Chương 781: CH161 (775), Tragedy
Things might not have reached this stage if Palossand had been able to deal with the soul fragment messing with her, which was not impossible since she was a ghost, especially since her talent's devouring aspect might have sped things up. However, fate played a bad joke on Palossand by allowing the birth of another Sandygast mere days after she ate the other Palossand, and in the state Palossand was in at that moment she was unable to resist the tempting snack Cannibalize presented the Sandygast as. Without even waiting for the Sandygast to get stronger first to actually be useful, Palossand devoured Sandygast less than 24 hours after it came to life or unlife or whatever you wanted to call it.
Due to Sandygast's recent birth, it was pathetically weak, and devouring it gave Palossand a boost so small it might have as well not happened in the first place. Yet, even though she got no strength boost by devouring that Sandygast, she did ingest yet another soul. This soul was weaker than the first one, so it got even more fragmented during the digestion process, and had it not been for the existence of the first soul fragment, Palossand might have even been able to deal with the second one in a matter of weeks at most. Unfortunately, the first fragment existed and it protected the other fragment while leading it in tormenting Palossand's mind.
Nevertheless, at this point, Palossand was still pretty much sane, even if the presence of the fragments distracted and irritated her. She tried to get rid of them but failed because the two fragments cooperated with one another preventing her from dealing with them individually. Yet, despite their continued presence Palossand managed to return to her training routine, and she even managed to keep herself under control when another Sandygast spawned a few years later, though she didn't do it because she regretted eating her kind but because she was planning to wait for it to get stronger to get more out of eating it.
I guess Palossand had already lost her marbles at that point, at least partially since she actually thought that adding a third victim to her list, one with a stronger soul at that, would be a good idea when she had yet to get rid of the previous ones who were still messing with her to that day. Yet she did just that and a few years passed while Palossand waited and trained in solitude, ignoring the voices in her head that were messing with her. The Sandygast evolved to Palossand while she waited and it broke through to bronze before eventually reaching the (high) bronze stage. Once that happened Palossand who was starting to get impatient due to her failure to break through to the gold stage began to ponder if waiting for Palossand to break through to the silver stage was really necessary.
What Palossand was unaware of, but we as outsiders could see, was that the interference of the fragments together with the feeling generated by Cannibalize was eroding her willpower, which was also why she failed to get that opportunity to break through even though she was at the (high) silver stage since the quality of her training suffered as did her resolve/mind. Anyway, soon after the idea entered her mind, Palossand ended up ambushing the other Palossand without waiting for it to break through. She obviously succeeded in taking the Palossand down and as she was devouring it, she began to break through to the gold stage due to the influx of power/energy.
Luckily for her, her breakthrough helped strengthen her soul and mind, which allowed her to maintain her "clarity" even though she ended up with a third soul fragment in her body. In fact, it regressed some of the damage, allowing her to regain some of her "clarity" or rather her willpower, which let her ignore her surroundings to focus on herself. Palossand used that to focus on her training, ignoring the voices, while working hard, which allowed her to actually advance to the (mid) gold stage after toiling away for nearly two decades. The intensity of her focus was such that she even managed to ignore the Sandygast that spawned around 3 years ago, despite her talent reminding her of its existence, which was impressive really even if it was another sign of her instability since that level of focus was abnormal, though in this case that ended up helping her.
Palossand continued to ignore the Sandygast even after her advancement as she strived to advance once more and encouraged by her success she even attempted to refine the fragments again, her hope rekindled after having previously given up on doing so due to repeated failures. She hyper-focused on those two things, which allowed her to ignore the increasing temptation brought about by Cannibalize as Sandygast, or rather Palossand after it evolved, got stronger. After nearly 3 years of effort, Palossand noticed that the weakest fragment despite the struggle put up by the other two fragments was in fact getting weaker, which encouraged her to continue her focused refinement and allowed her to ignore the fact that she was seemingly once again not getting any stronger.
That motivation let her maintain her fixation for a full decade and then some, which allowed her to nearly get rid of the second soul fragment. Unfortunately, she failed to advance to the (high) gold stage during that time even though she kept training; Meanwhile, the other Palossand kept getting stronger, which made Cannibalize act out more, though she managed to keep things under control. That control of hers was what allowed her to grind down the 2nd fragment, but things took a turn when the other Palossand broke through to the gold stage. Its breakthrough pushed the temptation caused by Cannibalize to rise substantially, while jealousy reared its ugly head due to her failure to advance as Palossand kept getting stronger.
The first and third soul fragments capitalized on that chance. They forcefully pushed Palossand's attention to the fresh gold snack, and it worked, at least to an extent. Palossand no longer focused on refining the last fizzle left from the second fragment, but rather concentrated on suppressing the turmoil her talent was causing. In the meantime, the other fragments acted like the whispers of the devil, telling her to just attack and devour the other Palossand. Impressively enough Palossand actually managed to resist the provocation coming from everywhere for nearly 9 years, though it reached a point where she had to focus on just ignoring the voices and the hunger. It was incredible really and kind of sad to see Palossand's struggle and I was sure that something remarkable would have happened if she had managed to keep that up.
However, she ended up losing control when Palossand advanced again, reaching the same substage as her. The moment the other Palossand began to release (mid) gold stage undulations Palossand lost it and attacked. Their fight turned into a struggle of life and death that took nearly an hour. Palossand nearly lost her life multiple times due to the fragments that made sure to act out to distract her, but she actually managed to pull through and take the other Palossand down, while suffering very serious injuries in the process. Those same injuries actually started to heal as she devoured her beaten foe, which revealed an aspect of Cannibalize she had not known until then, and she also managed to advance after she finished devouring the Palossand.
She ended up advancing to the (high) gold stage and had she not been pushed down the cliff into the abyss with the addition of yet another fragmented soul, which put the odds inside her mind/soul space against her, she might have even broken through as a result of her feast. Right up until that point, those fragments had been a nuisance, but Palossand had been able to suppress them, keeping them from doing nothing aside from getting on her nerves, at least that was the case when she was not too distracted like she was during the death battle; The addition of the new fragment resulted in a change in that balance, with Palossand no longer able to suppress them as thoroughly which allowed them to mess with her energy control while also allowing them to release the malice they felt outward unless she focused on suppressing it.
They even managed to slowly but surely push the second fragment back from the brink of non-existence, unmaking years of her effort, which really messed her up, causing her to get increasingly irrational and aggressive. That led to her being able to barely endure until the next Sandygast/Palossand reached the (low) silver stage before she attacked it, obviously not caring that devouring it would just make things worse. Not that she got to actually experience the consequences since it gave her the push that forced her to break through to the dark gold stage.
Palossand ended up mutating during that breakthrough, turning into an Amalgam due to the many fragments inside it; It even ended up losing its gender in the process due to the mix of genders of the fellows it devoured. The change in its looks was also because of this mutation. From that point onwards the memories were chaotic since the minds were in a state of constant discord while the body worked on a semi-autopilot with the original mind having the greatest impact leading the body to continue lurking in this area waiting for Sandygast to form. Due to it acting nearly instinctively, it failed to wait for the Sandygast to get stronger most of the time, so even though it ate a few more Sandygast since it mutated decades ago, it was still at the (low) dark gold stage.
Horus/Xatu released a sigh once we finished going through the last memory, and Tatsumaki/Alakazam sent out a "How pitiful it is", lamenting what a tragedy Palossand's life ended up being, which had both Horus and me nod in agreement. Mothra curious by our reactions inquired what we had seen, and Tatsumaki chose to give her a condensed mental video summary via a mental transfer. Mothra patted her chest in fright once she saw Palossand's life, and I could feel that she was not just acting. Mothra actually experienced a bit of real panic and fright after seeing Tatsumaki's video summary.
It became clear why when she expressed how lucky she had gotten with her talent and how she dreaded the thought that she could have gotten a talent that could have ended in a disaster as well. I understood why she thought that since I had seen Palossand's life and struggles, but frankly Palossand was more of an exception to the rule than anything. In fact, Cannibalize was actually a pretty overpowered talent with a very minor drawback. If I had to rank it, I would put it on the same level as Mothra's talent if not higher. It was just unfortunate that it ended up appearing in a ghost type like Palossand, which caused the whole mess with the soul getting dragged into the devouring process.
Nonetheless, we still had to deal with the mess in front of us, so I asked them what we should do with Palossand since it was pretty useless as it was. Honestly, I was pretty sure that Utopia was the only way I could deal with the mess that was its body as well as mind, and that was just a hope on my part. Worst case scenario Utopia would see Palossand's existence as a mistake that needed to be cleaned up. Anyway, Mothra suggested that I capture it to see if Utopia could help. Horus straight up said to take it down in a permanent fashion since he felt that Cannibalize should not exist and that Palossand should under no circumstances enter Utopia because he was worried by the prospect of it getting upgraded and the consequences of such a thing.
Tatsumaki seemed to be actually interested in the prospect and ended up agreeing with Mothra. Hades/Gengar chimed in and said that he felt that we should at least try to help his fellow ghost out of its miserable state, though he added that he agreed with its termination if we failed to solve the problem. Seb/Nidoking and Gaia/Nidoqueen were also in favor of giving it a try to see what Utopia would make of Palossand. Horus seeing how he was outvoted just grumbled before telling me to just go ahead and capture it. In his words, the quicker we dealt with the whole thing, the better. Seeing the consensus among them, I went ahead and brought out a standard Ultra Ball before lobbing it at the frozen Palossand.
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This is chapter 3/4 for this week.
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