Nexus Awakened (An Isekai LitRPG Gender Bender Story)

744. Infinite Hunger

“Why are you giving me so much peace in these final moments? My soul will disappear. I will be reduced to nothing. Where I will go after this… is an incomprehensibly long and distant place that wracks me with despair.”

“You’re going to disappear forever anyway. Your pain has ceased now, hasn’t it?”

The Amalgam, despite their wrath, inherently despised violence. She had the soul of a Healer. That’s right. The Monarch remembered now. The Amalgam was a healer. The fact that her unconsciousness was open to converse rather than subject her to endless judgement caused her to realize that this person…

… could have helped them in some way. It was wishful thinking. Truly wishful, because their nature would have clashed either way. But perhaps like the Monarch, it was because of them that the Amalgam became so prejudiced towards them.

The Monarch’s own blackened soul began to resemble that of a human, with two arms, two legs, a single head, two eyes… then, she became a blob of dark nothingness.

This unconscious part of the Amalgam sought to send them off as peacefully as possible. And it was because of this that the Monarch was able to realize the wrongs they had made towards this person.

The Brightest Star was wrong. Even if the Advent of Desire could grant many of their wishes, wouldn’t it have been more effective to work alongside this person instead?

“We would have fought either way. We are incompatible. Our existence… is to hate and only hate. There is no cooperation. There is only absorption and assimilation.”

The Monarch knew her own tragic nature, but she still could not help but hate the Amalgam. To hate the world that made her like this. To hate her own existence. She never had a choice. Neither did many things.

The Amalgam didn’t forgive her. No one could. The Monarch was innocent in her own eyes.

Morality, right and wrong, ethics – it was not universal to all species and walks of life.

Not in this game of life.

“We cannot see the same picture. You, I, and this Heart of mine. I am part of a collective. The ‘I’ is not me. It never was. I’m just a ball of instinct craving to be something more.”

The Monarch accepted her fate. Of all the pain and suffering she felt across her lifespan as being one with the Heart…

… her passing into the infinite nothingness was the calmest she had ever been.

Completeness… what did it mean to her?

In the end, the Monarch knew the answer.

“I wanted this pain to end. This agony to cease. This hunger to disappear.”

“I despise you Amalgam. With all my heart. We will never be able to see eye to eye.”

“… Alas, this is how it ends.”

“Amalgam. The suffering will never end.”

“This is the nature of the world as we know it.”

“But if we were given the right to rule the world, then this suffering would not be seen as that. It would be normal. An integral part of life.”

“Flesh that hates. Flesh that hungers. Flesh that reaches desperately…”

“… towards something that it lacks.”

“That is hunger. That is our starvation. That is instinct.”

In her final moments before she passed, the darkness of the Amalgam’s silhouette transformed to white. What she saw was akin to an Angel. But it was nothing like the Red Wing or the White Wing.

It was like looking a white, peaceful dove.

She took the blob that was the Monarch into her hands and gently pulled it into her body, absorbing her for good.

The cold dark void that was supposed to greet her on the other side was surprisingly like…

… a warm ray of sunshine.

Then it faded away to nothing.

The Monarch’s soul was destroyed.

But the Heart itself remained, and it uttered to the Amalgam what it knew before it too passed on. Unlike the Monarch, the Heart was not self-aware. It simply existed and yearned as a being born from the collective impurities of people.

It gave the Amalgam various coordinates located in Emvita.

These were Scarlet Logic bases.

And finally, she gained one thing that she needed the most.

“He waits in the north with the Angel in red ready to protect what is rightfully hers. A device that can precisely find the Advent of Desire is in their possession.”

It was the confirmation that Iscario was in the north, as well as Uriel.

* * *

The Amalgam reached down and ate into the heart which was no larger than the size of soccer ball. Its memories had been taken, and the coordinates of these Scarlet Logic bases would serve instrumental in their upcoming expedition into Emvita. When the heart perished, the flesh that hated shriveled. With no heart left to control them, they dropped dead, many withering into dark particles.

The ones that remained were mostly structures, like the cilia. Few Their Bodies remained, as did the slime-like Our Bodies.

Other than that, it was over.

“Amalgam.” A voice called down to Frost as she ate the last chunk of the heart. “Learn anything new?”

Frost swiftly and silently thanked Terrent for his world before returning him into her Dimensional Storage, luckily before Silica and the others could see him. The Memory Bistro was eaten next like strips of beef jerky as she spoke.

“Good news – there are Scarlet Logic bases in Emvita. We have the exact coordinates for them. I’ll let you do what you need to do when this is done.”

“Sounds like you’ll be going too, hm?” Silica delightfully hummed.

“I will. I want to see the end of Scarlet Logic… and all of this. But the fact that Hearts of the City and the Impuritas are tied with impure human nature is just…”

It was precisely like the Corrupted, who were born from Nex and the Collective Unconsciousness. They the collected hatred of a place and populace that gave birth to an Impuritas Heart.

< People will shape the city. In time, that city will shape them >

Nav said in a prompt, causing Frost to deeply sigh.

But it’s not like people intended to create monsters.

She wondered why the Monarch became oddly quiet towards the end. In her mind, she believed that the Monarch had completely resigned herself to her fate.

Her soul was devoured, and with it, so were their stats as well as the Heart of the City.

< Stats of the Monarch Gained >

< Stats of the Heart of the City Gained >

Knalzark did not even need to arrive. It was over before Frost could summon him, but he’d still be needed for the immediate cleanup.

“We’ve won. Spread the news. We’ll be moving to the next Heart immediately.” Frost ordered, and seconds after, the unanimous roar of victory filled every inch of the bleeding cavern.

OFFENSIVE

ULTRA VIOLENCE: 116

CONFLAGRATOR: 71

DEFENSIVE

COUNTER OFFENSIVE: 37

SUPPORT

THE OTHERWORLDLY HEALER: 263

LEADERSHIP: 17

EXPLORATION

APPRAISER: 40

COOK: 40

COMPREHENSION: 9