An endless wave of locked memories came flooding in from the lower levels. Fortunately, Synexus and Gene had decided to rest up a little bit before attempting to descend. There was no way that he could have taken the horde head on with the mana he had left after the last fight since he had already burned through half of it all over again with this new one.

  Setting up chokepoints of deadly plants was crucial to success, and this was done with several different kinds to constantly throw the horde off guard. Ensnaring vines with tree barricades funneled them into a gauntlet of Synexus’ finest creations and that mixed with the already limited amount of space the spiral ramp the lift operated on, made it a winning strategy.

  If the horde started to get to close by overwhelming the traps with numbers, Synexus backed up and added another layer to his defenses. Currently, he had been pushed back nearly three floors and between Progress and his traps, he was getting notifications constantly. Hundreds upon Hundreds of locked memories were falling every minute and there was no sign of it stopping. For the first time in a while, he was worried his resource pools weren’t going to be up to the challenge unless something gave sooner rather than later.

  After throwing another razor death plant seed into the horde to create another break in the ranks, he backed up to set up more spider barb roses which instantly grew their roots into a spiderweb shaped pattern across the entire ramp. When the memories ran into the web, it would cause damage through tiny barbs. Of course, the damage was minor, but it was incredibly annoying to get out of and slowed them down quite a bit. On the other side, he grew rotating spike pines which acted as a barricade with only a tiny space in the middle, so the memories would only be able to come through one or two at a time. All while these specific pine trees would rotate the trunks using their needles as spikes. They took a lot of mana to grow, but Synexus always had saplings prepared which greatly reduced the cost.

  This seemed to work as barely any got through to him. The few that did were quickly dispatched by his blade and the intimate knowledge of the locked memories unique makeup he possessed. Hours passed until he noticed that the horde was sufficiently thinned from what it was before, but they were still coming.

  Another hour was what it took before he stuck Progress through the head of the last one and fell back to the ground for a much-needed rest. Unfortunately, the System wasn’t ready to give him one.

  Vibrations sent a sense of fear up his spine and he immediately looked over the edge of the ramp. Climbing up from the dark pit was the biggest locked memory he had seen yet. Three tongues shot out of the maw lined with vicious teeth and forced him to dodge backwards toward the safety of the wall.

  A quick look at his resources showed he was down to about ten percent of his mana, twelve percent of his stamina, and about half his health points. Taking a yuop fruit out of his bag, he devoured it to gain some of his resources back even if the gain wasn’t much. Right as he finished, elongated silver fingers started to grip the side of the ramp and moments later the face of his gigantic enemy was staring straight at him.

  Barbed tongues shot out once more and they were almost too quick for Synexus to dodge, but he managed. On top of the tongues, small balls of acid rapidly shot from the maw of death. Even as he dodged, he could see the ramp starting to melt away and that’s when he got an idea.

  He signaled to Gene to fly higher, and then he took off running as fast as possible up the ramp. This beast had quick attacks, but moving its body was slow and he planned to take advantage of that.

  It took him about twenty minutes to get to the top floor while it took the boss monster nearly double that which gave him time to recover more of his resources and to set up trap.

  When its eyes finally met his again, he took off into action with several seeds of leech moss being launched at the massive body. Small patches grew everywhere to start a constant drain on the monster’s life and mana. This made the frog memory nightmare before him angry, and acid shot in every direction. Synexus started to dodge in a wide arc as it continued to spew the nasty liquid. Of course, this is what he wanted and after another ten minutes, a portion of the ramp started to crumble away.

  The specific portion was the one around the left claw of the beast that was hanging on to support the current position of the monster. When it gave way, the monster nearly fell, but its right claw was still gripping into the stone. Synexus jumped at the opportunity and activated Enemy Transmutation on the claw to turn it frail. Instantly the weight of the beast was enough to break the claw off and send it falling down into the abyss below. This still wouldn’t be enough to kill it, but he was ready.

  Tongues shot up to grip the railing in three different places, but Synexus used Progress to slice through them causing a shattering bellow of pain to rise from below. Then, he jumped off the railing and activated his ethereal wings to follow the boss monster down into the darkness. Before it could hit the bottom, he threw out a hundred magically weighted grass blades that he had altered to also be as sharp as mini blades.

  Once he caught up, the scene was brutal. The memory had made a crater in the stone below and then was impaled by several thousand weighted grass blades. Silver liquid spilled out everywhere practically filling the crater and then he got the notification.

  You have slain Major Locked Memory!

  Bonus experience has been granted.

  The once pitch-black bottom of the facility flashed with ghostly silver light and Synexus could only feel a slight tug on his arm as Gene let him know that they were with him. Then the memory came to life.

  Warning lights were flashing along the wall and made the whole facility grow with an ominous crimson light. Mass groups of people from guards, to researchers, to the leadership were running into a room that had an enormous entrance with a steel bulkhead door clearly ready to close if things went badly.

  Gene and Synexus followed the groups of people into the room to see what had happened. To their surprise a wave of oppressive power could be felt even as they took a step into the new area of the facility.

  Working their way through the crowd they came to thick windows overlooking a lower area and a horrific scene.

  Their forced army was down on the lower floor attempting to weave mana into something that Synexus couldn’t understand. A mass of energy was floating above the two-dozen class chosen and it gave off a glow of red and black. Pure mana was swirling in and out as something was trying to come into existence except it seemed the class chosen below had lost control of the power and were trying to tear it apart.

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  “These idiots. My suspicions were correct about their final project. This is not good, Synexus and I’m afraid you’re about to learn dangerous knowledge. I’m sorry.”

  Synexus could only look at the owl next to him in confusion. How could knowledge be dangerous?

  They looked on as the mass of mana kept sucking in more like it wanted to drain the entire planet. A sense of greed and hunger was radiating from it and clearly everyone below was starting to panic.

  Soon all fifty of their prisoners were down below the vortex of power and were attempting to end it using some skill. It wasn’t working, so they all tried to push harder. Well, all except one.

  One arrogant Progress Druid stood out to the onlookers. He stopped trying all together and instead had a smile on his face that gave off a sense of pure evil. What happened next was something that Synexus never thought he would ever see. Instead of helping his fellow prisoners, he turned on them and started killing every single one. Even while their brethren fell around them, the prisoners kept trying to contain the power knowing that it would kill them all if it wasn’t.

  Heads were removed from bodies, silver blood spewed out of the fallen bodies, and that smile continued to grow as if he enjoyed it. Synexus was completely taken off guard at the sight of mass murder from one of their own.

  Guards started rushing through doors and down the stairs to stop him, but it was too late. The last one had fallen, and the mass of power started to grow even faster. Silver blood started to get sucked from the ground and weave itself into the mana. Synexus wasn’t sure what he was watching the birth of, but he knew it wasn’t anything good. The feeling of dread permeated the entire viewing platform.

  That wasn’t even the worst of it. As soon as the dread came, the glass shattered and the thousands of his people that were viewing the tragedy unfold started to get sucked up and killed by the energy. Silver blood and whole bodies were compressed into the mana and the whole time the arrogant laugh echoed in his mind.

  Once all the Zaxillians in the room had been fed to the energy, it started to force itself into the throat of the last remaining prisoner. His body glowed with red and black energy as more and more of it forced its way down. The body itself started to disintegrate from the power and when it stopped, the body wasn’t Zaxillian anymore.

  Instead, a giant humanoid stood before the observers. The limbs of the arrogant one were still there, but they had been distorted with the energy. Still there wasn’t enough biomass for the body to contain the energy and in between the limbs was the same evil energy. Reflective black eyes looked around the room and then stared straight up like it knew where it had to go to feed more.

  That’s when the silence was broken and behind Synexus and Gene was the Greater Mind. A class master ready to defend his planet.

  “It seems we didn’t understand his creation as well as we thought. Mixed with that arrogant child and feeding of the fear of all in attendance has distorted you into a force of pure negative energy. Sadly, I will have to end you.”

  A piercing screech followed from the monstrosity and then as if it was learning, a haunting voice started to form in the air itself.

  “H…un…gr…y. Hun…gry. Hungry! HUNGRY! I will take your power!”

  Then the battle started and Synexus couldn’t even keep track of the two entities. Gene could however and started to narrate what was happening.

  “The class master is defending against focused blasts of negative energy and attack simultaneously by using advanced mana filtration skills and converting it into positive energy. His enemy is angry at the existence of the energy and has started to attack in an all-out rage. I fear not even this class master will be enough even though he had sufficient mastery over his path and mana.”

  “But, if this thing got out, then surely you would have seen it during the war.”

  “Yes, I’m quite interested to see what happens. They seem to be fighting to a standstill currently with the class master pulling out powerful artifacts that magnify his skills. He clearly is trying his hardest to contain this calamity.”

  “What exactly is it?”

  The owl winced when the question was asked. “You tell me. Your identification ability from the achievement should still work.”

  With that Synexus focused in on the monstrosity before him and to his surprise something came up.

  Name: Corrupted System

  Race: Soul Parasite

  “Wait, this thing is the System?”

  “No. It’s a failed attempt at them creating their own System. They didn’t understand the complexities that go into such a thing. My creator spent centuries before attempting his second creation and he had me assisting. This is an abomination. A stain on his legacy. I had no idea they would be so foolish to attempt this. Even with supplementing the needed power and skill by using multiple Progress Druids was useless. That’s simply not how it works, and it was no wonder they could control it.”

  “So, you’re saying you and your creator, created the System? How? I thought it was some god or some universal entity.”

  “It is. But even gods, and universal entities need to come from somewhere. This is why your class is banned and feared. This is why the universe wanted my creator dead and then couldn’t stop there. The war on our people, Synexus, was because they thought that killing us and taking our planet would let them control the System. They thought it was some physical thing that we kept here on the planet even though my creator told them it wasn’t. Powers out there created the Creation’s Coalition because they were afraid that my creator would take the System, that power away from all other beings in the universe like some petty warlord. People lined up behind them because of false propaganda saying that the Zaxillians wanted to solely control the System.”

  “That’s awful. A whole race had to die because the greatest among us decided to give the universe a gift?”

  Gene was about to speak, but something caught their eye. The battle had ended with the class master dying and the Corrupted System feeding on his remains.

  Right before the body was fully absorbed, a bright white light came from corpse, and the monstrosity had to recoil in surprise. A new entity started to form out of the blinding white light. A beautiful looking humanoid made of pure light started to grow and match the visage of its foe. Synexus focused in on it.

  Name: System

  Race: Soul Enhancer

  The two watched on in silence as the titans of light went still and simply stared at each other. Synexus had no idea what was happening but thought maybe they were somehow communicating or absorbing information about the other. It didn’t end up being something he could ask Gene since a moment later, the System shook its head in disapproval before reaching one of the bright limbs out and touching its corrupted counterpart right where the heart normally would be on a humanoid.

  A loud shriek came out as the one pulsating evil struggled to flee or create distance, but it was too late. Whatever the System was doing had already taken effect and clearly won whatever battle they were having.

  Bright white appeared on the spot where the System touched and then rapidly started growing all over the body of the Corrupted System until there was no ominous light left. The Zaxillian limbs from the willing sacrifice fell to the ground leaving only two beings of pure light before the System started to pull the other into itself.

  At this point Gene let out a curious hoot as if this was something new for them to see.

  “My sibling uncorrupted the being and somehow changed it to enhance themselves. My theory is that it used the souls the monster compressed into itself as a sort of software update. Of course, that is a massively simple way of stating it.”

  Within minutes, the evil one had been fully neutralized and only one titan of light stood. It looked around curiously before dispersing into the ambient mana, but right before it did, Synexus could have sworn is gave a little nod to Gene standing right next to him. Ethereal light then enveloped them both and when they blinked again, they were back in the crater where they killed the boss monster locked memory at the bottom of the main room.