Killed Me? Now I Have Your Power Chapter 451: Ascension in Madness
Previously on Killed Me? Now I Have Your Power...
Inara found herself in a deep daze, her thoughts overwhelmed by the eerie yet increasingly recognizable murmurs.
A disturbing sensation seeped into her soul from those murmured phrases; phrases that unlocked her emotions, preparing her to sense and embrace a feeling she had never imagined possible.
Gradually, the Monster Heiress started to understand why Echidna declared this location as her origin... that this spot... served as the source of her shadowy essence.
’Madness, lass, Madness.’
The murmurs persisted, and they even intensified. Initially, it seemed like numerous entities chattering simultaneously, their tones blending in an odd symphony that sent tremors through her being. Now, Inara managed to discern more than just the sounds.
She sensed their purposes. And those purposes brimmed with insanity, insanity that delved profoundly into her core.
She started to resist, her lips emitting choked, strangled noises, her entire form unable to bear such pristine and timeless purposes.
’There is solace in madness, lass. And there is darkness in madness, as much as there is light in madness. Do you listen, lass? What do you hear then?’
Heartbeats. Inara desired to reply, but discovered she couldn't. All of her had frozen except for her consciousness.
She perceived heartbeats — ones stronger than hers, and in an unusual cadence that seemed like communication directed at her via the pulses.
The cadence... oh, it resembled a dance.
With that, Inara’s consciousness broadened, illumination and shadow cascading into her like liquid quenching a dry void.
Her form radiated, emitting a verdant and turbid ebony glow, prompting the tentacles to chuckle with malevolent thrill. They commenced to twist endlessly, coil, and spiral in bizarre ways.
Observed from overhead, one might see that their motions formed a design akin to a serpent devouring its tail.
’Continuity, self-preservation, infinity, boundless hunger. You have them. You are her daughter, after all. You are daughter. Oh lass, oh lass, are you listening? Tell me, oh tell us then, what do you hear?’
Voices. Rhythms. Breathing.
Once more, Inara longed to respond. Voices and the like were precisely what filled her ears; voices distinct from the murmurs unlocking her soul. The exhalations from those voices stroked her spirit, and she quivered with both ecstasy and terror.
It dawned on her shortly that the voices belonged to the realm itself, the proclamation of the King of Kings.
With that...
An entity started to emerge from her consciousness, cultivated by the illumination and shadow.
Illumination was the initial to plant a seed, beaming a verdant beam on the arid ground of Inara’s mind. Yet, it was swiftly engulfed by the shadowy, muddy seed of Obscurity. Nevertheless, the merging was chaotic, unstable in a manner that eternally transformed everything.
When Illumination and Shadow declined to fuse smoothly — to become unified solely — the sole outcome from such defiant uniqueness in a dualistic realm was...
’Oh, Lass, MADNESS! The Warren! Oh, the Warren is indeed—!’
Insanity erupted from Inara’s mind. The radiance enveloping her form altered, turning into crimson-black. The tentacles started to shriek — shrieks blending joy, fear, and dread.
They swiftly abandoned her form in panic. A few lagged behind, suffering the doom of incineration by the radiance.
Fumes ascended like the respiration of a dormant colossus, howls grew fiercer, and Inara’s form became fully exposed for everyone to behold.
The crimson-black radiance was peculiar, composed of limbs, cradling Inara from every direction. Particularly her cranium.
Her cranium was entirely encased, revealing nothing but her orbs — and they appeared monstrous despite being sealed.
The radiance’s brilliance heightened, ascending to an intensity where it seemed the realm wept blood. But through that brilliance, the insanity seed within Inara expanded further and further until it formed a young shoot.
And precisely at that instant, when insanity peaked, when illumination and shadow were consumed leaving only absolute emptiness...
the mind and being of Inara were graced.
Her orbs remained closed, yet crimson-black ichor trickled from them.
Every fragment of that ichor appeared to contain countless winking gazes and smirking fangs-lined jaws.
’Ah... so it was it.’ The Monster Heiress rasped, then burst into irrepressible mirth, sensing her form immersed in a soothing radiance.
An irreversible shift had occurred in her essence. Her perceptions had sharpened to the point where Inara perceived and heard matters her thoughts could scarcely comprehend.
Ancient tones — primordial and profoundly alarming — thundered, each phrase like a caress of insanity and corruption.
Only then did she comprehend she lay amid them, scrutinized with uncanny attention and intrigue but also with avarice and resentment.
Inara quelled a tremor. Or at least, she attempted to.
’Open your eyes, Lass, and let everything be complete.’
The murmurs returned, but Inara instinctively rejected compliance this time. Yet, the decision was no longer hers to make.
Inara’s orbs flew open, absorbing the panorama surrounding her in a single sweep.
Her lips parted broadly... and she wailed.
Her insanity then climbed to such heights that...
[You have attained Sublimation through Warren of Madness.]
The Will intoned.
[Fantastic! You have obtained the right to take your own Evolution—!]
The Will hesitated, witnessing with Inara's wail an explosion of beasts from her form and a transformation in the entire area.
After a brief moment, The Will proceeded,
[You have created your domain.]
[You have obtained the title: Scion of Madness.]
[Brace yourself, Inara Ouroboros Serpentine, you are ascending to the next rank!]
All this unfolded as Inara surged with insanity, her consciousness still fractured from beholding those visions.
Those visions that the sources of the murmurs kindly wiped from her memory, because...
’Not ready! Not ready! The Warren not ready!’
’But soon... ah... soon!’
...
Simultaneously, Echidna remained in her burial ground, her gaze raised skyward with a broad grin distorting her beastly visage.
’She has succeeded.’ Echidna chortled with dreadful terror. ’SHE HAS DONE IT!’
Her legs buckled to the earth, her expression abruptly streamed with sobs — droplets of elation and dread intertwined in a warped manner.
Inara had managed to gain Sublimation via Insanity. That feat no one had accomplished without dissolving into oblivion thereafter.
Would Inara prevail?
Echidna was uncertain, as she had never anticipated her selected heir to triumph. But she ought to have realized. Oh, she certainly should have!
’Oh, Medusa! Medusa! She is indeed your daughter! Oh, how jealous I am! She should have been mine! Mine!’
She sobbed harder and harder, tumbling across the bloodied, corpse-infested soil in agitation, weeping until her features were drenched.
’I see now your goal, Medusa, my dear sister! I see now your goal!’
She despised her, had forever, and would eternally.
But in that moment, Echidna resolved to undertake something she never envisioned.
[You have succeeded, Echidna Serpentine, Mother of Monsters. You have succeeded in the Gambit, in Death without Death.]
[The Warrens are trembling, the gods are watching, They are watching.]
[The Navel is listening. So tell us, Mother of Monsters...]
[What is your Pathway?]
Echidna’s face, streaked with tears, was pressed into her palms, her expansive eyes peeking through the gaps between her digits.
This marked the day she had readied since selecting Inara as her Heiress.
Her efforts were never meant for the youth to confront her traitors... oh no, far from it. It was solely for her to attain divinity — purely to elevate.
Now she had accomplished it. Yet she was poised to act against her long-held aspirations.
Chuckling as if afflicted by insanity, Echidna at last replied:
"I relinquish — surrender — myself to my niece, Inara Ouroboros Serpentine."
Oh, Medusa, my dear sister, I hate you.
[Unbelievable!]
—End of Chapter 451—