NOVEL NEXT 735. A Fallen Star In All Its Glory
Frost wondered wildly now. She had no Conditions to guide her. But if its products came in the form of sound…
“Then can it be made through celebration? Willingly? Rather than to cancel out the sound? Why does it have to be suffering in the first place?”
Her words must have been carried out by her Will, because the Star immediately replied.
< “This one would be willing if it meant that the echoes can stop. This one… should not be the one made to remember them. The letters. The words. It all creates a coherent story… with no lids, how can one turn their gaze away?” >
It was possible, and the Star seemed to agree with this. But how was one supposed to stop the atrocities from reaching it?
Frost’s brows furrowed. She counted millions of pages along the walls – as many as the eyes on the Star’s body. She thought it was weird for them to be here, but with each letter that formed, there must have been a word. And each word came a sentence, a paragraph, and finally, a tale.
Indeed.
The Librarians were feeding the Star with stories of their suffering.
< “All bells belong to this one. But the last bell belongs to the family that bears this Gift. The final bell will not ring without their input… This one yearns to be detached. The lonesome void was perfect before it fell. Why did this one fall? Why is this one the way it is? Why am I? It will never end. That is the truth of a captured Star.” >
< “The frequencies are not painful. It is a measure. A small measure… to ease the echoes.” >
“If I were to remove all the suffering you can hear, then would you still make those sounds?”
The Star’s eyes quivered with unexpected delight.
< “If that were the case… then I would offer you this power I wield. How does an Amalgam gain power? I… thoroughly enjoy your presence…” >
Just like Michaela when she first met ‘Her’…
Mort Toll – The Star – wanted to make a deal with Frost. It simply wanted to exist on its own. It did not know what it was, how it was, or why it was. It simply wanted this suffering to end, and it wanted to hear of good things, like Frost’s presence…
… In a way, it reminded her of Nav.
Frost wanted to apologize, because there was no method of preventing total suffering in the first place. But she knew that if she destroyed the pages around the Star, then it would be a start. In fact, it may have been the pages that were solely responsible for this.
And if so, then she could certainly cure it. The prospect of gaining something from a Star whetted her appetite, though she did not know if she could gain anything without completely devouring it, or if it was possible in the first place.
Regardless of this, Frost nodded.
“I can free you from the echoes and the tales of tragedy. I accept your power in exchange.”
< “… You are not greedy like them. You are willing to conduct an equivalent exchange that will benefit both existences. Curious and tragic, that after eons have passed, none have offered nor heard of this one’s own echoes.” >
< “I, alone, have been forced to hear them all when none could hear mine.” >
The Star finally referred to itself formally only after realizing that Frost was not here to exploit it. Even though they lacked a purpose or drive, they tended to avoid the path of most suffering. It was tragic, that these things had a mind.
It meant that they had the propensity to suffer immensely, though how they suffered and why was not something Frost could adequately comprehend.
A strand that should have been no thicker than a piece of rope, collapsed like a falling skyscraper.
“… You will give me a piece of yourself?” She asked.
Its thickness alone was tens of meters high, and its length seemed to stretch to as afar as the walls. All of this was given to Frost before she could help it; a fundamental flaw of the Stars… no, the ‘Gifts’ that had been reduced to this level, for they could only hope. They had no bargaining power, nor did they know how to bargain.
And so, Frost left it alone, and instead set her sights to the walls.
“I’ll burn them. I’ll burn every single last one of the pages… so that you won’t have to suffer anymore. I’m sorry. Eons… I can’t even wrap my head around a hundred years. Eons of just being like this… I’m sorry.”
The Star heard her, but it sadly did not understand why she was apologizing.
“Eon to a Star – Frost – is an insignificant lapse of time.” The Arbiter spoke through Nav. Frost could almost hear the inflections in her voice. “Eons to them are what years are to you. Your eras are months, your periods are weeks, and your epochs are days. The lifespan and sheer scale of existence on the macroscopic scale dictates their perception of time.
As she said this, Frost dashed as far as she could in one direction. With flames following in her steps, she burned down every remnant of the Librarians. Afterwards, and as flaming ash fell from the skies, she took her first bite into the fallen pillar.
< “The echoes have ceased… I thank you, you who calls yourself the Amalgam…” >
The flavor was sweet. It was delicious. A dance of wonderful sensations compelled her to eat. And eat she did. She munched on the pillar as silence befell the world. The pillar was hollowed out before long, and before she knew it, she was met with a prompt.
< GIFT FROM A STAR GAINED >
< GIFT FROM A STAR: The Resonating Bell >
< Echoes are forwarded. They carry the hopes and dreams of the one who struck it >
< EFFECT: Able to produce items that will amplify its source. Your voice can silence those with less RESIST than yours >
< BEHOLDER SKILL GAINED >
< (B) Amplification >
< So that only we can be heard >
< EFFECT: All Skills can be converted to an Amplification State when this Skill is active >
< COST: 1,000,000 Nex per Skill >
Amplification State
< Attacks enhanced by this Skill will deal 10x more damage and will have 10x the effect. Critical Strikes will deal 100x damage >
“Nav. How much Nex do I currently have?”
< Nex >
< 50,000,000 >
“Perfect… I’ll be able to nearly one-shot Eternal Night Corrupted with this, huh. That amount of Nex doesn’t feel like a lot when you put it next to the cost of this… but still, I can’t complain. Besides, I think I’ve gained something else as well.”
Frost was overjoyed.
Finally, she had reached the absolute echelons of a Beholder.
