Chapter 14: Song of Blood
Walder woke up and his blood was singing. Singing loudly for the first time in his current life, with the song finally reaching a volume that mortal devices, and the some of the 'less'-sensitive immortal ears would be able to hear it, if they tried to listen.
His body vibrated with the cacophonous song that heralded the birth and death of entire universes. A song filled with cosmic profundities, and resplendent truths.
He smiled, but the smile held no mirth. This was the false smile he'd learn to wear to mask his feelings whenever he was feeling particularly distressed. It was the smile the cult taught him to wear lest he dishearten his worshippers, the followers who were waiting for the day when he'd take in the spirit of their dead god and bring the end of all things.
Had he known that the 'boss' of the powerstation was going to end up being an extradimensional being he probably still wouldn't have just pulled out of the station, one can't live in fear for ever, after all...However he'd have likely taken more precautions.
Extradimensionals had a certain relationship with one another, their alienness would resonate. Walder had hoped that his suppression of his powers would keep the secret truths locked within his head from resonating the alien essence of the other extradimensional being, but it seemed that those hopes had been dashed.
The result of going into the situation without taking sufficient measures had been a painful and traumatic metamorphosis into a humanoid-extradimensional and a three day coma floating in one of his ship's RR(Regeneration and Recuperation) pods.
Walder wasn't sure what to feel right now. Simply observing himself using his extrasensory abilities and mental powers he could see that the current him differed greatly compared to the him of a week ago.
His brown-red hair, and brown-red eyes were now a straight crimson. With the eyes filled with spiralling red and black.
Where before he was merely slightly taller than average, he was now 7'10'' in height, with a shoulder width of 30 inches. He'd lost his slender but athletic build and instead had the bear-like physique people used to see on old action figures for brutish villain characters. His weight had ballooned to a little under 800 lbs.
All these were just cosmetic changes though, and he fully intended to adjust his looks as best he could before he made his next video call to his mother and sister.
What was more important and more drastic were the changes happening to his body's internal make-up. The secret power that dwelt within him was no longer sleeping, now it was awake and in full effect.
Filling his body and soul with a cacophonous song that filled him with far more power than he'd ever need or be able to fully handle.
Worse yet, from now on the power would gradually and steadily grow stronger, increasing in magnitude and requiring greater and greater amounts of care to keep it from running amok. The only consolation was that he'd have to consciously ignite his power to truly become the eldritch lord he'd been during the last segment of his life.
For now, as he'd explained to his livid wife as she helped him clean and dress himself because he'd been incapitated while his freshly evolved nine-dimensional nervous system struggled to deal with operating within the standard three dimensions, he was still a regular person.
Following the common sense of the current age, it could be said that his powers had, had a breakthrough. His knowledge of technology and quantum harmonics had become a direct power to manipulate and control harmonic flow, with his body becoming a harmonic generator.
While it was definitely unusual for an intellectual power like his 'savantism' to suddenly become the broad magic-like reality bending that he could be categorize his powers to be, he was still definitely a normal human.
He was just a human with powers that seemed to have something of a mind of their own. When he was threatened or stressed, the song of apocalypse, or bad vibrations within his blood would affect the environment in various detrimental fashions. Poisoning and weakening nearby flora and fauna. Causing the rapid deterioration of the molecular bonds of all nearby substances till finally at its most extreme Walder was turned into something of a walking wasteland.
In his normal state, Walder's song of genesis, or good vibrations could affect reality in a way that basically made it so that those who were closet to him received benefits akin to rolling natural 20s down to the genetic level. While the area around him experienced a generalized fertility and boost to vitality that at its most extreme could turn a lifeless planet into a garden world.
In other words, Walder could generate bad vibrations that made bad things happen and killed people. And he could also make good vibrations that healed people, and could even make them stronger and better than they were.
He had a few secondary powers like a natural healing factor, and increased strength, stamina, speed, and agility which all came from his body constantly benefiting from its own good vibes.
He also had an ability to 'blink' from place to place, by emulating the functions of his planar conversion drive with his body's in-built harmonic generators.
Explaining his powers in this fashion to his wife was surprisingly effective in mitigating his own feelings of trepidation over what he was capable of.
While he was admittedly downplaying how powerful a "reality bender" he currently was and would eventually become. Explaining his powers in the terms of the powers that were so prevalent in his new universe helped him rationalize the threat.
Walder decided to continue as he'd planned. Enjoying his life. Taking things easy. Aggressively avoiding fame, or any real responsibility beyond those the average man could expect to have to take on.
He wouldn't let his powers become a burden for him and his loved ones as they'd become in the last life. He wouldn't let anyone put any troublesome burdens or expectations on his shoulders.
This time around, even if a new darkness were to come and threaten to swallow the universe his only concern would be to enjoy his life in the current universe as best he could. Then he would take his loved ones and friends under his wings, and kick down the doors of reality, so that he and those that he cared about could escape to another universe if the party came to a close without some 'other' chump stepping up to save the day.
Men plan and the gods laugh. The gods plan and then the fates laugh. Walder was not a god, nor was he like the mortal heroes, but he was fully and completely willing to kick fate in the shin if it tried to get in his way during this lifetime. If worse came to worst, he'd pull a rocks fall and be an even greater darkness than anything that could be thrown his way, if the powers-that-be tried to force his hands.
Having made up his mind and tempered his determination Walder got out of bed. He went to the ships medical bay to make the necessary cosmetic changes to his person.
Making his hair and eyes brown again was easy. It just required an alteration of the pigments in his body so that they weren't as reactive to the power that flowed through his blood.
He could have made a similar change sooner, but back then he didn't have the Julianne's RR tanks to serve as an environment for making changes to the genetic-make up of his body, and the issue hadn't been quite as serious.
Slimming down to a more comfortably athletic look from his roid monster appearance required the use of a large chunk of the prana crystal that they'd harvested from the argus panoptes, and a hill-sized asteroid that he'd caught during the original trip to Olamide.
He used both materials as fodder so he could edit the makeup of his cells and connective tissues, and refine them till he had something that could more readily handle the large amounts of power that his cacophonous blood would be absorbing.
He couldn't do anything about his height, his bones were near-unbreakable now, and the marrow was too dangerous to play around with due to its relationship with his blood.
The sum result of all of Walder's hard work would be a slimmer, brown haired, brown eyed, him. Not much different in appearance compared to the Walder prior the change, albeit with slightly more muscles, and with his hair and eyes a lighter shade of brown.
He still looked like he had just gone through a very extreme growth sport but there was no helping that.
He was going to hope that the fact that he was still only nineteen and therefore still technically a growing boy, and the encouragement of said growth by the lower-gravity experienced by those in space, would cover for his new beanpole-like stature.
Having done what he needed to an exhausted Walder would clean himself off in the medbay's showers and then meander back to his bedroom for a nap.
He'd find Henri at his door waiting for him. Walder crept up behind her and when he tapped Henri on her shoulder she nearly leapt out of her skin, barely managing to keep her cool veneer.
"What happened to having footsteps?" said a frowning Henrika.
A sheepish Walder would explain,
"Besides absorbing the energy from large and small scale vibrations that happen around me, the harmonic patterns within consume all of my body's excess sounds, footsteps, snoring, and stomach rumbles...etcetera. I'm basically on mute unless I'm purposely trying to make noise and suppressing my power."
"Ah...well, er...I guess it is what it is then...So uh, you're looking relatively normal if much, much taller." said Henri. Quickly pushing past her discomfort.
"Yeah, I know...I'm just glad I won't have to spend the rest of my life wearing stretchy purple pants."
"Huh?" said Henri. Clearly not getting Walder's reference.
"Nevermind...Anyway...I just wanted to say….Thanks. Thank you so much for getting me to the ship, and thank you for taking care of me while I was....adjusting." said Walder. Bowing deeply at the waist.
"Er...it's uh...It's okay. It's in our vows isn't it? 'In sickness and in health?'...You were sick...Now you're healthy...Even if our marriage is 30% BS, 70% just about the convenience, we're in this together for the long haul...So, uh, you know...it's no big deal." said Henri. Looking distinctly uncomfortable as she met Walder's gaze.
Walder rose straightening his back, and feeling a warmth in his chest. He smiled. His teeth glinting as if made of metal.
"Yeah...Well...Thank you anyway. Even if it was no big deal for 'you' I still appreciate what you did. And I want you to know you can trust me to return the favor if you ever need...Like you said, we're in this for the long haul, right?"
"Er….Right." said Henri. Her EQ too low for her to be entirely sure what their words were signifying, but her high intelligence making her certain that the words had somehow gained considerable weight. .
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