Reversing Causality
2113 Words
[Resources
Flesh: 145,890
Blood: 168,396
Stone: 8,490
…
…
]
Julius took a look at his resource count and saw that he was missing a few thousand flesh.
He was already back at the Second Sanctum and standing in front of the still poisoned water pool. Thankfully, it was just like he had predicted. The amount of time he spent to decimate the humans was quite a while and a few hours had passed by.
The amount of time he needed to wait until the second hero unit spawned had been reduced to only 14 hours or so. His current amount of Flesh was just enough so Julius immediately used it.
“Awaken for me.”
The large number of resources Julius had laid on the ground around the Second Fiend’s Cradle immediately began disappearing as they were sucked into the cradle.
[Alert: Conditions met! Acceleration of spawning initiated!]
The Fiend’s Cradle in front of him began beating powerfully like a heart. The sound echoed and shook the cave in its entirety. Julius remained unfazed as some rubble began falling from the ceiling.
Even when one of the falling debris struck Julius, he didn’t care one bit. He was still in his Metamorphosis which was a bit odd since such a long time had passed and the duration of the skill should have long since been over.
He didn’t pry into the matter and just waited in anticipation for the second hero unit to spawn.
The cradle’s beating began to slow down and before long it stopped completely. Julius clenched his fist in anticipation as the Fiend’s Cradle began to open and a brilliant light leaked out from it as the cradle’s nutritional fluids began pouring out.
The fluids mixed with the poisoned waters and purified it completely. The pure clear waters glistened beautifully in the dark cave and above the waters just in front of the Fiend’s Cradle stood a naked woman whose body was still wet from the amniotic fluids that created her anew.
Although this woman was beautiful, Julius didn’t feel anything and only tried connecting his mind with her. However, what happened went beyond Julius’s expectations.
When their minds connected, chaotic thoughts and emotions began surging into Julius’s mind. They were the chaotic and confusing emotions and thoughts of the arachne who was trying to resist the merging of its consciousness with the Fiend’s collective mind.
The acceleration process had led to a premature rebirth of the arachne so its mind was still partially intact so it was able to resist. Julius could feel the intentions of the arachne when he connected with her so he used his powerful connection with the system, or the Fiend’s collective consciousness, to subdue her.
It took a little bit of struggle but Julius was finally able to calm down the transformed arachne.
“W-What have you done to me?!” The arachne, who finally began to accept the reality of her situation, shrieked.
“...You can question the meaning of your existence later. I want you to first heal my wife!”
Julius exerted his control of the fiends and forced the arachne, who supposedly was now his fiends’ new healing unit, to quickly revive his wife.
“N-NO! You...you can’t make me!”
Julius grabbed the woman’s neck harshly and began to squeeze down. It had to be reminded that he was still in his Metamorphosis state so his strength was overwhelming.
He lifted her with just a hand, choking her in his anger at her words. The arachne fiend was still level one so she was unbelievably weak.
“Agh...guha...mer...so…”
Julius’s eyes flared but his rationality came back to him and he let the woman go. The arachne began coughing and taking large gulps of air after being released. Julius could have easily exerted his dominating control over the fiends that’ll compel them to do whatever he wished but the arachne’s words of denial to revive his wife was just so infuriating that his anger had taken control of him.
If Julius gave in to his anger, he would have personally killed the only hope he had to revive his wife.
“I won’t ask you again...so do it while I’m still asking nicely! Or would you rather I wipe out your soul and replace it with a more obedient one?”
“!”
The arachne didn’t know what he meant, but it was highly likely that she would be killed, regardless if he needed her or not. The arachne quickly opened her mouth and fearfully replied, “W-What should I do...my Lord?”
“There...the woman inside that hatchery. Heal and revive her!” Julius pointed.
The arachne fiend walked over to the hatchery that was attached to her Fiend’s Cradle and noticed the beautiful woman lying inside with almost no breath of life within her.
[Status
Name: ---
Race: Fiend
Class: Weaver
Level: 1 (0/1000)
STR: 30 (D)
AGI: 40 (C-)
INT: 35 (D+)
Skill: [White Magic E], [Time Magic C] [Web A] [Spawn Fiend C]
Addition: [Weave], [Cause and Effect], [Metamorphosis]
Condition: Healthy, Frightened, Confused ]
Julius took a look at the arachne’s status screen and noticed that she wasn’t a healer like he wanted her to be. Instead of a healing-type class, she was a Weaver. Julius didn’t know what that class was supposed to entail but at least there was the White Magic in her skill list.
“L-Lord...can you please take her out?”
“...” Julius scrutinized the new unit he just created and couldn’t help but feel disappointed.
The only healing-type magic was at a rather low level but there were no other healing-type skills in her arsenal. He felt cheated but the next thing he saw after he had placed his wife on the Fiend’s Cradle nearby completely changed his mind.
He didn’t know what skill or addition the arachne used, but the wounds on Eisha’s body began healing themselves as if time was reversing for her. It didn’t take long before all of the wounds on Eisha’s body completely disappeared and she sprung up with her eyes wide open.
“AH!”
Eisha raised her body so quickly that the fact she was previously on the brink of death was like a lie.
Julius quickly rushed forward and hugged his wife tightly.
“E-Eisha! You’re alright! Are you okay? Do you feel strange anywhere? How’s your body?”
“Eisha’s fine, Prince...what did you do?”
Eisha pushed Julius back and noticed that he was still in his new Metamorphosed state. It didn’t bother her one bit as she calmly asked him.
“I’m not sure how, but you were nearly killed by those humans…”
“Right...the campaign...I-I’m sorry...I couldn’t bring you victory, my Prince…”
“It’s alright...as long as you’re okay. It was my fault for not coming with you. I don’t know how those humans did it, but they somehow managed to weaken you before the fight…”
“...”
On the side, the newly rebirthed arachne was lying sprawled in the Fiend’s cradle after using her technique to revive Eisha. Eisha was the first to notice this and she quickly asked, “Is this...the arachne turned fiend? Our second hero unit?”
Eisha recognized the face of the woman who was breathing rather heavily. Julius looked over and replied with a simple nod.
“She looks like she’s dying…”
“What?”
Julius let go of Eisha who he had been hugging again. He noticed that the arachne’s body was lying there unmoving so he nudged her body and asked, “Are you okay?”
“...”
He received no reply and tried calling out to her again. This time, he only received a grunt in return. Julius had checked her status and noticed that her stats had all dropped to 10 and below while all her skills except for the addition, [Cause and Effect], were all disabled.
[Description
Cause and Effect
The user meddles with the laws of causality and makes it so that whatever happened to the target will be reversed as if nothing had happened at all. However, it comes with a price.]
The price was probably what the arachne was currently experiencing. At the very least, the [Cause and Effect] addition didn’t kill her after only one use so Julius thought that she was fine.
“Thank you...now go ahead and rest.”
The Fiend’s Cradle began to enlarge and close in on them so this was his cue to leave. Julius was about to grab Eisha and go, but the woman that was supposed to be suffering from the backlash of using her skill suddenly grabbed onto his arm and refused to let go.
“...What do you want?”
“...”
“Honey, let’s just stay here...I’m still feeling weak from earlier…”
“Is this humans’ magic still affecting you?”
Eisha shook her head and denied his words, “No...I don’t think it’s the humans’ magic. I think it’s something to do with my body…”
“?”
“I think it’s because I’m about to level up to 50.”
Julius frowned when he heard this so he quickly opened up her status menu. He noticed that next to Eisha’s level was a percentage that was about to hit 100 percent. It was still at 94 percent but it was close.
He didn’t know what this meant, but Eisha reported to him that after the percentage appeared next to her level, which apparently happened just a few hours after she confronted the humans, her body had begun to feel strange.
When Julius questioned the system it replied that Eisha was experiencing such bodily dysfunction was because she was about to experience her first evolution. Normally, fiends would fall into a state of powerlessness just before their evolution because most of the energy in the body would be used to catalyze this evolution.
So when Eisha used her Metamorphosis earlier, instead of strengthening herself, she had instead weakened drastically because she used up too much energy.
“What didn’t you tell me this sooner?!” Julius cursed at the system.
[Alert: Host did not ask.]
“You stupid piece of…”
“Honey… let’s just...rest for tonight...feeling...sleepy…”
Eisha quickly fell asleep right when the gauge next to her level finally hit 100 percent. Julius was still in his Metamorphosed state so he carefully held her in his arms and began cuddling her.
He nearly lost his world today. This was going to be the last time he sent her to do such a dangerous mission alone.
Behind him, a small pair of feeble arms tugged on his wings as a feeble voice spoke to him.
“Master...I did a...good job...right?”
Julius recognized that it was from the arachne. He felt a little odd with the new way she addressed him but he replied with a nod.
“Yes, you did.”
“N-Name...can you please...give me a name?”
“A name? Then how about…”
Julius didn’t know why but he just blurted out a name involuntarily, “Arianrhod? Yeah, I’ll name you, Arianrhod.”
“A...ria…”
The arachne fiend couldn’t finish saying her name before falling asleep. Unlike in her previous arachne form, she didn’t have the lower half of a spider. Instead, she possessed normal humanoid legs, just like Julius and Eisha.
Julius wrapped the woman around his wing before falling asleep while holding his wife. Today, he nearly lost something precious, however, he also acquired a few more valuable things.
With the human threat gone, Julius could sleep a little bit better but he needed to quickly make use of the time he bought to expand his forces for the eventual clash with the church.
- Writer
