Madness.
What is it really? A virus of the mind? A glitch in the soul’s operating system? The final boss of existential crisis?
When does logic start tripping over its own shoelaces and fall face-first into the pit of insanity?
So many questions.
And, as usual, zero solid answers.
They say it all started when the universe was born—when the Almighty, possibly bored out of Its cosmic mind, decided to start copy-pasting existence like a lazy game dev. Multiple Earths, infinite timelines, all spinning in their little bubble wrap dimensions.
Why? Who knows. Maybe God wanted a multiversal screen saver.
Anyway.
As stars died and worlds collapsed into oblivion, all the anguish, hatred, and despair had to go somewhere. And that somewhere... was the Void. A once-pristine blank slate, now bloated with secondhand sorrow like a sponge soaked in cosmic misery.
Eventually, from this stew of cosmic angst, something woke up.
Not born. Not made. Just willed into being by the sheer weight of suffering.
It had no morality. No concept of good or evil. Just hunger.
It drank in the screams of the dying. Felt the flicker of hope sputter in broken hearts. It marinated in despair like a happy pig in filth.
And the madness?
It devoured it. Until it grew teeth. Claws. Purpose.
Now? That thing’s awake. And it wants to pull the plug on the universe like a kid bored with their ant farm.
All of it. Burned down. Forgotten. Forever.
Snapping back to the present, I glanced at the ravaged battlefield around me. The ground was carpeted in minced monster bits, dripping with tar-black blood that oozed into the cracked earth like crude oil leaking from a busted pipeline.
“Hunter,” I muttered, flexing my aching knuckles, “you can munch through this mess, yeah? As long as they’re inside the blood radius?”
"[Indeed, my Lord… As a proud biological abomination crafted from the same cursed sludge, I can repurpose their leftovers into useful biomass. Won’t be Michelin-starred, but I’ll make it quick.]" Hunter’s voice buzzed with anticipation, practically drooling—if it had a mouth.
“Fine, just don't get indigestion from all that ugly.”
I cracked my neck, eyes narrowing at the distant cluster of aberrants that were still just... watching.
Judging.
Charging up that we-kill-you-now vibe.
Hmph.
I drove my fist into the defiled ground, the black gauntlet twitching and pulsing as it unraveled—splitting open into squirming, slick tendrils that wormed deep into the blood-soaked soil like roots hungry for rotten fruit.
Hunter, ever the helpful parasite, acted as a living straw.
[Ting!]
[Assimilation successful: 75% absorption rate.]
[Proceed/Cancel]
“Proceed, obviously.”
The moment I confirmed, all hell broke loose—again.
The blood shivered, tendrils writhing with grotesque glee. Meat, shattered bone, fragments of armor, and god-knows-what-else surged across the field like a crimson tidal wave—spiraling inward, all funneled toward me.
Straight into me.
And oh boy did I feel it.
My arms bulged unpleasantly, bones snapping and reknitting, muscles inflating like repugnant balloons under my skin. Every nerve fiber screamed. It felt like getting beat with flaming baseball bats filled with bees while riding a blender at full speed.
My vision blurred.
But I didn’t scream. Not once.
Because pain?
Pain was breakfast by now.
Hunter, bless its twitchy soul, just muttered "[My Lord... I believe we just consumed a piece of playground equipment. Possibly a swing set.]"
“I knew I tasted tetanus!”
Still, I held it together, even as the feast of flesh and metal swirled into my bones. The world trembled, the air buzzed, and I stood tall in the eye of the carnage—sweating, bleeding, grinning like a lunatic.
Because in the distance, that knight was still smiling.
And I was just getting started.
[Ting!]
[Absorption is completed.]
The notifications popped up like a smug pat on the back after an exam you didn’t study for but somehow aced through sheer muscle memory—and pain.
A lot of pain.
I glanced at the new status screen, eyebrows twitching at the upgrades while trying not to collapse like wet laundry.
Hunter
[Void Terror Gauntlets - Level 9]
Rook-rank Bio-Gauntlets
Rare Quality
ATK: +200
STR: +25 | INT: +15
AGI: +17 | VIT: +10
DEF: +75 | MOR: -20
Added Effects:
Acid Spree - each attack is coated with a slimy film that can cause -20 acid splash damage and has a 20% chance to inflict acid DOT effect (4 HP damage per second).
Spiderkin - you have the ability to stick around like a spider draining your mana by 2 per second. You can also shoot black webs infused with mana (10 mana per usage).
[You also gained 2 taboo skills.]
[Void Animancy]
0 out of 2500 points
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Description:
By consuming sufficient animal parts and soul cores, you have unlocked the ability to manipulate fate and create life over death. You can now summon a familiar by offering the required materials and soul cores; the process will also consume one-third of your health. The abilities and status of the summoned familiar will be based on the quantity and quality of offerings.
Current familiar cap:
0 out of 1 Familiar
You can now access the Void Animancy menu at the upper left tab of the Status Window.
[Alpha Metamorphosis]
0 out of 10000 points
Description:
Tasting the essence of chaos, you have unlocked the ability to morph yourself and your weapon into one entity, changing your body's composition and appearance.
Warning:
This skill accrues 'madness'; if the user reaches the max cap, permanent devolution will occur.
Side Effect:
Berserker - while the skill is active, gain 5 points of madness per second. You lose 5 madness points per hour. This will compound your stats and abilities by 50% for the duration.
0 out of 100 madness points
You can now access the Alpha Metamorphosis menu at the lower left tab of the Status Window.
"This... I can't use this recklessly... unless I want to end up chewing rocks and screaming at flowers." I grunted, reading the madness warning like a warranty clause on a bomb.
From what I know, the more madness you rack up, the more likely you’ll forget which way is up and start naming your weapons after breakfast foods.
I wasn’t ready to become that guy.
"[My Lord, I have collected a thousand common soul cores and 120 rare soul cores.... Do you have any plans?]" Hunter’s voice chimed in, calm and cheerful—as if he hadn’t just helped me slurp an entire battlefield through my arm.
"You can eat it all as much as you want; that’s our deal, right?" I muttered, letting my Void Cloak drape around me again. Sadly, my stylish invisibility act meant nothing to the knight in the distance who was still glaring holes through me like an edgy lighthouse with a vendetta.
"[I have a proposition, my Lord... We already unlocked a skill to create a familiar or a 'pet.' It would be best if we offer the cores to summon one later.]" Hunter urged, his tone slipping into a ‘hear me out’ pitch like a salesman who might actually have a point.
“Fine, but if it turns into a singing eyeball or something weird, I’m not feeding it.”
Turning back toward the not-so-deadly-but-super-irritating threats on the horizon, I saw the leather-faced creepers split into two groups. Great, now they think they’re tactical geniuses.
They were weak, yeah. Just your typical level 10 Rook-rank aberrants. But I didn’t like the way they moved, or the fact that I couldn’t mock them without being mobbed.
"[My Lord!]" Hunter shouted suddenly.
And then—
shwip shwip shwip shwip!
My field of vision was suddenly filled with a flurry of glinting needles. Thin, toxic barbs rained down like spring rain from hell. I dodged most of them, my body a blur—but not all. A few snuck past my defenses, biting into my skin, threading poison into my muscle like sadistic acupuncture.
“Of course, they brought party favors,” I growled, gritting my teeth as the sting spread down my side. “Hunter, remind me to rip out their playbook and burn it.”
I thought I had high corrosive resistance. Turns out, it doesn’t mean squat when you’re being turned into a human pincushion by needles laced with enough venom to kill a buffalo at a glance.
The poison kicked in instantly. My legs gave out like a puppet with its strings cut, and I collapsed, wheezing out breaths like a fish slapped onto a grill.
Sweat poured down my ghost-white face as if my pores were trying to abandon ship. My eyes were shot red, not from tears, but from the internal screaming my organs were doing.
My veins turned an unnatural shade of violet, like angry grapevines bulging beneath my skin. My nails blackened at the tips, a lovely gothic look if I wasn’t currently dying. Frantically, I accessed my interwaves, scanning my body like a panicked mom looking for her phone in a messy purse.
“Too many.” I muttered through clenched teeth, spotting the embedded needles riddling me like someone mistook me for a voodoo doll.
I summoned Hunter’s tentacles—thank the Void for his slimy, squirmy versatility—and yanked them all out in one painful rip.
[Ting!]
[Skill Activated: Ungodly]
Not my favorite name for a skill, but fitting. I vomited up a gallon of dark blood, splattering the trench wall like abstract art from a deeply disturbed soul. But at least the poison haze started to clear. The pounding in my head faded to a tolerable hammering, and my vision returned from watercolor mode to full HD.
Lying in the trench, I glanced upward with the clarity of a man who just survived impromptu organ failure. “Tell me, Hunter... those needles—Rook-rank monsters shouldn’t be able to tickle me, let alone pierce my skin. What gives?”
"[Those needles... the lower aberrants may carry them, but the soul signature embedded in each one—it’s not theirs. It belongs to the one riding behind them.]" Hunter’s voice trembled, unusually serious.
And then, the truth revealed itself in the form of a walking war crime on horseback.
[Nightclad Eques Lancearius - Lvl 20]
Knight-rank Aberrant
HP: 700 | MP: 200
Str: 40 | Int: 38
Agi: 61 | Vit: 50
Def: 450 | Mor: -80
I narrowed my eyes. The smug thing straddling its grotesque steed wasn’t just strong—it was smart. Strategic. And it just tried to kill me with a proxy barrage.
“This is bad…” I muttered, which was putting it lightly. The situation was one step away from a ‘heroic death monologue.’
The knight growled, a sound like metal grinding in a meat blender, and its minions instantly obeyed. The long-range attacks stopped. The squirming aberrants stiffened like puppets receiving a new command. It was hunting time.
I was the rabbit.
Hooray.
The poison I’d survived wasn’t garden-variety venom. It was nerve-scrambling, mind-numbing, spine-hugging death juice. It’s the kind of thing that turns a person into a twitching puddle in under ten seconds. If not for my passive death resistance, I’d be nothing but a cautionary tale with really cool gloves.
Even so, my insides still felt like someone had replaced my organs with angry eels. Phantom pain or not, it was hard to tell. I wanted to cry, but my tear ducts were too busy taking a lunch break.
I observed the incoming creeps. Based on experience—and months of trial-and-error monster brawling—I could tell they were mindless drones. Their movements were too coordinated. Too synchronized. Each pulse they emitted connected them like one big ugly wifi network, and I could trace it back to the source: the knight.
Using my own interwave, I pinged their connection like an angry hacker. A few momentarily desynced, twitching like unplugged Roombas before re-establishing contact. Good enough.
I baited them closer.
They leaped into the air like starving wolves—jaws split too wide, filled with teeth that looked like they’d been grown in nightmares and sharpened with regret. Right on cue, I unleashed a violent burst of interwave energy.
CRACK!
Mid-air, their unity shattered. Limbs locked, movements glitched, and I rose up swinging.
With a flurry of blows enhanced by Hunter’s gleeful hunger, I turned them into abstract sculptures of meat balls.
The knight’s reaction?
Glorious.
Smoke fumed from vents in its carapace-like helmet. Whatever passed for a mouth beneath its warped metal twisted into a grimace so fierce, I half expected it to pull out a monocle and challenge me to a duel.
“HUMAAANNN!!!” it bellowed, its voice reverberating like an off-key opera from hell. “I WON’T LET YOU ENTER BEYOND THIS TERRITORY. MY KING NEEDS NOT WASTE TIME ON INSECTS LIKE YOU!”
It charged in breakneck speed.
A dark lance nearly three meters long glowing with a ghostly green light, aimed at me like a divine punishment. On its other arm, a black oval-shaped buckler shimmered ominously.
"[My Lord!]" Hunter shouted with urgency. "[Those stats you saw—they're misleading! The mount and the knight are symbiotic! They share stats and amplify each other. Just like us!]"
Of course. Of course, it’s a power couple.
Why wouldn’t my enemy be a two-in-one abomination with a teamwork buff?
I cracked my knuckles.
“Alright then, time to crash their toxic little date.”
Turns out, the horse wasn’t just an ugly face with hooves—it was a sneaky little turd cloaking itself the entire time, masking its presence like a ninja in full plate armor. Meanwhile, its rider kept pumping out fake interwave signals like a scammer faking his GPS location to dodge the authorities. Classic misdirection.
Had I not gotten a timely heads-up from my overqualified sidekick, I probably would've stood tall like a brave idiot and taken the lance right to the chest—only to discover too late that the thing could have turned me into a fancy shish kebab in one hit.
So, instead of proudly tanking the attack like a heroic moron, I did something smarter: don’t get hit.
I stood still, my face calm, the wind tugging at my cloak like it was trying to warn me one last time. The knight charged. Its monstrous lance zeroed in on my sternum like it had a grudge against my ribcage.
BAM!
I ducked. Rolled. My claws lashed out with pinpoint precision, slicing clean through the horse’s front legs like a chef dicing up meat for stir fry. The aberrant steed shrieked.
The knight?
Airborne.
He was yeeted off his mount with all the grace of a brick in flight, landing hard with a sound that was equal parts crunching and bewailing.
“Oh wow—I didn’t know I could do that.” I said, a bit amazed. All credit to the Void Terror Gauntlets. With both Hunter and I linked, it felt like I was predicting his moves in real-time—like my brain got a trial subscription to omniscience.
"[The party can wait, my Lord… clearly, our guest here didn’t RSVP to survival.]" Hunter quipped dryly. The knight, now enraged and covered in dirt and shame, readied his lance again.
He moved the weapon like a dancer twirling a partner—fluid, deliberate, and unsettlingly elegant. It was almost hypnotic. Almost.
BOOM!
I wasn’t ready for that one.
A thunderous shockwave followed the impossibly fast thrust of the lance—no wind-up, no warning, just death incoming.
I dodged, barely. But not without cost.
The lance speared through the left side of my chest, slicing through ribs and lung like a hot knife through butter. Blood gushed from my mouth, thick and dark. Breathing was suddenly a suggestion I could no longer follow.
“Tsk—so... not even future sight can read a perfect move, huh?” I rasped, coughing up another bloody mouthful, my vision flickering like a dying lightbulb. My body twitched, on the brink.
But then, just like that, my regeneration trait kicked in—blessing me with another painful second chance.
The knight’s laughter echoed, loud and cruel—until it wasn’t.
THUD.
His head hit the ground like a dropped melon, splashing black blood across the already cursed soil.
“Wha—what?! When did you slice me?!” he stammered, his severed head trying desperately to reconnect with its disgraced body, yet it could not due to the acid that lingers in its wounds.
From above, I looked down at him as his limbs twitched in a last-ditch tantrum, his steed screaming in the distance while Hunter calmly dragged its broken form behind him like a trash bag on a moving day.
The funny thing is—we hadn’t even planned to decapitate him. Not exactly. We just needed a distraction… I just hadn’t expected my own impalement to be part of the distraction.
Hunter and I played it out perfectly. While the knight lunged, my weapon swept low—silent, hidden under my interwave burst. It masked Hunter’s presence just long enough for him to land the killing blow. Clean. Decisive. Elegant in its own morbid way.
The knight gurgled his last venom.
“You… even if you’ve killed me… you can’t escape what comes next. He’s coming. He will find you. He will make you wish for death a thousand times over... and when you finally beg—"
SPLAT.
I stomped on his grotesque face, cutting off his monologue mid-villain speech. Black blood sprayed upward like some twisted fireworks.
“Doesn’t matter,” I muttered, wiping the gore off my boot with about as much emotion as tossing out trash. “I’m coming for him anyway.”
I activated my absorption, pulling the blood of the fallen into a swirling dome around me, a crimson hurricane forming a protective shell that hummed with power and intent.
My gaze rose to the towering summit ahead, glowing faintly red like it knew I was coming. My legs moved on their own, drawn toward it.
My senses screamed to turn back, to run.
But I didn’t want to.
And strangely enough, Hunter—the voice of reason, the snarky whisper in my ear—said nothing.
Because for once, we were both thinking the same thing:
It ends here.
One way or another.
Outer Celestials,
Follow and add this novel to your Favorites.
[Ting!]
[A Review and Rating would be helpful too.]
