Level-Up Apocalypse: Surviving With The Assimilation System

"Crow," Finn greeted in return, feeling his blood run both hot and cold in fluctuation, though that confusion soon bloomed into rage. "What did you do!? Did you–"

"I didn't get the delight of dining on your friends yet, don't worry. A real shame–you arrived before I had the chance," Crow told him with a saddened tone before grinning again, nudging his foot against the shed skin. "I can't say the same for the old man, though. It was my first time tasting "elf"--an exotic taste, really."

Seung looked completely disgusted, "Who is this sick bastard?!"

"An enemy–! He gains power through eating others!" Finn shouted.

"Doesn't matter if I smash his skull in, then? Good!" Seung yelled, bursting forth with golden light propelling him towards the hunter.

There was something off about it as he found Crow simply remaining still as Seung approached, calling out, "Wait! Seung–!"

With a single, unseen motion, the head of the crusher was removed from his shoulders. It left him frozen, seeing the powerful man felled in such a simple fashion, not even earning a step out of place from the hunter.

"Why'd you go and make me do that? How careless of you, Finn," Crow reprimanded him with a playful tone, wiping the blood from the cleaver.

"You–" Finn said in a spiteful tone.

As he met with those hollow irises, he charged right towards the sadistic man, seeking to end him right then and there–

"Gah!"

Finn gasped, opening his eyes as he found the hunter nowhere in front of him, instead looking across a table right at the person whose head he just witnessed be removed.

"The hell's up with you? Did you fall asleep while eating? Guess leveling up really tuckered you out," Seung said while feasting on a plate of eggs.

"Err…?" Finn confusedly let out, looking around, finding Charlotte seated to his right, and Jasper to his left, both who looked at him with concern. "The old man…Where–"

Before he could even properly look around, he found his plate being topped with a portion of eggs, given to him by the short, elderly figure that was barely tall enough to see the table.

"Hoh, the manners of youth these days," Gurmo remarked.

"Ah–sorry," Finn said, looking at the old man, though unable to shake the fresh memories of the elder figure being nothing more than shed skin.

It left him entirely confused, still finding his heart thumping as if he was really in a life-or-death encounter, though only at a peaceful, morning breakfast.

"What was I saying?" Finn asked, trying to play it off, though not even remembering sitting down to eat breakfast.

"Are you okay, mate? You look like you've seen a ghost," Jasper asked with concern while splitting a muffin.

Charlotte leaned towards him, holding up a napkin, "Finn, your nose–you're bleeding again."

"Ah–" He reacted before watching the girl of silken, blue hair press the cloth against his nose, wiping the blood away. "Thanks."

While he assured the others he was fine, letting them all resume their morning meal, he still was left in shock. It seemed a few minutes had passed since returning with Seung, though he had no memory since standing outside the tree-house.

'Did I pass out for a moment? Was it dreamwalking again? No, I would've gotten a system prompt–it was too different, anyway. Why would I dreamwalk into such a similar reality? Maybe I'm just tired–I haven't been getting much sleep lately, anyway,' he rationalized.

Even if it was a nightmare, seeing the sadistic hunter again unsettled him, harming his appetite. The bacon and sausage on his plate, the squelching the cooked meat made each time he prodded it with the fork, turned his stomach.

"Not hungry, mate?" Jasper asked.

"I don't know how you can't be, this food is great!" Nova said, sitting at the end of the table, almost assuredly kicking her legs happily while snacking on bacon.

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Finn shook his head lightly, "Not really. I'm not sure why–"

"More for me, then!" Seung joyfully pounced on the free seconds, grabbing the sausage without any semblance of manners.

"Go ahead," Finn let him with a small laugh, sitting up from the table. "I think I'm going to get some more rest."

"Are you sure you're alright, mate?" Jasper asked, looking up from his plate.

"Yeah. I just didn't sleep well last night," he said, assuring the others.

Charlotte looked up at him with concern, "Don't push yourself too hard, alright?"

"I'm not," Finn said, waving off as he ascended the stairs from the dining area.

The ambience of his friends chatting the floor below was a comforting white noise for him as he laid down on the bed in the middle of the room, more so letting himself flop down. Even the idea of sleeping–a comfort natural to everybody–was something he was hesitant about.

'If I just end up "Dreamwalking" again, what's the point? I can't beat that Jabberwock creature–I'm just putting myself at risk. Still, what was that with Crow?' He questioned while laying his head against the pillow.

From what he gathered, everything after returning to the quarry happened, though there was a blur sometime between arriving and eating breakfast. Paired with the nosebleed he had, what he questioned was the stability of his own mind.

'I'm not losing it, am I? It feels like ever since I entered this world, my mind has just been…fractured,' he considered.

He sat up for a moment, looking around the sleeping quarters, even peering out of the window into the golden forest. Overthinking it all felt like it'd have the inverse effect. Even he knew that if this continued on, unable to trust his own mind nor find proper rest, he would eventually crash.

As he laid himself down with the chattering of the others just a floor below, his exhausted mind leant itself to sleep with little resistance.

'Don't take me to that damn world–just give me something…peaceful,' he repeated, hoping somehow whatever force at work would listen.

Darkness settled in with the dormancy of consciousness; the sounds of his companions talking bled into a similar ambience; incoherent chattering, everywhere and plentiful. It wasn't as though he opened his eyes, though he now found himself in a different place.

On a streetside bench, overlooked by skyscrapers playing digital advertisements ranging from fast food to makeup products, he sat there with the murmurs of car engines passing and the busy streets being crossed by waves of people going about their way.

'I'm dreaming…? No,' he thought, pinching himself.

It wasn't a shock to him now, though it was a welcome change from the whimsical world of the tea-drinking hatter and the calamitous beast. There was a sense of comfort found in sitting there in a lively cityscape, untouched by the world's end.

"Your mind is all over the place, isn't it?"

The question from the specific accent turned his gaze to his right, discovering that another sat on the bench right beside him; a familiar, yet nebulous sight–the man in grayscale, smoking from a cigarette.

"You…" Finn said, glancing over before staring back at the busy street as a bus passed by. "Do you know what's going on with me?"

"The night, darker than all the ones before it, I'm sure you remember," the greyscale man reminded him.

Finn was quiet for a moment, looking at the looming skyscraper, only partially observing the digital billboard that played an ad for some action movie, "Yeah. Of course I do. I can't forget that."

"You encountered something that night–something that mankind isn't supposed to make contact with–a "Vorherrschend", or "Prime," The Evanescent man told him.

"A vor–what? Prime?" Finn asked.

"Do you recall what it is that happened on that night? What you had met?" The Evanescent man questioned him without first answering.

It wasn't something he so casually wanted to recall, finding it as though an icepick struck his head when digging up the memories of the hellish night.

"...Everything I experienced, it constantly shifted from hallucination to being real. None of it made sense," Finn answered hesitantly. "It made me experience things–impossible things. It killed me, over and over again."

"Usually, when a person directly meets a Prime in the way you did, their mind just shatters. Like a ceramic bowl dropped to the floor–bits and pieces that you can't patch together with all the tape in the world," the nebulous man explained. "Those might be the lucky ones, honestly. Then there's us."

"Us?" Finn repeated, looking at the strange figure on the bench.

The greyscale man leaned back on the verdant bench amidst the crowds of people with blurred faces passed by, "Witnessing a higher existence like a Prime opens your mind to a whole lot that couldn't be seen before. It's like being able to see a new color spectrum. That's how you can see me."

While most of the explanation sounded right to Finn, he still couldn't wrap his head around one thing as he looked over at the "Evanescent Man."