There had been several things that pointed to the same conclusion, but Endyr had missed them. Either due to the manipulation of the the System, Orvonia or simply her unwillingness to entertain the thought, but the signs had failed to register despite being present. But now that Endyr was encased in a bubble of clarity, everything became as clear as day to her. Now, there was no veil to shove everything unpleasant behind, no doubt or denial that she could muster. Looking back, she felt like it was all a joke, actually.
Body-jacking Skills were a dime a dozen in the Main Universe, even if the System liked to pretend they were rarer than they actually were. Pretty much everybody in the top twenty percent had at least one such Skill available and they varied in effectiveness and utility, but all obeyed a singular rule: there will be a moment of discomfort before you adjust to your new body. Even Denizens of Infinity and Celestials were not immune to this, and needed anywhere between several seconds to a minute before they can truly claim the body is their own. But Endyr had not experienced this sensation upon arriving in her current vessel.
Thanks to her newfound cognition enlightenment, she had a solid guess why. While swapping into a new body caused disorientation, swapping back or into an old body you used before has no such effect. In Endyr's case, she had been fine for one simple reason: the body she currently possessed was always her own.
Or rather, it was a part of hers. Last she had checked, she had been shredded in that Singularity Point with her soul being spat back out as Altair. But what about her body? Well, the System claimed it had been recycled as the foundation of the Infinite Universe she now resided in, but she wasn't sure she could trust that source any more. Not that she ever did, of course.
A second point of interest was her unique Skills, the ones related to her nature as a former Denizen. When she used Archaic Dialect, reality around her tore and bent as a familiar energy seeped through the cracks. Folding space with that Skill revealed something behind it, something Endyr would recognise even blind. It was the energy of Infinity, diluted and changed but still the same at its core. But Endyr had missed something important: it wasn't stray energy, but her own. Orvonia seemed to be quite literally built around a piece of her corpse.
That would also answer what an "Abomination" was. As Endyr could attest, mixing the energies of Infinity with any other Plane was a very bad idea, and was actually classified as Level 5 Biological Warfare by the System, and was completely illegal. The 10% of existence that didn't perish upon contact would mutate into monstrosities even she struggled to describe, and they would further spread the corruption and chaos across the Universe if left unchecked. Her captives has imprisoned her precisely to recreate the energy of Infinity and weaponize it, something she had found completely laughable. Even if they did create it (which was simply impossible), the System would just rewrite causality and erase their entire Race from reality, along with all their research and inventions.
An Abomination was likely something-whether it be a person, animal, plant or simply a clump of Mana-that came into contact with her energy and mutated. If that was the case, then Abominations would seek nothing more than to destroy everything that isn't them or Infinity. As far as pests go, Abominations would be quite the problem to deal with. No wonder Belgemir was so keen to kill her on the spot. The amount of people the Abominations had killed over the centuries likely surpassed her imagination.
'Calculating the current (rough) population of Orvonia, and the fact that the Golden Era was more prosperous than modern day...Around nineteen billion?'
Throwing out that vague estimate based on uncertain factors, Endyr turned her attention to the second matter of the day: her tampered memories. They were still scattered through her mind, and Endyr knew it would take a long time to gather them all up to form the complete picture. And the manipulation went back a long time, long before she even step foot on Orvonia. The System had been messing with her mind even as a Denizen of Infinity.
[Cough. Please do not misunderstand Host, the System was forced to make some minor alternations to Host's mind in the past to avoid the permanent extinction of all life in the Universe. Please understand that it was a necessary move to safeguard reality.]
Well, when they put it like that Endyr couldn't really argue. After all, if the System hadn't altered her mind then she definitely would have reset whole chunks of the Universe to blank nothingness.
Each Denizen represented a core Concept in existence, something even the MU System could not control completely. Love, Destiny, Freedom, Desire...and Endyr represented Destruction. What did you expect really, when it's in her very name? Endyr was essentially the "gardener" of reality: her job was to tear up the old weeds and make room for the new stuff. Death, Annihilation, Destruction, Ruination...spin it any way you like, it was Endyr's duty to keep the existing within a certain range. Only, she had been a bit too zealous in her job. Turns out when you're your own boss and don't exactly have any guidelines to follow, the definition of what is "old" and "up for replacement" is quite vague and up in the air.
Long story short, Endyr tried to destroy everything and was stopped by the System, with her memories erased and personality ever-so-slightly altered. She was honestly impressed the System had managed to do so, because a Denizen's sense of self is as ephemeral as their morality.
[It took enough resources to drain three Universes dry] the System informed her, somehow sounding robotic yet dry at the same time.
Of course, her desires put her at odds with the other Denizens. While they didn't care if the Multiverse was reset, having it destroyed meant no more Avatars and no more entertainment. For them, that was unacceptable. Even Endyr was taken aback by her single track mindness. She would also lose out on Avatars if her plan succeeded, something present Endyr was appalled by. Out of all her "siblings" though, she got along the worst with Makyr.
Like the name suggests, Makyr was the opposite of Endyr. She was the Denizen of Creation, Continuation, Immortality and Preservation. She was the one who kept planting new seeds wherever Endyr dug up the old plants. While the two may seem like a natural cycle, they despised each other. Their hatred was so strong, it even came through the disassociation of a Denizen.
'Hmm, that's right. I swore to kill that bitch and refused to ever die until then.'
An old vow, one the System had stripped away from her alongside her dream. But she wasn't overly bothered anymore. Past sentiments wouldn't help her now, nor in the future. Once she got out of the Infinite Universe and back home though...No no, she mustn't get distracted. She needed to plan ahead, for both this Quest and what awaited her outside it. As she looked around the hole she had been dropped in, she gradually found where to start.