“Hahahahaha~! Well no shit! You had the power to yank souls from another fuckin reality, but ya couldn’t summon a goddamn computer? Hell, if you would’ve called me back then, I’d have told ya that most people are evil assholes!” Michael was apparently very amused at the Goddess’ ineptitude, but she didn’t seem particularly pleased by his behavior.

Arcana created an illusory chessboard between the two of them and picked white, while she gave the Nephilim the red pieces. Then she continued her story: “The only ‘good’ that came from those first Otherworlders, was that they managed to create this solar-system with the power I bestowed upon them. They even filled this planet with plants, animals, and Humans… though it was impossible for any of the inhabitants to have souls of their own.”

He moved his pawn, while saying “Basically, all the billions or trillions of souls that are in this universe now… are artificial, or more accurately, manufactured within this reality.”

The Goddess frowned, whispering “I summoned millions of Humans from your world. Unfortunately, they would always seem to leave ‘me’ eventually. Thus, I decided to ‘copy’ those which I favored the most. Lux and Umbra were my first two creations, but I allowed them to live and grow within the ‘game’ that was created by the original ‘Players.’ That was also the time when I first began ‘playing’ with the inhabitants of this world. They started calling me ‘Arcana,’ because I was the source of their power: A strange and mysterious entity.”

They continued to move their pieces in relative silence for a few minutes, before he asked “Why only females? Well, I’m sure your true forms are probably gender-less and sexless, so I’m just curious about the whole vagina-power thing?”

She giggled quietly, and replied “It was due to an experiment that I conducted. After choosing from among my most interesting followers, I utilized a male and female avatar of myself. Then I impregnated several females, and was inseminated by several males. The offspring between myself and the Otherworlders, surprisingly had souls. However, they were all born with memories of their previous lives. To test my hypothesis, I mated with myself and left it up to ‘chance’ to decide what would happen genetically.”

Michael sighed dramatically, “So ya had twin girls, and decided that pussy was better than cock? Hmm, wait, didn’t you just say that you ‘copied’ Umbra and Lux from… Oh~, I get it, hehehe~. The other six were the same too, right? Members of Arcano’s harem, heh-heh~.”

“Perhaps that is an adequate way to describe our arrangement. However, the ‘artificial’ souls, as you called them, were the result of my self-procreation. More than simple personalities or memories, they were very difficult for me to create at first. There were a few… errors and glitches along the way; especially with Chaos.” The Goddess was smiling wryly, while giving the Nephilim another vague explanation about something that could have been another ‘half-truth.’

Eventually, their conversation veered in a more practical direction. Towards the end of the chess match, he asked the illusory woman “Is there a bestiary of some sort? Cause there’s a particular creature that I’m looking for…”

Arcana giggled, before making a screen pop-up before his eyes, which was essentially just the normal map. She whispered “This is a feature that would not be available to you under normal circumstances. You are currently the only ‘Player’ within this solar system, thus it would be impossible for you to form a Guild. It is essentially a way for you and your Companions to mark down the general territories of various types of magical-beasts. However, it also allows you to keep track of resources… automatically.”

Michael snickered, then told her “Thank you very much, my beautiful and benevolent Goddess of Voyeurism. Hmmm~, I believe that this is check-mate though, so I’ll see you again soon~…”

The illusory woman smiled at him, as the space around them began to distort, “Congratulations again… and, you are welcome. I shall take the initiative to challenge you next time, rather than waiting for you to contact me. Perhaps next time we shall play for higher stakes?”

As she vanished, a notification appeared: “Aura has increased by ten points.” Even though his Intelligence was thirteen, due to his equipment, it seemed that only the base stats were counted.

Having his Aura nearly doubled, gave Michael a strange sense of power coursing from his forehead. He muttered “What the hell is this weird feeling? Hmmm~, I didn’t really notice it that much before, but twenty-three meters is actually pretty damn far…” as a swirling vortex of Arcane mana began swirling around his entire body.

There was no wind being created, nor was there any temperature difference; it was simply a prismatic radiance, which indicated his maximum effective range for telekinetically manipulating his weapons. Of course, there was also another very important effect, which he hadn’t noticed before then.

Sending the pitch-black wisp out of his body, it suddenly began soaring at two-hundred and thirty miles per hour. Not only that, but he also managed to slightly surpass his old limit of two-miles, while flying straight up into the sky.

Michael muttered “So that’s how it is, huh? Hehehehe~, I must not have noticed before, since I was trying to avoid getting motion-sickness. I guess the ratio is probably one point of Aura for ten MPH, while every ten points of Aura is equivalent to one mile of max distance. Hmmm~, does that mean… when I have sixty-eight million Aura, I’ll be able travel faster than light? Oh hey, maybe that Intelligence is actually working, because I definitely wouldn’t have remembered so much random nonsense before coming to this world.”

While he was thinking about such things, he was struggling to ignore the excruciating pain that his body was experiencing. Two angelic wings burst out of his back, and a golden halo appeared above his head, while his long black hair was turning silver.

It was true that regardless of how much Strength he had, or how strong his wings were, it wouldn’t have been possible for him to take-off from the ground. However, when he used Astral-Step, and teleported two-point-three miles above that mountaintop, things became radically different.

Of course, while birds had genetic memory and instincts which allowed them to fly, Nephilim did not. Michael screamed “Shit-cunt-fuck, goddamn it! Ah~, ugh~, no~, too dizzy~!” as he was tumbling through the air, and being yanked along by heavy winds occasionally.

Gliding off of a ten-meter high wall, was fairly quick and simple, especially when there was no turbulence. Unfortunately, even when spreading his huge and sturdy wings out, his unbalanced body was just being spun in random directions non-stop: like a lopsided arrow, being fired towards the ground.

After a few seconds of panicking foolishly, he made that floating sword enter his right hand. Activating Arcane Pull on himself, his roughly five-hundred pound body, had its weight reduced to two-hundred pounds.

At that point, with his unreasonably high Strength, he was able to flap those giant wings and somewhat regain some semblance of balance. Then he was finally at a low enough altitude, that the wind-speeds weren’t too ridiculous, as the spell ended.

He could have teleported at any time and reset his momentum to zero, so there was never really any ‘danger’ involved in the flight practice… Aside from the various flying magical-beast that he had completely forgotten about.

As he was casually gliding towards the west, Michael felt a strange tingling sensation in the back of his mind. Then everything around him started to become darker, and he noticed an extremely large pitch-black circle had appeared on his mini-map.

Within a casual glance upwards, he yelled “So~ much nope!” before quickly teleporting a mile in the direction that he had been flying. He didn’t look back, simply diving down into the jungle canopy while trying to ignore a deafening roar, which actually stunned him.

The disoriented Nephilim crashed into a thick yellow branch, but was immediately attacked by a gigantic, golden serpent. Fortunately, the colossal “Demonic Flesh-Dragon of Hate, Level-59, Rank-C, Raid Boss,” didn’t seem to care enough to chase after him.

However, a huge “Angelic Boa of Efflorescence, Level-19, Rank-E, Elite” had swiftly utilized his incapacitation, to wrap its body around him. When those glowing golden scales made contact with the porcelain skin on his face and right arm, it felt as if he was inside of a microwave.

Michael roared “Ow~! You fucking slimy cunt-whore!” as a series of relatively small, but painful numbers popped up before his eyes: ‘-11,’ ‘-13,’ ‘-10,’ ‘-16,’ ‘-19.’ The creature was desperately trying to crush his body, but as soon as he activated his boots, greaves, breastplate and gauntlet, he was able to fully utilize his overpowering Strength.

Realizing that it was in great danger, the snake fired a beam of light out of its mouth, aimed at an orange tree-branch, that was a hundred meters away. The incredibly thick and long serpentine body, seemed to quickly disintegrate for a moment, before re-materializing at the targeted location.

He shouted “Oh for fuck’s sake! I can teleport too, ya know?!” before Astral-Stepping next to the fleeing beast. The Arcane Siegeblade was able to pierce through the snake’s neck, and sever its head, but there was a bit of resistance.

A huge ‘-187’ damage, deadly strike was followed by a large ‘+114 Exp,’ and he couldn’t help but complain “Wasn’t that a bit too easy though?” Apparently, he hadn’t noticed the fact that his face and right arm were still sizzling and his porcelain flesh had been charred black.