[Hall of Mirrors has reached (Great)!]
[Unyielding Metal has reached (Great)!]
[Parallel World Manipulation has reached (Intermediate)!]
[Beat of War [New!] (Basic) (Your heartbeat is the drum. Hear the rhythm, master the flow, and be untouched among war.)]
The battle had forced me to grow. [Beat of War] was my first resonance-based technique.
Resonance had formed a new section on my stat sheet - a sort of disconnected little window in the same way that my network was. I could sense that this one could be integrated into the Gift properly, but for now, I didn’t see the need to. It was already a little cluttered with all my abilities. The shorter window, however, helped.
[Resonance:
And that was all. It was a lot, already, but that was true for the power, too. It felt a little more… crude, perhaps, than cultivation? Then again, it made sense. Cultivation was a path of mastery of the self, while resonance was a different thing to walk entirely. I didn’t understand it fully, yet, but I would, in time.
With a gentle sigh, I closed the window. Saph looked at me patiently, their head tilted ever so slightly, as if awaiting my judgement. “What is it?” I asked the crystalloid.
“Will you kill me?” they asked in return, stepping forward. “For bringing a god down on you?”
I hugged a bit of amusement, crossing my arms and shaking my head. “No, I won’t. You’re not good for this world, right? So, we’ll get you to a place you feel more at home. If anyone wants to cause you trouble, they’ll have to go through me. And, somehow, I think this world is out of people who can cause me trouble.”
After all, I had just beaten one of the divines. It was almost one-on-one, though he’d been limited to an avatar. Still. I beat Ru. In a battle of mastery, perhaps he’d have destroyed me, but now, a tiny trill of his legend was part of my growing orchestra. And that was more than enough.
Still, the fight had been rough, and I was rather tired. So we called it a day. Set up camp again, starting a fire, roasting some food. It took… a while, before we started talking, but eventually, we did.
The others listened as I explained. The resonance, the Echo, the way it coursed through all of us felt strange and new, but not bad. It wasn’t painful or anything, just potent. Almost loud. But when sitting, swapping stories, it calmed. In a lot of ways, it felt like a campfire. If the flames were stoked, it would burn higher. But when used just enough, it would provide a bit of warmth.
When I was done explaining myself, Emilia laughed, Liam smiled, and Chris patted me on the back. Trichtera gave me a grateful nod, which was all she could manage, and Stella a hopeful grin. Eric was the most conflicted, but even he gave me a quick and simple nod. None of them had mastered the new powers yet, but they were already improving, second by second. The network had grown stronger, after all, and so, our talents fed each other even more.
It was kind of funny. The network, as it grew, made us more talented, so we’d grow even faster. Which let us expand the network, and get more talents. By now, the world seemed troubled to cage us.
For the first time, I had power in my hands that no one could stop.
That was the most bizarre thought of my life. That, in Eden, I was effectively unchecked. The divines couldn’t stop me. Maybe if they banded together, sure, but one-on-one? They couldn’t stop me anymore.
If I’d wanted to, I could have killed people free of consequence. Like Zinnic had let their people do. And yet, I found myself not really wanting to.
A small smile spread at that thought. People with power were held back by nothing except their morals, huh? What a funny thing. Then it was my job to keep up reasonable morality, and I was planning to do a decent job at that, too.
Eventually, when night fell, and I laid down to rest, the divines came ringing.
That was the correct expression. They rang. A chime, in my mind, like that of a doorbell. I smirked at the comparison, and opened that mental door.
‘Good evening, Fio,’ Hir said carefully, the chorus of voices sounding restrained. Pulled back. ‘Are you… well?’
‘Relax,’ I said, cutting through all the bullshit. ‘We’re cool. I’m not coming for you, friend. You said it before, right? That the divines aren’t always in agreement? I can’t imagine you’d’ve sent Ru after me, did you?’
The reply came hastily. ‘No! No, of course not.’
I snickered slightly. ‘It was a joke, Hir. Let me guess. You’re on my side, Archiva is watching and writing things down, Lurelia is scared, and Argus is a little upset but won’t do anything. Right?’
‘... Right,’ they admitted. ‘That… about summarizes things.’
‘Cool. We’re good, Hir. I have no problem with you. No plans to go and usurp any divine realms, no plans on subjugating your world. None of that. The thing I want, the thing I’ve always wanted, was freedom. I wanted freedom from the keepers,’ I said, a frown wearing itself into my face at the thought of them. ‘And, incidentally, I ended up free from… you divines, I guess. Is that right?’
Hir took a long moment to reply, thinking it over. When their voice finally rang in my mind, it was calmer, more relaxed. ‘I suppose it is. Incidentally, huh? You continue to surprise us, Fio. We are glad you still see us as a friend.’
‘I do,’ I nodded. ‘In fact, if you wanna be part of the network, I think I could probably add you, these days.’
At that, their silence turned stunned. Rather than contemplative, it just felt as if they were taken aback by the offer. ‘What?!’ they eventually managed.
‘Yeah, I mean it. [Transference]. You gain a portion of our talents, we gain a portion of yours. You hear our songs, we hear yours. Mutual benefit, right?’ I suggest. ‘You don’t have to accept. There’s not pressure to this offer, Hir. It’s just that - an offer. Your choice entirely. I won’t hold it against you.’
‘I expected much from this conversation, Fio,’ they said with a hundred sighs from their chorus of voices, ‘but I did not expect… this. I thought you’d be indignant. Upset. Hurt, perhaps.’
Slowly, I shook my head. ‘No. I get how you tick, these days. You could even say we’re familiar.’ I smiled, just a faint bit. ‘You’ve seen my sheet in the Gift, right? Familiarity. That’s my covenant. I get you, and you’ll get me better every time we talk. So. Think it over, and let me know, eventually.’
Finally, a gentle kind of amusement spread through Hir’s chorus of voices. The song within me said that they had potential to sing beautifully, but it was and always would be their choice. So, I waited for them to speak. ‘Thank you, friend,’ they said. ‘For your understanding. For your care for this world - and others. For seeing potential where we were blind.’
With a shrug, I gave a sigh. ‘Everyone makes mistakes. I’m far from perfect. Friends cover for each other, right? So, don’t sweat it too much. We’ll get your world all fixed, and then we’ll see what else there’s left to do. That’s the job we signed up for, after all,’ I say with a smile and another shrug.
‘Yes,’ Hir agrees. ‘Thank you. For… sparing Rufus, as well. You have done much for Eden, and we believe you will do more.’
‘No need for unnecessary bloodshed. Trichtera said to let him live, and she was the one he properly hurt. I just fought him,’ I say, almost snickering at the thought. ‘Not everyone I fight deserves death. I fought Saph, too after all.’
Hir pauses for a moment, then the divine gives a small sigh. ‘The usurper,’ they say. ‘What do you plan to do with them?’
‘Have them as a part of my party, for now,’ I reply easily. ‘Yes, I know you’re afraid of their resonance spreading, but I think we can cycle it across the network, and contain it that way. Self-Sustaining Symphony, and all that.’
‘Right. Please do try to keep it contained,’ Hir allows weakly. ‘Be safe, Fio.’
‘You too, Hir. I’ll catch some sleep now,’ I say, and feel their presence withdraw from my mind. Another small chuckle escapes me as I think about the conversation. The divines, in a lot of ways, are scaredycats, aren’t they?
I’ve finally reached a power matching theirs, and to me, it makes the world seem open. Free, almost easy. I can see the mountains in the distance, and the song in my head whispers that I can reach it in a single step. My [Hall of Mirrors] goes so far now. And since I learnt resonance, since I can control Echo now, the environment doesn’t even feel hostile anymore.
Before, the chaotic Qi mixed with Echo was enough to erode my skin, and I needed a constant barrier. But since my body was so filled with Echo and Qi both, that wasn’t a problem anymore. I could simply let it wash over me. Everything felt less hostile.
Compared to that, the divines were almost the opposite. They let their power become a cage. They couldn’t intervene, needed to act through believers. Was that really the true path to become divine? Well, not like it was my business to figure that out. Reya could take care of Divinity, Ann of Mana. Heck, I could even leave Qi to Matt, since I was the most suitable out of all of us to master Echo properly.
Not that I’d neglect Qi, thought. It had brought me this far. It’d given me wings, and my path had expanded from a struggle for adventure to seeing true freedom. Just a few more steps, and I would do it. Just a little bit further.
I did wonder how Ru’s fall from divinity would affect his clerics… but Trichtera was still strong, even after being almost burnt out by him. So, most likely, the power invested in them would stick around. They’d just need to get some way to regenerate it, the same way Reya did, by having people admire her.
Well. That wasn’t really my problem to worry about, I supposed. It was a little irresponsible, but the world would heal. The other divines might even grow stronger from integrating the wayward faithful into their domains. Rufus definitely didn’t want to re-ascend to divinity, I imagined, so they’d either have to forge their own legends or swear allegiance to someone else.
My head swam with thoughts, but a deep breath in and out cleared them. Tomorrow would be a new day, with new problems to face. More nests to clear. More things to fight. More problems to solve.
But we were making progress. For the first time in a while, the lines held by the usurpers were being pushed back. A smile spread across my lips. We’d restore this world. To a place with proper biodiversity, good habitats for all kinds of species to live.
We’d turn this place into a proper garden.
- - -
Ion sat on Neamhan with Marie. It was early morning. Ann still slept, Matt snored in another room, and Reya was quietly preparing herself some coffee. The sun shone through thinner clouds.
Ivan had recently deployed first steps of a reforestation program using mildly magical plants. He was out doing fieldwork, shovelling hardened, dry ground, adding fertilizer, and planting seedlings. There were a few different trials going on, and he was doing small trees and bushes, with a few colleagues looking into hardy grasses and shrubs.
It felt like the air filter was humming more quietly these days, but really, that was probably a figment of imagination. For now, at least. But maybe, someday in the future, it wouldn’t be.
The parallel version of Fio, coming from a different, dead world, took a deep breath. She closed her eyes, and for a long moment, let the world linger around her. She sat and breathed.
Eventually, another chair rustled, and she cracked open an eye. Reya sat across her, giving a short wave, and a few quick handsigns. Ion wasn’t even close to perfect at understanding them yet, but she had practiced a bit, and awkwardly nodded. Yes, she was enjoying her time. If she got the question correct.
Reya beamed a smile, and took a happy, hearty sip of her coffee. Marie sunk into another chair a little while later, humming in satisfaction. “World’s finally getting better,” she said. “And all it took was the apocalypse,” she chuckled.
“Zinnic still sucks,” Ion sighed. “Absolute shitshow.”
Marie laughed brightly. “It’s a company, hon. Of course it sucks. It’ll always suck. It’s got a whole board of sucky people. And even if they tried not to suck, you saw that the keepers will just puppeteer them where needs must be met. We’ll have to give them a look in a little while.”
At that, Reya shook her head, flashing through a few more signs. Ion just caught sth along the lines of “unnecessary”. She tilted her head. “You don’t think we should check up on Zinnic?” she asked.
The saintess, once again, shook her head. Then she gave a huff through her nose and got out a pen and paper, writing on it instead of signing, which made Ion smile awkwardly. Reya didn’t like doing it, and hopefully it’d eventually become unnecessary, but for now, it was what it was.
After a few seconds, she finally placed the paper in the middle of the table. “I think things will come to a shitshow soon. When it’s done and dusted, Zinnic will be a pretty fucking small part of the problem.”
“Huh,” Ion said. “What makes you think everything will go to hell?”
Reya, carefully, added one more word to her message. “Intuition.”
Marie raised an eyebrow at it, but didn’t cause any fuss. Divinity was all about faith. There was some kind of link between Reya and those she’d healed, maybe? Could she intuit things about the world that way?
Or maybe it really was just because they’d grown so fast that the keepers had to act now, or things would forever be doomed?
Even while still thinking about it, Reya’s lips twisted into a frown. The world grew slow. Ion watched as colour seemed to leak from the walls, just a little bit. Reality grew thin and fragile, holding its breath.
A moment later, every single window of the house shattered.
Instantly, a torrent of mana poured from the upper floor, halting the glass shards. Wood splintered as the ground shook. Breakfast items clattered off the table, plates and cups and glasses falling apart to splinters. A heartbeat later, everything inside the house froze, as a single, enormous spell halted gravity.
Very slowly, Ion hovered upwards from the couch, as physics stopped making sense. The world was awash with power. Qi and Echo thrummed through her ears. Reya glowed with Divinity, and Ann’s mana suffused the entire house. A voice scraped across the world, echoing from far away.
“Ahhh, it’s just about time,” it said, in that demonic, business-like cadence. “We invested so much into this asset. Thank you for growing so strong.”
The door to the guildhouse pushed open in the wake of the earthquake, and, entirely unaffected by the gravity spell, a frog-faced demon in a business suit walked in. “Now,” he said. “Let’s get you all cleaned up. You’ve let us open and break a, heh, ‘category six gate’, was it? The show’s over, kids. Time to die.”
2025-10-11 16:34:33 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 269: Stronger
The night passed quietly. Starlight glittered on puddles of blood. The moon hung in the window, casting ghostly sheens of white. Mercury looked like a corpse, though his slowly regenerating organs quickly made that impression fade. If anything, he looked more like a zombie, or some other kind of undead.
Now, that was for most of the night. The far, far worse part came when he realized that Skills grew with desire and use. Right now, he wanted to heal, but it wasn’t really a true priority. He already had a malleable, tough body, and he could supplement a lot of it with prostheses, but it wasn’t perfect. He needed to want it more.
So, he turned off <Babbling Brook>.
A half-breath passed, and Mercury felt his entire body tense up. Every single muscle he still had cringed up inside him. He would have let out a rasping breath if he had lungs, and his eyes might have rolled back if he still had those. Instead, all that he did was twitch like a fish on land.
It hurt. It hurt so bad that it dominated his mind, flooded his entire being. It hurt so bad that he forgot who he was and the point of this exercise. All he wanted was for the pain to stop. All he wanted was to be whole again.
And despite that, he didn’t push the pain aside. He didn’t let it flow by him, and he even stopped using <Resolution>. Ethereal dreams could turn into his flesh if he wanted to, but this time, that was not what he needed. No, he wanted his body to heal itself.
To regrow. There was one tool he did let himself use, though, and that was one of his system granted spells. <Shift>. It let him change bits of himself, parts of his body. And right now, he was using it to drastically speed up his metabolism. To force his body into overdrive, making new cells sprout at prodigious rates.
By all means, it should have damaged his DNA. He didn’t have that many stem cells - unless his Skills produced them - but to <Hydration> that was a trifling matter. It was a Skill based on complete and utter restoration of his body. It was meant to turn him whole again when he lost a head. To make him stronger from each near-death.
And it did. The Skill had grown to the absolute limits of what it could. Back in the day, it had taken him pages to regrow a leg, but that was no longer the case. He healed far faster than that, even without <Resolution>, but it was still agony.
Blood poured from him, even as his veins slowly seared shut. The blood was hot, boiling even, with fiery power embedded in it, but Zyl didn’t mind at all. Still, it faintly hissed against the open air, sounding like ragged, dying breaths, which articulated Mercury’s suffering since his lungs still hadn’t regrown.
So, he laid there. Suffering and in agony, wishing with all his might, all his desperation that Hydration finally meet that damn threshold and evolve. To just put him back into one piece and let the pain end. That was his focus.
He even tried to not wish for the pain to end. But to be whole. To be restored. To let himself recover, somehow. If he focused on the agony, maybe he’d just get something like <Pain Resistance>, and he didn’t really need that, even with how rare resistance Skills seemed to be.
But he waited. In his thoughts, he focused his mind, synchronizing all those bits of him, and desperately wished to heal. To be whole and hale and hearty. He wished and wished and wished…
Until it came true, finally.
When hydration finished recovering his lungs after a half dozen hours, and Mercury finally let out his first ragged gasp from a raw and torn through, he finally got the notification.
[<Hydration> has levelled up! < Hydration lv. 9 -> 10>]
[<Hydration has met the necessary qualifications for evolution. Evolve? (500 Skill Points)]
“Yes!” Mercury desperately confirmed. The low cost in terms of points was barely on his mind, though he did distantly note that it was rather low. Maybe his suffering had caused him to earn mastery faster, or whatever it was. A moment later, when the options for him to choose from showed up, he finally activated <Babbling Brook> again.
Instantly, the agony slid off him. He breathed a shaky, horrid breath, summoning air in his lungs to make them expand rather than using his ribs musculature - those bones still had yet to regrow. But he needed to focus if he was going to make the best choice.
[1. <Self Made Man>
2. <Bound Flesh>
3. <Assimilate>
4. <Overgrowth Manifestation>]
[<Self Made Man>: The individual’s body becomes their sculpture. Your own flesh is like clay to you. Sculpt your own flesh, and bring to life who you were always meant to be. With a growing understanding of your own biology, it will become easier to remake yourself faster.]
He blinked. This would… let him change his body. Drastically. There was a hidden implication in there, of course. The very idea that he might be able to give himself a human body again.
And that made him face the thought of… what would he make himself look like? He didn’t feel particularly human. Not with all the ways his mind worked these days. His life was so different these days compared to how it was on Earth. Hell, he could even already hold Zyl’s hands, since <Force of the Hecatoncheires> was slowly growing to give more tactile feedback and even create warmth.
But.
Some part of him wanted to be human again. To walk on two legs, to smile at people properly, to not need to deal with fangs. He had gained a lot of tools to work around it. He could eat vegetables. He could emulate hands. He could speak. All of that was true, but the thought of a human form…
“Hey, Zyl?” he rasped.
“Yeah?”
“Why do you shapeshift into a human?”
The dragon shifted at the question, making a faint splashing noise in the puddle of still pooling blood. “Well,” he started slowly. “Mostly because they’re jacks of all trades. I could just as easily take a beastkin or elven form, I suppose. Why?”
“One of my options would give me a human for. I thought it’d be nice to… I dunno. Hold hands,” he said, looking aside.
Zyl smiled faintly. “No need to pick something for me. I love you already. Shape doesn’t matter. If you want to,” he said. “We can match.”
“You can transform into a mopaaw?” Mercury asked, surprised.
“Something close enough, at least,” Zyl shrugged. “You just… seemed more at ease with me as a human.”
Mercury blinked, then snickered. “Suppose that’s true,” he said. “I’ve gotten better at feeling at ease around nonhumans, though.”
“I know you find my horns hot,” Zyl noted.
“Absolutely,” Mercury rasped with a smile. Then, he paused. Sighed gently, and gave the Skill another look. It was still strong. But there were other options, and he was determined to pick the best one.
[<Bound Flesh>: You resolve yourself from threads of dream. Now, weave yourself from silk, bind your flesh with magic. You become your own item, woven and malleable. Your flesh is a web, growing far more flexible and strong, and far easier to repair. Stitching your wounds shut will be your second nature, as you produce silk within yourself.]
His second option was about as strange as the first. To remake himself from silk. Magical silk, sure, and he could kind of picture it, given that the dreamweave was kinda similar to threads, but it was definitely strange. It certainly would be easier to repair, though, and far faster, too. He could see the benefits, though there were probably more of them than he saw right now.
[<Assimilate>: Due to your use of other materials to replace parts of yourself, you may make them a part of yourself, now. Assimilate nearly anything to temporarily incorporate it into your form, being able to use it like a fully organic part of yourself and imbuing it with the prerequisite material traits. Additionally, you may assimilate materials while healthy to influence the nature of your body, gaining and sorting their traits.]
Mercury drew in a hiss of air between his fangs. That was strong. Especially given his understanding of some materials - he could imagine something like [Metal]coming in very handy if he tried to absorb iron and make his skin as tough as steel.
In essence, it synergized and built upon things that he could almost do, enhancing them far further. To be able to use ice like his actual legs, and incorporate into himself when healthy? Also… could he do grafts with this? Could he assimilate and shape biomass to do something similar to <Self Made Man>?
The Skill seemed more interesting to him. It was broader, less specialized than the previous ones, and seemed to function better as part of his current skillset.
[<Overgrowth Manifestation>: To grow is the fate of an organic. You create new cells, you restore what is broken, you absorb by second nature. Now, you shall never stop healing. Prerequisite biomass will be grown at all times, being stored within the Skill until the need to use it arises. Grow eternally, and manifest your flesh to replace missing parts or wield it when needed.]
Once more, Mercury blinked at his system. His regeneration Skills… why were they all so weird? Couldn’t he have gotten a regular healing factor? A straightforward upgrade to <Hydration> that just said “heal better, adapt more” instead of all these… rather drastic changes to his biology?
He sighed softly, then read through them all again. They were interesting. One focused on sculpting, agency over himself and how he looked and felt and interacted with the world. Another about changing his basic composition to be more in line with a material he could already manipulate well. The third was based on reconstituting and supplementing himself, and the final one leaned about as far into the idea of remaining organic as possible.
But out of all of them, there was one he liked best. Mercury selected <Assimilate>, and instantly, the Skill clicked into place.
[The individual has acquired the Skill <Assimilate lv. 1> through Skill evolution!]
His body felt different. And there was a new sense to him, something that made him want to lick his lips. The whole world suddenly felt a little more… edible. Like he was staring at those videos where people made cakes that looked just like the real thing.
<Nutritional Preservation> already had a somewhat similar effect. It let him eat and digest things he really had no right digesting, after all. But this was even different from that. He didn’t need to digest anything anymore. Everything was already perfectly designed to be a part of him.
“I think I’m gonna try something, Zyl,” he said, giving a short warning.
“What would that be?” the dragon asked, tilting his head slightly.
In response, Mercury just lifted himself up using his will, hovering in the air a little. He quickly pulled open the window and glided out into the night, gesturing for zyl to follow with a nod of his ruined face. He also cloaked himself in the concealing shapes of the Storm’s Raiment, just to make sure he didn’t terrify and bystanders.
Then, slowly, he and Zyl hovered outside the city.
Mercury didn’t want to eat someone’s house after all, least of all his own. So instead, he slowly levitated off into the forest. Then, he ate a tree.
Not exactly, though. The right word, of course, was that he <Assimilated> it. He drifted into it, and willed the wood to become part of him. The Skill worked in a weird way - on one hand, it simply worked in a sphere around him, but at the same time, he could stretch it out into “connected” materials, for some definition.
In effect, this meant that at first, he carved a spherical hole into the tree. Then, when it began to topple, the entire thing disappeared with a soft pop. Its roots, buried underground, were gone. All its branches assimilated in one fell swoop. All that remained was leaves, a whole swarm of them, slowly drifting to the ground.
Now, the wood had not disappeared. Instead, it was assimilated into Mercury. His skin was a little tougher, taking on some of the roughness of bark, but more more clearly was his missing body parts. Legs, ribs, muscles and eyes… all of them were back, but carved from wood.
Smooth spheres of wood sat in his no-longer-empty eye sockets. He blinked wooden lids over them, and regarded Zyl. “Huh,” he said out loud. Living wood formed his tongue, and lower jaw. Small branches still sprouted from him, greedily drinking in his stamina, even sprouting a leaf or two. “That’s… new.”
He stretched his assimilated legs, feeling the wood emulate his muscles and bones. There were microstructures in there, bizarre magical things that made them just as limber as his real body would have been. And, at the same time, they formed a framework.
Mercury could feel his flesh bubbling as the two interfaced. Usually, bodies were made to reject foreign material, but this wood was so perfectly integrated, it didn’t count as foreign anymore at all. Which meant, as his body healed, it simply integrated it, moving any assimilated wood into the Skill.
At the same time, he could also shunt it away with another case of his Skill if he wanted to. Deposit it all back on the ground. The Skill apparently allowed for a good chunk of internal material storage, which he could willingly let interface with his body. He could store ice or stone for reinforcing and rebuilding himself, even without letting them affect him - or he could use metal to reinforce his skin further.
Even more than rebuild himself, though, he could shape these additional parts of himself. The wood was responsive, and as Mercury willed it, more of it poured from the storage into his body. His muscles bulged, additional wooden fibres supplementing his natural constitution.
“That’s so strange,” Zyl said, pushing a hand through Mercury’s fur with his face full of wonder. “What a fun Skill. What else can you assimilate?”
Mercury took a deep breath, pausing his experimentation to explore that new sense of his. At the same time, he didn’t fully trust it. The feeling of… hunger, if he could call it that, mostly targeted solids. Now, these solids could be almost anything. For example, the Skill did also highlight that he could <Assimilate> parts of Zyl if he wanted.
Which seemed incredibly unwise, but also funny. “You,” Mercury provided immediately. “In fact,” he licked his lips stepping forward, “you’re looking rather tasty there, Zyl…”
The dragon hastily raised his hands, stepping backwards. “Nope! No! Bad Mercury! No eating me!” he said, grabbing a stick and lightly tapping his boyfriend with it. The apprehension was only halfway fake, until Mercury broke out into snickering. He gave a bright smile, finding himself truly happy.
All his pain was gone. He got to fool around with his boyfriend again. Such was peace.
But he still questioned his Skill’s propensities. For example, it told him he could eat wood and grass and stones and earth… but why not air? After all, that should work just fine, surely. Why not light, too?
With a quick twist of his mentality, he felt <Perceived Ease> triggering again, and the world shifted. Mercury drank in the air and light around him, creating a perfectly black sphere for a moment. Zyl blinked, as if he was staring into a dark hole, except there was no accretion disk or gravity.
Anything within range got assimilated. When Mercury reappeared, he’d also grown wings. Crystals of air and ribbons of moonlight sprouted from his back. The dragon blinked again, scarcely believing his eyes. But there his boyfriend was, doing the impossible again.
Mercury smiled, then flapped the wings once. Then, a second and third time. He lifted.
What else could he assimilate? His own mana? Yes, apparently. The energy from his <Grain of Infinity>? Also yes. The dreamweave that constituted the mortal realm?
No to that one, actually. Well, more because he didn’t want to try. Tearing holes in a world he’d just fixed seemed like an unwise decision. If he wanted to experiment in <Assimilating> some <Dreamweave>, he could very well use it on his own dreams. But the sheer variety of things the Skill let him assimilate was fascinating.
[The assistant intelligence requests to never be designated as a target of the <Assimilate> Skill by the dum-dum.]
Mercury smiled faintly at Appy’s antics, then reassured her with a thought. ‘Don’t worry. Wouldn’t dream of it,’ he thought at her. Then, he returned to Zyl, yet another person he could but wouldn’t make part of himself.
They probably had some resistance to the Skill, anyway. <Assimilating> things felt a little like pulling on them and chewing them at the same time. Air was easy, but hard to grasp and swallow. Energy was bizarrely sour and bitter all at the same time, and escaped through his teeth, but he got it anyway. The wood felt solid, tough and hard, but that wasn’t an obstacle.
Zyl, though? He had his own will, his own desires and wishes. Taking some part of the dragon via <Assimilate> wouldn’t be any easier than cutting him with <Carve>. In fact, cutting things before trying to eat them would probably be easier.
“Do you ever shed your scales, Zyl?” Mercury asked hesitantly.
At that, the dragon blinked one more time. He stood, awkwardly and a little shellshocked. “Uh,” he stuttered. “Can you… give me a moment to digest the whole ‘my boyfriend eats light and energy’ thing?”
Mercury laughed for a while longer, and the two spent the evening playing around with the Skill.
- - -
Yes, Zyl did sometimes shed his scales, and yes, Mercury could <Assimilate> them. That was how his skin gained the properties of dragonscale. He also tried some more to see what he could do… and the strangest use-case was mimicking the <Overgrowth Manifestation, actually.
Since the Skill had internal material storage, and Mercury could <Assimilate> almost everything and manifest it when needed… he figured, why not try on himself? And it worked.
He could store his own flesh and blood within the Skill, calling it forth when needed. And also use it to reshape and manipulate it, himself. Malleable bones and ligaments and skin and muscles turned into a functional human arm growing from his back in one bizarre experiment.
Of course, he promptly shook Zyl’s hand. The dragon was both fascinated and slightly weirded out, which was a good summary for how Mercury felt as well! Wonderful.
At the end of the night, Mercury subsumed all the <Assimilated>, manifested bits and bobs back into himself. All he left was the prosthetics, putting himself back together into what he’d usually look like. Seeing the way the wood shifted to approximate his fur was a little strange, though.
The whole “impart suitable material properties” really was doing some heavy lifting for the Skill.
Regardless, he was still happy with it. He could walk back to their house on his own legs - and yes, they were his legs, even if they were prosthetics, in a way - and he made his way to the bedroom as well. All he had to do was lay down in bed, close his eyes and…
-
[Main Quest: “Rends in Reality.” Chain <2> completed!
Reward: <Realmshifting> affinity increase, <Worldhealer> title.
Note: Additional rewards may be granted by the entity requesting this task to be completed.
Additional rewards: Experience, 500 Skill Points, <Seeker Of Secrets> mastery, Unique Skill: <Scope Expansion>.
Additional Note: Thank you. This world is more whole due to your deeds.]
-
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
Mercury looked at the notification, blinked, then sighed, very gently. He looked upon the screen, at the notification that the “quest-giver” had sent him. He was pretty sure he knew who it was, anyway. This realm.
Some kind of pseudo-intelligence, not dissimilar to his nexus or Appy. It made sure Chronagen operated well, that the world itself was stable, that the people did not need to face creatures of the void.
Maybe it even felt some kinship with Appy, given the mastery it sent to the Skill. In fact, Mercury was rather curious about that.
[<Seeker Of Secrets> has levelled up! <Seeker Of Secrets lv. 3 -> 4>]
It was just a single level, but given how Appy usually responded to those, he still smiled. As the number ticked over, he instantly felt the change, too. The way that his oldest companion on this world shifted and changed. She grew.
He watched her growth spurt with interest, the way that the space that the Skill occupied seemed to grow a bit, too. Through his growing perception, he could see it more clearly. The way that the system flooded into reinforce Appy, to grow her, and stretch her capabilities. That was why the Skill always displayed bursts of sassiness when it levelled.
Appy was exploring her new limits when it happened. Instead of developing synapses one by one, in tiny, miniscule steps, her development happened in bigger steps. Each level represented a fundamental increase in computational power. It was like all of puberty, condensed into a single moment.
[This assistant consciousness would like to remind the dum-dum that her computational power vastly exceeds the average humanoid, and that “puberty” is a vastly reductive descriptor.]
Mercury smiled at the notification. “Is it inaccurate, though, dearest Appy?” he asked in a whisper.
[... No.]
The admittal was begrudging, but true. There was even some tone in there. Where humans had to fight for math and logic, those came easy to her. But Appy had to fight for every inch of creativity, tone, self-expression. And now, she’d won another inch. That made him happy.
He took a moment to focus again. Which of his next rewards was he most curious about… ah, there was really only one answer.
[<Scope Expansion>: A unique Skill that exists to boost an individual’s capabilities. All your Skills reach further - they are not stronger, but their influence spreads.]
Right. The description was… vague. And short, he noted. But he supposed that was how unique Skills tended to be. They were unique, after all, so writing descriptions for them must be hard work.
A quick glance at his menus did tell him the Skill sat at level 1, as it should, which meant it had room to grow. It was also entirely passive. He could not shift the effect in intensity, or at least not with the Skill itself.
So, he reached for another Skill instead to test it out. The first thing he checked was <Truth>, his most trustworthy, foundational Skill. And instantly, he felt the difference.
<Scope Expansion> did exactly what it promised. It made <Truth> go a little further, it let him stretch the Skill’s definition. Where before, he could use it to resist mental effects, or let others know when he was telling the truth, as well as all the benefits it had had as <Unrestrained> and <Limitlessness>, it now stretched a bit further.
It let him manifest his <Truth> a little, for one. He could let it influence reality and his body more. He could also rely on things that were similar… say, if he threw a rock and his aim was true, then it’d be hard to miss. <Resolution>, a Skill meant for regenerating himself from nothing, let him change the resolution of his vision, drawing distant objects into focus, for example.
<Unravel> could now be used in an entirely mundane way, like taking apart clothing or other fabrics. <Babbling Brook> became capable of actually summoning a small stream of water.
It wasn’t a massive change in any of these Skills, but it let him feel the boundaries of where a Skill should have ended, of what it shouldn’t have been able to do… and stretch them. In fact, it felt a little like when he’d taken <Telekinesis> into <Force of the Hecatoncheires>, where he’d pushed the Skill past its limits… and almost broken himself.
Now, it wasn’t so bad anymore. He could safely and comfortably stretch his Skills a bit more.
Curiously, this was the second Skill he got that let him change how his other Skills functioned. The other was <Grain of Infinity>, which let him pseudo-inverse Skill effects. Could the two interact?
The answer was yes. If he inverted <Scope Expansion>, it turned into <Specialization>. His Skills grew more narrow, yes, but at the same time, their power redoubled. Their central aspects were enhanced, and supplemental bits discarded. Again, the change wasn’t massive, but it did represent an all-around increase in power, at the cost of flexibility.
He gave a small smile at the interaction. <Scope Expansion> was interesting. Not necessarily the strongest Skill, but it was fun. And that was the best part of it. It wasn’t powerful, but it let him be more free, to experiment and understand his Skills better. It suited him. He liked it.
Then, the only reward left was his new title.
[<Worldhealer>: Where a realm was injured, you healed it. Your ability to increase reality levels and dimensional stability is increased. Worlds will be more positively inclined towards you. Your ability to perceive and interact with reality is increased.]
A fairly flat, but noticeable bonus. He could tell how things had changed - the way he felt the world to be a little different. Reality levels had been something he was slowly becoming more attuned to, and now, that sense sharpened. He could tell where the world was thinner and thicker, and compare them to other places he’d been.
And he could interact with it more easily. He reached out with a paw, and gently plucked at a string of reality. It let him touch it, directly, and let out a resonant hum as he plucked it.
No weaving, no interactions with his mind. He could stitch the world back together with a sewing needle and some mundane thread now, if he needed to. Which was an entirely bizarre thought. But he let it go, as well.
The next thing he focused on was the affinity increase. That one was harder to feel, but definitely there. A little bit more power for <Itinerant> and <Voidwalker>, as well as making their evolutions cheaper. He liked that.
Outside of all those rewards, the final thing he gained was points. 500 Skill points, and 5 levels, to be precise. Which meant he had one more thing to look at. “Status,” he said.
=
Status:
Mercury Rainfall Starlight
Level: 9 -> 14
Species: Lumyron
Titles: <Worldhealer>, <Guest>, <Worldweaver>, <Relentless Will>, <Successor>, <Star Usurper>, <Trialist>, <Patient Learner>, <Mountain Usurper>, <Tenacious Genius>, <Forest Usurper>, <Tutorial Completer>
Alias: Beast, Mittens, dum-dum, Yr’enzel, Biso
===
Hp: 903/2950
Mp: 4054/4054
Sp: 1700/1704
===
Strength: 146 - > 151 (+5)
Vitality: 280 -> 300
Dexterity: 167 -> 172 (+30)
Agility: 193 -> 197(+30)
Intelligence: 235 -> 255 (+40)
Wisdom: 255 -> 265 (+2)
Willpower: 505 -> 525
Luck: 349 -> 364
===
Ability points: 200
World points: 15 000
Skill points: 2000
===
Gold: 51 950
Beast familiars: 2/2
=
[The individual's Vitality has surpassed 300! Your control over your shape increases.]
He looked at that last notification and snickered. Then, he poked Appy with his mind. ‘Are we done for the day?’
[No more pending notifications,] she helpfully confirmed.
Mercury looked outside one last time, enjoying the starlight drifting in through the window. He could feel it resonate with him softly, a gentle hum of kinship. And he nodded to himself.
Now, he’d earned a few days of calm before the next piece of trouble appeared.
So why, when he woke up in the morning, did he do so with a sunburn?
2025-10-06 01:34:31 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 268: Sometimes we Suffer
[Evolutionary Fusion confirmed. Engaging. Please pick an option to evolve the Skill into. The price will be the same (1100 Skill points), no matter which you choose.]
[1. <Steel Spider>
2. <Carve>
3. <Reap>]
[<Steel Spider>: Your web is magnificent, and you weave it from metal. Each of your threads is thin enough to slice through blood and bone, and the individual’s control over it is impeccable. Ensnare your enemies and cut them to ribbons.]
He regarded the evolution with a tilt of his head. It was very cool, Mercury noted, but it was also rather simple.
[<Carve>: The individual treats cutting less as violent and more of an art. To sever is the same as to weave. That does not make it any less lethal - this Skill allows the user to draw an inescapable cage of iron, but takes the idea of cutting into the realm of creation. Weave your violence into an artwork, and follow the thread to a designated target. Nothing is out of reach.]
This one sounded far more like him. To take cutting and turn it into creation appealed to him. And he enjoyed the idea of using it in different contexts as well. <Sever> had been a little too volatile to use on cake, for example, but this probably wouldn’t be. He liked it.
[<Reap>: All life is fragile. See the thin thread that people hang onto, see their thin veneer of existence, and cut it. The user gains the ability to draw other’s life out into strings, and draw those strings into their web. Cut them, reap them, weave them, until all of life is your web and nothing remains.]
His final option sounded very cool, but also very edgy. It was also kind of something he could already do, if he combined <Unravel> and <Dreamweave> and the Dream of Starvation. Also, it was so focused on murder, which felt a little, well, pedestrian? He didn’t really want to kill people anymore.
No, <Reap> wasn’t for him. With a gentle breath, Mercury chose <Carve>.
[The individual has acquired the Skill <Carve lv. 1> through Evolutionary Fusion!]
Instantly, the change washed over him. Two Skills became one - but their individual effects still remained. Mercury was perfectly capable of creating mundane threads, spun like spider silk. But now, the world was different.
When he activated <Carve>, everything turned into lines. It was a fundamental thing, a designation that said that everything could be cut. Not just cut, though, but carved. Shaped, and improved via removal.
Everything was connected. The whole world was a place to create things that were meant to be enjoyed. And all of it could be cut into shape. Sometimes, connections were unnecessary and needed to be trimmed. Sometimes, they needed to be traced and changed.
Mercury could see it all sprawl out in front of him in something that was faintly reminiscent of his <Tapestry> yet ever so different. It was something he could build, too. He traced one of the strings that he could see with his Skills active, and then <Carved>.
It fell apart. A connection severed. It was one that wasn’t big or noticeable, just a connection between two rocks that had laid particularly close, and now tumbled away from each other. But he could see it all unwrap before him.
Looking hurt, just a little. And there was no one right way for him to do things. The world was like a block of marble, ready to have a statue carved out of it. These places more so than anything else.
Realms of sin. They were malformed, rotting wounds on the world. He saw them as blocks of wood, full of knots and burls. There were streaks of decay, infestation and rot. But despite all that, he could see that there was something hiding underneath.
Rot formed a pattern, decay drew lines of bright and dark into the world. He looked at it, and activated his skill for the first time. The world shook, and Mercury <Carved>. Festering decay was removed, cut aside in long flakes of world-matter, dissolving into strings that fed Mercury’s dream.
The chaff was repurposed and remade. Taken apart until none of its essence remained, returned to primordial building blocks. But what remained of the realm was… cleaner. Less horrid. Less suffering. Mercury breathed.
Once again, he <Carved>.
- - -
Time flew. Flakes of reality rained on Mercury as he put his new Skill to use. It was brutally efficient. Equal parts creation and destruction, taking the bits and pieces of the world, and making his own web from cuts and cutoffs. It was a bizarre experience, but he did see what it meant. To create by removing.
Cuts became an art. A mercy. A change for the better. He was equal parts barber and woodworker, and stonemason, and weaver. The world was his subject, and his claws shaped it. Pride had arrogance removed. Greed’s excess was shaven off, and Lust lost its wildness. They all learnt restraint.
But in doing so, they grew incomplete. They were melded, half-molten pieces of a puzzle, breaking due to their lack, and consuming each other. Bits of string melted and flowed, and Mercury gave a gentle sigh. He <Carved> some more.
Jagged edges became smooth. Half-dissolved world-wounds were cleaned, their flaws polished, their sins cleansed but highlighted. They became a monument of the past, holding a better future. Every streak in the wood remained, but that was fine. It did not need to be uniform. The age of these wounds, the sins they committed, were also a part of their history.
But he carved the atrocities away. He could not undo them. People had died. But he could prevent any future ones.
More things were lost, and yet, there was a gain. Symmetry, balance. Mercury left raw edges where he could, but he took away their sharpness. Every violent end was dulled down, and he drew his claws across the world like a carving knife, whittling away at it. He polished, cut, reevaluated, and cut again.
Until, eventually, after hours and hours, he was tired.
There had been no interruption, because after his first cut, the avatars had lost their strings. He looked at that connection and removed it. Golden statues, faceless dealers, lustful beasts… they all fell. He removed the root, and then worked on the piece. He breathed.
In front of him was a network. A web, a terrifyingly large web of cuts, where he had carved into the rot of reality. Layer after layer he’d peeled away at what made the sins horrid, and removed it for the future. The capacity for horror, the desire for pain and domination… was gone.
Now, these places had some capacity for good.
Of course, they would never be complete by themselves anymore. That was already set in stone when they fused. But that was alright. Mercury had made them into pieces that fit. He breathed in, and wove.
Strings attached and drew taut. The web he’d made suddenly changed, the strings pulling at each other. Each cut drew on another, and in a rippling, cascading motion, they all snapped towards the center. There was a single click as the pieces fell into place, and Mercury let out a sigh.
He unsummoned the Stifled Silence, and the silver filling the gaps in the world faded. What he was left with was a calm place. A shelter.
It was a gazebo in the rain. An umbrella against a harsh sky. There was confidence and desire there. Confidence in the self. Desire for happiness. And the initiative to reach out and take it.
What he’d made was a place… where people who wanted to die could go. He blinked, and realized it. “Ah,” he said, smiling faintly. “Seems I’ve accidentally created Hope.”
And with that small name being granted, things drew even tighter. The edges of his artwork came aglow with threads of silver light, drawing into rivers and ribbons. They laced through the edges of this pocket dimension, and the frail, woven connections fused. Mercury looked at the lightshow and nodded.
He saw it for what it was. Chronagen.
This world was one made from dreams and people. It was one that was so real, and it was also dreamt up by everyone in it, by everyone’s desires. This place he had made was to be granted to people who desired death but deserved better. And that was a nice thought.
Mercury hoped he’d never need it ever again.
With a gentle breath, he watched the ribbons of light fuse this place properly, heal the wound on the world, and turn it into something new. A scar, yes, because that is what festering wounds leave behind, but also a mark. Of life, of healing, of moving forward. Because scars mean survival, and survival means hope.
A moment later, Mercury fused his minds back into one, sank into ihn’ar, shattered the veils, and stepped back across that eternal nothingness into his own house.
- - -
Blood dripped on the wooden floor. Mercury blinked as he became largely corporeal again, and remembered the fact that he was rather… incomplete. He hissed for a moment, before letting the pain drain away, largely. There was a little more than his Skill could stomach, but that was fine.
He quickly wove himself in dull grey armor, letting the Dream of Starvation lick at his leaking blood. <Hydration> and <Resolution> were already hard at work stitching him back up. His armor licked the blood off the floor, and he simply let himself calm down. His frayed, frenetic heartbeat slowed.
Mercury listened to the sound of rain on the rooftop. And it was raining again. Stormbraver was one of those cities, the kind where the cobblestones never remained dry for too long. He sighed, softly, and then walked up the stairs, into his hammock.
Zyl sat at a table. They’d expanded the upstairs a bit, adding a desk for him to sketch on - Mercury had learnt a “sticky” rune from the mage’s guild, and enchanted a few stacks of cut paper with it, that Zyl used to put little sketches on the walls. Sticky notes, effectively.
The dragon turned towards him. His red eyes wandered up and down Mercury’s frame, scanning the dull steel. He frowned. “How much of you is missing underneath there?” Zyl asked calmly.
Heck. “About half,” Mercury said. He didn’t even have eyes to see, but he could still tell what Zyl’s expression would look like. His boyfriend frowned wearily, dragged a hand through his hair, and gave a long, suffering sigh.
“You keep coming home when you’re almost dead,” he said, sliding the chair backwards from his desk. He got up, walked over to Mercury, and kneeled down. His hand nestled against the cold metal of the Dream of Starvation, wrapped around Mercury as a dark metallic skin. Zyl tilted his head. “You keep getting into fights. Why?” he asked. “Why do you not let me help you more?”
There was a sad note in his voice. A pain that said that he wanted to do more. Mercury took a deep breath, though his lungs were still regenerating, so it filled his mouth with blood. He quickly swallowed that, turning his head to look into Zyl’s eyes. “I need to do it myself, Zyl,” he said.
“Why?” the dragon whispered insistently, leaning forward. “Why do you take it all on by yourself?”
And to that, there was no kind answer. Mercury looked at his boyfriend, at his lover, and simply had to be honest. All he could do was give the truth and hope it wouldn’t break them apart. He took another second, then spoke, his voice a hum carried in the rain.
“Because it’s who I am,” he said. “I relish it. The challenge, the pain, the growth, the change. I get to make the world a better place, Zyl. Just a little bit.”
A small look of pain flashed across the dragon’s face. “Why can’t we make the world a better place, instead of you?” he asked, almost desperately.
Mercury smiled gently, ruffling Zyl’s hair with a ghostly hand. “Because you already do,” he said. “You are incredible. But me?” Mercury shook his head. “I know that you disagree. Heck, most people in Stormbraver probably would. But proving over and over that I can do good… helps. It makes me feel useful. Even if I suffer. Even if I hurt. That all fades. But the fact that I’ve helped remains.”
For a long moment the silence hung between them. Zyl leaned back, going from kneeling on the floor to sitting, crossing his legs. He leaned back, looking at the ceiling, listening to the rain.
“So, that’s all? To prove yourself?” he asked, quietly.
“Not all,” Mercury said. “I don’t hate myself, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not compensating for some deep-seated loathing or anything. But I want my own achievements. My own legend. The more I match yours, the more easily I can welcome you in mine.”
Zyl hummed softly. “That’s true,” he said. “You have taken me along more, recently.”
The mopaaw gave him a smile. “I try.” And he did. Every single time, he tried to accept help. And sometimes, he failed. Sometimes he ran into certain death and came out the other side. Sometimes he was cocky and arrogant and needed to be faced with that. And he was okay with all of it.
Every bit of pain that came from his own overconfidence was fine. He didn’t mind it at all. There was a beauty in being challenged, in putting his all on the line to make the world better. Sometimes, he would do that. Right now, there were no two ways about that.
“The world isn’t your responsibility,” Zyl said. “Not every problem needs to be solved by you.”
“Yeah, I know,” Mercury said, sighing gently. “But I have a habit of making problems I see into my problems.”
At that, the dragon nodded with a gentle, sad smile. “It’s something I love about you. That you take initiative. That stupid sense of justice and fairness. That you try to bring the best out in everyone, to make them into the best versions of themselves.” He sighed, gently. “And I hate that you do it for things that try to murder you.”
Mercury faintly nodded. “I know. But someone should give them second chances. It can’t be those hurt by them.”
Because he remembered how his encounter with the sin of Gluttony had gone. The place that had killed his friends. He’d broken it in turn.
Compared to that, the sins that now tackled him got off easy. They got away with a few changes, and their natures fundamentally inversed, but… well. Some part of their legacy carried on. He could forgive them.
Even Bael, who had once been an avatar of Gluttony he could forgive. But when it came to the servants of the crimson sun? They were all dead. Not a single one left alive.
That was the funny thing about second chances. People should do better after messing up. But they were never owed forgiveness by their victims. To learn, become a better person, and bring more kindness into the world… Even people who’d fucked up could do that. Even the sins, places responsible for mass murder, could be turned into something good.
But could Mercury look someone in the eye who’d lost their best friend or their lover to Pride or Greed… and ask them to let it go?
No. He couldn’t. That anger would be there forever, even after something changed. It was a fair anger, even. A reasonable one.
Zyl looked at his boyfriend for a long while. He traced a finger along the Dream of Starvation, the cold metal shell coating Mercury. Then, he sighed, the faint moonlight glinting in his eye. “Take off your armor,” he said.
“I look rough,” Mercury warned carefully.
The dragon just nodded. “I know. I still want to see.”
A small shiver ran through Mercury, but he nodded. “Okay. Please, try not to hate me.”
“I won’t,” Zyl promised.
With a thought, the metal shell around Mercury shifted. He could have dispelled it at once, but that would have hurt. Instead, he controlled it. Condensed the metal into itself, making it take less area.
First, it faded, exposing the parts of his fur that were still healthy. Bits of white were revealed as the metal sank away. That lasted a few moments.
When it retreated further, raw patches of skin showed. Placed that had been cut and broken by Pride. Bite marks, where chunks of his flesh had been torn out by Lust. Blood pooled in the wounds, his flesh slowly writhing and growing as his body was putting itself back together. Strands of mana turned into flesh.
But then, the metal kept shifting. It unveiled the horror that had become of his face. Missing his tongue, lower jaw, and both his eyes. It peeled away from his chest, showing the cavity in which his heart beat to open air. Blood dripped into a puddle on the floor.
“That looks horrid,” Zyl said calmly.
Mercury shrugged, though the motion came from his shoulders. All his legs were missing, and as the metal kept creeping back, he was lowered to the ground, his prostheses shrinking until he was left laying flat on his stomach, four raw, bleeding stumps for appendages.
“It’s pretty bad,” the mopaaw admitted, the pain becoming more raw as his blood touched open air.
The dragon sighed, then reached out, nestling a hand into his boyfriend’s healthy fur. “You wanna see a healer?”
“No,” Mercury shook his head. “Right now I wanna regenerate pretty badly. And I think it might take my self-healing to the next threshold."
A sad smile snuck onto the dragon’s lips at that. “I thought you might say that.”
“You don’t like seeing me suffer,” Mercury noted.
Zyl shook his head at that. “I don’t,” he said. “Yet, you’re here. Hurting.”
“It’ll fade,” Mercury said.
“It will,” Zyl agreed readily.
“So you don’t have to watch me suffer,” the mopaaw said, smiling to the best of his ability - poorly.
Again, the dragon shook his head. His hair shone with the moonlight, the pooling blood gathering around Zyl’s shoes. It didn’t stain his clothes - they were too meticulous for that, but Mercury could see it pool around him. “I don’t have to,” Zyl said. “But I will, anyway.”
At that, the mopaaw tilted his head. “Why?”
“I must learn,” Zyl said, eyes glinting with warmth, pity, care and kindness. “And I will. I’ll learn that sometimes you need to suffer. Sometimes, that’s how life is. Sometimes, I can’t solve that problem. And it-” his voice broke, and he gave a small chuckle, wiping his face. “It sucks. Seeing you bleed, seeing you broken. It sucks. But you know what? Sometimes you suffer. I don’t want you too, and that’s okay.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” Mercury said.
Zyl chuckled slightly, a soft kinda noise. “No, no need. You have nothing to be sorry for. This is life, sometimes, right?”
Mercury nodded, but couldn’t meet his boyfriend’s eyes. Instead, he withdrew his mana and insight into himself, letting the world around him dim. Until it became just the two of them, and the slowly pooling blood on the ground. “Sometimes, it sucks,” Mercury said quietly.
“And it’ll pass,” Zyl added, slowly brushing a hand through bits of fur that were still white. “It’ll fade. You’ll heal, and things will be better.”
“I’ll get hurt again,” Mercury said. The salt stung in his empty eye sockets.
Shrugging, Zyl nodded. He chuckled again, his chest shaking slightly with laughter and sadness. “Yeah, I know.”
“I’m sorry,” Mercury said.
“Zazaza!” Zyl laughed properly, for the first time. A sad laugh, but a true one. “You’re hurt,” the dragon said. “Don’t apologize, dummy.”
Mercury raised his head, meeting Zyl’s eyes, though the mopaaw looked a little blurry in the dragon’s vision. “Accept them, anyway?” he whispered.
A long, quiet moment passed between them. “Alright,” Zyl said, leaning forward and kissing Mercury’s forehead. He rested his own face against the mopaaw’s head for a while. “You’re forgiven,” he muttered into Mercury’s fur.
“Thank you.”
Zyl nodded once. Then, he was silent for a while. When he spoke again, it was a simple request. “Heal quickly, will you?”
“I’ll do my best,” Mercury replied.
“You always do. Try a little less hard at some point,” Zyl chuckled. “I love you.”
“Love you too.”
For the rest of the night, neither of them spoke.
2025-10-03 03:06:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
Ru came at me like a missile.
It was a brutal, violent motion, the rock shattering beneath him as he launched himself forward. He was wrapped in scarlet fire, cascading down him like rivers of magmatic blood. The sword grew in his hands again, metal warping with a screech, going from a rapier to a longsword, before growing some more, into a montante.
The metal howled as divine fire reshaped it, and glowed an angry red as it crashed into my spear. Ru had not summoned anything - he was not one to keep spirits around. All his strength was his own. The epitome of a lone warrior, a general of massacre, standing at the front of a bloodied field. That was his legend.
Astraeus screamed as he struck Ru's sword. The collision was brutal, quick, and efficient. I stabbed, he parried and reposted. I wound with the longer part of my spear, driving his weapon outside, stepping in to strike him with the butt of the weapon. He stepped backwards, just out of reach, then blocked my follow up, catching it on his crossguard.
For a single blink, the clash was purely martial. A heartbeat later, it turned much, much more than that.
Invisible spears made only from my will mixed in with ones woven from my Qi. That resonant song pulsed through my veins, speeding me up, making time feel malleable. Whenever Ru sped up, so did I, the world warping to accommodate me. Air shattered around us again and again, the breaking sound barrier humming with the rhythm of the fight.
Violence blossomed between us. My willpower scraped his flesh, and his bladed flames dug into mine. But he wasn't too far beyond me. I kept up. Despite everything, I kept up.
Another version of myself grew from my wings. Vivi, who was ready for deployment in Eden, dragged herself out from those golden shapes. She laughed as she saw our opponent, giggling with madness and manifesting her spear in her hands. Like a rabid, starving wolf, she tossed herself into the battle.
A heartbeat later, Ru’s willpower chopped off one of her arms. Blood pulsed from the wound in tune with her heart - but only once. Then, a metal prosthesis sprouted like a flower, growing to replace what she’d lost. Vivi only laughed, tossing herself into the battle once more.
Her rabid movements created openings, forcing the god on the back foot even when he defended himself. I shifted in to exploit them. Flickering motions of shifting limbs in a tangle of violence. Astraeus boiled with power, our combined maelstroms turning the world into a mess of blurring colours.
Reality warped at my fingertips. Willpower so iron it manifested into invisible weapons struck Ru, slamming into armor woven from divinity and hard-headedness. He fought like a battle hungry maniac, that same glint in his eyes as Matt. He laughed as I moved in.
When my spear slammed into his stomach, piercing through, spraying blood all across the snow, he laughed and punched my face in.
My nose shattered, blood pouring from it before another, healthier version superimposed on it. I healed, but still stared at the god with disdain as he kept laughing. Blood poured out of him. “Yes!” he praised, despite that. “Now you fight! Like a warrior! Show me your fangs, show me the last howls of your death, monstrous one.”
Divinity poured from the heavens in streams, and Trichtera’s wings caught fire. Blood poured out of the wound even faster as Ru fed the mortal shell, burning her from the inside out. He did not care about this angel, I noted. Did not care about the violence, about the warping of the world.
They mattered to him, of course. They mattered, because this was his world, and it was his to warp, his to fight battles in. Another chain of possessiveness, another link in the net that would keep me caged. He never would have tolerated my ascension. After all, Ru was a warrior, and slaughter his bread and butter.
I breathed. The shattered air still filled my lungs, cold ice calming me. Saph still sat in that cage of Divinity, staring at our battle. The song in my veins thrummed, and sang, and hummed in fury. I heard its bloodlust rushing through me, the notes of defiance and freedom. It told me to soar, demanded I took to the skies.
My wings beat again, musical notes humming in their wake, figuring out the potential of this new power. I coursed Echo through myself, making myself even faster, finding those frequencies where things escalated, and the hidden rhythm of the fight. My heartbeat throbbed, and the song fused with it.
Steps turned to drumbeats, slashes to violins. Violence sang between us, and the notes dragged me along with their demanding purpose. Vivi relished in the blood that sprayed her in every exchange, her own or someone else’s. She enjoyed the violence, avenging those that had caused our deaths in other worlds.
Other versions of me had already fallen to Ru. I felt it in the resonance, the song whispering of the possibility of defeat. But the possibility was not this reality. I drew from every victory and every loss, yes, but I still built my own legend. My own symphony.
The song sang louder, and I sidestepped a brutal blow. An alternate version of myself closed in, and we traded places. I flickered through the [Hall of Mirrors], avoiding strikes as I teleported between them. Reflections upon reflections of myself formed a path through the storm of slashes, the flood of fire.
I stepped in close, within reach, and called upon that resonance. The song pulled me along - but I refused. I was not pulled. We moved as one.
Bloodlust broke against my mind, and the symphony turned crystal clear. It sang as my wings beat, speeding me forward as the world warped. Ru shifted to block, but he was too slow. Astraeus pierced him again, slamming through his shoulder, turning his right arm limp.
Blood pooled in the snow, the battlefield stained red. It crunched and sprayed with our every movement, flakes dancing in the air, breath misting as we fought. Another exchange, and another version of me died, saving my life. We changed places. I healed. Ru did not.
Willpower and Qi stabbed into him, and the song within me took a higher note. Frantic, frenetic with energy that pulsed. Yet, again, I refused to be a puppet. I would dance with it, not to it. We were one and the same, that power and me, so I wanted.
I waited until the resonance strengthened, heightened, and then exploded forward. In tune with the song, listening to that invisible beat that told me a little bit of what Ru would do - and that thought caught a glimpse of it. A prescience that had not been there before. A knowledge, no, an instinct. I did not need to think, not need to see, I simply knew what Ru would do before it happened.
Because he, too, was bound to the song. Not because he was weak, but because he dictated it. If I could tell the next few beats, I could anticipate Ru’s moves.
It wasn’t exact or perfect, but I felt the change ripple through me, through the world. When he stepped, I knew how he’d land, and my body responded more smoothly. Excellence squeezed from me, my understanding of his fighting style skyrocketing at a prodigious pace.
And that was the truth of it. Ru could have killed me quickly had he attacked an hour or two ago. Hell, the fight would have been easier on him five minutes ago but… I was a bit of a genius, and a bit of a prodigy these days. More so than ever before.
Through the network, I felt it. The way I learnt. I adapted, as Chris would. ÄUnderstood the song like Ann did, and directed it in the way Matt might. It coursed through me, with me, beating higher and spinning in whirling tones. I dodged, cut, and carved.
Trichtera looked at me with wide open eyes, bloodshot and furious from Ru’s takeover. Yet, I could still see her behind it. Her shock at what I was doing, at the fact that despite everything, I was winning. And Ru saw it too.
He frowned, and more fire poured from the skies. The clouds evaporated, and the lilac sky had turned blood red behind them. The snow was replaced by scarlet rain, the kind that pressed down on me. The snow underneath my boots turned to mud, making it harder to step, harder to find footing.
I blinked, and saw corpses strewn about. Ru grinned a cruel grin. There was a weakness that washed over me as I blinked the sight away, a staggering kind of dissonance. My eyes opened to find a field of bloodied snow, and the descended god charging right at me.
Again, I moved, trying to shift through the [Hall of Mirrors] - but I lost my balance. I slipped on wet snow, and the montante dug through my throat. Iron flooded my mouth, blood leaking from the wound as I staggered back. Vivi rushed in, bringing the god’s attention on her as I willed it to mend.
My Qi, too, stumbled. It felt heavy and slow, the maelstrom being choked by… whatever it was Ru had summoned. Flames burnt at the edges of the field, flashes and visions invading my eyes even when they were closed. Dizzying cruelty, a legend of blood-forged violence that hung so thick in the air it all smelled of iron.
Clawing against my throat, I felt strings of skin regrow, even as Vivi was brutally carved in two. Another version of her reappeared from me a moment later, still wearing that same feral grin. She seemed almost at home, here.
Even as she shambled and stumbled forward, she never once lost her will. And that was what this was, I noted. Will.
Ru was pressing down on us with his domain, his legend. Another application of faith, or a manifestation of his realm? I did not know, but I knew I could live, still. He could not just turn me into a corpse, or I would no longer be breathing. My skin mended even as Vivi died again, clawing free from me once more.
Blood flowed up from the corpses and into Ru, spreading his wings wider. They eclipsed the sun, shimmering with crimson light. He laughed at me, mocking as I shook on my legs. “Come on, warrior! Face me. Face me before you die!” His feet fell as surely on the slippery blood as they would on gravel, grass or concrete.
“I’ll wipe that sneer off your face,” I replied, wiping the blood from my lips. Flames flickered up from the blood, licking at the golden armor that coated me, corroding it. Parts flaked away like rust, only to be replaced by new gold, fighting against that decay. I breathed in the stench of iron, and moved, despite it all.
My balance shifted. I slid, stumbled, righted myself, and tumbled. Mirror-glass carried me forward, my view of the world adjusting as Cass helped me find my footing. I ran at Ru, my wings beating, and struck.
A moment before my spear hit, he vanished. Trichtera’s body dissolved into the bloody ground, reappearing behind me. I parried the thrust he threw with a spear woven from willpower, invisible and brutal, then spun into a slash, which he blocked, winding into me. Vivi came to his side, forcing him to twirl as she leapt over the sweep.
Both of us attacked at once, yet both were blocked as the sword split in two. Then, a dozen stab wounds covered my leg.
Willpower-blades had pierced them, and blood pooled again. I grit my teeth and stepped forward anyways. Defiance roared in my ears, and the song rose again, despite everything. It laced through my Qi, dragging it along, and my maelstrom fed into this realm.
Blood had iron in it, after all. The metal still listened.
Ripples spread across the bloodstained field of corpses, ripples in Ru’s dominance. I lost my footing again, slipping, and tumbling to the ground when all my weight was on the torn-up leg. Despite that, I rolled away from a descending stab, deflected another with a quick motion, then gave the god a kick to the chest and beat my wings to get back to my feet.
I breathed. We fought. Spear met sword and metal met flesh, over and over. Fire scorched me, seared my insides and my outsides. I burnt and bled and burnt again. But I lived.
In the middle of the bloodshed and the hurt, the disorientation, the confusion. Despite forgetting my own name, forgetting who I was, forgetting what I wanted. I lived. I still breathed. I still walked.
Somehow, despite everything, a smile crept on my face. Even when divine fire scorched my insides again, when glass and metal flowed from me like a tide, pulling and tearing at the bloody battlefield, I smiled. I slipped and stumbled and fell, yet I fought.
Ru scowled at the display. “Pitiful. You are already dead. Lay down and die,” he said. And honestly, it made me laugh.
At first I just snickered at him, but soon the joy bubbled out of me. There was something visceral about it, laughing in the face of death. Despite the dizziness and creeping dread, I felt free. Elated. Uncaged. My maelstrom howled in my chest, and I felt myself grow with every passing heartbeat.
“Hah. Hahaha! Kill me yourself, shithead god. What, you don’t got the guts to do it? Can’t even squash one mortal ant?” I taunted smugly. My Qi flowed through me faster and faster. With every second, my maelstrom ground away at the suppression, picking up speed. The divine frowned, and more fire poured forth.
It was so bright, it shone through Trichtera’s skin. She glowed like an irradiated piece of the sun, crimson patterns lighting up her skin from underneath. Blood pooled from her, joining the ground, before rising again. Streamers of violence coalesced into swords behind the woman that Ru puppeteered.
More blood rose, forming into puppets, an army of blood-warriors to wear me down. And still, I laughed. The song inside me sang, rising higher and higher. It refused to falter, refused to take a break - and I couldn’t help but agree. I stomped forward, sending blood flying. The droplets flew through the air, tiny little sanguine things…
Tiny little reflective things.
I stepped through the mirror, and in a blink, I was upon Ru’s bloody army. The golden tide spawned from Astraeus, and my maelstrom tore harder. The blood underneath my feet quivered, then shook when Vivi activated her maelstrom, too. Then Cass added hers…
And things began to crumble.
Qi and Echo burnt in this manifested realm. I jumped, carving bloody soldiers in half. Fire infested me, burning against my golden armor, but it didn’t hurt. Instead, I laughed. I spread my wings, beating them again, and speeding up with a crystalline whine.
The air stopped resisting me, friction giving away to perfection. It was all, all mirrors. Ru was nothing but that, too. Smoke and mirrors, false bravado, and a terrified, petulant bastard at the heart of him. He snarled at me, swinging his sword as if there was any meaning in that violence, as if the bodies he’d amassed were supposed to give him some credence as a god.
But they didn’t.
More power poured from me, from the world, tearing at it. The great balancer, the thing that made things shift was as simple as it had always been: Perspective.
Divinity feasted on belief. So many, many people thought that Ru was strong. But right now, standing in front of me with his petty insults, his taunts and his bloody battlefield, he seemed pathetic. If people believed in him, then maybe that belief, too, was pathetic.
My will, my decision crashed into the world. Because the world resonated with me. And that is what truly told me why the divines did not want Echo to spread. I’d thought it was the counter to Qi, and, to some degree, it was. But much more violently than that was the fact that it could counter Divinity.
My song spiralled from me, winding notes of glass and gold. Ribbons of beautiful noise streaked through the air. They danced above Ru, above Trichtera, and hummed in the air, forming lines and circles, as if painting a target.
The god turned to look at them, but when he did, I already vanished. Vivi stabbed at him, occupying his attention in another blood thirsty mistake, as I followed the noise. Blinking and warping forward, I found myself in front of one of those targets, where my song was strong, where the world resonated.
And I slashed.
Astraeus hummed as he sang through the air. He, too, was part of my network. He too was part of my song. And he found purchase on the strings that I could not see. For a brief moment, reality was cut. There was a lull in that music, a tearing noise like nails on a chalkboard, and then a faint snap. Like a string under tension being cut.
The I heard Trichtera scream.
“Ahhhh! Fio! My skin! It boils, it hurts, please. Stop him. Please. Please!” she cried.
Apparently, what I had cut his connection to her mouth, and some of his divinity. Because while Ru could not speak to me anymore, he could still fight. His arm rose and fell, trying to cleave Vivi in two. And he would have… but he was too weak.
His sword sank halfway through Astraeus’ shaft, but the other version of myself had snatched his blade itself. Her golden gauntlet was cut, her hand bled, but she grinned at him. “You’re mine for now, little warrior. See which one of us bleeds more, hm?” she asked, giving a sweet, cheery smile, before bashing his nose in with her forehead.
I simply vanished. And cut again. A hum, and a snap, and then one of Ru’s arms let go of the blade. Instead, it held the other one down. “Stop it! Stop it, Ru!” Trichtera demanded desperately. “Stop possessing me!”
‘Avatars are meant to be wielded. Do as I ask, Trichtera. This warrior has become a parasite.’
His voice rang down from the sky, making my bones rattle, but I still smiled. There was desperation in there. Vivi and the half-possessed woman clashed again, sending sparks flying, blood spraying, but I could see the edge of the battlefield now. Bloody corpses tried to come at me, but Astraeus' flood of gold beat them back. Another movement, and I snapped another string, straining the resonance of my song with a dull screech.
Yet, that was enough.
With a third cut, the blood finally cracked, and was replaced by a tidal wave of stone. Emilia stood by Trichtera’s side a moment later, encasing her in a small mountain of rock with a single stomp. I could see the music hum in her, the way we resonated with one another. A third voice joined that chorus when Chris appeared, and a wave of icicles rose from the snow to shred the last of Ru’s warriors.
The song rang higher. I fought, and snapped the strings. One by one, Ru’s puppeteering was carved apart. But it wasn’t just that. It was his connection to this world. The faith he could receive. It was a million pinprick connections to everyone who believed in him… and I severed them. Bit by bit.
Even once Trichtera was free, I still heard them. Even when Eric healed the angel’s frail, burnt out body. When she laid in the snow as a gently healing husk. I kept cutting.
Ru’s voice turned from a demand to a whimper. The divine cage around Saph broke. And yet, I kept cutting.
My rhythm slowed. Stella appeared to watch what I did as well. Cuts covered the world, arcing slices that coalesced around nodes where strings of faith had been. My nova churned, and I kept cutting.
A tapestry of slashes kept appearing as the minutes passed, as my song turned to a gentle, slow hum, a rhythmic stepping where one motion followed another. It took half of a full hour in order to complete the action, but by the end, there was a circle slashed into the world - no, more of a sphere.
It was a three dimensional thing made from a thousand flat plains where my spear had passed. A rend so perfect, it created an isolated thing of space. Almost tentatively, I reached out, grabbed that section of reality, and pulled.
My hand peeled away the world like a strip of loose fabric. Behind it was a shimmering sphere of mirrors, glinting a scintillating red. And inside, caged by a thousand singing mirrors was… Ru.
Not an avatar. Not a puppet. Not an altar. But the god’s real body. A bear-like beastkin, twice as tall as me, and so muscle bound it was terrifying. He wielded a great deal of weapons on his back, his leather armor was bloodstained, and one of his eyes was permanently closed by a scar.
Despite that, when he faced me, it was with lamentation. “Ah, warrior,” he greeted with a sad smile. “Have you dragged me out here to kill me?” Then he looked at the lilac sky, and nodded once, as if to himself. “I suppose dragged is wrong, isn’t it. You simply carved away my divinity.”
“What?” I asked.
Ru tilted his head, but there was nothing threatening about it anymore. I could feel it, after all. What had happened to him. Instead, he just looked at me, incredulously. “You broke my Divinity, warrior,” he said, holding a hand to the sky. “This world is still my home. But it no longer belongs to me. I am no more a god than an ant is.” And despite that, he smiled. “So, will you kill me?”
I blinked, and looked at him, and then I shook my head. “No.” And at that, he smiled more. “You wanted your Divinity stripped?” I asked.
“Who can say,” Ru said with a shrug. “Belief… Divinity, it twists the self. I was too weak, warrior, so I broke. Then I broke again, and now, I begin anew. You have granted me a new beginning.” He dipped his head to me. “You have the right to strip that from me. Kill me, if you will.”
Then I sighed. I looked at Trichtera, the way she blinked at me slowly. "You want me to kill him?" I asked.
Her eyes hardened for a moment, and her mouth opened with a croak, but she ended up only spitting ash. In the end, she simply shook her head, and I sighed again. "Go off, then, Ru-"
“No, my name is Rufus,” he said, almost gently.
“Fine. Go off, Rufus. Do whatever it is you wanna do. Just don’t cause any trouble.”
“This world is still my home. I will protect it. But… perhaps, you can do more for it than me. Your song seems less sinister than I am used to. Please, keep Eden safe if you can,” he said. And then, he dipped his head again, and walked off. Broken, yet free.
Maybe he and I were alike, in that way.
I looked to the sky. Well, not quite alike. I still had a little ways to go, and a few more things to do. But I would find my freedom. No matter what.
2025-09-27 16:57:47 +0000 UTC
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Now, I think there are very few words for describing how novel an experience it is to get struck by divine lightning. It is nothing like getting zapped by any lightning cultivator. I’d know - I later on asked Rae to zap me, just to confirm.
But this was far different from that. Like all powers, Divinity played by its own rules. And what it excelled at was breaking down the powerful. I was not as powerful as the divines, looking purely at my cultivation realm, but with Echo in the mix? Things were different. Resonance had changed me, changed me enough that I was a legitimate threat to the balance of this world.
That’s what allowed the divines to act. Usually, they would be bound by causality, chained to their own realms, due to how they interface with the power. But this time, for the first time ever, I got to properly face a god descended on the world.
Everything went white.
Power arced through my veins, crawling through every bit of me that was even slightly flammable. It seared, spearing through my blood and into my heart, driving a brutal stake of pain through me. My flesh boiled and scorched, blackened patterns spreading across my skin, my teeth clattering.
The pain was there for a moment, before electricity overwhelmed my nerves. All my muscles seized up. But then, the true brutality of Divinity started.
Inherently, it is a power meant to interface with others’ beliefs. Divines harvest it from people giving them credit for good actions. They use it to influence the world, to tip the scales. It comes from belief, and is usually bestowed to those with belief.
So, with that inherent connection to belief, the bolt crashed directly into my willpower. With violent force, it slammed into my mind, burning all my thoughts for a moment, leaving me staggering black.
Another bolt followed instantly. Then a third, a fourth, a whole orchestra of brutal thunderclaps rocked the mountains, leaving me embedded in the rock, having forgotten who I even was.
My name had disappeared from my mind. The thing that wore my skin felt wrong, displaced. It remembered nothing, not my past, not my present. Little more than a bedragged thing wearing my skin, it grit its teeth.
And stood up.
When the thunderclaps stopped, a thing with blackened, cracked skin in lichtenberg patterns rose from the cracked ground. Saph stood to the side, staring at me, caught in a cage of divine light. She regarded the motions of what was almost me with curiosity, the way my fingers twitched, the way my hand moved through my blackened hair… and the way my fist still clutched my spear.
Another bolt of lightning raced down - but this time I was ready. Animalistic instincts sang in my mind, and I lashed out. The sound barrier broke from the simple movement .Astraeus slammed into the lance of electricity like a lightning rod, dragging in the terrifying power. A quick spin, and the terrifying blow was redirected into the ground
I snarled at the figure in front of me. Trichtera. Blood red hair cascaded down her shoulders, glowing faintly, and wings of fire spread behind her back. She wielded her rapier, clutching it in two hands as if a longsword, and humming flames coated its edge.
Her eyes were so dark they made me flinch back. She spoke, and it was not her voice. “So you show you true colours,” he said. Ru. The god of war, battle, destruction, fire, rebirth and redemption. “You sing the song of the usurpers. You speak where you should kill. What happened to being a warrior?”
Lost in instinct, all I did was snarl, slide my right foot back, and prepare my spear. My mind was iron. Unbreakable. But it was cracked, I was not thinking straight, and I paid the price. Snarling, I circled the thing that wore Trichtera’s skin.
A moment later, we both vanished.
The air shattered around us, crinkling with pressure. I stabbed forward, and Astraeus sang of steel as he crashed into divine fire. Flames licked my face, turning my skin hot enough to boil water, but it barely even registered. I was far too tough, now. Far too fast.
Our weapons spun, and in a single passing second, we fought an entire battle. Ru struck at me with brutal violence. His longsword - that’s what it was in his hands - hissed through the air as a precise implement of slaughter. It sang with blood-red fire, glancing off of Astraeus as I parried, sliding into a thrust.
He pulled back and beat my spear aside with a parry so brutal it almost dislocated my shoulder. Half an instant later, my arm was back in place, and [Hall of Mirrors] saw me flickering back in place, spear slipping inside his guard without ever completing the motion.
A kick took my legs out from under me, but I stopped the spin in the air, dealing another parry, then flickered behind the divine made manifest. I stabbed at his back, but flaming wings turned bladed and sharp, shredding into my skin, flaying it from my body in a ragged noise of hurt.
I didn’t yell or scream, but growled. A snarling, animalistic fury, as I tore towards the god. He scoffed. “Pathetic,” he said. “You give in so easily, then break even easier. There is no honor in slaying you, and yet it must be done. Perish, upstart ant, so that the board may tilt in our favour again.”
Rather than replying, my spear sung forwards. Ru tilted, avoiding the blade by a hair’s breadth - my Qi crashing into a barrier of blood-red light. In exchange, his sword flicked at me. The motion came as fast as a blink and as light as a feather. I lost an eye to it, the sword stabbing into my face.
Another howl tore itself from my throat, but I flickered backwards before the fires could lick at my brain. It hurt. But that hurt drowned in the greater suffering that sang in my blood. The knocking on the back of my mind, as if there was someone trapped.
Trapped in a mirror world, speaking to me in words I could not hear, could not understand.
Instead, I clutched the spear. Gold flowed through me, mending the wounds already. It resonated and sung, twisting with the crystal resonance of my song. Metallic Qi reassembled, growing around me, my wings chiming, growing. Disconnected crystals turned into full planes, bands of light trailing behind me as they beat.
One motion that shot me forward before the world could react. I stabbed, and Ru moved to parry. I flickered, and my spear appeared on a different side of his sword. His eyes widened, Trichtera’s eyes widened. There were tears in them, as she looked towards me, towards my snarl and my missing eye, and a faint smile when my spear stabbed into her side.
It hit just below her ribcage, slicing through flesh as tough as concrete. I snarled and pressed, but Ru shifted. A flood of fire washed from the wound, pushing my weapon aside, and crackling scarlet lightning crawled from the tip of my spear up my arm. It ached, and I ducked. The slash still cut a neat line across my forehead, skidding off bone.
We exchanged another strike. A thin trickle of blood down his neck, and a gash on my thigh that made me stumble, just for a moment. Divinity poured from his wounds in blinding rays of light, a curling, bloody shape beneath that spoke of war. Ru was not kind, he was not kind on his angels, and he was not kind to me.
He snarled as he regarded me. “Beast. You cannot fight me like this and expect to win. But that is what you are. A monster, one that I will put down.”
The sword lashed out, and I parried - but it wasn’t a longsword. The tip of fire simply dissipated, and suddenly, I was in the wrong place. Ru stepped forward, and cold steel slid between my ribs.
Somehow, I tilted my head. There was something oddly familiar about this moment, about the way there was a hole through my lungs, through my heart. Almost by force of habit, I reached out and grabbed the sword, moving to shatter it.
Of course, it was far too tough. But that memory dragged bits of my song upwards. A soft resonance of history, of the legend I’d woven. Of how I’d healed.
My mind snapped back into place, just a brief moment before the weapon ignited with brutal, divine radiance.
[Bell!!] Cass cried in my mind.
I blinked at the sword in my stomach with my one working eye, at the wounds that covered my skin. “Oh,” I said. Then I looked up at the cruel god wearing a crying woman. “Oh,” I repeated.
Cass, finally, manifested. All her power poured out of my gateway, a maelstrom of Qi drowning out Ru’s face. Glass consumed me, wrapped inwards, and I… I vanished. I reappeared inside the Astral realm, fully. My entire body warping inside myself, turning to liquid gold and disappearing.
My keeper, Cass, stood in front of me, looking at the bleeding, burnt hole in my chest. Part of my ribcage was missing. Actually, the hole through me was almost big enough to push my hand through. It was a bizarre feeling, and I would have spoken if not for the blood pouring from my mouth in a torrent.
“Bell, oh, no, no, no,” Cass cried. I heard her words but they felt dull, like I was underwater. It hurt to exist. Blood didn’t flow properly with my heart so broken. But still, I stood.
The floating avatar of a girl that existed within me hovered over, touching her small hands to the wounds. She traced them, the blood staining her glassy hands. “No, Bell, please. Please.”
She looked at me, worried, terrified even. All the while, the song inside me built.
It was a strange, self-consuming symphony. So new, yet resonating as if it had always been there. Building into a crescendo with every moment, every time that my heart should have beat but didn’t. My blood stilled, feeling like ice in my vein, but the song thrummed.
Threads and notes danced at my fingertips. I welcomed them, welcomed the familiar hum of survival, the song that sang when I lived on. That told me I would recover. Tones turned to bands of light, sinking into my weary blood, and driving it forward with a rhythm. More poured out of me, more blood pooled beneath my feet, and yet… it flowed.
I smiled, despite everything, and pat Cass’ head. My lips moved, but words didn’t come. My lungs were completely destroyed. Luckily, my dearest keeper could read my mind, so I just had to think it. ‘Don’t worry, Cass. I’m okay.’
Eyes wide, she kept staring at me, stuck in shock. The blood poured again after having stymied its flow before. Threads of gold laced themselves together within me, though. They did not form a heart, but instead, wove into simple channels. Little capillaries that my blood could flow through before it was needed again.
Driven forward by song and gold, I smiled. It hurt. It hurt bad, but it would pass. My mind felt clear. Some part of me might have been wiped away by the lightning. Something smeared into the ground as only a faint memory. Fear turned to ash, powerlessness but a memory.
My lungs [Superimposed] onto a picture of a reflection. Metallic glass rippled, shuddered, and then flesh reappeared. Muscle and bone grew. My heart was back after about ten heartbeats, and I breathed. A long, deep breath.
“Hey Cass?” I asked. “How did you drag me within myself?”
She blinked at me, then drew me into a hug which I readily returned. For a moment, she just sobbed, then shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I was scared and just… pulled. I pulled and pulled and- And there you were. In front of me. In my reach.”
“I healed ‘cuz of you,” I said. “Thanks.”
“That’s my duty, isn’t it?” she said, snickering as she wiped away a few tears, only to cry more on that facsimile of a face she had. “To keep you safe.”
Smiling gently. “Yes, my dear keeper. So. Let’s get back out there and kick Ru back into the dust?”
A small shiver went down her back. Cass, unlike me, did not have her fear blasted away by divine lightning and the entire adrenaline store a superhuman body could house. But she didn’t need to. She was brave. So, she nodded. “Yes. Let’s get him.”
- - -
Light rippled in front of the divine. Ru turned to where his foe, the warrior turned monster disappeared. He frowned, deep lines wearing into the skin of a woman too delicate for his touch. Even now, she burned. Faith like this always hurt. Divine intervention was unpleasant, but necessary. That was the duty of an angel.
“Now stop rebelling,” he snarled at the woman he was using. Her hands forced his to tremble on the hilt of his sword, her tears blurred his vision, even as he stomped to kill the usurper that had finally drawn their warrior into temptation.
Voices swarmed his mind. Hir cried for him to stop, Archiva was beside herself at his ‘idiocy’. The two were fools, to believe that anyone could resonate with the Echo and still fight for them. No, he had seen better people than that otherworlder fall to it, and he would see more fall in the future. All of them would have to be put down.
Yet, she was gone, so it would start with the crystal usurper. The living, compressed nest of Zurulen. He sighed, brandished his sword at that divine cage, glancing at their indifferent position with indignation. “Perish, parasite,” he called.
Saph regarded the blade raised at her with the simple precision of someone waiting to die. They didn’t flinch at all, and instead simply sat there and watched, even as Ru readied himself to kill them. Even when golden glass poured from nowhere to form a person.
My stab caught the warrior god’s hand while his weapon was held high. He hissed in pain and spun to face me, giving me a furious glare. “You return,” he spoke angrily. “You hide like a coward and come back whenever is convenient.”
I blinked at him. “Yes,” I said, “that’s how a tactical retreat works. But don’t worry.” The song in my veins thrummed, humming to my words like a particularly excited audience. I shifted, readying Astraeus and leveraging the tip of the spear at the god. “This time, I won’t run.” All I had to do was beat a god.
2025-09-26 05:06:28 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 267: Shifting, Cracking, Breaking
Mercury stood in front of the statue of gold, and he demanded an answer. His Skill triggered, and it pulled at the thing that was an avatar of three sins. It was a thing of voice, of expression, and it had to reply.
“We,” the statue started, for it was not truly one thing anymore, “are alive. We live. Is that not enough?”
That was as much of an answer as it was a deflection. Mercury took a long, deep breath, and felt this melded world. An overlapping cruelty, a wound of three cuts, each driving a little deeper. It was a pattern of hurt more than it was a place, and that hurt was infectious.
Much more so than ever before, Mercury felt it. The festering world pulling at who he was. This place was not meant for living things, it was not meant for people with identities and wishes. It was a living space for caricatures of life. Things that had overgrown and become so divorced from being alive that they only existed. And therein he found his rebuttal.
“You don’t live,” Mercury said to the statue. “You’re alive. You exist. But you do not live.”
A thousand faces twisted into cruel smiles. “Ah, it has found us out. It has spotted the lie.”
The sin amalgam turned its golden limbs upon Mercury. It grew tooth and claw and looked upon him from a place high above. “We are superior / we will gut you for what you’re worth / we will enjoy you,” it spoke. Multiple voices, all at once, but at the end, they were just that. Voices.
Disparate but melded into one. Existing as a tentative agreement. And having to face all of it at once, Mercury was torn into a maelstrom.
It took only the blink of an eye for living metal to crash into him. Violent implements, forged by nature and competition, tore into his flesh. Mercury’s was hardened, of course. His skin was tempered, his muscles like iron, and still they parted. He fell apart before their viciousness, as bits of him were pulled off.
He tried to dodge, or block, but it was meaningless. This world rejected him, and it was heavy. Every time he thought to do something, it was rejected by this place, because it wasn’t greedy, it wasn’t prideful. He was too little sin and too much virtue, and so, in this place, he was doomed to die.
Wasn’t that funny, he thought, as his stomach was cut open, and blood sprayed. What an amusing thought that this place did, indeed, give him a choice. That choice was to die… or to sink into sin. To join the festering wound, that self-propagating infection. If he became a virus, he’d be safe. Embraced, wanted, worthwhile here.
Despite everything, Mercury refused. The insidious temptation flowed out of him like water flowing down a river. The gentle sound of falling rain enveloped him, but it was a thin shield. His drops broke through the amalgam, and the winds buffeted it, but it was a behemoth. A leader of an army of golden things that were meant only to kill him.
Mercury had made enemies, and those enemies had banded together. And wasn’t that a strange thought? That the roles were so inverted - people usually put him on the deathbed, sought out to kill him. And then he hit back. Yet, this time, he was the one with the advantage. The sins had bonded, because he could have picked them apart one after another.
Had Pride known that? Was that why it had joined the others? How amusing. “You’re pathetic,” he said. “You could not face me on your own, so now you ally with others. What pride is that?”
There was a crack that followed, a ripple in this overlap of wound where the scars took hold. Threads of weave clung to those words, even as more of Mercury’s blood sprayed .His fur was cleft apart, and then mended again, because pain was nothing to him. He simply <Resolved> himself, wove himself from threads of his own will, and the amalgam boiled.
“We are greater than you,” they snarled. “We will prove our pride with blood.”
“You spill my blood, yet I still stand. This dance of yours will never end,” Mercury intoned. Almost naturally, he found a rhythm to his words, and he felt the world-wound listen. Frayed threads, rapt at attention.
“Then your bones will snap until you break, until you are the one unmade,” the statue countered, driving a hammer onto Mercury.
His rijn solidified above him, a sheet of iron will to resist the smash - and then it broke. Not because it was broken, but because it could never properly appear. A giant, metallic weight slammed onto Mercury, even as he stepped aside to dodge. The Storm’s Raiment softened the blow. He almost escaped, too, until the ground refused to let him step.
<Itinerant> tore at that boundary, but it was too slow. Metal crunched bones, and part of Mercury was eviscerated. With the parts of his mouth that were left, he let out a weary sigh. And then, slowly, he reconstituted himself.
Before his body fully reformed, more attacks rained down on him. Amusingly, even as they fell like raindrops, he simply focused. The world slowed, and he triggered <Combat Sense>, too. It was… such a strangely straightforward fight, but perhaps he should have expected that.
A step to the right, and the world tried to hold him - only to falter. This place was strong, but it could not shackle him forever. He was free, that was the <Truth>, and with every passing moment, his truth proved superior to that of this place. It existed, but he lived, after all.
So it changed strategy.
One moment to the next, the blank world of gold shifted. And suddenly, Mercury did feel that this place wanted things. Pride was unlike the other two in that way - Pride only desired to be superior, and it was perfectly fine being static at perfection.
Greed and Lust, though, were all about wanting. The first about means. About money and power and fame, and the other was a more intrinsic desire. It had nothing to do with other people, it was a want simply for the sake of wanting. It was in pleasure of all kinds, and in that way, he found lust strange.
Because, in this context, it was a simple seeking of happiness. An unabashed desire to live and thrive - at any cost. Lust, in a way, was selfishness. It was a simple desire for joy, no matter who was hurt, no matter how directly.
Compared to that, Greed was calculating and sneaky, while Lust was craven and unabashed. Right now, Mercury found himself in the domain of Lust, fused with the others. Like a highlight reel of humanity’s worst, this world reached for him.
Pride manifested as an iron suppression, a lockdown on who he was, what he could do. Lust was different from that. Mercury felt light and easy, and yet, the world took part in that. It was teeth and hunger. Lust for his flesh, in a rather visceral ways.
The ground turned to fangs, rows of teeth opening up as yawning chasms between his legs.
Mercury fell. He took a step upwards, only to fall further. He had only a heartbeat to think, to summon the Dream of Starvation, but before the grey metal grew to fully envelop him, the terrifying maws had already torn off his legs. Feeling sharp fangs sink into his flesh was scary, and the pain flooded him, even as it ebbed away.
For the first time in a long while, Mercury began to feel a hint of fear.
That, too, was amplified by this place. The moment his heart started beating, he felt his adrenaline surge, his desire for life grow. It was a primal sort of terror, existential, almost, and Mercury hated it. He hated how he shook even as he willed himself forward. That he felt so helpless, when he wasn’t.
Platforms of iron will manifested, no longer resisted by this place. His fear drove his mind to new heights, and the rijn wrenched the mouths open. He formed a macabre toolkit of pliers and levers from his own mind, forcing rows of teeth apart, even as they bit down with enough force to shatter.
A moment passed, and he climbed out from that fleshy abyss. Dripping with saliva and stomach acid, Mercury felt his skin dissolve and regenerate at the same time. It hurt. It hurt bad enough to overwhelm his calm, and he was already sick of this place. Yet, just as he thought so, the world shifted again, cycling into another sin.
Gold spilled forth. Mountains of gold, glowing billboards, neon signs. Exploitative vices seeking to drain him for everything he was worth. Where Lust was ready to break and bite and tear into him, such was not the way of this place. Greed was an attack on his will, on his control, and, unfortunately, it was inviolable.
Mercury blinked, and found himself in a casino. The waiters around him swam, none of them coming into clear view. Another blink, and he sat at a roulette table. “Bet,” the croupier beckoned. “Bet whatever you have.”
The mopaaw grit his teeth, and sank deeper into his own mind, fortifying it against the effects. The blurry world grew sharper, and his thoughts flowed again, fighting against the maelstrom of vice that this place was. He breathed, and rain fell around him. It shattered the table, broke the things, and then, he felt more force crash into him.
His prosthetic legs, made from liquid metal, gave out. Mercury was forced to the ground. “Property damage,” the casino owner noted dryly. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. You’ll have to pay for that, champ.”
A ragged scream wrenched itself from Mercury’s throat, as debt took him into its clutches. He pulled back on that invisible chain, dulling the effect, clawing back what he owned, but the price was still extracted. Blood willingly poured from his veins, leaking through his metal shell, turning to golden coins in the hand of the owner.
The blurry avatar of golden greed grinned at him. “Pleasure doin’ business,” it said.
Mercury shot it a furiously glare. “I challenge you to a game of-”
Before he made the bet, the world shifted. Pride’s violent suppression slammed into him. The amalgam, self-embodiment of perfection, superior of all sins, stood above him. “You are pitiful,” their melded voices said. “You are nothing.”
Crushing weight blanketed Mercury, choking the words in his throat. Rules changed the moment he grasped them, and the world slammed into him. The word first, and then another torrent of violence. Pride shifted from claws and fangs to hammers and blades. Metal screeched against metal as golden swords tore through the Dream of Starvation.
It was a violent battle between the two - with the Dream eating away at Pride’s weaponry, and yet, that degradation was faint. Rust and decay covered the swords, but that did not make them any less painful slicing through Mercury’s flesh and bones. He leaned on <Itinerant>, and the path opened despite the world’s suppression. Yet, he was slow. Weak.
But not pathetic, he decided. Never, ever pathetic. That was not who he was, that would never be him. His own <Truth> roared against this world’s suppression, and the chains of weakness fell away. Mercury dodged, rolling on the ground, evading another slash, and glared at the statue.
<Sever> triggered, and an invisible line of force carved through the world, shearing off one of the statue’s heads. Gold fell to the floor with a loud clang, only for it to be replaced by laughter. “A pathetic rebellion against inevitability,” the statue spoke. Mercury frowned at it, and the world shifted again.
The rules changed on him. He was caught in that desire again, of lusting for life and its essence. Carnality descended, and he felt the way his flesh strained against his bones, as if his muscles were trying to escape from his body. With a snarl of effort, he kept them under control, clinging to his skeleton, moving forward.
Lust wanted to feel, to taste, to run its hands through his fur, to crunch his bones in its maw, and he hated it. Every moment of that violating, horrid plain, but he also needed to understand it. Despite everything, Mercury focused. He discarded the pain and the fear. He discarded the brutal beatdown he had experienced.
He had not lost yet.
Clarity washed over him in a moment. The world shifted, trying to throw him off, drowning him in Greed. Things trying to take from him via existence. But he remained <Lucid>. He saw through it all, and the world sharpened. “I wager-”
Before he spoke, it was Pride he faced again. But this time, before the first strike came, more power flooded into his <Truth>. And that was enough.
<Grain of Infinity> was a source of power, an inexhaustible engine in his heart. Every thump of blood through his veins, and more of that energy flooded the world. The laws of pride, the snaring suppression? It cracked against his truth, against his freedom, and then those cracks spread.
The first weakness was as follows: Pride is fragile.
From that fault, courage was born, and fear died. The flickering ember that threatened to ignite his mind was slowly stifled as the golden statue, and the wound-world it represented cracked. Instantly, the world shifted. Mercury predicted it, though, because Pride was fragile. It was a coward which could exist only in supremacy. Even a challenge of that was enough to hurt it.
And next would be Lust-
Greed welcomed him in its infernal bindings. Rules, regulations, wagers. Already, it all rearranged into a golde cage for him. A facsimile of freedom, served up with a smile. People acting as if they were his friends, only to bleed him dry. The whiplash was different.
Mercury had shifted to understand Lust, only to be met by an opposing conflict. He had prepared himself for vicious brutality, requiring rules of his own, only to find himself ensnared. In the blink of an eye, he lost a dozen bets, and his body was unmade. He lost his ribcage first, the bones simply slinking out of him. Then came his liver, his kidneys, his tongue, and his eyes.
Without any violence, no blades or fangs, the things simply melted away from inside him. His body began to flag and fail, his blood pumping aimlessly, his heart unprotected, his lungs without the means to breathe. Drowning on his own blood, Mercury’s empty sockets widened, and he summoned air within his chest. <Rainfall> redoubled, but he drew the storm tight.
Layered just above his skin, the rains raged. He prepared himself, shifted to counter greed, challenged it with skill and knowledge and disengagement. He challenged it and ran away, all at the same time. Except, when he fled, the world shifted back to Pride.
That sin saw his fleeing and took it as a cue of superiority. It laughed, and mocked, and bound him once more, dealing more cuts to his flesh. His unprotected chest, no longer shielded by bones, was flayed open, and the pain reached far beyond what the <Babbling Brook> was meant for.
For the first time in seasons, Mercury felt proper pain again. Searing agony of his flesh being broken and shattered and torn. He tasted blood on his tongue, felt the ringing in his ears, the lightness of his head, and he shut it all out. His mind separated from his brain. He withdrew, sunk deeper into understanding, his mind splitting.
One dealt with the pain. Three more held Pride in a vice, and the fifth conjured up violence upon the statue. The cracks showed, and the world shifted. Mercury now knew he could not anticipate the shifts, so he had to wait, until Lust unveiled itself.
He grit his teeth, and resisted with everything he had. Withdrew into himself, into gratitude and a focus on what he had. He did not need more, he was not a prize to be had, and he felt the violating spirit break against him. It sniffed at his blood, came for his wounds like a shark, but found only an iron mind.
Mercury bled, but he did not bleed for Lust. He killed its joy, and in that, the sin threatened to fracture. Before he could pull the thread, though, it was back to Pride. When it was Lust, he’d admitted he bled-
And so, more violence.
- - -
Blood poured from Mercury. His lungs had been torn from his chest. His muscles were torn and shredded, and his skin had been almost entirely ruined with wounds. He was ragged, injured, missing organs and entire limbs. Blood flowed from his empty eye sockets, from his open chest cavity, and he still lived.
Despite everything, he lived.
His heart beat, his brain raced, and he sank deeper. Deeper and ever deeper into that world of pain and hurt and agony. His mind was split five ways, strained to the limit for what felt like hours. Switching, over and over, to combat the sins, in a brutal battle of attrition.
It was something he was meant to win, but they healed faster than he did. Because when he combated one sin, another used that thought pattern and exploited it. What he needed was different, was more. He needed to be stronger, to become more, and so, he embraced the agony.
The veils were long since shattered, his mind deep in ihn’ar. He understood everything, he had summoned all his items. Liquid metal swirled around him, the Dream of Starvation as his shield and weapon, the Stifled Silence wrapping around the world, and the Storm’s Raiment holding him in its embrace. He ran <Grief> and <Rainfall>, but it was not enough.
All of him, all at once, was deemed to little, an opening Pride exploited brutally.
Pain, more pain. Suffering. Sin. It invaded his mind, thin tendrils that he had to fend off. He tried to <Manifest his Dream>, but it did not answer his call. Oh, he could feel it, trying to weave itself into existence, but the wound ran too deep. It carved into the world, and he could not press against it, not enough.
He bled, and he flagged, and he ached. But all of that, all of that was fine.
Life was never meant to be easy. Mercury could handle it when things got tough, and things were tough right now. It just meant that he had to give his all and then some. He wanted to live, he noted, with a smile.
There was nothing he wanted more than to live.
Wrapped in the tapestry of meditation, Mercury stared. The sin he faced shifted again - Lust, to exploit his desire. And so, he shifted, too, matching its pace. He became a beacon of cold steel, again. Greed wrapped its chains, but he tore them in a storm of violence as they manifested.
Stalemate.
By overclocking his minds, all at the same time, he had slowed time enough to keep up. He swapped when the sins did, matching them blow for blow, step for step, idea for idea. There was no respite in that, though, just a cloying dance for his survival. If the sins moved left, so did he.
His body regenerated, but every tiny mistake he made meant another piece of it shattered. A bone, here and there. A group of muscles. It hurt and ached, but he lived. He lived and matched them, even as his minds burned.
[<Hydration> has levelled up. <Hydration lv. 8 -> 9>]
Blood boiled and sizzled against worlds of cruelty and domination. But Mercury lived. He inched closer to death, but it slowed. He thought. With just a tiny, fractional part of his mind, he desperately clawed for a solution. Even as he took more wounds from his lack of focus, even as the world grew sharper in the vivid colours of death.
His vitality clung to his body like a thick blanket, blood misting around him. He had to find a solution, and he looked. He stared into the mana, expanding his own in a torrent around himself, only to have that siphoned by Greed. He focused his will on the sins, trying to <Unravel> them, but they shifted too quickly.
No, he needed a weapon. Something violent, something brutal. A weapon… and a target. <Sever>? <Sever>. He’d bet everything on it, he decided, on its evolution.
A long, deep breath. Mercury needed to hit, so he shot it out. Lust caught the fallout, a great, brutal rend covering the world as <Sever> intermingled with <Dreamweave>. The sin was wounded, weakened by Mercury’s iron discipline - and then it shifted away to heal.
But he would not let it escape. Mercury sunk deeper, deep into the haze of pain and violence, leaning into it. He felt it, every bit of agony inflincted, and he saw through it. His blood was a part of Lust. It had taken his legs, and that was a connection.
A thin thread, bringing them closer across the tapestry. He had taken from it, and it had taken from him. They were almost… adjacent.
Pride locked down his movement. <Itinerant> flared - and flagged. It failed, he could not follow… but he did not need to.
Grinning savagely, Mercury focused on that connection, on where Lust was hiding, and he sent a <Sever> along that <Thread>. A wave of force, shivering along the <Tapestry>, along the web he himself had willed into existence on it, a tenuous connection turned solid by a shift of perspective.
A lie, a truth, and a trick of the light. But the Skill acquiesced. <Sever>, for the first time, projected outward onto something he could not see, could not feel… and yet, he could cut it.
[<Sever> has levelled up! <Sever lv. 9 -> 10>]
[<Thread> has levelled up! <Thread lv. 9 -> 10>]
[<Sever> and <Thread> have met the necessary qualifications for evolutionary fusion. Fuse? (1100 Skill Points)]
He blinked the notification away, unable to focus on it for the moment, simply watching as the blade of ethereal force travelled down the <Thread> of the <Tapestry>. It was such an innocuous little connection, but it sustained the blow for its lifetime, until it slammed home.
The Dream of Starvation howled as soon as it made contact, drinking deep. It was hungry, and spread its cruel influence through Mercury’s Skill. Usually, such wounds would be mended by rest… but Lust could no longer flee.
Mercury watched, and the cut connected. Lust - the ardent desire that was hidden behind layers of Pride and Greed - was cut. Its paper thin skin parted, hunger carved in two and replaced with hunger. It starved. It bled. It learnt fear.
All at once, Mercury could feel the way Lust came apart at the seams. It was almost fascinating to watch it happen. The way the cracks in it spread, the way the sin shrank away in the face of terror.
And that was what happened. Somehow, an entire dimension had tried to run away from Mercury and failed. He carved it, planted that seed of nightmare through his weapon, and sucked the life from it. That was what the Dream of Starvation did - it drank deep from his enemies, implanting fear and hunger, and that is what Lust felt.
Its joy at this dance died. Its superiority faded. Pride cracked from the display; seeing that Mercury could simply avoid it meant that he was superior in that way, so it shifted to greed. The only one whole.
But the swap was predictable, this time. Mercury knew which one he would face, and shifted accordingly. He met greed with nonchalance. He met it with poverty, and self-sustenance. He did not need to wager. There was nothing he needed.
Greed worked best on the greedy ones, amusingly. And Mercury… well, glancing at <Shop>, he supposed there was at least some greed in him! Surely. But that was fine. Because he did also need to meet the sin where it stood.
Challenges were its rules, and Mercury was untouchable to its scams, so it had to wait for him to set the challenge. “Appy,” he said calmly, while Pride and Lust cowered. “Make a <Bet> for me.”
[Acknowledged.]
For a moment, the system whirred. The ability initiated, interfaced with Greed, and the sin’s tendrils easily latched onto it. Anything to take another pound of flesh, right? Mercury grinned, even as blood poured from his wounds. The casino’s floor was stained red. He blinked, and found himself in front of a table.
One that was decked with chips, cards, and everything else. Across from him was a thing made from gold. It had eight thin, spider-like hands, and wore a blank mask of solid metal. It cleared off the desk, scattering the gambler’s material to the ground.
Mercury felt his Skills deactivate, one by one. The combat-based ones, consumed by bet, unsuitable for this game. He wasn’t even told the rules, but that was fine. His offense was temporarily sealed away, and he allowed it to happen, letting the game fall over him like a blanket that hid the world.
Greed produced a simple thing. It was a beating heart. Mercury’s own beating heart. And there was just one thing it wanted him to do.
Turn it into money.
Now, Mercury did take approximately a quarter second to get over the shock of seeing his own beating heart on a table, outside of his body. But after that, he very rapidly considered his options. In the end, there were two, maybe three things he needed for this.
Then he smiled at the masked thing. Four tools. That was what he needed. Luckily, he had all of them available to him. Mercury activated the Stifled Silence, watching liquid silver crawl amongst the floor. It poured forth from him in a steady stream, and it would form an ocean, but he only needed a drop.
He used that, in tandem with <Grief>, to change his own heart. It was already similar enough to metal, thanks to <Tempered Body> and his understanding of the substance. It was a little funny, seeing threads of silver invade his flesh, replacing it. And it took all his focus.
Without <Oceanic Consciousness>, his minds burnt. It hurt to keep them all active, and he felt himself grow weary, but he maintained them nonetheless. Even though the strain was exhausting, even though he shook from blood loss, even though pain clouded his vision, Mercury kept it up.
He threaded silver string after silver string into his heart, and by the end, what he was left with was an organ made from shining quicksilver. It shone in the dim casino light, reflecting the gold mask back at its many-limbed owner. But it was not yet done.
Mercury breathed. Then he sunk deeper into ihn’ar. He dove into that lake of understanding, and swam deeper. It was heavy. Like a pressure wrapping around his weary mind, and it made him feel a little like he was drowning when he looked at the world. And yet, he kept it up.
After all, he’d choked to death once. He could handle a second time.
With one last plunge, he sank deeper than he ever had before, and even without <Lucidity>, the world grew stark and bright. He saw the threads, the way things interacted, the core concepts that constructed everything. <Tapestry> was locked, so he could not connect them, but he did still have his third tool, <Unravel>.
So that is what he did. He <Unravelled> his heart. A spool of string opened up from it, winding pathways of ethereal silver. Mercury looked through them all, brushing through them in a rush. His eye sockets bled and burnt as he beheld the word, and his head was almost splitting with pain.
Still, he held on. He focused, with everything he had, and searched. Desperately clawing through a maze of threads for the detail he needed - until he found it. Slowly, he smiled. He’d found the thing that described the heart as being made from quicksilver. Just one more thing. One more step.
Mercury used his fourth tool - Greed.
He stared at the avatar, at its golden mask, and saw through it. Ihn’ar revealed its strings, its composition, too. He stared deep into it, everything that made the mask what it was.
A thousand pieces of information crashed into him. A million details about the mask, the sin associated, the lives turned into ruin for profit, the blood that went into making it. He discarded all of those.
None of the waste, the blood, the cruelty, the exploitation mattered. He had a way better way. Blood leaked from his mouth as his body began to incinerate from the information. His brain boiled, his mind began to fray at the edges. But he held on.
All he needed was one detail, one little thing… There.
The third layer of ihn’ar was the lie of separation. It told him that all things were connected, and even without <Tapestry>, he could pick out similarities. So, he had turned his heart into silver. And now, he looked at a mask of gold. He saw the patterns.
With gentle movements, perfectly controlled, he shifted what his heart was made from. Silver turned golden as he altered its very composition. The avatar instantly tried to tear off its mask and hide it from him, but the pattern was spotted. He put it in place, let the pattern snap back into reality, and instead of a silver heart, there was one of pure, untouched gold.
No blood, no cruelty.
Greed shattered.
[You have acquired the Skill <Material Transmutation> through a <Bet>!]
When his boosting Skills flooded back into him, Mercury breathed in relief. His blood reversed its course, flowing back into him, and his mind gained more depth, more force. He had voluntarily cut himself off from that, exposing his vulnerability and forcing Greed to do the same.
Only one of them still lived.
Lust was forced to the forefront. It smelled of fear, of terror, of cowardice. The Dream of Starvation had tasted it once, and left it hurt. Desire suddenly faded in front of consequence. A scar dragged itself across the sky of the realm, its threads torn and mangled, and Mercury simply looked at it.
He raised a paw - one woven purely from dull steel, the Dream of Starvation forming his prosthetic - and dragged it across the sky again. Another gash opened up, rending this world, and it grew unstable.
Pride was forced out of hiding. It had hid behind Lust, and that hurt it more. The cracks through its gold were so wide it was more broken than whole. Mercury smiled at it.
His fangs were stained with blood. He was still torn open, flayed, barely standing. He was hurt and near-death, but he wasn’t dead yet. Despite everything, he stepped forward. And the avatar of Pride, the titanic golden statue made of superiority and glorious, resplendent, crushing power… staggered backwards.
Mercury licked his fangs. He tasted iron. His throat burnt. His blood still spilled, even as he healed, <Hydration> pushing his body to mend, in tune with <Resolution>. Bit by bit, pieces of flesh reappeared inside him, muscles regrowing, bones mending to restore him. But before that, this would end.
“So,” Mercury said. “You failed.”
The world was fragile around him, and he felt it. Greed had lost, and it had to pay. Lust was afraid, and its desire cracked. Pride had hidden from him. Their overlapping wounds were still too little to restrain him anymore.
Mercury’s dreamscape slowly crawled out from him.
It was a creeping process, one that Pride feared. Grass grew in a circle around Mercury, spreading outwards. The world resisted, but with each passing moment, more of Pride crumbled. It was losing, and it knew it, so it lost harder. Pride could only sustain itself when it was already winning.
Once the tides turned, it just kept cracking away.
Soon, wrought iron benches and lampposts with tinkling crystals of ice overlaid this horrid place. Grass grew between the legs of the statue, and it stumbled back more, falling on soft earth. Whisperstar flitted down from the spreading patchwork sky to get a good look at it.
Mercury stepped in front of it, looking at the cracking, breaking thing, and sighed softly. He felt a little bad, really. “It’s alright,” he said. “You don’t need to be perfect. You don’t need to be better than anyone else. It’s fine to do… just okay,” he said.
Then, he severed the avatar’s connection to Pride.
It was a swift, brutal motion, and the thing collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. It was never alive, simply a manifestation of cruelty. Mercury sighed at how easy it had been, the connection between <Sever> and <Thread> so evident. He looked at the notification, at the crumbling world around him, and breathed.
Silver poured forth from him. The Stifled Silence drew from his <Grief> at yet more tiny worlds dying, and an ocean of metallic mercury spilled forth. It filled the gaps, the cracks, and stopped the crumbling. Mercury’s dream still spread, the pressure against it weakened, and it hurt to hold it all together. But he just needed moments.
Again, he looked at the notification.
[<Sever> and <Thread> have met the necessary qualifications for evolutionary fusion. Fuse? (1100 Skill Points)]
“Yes,” he said. “Initiate Skill fusion.”
The points flooded out of him, and the options sprawled outwards. Hopefully, with this, he’d be able to salvage some more of these places.
2025-09-23 03:04:29 +0000 UTC
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Where there was nothing, there started a song.
It echoed across strings of glass, mirror-diodes and hearts. Across a shared connection, both intimate and distant. A promise to look into the future together.
The song sought the connection and swam across it. Ann was sitting in the living room, reading from a book she’d picked up a few days prior. She was resting, sitting comfortably, when her heart thrummed.
Mana-glass pulsated with power. It was so loud she heard it, and then the melody lit her blood on fire. Not a painful fire, but the kind that she felt when Fio whispered to her. The kind that pulsed with energy and want and love. The kind that promised that there was nothing they could not face.
Ann heard it, she heard the song, and felt it thrum through her veins all at once. A promise, a resonance, an Echo of who she was and who she could be. Perhaps, to some, that would have been overwhelming. To others, it would have been enough, it would have been a comforting sensation.
But the mage was a genius. She was a former goddess. She had reached the summit of existence - and she would reach it again. Not as a divine, this time, but as a mage. So, when she heard the song, there was only one thing it could be.
Insufficient.
It was not enough, because nothing could ever be. Ann felt echoing notes thrum through her existence, heard them thread themselves through the others, their thin connection strengthened. She felt the way that the music entwined with the talents that they shared, that were transferred between them, and felt them reinforce.
All at once, she became a bit more of a prodigy. A bit more adaptable, a bit more hardy, a bit more of everything. And it was deemed too little. Inadequate.
Her mana raced through her veins, and it met the song. A torrent of liquid magic cycles through her, the circles around her heart expanding. Five circles to encompass who she was, five circles that spun with power that could level cities. All at once, she turned it on herself.
Magic burnt. It hissed through her in an explosion that tore her blood vessels open - or would have, were they not reinforced by that same energy. She gently closed the book and placed it aside, casting a dozen spells in the space of a breath. Reinforcement. Enhanced Focus. Time Manipulation. Compression.
The song suddenly grew. It arced in tone, and echoed each spell over on itself. The magic fed the song, and the song fed the magic. Mana thrummed with resonance, and Ann felt the way it changed. It went from gaseous force to ephemeral strings.
A tapestry that wove her very being. She reached for those strings, and played them lke a harp, driving the song higher. She added her own notes, she matched the Echo at every step, and demanded more. Demanded she be more, because she was more. She was a genius, and within the span of half a minute, she’d melded this force with her previous cultivation base.
Echo bent to her will. She understood where it came from, she already drew the conclusion of why Fio had lanced it through the network, and she already added her own symphony to it. And yet, she was angry.
Because, half a millisecond before she finished, somehow, that fucking Rat had done the same thing!
- - -
Matt was a prodigy. When the song reached him, it was just before he swung the sword. When the motion was halfway completed, the song thrummed and enhanced it. When he finished the single swing, he had woven his own part into the symphony.
It came as naturally as breathing to him. Power. He was meant for this. He knew what he was about.
Tragically, Matt was a swordsman. It took a single swing and the song sang of his storm. Blossoms danced and whistled, each movement of his blade another resonating note, each gale of wind marking a new beat, a repetition, an enhancement.
Echoing threads glowed in his core, each petal resonating, duplicating, humming like the dying embers of a fire, like fireflies in the night. He felt the storm ebb and flow around him with newfound strength, with support that was unlike anything before, he felt his mind speed up as the world heard him.
His will was absolute, as sharp as his blade. The world heard his song, and was carved apart without resistance. A thin smile appeared on his lips.
Somehow, Fio had done it again. She’d found yet another new step-up in power for them all to exploit. And then, he frowned. When he thought to check, Ann had already mastered her usage of Echo. He furrowed his brows. That damn genius just had to show him up, didn’t she?
- - -
I shook my head. Looking at the absolute insanity that was my friends. I had barely just conceived of using Echo as a resource, and not even a minute later, Ann had created a new Mana-Echo amalgam. Matt had somehow fully integrated it with his Qi and created a sub-core within his maelstrom.
Then a few minutes passed, and the archmages followed, as well as Liam, Reya, Emilia and Marie. Everyone across the network got the hang of Echo quickly, and each resolution was easier than the last. Because every time someone added to the strange song, more of their talent flowed through the network.
Which was good, because I was going to need it.
Unlike the others, my integration did not go as easily or smoothly. No, I had a bit of a tougher time, because when I picked up the song, it suddenly spread. Like an infection, it spread across every connection I had - and for our network, that was useful. They fed the song. I could feel the resonance building from that.
But it also spread to my spear, Astraeus. Even to the gateway within me. The song spilled into Cass, and then it spilled through that portal, and in one blindingly bright moment, it infected everything.
Every version of me. Every alternate reality that had another Fio in it, every success, every failure, every ongoing battle. A million, billion, trillion instances of me suddenly saddled with Echo.
And then their resonance crashed into me.
That was when I learnt what violence meant. In a single, all-consuming blast of noise, an Echo brushed by my soul. It was magnified infinitely, an unspeakable number of worlds each adding more to the song. A cacophony of noise so unimaginably loud I cannot describe it.
I felt like an ant caught up in a tsunami. It was as if the entire world’s ocean suddenly crashed into my fragile shell. The sheer ambient pressure was enough to rupture my skin, to crush my bones. In the first heartbeat, my eardrums popped. Then, every single blood vessel in my body shattered at once.
Describing it that way feels like an injustice, but it felt like within the span of a second, I was turned from a human to a bloody smear on the ground. The sheer volume of power was so overwhelming I should have simply died on the spot, and yet, that power also reinforced me.
It was mine. Despite being created by so many different me’s, and all of my friends, it was a strength meant to be shared. The song bled across the connection, and the roaring torrent fed into my friends.
Matt’s Qi surged, and his sword turned sharp enough to cut the world in two. Ann’s Mana heart spun faster, the energy humming and screaming, as her spells supercharged, and she caught a glimpse of the entire tapestry of fate at once. Even Reya’s Divinity redoubled, and in a single moment of divine fortification, the Echo fed into her forge, and she smithed the beginnings of true divinity, breaking through to the fifth rank as well.
Liam fed the Echo to his wellspring, turning it into a maelstrom. Marie lit up like a beacon, developing a three-threaded energy meld that fused her wellspring into her Mana heart. Emilia simply stood and endured, like the wall she always was.
Power threatened to consume us, but instead, the chorus rang higher, our voices sang louder. Even with my bones shattered, the golden glass within me was the same, and I knew what I needed to face.
That I was no longer human.
My skin washed away like ash in a breeze. It flaked off me, and the blood disintegrated. Heat washed over my body, and the dirt that could have once been considered biology was stripped in moments. Instead, what remained of me was gold.
Golden glass.
The thing that had been underneath my skin, growing with every gateway I absorbed. This was where Ion and Vivi had come from, too. This was… my gateway, my soul, my inner realm, my maelstrom… it was me.
My Qi responded to my will. My iron will, which remained despite everything. It moved when I wanted to. It shifted with my desire, and it held steadfast in the storming song. Even when the noise got so loud my mind should have broken, it never did, because it was simply noise.
It was the world roaring as it witnessed all my lives, all at once. Each step ever taken, each step not taken. Every possibility realized, every battle won. It drew from my best and my worst, from each life and each death that I could have gone through. And I breathed it all in.
Resonance filled me. My existence Echoed across the realm, and I felt the song thrum and climb and grow like a living thing. It melded with my gateway, threaded through it, and soared. It Soared through endless Freedom. As I was meant to.
My ruinous wings spread. Crystals, droplets of golden glass hanging in the air, refracting the setting sun across the snow. Golden light wrapped around me in rings, and the star within my chest burnt brighter. The nova within me grew, consumed, and sustained itself off the song.
The gateway within me reflected each and every usurper I had ever faced. The way they used, threaded their powers was mimicked, and their states of mine were consumed. [Superimposed Experience] flared like never before, as a hundred thousand experiences threaded through me.
Perhaps I should have leaned on the strongest one. On the frog-demon who seemed to haunt me. On the flame-giant as it killed Orvan. On the one that had burnt my skin off before Stella saved me, but all of those experiences were only fuel to the fire.
No, the one I listened to was of the leyburn.
At the very beginning, where I had been shattered and reborn. Now, too, it was happening again. A song filled me, every corner of my existence, and when that began to flag, I thought back to who I was. Stubborn, petty, compassionate, optimistic. I would not break. Against the song, against the storm, I would never break.
In those final moments of the building song, I remembered who I was. Where I’d come from, and where I was headed. The past was already written, but the future was to be determined by us. I smiled brightly, and the storm collapsed.
Each note, each verse, each beat of the song coalesced within me, writing a new talent, a new path forward. It fused into my Qi, into my cultivation, because it was still the same, after all. It was the eternal pursuit that defined me, the thing that I had been doing and would keep doing. To seek freedom.
And then it was over.
All at once, I consumed the song. Its building resonance shifted and built me up rather than breaking me down. Golden glass rippled with noise, hummed with resonance, and blurred. Ethereal, drifting notes rebuilt me into something that wasn’t quite human, but human enough.
My skin returned. My hair grew, blood vessels sprouted, and after everything, my heart beat once more. My existence was the same, I was the same, but I was also more. So, so much more.
Saph looked at me with shock, staring at the wings behind my back, now adorned with chiming wreaths of resonance, glowing bands of gold that hummed as I moved. They looked into my eyes, saw their new depth, and I knew they’d changed.
“What’s different?” I asked, smiling gently.
“Your eyes are… a little more yellow.”
“Just a little?” I asked.
Slowly, they nodded. “Just a little. They are still brown. But they feel… deeper.”
That was a strange description, but I simply nodded. It made sense. Then, I took a deep breath. In, then out. The music quieted, and the world hummed in acceptance of my presence. Finally, the song faded into the background.
My metamorphosis had passed. I had changed, yes. I was stronger, faster, more real. I had grown, and so had my potential. In fact, there was something different about the network.
[You have Grown. Your [Transference] now shares a part of all talents of each individual in it.]
And that difference was one I felt. Each of my movements was different, as dozens, maybe hundreds of new talents suffused my being. It was incredible, to see how others saw the world. Perspectives that grew and bubbled and drove me to be even stronger. It felt wonderful - and strange.
I could see the world as Saph or Chris saw it, for example, and it was so very different from mine. For the triz-adu it was all more malleable, ephemeral and impermanent. A cycle of loss and gain, where each moment had to be cherished, and eventually let go of.
Compared to that, the crystalloid in front of me saw the world as almost immutable. A steady growth forwards, a crawling, climbing vine. An acceptance at anything that would happen to it as simply another step forward.
Saph, I noted, saw even our interactions as inevitable. Simply another step forward. One that they regretted less than they’d thought, one that turned out rather pleasant, but still a simple step. A natural conclusion to who they were, and what their life was.
I breathed.
And then, I saw my new talent.
[ - Parallelity (Your actions Echo. You are the song. Embody all aspects.)]
Then, I felt it rippled through the network. And, all of a sudden, every single one of my friends also was tuned into their alternate selves, and their own songs budded, sprouted, then soared.
It was less violent a rebirth then mine, but it was a rebirth nonetheless, though helped along by the spreading tree of talents we had amassed. Within moments, they all grew again, growing stronger from each parallel world in which they existed, and even from those where they didn’t.
We blossomed like flowers, in that single moment, and the connections we had made with each other drove us to even greater heights. The resonance rang through the network we’d built, through each member of it, and I simply listened to our symphony.
I sat and listened for a long moment, until the sky split and divine lightning speared down on me.
2025-09-19 02:45:50 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 266: Workaholic Recovery Center :)
When Mercury woke up, he found himself sitting in a hot springs, with a towel gently draped across his cloak, like a soft, warm, heavy blanket. Blearly, he blinked open his eyes, getting greeted by a flit of notification he quickly waved away, noting to check them later. Instead, he looked around himself.
And found… snow?
The air was pleasantly chilly. Enough so to make the water steam in the cold. It made him want to sink further into the bath, which was interesting. His aversion to water had reduced as he evolved his species further, but to feel like he desperately wanted to sink more was new.
“Ah, good morning, sir,” someone greeted him. It was a squeaky, quiet voice, and Mercury turned to face it.
He found a rat.
A pristine, brown and black coated rat, with brushed fur that wore an elegant butler outfit. It stood on its hind legs, holding a silver platter stacked with tiny towels and bars of soap. Mercury blinked once, then twice, and when the rat didn’t vanish. He was forced to accept that it was, indeed, real.
Why exactly was he in a hot spring being tended to by a rat butler?
Wistfully, he sighed, then shook his head. “No, I’m quite alright, thank you. Uh, where exactly is this?”
The rat looked at him and tilted its head. “Sir, this place does not yet have a name. In fact… ah, this might be easier to show you.” And then, the brown-black butler reached forward and tapped the air. Mercury felt one of his notifications ring in response, apparently resonating with relevant information. He opened it.
[The individual has altered the wandering Rift Sloth. Full integration into Chronagen completed. Parasitism inverted to symbiosis. Created the world’s first wandering interdimensional relaxation resort. Designation pending, temporary name: “Workaholic recovery center :)”.]
“Oh you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Mercury said in disbelief. Then he snorted, and a moment later, he laughed. “Hahaha! Workaholic recovery center. With a smile? How do I pronounce :)?” he asked
“Just like that, actually,” the butler nodded along.
Mercury just stared, then laughed again, then closed his eyes. He remembered everything, of course. At this point, it was harder for him to forget anything than to keep it in mind, really. He remembered what he’d done, how he’d changed this place very actively. How he’d seen that there was, perhaps, something good to be gained from here.
And then he’d made it real. In perhaps the greatest feat of weaving he had ever performed, he’d simply altered the base nature of a realm. Something that was more a dimensional tear, a wound on the world, had been turned into a working agent of good. Something to make people just a little happier when they needed it most.
For a brief moment, he glimpsed at the truth of this place again, and saw the way he had woven its mechanics. It was a detection mechanism he’d somehow made in a flow state, and looking at it again… he didn’t understand half of it. But it looked incredibly robust, so that was pretty cool.
The real question was how in the heck he managed that??
[Your Skills and Abilities have levelled up! <Greater Perceptions lv. 3 -> 4>, <Lucidity lv. 1 ->2>, <Oceanic Consciousness lv. 8 -> 9>, <Truth lv. 5 -> 6>> , <Unravel lv. 2 -> 3>]
And that was the answer to that, he supposed, giving a small smile. There was also an intrinsic understanding there that he had not quite had before, about rezil. Resonance.
It was the alignment of the purpose of a world with his own. An understanding that allowed him to meld his vision with its. There was a softness to it, one built on mutual understanding. Rezil, unless taken to its limits, would not allow him to turn one thing into something entirely different. Their concepts, their ideas, still had to be aligned.
Sloth and relaxation were, apparently, close enough, in a way. It was like… taking a trip through the dictionary, hopping from synonym to synonym, until finding a suitable one. Rezil, in a way, was using the powers of a thesaurus on a world.
Again, Mercury snickered at the thought, sinking further into the water. He was still somewhat surprised that these mental abilities he was cultivating didn’t get properly recognized by the system. There was some synergy between his ystirs and <Multitasking>, of course, but it was that: synergy.
One enhanced the other, didn’t describe it. But the system was meant to describe his capabilities in full. So, what did that mean for his mind? Was the system unable to quantify it? Was it in a hidden section he had yet to discover?
“Appy, can you summarize my current progress in the mental disciplines I am aware of?” he requested quietly, thoughts bubbling away.
[Of course.]
=
[Ystirs: 128/64/32/16/8
Zejyn: 5, Cascading
Rijn: Malleable, Adamant, Anchored
Ihn’ar: Effortless, 3rd Veil
Rezil: Alteration, Concept Synchronized]
=
Mercury blinked at the screen. The numbers were interesting, because he did notice that every time he split his mind again, it meant that he had to grow further. There were five entries for his ystirs, and five parts he could split his mind into… Surely, that wasn’t a coincidence.
So, every time his mind got twice as strong as before, he could split it into another part? And each part could hold cascadingly fewer sub-processes. How interesting… And, of course, since “cascading” was noted in the screen, he could change it.
The rat butler smacked him on the head with a little roll of towel.
“Sir,” the rat said, “you specifically created this dimension for relaxation. I will have to ask you to cease your speculation on how to strengthen your mind.”
“Surely training can be part of relaxation. Some people go to the gym recreationally, and it’s good for recovery from stress,” he argued.
The little rat, somehow, managed to furrow its brows. “I am unsure whether that argument holds,” it said slowly. “But I suppose if you do not feel inherent dimensional resistance, what you are doing is fine.”
“Inherent dimensional resistance?” Mercury asked curiously.
Squeaking with joy, the rat-butler bobbed its head. “Oh yes indeed. This spa is meant for relaxation, after all. To do something antithetical to that would be met with distaste from the realm.”
Mercury blinked. A place that made it hard not to rest properly. Yeah, he could see how some people could use this.
A moment later, Ruvah bumped her head into his side. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” the elemental said - woven from steam rather than ice, for once. Mercury blinked at her ghostly outline, trying to get his eyes to focus on her. Which they promptly did, capturing each detail of the smokey form, grasping its edges and cohesiveness in a single passing moment.
“Good morning?” Mercury asked, unsure.
“You slept a while,” Juno supplied helpfully, gracefully emerging from the water. Her fur was soaked, its usual light-grey stained a darker shade. The wet fur hanging from her face did make her look a little grumpy, but her tone betrayed the joy. She, too, seemed pleased with this place - if a little on edge.
“How long would that be?” he asked.
Juno tilted her head back and forth, offering a wry smile that looked more than a little terrifying, baring her fangs. “Oh, a few days, nothing more.”
Mercury sighed, tilting his head back to stare into the sky, alight with fireflies and paper lanterns. “Zyl is gonna kill me,” he mourned, his breath misting in the air. “I needa get home.”
“I am not going to kill you, Mercury,” the dragon said, opening a door from a nearby sauna and stepping out. He wore a towel wrapped around his waist and a loose, white shirt. It his his muscles and skin, but did nothing to hide his handsome face or enchanting voice. Mercury just stared at him for a few seconds.
Smiling at the attention, Zyl quickly covered his body in a sheen of fire. All the sweat evaporated, and the salt boiled away, removing any lingering grime. Then, he sat down on the edge of the hot springs, dangling his feet in the water, running one hand through his own hair, and nestling another in Mercury’s fur.
The warmth of his hand was a grounding, easy weight. “How did you get here?” Mercury asked.
Zyl smiled more widely. “Oh, well. Your new resort made quite a light show of announcing itself when you finished it up. So, we went to check it out.”
“... Who’s we?” the mopaaw asked hesitantly.
With a wry chuckle, Juno responded. “All your friends, pretty much. And the city council. A few bakers… who Avery overworked,” she noted.
“Is there no gender separation?” he asked.
“There are gender specific springs, sir,” the rat-butler helpfully provided, “but the majority are unisex. This is a place for relaxation, not lechery, and we trust our guests to uphold this, lest the realm itself discard them.”
Once more, Mercury marvelled at how… resourceful realms were. He really just had to give a nudge in the right direction, and they did all the rest. The weave was really just surprisingly robust.
He tilted his head, then smiled faintly. Actually, he thought, that might be true not just of the weave and realms like this one. It might just be true of life in general. People were tougher than the world gave them credit for. Give them the opportunity to do good, and they usually would.
Well, not everyone, of course. Some people needed more opportunities to learn, or to unlearn their instinctive cruelties. There would always be idiots, but at the end of the day… They were all people. Most of them doing their best, or at least putting forth an effort to live decent lives.
That was a lesson that Chronagen told him that would have been harder to learn back on Earth. Here where everything was reigned by desire - where people could realize abilities simply by wanting them enough, by trying hard enough, there was a strange harmony. People tended to, generally, help each other.
Yeah, things could get crappy. There were wars and famines, fires and death. He’d met plenty of scumbags who desired only to break others down, but if he looked at Stormbreaker, the vast majority of the population was just decent people. They shared food, they built houses, they lived their lives with each other.
People would help people.
It was always that way. Hating concepts or ideas was easy, hating an abstract idea of something bad, but when face to face with an actual person, cruelty was more rare. Oh, it still existed, of course, but there was something disarming about simply facing another person. Someone with just as much kindness, with just as much patience.
Mercury sighed and leaned back for another few moments. He breathed in the cold air, and sank into the warm water. In the distance, he heard Avery’s laugh. He heard Lucia splash Yvette with water, and the merciless fight that ensued. Yasashiku, who got up out of a pool and instantly complained about the construction of a stone foundation, hammering away at it in only a towel.
He heard Alice dangle her legs in a tree, looking at Breeze and Ellen having a small dinner. Marcel and Bael laid on a blanket, with Kaga using her naginata to slice some bread, staring at the night sky. The sky which, Mercury noted, was identical to that of Earth. He recognized some of the star constellations - though his memories of back then were hazy, compared to the more recent ones.
In the time spent on Chronagen, he’d become a lot more present. More mindful, literally and figuratively. He didn’t forget anymore. He lived in the moment. And there was something wonderful about that.
For a few more seconds, he allowed himself to find that relaxation. To listen to the faint noises that his friends and acquaintances made. To Jirluc, carefully making sure his spear wasn’t rusting. Larash, who had somehow convinced an old man to let her benchpress him. Foss and Nira, Gilah and Esmeya, captain Rondo and Akuhl.
Gently, Mercury smiled at hearing them all. He only caught glimpses, and didn’t pry. Instead, he closed his eyes. They all lived their lives, and he lived his own. Sometimes, like tonight, they’d meet. They’d share a few moments, maybe even days. Enjoy the companionship… and then move on.
There was a bit of ephemerability to life in that way. People came and went. Reconnected and grew apart. Sometimes that was sad, and sometimes that was lovely. Keeping his eyes closed, Mercury listened to his own heartbeat, and the way that his connections with the world kept changing.
Every passing day, things were a little different. And that was alright.
Taking a deep breath, Mercury let the moment linger.
- - -
Once it was over, he rose from the bath, dried himself off with a momentary flicker from the Storm’s Raiment. Then he took a single, long step outside of this realm.
<Voidwalker> triggered. He was awash in the Nothing that laid between worlds. A thrum of nonexistence so complete it should have swallowed him whole. Full of leviathans that weren’t real, ready to devour him.
And yet, he didn’t feel too bad. Sure, it was a twisted inversion of what life was, but his <Truth> held strong. He maintained his sense of self, even when the Void wanted to swallow all that and reduce it to a base state of unconsciousness. Instead, he simply stood and waited.
He watched.
Seeing worlds from the outside was a rather bizarre experience. He saw Chronagen from the void - granted, ‘saw’ is a rather generous way to describe the process. He did perceive it, but there was no matter in the void, so Mercury didn’t really have eyes.
Eyelessly, he saw the world from the outside.
It was a little like looking at a painting of a place. From here, his perspective was different. Everything was small. It lost its depth. There was a thick sheen of difference that marked him as unreal and that place as real.
Silken threads of scintillating colour. That was the difference between a world and not one. To be real was to be woven, was to interact, to connect, to live instead of drift. He saw, from outside, what it was like to see when you weren’t.
Because it wasn’t like looking at a painting. It was like being stuck in a painting and looking outside.
Everything had more depth than him. More colour than him. And yet, he couldn’t properly see that depth or colour. It was smudged, blurry and thick to his eyes. He could see it as splotches that felt out of reach. A world so deep he could not imagine it. As a creature of the void, he understood why they ate at the realms.
There was no hate in that action. It was a simple desire, really. A single question.
What was it like to live?
Mercury knew the answer. He didn’t want to eat the world - didn’t have that desire. But he understood why void-things might. They were nothing, after all. They were trapped outside, and he found that to be sad, too. He understood them, after all. He understood <Nothingness>.
[<Voidwalker> has levelled down. <Voidwalker lv. -1 -> -2>]
He didn’t breathe. He didn’t mourn. He didn’t feel. Mercury was a dull caricature of himself. A shadow of a shadow cast on a wall that wasn’t there by a light so faint it was nothing but a reflection in a mirror. The world from the outside was a scintillating mess of emotions and complexity that he couldn’t help but envy.
It was beautiful and ruinous, to look at something that was so conceptually different he could not even imagine being part of it. But he still remembered. He knew who he was, he knew what he was, and that he was real. The boundary came into place, and Mercury snapped back towards that side of the tightrope he was walking.
Because, in <Truth>, he saw the wonder in the void, too.
That scintillating, endless nothing. It was so wonderfully quiet, and so bizarrely alive. There were no dreams out here, no real wants, and yet, the creatures were undeniably alive. He watched nothing-whales covered in scales darker than night brush him by, their enormous not-eyes gazing at him. Some made things that weren’t quite noises, as much as they were ripples in the primordial ocean of nonexistence.
Faint dreams rang against Mercury’s ears. They were greeting, curiosity, hunger, and envy all at once. Somehow, these creatures knew he was their kin, and yet knew he was different. They saw his spark, that he was a light cast into the darkness, and it was as attractive as it was repulsive.
They gazed, they greeted, and they basked in the light. They, too, were shadows of shadows, and Mercury was both a light and a wall to be cast on. When perceived, they were just a little more real, a little less hungry. When dreamt of, they were conceived, and that, too was beautiful.
And when they drifted out of sight - and they always, always did - they were gone again. Lost, forever, back into that deep, unending darkness that swallowed up things that had never existed in the first place. It was a strange swirl of experience, right at the edge of not being, and the only things that he could describe as being stranger was seeing the gaps in the world move.
Chronagen was gigantic. It was a dream of a million dreamers, a sphere of existence borne from millions, maybe billions of sapients, trillions of sentients all thinking. Experiencing. It was a place that was enormously vast, full of varied experiences, from the most powerless to the most powerful. It was a world of gods and demons, of tiny, pitiful bacteria and world-ending titans.
It was also a world of wounds.
Among that tightly-woven, colour-blending, twisted-dimensional fabric that was the Weave of the world from the outside, there were scars. Scabbing, bleeding, ripping, growing wounds. Places where the threads have thinned, broken, cut.
Places where dreams go to die.
He sighed. Three wounds moved towards him. They reached for him with bloody tendrils of scabbing, dried world-blood reaching for him in rippling patterns that draw from nothingness to reality. Three wounds that melted into each other, that allied and wove and grew and thrived in their festering hurt.
Mercury dove in headfirst. This would hurt, he knew. It would not be fun.
Three sins. Pride, Lust, Greed. They wove into each other, a growing world-wound where their edges bled, where reality and irreality mingled. Festering pustules that expanded outwards from the tapestry of the world in a cruel, parasitic expansions. They were worms that ate from the Weave and gave nothing in return.
And Mercury easily entered their domains.
Reality washed over him in a violent torrent. He was a shadow, suddenly ripped and made to stand on its own. Colour washed over his skin. Mercury suddenly existed again. He had fur, bones, flesh, eyes. He saw, he breathed, and the changed from nonexistence to the deluge of things that rattled in on him would have been enough to shatter someone else.
But he didn’t shatter. He breathed. He walked. His <Truth> shone, and loudly screamed that he existed. The tightrope between real and unreal snapped, and all of Mercury was returned to just himself. A shadow merged with the person that cast it into one living, breathing creature, woven from memory and dreams.
His body <Resolved> itself. The wounds of irreality washed off him like dirt under the shower, staining the ground of the realm - or, perhaps, realms - he stood in. <Nothingness> dripped from his fur, dripped through the weave, and then flowed back outside, leaving the festering pustules, and Mercury breathed.
The air was fetid. It was thick with a stench of debauchery. Greed reeked of alcohol, Lust smelled of sweat, and Pride carried the scent of lies. Avatars were arrayed before him, an army of things that were twisted beyond their base selves.
Amalgamations. They tugged at his mind. Demanded he kneel, demanded he want, demanded he desire. It was funny, the overlap between lust and greed, contrasted with pride, but Mercury only made that observation distantly. Because, despite everything, this state revealed something to him.
Somehow, the sins had communicated.
These wounds - which is what they were. Festering, bleeding wounds on the world - somehow had made a plan. They had talked. And that means that before Mercury shattered them, turned the Weave whole once more, he needed to ask a question. He needed to hear their <Truth>.
He looked upon the leading avatar. It was a thing cast from gold, a thing of perfection meant to be wanted, to be worshipped. It was beautiful, and resplendent, and something that could twist mortal hearts. It was a miserable thing that seemed tortured at having ever been conceived, an obelisk of perfection so grand it broke under its own purpose.
Mercury needed it to speak, needed to hear it.
“Are you a person?” he demanded. The question was unavoidable. It rippled across this place, this realm of faux gold, of imposed perfection, in a violent demand. An unavoidable thing, tearing at the very foundations of what the sins were.
But he demanded an <Answer>. And so, the golden statue parted its lips, and spoke.
2025-09-18 03:02:57 +0000 UTC
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Saph sat with me, in the frozen mountains, and there’s a strange half-calm that lingered between us.
It was bizarre to think that we’d been trying to kill each other just a little while ago. I’d broken many zurulen, the giant, living piles of rock that apparently spawned from Saph. They were still a nest, after all.
That was my first question, too. “You create the zurulen, right? They’re your offspring, in a way. Are you not angry that I broke them?”
They shook their head at that. “No, they are not offspring,” they said. “Not really, not in the way you understand. They are me and yet not. More accurately, they are property. An extension of myself, perhaps, but not truly me, and not truly new. If I am a virus capable of reproducing, they are soldier cells, only made to spread more Echo.”
“Are none of the usurpers truly alive, then?” I asked.
“Oh, the zurulen are alive,” Saph answered calmly. “They react, they move, they consume and create. Despite their meagre nature, my spawn is dear to me, and yet… Perhaps, think of them as a garden. This world is a garden, and we are spreading weeds. Some weeds have gotten enough Echo to awaken a consciousness, the others are mere plants. With the potential to, one day, awaken, but not truly there yet.”
I nodded, slowly, pressing my hands into the snow. Eden was a garden, and the usurpers were weeds. Invasive, yes, yet alive, if not all conscious or intelligent. And yet, in this world, there was absolutely potential for plants to awaken to sapience. It didn’t happen as often these days, with Echo filling Eden, but back when the world had been richer in Qi and Mana, it was more common for plants to create sanctuaries around natural treasures.
Taking a deep breath, I nodded again. “Then how does life for usurpers look like?”
The crystalloid golem took a long moment, tilting their head. Two of their arms were behind their back, supporting their weight against the rocks, two more were crossed in thought, and the last pair laid gently in their lap. “Well,” they started, “your term, ‘usurpers’, refers more to a kind of existence than a species in and of itself. It’s as if I asked you about ‘animals’. A distinction that is important, but not particularly detailed.
“However, there are common threads. I believe what you mean is what we call resonators. Mages use Mana, cultivators use Qi, and resonators use Echo. The thing about Echo is that it demands spread, that it demands to travel outwards and echo back inwards. It thrives on being heard. And what better way to be heard than to take another world?”
At that, they balled their fists, turning their crystal-faceplate to the sky. They paused for a long moment, then let go of the anger. “It also infects,” they continued. “Echo spreads and consumes. It spills forward and lingers. Whispers, resonating to all-consuming noise.”
The words were cryptic, and not quite easy to grasp, but I got the essence of it. Echo was demanding, like all powers. Cultivation required a Path. It required understanding that Path, and moving further along it, to find something, choose something, and stride towards it.
In essence, it didn’t allow for failure. Mistakes could upset the balance of one’s path, they could shake one’s foundation, and if it crumbled, it would be hard to rebuild. Mending a broken Path was almost unheard of.
Compared to that, Mana demanded study of its users. A rigid understanding of its mechanics, to transform one force into another. It required motion and sacrifice, to turn one’s heart into one made for mana. To see the world as a series of equations, and seek to peer into its depths. Where cultivation was understanding of the self, mana was understanding of the world.
Divinity… I was less sure on, but there was a lot more of a zero-sum game there, wasn’t it? The divines would spend it, and unless they earned more faith, more prayers, more belief, it would never be restored. In a way, Divinity was the most potent, since it came from people’s belief that it would work, and yet, the most fragile. It required trust and connection.
And that left Echo. Echo, which demanded to be heard, demanded to be used. What was its core tenet? Dominance? Destruction? Spread?
It didn’t quite sound like that, did it? All powers came at a price. The usurpers were paying their Echo, they were conquering new worlds to grow stronger, and that worked, but was that the only way?
“Has anyone found a different way to resonate with Echo?” I asked.
Saph shook their head. “No. Well, of course, lesser manifestations are possible with lower investments, but…” they gave another shake of their head, somehow communicating a morbid sort of dissatisfaction, “if there is a higher realm to attain, then there will always be those to push for it.”
And wasn’t that the truth? Especially when that higher realm comes with power, striving for it is almost like breathing to some people. They get born into a stratum of life, and need to reach higher.
Except, when born at the top, then what does “higher” mean?
It created scions that exist only to surpass those that came before them, to drink a little deeper of the lifeblood of the places they inhabit, the people who build the bedrock of their money. The need for more than luxury, the need for supremacy.
I took a deep breath and nodded. “So, your leaders want to push higher, and this is the easiest way?”
Saph hummed in agreement. “Yes. Echo spreads.”
“There has to be a different way,” I said. “Building up, rather than out?”
At that, the crystalloid tilted their head. “And what would up look like?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Echo relied on greatness, on “being heard”, as they put it. At the end of the day, Echo was just a source of power, an energy. There was nothing good or evil about it, as I was beginning to see. It was just as poisonous to people as, say Mana toxicity.
Divinity, when applied in too great a dose, causes cancers. Qi can burn people without the willpower to control it. Echo, when mismanaged, creates addiction and dependency, spreading like a virus. But, framed in the context of the other energies… It didn’t look so different.
So, what would a proper way of Echo resonance look like? Resonance sounded right. Someone cultivated Qi, and someone resonated Echo. I took another deep breath. Letting myself sink into those thoughts, as I felt it.
What would up look like? Echo needed to build and be heard, but who needed to hear it? Someone powerful, right? So what if…
A virtuous cycle. A person using Echo and hearing their own song, feeding their own power. Using that strength to uplift others, rather than undermine, creating a better world. That, too, would be Echo, wouldn’t it? A self-song. A concert for an audience, rather than an invasive force.
It clicked.
All at once, I felt a sensation that I’d been missing for a long time. The connections appeared. Echo hurt my father. My father’s hurt sent me into a rage. And that rage brought me back to Echo. A simple connection, a chain of events along my path.
The sky opened up and swallowed me. A thousand alternate versions of myself, a million, an infinite amount, and here I was. Standing among them all, and more paths opened up. I felt it, felt the way that causality shifted with each choice. Likely, and unlikely things becoming more and less probable - and my revelation was opening up a new branch.
Echo. It fit, didn’t it? Me, especially. I could hear it myself, with a million voices belonging to me. Was that it, then?
Was Echo the voice of gateways?
It clicked into place, too, and I sunk deeper into enlightenment. The keepers connected worlds to feed their gateways, siphoning rewards, and feeding them. They wanted to be known, to be feared, to possess more. In that way, they were the same as the usurpers, yet using them as puppets-
And that meant that I could use Echo, too.
A world of new colours lit my sight. Of course I could use Echo. Marie cultivated Qi and had a mana heart all at the same time. It was usually impractical, but Echo fed off of power. It wanted me to be strong, so the stronger I was, the more I could feed it, and the more versions of me there were, too.
Each manifestation would be another song to my choir. I blinked, ideas pooling into my mind like from a fountain. My potential soared, skyrocketed. I felt the way the nebula in my soul burnt, whirling with stardust to sear these new truths into my potential, growing as new stars blossomed and connected.
And then, after a time that felt like an eternity but was a moment, I opened my eyes again. [Flaring Nova] hummed and crackled within me, brighter than ever, and I felt the way I’d changed.
Not yet. The change wasn’t completed quite yet. I was a caterpillar, wrapped in a cocoon. I had the tools, but what I needed to do was finish my morphosis. I took a breath, and stood up.
Saph looked at me nervously. “Fio?” they asked. “Are you… alright?”
“Better than ever,” I said, lightning arcing with exhaustion in my veins. Enlightenment took its toll, but I couldn’t stop. I felt tired, heavy, and yet, there was a restless energy within me, demanding that I move forward. “Saph. I’ll make two requests of you. Will you hear me out?”
They gave me another glance, taking a moment to take me in up and down. The frantic expression on my face, the white-knuckled grip on my spear. “Something about you is different,” they noted. “Will you hurt me?”
“No,” I said. “I think, I might never have a solution. Up is inwards. A self-sustained song.”
“It’s been tried before,” Saph says. “Too slow. It stalls.”
“So supplement it. Study Qi, cultivate, thrive,” I told them. “Build your legend and build each other up.”
Saph sighed, softly. “We cannot remake society at once,” they said with a wistful note of defeat. Preparing to fight again.
“Then don’t. Build a new society. Teach new resonators. Build a movement, and let that song of revolution, of kindness, ring all the way to the heart of the usurpers,” I demanded.
“We cannot,” Saph said. “We are caged. Trapped. A virus set on this world, never to return.”
“So let me do it,” I begged, taking a step forward. My feet felt like lead, but I had to. “Please. Let me soar. Let me fly. Help me be kind!”
I extended a hand outwards to them, my empty one. I leaned on Astraeus as a crutch, helping my steps as my breath ran short. Enlightenment was demanding. I had to-
Patiently, Saph sighed. “You truly are persistent, Fio. You ask me to bet my life on your, after one conversation.”
“Yes,” I said. “Please.”
Gently, their arms unfolded. Three pairs of crossed hands opening as they sighed again. “Fine, then, mirror-borne. Show us your song.”
Despite everything, despite the distrust, despite the fighting that should have existed between our species, that was all it took. One conversation, one act of kindness, and Saph returned it. They took a chance, a gamble on me, and extended their hand.
And then, I took a gamble on them in turn.
[Sapphire Crystalweave has been added to your [Transference] network.]
A rasping gasp left their lips and mine in turn. I clutched their hand as a lifeline, and they did mine. They knew what talent to lend us, what we needed to know.
In a wave of building power, we shared an aspect. A talent whose seed was already budding in my nova. The Gift fanned the flames, it incorporated Echo resonance as an idea, and it granted me my boon. [Songforged]. That was what Saph shared with me.
And instantly, all at once, it thundered out around the network. Echo resonance took a gentle bud within all those connected to me, as their potential fed their song, and their song fed their potential in turn. It lit up even more for me - within myself, within Ion, within Vivi, within Cass and within Astraeus.
They were all part of me, they all heard me, and yet, they all fed that Symphony. And that was what it was. A new talent blossomed within me, as I left the cocoon of my metamorphosis behind and emerged, the same yet different.
[Acquired the talent [Self-Contained Symphony] (Your song Echoes within yourself, across your network. Grow together, share this serenade, and thrive.)]
My wings fed on themselves. I grew, I became more than before, and the effects thrummed out through my parallel selves. The future changed, yes, but I found myself hopeful, and I strode through the sky again.
[Golden Glass Maelstrom advanced to 5th Step.]
No one would cage me now.
2025-09-10 05:51:26 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 265: Respite
The portal to Sloth was different from the others. They had all been invasions - violent attempts to take from this world and bring to theirs. To feed and gorge themselves on things that did not belong to them. Violence, theft, hunger.
Sloth was not quite like that.
Mercury stood in front of a thin, purple gate. It was lazy, like a scraggly pencil line no one had bothered to erase. It was small and thin, and yet, it stood open as an invitation. It was just big enough for him to fit through, as if whoever drew it couldn’t be bothered to spend more than minimum effort.
And so, Mercury stepped through. For a moment, reality blurred and bent around him. It curved and shrank, and he felt the cold touch of the void for a second. Whoever made this had not been particularly skilled at making rifts.
It was over a moment later, though, before he could feel any adverse effects. He, Juno and Ruvah all appeared within the realm of Sloth a moment later - and found that it was dark. They were too lazy to create a sun, or even a light switch.
Not that that stopped Mercury from seeing. He was perfectly capable of taking in the entire realm of sloth and found it was… dirty. The ground was covered in discarded waste. Apple cores, empty boxes for takeout, discarded plastic cups for drinks - why did they even have plastic?
“You dreamt of it,” came the <Answer>. Which was strange, because Mercury hadn’t asked. Especially since he was in the domain of Sloth, where no one should reasonably be indulging his answers.
“I am forced to,” the voice replied meekly. Mercury looked down and found… A rat.
A rat.
Buried in the piles of garbage that laid about this realm was a single small rat, with sleek grey fur, covered in leftover pizza-grease, its little eyes focusing on him. Mercury regarded the thing for a long moment, then sighed. “So you’re Sloth’s avatar?”
“Yessir!” the rat squeaked.
“Why?” Mercury asked, and <Answer> thrummed.
The rat squeaked softly, but the words came easily thanks to Mercury’s Skill. It told the thing what he wanted to know, and how it could best phrase it, made the sentences tumble out. “Sloth’s avatar is always the weakest in the realm. Any who are stronger are lazy, and don’t want to manage it. In fact, I hate this job. I will be passing it on as soon as a weaker manifestation than me appears!”
Mercury glanced at Juno, who gave a kind of half-shrug to the best of her ability. “So then, why did Sloth open a portal near me?” Mercury asked.
“Obligation and invitation,” the rat provided helpfully. I quickly scurried up higher on the pile of filth and laid down on it, remaining just a little below Mercury’s eye level. “You are connected to the sins, so Sloth rolled towards you. And perhaps, you would like to laze about here, too!”
He blinked. Ruvah’s tail flicked with mild disgust. Mercury took a look around himself again, taking in the piles of trash that made this place look more like a landfill than anything else. “Why would I?”
The rat blinked. “Why wouldn’t you?” it asked. Of course it wouldn’t understand. It was a creature of Sloth. All it wanted to do was laze about. Sleep and rest. He could see that it didn’t wanna answer his questions either, but then, he could also feel the stronger avatars of Sloth.
Much, much stronger.
Somehow, there were multiple presences in this world that made Mercury shudder. They loomed in the distance, buried under mountains of trash, hogging all the warmest, comfiest spots in this filthy darkness of theirs, doing nothing. Helping no one, but at the same time… doing little harm.
Not none. Sloth still forced its weakest members to work for them. It was a laziness that caused a kind of cascading pyramid of command, but… they also made mostly small requests. Bringing more pizza here and there. Or sodas.
“Ah, yes, sodas!” the rat said, taking note of his gaze. “We thank you, great soda-dreamer, for this wonder. You were the first to conceptualize drinks so perfectly suited to doing… nothing! Such indulgence! So little drinking to be done, and so much nourishment! We can lay about without moving for longer!”
That was the deepest truth of it all. Sloth didn’t want to move. It went against its nature to speak, to do anything. All this waste was just made to sustain itself, mostly off of its own dreams. Slothlings wasted their dreams, and consumed them in the form of… trash. This was just the residue.
It was both the most pathetic and most terrifying sin Mercury had encountered.
“How long have the oldest been laying immobile?” he asked, carefully.
“Oh, since the start of this realm, really,” the rat replied.
An entire world’s time, spent doing nothing, gorging themselves on their own laziness. The worst of the worst. But sloth, when applied to oneself, was ultimately not that bad. Frankly, with how lazy those leviathans were…
Would they even defend themselves if he were to kill them?
“Did you make this rift?” Mercury asked.
“Yessir!” the rat said. “Made it the best I could.”
That was the largest lie Mercury had ever heard. “No,” he said.”You made it barely functional.”
“Yessir,” the rat replied smugly, as if bragging about an achievement, instantly dropping the lie. It was too much effort to keep it going, after all.
Softly, the mopaaw let out a sigh. He brought a ghostly hand to his face, dragging it across. He was dealing with lazybones, here, the laziest of lazybones. People so obsessed with doing nothing that they’d push others around to feed their basic needs, and nothing else. They required no houses, little sustenance, but they did not even want to chew.
They were little more than static funnels for their most bare essentials to be turned into more mass. More power. In a way, it was stunningly efficient.
Creatures of laziness gorging themselves on their own success, slowing the advancement of those others by forcing them to do more. The harder they tried, the slower they grew, so they were forced to give up their dreams. Feed their ambitions to Sloth.
It left them pointless leviathans. Giants with power that Mercury envied, and nothing to spend it on, other than longer breaks in between feedings, perhaps. In that, Sloth was the most terrifying of the sins, because its avatars fed everything to it - their future, their potential, their personalities. All that was left behind was husks with everything being stripped away.
Sloth granted power at the very condition of not using it. Mercury sighed again. As with Envy, this sin’s greatest avatars were also its greatest victims. They embodied it, thrived on it, and suffered it.
He looked at the rat in front of him, the one that had done a shitty job on purpose. It couldn’t do a good job, that would go against its nature. There was nothing it could do but the bare minimum, and frankly, even that was almost too much. It had to be forced into that by things that were even more lazy than it.
“What’s your name?” Mercury asked.
“Patrick, sir,” it replied easily and quickly, aiming to finish the conversation as soon as possible.
Mercury took a long moment to take it all in. The greasy fur and beady eyes. And he sighed, softly. “Would you like me to remove your connection to Sloth?” he asked.
Instantly, the rat’s eyes bulged in terror. “Uhhh, please don’t,” Patrick quickly replied, scurrying backwards into the trash, as if that would save it. “It’s a pretty sweet gig we got! I just wait around for someone new to pass the directory onto, then I start lazing about for as long as I like.”
And that was the real problem, wasn’t it? That it was too easy to do nothing here.
The difference between rest and laziness had never been quite so lovingly highlighted to Mercury. Everyone needed to rest, to heal, to relax and unwind. But this wasn’t that. These people had not been under pressure, they simply languished in their own filth and rotted away.
No growth in their personhood. No interests, no skills however small. When Zyl was overwhelmed he gardened, he painted. There was none of that here. Sloth refused its inhabitants even that base right. As they fed off themselves, it burned them down to the marrow of their existence, to the bleeding bits.
Every wish and dream had to be pulped, turned into shrapnel and fed into the machine that demanded they spend just a little more time languishing. He finally learnt what he disliked about Sloth. It took away the fight, the struggle to live and breathe and express oneself.
Mercury took a deep breath.
The world felt a little more quiet next to him, as he considered. The creatures of this realm would never want their connection to be severed. This was, after all, like a drug. It was easy, it was even pleasant, perhaps, but it caused a slow atrophy of their minds and selves. Was it right for him to rip that away?
Of course, the additional bit of trouble was that, even with its impact being less than the other sins, Sloth still was a parasite on Chronagen. He could feel the fabric of the world, and the way that this pocket gnawed at it. This realm of piled up trash and discarded bits of waste was pressing down on the mortal realm as a tower of filth.
And yet, just breaking it all didn’t feel like an adequate decision, either. Yes, he’d done that for the other sins, but those had felt less grey than this one, with less wiggle room. Sloth did cause problems, everyone in this realm was a parasite. And yet, they were willing perpetrators and victims both.
He sighed and shook his head. “Ruvah, what do you think I should do with this?” he asked.
“Stagnation is death,” the elemental said calmly. He looked towards the distance, towards where the mounds of trash moved in rhythmic breathing, Mountains of filth shifting and swaying, the things buried beneath them not even bothering to unearth themselves. “If these were people once, they have already died a small death. When water stagnates, someone else must help it find a channel. Can you?”
Mercury tilted his head. Ruvah, then, thought that this was stagnation, and that they needed help. To languish without purpose is languishing too. What purpose could Mercury give them? Where would he need to draw the line between healing and decay?
With a soft tap of her snout against his fur, Juno made herself known too. “I believe that there is more to this. There are aspects of Sloth that are useful, that don’t need to be eradicated.”
He nodded slowly. That much was true here, but it was also true for the other sins. With Wrath and Envy, he hadn’t put much thought into it, since there were… few things to preserve. Wrath might be useful sometimes for people who were too timid, and Envy could perhaps be a compliment in the right scenario, but… Well.
It wasn’t as clear as here - where some people probably deserved to relax a little more. Mercury had known others who worked themselves to death, hell, he’d done so himself, in a way. So he felt that there was less inherently terrible about Sloth.
Other than the degradation of personhood and the soft parasitism he saw in this place, of course.
Those were the two problems he really had to solve. The impact that this place had on people’s personalities - the way it was addictive rather than healing - and the fact that it drew from resources back on Chronagen. This realm, like the others, was still a weeping wound on the world, after all, and Mercury had to stitch it shut.
With a gentle sigh, he sunk into ihn’ar. The colours of this world drifted into each other, and its threads became stark in his vision. Sloth was shaped like a snare, he found. A mousetrap with a tasty morsel, drawing them in, ensnaring them, and then parasitizing them. It was an exaggerated, cruel type of Sloth, and that was something he did mind, he decided.
“Uhm, sir, what are you doing?” Patrick asked. The rat seemed a little scared all of a sudden as it looked at Mercury’s eyes. There was probably good reason for that - the clouds that usually hid their depth had faded away, and the mopaaw’s eyes had turned into windows that revealed his true nature.
Weight pressed down on this rotting world, and the piles of rubble shook. Mercury’s will reached out, gently, brushing its sides. “Digging a channel,” he said calmly, “without ruining the lakebed.”
Stagnation was death. He could, and reasonably should, do something about that. Now the question was one of how to solve it, because for once, Mercury really didn’t feel like killing the avatar and absorbing this pocket realm into himself.
In part because frankly, fusing his garden with piles of trash felt a little too much like littering.
The amusing thought brought a soft smile to his lips. At the same time, his mind brushed against the <Dreamweave>, following Patrick’s connection as an avatar, as the very nominal ruler of Sloth, back to the core of this world.
It was easy at first, but then progressively got harder, as he found that he just kind of… didn’t want to. What was the point of anything, after all? The world would end someday, so it was all pointless. He should just give it a rest, lay down and take a nap or something.
Or something?
A storm wove into being around Mercury. It was made of snow and shadow, of rain and wind. <Rainfall> cloaked his will, washing away the insidious influence of Sloth.
Mercury quickly shook his head, water beading and pooling around his legs. That had been the strongest mind-effect of any of the sins yet. In part because it aligned better with his nature, that he did sometimes feel like things were pointless, but even beyond that. It was terrifyingly powerful, since it had been able to even affect Mercury.
But he didn’t want to languish. He wanted to live life to the fullest, to chase his own happiness over and over again. That was the <Truth>, and the infection of Sloth died against it.
His mind split, processing more things at once, and Mercury’s ethereal grip quickly expanded along this realm. Rain fell all around him, washing away some of the filth, letting it sink into the budding rivers and disappear as their depth disintegrated it. Empty cups and plastic straws, paper bags and pizza cartons, oily residue and human waste, all of it was simply turned to nothing by the rain.
Staring at this place, Mercury took it all in, and he began to follow each thread, understanding each of the connections that made up this realm. With each knot he undid, another truth wrote itself into the world. And each one was uglier than the last.
As the veneer of disgusting filth was washed away, sloth was revealed in its totality. In the sad ways that it hooked into people.
Sloth was hopelessness. It was the languid knowledge that nothing would ever matter, it was a lack of confidence, it was a permeating pointlessness that whispered of sweet release. A promise that it couldn’t fulfill, because it only perpetuated its own causes. Sloth, at its truth, was a trap. A hook with sickly-sweet bait.
An excuse to not participate in life, a farce that demanded decay. He understood why Patrick was so desperate to hold onto it now; because the poor thing was terrified of being left alone. That being bereft of apathy might ruin the world to them, that they might be hurt again.
It was so much easier not to disappoint when no one expected anything, after all.
Mercury saw through all of that and more. He saw the languishing leviathans, and their connection to Sloth’s innermost principles. How they held so much power, and yet had decayed their selves. Their stats were unimaginably high, but they had no Skills, no abilities to wield them with.
He breathed and cast his rain on them, too, the storm expanding, bit by bit. Sloth, the realm, howled at this. But it had been understood, so the feeble attempts at defense were meaningless. Its champions did not want to fight, after all, so all it could do was attempt to throw its weakest at them. Ruvah and Juno took care of that.
After all, Sloth was powerlessness, and without embodying it itself, it could not inflict that on others. It could not rot if it was not a host to all the rot itself. And Mercury wanted to change that last part.
Just drawing his storm across the realm did much. The trash began to vanish, and the decay began to slowly clear. An unblocked stream for a stagnant lake. But that, by itself, would not be enough.
This place could not exist without its parasitic relationship with the world and its people, it could not exist if it wasn’t fed the dreams, aspirations and desires of its own inhabitants. Without sacrifice, without willing decay, Sloth was pointless. If Mercury washed it all away, the place would simply crumble.
And that would be a shame, because despite everything, Mercury saw a bit of himself in it. He firmly believed that rest was important, and that far too many people were horribly overworked. But, with how the sins worked, he had an idea.
The underlying mechanic, the thing that made them a wound on the world was their parasitic relationship. That they found the worst, and fed their worst attributes. That they swallowed up the best and degraded them into empty caricatures of themselves, filled with only one thing.
But this time, Mercury didn’t just wanna destroy the realm, he wanted to change it. He wanted to try something. And so, he <Unravelled> it. Not Patrick, not any of the people in this place. He reached right to the core of Sloth itself.
Instantly, the world baulked at him. It wanted to resist, to stop him, but then, Mercury’s weight crashed down on it. And he was, simply put, stronger. He had devoured three sins already, and grown his dream-garden. Sloth was older, yes, but it was defined by laziness. A mismanaged, poor imitation of a world is what it was.
So, it raged. It fought and bit and raged as Mercury touched upon the very idea that this wound on the world was wrought from. It thrashed in his grip, and dealt minor wounds to his will that didn’t truly matter. Mercury’s mind was iron, after all. This place was suitable to him, yes. The temptation was stronger.
But in that, he was also suitable to changing it.
Mercury’s <Truth> manifested. His world pitted against Sloth. His ideals against its.
There was little finesse in that clash. One was a raging beast, thrashing while sleeping, and the other one was a tempered mental savant.
<Truth> was Mercury’s most evolved Skill. It utterly crushed Sloth. All the experiences he had made, everything that Mercury was crashed into the world of laziness, wrenched its nature open, and unveiled more of its network. He used his knowledge with brutal efficiency. <Unravel> as the method, <Tapestry> to know where to strike, and his own <Truth> as a hammer.
Yes, it was fine to be lazy. Mercury truly believed that, so he hammered that into Sloth. It was fine to relax, and be kind to oneself. But the cruel laziness, the kind that came when it involved nothing of joy? When relaxation was stripped of its purpose, and became a simple method for flagellation, to avoid engaging in anything worthwhile in a self-fuelling cycle?
He cut it out.
Sloth screamed. Its second layer unveiled itself to him. Beneath all the filth and trash, when he peered into the heart of what it was and changed it, Mercury found out what Sloth was made from.
Traps.
It was a realm of fish hooks and mouse traps. They dug into his flesh, into his mind, and strained to pull chunks off him. Smaller bits that one wouldn’t miss at first, to keep them scrambling back for another bite, another morsel of apathy at the cost of just a little more of what made them a person.
Sloth was finding comfort at the bottom of a bottle, it was abandoning happiness for the sake of apathy, it was shutting out anything and anyone that might be worthwhile. It was a series of small sacrifices, of small things that were supposed to make it easier, and that just made the hole deeper. A staircase, turning into a slide, into a bottomless pit.
And Mercury seared that shut.
Hooks dug into his flesh and pulled off chunks from him. Fine, so what? He grew them back. They sunk into his mind, and pried at his thoughts, but he simply thought more. His will was not so easily damaged either, so half the time, the hooks broke instead of him.
Mouse traps slammed shut on his paws, steel bars aiming to separate them from his body, and Mercury snarled. He wove himself in <Grief>, in <Rainfall> and in the Dream of Starvation. Layers of metal encased his body, and suddenly, the hooks didn’t bite into his skin as much anymore.
Sloth recoiled at those, especially. Juno and Ruvah watched it all, closely, and somehow… they helped. His wolf sunk into his shadow, and hummed, quietly. It was a sad song, and Mercury could feel the resonance it had with his <Grief>, with their shared loss. It turned his sea of silver a darker shade of pallid grey, and yet, it stood strong.
Even in grief, they didn’t give up.
Ruvah, by comparison, enhanced his <Rainfall>. It turned from a downpour into a torrent, water fuelled by the elemental’s magic. They were so tired of being powerless, after all, so the storm suited them just fine. Drowning the world was better than languishing for a moment longer.
And thus, Mercury smashed his will into Sloth again.
His <Truth> was wielded as a hammer. It slammed into Sloth over and over, shifting its meaning, its definition, and the boundaries of where it began and ended. He shut certain bits of it off entirely, cut them out. Fish hooks with their lines cut, addictive bait burnt away by bolts of lightning and forge-fire.
He fought and wrestled for what felt like hours, toiling against an opponent so similar, yet not quite right. His head hurt from the impacts against his mind, and his body ached from where metal had dug into him. Frankly, Mercury really just wanted to take a nap… but the work wasn’t done.
That’s when he first fell into rezil.
When he wished to take a nap, and the world wanted him to, as well. The two of them were, for a moment, aligned in purpose. They resonated.
The weave of this world-wound hummed in response to Mercury’s wish, as if eager to grant it. Yet, he was still filled with the desire to work. His will was still being wielded.
And so, when Sloth was shaking, when they had come to half and accord, Mercury’s mind slammed into it with the intent to rearrange. Humming threads, already moving, were turned malleable. The world, once so rigid, was suddenly as if made to be molded.
It was as if he’d finally taken an ingot and heated it up. Freshly pulled from the forge, he could finally shape it, compared to when it was cold.
The resonance shook with the blow, but Sloth shifted, too. It changed, and became aligned to Mercury’s <Truth>. A million small changes all at once - and each of them made the world resonate with Mercury some more. It shook violently for a moment, then calmed. Another hammer-blow of his rijn remade so much more of it, while his ystir held the important threads in place.
Moments passed in the blink of an eye, and with a third hammerblow, “Sloth” was no more.
The fish hooks had been cut, severed, molten and recast. The trash had been cleansed away in flowing rivers. The weave of this place had been entirely turned inside out, in a brutal way, and this world-wound’s heart had been reforged until it wasn’t even a wound at all, anymore.
Mercury smiled at himself, gently. He liked what he’d done with the place. He took a long breath, and sighed. “Alright, welcome to Respite,” he said, checking over each thread again to make sure they worked, and they did.
He’d inverted the seeking mechanism. Instead of preying on the vulnerable, it would seek out those who needed a little more sloth rather than those who had too much, and offer them some solace.
Instead of being a filthy dump of rot and stagnation, Mercury had turned it into… a spa. A pocket world that had indoors and outdoors hot springs. Managed by the cleansed leviathans - who had mostly assumed the shape of rats.
Rats who wore very cute little vests and spectacles. He snickered a little at the sight, seeing some of them also relaxing in the hot springs, and sighed softly. Then, he laid down and took a nap.
Because surely, he’d earned some Respite, too.
2025-09-10 05:50:06 +0000 UTC
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There was something that I appreciated about violence.
This wasn’t exactly a new development. I’d beaten up bullies before. I’d gotten into a fair share of scrapes with my brothers, too. Ivan, Jacob and I hadn’t exactly been easy kids. I was probably a better sister for Beth now, but the boys and I had gotten home with scrapes and bruises often.
And now, all that had changed was the scope of violence. Breaking things was peaceful, sometimes. I hated that I took so much pleasure in it, but there was something incredible about exerting myself, about pouring my all out into the world. Making noise, moving, and changing things.
Back on Neamhan, when I was in college, I channelled a lot of that into going to the Gym. Eating healthy, maintaining my fitness, all of that. Cultivation was sometimes that, but right now, it was true more than it had been in a while.
The nest spawned usurpers made from stone and rock. I swung Astraeus, stabbing into them and exploding their insides with Qi.
Shrapnel of stone scraped against my face, sliding off the toughened skin of my cheeks. Mundane rocks broke more against my flesh, and I ducked under a violent, crystalline swing. A breath, and my spear lashed upwards, shattering the quartz that the usurper was made from.
Its severed arm crashed into the ground, making it shake. More of the rock-things came towards me, but a single step carried me through the air. The whole world was a mirror, and I a reflection.
Stepping through the attacks let me spin back around, slashing my spear and shattering more rocks. Another zurulen fell under my spear, its mineraloid body crumbling into a million pieces from a blast of Qi.
More of that ethereal power gushed out of me. It was in an endless flood, a cascade of strength that shook the world. I could feel it vibrate in the air around me. The violence of my Qi dug deep into the fabric of reality, and I didn’t stop. More. More!
Evermore power poured out of me, and yet, I never manifested it. Not into a golden tide. No, it coursed through me. Superimposing on myself, reinforcing my body. I became faster, stronger, tougher.
A rock fist the size of a house slammed towards me, and I caught it in my palm. With a roar, I swung the zurulen, as if a bat. Its house sized body lifted from the ground, then slammed right back into it, exploding into splinters against the bedrock of the mountain. For a second it seemed as if the other rock-giants flinched, but that didn’t make me slow down.
They died, too. And they kept running towards me. Violence reigned on the battlefield.
Eventually, the first blow landed on me, then the second, then a dozen more. Titanic blows that should have splattered me into paste, yet only bruised my dense flesh. I could feel the golden power coursing through me. Golden Glass.
Metal reinforced my bones, reflections carried my movements. I zipped through stances, blurring in combat, half-finished manoeuvres completing, leaving gashes as fast as light. Rocks splintered, shattered, broke. The world felt my wrath.
Somewhere in the middle of the battle I ended up putting Astraeus away. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to think, to get lost for a little while, by myself.
And so, I smashed in the rocks with my fist. Metallic power poured through my veins, turned me solid, immovable. My will was iron, and so was my body. I smashed the stones like a hydraulic press.
Yes, the usurpers threw me. They hit me, and it hurt, but I hit them back harder.
When my stomach got smashed in so hard I wanted to throw up, I grit my teeth and swung my fist. A blast of Qi so titanic it turned the usurper to dust appeared a second later. A hit to my back made my spine hurt and complain, but I spun with the motion, snapping out a kick. Golden armor thrashed through rock, and another zurulen exploded into a hundred thousand pieces.
I rampaged.
That’s the only word for what I did. The nest that I’d chosen was just unlucky. I tore through the zurulen, bodies of granite, of quartz, of obsidian, of ice… It didn’t matter, for the shattered all the same. I was too fast, too strong for any of them to keep up with.
And I was clearing up the infection. Despite breaking, despite rampaging, I felt good. It was right, right?
That was how I felt until I stopped. Until the zurulen parted and disappeared from my sight. Not because there were none left, but because they’d been directed to run. I jumped after them without hesitation, swinging my fist again, wanting more rock to shatter-
Only to have my blow caught.
The wave of Qi that followed the swing splattered harmlessly against a clawed hand. It was woven from crystals so exquisite I would have called them perfect. Diamonds and sapphires and emeralds, woven together in fibers and crystalline plates to shape a hand that withstood all my fury.
I blinked. I looked at the thing that stopped me, and saw a usurper. It was a crystalline humanoid, eight feet tall, and built massively. It had six hands, and its jagged faceplate was blank. Crystals wove and decorated its body like primalistic armor formed from jagged gemstones.
My thoughts were interrupted when its fist snapped out and caught me in the gut.
For the first time, I felt pain. My feet tore from the ground, and my abs crunched inwards with the grinding of metal against metal. A second later, the thing slammed me face first into the ground, with enough force to leave a crater around me.
Then, it spoke. “Leave, mirror-borne. Leave me and mine to be.”
I grunted as I dragged myself up from the crater, wiping a smear of blood from my lips. “What are you?” I asked.
“A nest,” it said. “A hive, a spawn, a dreamer, a taker.”
“Then I’ll break you,” I replied, gritting my teeth.
“You will try,” it said, and sounded almost mournful. Then another blow hit me.
Diamond-woven knuckles slammed into my jaw, sending my head snapping to the side. I bought myself with a platform of Qi mid-air as I was sent flying, quickly ducking under the afterblow, bringing an uppercut to meet their jaw in reply.
My fist cracked open with a bit of blood.
The thing slammed an elbow into the top of my head, and I was sent to the floor once more. Blood streamed from my nose in a gentle pour. I grunted, then pushed myself off the floor again. When I stood, I was wearing manifested armor.
Golden plate wove itself around me, my fists covered in gauntlets of metal that was even harder than my flesh. I gritted my teeth, and set my jaw, ignoring the roaring stars in the thing’s chest. Instead, I moved.
My fist snapped forward, deflected by one of its many arms. It had more than me, so when it returned three blows for each one I dealt. So, I cheated, too.
When three fists came flying at me, I just vanished. One moment to the next, I was behind it, already completing a swing that some alternate version of me had started. Golden armor slammed into diamonds once more, and both cracked and splintered.
Qi poured out of me and filled the gaps. I vanished again before the next attack could even reach me. That was the unfair part of my power - my alternate selves. They’d increased in number, and I could trade places with one of them at any time.
If one angle of attack wasn’t working, one of my duplicates had taken another. If it guarded left, I struck right. Within less than a second, we had a dozen brutal exchanges. I flickered and blurred in the air, never properly moving anymore. Instead, I shifted.
Alternate self, reflections in the air, and my teleportation items made it so that I barely had to move to create force. I simply flickered from one thought to the next, and my blows landed with unprecedented violence.
Each impact sent the air quivering with a snap of noise and Qi and heat. The snow melted around us as more power poured into my motions, and still, the crystal thing simply shifted its arms.
It blocked and deflected, and about half the time it worked, even as I flickered. Then, after a dozen exchanges, it worked three quarters of the time.
After a hundred blows, the thing caught my arm.
Then it pulled.
Feeling my tendons and fibres strain as they fought to stay attached to my body was one of the most miserable things I’ve ever experienced. It hurt like hell. My flesh creaked and cracked, as more Qi flooded it.
Strands of golden glass held me together, but I had to move with the pull. My feet lifted off the ground, and then the world blurred. Within the span of a second, I slammed into the rock a good two dozen times. Each impact splintered the stone and bruised me. Each impact was heavier than the last, as if it was testing my limits.
Halfway through, my ribs started cracking, and the rocks around us were covered in dust and craters. My armor shielded me from the worst of the sharp rocks, but didn’t do anything to minimize the impact.
My teeth rattled in my skull when the usurper finally tossed me. I stopped mid air, standing on platforms of Qi, and launched at it again, only for the crystal thing to sidestep.
I flickered in turn, and was behind it. My elbow slammed into the nape of its neck, and their sapphire shell splintered with a blast of Qi. Mythic amounts of power coursed through my maelstrom, pouring outwards into the world, blasting all the dust aside, annihilating the snow for a hundred meters around us.
It moved to grab me again, but I flickered away, landing on my feet a couple steps from it. Blood poured from the gaps in my armor. My skin had torn, but already, healthier versions superimposed themselves on me, allowing me to heal.
“You are in pain,” the thing noted, tilting its head. “Run.”
The words came out as a recommendation, but it just filled me with disgust. My fist rose in front of me, and I readied myself for another engagement.
“Why fight?” it asked, crystals shifting with a dull hum. “Why participate in this war?”
“Because you’re where you aren’t meant to be,” I ground out. It felt stupid to justify myself to this thing.
Again, it tilted its head, the other direction this time. Then, it crossed two of its arms - the uppermost two - in an almost human gesture. “You fight for divines. Are they meant to be here?”
“You’re a usurper,” I spat. “A thing that comes from another world to this one, making it less inhabitable for natives.”
At that, it nodded. “Yes,” it said, in that same mournful tone. Its head hung with what almost looked like shame. “We do. And yet,” its head turned to me again, “I do not wish to die.”
I swallowed, dryly. There was no good reply to that.
“No matter,” the crystalloid said, shaking their head. “You wish to break. If you must, then break me.”
And then, it was in front of me. A fist slammed into my side again, denting my armor inward and cracking my ribs. I felt my insides lurch with the force of the blow. My maelstrom roared within me, and properly manifested. The Qi in the air moved, lurched, and soared towards me.
The world itself backed me up, as power of all kinds was drawn in, and turned a pure, liquid gold. It shone, and I grew stronger. My armor taller, my bones tougher, and I raced in again.
I flickered through the [Hall of Mirrors], dodging one blow. Another I avoid with a twist, and a third by changing with an alternate me. Then I slammed a blow home, gauntleted fist crashing into crystal flesh. It splintered and cracked below the blow, and from inside, some kind of glittering, pale-blue liquid poured out.
To my senses, it felt resonant, as if multi-layered and twisting in on itself. Echoing repetitions turning inside and outside, spreading into the void.
“Ah, my crystal cage cracks,” they said, regarding what was… not quite blood, but close. “You are strong, mirror-borne. No wonder they want you.”
“Who wants me,” I ground out.
“My people,” they said. “The usurpers.” There was no love lost in those words. “They echo and ripple and reproduce. They splinter into fractured selves and spread to become more than they were ever meant to be. That is the true trap of Echo. It is the loss of identity.”
I blinked. “What?” I asked.
They sighed, a long, drawn-out hum of chiming crystal. Then, they punched me again. My face-plate dented inward and my nose broke. It hurt, and my world turned white from pain. Another blow slammed into my abdomen, and I felt about ready to break in half. The air dragged against me like a physical blanket, until I slammed into the mountain.
Almost on instinct, I tilted my head out of the way, and another blow tore into the stones next to my face. It shredded the side of the mountain, crumbled rock and ice. A rockslide quickly descended to bury me, but I blinked out of the way.
Instead of me, the rocks simply descended on the usurper. Half the mountain caved in, and covered them in rubble. I stood there, holding my breath, the Qi in the world pouring into me. I knew it wasn’t over, I knew.
My nose mended, and the pain ebbed as I breathed. One breath, two, then half a dozen, until the rubble shifted. The crystalloid walked out, entirely unbothered. One of they arms was slightly cracked, and the wound I’d dealt was still bleeding that strange, almost resin-like substance, but they stared at me all the same.
“I do not wish to die,” they said, and again, the words hit me. “Will you spare me?”
The notion sounded idiotic, when looking at our injuries. It was barely cracked, and I could hardly feel one of my arms, the muscles still knitting together as the joint slowly pushed back into its socket. My nose was broken, my skin cracked, and my blood steamed as it hit the remnants of snow that the avalanche brought.
Cold flakes settled in my hair. I stared at the usurper. “Why are you so different?”
“Ah, that is the question, is it not?” they asked, looking to the sky. There was a faint, sad amusement in its voice. “Because you are judging creatures on the merit of worlds,” the answer eventually came. “You judge me as a usurper, and because others of my kind have killed your kind, you wish to kill me.”
It was a cruel truth, and the knowledge of it stung. “So what?” I asked. “You’re ‘one of the good ones’, then?”
They shook their head. “No,” they said. “There is no good. I am in this world, and that makes me evil. I pollute it. I bleed echo out of my crystal cage. I am a virus, and that is the tragedy, isn’t it? Because I live, I am poison. Because I require resources, and outcompete natives. I eat their mountains, and spread my Echo, and that makes me pollutant.
“I can do this world one kindness, and that is the greatest cruelty to myself. To die.” The words drift away, like flakes of snow hitting the ground. They look at me. My rage all but extinguished in front of the ice. “What would you do, mirror-borne. Would you-”
“Fio,” I said. “My name is Fio. What is yours?”
A curious look passed them over, their hands falling to their sides, their head tilting. “You grant me personhood?”
I gritted my teeth, summoned Astraeus, and laid the spear in my lap as I sat down. “Sit,” I told them. “Sit, and speak.”
The crystalloid shifted. Hesitantly, they moved forward, step by step towards me, eyeing the weapon. Despite the hesitation, despite the fear, they sat down. Frankly, I think they’re stronger than me, but that doesn’t matter. Because for just a moment, when they sit, and cross their legs, and the jagged, crystalling claws settle with comfortable clicks, we do not meet as enemies.
It gives me the strangest feeling, but I follow my intuition for once. To hear it out, because apparently, usurpers aren’t all bad. Leyburns, like the one that had originally almost killed me, could fight on the side of Eden. This one, in front of me, wore a “cage”, it said.
And for once, I listened.
Perhaps the divines would not have done so. Perhaps they would have asked me to simply kill it, but after their little stunt, I didn’t trust them either. No one playing this game was doing it out of kindness. And so, it was up to me, then. Up to people to find a better way.
“I have no name,” the crystalloid said, eventually. It came out as a quiet, breathless hum. “We are nest. We are poison. We are Echo. But what am I? Who am I? This question is not one I could ask. It is not one I can answer.”
My breath comes slowly, and I take a moment to compose myself. Deep breath in, then out. As gently as I can, I ask. “Would you like a name?”
They look at me, and simply nod, silently. “Saph,” I say, quietly.
“Saph?”
“Sapphire. For your blue gems,” I said, pointing at them, trailing down their neck, ringing their shoulders, woven patterns of sapphire blue threads across their body. They smile, gently, tracing them with a clawed finger.
“Saph…” they repeat, feeling out the words. “Yes. I will take this name.”
“Well then, Saph,” I said. “Tell me a bit about usurpers.”
“So you can kill them better?” they asked.
I shake my head. “No,” I said. “So we can find a better solution.” My mind is iron, unyielding, after all. And I won’t settle for anything other than the best option.
2025-09-02 19:42:11 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 264: Futureproof
Ihn’ar was understanding. It was vision beyond vision, comprehension of things not meant to be understood. It was breaking the veils and looking past them.
Zeyjn was the splitting of the mind into perfect pieces, able to operate and rest and focus on different things, all working in harmony as one whole. It was preparation, malleability, and quantity.
Ystirs were structures. Tiny pieces of maintained order, rigidly holding something in place. They are routines, repetitive motions executed flawlessly.
Rijn was strength. It was a hardening of the mind, a filling of a shape, casting forceless violence. A shaping of the material world.
And rezil was… resonance. It was amber, casting out mana and holding and shifting threads. It was a shaping of the immaterial, of existence itself, the change of natural order, manipulating… the laws of physics?
Mercury hitched at that last one. It was almost right, but not quite, and that bothered him. But he didn’t have enough practice yet to nail it down. For the first time, though, he was thinking of all his mental exercises at the same time. The ramifications of each of them.
Strangely, there was a reaction that happened when he was comparing them. Mercury had quite a few skills set for finding little connections, and when <Tapestry>, <Truth>, and <Seeker Of Secrets> all activated, there was no doubt that something was afoot.
Following the sensation, Mercury thought about the things a little more deeply. He had been mostly using them in tandem, especially his zeyjn, ystirs and rijn. Ystirs were great for spellcasting, or doing lots of things at once that weren’t too complex. He could control his <Force of the Hecatoncheires> with them, for example.
Often, he used a zeyjn to manage them. Each zeyjn could also manipulate one rijn, so he could swing five invisible hammers around at the speed of thought, by now. But how was that connected to ihn’ar? Or rezil?
They were all mental exercises, of course, so they were all connected in the sense that each trained his mind. It wasn’t a stat that stood anywhere on his sheet, but the amount of parallel thought processes he could maintain had grown. The strength, flexibility, and range of his rijn had grown. At the beginning he had barely managed shapes, and by now he could easily manipulate the hardened pieces of his mind into hammers, chisels, platforms for him to stand on, and so forth. Even his ystirs had grown able to handle more complex tasks.
From scanning mana to manipulating complex constructs of force… they’d come a long way.
But his ihn’ar was the odd one out, then. He didn’t really use it in conjunction with the other pieces, did he? How would they even fit together?
<Tapestry> let him see the golden threads connecting the practices. He understood that they were linked, but he couldn’t see how they fit together. There were more skills he was missing, but he didn’t quite understand what they could be.
For a little while he kept prodding the connection, trying to make it give him more answers, but he came up short. He sighed, and eventually stopped poking at it, focusing his efforts on the new ability he was meant to master again.
Rezin. Resonance. In a way, it was a skill that he had cheated his way around. Whenever he needed to change the threads in a world, infect them, eat them, whatever, he had simply plugged the gaps with his Stifled Silence. The amber from it, which he noted could also be called a resin, was enough to fill the gaps, temporarily.
And when he was done with those worlds, well. There were no more gaps to fill. They were either in order, or ruined. Because that was what he’d started to do to worlds, apparently.
Mercury sighed again, softly, and settled down in his hammock. The sun still felt uncomfortable against his skin, so he used the Storm’s Raiment to cloud the window a little. When filtered through that, the rays returned to their usual homely warmth.
Yes, he was very aware that the sun should not generally be angry at him, but he ignored it for now. He already knew trouble was approaching him again, and being blasted by light itself was something he could put off for a little while. All he needed to do, after all, was wait.
And so, wait he did.
- - -
Mercury had cultivated more patience in these last few years than he had in his entire life back on Earth. That was, however, also much easier here. He didn’t have deadlines, or bosses. There was no real need to work much to secure his livelihood, if he was short on cash he could just do a run in a permanent arch, or do some construction work, some blacksmithing…
Frankly, there was always someone to buy from him. And in the end, he didn’t really need to eat. He owned his own house. He could summon endless water from his own mana without trouble.
It was comfortable. Living like this was easy, so he didn’t hurry and took things slow. Impatience was washed away like leaves travelling on a <Babbling Brook>. Granted, having a magic Skill that helped keep his mental state calm was definitely also helpful in that regard, but it really was only a bonus.
That thought also led back to the endless question of whether the system granted powers or classified earned ones. Perhaps a bit of both? Perhaps one or the other.
Not that it particularly mattered. Still, Mercury was curious, so he asked. “Hey, system. Do you grant me these Skills or do you just classify them?”
Usually this would have been an exercise in futility, but Mercury’s situation was a little unique. In what may, in hindsight, be a slightly risky decision, he triggered <Answer>.
Instantly, the skill latched onto <Seeker Of Secrets>, his most obvious connection to the system. Appy, however, had control over his Skills, too, so as <Answer> latched on, he could feel it hesitate until granted permission.
Once again, he was happy that he had given her the ability to manage some of his Skills, because that could have been really gross, otherwise! With her assistance, though, the Skill burrowed into the bowels of the system, flowing along mana-woven pathways that stretched across… everywhere.
It raced through spell constructs and magic circles so complex that Mercury shivered at the thought of them, down through tunnels and channels and backdoors. And then, it bounced back, right into his skull.
[The System aids in crystallizing potential. All Skills originate from within the bearer. Structures catalogue and channel desire.]
He blinked for a second.
[<Answer> has levelled up! <Answer lv. 1 -> 2>]
Mercury blinked again. His senses were… misaligned, he noted distantly. The world was both close and far away. Colours melted into each other. His sight went blurry, and didn’t improve even as he blinked. He smelled… burnt bread?
And then, his insides lurched back into place. Each time he focused on a sense, it <Resolved> itself back into existence. His body that had melted apart like wax under a flame suddenly flowed back into itself, and his thoughts regained their clarity.
The enormity of the message he’d read reached him. The enormity of space it had taken up in its mind. When asked, the system had answered, and it had answered with force. He felt his ears ring from the noise, from the gravity of that notification.
Still, it hung in the air in front of him. Usually, when he touched system messages, they felt like nothing, but this one was heavy. It was brutal, a weight on his mind, a knowledge burrowing into him about what potential was, what it meant to have it realized.
All at once he comprehended a core part of what it meant to grow in this universe.
Desire feeds potential feeds growth.
A simple string of words that had overclocked his brain and been to enormous for his body to bear. Even now, it threatened to slip from his grasp, searing his mind when he reached for it. He felt like a regular person again, reaching for a white hot piece of metal with his bare hands.
It hurt, but the pain was meaningless to him. It seared his thoughts, shearing them apart, but that was fine, too, he simply split his mind and made more.
The <Truth> fought him. It wanted to escape, but he had learnt it, and he refused to let it go. He wouldn’t forget, nothing, not ever. Every memory was part of him, even the ones that hurt-
Even this one that hurt like a bitch!
[<Babbling Brook> has levelled up! <Babbling Brook lv. 1 -> 2>]
He wrangled and fought, holding onto the knowledge as it wanted to slip through his fingers, he bled as his body struggled to hold itself together, as his very existence strained. He felt like a sieve trying to hold water, and yet, somehow, he managed. Not fully, some bits of it slipped away in grinding agony, but he held onto some.
Bit by bit, the strain lessened as he lost and gained more. Mercury felt himself grow more realized, more complete as he tackled the truth. As he internalised that simple chain of words. Desire feeds potential. Potential feeds growth.
That was what he was left with. Words and understandings at the edges of his mind, leaving him panting and ragged. “Hey, Appy?” he rasped, voice sore.
[Yes, dum-dum?] came the mechanical reply
He smiled a little. “Remind me to not ask the system questions too often,” he said, slumping into his mattress.
[This consciousness will make sure to prompt the dum-dum with a reminder upon their next impending poor decision.]
Despite everything, though, he felt pleased. That had been probably the most painful experience of his life, to be fair, but then again, pain was kind of meaningless these days. His body reformed, and he could simply let the agony wash over him.
Still, though. It had hurt. A lot. Enough to let his <Babbling Brook> level up. And even there, he did see that the Skill was almost full. A thick sheet of dark grime and decomposing leaves was slowly travelling down the river. It would become meaningless in only a few minutes, but it was the first time he’d seen the Skill get close to overflowing.
That would have most likely been an uncomfortable experience. Well, it had been uncomfortable despite the Skill working, but he was alive. And that was what mattered.
[<Truth> has levelled up! <Truth lv. 4 -> 5>]
But the gains were there. Mercury wondered, then, for a brief moment, if he could use the existential weight that came with understanding the system to grow stronger?
That thought sent a shiver down his spine. A foreboding sensation of doom. It felt as though there would be dire consequences if he considered the act of asking the system for answers as a simple vehicle to push himself forward. No, it was not meant to be used as a trivial tool for that, and he sensed that it would be rather displeased if he used it that way.
And, frankly, he didn’t really want to, either.
Questions were meant to be answered, but finding those answers through exploration was simply more fun. He wanted to do that more than just ask everything in one place. And since desire brought potential, and he didn’t have that strong a desire to simply have all his answers handed to him, that’d probably stagnate his potential.
He snickered at that. Already, he was understanding how to move forward better because of what he’d learnt, and yet, that answer was annoyingly simple: To pursue the things he wanted to pursue.
A soft sigh left Mercury’s lips, and he laid his face down on his paws again. He wanted to travel again, really. That was one of his greatest joys, after all. But before he could do that, he wanted to deal with the rest of the sins. Only about half of them left. All he needed to do was wait.
- - -
And wait he did. Days turned to pages, and time passed. Elliot came to visit him, bringing Breeze along. The two had become swift friends, and often played together. Elliot had become a rather proficient mage, too, since the last time he and Mercury worked together, in the years that had passed since.
“Hello Mercury,” Elliot greeted with a happy smile. “I’ve come to ask for your help today!”
At that, the mopaaw raised an eyebrow. “Oh? My help?” he asked. “What do you need?”
Breeze shifted on his feet, as if the topic was a little more sensitive, but Ellio seemed entirely unbothered. “I want you to help me transition!” he, no, she said, so bluntly that Mercury double checked if he’d used <Answer>. He had not.
“Okay, come on in then,” Mercury said, heading into the house. Once he was seated around the kitchen table with both the kids - Elliot was nineteen, but that still made her a kid in his mind - he continued the conversation. “What would my help look like?”
“I’ve picked out a new name I want you to weave into me,” the kid replied, sliding a letter towards Mercury. It was wrapped in a plain envelope, though it had a few flowers drawn onto it. He gently picked it up and read the contents. “And I want you to try to change my body, though I can also manage that by learning some fleshcrafting spells later, so no hurry.”
Shaking his head slightly at how straightforward she was being, he regarded the kid. “Alright,” he said. “Luckily for you, I can probably reverse anything I do here. You’re confident about this?”
She nodded. “Completely.”
“Alright,” Mercury nodded. If she was sure, then he saw no reason to overly question her. This shouldn’t be too troublesome a procedure. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said gently.
The girl leaned back in the chair, making sure she was comfortable. “Breeze, give me your hand,” she demanded easily, and the storm-boy obliged. “Ready,” she said with a smile.
And with a nod, Mercury sank into ihn’ar, and triggered <Unravel>.
Instantly, Mercury saw the world change. Everything came apart into a tangled mess of threads. Especially, though, the girl in the chair in front of him. Her entire existence spilled forth in a nested ball of yarn, intertwined and endlessly complex.
In short, nothing Mercury hadn’t worked with before.
Compared to Bael or the skinwalkers, her structure was almost easy. She was human, after all, and Mercury had known being human once, too. Yes, it was complex. It was full of contradictions and endlessly complicated, but there were trends to the structure, threads he could follow to find what he needed to find.
With quick motions, he made his way to the place where he found her name, and he changed it. It was a small alteration, really, since she’d been scared of too big a change. But it was also easy. Instead of Elliot, her name was Ellen, and the change was made within a few quick twists.
Of course, it wouldn’t automatically have everyone use that name for her, but it would be acknowledged by the system, probably, and it would give others some… intuition, maybe, on what name suited her? Something like that.
Then, he looked over some of the threads that decided the blueprint for her physical make-up, and that was a little more complex. He wasn’t an expert in biology, after all, but he knew reasonably enough, and in this world of intent, he could also rely on the world doing a good bit of shaping.
All he really did was alter some things about who she was, and what her body was. Her hormone distribution would be different, and some parts of her appearance would shift a bit with time. Anything else could be done with her own spells, he just needed to give her body a little push to help it figure itself out.
And with that, the operation was already done.
It took barely ten minutes until Mercury withdrew, and all the threads spooled back into each other, snapping into the person that was Ellen. He’d made the changes she’d asked for, and she quickly opened her status sheet, then gave him a beaming smile. “Thank you, Mercury!” she said.
Rolling his eyes, the mopaaw nodded. “Yes, yes, you can hug me now.”
Without hesitation, the girl wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezing the poor mopaaw. He quickly returned the hug with his ghost-hands, then pulled away. “All good?” he asked, carefully. “Feeling anything weird?”
“I am feeling happy,” she said, giggling. “Though that was expected. No, nothing too weird right now.”
“Alright,” Mercury said. “Changes should start happening slowly, but let me know if anything feels weird, and I’ll have another look.”
“Mhm!” she nodded eagerly. “I’ll let you know. Thanks again.”
He smiled. “No prob. Got anything planned for the rest of the day?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” Ellen nodded. “I’m gonna build an ice-castle. To be a princess in.”
Snickering slightly, Mercury nodded along. “Right, of course. Have fun with that,” he said, then ruffled her hair with a ghost-hand. Not too long after, Ellen and Breeze went out into the world again, a little happier than before.
For his own part, Mercury was glad to have helped. In fact, he felt like doing some more things, so he went about what he usually did when he got bored. Using some spells to see if he could make life a bit better in stormbraver.
There was something rather nice about searching for problems and solving them. <Tapestry>, especially, had a habit of pointing him into the right direction, and usually he learnt a little bit from that. So, Mercury helped.
He went to the farms outside the city and helped with the dry fields, refilling reservoirs with a bit of <Rainfall>. An older farmer even showed him a trick of how to infuse the ability with some stamina, to help the plants grow faster. <Grain of Infinity> quickly chugged along to refill Mercury’s resources, of course.
Then, he brought food to some of the temporary housing. He visited the healer’s quarters, and treated a few patients that couldn’t pay. He helped another mopaaw off a tree, though he only got a hiss in reply.
It was fun, using his Skills to help people. He even got to do a bit of blacksmithing to help people fix up some tools, and a tiny bit of woodworking where he patched up a leaking roof. He was really rather glad that <Grass> worked on dead plants, too, letting him regrow wooden beams and framework.
[<Novice Woodworking> has levelled up! <Novice Woodworking 1 -> 2>]
He paid the courts a visit as a truth detector for a little while, too. And while it made cases extremely cut and clear, it was also a bit uncomfortable to have people get so desperate and try to lie more and more, so he stopped doing it after a bit.
Instead, he followed another thread that had appeared in his tapestry. A new one.
Well, not quite new, but new to Stormbraver. A problem that had just recently popped up. He could tell it was small, but at the same time, it smelled of lots of magic, so he was rather interested in it.
[<Greater Perception> has levelled up! <Greater Perception lv. 2 -> 3>]
He followed the string of connection down to Ruvah’s lake, finding the elemental standing at its side, gently swishing their tail. Mercury looked at the lake, and nodded.
“You can feel it too, huh?” he asked him.
Ruvah nodded. He’d assumed the cat-like form of copying Mercury, even mimicking his newest evolution. His eyes stared at the lake, as if trying to peer into its depths from the surface. “I do,” he said, “and I don’t like it.”
Mercury gave the waters another glance, and he narrowed his eyes. The connection was stronger, and he even felt a gentle pull. It was connected to him, specifically, huh? But it didn’t wanna spend the effort to reach him. Or the effort to climb any higher than the lowest spot around, the bottom of the lakebed.
“I can see why you wouldn’t,” Mercury said. “Want me to check it out?” His shadow rippled gently, Juno making her presence known as another companion.
Ruvah nodded slowly. “Yes. Though I may wish to come along.”
“Why?” Mercury asked.
“It settled in my lake. It reminds me of-” their face twisted in pain. “Of my last loss. This time, if there is to be butchery, I want to have the strength to stop it.”
With a soft hum, Mercury regarded the ice-encased elemental. That wound hadn’t healed, then. Not even close. Ruvah was still aching, hurting to be better, to do better, to make sure they didn’t lose people that same way again. So, Mercury smiled gently. “Of course you can come along.”
“We should have some kind of connection, Mercury,” Ruvah said, glancing at Juno.
The mopaaw tilted his head a little. “We do, already. We are friends.”
Smiling gently, Ruvah shook his head. “Friends? You have saved my life multiple times. Brought me to a new home. Helped me find belonging when I was abandoned.”
“I don’t think I can take credit for all of that,” Mercury said with a soft snicker. “You’ve done plenty of that yourself. You saved me, too.”
“Indeed. That would make us companions, then, wouldn’t it?” he said.
Mercury nodded slowly. “I suppose so.”
“Then let me be your companion, Mercury,” they said. “You have your shadow, Juno. Allow me to be your… droplet?”
At that, the mopaaw froze. He looked at Ruvah, and his calm cracked. Shit. Fucking… damn it. His own wound hadn’t healed either. It still hurt. Why did it still hurt? He was good at living with it, but then things like this happened, and…
Juno emerged from his shadow in full. Very gently, she pressed her head into his side. Mercury felt his own heartbeat, his own hitching breath, and he forced his muscles to relax. He took a long, deep breath. Held it for a few seconds, then let it go. All sliding down the <Babbling Brook> in his mind.
“Are you sure about this, Ruvah?” he asked.
The elemental only smiled. “I can break the bond if I want to,” he said. “Do not babysit me, Mercury. I am making my own choice.”
Once more, Mercury glanced at Juno, and seeing his familiar nod at him, he gave a long, suffering sigh. “Alright, then,” he said, and slowly pressed his snout against Ruvah’s forehead. For the first time in years, he triggered <Beast King>, and a moment later, he felt the connection take hold. And his status updated.
Beast familiars: 2/2
Ruvah smiled at him. He seemed so pleased with himself, and Mercury gave a sad smile. It hurt, but he was also glad, at the same time, to still have people who wanted to be with him. He took another deep breath, letting a few seconds pass. “Thank you,” he whispered eventually.
“You as well,” Ruvah replied, his tail swishing through the air, softly crackling with ice. And then, after letting the moment linger, the elemental turned to the thing that was in the lake.
Mercury did the same thing, and let his emotions pass onwards. Deep down there was a rift. A tiny, lazy tear in reality, unmoving, not even spilling. Just an invitation, a terribly bored manifestation, just rolling with its instincts.
And since it called to Mercury, he would answer. Summoning more air into his lungs with <Rainfall>, he dove into the water to meet what awaited him down there.
Sloth.
2025-08-30 22:51:36 +0000 UTC
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The hospital was sterile and white, and I felt horribly mundane as I walked in. My memories are blurred, but I know I talked to a receptionist at some point, who pointed me at a nurse, who pointed me at my dad’s room. Third floor, room seventeen.
I remember that because I spent what must have been an eternity staring at the door. I didn’t want to open it, didn’t want to see what laid behind it. In the end, it wasn’t even me that opened it. Another nurse - a guy this time - saw me standing there and came by.
“Sorry, is the door locked?” he asked, then instantly opened it to check. Of course, it wasn’t locked. Which sent him into a stammering of apologies. I hardly heard them, because on the hospital bed laid my dad.
He looked like shit.
There was no other way to say it. He looked terrible. His cheeks were sunken in, his skin was a pallid grey, and even his hair had lightened at the roots. I could see bits of skin flaking off him, and that was after Reya had taken off the worst of the effects.
Normally, she could cure Echo addiction. Normally, it shouldn’t cause any trouble.
Yet, within my dad, I could feel it differently. There was structure there. He didn’t imbibe Echo impermanently, no. The experiments had been engineered to start him on whatever the equivalent of Echo-based cultivation was.
Within his chest there were the remnants of something like an Echo-core. It was shattered, now, breaking apart and flaking in the same way that his skin was. Somehow, it was almost similar to being Path-broken, yet different. Cultivation cores were near impossible to be actively cleansed, unless-
Unless someone had access to Divinity? Had Reya somehow figured out how to restore someone’s Path?
So many thoughts darted through my head. Theories about cultivation, and how the different powers interplayed, how Echo and Qi and Mana and Divinity all connected, because by now I knew they had to. There was so much evidence for it. So many things to think over.
And I ignored all of them.
Instead, I looked at my dad and walked forward. My steps were shaky, but despite everything, I didn’t stumble. I was hard as iron, after all, and so, my feet carried me to the side of the bed.
The trainwreck of a human that was Lars Desum looked at me. His lips formed into a smile, and the skin around them cracked as lines wore themselves into it. I could see healthy skin underneath, but it was raw, red, young. It would take time to heal, but he was stable. Despite everything, he was stable.
“Hey Fio,” he said, calling me by a name that should have been mine and yet wasn’t. By a name I’d lost when I died. “Sorry you have to see me like this.”
I wondered if he grieved me in my world. I wondered if he mourned me, or if he was too drunk to notice. If he found solace at the deep end of a bottle back then, in that place that I was no longer in.
A heavy, dry swallow went through my throat. “Yeah,” I said, almost choking on the attempt to speak. “No, I mean. You’re okay. Not your fault."
At that, he gave a wry, weak chuckle. His eyes turned to the ceiling. “Not my fault, huh?” he parroted with a sigh. “No, it is. I bit off more than I could chew,” he said, and the resentment in his words was clear. The self-loathing more than obvious. “I did it again, and again, and again. And now here I am. This is where my choices have brought me.”
My mind raced to find a reply, but each attempt died before the words came to my lips. Ann stood next to me, a rock, an anchor, a point of stability, and still, I couldn’t find the strength to speak.
The man who was not my father shook his head. “And again,” he said quietly, “you save me. Your friends drag me out of there. Your friends heal me. Bring me to a hospital. They call you, they clean up.” By the end of his words, there were tears in the corners of his eyes. The words were deathly quiet. “I just wanted to be useful again.”
I clenched my fist so hard it would have shattered stone. My throat felt tight, and yet, I willed myself to speak. “No,” I said. “You did fine.”
“Fine?” he asked, mocking himself with spite in his voice. He turned to face me again, the only thing he could really do, fists balled and grabbing his sheets. “No. I didn’t do fine. I got this close to killing myself over vain pride, over thinking I had something to prove.”
“No,” I repeat, croaking it more than speaking. “You did- It’s…”
“What?” he asked. “What pathetic excuse are you gonna give me?” The word felt like a punch to my face, and I felt speechless. My throat tightened up even more. Despite everything, all my power, it was so hard to speak to Lars. I hated him. I loved him.
“I-”
“Don’t bother,” he said, turning aside. “I know what I am. Pathetic. I-”
Ann stepped forward. Furious, like a wild fire, she stepped up and grabbed the sides of his hospital bed. Her eyes burned. “You’re going to let her speak,” she said, each voice cold and furious. “You’re going to listen, Lars.”
He blinked at that, flinching back. The loathing burnt when faced with Ann. He looked at me, and saw the wet sheen in my face, and all that hatred crumbled away. It turned to ash, because Lars had always been weak, and when push came to shove, he would crumble. When faced with pushback, he gave up. Even if it was pushback on hating himself.
All that he was left with was a faint sense of defeat.
Then, Ann stepped back, and squeezed my hand. We weren’t dating; she was dating Fio, not Ion. But she still supported me.
I took a deep breath. Felt the way Astraeus and Cass hummed in my chest to support me. Another deep breath.
Instead of a hospital, I imagined myself in a warzone. I imagined myself facing the dark-fire giant again, staring down death, because in so many ways, it was easier than facing the man who wasn’t quite my dad. And finally, finally, the words came.
“You discovered the Echo operation,” I said, surprised by how gentle I sounded. “You saved people.”
That was all. All I could say, and all I needed to say, because when faced with adversity, Lars crumbled. He teared up more, then let out a choking sob, pressing his face into the crook of his elbow. He had always hated crying, especially in front of me, but he still did it.
“I could have done more,” he said. “I could have asked for help. I should have!”
Ann nodded. “You should,” she said calmly, laying a hand on his shoulder. “But to expect perfection of yourself is cruel.”
Dad gave a choked chuckle at that, followed by another sob. He wiped his face in the blanket, sniffled, and sighed. Long and hard in a way that was full of pain and sorrow and growth and happiness and so many things. “I’ll try,” he said. “To be kind to myself. So I can…” he trailed off, then looked at me again, and took a deep breath. Somehow, even with his face reddened, he managed another smile. “So I can keep moving forward. Keep doing better.”
Some part of me smiled at that. I let that thought pass through my connection with Fio, the real Fio, and she froze like a deer in headlights. Unlike her, though, I simply nodded. “Good. Burn those regrets,” I said. “Leave them behind and move on.”
They’d forged that Path together, after all. And I saw the way my words influenced him. The way that they stoked the fire in his core, the way his Qi grew and ate at the Echo that still coursed through him. A minor breakthrough from… what, second step of Qi Gathering to third?
It didn’t matter, not exactly. The exact stage was unimportant. All that mattered was taking another step, moving forward. And, looking at his face, Lars knew that. Because if he gave up again, I could tell Fio might give up on him.
- - -
I took a deep breath. Despite everything, the campfire didn’t feel warm enough anymore. It was snowing, of course, it was always snowing here, but that was not what I meant.
The cold ate into my bones, because I'd just seen my dad in a hospital bed. All at once, I’d learned that he’d dismantled an Echo experimentation scheme and nearly gotten himself killed. Because he was a fucking moron with a death wish who couldn’t accept help and would throw himself-
Emilia placed a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, princess,” she said. “You okay?”
I stared at her. Felt the rage, the anger, the pain that I felt at the thought of my idiot, piece of shit, worthless dad almost killing himself just to prove a point. Just so he could indulge himself, and play the hero one more time. Because to him I was still a child, still someone he needed to prove himself to, someone he needed to be a mountain for.
“... Break something,” I mumbled, clenching my fingers tight around Astraeus. “I need to… need to break something.”
How Ion handled it so calmly, I didn’t know. I was pissed. Beyond pissed. I wanted to smack him, to scream, to yell, just anything but this.
Emilia just nodded. She pulled me up with a quick motion, took a look around, and then faced Stella. “Yo, Archer,” she said. “Got anything?”
The woman smiled faintly. “Way ahead of you,” she said, then pointed. “There. About… three-ish kilometers. They’re the most durable things around, so knock yourself out.” The words came easier now, after she’d travelled with us for a little while. But I didn’t pay attention to that.
I just stepped into the air, then through the reflections, and disappeared. Things needed to break. I needed to break things, to do something with this loathing.
And so, the usurpers broke.
2025-08-28 02:19:11 +0000 UTC
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Turns out, putting magic into metals was hard.
The simple reason was that controlling anything on a molecular level was usually a delicate thing, and often reserved for sterile processes. There was nothing sterile about working with a forge. Sure, it was clean, but then you’d hit glowing hot metal, and slag and chips would come off it. Simply the way it was.
Weaving in magical lattices, especially ones that would mimic filters, attunements, or full-on spell structures was a nightmare. It was a horrible exercise that left Mercury feeling like it was futile for a good, long while. Whenever he held the structure with his mana, it would shatter with the first strike of his mind-hammer.
Sometimes, his angle was off, or there was a flaw in his structure, or the mana wasn’t distributed properly, or he didn’t align it correctly with the grain of the metal… A million and one reasons for failure, but only one way to do it right. So, he bashed his head against the metaphorical wall all day - and found failure after failure.
At the end of it all, Yasashiku chased him off, telling the mopaaw that he, unlike some other people, actually needed to sleep. With some grumbling, Mercury did indeed head home, and also resisted the urge to continue working within Little Pandora, the smithy inside his log. Instead, he laid down in his hammock, and looked at the stars in his sky.
Sighing softly, he decided, almost on a whim, to practice a little bit of normalcy, and close his eyes for once.
That, somehow, ended up being a strange feeling. He hadn’t slept in… a good while. He’d rested his eyes sometimes, sure, but never like this, with faint moonlight shining in from the window. It had been a while since he properly let his thoughts drift, he supposed.
A moment passed as Mercury simply breathed, then another. Time drifted by like grains of sand falling down an hourglass. For his part, the mopaaw soon lost track of it all, letting his mind drift off and falling asleep.
Except, of course, that he awakened within his dream.
Mercury’s eyelids slowly fluttered open on a bed of green grass, underneath a silver sun and patchwork sky. His dream was larger now, and more cared for. He looked out over the gardens and grass, into the distance where the remnants of wrath and envy laid. And he was… surprised at their beauty.
“You like it, boss?” came the question from Kim, the Gardener, close to him. “We been working hard on it all. Now, gardening with metal ‘n bones was a little out of our wheelhouse, but we sure made it work, ey?”
The caterpillar-wolf-cat-rabbit thing looked rather pleased with themselves. And Mercury, looking into the distance, could see why.
First off, the progress on his own dream, and what he had dreamt up himself was incredible. There were gravel paths through fields of flowers, alleys of trees that case shade on the eternally waving grass. Little ponds that shone with mercurial light, and mercury saw small channels, lined with near-white tiles of stone, guiding the water from the distant fountain to those ponds, and through the fields.
There were lanterns, capturing the light that flickered from the distant citadel of fire, little motes of hungry plasma drifting around in them like butterflies. They case soft, drifting shades on the darker parts of the landscape, where dancing shadows lingered, and they decorated the trunk of Arber’s avatar.
And in that, there was a great change. The thing that had once been a simple sapling had grown. It was now a towering tree, pale bark and branches stretching to the skies, covered with faint, light-green leaves. More lanterns hung from its twigs, attached by rope made from twine, and chains wreathed from Wrath’s living metal.
“It’s beautiful,” Mercury said breathlessly, praising his gardener.
“Awww, shucks boss. Couldn’t’a done it without ‘cha. Plus, I love the gardens. Now I got plants to tend to, fields to make, and things to grow. It’s lovely,” they said, and the caterpillar gave the whole place a look-over with its monocle, radiating a pleasant sense of accomplishment. “Plus, while the new materials you’ve brought in aren’t exactly conventional,” they said with a hint of amusement, “they’re still rather useful. The sand, for example - I plan to wash it and then maybe melt it into some crystals. And the metal is lovely, even if it’s a lil sharp sometimes.”
Those were the strangest things about it all. Mercury’s dream had increased in rank, so, of course, it was larger. With every world he devoured, his own grew bigger. Its materials were absorbed, though cleansed of most of their former intent. And, over time, it would mix with his own world.
Already, he could see grasses beginning to sprout over the adamantine hills of what was once Wrath, but Kim had taken care of those, too. Somehow, they’d wrought the metal. Mercury took a step, across the tapestry, since all of this was connected to him. A moment later, he stood in front of the devoured realm.
Metal, once sharp spires and twisted trees, had been all but tamed.
Iron and steel had been woven into a landscape. Cobblestone streets made of ringing metal, towering lanterns like those from earth, houses and street stalls. It was woven into a facsimile of a city. Empty, devoid of life, and yet… beautiful.
“It ain’t done yet,” Kim warned. “Still got a lot of refining to do. You’ll see that some of the finer areas aren’t quite done.”
Mercury saw that, too. In the alleyways, there were no shifty figures, no half-open doorways for whispered words - it was spikes. Swords emerged from the edges of the buildings, and needles covered the floors, their sides razor sharp. The illusion of a city cracked at the edges, but when Mercury got close, the metal rippled, and receded.
Swords crumbled to droplets of steel that splashed harmlessly and melted into the ground. It calmed, instantly placated and assimilated into the nature of his dream, which, ultimately, was a hospitable place. Shaped and maintained by his intent and the nexus, the weave enforced his dream, and Mercury dreamt of pleasant meadows and beautiful scenery, apparently.
Actually executing that on Envy was harder than on wrath. After all, fundamentally, Envy had been made from hands and bodies and lifeblood. Cleaning Wrath of anger still left material behind, sand and metal. But for Envy, what was left?
Bones.
Ossified limbs, towering structures of enamel and ivory. A lake that had been filled with corpses under the boughs of a willow full of hands.
“This one’s a rough piece of work,” Kim said, making a motion that somehow conveyed scratching the back of their head, despite being a caterpillar. “Turning corpses into a pleasant place wasn’t really… as doable as I thought, so I did my best workaround.”
What Kim had made of Envy was a graveyard.
Hands made of bone had been sculpted and shifted into coffins, forever holding their inhabitants in an eternal embrace. The bodies in the lake had been sufficiently laid to rest. The tombstones and gravemarkers were carved from ice, semi-clear and nameless, lending the place a certain chill. Water dripped from them as if the graves themselves were weeping.
It was still creepy, and unsettling, but… it was also a calm place. Somber. With a faint, quiet fog over it all.
Mercury sighed softly, looking at it. “I suppose that’s what happens,” he said sadly, “when you clean up after something that kills.”
“Bodies gotta go somewhere,” Kim shrugged, a kind of wriggle going through their form. “I thought this was reasonably respectful.”
The gravestones were mostly simple. Just plain rectangles, some having a bit of decoration. While the ice melted occasionally, the bits that dripped to the floor turned to faint bits of snow again, and none of the markers ever seemed to diminish. It was a dream, after all, so that much was no trouble.
Another long moment passed as Mercury took a deep breath, then finally nodded. “This is good. It’ll be a while before it’s properly integrated with the rest of it. Plant flowers or grass over the graves if you like,” he said calmly.
‘Is it common to have plants grow over graves where you are from, Yr’enzel?’ a thought reached his mind. It tasted of hope, of power, of timelessness.
“It is,” Mercury replied. “Not always, not everywhere. But… I find the image of life growing from the dead quite nice. There is a common image of the cycle of life. Dead things being metabolised by living things.” A smile crept on his lips as he spoke, but he didn’t turn to look.
‘Hmmmm,’ came the answer. A long, patient hum. The thought radiated interest and curiosity, laden with a desire for understanding. ‘That is nice. It is similar to how old weavers would make themselves into stars.’
A deep mourning resounded in Mercury’s mind, ringing through his astral bones. The thing that was him trembled under the weight of that loss. It was so heavy it may have shattered someone. But Mercury didn’t break.
Instead, he just sighed softly. “Death will always be around, as long as life is. There is beauty in that. In remembering those who’ve gone, in meeting new people. Connections are ephemeral. People will vanish from one’s life eventually, some way, somehow. So there is purpose in enjoying the time you have, and closure in saying goodbye.”
Old Uunrahzil gave him a sideways glance. ‘You think of loss as a companion, rather than a scar,’ they thought, and with it wrote curiosity and a hint of surprise.
For his part, Mercury simply nodded. “Kind of,” he said. “It is cruel, and I will mourn any I miss. But I accept that it is something that happens, sometimes. Clinging onto blame or guilt is cruel to myself, and I try to be kind, even to me.”
‘Even to thineself?’ came the rumble in return. ‘Aren’t you easily deserving of kindness?’ they asked.
Mercury smiled faintly. “Yes, I am. But that doesn’t mean it comes easy. Do you think it’s easy to be kind to yourself?”
‘... No,’ Uunrahzil murmured. It was a quiet reply, laden with grief.
“Everyone knows their own flaws,” Mercury sighed, stepping backwards from the fog, back out into the grassy plains with a single step. “Everyone knows their weaknesses. Every sin we’ve committed, every wrong we’ve wrought. When someone else harms someone, it is easy to forgive, because of the distance. When I harm someone, I remember. I care. That makes it harder to accept, harder to grow past.”
Next to him the air quivered, and the massive construct of mana veins that constituted old Uunrahzil wove itself from threads of light. ‘Distance brings comfort,’ they thought, slowly, and Mercury read acceptance and understanding in their mind. ‘And closeness brings risks.’
Smiling faintly, Mercury let his tail brush by some of the grass, making it wave in the slight breeze. “Indeed,” he said. “And yet, it is so important.” He looked at the silver sun in the sky, the bound items rotating around it, and the nexus beside it. A star that held the entire realm together, a spool of thread with it beside. It hummed faintly, a soft, calming noise like the rushing of a river.
‘How important?’ Uunrahzil asked.
“It’s… everything,” Mercury said with a snicker. “I think so, at least. Being alone is nice, even for long times, but eventually, people need people. Even you, and even me.”
There was no reply for a long while after that. Old Uunrahzil, ancient and wise, shifted into a more comfortable position. The strange assortment of stone formations that their astral body was crafted from moved and contorted until they were doing… something akin to laying down. With their head out in front of them, and their eyes closed.
Despite everything, they looked… better. Comfortable, even. With a glance over at Mercury, they gave a mental huff. ‘I’m glad I met you, Yr’enzel. I am more whole than ever.’
It was true. Mercury could see it now. When he broke through the veils, or even just using <Tapestry>, there were a thousand strings that connected old Dreamweaver to other parts of themselves. More than that, really. They drifted aimlessly through the space that wasn’t, shattered pieces of a self that were not quite compatible anymore.
A puzzle whose edges had been worn down by time until they didn’t fit. A broken thing, lost to the ocean.
Despite all that, they were closer than before. And Mercury could feel it, too. Dreamweaver was… more than they had been in a while. Some parts of them were mismatched, and yet, they fit. The cracks where their edges had grown worn had mended. Filled in with growth and change, things that brought their parts together rather than apart.
Hope. Desire. Curiosity.
That was the glue that brought them back together. Multiple parts sharing the same thoughts, the same goal. Out of thousands, many still doubted, and yet, there was momentum to the motion. Each rejoined piece brought more of them together, a fractured mind growing whole once more.
Mercury saw it, the way some of the pieces, once aimlessly drifting, now began to hover towards his mentor and friend. It was slow, a miniscule motion, barely worth mentioning, and yet it was there. A gentle, slight healing.
Not instant or perfect. The cracks were mended, but there were scars. Bits and pieces that would take longer to fade, and may never disappear. But that was life. Each decision shapes oneself, and each memory was another change. Experience begets experience, after all.
“You mend,” Mercury said, and he wrote a message of positivity.
‘So it would seem,’ Uunrahzil resonated. ‘This one becomes more. We rest. We are granted lo-pac again, dreams. Softly, the weave speaks to mine once more.’
Within their words was an immense gratitude. An unfathomable one, even. For someone so long removed from dreams, to have them again must be… incredible. Old Uunrahzil had introduced themselves as Dreamweaver, and now, they dreamt and wove again. Perhaps that is why their other parts were different.
Mercury gave them a smile. “I am glad.”
‘Indeed. Aneth’bar. Thank you, Mercury.’ Their head turned to the sky, its patchwork extending far into the distance, a single star hovering in its firmament. Whisperstar was listening in curiously, hovering just above them. The ancient one seemed bemused with this, but still turned to regard Mercury. ‘Now that this one can dream more, it is time to do what tri’ht are meant to do. You have taught us much, Mercury. Let us teach you, this time.’
Their tone brooked no argument, but it also wrote of useful lessons. Mercury shook his head with a smile. His teacher was a lovely person, but they were also incorrigible. “Fine then, Uunrahzil, show me your tricks.”
‘Old Uunrahzil,’ they corrected.
Rolling his eyes, Mercury nodded along. “Yes, old Uunrahzil of course.”
With a hum of amusement, the ancient weaver set to work. Their astral form shifted again, ghostly wisps of mana trailing their every movement. Mercury sank into ihn’ar to catch a better glimpse of what was happening. Reason shattered, reality faded away, and separation became myth. He peered past the veils, and saw the truth of things.
Around old Dreamweaver, he saw a piece of their true shape. A colour with no names. A firmament wreathed with ideas. Feathers of iridescent rainbows, cast from silvery gossamer. It was A million stars, wreathed into each other, a thing that shone and resonated in resplendent brightness.
Unnameable colours dug into Mercury’s eyes. Patterns not meant to be seen.
And he loved every second of it.
The incomprehensible nature of Dreamweaver was half the fun. They were still a fragment of a fragment, but Mercury could begin to see the bits where new pieces would fit. A network of the self, with more of the puzzle yet to come. He breathed it in, the heat, the fear, and he let them all go, down the river.
All he was left with was the beauty of indescribability. Things that he could see and understand, but not put into words. Directions that didn’t exist, colours that weren’t really colours at all, patterns so vivid they were almost alive, and yet, just lines on a grid that moved forward and backward and nowhere at all.
In a moment, he saw it all, and a heartbeat later, old Dreamweaver moved. Mana poured out of their figure, sticking close to their veins at first, but then spreading like a ripple in a pond. Mercury felt the way it resonated across his dream, the way that it touched the threads, sending them humming.
The noise rang out across the entirety of his realm. A faint resonance he couldn’t properly place. Old Uunrahzil only hummed in content. They seemed pleased with the noise, because next, more tones rang from them, multiple all at once. They sang a singular symphony, a song that was beautiful and endless, of imagination and ideas and the desire to see them real.
And the weave replied.
Rather than moving, Dreamweaver simply sat there and sang. Their mana carried outwards, weaving around ethereal strands, grasping them when the resonance shook them free, and shifting their pattern slightly. It was all done so quickly that the void didn’t even have a chance to invade, a simple series of resonances, segmented hums, and deft movements of mana and intent.
Multiple voices rang from the teacher all at once, and the tapestry of the dream shifted. It grew outwards and inwards. The strings, once layered and separated, became less like that. They exchanged places. They hummed and switched spots, as if drawn into a vortex.
Grass sprouted across the streets of the metal city, but it was harmless, calm grass. It spread through the alleyways, across the houses, and into the icy graveyard. And, in exchange, metal and water flowed inward, too.
Fluid steel covered the canals across Mercury’s garden. It wrought itself into benches, elaborate little things with embossings at the back. It drew thin cables between the lamps, and crystals of ice sprouted from them. Octahedrons that held onto bits of wind and sound and light.
All at once, Mercury’s world unified.
It was strange, seeing things flow into each other so clearly. Ice and water settling in above his grassy meadows, and seeing them creep into the domains of the others. It would take more arranging, of course, but even just this… He could feel the change.
A few more seconds passed, and then, the song ended. One by one, Dreamweaver’s voices cut off, and the humming disappeared from the air, but the effects remained. Droplets of water hovered in the sky, like gentle rain stopped in time. Crystals of ice hung between the landers, in a garden that had suddenly grown fences and benches.
“This is beautiful,” Mercury said, looking around himself.
Kim grumbled a little, though. “It’s a whole lot more work is what it is, Boss,” they complained. Still, even they couldn’t help but look around. “Well. It is nice, I s’pose. We can work with this.”
Mercury gently pat his gardener with a ghostly hand. “Thanks for your hard work, Kim. Make sure to take enough breaks.”
“Heh. Aye aye, bossman. We’ll look after ourselves,” they said with a quick nod, then scurried off, deciding to get more work done.
In exchange, Whisperstar couldn’t hold their curiosity anymore. The spirit darted down from the sky, twirling around the lanterns and crystals as a streak of starlight. Mercury quickly slid out of ihn’ar before looking at them, since he didn’t want to spook the kid. Instead, with entirely mundane sight, he turned to face the star in his sky. “You like the changes?” he asked.
“Yes!” Whisperkid admitted instantly. “I love them! So many shiny things! My light refracts even more, it’s so pretty!”
Mercury chuckled a little at their enthusiasm, and so did old Uunrahzil. They seemed a little diminished, but more from exhaustion than having any piece of their self break off. ‘There,’ they hummed. ‘This, mine tri’ht, is rezil. Reshaping resonance. To take the lo-pac and shape them entirely. You find where the weave responds, and then you sing to it, to loosen threads without leaving gaps for the void.’
Within that simple explanation was pride and not a small amount of elation. Even now, old Uunrahzil was looking over the dream, appraising their own work, and Mercury smiled softly. He could see that it was his turn to try, now.
He let his mana ripple out, trying to get the same effect old Dreamweaver did - but all it gave was a hollow screech and making his head hurt. Whisperstar flinched back, and even his teacher grimaced.
“Maybe,” the star hedged, “you should practice that a bit more. I don’t think that was right.”
Mercury gave a small snicker. “I suppose I should,” he said, smiling. But then he felt it again. The wonderful feeling that there was new magic to be learnt, and despite the headache and the resonating shriek, he was happy.
With a deep breath, he focused, and then pushed his mana out into the weave again.
And again…
And again.
2025-08-26 03:36:31 +0000 UTC
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“Hi Lyra, this is Matt speaking,” the swordsman spoke into his phone. “Yeah, I’m going to break into a building. Yes, it’s a good reason. We’re suspecting Echo research.”
The chattering on the other end went silent. When the voice spoke again, it was a lot more serious. Matt smiled and nodded along. “Yes, yes. I’ll turn on my gps. Just send a squad our way. Yes, I’ll avoid load bearing walls to break through.”
And then he hung up. Took a deep breath.
His feet touched down on solid ground. He’d hung in the air for long enough. It was time for action. Marie gave him a nod, already having started the operation. She stood with her arms crossed.
The door clicked open from the inside, Liam giving them a shy smile as he stepped out. His scar caught the light, but he waved them inside. “Let’s go,” he said simply.
Liam had turned the inside of the building pitch black. It was like a power outage turned up to eleven. The windows let in no light, the lamps weren’t functioning, and yet, all of them could find their way without trouble. With their supernatural senses, picking their way through the crowd was child’s play.
People were scrambling, trying to find the switch, use their phones, but no light was permitted to exist. Everything was wrapped in thick, suffocating shadow - and that was scary. Yet, at the same time, it was less scary than it could have been.
Another door stood in their way. A quick swipe of Matt’s sword soundlessly cut through the lock, and he pushed it open. Deeper into the facility. The welcoming colours of the visitor room faded away to sterile whites and long hallways. Doors stood out, and behind each, Matt could feel a faint flicker.
Someone inside, tiny flames of Qi burning in them. People who had barely just set out on their path. Most of them were unharmed. Most of them were completely fine, and yet some… He sighed, softly, and the noise was swallowed by the darkness.
The doors to the individual rooms were more reinforced than the one in the hallway. They were made of solid steel, with multiple bolts, as if to hold caged beasts. They did not hold Matt. He simply reached a hand to the metal, and pushed.
Around the bolts, the walls crumbled to nothing. Marie cast a silencing spell to ensure it went off without a hitch, and the heavy metal fell to the floor noiselessly. Taking Reya’s hand, Liam guided the saintess further into the room, and a gentle, golden light pierced the darkness.
“It hurts,” the woman inside the room moaned. “It hurts so bad.”
Matt watched the Echo churn in her core, through her veins. Like an oil film on the ocean, it simply stuck there, gumming up her veins. It corroded her Qi, eating into it. There was no proper containment, no method to the cultivation.
He’d fought usurpers, and he knew that their methods were anything but crude. Higher tier ones wielded Echo like the weapon it was - a supernatural resonance that built upon itself with each release. A sort of vibrating heartbeat that made his bones rattle. They shaped it into techniques of their own, they grew it within themselves, listened to the world.
None of that happened here. The woman was used as a breeding ground for something she could not contain. Host to something she wasn’t even aware off.
“You will be alright in a moment, Ma’am,” Matt assured her, and he hoped that even in the dark, his voice sounded kind. Reya’s golden light touched the oil-slick resonance, and it hissed away from the golden bit of divinity.
A soft gasp came from the woman’s lips. She blinked into the darkness. “The pain… it’s gone,” she whispered. There was a want there. To thank them, to see her saviours, but Matt couldn’t indulge that.
Instead, he simply gave her a short platitude. “Please, continue to stay healthy, Ma’am,” he said in the dark. And then they were off.
More doors, more people, more Echo to purge. And Matt took a perfectly reasonable amount of pleasure in pushing the door of his hinges with a simple touch, letting the metal crumple inward.
- - -
Half a dozen doors later, they came into a lab. For the first time, Liam’s darkness abated, because they really did need to see with their eyes this time. It was a bizarre thing to see, the way Echo was being put to use.
Vials and crystals, dissolving bits of usurpers from the gates, being distilled down into something that wasn’t quite a cultivation elixir. It was so strong the entire room hummed with faint resonance - something that weaker cultivators wouldn’t notice, yet it stuck out to Matt as clearly as a rotting carcass in a field of flowers.
The ambient Echo crashed against his field, much like the air in Eden did. It was a faint sort of feeling - an uncontained power, grinding at his skin. Hostility bubbling in the air. And yet, it was not the only thing in the room that was wrong.
A doctor regarded him with curiosity.
She wore a large pair of spectacles, and her unremarkably brown hair was done up in a bun. Her head, however, was tilted ever so faintly, and while her eyes screamed of panic, her lips did not. “You are not meant to be here, swordsman,” she spoke.
On an operating table in the middle of the room was Lars. Lars Desum, Fio's father. The man who had thrown away his life and relationships at the bottom of a bottle, who had gone from casual drinking to addiction, and gotten lost for years. A strong man, with shaggy blonde hair, a prominent nose, and deep, dark eyes. His face twisted in a grimace of pain.
His arms were strapped down with thick leather belts. Multiple of them wrapping around his wrists, and upper arm, ensuring that he could not squirm away. His veins bulged painfully with a pallid grey beneath his skin. He was breathing in gasps, ragged noises that spoke of suffering. His face glistened with sweat and his throat ragged from screaming.
Matt clenched the sword. “Why are you experimenting with Echo?” he asked.
Even as he spoke, Reya approached the table, holding out a hand as her eyes filled with pain at the sight. The doctor shot her a look of contempt, one of deep disgust. “We demand it,” she said. “We demand this.”
And then the ripples crashed against him. Waves of force, of resonance, so faint that they were little more than a whisper.
No, that was wrong. They didn’t even touch him, they touched his sword. Only its edge - because it cut through them. [World Rend], he realized, was interfacing with them, and unveiling the brutally clever trick.
This whole place was infected in parallel. A step removed from the ordinary world, something hovered out there. And with the realization came sight. Matt saw the strings. The tiny threads that turned the doctor into a puppet. The reason her eyes quivered with fear while her face remained neutral.
“Puppeteer,” Matt whispered.
Instantly, Liam tensed. The shadows grew deeper. The doctor tilted her head further, inhumanly. “Oh?” she asked. “You see us. You see us.” There was a note of surprise and amusement in that tone.
Matt saw Liam close his eyes. His darkness spread along the edges, suffocating the outside. He built walls of shadow on the door. But in response, the puppeteer only chuckled. Its voice now resonated, echoing through the room. “You build walls when you cannot even find where we are. You lock yourselves in a cage of space and cannot see between the bars.”
With a deep breath, Matt paused. Lars was still whimpering in pain. This was still happening. He needed to ask the right questions quickly. “Why are you doing this?” he asked again, though this time, the question reached the right person.
“Because I have to,” the doctor whispered. It was a quiet utterance, a physical whisper.
“Because this world must be fed with Echo,” the much louder answer reached his ears. It was a grinding noise against his eardrums, like crunching, shattered glass.
“Why here? Why now?” Matt asked, grinding his teeth.
“The balance shifts. The usurpers paid us. We will have our prize. We must move more swiftly. To reclaim our lost shards.”
Matt sighed softly.
“That’s it?” Liam asked, quietly. “You cause suffering for that?”
Once more, the doctor tilted her head further. This time, the movement was more jerky, less human. The facade melted away as the puppeteer showed itself. “What could be more important?”
And Matt sighed again. His sword glowed with ethereal pink. That was enough knowledge, enough hearing them out. It was such a simple reason, so instinctual. Just a relentless hunger for more.
That hunger made them gather their puppets, eat away at this world, and make deals with the usurpers. Who also held shards. The keepers were playing all sides, just to grasp at yet another gateway. It was… pathetic.
All that apathy, all that anger gathered at the edge of his sword. It condensed down to a hair-thin razorblade, and then even fainter than that. A single atom, and then even less. [Edge of Infinity] activated as his Qi poured into the blade, and Matt took a single breath, a single step.
Pink flower petals surged forward, and he sliced.
Metal and plum blossoms carved through the world. A ragged gash appeared in the fabric of reality, unveiling the hideous truth. A puppeteer in a world of glass, hiding behind a mirror inside the puppet. But the strings shattered when Matt’s blade touched it, and its hiding place was unveiled.
Writ across the monster’s glass face was nothing. A plain glass But underneath, where in that glass cocoon a million hands blossomed from each other, their fingers all sprawled apart in what must have been… surprise.
Gently, Matt caught the doctor. Her eyes had rolled back, and her body collapsed like, well, a puppet with her strings cut. Liam, for his part, snarled at the thing. When it was unveiled, its hidden dimension carved into, he dissolved.
Darkness made manifest slithered through the crack in the world, and Matt felt that the rogue, perhaps, wanted some alone time with the keeper. And Matt was, frankly, happy to leave him to it.
Liquid shadow filled that rent in reality, and Matt turned his sight elsewhere. Marie was chanting, casting a few spells to deal with the Echo, while Reya stood over Lars. Her hands glowed, and her brows were furrowed in concentration.
With a couple deft movements, Matt cut the restraints that kept Lars tied down to the table. Reya gave him a quick, thankful nod, and the golden glow intensified. By then, Matt’s phone rang again, and he picked it up with a sigh. Bureaucracy, eh?
Nearby, faintly inhuman screams rang from the dimension, and Matt politely began to handle business with the government.
- - -
Liam was furious.
There was a roiling disgust in his veins at the thing that slithered between the cracks. A hatred that he couldn’t quite put into words. It made him grind his teeth, and it stripped the calm away. It made him afraid, and he hated that.
So he retaliated. In the truest way that he could, he struck back at it. He reached into his path, dragged out the darkness, the formless horror that he kept restrained, and poured it into that pocket of irreality. There were mirrors here, and mirrors reflected the light, so he devoured it.
Strongs reached into his formless self, and slid away. They tried to wrap around arms, but he had none. To tie around his throat like a noose, but there was nothing there. The feeble attempts at control washed over him, because Liam was scarier. He refused to be afraid anymore. He refused to cower in fear of this thing.
And he refused to let them have his world.
Shadows coalesced at his will, because they were an extension of him. His path wasn’t a wielding of the element, after all, it was a melding. Dissolution of the Fearful Past. He breathed without lungs, and moved his limbs as he became one with the shadows, melting into them and losing his own shape.
Moment by moment, Liam dissolved. His limbs came undone, his clothes unspooled into remnants of darkness, and the familiar embrace of shadows gently stripped his fear away. There was nothing to be afraid of, because he was the monster in the darkness.
Another not-breath, and the fear melted away. It disappeared into the gaps, the faint corners where no one dared look, and then vanished entirely. Liam knew it was gone, because he smelled it. The rancid aroma of terror; because Possessions, the keeper, had never felt it before.
This was the one that had attacked Fio at the guild hall. This was the one who wore a living, breathing human like a skin-suit. Who played with Zinnic, cut deals, and manipulated its way through the corporate world like a fish in water. It was a hoarder, a thing of desire and ownership.
Liam hated it. The way it wormed its way into his life as an enemy he couldn’t see. He hated that he could never sneak up on it - and now was his chance.
Shadows coalesced, and the thing felt fear. It had hidden, and they’d found its hiding place. From the darkness emerged claws and fangs. Bestial fury, the monster that would tear flesh from bone and glass from glass, now. Liam coalesced into a fluid, shapeshifting thing meant to destroy, to terrify.
[Night Terror has reached (High)!]
His technique advanced, and more fear spilled from this avatar of Possession. He could not truly shatter the keeper, but perhaps…
Perhaps he could send a message.
Fangs twisted into a snarl, and Liam taught the keeper what fear was.
- - -
I stepped out of the portal at the same time Ann did. Golden armor dissolved around me, and her mana barriers faded away. As we came back to Neamhan, we tuned down our powers, and I took a few moments to watch as Ann’s hair stopped fluttering on invisible currents of mana, instead settling down to frame her face.
Then, she shot me a smile. “Good work, Ion. You certainly guarded my body.”
“That is my job,” I said with a snort. And I had. There were a few times when the bone-spikes from the usurper that ruled the gate would have torn through Ann, and as lovely as her mana-heart was, I did not want her to replace more of her skin with managlass. So I stopped them, instead.
A few more moments passed, as we stepped to the science equipment. Ivan looked up from a call, rapidly speaking into his phone, and seeing me, he quickly nodded. “Ion. Check your phone. It’s important,” he said.
His tone was so severe that my heart skipped a beat. Instantly, I grabbed my phone from the table, tapping my finger against its side, and seeing the messages from Matt.
Rat: “Yoyo. Your dad’s getting Echo pumped into him. Gonna check that out, be reporting back” at 16:33.
Rat: “Crashing this party” at 16:34.
Rat: “Keepers are shitheads. That bitch hid in a parallel dimension, can you believe it?” at 16:57.
Rat: “Oh, yea, your dad is ok. Lol. My b. Shoulda said it earlirr. Wjoops” at 17:03.
Looking at the screen, I was stunned for a few moments, then looked up at Ivan. “What the fuck happened?” I breathed.
2025-08-20 02:30:29 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 262: Threats and Cats
Pride. Greed. Lust. Sloth.
Those were the remaining sins. Realms of excess and debauchery, of want and desire, of self-embodied perfection and demands of respect. They were rifts in the world, caused by human folly and primordial twists. How did other realms come to be, after all?
Did they spawn, spontaneously, out of nowhere? Did dreams and half-realities follow the laws of energy conservation? Could damage come from nowhere, or did rents in reality have to have cause?
The void leviathans that swim in the space between worlds, do they obey causality? Are they reasonable? Can a concept such as pride even watch another thing than itself?
Meaningless questions. The tree sins stared at Mercury. They saw him strut away from yet another site of butchery, yet another cleaned up part of this world where one of their siblings had once been. Another piece of sin, carved away and devoured into a realm that was a dream.
In truth, Greed wanted to devour Mercury, for it was greedy. Lust lusted after his dreams, his passion. And Pride simply could not bear to conceive someone deigning to challenge it, even the notion of that was disgusting.
They needed to work together.
And, of course, Pride protested. It fought for reasons to stop them from banding. It was perfect and complete. It was untouchable. It was an embodiment of arrogance and thus, working with others went against its nature. Pride was always meant to be a singularity, an idea taken to its extremes. Within it, there was only solitude, and as such, cooperation was intolerable.
Greed and Lust rolled their eyes, saying they would easily be its subordinates, and the problem was solved. They’d cooperate then, the alliance of sin, and smash that newborn world before it properly blossomed, before it devoured more realms and grew into itself.
Sloth, however, refused. It was already lazily drifting towards Mercury, but the simple thought of organizing cooperation could not happen. Sloth was too lazy to think. It refused to plan or work together... all it did was move on instinct. As if rolling in its sleep.
So it was down to the three of them. Pride, Greed and Lust. To kill the realmeater before he grew.
However, they were not the only ones watching Mercury.
The light of day fell onto the world, and everything the light touched was His. When the Dawn of Day touched upon Mercury’s realm, He saw it. And it was his. Yet, the realm vanished again, and that drew His eye properly. It was too heavy to vanish quickly now, too bright to be a secret, and the light had seen it… so where had it gone?
The Light watched. And He hoped there wasn’t a thief among the mortals. Because if someone stole from Him, then that would have to be met with retaliation.
- - - - - -
Mercury bathed in the sunlight, even though it felt slightly colder today. That was fine, of course, he didn’t truly need it to stay warm. His body was perfectly adept at maintaining his body temperature with the energy it produced. Still, it was a little frustrating that the sunlight didn’t do its job properly.
The mopaaw gave a soft sigh at that, prompting Zyl to smile faintly and ruffle his hair as they walked. He didn’t even have to bend down for it anymore, since Mercury had grown rather tall for a cat these days. “Something getting under your skin?”
“Nah,” Mercury brushed him off with a shake of his head and a faint smile. “It’s nothing.”
Zyl raised an eyebrow at that, the dragon apparently not believing him. “Really now?” he asked. “You only say that when you’ve got a hunch you don’t wanna share.”
That made Mercury snicker. “Tragically, my hunches are never ‘nothing’, you’re right,” he lamented, his tail curling in faint amusement. “I feel a bit colder than I should, that’s all.”
“Like the sun doesn’t reach you properly?” Zyl asked, looking at the sky, squinting at the sun as if he was trying to pick a fight with it.
“Exactly,” Mercury nodded, shooting his boyfriend a somewhat suspicious glance. “How’d you guess?”
Zyl gave a long hum before answering, shielding his eyes as he kept them on the sky. “Hmmm. Because I feel the same way,” he said. “Want me to go beat it up?”
“Hah! You can’t beat up the sky, silly,” Mercury laughed. The sentiment filled his heart with the warmth that the star failed to provide. And he was right to remind himself that the sun was just a star. After all, he was Mercury Rainfall Starlight. If the sun wasn’t warm enough, he would simply glow more.
“Not with that attitude,” Zyl said, throwing him a smile, finally placing his suspicions aside. He sighed softly, contently. “We should take walks more often. It’s nice.”
Mercury nodded along, looking at the greenery pass by step by step. “It is,” he agreed. “The old man does make good roads.”
“He’s a crafter, that’s for certain,” Zyl said, with a twinge of pain to his voice. “Best I could do is burn a channel through the world.”
At that, the mopaaw bumped into his legs, rubbing his shoulder against his boyfriend’s thighs. “C’mon, Zyl. Don’t be like that. If you keep at it, maybe you’ll be painting roads into reality soon. Or growing them from seeds. All a matter of time, and you’ve got plenty of that.”
Despite their smallness, the words made Zyl smile. He reached his hand over again, digging it into Mercury’s soft fur, scratching the mopaaw behind his ears. “Yeah,” he hummed, taking a deep breath. “You’re right, of course. Plenty of time. I’ll get there.”
“You will. I think that’s part of what makes you special,” Mercury said.
“What is?” Zyl asked, raising an eyebrow.
“That you want to make,” the mopaaw replied. “That you don’t like breaking things. Well, I think that much is fairly normal, but… well. Your reluctance to use your Skills, it seems to go against the core of the system, doesn’t it? It grants Skills based on desire, after all. Yet, you don’t strike me as an arsonist.”
Zyl gave a sad smile at that. He nodded, just once, and looked away. “Yeah, I don’t. And yet, here we are. I suppose…” he paused, and sighed, and for a while, they walked in silence. It took a long few moments for Zyl to answer, but Mercury was in no hurry. He would simply listen.
“I suppose,” the dragon eventually repeated, “that I do like lighting things on fire. I think there’s something pretty there. Watching the flames go. Seeing things turn to ash. There were… there are a lot of things I want to burn down. I like being strong, and fast. All of those are true.” He gave a sad smile as he talked, staring off into the horizon. “But I also want to be able to build. Does that make me greedy, Mercury?” he glanced at the mopaaw. “Is that so wrong?”
“Not at all,” Mercury said, shaking his head with a smile. He met Zyl’s eyes easily, his own swirling with acceptance. “I think some things deserve to be burnt down. Sometimes, you need ash to let things regrow. And sometimes you need to actually grow things, right?”
Zyl nodded slowly, not answering. He still had that far-off look. Mercury kept talking.
“My Skills aren’t all bright. They’re greedy, too. Some are meant for destruction. All of them could be used for it. And that’s okay. I’m going to break some things. I am going to kill some people. And I’m… well, not exactly okay with that,” he said with a sad smile. “But I understand that it’ll happen. It doesn’t kill me inside. Is that similar to your burning?”
“A little,” Zyl said, whisper quietly. His voice was soft and vulnerable. “I like burning. I like growing. It feels good.”
Mercury gave a gentle smile. “So long as you’re burning the right things, I think that’s okay.”
“Luckily, I have you to point me at the right things, don’t I?” Zyl asked with a small snicker, and Mercury just nodded along.
The mopaaw bumped into the dragon in companionship one more time. “We’ll figure it out.”
For a long while, the two walked in silence. When they spoke again, it was about more meaningless things, and the sunlight felt warm in Mercury’s fur again. They walked until the canopy receded and Stormbraver appeared on the horizon, then they walked some more.
- - -
Coming home was nice. Mercury knew that much, of course. It was the same every time. Opening his door and finding his peace in there. He considered that his greatest fortune.
That wooden house that he’d helped put together. He still made modifications sometimes, practicing his crafting skills and Skills. It was kind of funny, trying to get his rijn or <Sever> to be precise and fine enough to take shavings off of wood. But he was improving.
By now, he even had a small workshop. Digging out a basement hadn’t been too much trouble - there was always room to expand downstairs, and Mercury had built the wooden stairs himself. They weren’t that smooth, a little rickety, and they creaked underneath Mercury’s paws, but they held his weight.
He was learning from every project, which was nice. And with <Magical Metallurgy> as well as <Force of the Hecatoncheires>, he could make himself any tools he needed. <Grass> also could help wood regrow some, so he could make minor fixes rather easily.
All of that, though, didn’t help him when there was a knock at the door. With a gentle sigh, Mercury dragged himself up, and opened the door. And, indeed, it was as he feared: the city council. No one he knew, as they’d seemingly sent a new oldie down to his place. It was a woman with short, white hair, coming up in curls that framed her head, and that did nothing to soften her light grey eyes.
“Good day,” she said in a voice like a creaky willow. “I assume that you are Mercury?”
Holding back a sigh, he nodded. “That would be me.”
Her eyes curled upwards with a small smile, lighting up a touch, the lines well-worn into her face. “My name is Maria Twirne. Do you know why I’m here?” she asked.
“I can make a reasonable guess,” Mercury readily admitted.
She nodded sagely, then extended a hand. “My thanks,” she said.
Mercury blinked. “Huh?” he asked, looking at her outstretched fingers.
The woman smiled some more, and there was some mischief in that expression. “We weathered another storm,” she said. “Do you blame the lightning rod for attracting a bolt to your house?”
“... No?” Mercury tried, still a little confused.
“Yes, there was damage,” the woman said, nodding. “Yes, people were in danger. Some got hurt. But this city is full of hardy people, Mercury. We’ve rebuilt from a war. We’ve rebuilt from greater storms. This is simply yet another time to rebuild. Would lightning have struck here eventually if you hadn’t been around?” She shrugged, pulling at the hems of her pale blouse. “Who can say? But you helped weather the storm. That is what matters. So, I am here to thank you.”
Her hand was still stretched out. Mercury looked at the woman, noting the small glint in her eyes, but despite his better judgment, he reached out a paw and shook her hand. It was bearable, since it was a somewhat formal touch and on his terms, and she soon let his paw go again. “I’m glad I’m not in trouble.”
“Oh, you are,” she said. “I’m here to tell you that we want you to do some community service. I’m told that this time, people were dragged into a horrible dimension made of hands. People will have nightmares, and we would like for you to help with the trauma management.”
That… sounded surprisingly reasonable. “Is that all?” Mercury asked.
Maria raised her eyebrows, the wrinkles on her face stretching. “Do you want me to assign you more work, Mercury?”
He shook his head.
“Then it’s all,” the old woman said with a faint smile, and a raise of her hand. “We’ll be sending you a list of people to visit soon.” She turned around and began to walk away. “Ah, one more thing,” she said with her back turned. Her voice was more frigid, this time. “We’re looking past this. In the future, please try even harder to keep our citizens safe, Mr. Starlight.”
And she walked off. The vague threat hung in the air, but Mercury gave a soft sigh of relief. This really wasn’t that bad. Frankly, he would have offered his help to anyone who was struggling with the sight they’d been through anyways. A few people had probably been dragged underground by the reaching hands, and then saved when the realm died.
Which sounded rather… intense, even to Mercury, so helping seemed reasonable. It was also something his skillset made him rather decent at, so he’d happily be doing some community service. He’d even open his doors, if that made people happier.
Hopefully, the rest of the sins got the picture and simply went after him. That would make things cleaner. If they went after Stormbraver again, he would have to pull out every single stop, and bring out every single weapon he had, after all. Otherwise, he’d do it himself.
Of course, he’d also be trying his best to force them into only taking him. His quicksilver crown could freeze an entire realm if given enough time. Perhaps he could accelerate that? Glue any exit wound shut before it properly opened? Something to think about.
Sighing softly, Mercury shut his door, threads on the <Tapestry> glistening as he thought. There was so much to consider, after all. So many things that were all interconnected.
It was beautiful and scary, knowing that so many people he held dear were all in one place… Maybe he should ask Kintra to move to Stormbraver one of these days? He was due another visit to Treyno soon. And he owed it to Marsh and old man Alex, too. “Hey Zyl?” he asked.
“Hmmm?” came the reply from the atelier, another small addition.
“Wanna go on a trip sometime soon?” Mercury invited the dragon.
“Gasp!” Zyl said, speaking the word out loud instead of actually. After a moment, Mercury heard a brush dramatically clattering to the ground - not the one Zyl had actually been painting with, but instead a clean one. “Are you finally inviting me on one of your trips?” the dragon asked, with more shock than was appropriate.
Mercury smiled at his antics. “You’re bullying me.”
“No more than you deserve,” Zyl replied, stepping into the common room and running a hand through his hair. He managed to look darned handsome in his painting suit. And it was still a tailored suit - a little less fancy than the white one, but equipped with self-cleaning enchantments that would get the paint off. “Yes, I’d like to come along,” he said.
“I’ll let you know, then” Mercury nodded along, his tail lightly swishing through the air. He stared at Zyl for another handful of moments, before heading out to do his own things, and further unravel the mysteries of magic.
And time passed.
- - -
[You have acquired the Skill <Novice Woodworking> through a specific action!]
[<Magical Metallurgy> has levelled up! <Magical Metallurgy lv. 6 -> 7>]
“That’s good work,” Yasashiku said with a nod, stroking his beard as he turned over the tool with his other hand. It was a chisel, a well forged, tempered, sharpened piece of steel, with a slightly crude wooden handle that Mercury had made himself. It was turned on a lathe - that one Mercury had bought, rather than made himself. He used his rijn to create a solid, sharpened chisel-like thing, locking it in space to work the wood down.
“Thank you, teacher,” Mercury dipped his head.
Yasashiku nodded absent-mindedly. “The metal’s slightly soft, coulda given it a bit longer to temper. You’ll have to resharpen often. But that’s fine, makes maintaining it a bit easier.” The smith turned it over in his hands. “I could… well, the crystal lattice is a bit off. There are some stresses right along the middle of it, but those probably won’t cause any trouble for normal use. Don’t go trying to work magical wood with it, though. It’ll fracture.”
“Could you make normal steel tools strong enough to keep up with magical ones?” Mercury asked, curiously.
The old smith scoffed. “Yeah, of course you can. What do you think makes magical metal magical?” he asked.
Mercury tilted his head at that, considering it for a moment. What did make it magical? “There’s… mana inside it?” he hedged.
“Sure, there’s mana in everything, though, Starlight-kun. What else?” Yasashiku asked, smiling faintly and leaning back in his chair.
“Does the mana have to have an elemental alignment?” Mercury guessed.
Yasashiku crossed his arms, shaking his head. “No. It can, but it does not have to. Pause and think it through properly, Starlight-kun. This is something you can answer.”
And Mercury did. Instead of just guessing again, he looked at his chisel, the thing he’d just made. He understood <Metal> and how to work it. There was an intuition to it all, but at the end of the day, everything they did was just influencing the molecular lattice at the heart of it all to be uniform, or have specific properties.
They trapped carbon in it to make it more flexible, tempered it to make it harder but more brittle… He thought about it, but it all came down to the pattern, didn’t it? The way that the atoms were aligned. So, then, if everything had mana in it… “It’s the way the mana is arranged,” Mercury said, knowing he was right.
“Indeed,” Yasashiku nodded gruffly. He took out an ingot of magical metal, the kind of stuff that Mercury could technically already work with, but didn’t yet. He was still polishing his basics. “This is soulsteel,” the smith explained. “It’s steel, as the name implies. But it’s also more than that. Look at it, sense the mana inside.”
Doing as asked, Mercury expanded his own field. The mana poured from his pores easily, forming tendrils that let him more easily reach out and understand what was going on with the metals. At first, all he felt was the vague shape of the ingot, so he forced his mana into finer and finer tendrils. Tiny extensions out of his body, made to note tiny things.
Eventually, as he reduced it down to perceive even smaller imperfections, he saw the triz, the smallest units of mana. Tiny droplets, singular units that weren’t enough enough to call them that, suffusing the metal. And he saw that they were arranged a certain way.
Not perfectly, not all of them, but a good chunk of them were trapped into a lattice that felt… almost sinister. Like it held a breath of unlife. And Mercury realized it. “They’re forming a natural magic circle. It’s converting mana that passes into it into more… is that soul mana?”
“It is,” Yasashiku nodded. “See, these kinds of metals are sometimes used by mages to figure out how to make new mana types. When we first found stariron, that led to the discovery of solar mana. Mana wants to make more of itself. Give it enough time and a container that can hold the structure, and it’ll eventually form conversion circles all on its own. It’s why undeath spreads like a plague, and how groves of life can replenish over time.”
“Then how do plants do it?” Mercury asked.
Yasahiku smiled faintly. “I’m a poor woodworker, you know this,” he said with a dramatic shrug, but there was a faint smirk playing on his lips, as if he was playing a prank. “But I s’pose I do know some things about it,” he admitted. “Plants usually work with stamina. Crystallized stamina, or having it locked in self-replicating flows. It gives even parts that have been cut off and shaped their own life, allowing for self-repair and durability, as well as a myriad other things.”
Tilting his head, Mercury thought that over. “Don’t they have any mana?”
“Some,” Yasashiku nodded. “Most often some kind of life-aspect. But it’s more rare. Mana disperses to the cores of living things after they die. So that’s where plants’ mana usually goes after harvesting. Little remains in the wood.”
“Plants have cores?” Mercury asked.
“Anything living with mana has a core,” Yasashiku nodded. “Just like anything with stamina has a vessel. It’s just that stamina is a lot better at sticking around in things that used to be alive, and mana can also gather in inanimate things.”
Mercury slowly nodded. It made… some amount of sense. Metal for mana, wood for stamina. “Then how do things like my Storm’s Raiment work?” he asked.
For a long moment, Yasashiku eyed the billowing cloak of clouds, the way it swirled and moved. Then he shrugged. “I dunno,” he said simply.
“Huh?” Mercury asked.
“No clue,” Yasashiku replied. “Well, not exactly. Bound items are finicky, Mercury. They feed off of and into your Skills. Using a bound item enough can grant you a new Skill, you know? You’ve only ever used electricity through items, yet, recently, I’ve seen it crackle around you when you use that weird rain Skill of yours,” he noted.
“I thought it had just gotten stronger,” Mercury said.
The old man shook his head slowly. “No,” he said. “What you do influences what you want. What you want influences what you are. Using electric items makes you used to being able to do it. Being used to doing a thing means you try to reach for it instinctively. Then, the system responds. Your Skills change.”
Mercury blinked at the explanation. That was… bizarre. It made sense, because the system did respond to what he wanted. The aspect of desire that it held, the way it allowed people to reach for the things that they were desperate for was both its greatest advantage and its greatest tragedy.
Breeze just wanted to run, so he ran after he died. Baelzebuth was hungry, so they were granted the ability to eat. The changelings used to be envious, so they could steal. Those were the great tragedies of desire.
And yet, here he was. Simply wanting to cast magic, to make things, to help people. And he was granted that, too. Marcel got to heal, Lucia got to love, and Zyl learned how to paint. Because of the way that things worked there was always, always a way for people to get better by wanting to be better and working towards it.
That strange dichotomy made Mercury smile. Still, though, the old man had avoided the question for long enough. “Come now, Yasashiku-sensei. You made my Cloudmatter Shawl before it fused with the Dracoleather Cloak. Surely you know at least some of how it works.”
Scratching his beard awkwardly, the old man let out a wry sigh. “Haaah. What am I going to do with you, Starlight-kun? Yes, fine. I know how it works. There’s a few rather complicated mana circuits in there.”
Mercury’s eyes widened with curiosity. “Go on.”
Again, the old man sighed. “Well, one for dimensional mana, to create it and maintain a pocket space. One for self-replication of the cloudmatter so it can shift, another one for the conversion and absorption of lightning and electricity - that one actually forms a faux-core with the circuits in order to store the energy.”
“That’s… quite a bit,” Mercury noted.
“It’s just the surface,” Yasashiku said with a wry smile. “See, to bind an item, there’s a ton of rather complex enchantment. Letting it be summoned and dispelled, giving it a different form that makes it stable to hover around the soul, automatic shapeshifting to fit the body of a user… Yes, it’s complex.” He waved the mopaaw off. “Dissect it on your own time once you’ve learnt a bit more enchanting. Your runework has gotten decent, but it’s still far from good,” the smith chided.
It wasn’t true. In the time that Mercury had learnt to work with metals, his runecarving skills had increased immensely, even fused into his metallurgy. He was good at enchanting, but not good enough to meet the old master’s standards.
As much as Mercury was incredibly skilled, Yasashiku still had decades of experience on him - focused experience. The old man was a master of his craft, of anything that needed to be hit with a hammer. Mercury had seen him make and undo roads with simple swings, his technique somehow self-replicating along the ground.
Every time he saw it, it was still wondrous. Not something Mercury needed, since he was rather decent at finding his way without roads, but it was still a testament to Yasashiku’s Skills. So, instead of arguing, Mercury just smiled and nodded. “Yes, teacher. I’ll work on my enchanting more.”
“Now, now,” Yasashiku chided quickly, bringing up his hands. “Focus on your blacksmithing before your enchanting.”
“Scared you’ll lose your prized pupil?” Mercury teased with an evil smirk.
At that, the old man grumbled into his beard. “Fine, then,” he said grumpily, waving the mopaaw off. “Practice what you will. I’ve only got one foot in the grave. Your loss if you aren’t good enough before I get my second foot in there.”
“Hah! You’ll outlive me yet, old man,” Mercury said, smiling. Yasashiku simply shot him a glance, then gave a long sigh. The mopaaw laid a ghostly hand on the old man’s back, patting it lightly. “Come on. We’ve still got enough daylight left to make another workpiece.”
Yasashiku smiled faintly. He wasn’t that old, really, but he was old. Passing on his smithing to someone who was actually learning it properly was an opportunity he cherished. Even if his disciple was an idiot who constantly ran off to solve problems he had no business dealing with. Even if he was a moron who got into trouble every few days, who asked too many favours, who bothered him at odd hours of the day, and who was altogether a troublesome troublemaker.
Despite all of that, Yasashiku took up his hammer and nodded. “Watch closely,” he said. “And I might teach you how to hammer some magic into a piece of iron.”
And Mercury took yet another step on his journey of magic, moving from runes to proper enchantments.
2025-08-16 17:00:34 +0000 UTC
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Richard Terril, son of Jonathan Henney, had a lot of things to clean up.
His father had been a brilliant man. No one, no matter how much they hated him, would deny that. Mr. Henney had been incredibly sharp, able to find opportunities and generate social and financial capital where others would have cut their losses. He’d manipulated, bribed, and tricked his ways into people’s hearts and granted himself a position of immense power.
So immense, in fact, that he could sell spots on another world, spots on Eden as if it was a game. With an in-game currency that people could trade for real money. With items that they could sell to the company like a market.
Sure, Foundational Exchange was backed by the divines, but when Zinnic paid their own employees for certain trades, it was foundationally the same. They could sell things from the other side to the company, and Henney made great use of those resources.
Even far before gates began to open on Neamhan, he’d begun testing the effects of Qi-saturated herbs on people. They’d been paid well, of course, and the man had long since been invested in creating his own army of super soldiers.
In the end, that power, which should have been overwhelming, hadn’t amounted to much at all.
Stopping those kinds of experiments wasn’t much trouble for Rich. He was able to stop the buying of herbs and medicines, of cultivation resources and mana stones. It was easy to wean people off of it.
But when it came to the dealings with the keepers and usurpers? That was troublesome.
His father could not keep his fingers off any pie, and now, Rich was the one hung over his desk, fingers buried in his perfectly blonde hair, shoulders straining the stitches of his suit as he groaned. “Damn you,” he muttered, then slammed the desk. “Damn all of you!”
But the people - if they were worthy of calling them that - he was talking to, didn’t quite see eye to eye with him. A glassy window showed him a view of a shifting thing. A mannequin stuffed full of wrapping paper that split open, revealing more and more colourful layers in a kaleidoscope. Matryoshka, the embodiment of secrecy, spoke without a voice.
“Give us more,” it demanded. “More. More. More. More. More. More. More. More. M-”
A hand came up to stop its tirade, a red hand with fingers that ended in sticky bulbs. That of a frog. “Now, now,” the usurper’s smooth voice came. “Let us be reasonable. Mr. Terril, you are our foremost contact in this world now. As such, you have the duty to uphold certain agreements. Your tests of Echo are part of those,” he said, calmly.
“Or what?” Rich scoffed. “You gonna kill me?”
“Oh, hardly,” the frog waves him off, a wide grin full of sharp teeth splitting its face. “We’ll simply turn you inside out, fill you with enough Echo to turn you into a mindless addict, hungry for expansion.”
The human shivered at those words. They were delivered so casually, so easily, and yet, they were a concern. He could feel himself tensing up at the thought, the disgust he felt at imagining himself imbibing any of the echo. Crystals of dull, pulsing energy that brought euphoria and power that countered Qi, but also an intense sense of euphoria and a physical dependency.
Slowly, he shook his head, grinding his teeth together. Richard, in truth, was a coward. He was a pushover. The lady Radiance had to shoot him all of one look, and he cowered. There was no evidence, no hint that she had killed his father, but he saw it in her eyes. He knew she’d murdered the clever old bastard, and he only lived because he hadn’t committed a crime.
And so, he found himself trapped between one vengeful demon and another. The problem was just that… “My scientists are still carrying out tests, even though I told them not to, aren’t they?” Richard asked, defeated.
“Possession casts string and the humans dance like puppets,” Matyroshka scoffed. “You slither, cause strife, you cower, you writhe. Pathetic creatures.”
The arrogance in its strange not-speak was dulled by the sheer dullness Richard felt in his chest. All of his efforts felt pointless. He was just… what? A chess piece? A figurehead? A replacement for a man whose shoes he never could have hoped to fill anyway?
He gave himself a ragged, pitiful laugh. “You’ve infected my science division with some kind of brain-virus, then?” The words tasted like ash in his mouth. Pathetic. A CEO who couldn’t even get anyone to follow his orders.
“They will simply carry out the necessary tests, human,” the frog said. Richard heard the designation, the way they stripped his identity, and he couldn’t bring himself to care. All he wanted was to be done with it. All he wanted was to move on with his life.
Live in some cushy villa with a butler and never talk to anyone again. Screw all this magic. “So why do you need me, then?”
At that, the demon smiled, politely. “We are aware that your world operates widely on public sentiment. News still sees you as the head of the company. You shall be our mouthpiece, human. Spread the word of our glorious dominion, of Echo, of its benefits and the power it can bring.”
The commands rattled in on his skull in an endless deluge. Give more of this, give more of that… what had his father even received in exchange? That shrewd bastard would never have let himself be manipulated. What measure of power had he gotten? Early warning for the gates, sure, but that could not have been all.
“What do I get out of it?” Richard asked drily.
“For one, we will not turn you into a puppet,” the demon offered graciously.
Richard laughed. His mood was teetering ever closer to rock bottom. Had he found his breaking point? He thought it might be approaching. “And?”
“We will instate you as the highest person in the new world. We will grant you forces of overwhelming power, and you may lord above your domain when the world changes. You could live forever, human. You could have greatness, if only you embrace it. If only you bring our Echo to your people, if you foster it and grow it into a beautiful little infection. We will give you power, wealth and fame as you wish it,” the demon said, its arms wide.
And for the first time, Richard looked up at them. “No,” he said.
It was a simple word, one he almost didn’t intend, yet it left his lips so easily. “No, I won’t.”
That wasn’t to say that he was a good person. His defiance came in an office behind a mahogany desk, one of the last of its kind from when trees still grew. He wore a suit that could have bought a house, and his chair was covered in leather from some extinct animal. He was a living, breathing statue of opulence and privilege.
No way was he giving that up. He didn’t want to lose any of his wealth. He didn’t want to lose any of his status… but at the same time, he didn’t want this. It felt too much. A projected happiness. There was joy in having a nice penthouse, not having to do anything, watching shows and swimming in overflowing pools.
There was no joy in being blackmailed by some kind of interdimensional drug broker slash colonizer.
So he declined. Using every inch of bravery in his pitiful bones, he found his bottom line.
“What?” the demon asked, as if incredulous.
“Is wealth not enough?” Matryoshka asked, as if giving up a secret. They must’ve figured that one out before, Richard thought with a snicker.
He nodded. “I don’t want it,” he said simply. “I’ve got all the wealth I need. More fame than I could ever want. I’m at the top of the world and it’s hollow. If I’m to be a puppet, I won’t do it willingly.”
Just then, he thought of the lady Radiance again. How she had marched into a gate that should have been her death, and emerged stronger. The way her presence had shifted, after that trial. The way she had survived against the Tiger, the Swan, and the Eagle. And he thought, for just a moment, that he might be as brave as her.
“I’ll fight you every step of the way,” he said, smiling faintly in self-satisfaction.”
A sigh reached his ears. “What a shame,” the frog said. “This could have been easy, yet here we are. You will not enjoy what happens next.”
It reached out through the pane of glass, and Matryoshka grunted in effort. More translucent, shimmering crystal spread, encasing Richard’s office in some kind of temporary dimension. The window turned from a screen to a doorway. An equalizer. For just a moment, he stood in front of the frog for real.
His breath hitched in his throat.
Power poured from it, so much that he could feel it prickling at his skin. It felt like a bath of acid, like staring down a horde of hungry wolves. It sent terror down his spine, to the point where any words of protest died in his mouth.
“We could have worked together beautifully, Mr. Terril. Such a shame,” the demon said, though its voice didn’t hint at regret. Instead, its red, bulbous, dry skin touched Rich’s arm.
Magma poured into the CEO’s veins. It burnt its way up his arm, lancing into his chest, and a hoarse scream tore itself forth. It hurt, and every vein of his ached. His body shifted, resonated with itself in a low hum,a second copy of it appearing next to him. Pain and euphoria mixed within him as the world duplicated, then multiplied again.
The sensations stacked. More pain, more and more of the magma tearing through him. He felt his body twice, thrice, then seven times atop itself. Each stimulation magnified and enhanced to the point where he could not tell where the pain ended and he began.
Throughout it all, the demon simply held his hand. “You may defy us, Mr. Terril,” it noted. “But you will not do so for long.”
- - -
Matt picked up the phone.
It was Fio’s phone, but Ann was currently out in a gate, and Ion was with her, so they’d left it in his care. The display showed her dad’s name. Usually, he wouldn’t have picked that up, but Lars Desum never called.
Oh, sure, he’d text to ask about visits. But in all the time living together, he’d never heard Fio on call with him. The facility probably didn’t let him have unrestricted access to phones, but perhaps a web browser? Something like that.
Needless to say, he picked it up. “Hello hello Mr. Desum, this is Matt, how can I help ya?”
“Oh, Matthew. I was… hoping to speak to my daughter. Is she gone?”
“Out on work right now, I’m afraid,” the swordsman replied, lazily draping himself over the back of the couch. Marie raised an eyebrow at him, but he quickly placed a finger on his lips, gesturing for her to be quiet.
“Ah, right, well. I suppose I can tell you, too. There’s… something wrong here.”
Worry had seeped into the man’s voice, and Matt’s playfulness drained away by bit. “I’m sorry, sir, I’m not sure what you mean?”
Lars coughed on the other end of the phone. “I feel… bad. Real bad. They… I think they put something in my water,” he coughed again. “It tastes. I can taste it twice? They were gonna start doing new tests on me. I can feel my Qi burning in my chest. It feels like I have a fever.”
At the words, Matt sat up straight. It sounded bad. Another cough rang through the phone before he replied properly. “What’s the address of the building you are at, sir? Hang in there. Don’t resist the burn, stoke the fire, if you can. You use fire Qi, yes?” he asked, already getting up. Quickly, he turned the phone on mute. “Get Reya,” he told Marie.
The older woman looked on with concern. “Everything okay?”
Matt quickly jotted down the address before turning to her and shaking his head. “No, Fio’s dad might be getting Echo pumped into him.”
“Fuck,” Marie said, sprinting off to grab their healer.
Meanwhile, the swordsman unmuted the call, and put on his most polite, calming voice. The tone he usually used with his dad when he was being an insensitive asshole again. “Alright, Mr. Desum. We’ll be right over.”
“You can’t… visit. Only family.”
Matt almost smiled faintly, a glint of violence in his eyes. “Oh, don’t worry. We will find a way in.” Reaching out into the air next to him, his broken, blossom-crafted blade appeared in his hands. He drew it from the sheath and looked at the petals for a moment.
Hopefully, he didn’t need to spill too much human blood today.
2025-08-14 03:17:02 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 261: Surrounded
[Main Quest: “Rends in Reality” advanced!
Partial Reward granted by entity: <Dream Manifestation> mastery.]
[<Dream Manifestation> has levelled up! <Dream Manifestation lv. 2 -> 3>]
As he stepped through the void and arrived back in the mortal realm, there was another notification, too.
[<Itinerant> has levelled up! <Itinerant lv. 8 -> 9>]
He breathed in the fresh air and enjoyed the sunlight on his rapidly regrowing skin. A few seconds passed, and he stopped leaking blood onto the ground. The road home was right there, but he didn’t walk it quite yet. Instead, he read the notifications.
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
Three of them, taking him from level 6 to level 9. With a small smile, he brought up his status.
=
Status:
Mercury Rainfall Starlight
Level: 6 -> 9
Species: Lumyron
Titles: <Guest>, <Worldweaver>, <Relentless Will>, <Successor>, <Star Usurper>, <Trialist>, <Patient Learner>, <Mountain Usurper>, <Tenacious Genius>, <Forest Usurper>, <Tutorial Completer>
Alias: Beast, Mittens, dum-dum, Yr’enzel, Biso
===
Hp: 1032/2750
Mp: 2100/3854
Sp: 987/1634
===
Strength: 141 -> 146 (+5)
Vitality: 270 -> 280
Dexterity: 167 (+30)
Agility: 193 (+30)
Intelligence: 225 -> 235 (+40)
Wisdom: 240 -> 255 (+2)
Willpower: 500 -> 505
Luck: 203 -> 218
===
Ability points: 281
World points: 10 000
Skill points: 2600
===
Gold: 51 950
Beast familiars: 1/2
=
Glorious numbers going up. He was beginning to approach the second threshold on some more stats. Willpower was even trending towards 600, where he suspected the third upgrade would come. What if one of his stats hit a thousand?
His resources were reasonably low, but they were also already rapidly ticking back up. His regeneration was his strongest suit, after all. More so than overall durability.
“You know,” Avery said, looking at people walking home. “I can’t imagine the city council will look lightly on this.”
Mercury took a moment to consider those words, then nodded gravely. “You’re right,” he said. “But don’t worry. I’m working on a solution.” That was half a lie, but also a partial truth. There was, after all, a simple way he could help at least alleviate this problem.
He spent 131 of his saved up points on luck.
Luck: 218 -> 349
[The individual’s Luck has surpassed 300! Your fortune twists probability in your favour.]
And then, he proceeded to pour every ounce of luck he had into the thought that things in Stormbraver would go well. He wanted them to go well. He wanted to go home, open the door to his flat, lay in his silly hammock and enjoy the sunlight. He did not want some fossil knocking at his door, telling him he was banished from the city.
Of course, if that was their choice, he’d leave. He wasn’t going to tyrannically enforce his right to settle somewhere. If he was unwanted, he could find another place. It… really wasn’t all that hard, to be honest.
But with every stat increase, his active pool of luck had gone up, too. By now, he was rather confident that he could cause some major shifts in using it. Perhaps, if he were to enter a tear, he could make it so that the drops were rather amazing. After all, the only things he’d gotten from Envy was a few skill ups and a bit more territory to his dream.
Granted, though. That territory was valuable in and of itself. After all, by now, Mercury had a slight suspicion that he could make things from that realm into completely mundane objects. And if he could to that, well, then perhaps compressing a steel mountain from wrath into some kind of superheavy sword was possible. He practically had materials that defied the laws of physics in how they interacted.
That was rather valuable to a crafter. Though Envy, being made mostly from bone and tissue, was harder to work with, he could also use it if he wanted to. Perhaps that was more suitable if he had an alchemy skill? He gave a soft sigh and closed his eyes, giving all the thinking a rest.
It was enjoyable to mull over everything, consider its implications and all that, but… he had to turn it off, occasionally. His zeyjn shut down, one by one, as all the fragmented pieces of his mind coalesced together. He’d split it almost automatically, keeping part of himself vigilant, and such.
Now, there was no more need for that. He closed his eyes, enjoying the soft buzz of conversation around him, and laying in the sun. There was no need for anything other than that. Nothing to do but let time drift by contently.
Except for the fact that he heard a whisper. A tiny noise at the edge of his mind. A small shaking of the <Tapestry>. That he was laying around, lazing about for a bit… it was turning him into a faint candlelight for Sloth to find.
And that was annoying. Mercury frowned at the sight, but still acknowledged it. Speaking the sins’ name would only bring them about faster, after all. Acknowledging what he was doing as wrong… that would turn it into a problem real quick. So instead, he kept at it, and ignored the faint signal he was casting out.
There was no action that was without sin. Contentness always had an inkling of pride, of sloth, and even in simply enjoying the sunlight, one could read a bit of lust. Mercury’s greatest sin in that regard was probably rather silly. He’d seen the sins stretch their definitions, so what if for Lust, it considered wanderlust a sin?
Wouldn’t that make him a sinner and a half?
He snickered at the thought, but didn’t discard it entirely. There was some component to the sins that meant that one’s perception of them influenced them. The manticore of Wrath had known about guns, after all, and there weren’t many modern sniper rifles on Chronagen. Which meant it must have drank from Mercury’s own experiences with violence.
But that was fine. Hopefully he wouldn’t encounter anything too sexual when he interacted with Lust. That would make telling the story to other people rather difficult, after all. Which wasn’t a problem for him yet, but it would be if he told the story to anyone in the future.
Hopefully he’d have some kind of classy british sounding audiobook narrator to take care of any of those troubles, in case they popped up.
Moving on.
Mercury cracked open an eye when the sunlight vanished from his fur. Bael stood next to him, awkwardly. The demon towered over him by a lot, even when Mercury stood, since he was more long than he was tall. Now, with him laying down, she looked borderline titanic. “Sit down,” Mercury chided her. “You’re too far away.”
Bael looked away awkwardly, not meeting his eyes. In response to that, Marcel gave a gentle snicker, then placed his butt in the grass, pulling on her hand. “C’mon,” he said. “Sit with us.”
She gave the receptionist an even more awkward look, both of her maws drawn into a crooked half-frown. Despite that, she slowly nodded, and got her legs underneath herself. She still absolutely towered over mercury, but some of that menace was removed by the fact that she sat criss-cross applesauce.
“You want something,” Mercury noted. It wasn’t a question, and he didn’t press for an <Answer>. All it was, was an innocuous statement.
The demoness just looked at him, still not speaking. Marcel snickered again, but didn’t otherwise contribute. Unfortunately, Mercury had perfected the art of patience. Especially when it was someone so clearly struggling.
Instead of particularly minding her, he gently relaxed again, placing his head down on his paws. He shifted just enough for sunlight to crest his ears again. It was a little funny to hear Bael shift, and he could feel her mana stir at the motion. There was some internal struggle going on.
Even more funnily, behind her, Aurora sat down in the grass with the skinstealers. And behind them, Otto held Breeze’s hand. In an orderly queue. He almost snorted at that, but held back in order to preserve Bael’s dignity. She was already struggling enough.
“It’s he/him now, actually,” the demon corrected, as if sniffing Mercury’s thoughts.
“Of course, sorry,” the mopaaw answered.
“It’s fine,” Bael said, opening one of his maws again. For just another second, he sat there like a dead fish. Then, finally, the words came out. “I want you to sever the connection to gluttony.”
Mercury smiled, faintly, glad that he had managed the request. Even now, the demon lord looked awkward and uncomfortable, but sometimes, that was necessary for learning. And Bael definitely needed to learn how to ask for things, politely. “Why?” Mercury asked.
Instantly, the discomfort was back, but this time, Mercury did ask a question. That meant Bael would be encouraged to give an <Answer>. Now that the words had begun to flow, though, it would be easier.
“Because it disgusts me,” the demon said. He shifted on the grass, leaning back, turning his gaze to the sky, and supporting his bulk with massive arms stretched backwards. “The way I still feel it gnawing at me, like a missing other half. It’s a permanent reminder of what I was, what I no longer am. What I want to move past.”
The mopaaw tilted his head. His next question would be almost cruel, but he needed to ask it nonetheless. His eyes bored into the demon. “Oh? You aren’t some sort of hungry monster?”
“No!” Bael protested, slamming his hands into the ground, denting the earth. “No, damn it. I refuse to be that. To devour mindlessly again. I refuse to do that anymore. Sure, I’ll kill demons and devils and stuff, but they’re basically frothing at the mouth for it!” The words stumble out of him like a waterfall. One by one, the frustrations are laid bare.
“What? Are you upset about what you did before?” Mercury asked, coldly.
Bael eyes him with fury. “Yes, you bastard. Of course I am upset. People died. I know that much. I snuffed them out, and now others were left to mourn. I killed Breeze, and look at him,” he said, pointing to the boy. For his part, Breeze stood in line with Otto, eyeing the demon lord with a minor bit of sadness in his eyes.
“I ruined his life,” Bael ground out. “He’s back because of an act of luck. So many others got none of that. I regret it, because how couldn’t I?”
Zyl spoke, for the first time. His eyes were still closed, head resting in Mercury’s fur, but his lips moved. “The regret is what separates us from monsters,” he said quietly.
A thin smile appeared on Mercury’s mouth. He pressed his snout gently against his boyfriend’s temple in a small gesture of affection, nodding along. “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” he agreed. Then he faced Bael again. “You’re fine, demon. You pass. You don’t need me to stop you from being a monster,” he said. “All I’ll do is remove the reminder.”
With his words, Bael froze. He stared at the mopaaw in shock, even as MArcel smiled amusedly. The receptionist had known Mercury for about three years now. He was used to all the mopaaw’s tricks. Nothing new to him.
To the demon, though, it was surprising. “That was a test?” Bael croaked, through a mouth that barely wanted to open.
“Nope,” Mercury shook his head. “It was proof, to yourself. You needed to say it out loud. Now you have my approval, and, if you think about it, maybe more of your own.”
He blinked. The lord of all demons blinked for a long moment, then closed all his eyes. He stared at the sky, letting the sun fall on his face. “I see,” he said, eventually.
“Now, if you’re ready, I’ll cut the cord,” Mercury offered.
Another second passed, and time ticked onward. Bael simply sat and waited for his hearts to slow down slightly. He breathed in deep, then nodded. “Ready,” he said.
Yet, the sensation was beyond what he expected.
All at once, when he gave his permission, there was a tug, and all of a sudden, his perspective changed. The world was cast in shades of iridescent monochrome. It all shimmered, as if an oil sheen had been cast over it. The falsehoods were pulled aside, and all that he was laid bare in and of itself.
There was a record, in front of him. A tome of every single thing he had ever done, every single thing he had ever thought, and how it all painted him to be the person he now was. It was a kaleidoscope of activity, a painting with every heartbeat as a brushstroke, every line drawn and remade and painted over a hundred times. A canvas full of infinite layers.
And all of it peeled back.
Second by second, each facet of his self was revealed and laid bare. In a single, sudden, revolting and freeing moment, Bael felt himself come undone. He felt the way that the breath leaked from his lungs, and it felt like getting knocked, hard. It was uncomfortable, but it was real. Unlike every other cloudy, shitty decision he’d made in his miserable life, this was real.
It showed every flaw, every mistake, and yet, faced with it from right there, it showed each virtue he held. The politeness he’d learned, the simple shows of affection he did, the strangely unfamiliar and newly budding urge to hold something dear. It was a beautiful road, and he was looking behind at a path of footsteps he’d taken.
Footsteps that had brought him from being a mindless, murderous beast, to where he was now. To who he was now. Footsteps that showed who he had been and who he was.
And then, with a gentle broom, something changed. His eyes stopped being drawn to those early moments, stopped being drawn towards something that wasn’t there anymore.
In a single swift moment, dirt was cast over a part that wasn’t his. When he had been dragged along by something else. That tether, that leash was gone. Disappeared. Cut away with a simple swipe of someone’s claws. Pulled away from all the other things that made him who he was.
Something had been lost, inevitably, irrevocably, and somewhere deep down, that hurt a little. It was different. Things would be different. And yet, Bael was sure that they would be better.
All at once, he snapped back into himself.
Mercury was in front of him, with a somewhat tired look in those unfathomably deep eyes. He panted slightly, his tongue hanging from his mouth just a little. “There you go,” he said. “Complex piece of work you are.”
“I’ve come far,” Bael said breathlessly. It wasn’t a brag, it was a notice of surprise. He himself felt the way that his heart beat at the acknowledgement, at how used he was to rebelling against it. Yet, now, he could see it. Without being drawn to a past that was long ago, he could see it.
There was still so much loss to mourn. None of that hid from him. But he stopped being forced to look at it. He could finally go home from the funeral, instead of staring at an open mass grave for more years. Open wounds could start to heal.
“You have,” Mercury nodded. “And, like anyone else, you still have far to go. So keep living. Keep doing better. Figure things out, learn, improve, and try to do good. That’s all we can do,” he said. “That’s all we should do.”
Bael nodded. For once, he understood. The words rang <True> to him. If everyone simply did their best to be good, the world might be a better place.
Doing good, though, meant doing right by himself, too. It meant not living in agony. It meant not sacrificing one’s own happiness to please someone else. Some part of doing good meant being selfish. His own joy was part of this world, too, after all.
Aurelia gently poked Bael in the back. “Sorry mr. demon, but could we get our chance with Mercury now?” she asked.
Blinking awkwardly, the lord of all demons looked at the not-quite-human. “Uh, right,” he said, shuffling aside. “Sorry, yeah, go ahead.”
“Thank you,” Aurelia said with a beaming smile. It was a little too wide, her skin stretching slightly more than it should.
Mercury snickered slightly at the sight. There was something funny about seeing the giant demon scoot over. Especially given that he could rather easily walk on his arms, having four of them. But after only a few awkward seconds, Aurelia was face to face with Mercury.
Well, not quite. Mercury was still a bit shorter, but it was close enough. He’d probably get some sort of shapeshifting ability soon, and that would solve his height issues forever. The once-skinstealer-now-something-else waved her hand in front of his face. “Helloooo?” she asked, in an amused tone. “You there?”
“Yes, yes, I’m listening,” Mercury said with a huff of amusement, shaking his head. People were so silly.
Aurelia smiled happily, then tilted her head. “You know, saviour-”
“Still not doing the cult bit,” Mercury chided.
The not-human rolled her eyes. “Fine then. Mercury. We need a name for our new species. The system hasn’t granted us one yet, so we’ve talked, and we want you to come up with one. You’ve given many of us names, and effectively created us. As our father-”
“No, we’re not doing the pseudo-adoption thing either,” Mercury instantly interrupted her with a glare.
Aurelia nodded sagely. “Of course, of course. Regardless, please do try to come up with a reasonable name, if you would? We do not want to push you, of course, but we would appreciate it.”
At that, Mercury gave a small sigh. He couldn’t refuse such an earnest request after all. “Fine, fine,” he said, waving his paw slightly. “Uh, you can call yourselves… changelings?” he suggested.
“Changelings,” Aurelia repeated, tasting the word on her tongue. Then, she smiled again, tilting her head slightly. The sun caught in her hair and glittered. “I like it!” she said happily. Then, she turned to the rest of the shifters. “Any objections?”
All that followed was a bunch of shrugs and soft affirmations. No one complained. Well, other than Oscar, but he was grouchy and there was no way to please him anyway. That had been the case before Mercury removed the envy from him, too, and it was still the case now. After all, he’d tried to keep their personalities intact as much as possible.
“That works then. Do you need anything else?” he asked.
“Well…” Aurelia shifted a little, looking not quite comfortable with the request.
Mercury almost sighed again. Would he have to drag it out of her, too? “Cmon, out with it already. What do you want?” he asked, activating <Answer> to make it easier on her.
“We don’t have a place to stay, really,” she admitted. “So, we wanted to ask… where we should go? None of us want to go back to how we lived before.”
Almost dismissively, Mercury waved his paw again. “Go wherever you want. You’re your own people.”
“Well, yes,” Aurelia said, “but we don’t know where to start. It’s… complex. We have enemies who might not forgive us as easily. There’s gonna be trouble and-”
Avery tapped the side of her head. He’d just kind of appeared in a soft gust of wind, ready to poke her. “Come to Stormbraver,” he said with a bright smile, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“But what if the people there don’t want us?” Aurelia asked, balling her fists.
“How childish,” Avery said with a snicker. His grin just widened. “Make them like ya. It’s that simple. Look at my man Mercury. He keeps causing trouble, and yet, he’s not been thrown out. Because he’s cool. So, be cool. Open a bakery. A restaurant. A flower shop. Do things, help people, live happily,” he said, crossing his arms and grinning.
The changeling leader stared at him slightly. “As if it was that simple,” she said quietly. “It’s never that simple.”
“Life is complicated if you make it so,” Avery nodded. “But it can be simple. If someone bothers you, get away from them. If there’s someone you like, stay close to them. If there’s someplace you wanna go, go there. If there’s something you wanna do, do it. Unless it hurts people.
“Freedom is bigger than people think,” Avery said. “Freedom goes far and wide. It only ends where you hurt others. Living someone isn’t hurting others. Eating nice food isn’t hurting others. Hell, sometimes even stealing is harmless,” he snickered. “You’ve just gotten a taste of that - freedom. Don’t throw it away just because something bad might happen. Grab life by the throat and live it, ya dummy.”
Mercury shook his head at the guild master’s antics. “You really love to collect misfits, huh?” Mercury asked with a gentle smile.
“Kahahahaha!” Avery threw his head back and laughed, then gave an excited thumbs up. “Ya caught me, Mercury. I just can’t abide by people being stupid. All these self-imposed rules, this rage at their impotence when all the barriers are just mental.” He grinned, happily. “Things are hard, yea. Shit sucks sometimes, yea. So keep living and doing good anyway.”
Aurelia blinked. The words must’ve felt like a smack to the head. Mercury tilted his head in curiosity. What would she do now? Fold and give up and insist on her limits? Or would she take it to heart and break through?
Wasn’t that always the question? Whether things would be better or worse often depended on whether someone had the will to do the things that would make it better. Sometimes that meant resting, sometimes that meant chasing happiness relentlessly.
And Aurelia… she balled her fists, and breathed out in a single, long moment. Then she opened her eyes with grim determination and utmost sincerity. “Fine then,” she said, as if readying herself to go to war. “We’ll go to Stormbraver. And if anyone wants us out, we’ll just convince enough people to want us in.”
“Kahaha! That’s the spirit,” Avery said happily, ruffling her hair. Then, he just walked away, slinking off to… kick some trees apparently. Entirely normal behaviour.
With that all done, the changelings, one by one, walked off. Down the brick road, and towards Stormbraver. It was kind of funny, seeing them march off, filled with determination, to go… plant some vegetables or something? Mercury still wanted to learn a bit more about farming, but he’d get to that, too.
No hurry in things, when he had plenty of his life left to live.
Really, with the fact that he could think himself into existence, and that his mind was no longer bound by his brain, he did wonder how old he could get. Probably as old as he wanted to. The only thing that might kill him was having… his mind splintered.
Into uncontrolled, overgrown parts that weren’t really him, anymore.
Huh. That sounded vaguely familiar. There was someone in his life who was quite like that, wasn’t there? Something to consider asking about in the future, too.
For now, he focused on the people across from him. “Mercury,” Otto greeted with a gruff nod of acknowledgement. Breeze, for his part, gave a shy wave, the boy sticking to the older man’s side. Mercury smiled faintly.
“You two get along well?” he asked.
“Mh,” Otto nodded again. “We do. Kid is kind. I like him,” he said, in that same plain, open-hearted way he always was. “I want to make home for him,” he added.
Breeze turned a little red at that, looking aside. Mercury tilted his head. “Really now?” he asked. “And what would that be like?”
“Stack bricks, make house,” Otto said simply.
“In Stormbraver?” Mercury asked, smiling slightly. He could see Zyl’s lips curl upwards as well at the thought, even though the dragon still kept his eyes closed, acting as if he were asleep. Just because he wanted to use Mercury as a pillow, the rascal.
Otto nodded once more. “Yes, in Stormbraver. Want to live in the same city as Zyl and Lucy.”
The priestess turned and almost summoned a bow at the nickname. “Lucy?” she whispered under her breath. “I’m going to fucking strangle-”
Iris giggled and ruffled her hair. “There, there, my love. Take it easy. It is a good day. Do not light it aflame.”
In response, Lucia grumbled, but turned away. Otto simply wore a pleasant smile, his fangs poking into his upper lip. He seemed content with himself. Had he… teased Lucia on purpose? Was there some mischief baked into his bones after all?
“In Stormbraver, then,” Mercury said with a smile, giving his approval. “Maybe we’ll teach you how to cook yet, Otto.”
“I great cook,” the big lug protested.
“You eat most food raw,” Mercury noted.
“Very delicious!” Otto confirmed. “Meals tasty. Means I am great cook.”
The mopaaw snickered at his self-satisfied expression. “Fair enough,” he said. “If you need help building, look for an old man named Yasashiku Ryuutesai. He should be able to help you stack bricks if you need. Otherwise, Foss or Nira from the merchant’s guild might be able to help as well.”
“Thanks,” Otto said, then turned away, still holding Breeze’s hand. “C’mon little storm. We go make a home.”
Breeze blinked, and Mercury saw his eyes glinting with a bit of wetness. Despite that, the boy’s face cracked into a wide smile. “Alright!” he said happily, walking off hand in hand with Otto.
Seems Stormbraver would grow a little more after this event. Mercury sighed softly as the sunlight graced him again, all the little problems having walked off on their own volition. He made a mental note to thank Yasashiku later for building the road. Somehow, he had ended up the city’s talent recruiter… which was a bit bizarre to think about, but he didn’t really mind it.
One by one, people filtered out of the clearing. Some said goodbye, some just walked off, until, at some point, it was just Mercury and Zyl left. Again, the mopaaw tapped his boyfriend’s face with his snout. “Wanna go home?” Mercury asked, peacefully.
Zyl smiled, ran a hand through his boyfriend’s fur, and then kissed his forehead. “Yeah,” the dragon said. “Let’s go home.”
And they walked, peacefully, to that place. Mercury didn’t turn around, even when he was certain that someone was watching. Someone was always watching, after all, and he would just deal with the problems as they came to him. One by one.
Living life to the best of his ability, surrounded by his loved ones.
2025-08-09 16:38:40 +0000 UTC
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I woke up, eventually, and I was rather warm.
We were still in the north. The mountains were still covered in ice. But there was a blanket draped across me. A blanket that… looked strangely dark.
[Treasure: Flicker of Regret
Owner: Emilia
Description: From darkness blossoms fire, from fire blossoms warmth. This temperate blanket will automatically adjust to consume the ambient temperature, returning the person under its cover to a comfortable state. It will also aid them in purging harmful effects, be that from toxins, foreign energies, poorly handled internal energies, or similar. The flames also burn away at any mind-altering effects that may be imposed upon the wielder. Once, a giant grew to regret its destination, but couldn’t turn back. Now, in its memory, others are returned to their original state.]
I blinked at the black, quilted piece of fabric. It was cozy and soft, feeling warm and nice against my skin. It was also decorated with a cartoon skull motif, lovingly stitched in as if by someone’s kind grandma. I also noted that, despite my misgivings about the item… I felt great.
“We got a blanket for beating the giant?” I asked, dejected.
“Yepyep, Princess,” Emilia replied cheerily. “We got a blanket. Now don’t be a wet blanket about it. We already drained the lake.” She gave me a bright grin at the pun, and I rolled my eyes.
It was, however, snowing on us, so I quickly activated the Memory of Shelter, my amulet that warded environmental conditions. The snow then began to drift off to the side, as if landing on the flaps of an invisible tent, and the warmth of the faintly crackling fire, sustained mostly by Trichtera’s blood, quickly started gathering within the confines of the space.
Out of all of us, Eric was the one who enjoyed that most. He’d been huddled up by the fire, rubbing his shoulders. The cold got to him more than it did me or the others, since his base durability was so low. Well, he hadn’t caught a cold yet, so he was probably fine. Chris, for their part, was stitching their shells back together after the battle. And also animatedly chatting with Stella.
Stella. Once Eagleeye from Zinnic. Even now, her body for Neamhan was still held in stasis within my gateway, while we waited for Reya to make it into the next tier and hopefully figure out how to heal her.
Right now, she was giving me a very awkward look. I blinked at her. “What?” I asked.
“I shot you with an arrow,” she noted drily. Nervously? A little, perhaps.
“Water under the bridge,” I waved her off.
Emilia snorted. “There’s no bridge. Just water under the mountain, I guess.”
At the comment, Trichtera groaned, grabbing her face with both her hands. Stella seemed a little more nervous, apparently not quite used to the banter yet. “Are you… sure?” she asked.
With a shrug, I nodded. “Yeah. You got me out of the death-beam. I’m thankful, really. Better a few puncture wounds. You even hit my ribs! They cracked, but hey, you didn’t stab me through the lungs like the last Zinnic assassin.”
“... Huh?” she asked, confused.
“Oh, not the tiger. That was before that. Right after I hit wellspring, actually. But enough about that! You’re one of a few maelstrom level fighters we have here in Eden! How come you helped me?” I asked her, smiling faintly. I was being nice, maybe a little too much, trying to melt the ice.
The fact was that she’d saved my life. Maybe I would’ve survived, but it would not have been pleasant. I already had a good chunk of my skin flayed off. If she hadn’t intervened, then… what, would I have been left as a walking glass-skeleton with my organs suspended in golden soup? That didn’t seem like an ideal life.
No, it was good that she was here. I wanted to be on decent terms with her. All I needed to know was… why? Why was she here?
Stella gave an awkward smile. “Well… Erasmus, the seer, asked me to help you out. He sent me a letter. By a pigeon. Not that it was a pigeon, it was some kind of lizard-bird thing. But it asked me to head north and see about helping you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You saved me a lot of pain and trouble. I appreciate that.”
She looked down at the ground, not quite willing to meet my eyes. She mumbled a few words.
I tilted my head. “What was that?” I asked.
“No biggie,” she muttered. “I said it was no biggie.”
Emilia slapped her on the back hard enough to make her bend forward, the breath being knocked right out of her. “C’mon, Archer. Are you gonna keep beating around the bush or being real with us?” she asked, grinning brightly. “You’re acting like you’re carryin’ a mountain on your back. Just spit it out already, idiot.”
At that, Stella spluttered through a few words and syllables, placing a hand on the back of her head. “Well, it’s awkward, dang it! I tried to kill you before! And I was all edgy about it, cuz’ I thought I had a few months left at best. And now, I’ve been handed a reasonable shot at a second lease at life. Of course it feels awkward!” she protested. “Half of your dang guild is in the 5th realm at this point! If your saintess makes it… And I almost killed your girlfriend!” she said, gesturing at me.
“How many Edians have you saved since getting back here?” I asked.
“Huh?” her eyes widened.
I repeated the question. “How many lives have you saved? You’ve told us you’re working with the archmages, so they must have a reasonable amount of trust in you.”
“Not that many,” she deflected. “I mostly hunt down big, remote targets.”
“Which means they’re not attacking cities,” I chided.
“I’ve killed people for Zinnic,” she pressed, getting up from her rock. Emilia stood next to her with her arms crossed. “I can’t ever make up for that. Never. I’ve got blood on my hands.”
“So do I,” I replied. “When Ann was kidnapped I killed about a dozen grunts without blinking an eye. I don’t even remember what they looked like. Did all of them know what they were doing, you think?”
Stella scoffed. “Not the same.”
I nodded. “It’s not. You’ve done wrong things. So. Make sure to keep doing the right things to make up for it.”
She stared at me. “Seriously? That’s all you have to say after I tell you I killed people?”
“Yep,” I replied. “You’ve hurt me. You’ve hurt Ann. But here you are. You could’ve just cruised by in Eden, just gotten a cottage somewhere, not interacted. But, instead, you fight. You go out there and fight usurpers, because they’re a danger to Edians. You’re doing a good thing.”
I clapped her on the shoulder, looking into her eyes. “What does your gift say about you, Stella? What’s your covenant?”
At that, she sights, placing her face in her hands again. “Repentance,” she replies bluntly. As if it were some kind of unfairness that she got a second chance.
With a small smile, I decided on it.
[Stella Miren has been added to your [Transference] network.]
She gave a choking sort of snort. “That easy?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “That easy.”
“Damn it all.”
- - -
Lars Desum was a large man, but he still felt small inside some rooms. He didn’t do very well with the sterile white of experimentation chambers. Inside his chest, he kindled that small flame of bravery. The little dreg of hope his daughter had helped him ignite.
The opened Door of burned Regrets. He breathed in deep, as a stethoscope touched against his bare chest. He was still lighter than he’d been when he got into the clinic. It was so easy to lose weight here. It was hard to eat, and since he drank less… he was missing, what, eight hundred-ish calories that he’d drank in beer every day?
God. What a fucking depressing number.
“Heartbeat normal,” the doc noted with clinical precision. “We’ll be taking your blood pressure now, Mr. Bellum. Please hold out your arm for us. Thank you,” she added the last bit when he did as asked.
It was strange. The fact that he so clearly felt different, that he was stronger now, ever so slightly, gathering that heat in his chest. Fio hadn’t told him a lot, but what she had told him was enough. He’d found his own path. And he was moving forward along it. Imperfectly, of course, because he was an ox.
That thought made him smile slightly. Yes, he was an ox. He was best at bashing his thick skull into walls until they broke, in walking forward slowly and steadily until there was no more journey left to walk.
He breathed, and the measuring device beeped. “Blood pressure… a little low, but within normal range,” the doc noted. She scribbled it down on her clipboard. Then she tapped a few of his joints with those little hammers, shone a flashlight in his mouth, checked his ears…
“We’ll also be taking a blood sample for labs. Three, actually, in order to do a few tests on them,” she noted. “Please hold out your arm.”
“What kind of tests?” Lars asked.
And, as every single time until now, the woman clammed up. “Tests on how the procedure is influencing interactions with various stimulants,” she said.
Lars breathed. He’d played along for a while now, but he did want to know more. “What kind of stimulants?”
The doc looked at him for a long moment. “I’m not at liberty to disclose the details of the study to the patients, Mr. Bellum. Doing so could compromise its scientific integrity, as well as mess with our control group comparisons.”
At that, the old man scoffed. He’d been patient, because it was helping, and because he was almost certain to be doing better than anyone else, with his daughter’s guidance. “Right, that sounds like bullshit,” he said. “I know when I’m being lied to.”
She eyed him for a long moment. “Mr. Bellum, I will have to ask you to try and remain calm.”
Instantly, Lars felt the disgust creeping up on him. He’d gotten up. He towered over the small woman, and it made him feel like garbage again. “Sorry, doc,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to intimidate. But going along with vague tests is starting to feel rather frustrating.”
“I understand your apprehensions, Mr. Bellum,” she said in typical corporate speech, “but you did sign the waiver to participate in the experiment. You’re being fairly compensated according to state law. I can assure you that we are approaching the second phase of trials, though, in which you should see more significant changes.”
“What would that entail?” he asked, slowly, making sure to keep his tone and breathing calm. Inside of him, the open door lingered. He stood past it, by one step, and behind him, there was a fire. Into that, he tossed yet another regret. Yet another shameful memory he needed to move past. It was almost rote meditation by now.
She sighed, as if dealing with an unruly customer. “You would be taking an experimental medicine that should alleviate the symptoms of your withdrawal by resonating with your internal energy. That is already more than I should tell you, Mr. Bellum.”
Lars looked at her. For a long moment. “When will those trials start?”
The doc pushed up her glasses, and sighed. “If you wish, and your values are good, then I will move them up. I can have the first dose of the med sent to your room by tomorrow morning. It’s still experimental, but other facilities have shown some promise, so we are looking into expanding a bit faster. Would you like to volunteer, Mr. Bellum?”
He didn’t. This sounded incredibly fishy. But, at the same time, if there was something wrong with it, then he was in the best position to try it. After all, he had the best daughter in the world. With a small smile, he resolved to call Fio that evening. If something was wrong with things, she’d know. “Sounds good to me, doc. Will I get more pay?” he asked, playing gullible.
“Yes,” the woman said, eyeing him through the steel-framed lenses. “Your compensation will be increased commensurably. But in order to move things up, I will need your blood samples. So, please, Mr. Bellum. Your arm, if you would?” she asked.
Lars, playing along, did just that, holding out his hand. “All yours, doc,” he said, as the needle pressed into him, pulling out a bit of blood. A bit of fluid with a little bit of Qi in it. He felt a faint pull against the warmth in his chest, but it was tolerable.
Finally, he had a chance to do some good in this world. He would get to the bottom of this thing.
2025-08-07 04:47:44 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 260: Incandescence
Breeze did not enjoy the feeling of the wind.
There was something about it that felt so unnaturally freeing, so easily cruel. It made it easy to forget. To get lost. To run and run and run and break everything in its way.
Now that he knew what to look for, the feeling was uncomfortable. Not because it felt wrong, but because it felt so right. And Breeze hated it. He hated the way he revelled in it. The way that his body unravelled, coming apart into wind and violence in a seamless transformation. How he felt his will spread out in the breeze, how he felt the crushing weight he could bring to bear.
For so, so long had he ran away from everything. Now, all he needed to do was run at it. The problem was remarkably easy, it was literal child’s play. He just needed to play tag with the embodiments of Envy. And so that’s exactly what he did.
In a long, shifting moment, the wind stirred. A breeze appeared where there had been none. It was a lurching terror that it brought with it, a shifting of fate as the wind started to move. And then, the Breeze became a storm.
There is something strange about wind. Something that is so omnipresent and pleasant, and yet terrifying when it becomes vast. It’s the same thing as with fire. As with the sun, as with darkness.
Humans are made to feel safe around these things when they’re small and tame. When they make us feel in control. When a cool breeze comes by in summer and wipes away some of that suffocating heat. When the darkness is a simple shadow on a bright day, rather than the creeping horror that could hide any monsters.
And there is a fear that comes with things that are too vast.
When Breeze moved, humans felt scared. It had been a whisper of a storm, a regional thing that picked off individual people, but that was no longer the case. What descended on the world of Envy was more than that, a raging hurricane of violence and uproot body parts. The world made of arms came undone in a single breath.
Body parts constructed of thoughts and desire were uprooted like weeds, torn into the sky and shredded to bits. They came apart into their barest essentials, breaking and tearing and breaking all over again. The winds were so violent that they refused to abide by anything within their domain.
Breeze’s tornado tore into the ground like a drill, scattering the facsimile of body parts, spreading them around in a mess of tangled limbs that could make any crime scene jealous. It tore and broke at the world that was trying to take. The wind revelled in the destruction, in the very momentum of it all.
And that was the most disgusting part of it. The fact that it enjoyed it all. Every moment, the storm moved forward. The unending desire for movement was, after all, far greater than the fear of destruction or loss. It flew like a caged bird being released for the first time. It escaped the confines it had built, the body of the mortal boy, and the spirit that had caged it began to disintegrate as well.
There was, after all, nothing more important than freedom. Nothing more important than movement.
The storm did what it always did, what it always had done. It ran forward.
It tore and broke anything and everything in its path. Envoys, skinstealers, reduced to shrapnel. Skin and flesh flayed from their facsimile bones, melting and reforming to find a shape that might save them, might keep them coherent, but there was none. Bodies shattered into tatters. Ragged bits of skin that might, at some point, have been something resembling a person.
And then, it found an attempt at caging it.
Bones and limbs sprouted and grew into towering, writhing structures. Things that would break the wind. Things that would slow it down and hold it tight, things that were not allowed where it reigned.
Crashing into the flimsy defenses before they’d fully formed, the tornado broke them, too. They fell apart against the depths of its hunger for movement, sacrificed to its desire for more. And the strangest thing was that it knew the trees simply wanted to be like it.
They, too, wanted to move. They were jealous of its majesty, of its speed and unbroken might.
How disgusting.
For the price of coveting the storm, of trying to cage it, they would die. One by one, this fake landscape of twisting towers and hungering hands shattered. Their fake, reaching branches of hands strung together into garlands were torn apart. Long strings of limbs, arms with hands on both ends clasping each other, tore off into the sky.
Like whips, the garlands cracked. Their hands held each other still, even as they wove through the sky, turning into razor sharp wires. It was almost intimate, the way the hands held each other, and it would, perhaps, have been lovely in some twisted way, if they didn’t simply want to ride the coattails of the storm.
For a brief moment, Envy knew what it was to fly.
Then, those strings of hands were turned into lethal garrotte wires as they spun.
Long bands of limbs struck against structures, and both parties shattered. Bones that sprouted to form arms broke, scattering shadowy flesh to the wind again. Towers and cage bars were torn apart by swinging effigies of a different part of their maker. Envy was trying to steal the skin of the storm.
To cage it and become part of it and subsume it all at the same time.
The garlands broke against the buildings, but then took their hands. Long chains of limbs fluttered in the winds, holding hands in a string of lovers’ embraces, and attached themselves to structures that writhed and regrew where they were torn.
Broken bones regrew like trees, splintering off into branching trees of skeletal tissue. Flowers of hands sprouted and ossified and sprouted again. They broke and shattered and regrew like each finger that it tore asunder was a new seed of a different plant. It was like a living catacomb weaving itself into the storm.
The chains of limbs danced in the tearing winds, but still they held. By pure desire and theft, they held. They tried to halt its momentum, grinding at it with structural strain and whipping force. The living cage expressed its desire, and the system answered.
Against those sprouting chains of calcium and collagen, the storm raged. It tore and broke and shattered. It could feel the way that more of this realm coalesced on it, that the desire was drawn in by its violence. Against this rage, what else was there to Envy? What could the world want except this violence?
With that envy, more chains grew. They whipped in the winds, long and longer series of arms, tangled up into swirling knots of themselves, tangling up the winds. The storm roared at its newfound cage, loathing it after having just broken the old one. It wanted to be free. It wanted so very desperately to do nothing but move and shatter anything in its path.
And yet, it found itself slowing. In a disgusting twist against its nature, the copying interloper, the facsimile of it, was stealing faster than it could. A tangle of writhing limbs that stole its momentum, faking the storm with flailing hands.
It could feel it, the way the cage drew tighter, like a noose around a human’s neck.
The way that the momentum was choked from it, the way its life faded.
And then, it felt another storm at the very edges of its existence.
- - - - - -
Mercury walked forward.
He walked at a slow, measured pace, as the world around him shrunk and shifted. Beneath him, the ground of hands was thinner than ever, as the world itself seemed to coalesce in on where Breeze was raging.
Slowly, Mercury tilted his head. Could he still consider that tornado to be the same entity as Breeze? Had the boy lost himself in the storm? Or was this what honesty was like? Dropping all his filters and melding with his underlying desires, being true to them.
At that thought, he smiled slightly. Were filters dishonest? That was what the question boiled down to, and Mercury didn’t think they were. Being in control of himself was very important to him. Being honest was also important, but people he was close to deserved to have things said kindly, even when he was angry with them.
Another step carried him closer, the wind now brushing his fur. It waved gently in the Breeze. This was the outskirts of the storm, the part where the tornado was reduced to a gentle caress, making strands of his mane wave in the wind. It was almost comforting.
He stepped forward one more time. <Itinerant> carried him a dozen steps at once, space itself giving way to his movement. The wind tore at him, then, like a grasping hand trying to whip him into the air. Mercury manifested his Strength stat, becoming denser. He willed <Itinerant> to keep him on the ground, travelling downwards in defiance of the storm, despite having no reasonable way to do so other than his will.
Another step carried himself deeper into the storm. The winds went from tearing to ripping. He could feel the roots of his fur straining against his skin, the way his joints were being pulled. Mercury breathed. And took another step.
The whole world was wind. It was so loud he couldn’t hear himself think. All of it was a terrible, angry momentum. Everywhere around him was suffused with speed and motion in a singular, forward-facing rage. It was struggling against a cage and whipping even harder, like a beast in chains.
Mercury breathed. He let calm settle over himself and unfolded his <Rainfall>.
From within him, another storm grew. It was different from the wind, but he understood that storm, too. He and Breeze were friends. He knew what the <Wind> was like. And he asked it to calm, for but a moment.
All the rage within Breeze evaporated at that.
The second storm didn’t come to usurp it or steal. It was a different kind of wind, a calmer, focused existence compared to its movement. The winds slowed for a brief moment. They calmed, coalesced into smaller swirls, local ones.
Chains of limbs stopped whipping through the air. The hands kind of fell by the wayside. The thing they were stealing, mimicking, suddenly didn’t exist anymore. Like a broken promise, the grasping limbs hung in the air for another moment. Reaching out with desire for something that wasn’t there anymore.
A raindrop fell on the soft earth.
And it did his soft earth, surprisingly. Because the raindrop didn’t stop. It broke through the earth, through layers upon layers of calcified theft, of hands holding onto things that had never been theirs, and it reached the very bottom of this realm. It fell through the lower boundary of the realm of Envy, and reached the mortal plane, where it fell against dirt.
That was a bit funny, since Mercury thought it would need to cross the void first. Then he remembered that there were still hands reaching down there and plucking pieces of Stormbraver away, extending through the threads. His raindrop had simply slid along one of those connections, of interpersonal understanding, and reached the ground.
Regardless, a thousand more followed it.
Hands that were woven into garlands suddenly were pierced. The storming winds coalesced into whirling sphered, thin discs that spun and gathered speed, then rapidly decompressed, turning into slicing pieces of destruction.
Chains were severed with a calm, methodical approach. The cage was washed away like a bad memory, focussed winds tearing into them and shattering the bars with ease. And when they toppled to the ground, the rainwater washed against them, turning them into nothing but debris.
A moment passed, as Envy tried to go to war. More and more of the realm dragged itself here, growing thin on the fringes, the half tether melding with the mortal realm, bits of grass and trees showing through the gaps in the world. There was, however, one more problem.
Those fraying boundaries of the world also opened up gaps to the void.
Instantly, Mercury summoned the Stifled Silence. Raging winds quieted to a whisper. Amber dashed forth and filled the gaps, moments before that <Nothingness> could come inside, and Mercury drew the world in closer.
It was a bizarre sensation. He’d never directly tried to take hold of someone else’s world while it was alive, really.
Well, that was a lie. He had taken hold of others’ threads while alive. He’d done it for people. And, in a way, this entire thing was just an expression of what Envy was. A domain, or a body, or a corpse in equal measures. And there was one advantage he had, here.
Envy was burning.
On the other side of the world, Zyl had donned his crown, and one half of Envy was on fire. So, Mercury pulled.
With his minds, he grabbed the strands of reality, and drew them in tighter where Envy bordered the void, and kept them loose where it fed back into Stormbraver. He saw Bael and Avery quickly shepherding people through those gaps back onto the material plane. And then, he focused.
He focused as Otto stepped next to him, among the torrent of water that poured harmlessly of his skin, and the giant of a man let out a long, steaming breath. “How do I help?” he asked with a grunt.
Mercury smiled softly. “Give me some lightning to work with,” he said.
Otto smiled. “Can do,” the big guy answered. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, Mercury saw those veins running through his cracked skin turn bright with energy.
A hissing crackle and the smell of ozone spread through the air. Tendrils of lightning reached out from Otto, striking down any of the grasping hands with soft crackles in the enforced quiet of the Stifled Silence. Thunder was turned into a dull growl, more akin to a wolf’s snarl.
Which is precisely when Juno emerged from Mercury’s shadow, and carried off a human child that had wandered a little too close, taking the boy by the scruff of his neck. “No fair!” Elliot complained. “I wanna see, too!”
Of course, the wolf cared little for his protests, simply slinking off and carrying him aside.
More crackling energy suffused the air. It fed into the clouds as the Storm’s Raiment billowed into them. It was carried along the gusts of wind, bizarre swirls of tearing electricity being stored. There was something building. A charge that was yet to be unleashed.
Mercury waited patiently. His rain kept the defenses of Envy aside, kept it disarmed and tame. Breeze and Otto stored the power, they built a storm of gigantic proportions. Lightning was pouring out of the dragoneater in billowing streams of power, crackling softly in the air. They coiled and crawled, slowed and contained for now.
Electricity that made Mercury’s fur stand on end poured into the air, and then more and more of it gathered still. Otto channelled an amount of energy that was enough to level all of Stormbraver, probably. Mercury felt it, smelled it, saw it and heard it. He could taste the static on his tongue, and watch the ribbons of yellow and blue circle through the sky.
A heartbeat passed, then two, then ten seconds.
By the end of that, most people were back in Stormbraver. It was a bizarre sight, seeing them all ushered out so fast, half panicked, half stumbling. Some were simply picked up and somewhat roughly carried out in various stages of annoyance, inconvenience, and, for one person, sleep.
And eventually, they were all out. Except for Mercury, Breeze, Otto, and of course Lucia.
They’d spent a lot of effort building a powderkeg, after all. It would be a shame if they lacked the spark to ignite it.
Five more seconds passed, and Mercury pulled. The strings of reality drew taut, the Dreamweave becoming narrower and more cramped. All of Envy was compressed into a smaller space, but eroded as it was, that was needed to fill it. The world grew whole again, even if smaller, the connections to the void and Stormbraver seared shut.
Then, Mercury took off the Stifled Silence.
All at once, noise flooded the space. The dull crackle of lightning built into a roaring thunder. It was a horrible, scraping noise, like a thousand miniature explosions, each distant and rumbling, shaking the sky. It was a cacophony of a storm ready to be unleashed. It was an abominable amount of energy, ready to tear a world apart.
“Lucia, fire!” Mercury said, a manic glint to his eyes.
With a gentle sigh, the woman drew back her bow, a blazing, gold-red arrow on the string. “Don’t tell me what to do,” she said haughtily, but loosed it all the same.
For a moment, hands tried to grasp the ruinous projectile. A thousand sprawling, branching limbs reaching up to try and stop it. In response, Otto grabbed the tree of limbs and thrashed it around like a child’s doll, slamming it into the ground until it was broken and shattered, effortlessly lifting something bigger than most buildings.
And then, the arrow reached the storm. It bloomed.
A flower of fire sprawled out from the moment of impact. How it could impact the storm was a testament to the stored energy.
And it was glorious.
Fire bloomed throughout gusts of wind, and all that rage was unleashed at once. Lightning crackled and ignited, the gusts of wind it was carried on suddenly expanding outwards in a raging torrent. Wind and fire and lightning tore outwards, bringing a shockwave akin to a nuclear explosion.
It was a violent, horrid affair. Instantly, the moment it touched Mercury, his eardrums ruptured. His fur burnt, and the skin on his face melted. He laughed.
He laughed.
“Hahahahaha!” In the face of world shaking destruction, he kept his eyes wide open. He witnessed it all. He saw the way Envy perished, the way the raging storm broke through all of its cages. OIt was a hundred thousand lightning bolts, an annihilating tornado and a raging forest fire all coiled into one enormous thing. The shockwave wanted to blow him off his feet, but he stayed in place with his rijn, letting them be battered by the enormous force.
Arms and bones of Envy were ground into dust. Made into nothing but smears and stains against the ground, pushed against the boundary of this world and shattering rather than breaking through it. It was a horror show coalesced into a single breath. Mercury did breathe in, and instantly, his lungs bubbled and boiled and shocked. His heart spasmed, and he took hold of it with a ghostly hand from <Force of the Hecatoncheires>, pumping it himself.
It was so beautiful.
The sky awash with red and yellow and violent arcs of blue destruction. Each finger of the thousands of hands of Envy acting like a lightning rod, bolts and wind and furious flame slamming into them, pulverizing bones and turning blood to steam.
Mercury’s rain did the same. It became a steam, a thin cloudy fog that permeated the entire area. Scalding hot enough to burn, and yet calm enough to keep the explosion contained. Superheated steam wrapped around Otto and Lucia, keeping them as safe as they could be.
Oh, their skin was exposed to boiling temperatures. Sure, a few bolts of lightning slammed into them, but neither seemed to bothered.
Lucia’s hair whipped in the tearing winds. Her eyes reflected the pooling flames like the destructive maniac she was. Otto watched on with wonder as the colours unfurled, as if he was watching a sped up video of a painting being made. Colours poured across the realm, evaporating anything else.
Mercury’s flesh was scalded from his bones. Light washed over him so bright he became nothing more than an outline. He laughed, even when his vocal chords disintegrated. Even as his body dissolved.
[<Tempered Body> has levelled up! <Tempered Body lv. 5 -> 6>]
He burned, and it was still beautiful. The pain was washed away, as simple signals that had long since lost their purpose in his body. There was no need for warnings, because despite everything, he lived.
The infinity engine in his heart pumped, and he poured that energy into <Hydration> and <Resolution>. Already, the scaling heat was receding, the world awash in white incandescence. Superheated fog laid on his raw muscles as his skin regrew, weaving from threads of thoughts.
[<Hydration> has levelled up! <Hydration lv. 7 -> 8>]
[<Resolution> has levelled up! <Resolution lv. 1 -> 2>]
And on that ruined land, <Rain fell>.
Slowly, the mist cooled down. The storm stopped raging, because there was nothing left to rage against. Envy was reduced into a shell of itself, a hollow world of bright colours and nothing else. Nothing else except four people.
A monster, a mopaaw, an archer and a boy.
Of course, a few seconds later, a dragon joined them.
Green grass grew over the ruined floor of Envy as Mercury’s other self joined them. Two parts of him worked as one again, all his minds focused on the same place and time. He manifested his dream, working hard to keep it expanded outwards as the spatial bubble of Envy caved inwards.
Threads rushed into his nexus and were absorbed. Not enough to get it to the next rank, but enough to expand his inner space some more. His dream was powerful. He smiled a little, then reached out to the <Tapestry>. Envy had fed off of connections like those, and so could he.
With <Dream Manifestation>, he held the void at bay. Then, with <Voidwalker>, he somehow found solid ground where there was nothing at all. <Itinerant> gave his step meaning, carrying him forward and letting him take a path that was little more than an emotional connection as his <Tapestry> pointed the way.
Mercury blinked, and he was back at the lake, distant from Stormbraver. Breeze was curled up in the grass, Otto ruffling the kid’s hair. Lucia faced a quick embrace from Iris. Bael stood awkwardly, half-hidden behind a tree, as Marcel elbowed her in the ribs and Avery barked out a laugh. Ruvah and Juno were curled up on the frozen-over lake, the water spirit having cast some magic.
Aurora and the once-skinwalkers blinked at the change in atmosphere, smiling faintly. There was a brick road leading out of the forest, probably laid by Yasashiku, and people were… just walking home.
Mercury laughed a little. And then, he calmed himself, noting Zyl’s head still buried in his fur. He smiled, gently, and pressed his snout loving into his Boyfriend’s hair, closing his eyes and enjoying the moment.
He felt… good. One more thing crossed off the list. Three sins down, perhaps four to go. And, of course, the rewards that would come with it.
2025-08-05 00:01:20 +0000 UTC
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There is a simple way to fight fire, and that is with water. Drowning the giant seemed like an easy choice, given that we were fighting on a frozen over lake and that Chris’ human shell used water and ice Qi.
Instantly, steam hissed up from the lake, black fire cresting its surface. It tried to reach up with a hand, but then, the ice grew and shifted to cover the surface of the lake. Emilia stood next to it, grinning. “Ice is a rock, too, didn’t you know?” she said calmly.
I laughed, pulling myself out of the rubble, letting my wounds scab over as more explosions sounded from underwater. Chris was dragging the bastard deeper and deeper. We’d dug a chasm into the mountain, mainly Emilia doing the digging, and Chris filled it up. The lake was far, far more vast than it had any right to be.
“Good work. Let’s get down there,” I said, and with a quick twist of Qi, my armor reshaped into an oldschool diving suit, forming a translucent glass-metal bubble of air around my head. Just in case I forgot to hold my breath. With a quick stomp from Emilia, I was falling down, diving into the depths.
The water around me was freezing and dense. I could feel it all around, the way it bent the light. But because of that nature, it was also just the same to me as air. All of it, really, was a mirror, in some capacity.
Tapping into [Hall of Mirrors], I used that aspect, flickering forwards. My movements stopped being slowed by the water, and instead, I began to transition through stances like a stop-motion animation, too fast to follow. I blinked from one movement to another, and it took only a moment until I was face to face with that baleful skull again.
Amusingly, since the speed of sound in water is ten times as high as it is in air, when the giant moved, there was no horrible cracking noise. Just a faint wooshing as something massive dragged itself through the depths. A sword.
I flickered, and appeared on the other side of the strike. Astraeus darted forward, and an absolute torrent of Qi powered the strike. It coursed through the water so fast that a few cavitation bubbles formed. Then, the attack hit home against the stupid monster, flickering into its tough hide.
Blood and fire spilled from the wound, but its acidic effects were severely hampered by the water. It splashed against my armor for a moment, only to then get mixed in with so much liquid it stopped mattering. I saw the usurper growl, bubbles of air leaving its skull-mask, and it snapped its attention towards me.
Only to be dragged further down by a whirlpool of water.
Chris’ human shell was there, elegantly hovering in the water, their hair floating weightlessly. They gave me a gentle smile, as the giant sank, and sank some more. I could see the usurper reaching out, trying to swim upwards, more water turning to steam as the flames raged… but it was pointless.
There was no way to fight against a current, especially when it was so much denser than the world around it. Trichtera dove after it, all fury and blood, and although she would be weakened by this environment, too, she used her wings to propel herself through the water even faster.
It looked a little comical, I’ll admit, but still. She charged forward, slamming into the giant, both of them tumbling over each other in a heap of burning flesh and glinting steel. Our berserker and the usurper both descended even deeper into the lake, and Chris’ smile looked sinister at the fact. Ice began to crystallize out of the water around them, long lances of it, perfectly ready to pierce through the giant’s hide.
And that’s exactly what they did. Trichtera retreated after only a few moments, when a strike from the giant lopped an entire wing off. Bubbles escaped her mouth in a silent scream, and Cass quickly dove forward to pull her out, dragging her through a mirror and up to Eric for first aid.
But with no one near the usurper, Chris can unleash their barrage. A hundred frozen lances shot forward, and the giant quickly brought up its sword, swatting half of them aside. The other half, though, still burrowed into its tough flesh. More blood, more flames spilled out, and I could see the thing writhe just for a moment.
Some of that inhuman toughness was finally cracking. I could feel it, see it. Meanwhile, my wounds were healing with every passing second. Golden glass mixed with the water, leaking from my wounds in a steadily slowing drip, turning it shades of gold and red. Despite everything, though, we were now overwhelming the giant.
I snapped forward again, engaging it in a melee, Astraeus’ haft already being mended again, the metal having fused together with enough Qi fed to it. The spear sung in my hands, and whenever there wasn’t enough time to strike, I simply summoned more from willpower. Metal and glass melded and danced, singing through the air like a battle hymn. I could feel it, the way every step felt right.
The star in my chest roared and budded, growing and thrashing. I could feel it. A sword that could cleave me in half whistled above my head, missing me. The giant couldn’t bring it back around quickly enough, and I stabbed it in the chest, spilling more blood. It roared in anger, lances of flames flying towards me, only for me to flicker aside.
Every time I moved, it was as if time stopped for me. I simply passed through the water without resistance, while the big bastard was flailing against the hissing steam. Its flames couldn’t hurt me as easily, its caustic blood was pointless in the water, and its movements were slower. I could win this.
Ruination was still only a step away, though, so my wings flared and glower. I could feel it, the way each step became more perfect than the last, the way I grasped at freedom.
[Sparking Nova has evolved into Flaring Nova. (Reach for the skies and your steps will take you there. You’ve seen the stars, right? Stay kind to yourself.)]
My spear flashed, and the giant stumbled backwards. A star roared in my chest, demanding my superiority, glowing so much brighter than the constellation of the giant. I could feel my talent soaring, my steps growing more sure, I could see the way that whirling nova in my chest ate at this thing.
I was devouring its talent. Its capacity for improvement, and its mastery. It was as if Orvan looked over my shoulder, even now. I smiled, brightly, as we reached the bottom of the lake. I struck again at the stumbling thing, and for a moment, it moved to parry.
Then, the floor of the mountain rose up. Emilia, steadfast as ever, held back its blow by directing an enormous hand of stone. “Go get ‘em, princess!” she called. I knew, because Cass told me, given that all I actually heard was faintly popping air bubbles.
But I moved. I flickered forward, I brought unyielding metal to bear, and stabbed right into its shoulder. For a moment, the mountainous bone held, and it felt as if I’d tried to stab granite. And then I remembered, that granite was so much softer than my spear.
[Unyielding Metal has reached (High)!]
The bone shattered against the strike. Its socket broke into pieces, and the arm began to hang limply, held in place only by torn muscles. Qi raced into the wound, a thousand slicing blades, shredding what remained of its flesh, and then, when it struck back, I disappeared.
And then, it hit its breaking point.
I could see it in the black pits that passed as eyes on the usurper. It was done with this. Done with fighting. Done with burning and rage and slashing its sword around.
From one heartbeat to another, all the black flames disappeared. Its sword unwreathed itself, sinking back underneath its skin. The fires that so persistently poked out from it withdrew, making the thing look like a decorated corpse instead of something alive. And yet, I could hear it.
A heartbeat.
It rang through the water, reaching my ears as a dull thud. Then it came again, and again, louder each time. I saw the cool corpse of the usurper, as it slowly turned. Its movements weren’t fast or snappy, but there was a dull inevitability in them. As if escape was impossible. I looked at it, striking again, but as I moved, there was another heartbeat.
Echo pulsed out of the beast, but it wasn’t painful. It rattled my bones and made my muscles seize up with a dull paralysis. It was so much of the stuff that it momentarily even affected my secondary gold-skeleton. Just for a single breath, I was stunned, unable to move.
Then the attack came.
It was a dull spark of black light in front of where the boar’s snout would have been. A single pinprick of light that I easily could have mistaken for something else. And yet, it scared me. My instincts screamed, and I had Vivi crawl out of my chest. She was grumpy at being interrupted on her hunt, for just a second, before seeing the giant.
Then, she grinned a feral grin.
A second later, the spark winked out. Silence for a moment. And then, a rushing torrent of fire.
It appeared faster than I could even register. The paralysis still sat deep in my bones, and Vivi was the one to face it. She twirled her version of Astraeus, pouring out a torrent of gold as a shield, an ocean that shattered as soon as it came.
The black washed over her, and I could hear it, echoing through our connection. As she burned, so did a part of me. I felt the fire. It encased me, violently tearing across her skin and turning it into ash. Vivi’s bones disintegrated in one breath, and the echoing resonance coursed through her flesh.
In a serenade of black, she was unmade. Another heartbeat, and the fire hit me.
My skin charred, instantly. I could hear it, strangely enough. Hear the music of my flesh melting. My armor boiled away. My eyelashes burnt to bits. I shielded my face with my arms, only to have the skin on them flay, the muscles eroding.
I screamed, silently, in a column of bubbles, and took a single, warping step. It should have taken me out of range, but the beam distorted my skill. The Echo rang so loudly, that it consumed the entire world. There was nothing except the tunnel of black fire, washing over me.
Until an arrow slammed into my side.
It hit me like a ballista bolt, slamming into my ribcage and cracking a few bits of me. It also launched me to the side, outside the stream of fire. My skin was ragged and torn, and the water boiled as it came into contact with my blazing hot flesh. Steam mixed with blood as boiling crimson vital fluid poured out of me.
I was gasping for air, but there was none. All I inhaled was steam, the lake having been burned away by the stream of fire. And then it stopped.
Behind me, I could see what it had done.
The lance of power had torn through the entirety of the mountain. It had punched a hole diagonally down its side, creating an exit wound. The water from the lake began to flow down that tunnel, as if someone had pulled the stopper on a bathtub.
And then, there was a second hold in the mountain. A large one, almost human sized, and on its other side, my saviour. Stella, Eagleeye, ex Zinnic operative and recently recruited to cause trouble in Eden. She hesitated for a second before giving me a shy wave, with an almost apologetic look to her.
The usurper stood, dull fire bubbling out of its skin once again. It was shaky on its legs, but I wouldn’t kill it. Even as more of its talent siphoned into me, as its life-flame fell apart in a whisper, spent in that last attack, I didn’t have it in me to move.
My legs were charred almost to the bone. I was missing a good chunk of my skin and the pain was really, really rather bad. But still, I lived. Still, I dragged myself up to my feet.
Golden glass shifted underneath my skin, cracked from the echoing resonance. I held my breath, as time slowly, horribly ticked onwards. Every movement ached, and I stood there, clinging to Astraeus with my flayed-open hands, as the water drained from the lake. Eventually, after half a minute of agonizing torrents brushing my wounds, the water was gone.
I breathed, then. Finally. My lungs were screaming for air, the pain aching in my bones, even as the wounds began to mend. My healing was faster now, Qi pouring into the hurt bits, expelling the dying embers of Echo.
Another arrow and a lance of ice from Chris finished the usurper off. It fell over, dead, spent of flame, and empty.
Emilia reached out to support me, and I leaned on her for a moment. Her cool armor burnt against my wounds. “Well, princess. You look in rough shape.”
A choking, self-deprecating, pained laugh bubbled from my chest. “You should see the other guy,” I said, stepping forward slowly. Towards the corpse. It was already shimmering. Could see the dimension start to frey.
There was a brief flash of light, and I saw the grubby hand of a frog reaching in. My eyes widened. Not this fucking time.
Qi raged through my body, and the Echo that was still left screamed. Agony flashed through me, vibration making the golden glass under my skin want to shatter, but I still moved. I shifted and flickered through a frying world, fed by Cass’ Qi and letting her guide me along, and reached the gateway fragment.
The frog and I touched it at the same time, and that’s when the difference showed. It was a usurper. I was an inheritor.
And there was a difference, damn it.
A heartbeat passed, and the gateway glass chose me. It tore away from those amphibian fingers, and I heard a click of a tongue as the tear in the world vanished. Glass enveloped my skin, and radiance filled my wounds. The pain abated, slowed, as my gateway grew stronger again.
So, so much stronger.
[Golden Glass Maelstrom advanced to 4th Step.]
I could feel it, the fact that I could summon yet another manifestation of myself, that there was even more Qi at my disposal. That Qi covered my skin, keeping my insides on the inside. The ice ceiling above us started to crumble, but Chris quickly stopped the falling debris, and Trichtera carried Eric down on her slowly mending wings.
With the fight over, I checked the very bottom line of my character sheet in the Gift.
[Current Status: Ragged.]
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” I said, slurring my words slightly. “This ragged piece of charcoal, by which I mean me, is gonna take a nap.” Then I proceeded to pass out in Emilia’s arms. It was a good day.
2025-08-02 17:34:15 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 259: Ash and Redemption
/Crowns.
These things have a reputation among any sufficiently large people, don’t they? Crowns. They’re a symbol of status, of superiority, of being the greatest. A ruler, a champion, a monarch, yes?
So often when people are concerned, they are placed on the heads of the unworthy. Those made to rule who never should. Among people, those who covet crowns should never have them. Those who covet ruling are those who will fall prey to corruption quickest.
Luckily, when it comes to Skills, those function a little differently. Crown Skills, after all, are devastatingly powerful. They are granted not as a signal of rulership, but a symbol of absolute power. A symbol held by those who have achieved the very peak of what should be possible in their sphere of influence.
Well, saying “peak” is really rather disingenuous, isn’t it? The Skills still level. They still grow. We still become more powerful. But if someone holds a crown, that makes them a threat. That makes them a terror in and of themselves, a truly horrifying thing to be facing on their chosen field of battle - because they are almost guaranteed to outmatch you.
Take, as an example, a prominent sect leader in the east. Ling XuHan, wielding a bright-blue crown. I know that much ‘cuz I’ve seen it. I don’t know its exact name, of course, because I didn’t get close enough for that. I’m not suicidal, after all. But let me tell you what I did see.
I saw her fight above the open ocean. I saw her fight above waves that roiled as she moved. I saw the ocean itself twist open into whirlpools and spears, every droplet of water until the horizon rising up at her demands. The waves towered higher than any building I’ve ever seen, the sky turned grey with clouds, and it started raining.
A brutal torrent of unending water as the ocean itself went to war.
Before she donned the crown, there was an armada in front of her. A hundred ships, more than that, full of people. An army of thousands, just to fight her. Thousands of capable warriors. Thousands of people with dreams and aspirations of their own right, with Skills that should have made the waters their domain.
Thousands of corpses at the bottom of the ocean, now.
So if you want my advice on what to do when you see someone with a system bestowed crown? You run. You run fast, you run far, and you hope they don’t come after you. That’s what I did, and that’s what you should do, too./
- An excerpt of “Types of Skills” by Anna Lyzer, System scientist.
- - - - - -
Zyl did not like donning his crown.
Zyl did not like burning things, usually. He didn’t enjoy the feeling of exhaustion that came with it all. He didn’t like turning into a full dragon, he didn’t like pulling mana into himself like he was some kind of whirlpool or maelstrom. He didn’t enjoy the sensation of how people looked at him, of feeling like some kind of out of control monster.
So many of his Skills were aimed at making his flames stronger and himself more resistant to them, because the simple fact is that that much was a requirement to even stand near him. To be underneath the crown of desolation was to bear its damning heat, and Zyl could do it. But he did not like it.
Because of what it represented, because it meant that he was, at heart, a destroyer. Good people don’t leave desolation in their wake. Good people don’t turn mountains into craters. Good people don’t wipe out anyone in their vicinity by accident.
And yet, he donned it.
Mercury asked just once, asked for him to burn something, and Zyl wore the crown. He felt the way his heart beat faster. The way torrents of dragonfire poured out of him, into the crown, and were amplified into ambient heat. Around him, the air boiled and shimmered from heat distortion, in a mirage like amber.
He looked at the twisted air, and burned the image in his mind. The distorted way this world of Envy looked, caught in the heat haze like an insect in amber.
He remembered it, because it would be gone soon.
Heat blossomed like a flower. It stretched outwards like reaching petals, and since Envy couldn’t help but want, it drew it in. Welcomed it with open arms, reached out and grasped the heat - and then its arms burnt.
The heat haze spread, fuelled by streaks of fire. Zyl’s heartbeat rang out across the realm like beating drums, and it fell away to ash. All of it, every bit of desire, every envious eye on him, all of the streaking, insidious, infectious desire, was cleansed in the simple purity of flame.
Because for once, that aspect of his fire was useful. The fact that it was indiscriminate.
It ate up anything and everything. No mercy, no regard for good or evil. Fire didn’t want, desolation didn’t choose. It simply burnt. Because anything, absolutely anything in this world was susceptible to heat. If it didn’t burn, it melted. Then boiled and turned to gas. And then, it would ionize and become plasma.
Fire, when violent enough, became a simple chemical process. A simple force so strong that it would tear apart electrons and atoms, reducing them to an ionized mess of heat and vibration. That’s something that’s really strange about it. At energies that high, heat and noise become one and the same.
Zyl stood amidst the desolation, amidst ash that had disintegrated into plasma, and sighed at the ringing. At the dull roar it all made. He sighed, softly, so quietly he couldn’t even hear it over the screaming of air coming undone. It was a little funny, though.
His own sweat evaporated, then the molecule came undone, and then the hydrogen that had once been part of water fused from the heat.
Miniatures pops like tiny explosions went off as bits of once-water fused to helium. Bright light started spreading across this realm, bringing the horrible heat of it all with it. Zyl simply stood, wearing his crown as the temperature climbed.
And climbed.
And climbed some more.
“Ouchies,” he heard over the heat, and turned to look.
Somehow, there he was. Mercury. Standing in the middle of a… Zyl blinked. A field of flowers. Right. The dragon couldn’t help but let out a snicker. “What are you still doing here? You’re gonna burn,” he said.
Mercury, for his part, shook a flaming paw, before smothering the fire in the cloud-like cool and damp texture of his raiment. “Uhm, I’m your taxi back,” the mopaaw said, as if it made perfect sense.
“You’ll burn to death,” Zyl said drily - mainly because all of the saliva in his mouth rapidly boiled away as he spoke.
“I’m beginning to agree,” Mercury said. “The edge of the dreamweave is catching fire.”
Zyl hummed. “Yeah, rules of reality tend to get messy around crowns. See-” as if to punctuate his point, the plasma, and literal nuclear-fusion starmatter around him began to fall away into ash, anyway. It made no sense that it would become ash, but it did. Because that’s what desolation demanded.
“Yes, that does seem to be the case,” his boyfriend commented, oddly calm. “Well. It seems to be spreading circularly. Can you direct it?”
Zyl snickered again. “‘Can you direct it’ he asks,” the dragon muttered. “Yes, I can. It’s troublesome though. My ribs are already hurting from how hard my heart is beating.”
That much was true, at least. In his chest cavity, his heart was powered by his spark, and each time it pulsed, it sent waves of force coursing through his body, hard enough to rattle bones. It looked painful, almost like a muscle cramp.
Mercury smiled, gently. “Try to direct it. I’ll help.”
- - - - - -
The world was on fire, and Mercury stood on the edge of it. That feeling was a bizarre one. He wasn’t even truly in the same realm as Zyl, and yet, he felt the heat. The very edges of his dream caught aflame, and the heat whipped up winds that carried ash into his domain.
It was hot. Incredibly hot. To the point where he felt <Hydration> stop his blood from boiling. Yet, at the same time, he understood <Fire>, and a whispered request to stay away meant that his dream stayed largely at manageable heat. The kind where water began to boil away from the grass, but not the kind that had it instantly turn into a gas.
Desolation, however, carried a little less about that request, and still carried into it. Nothing burnt, but the heat spread, and Mercury felt his realm suffer, to a lesser degree. He could hold it in one piece - not being the target, and hiding in an entirely different dimension, really did quite a lot for the stability of this place.
What hurt a lot more was to see the way it bothered Zyl. His crown had only been burning for a dozen seconds, maybe two. In a minute or five, Mercury’s entire dream would be ash, but by then, Envy would be long gone. No, it wouldn’t burn that long. And yet, already, Zyl was hurting from it.
There was something weird about this Skill, something that made the dragon not want to use it. It drew an obscene amount of power, and also generated an obscene amount of heat. And Mercury just… stood there and watched. It felt unfair.
And so, he wanted to make it fair.
Once the decision was made, the next steps were easier. The <Rose Crown of Desolation> made for an unsubtle target, its tendrils of heat reaching out at anything in range, turning swathes of Envy into ash. The entire thing was clouded by the heat-haze by now, and it would not hold for much longer.
Mercury connected to that heat. He saw the tapestry expand in front of him, picked a connection, and traced his mind along a searing hot thread, right to Zyl’s heart.
Gently, he closed his eyes. His mind burned, but the pain was carried away on a calm river. It did not matter. He would suffer for a while, then he would recover soon later. So, he simply bore with it, and followed the signal.
[<Tracking> has levelled up! <Trackling lv. 3 -> 4>]
The level up drifted past his knowledge, and led him to his destination. To the literal heart of it all. Mercury found his mind standing in front of a star. His mind was beset by bright, horrendously bright light. It was like standing on the surface of the sun. Reasonably, it should have charred him instantly…
But it didn’t.
Mercury’s body was tough, but his mind was tougher. It was deep, and it could keep itself alive by simply thinking himself into existence. It could withstand the outside of reality, the eye of any storm, and it could even take this searing heat.
He felt the pain wash over him. The sensation of his thoughts fraying from the heat, being burnt and seared, like wood in a campfire. Yet, the wounds mended. And, surprisingly, <Hydration> kicked in, turning his mind hardier, making the fire hurt less.
A gentle smile spread on his face as he beheld the enormous star. He breathed, even though there was no air, and watched, for a long moment.
Eventually, the star beat like a heart. It contracted, then expanded again, and for a moment, it engulfed and consumed Mercury. For a single breath, his entire world, his entire existence was fire. A spark of the horrible truth that hid in the heat, that nothing, absolutely nothing at all, was immune to incinerating heat. Not his body, not his mind, not anything. Not reality itself.
In a single moment, he saw the horrible enormity of fire, he felt himself be consumed and burnt, felt the way that the flames engulfed him and tore into his mind. The way that all of it was meaningless against the sheer enormity of the heat.
Then the moment passed.
[Your understanding of <Fire> has increased! <Fire (lowest) -> (medium)>]
His understanding jumped two stages in that single second. It left a lingering impression of his mind still burning, and he wrapped himself tight in the storm. The rain fell like a small blanket around him, and Mercury took a moment.
It shook him. For the first time in forever, there was a type of pain that genuinely hurt. It felt existential, terrifying. He licked his dry snout, and took a long moment. Then, finally, he smiled.
The star contracted again, almost convulsing, like a cramp. And Mercury connected to it.
Fire was indiscriminate. It consumed and hungered, and it should have devoured him, too, but it didn’t. Mercury didn’t let it. Instead, he lent the fire a hand. He tapped into <Grain of Infinity>, the star in his own chest, and activated it.
Energy coursed through him, out of him, pouring into the mess of incinerating flame. The contraction slowed, slightly. Mercury widened the channel, feeding more and more power. Outside, he could see Zyl’s eyes widen as he breathed a little easier, and that felt vindicating enough.
He wanted his boyfriend safe. That was the <Truth>.
And because it was, power flooded out of him. An unending torrent of energy, provided by the spinning stellar body in Mercury’s own chest. It fed the flames of desolation, fed the crown, fed Zyl’s spark and the formless power became dragonfire. Mercury felt the hunger of infinity press against his mind, the heat tearing through his body, energy that he was not really ready to channel - and channelled anyway.
It hurt, but all the damage was meaningless. His body stitched itself back together faster than it could fray, and with each passing moment, it turned tougher.
[<Hydration> has levelled up! <Hydration lv. 6 -> 7>]
The lake of Envy turned to ash. The buried corpses and drowned dreams turned to ash, too. The giant tree of hanged victims turned to ash. Every single bit of this accursed dream was incinerated, reduced to the bear minimum required as proof that it, at some point, had been.
Desolation spread in the heathaze of the rose crown, fed by the hearts of a dragon and a cat. It was, in some words perhaps, beautiful. It was, in other words, horrifying.
It was the death of a world.
Zyl and Mercury killed that place.
And then, there was a shift. Mercury felt it in his Skills, a faint ripple that went through them first, then spread through this realm.
[<Medicine> has been subsumed into <Grain of Infinity>. <Grain of Infinity lv. 3 -> 4>]
A Skill vanished off his status, but it was still all there. It was simply an added function to the black hole in his heart now, the ability to feed others with its power. Medicine had been turned into fuel for the fire, reduced down to its essentials and reforged into a tether he could place, to feed others his health, his mana, his stamina.
And he didn’t mind it.
The second tremor was one of the world, as the dream crumbled. It was turned to ash. The lake was gone, the corpses were gone, the very ground was gone. The ash itself began to disintegrate, and the weave of reality that this pocket was made from began to fray, too.
As always, the threads latched onto the nearest source of reality, and in this case, that was almost Zyl. In the last moment, Mercury whispered for the fire to be quiet, stepped forward, and wrapped his boyfriend into the embrace of his domain.
The crown had already winked out of existence, its rose tines falling away into nothing more than ash, desolation leaving itself desolated. Zyl looked a little gaunt, tired, and he sat in the grass. “Lay down,” Mercury whispered. “I’ve got this.”
Smiling faintly, the dragon nodded, and leaned back, letting his head fall upon soft fur, using Mercury as a pillow. It felt strangely intimate. Laying under a silver sun, the ashes of a dead world falling onto his face… Apparently, destruction didn’t hurt so bad if someone loved you anyway. Maybe it was about breaking the right things, too…
Zyl didn’t care. He simply drifted off to sleep, a dream within a dream within a dream.
And for his part? Mercury was panicked.
How the hell were the threads of the Dreamweave on fire?? Hello?? Reality was absolutely NOT meant to burn, and yet, he could feel it as the remaining, burning bits of this decrepit realm latched onto him. The fire wanted to crawl across the Dreamweave of his realm, wanted to consume it all into ash, and he couldn’t let it.
The nexus, drawing the string tight, helped protect it. Whisperstar and Kim, the ecosystem he’d made… all of it meant that his dream was very stable. And still, its edges caught fire.
Rain fell onto the smouldering flames, quickly extinguishing them before leaks could spawn. Mercury took a brunt of the fire onto himself, holding threads at bay until they were extinguished. He held the entire weight of a world on his shoulders for those moments. It was hard, it was agonizing.
But what else was new?
He’d help up worlds before. They’d crashed into him, almost consuming him back then, but he was different now. He was stronger, he was more real than ever. His nexus was more refined, and the silver sun shone brighter than ever on his world.
He breathed.
The threads halted.
A million pieces of the dreamweave stopped moving as he willed them to. And the rain fell on each and every one of them.
[Your understanding of the <Dreamweave> has increased! <Dreamweave (low) -> (medium)>]
The fire on that world was extinguished.
Zyl took all of twenty seconds to turn it to ash. Mercury took about five minutes to put out the fires. And then, he ate the remains of the dream of Envy, and returned to the other part of its realm, where his physical body was wreaking havoc, too.
Only to find that it was already dying.
- - - - - -
Bael had done a lot of things wrong in her life. A lot of mistakes she could never fix. A lot of people she’d hurt.
And now, one of them stood before her. “Boy,” she whispered.
“Breeze,” he said. “My name is Breeze. And yours?”
There was a note of expectation. A quiver in his voice, barely restrained. Bael looked, and blinked. ‘Why?’, she wondered. Why was he giving her a chance to become a person in his eyes? “Bael,” her lips said, quivering. Both of her demonic maws had spoken at once.
He nodded, and then forced a strained smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“We’ve met before,” Bael said, not much more than a whisper. “I-”
“You killed me,” Breeze nodded. Then, he looked behind her, and she could see tears in the boy’s eyes. “And now, you save them. I would ask what makes me so different from them, but there isn’t answer to that. It’s you, after all. You’re different now.”
Behind Bael, there were humans. People from Stormbraver, huddled in tents, away from the grasping hands that the floor and the sky were made from. Protected by the monarch of all demons.
“And since you’re different,” Breeze said with a strained voice, “it’s nice to meet you.”
He stuck out a hand.
Despite everything, Bael shook it. Despite her anger at herself, despite wanting to scream, her voice came out quiet and hoarse. “Nice to meet you too, Breeze.”
And the boy smiled, just a little. “Can you promise me something, Bael?”
“Anything,” she said.
“Please, protect them all. I’m no good at that.” Tears streamed down his cheeks as he said it. “But I can break things. It’ll get windy, so keep them safe, will you?”
Bael swallowed. Somehow, apparently, the world had decided that she deserved to be redeemed. She didn’t deserve it. But she also wanted it, more than anything. “Yes,” she said. “I will.”
And the boy gave her a smile, still crying, as he stepped forward and vanished as a gust of wind. The breeze wrapped around her cheek in a whispered thanks, and then disappeared. And all at once, the rainstorm in the distance turned into a tearing, brutal hurricane.
2025-08-02 01:18:30 +0000 UTC
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Black fire crested the horizon.
I looked out at that flame, and felt what it caused in me. I felt the rage that spilled, the throbbing ache that was still there. The horror of loss and despair that I’d felt when things had gone wrong. My ears rang with emotion, and the hair across my body stood up in goosebumps.
There was so much that the simple sight of the giant caused in me, even when the place we fought was so different. Now, we were further up north, even further than before. Mountains had risen, and we found the champion in the middle of those frozen peaks.
In a crater, hollowed out by something, there was a lake, amassed rainwater. It had frozen over in the cold, a thick sheet of ice covering its surface, and that is where we waited, as more and more fire crested the rims of the rocks.
Out there, the giant of black flame was climbing upwards. It had carved its way through the north, carving through swaths of land like a bird through the air. Whenever a rock was too difficult to climb, it would swing that sword.
We could hear the air crack when it did, feel the shockwaves as the sound barrier broke, and the mountain splintered. Rock shattered against black fire, and new handholds formed. The giant carved its way through the world with ease, as if there was no obstacle substantial enough to slow it down.
No obstacle except us.
It felt me as much as I did it. The fragment of the mirror it held, the fragment of the gateways it had torn from this world hummed in its chest. A song of loss and incompletion, a desire, a need to be united with more fragments. Those ephemeral strings that I could feel rang, vibrations spreading through them and into my chest.
My heart vibrated. With fury, and excitement, and dread all at the same time. I was afraid. I was afraid of losing someone again. Orvan had failed… so what could I do?
And yet. I knew I would do simply what I had to.
The nova in my chest hummed in agreement. Its motes of stardust roared defiance, that bright light pulsing and surging. I felt my fragmented wings in the air behind me, clinking together softly in the wind.
Emilia sat, calmly, polishing her armor. The rocks beneath her feet were solid, and the usual amusement was wiped from her face. She was geared up, simply putting the finishing touches on a pauldron, making sure it was perfectly prepared for whatever may come.
Eric bit his fingernails nervously, breathing heavily. He was afraid, but it was impersonal. He hadn’t been here after all. I breathed out, long and hard, shoving that anger away. It was fine. He was a coward, but I forgave him. There were worse crimes than cowardice.
In comparison to him, even Trichtera, Ru’s angel, looked calm. Her ruby eyes were set with fatalistic determination, but the flames flickering off her spoke volumes about her nerves. She was afraid of death.
Chris was not. They simply sat, the eyes of their human shell closed as they meditated, enjoying the soft, cold wind on their face. They hummed a song, too. A quiet, sombre tune that resonated through the mountains. It was almost mournful, a hymn of loss, or memories, of remembrance.
A hand woven from bones and fire rose above the lip of the crater. It grabbed onto the stones, and the giant hoisted itself upwards. The rocks creaked as the titanic monster shifted its weight on them, as more and more of it rose on the horizon.
I watched as a titanic bear skull rose above the rocks. I held Astraeus tight at the sight of the black flames pooling from its empty sockets. The rest of its body rose over the cliff. It couldn’t form expressions, woven from flame as it was, and yet, I could swear that the monster sneered at me.
The air was still. Like the last moments of calm as storm clouds rolled over the horizon. A heartbeat passed, then another, and then, with a lurch, the giant stood in the crater. Thunder crashed over us as it stood there, gigantic sword held loosely in one hand. It was covered in dust, though swiftly burnt away in the fire.
And then, the air shifted, and the wind reached us, and the smell of ice was replaced with that of ash.
Flakes of gray drifted down, landing in my hair. I clutched Astraeus tight, watching as the giant took another step. I smelled smoke and decay. Black flames flickered from its body, licking the lilac sky. I breathed in one more time, a long moment passing in the blink of an eye.
The others stood behind me. Emilia, Chris, Eric and Trichtera. And in front of us, the giant. It brandished its sword with yet another whip-crack. The noise rolled over us, but we stepped forward all the same. As ash rained on the snowy mountains, we stepped onto that frozen lake.
My boots came down on thick sheets of ice. A moment later, I emerged at the centre of the lake, my reflection right beneath me. I blinked, and the giant stood in front of me with a rush of wind. It held out its sword, moving slowly, its tip pointed at my chest, and I returned the gesture.
I raised my spear to point at its heart. Astraeus hummed with excitement, and I felt the maelstrom within him rising. Cass floated just behind me, above my shoulder. One more deep breath.
Then, my Qi roared, and the fight began.
Gold poured from Astraeus in a tide, his maelstrom instantly filling the world with it. Then, fire filled my vision.
The giant cut forward with its sword, a large sweep that carved through the ocean of metal, setting it ablaze. I could feel it feast on my Qi, sending echoing rings through it, even as more and more metal poured out to smother it. I stabbed forward, sending a thrust that his only a moment later, teleporting through the air.
It rang against the flat of the sword, metal screeching against metal. Sparks flew, hissing faintly as they touched the surface of the lake. A blade of gold carved through the world, only to be burnt away by dark fire.
Another swing forced me to jump, and then, there was that horrid whip-cracking noise. I felt the world lurch for a moment as something should have slammed into me - and instead, I found myself off to the side.
The world was turned into a cascading labyrinth of glass. Cass hovered above my shoulder, still, even as the kaleidoscope of reality unfolded around me. A million images were readily available for me to see, but my keeper sifted through them easily and assembled a map for me.
This maze of mirrors she’d made was unravelled. I took a step, finishing my cut the very moment I appeared behind the giant. Metal carved through fire, stabbing into the thick hide beneath. Corrosive bile spilled from the wound, hissing against the ice, and I stepped through yet another doorway of glass before its follow-up could get me.
My vision shifted, the world reforming into an entirely different kaleidoscope of colour. And still, I heard the crack. Another step back was too slow, the large blade carving a line across my stomach.
It struggled against my skin and golden armor, but still cut through. There was a horrid, rending noise, and then, for just a second, I could feel my insides spilling out of me.
A moment later, I [Superimposed] myself on that damage. It largely vanished, leaving a thin line of red in its stead, that quickly vanished once Eric’s healing reached me. I drew in a shaky breath, still feeling the memory of the pain, as Emilia dashed in.
Another horrid crack, and the sword slammed into her shield. Unlike my summoned armor, it held, just barely. Denting inwards, it instantly sent Emilia flying backwards, slamming through two spires of rock before she caught herself with the third one. A moment later, Chris was already there, in their form as leshen and rock-hound.
The two shells tore into the giant with fervour, spilling more caustic blood onto the ice, tainting it a dark red. The surface of the frozen lake hissed, and shards of ice broke off it with the next whip-crack that sent both shells flying.
A moment later, divine radiance coursed through my muscles, turning me just a little bit faster. Trichtera and I stabbed the usurper at the same time, giving it only time to defend against me. Gold spilled into flames and burnt. A lance of dark fire stabbed out in retaliation, but I was already gone, having stepped through the reflections.
Blood spilled onto Trichtera. Her cut didn’t go deep, but the wounds she caused never healed easily. The fluid hissed against her skin, bubbling and frothing, yet it also fed her armor. I could see the way that the acid hurt her, and built her rage. The way the fury fed her. She growled at the thing and swung again - only to be pulled aside by Emilia before the brutal retaliation hit her.
Instead, the giant’s might slammed into my friend’s shield. I saw her strain, the way her muscles bulged to resist the motion. Ice cracked beneath her feet, and the metal of her armor screeched. But it held.
In that brief lull, I took another step, appearing behind the monster. My swing finished the moment it started, flickering through the motion like an animation that skipped a few frames. I transitioned between stances faster than a blink, propelled by [Hall Of Mirrors]. And when the retaliation came, it was met with steel.
Another whip crack as the giant spun around. Mercilessly, the sword slammed into my blocks. Once, twice, thrice. More sparks showered from metal upon metal, and Astraeus hummed defiance in my hands. I could feel the spear hold strong, powered by [Unyielding Metal].
I stepped through again, just in time to avoid a massive boulder thrown by Chris. The rock-hound appeared from the stone as it shattered against the giant’s skull, and bit down on its neck. Fire licked the rock, charring it, but still, Chris’ shell hung on and mauled the usurper.
A breath passed, until it reached up, grabbed the dog, and then proceeded to toss it at me. A dozen shattered panes of glass, me and Chris laid sprawled out on the ice. Trichtera and the leshi were already upon the giant again. With a quick flicker of substantiality, I was on my feet. An alternate version of mine was right next to the giant again, where I materialized once more.
Dark flames instantly caught me when the teleportation finished. From within that fire, a smaller skull, maybe that of a badger, stared at me. Somehow, it was keeping track of my alternate versions.
Jaws closed around my skin, digging in and spilling my blood. I felt the ringing power of Echo coursing through me, making my teeth clatter and my Qi shaky as black flames poured into my wound like venom. A hand of golden glass, half manifested, grew from my skin, grabbing the skull and prying its jaw open, before I pierced it with Astraeus.
More Qi poured out of me to heal the wounds, but they didn’t want to properly close. It had hit my parallel versions too, somehow. And it hurt, but it was not enough to kill me. I stepped back, teleporting, as Emilia took another hit, bolstered by Eric’s magic. For a moment, I caught a glimpse of her smiling face.
Then, crimson flames appeared between us. Trichtera’s rage-core had filled, and erupted in a mass of towering fire. For just a moment, the red was able to contest the giant’s darkness, holding it at bay as the angel rushed in with a flap of her wings.
Her sword, a jagged thing more like a saw than anything else, carved yet another jagged line into the giant, even if it sent her sprawling with a whip-crack backhand a moment later. Eric rushed to her side, and the giant’s eyes focused on him with an almost curious look. Before it could move, I was in front of it again, right before its face.
And then, that sneer appeared again. The bear-skull tilted upwards, facing me. The world became a kaleidoscope again - a maze of teleportations that should only have been accessible to me. Its sword, however, rocked through one of the panes of glass, shattering it.
Astraeus twisted in my hands to block it, but I wasn’t fast enough. By the time my spear caught it, the blow was halfway through my leg. Blood poured down the giant’s blade, but the golden glass underneath my skin was unyielding, too. I screamed, and beat the weapon aside.
Liquid gold filled the wound a moment later, my skin stitching itself together. My wounds started dripping radiance instead of blood. It hurt, but I used the torrent of Qi flowing through me as a makeshift skeleton. Another blow came, and this one, I beat aside. Then I steped through.
My spear lanced through the giant’s neck, scraping against the bone of its spine in a torrent of force. Caustic blood and dark flames flowed from the wound, dancing across the gold that covered my skin. My wings flared and beat, somehow, propelling me backward as spears of fire and bone pierced where I’d just stood.
And then, another hit sent pain lancing through my shoulder. It was my injured arm, and I couldn’t bring up Astraeus to block in time. More fire blossomed inside it, making my eardrums ring. The world went muted, distorted, shaken. Like an echoing imprint upon itself. But the distraction proved its value.
All at once, my companions were upon the thing. A spike of stone tore through its foot, spearing through the ice of the lake and then all the way into the giant’s ankle, mangling its flesh. A hound and leshi beset it with rocks and vines, binding the monster as Trichtera’s sword strikes lanced it.
Sneering, it beat them all aside, allowing me yet another stab into its eye socket. More Divinity flowed through me, quieting the Echo. Once more, the giant’s eyes snapped to Eric, who chanted in the distance. I could almost see it think before it moved.
A whip-crack came without any harm, and instead, the giant disappeared. I blinked in horror, seeing it stand before Eric. Stone rumbled, the pillar spearing its foot now laying shattered. Then, I stepped forward, in between them, hearing that horrible noise again, before the sword slammed into Astraeus with enough violence to rattle my bones.
I felt the shaft of my spear creak, and yet it held. Metal unbroken, unyielding, never retreating. I would not lose. I refused to lose. Except, then, an arm closed around me. I blinked, and then, there was a horrid noise. All my insides lurched as the thing threw me aside like a ragdoll.
The air whipped against my ears, and I slammed into the side of the mountain, cratering the rock. My world spun for a moment. Dizziness rocketed through my skull. And despite it, through a blurry world, I saw the thing stand before Eric, sword raised, skull sneering.
The blade came down.
And Emilia stood in its path.
A horrid whip-crack shook the world. Blade met a steel shield. I watched, as my friend’s bones once again held up the weight of the world. I watched as her insides were rattled, Echo spearing through her, making her Qi unreliable.
And I saw the grin on her face. She didn’t buckle. She stood, as her shield caved in and got sliced through. Both her gauntleted hands closed around the weapon. The ice beneath her shattered, but pillars of rock rose to support her. Somewhere along the line, the giant found the time to have spears of fire lance through her joints, trying to get at Eric.
Still she stood. A fierce, defiant grin on her face. I saw it, saw her resolve, even as I rose and stepped in. And then, I felt it.
Another whip crack, as the giant swung again. A horrid blast of darkness that should have carved her in two and broken her. And yet, despite that all, I saw her.
Qi poured into her from the air. A pool of power that fed her muscles, her bones, that made her more than she was before. I felt it add to the torrent of movement that already suffused the air, and I smiled.
Emilia grabbed the sword, and with a horrid wrench, she pulled. Like a human mountain, she pushed the giant off balance. She ripped its feet free from the ground, lifted it up, then slammed it on its side with all the weight of the world behind her.
She’d done it. Somehow, Emilia had advanced to maelstrom. Bloodied and battered, she roared her victory, and Chris’s final shell finally appeared. The ice underneath the giant vanished, and we dragged it into the abyss of the frozen lake.
Now, it was our turn.
2025-07-26 16:00:47 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 258: Sprawling Spiral
There was something both haunting and meditative about unmaking a person.
Sitting among an endless nest of threads, Mercury felt a little bit like a spider. He didn’t have as many limbs, of course, but his mind and Skills made a good alternative. In fact, with <Force of the Hecatoncheires>, he kind of had a thousand hands. Which was way more than any spider he knew of, quite frankly.
And so, using his ghost hands, Mercury reached into the very core of the envoys of envy and moved around the constituent parts of their personhood. There was a strange kind of rhythm to it. A pattern that they shared that went beyond the core of hunger at their centre, beyond the need to steal faces and consume lives.
A sort of… heartbeat, if he could call it that, of life. The web of traits shifted occasionally, as if carried by some unseen wind, and Mercury dealt with that, too. He reached through gaps, created clear paths, and then unmade the infectious cores that sat at the middle of those webs, knotting them back together.
It was always imperfect, and the way he reconnected the threads made him think a little bit of how surgeries often required stitches once they were done. What he did, as a procedure, was not perfect or flawless. He was, after all, messing with someone’s mental equivalent of internal organs.
Doing something like that without any kind of lasting mark would be difficult. Maybe some day he could do it - but for now, there were scars. And despite that, one by one, the skinstealers volunteered.
One by one, they changed.
Oh, they remained shapeshifters, of course. Still perfectly capable of altering their appearances - but the obsession with consuming new lives was gone. More than once they would break down and weep tears of joy after he was done.
It was just a little creepy. “Saviour,” one of them gasped. “How may we repay this-”
“No, absolutely fucking not,” Mercury interrupted. “Let me stop you right there. You are not starting a cult. No, we’re not doing that. No.”
Somehow, that news seemed to upset them. “C’mon,” one of them asked. “We gotta do at least a little bit of the cult stuff. That’s what shadowy assassin organisations are for!”
“I will literally ask Zyl to set you on fire.”
Their eyes drifted to Zyl.
“I will literally set you on fire if he asks,” the dragon said with his arms crossed, nodding sagely.
At that, the skinstealers deflated. There were more than a few sighs and even a couple of grumbles. Aurora began softly reprimanding anyone who did complain, and Mercury gave a soft snicker as he set back to working. There were still more things to change, after all.
Slowly, the minutes ticked by. At some point, Otto was the first to approach the group of altered skinstealers. They really needed a better name, Mercury thought. Then again, they were still perfectly capable of stealing skins. It wasn’t the ability he took from them. So really, maybe the name could stay? Skinborrowers didn’t have as much of a ring to it. Plus, it was way too close to skinburrowers and that was entirely off the mark.
Otto sat with them, and simply talked. In fact, at some point, he reached into his inventory and took out… sandwiches. Ones he had made himself. They were filled with meat from different types of creatures that he’d probably violently beaten to death. They also had what looked like a few different kinds of vegetables and some kind of very crisp leafy green.
Since things did decay in the inventory, Mercury wondered how he managed to keep it so fresh. Probably some kind of food preservation Skill. Was Otto the type to have that kind of Skill?
Mercury looked at the man, the way that he smiled ever so faintly, fangs poking into his cheeks, as he handed out meals.
Yeah. Otto was that kind of guy.
And then, he focused on the tapestry of string, and time ticked by. The sun rose on the ethereal lake, glittering on its surface. Iris and Lucia, at some point, approached the altered skinstealers, and when being reminded of the once-assassin’s existence, many of them apologized.
There was a lot they had to apologize for, Mercury knew. He saw a chunk of it, after all. Given who they were, he could guess some of their memories. But that was not his place to judge. He breathed.
Iris forgave them. Somehow, despite everything, she forgave them. Not instantly, she said, but she wanted them to become better people. Because that is what they were, now. Perhaps, that was Mercury’s gift to them.
Personhood. The thing that humans so arrogantly call humanity.
Threads wove, connections to that sin disintegrated, and Mercury would roll the unravelled web back up when he was done. One by one, he worked on the skinstealers, and each one volunteered just a little more quickly. When the stun stood high in the sky, it was finally done.
Every single one of the once-thieves sat with Mercury’s friends. Zyl, though, was beside the mopaaw, even as the last of them went off. He ran a hand through his fur, smiling gently. “You did good,” the dragon said. “I really do mean it. These people look happier.”
Mercury smiled tiredly. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s not perfect, but… at least it’s better than what they had before.”
The dragon nodded, scratching Mercury’s head and looking up at the sky. “Mh. It is. Perfect is silly, anyway.”
“Yeah,” the mopaaw replied. “Perfection is very silly indeed.”
He looked at the gathering of people, and smiled faintly. Then, he closed his eyes, and let the tiredness wash over him. Rewriting people’s existence at their core was still a rather exhausting activity, apparently. “Hey Zyl?” he asked.
“What’s up, Mercury?” he replied with a smile.
“I’m getting real sleepy, and the realm of Envy is about to descend in about three minutes. Please keep me safe.”
Zyl blinked. “Huh?” he asked, but by the time he opened his mouth, Mercury was already out cold. “Huh??” he repeated, even more stunned. There was a brief silence. Then the air started rumbling.
- - -
When Mercury opened his eyes, he found himself in the middle of the air, rapidly tumbling towards the ground. “Uh oh,” he said, before crashing into the stone-like texture of Otto’s hand. Before he could even ask, the giant man already set him down.
Despite a cracked rib or two, Mercury took it without complaint. His body was already knitting itself back together, and despite the relative shortness of his nap, he felt… reasonably refreshed.
[<Oceanic Consciousness> has levelled up! <Oceanic Consciousness lv. 7 -> 8>]
Right on cue.
Then, a second later, something large and heavy slammed into Mercury, sending him flying again. A moment later, he crashed against something in mid-air, slamming through it. Then he smashed through another thing, and then hit the ground. He would be giving better descriptions, but it was pretty hard to notice anything other than blurry colours after waking up and rapidly spinning in the air.
Despite those complications, he did manage to rise to his legs again, dusting off with a bit of <Rainfall> as the dirt slid out of his fur. He looked up, trying to get a sense of where he was, and found himself met with a world of grasping hands.
Everything in this place sprawled outwards. It was a cascading series of grasping, reaching limbs, twisting out and out and ever further out. They wrapped around each other, trying to pull one another down… and they also wrapped around anyone who entered this place of Envy.
That was a ghastly sights. Things that had been drawn in. People - or what had once been people - of different species, clutches in grasping hands that just barely approximated buildings. A cityscape of reaching arms, entombing their corpses into their fleshen walls, but only after taking everything they had.
He saw fingers, covetously clutched around bits of jewelry and metal, bits of flesh and bone, and still reaching further. Because whatever they took, it would never be enough. Because someone else would have something else. And so that must be coveted, too.
The very ground he walked on was made from limbs, too. White bone constructed the ground, already grasping and pulling at his legs, trying to drag him under in the sprawling, endless expanse of reaching. The sky was made from hands, too, and when Mercury looked up, those hands reached ever downards. Shifting, cascating hands of shadow that wanted to tear out his eyes.
Decay and rot permeated this place of theft. The hands constantly stole from one another, from everyone and everywhere, reaching for just one more thing to hold. Fingers wrapped around his eyeballs, as he saw this realm for the first time, and he felt them pull.
And he waited as they failed.
More hands put the ones already grasping at him out of the way, in a cascade of sabotage. Envy was a thing that, by default, destroyed itself. Whenever a hand grasped him, the others pulled it aside. Even as they reached into him, as if to disassemble him from the inside, Mercury simply bore with it.
His skin didn’t split, and his flesh resisted. And then, stygian steel spilled from him.
The Dream of Starvation wove around him, and all at once, the hands recoiled. For a moment, they felt fear, and then, the Envy won. They tried to grab at the armor that now surrounded Mercury. Tried to pry at the storm that suffused the air around him, but they could never touch it.
Even though they had the ability to take what was unseen, they could not take from Mercury. They could touch the storm, but broke against it. Scraped against the surface of the metal, only for bladed spikes to sprout and tear into them.
The metal armor grew almost organically when touched. Barbed spikes blossomed from it like a bramble. They burrowed into the reaching fingers and set them stiff. A heartbeat passed as Mercury got his bearings, and then he looked for the core of this place.
Usually, that should not have given him trouble but… the other.
Zyl floated in the air, glowing brightly with a million flickering flames darting out to incinerate reaching hands into ash. Otto had only briefly stopped his rampage to catch Mercury, and was already tearing everything apart with his bare hands again. Lucia was surrounded by golden flames, each arrow shot by her setting more of the sky on fire, lighting up the tapestry of hands like pinprick stars.
After all, that was what the three of them were best at. Mass destruction. Taking a place and causing a disaster.
It was why Zyl so rarely used his flames at home, why Lucia kept cool as best as she could and why Otto generally stayed away from settlements. Because in all of that, they were exercising control. In the same way that Mercury didn’t walk around with his <Rainfall> constantly enabled, lest he break something he didn’t want to.
Somewhere along the lines, they had all decided to try not to hurt others with their powers. Which is why when Avery showed up in the realm of Envy, things began to spiral rather quickly.
- - - - - -
The essence of Envy is an outward spiral.
Most sins latch onto people. Gluttony expands in an area, Wrath an even smaller one, trapping one person and their surroundings in a dome. Those are simple to run from - just stay away from those you wish to avoid hurting.
But other sins are not like that.
Envy, for example, sprawled outward. It was easy to forget what it did, but Envy is about taking. Not the direct sort of taking that comes with flaying someone’s skin, but a more sneaky one. A shifting theft that seeks to steal anything that is held dear.
So, Envy manifests as a sprawling spiral that travels outwards. First it reaches for a person, then it travels along, and takes the things they love. Their favourite food from their home. Their favourite games. Their pets. Their lover. Their kids.
It is an insidious disease that thrives on the very idea of enjoyment. It snuffs out any light in someone’s life before consuming it entirely. The covetous fingers will reach and steal wherever they can.
And thus, when an arm reached up to grab Bael’s wrist, he wasn’t even surprised.
With a gentle sigh, he waited. From the arm grew another, then another, then another. They sprouted like moss, growing and grasping, enveloping his arm first before expanding outward, like a flower spreading its petals. A hundred palms closed in around Bael all at once, and suddenly, he was in the realm of Envy.
An avatar of Gluttony, sent to another realm. Because of their connection. Because someone liked him enough.
That was a bizarre thought. Maybe he could have rationalized it as being drawn in by Mercury, who had absorbed the heart of Gluttony, but that wasn’t the truth. Instead, the infection had simply spread that far.
Usually, Envy would not spiral outwards too much. It would hit a limit of exhaustion, and stop drawing people in, and yet, this time, that limit wasn’t reached as fast. After all, someone had stolen from it. Bael smelled it in the air, the thick, cloying stench of desperation. Of hunger and want.
Something stabbed him in the back, and Bael turned around, seeing a feral skinstealer. The poor thing was almost ravenous with hunger, with the pure, unadulterated want to tear his face off and put it on. To wear his corpse like a skin, to steal his identity, to sleep in Stormbraver and rule over the demon cities.
Bael scoffed, reached out, and bit its head off.
The world was made from reaching fingers. They were pulling in people rapidly, dozens of humans manifesting all over this place. Hands reached for them now that they were here, envoys of this place trying to tear into them. And it hurt to see.
Just the same as Bael had before, it was indiscriminate. Envy’s desire to own and possess spread out and tore into people. There was a slow, insidious part of its nature. It would target things of the most perceived value first. Often, the arms only grabbed jewelry or purses, and then they’d move on to things like limbs and skin, and finally reach for ephemeral qualities.
Steal someone’s kindness or happiness, tear their love from their hands and leave them husks.
And yet, unlike what Bael expected, the people fought.
A dragon hung in the sky, frowning deeply as he controlled his flames. An older monster, skin crackling with lightning, darted through the crowd, shattering the thieves. An archer with a bow, an assassin weaving through the crowds, Avery, Marcel, the old blacksmith…
Everyone from Stormbraver thought. Bael watched as an old woman took one of the envoys into a chokehold, dragging it to the ground. He saw a kid with an oversized mage-hat case an icy lance and impaling one of the arms reaching for them. He saw adventurers swinging their axes, bakers swinging their rolling pins, and kids swinging the sticks they played with.
And, of course, Bael moved. When an arm reached out to take Marcel’s healing, she shattered it without blinking. It was a noisy affair, fragments of growing bone splintering off into the distance, though not a single one marred his back. Marcel was kneeled over a kid who had a scrape on her knee. “There,” he said, casting a spell. “All better.”
He smiled that same, calming smile he usually put on when interacting with people, and bravely, the girl nodded. Then she hopped to her legs, and headed off to a dome of ice, maintained by some kind of water-elemental. Bael tilted his head. The girl moved quickly, with a bit of wind under her feet.
Then, her eyes widened.
She saw the heroine. Alice. Beloved by the world, she whispered affirmations, and the wind assisted her. It took the kids to safety, it parried lethal blows, turning them into glancing ones. Oh, it was still bloody, but the world helped the weak as she asked. Even as the kind heroine worked with a mournful smile, though, people were hurt.
Buildings from Stormbraver were taken. Pulled into this realm of desire and pulled apart by the hands it was made from. People’s lives, pulled apart brick by brick. Bael expected to hear weeping, perhaps. Sobs. And yet, all he heard was the howling gale of a storm.
He blinked. A storm? And then, when he paid attention, he saw it.
There were two winds in this world - not, three of them. The first was the kind wind of Alice. The second was the silver wind of Mercury. And the third - the third was the storm. A raging torrent of air howling beside Bael’s ears, making it almost impossible to hear. He sharpened his eyesight, looked for where it came from and found-
A boy. A young boy that he remembered. Someone Bael had killed. Driven to death, stalked through the dark, forced to run until he could run no more.
The child was crying. Tears gathered in his eyes even as he moved. And he moved. The boy ran, and where he ran, the hands broke. It was an elegant movement, too. He twisted and turned around the people of Stormbraver, gales of horrifying pressure brushing by them, slamming into the skinstealers and the grasping limbs and flattening them.
Bael’s calm cracked.
His mouth opened, but no sound left. He reached out, as if to ask. As if to talk. As if to apologize, but he could not find the words. There was nothing to say to the living storm, no promise to make, because Bael saw that he, too, was a killer.
Stormbraver. Had Bael made that storm? Had he killed yet more people, indirectly, through the ripple effects of his actions? This crying boy, who now moved to try and save people, carrying those who couldn’t run anymore, what had he done before? What had Bael made him do?
Marcel elbowed him in the side. Bael’s eyes snapped towards the puny human, who stood so much shorter than him in his demonic form. “What?” the demon growled, feelings leaking through.
The human looked at him for a long moment, then sighed. “I see how it is,” Marcel said, and the smile drained from his face, replaced with disillusion. “You’re a mopey guy, you know that, Bael? You get all inside your head too much. Charr?” he offered, placing one of them in his own mouth, and quickly lighting it.
A long second passed, and Bael shattered another hundred hands that reached for them in the middle of this battlefield. Marcel took a deep pull of smoke before exhaling it. “You’re so scared of who you were you can hardly see who you are,” he said.
“You know nothing of me, human,” the lord of all demons, Baelzebuth, snarled. “You do not know who I am.”
Marcel nodded. “Sure, sure,” he said. “I know nothing.” Marcel sighed, walking towards someone else who was being injured. He pulled away the grasping, boney hands, as if they were nothing but weeds in a garden, put on his charming smile, and patted the young man on the shoulder with a burst of healing. “Get on up, bud. You got this,” he said, warmly.
Then, a moment later, when the guy ran off, he turned to Bael again, letting the friendliness flow away. “Who are you, Bael?” he asked.
The demon growled at him. “I am the ruler of all demons. The bloodmonger of the eternal war, the ruinbringer, the devourer of worlds, the Thing that slaughters. I am-”
“You’re upset,” Marcel said.
“Yes!” Bael roared. “Yes, I am furious and disgusted. I am horrified by the senseless, perpetual hurt. When even demons could find a solution, an eternal war to fulfill their desires without impacting others, the sins could not. They disgust me for their hunger, for their draw and pull.”
Marcel smiled. “Looks like I know some stuff after all.”
Bael screamed. There was no conversation to be held with this asinine know-it-all piece of shit. He needed to kill something, to break something, and luckily, this place was good enough for him to shatter. With a furious growl at all the pointlessness of this, Bael surged. A thousand maws opened across his body, and he devoured the hands of Envy that reached for him.
If this was a place of sin then that was fine. He would show it sin. Anything to look away from his own.
- - - - - -
Mercury felt anger rising in him. He was tired and exhausted. His mental resources felt spent. And despite that, this shitty fucking place had the audacity to unspool everything.
He’d not noticed before, because of course he hadn’t. He didn’t see it in the tapestry, and didn’t make the connection when the cores of Envy he pulled from the skinstealers tried to infect every thread around them. That Envy was a sinister, crawling thing, that pulled and pulled.
And now, hundreds of people from Stormbraver were in here. Buildings and homes. Heirlooms and gems. Things that had been owned were now stolen, grasped and pulled into the bony ground by a million wanting hands. Covetously, everything was pulled apart.
He hated it. What a disgusting display.
If the sins came after him, that was fine. He could live with this. But this obsession with reaching beyond that, with causing as much harm as possible, it was disgusting. There was no longer a fight to be had here, no longer a slow conquering.
Because someone had already died. A corpse, devoid of warmth or happiness, pulled under the sheet of bone. Consumed. Mercury grit his teeth, and felt the way that <Grief> threatened to spill from him. The way that the Storm’s Raiment flared in anticipation. “Zyl,” he asked quietly. “If I get you to its heart, how long until it burns?”
Despite his near-whisper, the dragon heard. “Moments,” he replied.
Mercury nodded. And then, he focused. <Lucidity> triggered to wash his tiredness away. The world came into clarity. The first veil shattered then the second, and the third. He saw the tapestry of connection, tainted by the writhing, grasping hands of Envy. He pulled on the fountain of power inside him, drew upon <Grain of Infinity> and liquid fire laced his bones.
Somewhere inside him, a star burnt brightly. It shone with so much light that <Hydration> was working hard to keep him in one piece. Silver flames slowly layered across his skin. He breathed, and then, all at once, he pulled.
There was a lurch in the world, and Mercury’s perspective split in two. A part of him fell asleep, drawn into the spiralling web of Envy, pulled into its dream, pulled into its stagnant, cruel heart.
Another part of his worked as an interface. His <Dream Manifested>, and Zyl was pulled into it. That was the hardest part, because Zyl was real. He was incredibly real, and so, reducing him down to a dream was difficult, and yet, Mercury pulled. He remembered that he had dreamt of Zyl before, reached out for their connection and yanked until reality blurred and turned.
And when he declared that Zyl was nothing but a dream, it was a lie. He took his own <Truth> and twisted it inside out with <Grain of Infinity>, then spoke a <Lie> that was so convincing, it changed what was real. Zyl, for a moment, became nothing more than a dream.
[<Truth> has levelled up! <Truth lv. 3 -> 4>]
He was pulled under Mercury’s silver sun, which just so happened to be manifested in the dream of Envy. Through a connection, Mercury pulled Zyl into that other realm. It was a horrible place of abandoned dreams, a seemingly still lake, with all the rust and corpses deposited beneath it. It was where Envy went to drown its dead desires, the unending depths where ever more want could go.
And it burned.
Zyl’s horns glowed and grew, as a faint crown wove into existence above his head. <Seeker of Secrets> whispered its title.
<Rose Crown of Desolation>. Those were the last words Mercury read before he saw that entire realm turn to cinders.
2025-07-25 02:22:01 +0000 UTC
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This new version of myself looked around the world with curiosity. Her mouth was open with wonder, and her eyebrows raised in surprise. It made her look a little silly. Did I look like that, too? Is that why Ann teased me sometimes?
Her gaze snapped to me, and she rolled her eyes. “Hey, don’t give me that. Wait. Don’t give us that? Eh, who cares! It’s the look Ann gives me, and I will not stand for it!” she said, then had the audacity to pout at me.
I blinked at her. “You’re, uh…”
“Bubbly? Charming? Loveable?” she asked, coming closer with every question, wide smile plastered across her face. “Yeah, I guess I’m all of those,” she said, sighing dramatically.
“Those work, but I was gonna say ‘awfully chipper for being dead’, y’know,” I replied.
For the first time, her face fell. “Ah, that,” she said, sounding like me for a moment. “Well, it sucks. I don’t like being dead.” Then, slowly, a smile spread. “Which is why I’m so thankful to you! I get to be a walking corpse now, instead!”
Again, I blinked, shaking my head. “You shouldn’t say that with a smile.”
“Oh c’mon, me! How couldn’t I?! Would you prefer I stay all miserable and mopey about what happened? That’s not like us at all! Now, there’s a chance for us to spread like a virus. All infinite dead versions of ourselves come here, until we reach a singularity and spread back out!” She smiled, and it was so wide it terrified me a little.
“Right, like a virus…” I said slowly.
And then, all that sinisterness vanished from her face, and instead it lit up with joy again. “Oh, I know you! You’re thinking of what to name me! Were you thinking something like Nana, because of our name?”
I shook my head. “Vivi, actually,” I said with a thin smile. “Because of the virus thing.”
Her eyes positively sparkled. “Whoaaa! Oh my divines! I love it! Yes, alright, I’ll be Vivi from now on then.”
“Sure,” I confirmed. “Uhm, do you need… anything?”
“How long will I remain manifested?” she asked, happily.
That made me double check. I had… fourteen figments, now. Before, it had been minutes equal to my figments, but that seemed to have changed since my advancement to maelstrom, as well as the fact that ten figments felt like something of a breakpoint.
It was now… hours. Fourteen hours of summoning per day. I told my clone as much.
Vivi put a finger on her lips and tilted her head. “Hmmm, fourteen hours huh. A little shorter than I expected, but oh well.” She smiled. “Still plenty of time to cause some trouble! Point me at the nearest usurper nest and I’ll take it down!” she said, miming a few punches in mid-air.
A soft sigh escaped my lips. I didn’t even bother to protest, instead I just pointed northwest. That’s where the front was, after all, and the wilderness there would be swarming with usurpers, and Echo would be suffusing the air.
The grin on Vivi’s face turned feral, and Qi spilled out of her. Enough Qi to make the hair on my skin stand up. Enough Qi to shimmer in the air with a faint golden hue, a maelstrom that washed away a bit of colour from the world, replacing it with glimmering glass. Vivi breathed, smiled violently, and nodded.
“I’ll be off then,” she announced cheerily, before stepping through the reflections and into what was almost certain to be a massacre.
“Scary,” I muttered. Then I shook my head. “Is that what I look like to others?” I mean, I guess I was a little casual about risking my life, I guess…
“A little?” Cass asked from atop my shoulder. “You sure it’s just a little?”
“Oh, shush,” I said, snickering and shaking my head. “Surely I’m not that bad.”
My very own keeper huffed at the question. “Sure,” she said, “you might be less energetic or exhausting. But, relatively speaking, you are probably more troublesome.” After her chiding, she gave me a meaningful look, and I knew better than to retaliate.
Instead, I just took a long moment to myself. A deep breath, a small sigh, and I moved on. The nest was cleared, the gateways had been absorbed. There were more targets, and I should, reasonably, lead my party through the wilderness.
And wasn’t that a strange thought? Lead them. Emilia and Chris were more than capable of acting on their own - the former at the very cusp of maelstrom and the latter… well their current human shell hadn’t crossed the threshold, but with my enhanced senses, I could tell that Chris was not quite going all out yet.
I’d not met many triz-adu, but at maelstrom, I could feel something about them. Some kind of power that I could only describe as the development of their true self - that part that carried over talents and memories in between shells, allowing them to keep growing and growing, even if they needed to embark on a cultivation journey all over, or learn a new path.
Usually, unsuitable paths of the shells should have barred them from cultivating within those borrowed bodies at all, and yet, Chris made it look effortless. “Oh, this body used a path called Deep Sea Resonance,” they said as if it was simple. “I am simply bringing myself into alignment with what that means temporarily, the part of myself that inhabits this shell is walking that path. And once that part rejoins my ancestral whole or transitions to a new shell, then those memories shall last, and yet, it shall be a different me.”
And that was all. With a sigh, and a shake of my head, I stepped through the air, following the bend of the light through atmospheric dispersion, and emerging right in front of Emilia. The warrior promptly swung her mace at me, which I managed to deflect off to the side.
At least she realized who I was before sending up a spear of earth to stab me in half. I breathed in, giving her a moment to gather herself. A smile appeared on her face, sweaty hair clinging to it. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t our princess! And didn’t you put on a spectacle for us, huh?” she teased.
I smiled faintly, looking over the group. Emilia was covered in ichor, but otherwise fine. Chris’ human shells had taken a few nicks, which Eric was already tending to. The cleric was the furthest behind for this group, so Emilia protected him a lot, but that was fine. If she wanted to do so, then she was welcome to.
Trichtera, the angel of Ru, for her part, looked just a little ragged. Then again, she always did. Her hair was tied back in a strict bun, though strands of brunette fought against it, with one especially curling down the side of her face, framing it. She had red eyes, the red of blood, with dark streaks in them, and wore an armor made of mostly red-looking glass.
It broke and fractured easily, but it also repaired itself when blood was spilled on the strange material, so with each wound that Trichtera took, and with each beast the hard-worn woman struck down, the armor regrew. She had wrinkles, but her hair still maintained her colours, and I would have placed her in her late 30s, if she were a human.
Of course, she was not. She was half-fire spirit, her skin a gradient between warm yellows and deep reds, and flames occasionally drifting off of her like leaves in the wind. She eyed me with surprise and some admiration, yet also with trepidation. There was some wariness in her eyes.
And while she was a competent warrior, she was also less competent than Emilia. After all, she had only been named an angel recently - which showed in the fact that she had one pair of wings, made from flaming feathers, and even that pair was rather faint - and while strong, she was only at the beginnings of wellspring.
The gap between the strengths of everyone in the group was a little larger than I was perfectly comfortable with, but that was fine. If the divines needed me to babysit their little spy, then I would do so.
Trichtera frowned as if reading my mind. “Are you thinking badly of me?”
I blinked. The delay in my answer told her everything it needed to, and her frown wore itself deeper into her face. “For someone so mighty, you can be childish. I am not your burden. If you run and I cannot keep up, you are free to let me die,” she grumbled, then flinched slightly as Eric applied healing to her wounds.
“It’s alright,” he said quietly. “I am the one slowing us down.”
Emilia clapped him on the shoulder. “Stop that,” she said, unusually serious. “You’re doing your job. We’ll keep doing ours. You keep us standing, and we’ll keep fighting. That's how it’s supposed to be.”
Eric nodded, but despite the gesture I could still see the lingering doubt in his eyes. I shook my head at the antics. Taking care of his emotions was part of my job, but Emilia was doing a far better job at being empathetic with him than I ever would. Instead, I turned to the angel.
She was watching the entire exchange with the eyes of a hawk, and lightly clicked her tongue when she noticed my lingering look on her. Instead of replying to me, she closed her eyes.
The wings on her back cleared up slightly, and she hummed a faint tune. A bit of divinity left her, pulsed into the sky. After some delay, a thin, red streak of light pulsed back down, almost invisible against the flames covering her body. Despite that, I noticed it, and her eyes snapped open, glowing faintly.
“I’ve got our next target,” she said. “A champion, this time. A giant, wielding a sword of black flame.”
My eye twitched. I clenched my fists.
“A champion,” I ground out, remembering what the last blackflame giant had done to our party. I was scared. But more than that, I wanted vengeance. “Point us at it.”
- - -
Ion felt the change rippled through her. For a moment, she felt fear. A lingering worry that the moment would end too early.
She was on Neamhan again, had gone there before Fio went to subjugate the nest, in order to keep the others updated through their thin tether. With their core at gateway, she’d been able to stay longer than the few minutes that should have been possible - instead, she was able to remain active for just about an hour.
That changed when Fio devoured more gateways. As the figments crossed ten, then ticked up further. She felt the change ripple through her, and after the moment of fear, Ion felt… more solid. The moment would last.
She took a deep breath. Ann sat across from her. Ion on the couch, and Ann on a chair, both in their private room. A faint smile spread across the parallel-universe-clone’s face.
Ann tilted her head. “Something good happen?”
Ion nodded after a moment. “Yes. I think we have a little more time for this conversation now,” she said.
“Oh, good,” Ann nodded. “An hour can be a little short when it comes to stuff like this, can’t it?” she asked, with an awkward smile.
“Yeah,” Ion agreed. Then she paused and thought, dropping her hands and hanging her head a little. “Yeah.”
“So,” Ann said, slowly. She felt the urge to reach out and pet Ion’s head or hold her, but restrained herself. “Would you like to… tell me about your world?”
Ion smiled a terribly sad smile at the reminder. “I think you deserve to know. The differences, the similarities.”
The mage shuffled a bit on the couch, the thumping of her mana heart audible in the silence, before the magic clamped down on the noise again. She was still getting used to it - in a way that Ion had never seen her Ann do it. “I’m listening,” Ann said.
Nodding faintly, Ion started. “The biggest difference,” she said, “is that I died in Eden, not you. But that’s something you already know.” Her smile was crooked and awkard. “No, what I wanted to talk about is just… You are very similar to my Ann,” she said.
“You are very similar to my Fio,” Ann confirmed with a nod. “Just a little more…”
“Grumpy?” Ion suggested.
“Dark,” Ann supplied.
“Ah,” the clone said. “Right. That works.” She gave a self-deprecating smile. “Yeah. You’re also a bit more open than my Ann used to be. She was all silence and mystery, and it felt like I was always diving deeper, always dying to get to know her better.”
Ann nodded along. “I see.”
“So I suppose, I just- You aren’t her. You’re so very, very close, but you’re not her. I can see you as a reflection, the way someone appears in a mirror, some bits of them irreversably… not wrong, but different.”
“Yes, I am not your Ann,” the mage confirmed. “I am this world’s Ann,” she said. “My own Ann.” She smiled faintly at that. “Fio’s girlfriend.”
Ion nodded slowly. “Yes. It’s strange to meet someone who I am yet so familiar with.”
“I can say the same,” Ann admitted with a small chuckle. “You’re almost Fio, but not quite.”
“Would it help if I grew my hair out?” Ion suggested half-jokingly with a smile.
Ann did laugh, for a moment, before it died down into a chuckle, then into nothing. “You don’t owe me anything,” she said slowly. “I am not that person you miss. I will never be, Ion. So, if you had longer hair or want to grow it out, by all means. I will respect any decision you make. It is your comfort, after all.”
Smile turning plagued, Ion nodded. “Got it,” she said. “I’ll see about it.”
“Look,” Ann said. “I know this is harder for you than it is for me, so, please, say what you want to say.”
Ion flinched, then took a deep breath, shaking her head to clear it of worries. A few moments passed as she gathered her resolve, then she lifted her head, looked Ann in the eyes, and spoke. “Yes. I came to talk for a specific purpose. I want to be friends. Even if you’re not the same, I want to see you happy. To redeem myself.”
“I am not your redemption,” Ann said. The words came out a little cold. “And I don’t think it’s fair to use me as a stand-in for someone I am not.”
At that, the manifestation nodded. “Yes, you aren’t. But still, I want to help. To see you smile. To work together. I want to spend time with you, as friends. As a little light in my heart.”
Ann gave her a long look, then a longer, suffering sigh. “You really are just like her. Straightforward and a dummy,” she said, shaking her head with a smile. “Alright, Ion. We’ll be friends. Under one condition.”
“What condition?” Ion asked immediately.
Ann’s eyes glinted with fire. “Don’t obsess over me. Live your own life, and strive to find happiness. Your Ann would want that, too, woudln’t she?”
Ion swallowed dryly. “Yeah,” she said. “I think she would have said the same thing.”
“Then we’re on the same page,” the mage said with a smile. “Welcome to the team, friend.”
“I am also your bodyguard,” Ion admitted sheepishly while shaking her hand.
The mage rolled her eyes at that. “Typical. You’re incorrigible, all versions of you.”
And that brought a faint smile to Ion’s face.
2025-07-17 00:01:59 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 257: Personhood
Otto was not a bad person. Mercury felt the need to remind himself of that fact.
The man was gentle, almost all the time. Sometimes, he was unaware of his strength, but almost all the time, he held back. He moved slowly, just to make sure he did not break anything. He never ran, never yelled, never hit things. He opened doors as if handling a delicate butterfly.
All of that is to say… seeing it drop away was terrifying.
When Otto moved, Mercury saw that there was no elegance behind it. When the layers of restraint peeled away, Otto moved according to one law, and one law only: Violence. The earth cracked, the air shattered, space crumpled and fractured around him. Where once there had been a man, all that pretense of humanity bled away. There was none of that within Otto.
All that was left was brutality.
He crashed into the skinstealers like a meteor. Bodies were irreversibly changed by the impact. Like watching a car crash, the skinstealers crumpled. Skin rippled, folded, tore and ripped at the seams. Their stolen visages ruptured, revealing muscle and splattering blood through the air.
A mix of crimson liquid and scarlet haze spread. Otto lashed out with a combo of punches so fast that they splattered bodies by the sheer pressure waves that spread through the air. Trees broke from the aftereffects, toppling over, splinters flying to join droplets of red. Otto’s fists blurred, and the world roared and tore.
Lightning sprawled from the cracks that covered his skin, surging through the air, latching onto targets. And yet, they didn’t carve scars or burns into them. Anyone struck by the lightning simply exploded. Every droplet of blood in bodies boiled within a moment, expanding, rupturing vessels, tearing muscles, ripping bodies apart into sprays of viscera.
And then, Otto was somewhere else already.
As if Iris was a maestro, directing an opera, anyone she pointed at simply splattered. Blood sprayed, skin flayed, and the thieves of Envy died. Within a moment, though, the monsters adjusted. They warped themselves to survive the punches, stretching thin into nonhuman shapes, returning to the amalgamous state that they originated in. Grass was covered in stretched, unhurt bodies, and for a moment, they began to crawl away.
Golden, wrathful flames tore through the air, incinerating them.
Lucia stood, holding a golden bow, made from her own fire. Wrath bubbled so bright around her she was covered in a sheen of heat. Golden fire dripped from her eyes like tears, streaming down to wreathe her hands in spiralling gauntlets of iridescent power. Her bow was far taller than her, an enormous thing where one end rested just above the ground and the other quite a bit above her head.
Flaming arrows lit up the night, turning into a stream of violent gold when shot, tearing through the air and burning the avatars. Their skin seared and bubbled and boiled away. Bodies burnt, and the fire stuck to them, even if they tried to reform. It simply consumed more and more flesh, turning it to smoke.
But, despite all of that brutality and violence and fire, the skinstealers stirred. Broken bodies reform. Blood stopped spraying in the air. It paused, rebounded, and coalesced back into semi-human shapes. Blank, expressionless faces, smooth and featureless, stared onward. They turned, grew more limbs, and attempted to run.
Envy was not brave, after all. They were devious thieves, cowards who took what was never theirs. They did not try to fight, but they healed quickly, and were hard to keep down. Except, there was one thing stopping them.
Zyl sprouted wings. He hovered above the lake. And when flesh reformed, blood wove into strings of essence, heat rose.
A tyrant’s crown sprouted above Zyl’s head. <Flame Emperor> activated, red flames wreathing into rings that covered the sky. Tiers of them covered the forest, ring after ring after ring. He breathed, and the heat rose. And rose. And rose.
And yet, nothing burnt.
The forest steamed, covered in <Rainfall> as it was. Rainwater covered the trees, the branches, the grass, and fed the lake. It steamed, but did not burn. The skinstealers, though? The ones painted for destruction?
They burnt.
Skin incinerated, golden flames fed by the heat. Otto broke them, Lucia set them aflame, and Zyl cut off all avenues of escape. Fire sprouted like flowers, like spores that attached to any wound dealt, that festered and grew and would never be extinguished.
And Envy burnt. They burnt and burnt and burnt until their regeneration stopped. They broke and broke and broke until there was nothing left to break. Until each skin they had taken disintegrated, until each face they had stolen was turned to ash and cinders. Until the grey of the corpses was washed away by the falling rain, sloughing off the world like the meaningless dirt it was.
There was no banter. No words exchanged. There was a simple decision, and Mercury decided that the comfort of his friend was more important to him than the lives of killers. Perhaps, putting them in jail and rehabilitating them would have been more ethical. Offering to change them at their core, perhaps. But then, he saw it, too.
With each death, their face broke and fractured, and a new one slid into place. With each death. And some of them took a hundred killings to finally fade.
They laid on the ground, flickering as skin disintegrated and reformed and disintegrated again. Flickering through face after face after face. Dozens of them. Children’s faces. And they did it without repent, without remorse. No, he didn’t feel bad. Mercury killed them and didn’t feel bad in the slightest.
All he felt was a faint grief at the loss. The world was full of big and small tragedies, and he was preventing future tragedies with a small one now. Perhaps that was unfair, perhaps that was unethical, and yet… he did not mind too much. Because he looked at Iris and saw tears stream down her face, saw her shaking slowing and subsiding, saw the way that she looked on at the death.
He watched as she stabbed her knife through eyes into faceless facsimiles of humans, tearing through skin and bone and brainmatter. Sacks of meat were carved by her blade, and she simply looked relieved. Not happy, not bloodthirsty, just pleased to finally, finally put that chapter of her life behind her.
Blood spilled, dousing the world, then rain fell, cleaning it all away. Red and gray, blood and ash, returned to nothing as the dirt sloughed off. Zyl’s heat was reabsorbed, Lucia lowered her hands and the bow disappeared, fire streaming back into her skin, and Otto calmed himself, his heartbeat quieting until it went from world shaking war-drum to a quiet thumping.
When the rain subsided, about a third of the skinstealers were dead. The remaining ones shifted uncomfortably, standing a little further back. But, at the same time, they needed this, to some degree. They needed to face it if they wanted to change.
“Anyone else?” Lucia asked, turning to Iris.
The assassin took a long moment, looking over everyone, then shook her head. She wiped her bloodstained dagger on the clean grass. “No,” she said, sheathing the weapon. Then, she wrapped Lucia in a hug. “Thank you, my love. Thank you, my friends.”
“Anytime,” Otto said, smiling faintly, his fangs poking his upper lip a little.
Mercury just replied with a nod, instead focusing on the agents of Envy that were still there. Despite the brutality, they had not fled. They just… waited. A little awkwardly and a little fearfully, but they waited nonetheless.
“What now?” one of them asked, after a while. It was in the shape of a young woman, with long, brunette hair, spiralling down the front of her chest, above the dark robes they all wore. “What will you do to the rest of us?”
With a small shrug, Mercury replied, “I haven’t quite figured that out yet.” Which was the truth. He’d need to unravel them and see what happened. What bound these creatures to envy? Could he sever those ties? The answer seemed likely to be yes, but there was always some chance to go wrong.
The skinstealer hissed. “You make promises you can hardly keep, then, mortal.”
At that, Mercury snickered. “No, no. I can keep it alright. I’m pretty sure I can, at least,” he said, and it was the <Truth>. There was no use doubting him. But what amused him more than that was being called a mortal.
Was that really still an accurate designation to him? He certainly didn’t feel very mortal. But then again, he was a natural inhabitant of the mortal realm. The prime plane of Chronagen. The fae realms, and even the minor realm of the sins, lie the ashen plains or the steel forest of wrath, all of them were less solid than the mortal plane.
Rules stretched and flickered, there. One’s will was more important than anything else. It was easily apparent in one simple thing: Mercury could take those worlds apart. He could undo their fraying threads and steal them to solidify and expand his own dreamscape. But the mortal realm was different from that,
Somehow, it was still untouchable to him. He could see the gaps, the places where reality frayed and ended, but he could not pull on them. The void couldn’t reach in properly. Simply because this place was so much more ordinary than the fae realms. There was some inherent defense in having millions of people who perceived the world in a stable way. The inhabitants of Chronagen didn’t think their world could break, so why should it?
This did mean that interfacing with less densely woven patches of existence could cause some troublesome circumstances. The realms of sin, for example, stole lives and turned the world frail. The fae realms manifested at spots where reality grew thin, unseen places that few mortals knew about. But while the fae realms were minor portals, often two ways, the sins were like gaping wounds, driven by the expansionist madness of their world cores.
In that, there was the difference. The fae were erratic and unpredictable, but Mercury had felt comfortable changing their origin, and Titania had been willing to cooperate. They simply wanted their realm alive, and Mercury had been able to give them that. The sins, on the other hand…
He could not see himself making Wrath into something that didn’t need to kill. The sins came first, the realms second, he thought. The fact that there was a realm of Wrath was a testament to how prevalent the emotion was, how often it consumed people, and spread like a wildfire.
And he ended it.
Perhaps there was a better way, somewhere out there. Perhaps everyone and everything was redeemable. He thought, in some ways, he did give wrath a second chance. The strings of reality that its forest and colosseum were made from now suffused his dreamscape, after all. His inner world, where Kim grew a garden, where Whisperstar flitted through the sky, where Arber’s avatar grew.
It was, perhaps, closer to recycling than redemption, but maybe that was enough. He hoped so.
Mercury shook his head, dropping the troublesome line of thought. Instead, he focused on the agents of Envy again, looking them up and down. He smiled, in what he hoped was a reasonably friendly type of way. “Any volunteers?” he asked.
Zyl tapped him on the shoulder. “Did you get an intimidation skill for that?”
The mopaaw tilted his head. “Well, my current ‘reality surgery’ type skill did originate from <Bloodlust>, actually. Something about deep terror being caused by the true vastness of existence that lets me mess with it.”
“Oh,” the dragon said, surprised. “Well, uh, my joke fell flat, but what I was trying to say is that you’re scaring them, Mercury.”
“Huh?” the mopaaw asked, scanning over the skinstealers. And, indeed, they’d stepped back again. Oh dang it, he was at it again! “No, no, you’ll be okay. Uh, let me explain. I can use a skill to take a look and alter someone’s underlying nature. This works better the less… realistic someone is. It doesn’t work well at all on average humans or elves, but against beings from another realm entirely? It lets me alter them.”
He paused, letting that sink in for a moment. “Now, there is a reason I tell you this, and that is trust. I promise, as an oath, that I will not alter any of the parts of you that constitute your personality or sense of self. My only intention is to attempt to snap your connection to Envy. Whether that is as simple as cutting a line, or means that I need to make more changes… I don’t know. Until then, I can simply promise to be as uninvasive as possible, but there may be differences. You may be a different person after this - same as with any big life event, I like to think. But it is up to you.”
And then, he waited. The words rang across the clear lake, the rain having long since washed away the blood from it. He waited as the thieves shifted in thought. As they came to consider and make their own decisions. Until, eventually, the first answer came.
“I want to change,” the woman with brunette hair whispered. She stepped forward, a tiny motion, at first, then a full step. She looked at Mercury, in the eyes, and repeated it loudly. “I want to change!” she said. “Let me change. If this means I become something else, so be it. I want to be… human. Something close to it. I do not want to hate anymore, I do not want to tear off faces, I don’t want-”
Her voice cracked. Mercury nodded, slowly, and gave Iris another look. Despite her quivering eyes, she swallowed dryly and then nodded at him. Mercury nodded back. If she was okay with it, then that was good. He turned to the skinstealer. “What is your name?” he asked.
She flinched. “I only have stolen ones,” she admitted. Mercury smiled, faintly. “Then pick one. Pick who you want to be.”
“Huh?” she asked.
“Customs on names are different in many places,” Mercury said, “but in the end, they are about your identity. My parents gave me a name once, and it was not Mercury. But I am not that person anymore. He’s a part of my past, and I respect him as a step in the journey of who I am now, but I do not use that name. Lots of people pick their own names as a part of big steps in life.”
There was a long silence from the woman then. “How… do I pick a name?” she asked.
“Is simple,” Otto said. “You think of name, think of thing, and then be happy. I am Otto. It is me. It is nice.”
“Common naming conventions are profession related, or metaphorical related. Names of weather phenomena are common, for example. Professions are usually surnames,” Zyl added. “There are lists of them, but none of us took any here.”
“I could, reasonably, try to have the system fetch some, to be fair,” Mercury suggested.
But the woman shook her head. “No, that won’t be necessary,” she said, looking at the sky. “I think… Yes. Please call me Aurora.”
Mercury smiled. “The good news is that I can, in fact, write that name into your existence, which will also update it on your status sheet. Would you want that?”
“Yes,” she replied, stepping forward again. “Please do.”
The mopaaw nodded, smiled a little, and walked around the lake to meet her on the other side. “Alright, Aurora, please sit down. This may feel a little weird,” he said. The woman nodded, seating herself on the wet grass, uncaring about the stains on her robes. She crossed her legs, then closed her eyes.
“Ready?” Mercury asked.
“Ready.”
With that last affirmation, Mercury focused. His mind split five ways, the entire weight of his <Oceanic Consciousness> brought to bear all at once. A physical weight settled on the woman’s shoulders as he reaffirmed himself of her existence, and then activated the relevant skill.
<Unravel>.
Dreamy threads, shimmering a pale, iridescent colour spilled out of the woman. The world seemed to halt as she warped and unfolded, like a cube being halved over and over and over again. Fundamental building blocks of what made a person, arranged into an immensely complex, interweaving tapestry of strings.
Each thing that had ever happened to her left a mark. Each identity, each face she’d ever worn was yet another testament of her life. There were almost separate sections in the thread that constituted the woman, showing each mask she’d worn, each face she’d stolen. There was a horrid, deep undertone of desire.
Seeing the joy of others and wanting to take it away from them. Wanting to take it for herself. An underlying nature that was so human, and yet so alien. Jealousy truly was an insidious emotion, because despite understanding her own feelings and knowing they existed, the woman felt guilt at them.
She hated herself for feeling that envy, but that did not matter to her nature. Despite the loathing, the emotion stayed, festering and unaddressed. Restrained and bottled up until there was nowhere for it to go, and it exploded outwards. Until there was another victim.
It was a tragedy. The fact that she had a need to sustain herself off of the lives, off the faces of others. There was some attempt to pick people who deserved it when the hunger became overwhelming, but the envy rarely targeted the wretched. She hungered for others’ happiness, a desperate need to claim that kind of thing.
To have a family. To live a life full of friends. To find joys. And she had to take them from others.
Mercury shifted a block. He twisted that spiral of emotion, that desperate need in on itself. The strings twirled and rearranged with the motion, ringing out in soft tones as though playing a harp. The nature of the tapestry, of the woven painting that was to be Aurora, changed and moved.
Writhing and spinning like a den of snakes, Mercury observed. He dug for the origin of Envy, not its consequences. Ruined lives were placed aside. Briefly, he thought that he was doing it again. That he was absolving a killer. But then, he looked at her guilt, guilt that he would not take away, and he decided that it was her burden to bear, her burden to be good and kind.
All he needed to do was give her the option.
So he sifted through threads and little knots, undoing contradictions, tracing his minds along that web of strings like a maze, unveiling hidden sections, secrets that the skinstealer had not wanted to share and that he would take to his grave. He dug and dug and dug, until he found the root of it all.
At the very core of that envy of hers there was a festering core. It was deeply anchored within the centre of her being, a deciding factor in its nature, in deciding that she was a skinstealer, a creature of sin, of Envy. It was a truth that there was no running from, no escaping from, and almost no battling against.
It was the original sin that had been committed and birthed her. Envy spewed out skinstealers because people were envious. That was all. She was born from jealous humans and a manifestation of their unspoken desires. But that was not all she was.
The center of one’s existence was important, sure. But it could also be changed. Not always entirely by oneself. Sometimes there was help needed in how to approach a problem. Sometimes, that help was a magical cat with the ability to very directly change these things, other times it was in self-reflection and a lot of work with the assistance of professionals.
Right now, though, Mercury was in front of a problem he could solve. <Grain of Infinity> activated, and rather than targeting one of his own Skills, he turned the black hole onto the origin of Envy. There was a screech in the air, as the threads twisted and held. It was a thick, horrid knot of things, like a bird’s nest in someone’s hair, that needed to be cut out.
So he tore at it with that terrific Skill, trying to invert it.
Envy screeched, and howled and fought. It tore at Mercury, trying to infest him, but the power of infinity burned it away. When it tried to make him jealous of the skinstealer, prompting him to steal her face, it was simply washed away on his <Babbling Brook>. Still, he frowned. The fact that it was so infectious, even when just touching it at the core of someone else… terrifying.
Luckily, Mercury was very resistant to those kinds of attacks. He burned and fought and <Severed> the bits of Envy that tried to latch onto him. He watched the howling, even as who was to be Aurora tensed and writhed, feeling some kind of pain. Envy lashed out, trying to infest other strings of the woman, trying to fester and remain, but it was no use.
One by one, its avenues of flight were cut off. Thread after infected thread broke and cut and tore. Some of Mercury’s minds took those parts, reattached them, weaving them into a complete tapestry that isolated Envy, that cut it out.
And as the anchoring, the support of a whole person faded, the core of Envy cracked. It twisted, a single pinprick hole on its surface that rippled and spread, sucking in the dark green sin and twisting it into an opposite. Bright, radiant, generosity. The desire to give and give and give everything one had.
[<Grain of Infinity> has levelled up! <Grain of Infinity lv. 2 -> 3>]
That, too, was wrong.
Mercury looked at the sphere of self-sacrifice and discarded it.
He could have done that with Envy too, but twisting it like this forced the knot to fight back, to try and infest whatever it could. Envy did not fade easily. It self propagated, it latched onto, it infested. He did not want to simply leave those kinds of threads hanging, hoping it would go well.
This generosity, though… When asked to disappear, it simply replied with excitement. If it pleased Mercury, it would destroy itself without hesitation. And so, the inverted, twisted Envy disintegrated before his eyes. Particles of white and blue and green sprawled out.
Those, Mercury caught. One of his minds swept them all up, and transformed them into new <Threads>. Cleansed of their generosity, cleansed of their envy, there was a simple thing left. A small, thin satisfaction, a held breath being let out. A lightness that was suitable for an age-old pain fading.
Mercury wove. He took those strings and made them into her name. Aurora, constructed from sea-blue and emerald-green curtains hanging in the night sky. Like a new breath after an age of suffering. He shifted her tapestry, and wove that new truth in. There were some complications, some room needing to be made, so he had to pull a few of the identities closer together.
The stolen faces would melt together a little. It was an imperfect job, but perhaps suitable. Perfection was unattainable, anyway, and maybe, this would allow her more of a new beginning. He wove, and then double, triple checked the ethereal tapestry. The building blocks that made a person, the hundreds of emotions.
Sinister and good, intrusive thoughts and kind gestures, even cruel impulses… he left all of those well alone. They were fine. No one was kind all the time. Mercury could not take away viciousness from someone after murdering two dozen people because his friend had asked him to.
Instead, he just made sure. He reaffirmed himself that it was okay, and then, with a nod, he spooled the thread of existence back onto its axel. Aurora’s personality and personhood was woven back together, into tiny packets and then larger ones, lengths of string that folded in on themselves to become a maze so dense it was no different from a cube, or maybe a sphere.
Then, he placed it back into her chest, and watched her open her eyes.
The face was different now. Her brunette hair had turned lighter, the features of her face a bit rounder, an amalgam of the faces she’d worn. And her eyes were blue-green, shimmering with a distant light. Disorientated, Aurora blinked. “Huh,” she said, with a voice that was not quite the same. “This is… different.”
Mercury waited.
Slowly, ever so slowly, a smile spread across her face. “Different, but… okay. Things are okay. I do not mind who I am? I think this me that I have become… perhaps we can be friends? I hope so.” She rose from the ground, then gave Mercury a bow. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t fully understand everything yet - who I am, who I will be, but thank you.” Then she turned to the other skinstealers.
“The envy is gone.”
The words rippled through the crowd, and soon, another stepped forward. “Me next!” a young man asked. “I want to be different, too!”
[<Unravel> has levelled up! <Unravel lv. 1 -> 2>]
And Mercury set about doing more work.
2025-07-15 14:08:25 +0000 UTC
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Hive-Mother had found a wonderful place to thrive in.
When it was young, it was always weak. Lonely. It felt cold and small, and only thrived by eating scraps from the floor. Slithering, crawling over sparse plants under red skies. It could hardly see, but it wanted to devour and grow.
It wanted to thrive and spawn more hivekin, to spread and devour and see its children spread all over the world. And it had never been able to do so.
Thrown in a cage.
That was what had been done to it. The mother hissed at the memory. It was caged by steel bars, trapped as the world around it blurred. It felt itself enveloped in something as it moved, felt its membrane shift and desynchronise from its insides. Felt itself tear and break.
And then, the sky was a different colour. It licked the air and drank from the ground. Writhing tendrils spread to devour Qi-infused plantmatter, transforming it into Echo instead. Writhing tendrils grew and spread, until it grew a mind intelligent enough to talk to.
Once it was wise, the usurper generals recruited Hive-Mother. It was a suitable nest candidate, they’d said, and that world had been ambrosia to it. A nest. It wanted nothing more than to be a nest. To enrapture and envelop as much as it could.
So it marched, where they told it to. It devoured the city, tossing bodies of half-human beasts into its maws, and devouring their flesh. It scoured and dissolved their bones until nothing was left. It wrapped around their buildings, and crawled towards that distant siren song it heard.
Down a long tunnel of cold stone, there was a beacon. A glowing light so bright to its eyes it had to have it. The shards of glass were devoured and consumed, morsels beyond any other, and it rooted itself in place. That is how it became Hive-Mother.
And now, an even brighter beacon hung in the sky before it.
A humanoid, with crystalline wings made of golden glass, radiant with the delicious thing it had tasted. That connection whirled in its chest like a maelstrom, a torrent of power that Hive-Mother could turn into a hundred, a thousand children.
It had to have it.
Tendrils reached out, and it commanded its children to hear it and obey. They swarmed. Slick, black and grey abominations, wreathed from its wonderful flesh. Covered in stringy, liquid shadow, the things stretched abominable wings that broke the membranes on their backs, and flapped them.
Shapes shifted and distorted, gooey mass changing itself to turn solid and dangerous. Bones became spikes, membranes turned to chitin, and an army of half developed blobs soon was one of demonic insects, scouring the skies like a locust swarm.
Hungrily, they ascended, and they would bring Hive-Mother the morsel it deserves. It craved. It needed.
And then, the morsel fought back.
There was a second maelstrom that blossomed in its hands. One of metal and violence, of cut skin and shattered bones. It whirled, and its presence descended. Almost instinctively, Hive-Mother felt fear. What was this thing? The mother screeched, Echoing across the fields. Its children boiled and bubbled, consuming each other into greater, more malignant forms, made for carnage.
For a moment, there was hope.
Until the tide of steel descended.
Golden metal spilled forth from the spiky maelstrom. It was such mass that there was nothing the mother could do. One moment, it saw the lavender sky through beating, shifting wings of black, and then, it was eclipsed. There was nothing but gold, covering it. An enormous amount, so vast it could drown a city.
That is what it did.
A scouring plague of liquid blades descended, massacring the flood of its children. Each strain of liquid became a spear in its own right, and the tide was like an avalanche of nails, breaking limbs and shattering them into disintegrating tendrils of goo.
Hive-Mother felt fear. It fought, spawning more creatures, coalescing their forms into that of a champion, when yet another maelstrom blossomed. This third one was pure divinity, the same it had devoured before, and it was just as bright as the other two.
For a moment, it felt hope. Had its generals come to feed it? To grow it? The endless legions it commanded would thrive with this power, and it would extinguish the disgusting gold until it was devoured. It spawned more children, their limbs stretching into sharp shapes that warred with the flood of gold.
They stretched and deformed, clawing forward to the sky. Tendrils of the mother rose, holding the tide at bay. It would win, it would-
Suddenly, the tide was behind its barriers.
How? The gold had not moved. It was simply somewhere else! That was not- it must have crawled in, slithered through! There must have been a flaw! The Hive-Mother created a perfect shell, indestructible, reinforced with the lives of dozens of unformed children bearing its stygian touch. It was obsidian, smooth and hard and, and…
And it was suddenly flooded with gold.
The shell was intact. But the flood of disintegrating sharpness did not care. There was a touch of the glass on it, a touch that allowed it to simply move, unopposed, unimpeded. As if the mother herself was not even there.
It fought, it bit and scratched, but against the tide of metal, it could not even see its opponent. Pitifully, in a tide of spears forged from liquid gold, the mother drowned. To the very last breath, its will echoed only hunger, only the desperation to devour more, the grief that it did not spread further.
Undignified, it died.
- - -
I lifted Astraeus, and with a flourish, the black goo splattered off him, disintegrating into the air. A small smile played on my lips. “Really?” I asked. “That’s what you want your title to be?”
Happily, the spear chirped with satisfaction. “Yes!” he said, mentally.
Shaking my head slightly, I smiled. “Alright then, so it shall be.” I lifted my spear, Astraeus, Herald of the golden Tide, and his maelstrom raged. Qi poured out in a torrent, liquid metal, where each tiny piece of that ocean was a spear in and of itself.
Watching it descend was incredible. I hardly even had to control it. Astraeus was a full scale maelstrom level being himself, now. Cass appeared on my shoulders anyway, wanting to test her powers, too. She still maintained that half-translucent avatar she’d had before, seemingly liking it quite a bit.
“I’ll help out,” she said, dangling her legs in the air. Her Qi poured out, fuelling [Hall of Mirrors], and I felt a shiver run through the flood of metal.
As the tremor spilled out, resistance suddenly became fultile. Because space, itself, was meaningless. The tide was where it needed to be, without movement. It simply appeared. Inviolable.
There were barriers, and they didn’t matter. Tendrils rose in defense, only to be consumed within moments, needled with holes and drowned. It was a torrent of power that marked my ascent to maelstrom. I spread my ruinous wings, let my companions handle much of the processing required for the tide of power, and instead focused myself on mastery.
My steel tide was unyielding, unstoppable, and consumed everything in its path. Any defense was crushed by my iron will, and engaged with a dozen masterfully wielded spears. It was quite literally Inevitable that the enemies would be crushed - my skill at using the weapon said it was so.
Whatever had devoured these gateways, it was meant to spawn an army. That’s what nests did. They were not wandering champions, they were corrupting influences on the land. Troublesome in their own way, and yet…
Its army drowned in my golden tide. Attacks landed on the sea and reflected back down. The metal superimposed itself above itself in writhing torrents of reinforcements, turning dozens of times harder than even the toughest steel.
Unbreakable, inevitable, and inviolable.
[Unyielding Metal has reached (Intermediate).]
[Manifestation has reached (Greater).]
The Gift saw my enlightenment, glimpsed in that moment. My understanding of what metal was. The remnants of my voyage, first through the golden shore, then the golden depths. Now, that golden ocean manifested itself on the world, even as I soar through the sky on my path.
Waves upon waves of unending gold spilled from the maelstrom that was Astraeus, churning, grinding and cutting the enemies down to thin ribbons, then nothing at all. I breathed, willed all my focus together, and controlled it.
Nest-champions were cut down, and buildings preserved. I marked the landscape as a non-target, and, though my head ached from the strain, and my meridians burned, it remained untouched. Gold simply spilled out, and then froze.
Contained by my will, splashes of Qi turned cutting liquid simply stopped midair, solidifying. Even round bits remained sharp, a combination of [Inexplicable Reinforcement] and [True Mirror] twisting space around them. Every bit of this ocean was a spear, every droplet, every molecule.
And none of it splashed to where my companions were fighting.
Instead, I simply encased the nest in a golden cocoon, until it was devoured to nothing.
Then, I swung Astraeus, and the golden tide rippled. For a moment, it churned, then turned into a maelstrom. Within Astraeus, that origin burned, and the liquid gold began to trail backwards. Bit by bit, inch by inch, it flowed upwards, growing faster and faster as the whirlpool consumed it.
And then, after a dozen seconds, the flood was gone.
All that remained was an empty city, the nest eradicated. Wayward strings of disintegrating goo remained draped over buildings, and, at the very heart of the gateway hall, filthy black Echo still stained the stone. Strands of the nest still clung to the remnants of the gateway.
Somehow, they still moved, as if trying to wring another bit of power from the dim glass. But it was not to be. Astraeus brushed through the air, and strands of black severed and disintegrated.
It had once been a prosperous city. There had been multiple gateways here, and though some had been fed to wandering champions, more than half had gone to this nest, specifically. There were multiple shards of glass, now, that I could take.
Much of that power had probably been devoured by the usurpers, or reclaimed by the keepers, but there was still a lot left. I took the shards of glass, feeling them turn malleable at my touch, as my skin turned silvery for a moment, consuming them. Then, I turned fully human again, feeling that sensation of golden glass wrapped around my bones again.
I took a deep breath, then repeated the procedure. Once, twice, thrice. Shard after shard, feeding into my gateway, noticing the whirlpool in my chest grow stronger each time. This, too, fed my advancement, growing my Qi.
[Golden Glass Maelstrom advanced to 3rd Step.]
Slowly, air entered my lungs. I devoured the last shard that was there. My gateway pulsed with strength. A pulse of Qi eradicated any leftover Echo in the ruined halls of silent stone. Again, I took a breath, even though the air stank of dead filth and burned my nose with a chaotic mix of energy. I savoured it.
Then, I called open my gateway menu.
[Gateway:
Strength: 87
Fragments: 98
Figments: 14
Manifestations: 2]
And as I watched the counter next to manifestations tick up, a new clone of myself crawled out of my chest. Great, now I’d have to name this version of myself, too.
2025-07-09 01:19:39 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 256: Cleansed with Blood
And so, a little over a year passed.
Mercury collected another 100 Skill points from <Skill Point Generation>, and the Skill levelled up once more. Some things happened.
Bael, against all odds, built a vacation house in Stormbraver. About half the council members fainted from the news, and one of them had a heart attack, but it was nothing that couldn’t be treated by a little bit of Lucia’s flame. Did she maybe set them on fire more than necessary? Debatable.
Most of the time, she set Mercury on fire when she was angry, who didn’t mind too much.
Ruvah and Breeze became closer friends. Zyl became a better painter. Avery robbed just one bank, to buy out a half dozen bakeries. Did it cause some trouble? Yes, but it was also really funny, so Mercury didn’t rat him out. Lucia and Iris went on a prolonged mission to spread the word of the church that was most certainly not a honeymoon.
And that’s about all that happened. Perhaps there was more to say, but then, Mercury simply lived. Every day he ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He shopped for groceries and cooked his own meals. He laid in the sun, he meditated, he learnt more of magic, and he pushed himself.
Just the regular amount of pushing himself, really. He didn’t sleep, since he didn’t really need to, and he kept his minds active. All five of them, now. Getting used to living with multiple instances of focus active was a little bizarre, but the multicasting aspect of it was fun. He’d tested that in minor duels at the mages’ guild.
Now, was it fair of him to crush a few children in magic duels? Probably not.
All of them did have years more magic practice than him, to be fair! He just had other advantages. Like a vastly more powerful mind, and <Grain of Infinity>, which meant he practically never ran out of mana.
All he needed to do was throw a dozen spells at each of the powerful ones that the mages cast, and that usually solved his problems. It was a little funny, to see some guy in robes with a wand hold out a single, dense magic circle, only to have half a dozen bloom into existence in the air behind him.
That was another thing about magic that was funny. Most spells originated from within a mage’s aura, so most mages summoned the spells on their hands, or right in front of their wands. Mercury, though, didn’t really have hands. So, he just summoned them wherever.
Keeping control of them got harder if he started the cast far away, but his reach for spell starting points was rather large. He could even summon them behind other mages for a really rather mean trick. Or surround them with spells from all directions, which usually made their attacking power meaningless.
Of course, there were still people who could give him trouble. Esmeya and Akuhl were both leagues better mages than him - both in terms of elements they had access to and their mastery over the discipline. There was a type of duel that Akuhl favoured, especially, called “counter-magic”. It was a discipline focused on stopping another mage from casting by disrupting their magic circles.
And, somehow, she still absolutely trounced Mercury in that, despite all his advantages.
But, he learned. He even picked up a skill related to it, <Counter-Magic>, and a few levels in that. He got better at crafting too, improving his woodworking and smithing, but he didn’t put an incredible amount of time into it. A lot of time was dedicated to just being happy.
Yes, that meant doing things he enjoyed. It means spending time with people he liked, too, and to a smaller degree, it meant travelling. He’d done a few smaller trips, mostly into the mountains. He’d also taken a bath in Zyl’s lava-lake that he’d made in fighting Bael. By now, that had crusted over, but Mercury had made a hole in that crust to take a swim. Because of course he did.
That little stunt eventually netted him another level in <Tempered Body>, and he made it out hale and hearty. The lava was a bit sticky, though, so he used <Rainfall> to wash the solidifying stone out of his fur. It was a funny sensation, that. The intersection between his storm and solid earth, and watching the way that the rocks were pierced and worn away into liquid.
Mercury also took up a bit of farming.
It was, really, a silly and vain kind of thing, but he wanted to try his hands at growing his own foods. So, he took a sufficient plot of land outside the city walls. He could, of course, have made the garen in his inner world, but Kim was already doing just that, and Mercury wanted a more hands-on experience.
So, he tilled the soil, dragging a plough with his ghost-hands, put seeds in the ground, watered them with his <Rainfall>, and beckoned them to grow. He even learned to infuse some of his stamina into the ground - a bizarre feeling that took a while to get used to. Expanding that vitality, letting it resonate with the plants, then drawing it back in was almost like a rhythmic dance.
There was not too much to show for it quite yet, but he’d grown a couple squashes for his and Zyl’s own use at home, which was nice.
Day by day drifted by, and Mercury kept himself busy. Relaxation, by now, looked rather amusing, since even at his quietest, parts of his mind were tinkering away at spells, at all hours of the day. There was a truth there he wanted to find, and he was slowly seeking it out.
But none of those activities were what alerted him to when things would change from his state of rest. That was something else entirely.
<Tapestry>.
His newest Skill, and one he made sure to practice enough. He activated it every evening, making sure to look at the threads in his surroundings, trying to check that nothing too terrible would happen. A few times he saved construction workers from falling bricks, or old people from slipping on stones. It was enough that seeing him had become a bit of a symbol of good luck.
That same intuition about his surroundings alerted him that a big change was finally coming. A big change that he did not want anyone else to deal with. Mercury sighed, shook himself a little, and rose out of bed.
Except, this time, Zyl was not just content to let him go.
The dragon sat up at the same time. “What’re you doing up, Mercuryyyy…” Zyl said, rubbing his eyes, looking at Mercury while suppressing a yawn. And there, he must’ve found some answer. “Ah,” he said. “It’s time, then?”
Mercury smiled. Then, with a ghostly hand, he squeezed Zyl’s palm, and helped pull the dragon out of bed. “It is,” he said. “They’d knock on our door tomorrow.”
Zyl groaned a little, and Mercury huffed out a laugh.
“Y’know, for being so all-powerful, my dragon darling, you sure are a sleepyhead.”
At that, his boyfriend grumbled. “Excuse you, mister multi-mind. Unlike some of us, I’ve got only one brain. My heart can pump as much as it wants, and it will not change the fact that I am made for sleeping on mounds of gold for decades as a big lizard, alright?”
“Now, now,” Mercury said. “I only have one brain. It’s asleep right now. This little meat-suit is being piloted by the entirely uncoupled five parts of my mind that have thought themselves into existence."
“Dang dream magic,” Zyl grumbled, slipping on some travel ready clothes instead of his pajamas. “Dang reality bending. All I do is set stuff on fire really well. But nooo…”
Mercury snickered at the jabs. “It’s okay, Zyl. I can’t turn a mountain into lava the way you can either.”
Smiling smugly in a way that flashes his small fangs, Zyl nodded. “That’s true.” Then, he put on some travelling boots, tying them shut properly, and took a final, deep breath. “It’ll be a bit ‘till we see all this again, won’t it?” he asked, quietly.
“Yeah,” the mopaaw agreed. “It will. But that’s okay. You’ve got your bed inside Logston, right?” Mercury asked.
Zyl snickered. “You just wanna see me crawl into the tree.
“It helps,” Mercury said with a smile. “Are you sure you don’t want me to pack some powdered beans?”
“No,” the dragon shook his head. “You’re growing tea in that inner world of yours, anyway. I think I’ll try that for a little while,” Zyl said.
Mercury smiled, gently. “Then, I think I’m good to go. You all packed up?”
For a moment, Zyl called up his inventory again. He checked the slots, making sure they were filled with all the essentials. A backpack being shoved into a single slot was really rather helpful, they found, and so, there was not much more that they needed than what they already had.
A couple last minute items, like toothbrushes and some snacks, and they were off.
“Who are we meeting, actually?” Zyl asked.
Mercury smiled faintly. Then, he spoke, quietly. “Envy.”
- - - - - -
Lucia stood at her window. It was evening, the sun having long since gone under. She was about to head to bed, when.
“No. Way,” she said.
Iris appeared next to her with a breath of a shadow and a passing whisper. “What? Oh.”
It took her only a moment to get the situation. Her face remained entirely neutral, as if her lips didn’t know whether to curl upwards or downwards.
“I’m gonna set him on fire,” Lucia growled, stomping to grab her travelling gear. “I’m gonna set both of them on fire.”
Gently, Mercury tossed another pebble against the window. He had the audacity to wave at them with excitement. The motion looked awkward, since he didn’t have arms, but it was unmistakable. Lucia ground her teeth, clenching her fists, taking deep breaths.
Opening the window, Iris spoke. “Good evening, Mercury. What seems to be the occasion?”
“Envy. They’re near,” he said with a somewhat awkward smile, trying to get the news across gently.
The fire froze in Lucia’s veins. Her expression faded from amused anger into one of cold cruelty. She grabbed her travelling gear, and hopped out the window. “Off we go then,” she said.
Iris joined them wordlessly, a moment later.
- - - - - -
The four of them walked through the night. It was a reasonably bright night, in late autumn. Valiantly, the leaves in the forest clung to their trees, blocking the moonlight as the crew wandered forward.
It would look as if they had a destination in mind, when they really didn’t. Mercury simply was very good at seeing, and at listening. The <Tapestry> whispered in his ears, every gust of wind rustling its resonant threads, sending chiming vibrations out through the web.
Resonating with it, Mercury didn’t even need to know where he was stepping. He could walk with his eyes closed, and he would hear a hum if he was about to impact a tree. All he needed to do was follow the closest thread to Envy. It was not too hard; after all, Envy was a heavy, large thing that had an important connection with almost everyone from the group.
So, following that hum was pretty easy. Mercury even found himself humming along as he strode through the forest, leaves crunching slightly beneath his paws. It was chilly, but with <Hydration> working to keep him warm, he didn’t feel it at all. All he could feel was the faint noise of fated music.
The rustle of wind in the breeze, drawn along by what pushed it, interconnected events that would happen, could happen, and definitely wouldn’t happen. Even now, on collision course with Envy, as he heard the threads sing, Mercury felt secure. Iris, Lucia and Zyl were with him, so there were rather few ways that he would die.
Instead, he listened, and walked along a path only he could see. Following that invisible thread that connected every living thing. That tied together all of reality to shield it from the void, and that interwove with the <Dreamweave> as a secondary layer of reality. Connections were everywhere if you knew how to look for them.
Mercury breathed. The pull got stronger. He felt a storm brewing, the <Tapestry> shaking. It chimed and hummed in high and low notes, and it felt a little like pushing two magnets closer together. Eventually, they’d reach critical distance, and something would happen. It was only a matter of time, only a matter of space, just a few more steps and-
They emerged into a clearing. It was far away from Stormbraver. Over a day’s march at normal speeds. Yet, at the same time, it was somewhat close. It was a nameless little puddle in that forest that glimmered with silvery light in the moonlit night. And, next to it, sat Otto.
Otto, the third walking disaster, long-time friend of Zyl and Lucia, and sworn friend of Mercury, too. He looked at the newcomers.
His skin was cracked, suffused with bolts of lightning worming their way through it like rivers of lava. Tufts of fur and scales covered his extremities. His fangs had grown, and he still looked burnt and charred. His head was bald, the hair of it long singed away by the mutations.
By every meaning of the word, Otto looked like a monster. Like a nightmare amalgam made flesh. And despite that, when he saw the others, he just smiled, brightly.
“Ah! Zyl, Lucia, Mercury, Iris! It has been long time. You well?” he asked.
His voice was deep and rumbled through the silence. Zyl went to greet him first, wrapping the other man into a hug. Lucia stepped closer to Iris, protectively. Mercury looked at the third party at the lake.
Otto was not the only one there. Across from where Mercury currently stood was a group of people. They looked entirely ordinary. Men and women, humans and elves, mostly, wrapped in dark cloaks of many thin layers. They fluttered slightly in the cold wind, turning their shapes hard to discern.
Blues, purples and greys blended in with the night sky, making the strangers look like formless faces - how amusing, that, given that they were faceless.
A shiver ran across Iris’ back. “It’s them,” she whispered.
One of the people in flowing garments turned to look at her. “Ahhhh,” it said. “The Black Ivy. So you return to us after all this time.”
Mercury frowned, faintly. “Drop the facade,” he demanded.
“Facade?” a woman asked, tilting her head. “But this is who we are. Faces that are rightfully ours,” she said, smiling faintly.
Their voices were melodic. Too-perfect. They already got on Mercury’s nerves. Iris simply stood, frozen, eyes wide. He took a deep breath, then the Storm’s Raiment stirred. The cloak around him steamed and boiled, until a thin sheet of clouds enveloped his side of the lake. They wrapped around Iris, and he looked at her. “Do you want to be fearless?” he asked.
For her part, the ex-assassin swallowed heavily, then nodded. Mercury let a sleet of <Rain> fall over her, and some of that terror washed away. Not all of it, of course, but it was a reminder. A simple <Truth>.
The past was distant. The present was different. Iris breathed in for a long, long moment, then pulled her eyes away and went to hug Otto, squeezing him. Lucia stood by Mercury for another long second. “Can you tear off their false faces?” she asked.
And at that, Mercury shook his head. “No,” he said. “I am not here to be cruel. I’ll kill them, probably. But I will not provoke their envy on purpose.”
Lucia ground her teeth. “You want to be kind to monsters?” she asked.
“Yes,” Mercury nodded. “I know they have been cruel. And I will make sure they never hurt anyone again. That is all.”
“Fine,” the priestess said, walking off to Otto.
The avatars of Envy, meanwhile, simply sat at the opposite end of the lake. They eyed Mercury. There was some suspicion, and yet, a begrudging respect, as well as a tiny bit of fear. He felt the static in the air, the mistrust, the way that they skinstealers stared at him.
And despite that, he turned his back.
Mercury walked to Otto, greeting the big lug with a ghostly fist bump. “Good to see you Otto,” he said.
The giant of a man returned his smile. “Good to see.”
“Did it take you long to get here?” Zyl ask, patting him on the back.
Otto shook his head. “No. Jumped.”
At that, Mercury tilted his head. “You… jumped?”
“Yes,” Otto nodded seriously. “Very fast.” And that was all he said on it.
Mercury smiled. He’d missed the big guy. “What’ve you been up to?” he asked.
Smiling, the giant opened his inventory, and pulled out a chef’s hat. “Per- pursuing cooking. Extracting more from parts.” With very slow, gentle movements, he placed the hat on his head, almost reverently, making sure not to tear it. “Mercury want meal?”
“Not right now, but I would love one later, Otto,” he said. For a moment, the big guy’s face fell, but then lit right back up. He moved to pat Mercury on the back, then paused.
“You not enjoy touch,” he said, as much to remind himself as others. Instead, he just gave a big thumbs up.
“Are you quite done?” one of the avatars of Envy hissed.
That interrupted the small round of smiles. The quiet of the night fell back over them like a heavy, suffocating blanket. The threat of violence hung heavily in the air. There would be bloodshed, almost certainly, and everyone present knew that. It was just that everyone Mercury had brought deserved their pound of flesh.
He turned to Envy again. Slowly, the clear evening seemed to grow cloudy. “Yes,” he said. “We’re done. Let’s talk, then. What do you want?”
“Everything,” one of the creatures hissed. Its human mask slipped. The face distorted, the features melting, the skin knitting over the mouth before ripping open in a mass of distorted flesh.
This was the same skinstealers who had raised Iris to be an assassin. Who could take others’ shapes and replace them. They could do so because they envied others, so they desired to take from them, and the system allowed them mimicry and theft abilities.
After all, that was the tricky part with Envy. It was greedy. And yet, there was nothing wrong with the emotion itself. Really, it could be flattering. Giving someone gender envy was a rather nice feeling, Mercury thought. Heck, even Omori, the ancient one of the court of Shadow, wanted nothing more to be human.
So, Mercury respected their desires. He would not tear off their faces, because doing so would be a lie. When the skinstealers stole a face, it did become theirs, quite literally. They would identify with it. They could only steal things they truly wanted.
“Why steal?” Mercury asked. “Why not recreate? Learn?”
“It’s never enough,” another hissed. “We take and we want more. Always more. The need does not disappear.”
Lucia scoffed. “And what of the rest of Envy? Are they all pitiful bastards like you lot?”
The monsters chittered and hissed at her. It was… sad, Mercury thought. He felt the first touch of <Grief> again, at the sight. The way that they wanted something they lost in the act of acquiring it. They envied everything and everyone, and so, taking just one identity would never be enough. Forging their own lives would never be enough.
But despite that, eventually an answer came. “No,” one of the skinstealers sneered. “The others are worse. We live here because we escaped. Because we clawed our way out. All we want is humanity, and life. The others…”
It reminded Mercury of Yearning. Of the way Ul’den’tyrel had been before Mercury reincarnated it into Uldyrel. He caught glimpses of the realm of Envy - and the way it differed from the others.
Envy envied itself. It was an inward twisting abomination of betrayal and theft and backstabbing. There was no one to trust, no one to rely on, not one whose company was enjoyable. Every single person was closer to perfection than anyone else, and the only way to advance was to undermine them, to ruin them and take from them.
There was a maelstrom of violence and gluttony and lies. It was a truth everyone knew, that hatred and deceit were but a game they played. The egalitarian court of silks was only equal insofar as everyone despised each other.
Because how dare anyone be better than oneself?
In front of him, Mercury found those who were simply lost. Those who’d escaped. Those who were cruel, driven to commit atrocities, and yet they paled in front of the real monsters. He took a deep breath, and shut the <Tapestry>. He let his ihn’ar fall away, the veils closing.
There was a simple question he had to ask himself.
Were a bunch of skinstealing assassins driven by their endless envy, their desire to become even a little closer to being human, worth forgiving?
And he found a simple <Answer>. A simple <Truth>. It was not his decision to make. He’d not been hurt by them.
“Iris,” he said gently. “Point at the ones that need to die.”
Her eyes shook, then hardened. Slowly, she raised her finger. At the end, Iris, too, was a brutal, violent killer. And yet, she had been hurt by these twisted people. Mercury would untwist the ones whose sins were lesser. But those who’d done too much? Their blood would be spilled.
At the same time as Iris pointed, she drew her dagger.
And the sins were cleansed with blood, before the rain could wash them away.
2025-07-08 22:38:44 +0000 UTC
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While Eden was safer now that the eclipse had passed, that by no means erased all the impact it had. Multiple cities laid in ruins, and the usurpers had claimed far, far more land for themselves. They’d claimed gateways that had been in those cities, and established gigantic nests, breeding more and more forces to send against the cities.
And, with Orvan dead, there was a lack of combatants in Eden. Of course, there were the other archmages and angels, but their talents were different. Healing, spatial magic, divination… they were powerful, but there was simply no other archmage who could throw a meteor at the problem.
Saif was the only war mage left. And while she was skilled at wreaking havoc, she was just one spirit. She could not be everywhere at once. Meanwhile…
I clenched my fist. I almost could. I had Ion, my other self, who could be here and on Neamhan. Emilia was with me, too, and she was approaching the transition from wellspring to maelstrom, driven forward by the network. Eric and her would be working tightly together, while I’d be mostly on my own.
Well, on my own. I almost snickered at the thought. Cass and Astraeus were with me, after all, and perfectly capable of contributing. With my golden glass affinity, I wouldn’t even need Lyria, the spatial archmage, to transport me around. My sphere of influence was vast enough that I could move anywhere I needed to be myself.
“Well then, Fio. I believe that takes care of all the formalities. Are you ready to fight?” Iryel asked me.
Taking a deep breath, I rolled my shoulder. The new levels still felt a little odd, my muscles a bit stiff from the procedure, but there was no way to get used to new power faster than using it. “Yeah,” I told Iryel. “Point me at the problem.”
He smiled, in a faint way. It reached his eyes, and even the deep bags under them softened a bit. “Alright. Here’s the deal…” he started. And then he talked. We walked to a room with a large map that had most of Eden written out, the places where there were nests, specifically strong usurper champions and their locations, as well as strategic places they wanted me to reclaim.
Effectively, I’d be a strike crew. Get in, remove the problem, get out. I’d get to reclaim all the gateway fragments I found, since there was nothing else to really do with them. Of course, the divines would love for me to give them back, but… no. The contribution reward from doing so was worth less than simply upgrading my own gateway.
When I mentioned that there was a chance of me gaining another duplicate, Iryel was quickly convinced that letting me keep them was a strategic asset. “For the duration of this mission, Chris, as well as Ru’s angel, Trichtera, will be part of your squad, Fio. You’ll be in charge of moving them where they need to be, and they will assist you in clearing out points of interest.”
“Ru’s angel?” I raised an eyebrow. “I thought Ru hated me.”
Iryel gave a helpless shrug. “I believe he does, to some degree. Yet, his angel is mortal. She simply wants to see her home reclaimed. Additionally, you are a warrior of some renown, hence her respect for you.”
At that, Emilia grinned. “Hear that, princess? Some renown, they say. Maybe we should get fancy titles here, too, eh, Lady Rad-”
I smacked a hand onto her mouth. “There will be absolutely none of that,” I said. “I’m Fio, I won’t answer to anything else. Emilia, stop licking my hand, I’ll take it off if you promise not to say it.”
The woman gave me a grin wide enough to spread to her eyes, but eventually nodded. I took my hand away, wiping it on my pants, then gave a sigh. “Alright. Iryel, where is this angel?”
“Trichtera will be here in a few minutes, when archmage Lyria picks her up from the frontlines,” he explained. “She has already been briefed on the plan, so now it is your turn.”
And then, he proceeded to talk.
I sighed, listened, and in the end, there really was only one detail that mattered. The city they wanted me to reclaim. It was far north, not one I had been in before, and part of the beastblood enclaves. A smaller town called Fyrestadt. I smiled, wryly, waited until Trichtera arrived, then picked up the grumpy woman, Emilia, Eric and Chris, and we headed off.
- - -
“To your left,” Chris called calmly, and Emilia spun on her toes, slamming her mace into another zurulen. The bitter cold nipped at her skin, digging its claws into her bones. It was biting, but she bore with it.
The crystal giants were different here, too. Rather than being made of stone and gems, they were made of ice. Parts of it were almost perfectly clear, to the point where she could see through it, which made them hard to spot despite their size. But the abberant version also made them brittle. Her mace slammed into the thing, and the ice splintered.
Once upon a time, she had been at the core formation stage of cultivation. Back then, she had fought sparingly, knowing her power would take time and focus to regain. She was lower level, her skills were less developed, and she was altogether weaker. Now, though?
At wellspring, Qi bubbled out of her. The rocks in the ground, even underneath all the snow and ice felt right at her fingertips. Magic spilled from her almost passively, flowing into the stone, putting it under her command, malleable with just a thought. It was a mini-domain she’d constructed, an ability to automatically make use of all her overflow to gradually increase her advantage over the course of a battle.
And the battle had been on for a while. All around them, the ground was littered with broken bits of usurper bodies. It had started the moment Fio took them there - a very bizarre experience not unlike stepping through a gateway into Eden - and was still ongoing. The rocks felt soft and stretchy by now, infused with layers upon layers of her power.
When her mace struck, the ice splintered.
When her mace struck, the ground roared upwards, and a spike of rock tore the thing in two.
It was barely even any effort. Barely harder than a normal strike. Powered simply by the Qi she regenerated. She was rather solidly at the peak of wellspring, and felt the way that all the talents Fio shared with her pushed her along.
Emilia grinned, a wild, happy grin. She loved it. She loved strength, she loved the power and movement of it all. She loved bashing the monsters heads in with her shield. She loved facing brix, like in that first nest all that time ago, and simply shattering legions of them with a single strike.
She grinned, brightly, as she slammed her way through the onslaught of usurpers. There were hundreds, thousands of them in the Town. The nest had devoured three gateways - not much, when compared to a larger city, and yet, it was massive. A towering growth of dark, oily threads.
It was a nest in the truest sense. Threads of sticky, flexible, living tissue wrapped around the rubble of the city. Broken buildings ensnared in a trap, ready to snap shut on any adventurers. And yet, despite all of that…
Emilia breathed out, her breath fogging in the cold. Her blood rushed through her veins. They were in the north, the ground covered with snow and ice, her boots crunching with every step she took, and yet. The rock rose up from the ground to support her steps, launching her into the sky. She grappled a vulture-lion looking thing right out of the air, slamming it into paste with her bare hands.
The rubble of broken buildings reacted to her wishes. The town itself moved, shaking off the snow and webbing, flowing and rumbling as it fought back for its own freedom. It was as if some ancestral spirit reanimated the buildings and made them devour their destroyer. But Emilia knew better.
It was just her. Her own strength, alongside her companions. Doing what she did best.
Breaking shit.
- - - - - -
CW: Mention of Suicide.
Ion stepped out from the gateway and onto Neamhan. It was funny. She had been there before, of course. She had spent basically an entire life there. Even Fio had summoned her there before. And yet, despite that, it felt unfamiliar.
The air that was clean with a chemical aftertaste, and stank of smog outside. The cloudy sky, grey rays of light drifting lazily down from above, the sun covered by clouds of pollution.
It felt so much like home, and yet not home at all. She took a deep breath. The mechanisms for this kind of duplication were a little wonky, dealing with parallel universes and all, but they were something that Ion had more insight into than Fio. It was something she understood, at her core.
There were infinite worlds out there. An unlimited amount. That meant that there were, consequently, unlimited worlds in which Fio died. In which she was a different person, in which she failed and got killed by the usurpers. Worlds in which Ann mourned her death, worlds in which she forgot, and worlds in which she died to the Tiger or the blackflame giant or the kamaitachi or a simple car crash.
Ion was from one of those worlds.
She’d died.
She’d seen Ann cry over her cooling body.
She’d lost her memories of Eden, and then thrown herself off a building on Neamhan.
And now, she was here again. Smelling the smoke. Knowing what she’d done. It was… Strange. A mixture of hope and terror, that she simply transitioned to a new realm after death. That she could begin and cease to exist whenever needed, withdrawn into that slip-space in between.
Ion took a long, shaky breath. Slowly, she steadied herself. For the moment she’d look Ann in the eyes again. Not her Ann. A person who’d never seen her die. But still, Ann.
Somehow, that was hopeful. Somehow, there was a chance. If she could return to this reality, perhaps, if even just one of the infinite Fios grew strong enough, she could return to her Ann. Maybe, if she got lucky, everything would someday be alright. Maybe.
And then, she stepped out of the gateway hall. In front of her, Matt, Liam, Reya and Rae were already walking back up the steps. Her teacher, who was not her teacher, looked back for a moment and gave a soft, awkward smile. Then he turned back around and walked upwards.
Following along with mechanical motions, Ion did the same. She walked down the hallway, up the steps, towards the chattering voices of people she’d known in another life. Memories she now had back, that stood in stark conflict with the end of her life. Another deep breath, and she pushed open the door, face to face with people she’d once forgotten.
It wasn’t the first time back on Neamhan. But it was the first time there wasn’t a problem. Nothing for her to stab, no one to kill. Just… her and everyone else.
“You good?” Matt asked her. “You’ve been standing and staring for a sec there,” he noted.
“Right,” she said, shaking her head. “Sorry. I’m… good, mostly.”
“Fio?” Ann asked, confused. “Weren’t you supposed to stay on Eden?”
Her voice was so soft it almost broke Ion’s heart. She forced her lips into an awkward, inadequate smile. “She is,” she said. “I’m not… your Fio. I’m the duplicate from another world. For ease, call me Ion.”
Ann’s face fell slightly, and it hurt. “Oh,” she said. “I see.”
“I do have good news,” I said. “Fio has negotiated for Neamhan to get a contribution altar. So you can grab all the rewards you deserve, Ann. Marie, too, of course,” she added.
At that, the mage’s face lit up. No gift like more spells. “Yes! That is good news!” Her smile was just the same as Ion remembered. “How do we do it?”
“Just grab my hand,” Ion said with a crooked smile. “That’s all it takes.”
Without hesitation, Ann moved her hand, quickly floated over the couch, and grabbed her hand. The mage’s touch was warm, a hint of the fire hiding underneath her skin. Ion swallowed, even as Ann muttered to herself.
“Amazing, it really works just like a keeper altar,” she whispered. “Though it’s Cass helping me make the selection,” she noted more loudly.
Ion smiled as she ran through her thoughts, then shook her head. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, but smelled Ann’s perfume. It hurt. There was a lot of longing still in her heart, but she knew it was not the same. Despite everything, she brought her iron will to bear, and mastered herself.
She just stood there, a little awkwardly, as Ann made her choices. Then, suddenly, the mage locked up as the levels set into her. A moment passed where she leaned on Ion for support, and the duplicate helped her remain standing. Then another moment passed.
The two locked eyes, and Ann gave a bright smile, wrapping Ion in a hug. “Thank you,” she said. “This is awesome!”
For a second, Ion stood there, shellshocked. Then, very slowly, despite everything, she returned the hug. It lasted a handful of seconds, then Ann pulled away, already excited to play with her new abilities. “Yeah, no problem,” she said.
Marie shot the duplicate a look that spoke of faint amusement, shaking her head. “Young adults, eh?” she asked, then stepped forward. Ion glanced at Ann for another moment as Marie moved to grab her shoulder.
Yeah, maybe… Maybe she could live with this world. Maybe seeing Ann be happy was enough. Maybe she could allow herself a little bit of happiness and hope.
2025-07-04 15:36:38 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 255: People
CW: Grief, Brief mention of suicidal thoughts (2nd section of the chapter)
Humans are vain creatures.
Bael sat in her room, thinking. It was a plain room, with a single bed in it, a nightstand, a small table, and a dresser. There was a small bathroom attached, but she hadn’t showered yet.
There were small rainwater stains on the floor, in the shape of her clawed feet. That human facade that cracked and crumbled away. Because, at the very truth of it, Bael wasn’t human. She could act like one, she could imitate one, put on the mask and fit in, but she was not, and never would be, human.
That did not make her any less of a person.
Despite everything that was wrong with her, she did not feel particularly bad about her past actions. She felt no guilt at eating when she was hungry, at hitting things when she was angry. Was that what made her inhuman? She shook her head, and took a long breath.
This was tiresome. The charade, the back and forth, the hiding. And yet, humans were vain. To walk around with horns or demonic wings would attract all the wrong kinds of attention. She just wanted to live. Sighing, the demoness rose from the bed and took a few slow, lumbering steps to the bathroom. It had a shower. She wasn’t dirty, but she could use a shower.
Storing her clothes in her inventory, Bael turned on the hot water, letting it run across her scalp, soothe her cracked skin and the mild bruises from where Avery had hit her. She’d recover quickly, especially if she ate. Which she would, probably. When the time came.
Maybe Avery would have some food for her? She paused at the thought, shaking her head. How odd was it, that she’d expect it from a human? They were vain and insular. They often kept to themselves, and few ventured outside of their territories. They valued their little families and their homes, often more than their own lives.
It was so pointless, so small. One could always build another house, but coming back to life? That simply didn’t happen. She sighed softly, deciding not to rely on the guild for food. It would be easy to hunt some, to get some for herself. It would be so easy.
With a resentful sigh, she stepped out of the shower. A brief burst of infernal flame incinerated all the water still left on her body, and a quick access to her inventory brought the clothes back onto her. Her head didn’t feel particularly clearer though. She sighed again, getting ready to walk outside, when-
There was a knock at the door.
It was a soft, dull sound, of knuckles rasping against wood. “Good morning,” came Marcel’s voice from outside. “I’ve brought breakfast,” he said.
Bael stared at the door. It was strange, hearing him. There was no accusation in his voice. No expectation. No fear at all. Just a serene boredom.
“Hello?” he asked, after the long pause. “I’m pretty sure you’re awake. If you’re feeling nonverbal and want me to drop off the food in front of the door, please tap it once.”
She stared some more. “No,” Bael said eventually. “No, uh, come in.”
A moment later the wood creaked open and Marcel did just that. He was dressed simply, in a white button-up shirt with tiny bits of golden embroidery, and a pair of simple brown pants. He placed a tray of food down on the table. It had a cup of tea, a few loaves of bread and an assortment of spreads to put on them, as well as a bowl of cereal and a small flask of white liquid.
“It’s not milk,” he said. “It’s made from soaking beans in water. I know, it sounds kinda weird, but it’s really quite nice,” he said.
Bael blinked at the human. There was another long pause. “Thank you,” she said, eventually, quietly.
“No prob,” Marcel replied. He dragged a hand through his somewhat messy hair. “If you need something else, feel free to call. Ah, if you wanna beat someone up, call Avery instead. I don’t do that.”
That was funny. Bael snickered. “Yonini. I will,” she said.
Then, the human’s stomach growled.
She stared at him. He looked back. “You haven’t eaten yet?” she asked.
He smiled awkwardly. “Was just about to grab a bite, actually. As I said, let me know if you need anything. I’ll come by quickly,” he said, then turned around and began walking out.
“Eat with me?” Bael asked.
Marcel looked over his shoulder at the quiet response. Then, he gave a gentle smile. The facade dropped away from him for a second. “Sure,” he said. “I don’t mind. Be right back,” he said.
Bael watched the door shut behind him. Then she looked at her food. She didn’t eat, though. She waited until Marcel got back.
- - - - - -
Breeze sat in the forest.
It was a quiet morning. There were clouds in the sky, but no rain, yet the grass was still wet. Birds twittered, crickets chirped, and life was all around him. The young boy who’d lived for centuries took a deep breath.
Should he kill himself?
That was the question that he thought of, legs dangling below him on a branch. It was a quiet, contemplative question. He’d hurt so many people that they’d build a wall, just to keep him out, and yet he walked back into that city.
He shouldn’t even be alive. He was a reanimated corpse. He didn’t remember who he was before resurrecting. That person was gone entirely. All that Breeze was was a shell. A dull husk of a person that may, at some point, have had an internal world. Wishes and desires and a life of potential.
Now, he was a murderer. A murderer destined to be forever trapped in the body of a child, with the heart of a storm.
Another deep breath. Air passed into his lungs, even though he had no need to breathe. The wind filled his chest. The soft sound of water dripping down leaves and onto the soft earth filled his ears. The forest was alive, and it was beautiful in its own way. Breeze breathed, and thought it over, and decided to live.
No, he couldn’t forgive himself. Not for now, and maybe not for a while. Breeze felt guilty. He had, without a doubt, ruined lives. He looked onto the horizon, far, far away, to that windswept hill. From where he sat, he couldn’t even see it. It was that far away. A hill where a storm perpetually raged. A burial ground for people that had been taken by the wind.
People he had picked up and ran with to play, people whose bodies had snapped at the first moment of that motion. Shattered limbs laid upon windswept grass. It was a beautiful hill, he remembered. A beautiful hill where their bodies laid like broken dolls, where he had buried them in tall grass.
Slowly, Breeze sighed.
It was so human to mourn. Was it his place to mourn the people he killed? Was that disrespectful to their families? It could not be fair of him to feel sad for the wrongs he did.
Ah. Maybe it was. He sighed again, burying his head in his hands. It was so hard. Feeling was so hard. Remembering was so hard, and yet he did not want to forget for a moment.
This was his burden to bear, his unforgivable crime. The truth of the storm, the truth of the wind. Humans were so fragile, so maybe if he mourned them enough, he’d be worthy of forgiveness. Maybe, if someone forgave him, things could be alright. Never the same as before, never, but maybe alright.
After all, he had accidentally killed people he considered worth saving. People he’d wanted to be friends with. And what could be worse than killing one’s own friends?
Breeze found it unforgivable. And yet, he lived on. As a husk, selfishly, hoping against hope that he might find something to fill that hole some day.
He sobbed. He cursed. He screamed his frustrations out into the world, and the wind rustled the treetops in a sudden gust. He had to do something. To move? To move.
A storm rose in the forest. It swept across Stormbraver within a moment, brushing by like a passing thought, leaving the city as it was. The wind roared through the sky brushing aside the clouds, and screaming its frustrations to the spilling sunshine. Breeze mourned, even as rays of golden light coloured the cobblestone.
He moved, he raged, and he sought solace. He had to find someone to talk to. A friend. Something, anything. Breeze rushed, searching, and he found who he needed to find.
- - - - - -
Outside of Stormbraver, Ruvah sat at the lake. His body was made from a thin sheet of ice, assuming the form of a small humanoid. The proportions were those of an adult, and yet shrunk down to a smaller size.
His feet dangled in the water of the lake. He looked up into the cloudy sky, and smelled the rain that hung in the air. It was thick with humidity, with tiny droplets of water that he couldn’t quite see, and yet feel so distinctly. The air was so much closer to him than usual, he smiled.
It was a calm, beautiful day, and Ruvah was happy to do nothing more than sit at the lake.
Stagnation was death. That was still a truth. Yet, Stormbraver was one of those places, where people came and went like a river. There were always new faces to meet, new things happening. The sky would darken with rain, and then Mercury would drag some wet sop to them who needed rinsing.
Ruvah liked it. For the first time in their life there was no immediate need to seek something out. Change came to him. Change came almost naturally, almost easily. He looked at the sky, and watched the clouds part in a gust of wind, watched the surface of the lake stir at its touch.
Ripples spread across the water, in the same way they did when rain fell. All night, the water had splashed. Even now, the rivers feeding the lake, and those drawing from it, ran higher than usual.
It was funny. Ruvah was named after those rivers, and now he sat where they met with a simple lake. One that had fish living inside of it that he sometimes fished out. It was easy to make a living in Stormbraver. Just a little magic was all it took.
Help some people freeze their produce, and they happily gave Ruvah a place to stay. He didn’t need much more than that. The water from the lake was more than enough food.
Still, he missed the wide, sweeping infinity he had grown up with, sometimes. The oceans were vast and unfathomable. They had currents that could drag you away into another world entirely within moments. That was not the same here in Stormbraver.
Granted, there were people here who could do that, Mercury chief among them. Ruvah knew about his inner world. They’d talked about it before. In fact, the water elemental was rather excited to meet Arber once the time was right. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
Then, the wind picked up more.
Ruvah tilted his head. The angry gale played with the crystals of ice that condensed out of the air around him, ringing them like windchimes. Tiny bell sounds that surrounded Ruvah. They seemed… sad, somehow.
He watched the wind spiral across the surface of the lake, pulling up a spray of water and leaves and grass in its wake. It trailed up into the sky, piercing the clouds, and came crashing back down, dragging a trial of condensation behind it.
Tilting his head even further, Ruvah assumed one of his favourite shapes, that of a mopaaw, and walked forwards.
The wind raged across the empty lake, no one sailing upon it yet. Water droplets scattered and flew, and the wind coursed. Underneath Ruvah’s feet, the water froze, building a bridge across that water, the ice waving slightly in the wind.
Step by step, Ruvah moved closer to the heart of the gale, to where it raged. Waves bounced against the fragile surface they stood on, but that was fine. If need be, Ruvah could do a lot more than simply freeze a bridge.
So, he walked. Further and further, until one moment to the next, the gale stopped.
Instead, there was a boy.
He had short, blonde hair, that hung in the air around his head, and reddened, emerald eyes, glistening with tears. He stood there, staring at the water elemental, crying with indignation. “Come ON! Can I not be angry in peace?!” he demanded.
Ruvah found that curious. He just watched the kid, and took another step closer.
“I’ll hurt you damn it!” the boy raged. “I’ll- I’ll-!!”
There were no words leaving his mouth. Wasn’t that curious? Humans were so bizarre to Ruvah. They went on and on about what they would do and never did it. They lied so easily, it came almost as naturally as breathing. Was it so hard to be honest with oneself? Was it so hard to simply acknowledge when things weren’t working?
The water elemental stepped closer, only a few steps from the boy. Somehow, the words died in the kid’s throat. Ruvah watched his mouth open and close, over and over again, like a fish underwater, but not a single sound came out. What a bizarre human.
Another step, and then Ruvah heard it.
Inside the boy raged a storm.
Smiling, the elemental stepped forward again. This wasn’t a human at all. How curious! There really was no boring day in Stormbraver. Listening to the howling of the winds, chilling against his icy membrane, Ruvah stepped closer yet. The child wasn’t human, and yet, so very human-like.
Perhaps it was not humans who were weird. Perhaps it was just people.
Only a few steps now, the boy’s face was stricken with panic. “No,” he whispered. “No, you can’t, you’ll break. You can’t, you’ll die. I’ll kill you. No, no,” he said. He tried to step back, but he couldn’t. The boy, in his own panic, was stuck.
Ruvah tilted his head the other way. He didn’t particularly feel like he was going to die. The wind chimed his crystals, letting them ring as he took another step. It was cold. But also, he was made from ice, so he really did not mind too much.
When he took another step, the kid flinched and pressed his eyes shut, unwilling to see what would happen. Ruvah stepped forward again, and once more time, until he was right in front of the boy. The crystals chimed. The water elemental grew, until his feline face was level with that of the boy.
Ruvah gently tapped his snout against the boy’s cheek, freezing his streaming tears.
“... Eh?” Breeze said, opening his eyes.
“Nice to meet you,” Ruvah said cheerily, his voice a rumbling purr. “I’m Ruvah.”
“Eh?” Breeze repeated. “You’re…”
“Ruvah,” the elemental repeated.
Breeze blinked. “Not dead,” he said.
At that, the icy cat gave a snicker. “That too,” he said.
Again, the boy blinked. Then looked at the feline. The himself, hovering above the water. Ruvah took another step forward, pressing his head against the kid’s chest. Breeze blinked. It was cold. A soft, dull, numbing cold. Like fresh snowfall.
The kind that blanketed the world and turned it all a little more quiet. The kind that wrapped around the ground like a heavy blanket of stillness. Ice blossomed from the centre of the lake, water freezing in hexagonal, crystalline patterns, out from Breeze’s feet.
He breathed.
Gently, cold air entered Breeze’s lungs. Slowly, despite himself, he reached out. His hand found Ruvah’s head, feeling the facsimile of fur constructed from thin strands of ice. His hand, slowly, sank into it.
Ruvah nudged him with his head, making Breeze sit down on the sheet of ice atop the water. Somehow, the ice was soft. The giant feline laid down next to him, laying his head in the boy’s lap.
Breeze sobbed. Soft drops of water landed on the elemental’s fur and froze into ice. “I-” he stuttered, paused, sniffled. “I’m Breeze.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Breeze,” Ruvah said. “Is this usually how you say hello to people?”
At that, the boy laughed. It was a bright, wrenching whistle of a noise, and ended as soon as it started. “No,” he sobbed. “No, not usually.”
“That’s okay, too,” Ruvah said calmly. “People are unusual, after all.”
The boy cried for a long while after that.
- - - - - -
Mercury sat in the middle of his room.
There was something to meditate on, so he had his eyes closed, and focused. There was noise outside. Windchimes and howling gales, but he ignored them for now. Not every single problem was one he could solve. In fact, his problems had a habit of delivering themselves to his doorstep. So, maybe, he’d just wait for express delivery, instead of seeking them out.
No, there was something else. Since breaking through the third veil, it had been on the tip of his tongue, metaphorically. It was… “What is it?” he asked himself.
And the <Answer> found its way there.
Mercury knew it was <Intuition>. The Skill had been with him since the very beginning, and it had never reached level seven. Because he’d been missing something. Skills capped when they were ready to evolve. Most Skills reached that naturally, just through levelling up. Not so for <Intuition>.
Now, he had the key, and the Skill was starting to look like a solved lock. Mercury breathed. He sunk into ihn’ar, letting his mind relax and expand to understand the world he found himself in. He broke the veils, the falsehoods, and found the truths behind them. He saw the interconnectedness of a fragile, irrational reality. He saw the strings, and the way they moved and shifted.
It was so vast and wide, his mind was not yet ready to view it forever, but a short glimpse was more than doable. It was all that was needed, of course. Just a glimpse, not a permanent activation.
A million strings, sinking into the ether. Linking every creature, every place, every inantimate object in an intricate tapestry of interaction. Someone breathed out and that carbon dioxide fed a plant there, and that plant would eventually be ground into a paste to cure someone else’s sickness, and that person would then talk with a hundred more people.
The web was, in all meanings, infinite. Mercury himself had thousands of strings attached to him. Every door he’d ever opened, every table he’d ever set in, every blade of grass he’d listened to and every breath he’d taken. Each raindrop he conjured, each friend he made, each thing he cared about was there.
Writ into the truth of the world as clearly as his own dreams. As vivid as a sheet of gold, as legible as black ink on white paper. The connection was as much tapestry as it was a list. It was a matter of perspective, really.
And it rippled. With every action, ever reaction, it rippled and spread. The vast web of strings that encompassed every single decision anyone had ever made, that encompassed every minute interaction between two things that existed, would tremor faintly with each new thing that occured.
It resonated when Mercury breathed. It wove a string between Ruvah and Breeze as they talked. One between Bael and Marcel that thickened as they ate together. It creaked as Mercury stretched on the bed, in the way that he shifted on the mattress, in the way his fur stirred the air.
And it was beautiful.
[<Intuition> has levelled up! <Intuition lv. 6 -> 7>]
[<Intuition> has met the necessary qualifications for evolution. Evolve? (700 Skill points)]
“Yes,” Mercury anwswered.
[Evolution confirmed. Engaging.]
There was only one option he had unlocked. And that was okay. He was almost sure he already knew what it would say.
[The individual has acquired the Skill <Tapestry> through Skill evolution!]
[<Tapestry>: Every interaction is a piece in a story, and every moment in time builds more connections. Read the strings of interaction, feel their tremors, and learn to shape them to your goals. There is no fate, there is no destiny. There is only you, the choices you make, and the destination they lead to. Choose your destination, not your destiny.]
He smiled, even as he saw the points dissolve in the wind. <Tapestry>. It was a mostly passive skill, though if he broke the white veil, there was most certainly an active component. It would let him have more agency in his fate, pulling certain connections closer, or pushing others away.
But, most of all, it gave him knowledge. Of things that were approaching, of things that might benefit him, in the same way that <Intuition> had done. After all, none of the other Skill’s functionality was lost. It was simply subsumed into an even greater thing.
With his new Skill, Mercury looked at the immense web of connectivity that described everything in the entire world - multiple worlds, even - and found a single truth in it.
People, all of them, really are very silly.
He snickered at the revelation, then went downstairs to eat with Zyl. Time passed. Trouble would find him when it did, anyway, and so, for now, he simply lived. Breathed. Enjoyed the sensation of magic, and the revelation right at his pawpads.
He’d reach out and pluck the stars from the sky soon.
2025-07-03 03:49:22 +0000 UTC
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