Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
I looked at the Pawn infused with The Light with a huge, satisfied smile. I quickly scanned it to try to find the slightest flaw, but no matter how I looked at it, everything told me it should work correctly, and that's what I really hoped.
Rebecca… had adopted the classic immortal strategy, the stupid strategy of not dodging anything at all. Being able to revive or regenerate, the damage she suffered was almost irrelevant most of the time.
She was definitely the one who died and revived the most times during our entire play session. And she did so cheerfully. So yes, it had to be perfect; I didn't want to have to carry Rebecca's corpse in front of Enid to be revived if the Evil Piece didn't work as it should.
"Is it complete?" Riveria asked, gazing at the piece in wonder. I hummed softly as I continued rolling the piece between my fingers.
"It should be. I wanted to experiment with an unused piece before modifying yours, but... it seems to be a complete success." I said softly before taking out the box with the rest of my Evil Piece.
I still had half of them there, so I grabbed them one by one and began infusing The Light into them just like the first time. I could feel, as each connection formed within me, The Light filtering through them.
Once I finished, all my pieces looked the same as the first one. Pieces of violet crystal with white lines that let The Light escape slightly.
"Now, who wants to try it first?" I asked with a crooked smile.
"Me!" Rebecca said immediately as she approached. I nodded as I put away the small box with the Evil Pieces. I approached Rebecca, placed my hands on her chest, right in the middle of her sternum, and began.
My eyes and senses quickly located my Evil Piece within Rebecca's soul, bound, tied, and fused to hers as a core part of it. The Evil Piece reacted immediately to me and allowed itself to be grasped and influenced without the slightest resistance.
I took a deep breath. Rebecca's Evil Piece was no longer in the physical realm; it was in the spiritual realm. Luckily, I had improved enough to see and manipulate things in the spiritual realm thanks to my previous experiments.
I reached for the Evil Piece and gently touched it with my magic, creating a connection that she eagerly accepted. Once she was fully bonded to the Evil Piece, I began the process of fragmenting The Light.
Rebecca's piece eagerly clung to my fragment before merging. I tried to guide the entire process carefully, so as not to damage or harm Rebecca's soul. I was certain that if I didn't have Stress Defense, I'd be writhing with anxiety.
When I finished creating the pseudo Ghost with Rebecca's Evil Piece with great care, I let the connection between us open completely. I could feel a small pulse of The Light emerge from the Evil Piece as it filled Rebecca's entire soul.
I breathed heavily as I walked away from Beca. I took out a cigarette and placed it between my lips without hesitation, lit it, and took a long drag to calm myself. Finally, I looked at Rebecca, who was staring at her hands in wonder.
I scan Rebecca from all sides, looking for any anomalies.
"Is everything... is everything okay?" I asked slowly, and Rebecca just smiled broadly.
"Better than good! You were right about the two energy sources! I can use my Light source and the Light that comes from you through the link as two different sources." Rebecca said as she raised both hands. One of them was filled with fire, and the other with electricity.
"It's incredible! My reserves of The Light were really high, like... truly impressive! I'm not an expert or anything, but I think it was way too much! But the bond with you? That... that seems damned endless." Rebecca said in amazement; I could feel her grasp the bond before she began to use more of The Light.
I could feel a slight drain from the connection; in fact, I felt it inside my Reality Marble. I looked inside myself for a moment and stopped, confused.
Enormous chess pieces appeared on the horizon. All of them seemed inert, except for one… a Pawn, one that I quickly recognized as Rebecca's piece.
I guess… it was a way of seeing my connection to Rebecca's Evil Piece. That… was weird. I could see the giant Evil Piece absorbing The Light from my Reality Marble and traveling to Rebecca. I started scanning it in detail. Hmm, I could block the link, prevent it from absorbing The Light, or even widen it or push out huge amounts of The Light if necessary.
But… could I use other things? I began testing the different energies within my body. Interestingly, Demonic Power was easy to push; I could hear Rebecca's squeal of surprise, and I quickly began to transmit to her what I was doing.
Then I started pushing The Darkness, which… was a complete failure, that was somewhat expected. The bond was based on The Light; unless both energies merged into the Prismatic, they tended to repel each other.
"Um... It's... I'm getting excited." Rebecca said, pulling me out of my daydream. I blinked and looked at Rebecca, who was starting to blush deeply, her thighs slowly rubbing together.
"Wow, you can't even resist?" Lucy mocked with a sneering smile.
"It wasn't me! It started when I began using the link with Sera!" Rebecca retorted. I looked at her, confused, before diving back into the connection.
I… didn't see anything strange? I frowned slightly as I continued to look at everything I could… before finding the reason.
Oh… I had forgotten about that… I mean, using magic, demonic power, and any other source of power, increased my lust, because that's what I was, a Baiser, Magician, and a Succubus; everything revolved around Lust.
I… didn't think The Light and the Darkness had the same characteristic. And I didn't even realize it because I'm so used to being constantly aroused that casual use didn't bother me any more than usual.
But someone other than myself would be able to notice the surge of lust and excitement that came with the use of my powers.
And the bond was exactly that. The bond had no filter; it simply pushed raw power toward the receiver. So The Light, demonic power, and more—it was all charged with lust that excited anyone who used it.
That… that could be a problem.
I started trying to prevent that from happening. At this point, it didn't bother me, but I'm sure it would bother the others, or well, maybe only Riveria and Lucy to a certain extent.
Bella and Rebecca would welcome it with open arms, Enid didn't use enough magic to need access to mine, and neither did Ravel, though she wouldn't mind if it happened, especially after I'd groped her in public a few times. GLaDOS… I wasn't really sure.
The problem would be with Lucius and Cissy, I shuddered slightly at the thought.
I started working faster and quickly found a way to avoid it; I would push all the reactions toward me, though the excitement would increase by several degrees, something that wouldn't bother me much.
They would have to use a vast amount of energy to bother me.
"Huh? Why did you take it out? " Rebecca asked indignantly. I raised an eyebrow.
"You want the side effect?" I asked, surprised. Rebecca shrugged.
"It wouldn't bother me too much, it's not like it wouldn't happen even without your magic's help, it would just make the fights more exciting." Rebecca said with a lascivious smile. I snorted along with Lucy, still releasing the restraint on Rebecca.
"Well, despite Becca's objections, I was able to fix it. Does it completely block the side effect?" I asked the others. Lucy shrugged.
"It wouldn't bother me either, although it might be best to shut it down in a real fight. I'm not so bloodthirsty that I'd want to get excited if you had to revive me at some point," Lucy said dryly. "Outside of a fight, I wouldn't mind," Lucy said simply. I grimaced, but nodded.
"It doesn't bother me, I can ignore it," GLaDOS said dismissively. I glanced at Riveria, the last one; she blushed slightly.
"I... I'll take the same as Lucy if possible, I... could help... move our relationship forward." Riveria said shyly. I looked at her in surprise.
"Move forward? There's nothing to move forward with." I said, surprised. "We won't do anything you don't want." I said without hesitation. Riveria grimaced and bit her lip.
"One of the contract's requirements was that I would help you with... your succubus condition, and... and I can't do that if I'm... reserved." Riveria said, squirming before taking a deep breath. "And besides... I want to..." Riveria said firmly. "I want to do it, so... a little nudge wouldn't hurt?" Riveria said shyly.
I looked at her in surprise before smiling slightly and nodding.
"Yes, if that's what you want." I said gently. Riveria sighed as she nodded. "Very well, now I'll make the connection with all of you," I said cheerfully.
I approached Lucy, who was the closest, placed my hands on her chest, and repeated the process once more. The whole process was much faster after having done it once with Becca.
Repeating the process on GLaDOS and Riveria made it even easier. Bella, Enid, Ravel, Cissy, and Lucius were still missing, but I needed to see them in person to change their Evil Pieces.
I put that aside and looked inside my Reality Marble, specifically at the pieces that appeared. Three pawns and a rook, all enormous. Each seemed to subtly display a characteristic of its owner.
They were still enormous chess pieces, made of crystal and the Light, but I could see patches of different shapes all over them, trying to replace the pieces.
Lucy's piece seemed made of code, Rebecca's was enveloped in para-causal energies. The rarest were Riveria's and GLaDOS's; their pieces were mutated, so their shapes had been modified even further.
GLaDOS's seemed to be made entirely of technology, immaculately white like the design she liked to apply to everything she created, but I could see circuitry in the unprotected areas. Riveria's seemed to be made of a tree with silver wings shaped like a pawn and enormous quantities of The Light.
It was… interesting to see how each piece was so unique; I couldn't wait to see the others. For the moment, they didn't seem to have any influence on my Reality Marble other than absorbing the different energies within me, but I would have to keep a close eye on them.
"Alright! Time to go to the dungeon! " I chirped as I mentally sent Bella a message. A few seconds later, a teleportation circle glowed near us and Bella lazily appeared.
"I see you're done." Bella said. I could feel her mind brushing against mine, and I could see the memories starting to surface. I could see her curious about everything that had happened in Destiny, especially all the killing and the powers.
Although it was just a slight curiosity, something that really ended when she realized that it was all fake.
"Do you want a connection between The Light and The Darkness?" I asked Bella curiously. Bella frowned slightly as she reviewed all the essential information before shrugging.
"It doesn't bother me, it's simply power. Some powers are more interesting than others, but beyond that, I don't care," Bella said without hesitation.
"Better to have it than need it," I said simply as I approached Bella. I placed my hand firmly on her chest and tried to see her Evil Piece. I almost grimaced as I saw the tens of thousands of souls inside Bella.
I paused for a moment. The Witness was an entity with a Gestalt consciousness formed from countless minds of a civilization, all fused into one. That made it incredibly powerful; its skill and mastery over the Darkness made it terrifyingly dangerous.
To the point of being a danger to The Traveler, one could even say that The Witness was stronger than The Traveler, a primordial entity of paracausal energy. Bella wouldn't necessarily have to merge with the souls she absorbs, but The Darkness would definitely serve her even better in controlling, dominating, and using them more effectively.
And even if she didn't use them for that, The Darkness could help her more than The Light, I mean… There was Oryx, and well, basically the entire hive. The power system that makes them stronger would really help Bella.
Sword Logic is a philosophy and a paracausal system for obtaining power. It asserts that existence is a constant struggle, and that weaker entities, incapable of defending their existence, did not deserve it in the first place. They sought to find or become something indestructible, and the only way to do so was by attempting to destroy everything.
An extreme bastardization of The Final Shape. A poor interpretation, but still effective, since by killing weaker entities and destroying everything in its path, it increased its strength. According to Sword Logic, all power must be taken, not given, because giving power dilutes it and makes it false, since the one who receives it has never proven worthy of such existence.
Sword Logic was capable of many things, the main one being the enhancement of stats and evolution. Those who used it were able to appropriate the positive attributes of those they killed, whether mind, strength, skills, or experience.
It could even reach truly ridiculous places; someone with Sword Logic could impose their will on other laws or entities, forcing them to follow it. Someone could become so strong as to even manipulate paracausality. Oryx's Sword Logic was even able to force The Light, something completely outside of reason and causality, to follow his laws while they were in his domain.
And if someone like Oryx could become strong enough to become a ridiculously powerful god to threaten and eradicate entire civilizations, then Bella could do it.
Especially since it functioned exactly like her Falna. Would she be able to obtain a double or triple reward? Steal attributes with Sword Logic by killing enemies, steal attributes by ingesting blood thanks to the skill she gained with her Falna, and then use the Excelia obtained by impressing the gods to further increase her stats.
It would be a triple benefit if she could achieve it.
So, without hesitation, I grabbed the Evil Piece from Bella's queen, and this time, I not only tore a piece of The Light from within me, but I also grabbed the source of The Darkness from within me and fragmented it as well.
My Darkness wasn't ridiculously strong, immense, and overflowing like my Light, so I felt an even stronger decrease when I fragmented it, but still, I didn't hesitate. I let the fragment of The Darkness be the main conduit of the bond while The Light remained a minor component.
I took both pieces and pushed them into Bella's Evil Piece. Both paracausal energies attempted to fight within the Evil Piece before being forced to work together. Finally, both fragments settled and fused into Bella's Queen Piece.
Meanwhile, I used all of Traveler's memories to modify the fragment of The Darkness to make it more easily compatible with Sword Logic. Sword Logic was a very simplified version of The Darkness's true power, but it would be better if it were more optimized for Sword Logic.
I could have given Bella an Add Powers so she could get her own Darkness. Still, the problem would be that Bella would have to radically change her entire personality, becoming a living follower of Sword Logic like Oryx was. In this way, the fragment would take care of everything, even if Bella didn't actively push Sword Logic, but obviously, with less effectiveness.
That said, I began transferring all the information about Sword Logic to Bella. I had all the necessary memories of Sword Logic thanks to the Traveler's memories. I had all the Books of Pain, the Dredgen scriptures, Yor, and the fragments of Toland's diary, that is, all the texts where Sword Logic is discussed, were inside my mind.
I finally finished. I looked closely at Bella's Evil Piece and saw how black-and-white lines crisscrossed the entire piece as it oozed paracausal energy. I sighed with relief as I saw that it had worked perfectly.
The enormous queen piece inside my Reality Marble was also perfectly stable and had its own peculiarities. It almost felt like I was seeing The Witness once again; vast quantities of souls seemed to overlap all over the chess piece.
Or no, they weren't really Bella's souls, but their echoes, which were just as strange. I put appearances aside and focused once more.
If this works well and Bella can take advantage of Sword Logic, perhaps I can convince her to do a powerswap with The Witness or The Veil.
But for the moment, this should suffice.
"That... might work." Bella said, surprised, as she absorbed Sword Logic. I simply nodded.
"Just try it, now... shall we go to the dungeon?" I asked expectantly, I was really looking forward to seeing what we could do.