One With The Abyss

I entered the waiting room for floor 46 and began trying to psyche myself up. 

In order to become truly formless I would have to abandon any and all attachments to it. Including all the traumatic baggage relating to the birthmark on my face.

I had long since accepted that my mark was a part of me, that I could not change it; doing so allowed me to come to terms with the abuse slightly. I suffered, yes, but that suffering no longer carried the mental weight it once had.

My thought process was along the lines of 'why prolong the inevitable'. My mark could never be removed so I simply resigned myself to suffer under the consequences of its existence.

Letting out a deep breath I finally gathered the courage to begin. I sat down, like I would when planning to cultivate my abyssal energy and sent my mind to the place I had quickly found to be most comfortable: The gates of the abyss.

The ambient abyssal energy flowed into me and I shook with vigour, feeling renewed with every breath. Metaphorical breath of course as coming to the abyssal gate required a sort of astral projection, I was only here with my soul, and therefore disconnected from my body.

I sat at the centre of the platform, under the stars and planets above and closed my eyes. My breathing became even and I began to develop an image in my mind.

I floated within the void. My body and mind completely separated, connected only by a tether of ethereal light that gently tugged at my mind, hoping to pull it back into my body. This was the image I had created in order to fully abandon my body.

With my will I grasped at the tether, and began cutting it away. Each strand of the ethereal rope bringing up thoughts within me.

At first it was simple and easy to ignore. The gentle tug as I was reminded that one cannot exist without a body to inhabit.

Another as I saw the improbability of change.

Yet another tug when I came face to face with each of my sensations.

But one by one, regardless of its strength; each strand that connected me to my physical body was plucked and snapped away - bringing me one step closer to being formless.

What followed these instinctual responses were much harder to cut loose.

Memories. Memories laden with despair and suffering, all deriving from my mark. Not the mark of the abyss, but the mark of failure. From the very moment of my birth, it made me disgusting. A black splotch on the perfection of the Ambrose family.

I began to struggle, the weight of this trauma making each strand like a steel wire I was trying to cut with a butter knife. 

The tugging was stronger, more than I felt I could resist.

Every time my parents beat me.

Every time I failed to meet the standard my sister set.

Every time Ursina forced me to kiss the bottom of a toilet bowl.

Every time I was forced to steal food from the trash in order to stave off my hunger.

And every time someone looked at me in disgust.

Every moment of my suffering was brought about by my mark and each tied me to what I was. That fear, fear I could never escape my own failures. Fear I would always be marked in black, the disgusting dud that couldn't reach the heights expected of me.

With my doubts, each strand became stronger and the tug to return to my body became firmer.

I tried desperately to resist, but it was a sisyphean task. 

I would always be tied to those memories. I would always be marked by the failure that they showed. I would always be tethered to my body.

I began to lose myself to those thoughts. Why bother resisting? It is merely prolonging the inevitable. You are a failure and no amount of power could ever change that.

But within those doubts seemed to be a spark of hope. And like a flicker of light at the end of a tunnel, I ran. Ran as fast as I could towards that hope.

Power?

I have... Power?

I began to think back on my time in the dungeon. I fought endlessly to claim the right to use the power in front of me, hurdling over each wall that came before me; until even the task of slaying dragons seemed an easy feat.

With the abyss, there was nothing I couldn't grasp.

How could I be a failure, when my time in this world had proved otherwise. 

My mark may denote me as a failure, and fighting against that wall may be a pointless endeavour, but I did it.

I punched that wall until it shattered and crumbled before me. And I repeated that with each wall that followed. Nothing stood in my way for long.

I have... Power!

That same light, the mere flicker within the despair of my trauma, began to glow brighter than any star and guided me away from my doubts.

One by one the steel wires that were my memories began to shatter and come loose, freeing me from my body.

They didn't leave, every memory was present within my mind - perhaps clearer than when I first began - but I no longer looked upon them with despair. The torment and suffering no longer connected me to my body.

The birthmark that spread across my face was not a mark of failure; it was a mark of the abyss. It was proof that I held power within me, something that could not be twisted by the torment of others.

With each strand that snapped under the weight of my power a fog began to clear. Something that existed within me, hidden behind my own insecurities. With each strand that disappeared I began to see behind that shield of doubt.

What had once been: Your suffering is merely the consequence of your body, there is nothing you can do about it. It is not your fault, but you cannot change this truth about yourself. Became full of holes.

Soon only a single strand remained, and even with my confidence cutting through such a beast was a herculean task.

It stood like a giant wall between me and my next leap into power.

A memory I didn't know I even had.

I had cut away, the suffering Ursina had inflicted upon me; cut away the injustice I faced at school; the failures I had accrued by never reaching the heights my sister so easily ascended; and the punishments I had suffered under the hands of my parents.

Each of those strands that tethered me to my physical form had flown away and dispersed. But one remained.

Not just a lost memory, but my very first memory: The moment I opened my eyes for the first time, seeing the disgust on my mothers face as she stared at me.

Her own child, born mere seconds ago and already she hates me.

That cloud of doubt is moments away from being cleared as I come to terms with the fact my own parents felt such vivid disgust at the sight of me.

It was never Your suffering is merely the consequence of your body, there is nothing you can do about it. It is not your fault, but you cannot change this truth about yourself.

In reality it was always: You were born surrounded by monsters. There was never a chance to evade your suffering, but it was never about you. They are the failures. 

As this realisation flooded through my mind that final wall crumbled into nothingness. I felt something deep within me change and as I looked around the abyssal gate, I knew I had truly abandoned my form.

[Talent: <Shapeshifting> has undergone evolution]

[Talent: <Shapeshifting> has been touched by the abyss]

[Restructuring Talent]

[You have acquired the talent: <Zero>]

[Abyssal Gate: <Formless> Is now open]

My attention shifted to the gate. Purple lights ran along its carvings, revealing the truth of what it depicted.

Back to back was the image of 2 women, and as they came closer to the word below, their very forms began to melt into nothing. What remained of their being acted to light up the word [Formless] and soon that word glowed with a remarkable light, blinding me as the door faded out of existence.

Energy erupted from within it, flooding into me as it had with [Timeless].

I could feel my power grow by leaps and bounds, as the energy refined and improved my body, coming closer to the abyss.

Like before it settled down and my power had increased exponentially from before. Not even just my energy and body, but also my ability to control it. The power flowed through me with such ease that I felt I could manifest it as I desired at the mere thoughts of a desire. My control over abyssal energy had become that much more potent than it had been before.

Once my mind calmed I looked over what I had gained from both the new gate and the evolved talent - besides the giant boost in energy.

[Abyss]

[You are the Abyss. All time, space and matter converge upon you. Existence begins and ends within your being. Open the gates and all will be within your grasp]

[Formless]

[Null Form]

[True Chimera]

[Foundation: 0/1]

[Zero]

[You are without form, a being of nothingness and oblivion. Be what you require, take what you desire]

[Null Form]

[True Chimera]

The names were a bit... Confusing, but thankfully I could tell their general purpose.

[Null Form] made little sense to me, but I understood entirely what it did. The basic ability it held was transformation, holding the capability to shift however I felt, whenever I felt for a meagre energy cost.

[Null Form] alone was what many would consider shapeshifting, it could mix and match any form I desired, even without having prior knowledge of them. Theoretically I could just imagine something and it would allow me to become it, though the energy cost likely wouldn't be worth it, even if it was massively reduced. A powerful ability indeed.

Next was [True Chimera]. It functioned similarly to how [Biological Index] had.

It recorded any biological record I had a hold of and allowed me to shift easily into anything into it. But it could do more.

[Biological Index] was like a list, everything I had taken into myself, but nothing more. [True Chimera] was like a pick and mix of anything I had recorded; with the ability, even combining contradictory abilities like fire and water could be possible. Before I would merely take the forms and mash them all together, but now it would be like putting a puzzle piece into place. 

The final ability I gained was [Foundation], I couldn't grasp any information about it as it left me completely in the dark.

So, I did what anyone would do and clicked onto it. What appeared before me were a series of screens that explained the basis of the ability.

Simply put, it was like a foundational form. Something I would revert back to when my shapeshifting ended. It seemed that existing in the physical world without a form was not possible and this ability was supposed to act as a medium for that.

There were a few things of note, firstly I could somewhat change this foundational form later, but only from within the abyss gate. Secondly, when designing a base form it had to keep 2 things within it: My purple eyes and my abyss mark.

I could move and change the shape of the mark, but I had to keep it on my body.

"I was going to anyway." I mumbled, having come to terms with it.

So, for a while I went through the menus looking at all the options available to me. 

For the most part it was all things I had absorbed into myself, the monsters I had fought in the dungeon as well as, oddly, the one classmate who's talent I had copied. If I wanted to, I could just take her body.

I could also just freely design the body as I wanted, it was kind of like the difference between free-drawing and tracing.

Another interesting thing was that I could get my arm back. From what I could tell, [Avarice] would simply grow out of another part of my body, like a third arm; but I didn't want this.

I felt like a kid taking as much care and attention as possible to design their video game character - the fact that it was all done on floating menus didn't help break this illusion.

I soon found something I was happy with.

As the general base I took the body of a dark elf. I also took the time to fix some of the... Issues I saw with my body. I was not really attached to my appearance anymore, but I still wanted to look good and be comfortable.

While I took the shape of a dark elf, I did not maintain the same skin tone. Instead I looked back through my index and found the blood goblins. They had a nice grey colour that I felt fit well with the body of a dark elf. I chose to ignore all of the tribal tattoos they had and just combine the body shape of a dark elf with the skin tone of a blood goblin.

I removed all of my scars and increased my height slightly to around 6'3". I felt that being tall would make me much more imposing.

In a less 'pragmatic' change, I altered the curves of my body. Dark elves were naturally quite physically fit, but I slimmed them down slightly, reduced the rather large assets in front and back to retain my ability to move well; but I still made sure to keep them... Presentable.

My facial features were kept mostly the same, but I obviously made some changes. Firstly, while I couldn't change the colour of my eyes - not that I wanted to either - I could change their general look. I took the eyes from the drake I had fought on floor 30, feeling that the slit iris' were quite cool.

My ears were automatically long due to me choosing the body of a dark elf, and I kept them that way since I thought it looked good.

I also decided to change the look of my hair. It had been cut short due to almost being beheaded a bunch, but I didn't really like that. So, I changed it from the shaved short style I had so that it went all the way back down to my middle back, I didn't change the wavy look or the natural curliness, but I did decide to change it from black to silver.

I wasn't worried about the hair getting in the way as I fought as not only could I control it with [Zero], but if I had to, I would just use [Thread Dominion] to create something to tie up my hair.

The last part of my face I changed were the teeth. From boring old flat teeth to the razor sharp gnashers of the sharkmen from floor 37, I also made it so they did not protrude at all from my body, they sat cleanly in my mouth like normal teeth would have.

The ends of my hands became sharp like claws. The best option I found was the ghoul lord, sharp and sturdy, but unnecessarily long. So, despite the impossibility of the task, I easily shortened them down such that now the ends of my fingers were nothing more than sharp points. They could still be deadly, but now I could hold things without ripping them into pieces.

Then, there was one last thing to decide: The mark of the abyss.

I didn't want it on my face anymore, and I struggled to find a suitable place to display it. No matter what form I took, this mark and my eyes would remain visible always.

It took a while, but I came to a decision. On my soul weapon there was a symbol, glowing bright purple, on the back of the hand. It resembled an eye, in its most basic components; as such, finding the pattern to be appealing I transformed the mark into its image and placed it on the back of my flesh hand.

With that everything was sorted and I confirmed my changes, taking on the new body I had.

I felt weird again for a moment, but nothing around me changed. Within the abyssal gates I was still the shapeless mass of soul that I had become after opening [Formless].

Still, I felt different. New. Like had been given an entirely fresh identity.

3 gates were open and only 4 were left.

When they open, nothing will stand in my way.