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Duskbound 3- Chapter 94
🕑 Added 2025-08-27 12:21:01 +0000 UTCThe first question Sildra had to ask was, “Is Velik right? You can’t talk to him because he’s not part of the system anymore?”
Morgus rolled his eyes. “No, Velik is not right, not about much of anything, honestly. That boy is good at hitting things with his sticks and that’s about it.”
“Really? That’s a relief. He painted a pretty dire picture of the situation,” Sildra said.
“Ah. Well… I suppose I should give him a little credit. He’s not entirely wrong about that, though to be fair, he’s just repeating what someone much smarter than him told him. Still, the boy knows his limits and doesn’t try to build off the knowledge he got elsewhere.”
Sildra blinked once, then slowly said, “Sooooo… How much right is he, exactly?”
The conversation was barely thirty seconds old and it had already jerked her around so much she was ready to just give up. Velik’s news had inspired a knot of tension and fear in her head, one which Morgus had reinforced by actually showing up to speak to her, then unraveled with early reassurances, only to make her start panicking with the very next sentence. She knew better than to vent her frustration on a god, but it was a test of patience keeping her temper, especially when Morgus was obviously hedging about something.
“It’s complicated,” Morgus said, seeming faintly embarrassed about the whole thing. “You see, my brother was dying—”
“Gods can die?” Sildra interrupted. Her eyes widened a moment later and she muttered, “Sorry.”
“Ahem, yes. As I was saying… Darshu was fading away. That’s what happens to gods when their domains become thin and weak. Civilization had all but ceased to exist in this world as the eldest monsters enforced their might-makes-right mentality. So he came up with a plan. We took the species that was making the most inroads towards constructing an actual civilization, humans, and transplanted a sampling to a sealed off corner of the world where they could flourish.
“Humans, you see, are relatively weak, a prey species. They don’t reproduce quickly. They grow slowly. They have short lives. The only thing your kind really had going for yourselves was your intelligence. You made tools. Then you used those tools to make better tools. You built shelter. You collaborated with each other for safety. You had all the potential to be what Darshu needed, if only we could get you to stop dying before you even reached adulthood.”
Morgus paused to stare off into the distance. “Honestly, I don’t remember who came up with the bright idea to siphon essence off monsters and feed it to humans. Legra opposed it vehemently, of course. Really, she was against the whole project, but the rest of us banded together to overrule her. The rest of the divine beasts wanted to get rid of one of their number anyway. They went about killing it, at the cost of one of their own, and we intervened at the last instant to take both the fallen away.
“Essence parasites are rare creatures, mostly because they’re killed on sight whenever and wherever they’re found. Only one ever managed to get powerful enough to become a divine beast, luckily, and that was enough to piss off pretty much everybody who mattered. So we took it, and we bound it with the other one, a knowledge spirit that had gotten itself drained to the brink of death in the battle, and we made the system from it.”
Sildra wondered how many people were alive in the whole world who knew what Morgus was so casually explaining to her, and she was betting the answer was ‘not many,’ or maybe even ‘not any.’ As fascinating as having the origin of human civilization explained to her was, though, she didn’t see how it was supposed to help her overcome the crisis in progress.
As if sensing her doubts, Morgus chuckled and said, “That was just for context, so you’d understand what we did and how it worked. Now, what happened was that the goddess of monsters decided if we were going to use one of her children, she was reserving the right to intervene. She saw what our system was doing to humans and, perhaps rightfully, feared that you’d spread and take over the whole world, killing any and every monster.
“So we forged the Compact, agreeing to keep the system experiment contained and granting Legra the power to break it to pieces if we ever failed to keep the system inside the boundary. In exchange, her divine beasts were forbidden from taking a life here. Basically, everybody agreed to leave everybody else alone so long as we all followed the rules.”
A rumble cut through the dream world, interrupting Morgus and causing him to scowl off at the horizon. “Of course, we added a few safeguards of our own after the fact. The system core was buried underground, and since undead have no essence, they were deemed the perfect guardians to keep an essence parasite sequestered from the rest of the world. Even now, they’re working to try to slow the beast’s emergence.”
“Will they succeed?” Sildra asked quietly, afraid she already knew the answer.
He gave her a sad smile and shook his head. “No. They’ve fulfilled their roles, but they were never meant to counteract this. The divine beast is waking up, essence fluctuations are going wild in every monster in the human lands, and they’re rising up against the system that’s been leaching off them their entire lives. Once the beast fully emerges, the fluctuations will reverse, and it will pull all the essence from every single being connected to the system.”
“Leaving us defenseless,” Sildra said. “That’s how it works, right?”
“As a classless level 1,” Morgus confirmed. “If it’s any consolation, the monsters will be in… similar straights. Of course, a level 1 human pitted against most level 1 monsters has a predictable outcome, and they outnumber you a hundred to one.”
It wasn’t a crisis. It was the end of humanity. Without the system propping them up, they’d be defenseless. It wouldn’t happen overnight, no, but it wouldn’t take long, either. Even if the divine beast never actually emerged, the monsters themselves would wipe humans out.
Dread filled her, but it quickly gave way to righteous, burning anger. How dare Legra do this to us? How dare she break the Compact! The gods have every right to reach down and squash her little essence eating parasite beneath their thumbs!
Anger flared into hope, and she quickly returned her attention to Morgus. “You’re going to stop it, right? The Compact is broken, so there’s no reason you can’t just clean this all up.”
“No, no, of course we’re not going to do that,” Morgus said. “Besides, I’m the one who broke it. We’ve been planning this for a thousand years. It’s time to break Legra’s hold over us. We don’t need her shitty little parasite anymore, so all that’s left is to kill it off once and for all.”
“But how can we if we’re all losing—” Sildra cut herself off. “Velik isn’t connected to the system anymore. He won’t be affected by it. He could… Can he, though? Is he strong enough?”
“That’s the gamble,” Morgus confirmed. “Gave him his own personal system, sent him out to get some experience fighting divine beasts and grow his essence reserves. So far, he’s done well. Kept in his lane. Killed what we pointed him at. Didn’t overthink things.”
“He wants to know what he’s supposed to do.”
“I know. He’ll figure it out though. It’s the same solution he has to pretty much every problem he’s had his whole life. Kill the essence parasite divine beast when it emerges.”
“What about the other one?” she asked.
Morgus shrugged. “It’s… not really separate anymore. They’re one creature now, but Legra’s power has given the parasite control.”
“So that’s your advice? Just hit it until it dies?”
“We gave him his own system to guide him,” Morgus protested hotly. “What more does he need?”
“How about where the divine beast is?” Sildra shot back. “He could kill it before it wakes up.”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t recommend trying that. The undead guarding it aren’t going to simply let him go by. They can’t. It would break the cage if he went in. That would only hasten up the loss of system access.” Morgus thought about it for a second, then sighed and nodded. “Alright, he wants a chore list? Fair enough. We didn’t pick him for his brains. By my estimate, he’s got somewhere between six and nine hours before his big battle. You tell him I said he should use half that time to kill every monster he can find, and the other half to rest and prepare.”
“That’s it?” Sildra snapped. “Kill monsters while he waits?”
“You know, you’re not sounding very reverent right now.”
“I just found out you deliberately provoked an angry goddess into attempting to destroy our civilization. I’m a bit frazzled,” she yelled back.
“We didn’t do it for laughs. Go, tell Velik what we need him to do and what’s at stake. As long as he kills that divine beast, we’ll take care of the rest. It should be easy for him.”
The dream ended in an instant, jolting Sildra out of her meditation. Velik sat across from her, motionless, with a black spear balanced across his knees. “You were successful?” he asked as her eyes opened.
“Sort of. Morgus spoke to me. It… I can’t say I agree with the gods’ plan. It entails a lot of risk to humans. But all we can do is have faith, right?”
Velik just grunted.
“He did have directions for you, by the way. They weren’t exactly useful, but… well, let me start at the beginning.”
Comments
Shelbo
So now what? Are the gods just going to kill Legra? So they can exterminate all the monsters in the world? What happens to Velik afterwards cause he’s a undying monster demigod
Etez
Thx for the chapter!
