The Cult's Priest (5)
The activation conditions for the Revenant Organ were as follows: the wielder had to be struck by a devastating attack—one severe enough to bring them to the very brink of death.
Self-inflicted wounds did not count. The organ responded only to attacks from enemies or other living beings, never to one's own hand.
And that wasn't all. The moment the wound was healed, the Revenant Organ automatically slipped back into dormancy.
Just as its name implied, it could only be used in a state tantamount to death itself.
Yet if one actually managed to satisfy those punishing conditions and trigger it, the rewards were nothing short of extraordinary.
Once the Revenant Organ activated, the cooldowns of every trait in the wielder's possession were reset. For the duration of its effect, all traits could be used without restriction.
Among the traits available to an Amorph, the ones that carried cooldowns or limitations were, almost without exception, Unique-grade traits or fusion traits.
My own case proved the point: Hunter's Avatar, Nightmare Horizon, Organic Evolution—every Unique-grade trait I possessed came with a cooldown.
So why did such a powerful trait remain a fringe pick? Two reasons.
First, the Revenant Organ was only meaningful if the wielder already held multiple Unique-grade traits. But Unique traits vanished forever upon a character's death. Try to exploit the organ carelessly, and one small mistake meant burning your most precious traits straight into oblivion.
The second reason was that enemies knew the Revenant Organ existed, too.
Any opponent could simply moderate their attacks to deny its trigger, reducing it to dead weight.
Punishing conditions, catastrophic risk on failure, and a playstyle that forced passivity on its user. For all its unrivaled effects, the trait suffered from such fundamental flaws that most players refused to build around it. It served as insurance at best, or as a bluff—a chip to wave in an enemy's face as if you actually had it.
Of course, the world has never been short of eccentric players, and a few had genuinely tried to master this broken, flaw-riddled trait.
Anyone who could control their own health with absolute precision, and read an enemy's strategy and strikes with absolute clarity.
Whoever met those conditions could become a true revenant—the master of the Revenant Organ.
And I was one of the few who did.
Blood ran down my neck. It was the wound left behind when Jason, wreathed in his golden form, had punched clean through me.
If this were a game, my health points would be nearly drained by now.
This was no game—but I could feel it anyway. The blood flowing through my body was cooling at an alarming rate.
My heartbeat was plummeting, and my brain had abandoned all reason, drowning in the endorphins that extreme agony forced it to produce.
Since arriving in this world, I had never once been closer to death than I was now.
Everything is going according to plan.
The moment Jason drew on the Thunder God, I had already predicted he would launch a joint assault. Even as he feigned madness and charged at me, the tactical logic was sound.
I hadn't expected him to weaponize a beam-transformation technique, of course—I'd assumed he'd reach for a different psychic power. But I could still guess with reasonable confidence where he would aim.
This is reality, so he'll play it as safe as possible.
If an Amorph's brain were destroyed, it lost the ability to use all standard traits—passive traits alone survived. From Jason's perspective, then, even if he couldn't kill me in a single blow, his best move was to create a situation where he could finish me off with zero risk.
Or to open an escape route.
My blood, cold as ice only moments ago, was beginning to warm.
A small flame kindled in my dying heart.
The pain surging from the hole in my throat hadn't faded, but my body was already transforming into something utterly different from what it had been seconds before.
Each time the Amorph heart boomed, the organ fused beside it spewed out a special fluid. Like fire racing along a trail of oil, the liquid seeped through my blood vessels, saturating every corner of my body.
While that change spread through me, the situation outside was shifting at a breakneck pace.
Jason had realized I wasn't dead—and my companions, moving to block him, had thrown themselves into the fight.
You've got to be shitting me. Still not dead?
Jason gritted his teeth as he stared down at the collapsed Morph-fucker. The thick carapace had crumbled away entirely when the giant transformation released, and at a glance, the thing looked for all the world like a corpse.
But if it had truly died, Jason would have been forced to claim its special privileges. Since he hadn't, only one answer remained.
The thing wasn't dead.
...Should I just run?
The Morph-fucker was a creature that struck without warning, at the most unpredictable moments. Odds were high that even now, it had some dirty trick already in motion.
And if it doesn't?
In a game, maybe—but in reality? Could he really believe the Morph-fucker had deliberately maneuvered itself into a life-or-death situation?
If the thing was genuinely cornered and Jason simply turned tail, nothing in the world could be more foolish.
Jason wavered. The urge to end it right here—to cleave the creature's head off with Purification and Condemnation—warred with the cold voice in his head screaming that he needed to flee.
No. No point taking pointless risks.
He'd gathered plenty of useful intel from this fight. If he came back with his other companions, taking the Morph-fucker down would be a certainty.
Mind made up, he moved to activate his third privilege.
Huh?
His body, already being devoured by blue particles, froze mid-activation. Some incomprehensible force had slammed up against him like a wall.
「You hurt Big Baby—where do you think you're going!」
A psychic wavelength, saturated with blazing emotion, drove straight into his skull. Jason turned his head—and saw the Sea Demon under the Amorph's dominion.
Its body, a blackish purple not unlike the Amorph's own, was covered head to tail in grotesque eyes.
As more than a hundred of those eyes fixed on him, a vast darkness came crashing down over his mind.
Fear of the Deep Sea!
Jason hastily deployed a psychic technique to shield his mind from the mental assault. For a brief instant the world plunged into blackness—then he dispelled it almost immediately.
A healthy Sea Demon would never have released him this easily. This one's power seemed strangely feeble.
It's defective... ugh?!
By the time the light of the world returned, something green was already hurtling toward him. His senses still dulled by the Fear of the Deep Sea, he took the charging creature's ram head-on.
「Big Elder. Injured. Forgiveness. Impossible!」
"Son of a bitch!"
Jason spat a stream of curses as he watched the Green Galagon rebound off him and take to the air.
Of course. He only keeps his own kind around.
A half-baked Sea Demon, a defective Green Galagon. Fit company indeed for a partner with a personality as rotten as the Morph-fucker's—the place was crawling with broken toys.
Those wings. Let me tear them off for you.
Jason stretched out a hand, and the golden form reshaped its arm into a whip that lashed toward the flying Galagon.
In the instant before his strike landed, a lump of deep blue energy came streaking out of nowhere and slammed into the whip. Where the energy bolt struck, the limb simply ceased to exist—as if it had never been there at all.
"What the—?"
"Hostiles. Will be eliminated."
He saw it then: a grotesque monster perched atop the shattered remains of the Amorph's carapace, its tail raised toward the sky.
Why is THAT here... no, wait—why is it taking orders from the Morph-fucker?
Its appearance had changed considerably, but one look at the fusion of machine and living tissue told Jason exactly what it was: one of the Mutant Screamers Chloe was developing.
Don't tell me its memory was restored? No—no way. I was told that was impossible.
Jason knew exactly what the Mutant Screamers were made from. The original specimen behind that genetic hodgepodge of a monstrosity was connected to him as well.
But his musings could go no further. A beast bearing golden fur came charging at him.
The griffin—white-maned, its pelt shimmering gold—carved a bloody line across his abdomen as it swept past.
"Gah?!"
Jason recoiled at the sudden fire in his gut. This was armor forged from a Black Galagon's scales—and it had been cut.
The creature that had left the gash across his stomach gripped a golden short spear in its beak.
The High Priest's Golden Spear!
He knew Muriel had gone off to rescue the Wolf slaves and, while she was at it, intended to claim that very weapon. Seeing it clamped in a griffin's beak, the enemy's identity was easy enough to guess.
「Remember me? You had Muriel slaughter my family.」
"You mangy Wolf bastard..."
The Black Galagon armor was already knitting the wound closed, but that changed nothing about the fact that he'd been caught off guard.
Clicking his tongue in irritation, Jason spread his left hand toward the griffin. Gravity Control unfolded, and crushing weight descended across a vast swath of the floor.
「Kgh!」
The ice beneath them fractured, and the griffin's movements slowed to a crawl. Jason layered Binding on top of it, and the beast froze in place entirely. As the golden form drew back its blade to carve the griffin apart, yet another interruption arrived.
「Bad man! Don't you hurt Middle Baby!」
"Tch."
Translucent threads coiled around his body. Jason invoked Morta—the technique that nullified enemy psychic powers—and severed the Sea Demon's bindings.
"Quit being a pain in my ass, you broken piece of trash!"
He flicked his hand as if brushing off a fly, and the golden form swung its blade through the Sea Demon's body. A single stroke sheared away several of its tendrils, and the creature's flesh blanched bone-white.
「Little Elder!」
"And you—drop dead."
The Green Galagon dove at the sight of its wounded kin, but Jason met it with Reflection, hurling the creature's entire body back. Its wings crumpled into ruin against the invisible wall.
As he moved to finish the Galagon where it lay moaning on the ice, the Mutant Screamer—having closed the distance unnoticed—spread its jaws and clamped down on his arm.
"Useless... ughk?!"
He'd assumed his armor would protect him. He'd been wrong. Strength came pouring out of him in an instant, and Jason nearly crumpled to the ground in an undignified heap.
You've got to be Fucking kidding me—Reaver!
The moment Jason realized the machine had absorbed the Blood Reaver, he swung Purification in his right hand. Its blade of black fire sheared through one of the Mutant Screamer's legs.
"Kirik. Mobility impairment detected."
"Fuck the impairment—I said kill it!"
Truly furious now, Jason laid about him with Purification. Each time the black blade flashed, another of the Screamer's legs went flying in a ghastly ruin.
The machine lost the better part of its legs in moments and collapsed. With neurotic spite, Jason hacked its body to shreds.
"Pah. Worthless hunk of junk."
He spat on the fallen Screamer and recalled Purification.
Having cleaned up the Morph-fucker's minions in short order, he approached the griffin, which still couldn't move a muscle. The beast glared up at him, the spear still clamped in its beak.
"That spear is wasted on the likes of you."
He opened his palm and channeled his psychic power, and the spear began to tremble. The griffin clamped its beak shut with all its might, desperate not to let go. It was useless.
「Ghk!」
The sleek golden beak warped, and then shattered. He scooped the short spear out of the rubble of broken beak fragments.
Good, that's done. Oh, right—players get privileges, don't they?
He was still debating whether to drag the griffin back with him when laughter rang out. The beakless griffin was laughing at him.
"Have you lost your mind?"
「Heh. Hheheh. Kheheheh. What a fool you are.」
"You break too easily for a madman. I have so much I intend to do with you."
「Kheheheh. And you truly believe you can?」
"That's my line. What kind of attitude is that, knowing you're about to be tortured—cghk!"
Before he could even finish the sentence, Jason vomited blood. With the blood came pain unlike anything he had ever known.
He looked down. A massive bone was jutting out through his chest.
"What is this...?"
His head turned, slowly, mechanically. There stood the owner of the bone blade.
"You—you son of a bitch...!"
The one who had impaled him with an arm tipped in a blade of bone, thrust out from its back.
It was the Amorph—reborn in a new form.