Chapter 133: Liona
Serian rushed to his side, her fear momentarily forgotten as she knelt beside his collapsed form. "Nox? Are you alright? What happened to you?"
He just shook his head, a wry, tired smile on his face. "I think... I think I just leveled up."
"That was not a level up," she insisted, her voice soft but firm. "I felt your power change. It was like... like something broke inside you, and then was rebuilt." She looked at the faint, fading lines of the void-forged armor on his skin. "What was that?"
He couldn’t explain it. He didn’t even understand it himself. ’A fragment of a dead god? What does that even mean?’ He pushed himself to sit up, his body aching with a deep, profound exhaustion.
"I don’t know," he said honestly. "It just... happened."
Mela walked over, her arms crossed, her usual sarcastic anger replaced by a look of wary caution. "It worked. Whatever ’it’ was. The big skeleton is dust. Let’s just get out of this tomb."
Serian looked at Nox, her mind trying to piece together the impossible things she had just witnessed. His power surge, the inhuman transformation, his instant recovery. ’It must be a gift from his sponsor,’ she thought, the idea solidifying in her mind. ’A dangerous, volatile gift, but a gift nonetheless. What kind of being grants such terrifying power?’
Nox wasn’t listening. He was staring at the empty space in front of his face, at a new interface that was sleek, black, and utterly alien. All the numbers, the stats, the long list of skills—they were gone. It was clean, efficient, and cold.
’Liona,’ a voice echoed in his head. It wasn’t a god’s voice from the chat. It was the System itself. It sounded different now. Clearer.
’So you have a name now?’ he thought back.
[That is the designation you have assigned. It is... acceptable.]
He almost laughed. The System had an opinion. ’Okay, "Liona". So what happened to me?’