Reincarnated as a World

Eridel tossed a grape into his mouth as he watched Gaia’s compelling speech below.

As was becoming usual, he was lazily lying on a small floating cloud using his avatar. Only this time, the cloud was a moody grey colour and was even pouring down rain and hailstone. It would be highly suspicious if it were the usual pure white kind that he usually rode, when the surrounding weather was so dreadful.

But the obvious tradeoff was that it wasn’t as comfortable. He didn’t feel the cold or the wetness since he didn’t want to, but the sight and the smell left much to be desired.

Believe it or not, but the current weather was not the doing of Eridel. Well, to be more accurate, it was not his intention. His body (which was of course the planet itself) was doing it without his conscious input. To put it simply, his body was sweating with nervousness. Most World’s that had consciousness would display a unique phenomena when they were being threatened, and Eridel was currently being threatened with severe population loss.

He knew very well how violent and ruthless things were going to become, and many lives will be forfeit. This was very bad for a World that had hopes of evolving. Evolution was their sole driving force and the only thing they cared about, so when that was threatened they could become very ‘distressed’.

Eridel was very much sapient, unlike other Worlds that had consciousness, and could have stopped the physical displays of his instinctual ‘distress’ (the storm) with some effort, but he could not completely remove the distress itself despite the event that caused it (the approaching war) being in line with his plans.

He could tell himself that ultimately this event would lead to greater evolution, but it was like someone who was unaccustomed to pain trying to convince themselves that technically, they could strengthen their bones by putting it through a cycle of destruction and restoration.

It was a very uncomfortable feeling.

Nevertheless, Eridel didn’t let that instinctual discomfort affect his decision making. Thankfully, his Tier 2 Will Flame allowed him to hold firm in his decision and not waver. If it was back when it was Tier 1, who knew what kind of mess he would make.

However, that was not to say that Eridel was completely immune to his planetary instincts. His thoughts were always dominated by dreams of evolution. Everything he did was for evolution. He now had a greater capacity to reject the ideas that were too dangerous (for example the time he flooded his Core with Primordial Essence and caused it to break), but he could not stop the onslaught of ideas that plagued him everyday.

Do this to grow, do that to grow. Everyday.

Only matters regarding his Soulmates could compare in intensity. Everything else was secondary, and although it might seem like the perfect mindset for a sapient World or even just a regular being that wanted to be as powerful as possible, and he certainly had no qualms about evolving, Eridel was more than just his planetary body. He was more.

He was Eridel Domicus. Prideful, Ruthless, Fearless, Defiant, Ambitious, Peerless. Those were just a few of the personality traits encoded onto his Will Flame. So you could imagine how he would feel to have his thoughts be helplessly dominated with desire, even if it was a good desire.

Even a regular person would be upset about a few of their instinctual desires (whether they liked acting on them or not), let alone Eridel, because it was a very helpless and even a little humiliating situation. An example would be someone who loved sex but didn’t like being horny all the time.

When it came to the mind, Eridel had long come to the conclusion that the mind was either driven by the brain or the soul. A mind usually could not function with just 1, but it used only 1 most of the time regardless.

If the Soul was stronger, it would be what was used to think. But if the body was stronger, it was the brain (which was riddled with instincts and desires) that would be used to think. Most people were in that latter category.

In fact, on Eridius, everyone was in that latter category, including him to an extent. His ‘brain’ in this matter was his Core.

Of course, he had some leeway over the situation because of his experience and most importantly affinity with the Soul, along with a high Soul Cultivation, all of which allowed him to be in the minute few that thought with both their brain and their soul. But this was still not an ideal situation. His Core came with outstanding computing power, but it also came with the aforementioned powerful instincts and desires.

However, this was not to say that thinking with the brain was necessarily a bad thing.

The ideal goal of all lifeforms regarding the mind would be to be born with a body more powerful than the soul and use the resulting instincts as crutches to navigate life, and also obtain a personality that had desires.

It was after that they should seek becoming a being that could think with their soul, becoming free from the crude surging of desires that could affect decision making.

On the other side, someone born with a soul more powerful than their body would not only be in the unfortunate situation of having to figure out everything by themselves, but they would also find it quite hard to desire anything. Even if things later changed and their body became more powerful, they would not experience much change personality-wise. As such, people like that were all aloof and uncaring.

Eridel himself was in quite the troublesome situation. The bigger the body, the bigger the soul. It was an understandable and at the same time strange correspondence. A bigger soul came with both greater soul power and soul/mental essence, but it naturally made it quite hard to climb the stages of Soul Cultivation.

On top of that, Eridel’s Soul was of the Primordial kind, which made improving even slower.

It was because of both of these factors that even after over 2000 years of endless Primordial Essence growth, he was still only in the 31st stage of Soul Cultivation.

Not to matter though. Eridel had plans for everything including this, in fact it was already in motion. It was a highly dangerous and likely unprecedented plan, but only time would tell if he would succeed or fail.

He would probably succeed. He was Eridel after all. There was no other entity like him.

“Ah, they’re finally leaving. Let the show begin.” The grapes in Eridel’s left hand warped into a box of popcorn and he chucked one of them into his mouth. The cloud he was riding began moving, slowly but surely following the terrifying army from above.