Primordial Awakening: I Breathe Skill Points!-Chapter 17: The Ancestor’s Vessel!

Chapter 17: The Ancestor’s Vessel!
Zeph stared up at the glowing formation surrounding the pit, his enhanced hearing picking up the complex harmonic frequencies emanating from the ritual symbols.
The patterns pulsed with structured mana flow that suggested sophisticated magical engineering far beyond crude tribal work.
’Formation magic,’ he identified, mind racing through half-remembered conversations with scavengers who’d dealt with dungeon formations before. ’But what’s it actually doing? Some kind of binding? Suppression? Energy drain?’
The problem was his complete lack of formal education. Everything he knew about System mechanics came from gossip, observation, and trial-and-error experimentation. Formations were advanced magical theory that required years of study to understand, let alone counter.
’No weaknesses I can identify,’ he concluded grimly. ’Which means I’m working blind while they execute whatever they’ve been planning.’
The lead shaman finished its incantation with a guttural shriek, slamming its staff into the ground beside the pit’s edge.
Shuaaa!
The formation flared brilliant red.
Pain exploded through Zeph’s body like someone had replaced his blood with molten glass.
Every nerve ending screamed simultaneously as the formation’s energy wrapped around him like burning chains, constricting and pulling at something deep within his chest—something that felt uncomfortably close to his soul!
Thud!
He dropped to his knees, teeth clenched hard enough to crack, but no sound escaped his lips. Three years of surviving in the ruins had taught him that showing weakness invited predation. Even now, even dying in some goblin sacrifice ritual, he refused to give them the satisfaction of hearing him scream.
His vision swam with red-tinged darkness, but he kept his eyes open and his gaze steady. Calm. Focused on the shamans watching from above with expressions of fanatical anticipation.
The surrounding goblins’ chanting reached new heights of frenzy. They were dancing now, crude ritualistic movements that sent their shadows flickering across the pit walls. But instead of the cruel mockery he’d expected, their expressions held something closer to reverence.
Hope.
They weren’t celebrating his suffering—they were celebrating what his suffering represented.
’They need me,’ he realized through the haze of agony. ’Not just as a sacrifice, but as something specific. A container. A vessel.’
The formation was trying to hollow him out from the inside, creating space for something else to inhabit his body. He could feel it now, the way the energy probed and prodded at his soul’s boundaries, testing for weaknesses that would allow it to push him aside and claim his flesh.
Possession. They were trying to possess him with something!
’Well, fuck that noise.’
Zeph’s mind cut through the pain with the cold clarity of someone who’d already accepted death once today. He had exactly one option that might work—one insane gamble that could either save him or kill him faster than the ritual would.
’Iron Flesh rune upgrade,’ he commanded mentally, forcing the words through the psychic interference of the formation’s energy. ’E-rank to D-rank. Cost: 10,000 PP.’
The fact that this was a very suicidal decision made the Primordial Architect pause for exactly one second before apparently deciding that his desperation qualified as sufficient authorization.
[PRIMORDIAL ARCHITECT ACTIVE]
[Upgrading: Rune of Iron Flesh (E → D)]
[Cost: 10000 PP]
[Confirmed]
The new pain made the formation’s assault feel like a gentle massage by comparison.
Blood erupted from Zeph’s eyes like tears of crimson, streaming down his face in rivers that pooled on the pit floor. His nose followed, then his ears, as his body tried to expel the impossible energies being forced into his soul structure.
Veins bulged across his skin like tree roots, glowing faintly with the green-gold light of mana under extreme stress.
His enhanced durability was the only thing keeping his body from simply tearing itself apart as two incompatible forces—the formation’s binding energy and the rune’s transformation—waged war inside his flesh.
Roar!
The goblins’ chanting intensified to near-hysteria. They could see something was happening, something beyond their ritual’s normal progression, and their expressions mixed confusion with manic excitement.
Zeph hung on through sheer willpower, his consciousness reduced to a single burning point of determination that refused to let either force claim victory.
Minutes stretched like hours as his body became a battlefield for energies that should never have coexisted.
Then, finally, the transformation completed.
[RUNE: DIAMOND FLESH - RANK D]
[Equipment enhancement: 100% durability and self-repair rate. Body enhancement: +100 effective Vitality for all applications.]
Power flooded through his system like a tidal wave of reinforced existence. His skin hardened, his bones became like iron, his entire physical structure reinforcing itself with the kind of durability that turned flesh into armor.
His effective Vitality jumped from 14 to 114 in an instant—a transformation that pushed him from fragile glass cannon to genuinely durable combatant!
And more importantly, it disrupted the formation’s binding!
Flicker!
The red energy that had been constricting his soul suddenly loosened, its carefully calibrated power unable to contain something with ten times the expected durability. Zeph felt the chains metaphorically weaken, the pulling sensation on his soul reducing from overwhelming to merely agonizing.
’Now or never!’
He activated Force, feeling his enhanced body respond with power that his previous frame could never have handled. Doubled strength and speed combined with his new durability, turning him into something approaching his theoretical combat potential.
Bam!
Zeph exploded upward from his kneeling position, legs driving him toward the pit’s edge with earth-cracking force. His enhanced agility and strength carried him up the ten-foot walls like gravity had become a suggestion rather than a law.
He almost made it.
His fingers were inches from the lip of the pit when three of the fattest shamans slammed their staffs together in perfect synchronization.
Rumble!
The formation blazed with renewed intensity as their combined power fed into its structure. The pulling sensation multiplied tenfold, becoming an irresistible force that yanked Zeph back down like a fish on a line.
He hit the pit floor hard enough to crack the packed earth, his enhanced durability the only thing preventing serious injury. A frustrated groan escaped his lips as he rolled to his feet, already looking for another escape vector.
The three shamans staggered at the pit’s edge, their bodies visibly drained from the massive expenditure of mana. But their expressions weren’t frustrated or angry—they were ecstatic.
They were smiling like children on Christmas morning.
’They’re happy I’m resisting,’ Zeph realized with growing horror. ’The stronger the vessel, the better the outcome. They want me to fight because it proves I’m worthy.’
The formation suddenly blazed with light so intense that even the surrounding goblins had to shield their eyes. The red energy condensed and focused, forming a pillar that extended from the pit floor toward the darkening sky above.
And within that pillar, a shape began to materialize.
A soul. Not the diffuse, abstract concept that Zeph associated with his own consciousness, but a visible, tangible presence that took form within the formation’s energy.
It was goblin in structure—bipedal, roughly humanoid proportions—but larger and more muscular than any he’d seen so far. The spectral form showed the physique of a warrior in his prime, though the face carried the weathered lines of advanced age and hard-won wisdom.
Ritual scars covered the spirit’s body in intricate patterns that glowed with their own internal light. In its translucent hands, it held the ghostly image of a massive war axe that radiated power even in its immaterial state.
The surrounding goblins dropped to their knees in perfect unison, their chanting transformed into a reverent hymn that made Zeph’s enhanced hearing pick up harmonics of worship and desperate hope.
And the spirit’s eyes—ancient, intelligent, filled with the cunning of countless battles—locked onto Zeph with an expression of satisfied approval.
Understanding crashed over him like ice water.
The formation wasn’t just trying to hollow him out. It was preparing him to be a vessel for their ancestor’s soul—some legendary goblin warrior or chieftain whose spirit they’d preserved through magic, waiting for the perfect host body to restore him to life.
’They’re trying to resurrect their ancestor,’ he realized, watching the spirit descend slowly toward him. ’Using my body as the container. Taking over my flesh to bring back their greatest warrior.’
The spirit’s mouth moved in what might have been words, though no sound reached Zeph’s ears. But its intent was clear in the predatory satisfaction of its gaze.
It had found its new body.
And Zeph had exactly zero ideas for how to stop it from taking what it wanted.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​