Chapter 18 - Hopeless Scars

The scenes changed too fast for her to understand. Every time she opened her eyes, something new was outside. Luna wasn't sure how many times she fell asleep. Each time she woke up, there was always some type of crying. The pain in her arm held up for hours. Or at least she thought hours were passing, her concept of time was becoming almost dreamlike.

[Sanity has returned]

[Settings are being set back to normal values]

Soon everything just stopped. Her pain went away. The area around her felt more comfortable. Finally when her body awoke, she was inside a bedroom. It was extremely fancy, something she would imagine a queen on earth would have as her bedroom. Beautiful curtains with a vine pattern, blocked sunlight from getting in.

The large door on the other end of the room opened. A maid appeared with a cart of food. After she turned she looked shocked when she saw Luna awake. Running out of the room, the maid left. "Hey wait!" Luna reached out, only for a sharp pain to shoot through her arm.

"Ow!" Her right arm was covered in scars. All the way from her hand to her shoulder. It looked like it was ripped apart only to put back together again. After trying to move, her body ached in pain. Luna didn't remember much about what happened. It all felt like a blur to her.

Jessica came running into the room. "Mrs. Luna, I heard you were awake!" She was wearing a long silky dress. Because of the speed at which she was running, Jessica's foot caught on the edge of her dress and she tripped. Luna giggled slightly. "As you can see, I am awake." She proclaimed.

Jessica laughed with a red face. She sat herself on a chair next to the large bed.

"What happened?" Luna asked.

"Well.... right after you killed the lich, you fainted."

"Yeah... I kind of figured that out already." Luna said, looking unamused. "How long have I been out? And where are we?"

"You've been asleep for the past 2 days. I brought you and my grandfather back to our estate after the battle."

After what Jessica said, Luna was in a state of shock. She knew she liked sleeping, but for her to pass out for two whole days just like that?

Her mind instantly thought of the real world. How much time had passed there?

But after a bit of thinking, Luna realized only a little bit over 16 hours had passed. There wasn't much need for worry, but she did need to log out and eat soon. Her parents might get worried about other parts of her health if this gets too out of hand. They might even start to think this will turn her into a cripple from staying in bed too much.

Luna looked back at Jessica. She was wearing an elegant dress that accentuated her beautiful, silver hair. Previously, Jessica was wearing an outfit similar to Luna's swordsman starting gear. Jessica's sword was definitely a lot prettier than Luna's beginner sword that only dealt 5 damage. But it wasn't like she would just steal it off her or anything like that..... right?

Luna started to wonder if she had a type of fetish for cool swords. The more she thought of that moon cutting sword, the more she was raring to go find it.

"Mrs. Luna, how are you feeling?" Jessica snapped Luna out of her thoughts.

"O-oh yeah, I'm alright... I guess? I can't exactly feel or even move my right arm anymore. But other than that, I just feel a little fatigued." Jessica looked down at Luna's destroyed arm.

"I'm sorry... I called the nearest priest I could find, but it looks like it wasn't enough." Jessica looked like she was going to cry. Luna panicked

"D-don't worry about it okay! It was my own injury. You've already done enough by letting me stay at your home anyways." Luna didn't want her to cry over something like this. She tried calming her down.

"Ok... but-" Jessica tried to speak, but Luna wasn't a fan of awkward atmospheres. So she tried changing the subject. "This might be a little off topic, but what's with the dress?"

"Huh?... Oh well after the battle against the lich and the Northwind knight I needed to report it all to the king because of the upcoming danger of war. He wants to know almost everything that's going on with the nobles of the Cosal kingdom so that we can prepare for battle at any given moment."

"Why doesn't your grandfather go? isn't he the head of the household?"

"Currently my grandfather isn't in a state where he can leave our estate."

"I see..." Luna hadn't even thought of him. 'When they were fighting, wasn't he taking just as much damage as me?' Luna realized that she wasn't alone in the injury department. The old man was probably in a much worse state than even Luna was.

"Do you know anyone who can heal my arm?"

"From what I saw, you might be needing a lot more healing than just your arm."

"What do you mean?" Luna asked.

"You might want to see for yourself." Jessica held her hand out and led Luna out of the bed. "I'll give you some time to yourself." Jessica led Luna in front of a large mirror in the corner of the room. She then left the room leaving Luna alone.

"Noll do you know what she's on about?"

"So what? Other than my right arm I don't see any scars."

Luna turned around to look at herself in the mirror. The first thing she noticed was her face. Multiple scars ran down her face and neck. One large scar went right through her left eye. It's color was different, the usual emerald green was now a dull gray. Using her left hand, she touched the scar.

It was then that she realized something. She couldn't see the hand right in front of her face. It wasn't something she could notice at first, but her vision was completely black on her left side.

"N-Noll w-what's going on here?" Luna sounded like she was about to cry. Her hand shook as it touched her face. "W-why can't I see?"

"...Why?..." Luna removed her shirt. A scar covering the entirety of her chest was revealed. It was the result of the death ray. "Noll, how could this happen?!" Tears ran down her right eye. She fell to her knees.

"What? My... chrysalis?" Her hand moved quickly. Luna opened up her status information.

Name - Luna

Class - DreamWalker

Level: 65

HP - 2940 MP - 5675

STR - 105 (-53) AGI - 45 (-23) INT - 610 (+200) STM - 84 (+50) WIS - 1

Sanity - 100

Stat points - 340

Chrysalis - Stage 1 - The Book of Nightmares

Title - Legendary One, Marathon Runner, Lich Slayer

Luna's status had changed drastically since she last saw it, but she didn't care about anything right now. Nothing mattered to her other than her chrysalis as she immediately inspected it.

[The Book of Nightmares

Stage - 1

Details: A book of unlimited potential. When unsealed, it is prophesied that it will bring an unending darkness over the world. The user is considered omnipotent when they read the entirety of the book. There is nothing that can stand in the way of ultimate chaos.

Stage 1 Unlocked Skills:

- Passage 1 - A Hopeless flame

- Passage 2 - Insanity

- Passage 3 - Stitches]

"Huh?" Luna started to calm down. She noticed the book and what its name was. 'This is kind of edgy...' Luna thought aloud.

"Wait... since when could you read my thoughts?!"

"When was this?"

"You became my chrysalis?"

"How is that even possible?"

"I see..." Luna at this point was forgetting about the fact she was half blind. Her thoughts drifted back into her memories of the wiki. Each chrysalis was different and unique to the user that unlocked it. But the chrysalis could be a complete turn around from how you perceive yourself. It was formed based on the central personality and deep scars of the user. So why was Luna's so edgy?

She never really thought that she went through one of those "edgy teen phases". There wasn't any desire to destroy or control the world. She played the game for fun just like everyone else. Her skills definitely had weird names. It reminded her of a certain guy from an older video game who talked to birds and walked around with a cane.

'Well I guess I'll at least look at what the skills do.' Luna thought aloud as she used inspect.

[Passage 1 - A Hopeless flame - Active

Skill details: The black flame that surrounds your heart protects you. When activated the engraved rune will burn and spread fire across your body. The flame will burn until every wound is healed. Nothing can't be healed, but every wound will leave a scar.

Resource cost - 55 Sanity

Cooldown - 16 hours]

[Passage 2 - Insanity - Passive

Skill details: The world cannot restrict you. Everything is meaningless in front of overwhelming power. The Chaos you create is the ultimate weapon against everything that defies you. For each string of sanity lost, your strength and agility will multiply by 0.5. After sanity values return to normal, the strength and agility stat will be halved until you can purify your soul.

*Warning - If your stats multiply too high then your soul may be affected

*Warning - If your stats multiply past the point at which your body can handle it. Then your body will burst.]

[Passage 3 - Stitches - Active

Skill details: Your body may break, rip, and tear, but you will not fall. The black blood runs through your veins. When activated, your blood will act on your will and keep you from falling apart. Your health will still decrease while the skill is active, but you cannot drop below 1 HP. If your HP hits 1 while in this state then the MP cost will multiply by 4 for each second it's activated.

Resource cost - 10 MP per second

Cooldown - 20 minutes]

"What the hell...." Her skills were strange. The first thing Luna noticed was their cringe inducing skill explanations. As she kept reading them her face was slowly reeling backwards. Each sentence felt like reading straight from a 14 year old's terrible past choices.

If it wasn't already terrible enough. Two of her skills were tied to the DreamWalker's sanity value. Which, from what she could gather was directly tied to Luna's own mental state. Her experience from fighting the ape with low sanity was troubling to say the least.

The hopeless flame is what made her look like she was just attacked by a rampaging wolverine. It said nothing can't be healed, but her left eye was completely blind. So there were some setbacks if the skill was used recklessly on every wound. If she used it now to heal her destroyed arm. What kind of internal scars would be left behind?

She didn't want to think about how much pain that might leave her in. There was also something mentioned about an engraved rune. She looked all over her body to find it but it was nowhere to be seen.

The insanity skill looked incredibly strong, but her stats would be halved after using it. And what does it mean by "purify the soul"? Did she have to confess her sins at a church? Use some type of holy water to cleanse herself? Why was it so vague?

She mostly wanted to avoid eye contact with the two warnings underneath insanity. It was too scary to imagine her body bursting like a water balloon if she got too strong. It also mentioned something about her soul again. It again gave no info on what it meant by her soul as well.

She looked at her third skill. Unlike the other two, it didn't look as situational. Stitches also used MP instead of sanity. It could basically make her unkillable if she had enough MP to keep up the skill's duration. The only issue with the skill was that it needed to be kept activated after she used it or

else it would initiate a 20 minute cooldown.

Luna looked at herself in the mirror again and put her shirt back on. There wasn't a need to go freaking out about this. She knew this was a game world and that there's always going to be a solution to the problem. Her scars may affect her now, but there would always be a way to fix them.

A knock came from outside the room. "Mrs. Luna are you alright in there?" It was Jessica.

"Y-yeah everything's alright now!" Luna wiped her tears and got back on her feet. She opened the door to let Jessica in.

"If you're hungry, breakfast has been prepared at the dining table." Jessica and Luna both traveled downstairs for breakfast. A large feast was prepared for the two of them. Luna stuffed her face full of food for 30 minutes before realizing she should probably log out now. Even if her game life wasn't looking so great, she still had delicious food to keep her happy. Luna said her quick goodbyes before logging off to stuff her face some more.