RE:FLAME

[Despacitoleo]

Yay she wont die if someone pissed on her

 

[p_magno]

Yay she wont die if someone pissed on her

Click to shrink...

Yeah. She won't.

 

[p_magno]

<< You Have Leveled Up! [+1] >>


<< You Have Leveled Up! [+1] >>


<< You Have Leveled Up! [+1] >>


.......




'You sly old man.'

The thought was warm, amused, utterly without rancor. Jessica floated in the afterglow of her level-up cascade, her mental voice carrying a smile.

'You told me it would add just one level. Just one. And here I am, three levels higher without lifting a single leg. Hahaha!!'

Three levels. From 4 to 7 in the space of a single burning. The Blood of Red had delivered far more than promised.

But the surprises weren't done.


<< Your Flames Grow Stronger… [Burning +1] >>

'Err…' Jessica blinked mentally. 'Is this a lag? Did the system glitch?'


<< No. >>

The reply was immediate. Leaving no room for interpretation.

'WHAT?!' Her mental scream was pure shock. 'My abilities can LEVEL UP?!'

The implications cascaded through her mind like falling dominos. If abilities could grow, could improve, could become more, then her potential wasn't fixed. She wasn't stuck with whatever skills she happened to acquire. She could develop. She could evolve.

Her imagination ran wild. [Burning] becoming something that could consume worlds. [Spark Instinct] sharpening into precognition. [Flame Camouflage] letting her hide in plain sight, in any fire, anywhere and everyw—


<< Clarification: >>

The system's text cut through her fantasy in an instant.


<< The skill [Burning] only achieved advancement due to exposure to the essences of two divine entities. The bone of ARAFEL. The blood of Red. Based on available world-data, standard skill leveling is not a feature of this reality. The only path to skill enhancement is through merging compatible abilities to create more powerful combinations. >>

'Oh.'

The single syllable carried disappointment and understanding in equal measure.

'Right. So that's why [Burning] felt stronger during the viper fight. It wasn't just me getting better at using it... it was the skill itself, upgraded by god-juice.'

She paused, reflecting. The vipers had been dangerous. She should have almost died a dozen times. But she hadn't. And now she knew why her chances of victory were higher.

'Well. I'll take what I can get.'

She called up her status, eager to see the full picture.



[STATUS]

+

Name: Jessica

Level: 4 --> 7 [Infant Rank]

Exp(Fragnet): [----[250%]-----1100%]

Title: None

Specie: Flame

Species Possessed: Cave Locust [Hp/93%]

Rank: [Infant], Cave Locust [Infant]

Magic Cores: [You Are Currently An Idea], Cave Locust [1/1]

Items: [Bone Of ARAFEL] [The Nameless Lever]

Echoes: None

Innate Abilities: [Possess] [Spark Instinct]

Abilities: Unique Skill [Blabber Mouth]

Flame Specific Skill [Burning +1] [Life Multiplier 'By Snorting'] [Flame Camouflage]

Cave Locust Skill [Flame Acid Ball]

+

'Sigh…' The mental sigh was pure contentment. 'This is the life.'

Three levels. A skill upgrade. Full health. Two divine items in her inventory. She was, for the first time since her reincarnation, winning.

But a thought nagged at her. A gamer's instinct, honed by years of RPGs, Rogue-likes and MMOs.

'Hey, system. I feel like I'm being greedy asking this, but… in every game I've played, hitting level 5 or 10 means a skill choice. A new ability or a perk. Is this different? Or did I miss something?'

A pause. Then:


<< Sigh… I am currently processing that matter. It appears to be… on hold. Temporarily suspended. >>

Another pause.


<< It will resolve shortly. Focus on your current task. Leave the backend processing to me. >>

'Thanks.' Jessica smiled inwardly. Then, because she couldn't help herself, a teasing thought formed. 'Ooh, what would I do without you, my sweet system?'

The response was immediate and visceral.


<< *Shudders* What transgression did I commit in a previous existence to deserve this fate? I will expire from sheer discomfort if you continue addressing me in that manner. >>

Jessica laughed, the sound bright and free in the chambers of her mind.

'Alright, alright. I'll behave. No more sweet talk.'

She turned. Her gaze found the egg.


'Well. Time to try this again.' She Leap-boing! across the chamber, her movements confident, her flame bright, her purpose clear. The egg grew larger in her vision until she hovered directly before it, close enough to see the faint cracks in its surface, the ancient wear of ages.


<< DO YOU WANT TO POSSESS? >>

<< YES / NO >>

She stared at the screen for a long moment. The weight of the decision pressed against her, but it was a familiar weight now. She had made her choice. She had accepted the path.

'Here goes nothing.'

Without hesitation, she chose [YES]


Her locust body dissolved. Like morning mist burning away under a rising sun. For one brief, disorienting moment, she was two things at once, the fading form of the cave locust and the essential core of her true self, the flame that had always been her, flickering in the space between.

Then the flame swirled.

It became a vortex of sensation, a whirlpool of awareness, a shooting star of consciousness aimed directly at the egg. Her vision stretched, blurred, flew, crossing the distance in less than a heartbeat, entering the ancient shell like a key sliding into a lock.

Darkness.

For a long, terrible moment, there was only darkness. The familiar darkness of death, of the void, of the space between existences. She hung there, suspended, nowhere at all.

Then:


<< DING!! >>

<< POSSESSED CREATURE RESISTANCE: NONE >>


<< POSSESSION SUCCESSFUL!! >>

Success.

The word registered. She had done it. She was inside the egg, inside the body, inside whatever creature had been waiting here for, how long? Millennia? The possession was complete. She should feel joy. Triumph. Relief.

She felt none of those things.

Because in that moment, in the instant the possession finalized, Jessica felt pain.

Not the sharp pain of injury. Not the dull ache of exhaustion. This was deeper. The pain of something waking after an eternity of sleep. The pain of a body remembering it was alive. The pain of birth.

The pain of abandonment.


"AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!"


*****




Outside the egg, the world began to change.

Cracks appeared first, tiny fissures in the ancient stone, spiderwebbing across the surface like frozen lightning. They spread slowly at first, then faster, multiplying, covering every inch of the grey shell until it seemed held together by nothing but memory.

Then came the glow.

It started as a faint pulse deep within, a heartbeat of light that pushed against the cracks from inside. Then another. Then another. Each pulse brighter than the last, until the egg was no longer grey but golden, blazing with an inner fire that made the chamber's torches seem dim by comparison.

The cracks widened. The light intensified.


CRASH..!

The egg crumbled.

It crumbled as if whatever had been inside had simply outgrown its prison and the prison could do nothing but fall away. Pieces of ancient shell tumbled to the floor, already cooling, already dead.

Something else fell with them.

A figure.

It was a child, a newborn, if such a word could apply to something born from an egg that had waited millennia. Its body was bare, unmarked by the world, untouched by time. It lay on the cold stone, unmoving, for a single breath.

Then it moved.

A tiny hand pressed against the floor. An arm trembled with effort. The child, she was a girl, unmistakably, began to crawl. Her movements were awkward, uncoordinated, the movements of a creature learning for the first time how to exist in a body. But there was nothing cute or innocent about it. Each movement was accompanied by a visible effort, a strain that made the air itself seem to thicken.

She crawled, and as she crawled, she grew.

It was subtle at first, a slight lengthening of limbs, a deepening of form. Then faster. Her body stretched, matured, aged years in seconds. The infant became a toddler. The toddler became a child. The child became—

A little girl with blood-red hair.

Still she crawled. Still her eyes remained shut. Her fingers scraped against the stone floor, and where they scraped, the stone cracked. Deep fissures followed her path, carved by nothing but the pressure of her passage.

Her teeth were gritted. Her jaw clenched. An inaudible scream tore through her mouth, inaudible to human ears, perhaps, but the chamber heard it. The walls shuddered. The torches flickered. The very air vibrated with the force of her silent agony.

And then came the changes.

Horns.

Curved horns, like those of a dragon, began to push through her red hair. They grew slowly, deliberately, each inch a fresh wave of torment. Her back arched, her spine contorted, and from between her shoulder blades.

Wings.

Red wings, like those of an angel, unfolded for the first time. They were wet with birth, slick with the remnants of the egg, but even so they caught the torchlight and threw it back in crimson glory. They stretched, tested and learned.

She thrashed. The chamber trembled with each movement. Her body grew again, child to adolescent, adolescent to young woman. Seventeen, perhaps. Eighteen. The pain didn't stop. It intensified.


"AAARRRGGGHHH!! DAMNIT!!!"

Her voice was hoarse, raw, human in a way that seemed impossible for something born of an egg older than some gods. But it was her voice. Jessica's voice. Finally, after five days of silence, was audible.

The scream faded, but the pain remained. And in that pain, in that white-hot crucible of transformation, she began to see.

Visions.

A man with blood-red hair, exactly her shade, exactly her color, standing in black robes. He was walking away from her, his back turned, speaking to three figures kneeling in reverence before him.

"I trust you will all do your duty until the end."

The kneeling figures, massive, armored, familiar, did not reply. They only bowed lower, their foreheads touching the ground. Then, in perfect unison, they spoke.

"Hail Red!"

"Angel of War!"

"Ruler of Chaos and Strife."

A pause. Then, together:


"The First Flaw of the Gods!"

........



The vision shattered.

"AAARRRGGGHHH!!!"

More pain. Deeper. More complete. Her body was still changing, still becoming, still hurting. She couldn't think, couldn't process, couldn't do anything but feel—

The three giant statues moved.

For millennia, they had sat. Watched. Waited. Now, as one, they stood. Stone grinding against stone, ancient joints protesting after ages of stillness, they rose from their thrones. Their armored gazes, empty, carved, yet somehow aware, fixed on the thrashing figure below.

Swords materialized in their hands. Not drawn, materialized, as if the weapons had been waiting for this moment as patiently as their wielders.

In perfect sync, they raised their blades.

And then


SHHHK!

They drove them into the ground.

The swords sank deep, embedding in the stone before them. And then, as one, the three knights knelt. Their massive forms bowed low, heads touching the floor, in the exact posture of the figures from Jessica's vision.

They knelt before the birth of an entity.

A forbidden child.

Below them, the thrashing stopped.


Silence.

Absolute, complete, terrifying silence. The chamber held its breath. The torches ceased to flicker. Even the dust motes in the air seemed to freeze.

Jessica lay on the stone floor, on all fours, her body finally still. Her red hair cascaded around her, hiding her face. Her wings folded against her back. Her horns caught the light.

And then..

She opened her eyes.

They were molten gold. Vertically slit pupils, like a dragon's, like a predator's. And in those golden depths, there was nothing but rage. A seething, boiling, infinite rage that had waited an eternity for release.

For one heartbeat. Two.


Then the world exploded!

Flames erupted, not around her, not from her, but as her. They consumed the chamber in an instant, a tidal wave of blue, reddish gold, ancient fire that scoured everything it touched. The torches were nothing. The stone itself began to melt. The three kneeling knights were engulfed, their ancient forms vanishing in the inferno.

The explosion didn't stop at the chamber walls.

It kept going.

Through stone. Through earth. Through reality itself.


*****



Far away, in a different chamber entirely, something stirred.

This chamber was vast, circular, impossibly large after the confines of any tunnel. Dim torchlight struggled to reach its center, where only darkness dwelt. The air smelled of cold stone and ozone and something deeper, something ancient.

The torches guttered low, as they always did.

Then, without warning, they roared.

Every flame in the chamber surged upward, blazing with a light that rivaled the sun. They were not afraid. They were celebrating. Responding to something. Recognizing something.

Only the darkness at the center remained unchanged.

But the darkness moved.

Chains rattled, ancient, massive chains, the kind forged to hold things that should never be held. An invisible head lifted, turning toward the distance, toward the source of the disturbance that had traveled through stone and space to reach even here.

And on one wall of the chamber, something began to draw itself.

A mural. Roughly painted, appearing stroke by stroke as if guided by an invisible hand. It showed a figure, a girl with blood-red hair, clad in knight's armor, a blade raised in her hand. She was pointing toward a giant gate, and behind her, hundreds of knights and archers and warriors followed.

At the edge of the mural, letters formed. Slowly and deliberately: The Ancient Flame


"Kukuku." The chuckle was deep, ancient, satisfied. It echoed through the chamber, making the torches bow and the chains sing.


"The time has finally come."

A pause. The darkness seemed to smile.

"The age of the gods… has just begun."


"A second time."






[END OF ARC_0: A Flickering Existence]





*******

AN: This is the End of Arc_0. Thank you very much for reading this far ^^

Please tell me what you think about the story in the comment section. (It helps me develop the story better.)

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To everyone. Thank you all for reading and supporting this story. It means a lot ^^

Link To Royal Road: What? Did I Just Reincarnated As A Flame?

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[Despacitoleo]

Cave Locust Skill [Flame Acid Ball]

Click to shrink...

hmmmmmm totally not napalm with the sticky acid

and yay baby let's go warcrimes