LEVEL 0 IMMORTAL-Chapter 127: You Are The Bait

It was true, Elias could now feel a faint throb in what he could only call his soul, and he was amazed when he realized that it was always there, but it had been slowly growing stronger.

However, because of everything happening to his body, his constant growth, and the forging of his flesh, this sensation had been buried.

Now that he was frozen, and even his heart had stopped beating, there was nothing hiding this sensation from him any longer.

The moment he sensed that throbbing inside of him, a chill began to grow inside his heart that was separate from the ice that covered him, and he understood what the Void Incursion was, better than anything that the Commander could have explained to him.

Suddenly, he realized the reason the Commander had frozen him in place. She had simply used the most efficient method to teach him in the shortest time possible.

Any other person would have explained their actions before they did it to avoid miscommunication, but it seemed that Commander Yseult did not care for those; she allowed her actions to be the guide for her intent.

Elias could see why some people may even hate her because of this, but he found it refreshing. It was better to see the knife coming at you ahead than the hidden needle in the back.

Nonetheless, Elias placed the issues of the Commander away from his mind as he tried to arrange everything he had just instinctively learned in a logical order.

Every Ascendant Candidate was not complete. They were attempting to merge with the divine or the infernal for the purpose of elevating their state of being.

However, this legacy was fractured. Whether it was by design or by accident, every Ascendant Candidate was born connected to certain legacies, and these were the affinities that they had. An example would be his void affinity that could hold both the power of the celestial and the infernal.

Upon challenging a Fragment of Divinity, the Ascendant Candidate would have seized a portion of these fractured legacies, and as if these legacies had a mind of their own, they would attempt to come together to become whole.

Now, this was where so many Ascendant Candidates perished, and it was because the Incursion was dangerous. The legacies took the form of monsters, and if the Ascendant Candidate succeeded in killing the monster, they would be able to fully merge with the missing part of their legacy, becoming a true Ascendant Candidate.

What would this mean for Elias? Well, the moment he felt the throbbing in his heart, Elias knew that this Incursion held not just a means of elevating his already freakish Elder Talent, but he could sense another portion of the void calling to him. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

If he was not wrong, this incoming Incursion held another Chapter of his Void Scripture!

"By now, you should have understood what is coming for you, and the benefits that you will gain if you win, but do you know what would happen if you lose?"

The voice of the Commander shook him away from his inner musing, and Elias understood what she meant, and he almost cursed in anger, but he couldn’t. Surely, they were not planning to sacrifice him to the Incursion.

With the new instincts he had gained, Elias knew that if an Ascendant Candidate failed to win against their Incursion and was slain, then the Incursion would gain in power and would no longer be a mindless monster, but something with consciousness and purpose.

He did not know what was done with these creatures after their evolution, but he began to wonder why the Commander had imprisoned him in place without giving him the option of fighting for his life.

Suddenly, he recalled everything she had been saying to him, and a sinking feeling began to rise in his stomach.

He recalled the story she had told him about the gods fattening up the mortals by giving them Lumina Arts, and she had said that they, the mortals, after succeeding the gods, have become even worse.

Before she dropped Elias into the forest, did she not tell him,

"Elias, if you survive your Ascension, I will be telling you the truth about your past and the true nature of Reality."

"In a few hours from now, your Incursion will be emerging, and I am going to be borrowing its powers for my plan, and if you want to have any say in this process, you will have to display your strength, Elias, for I am not the only one watching. You have the next six hours to show you are worth more than a pawn."

Why did Elias think that, because of his talent, he was not susceptible to manipulations? He did not, but he had always believed that if he displayed enough of his talents, it would be enough to dissuade those who would see him as nothing but a disposable pawn.

It had worked, but clearly not enough. If the Commander still encased him in ice when the Void Incursion reached him, then she was telling him that she and whoever she was working with believed that the potential of the void monstrosity was better than his own, and he was the fattened lamb that had been prepared to be slaughtered.

Should he have shown more of his talents before now and revealed the full might of his Elder Talent to the Commander, would it have made any difference?

The thoughts played through Elias’s mind, but he finalized that this move would still have been the wrong one, because he did not know the threshold of acceptability that the Commander would want.

It was possible that even if he revealed everything he was capable of, he would still be used as a sacrifice to this Void Incursion, because it had all been decided long before now.

Elias could not even call upon his Status Screen; all he knew was that he had ten minutes left before the Void Incursion descended, and he was unable to move.

’Is this how my life is to end?’ He thought, ’I wanted to go down fighting.’

It would be wrong to think that he did not feel wronged and deep anger, but these emotions did not last.

Elias did not feel he had done anything truly profound for him to have total domination over his fate. Before he was called to the top spite of the Asylum, Elias had believed that if he could not become a Siphon, his death was not far off.

Now that he had become not just a Siphon but an Ascendant Candidate, his fate had not changed, and the possibility of his death still remained the same.

He had lived a short life and had not made much impact upon it, but if he was going to die in ten minutes, Elias did not have many regrets in his heart. He had fought rousing battles, no, two battles, and had claimed three Lumina Arts, one of which was even a scripture.

Elias may not have battled with all the heroes in the realm to see how he stood beside them, but life was unfair, and except with supreme power, no one could claim they could get everything that they wanted.

He freed his mind from all thoughts of his eventual passing, and calm covered his soul.

[00:03]

[00:02]

[00:01]

The Void Incursion was here.

A voice whispered in his heart, "Remember, Elias, I am weak, and what is the shelter for the weak?"