Second Genesis

"Don’t move, you’ll only end up hurting yourself. If you try to use an Ability now, it will blow up in your body. I’m sure you’ve felt the effects in your muscles now, but your Neural Frame circuitry has been completely rewired too."

Grey tried to say something quippy about her being a bit too handsy for a woman who was sworn to chastity, but his words came out a garbled mess instead.

’Oh fuck me, I can’t even talk shit?’

Grey wanted to cry real tears, this was absolute bullshit. What sort of broken ability was this?

"You did good, Sister Threya." The nun nodded toward the youngest of them. "That is a very complex blessing."

Threya beamed, and then shyly looked away as though she didn’t want to seem too prideful. Even given the situation, Grey couldn’t help but chuckle. An adorable little girl, to be sure.

Though, Threya would definitely be offended if she heard that thought. After all, she was at least three years Grey’s elder, who was he to talk about her like she was a child?

"Now, chain him up. We will recast the blessing every hour to make certain that he doesn’t cause another commotion."

Grey chuckled and shook his head. He ended up starting from the right instead of the left, even though he was pretty sure he almost always shook his head starting to the left first, and even his chuckle just sounded weird... but it got his point across.

This woman, Sister Zen, he had heard the others call her, probably had the second highest seniority to the Oracle herself. She chose her words very carefully, and she didn’t reveal too much about what this blessing was. However, Grey caught something interesting.

She said his Neural Frame circuitry had been completely rewired, almost as though to suggest it was wild and random the way it had been done. But that wasn’t the case at all. In fact, it was very specific.

His Neural Frame had been perfectly mirrored. Which meant, that if he just reversed the flow of Paladin Spirit...

Grey’s Neural Frame thrummed as his Last Paladin Frame activated.

"What are you doing?!" Sister Zen called out to Grey, her eyes widening. It was suicide to—.

"Ah, it’s a real shame you all wear all these layers. If you’re into a bondage kink you’re gonna need a better dominatrix outfit."

Grey’s voice started as a garbled mess, but by the latter half he was speaking normally again.

Sister Zen only barely registered this shocking change before Grey’s forehead smashed against her nose.

This time, he didn’t feel bad at all.

Grey shifted and slid, moved and glided through the nuns like a motor through water. A single strike was all it took to knock every one of them out.

Clearly these nuns had freaky abilities he didn’t want to get hit with, and he was far more cautious this time than he had been last time.

He didn’t move in predictable patterns, constantly burning away at his stamina so that he flashed away before staying even more than a single second in the same spot.

Threya kept spinning around, trying to get a good lock on him, but every time she was ready to fire he would disappear again.

And then it was already too late.

She lost track of Grey entirely and her heart leapt into her throat. Just when she realized the only place he could have possibly been was behind her, a strong chop ate at her neck.

Her eyes rolled to the back of her head.

Grey stood there amongst two dozen unconscious women. He nicked a drop of blood from each one of them so that if they came to, he would be able to use Void Gaze to interrupt that damned Ability before it hit him.

If he didn’t have Last Paladin Spirit, he would really be screwed. Luckily, he was able to counter this odd skill just by running Last Paladin Spirit in reverse. While Last Paladin Spirit was active, he was able to naturally understand how to use his body.

’It should wear off soon, but my usual Mind Resistances aren’t helpful at all.’

Grey shook his head. Whatever this blessing was, it wasn’t just a trick of the mind. It was actively changing the way his neurons fired. It was making a physical change to his body.

Meaning, if he wanted to resist it, he would actually need a Body Resistance to counter it, not a Mind Resistance.

A combination of Last Bulwark and Last Endurance—the Body and Mind Resistances of his Last Paladin Frame respectively—could have probably done it. But that was only if he had already had them active.

He could have never thought that the weak little nuns would have something like this.

Though, considering only Threya could seem to cast it, maybe it was very rare even for them.

’I’ll need to find a Body Resistance that can resist something like that passively. Running Paladin Spirit in reverse is a lot more mentally draining than usual, and I can feel it’s only working at less than half capacity right now because of it.’

Grey shook his head. In that case, it sounded like he was going to have to go to his trusty frog man after he got out of this hell hole. After that, he might as well go and check out the hub that Brad was talking about.

Maybe he could find Amunet there and take back what was his.

But first, he would need his things.

Grey checked the sanctuary room by room until he found three glass coffins. One of them housed Sir Ovaal. The second housed Edmun. This second one made Grey pause for a long while, half because he was surprised Edmun was even recognizable after he had sucked him dry of all his blood, and half because the last moments of his master’s life kept replaying in his mind.

The last coffin was Frantz’s.

Surprisingly, the bleeding-hearted Oracle didn’t have a coffin here for Calixan.

Grey smashed Frantz’s glass coffin to pieces, taking the spatial device from his fingers and patting him down for anything else he could find.

At first, he didn’t find much other than the clothes on his back—clothes that were actually extremely durable.

But then Grey found something else.

’Oh?’