331 (I) Haunted [II]
In the rare cases where a Pathbearer manages to skip a Tier at the threshold of level 200 and attains Legendary Skill Evolution instead of a Heroic one, the Evolution that follows will be a double-edged sword.
For one, a Legendary Skill, even Undelved, is immaculate, impossibly powerful, beyond the conception and the reach of any Hero. A Legendary Skill is more than just its scope. It's more than just its intensity. A Hero can continue building their skill or progressing or maintaining, even in the most dire circumstances. A Hero is defined by defiance to strive against any odds, to be shaped by their own will more than the conditions of their environment.
But a Legend stands above that.
A Legend stands unto themselves, even capable of ignoring the will of the divine, to an extent.
Where a Hero can bear the weight of a falling city, a Legend can redefine how mountains crumble using their Physicality alone. For strength is no longer something that is just a part of them. Strength is something they can mold to their own purpose, recreated from their greatest feats.
But take note that, without Delving, your Legend is not specified. You are the totality of all you have done, not only your successes, but your failures as well. An Undelved Legend must bear the burden of everything. There will be cracks to your Legendary Skill Evolution. There will be fissures and liabilities woven in with the incredible majesty of your new power.
Should you reach this point, Pathbearer, tread carefully, for you will experience the fullness of your potential as much as the true depths of your greatest flaws.
—The Paths of Ascension: Essential Reading at Phoenix Academy of the Yellowstone Republic
331 (I)
Haunted [II]
Skill Evolution: Seer of Horizons (Heroic) > This Haunting Omniscience (Legendary)
Attention: Delve requirements for Skill [This Haunting Omniscience] not yet met.
Detail blossomed behind Adam's eyes. His skull felt like a fracturing egg; its shell was coming apart and birthing a flood of sensory awareness. At first, it was like a magnification to his Seer of Horizons. He saw more, and he saw in greater detail. The world came alight in spectrums of color previously denied him. He heard the most distant heartbeats of the creatures residing in this forest. The wriggling of worms deep in the soil was practically like thunderclaps going off beside his ears. The faintest odors clawed up his nostrils, cleaving at the flesh of his tongue. Adam gagged.
The forest nested within the dragon's stomach was at once the most fragrant and vile thing he'd ever tasted.
But then it got worse. It got so much worse. A building headache started at the very nexus of his skull. It was like a locus of misery, a small node that kept expanding outwards. He wasn't just seeing things that happened recently now; he was seeing things connected to them. Seeing things that were interlaced with each other, beyond his current ability to describe, beyond the weight his mind could bear at present.
Seeing a bird made him able to decipher its flight paths. He could smell its every scent note, and he could trace any other bird in the vicinity and further.
His Skill Evolution continued swelling. The Paragon was now aware of everything inside the dragon's stomach, and expanding further, he could hear the beast's heart pounding with the loudness of two tectonic plates grinding together—and because he could hear the beast's heart, he sensed every other heart. His mind began to jump further and further until suddenly he found himself far beyond the domain of the dragon and trapped inside a butterfly, which must have been kilometers away from where he was, because it too had a core. It had the same internal architecture, a similar frequency of sound or semblance of noise he gathered from inside the dragon.
The sensory maelstrom continued. The overload grew unbearable. Every scent he tasted drew him to a sibling pungence. The smell of excrement greeted him, and so he followed that taste. This Haunting Omniscience pulled him in a million-million different directions. He found himself blurring across countless fields, within every fiber of every living being, and he felt all of that as his senses continued to expand, reverberating, rebounding off of additional inputs. He was in a place ruled by summer, glowing blindingly bright beneath a laughing sun's rays. The wheat fields around him were skyscrapers of gold and colors he couldn't name, and he was a farmer in their midst, clothes drenched in sweat from a hard day's work and standing ankle deep in manure.
He was in the sky, laughing as he spilled his waste upon a smaller bird. A thousand kilometers away, he was a worm below the earth, leaving his refuse amidst the soil, digging through the frozen ground in defiance of winter's barren breath. Then came a faint sound of flatulence, and Adam found his perception jumping through the rectums of all manner of creatures.
The scope of his senses grew wider, faster, far more than he could process. Everything within the realm of his awareness became a signal that pinged like sonar.
Where Shiv's Atlas of the Flesh Scryer allowed him to track organic entities or bits of biological matter, Adam's new Skill Evolution granted him the ability to scry and hunt practically anything. Anything that triggered one's senses at all: a color, a flavor, a melody, a touch—no matter how ethereal—and countless things more. And with every detail he noticed, his awareness only grew faster, greater, exponentially, until his mind found itself teetering at the border of madness.
“Too… much,” Adam choked, his own voice striking his perception like hammer blows as it ripped its way out of his throat. “Too much… It's too much. Too much, it's too much!”
He clamped his hands over his ears in a vain attempt to lock out the roaring tide of sounds pouring into his mind like an ocean being drained into a glass through a funnel.
This proved to be a mistake, for so sensitive was his hearing that his eardrums nearly burst with the act. But even so, even with his physical body broken, even with blood pouring between his fingers as he tore at his lobes viciously, he could still hear, because his senses had long since broken free from the limitations of his meager physical shell. And it wasn't just his hearing.
Images speared into his remaining eye, causing the organ to turn bloodshot, swell, and then burst like a ripe grape left too long upon a raging bonfire. He tasted the liquid iron pouring out of his face like it was all he'd ever drunk in his life. But still he saw, for his gaze went beyond the ruined sockets that wept waterfalls of searing blood down his cheeks. Blood and snot poured out from his nose as well, and the sensation of every creature and thing in the world pressing not only against his skin, but against every internal fiber of his physical form, the feeling of his flesh touching flesh, pulled him further into the havoc of his new Skill.
He refused to speak to himself. He refused to make any noise. He tried to tune it all out, the way he did with his Seer of Horizons, but this was more than just casting his senses out. This was the entire world bleeding into him, constantly, incessantly, like he was the heart of a continental vortex, like reality couldn't stop itself from not whispering but screaming its deepest secrets to him.
Stop, stop, stop… please…
And suddenly, it did. An invasive presence sank into Adam's consciousness. It was an act of Psychomancy. He'd felt mind magic more than enough now to be familiar with its touch. Slowly, it spread through him. It seized his mind and began pushing back against the overwhelming flood of information like a rival titan.
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Alone, Adam's mind was a single wooden beam trying to bear the weight of an entire tectonic plate. It wasn't enough. The sheer strain his Legendary Skill placed upon his mind sent his Multi-Tasking levels skyrocketing. That functionally added a few nails to said wooden beam. However, Adam wasn’t alone anymore.
The Culturist's mind was like a once-submerged island rising from a parting ocean. But the ocean didn't just retreat; instead, it rushed down and became a geyser, blasting the island up and further boosting the single beam that once stood all that mass alone.
Multi-Tasking 39 > 45
In that instant, Adam learned two things. The first was that a Legendary Skill was a terrible power to possess when the rest of your being wasn't ready to embrace such a magnificent burden. The second was that the Culturist’s Multi-Tasking Skill was most definitely Legendary-Tier as well. His concentration and sheer breadth of consciousness were a thing beyond reckoning. He felt the Culturist's presence expand through him, spreading out through each of his senses and turning them off one after another. But it wasn't a simple operation. Adam felt the orc shake and tremble, exerting his considerable will as dams against the tides of Adam’s rogue awareness.
A third testament entered Adam’s understanding: The weight of his new Skill Evolution strained even a developed Legend. Just what was this Haunting Omniscience supposed to be?
The Paragon lingered in this feverish purgatory for far too long. Again, time slipped away from him. The world became at once a cage trapped by flowing molasses, yet everything outside felt like quicksand. His senses jumped. The world was light, then dark. Then he was someplace where the sun couldn't reach, and again, where the dawn shone eternal. Bits of awareness spilled through cracks lining the Culturist's mental dam, but slowly, cement was poured into the fissures, sealing away the breaches, as the orc cemented his hold over Adam's mind. It was here that another thought greeted the Paragon, far more subtle and insidious compared to all others. It was a dangerous thing, allowing the Culturist to possess such control over him, and to that Adam had only one reply.
Good thing that I burned away his Itch… A chuckle escaped him. The noise of his own laughter sounded loud enough to set the fluid lining his brain matter to a literal boil.
A brief moment of bliss followed as his own consciousness drowned in darkness.
***
When Adam returned, it was with a startled jolt. Sleep had crept over him so suddenly that it felt like an ambush. Likely because it was the Culturist’s doing. The work likely induced a state of stupor on Adam to keep him stable. As the emerald leaves and the glossy, rich-textured branches and trunks of the surrounding trees greeted Adam once more, he didn't feel so overwhelmed. Their detail still shimmered. Faint traces of gloss bled free from their bodies as one tree connected to another. Things were still rebounding off each other; hidden signals suppressed but there, buried in the depths of his brain matter. It felt like a nest of wriggling centipedes was trying to break their way free along the furrows of his mind, but they couldn't. They were stuck. They were clenched tight by another's hand.
And it was only then that Adam realized he had both eyes again. He blinked, he breathed, he listened, and he felt more siloed than ever before. “I didn't realize you could suppress my awareness.”
A low grunt came from his right, where Adam found the Culturist sitting cross-legged on the ground and leaning against a tree. His bulk was so immense that the trunk he leaned against was bending, with its roots beginning to tear out the earth at an awkward angle. The Culturist's eyes were closed, and though his face was enshadowed by his feathered cowl, it was obvious his brow was furrowed in concentration.
“Are you alright?” Adam asked.
The Culturist chuckled softly. “Just counting my blessings. I forgot how overwhelming a pure Awareness Skill Evolution could be. Mine is a fusion, and though it has narrowed my capabilities in some ways, it's kept things neater in others. This is quite the skill to evolve, but I am not envious of you, Adam Arrow. Not in the slightest. It will take much effort on both our parts to sustain this.”
“What do you mean?” But before the orc offered his reply, Adam's mouth fell open. “Wait. Don't tell me… You didn't shut off my perception, did you? You took the bulk of it on yourself. You're experiencing everything I'm supposed to.”
The left corner of the Culturist's face broke into a faint grin. A very obvious grin, actually. “You're a clever young man, Paragon. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Give me some of the burden back. I can carry it.”
The Culturist shook his head. “No, you really can't. It's far too much. If it stresses even me to this extent, then the things it would have done to your mind would have been catastrophic. Unlike Shiv, you cannot be put back together so easily. I am not nearly skilled enough in the art of Psychomantic mending to trust in my ability to fix you, should your mind break entirely. If you had shattered, then I would have been left with a vegetable. Had that happened, my priority would have become hunting down Sister Mettabon—which would have been akin to courting certain death for me, since Evanescia is likely either in her vicinity or still inserted into her soul directly.”
Adam's mouth went dry as he realized how close he'd come to mental obliteration. “So, the Skill Evolution. It doesn't even feel like it is one. It's more like a divine Curse. I can't control it even remotely or use it to actually aid myself.”
“Well, I wouldn't say that,” the Culturist grunted. “We simply have to learn how to calibrate it carefully.”
Slowly, the orc rose from where he sat and opened his eyes. To Adam's surprise, the Culturist's irises took on an azure quality while the corners radiated with a piercing incandescence. It was like he possessed Adam's eyes now, and a pulsating corona radiated out from his other senses, leaving fiery emanations in the air.
“I remain fused to your Awareness Skill. The first bit of good news is that I can help calibrate your skill from anywhere. I can reach you from anywhere, but I must remain alive to do so. If I die during the loop, then it is perhaps best you find some place safe to hide and wait for something to reset or end the loop. However, this all works. Without me, I fear that you may find yourself overwhelmed.”
Adam chuckled humorlessly. “More like driven insane. You said I was close to breaking. Before you, it's like the entire world was being poured into me. Every detail was rebounding off another.” He shuddered, but there was something else hidden beneath his dread. It was a want, a need. There was something glorious about being connected to all things, being able to sense everything. He didn't say it aloud, but he yearned for it, to be worthy of such a skill, to possess such a power. No secrets beyond him, no sights past the reach of his gaze, no sounds unheard, no taste unknown, no object untouched.
“Yes, that is because you are unprepared to possess such a skill,” the Culturist explained. “And you don't know how to turn your senses off.”
“And how exactly do you intend for me to achieve this? Are we going to try and rush my Psychomantic development?”
The Culturist scoffed. “It doesn't take a measure of Psychomancy for one to learn how to control their own mind. I am sure you are aware of what that is.”
Adam rolled his eyes. “I could have taken an advanced class on meditation, but I decided to forego that—”
“Stop talking, sit down, cross your legs, and close your eyes,” the Culturist commanded. “Whatever you were going to learn in that class would have been wasted. We are going to practice something right now.”
“How long is this going to take?” Adam asked, not doing what the orc had told him to.
“However long it takes for you to achieve the basic requirements. Your mind is not strong enough to sustain this skill, so you need to do two other things first. You must be able to block out some of your own senses. This can be done, but it will take a concentrated effort, something that will likely require far more time than a few hours. Yet there is a simpler function you can perform. Sleep.”
Adam did a double-take. “Sleep?”
“Yes. Should you lose me, it will be best for you to put yourself into a state of paralysis and deep slumber. If you can induce a coma-like state upon yourself, then the world, at least in theory, should be blunted from your awareness. Parts of your senses are still active while you sleep, but you will not be overwhelmed so directly.”
“Won't this leave me extremely vulnerable to attack?”
The Culturist shrugged. “It makes no difference, as without me, you will be drowned beneath the crushing waves of your sensory input and thus defenseless regardless. At least if you are merely unconscious instead of a corpse whose brain has been boiled from within, you may be captured. That gives you a chance to be rescued either by the Deathless or by Mettabon, assuming she manages to free herself.” The Culturist sounded a bit too uncertain for Adam’s comfort. “If nothing else, it is an added option. The Usurper-Narrator hasn't been able to affect your soul. She has not been able to find and capture you. Considering how quickly she attacked us in the prior loop, I believe we can rule out the possibility of her playing games. That was not the action of a cat toying with a mouse. That was surprise. Your Path Evolution caught her off guard, and my presence in the Fairwoods was unknown to her as well.”
The thought of inducing a total slumber upon himself while surrounded by ravenous monsters made Adam anxious, but what the Culturist said made sense, so against his instincts and, frankly, his prejudice toward the orc, Adam sat down and closed his eyes.
After a moment of silence, he cracked an eye open again and squinted at the Culturist. “So, what now?”