with corvo being in his usual attire but loaded with weaponary, yet remaining tactfully agile. The two newbies held a pan each with a short sword attached to their waists. Some sokolov's elixirs were strapped to the backs of corvo and Alex, while remaining were with the empress and Emily who were in a location that allowed them to remain directly in the line of sight or peripheral vision of the others, yet still away from the 2 entrances at such angles that it allowed them to remain hidden from the possible projectiles and bullets of the enemies.

The duty of manually triggering the traps they had laid down for the enemies at suitable times was left to the newbies, who would trigger it when given the corresponding signal.

Everyone was as prepared as they could have been in that short time interval. And it was then that it happened. A grenade entered from window entrance which the newbie saw and quickly returned (deflected), without even thinking. It all happened in a very small amount of time.

Booomm !!!

" Ahhh, fuck!! " A loud shout was heard as the grenade exploded right on the face of an unsuspecting enemy soldier who was not the least bit prepared for such a nasty surprise. He and a few others near him went to an immobile state from the serious injuries and knew that they would die soon. Then a loud BANG noise came from the door which had been hit with a large amount of force, yet it didn't budge.

" Time to start the action, everyone, this is going to be a long fight. "

------------------- A/N -------------------

Our MC suffered from a little existential crisis and has decided to give the outsider a warm, suitable 'gift'. Let's see what he is up to now.

Also, sorry for the delay, I had Class 12th boards as well as JEE Mains exams, so I had to take a little break. Hence I decided to give this chapter a little extra. I wanted to make a 5000 words chapter, but felt that it would become too big and the readers might loose interest in that. So I limited this to 3500 words.

In another 4-5 chapters, the first mission will be completed, but it won't be the end of dishonored.

Will see you soon with a new chapter.

Author out.

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