My tongue flickered out, giving me a taste of the green world around me. Grass. It was grass. I instinctively knew it as grass… what a pretty color. I wanted it. I wanted it for myself. So as a passing piece of mana entered my vision, I stretched my tongue out once more and grabbed it, using it to reform my entire body.
The rough pentagon texture that was deemed as my skin flushed a grass green. It was mine now. It was all mine, and I loved to have it. But at the same time, I didn't just want it, but I wanted to take care of it. I wanted it to flourish. I wanted it to spread. This pretty green, oh, how much I wanted it to spread.
So, just as another piece of mana drifted past me, I used my tongue to grab it and formed it once again—a single cell. With another piece of mana, now that I was slightly used to it, I formed a few molecules. It squirmed in my vision, automatically zooming into its microscopic presence. It was beautiful. It was so green and beautiful.
And then, just as I was absorbed into this practice of creating new life, something echoed in my mind. Like the words that had been instinctively engraved into my consciousness, I could understand the words now infiltrating from the outside world.
[Welcome Beta Tester]
…
(Orion POV)
"So you're finally here," The snake hissed at me, his mouth opening but his words getting directly transmitted into my brain. Quite obviously, it was [Telepathy], something that most people could only dream of having.
"What is the erosion? It started for me, and over the past year, it has risen by 1%. It's making me a bit nervous," I sighed, leaning against one of the stalactites while the snake turned its entire body towards me, a large yet invisible presence staring at me from behind.
I was incorrect. It wasn't the snake that was menacing, but whatever the hell was inside of it. The snake was no more than a puppet being controlled by the being planted within its heart. It's terrifyingly powerful and something that feels off… very off.
"Quasi Municiples are-"
"I know what they are, but I have no clue what the fuck the erosion is. Is it eroding my soul? My body? My mind?" I asked the most common hypothesis I could formulate, and judging from the snake's long pause, the definition of what this erosion was could possibly be larger and more menacing than I could have ever imagined.
"As the foreign souls cling to your own soul…." The snake muttered, but before I could ask him to get to the point once more, he proceeded. "...Your future erodes. Your fate, more specifically. And a being without a fate is a being that cannot exist at all. Your presence and history will be erased by the supreme deities watching from above… I may be a god down here in this mortal world, but compared to the original gods, I am nothing. Nothing at all. I am but a mere speck of dust before their presence."
"But… my fate already doesn't exist. I've already destroyed it, literally."
"Your fate… or your destiny because although they're very similar, they still have a very distinct feature."
"It was my destiny… then what's the difference? Don't they deal with a predetermined future? Isn't that what they essentially just mean?" I asked, as I was genuinely confused as to how the two differed. I always wanted to destroy my destiny, but I never really looked into it as I believed nobody out there could change it. But, of course, I managed to destroy it somehow.
"Destiny is something that can be changed. It's not as hard as you think to change your destiny or even destroy it for that matter. By destroying your destiny, you essentially make it impossible for others to change how your life goes. You're the only one who can do such a thing, but all of that is determined by the world around you. Your interaction with the world and the lifeblood of the world, experience, and system is what makes your destiny so great."
"So then fate is predetermined. With nothing that you can change at all? Seriously? There has to be something more to it than that, right?"
The more information that I tried to extract, the more the world snake got vaguer and vaguer until, essentially, there was nothing more for him to say. We went in circles a couple of times, but that was it. We didn't branch off into something new or great… it was just the same answer over and over and over and over again.
But then, after a few more circles, he said something different for once. "It's impossible. The supreme deities are what determine your fate. You can't escape it."
"Wait…" I muttered, covering my mouth as thoughts and ideas began to swirl within my mind. "... That's it… that's it…." I smiled eagerly with excitement. The tips of my mouth nearly touched each ear as I just stood there, even more thoughts swirling through my mind.
"Tch… so you figured it out?"
"Wait, wait, wait, just to confirm. These supreme deities, right… they aren't beings like Zeus or Hades? Just trying to make sure," I asked yet another question as my smile twitched with even more excitement.
"Zeus and Hades are apostles of those gods. That devil friend of yours is also an apostle…." He replied reluctantly, but still… he said it. He said the thing. He said everything I needed to know.
"So then killing the apostles is actually possible, right?"
"Yeah, it's definitely possible to kill them, but even I will have trouble doing that. If you think you can kill them, then get stronger. If you're struggling to even climb the steps, then you are practically hopeless," The snake announced, and he was right, but something that he said next made my smile nearly tear through my face. "But, if you're really that crazy and want to challenge them. Then visit their kingdoms. As of now, they're still in the mortal world, but it won't be long before they ascend."
