The Jester of Apocalypse
Chapter 81: Glass Puppet

Neave stood before the glass shrub, mouth agape.

"Ok, now I can see why Astrador reacted like that."

If only his absurd toughness hadn’t made pulling his hair out so damn tricky.

"Fuuuck."

With this ridiculous thing before him, the gravity of what he was doing was beginning to sink in. Now… What would he do about it?

There was only one thing he could think of at the moment. A short jog took him to an abandoned cave, and once he arrived, he promptly began screaming like a lunatic, punching the walls, collapsing the cavern, and crushing the stone repeatedly.

After several minutes of venting his frustration, he stepped back and calmed down.

What did Neave know?

Astrador was bad. The manipulator was also bad. The devils were bad.

There was a dire need to simplify the facts, and Neave desperately needed a source of confidence that he was doing the right thing.

Astrador hadn’t known that Neave could create spirit. Judging by his reaction, Neave’s ability to do so was much more significant than even Neave thought himself.

That little detail quickly became the center of his thoughts. Spirit was a powerful weapon he hadn’t even begun utilizing yet.

Astrador claimed Neave could destroy the entire realm, but now that Neave thought about it, that was a perfectly acceptable risk. Monsters were growing daily, and the chaos they spread increased exponentially.

Eventually, they would likely destroy the realm anyway.

So fuck it, then. Neave laughed. Fuck it all. He could sacrifice many things for a greater purpose. The world needed to change because its current trajectory was taking it to destruction anyway. So why would Neave care that he risked destroying it?

A sigh escaped his lips, and with it, the will to keep up this self-inflicted delusion evaporated.

That was a shitty way of thinking about it, and he knew it. Faking apathy in a scenario like this was something he could only do if he genuinely had no conscience.

But there was no alternative. No matter what he did, he felt like he was playing into someone’s hands. It was driving him insane, well, even more insane than he already was.

No matter what he did, he would be doing someone else's bidding—even if he did nothing.

Lashing out and pursuing a path of chaos was nothing but a tantrum, like that of a toddler with apocalyptic powers.

His powers, and his ability to explore their potential, was all he really had, though. Was this a path he wanted to take? No, was it one he needed to take?

At its core, what he desired was very simple.

A path toward a better world. A path toward a greater reality.

So it was best he take a step back and start small. If he wanted the world to improve, there was only one place to start.

Himself.

“Pfff—”

Ok, now seriously—the newly built Falken sect.

"Aaaargh!" Neave screamed and kicked a rock, "But I can’t fucking do that!"

It was infuriating. He was being hunted by a heavenly messenger and needed all the power he could get. Everything was getting on his nerves since he felt everything distracted him from his primary goals.

Neave took a deep breath.

One thing at a time. Building this realm and turning it into a place where he could grow was still his priority. Until he could gain the right to have his own opinion on this subject, he needed to first get powerful enough to learn what the fuck was happening in the first place.

This was what he was. A little gremlin playing in a sandbox. A fool that played the dance of apocalypse.

There was only one question that needed answering. Was he dancing for himself, the way he was back in the loop?

Or was he on a stage, entertaining guests of status he wasn’t qualified to comprehend?

Once the dance was done and his performance was over… Would applause come from the darkness surrounding him?

If it didn’t, he would have made the right choice. And if it did…

Neave returned to the plant. Feeding it a bit more life force didn’t grow the plant anymore. What it did do, was cause rapid growth of new offshoots of the plant to pop out of the ground.

Some of the sprouting bushes were already growing. Neave fed some of them individually, which helped them grow faster.

Rather than continuously feeding the plants directly, Neave simplified the process.

He released a ton of his life force, at least half of it, into the air around the plants. He could see most of them visibly growing at the influx of life force, but significantly slower than when he did it directly to a plant.

After experimenting with the plants, the cavern was filled with loads of short glass brushes. Neave was pleased with the work he had done.

The plants were doing alright. Now, it was time to see what properties the main plant had.

A single branch—that was what he would begin with.

Breaking one off the main plant was incredibly difficult.

It took a few true strikes to break an entire branch off. That was immensely tough, far more than expected. After taking the branches, Neave went off in search of a slime. Once he found one, he fed it a few chipped pieces of brush glass.

The slime died almost immediately.

"...What the fuck?"

Okay, it seemed that the main plant wasn’t proper material for an experiment.

So, he instead turned to the smaller plants, whose branches were much easier to break off. He ground them up into fine dust, used a few alchemy techniques, although nothing he tried seemed to have a significant impact, and finally melted the dust into his blood, charged with life force and loaded with liquid spirit.

He reached for another slime and fed it some of the bloody liquid.

The slime writhed and jiggled aggressively, but Neave didn’t let it run away. He drip-fed it the liquid, and it stopped squirming after a while. Neave believed the slime had also died at some point, but its monster core was still in one piece.

Suddenly, the slime mutated in an instant. It grew more transparent, and Neave could see faint shimmers deep within.

It didn’t seem particularly powerful. In fact, it didn’t move much at all. Neave scratched his head and fed the slime a few of his limbs. It absorbed them surprisingly slowly, ponderously chipping away at the flesh.

Could this be an evolution that drastically weakened the slime’s absorption ability? If so, wasn’t it a considerable reduction in power?

While this seemed to be the case initially, that opinion didn’t last long. The slime shimmered much more brightly and began morphing. It turned into a small, misshapen transparent golem.

Now we’re talking.

This was a satisfactory result, and just as Neave was about to feed the golem itself, it sprung into action and attacked him instead.

Its attacks were appropriately pathetic, and it couldn’t damage Neave seriously. However, it was slightly concerning that it still hurt him a bit. It jabbed at Neave’s leg with small, sharp limbs. They were frighteningly sharp.

Restraining the golem, he chipped a bit of the material off to examine its properties.

It seemed to possess similar properties to the glass shrub, but not identical. It was significantly more fragile, but this was still a step in the right direction. Now, time to see if it would fare any better when brought before the main shrub.

Or rather, wouldn’t it be something like a god to this thing?

In an act of unprecedented blasphemy, the golem completely ignored the massive shrub and attacked one of its offspring, a fledgling bush. It swung at it, trying to chew pieces off, but failed repeatedly. Neave jumped in to assist the heretic in its mission by chipping a small piece off and feeding it to the enthusiastic golem.

It still couldn’t chew it properly. It scraped its teeth on it, producing a jarring, annoying sound. Neave watched the little fella try to swallow the branch whole, but it got a large, glass branch stuck in its throat.

“Bahahahaha!”

He helped it further by chipping the branch into pieces, and that it seemed to be capable of eating.

Lovely.

Neave watched the golem swallow the small pieces one by one. It was a slow process, agonizingly so. Once it was done, it just sat there on the ground, unmoving.

…Could it even digest the glass?

Neave firmly doubted it could. After observing it for a long time, it was still sitting on the ground, presumably waiting for the plant to digest.

"...How do I break it to you, buddy? I don’t think that it’s going to work."

The golem almost looked sad for a second, but Neave realized it was just reacting to the sound of his voice.

Neave decided to help the little fella by feeding it more life force. It absorbed Neave’s life force greedily, and soon enough, it evolved.

It grew slightly bigger. It still wasn’t a significant threat, but it was progressing, which caused Neave to ponder it.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be best to leave this thing near the glass shrubs. If it grew big enough to damage them, it could potentially eat all of them and end Neave’s plans prematurely.

Until he could cover the entire realm with plants, he would moderate the monster population to prevent a plant genocide.

So, sadly for it, the little golem fella had to go. Neave mercifully ended it with a quick true strike thrust straight at where the core was. He pulled the core out, letting the mostly whole body of the golem drop to the ground.

Out of habit, Neave touched the core to check the power it held.

…

This was likely the most circumstantial spirit power Neave had ever seen.

It was a glass manipulation but directed explicitly toward the glass the shrubs were made from. So unless one had a ton of this rather exclusive material, they shouldn’t expect the power to be practical.

…

Wait a minute. Hold the fuck on for a second.

Neave glanced at the giant plant, the first one he had cultivated.

What if he granted it this spirit power?

Would that even work?

Now that it had a spirit of its own, it would have to pass a spirit trial. And, well, Neave simply couldn’t imagine a plant passing a spirit trial. It would be the lamest spirit trial ever. A stupidly tough brush and a weakling golem.

However, it got Neave wondering. Could that get the plant stuck in a permanent spirit trial? Was something like that possible to begin with?

Some part of him felt this was an immeasurably stupid idea, but another part couldn’t resist finding out.

“One of these days, these experiments will bite me in the ass.”

After melting the branch, which became infinitely more difficult now that the plant had grown more powerful, Neave placed the small monster core into the molten glass after rounding it up.

The core melted into the glass, and Neave waited in anticipation.

Nothing happened. For minutes, Neave stood there and stared at the plant. Simply put, everything stayed the same. It just sat there inertly. After an hour of waiting for the plant to do something, Neave started to feel that, even if it managed to pass the spirit trial, it simply wasn’t conscious enough to use the power.

Neave sighed and gave up. For now, he would…

Rustle.

He turned around and spotted the small golem getting up.

"???" He didn’t say anything, but his facial expression spoke for itself.

Neave waved his hands in confusion, unable to comprehend what was happening. Was it possessed? He tore its damn core out. The stupid thing couldn’t possibly still be alive!

The golem shakily got up to its feet.

It turned to face Neave and ponderously walked toward him. Once it reached Neave…

It knelt before him.

What the…?

The little golem cocked its head, and the marbles clicked as Neave finally realized what was happening.

"Are you doing this?" He asked the massive brush.

And in turn, the golem nodded its head.

Neave couldn’t believe it, "You can understand what I’m saying?"

The golem nodded again.

"Oh my… What!? This is insane."

This was indeed insane.

Not only was this plant seemingly sapient at merely the foundation realm, but it was also clearly intelligent. Neave kept looking from the plant back to the golem and then back to the plant again.

What was he supposed to do? What were his options anyway?

He turned to the golem and spoke again, "Are you… Obeying me?"

The golem nodded its head vigorously.

"Why?"

Neave wasn’t sure what he expected, but the golem merely cocked its head and paused. It sat on the ground, pointed at the plant, then Neave.

"I have no idea what that means."

The golem sagged a little.

"It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m not refusing your servitude! I’m guessing you’re glad I created you?"

The golem perked up. It nodded its head.

"I’m just… You know…" Neave turned to the plant, "Should I face the plant or the golem?"

The golem hesitated a bit and then pointed at itself.

"Oh, okay… I’m assuming you’re controlling the golem with your spirit power?"

The golem nodded.

Neave grinned, "Well, well, well… What do I do now?" Neave thought about it for a good while and finally decided.

He walked toward one of the smaller plants and then turned to the golem.

"Hey, do you mind if I wreck some other plants?"

The golem vigorously shook its head.

"Uh… Does that mean that I shouldn’t?"

The golem paused for a bit, then shook its head again.

"So I can?"

The golem nodded.

"Sweet."

Neave pulled a few smaller plants from the ground and piled them up. Once he gathered enough, he sat in front of the pile of glass shrubs. The golem bounced over to Neave’s side and cocked its head at him.

Neave smiled at it and patted its head, "Wait just a moment, buddy. I have something cool for you."

Neave spent an indeterminable amount of time melting the branches and fusing them. After a while, he had a pile of limbs, a head, and a torso. He put them together, using some of his knowledge about golem construction to create something similar.

He wasn’t creating an actual golem, although he was somewhat sure he could. Instead, he was making a golem-esque doll that would be easier for the plant to use than the tiny monster corpse.

After quite a bit of arduous labor, he was finished constructing a roughly average human-sized glass doll.

"So… What do you think?"

The other golem went limp on the ground, and the one Neave had created began getting up.

It lumbered itself off the ground and straightened up.

It wasn’t masterfully done, but it was a passable body for now.

Neave faced the golem and spoke, "When I gave you the small monster core, did you face a sort of challenge where you had to defeat the little golem?"

The golem nodded.

"Uh-huh." He wanted to ask how it successfully beat that challenge, but it wasn’t like it could speak and describe it to him.

"If I asked you to imbue it with qi and evolve it, could you beat the same trial but harder?"

The golem simply stood still. It cocked its head and looked around.

Does it not understand what I mean?

"Do you understand what I meant?"

The golem shook its head.

Neave spent, or rather, wasted, an entire hour trying to explain himself to the plant. It didn’t seem to understand what Neave was trying to tell it.

He was shocked that it could understand anything, so he wasn’t too disappointed to realize some things were still out of its grasp.

"Alright, it's okay, no need to worry about it, but I will warn you. If you figure out how to evolve the spirit power independently, do it cautiously. The opponent will get more powerful, so…”

The golem shook its head profusely.

"What’s wrong?"

It pointed fingers at him and scratched its head as if trying to find a way to express itself. After a while, it walked over to the small golem body on the ground and pointed at it aggressively.

"...Ok?"

Then, it pointed at itself, paused, then pointed at the plant instead and back to the golem. Then it threw its arms out and looked around again. It put its arms on its hips. It paused as if suddenly realizing something.

It pointed at the golem's body on the ground again, then grabbed one of its arms and smacked the small golem's head, making it look like it was hitting itself.

Neave was beyond confused.

The puppet got up, pointed at the golem again, then imitated choking itself and falling over limp to the ground.

"... Wait. Are you trying to say that the golem fucking killed itself in the trial?"

The doll nodded vigorously as it got back up off the ground.

"Holy shit! So you didn’t even have to do anything?"

The golem nodded again.

"Damn… That’s… Interesting."

Countless ideas whirled through Neave’s head.

No fucking wonder Astrador shit his pants. If this creature can make monster spirits kill themselves in the spirit trial, it could easily acquire loads of spirit powers.

That made him pause for a bit. Was it really alright for this creature to stay alive? He dismissed that thought immediately. The brush was loyal to him. At least, it seemed to be. If Neave could foster a friendship with this thing, he could gain an immeasurably valuable helper to terraform the realm.

Not to mention that killing it would be far too cruel a thing to do.

Sitting before the doll, Neave told it as much as he could about as many subjects he could think of. He omitted everything he believed could give the shrub an existential crisis and stuck to things related to this realm and the terraforming effort.

It was given a warning about evolving the spirit power, even if it was uncertain whether it understood, and Neave gave it a tentative explanation about how the realm itself worked and his efforts in fostering the environment, which it understood surprisingly well.

It also had absolutely no trouble comprehending that Neave wanted to cover the entire realm with the glass shrubs, and it seemed a bit too enthusiastic to help out.

Neave hesitated for a moment and pointed at all of the other plants.

"Are all of them… Like you?"

The golem shook its head.

Phew. Good.

Neave had no idea what would have happened if an entire realm of shrubs like this one existed. Luckily, he wouldn’t have to find out.

Eventually, Neave thought the shrub understood him well enough. It wasn’t long until he got it to agree to proliferate its offspring as fast as possible, and he told it to approach the monsters carefully and avoid doing anything crazy with them before the shrub population could get going.

There were countless things Neave wanted to read about, and his mind was swimming with ideas of where to take this experiment.

He didn’t know how much time passed when he left the realm, so he warned it that when he left, it might be some time before he was back. Neave felt like a doting parent as he fed it all of the life force he had as a parting gift and died, leaving the realm.

Once he was back, he felt a strange sense of anxiety. What would be waiting for him back in there? Would the shrub go mad with power and attack him when he’s back? As he read through the books, his fear turned to paranoia, and he couldn’t help cutting his reading session short as he rushed to get back inside.

Neave knocked himself out and appeared…

Within the library.

"...Huh? Shit, I must have messed it up."

Doing it again bore no fruit, and once more, he woke up at the same place in the library.

Cold sweat ran down his back and knocked himself out for longer this time. All that awaited him upon his awakening were several disciples warily glancing at him in concern.

His breathing sped up, and his heart felt like it would burst out of his chest.

Neave shook as the realization sank in.

"I… I can’t get back in."