CH593

Even though it wasn’t too late by the time Ben got home, he still found Thera asleep when he arrived, no doubt still tired from trying to raise that one skill, along with her more personal practice she’d done throughout the day.

It didn’t seem like she had any intention of waking up either so he did his best not to disturb her, and with it looking like Sonya was going to be spending the night with his teacher, he prepared himself a simpler meal than he normally would before turning in early for the night and forcing his mind up to his god’s realm, where the other three were already waiting.

“Good evening my lovelies,” He greeted them positively. “Who’s up for a fun evening of everyone’s favourite? That’s right, we’re talking about research!”

“You are way too enthusiastic about this,” Myriad said with a shake.

“I haven’t touched the summoning spell or the mystery one in ages at this point, I need to get back to it. Tomorrow I should head over to the center too and see if Kufno has anything new for me. At the very least, they should have gotten through some of the brute forcing they’ve been trying to do, but for now, without further ado…”

He brought up both the summoning spell as well as the mystery one from the archive and looked the two over briefly before sighing in contentment.

“Oh yeah, just the break I needed.”

“Only a maniac would consider that a break,” His god muttered as Ben examined one of the spell structures he’d just brought forth, eyeing it for just a second before separating out two seemingly random sections from the summoning one and tossing them to the side so he could stare at what remained, leaving the gods with him to wonder what he was doing.

“Ben? What was that about?” Helori asked, looking at the banished segments in an attempt to understand the thought process behind the act.

“Hmm? What’s what about?” He asked in return, still focusing on the majority of it he had left.

“The part you just threw away?”

“Oh, that? There’s just no point in wasting time on solved segments, is there? Better to focus on the bits we still need to figure out.”

“I’m sorry, what the hell do you mean, solved segments?”

“The section for opening up a reality and the one for protecting anyone traveling through the chaos. Come on guys, focus here.”

It was what he wanted to do at least as he directed his eyes at the massive amount that remained, but after a few moments of silence where the three gods quietly looked between themselves, Myriad was the one who spoke up.

“Ben, focus on me for a minute and explain. How could you possibly be so sure of that?”

“What do you mean, I-”

How do I know that?

The second he’d seen it in front of him he took it to be a solved problem, one that wasn’t even worth thinking about when there was still more to discover, but he had no reason to feel so certain of that fact. So why was it so self-evident to him even then as he looked back at the two segments, trying to understand his deeper thought processes, only for echoes to light up in his head.

As he looked at them, each of his minds started to ring, flashing out scenes of the unnatural monster that had invaded their reality, his glimpses into the infinite hells, and most of all, the primordial chaos he’d stared into as he was violently forced from the realm, pulled back down by his body as it started to heave and only giving him just enough time to run from bed to find a place to vomit before he started to calm down.

Don’t think about it.

…No, I need to actually think about this. But in a couple minutes.

Those were a couple minutes that he used to clean himself up just a bit and wash out his mouth before slinking off to the couch with a garbage can in hand before forcing his mind back up to face the gods who were watching him with concern.

“Ben, what was that?” Myriad asked him in clear worry, getting an honest but altogether unsatisfying response in exchange.

“I don’t know.”

He didn’t know why his minds had flashed so strongly to the chaos, nor why it had caused such a violent reaction in himself, worse than when he’d even seen it in person, even if one other thought whispered in his ear as he reflected.

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Witness of chaos. The statement on his status that was maybe a blessing, even if there was far too much to call it into question for him to accept it as such, no matter where it was placed on his card. Since he’d first gotten it it hadn’t seemed to have any noticeable effect and after eventually bringing it up with Nare and Helori, neither of whom could give him much more help as far as it was concerned, he eventually elected to not worry about it. A choice he was beginning to regret as he explained exactly what happened to the waiting gods, watching all three try to hide their concern.

It was obviously unexpected and since none of them could tell what it was even doing to him there was no way they could just look at it as some simple thing, but without options, Helori tried to take a positive approach to keep from worrying the mortal.

“If we can confirm the information is correct at least then this really is a big breakthrough, that would point to it being positive at least,” She said, trying to raise the moods around her. “So that just leaves verifying.”