"DESIST."
The feeling of having your memories wiped off your brain was stopped so abruptly that it hurt alongside the harsh motherly voice that boomed all throughout the void. Your whole being shuddered from the intensity of the voice. It...
It was divine.
"YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO FILL THE WORLD OF SERRA WITH STOLEN SOULS."
"NO RIGHT TO WIPE THEM CLEAN AND REUSE THEM TO BE REBORN IN THE SAME WORLD REPEATEDLY"
You couldn't think when a tug was felt at your very core. It was hasty, as if being caught red-handed was too much for the orb of light in front of you. At the same time, you felt a gentle hold over your soul, preventing it from going into the orb of light.
"Well, well, overthrown Goddess Serra. How'd it feel to have every infant receive reused heroic souls? They all worship us... me." You could feel the orb of light talk back to the booming voice. It was obvious at how smug the voice was with its assured victory.
"YOU HAVE DONE WRONG, THE SOULS WITH ME ARE AWAITING TO BE SENT DOWN, BLOCKED BY YOU FILLING THE VESSELS FIRST."
"I don't really mind you shouting, as long as the people of Serra no longer worship you, you're powerless. The lost soul would be wiped clean and there would be no use fighting over it."
You... you don't want to be wiped clean.
"YOU WILL NOT GET THIS ONE."
The tugging over you felt harder. It was almost painful being pulled in two different directions. It felt like your soul was being torn apart despite how impossible it is to feel anything in this dead void. How good it felt to feel again.
Despite the strength the proclaimed Goddess Serra had, it was not enough to just win. It was a stalemate. She was too weak now.
In a rather sudden turn of events with divine energy and your own desire to keep yourself, you felt both grips loosen and you fall...
Fall.
Fall.
The void that you were in increasingly flying further away that you could see it shrink as you fall further down from the unknown. You could see the black nothingness as wide as the expanse of starless nights.
A subtle shift of the space around you and now you are falling past the universe in its entirety, galaxies swirling around you as you fall down, nebulas and black holes all around.
Down you go as you fall deeper into the fabrics of the world. You can't even remember the layers that you fall through.
Just that you are now stuck in a forest.
The sun, unable to penetrate the dense canopy of ancient oaks, birches, and towering redwoods, casts ethereal rays that filter through the emerald foliage, painting the forest floor in dappled patterns of light and shadow.
Moss carpets the forest floor with red earth being the topsoil that you can see. Delicate ferns grow as the bushes of greenery under towering trees.
And you are stuck as a ghost. A spirit. The very forest your cage as you find yourself unable to move past a certain radius from where you are now unless you wanted to feel the pain of literally turning to spiritual mush.
The forest grows around you and shift over the time that you remained stuck here. The new pool of water forming over the months of rainfall coalescing beautifully corralled by thick trees.
Rarely does humans come pass through the forest, running from humanoid monsters, animals that stood on two legs. The monsters felt dark, as if there was a void where they should be.
The humans were marked with a symbol on their necks, and you found that you can't touch their physical forms at all. A shield would shock you away.
How long since you fell? You don't know. There was only a veritable amount of numbers you could keep track of in your mind, since scratching at wood never worked with how you are a spirit.
You stopped counting after 800.
You couldn't fly up, despite being a spirit. You were stuck standing on the very earth, bound to walk the world as a mortal spirit.
Hope left your heart long ago, the motherly voice that condemned you to this life forgotten. Who should you trust?
The cleric that wished to wipe your mind and reuse your soul to be reborn in the world again and again?
Or the supposed Goddess of Serra that was blocked from sending down souls deserving of a body?
You don't know. And you just wander the very small radius that was your domain.
Hiding from the monsters that seemed to suck you into themselves.
Until one day, a group of adventurers came through and one priestess with a different feel, having no mark on her turned to look at you.
"Why are you here?" She asked you.
The party members glanced at her and where she was looking at, but seeing nothing, they continued with their chatter.
You however, had your eyes wide open. You were being talked to.
"Are you not moving on to the afterlife?" She asked once again.
You have no voice. You can't speak. How?
"Here, let me give you a blessing so that you may speak to me." She approached you, her light feeling warm and so different from the painful light of the marked ones.
She touched your heart, her light entering you and infusing you with life. You could feel a connection be established, a link to the world.
"There, you're now linked to Goddess Serra." She whispered into your mind.
She whispered directly into your mind.
"Who are you? Why am I just a ghost?" You ask her confused about your personal purgatory. The years being unable to live and watching and avoiding the monsters for so long scarring you. The very world growing around you yet you staying the same. It was hell.
"I do not know... perhaps Mother can help you with that. I blessed you so that now you have your ability screen available with [Screen], the Serra World ability sheet visible now." She said with almost no confusion of the fact that it seemed like a game.
"[Screen]"
Race: ?
Name: Jared
Age: 25
Stat: [STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA] ?
Abilities: ?
Not much was shown, many of your screen stats showing nothing but question marks.
"I recommend praying to Goddess Serra for help." She advised, before she moved on from you now that her party moved on from their rest.
You don't know what to do.
But pray.
It took you many days before one night, the prayers were answered. The familiar motherly voice echoed into your head once more.
"I have found you finally, Jared of Earth. I apologize for taking so long, my powers weakened that my connection is weak." She said as you sat there listening. The full moon at the cusp of its majestic nature brightly shining in the night sky filled with stars.
"I have not much time. My Priestess blessed and connected you to the World of Serra, but you are still bodiless. The monsters that you've seen, they are animals with animal souls distorted by darkness into humanoid shape, the dark acting as a facsimile of sentience for them." She explained as quickly as she could, as if time was of the essence. You couldn't speak back.
"The reason why I have not given them true souls is because of the Great True One's rules, that we deities must not give souls to things that are not designated for them. The monsters have animal souls cocooned by darkness, but I have one thing I can do for you. I give you my light and can only give you a choice." She continued without stopping for a breath. You could only listen.
Now you stand a few ways away from the muscular gnoll that would rarely come through this forest.
The Goddess Serra had instructed to you get a body of your own, but there was no way to get an empty vessel. The humans bearing reused souls were marked to prevent Serra from sending down souls to the vessels. But these monsters are not. However, Serra could not send such innocent and empty souls this mission, for they have no individuality.
You however, do.
The light of Serra within you guiding your steps, you fight the pain of disintegration as you approached the brutish gnoll. The hyena-man carrying a spear and wearing hides as armor looking around for food.
Its muscles were strong, animalistic with veins striated over its body. A body you can use.
As your touch hits the gnoll, it freezes and you felt like neodymium magnets together, surging into the beast as you filled it up with yourself.
You felt the darkness around you, threatening to drown you in the sentience it already had. The body you now inhabit quickly feeling like it's truly yours as you felt your limbs come alive. The heartbeat in your chest beating and your mind quickly filling in the large brain.
Goddess Serra had said these monsters were created in attempts to create sentience with the animals, it failed, and now monstrous creatures roam the world with darkness in their minds acting as their sentience.
B̷͎͚̑̃r̴̢͔̎̄ë̵͇̬́e̷̲͍̾d̵͓̋̚
Your sheath enlarges as you felt your penis harden, your mind's thoughts rapidly thinking of the most brutal breeding as memories of mating with other gnolls flood your brain, knotting into a tight female and pumping. Your hips jerk as your cock pulses with life, panting as pleasure tingles your spine as precum drip off your rigid spire of masculinity.
K̴̹̿͐i̷̩̯͊̆ḻ̷̨̔l̶̘̂
Memories of ripping into humans fill your brain, the exhilarating pleasure of tearing weak humans into strips of meat and eating their bodies bombarding your mind as the brain increasingly becomes yours. As you rush towards human warriors and beat them down into the ground under your paws, proclaiming your superiority over them.
F̷͖́̒r̷̢͔̈o̷̺̟̿͌m̸̹͝ ̶̡͑l̸͈̇i̴͓̇̉g̴̬͓̑ȟ̴̢̰̀t̸̲̆̀ ̸͍͍̄͒c̷̜̭̓̾ǫ̵̛̲m̵̢͓͊̊e̵̠͍͑s̸̛̮ ̷̤̘̄d̶̘͜͝ȃ̵̩ͅr̶̯̺̊ḵ̵͔͐͝ņ̵̀͠è̶̙͍s̴̭̠͝s̵̡̞͑͠.̸̖̀̎
Your soul was becoming consumed by the very darkness you were trying to control and banish. Your mind increasingly becoming more happy to just let go, and become the sentience of this gnoll and truly assimilate. You were fading away, the gnoll's sentience encroaching further into your mind and taking over.
"AND FROM DARKNESS, LIGHT!
In a surge of sudden power, you scream out as you channel as much of Serra's gift to you as much as you can. The darkness threatening to consume your thoughts rapidly burn as your balls pulse and thick ropes of cum shoot out of your hard penis. The gnoll's memories rapidly settling into your mind instead of consuming you whole, your tongue lolling out as pleasure shoots into your brain, your first orgasm after years of nothingness.
The body of the gnoll is now yours, its mind, you.
As you fall unconscious, falling into your own mess, your mind began sorting things into place. You were assimilated nicely into the gnoll yet you kept your sentience.
Your brain began increasing in acuity now that a soul capable of empowering it has come into place. The animal soul never could.
You are you now, and you are reborn.