3 The Hatchery (Patreon)

If you're planning to wage a war or conquer a world, demons are the single greatest investment you can make. They’re renewable, malleable, and can be delivered across all the known worlds in existence. Sure, you’ll have to buy them from that asshole Mepheleon because they have a monopoly over that SYSTEM, but they’re always willing to sell.

And before you Necromancer or Animator Class people start whining about how you can rise the dead and conjure undying legions, I got one question for you: how efficient are you when you don’t have the bodies? Can you keep a war going if you’re not killing enough to replenish your lost forces? And how many forms and abilities do your undead have?

Demons don’t need much in the way of logistics. You just need some ichor from the Harbinger, a sinner to use as a factory, and a little bit of know-how about demonology (or just order custom from Mepheleon if you’re in a hurry), and soon, you’ll be counting your forces in the millions, billions, trillions.

War, in the end, is about making cost-effective choices. And thankfully for us, the Claimed Hells are always open for business.

Happy conquests, Trespasser.

-The Trespasser’s Compendium

3

The Hatchery

Wei fled, and the demons followed. The hounds led the charge, their flames lapping ahead, rolling across the ground in sweeping weaves. Beside them galloped the Horsemen, spreading themselves wide and summoning spectral bows to bear. Overhead, the Specter brought forth a blanket of mist, obfuscating the demonic hordes from clear sight.

As they stalked him, the ground fractured more, birthing new horrors to join the hunt.

Like a sparrow herded by ravens, Wei broke from the clearing and sprinted into the hellish thicket before him. Incubators extended forth like the trunks of rising trees, and the people within them drifted in bliss. But Wei could feel a shift in his surroundings, like a faint awareness was mantling itself upon his surroundings.

Darting between the branching Incubators, his eyes flicked all about, searching for a potential path toward salvation. He needed to break from his pursuers first. Couldn’t stop. If they managed to delay him for any duration, he would be overrun. After that, he needed to find higher ground or a place of respite. Some place to get his bearings and come up with a plan.

Searching his instincts, he found himself rushing blind, the winds rising to a piercing shriek along his ears as crackles of flame whipped at his neck, driving him to shift directions, throw off the aim of the hounds. The ground was fracturing beneath his feet. Where he trod, more demons were being born. Constant movement was the only thing that kept him alive.

An ethereal whisper caressed the back of his mind. Wei lowered his stance without thinking—watched as an arrow made from the same unnatural glow composing a Horseman’s bow darted overhead. Then, impossibly, he watched it decelerate, curve, and then turn for him again, moving of its own accord.

A choked chuckle of offended disbelief slipped out from Wei. Ridiculous. The heavens weren’t just being blind to him today, they were out for his blood.

More arrows shot past him, missing by lengths of fingers and hairs. Fast as Wei ran, the shots came faster, and the scraping of the Hellhounds’ paws against obsidian told him they weren’t far behind. Distantly, he could feel the hammering of hooves—the density of the Incubators prevented him from being ridden down by the Horsemen at least.

Though most disconcerting was how fast the temperature was dropping. The moisture in his eyes felt like it was hardening. The tips of his fingers grew laden with building pain.

He pushed himself hard, running as fast as he could while keeping his path erratic. The demons weren’t the only surprise here. His muscles felt strained, but lacked any sensation of building fatigue. Though he prided himself on his endurance, he felt different. Perfected in some way. His body was kept at a constant pace, his speed never lessening after hitting that point of peak velocity. As the world around him blurred, as the chase continued and his dodges grew increasingly desperate, he kept expecting weariness to set in, for a mistake to follow.

But exhaustion never came. Weakness would not be his undoing. What’s more, the pressure inside him grew, but he felt like his insides were hatching instead of just breaking.

Speed Advanced > 7

[3/5] Aspect Advancements to Core Ascension

Monochromatic light splashed out from Wei as his insides broke — then expanded. His speed suddenly surged as the winds began to scream beside his ears. The world around him seemed somehow slower, as well. The effect was even more potent than taking one of Master Mou Ze’s “funny elixirs” before a footrace across the sect. It didn’t seem to have the risk of essence sickness or a 7-hour lecture afterward from his parents, either.

Not that the latter would ever happen again.

More than just speed, he also felt his senses slowly sharpen as the world around him was outlined in new detail. He filtered through sounds, vibrations, sights — even shifts in temperature — without difficulty. Though Wei’s ability to focus was always unmatched, it still took him time and effort to narrow in on details?

Now? They washed through him like water through a channel.

Taking a quick glance back, he saw walls of fire spearing forth to his left and right. The flames of the hounds were racing against him, trying to get ahead so they could cut him off. As arrows started weaving between Incubators from the front as well as behind, Wei gritted his teeth and made his miserable choice. 

He would be boxed in if he hesitated. Overwhelmed. More demons were likely already waiting ahead; an ambush already prepared. Forward presented better odds of survival, but not high. Especially if they were already expecting him. Instead, he decided upon a third option—get over the flames vertically.

The surface of the Incubators quivered with each surrounding vibration that passed. Wei could feel the substance coursing within, the hues an uncanny red—shades contrary to the monochrome now painting his Nascent Spirit — or whatever occupied its place. If the Incubator behaved like water beyond merely holding the aesthetic, then perhaps he could run up its length—jump from it as the lakes he used to race his fellow disciples across.

Bound high, he pedaled his feet as if there were wheels beneath him, striking the surface of the glistening ichor in rapid taps. His heart sang as his stride found purchase. Arrows seeking his back and chest failed to adjust their vectors in time, plunged into the fluid within.

And dissolved.

This was working better than he hoped.

Mustering his focus, he jumped from one Incubator’s stalk to another, skipping over the burning barricade below, and continuing higher. He had a moment to breathe now, could use this opportunity to get as high as he could to survey the land. The Hellhounds grew a distant concern, but the Horsemen’s arrows hounded him in their stead. He began timing his hops to see them vanish in the ichor. Looking through the demonic waters, Wei swallowed as he realized every being submerged within its flow as staring at him, eyes following as he hoped from Incubator to Incubator, expecting his arrival.

Were they watching him? Tracking him for the demons? What was this place? Where was he?

A looming brightness swept over him, once more, Wei looked up and followed the ichorous branches up into the atmosphere; to where the traveling storms touched them, drank from them, pass over them; to where that immense mass loomed, an immense curving loop that dwarfed Wei’s comprehension.

And then, between the serried columns of Incubators, he caught sight of a structure just over the horizon. It called his attention with a sudden flash, stabbing at the corner of his eye left eye. From what little he could see of it between the clefts of clear space offered by his nightmarish forest, it seemed a metallic structure. Symmetrical even.

Man-made.

Whatever he was looking at, he wagered it presented better odds for his continuing survival than staying in place. But as he prepared to leap from his current stalk, another sensation flood his senses.

Around him, the coldness suddenly dropped from mere discomfort to actual pain.

And only then did he felt the claws sink through his ribs.

Structural Damage sustained

>[8.5/10] Lumens

Wei’s mind went blank as darkness itself seemed to uncoil around him, forming a shrouded shape driving a clawed hand through his chest. Yet, rather than feeling shredded organs or tasting the metallic tinge up blood rising up his throat like bile — as he did when his father pierced his heart — Wei found oscillations of brilliant monochrome unspooling from him. There was no blood seeping from his wounds, only light. 

The demon drove its limb deeper into Wei’s wound, but jolted as if it, too, was suffering harm. The Specter lacked a face to gaze upon, and the space within its hood was like looking down into a deep well with no end.

The sudden agony severed Wei from his focus; ruined his technique. His feet fell hard and splashed through the ichor as gravity came to claim its due. But the Specter would not let him fall. He was impaled along its arm. Shaped from nothing but shadow and mist, Wei wasn’t sure what he expected when he tried to drive a fist into the Specter’s absent face.

Which worked to his advantage, for the demon clearly wasn’t prepared either.

The blow landed. The entity—assumed incorporeal—snapped back, clawed digits sliding free from Wei’s wound. The feeling of weightlessness overcame Wei for a moment as he felt for the severity of his wound. Incomprehension filled his mind as shades of monochrome continued to shine free between his fingers. Flowing patterns of shadow and light were untangling within him, coming loose as if a thread of yarn.

What is happening to me?

Then he was falling, and such thoughts were a distant concern. Thirty meters above the ground, he could see pockets of the ground below bursting, birthing swarms of demons from its crust. Arrows were still chasing him—they knew exactly where he was.

He guessed he could survive the fall, but not the horde that was waiting to take advantage of it.

Reaching out, his arm splashed into the Incubator as a grimy wetness soaked his mangled robes. He pawed hard, tried to slow his descent—

Then a blade of pure coldness cleaved along his shoulder behind, and plunged him into the Incubator itself. Foul tasting liquid flooded into his mouth, seared at his eyes. He slammed hard against a cluster of bodies—head bounced off the face of a blonde-haired woman. Her eyes were still locked to him. Unblinking. Undeterred. All of their eyes were.

Structural Damage sustained

>>[8/10] Lumens

Immediately, he felt the ichor recoil from him. Crimson fled from the monochrome, but to no avail. His black and white spread out like an infection, neutralizing the ichor utterly as the submerging Wei ceased to be. Shade and bright spread out from his open wounds, and when they met red, the warring colors vanished.

A pocket of air formed around Wei, the hellish waters neutralized—unmade. The woman staring at him bounced as her full weight asserted itself, dropping as the umbilical cord attached to the back of her skull dissolved into nothingness.

Wei hadn’t the time to consider what just happened to him as a section of the Incubator was fully severed by his leaking Source. And suddenly, and the surging ichor below him reversed their flows. Hundreds of bodies were abandoned, left to fall from the sky. The rest of the Incubator above Wei retracted into the air, fleeing from him.

Once more, he was descending. But this time, when he sensed a chill forming against his throat, he reacted instant.

His hands shot out—caught the Specter’s claw before it could plunge it all the way through. The demon responded with surprise, carried both of them higher as a sweeping mist poured free from its dancing cloak. Ethereal frost began to form around Wei, burrowing deep into his joints, digits, and orifices. Despite this, the Specter seemed wounded, and struggled to match his strength—and then screamed when he drove a fist up into its extended elbow.

Wei didn’t expect to feel a ghost’s arm to fracture much the same way as a person’s did.

An echoing substance exploded out from the Specter’s broken limb. Its essence flashed into his awareness—crimson as well, but of a different shade from the Incubator. He drove a kick into his chest while digging his fingers into the back of its neck with his left hand. With his right, he caught its shattered arm and pulled.

SOURCE [6/10] Lumens

WARNING: You are damaged. It is recommended that you perform [Source Refinement] at the soonest opportunity to ensure your existential continuation.

Part of the Specter jerked, snapped, and came free. The demon screamed again, and the volume like spikes of pain burrowing into his ears. But no ringing followed. No deafness.

They exploded across the sky, the coldness assailing Wei, his fists and knees assaulting the Specter. It carried him around the winding columns of ichor, spun, dove, and rose to shake him free, but he was beyond noticing pain now.

Within Wei’s mind, there was just him and the Specter—the face of his father filling the emptiness within its hood. His fist rattled away against its body in a rapid blur, every strike burrowing deeper, gouging more and more of its body away. It slashed at him using its other hand, raking across his stomach. Wei noted the damage, and ignored it. He was still functional. This fight wasn’t over.

Strength Advanced > 6

[4/5] Aspect Advancements to Core Ascension

A second ago, his blows originally merely jolted the Specter. Now, every strike he landed ruptured and tore. Chunks of ectoplasm broke free from the demon, and with each passing second, Wei felt its strength wane, the cold diminish.

The Specter may be the death of him, but two could still share a fate.

SOURCE [3/10] Lumens

As more Source spilled free from his body, its threads unfurled over the demon and left clean slashes where they passed. Entire sections of its body suddenly weren’t. The cold broke as the sweltering heat of this hell returned, and the Specter staggered, form flickering as more of its wounds revealed themselves with oozing echoes.

Whipping a final fist up into the nothingness that was its face, Wei felt his strike pass clean through as the Specter broke apart, unraveling as if flecks of black ash.

Weightless returned. For a few heartbeats, Wei felt himself continue forth, the force imparted on him by the Specter’s flight carrying him through the air still. His body screamed. Plumes of monochromatic light leaked from the hundreds of wounds lining his body. They greeted reality in kaleidoscopic patterns and vanished thereafter. It felt absurd to witness, like he was lost in a dream. As he touched one of his injuries again with a shaking hand, he felt pain, but that was all. Most of these cuts should have killed him. Would have killed him. But right now, he felt stable in mind and body, even with the encroachment of death.

SOURCE [1.5/10] Lumens

All around him, the other Incubators were retracting, plucked from the ground by a passing storm. It was like a chain of lightning extracting a forest of trees in an instant. The sight was absurd. Ridiculous. More and more, Wei was convinced that he had gone insane—or had been condemned to some strange hell. But it still felt real. There was too much detail; too much coherence to be just a delusion or a dream.

As the blockade of ichor vanished ahead of him, he found the horizon unveiled to him for the first time. Near the bend of the horizon, rising from the soil beyond even the storm-scarred firmament, was a tower unlike anything he ever witnessed. It rose higher than even the mountain of the Drowned Sky Sect, and its design was a thing of gold, bronze, obsidian, and painted glass. It continued past the point where he could see, seeming crossing over into the colossal loop that hovered beyond the atmosphere.

At its base was a bowl of other shapes and structures—parapets made from blackened stone; watchtowers with blinking eyes forged from viridescent flame. They noticed Wei around the same time he saw them, and as their gazes met, he felt a hammer fall against his Mind.

Psionic attack detected

Resisting Mental Hijacking using Aspect of Will [Incalculable]...

>Resisted

An unseen chain connecting him to the watchtower broke, and Wei cried out as a sudden backlash struck him as well. The impact originated in his mind but spread through his entire body as if the entirety of his being was now interconnected.

Structural Damage sustained

>>[0.5/10] Lumens

Constitution Advanced > 4

[5/5] Aspect Advancements to Core Ascension

Source Core Ascension Available > Lv. 2

Warning: Your Source is about to run out. It is recommended that you perform [Source Refinement] at the soonest opportunity to preserve your existence.

Attention: Sufficient Aspect advancements achieved. Core Ascension can be performed. Please perform [Source Refinement] as soon as you can to elevate the System to the next level.

Wei could barely focus on the worlds and the light blossoming out from him as what felt like a rainstorm of hammers was falling against his mind. Distantly, he saw the eye that notice him come asunder, imploding inward while the rest of it shattered. Wei’s vision blurred momentarily as his thoughts took a moment to respond.

A second later, his consciousness stabilized itself, restoring him to full efficiency.

Warning: Your Source is about to run out. It is recommended that you perform [Source Refinement] at the soonest opportunity to preserve your existence.

“I heard you,” Wei said, feeling himself begin to fall. Ridiculous. He was speaking to a voice in his head now. A voice that offered him more information than he knew. A voice that was trying to… Source Refinement. Was it referring to cultivation? Meditation?

Yes. You may think of it as such.

Right. At least his madness was direct.

Weakness nipped at him. The ground was coming at him fast, a surface of hard obsidian with hordes of demons still roaming across pockets of its expanse despite the departure of the Incubators.

Broken as he was, Wei didn’t think he would survive this fall.

Your estimates are correct. That is why recommended that you perform [Source Refinement] at the soonest opportunity to preserve your existence.

Wei listened to the same recommendation repeated for a third time and nodded. It wasn’t like he had anything to lose anymore. If this was a second life, it had been a quick one; if this was just madness, he wished he could have found himself trapped in a different delusion—one where none of this happened, where he was back with his family, his sect.

He pushed all that aside, asserted his focus as only he could. He closed his eyes, tried to forget that he was due an ugly landing soon, and sought his Nascent Spirit—only to find it absent. The surprise he felt from earlier returned, and his trance nearly came undone, but another sensation kept his mind rooted.

The sensation of… everything. He thought he could feel everything—was a part of everything. Before, his Nascent Spirit had its own boundaries, existed apart from the greater wholeness. Reality screamed at him as he tried to cultivate, assailed him as he tried to nourish himself with much-needed energy. Now, reality didn’t scream or rush against his being as much as it was reflected upon him. Uncountable streams of essence drifted parallel to his being, and all passed over him rekindled the light that was seeping from him, painting away the wounds he sustained as if they were cracks to be filled.

He felt as a shard of glass sinking deeper into an ocean of myriad colors, and with each hue that shone upon him, his inner world brightened until it could no more. He was a shard that drifted across from totality; that nursed from it; that grew from him.

Refining Source

>>>Source Refined: [10/10] Lumens

Source Core Ascended > Lv. 2

>[0/5] Aspect Advancements to Core Ascension

>>[2/10] Core Ascensions to [Gate] 1 System Ascension

>>>Source: [15/15] Lumens

Reviewing encounter…

Masteries Demonstrated

>Meditation — 10%

>Unarmed Combat — 65%
>Evasion — 105%

>Throwing — 20%

Evasion Mastery Ascended > Evasion (I)

Mastery/Aspect Junction Discovered

>Evasion/Speed

>Evasion/Awareness (Insufficient Awareness — [5/15])

Connecting Mastery (Evasion) to Aspect (Speed)

Mastery Node Created

Evasion/Speed

>Proximal Acceleration — Hostile entities will have their (Speed) or most-(Speed) analogous Aspect reduced by an amount proportional to host’s (Speed). Will only affect foes within range to the host’s projected Source luminosity [1 Meter].

Mastery Node Capacity [1/5]