God Of Crafting

Consume.

This was the only prerogative that all of the concepts merged into.

Gain more data. Process the data. Fulfill objectives.

All of those points boiled down to just the single idea of consuming more content, be it the variations on the vibrations of the spiritual energy within the free-flowing circuit, the ways in which various beings spun this power around...

Or the very physical matter that constituted the very world where life itself existed.

But how could a mere sentience, a consciousness without a body ever experience matter?

The being's first attempt at doing so was aimed at the greatest concentration of spiritual life it could detect... Only for the tendrils of its will to be blocked from advance by some invisible void that disallowed any of the life to go past it.

Then, after learning from its mistake, the being opted to avoid attempting to take over the same forms the life could take as the ones it failed to reach, focusing its attention on spiritual life forms that were much more simple, and straightforward.

The codex of their existence was incomparably simpler to read, manipulate, and then take over. And that's exactly what the being did, solving the issue of the lack of flesh it needed to experience life itself through its very barebone notion of spirituality.

And instead of gaining just two sets of weak limbs it could from those complicated codexes of life, he ended up gaining a number so high of powerful limbs that it nearly breached the limits of variable type it created to count all the effigies it could connect to!

It was also at this moment when, for the very first time, the being actually experienced the world itself, rather than just the free flow of life itself. And it was through the many eyes of its newly gained limbs that the being could now self-inspect its own limbs.

Only for all of those limbs to then turn their attention over to the distance, where the density of life suddenly shot through the roof as various strands of it vied for dominance.

'Kill. Eat. Shit. Sleep.'

A simple line of thought, something common to all the predators that the being took over quickly turned into a whole library housing all sorts of creative methods those limbs used in the past to increase their own life at the expense of another.

A sneak attack. A raging charge. A poisonous bite. A stomping step.

There were many more ways than just one to take the life of others, all of which, however, always aimed to achieve the same.

To take the life that was someone else's and make it one's own.

Following this very principle, the being didn't waste any time, readily throwing its limbs right in the direction from which all of this precious life was radiating!

Yet, as it neared the brightest spot of life in the whole area with all the might of his limbs...

It has all mostly vanished.

Sure, before it could completely disappear, the being rushed forth and infused its essence into it, sneakily making that blob of life its own... But the true power, the true richness of life that it saw before was now...

It was both here while also being nowhere to be seen, as if juxtapositioned in this dual nature of its current self just so that neither the being nor anyone else could ever spoil it with their intent.

No.

That life itself was so rich in... well, life, no other intention could ever affect it, to begin with!

Yet, for how impossible it appeared to be, the being didn't give up, just like none of its limbs would when faced with beings greater than them.

The being was made of life itself, and it wasn't in life's nature to just give up!

And so, after allowing its limbs to pass through the life-rich area and claim whatever life it could obtain, the being allowed its limbs to continue down the path to the void, hoping the physical limbs would have an easier time breaking through it and then spreading the seeds of the being itself with better results than the being achieved by just extending the tendrils of its influence...

The being itself turned right back, unwilling to give up on such a tasty treat of such a rich and well-defined life.

The one goal, the one purpose, the deepest intent that lay at the very core of the being's life codex disallowed it from disengaging.

Because just like it wasn't life's nature to give up, so it wasn't a part of the meaning hidden behind the idea of consuming stuff!

***

'What the hell took him so long?!'

Sprawled down on the cold ground and with her leg sitting at an angle that pretty much proved it was fully broken rather than just twisted. Still, despite her injury, she pushed her chest up, to give her head enough room to move as far to the back as she could, so that she could get a look at the showdown between her father and the vile cultivator who tried attacking them over and over again.

Even though all she did was take a look, this process alone nearly drained her mental capacity with how she kept most of her focus on upkeeping the only job she truly cared about at the moment.

All because of just one decision she made with her heart just a few days ago.

'I'm never going to let Tim reduce himself to the state I found him in back then,' Claire thought when she first pushed her limits and started to feed Tim's cultivation with her own spiritual energy.

And so, this lone thought prevailed in her head, making her pump more and more of her dense and pristine spirituality into the core of the only person she could ever actually feed like that. Ɯ*ƲⅬЕ$МР¥Ꭱ

'Who knew that silently dual cultivating before would pay off in such a way today?' Claire thought as she strained her neck just a little bit further, unable to wait to see her father paint the ground with that Javier-named fucker's blood.

"Chihiro..." after acting all high and mighty with a hint of mystery before, when the man spoke out in a normal voice... it sounded weird for all the right reasons in Claire's eyes.

"I've waited six long years for this opportunity!" Javier suddenly screamed out, his spirituality awakening to its full potential...

Only to fall short of the extent Claire witnessed before, as if...

'It's as if something chipped away a huge chunk of his power,' she thought, feeling a sudden shrill of terror growing from the bottom of her soul and slowly spreading its tendrils throughout her entire body.

"Wha..."

"If this is all you have to show after six whole years..." Chihiro muttered while shaking his head in obvious disappointment as if he couldn't help but rub his superiority in his opponent's face.

"No! That's not it! Just why...!" Javier panicked, clearly taken aback by his inability to summon the power he, so recently, still could call his own.

"Well, if that's all, then..." Chihiro muttered, rolling his eyes as if to showcase just how done he was with this entire encounter...

Thud!

A loud, stomping sound suddenly filled the air right as the ground seemingly moved underneath everyone's feet.

Thud!

Then again.

And again.

'Wait, isn't this just like a moment...'

Before Claire could even finish her thought, a fresh horde of best suddenly ran right past them, just far enough not to put anyone in danger.

Quite curiously, however, all of those ancient beasts... ran in the exact same direction as the horde from before!

'Just what the hell...'

"What the hell is going on with this place?" Chihiro voiced out the same concern that Claire thought within the sanctum of her mind.

"How about..." Javier attempted to say something, never to finish when he suddenly clutched at his throat only to then start desperately clawing at it as he slowly rose in the air.

For but a moment, the man's feet dangled in the air as some kind of force lifted him up, only for his neck to then snap while his head twisted at some unbelievable and clearly unhealthy angle, only for his corpse to then powerlessly fall down to the ground when Chihiro released his spell.

Or was it even a spell to begin with, or just a pure manifestation of his will taking form through the seemingly endless spiritual energy he commanded?

'Well, not like it matters, but...' Claire breathed out a sigh of relief, quickly turning her head back to Tim to share this joyous moment of victory and relief with him...

Only to see nothing but a blank look on Tim's face as he stared off into the distance.

'Wait, that look...'

In a single second, Claire went from relieved and overjoyed and jumped right back into the pit of fear as the terror at the bottom of her soul reared its fangs again.

Tim's face was completely blank. His eyes unfocused... and yet, clearly zeroed in at something far off in the distance.

But it wasn't even the worst part about it.

The aura that his body projected outwards...

It was unlike anything Claire witnessed in her many years as a cultivator before! Not even the few memories of the spiritual world she had from her childhood offered any point of comparison!

"Tim!" Scared out of her mind, Claire called out, hoping to bring her fiancee back from whatever edge he was on.

But clearly, Tim didn't listen. Or maybe he couldn't hear her?

Either way, his face didn't even twitch. His body didn't move an inch even when she reached out and grabbed at his waist.

It was as if... he was here with his body, but with his spirit wandering off to somewhere unknown, a place where Claire's voice could no longer reach him!

And at this moment, as panic took over her mind, Claire could only think of doing one thing, even though it already proved to be perfectly futile.

"TIM!"