GLORIOUS!!!
The word was not a sound but an event. It did not echo off the walls; it 'was' the walls, the air, the very fabric of the throne room. It was a final, resonant bell tolling the end of one era and the violent, triumphant birth of another. The voices, countless, ancient, and merged into one, were etched into the existence of this place. They had been waiting, slumbering in the throne room, for an eternity. They had been waiting for this day. For a new king to take the throne.
The voices continued, their tone one of revelation and certainty. "Your Existence Truly Is The One."
The throne room trembled, the vibrations running up through the soles of Dave's feet and into his bones. He steadied himself, a rock in a seismic storm, as the proclamation thundered around him.
"Player Dave, YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN!!"
A maelstrom of questions should have been raging in his mind. Chosen for what? Why me? What is this place? But they were distant, muffled things. The most profound strangeness was the calmness that held him. He didn't move. He didn't flinch. It was as if he was no longer in control of his own body, a mere spectator to a coronation he never asked for. A silent passenger in a vessel being steered by a destiny he couldn't comprehend.
"YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN A NEW NAME…"
The voices gathered themselves, drawing in a collective breath from the cosmos. And then, as one unified, cosmic entity, they spoke it.
"THE SOULLESS ONE."
The moment the name left the ether, the world reacted. A deep, foundational DUUUUUM! shook reality itself. It was not a tremor of destruction, but one of reverence. The entire throne room shuddered, the dark stone seeming to bow in acknowledgment, as if the very concept of the name commanded obeisance from existence.
As the last vibration faded, a familiar screen materialized before Dave's eyes, its text burning with a new significance.
<
Memory, sharp and clear, pierced through him. He had seen this screen before. In the split second between Clive's death and Dave's birth, this message had flashed, a promise drowned out by the shock of reincarnation and the terror of a new world. He had forgotten it completely, a seed planted in the chaos of his soul that was only now, in this place of power, bursting into bloom.
He was still staring at the screen, the words "Infinite Soul Combination" searing themselves into his understanding, when the throne room shifted again.
It wasn't a physical movement. It was a change in perception, a lifting of a veil. His gaze was drawn away from the screen, back to the vast, dark space from which he had come.
And in the darkness, Dave saw Souls.
They stretched into the infinite darkness, a swirling, ethereal tapestry of captured light. Souls of humans, their forms still etched with the final moments of terror and betrayal. Souls of beasts, their primal essences raging against their confinement. Souls of millions, a galaxy of the fallen, their collective presence filling the throne room with a silent, screaming pressure. Dave saw them all, and as his perception touched them, their experiences flooded into him. He heard their cries, a symphony of anguish. He felt their wailing, a vibration of pure grief. He knew their stories, their loves, their fears, their ends. It was a ocean of loss, and he was standing at its center.
Then, the multitude of voices returned, quieter now, a confidential whisper from the cosmos itself. "Both gods and immortals shall fall by your hands, Oh Soulless..."
As if on cue, the screen materialized with a soft Chime.
<
The description of the power made it stupidly powerful. Dave could only stare in surprise. "Infinite Soul Combination System," he muttered under his breath, the words feeling alien and immense on his tongue. With this power, I can combine souls of anything I kill and create beasts that I imagine.. His mind, ever suspicious, recoiled at the sheer scale of it. Isn't this too strange to be true? This entire world, as long as the Game Maker drew breath, was a labyrinth of traps. Why would he trust this offer?
But as the thought formed, he let out a slow, inward sigh. This wasn't an offer. It never had been. From the moment he had died as Clive, he had been chosen for this path. What could a powerless person, tossed between worlds like a piece of driftwood, do to reject a destiny carved into the foundations of reality? He was a pawn being promoted to a queen, and the board was drenched in blood.
His eyes swept over the sea of tormented souls again. He knew what they were, the fuel for the Game Maker's cruel games. A part of him knew he should feel pity, horror, something. But his mind, cold and sharpened by two lifetimes of injustice, felt nothing but a single thought. And besides, if this ability can help me survive this mess of a game... then who am I to reject it?
Subconsciously, his right hand lifted, palm facing the swirling galaxy of essence. The motion felt instinctual, ingrained, as if the knowledge of soul-craft had been sleeping in his marrow, waiting for this moment to awaken.
Dave stood, his gaze unreadable, a statue of resolve staring into the raw material of life and death.
Then he spoke. His voice was not loud, but it carried the weight of epochs. It was the voice of a god pronouncing a new law, a final command before existence shifted on its axis.
He spoke:
"Combine."
It was not a plea. It was not a request. It was a decree.
A Final One.
DUUUUUM!!!
The throne room convulsed. The very air shattered. The millions of souls, which had been wailing in a silent chorus, now screamed in a tangible, universe-rending agony. Their forms twisted, not like smoke, but like a nightmare given physical shape, stretching and contorting against a force they could not resist. They were pulled from the edges of the cosmos, merging into a single, violent point as if a black hole had opened in the palm of his hand. The light of a million lives, the essence of a million beings, seethed and compressed, forced and combined into a ball..
A Ball Of Souls...