, probably...

Helloo, razorswift here, I just wanted to give you a quick update that I slightly edited the end of the last chapter. While the outcome is the same, I felt it necessary to better show why John went with the upgrade he chose, since all of the upgrades had advantages, and some of them seemed more clear for now than others. Typical case of 'long-term thinking' without short-term explaining.

Anyway, enjoy this new chapter, there are big things ahead of us!

The last thing John could remember was that he chose one of the 'cybernetic' upgrades and then there was this unbearable pain that knocked him out. He was in a Protected Space in the basement of Captain Mariana Storm's game shop where he had been confronted by her, accusing him of being a fake version of himself. That, however, didn't really fit the situation he found himself in right now because his surroundings were completely different from the scenery he was in before.

Right now, he was standing in a round room that was probably 20 meters in diameter. The room looked like it belongs to some kind of sewer system or abandoned railway system because the walls were gray, unfurnished cement but there were dark and wide tunnels leading away from this room. The room itself was high, very high, so high in fact that John couldn't even see a ceiling, only dim, grayish, light that was shining from somewhere above, reflecting in the thick and heavy snowflakes that were falling from the sky. That snow was covering the whole floor, making a white carpet on the entire floor John was standing on, yet he felt no coldness from his feet.

While the walls were unfurnished, that wasn't saying that there was nothing along these walls because some weird crystals were lining up along the walls, giving the room an even more eerie look to it and being the only things that break the monochromatic gray and white of the rest of the room. These stones looked like massive crystals, dark blue in color and shining with a faint blue glow and there was something in every one of these crystals... Some shapes were pretty hard to identify, some looked like eggs in various sizes, some stones had the shapes of people in them, and one of the stones had something really unsettling in them...

Brunhilde. The Valkyrie was standing in that stone, eyes closed, seemingly as if she was lying on a bed that was vertically strapped to the wall. While every other thing in here was just a dark shadowy shape, she was perfectly clear and visible.

John immediately ran to the stone that Brun was encased in and beating against that stone, shouting her name to get any reaction from her. However, there was no reaction from her, not even a flinching from the hits against the crystal. It was like she was... dead. John did not want to think about that for even a second... Not like he had a second anyway because suddenly he heard a whistling sound from up above him, getting louder and louder. Looking up, John could see that there was a shadow in the light that was growing bigger and bigger as if something was getting closer to his position. Judging from the speed the shadow was growing, the thing came at him FAST. In a matter of seconds, a blur impacted with the ground, blowing out dust and obstructing John's vision to what the thing was that just came down. Instinctively closing his eyes to shield them from the dust, John heard the rain of the pebbles around him that were smashed out of the ground.

When the dust started to settle after a couple of seconds, John opened his eyes to see what just came down from the seemingly infinite ceiling and was astonished to see that it was a woman, a girl in fact and judging from the wings on her back, another celestial being. Or that was his thought until he could see the wings more clearly... Those weren't the wings of an angel; these wings looked more like something that was man-made. Each wing seemed to be made out of four floating sword-like appendages that were flowing in an erratic and unstable manner.

Now that the dust had settled, John could also see the apparel and appearance of the girl that just...fell?... from the sky. She was very light skinned, long and flowing white hair, and wore practically the skimpiest outfit John had ever seen. Her entire upper body was exposed except for a small patch of armor that concealed her private parts and the beginnings of some kind of black and red armor from her nipples up, barely covering those. Her arms and legs were packed in the same kind of armor, though her legs were covered in a way that would make it impossible for her to stand on her feet if she had those at all. She had gigantic shoulder pads with eyes on them, yellow reptilian-like eyes blankly looking straight ahead, and yet it gave John the feeling that they were looking at him. On her hips were also some kind of blue crystals that looked a lot like the crystals along the walls, shining with the same amount of intensity.

Even though the outfit left very little to John's imagination, John felt no desire or anything similar sexual... he only felt fear.

At that point, the 'girl' looked up and stared at John with piercing, cold, lifeless, blue eyes. Faster than he could even see, the technological angel was rushing for him and was pinning him to the wall, leaving a crater in the wall where John met with it. The girl held him by his throat, crushing his trachea and cutting off his way to breathe. He instantly felt the missing air and instinctively gasped for air that never made it to his lungs...

With a voice that promised **** spoke with a mechanical tone to him: "You killed her, now it is your time to die," and another sword-like appendage protruding from her arm was stabbed through John's heart.

At that point, something wet hit John's face, waking him up from his nightmare.

John was abruptly pulled back into consciousness, seeing Captain Storm standing in front of him with an empty bucket of water in her hands. "Oh thank god you're awake again! You suddenly broke down and started screaming...What the hell happened with that book?" the Captain asked in an almost hysterical voice while pushing John strongly into her bosom. Well... that was a way to wake up that John certainly wouldn't mind. "I-I think I'm okay now... That book... it gave me some kind of upgrade to my body, but that upgrade hurt like a bitch. Well... considering it was an upgrade to my eyes and my brain, it would be logical that it hurt like a bitch..."

"What kind of upgrade did you get there? Is it at least worth the blackout?" she asked with a wink, clearly not as worried anymore now that she knew that he was kinda okay. Checking his character sheet John saw that he was at 1/105 HP... Was that because of the upgrade to him, or did his nightmare actually do something to him? He heard that some people died because they died in their dreams. Hopefully, this was nothing like that and was just an effect of the upgrade... "Well, the thing said that I should be able to see through people's and creatures eyes that I bond with, whatever that means..."

At that moment, he got a new skill:

"Huh, so I can apparently bond with another person or creature if they are okay with it, somehow binding us both to each other for our life. Sounds neat even if it's a bit creepy with a 'till **** does us part' part," John told the captain while reading over the new Bond skill.

"Sounds weird, nothing I'd be interested in... So, you up for some training?"

Uhh....