Kernoel77

Chapter 152: The Future

After my establishment of an accord, I awoke groggily, in a soft bed in the temple. Liam sat by my side, slightly hunched in a chair, but his piercing eyes trained on mine.

I blinked away the bleary remnants of sleep. Every part of me was sore. No, that was wrong. It wasn’t every part of me that was sore - it was one specific part that I couldn’t quite identify. A pulling kind of soreness, like overeating and overexercising all at once. It felt stuffy and cramped.

Liam looked at me, and I met his gaze. “You gonna say anything, Fio?” he asked, whisper-quiet, and sharp as a knife.

Ah. Oops. 

No words came to me in the single moment he spared for me to think of a reply. So, instead, I just twisted my lips into an awkward smile. The kind I always put on when asking forgiveness rather than permission.

Our rogue gave a terribly soft sight, then reached to the bedside table. There was a glass of water. “Drink,” he said. “You’ve only been out for a few hours. We didn’t know how long it’d be. I got first shift.”

My hand shook a bit as I took the glass from him. That kinda surprised me. I did not expect any negative consequences, but then again, it was a little like surgery. Liam watched me as I gulped down the liquid, first hesitantly, scared of messing up my parched throat, then greedily. He handed me a second glass after the first.

“Y’know,” he said, while I was drinking, “I’m almost jealous of you, Fio.”

It was so quiet, but it made me listen more closely. “Huh?” I asked, my voice rough and hoarse. It’d recover to elegance soon enough, but my first words sounded a little like they were sang by a barber quartet of frogs.

Liam eyed me for another long moment. “You get surgery to become a cool half-goddess, enhancing your interdimensional self with the ability to grant others power for their improvement of the world,” he said. “That’s so gender. Meanwhile I just got my boobs removed.”

I snort, breaking out into laughter, and Liam cracked a smile.

“Now don’t get me wrong,” he added, “the boobs bothered me a lot. But dang it, when do I get shapeshifting, huh? It’s downright unfair. Give me your gateway.”

Laughing some more, I felt my lungs hitch. I broke into a cough for a moment, doubling over hacking and spluttering for a few moments. Then I laughed some more. Liam didn’t quite join me, but the half-joke was intended to cheer me up. I did entirely believe him on the whole “wanting to shapeshift” part.

“Thanks,” I said, my voice finally back to its usual smoothness. “I needed that.”

He smiled, faintly, leaning back in his chair. “I imagined you would,” he said, stretching like an old cat. Then, he looked at me again. “You’re lucky you woke up to me. Matt looked ready to stab you.”

I grimaced. “He would.”

“Stab you?” Liam raised an eyebrow.

“No,” I shook my head. “He would want to stab me.” I smiled. “How about you? Not angry?”

He shrugged. “Nah. It’s cool.” That’s all he said.

I looked at him for another long moment, smiling just a bit. “Thanks for understanding,” I said. “You gonna head back to Neamhan, then?” 

Smirking at me, the rascal checked his wrist, acting as if there was a watch there. “Oh, not quite yet. But I do have a shift scheduled, see, there’s this cute girl I haven’t kissed in a few hours. You’d know things about girlkissing, right?”

Again, I snickered. “You’re silly, Liam.”

“Girlkisser,” he chided me. 

I summoned a facsimile newspaper roll out of Qi to bonk him on the head with, but he effortlessly shifted out of the way, dissolving into a mass of liquid shadow, before reintegrating into a human shape. “Too slow,” he teased, then winked at me, pulled his mask higher on his face, and dipped out of the room.

As a formless shadow, slithering underneath the door.

Sighting softly, I got out, tossing aside the blankets. A quick application of Qi saw me wreathed in a protective sheath of it, keeping my clothes safe and sound beneath a faint, glassy golden armor. Then I stepped forward, and teleported.

The whole world was a [Hall of Mirrors], and every reflection was a heartbeat away.

The moment my step ended - no, that wasn’t right. Before my step even completed, the very second my foot had left the ground, I was already in a different place. The shunt was so instantaneous, bereft of any real movement, that I almost stumbled.

Very graciously, Emilia quickled caught me, keeping me on my feet as the brief moment of dizziness passed over me. She grinned brightly. “Why, princess, should I be the one to stop you from falling for me?”

I rolled my eyes. “Sadly, I am into elegant mages. Shining armor is too glaring for my delicate eyes.”

She laughed, loudly, then patted me on the shoulder. “Glad to have you back on your feet. Heard you made a whole pact. Special snowflake.”

“Ugh, you’re gonna make me groan,” I grumbled. “I just made sure we had the kinda baseline we already should have had. Now, Ann and Marie can keep up. It’s only fair.”

“Did she put you up to this?” Emilia asked, raising an eyebrow.

An awkward smile spread on my face. “She may have suggested it.”

“Sure, she only threatened to burn you to ash if you didn’t get her access to more mana, right?” Emilia grinned. “Mages, right? We martial types are all completely normal.”

At that, my eyes flickered to Matt. He’d changed his clothes, but there were still a bunch of shallow cuts underneath. “What?” he asked. I stared. Then, he shook his head. “No, surely you’re not accusing me of weirdness. There has never been any shenaniganery afoot in my surroundings.”

Then, he couldn’t keep up the facade, and gave me a light smile. “Seriously Fio. Don’t scare me like that.”

“Rats have small hearts, they can explode from stress,” Emilia helpfully provided, eliciting a groan from Eric.

Eric.

The mousey man stood off to the side, not quite fitting in with the group. I looked at him for a long moment, and he couldn’t quite meet my eyes. “Good to have you back,” he muttered quietly, before Emilia wrapped her arm around his head, making him tumble into a half-hug.

“C’mon, doofus. You can say that with a bit more spirit, can’t ya?” she chided, smiling brightly. “Stop cowering already, jeez. You’ve been all mopey for the entire thing. Would it kill ya to smile for once?”

At that, there was a soft snort from Reya, who quickly covered her mouth with a hand, shaking slightly. Eric looked at her and his eyes turned a bit softer. He quickly managed to weasel out of Emilia’s arm-lock, somehow, and dusted off his robes, attempting to appear graceful. 

Then, he plastered a smile on his face that was only half-fake and turned to me. He gave me a bow. “Thank you-”

I whacked him on the head with my facsimile newspaper role. It crumpled in on itself even just from the gentle tap, but it made him stop in his tracks. “Just treat me normally, jeez,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s good to be awake. Yes, we’ll get along. You don’t owe me an apology or any grand thanks. Your sister kept herself plenty safe. Okay?”

He blinked. For a second, he just stared at me. I raised the crumpled newspaper roll again, and his lips curled into a genuine smile. “Alright. God it,” he said with a quick nod. 

Slowly, bit by bit, the excitement tapered off. They asked me what exactly my new power was, since apparently, the divines had been sparse. I explained exactly what I knew; that I would be able to work as an altar interface on Neamhan. 

But, with that done, I’d slept away the night. It was morning again, so it would be time for them to return to Neamhan - though it was evening there. The time desync did sometimes end up causing what was effectively jetlag, but well. My friends weren’t exactly normal humans. They’d be fine.

Rae left first, with a quick not, and a pat on the shoulder. “You’re doing good,” he said. “And you will continue to do so. See you on the other side.”

Liam and Reya were off rather quickly, both giving me quick hugs before darting through the portal. The latter also had a slightly longer signed conversation with Eric. Then it was Matt. 

He also hugged me, though he said a bit more. “I’ll keep everyone safe on the other side, don’t worry.”

A small smile spreads on my lips. “You sure? Leave some of the protecting to Ann, or she’ll light you on fire.”

“Hah! She would, yeah. I’ll tell her hi from you, and all that. See you… not soon, but soon enough, yeah?” 

I nodded, then patted him on the shoulder. “See you soon, bestie. Rat.”

He snickered. “See you soon, Fio.”

And then, they were all gone. Me, Eric, and Emilia. “You should’ve picked a name that starts with E, too, Fio,” Emilia noted, and I snorted for a second.

“There’s still one thing for me to do, actually,” I noted, and activated an ability.

“And what would that b- Oh my god what the Fuck is that?!!” Eric started, then screeched as my skin rippled like glass and an identical copy of me crawled out of that gateway. 

Emilia laughed as he jumped behind her for protection. Ion looked at me, then at the scared cleric. She grinned. “What? Never seen a corpse transported across dimensions to be infinitely reanimated in order to fight my other selves’ battles?”

He blinked at her. “Huh?” he asked.

Ion leaned forward, grinning ferally. “I’m saying I’m a lot more hardcore than the Fio you know, Eric. There’s a world out there in which I stabbed you to death, y’know, and-”

I smacked her on the head with my facsimile newspaper roll, too, immediately destroying the gravitas of the moment. “Shush, you,” I said. “Stop scaring the poor guy.”

She, or, well, I, rolled her eyes, and let Astraeus vanish from her hands. “Fine, fine,” she said. Then she looked at me. “Am I being sent on a fetch quest?”

“Yeah, you get to meet Ann,” I said. “You should work as an altar to spend contribution at.”

At that, she blinked. “How, uh,” she started, then paused. “Do I like… smooch her? Are we-”

“Oh,” I said, helpfully, as the implications clicked. “Do you, uh, want to?”

“This is a very good question. I’m not equipped to answer at all,” she replied.

“We do share memories,” I noted.

She gave a quick nod. “Except for the deaths. We compartmentalize those, right?” 

I blinked. “Right, absolutely,” I said. “So. Ann.”

“Yes. Ann,” she said.

There was a long pause in the conversation. Then, slowly, I had an idea, and smiled. “Actually,” I said. “This might be our first chance ever to do another first date. You lucky girl.”

Ion looked at me for a long moment, then wiped at her eyes. “Uh,” she said, then nodded. “Yeah, uh. You’re right. Thanks. That’s a good idea, I think. I might like that.”

With that whole debacle cleared up, I smiled brightly, then pushed her towards the gateway. “Alright, then. Go get ‘er. If she’s cool with it, of course, y’know. Do you wanna use your name, or mine?” 

“Mine,” she said. “I don’t wanna lie to her, y’know?”

“I know,” I replied, snickering. “I know-”

“Everything I know,” she said. “I know. Ugh. This is so much more complicated than stabbing things.”

At that, I laughed. “Luckily, it’s no longer my problem. It’s yours now. Good luck!” And with that, the me that was not me stepped through the gateway. Onto a first date, and onto the very first step to saving Neamhan. I smiled, feeling a tingle of butterflies at the prospects in the future. My hand unconsciously clenched around Astraeus, and I turned to Iryel.

“So, what do you need of us?” I asked.

He smiled. “To save a world, of course. Or,” he eyed the gateway, “two, I suppose.”

Chapter 254: Forgiveness

Chapter 254: Forgiveness

“Hey Marcel!” Avery said, giving a bright smile. He was holding his left arm in his right hand, using the torn-off appendage to wave at his friend.

The receptionist, for his part, looked at the guild master with a less than excited expression. “You’re splattering blood all over the floor.”

“Ah, dang,” Avery said, pausing. He quickly shifted his grip in the arm, so that the blood would stay inside the appendage, rather than flow out. “Can you, uh, stitch it back on? We’ll call Mercury to clean the blood off the floor, shouldn’t be too much trouble for him, right?”

Marcel stared at him. With a long, long sigh, he opened up the door to the guild master’s office. “Come in, then, you fucking morons,” he said, lighting himself another char. His eyes quickly found the rain-soaked demon that Avery had dragged in, like a wet dog being excited about a particularly fun stick. Or maybe bringing in a bear. “You’re our newest stray?” he asked.

The demon lord, Bael, who has subjugated all of Arterus with an iron fist, ruler of the 72 demon cities, braver of the ocean depths, liberated champion of gluttony… nodded in defeat. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I guess I am.”

“You sound tired,” Marcel said, taking a deep pull from the char. “Need a bed?”

“... Yeah.”

Nodding quietly, the receptionist threw him a towel. “Get yourself dried off. You can crash on the couch while I stitch up Avery, then we’ll show you the guest rooms. Don’t wreck anything, and we’ll get along just fine,” he said. Then, he glanced at the guild master, who was still holding his disattached arm. “... Mostly fine,” Marcel corrected.

Following his directions, the demon did just that. Bael folded his wings behind his back, and sat down on the plush couch in the office. It looked… lived in. There were cups still on the small coffee table, having gone cold. There was an entire shelf of sweet bread, dotted in raisins, as well as a few monster parts placed around. One or two made his stomach rumble, but it would be rude to eat someone’s trophy, so Bael just laid down, draping a hand over his eyes.

Marcel, for his part, already had medical supplies on him. After all, he’d rather expected Avery to get hurt. Maybe not this hurt, though.

Sighing softly, he took the arm into his hands, disinfected it with a quick spell, then pressed it against the still open wound, making Avery wince. The guild master had really rather high vitality, so he could, of course, regrow a limb, but it would take time and energy. Reattaching it was just more efficient.

With deft, practiced motions, Marcel used another healing spell to hold some of the internal flesh in place. Then, he stitched the skin together, making sure the arm was properly attached. He picked up a level in <Treatment>, too, which was nice.

Still, it was a dirty, insufficient job. Not even high vitality could heal blood vessels that were out of alignment. So, this was where the delicate part came in. The stitches really were just a temporary attachment. Marcel sat down next to Avery, held his hands over the wound, and chanted.

White-yellow magic coursed across his hands, manifesting tiny spell-circles inside the flesh of Avery. A pale glow suffused the torn flesh. The circles were small, arranged above blood vessels and nerves, reconnecting them, making sure matching parts found each other. Sinew and ligament found one another, attaching and repairing the shoulder joint. Arteries reattached, letting blood flow through the arm. 

When the nerves reattached, Avery yelped. Marcel quickly cast a numbing spell. It wouldn’t be that… painful, per-se, but it would be a horribly awkward feeling to have one’s nerves writhing around inside one’s flesh. So, it was easier if the guild master just sat still.

Marcel wasn’t even a proper healer, so he couldn’t close the wound up fully, but he didn’t really need to. Avery’s vitality was so high, and he had regenerative Skills of his own. All Marcel needed to do was cast a couple heals, and let the guild master’s body take care of the rest. That didn’t mean he enjoyed the process.

Too many people around him had recently gotten hurt. His healing Skills decidedly weren’t meant to level that fast. When Stormbraver had been rebuilt, the medic work was some of the most miserable he’d ever done. Even worse than being a receptionist. Stitching people up all day, and worst of all, levelling from it.

The truth was that Marcel wanted people to be healthy and happy. Truly, how sick and twisted of him. Wanting Avery to stop getting his arm torn off.

“Hey, Marcel, I think you’re squeezing me a little tightly,” Avery said with a half-smile, half-grimace.

Quickly, the receptionist sighed, and stopped channelling the spell. His employer’s flesh had already mostly mended. His skin still sported a bit of a scar, but knowing Avery, that, too, would fade. Marcel pulled the stitches back out.

“You brought him in,” the healer said, nodding towards the demon. “You show him the rooms.”

“Nooooo,” Avery protested weakly. “I am grievously hurt, Marcel. You must do this task for me. Please.”

Staring at the dramatician, Marcel smiled, closing his eyes in a kind, gentle way. “Oh, sure. Then you’ll get Mercury, right? Trek through the rain again and drag that mopaaw here to clean up your mess? You wouldn’t make me do that, too?”

Avery blinked. He took a long moment. Sighing, he went to his desk, grabbed a pair of replacement sunglasses, put them on his face, then nodded at Marcel. “I’ll show Bael around. I’ll leave the cleanup to you.”

Marcel sighed, taking another puff of his char. “Same as always, asshole.”

- - - - - -

Mercury had been trying to sleep. He really had. It wasn’t something he needed, per se, but it was still something he enjoyed, sometimes. So, when the street around him was filled with the loud crashes of combat, he had been rather annoyed.

Now, of course, he couldn’t fall asleep anymore. One of his zeyjn was on the awake shift, the others practicing their weaving and magic in the dream realm. So, when someone knocked at his door in the middle of the night, Mercury heard it.

He sighed, endlessly softly, into the fabric of the Storm's Raiment. The drifting clouds around his neck swallowed up the noise, reducing it to silence. Mercury cloaked himself in his <Veil>, slipping out from Zyl’s hug, and slinked down the staircase with <Soft Steps>.

[<Soft Steps> has levelled up! <Soft Steps 2 -> 3>]

The kitchen looked almost sinister in the darkness, vague shapes seeming to hide thin threats. Except, of course, Mercury could sense the shadows, and so, the darkness hid nothing from him. With <Greater Perception> he could also hear the faint breathing behind the door, and even take a pretty good guess of who it was.

With a single, swift application of <Force of the Hecatoncheires>, he manifested a ghostly hand of invisible power, and pulled open the planks of wood that separated the domicile from the outside. “Come in, Marcel,” he said.

Smiling faintly, the receptionist did just that, wringing some rain out of his hair. “I got soaked again,” he bemoaned, his usual bright blonde turned drab by the water. 

Mercury snickered a little. “Yes, and now you’re spilling mud all over my kitchen,” the mopaaw bemoaned.

“As if it takes you more than a moment to clean,” Marcel said with a smile.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mercury sighed, calling on <Rainfall>. A brief gust of wind and cleaning rain fell around him, washing away the grime and mud, carrying it outside in one swift moment, leaving the floor clean. “So, what brings you here?”

Marcel smiled crookedly. “Well,” he said. “Avery got his arm cut off-”

“Huh?” Mercury asked, wide-eyed.

“-and spilled blood all over the gloryhall. He’s asked me to fetch you to clean it.”

Mercury blinked. Then, he stared at the receptionist for a long moment. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Not so,” Marcel shook his head. “Will you help us solve this grave problem, put the people’s hearts at ease? It’d be really rather troublesome if there were too many questions in the morning.

For a long moment, Mercury just stared at the younger man. Then, he let out a long sigh. “Sure,” he said, pulling open the door again. The pitter-patter of the rain on the cobblestones filled the air with noise. “But you gotta tell me how Avery lost his arm.”

Marcel smiled, stepped outside, and found that not a single raindrop reached his head, all of them being warded aside by the Storm’s Raiment. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know too much. Just that he then proceeded to drag some sort of demon into the gloryhall, who seemed a little upset with life in general.”

Walking casually forward, Mercury nodded along. “I see. Perhaps it would be best to keep me away from this demon,” he noted.

“I’m not even gonna ask,” Marcel said with a shake of his head.

Mercury laughed slightly. The two walked on, mostly in comfortable silence. The night was dark and full of clouds, but it was also, somehow, peaceful.

- - -

Mercury cloaked himself in his <Veil> while cleaning, hoping to avoid being seen by Bael. He thought that, perhaps, right now, the demon wouldn’t wanna see him. So, he did his job quickly, heading in and then out, back into the rain. The godseekers were largely decent people, so hopefully, Bael would get a bit of a calming experience, there.

For his own, he just stood amidst the rainfall for a little while. There was something so very peaceful about a quiet night, raindrops falling on cobbled streets, sliding down into the city’s sewers. It smelled of fresh rainfall, with none of the thick stench of car exhausts that he was often used to back on Earth.

Mercury closed his eyes, walking through the city using only his dim awareness of shadows to guide him. His footsteps were quiet and easy, suffocated by the falling rain. It was serene. If a little lonely.

The wind brushed him by, for a moment, running through his fur and sending it whipping through the air.

It was rather cold, but Mercury didn’t mind that at all. Instead, he just kept walking. Past the smithy of Yasashiku, past his own house, following the scent of the rain. Something tingled at the edge of his awareness, something magical.

What was it?

A thin string that beckoned him forward. A dim knowledge… ah. <Intuition>. Seems like it grew a little from his breaking the third veil. The Skill had been stuck at level six for a long while, so he suspected it might evolve at level seven. Amusingly, his <Intuition> told him that that threshold was approaching rapidly.

How silly. A skill that gave him a premonition of its own evolution.

Silently, he followed that thin connection through the soaked streets, rain streaking off his cloak and hood, never sticking to his fur. He walked until he reached the city gates, then looked upwards. There, high above him, on the wall, sat a figure.

The shadows played quietly on the ground, cast by the faint light of the moon. Breeze sat high on the stone plinths, the boy, storm incarnate, dangling his legs over the egde, looking down at Mercury. He smiled, faintly. “Come up, come up, Biso!” he called.

Next to him was a young woman, wearing a dress of leaves. Her hair was snow-white and her eyes green like the grass. Alice, the inhuman heroine, waved at him. She didn’t speak, instead just waiting for him to come up by himself.

Sighing faintly, the mopaaw resigned himself to his fate. The Storm’s Raiment unfurled behind his back for the first time, forming ethereal wings of snowy clouds, frying at the edges, a little like his own fur. It was strange. He could almost feel them as part of him, since the item was bonded to him, yet it was also so distinctly different from himself.

He smiled a little at the bizarre feeling, then let the wings that sprouted from his cloak beat once. The movement lifted him off the ground, throwing him upwards into the air, hurtling higher. He flapped them again, carrying himself above the stoney grey of the walls, casting his gaze over the landscape, shrouded in fog and enveloped by moonlight.

It was beautiful. 

The rain slid off his wings with each drop, falling to the ground without ever touching him. Some of the droplets even fell right through the cloudy wings, as if they weren’t even there at all. For a small moment, Mercury just hovered amidst the storm. Wind and rain and moonlight brushed against him, as if an invitation by the world to be free, to breathe.

He listened, and landed gently on the city walls, looking out over the vastness in front of him.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Alice asked. Her voice was as soft as ever, and yet, the wind carried it across the air so clearly, as if bewitched by her tone.

“It’s so empty,” Breeze grumbled. Somehow, the child that was a storm given shape didn’t like the vast openness, instead preferring to be around people. Despite everything, the boy liked the city. Even when he went to “rescue” people from there.

He was, after all, a child.

“Both can be true,” Mercury said with a smile. After all, he loved adventuring. Setting out into the unknown by himself. But he also enjoyed cities, being around people. There was something nice about both.

Alice smiled. “See, I told you inviting him was a good idea.”

“Of course it was,” Breeze rolled his eyes. “Biso is fun. He gets it. Not like you. Loner.”

The heroine laughed at that, a quiet, calm laughter that rang above the city. 

Mercury looked at the silly pair. “Why’d you ask me to come?” 

“We didn’t, really,” Alice said with a shrug. “We simply gathered, and you knew we wanted your company.”

“You get me,” Breeze said. “You understand in a way even Alice doesn’t.”

At that, the girl rolled her eyes. “Oh, shush. You still like me better,” she said, smiling.

“True,” Breeze replied calmly. “But that’s different.”

Mercury sat down on one of the rising battlements at the edge of the wall, looking out over the world. The rain turned the pale stone a dark hue, standing as a tall silhouette in the night. From up here, he could see so far. “Why were you sitting here?” he asked.

“Just hanging out,” Breeze said, dangling his legs over the edge. “Just talking.”

“Listening,” Alice added. “We were listening to the world.”

Tilting his head, Mercury tried to do the same. Listening to the world. Almost by itself, the curtains parted, the veils falling aside. The golden veil of reason, the iridescent veil of reality, and the white veil of separation. Each one fell to the wayside, although the last of them needed a push.

The world was revealed in all the wonderful wholeness that he knew. Each and every thing was interconnected, strings of familiarity blanketing everything in a gilded, magical gossamer web. It was beautiful. And he knew why he belonged.

Slowly, he looked at Breeze. “Tonight?” he asked, his voice shaking slightly.

Smiling sadly, the young boy looked at him. “Tonight,” he nodded. “It’s been building for a while, hasn’t it? With you around, I can’t help but see the <Truth>. The honest truth. That…” the kid choked on his words. His face was awash with rain, streaking down his cheeks. “That I’m dead. That I’m a killer. And that the Thing that killed me,” he said, pointing towards the gloryhall, “is right there.”

Mercury drew in a hissing breath. The spirit of the boy finally saw things as they were, then. That he was a shadow of a human who wanted to escape. A shadow of a corpse, risen again. A storm, pushing breath, pushing life into a dead body that just wanted to run. Run with the wind.

“You know it, then?” he asked.

“I know it,” Breeze replied. “I knew it the moment that… Bael walked into Stormbraver. The moment he knocked on your door.”

Slowy, Mercury nodded. He let the kid have his moment.

“How did you come to terms with being a murderer, Biso?” Breeze asked, quietly.

Ah. That was a troublesome question. He took a deep breath, then gave a small sigh, and talked. 

“I never did,” Mercury said. “And I hope I never do. Being a murderer… well, it’s accurate. I have killed, after all. But it’s not part of my identity, not part of who I am. I have murdered people. I am not a murderer,” he said.

Breeze took a long moment, then huffed slightly. “You’ve killed in self defence, right? Not like me,” the boy shook his head. “Not like me. I killed because I thought I was doing the right thing. Thought I was saving people. And now they lay there,” he said, looking into the distance. Somewhere out there, there was a stormswept hill, full of corpses. “Dead. A hill of corpses, of my making.”

“I forgive you,” Mercury said.

The boy turned to him, face twisted in anger and confusion. “Huh?” he said. “Huh?!” he demanded. “What gives you that right, Biso? What gives you–” 

“Sit down,” Mercury said. Breeze looked at his own feet, noting that he was standing on the side of the wall. His feet only a single step away from that abyss. He looked at Mercury, stiff and unmoving. “There is nothing that gives me the right,” the mopaaw continued. “But it’s true. I’m not angry at you for this. It’s a tragedy what happened. But having to live with the guilt? Not having known what you did? That was a tragedy, too.”

“Why did you never tell me?” the kid demanded.

Mercury looked at him for a long, long moment. Then, quietly, he asked. “Were you ready to hear it?”

Breeze looked at him, wet, greenish hair plastered across his childish face. Large eyes fixed on Mercury, liquid streaming down from them. Rain and tears in one messy mix. He stared at the mopaaw, then looked aside, unable to meet his gaze. “No,” he said. “I wasn’t. I’m not.”

Gently, Alice laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. It was a warm, gentle touch. He flinched for a moment, but didn’t pull away. “Breeze. Sit with me, she asked.”

Slowly, the boy looked at her. Then he sat down, legs dangled down from the crenellation - on the inside of the wall this time. For a long moment, they were quiet. For another long moment, he leaned against Alice. And then, for some time, she pulled him into a hug and stroked his hair.

“It’s alright,” she said. “It’s alright. Take as long as you need.”

The night was beautiful and full of tears.

Mercury looked at Breeze, sobbing in Alice’s arms. She whispered to him occasionally, letting him cry. Looking at the two of them, Mercury found it sad. He wished there were some words he could say to the kid to make everything okay again, but there weren’t.

People had died.

Kids had died at his hands.

There was no constellation of sounds that could make that hurt disappear. Mercury sat with the two of them for a long, long while.

“I didn’t know,” Breeze sobbed. “I didn’t know.”

Alice patted his head again, looking at him with sad eyes. “You didn’t. It happens.”

Breeze sobbed even more. “This doesn’t happen to people,” he said. “It happens to monsters.”

“You aren’t a monster,” Mercury said. “Kids can never be monsters.”

“Then why do I feel like one?!”

“Because you aren’t,” the mopaaw said. He looked for another long moment, the kid wracked with sobs. “Feeling guilt proves that you aren’t a monster. If at some point you kill someone and feel nothing… that’s when you need to worry,” Mercury replied.

Funny, then, that he felt no guilt over killing wrath. 

He sure had gotten good at declaring himself judge, jury and executioner. 

Mercury sighed softly, leaving his own lamentations to the side. There was a kid, sobbing, looking at him. “I’m… not?” Breeze asked.

Very gently, Mercury smiled. He reached out with a ghostly hand, ruffling Breeze’s hair. “No, you’re not.” It was the <Truth>. Breeze was a lot of things. He was a storm, a corpse, a killer. Mercury could change some of those, but not others. 

But he had never been a monster. He wasn’t one now. The guilt was what absolved him. “The only person who needs to forgive you is… you. Well, you could see forgiveness from the relatives of anyone you harmed, I suppose.”

“I don’t remember their faces,” Breeze choked out.

“Then only yourself,” Mercury said again.

The kid sobbed for a long while more. He did not forgive himself that night. And that was fine, too. Mercury looked up at the stars and the clouds. He thought, for a long while, about his own murders. And his guilt was carried away on a <Babbling Brook>.

He found that forgiving himself came really rather easily.

Chapter 151: To solve a Problem

I sighed, took the others once they were finished, and walked to the training hall. It was an uneventful stroll through the quiet city. People recognized us, but no one approached. Anyone who did, got shadowstepped aside by Liam.

We didn’t talk much either. I was a little angry at those two morons for interrupting what was supposed to be a joyous moment. We returned to Eden to defend this world, we used all of the resources we earned by saving people and grew stronger. My level and my stats were higher than ever. And yet.

Cass floated above my shoulder. She had her own source of Qi, now, and could permanently manifest herself, with that same glassy-grey faceless appearance. Like a half-coloured, translucent sketch in the air. “What do you think they are up to, Fio?” she asked me.

Again, I sighed. Really, it’s not so much ‘think’ as much as it is ‘know’ what they’re up to. Matt and Rae were both morons, after all. Thick-headed idiots who couldn't look past their own pride. Both of them liked me, and you’d think that’d be enough for them to get along, but both thought the other liked me the wrong way.

Maybe some part of that had changed these days, but I couldn’t imagine their conversation going well. “They’re fighting,” I told Cass. “I’m sure they are. So we’re heading to the only place around that can handle that kind of fight.”

And, as expected, when we made it to the training hall, the door had been moved. I knew it had, because otherwise, it would have been more dusty. The house still stood, somehow. Which was good.

I wrapped my hand around the door, pulling it open, and the remaining Qi washed over me like a tidal wave. It felt like a firework going off in my face - way too weak to injure me this day, but enough to hurt an unenhanced human quite a bit.

Sighing, again, I walked inside.

Matt and Rae were sprawled out on the floor. Blood coated the flat stones, new furrows carved into them. Each of the two idiots was covered in cuts and bruises and panting heavily. Matt’s hand still clutched his sword, and he struggled.

He was trying his best to get up again and stab Rae one more time. 

Meanwhile, my old teacher laid on the ground, slowly tilting his head towards the other warrior. Frowning deeply, I tapped Emilia. She nodded once, then stomped on the ground. Instantly, two chairs rose from it, forcing the two up from the floor and making them face us.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded.

Rae flinched back. First in shame, then in pain as the injuries set in. He glanced at Matt from the side, but my friend remained entirely stoic. The younger fighter looked at me. “Teaching a piece of trash a lesson,” he said.

I shook my head, holding my face in my hand. “Why are you like this?”

At that, he flashed me a radiant smile. “You know you like-”

“No, Matt, I’m very sincerely annoyed right now,” I said. He shut his mouth and furrowed his brows, almost confused. 

“What?” 

Looking at Rae, I asked him. “Why?” 

He didn’t even meet my gaze. “Matt was angry with me. I thought this would… help him deal with the anger.”

“You are two adults and the best conflict resolution you could come up with was ‘hit each other’? Are you kidding me?” I asked, crossing my arms.

Matt turned to Rae, meeting the old man’s eyes for a second then looked at me. “Fio,” he said. “What do you want me to do? I’m not gonna forget anything that happened.”

“Me neither,” Rae said, defeatedly. He looked at me, paused, then slowly took a breath. “I’m sorry he said. I’m sorry for-”

I cut him off. “Apology accepted,” I said. “And forgiven.”

“Huh?” he asked, stunned.

Matt looked at me, then frowned. “You should hear the whole thing.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t care. It’s gonna be some generic stuff.” Slowly, I turn to Rae, and take a deep breath. “I forgive you, for everything. For the way you projected your trauma onto me, for the fact that you were terrified of growing attached, for the way you tried to raise me to be cold and callous,” I said.

He just blinked. “Huh?” he repeated.

Very gently, I knocked him on the hand with my knuckles. “Stop ‘huh’ing me, old man. I know what you did.” 

Rae had lost his own party. He was afraid I’d lose mine and get hurt, so he wanted me to be self-sufficient. He was scared of losing me, so he tried to be cold and distant. He tried to keep me distant by sparring with me, by, effectively, beating me up. And it hurt. 

Every single time, it hurt. The fact that he was so childishly unloading his pain, his own experiences with loss. It wasn’t a fun experience, not at all.

But it was better than my nagging mom or alcoholic dad.

No, learning to fight wasn’t pleasant, it wasn’t easy, and I wasn’t some dumb kid. I understood what was happening, I understood what he was doing, and here we were. “Yes, it hurt. Yes, you fucked up. What, did you think I expected you to be perfect?” I asked, shaking my head. “No. You’re a mess. You got better once you got to process things, got some distance on Neamhan, but you’re a mess. Terrified, stupid, traumatized. Retiring was the best thing you ever did. Forgetting me,” I choke on the word, “was the best thing to ever happen to you.”

He looked at me, shaking.

“Because, for the first time in your life, you were able to be honest. See how hard it is, now? You took a whole fight just to say you’re sorry. People aren’t that hard, old man. I forgive you,” I repeated. 

Matt looked at me for a long moment. “Well,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “Crap.”

I glared at him.

Apologetically, he held up his hands, then winced. Reya shook her head in exasperation and went to heal him. He gave her a grateful nod, then turned to me with an awkward, crooked smile. “Sorry,” he said.

“You have to tell me what you’re sorry for,” I said, poking his forehead.

Matt grimaced, somewhat playfully, then caved in. “Fine, fine! I’m sorry for being overprotective. For going behind your back. For hurting someone you cared about.”

I looked at Rae.

He looked back at me. “I-” the words died in his throat, and he swallowed heavily. “I am also sorry for hurting someone you cared about,” he said. 

Crossing my arms, I nodded at both of them. Emilia grinned, brightly. “Now kiss,” she said. 

At that, Liam whacked her on the back of the head, and we laughed. Chris quickly swept forth a wave of water, cleaning the blood off the ground. Both of my moronic loved ones were healed by Reya, and hopefully, the lesson would stick.

I sighed, again. Rae had taught me a lot, but I did somewhat hold a grudge. Hearing him apologize meant he’d grown. I was thankful for that. Now if only my parents managed the same thing. He apologized after changing. They apologized, then never changed.

Shaking my head, I cut that thought short. After all, I was the bigger person. I would calmly give them yet another chance, in hopes that they might do better, but expecting nothing. I’d been burned too many times before. But that was fine. I was strong, after all, and I had my own support network in place.

Looking at my friends standing behind me, I gave them a bright smile. “Alright,” I said. “I’m starving. Let’s get some food?”

Emilia cheered loudly. It was good to be back in Eden.

- - -

While everyone was eating, I finished early and stepped back into the temple, with the divines. There was one final request I had off them.

‘Fio, you return so quickly,’ Hir said, somewhat confused. ‘You do not have much contribution to spend.’

Nodding, I smiled. ‘I know. You know that Ann and Marie are on Neamhan, yes?’ I asked.

Confused, the divine confirmed my question. ‘Yes? They cannot return, for their bodies here were broken. Marie’s may yet mend, in a few years, but Ann’s would need to be rebuilt entirely. That is expensive.’

I nodded. ‘Of course. Yet, they both own substantial contribution to spend, yes?’

Hesitantly, Hir agreed again. ‘Yes.’

‘Give me an altar to use on Neamhan,’ I asked, getting to the point.

At that, the divine almost flinched. ‘Impossible,’ they said. ‘A world without divines receiving an altar is… preposterous!’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Without divines?’ I asked. ‘Neamhan has no divines?’

‘No magic, no divines,’ Hir confirmed. ‘Before the keepers connected to your planet, there was nothing. It was, in effect, a barren world. The only desirable resources it has is space and people.’

‘You were rather interested in that whole people aspect, huh?’ I pushed.

The chorus of voices that was Hir, divine of death, almost grinded their teeth. ‘As despicable as it may be, yes. You could live a second life here, die in battle, and return safely. Not the same for Edians.’

Slowly, I nodded. ‘So, you have been drawing from Neamhan for a while. Give back. Give us an altar.’

‘We have paid you back,’ they groused. ‘Each and every person.’

‘What about those who died? Do they not still have contribution to turn in?’ I asked.

‘They did, but it was voided.’

I smirked. ‘And Ann?’

‘It may be reinstated when they revive, here,’ Hir said slowly.

That wasn’t good enough. ‘We need an altar on Neamhan. People are fighting the usurpers there, Hir. Let us grow stronger. Let us fight.’

‘Granting the Gift to onworlders is expensive, Fio! It cannot be done so hastily!’ they replied.

My frown deepened. It wasn’t good enough. ‘Then how do the keepers interface with the altar?’

‘They can also pay out contribution-’

I grinned, interrupting them. ‘How curious. Isn’t there a keeper with me right now? Cass, how come you cannot hand out people’s rightfully earned rewards?’

[Bizarre, isn’t it?] she chimed in. [To have my right so easily brushed aside]

Hir paused. For a long moment, the connection went silent. There was a distant buzzing, as if they were talking with the other divines. Eventually, the chorus of corpses descended on my mind again. ‘Your world has no divines to draw power from,’ they commented.

‘So alter the gift. Let them siphon power from defeated enemies, power that matches their contribution, power that they can spend.’

More chittering. ‘The gift is too fragile to be altered. It is in a precarious balance.’

‘Hir,’ I think at them, for once entirely neutrally. There are more cards for me to pull, more paths to take. But I cannot logic away their fears. ‘My world is dying. I have a network set up that can grant people power. Ann, someone you once knew as a goddess, is being denied what is hers. We have done much to help save your world. Please help me save ours.’

Every argument had already made sense. Every reason I’d given was clear. If altering the Gift was too precarious, then perhaps they could graft it onto my network instead. Hir paused for a long, terrifying moment.

‘We have paid you back for all your contributions,’ they reply. It’s delivered with stone-cold cadence.

‘Yes, I don’t have points to spend. But I have earned goodwill. I have earned your trust. In fact, I have far more reason to distrust you than you do me. It is not without risk,’ I said, seriously. ‘I understand. And yet, I request this of you. As a favour. Because I want to be able to consider you a true ally. A friend. Not just an alliance borne from convenience or necessity.’

Another long, heavy pause. ‘Ru and Argus decline your request. Lurelia does, too. Archiva… she says that her library is open to you. Any abilities devised by her will be available to your world.’

I wait, letting them speak more. Hir, made from a thousand voices, sighs heavily. ‘And so will mine.’

Success.

‘Allow me to access your [Transference] network, Fio. I will graft an altar onto it. It shall grant the gift to all who are added. It shall allow for contribution to be exchanged, so long as the person is in contact with you, Cass or a receptacle of your power. And… hopefully, it means you may call me a friend, once more.’ Their voice was almost desperate the way it rang out in my head.

Slowly, I breathed. I was excited, I was afraid. Trusting the divines had burnt us before, just this visit. And yet, despite that, I opened up to Hir. I breathed, shook my head to clear the worries away, and opened up my network to them.

‘Of course, my friend,’ I said.

For just a moment, before my vision blackens from the procedure, I think they smiled at my declaration.

Chapter 253: Baelzebuth

Chapter 253: Baelzebuth

Bael leaned back in the wooden chair, which creaked slightly with the motion. The air in the room chilled a little, the friendly, calm atmosphere slowly growing colder. The demoness gave him a long look. “I was once the champion of gluttony,” she says, slowly.

“I escaped that realm when the ash fell. When the crimson sun fucked up, and drew the ire of one of the fae rulers. You know that already, don’t you?”

And Mercury did. It was Finva of Dust who’d turned that realm ashen. Before that, it must have been a place of opulence. Of banquets and extravagant meals, before it was turned into the hellscape of starvation. But even back then, when it was still opulent, those meals had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere had eventually been the fae realm. 

“Yes,” he said. “I know the ruler you speak of.”

At that, Bael raised an eyebrow. “You know them? Curious. I don’t,” she shrugged, “and I don’t care to know. Being free of that gilded cage is the best thing that ever happened to me. You know how rifts work, somewhat?”

Slowly, Mercury nodded. “Somewhat.”

“They’re tears in reality, gates to other realms. Some are permanent, something of an exchange. The other realm harvests some magic, some reality, and divers go in to clear those places out and take resources back. It’s almost fair, sometimes. But rifts?” she shook her head. “Those are a one way street. Gluttony took and took and took, gorging itself, until it tried a meal too big.”

“But the worst part?” she asked. “The worst part is the way those places feel. They feel like home. If you’re born there, they twist your mind with a feral rage against all invaders, one that only fades once you leave. It’s sticky, too, easy to reinfect you if you go back. As a champion, of course, mine was even worse.” She shook her head, staring at the ceiling.

Mercury gave her a sympathetic glance. “So how did you get rid of it?”

“I didn’t,” she said. Then she looked at him. “It softened, but it never disappeared. For the first few years in this world, all I knew was starvation and a drive to get home. So I ate, and ate and ate. But the way home never opened. Now, I’m grateful. I grew strong enough to ignore the pull. And, of course, one day… it disappeared.”

She eyes mercury meaningfully. He’d killed the starving dream, after all. Destroyed that realm entirely, leaving nothing behind. The tapestry of this world’s reality would no longer be cut up by the invasion of gluttony. 

“Of course, I still get hungry,” Bael said with a crooked smile. “Gluttony is a part of my nature. I can’t really ever feel full. That’s just how that Skill goes. They’re all benefits, and to some degree, my ability to almost instantly assimilate anything I consume is powerful - but it’s also annoying, so I turn it off often.” 

Mercury nodded. “Okay. None of that explains why you’re here, though,” he noted.

Bael laughed, just a little. “Yoninini. It doesn’t, does it. That’s because I can feel a similar pull to you. Not the same, mind you,” she waved his concerns away. “Just similar. I can tell you’re connected to the sins, at least.”

That did make sense. He took a deep breath, gesturing for her to continue.

“After destroying gluttony, I guess wrath noticed you, too, and wanted to assimilate you. Now, given how you’ve changed, I’d wager wrath is dead as well. You’re practically a beacon to the sins by this point,” she explained. “The most tasty morsel they might see on this entire world.”

“Just great,” Mercury grumbled. “I want to relax,so I take down things that pester me. Now you’re telling me that attracts more trouble?”

Zyl stared at him. Then, he laughed. “Sasasa! Mercury, everything you do invites more trouble,” he said. “No one gets a throne just to rest on it. The demons are constantly at war with themselves and the devils. The sins are constantly trying to draw more people into their domains. The fae rulers scheme and betray each other in a balance for territory. My own brother almost killed me, just to prove his point.”

By the end of the last sentence his expression turned sour. “You cannot avoid trouble, Mercury,” he said. “The very gods of this place are troublemakers, I’m pretty sure. So, yes, you will inevitably attract more trouble.”

At his boyfriend’s frown, Zyl’s expression softened, and he gently reached out. Mercury waited, and let him ruffle his fur. Zyl gave a tiny sigh, and a slight smile. “But none of your friends mind that,” he said. “When troubles comes knocking, you help each other out. You’ve saved Iris and Yvette, you’ve saved me, you’ve saved Ruvah and Juno and Jirluc, you’ve helped out Avery and Marcel. We’ll stay with you. Even if it’s a little troublesome.”

Mercury looked at the dragon, then just nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said, the words almost catching in his throat. “Thank you.”

For a few seconds, the silence hung in the air, and the two took comfort in each other.

Then, Bael spoke again. “At any rate,” she said, “I want the sins dead.” Her declaration smacked into the air like a ringing gong.

“They’re like distant family of the thing that held my mind captive. I think most creatures trapped in there are probably too twisted to bring back. Killing them is a mercy,” she said. “It took me decades of murder to become strong enough to be who I am now, and, well…” Bael paused, flashing a bright grin of sharp teeth. “I’m still not particularly harmless or nice.”

With her words, there was another burst of chilling cold that filled the room. It felt like a hungry beast, a predator, ready to fall on Mercury and rip his flesh from his bones if it came to that. He looked at Bael, and the demoness didn’t even flinch. She just stared at him.

“We get it,” Mercury said, with a tint of annoyance.

A bright smile flashed over her face, and the cold disappeared again. “Glad to hear it!” she said cheerily. “Just needed to make sure my message rang home. You’re funny. I could almost eat you up, y’know?”

Zyl frowned, and looked at her. “Don’t threaten him,” he said.

Bael nodded, but shrugged a moment later. “I hear ya, dragon, but still. Think of the irony. Mopaaw eats realm of gluttony, avatar of gluttony ats mopaaw. It’s almost full circle, no? And, well…” she pauses, looking out of the window. “I think it might make me rather strong, too, y’know. Reclaiming a piece of myself.”

A moment passed, quietly. No one spoke. Zyl was trying to fry a hole through the demoness with just his eyes, Mercury looked at his boyfriend with a sad kinda sympathy, and Bael simply stared out of the window.

The day outside looked like it had gone dreary, clouds covering the sky now. Maybe it would rain soon. 

“But I won’t,” Bael said with a sigh. She looked at Mercury, and her eyes went from the manic glint to something a lot more sombre. “I won’t. Because, frankly, that part can rot in hell.”

Mercury looked back at her, his eyes neutral and calm. He nodded. “That’s fine,” he said. “Though you should know I could probably give it back.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Huh?”

“I can do, eh… let’s call it treatments on the underlying nature of a creature,” Mercury said. “I can probably cut your connection to the sins. Or fill that missing piece in, if that’s what you want,” he offered.

At that, the demoness scoffed. “Yeah right,” she said. “And why would you do that, huh? ‘Cuz you’re so charitable?”

He tilted his head, then smiled. “Exactly,” he replied. “Because I’m charitable. And there’s no reason for me not to.”

She blinked. “I took a bite out of your boyfriend,” she said.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Zyl said, rubbing his shoulder. “Pretty standard injury for a fight, really.”

Mercury laughed at their antics. “It’s just an offer,” he said. “I know it takes a lot of trust. I won’t force you. I’ll probably kill the rest of the sins, anyway, so maybe that’ll solve it.”

Again, Bael blinked. Then, she laughed again, a coarse, grinding laugh. “Yoninini! You say it so easily. You’ll kill all the sins? Free everyone inside? Like it’s that easy?”

“Yes,” Mercury said. “Not easy, but… simple, I guess.”

She raised her eyebrow even higher. “Simple? You call closing holes in reality ‘simple’? Weirdo.”

Sighing softly, Mercury looked at her. What an exhausting conversation. “Everyone has different strengths,” he said. “I can’t liquify mountains. I can’t summon meteors. I can’t kick as hard as Avery, or swing a sword like Yvette,” he said. “But I’m good at dealing with reality, yeah.”

Bael looked at him for a long, quiet moment. Her excuses were being dismantled, one by one. There was something profoundly annoying with this mopaaw. And that was his unrelenting honesty.

Every sentence he spoke, she knew he wasn’t lying. That he believed everything he said. That, to him, killing the sins was just a matter of time. Like it was inevitable. As if they wouldn’t tear him into a thousand pieces and throw him to the curb.

He believed he could just fight them. Wipe them away like a mildly bothersome stain on a window, rather than the scourge on reality they were. As if it was a simple task that he just needed to focus on. 

And somehow, she believed him, just a little bit.

The ruler of all demons let out a long, suffering sigh. She leaned even further back, making the wood creak a little more. This house was too comfortable for housing two such monsters. Didn’t people like this live in opulent palaces or giant mansions on hilltops? 

Here they were, in a simple wooden cottage that they made themselves. It probably wasn’t even up to building code, dang it. It pissed her off. The fact that they had it so calm, so easy, it really pissed her off damn it. 

“No,” she said, sucking in a breath through her teeth. “No, I don’t want you tinkering with my underlying existence. I don’t trust you, I don’t think you have my interests at heart. You probably just wanna use me and have some sort of trickery spell active.”

Seeing her bristle at the suggestion, Mercury just nodded. “Okay. I won’t change anything about who and what you are.” The Storm’s Raiment drew a little bit tighter around him, as if embracing his fur. It looked so soft, and yet so dense. An unfeeling shroud that kept its wearer warm and safe.

What did she have, instead? A body full of maws, full of hunger. A desire to eat and eat and eat. Growling, she turned to her Skill and deactivated a chunk of them again. They pissed her off, too. 

She pulled out a chunk of meat from her inventory and ate it in one bite, letting it settle in her stomach. The power of the acid in there had settled down, and it actually stayed full. She was weaker, though, especially to surprise attacks, but whatever.

If these two fucking clowns wanted to kill her, they were welcome to try, and she’d bite their heads off. 

But nothing happened.

Both of the stupid loving couple just looked at her as she chewed, snarled, and looked out the window. They waited for her to calm down, to let her catch her bearings. It was aggravating, in its own way.

Any self-respecting demon would have already tried to exploit her moment of anger, and gotten their skull smashed in exchange. But nothing like that happened. There was no carnage to calm her, no blood she wanted to shed because someone deserved it. They didn’t even offer a deal.

Mercury just said he’d not bother her about it. If she asked, he’d probably agree immediately. What a pain.

Bael stood up, almost knocking the chair over. The legs of the seat scraped across the floor, ringing out as the only noise in the small house. “I’ll be watching you, mopaaw. You-”

He shook his head, interrupting her. “Mercury,” he said. “My name is Mercury. Please use it.”

The anger grew even more. “Why would you be so polite about it then? If you want me to use it, make me.”

Again, the mopaaw just shook his head. “No,” he said. As if her anger just slid off of him. Hadn’t he attracted wrath? Wasn’t he supposed to be an angry person? Did he fucking pity her?

Bael raged inside his own mind. Mercury spoke some more. “If you don’t respect me enough to use my name, that’s fine. It bothers me,” he said, “but I won’t stop you. I’ll just interact with you less. You’re allowed to be an asshole, after all.”

He frowned at him. “And you’ll let me disrespect you in your own house? Not gonna throw me out?”

Mercury gave him a long look, then a faint smile. “Do you need a place to stay the night? It’s gonna rain soon, and we do have a guest room if you’re tired.”

“Are you making fun of me?” he asked, angrily.

“A tiny bit, maybe,” Mercury admitted sheepishly. “But at the same time, I mean it. It’s okay for you to stay. You’re angry. I can tell you don’t really hate me, y’know? It’s part of <Truth>. The Skill that lets you know when I’m honest.”

He growled. “I’m not homeless.”

“And yet, you’re miles away from your home,” Zyl noted. “If you need a place-”

Bael didn’t listen. He grabbed their table and tossed it against the wall, hoping to hear it splinter. Instead, he simply saw Zyl there, catching it. Lines of anger drew themselves onto his face, and he turned, walking outside. Neither moved to stop him. 

He slammed the door shut behind himself. The sky was dim and overcast.

The demon lord walked through the streets, empty of people. A few minutes later, it did start raining. 

What an atrocious day.

- - - - - -

“Should we… do something about that?” Marcel asked, looking out the window of the gloryhall. 

Avery walked up to the side of his office, looking down at the guy stomping his way through the rain. His hair was long and charcoal black, sticking to his face and back. Dark eyes were looking… nowhere, really. He was just looking to walk.

Slowly, the guild master nodded with a sigh. “It’s kinda my job to take in people with emotional regulation problems, huh?”

Marcel snickered at him. “Yeah, because you’re so very normal.”

At that, a big grin sprouted on the guild master’s face. “Yeah, most normal guy around. Avery McAverage.” He took a deep breath, then opened the second floor window. Rain and wind whipped against his face. “Hey!” he called out to the dreary guy downstairs.

The stranger snapped to attention, looking up at him. Dang, those eyes held a fire. A small shiver went down Avery’s spine. He grinned. “You looking to beat someone up?” he asked.

Bael stared at him in disbelief. Was everyone in this place a fucking maniac? And, despite that, seeing the big grin on the man’s face, his sunglasses hiding his eyes, he found himself nodding. “Yeah,” the demon said. “I want to break something.”

Avery spread his hands wide in a welcoming gesture. “I’m a something!” he said, cheerfully, then swung off the side of the building, and landing easily on the street. He was strong, and the shock was no trouble at all. Instead, he simply moved to do some stretches, the rain soaking his garments. 

Raising an eyebrow, the stranger scowled at him. “You sure about this?” he asked Avery. 

“Definitely,” the guild master replied. “I’m tough. And my buddy upstairs is a healer.”

Marcel stood at the window, lighting himself a char. He flinched as he came up. Quickly taking the char out of his mouth, he called down. “Bring him inside if you fuck him up! I ain’t getting drenched just cuz my boss is an idiot,” he said.

“Kahahaha! Marcel, you’re such an ass. Ah, well,” Avery said, turning to the stranger again. Something was sincerely fucked about that guy, and if it was needed, then the guild master would just pummel it outta him. Fighting was honest, after all. “You heard him. If you snap all my bones, do me the courtesy of dumping me on a bed, yeah?”

The scowl on the stranger’s face tightened. “You’d trust someone random to do that?”

Avery grinned, bright and wide. “Hells yeah I would. You strike me as the kind to be chill about it.”

“What if you’re wrong?” 

“Then Marcel gets his parade rained on,” he said with a grin.

“What if I kill you?” the stranger asked.

The air cooled down. Avery felt another shiver of excitement run up his spine. “My man,” he said. “If you kill me, I’ll crawl back outta my grave to shake your hand and congratulate ya.”

“Cocky bastard,” the stranger sneered. Then, his skin cracked. Lava and charcoal was unveiled from beneath a human veneer. “Fine, then. I’ll tear you apart. Try to fight back. It’ll be cathartic.”

Avery took a deep breath. The rain clung to his dreadlocks, the air thick and heavy. His clothes were already starting to soak, but he still smiled a bright smile, baring his teeth. It was just a little monstrous, just a little bit.

Slowly, he rolled his shoulders, stretching his legs, focussing on his heart, making it pump faster. He warmed up in a moment, and then, his skin roiled. In one great motion, it rose into scales, and avery grew a few inches taller.

His eyes started to burn with fire, even behind those sunglasses of his. He looked at the demon in front of him, the way the human skin started cracking apart. Flaking. That wasn’t a human, it was a monster. Just like him, right?

The guild master grinned even wider. A moment passed. His heart beat. Then he launched himself at the thing.

Underneath his feet, the pavement cracked. He moved so fast, his shoes just about exploded from the force. A moment later, his foot crashed into the arm of the demon, blocked. There was a horrible noise, like two trees slamming into each other, and Avery smiled.

“Huh,” the demon said. “You’re tough.”

“Why thanks,” the human replied. “You too.”

At that, Bael bared his teeth. He felt angry, and violent. A maw opened on his arm, latching shut around the leg- except there was nothing there anymore. Those teeth sprouted, only to clamp down on empty air. Avery danced pack on the pavement, hopping on one leg.

“Ayaya,” he said. “Almost had me! So close!” Then he sneered. “Yet so far.”

Bael snarled with fury. He took a step forward, his rage flooding through his body. Wings sprouted from his back, and with a single beat, he vanished forward. The air cracked in his wake like a whip, and he slammed into the guildmaster, driving him down into the pavement.

The stone cracked and roiled, blood flowing from Avery’s mouth as his scales ground against the floor. With a motion, he threw his arms backwards, grabbing some purchase, then buckled his hips hard enough to send Bael flying just a bit.

A moment later, the human was back to his feet, grabbing the demon’s throat and slamming him into the pavement, following it up with a brutal kick to the face. More human skin broke and split, revealing the demon hidden underneath. Maws stacked upon maws, multiple sts of furious eyes, dark purple skin with veins of magic.

“I’ll tear you limb from limb,” the demon snarled.

In reply, Avery simply stuck out his tongue. “Catch me if ya can!” 

Then he vanished, leaving a tunnel in the rain where he ran. Growling, then roaring, the demon beat his wings, following the human, sending more droplets scattering. A moment later, he ran right into a brutal kick to his throat that cracked his spine, crushed his windpipe and sent him sputtering to the ground.

Bael grasped his neck for a moment, then recovered a half second later. Furiously, he snatched at where the guild master should have been, but wasn’t. Again, he roared, charging through the rain. 

When another kick threatened to take his head right off, he tackled the guild master, wrapping his arms around the human’s stomach. Avery, however, was a lot better at grappling. Bael was a strong fighter, but not a very technical one. A simple beast with intuition to bite and claw, and not much more.

With swift movements, Avery spun in the air, instead sending the demon to the ground. He slithered out from the grasp, jamming his knee between the demon’s chin and collarbone, barring Bael from opening his mouth. Then, a swift rain of punches onto the demon’s head followed, each one cracking the pavement.

A moment later, Bael roared. With one swift, brutal motion, he grabbed Avery’s arm, then pulled. The guild master’s entire body was caught in the motion, suddenly slamming head-first into the ground. Then he was flung skywards, instantly flying dozens of meters. Blood flowed from his forehead, down onto his glasses, and he grinned brightly.

“Wake up, old man!” he yelled. “Or we’ll wreck your house!”

Grumbling, and with creaking bones, Yasashiku Ryuutesai walked out into the cold night air. “Ah, this isn’t good for me,” he said with a shiver, then picked up a hammer. “Ya couldn’t fight anywhere else?!” he demanded.

Avery raised an eyebrow as he fell. “What? Do you want me to wreck the ci-”

“Don’t ignore me!!” Bael roared, streaking through the sky like a meteor, slamming into Avery and knocking the air from his throat. Instantly, the demon landed another strike on the human’s head, cracking his sunglasses, and spun to place the guild master below him.

Then, Bael beat his wings, accelerating to the ground.

Yasashiku sighed, loudly. “Darn youngsters,” he said, twirling the hammer in his hand. Then he hit the ground, just once.

The stone rippled, then solidified, reinforced itself a hundred times over. A thin dusting of metal covered it, now, and when the guild master was driven down into it, the ground did not give.

Avery felt his bones crunch inside his body. His ribcage buckled for a moment, his spine creaked, and still, he drew in another breath of humid air. “That hurt, fucker,” he said through bloodstained teeth.

“It was supposed to turn you into paste,” the demon snarled. “Durable fucker.”

With a quick motion, Avery removed the last of his sunglasses, revealing his eyes. They were slitted, dark and brutal red.For just a moment, Bael flinched back. What the hell was wrong with the people here, he wondered?

Just long enough for Avery’s shin to find his skull. The demon was sent rocketing off to the side, slamming into a reinforced wall, ringing the metal like a soft gong. “Now, now, none of that,” Yasashiku said, tapping the ground again. Instantly, things grew quieter, the vibration distributed through the metal and absorbed by sheer volume.

Avery was on the demon again a moment later, sending his leg into Bael’s stomach - only to find an open maw of teeth, waiting.

The jaw clamped down on Avery’s foot, piercing and grinding through his scales, grinding against his bones. The guild master howled, punching at the demon, only to find its face had turned into one singular waiting maw as well.

He grunted in pain, then resolved himself. In one motion, he picked up his foot and his arm, still trapped in the mouths, and slammed the demon into the ground. Again, and again, and again, like he was wielding some sort of bio-bonded hammer. 

It was a disgusting feeling, the way the sharp teeth ground up and down on his bones. His blood pooled into the demon’s waiting mouth, and yet, he slammed it down over and over, watching the shell’s bones snap and break and reform into more demonic ones.

Avery frowned, then stopped. Instead of smashing his problem, he took a deep breath.

Power surged through him, his muscles bulging. The rain hitting his skin turned to steam. He felt his blood run hot in his veins, and a smile spread on his lips again as the pain was devoured by the thrill of combat. “Okay, so you’re an absorption type,” Avery said. “Lemme show you a little something I’ve been working on.”

The technique was incomplete. But what better way to grow than in the middle of battle? Logically, it should work.

Avery pulled more muscle from his strength. Then put it away again. Pulled, and put it away. His body started rapidly expanding and shrinking, faster and faster as he began to pulse. It grew more extreme, too, with his skin pulling tighter and tighter around his skeleton, until, one moment to another, he vanished.

Just a second later, Avery reappeared, stumbling, falling to the floor, a single step away. He laughed. “Kaha! Kahahaha!” Then he slammed his foot into the demon again. “See that?! Get fucked!”

Then, a fist slammed into his face. It split his lip open, spilling more blood on the ground, but he didn’t even care. With monstrous ferocity, he hit right back, slamming his own fist into the demon’s face, sending the fucker flying into the building again. “I vanished! And reappeared! What an experience! Have you ever had all your organs pulled through a straw then spit out the other side?!”

Bael snarled. “Can’t say I have, human. Shut up and hit me.”

Avery grinned. “Gladly,” he said, and kicked again. 

The move was parried, and met with another punch that he pushed aside in exchange. Suddenly, instead of a great war, the two found themselves in a grappling match. Blow for blow, they fought. Punches and kicks flying through the air, sending the rain scattering, breaking bones that righted themselves again.

Humanity crumbled aside. Monstrous drive laid in Avery’s eyes as he went blow for blow with the demon lord, a task so unreasonable he never should have been able to do it. Yet, he loved every second of it. The thrill of the fight… 

And the way that the anger boiled off of his opponent.

Then, Bael gripped him again, and tore off his arm.

It was a single swift motion. One moment Avery had his left arm, the next, it was gone, held in Bael’s hand. The demon gave it a glance, considering whether to eat it or not. It was a gesture of respect. Of honour. He glanced at Avery-

And saw a leg flying towards his face.

With another crack, the blow landed clean. “Call that one <Legbreaker>,” Avery grinned. It was a system-sanctioned move, and it had fully crumbled the human shell that was left. The reinforced wall of Yasashiku’s metal was dented.

Blood poured out of his shoulder like a fountain, and the guild master didn’t care. He grinned through red teeth and a bloodstained face. In the rubble, there was a demon.

Bael’s shell had cracked. The lie of humanity was peeled aside, and what was revealed was a monstrous thing, of grafted limbs, of devoured leviathans. There was no truth to be found there, for any shape the Thing took would always be a lie.

And yet, he was Bael. Baelzebuth, ruler of all demons, once-avatar of gluttony, and a fighter.

He took a deep breath, and looked at the sky, then tossed the arm back at the guild master. The rain plastered his dark hair against his demonic face. “We’re done,” he said. “Thank you. You humans are monsters.”

Avery smiled, then extended his remaining hand, pulling the demon up from the rubble. “All cooled down? Come on, let’s find you a place out of the rain, and get my arm reattached.”

Yasashiku yawned. “You kids done playing around?” the old man grumbled. “Cuz I’m going back to sleep.”

The metal covering the street receded. The cobblestone returned to the way it usually stood. Baal grasped the extended hand, and pulled himself up. The pair of guild master and demon walked silently through the rain, heading to a place suitable for misfits like them. The godseeker’s guild.

Marcel was gonna be so pissed when Avery asked him to reattach an arm.

Chapter 150: Upgrades - Closer to Freedom

When spending my contribution, the thing I noticed was that there was a lot of it. Clearing the rifts counted for about twice, maybe three times as much as killing equivalent enemies on Eden, and we had cleared a lot of rifts. And then, there was the additional, tiny factor, that I hurt some of the keepers.

Now, ordinarily, that would be a bad thing. After all, they ferry Reflectors from Neamhan to Eden, right? But they were desperate for power to heal the wounds I’d dealt them, and thus inducted a lot more Reflectors than usual. Which meant that there were now more people in Eden, and a part of their contribution flowed right to me.

It did help that contribution could only be earned, not lost. Lurelia might have tried to dock me for wreaking havoc in her divine realm, but she was just unlucky. They couldn’t take it away without rewarding me, and they couldn’t give rewards I didn’t choose myself.

So, there was nothing to do for them, for now.

Instantly, I allocated half of my contribution to levels, which would take me from level 20 to 25. Increasing my physical stats by a full quarter. It would make my Qi all the more potent, my strikes all the stronger, and my skin more durable. All of that for only half my contribution.

Then, Cass and I browsed the shop. There were things I wanted. Some were simple, others more complex. The first thing was something that let me defend more strongly. [Inexplicable Reinforcement] was a great defensive ability, but at the end of the day, it only helped after I got hurt. I wanted that to change.

And there was an option for a partial evolution - its name would stay the same, but it would now apply some kind of damage-shunting. Effectively, any damage I took would be partially applied to nonexistant parallel versions of me, shunted into a dimension where I didn’t even exist. Which was very neat.

Another ability I very desperately wanted was some kind of armor manifestation. It was extremely common for metal affinity cultivators to have, and frankly, the fact that I didn’t was a real shame. I added that functionality onto [True Mirror], buying armor that would reflect a part of the damage done automatically, with an option for full reflection, if provided enough Qi.

The ability would effectively just make it a lot easier to manifest an armor, using my glass-wings as an anchor for it. Each crystal would expand and graft itself onto my skin in a pseudo organic glass-metal construct. It would be watertight, easy to clean since I could dispel it, and keep my clothes in one piece. Wonderful.

Cass poked me next. [Found something nice,] she said, ponting at an upgrade I hadn’t checked yet. I mentally read over the details.

[Hall of Mirrors (Fusion for Swift Spear + Momentum Shift) (Every molecule interacts with light. Every part of the air is a parallel world. Your spear is instant, your speed unlimited.)]

My breath hitched for a moment. The short description did not do it justice. This was, effectively, a technique for perfect teleportation. Where I’d previously relied on the Wanderer’s Key, or stepping through reflections, this let me do smaller things. Teleport just my arm, or instantly complete a motion. 

It would let me teleport an attack behind a parry, for example. Or even temporarily, say, have Astraeus exist in two places at once, both blocking an attack and attacking past that block. Terrifying. The name made it sound like a “domain” type power, but there was a slight difference; it wasn’t a domain. It worked always. Everywhere.

I took it.

Upgrades in the store should always be things one couldn’t do by themselves. That’s why levels mattered. They were a multiplier one could only get from this place. And it was especially got for picking up bizarre new abilities like that one, ones that would be almost impossible to learn myself. 

Now, I had it. And there was still a ton of contribution left. Astraeus hummed a bit in my core. The spear wasn’t currently summoned, but he had a small request. I listened.

Slowly, the awakened spirit communicated with me. His words were slow, hard to decipher, but he conveyed his desires, anyway. The request was simple, really. A true bond, one that gave him his own maelstrom. 

Instantly, I understood. If I had a maelstrom, and it was doubled by my parallel self, Ion, that was powerful. But if Astraeus also had a malstrom, and was also doubled… 

It could escalate quickly.

‘Hir, could you…’

‘Yes, Fio. I can.’

[Parallel Soul (Evolution for Spear Spirit) (Your Path is shared with another. Walk together, ascend together, Soar together.)]

It was powerful, but I could also tell it was not quite exactly what I had asked for. Slowly, I tilted my head. ‘Something’s strange,’ I noted.

There was a hint of a smile in the divine’s voice when they spoke again. ‘Yes. This applies to Cass as well.’

My eyes went wide. If Cass had her own maelstrom, that would mean her own wellspring, which would mean… the ability to permanently manifest if she so chose, and-

‘Yes. Both your bonded companions would receive access to their own version of the Gift.’

Without hesitation, I take the upgrade. It takes the rest of my contribution, and even puts me a little into debt, but Hir waves it away. ‘Take it as an apology for Lurelia’s actions. We shall compensate for it ourselves. Cass’ contribution has earned her this much, by far.’

Astraeus hummed in offense at being forgotten.

‘And your spear has, of course, earned it too,’ Hir replied with a giggle. 

The weapon hummed in satisfaction.

With my selection placed, I smiled faintly. ‘Thank you, Hir,’ I thought at the divine, then locked in my choices. The ephemeral power of contribution flowed out of me, allowing the gods to assist me in turn. I had helped this world, now it was permitted to make me stronger, and stronger I grew.

My muscles tensed up, and the breath wrenched itself from my lungs. My skin crawled as my entire being was reforged. Muscles stretched and rewound themselves around my bones, like spooling up an old cassette tape. Sinew stretched and compressed, renewing. Old scars faded, tissue was revitalized, and everything about me improved.

I leaned on Astraeus, as my legs went weak, my muscles reknitting themselves. But I remained standing. I didn’t throw up, even as the horrible sensation crawled all over me. First my skin, then my muscles, then my bones… and then, it crawled in further, across my spirit.

Perhaps, when I took [Parallel Soul] I should have expected it, but somehow, I didn’t. Like a fungus, the power crawled over my core, then across the connection to Cass and Astraeus. Something within all of us twisted. 

It churned and spun, then crumbled and stretched. It was like being caught in a washing machine on a roller coaster doing loopings. Astraeus started shaking and I couldn’t support myself with the spear anymore, but my legs were strong enough to stay standing.

The wood of the weapon bent and churned in my hands, feeling more like putty as its spirit was changed. They linked to me, to my path, to our freedom. The world spun as my maelstrom split and regrew to full size, the two pieces each assimilating with their owners as well.

And then, the feeling faded.

My core was free from fungus, and I had completed the spiritual version of mitosis. My stomach roiled at the memory, but I kept it down. It felt disgusting, but I kept it down. The knowledge trickled into my head, my new abilities becoming clear… and I ignored it in favour for listening.

Cass spun with joy in the astral realm, where my gateway laid. Qi poured out from her, and it was different from mine. Where I laid between metal and glass, Cass was purely glass aspected. She had dimensional Qi in the truest sense of the word, a master of parallel dimensions, illusions and proper manifestations.

[Thank you Fio!] she chirped, happily. [It feels incredible!]

And it must have. From one moment to the next, she gained access to an incredible source of power, and the volume of her spirit increased terribly. Before, she had barely been an ephemeral spirit, now, her spirit-self was a mannequin carved from glass. And underneath that, there was a pale, silver liquid, as if her shell was filled with moonlight. Warmth and kindness in a dark space. Cass was… Empathy?

Compared to her, Astraeus felt more firm in my hands. The metal was cool to the touch, and it was the only aspect his core carried. Metal. Resplendent gold. Qi poured from him in a torrent, warping the air. His tip easily shifted as I beckoned it, creating crescent blades, or a long spike. I could feel him roar with joy at the simple freedom that power gave.

I smiled. Two of my oldest companions now each had a core of their own. It was a little strange to feel those connected to my own, the way Qi fed across them, but it was nice. They now had the Gift, too, and would be able to level and gain abilities and contribution.

But that was their duty to handle, not mine. I would not be making those decisions for them. 

For now, I took a deep breath and faced my party again. I smiled. Then, slowly, my smile faded. Where were Matt and Rae?

Chapter 252: Quests and Guests and Blessed Artefacts

Chapter 252: Quests and Guests and Blessed Artefacts

[Level Up!]

Mercury smiled at the small notification in the corner of his vision. He wanted to go home, so he did. His desire was fulfilled, and so, the system acknowledged it. 

-

[Main Quest: “Wrath” completed!

Reward: <Veil> mastery increase, <Sever> mastery increase, <Combat Sense> mastery increase, <Cloudmatter Shawl> becomes bound item.]

-

[<Veil> has levelled up! <Veil lv. 5 -> 7>]

[<Sever> has levelled up! <Sever lv. 8 -> 9>]

[<Combat Sense> has levelled up! <Combat Sense lv. 4 -> 6>]

That last part of the reward was a bit different. The cloudmatter shawl was already absorbing some part of wrath, and this additional infusion of energy just poured into it to hasten and strengthen… whatever was happening with it. 

Having everything settle took time. Mercury just ate a whole miniature world. Digesting it wouldn’t be instant, and that was okay. However, he did note that the quest completed, which was strange, given that the requirement was to “repair the tapestry”.

Mercury was really rather sure he hadn’t done any repairing.

“Hey, Zyl at Mercury,” his boyfriend said, booping his nose. “You there?”

“Ah, yeah, sorry,” he said. “Just going over some notifications.”

Zyl smiled slightly. “Right, right,” he said. “Well, I’ll just finish cooking for the demon lord, and you join us at the table whenever you’re ready.”

“It’s demon lady right now, actually,” Bael replied.

“Right, right, of course,” Zyl corrected.

Mercury, too, just nodded. “Sounds good.” He thought on the notification a moment, then it clicked. “Wait, demon lady?” 

At that, his boyfriend and the unexpected guest laughed. “Yes, demon lady,” Zyl said. “Followed your scent here, actually. But, before all of that, I’ll have to politely ask why there are two holes in you.”

“... Right. Uh. The avatar of wrath had a gun?” Mercury said hesitantly.

“You’ll have to give me a rundown of what a gun is,” Zyl said with a soft sigh.

At that, the demon lady, Bael, raised her hand. “I know, actually. Zagan showed me one, once. Fascinating piece, between art and warfare. They use some sort of mechanism or magic in order to propel some kind of moderately heavy projectile really, really fast.”

Zyl furrowed his brows slightly. “So… like a bow? But… stronger?”

Shrugging, Bael nodded. “Sure, that’s about right.”

“It’s a lot louder and faster than a bow, and the skill required to use it is a lot lower. Even a child could fire a gun. But essentially, yes.”

“You got torn up by a kid’s toy?” Zyl asked, raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms.

“No,” Mercury said. “And the food is burning.”

“Crap!” 

With hurried movements, the dragon faced the stove again. Bael snickered about it. Her voice was melodic, but the laugh was a little too spiteful to be one to laugh alongside. Mercury eyed her for a moment, before disregarding it. The avatar she worse was nothing but a skinsuit for the monster beneath.

It was all the clearer to him now. The ease with which he could strip that kind of fakeness away was almost concerning. <Answer>, <Truth> and <Unravel> were a scary synergy against illusions and falsehoods. But, if she identified as a woman right now, then was that skinsuit really a falsehood?

What was shapeshifting, really?

“Hey, mopaaw. You’re thinking too hard about it,” she said, leaning back in the chair. “Don’t stare so much. It’s awkward when we’re almost siblings.”

And there it was. Instantly, Mercury saw the connection. The white veil was shattered, and the string of fate uniting the two of them was revealed: she, as well as him, was involved with the seven sins. The wayward avatar of gluttony. The thing that had escaped the ashen plains before they were ashen at all.

“You’re from gluttony,” Mercury said.

At that, the monster’s mouth split open wide. Wider than that of a human should. “Yes, I am,” she said. “And so are you, somehow. And yet, you are also of wrath. And despite that, you aren’t angry. You aren’t hungry. You are calm and full.” She leaned forward, off the table, staring at him with hungry eyes and licking her lips. “So tell me… how do you tast-”

She paused, holding her head. “Ugh. Gross.” Then she leaned back. “Your eyes are fucked. What the hell’s that?”

Mercury blinked, letting himself fade out of ihn’ar, letting the truth and inner storm swirl behind a layer of clouds. “Right, sorry. Please don’t talk about eating me, either.”

“... Yeah. My bad. Hunger’s a lot sometimes.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Sort through your system stuff. I’ll still be here after. Must be a chunk.”

Somewhat surprised at how easily the tension diffused, Mercury smiled a little. Instead of standing awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen, he made his way up the stairs - needing to watch his step a little more, now that he was a chunk taller. Still, at the end of the day, the staircase was an unworthy foe and he conquered it easily enough.

With a few more steps, he made it to a hammock spun from his very own thread, hopping up the posts on the wall leading to it. The wood was adjacent enough to <Grass> and grew out to meet his paws wherever they landed. It was a kind of natural support the world lent him, now. A kind of natural rapport between him and the realm he was in.

It seemed to only have strengthened after he devoured wrath, and Mercury had a sneaking suspicion why that was. But for now, he gently placed that aside. Instead… he called on Appy. “Status.”

=

Status:

Mercury Rainfall Starlight

Level: 3 -> 6

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: 2250/2650

Mp: 3500/3754

Sp: 1500/1634

===

Strength: 140 -> 141 (+5) 

Vitality: 259 -> 270

Dexterity: 164 -> 167 (+30) 

Agility: 191 -> 193 (+30) 

Intelligence: 222 -> 225 (+40) 

Wisdom: 220 -> 240 (+2) 

Willpower: 483 -> 500

Luck: 200 -> 203

===

Ability points: 251

World points: 8849

Skill points: 2900

===

Gold: 38 815

Beast familiars: 1/2

=

The first thing he noted was that despite crossing 500, his willpower did not clear a new threshold. Which meant that the next stage was probably at 600, then. Which, he supposed, meant it followed an additive total kind of formula.

First, reach 100. Then add 200 more for 300. Then add 300 more for 600. Then add 400 more for 1000. 

It was similar with levels and evolutions. First at ten levels, then at 20, meaning thirty total. Then at 30, meaning 60 total. Then at 40, meaning 100 total. Which meant he’d now, most likely, evolve at level 50, meaning a total level of 150. 

He sighed as he got distracted again. That happened too easily when he could think so many things at the same time. 

Focusing again, Mercury returned to his ongoing notifications. The first and most important realization was confirmed in a main quest.

-

[Main Quest: “Rends in Reality.” Chain <2>

Condition: You have consumed a wound in the world. Where Wrath once raged, there is now nothing. No new scars shall be made by that remnant reality. No new tunnels opened in the fabric of reality. Chronagen is more stable, thanks to you. In its own way, this world wants you to repeat this feat. 

Erase another realm that tears this reality apart. Please?

Notice: This quest is sent as a request by an entity involved with the system. It can be declined, but will occupy a main quest slot due to significant overlap of interest with the individual it is proposed to.

Reward: <Realmshifting> affinity increase, <Worldhealer> title.

Note: Additional rewards may be granted by the entity requesting this task to be completed.]

-

It was, by far, the most amusing quest message he had ever gotten. Shaking his head slightly, Mercury accepted the request. Yes, he’d probably close more of those realms. After all, with the veil of separation being torn down, he now could see where his own fate drew him. There were a million tiny strings, pulling him a million tiny ways.

And yet, he was sure they’d draw him to those other realms eventually. After seeing wrath and gluttony… he was sure that the others had hurt people, too. And that was something he could not let stand idly. In the same way that the fae realm was dying, these realms were slowly killing Chronagen. As someone living on that world, he could not let it stand.

So, since he had the power to change it, and a request made by the world he had built his home on, Mercury accepted. He wanted to ensure that nothing broke his and Zyl’s house. He’d be very upset if something hurt Kintra back in Treyno. There were people on this planet he cared about, and letting some wayward monsters crawl out of the sky whenever they pleased didn’t exactly seem like something he could tolerate.

Mercury drew a deep breath, and tasted the way the air felt to his lungs. The wind seemed to whisper a tiny word of thanks to him at that moment. The world felt a little kinder, a little easier on him, as if his existence was suddenly more accepted. It was a strange baseless feeling, and yet it was one that he let wash over himself.

He loved this world, and that was the <Truth>. 

And with that truth came an <Answer>. The world liked him back.

So there was no reason why he wouldn’t help when it was hurting.

With that dealt with, Mercury calmly pushed the quest notification aside, letting it vanish like so many of those blue boxes before. Then he took a breath.

In his dreamscape, his items were still evolving. The Stifled Silence hovered around the silver sun in resplendent glory. A diadem of vines, an ocean of liquid metal trapped in a simple gem in its middle. Next to it was the Dream of Starvation, reduced into a shapeless, writhing glob of sinister steel. It was hungrily devouring every bit of wrath it had consumed. All the blood, all the anger. A hungry thing of nightmares, growing ever more fearsome.

And, finally, there was a third bound item. The Dracoleather Cloak. For the first time in ages, it was not properly wrapped around him. It was torn at by the void, but had survived even that harrowing journey, and now sat as part of his storm - fusing with the Cloudmatter Shawl in order to produce something new. 

Bits and pieces of that devoured realm fed into his nexus, the dense web of threads slowly being organised under that radiant star’s touch. Mercury could feel it. And a simple appraisal, part of <Seeker Of Secrets>, revealed all of its growth.

[Nexus Rank 1 -> 2]

The notification was simple, but it belied what it meant. An increase from 0 to 1 meant that his world was true enough to be a reality of its own. Now, it was somehow greater. More real. More… alive. He called up the full description.

[Nexus: Rank <2>.

World management improved. Soil and Temperature regulation systems available. Biosphere simulation possible. Enhanced amalgamation potential. World stability greatly enhanced. Tunnel functionality enabled. Temporary overwrites possible. Lesser permanent manifestations enabled.]

Word soup, his favourite. “Appy, what does this mean?” he asked.

[The individual’s dreamscape has gained additional solidity, allowing permanent entrance and exit points to be set into other realities, as well as having achieved availability to support fully biological lifeforms for semi-permanent durations. Fully fledged biomes can now be created more easily. Products made in the inner world can be permanently manifested in other realities with lesser investments of mental energy. Other words will be more easily grafted onto the nexus. Overwrites… are complex.]

He nodded, slowly. All of that basically amounted to the fact that his inner world was now decidedly more liveable. The permanent access and exit points seemed a little suspicious. They were rather close to arches, after all, which often had world cores that needed breaking by seekers. 

[Confirmed. You may create arches.]

“And why exactly am I being given that capability when it seems rather bad for this world’s stability?” he asked.

[Tunnels - permanent access points to other realities - and rifts - temporary access points to other realities - generally aim to siphon resources and stability off this realm. This is a choice driven by their world cores who may be hungry for expansion, or simply staving off their own death from existence. As long as the individual does not actively choose to take threads of reality from this realm’s weave, tunnel functionality is generally considered safe.]

“What are temporary overrides, then?” he asked.

[Overrides constitute a complete metaphysical and physical replacement of a section of one world with another. Manifestations are metaphysical overlays. They are pseudo-real and essentially constitute two realms being in the same place. An override requires the displacement of the target reality, creating a far more complete assertion in exchange for greater dimensional shifts.]

Mercury blinked. “Can you, uh, simplify that?”

[They move a part of this world somewhere else for a bit. Which can cause exposure to the void, or easier attacks from other realities. The world can also be shunted aside into itself using spatial realm compression.]

“That’s not much simpler,” Mercury grumbled. 

[The individual’s dum-dum-ness cannot be be fully compensated for by the assistant intelligence’s skill due to their excessive capability for silliness. The system does not take responsibility for poorly understood abilities.]

Mercury rolled his eyes, giving a small sigh. He supposed it made enough sense. Once again, his inner world had become more real. The biggest change was the ability to house actual physical objects. It really wasn’t much of a dreamscape anymore, at this point.

And yet, he could create matter. If that matter was then entirely physical… Hmm. It was at the point where he could single-handedly break the laws of thermodynamics again, wasn’t it? If he increased his world’s rank another time or two, and learned to weave reality a bit better, could he create something of a post-scarcity society? 

He shook his head. All of that was just a little too much for him right now. Instead of worrying about it a lot, he decided to let the items keep evolving in his inner realm and eat some food. He was feeling peckish - physically, that is. Not metaphysically. His inner world was stuffed. But his very physical stomach wasn’t.

Ah, it did have a gunshot wound in it, though. Well, nothing a quick application of <Shift>, <Hydration> and <Resolve> couldn’t patch up. Mostly.

- - -

Dinner was tasty. Zyl make some baked not-potatoes, as well as some stir fry on the side. Mercury was truly glad for <Nutritional Preservation>, since by now he ate almost entirely vegetarian. Not that he really… needed to eat anymore. But hey, he no longer had to kill any unknowing animals for his meals, and being allowed to make that choice was nice.

Bael wasn’t exactly a picky eater, either. Mercury did not fail to notice the lingering scent of Zyl in their mouth, though. The simple physicality of it was easily detectable by <Greater Perception> and his rather good nose. “Hey, Bael?”

“Hmmm?” the demoness hummed in reply, mouth stuffed with food.

“Did you cannibalise my boyfriend a bit?” 

Instantly, Bael’s eyes went wide. She choked on the meal, coughing and smacking her chest for a few moments. Then, after a few scant moments that Mercury was sure were mostly a habit to feel more human, she threw a crooked grin. “... Maybe?”

Slowly, Mercury nodded. “Zyl, did it hurt?”

The dragon grabbed the side of his neck, rubbing his shoulder a bit. “Well, yeah. Tolerable, though. I’m tough,” he smiled.

“Did you dislike it?” Mercury asked.

Zyl snickered slightly before nodding. “Of course I did. Getting eaten is an unpleasant experience.”

At this point, Bael was starting to look a bit sheepish, so Mercury turned to face her again. His single eye was ice cold, the other still weaving itself from ribbons of silver. “Hey,” he said. “I’ll let it go this time, but if you try to hurt him again, I’ll kill you.”

The simple purity of the phrase made the lady of demons blink. “Huh?” she asked.

Mercury laced his words with <Truth>. “I will kill you.” 

He made sure that it had landed for a few moments, before repeating it one more time. “I’ll kill you. This isn’t a threat. I don’t mind if you two spar or even fight. I have full trust in Zyl, but I need you to understand that it is very simple to me. My friends are dear to me. If they get hurt, I eliminate the problem. It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but I will figure you out, and take you apart. If you hurt him again, you’re a dead demon walking. Got it?”

Every word was laced with power. <Truth> confirmed that he meant it to Bael. She quite literally had no choice but to believe that he was entirely sure she’d die. <Answer> made it so that she couldn’t avoid replying. It was a faint pull at first, but intensified with her silence. Like a buzzing pressure in her ears. Somewhere between having a mosquito in the room at night and slowly sinking deeper into an endless ocean and drowning with only one way up.

Annoyed, she grimaced a little, waving a hand as if to chase the strange feeling away. “Fine, yea, jeez. I’ll try not to break your boytoy.”

“Boyfriend,” Mercury corrected. “Not a toy at all.”

“Yeah, yeah. Boyfriend. Whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Can I keep eating now?” she asked.

Mercury smiled. “Please do.” He ate a bit more food himself, as Zyl’s hand wrapped around his shoulder. The touch was warm, and when he looked over, the dragon was giving him a smile.

“It’s okay,” Zyl said. “I can take care of myself. No need to worry about me.”

“Of course, love,” Mercury said. “But worrying is what partners do, isn’t it.”

At that, the dragon snickered again. “Yes. Yes, it is. I want you to be safe, so I get that you’d want me to be safe, too.”

“But we’re both adventurers. Which is troublesome.”

Zyl nodded along. “Troublesome indeed. Alright. You get to worry about me a little,” he said with a wink, then kissed Mercury on the forehead. “But don’t go threatening to kill people on my behalf. That’s a little rude.”

“You may have a point,” Mercury added sheepishly.

“I haven’t even served dinner yet, silly. At least let the poor woman finish her meal before saying you’ll kill her,” he chided. Then he looked at Bael. “The dinner is pudding, by the way. I made pudding.”

The demon lady, ruler of the infernal cities, smiled faintly. “I’d love some pudding.” Then she looked at Mercury. “And it’s fine. I’ve dealt with ruder people. Demon’s are straightforward like that.”

“Are they?” Mercury asked. “Aren’t demons tricksters?”

At that, Bael laughed. “No, not at all. Well, a little, sure, but it’s the devils you really gotta watch out for. Demons are straightforward, well, as much as you can generalize a group of people, y’know,” she said, waving a hand in front of her casually. “We love war, and fighting, and booze, and general loudness. We like contracts and deals and honor our word. Making agreements is a big part of culture, but the very act of making them is fun.”

“Devils, though?” she shook her head and scoffed a little. “Devils are different. Devils are tricksters. They love negotiating,” she almost spits the word. “Making deals is their love and their passion, but they love the art of crafting them, rather than sticking to them. Does that make sense? They also still like war and bloodshed, but more for profit than for the simple joy of fighting.”

Zyl smiled sadly. “So the war on Arterus is still ongoing?” 

“It never ends,” Bael said, crossing her hands and grinning. “It never should. War is our best pastime. Plus, with all the resurrection circles and the inborn persistent soul trait, it’s also a great way to make friends.”

How strange that all sounded. It was funny, but Mercury had, in fact, not seen a single demon in wrath’s colosseum. Even though he was rather sure demons were angry, spiteful creatures, even here. But they also enjoyed the battle. Wrath was a bit about that, but really, the trapped souls didn’t get to enjoy it. Wrath did. Its avatars.

Maybe those steel monstrosities had been partially made from demons? He wondered idly. It didn’t really matter anymore, after all. Wrath was dead, and he killed it.

Instead of worrying about the eternal war or the moral implications of the unending armies constantly throwing themselves at each other in bloodshed, he simply focussed on the pudding. There were multiple small ones in cups with different flavours. Chocolate and not-quite-vanilla and something that was vaguely citrus-like. All delicious.

“Thank you for the meal, Zyl,” Mercury said. “It was amazing.”

“Yes, thank you,” Bael agreed.

Beaming at the compliments, Zyl quickly took the plates to the sink and placed them aside for a little while. “Alright, let’s get down to business, then.” He said. “Why-”

“Ah, one more second,” Mercury said. His vision was filled with notifications. “My bound items finished updating.”

[<Dream of Starvation>:

Grade: Bound B - Proficiency (673/1000)

Rank: 3 - Growth (113/1000)

Attributes: <Malleable>, <Iron Shell>, <Irreality>, <Warping Fury>]

[<Iron Shell>: This item can entirely encase its user, providing immense buffs to defense and benefiting from any and all defensive traits the user owns. Additionally, all natural weaponry will be enhanced, and the user’s healing can be sped up by letting the Dream of Starvation consume blood.]

[<Irreality>: A weapon that is halfway in a dream can strike at others’ minds. You no longer need to leave physical wounds. Target their astral selves directly. Additionally, you may defend against mental attacks with this tool, too.]

[<Warping Fury>: The hungry dream has found anger. Its desire for bloodshed has increased. It will take everything from an opponent. The intimidation effect is strengthened, the lasting scars are stronger to heal, and the weapon’s reach has grown. It may carve through space, and ignores a portion of armor, rending flesh immediately.]

It had grown stronger. Much, much stronger. Mercury felt it in the runes. It was “only” a grade B item, but that would increase as he got more familiar with it. By now, the liquid metal could encase him, enhance all his attacks, allow for some shapeshifting with <Malleable> to mimic extra limbs, and directly target someone’s fears without even leaving a scratch on them. And it even let him cheat his effective range, which would pair nicely with <Sever> and <Bite>.

In short, it was strong. And yet, somehow, Mercury was more excited for what had come of his cloak.

[<Storm’s Raiment>:

Grade: Bound A - Proficiency (323/1000)

Rank: 2 - Growth (298/1000)

Attributes: <Cloudveil>, <Pocket>, <For The Road>, <Stormwings>, <Storm’s Fury>]

[<Cloudveil>: An evolution of the <Muffled> attribute held by the dracoleather cloak, the Raiment can cloak the user. This provides a buff to all stealth attributes, makes them more likely to be perceived as part of the environment, especially when raining, and strongly reduces any noise produced by the user.]

[<Pocket>: The Storm’s Raiment features a pocket space. Objects can be instantly deposited and withdrawn from this pocket realm with only a thought. Electrically charged or wet objects take up less space. Note that the objects must be free of intent in order to be stored.]

[<For The Road>: An adventurer’s blessing, this attribute means that the item will repair itself even while summoned. Additionally, it can shapeshift, change colour, provides the user enhanced protection from all weather and elements, can be used as a tent and a sleeping bag, and even be used as drinking water when needed. It may be used to start fires, and may maintain the shapes of minor implements for a short while, such as lockpicks, machetes, whittling knives, etc. Anything one may need while travelling, the Raiment shall provide.]

[<Stormwings>: When fuelled by mana, the raiment may expand to grant the user wings and allow them to fly.]

[<Storm’s Fury>: The Raiment will store and build electricity, infusing it into all the user’s weather-based Skills and Abilities if the individual so chooses. Its lightning strikes come faster and cause more destruction than conventional discharges. Additionally, they linger within the body, causing paralysis and reducing the effects of the target’s vitality attribute and any defensive skills.]

He took a long, deep breath, and summoned the Storm’s Raiment around his shoulders. It was malleable, soft as the shawl had been. It wrapped around his neck, and then draped itself over his back, where his trusty cloak always was. Even now, it felt just the same. He customized it a bit, making it look fabric-like, with bits of gilding on the back, and an embossed tree, while the edges of it frayed away into white-grey clouds.

Feeling the embrace of <For The Road> and the way it made every comfort just a little more comfortable… he smiled. He hadn’t noticed just how much he’d missed the cloak while it was evolving. But now, it was back. And it wrapped around him like a piece of his home that he could forever take with him, in the form of a silver-green cloak and shawl. It was lovely.

It was a little silly, but with it wrapped around his neck, he felt ready to face the future. “Alright, Bael. What do you need?”

Chapter 149: A good Blade

I touched my hand to the altar of hir, the tombstone cold under my fingers. There was a faint wind that blew in the temple, feeling cool against my skin. I breathed, and then felt that touch of divinity.

‘Fio,’ Hir greeted me. The chorus of voices seemed strained, as if repressing their anger or disappointment. 

‘Hir,’ I thought back at them. ‘I want to know why-’

‘I apologize for Lurelia’s actions,’ they said. The words come out pressed, as if through gritted teeth. ‘She has overstepped her bounds. Perhaps, in the olden days this would have made sense, but I understand your anger.’

Huh. The sudden apology floored me. I was expecting more… pushback. ‘Are all divines so understanding?’

‘No,’ the voices replied. ‘Ru and Argus Support Lurelia. They believe you an uppity mortal who must be squashed. Archiva cares only insofar as the survival of her library is concerned - to which you are an important cornerstone. She stands with you. With us.’

‘Do you divines often fight amongst each other?’ I asked, the question bubbling forth before I could consider it.

There was a long sigh. ‘Yes,’ Hir said eventually. ‘We bicker much, though there are few such blatant acts of idiocy. Think of us much more like coworkers than siblings. We share a world, and we share a duty, but the way to accomplish this duty is different. I believe we need more mortals. Lurelia believes she could save everyone. Perhaps she is wrong, or perhaps I am.’

At that, I took a deep breath, shaking my head. What a silly revelation. ‘You are just as petty as us, then.’

‘Yes,’ Hir confirmed without hesitation. ‘We put on grand airs, but we are simply people. We live, now, and one day, we die. At the end of our lives, we will be buried, same as any cultivator. It is simply another step on the path.’ Their voice is calm but shaky, just faintly. As if saying so was difficult. No, perhaps not necessarily that. Instead, the words were scary.

Hir was afraid. Of death? I struggled to believe it, so I asked. ‘Are you scared of death?’

They chuckled. It was a soft, ringing noise. Calm and beautiful and melodic. ‘No, Fio. I’m not scared of death. I’m scared of failure. Of dooming this world, of losing the species that have flourished here. If I must die, then that is that. It’s a sacrifice I offered before, and one that I would offer again in a heartbeat.’

I tilted my head. ‘Are you a coward, then?’

‘What?’ they asked.

There was no indignation in the question. No divine anger. Simple… befuddlement. ‘Are you running from your responsibility?’ I could feel Cass trying to pull me back, but I refused. I had to know. ‘Do you think that once you’re dead, you’ve done your part? You won’t have to try anymore?!’

And then, they laughed. Not in a condescending way, but a bewildered kind of hilarity. ‘Yes, Fio. Yes, that’s exactly what I think,’ they said. ‘Death is the easy way out. It always has been. To Ann, when she was a goddess, it was a new beginning. A different path, the opening of a door. But to me? I am death. It is the end. Once I claim myself, the cycle is complete, and I will no longer need to try. I can lay down and rest. I’ve lived long, battled long, and I am weary. Grant me this fantasy.’

To that, I had no reply. Somehow, once I crossed into the fifth realm, the gods apparently decided to become more human. Perhaps they had to hide less, perhaps they had less reasons to keep up appearances. Or perhaps, the situation was dire. I did not know, but that was fine, too.

‘I see,’ is all I said. There is nothing I could tell Hir. Just like Iryel, they were overworked. A divine in need of a break. How strange. ‘Thank you for the apology.’

‘Of course,’ they said. ‘It was only right.’

At that, I shook my head. ‘No. You took responsibility for someone else’s actions. You owe me nothing, owe us nothing. So thank you for giving anyway. I would prefer to see you alive at the end of all this.’

Their voices paused for a moment, then came back soft and gentle. ‘Of course. We shall try,’

‘And that’s all I’d ask,’ I thought. ‘Could you show me the store?’

- - -

Matt was suspicious, but he followed the old man regardless. Silently, they walked through the streets of the medieval city. The uneven cobblestone and surrounding houses raised from carved rock or bound logs were imposingly beautiful, but Matt disregarded them. His earrings stung back and forth, a steady pendulum that calmed him.

The two of them walked, and Rae said not a single word. The old man just walked, keeping a steady pace, his hands clasped behind his back. Matt saw them shake slightly. A tremor that he only noticed in the fifth realm. If he was weaker, it would have been entirely invisible. But now? Matt saw that he was nervous, even if he hid it well.

However, that wasn’t his problem. The swordsman disregarded the old bastard and looked to the lilac sky instead. He traced the minute winds in the air, letting them brush through his hair like a gentle caress. Each faint movement of it was recorded to be used as part of his storm. The exercise was anything but simple, and still, it calmed him. 

So he walked.

Through streets, past houses, big and small. Decrepit ones, opulent ones, inns with Reflectors, and Edians who treated them with a steady unease. It was a thin equilibrium, but it was peaceful. The air smelled nice. The sun was warm without being scorching. There was a touch of brimming Echo in the air, but it was fainter even than on Neamhan. 

“We’re here,” Rae eventually said.

That comment was what made Matt tear his gaze from the sky and the buildings around. The old man had still not turned around. He stood in front of a decrepit door. It was a small building, made from dense but somewhat worn down stone. The age was etched into its walls, smeared and cracked and scratched, and yet homely.

Gently, with calm fingers, the old man pushed open the door, and it creaked as it swung on untended hinges. But it swung, and sunlight spilled into the small room.

The floor was covered in a thick sheet of dust, but that was not enough to hide the craftsmanship from Matt. Outside, it would barely have been as big as an apartment, but inside, the thing was the size of a soccer field. Runes sprawled across the dust covered floor, sputtering to life in the shoddy walls. It was a training hall, made by a formations expert.

Rae walked in calmly, stepping in a specific pattern. “Follow in my steps. There are defensive arrays,” he said, voice quivering ever so slightly as he danced through. Matt’s frown deepened, but he followed.

He frowned, because he saw the walls. The way they and the ground were covered in scratches. Long furrows, dug into the stone and the wood. Wounds from battles long past. This was a training hall. 

There were even flecks of dried blood still on the floor. Blood that had probably once belonged inside Fio’s body.

“Why are we here?” Matt asked, but Rae simply held up a hand.

“Please, I ask for a little more patience. I will explain soon, I promise.”

Clicking his tongue, Matt listened anyway. Because he chose to be kind and patient, even as it ground on his nerves. He simply nodded and bore with it, walking further into the halls.

“Would you be so kind…?” Rae asked, gesturing wearily at the dust all around.

Matt sighed. “Fine,” he said curtly, then swung his hand. That motion was all it took. After all, when coated in Qi, his palm was as good as any blade, and a storm of plum blossoms crawled through the halls, carrying the dust and grime with them. The wooden floorboards were revealed, still maintained, the formations inscribed into them unblemished.

Coughing slightly, the young swordsman waved his hand in front of his face. “Ugh, some got into my eyes,” he complained. “What a pain.”

Rae remained silent. He simply stood and watched as Matt coughed. He waited until the younger man stared at him again. He waited until Matt spoke. “So what?” the swordsman asked. “What is it? Why did you bring me here? Are we fighting or something? Are you trying to show off? Pull some ‘mysterious old master’ shtick? Tell me.”

And, finally, the older man nodded. “Yes,” he said, giving a long, suffering sigh. “It is about time I say it.” He breathed in, then out, his hands shaking. 

Then, slowly, he lowered himself to the ground. 

First to one knee, then the other. Then, he lowered his head to the wood, too. 

“I’m sorry,” he said.

The silence in the training hall was sharp and cutting. It smelled of plum blossoms. “You’re sorry?” Matt asked.

Rae nodded, smacking his head into the ground softly. It wouldn’t hurt his head, but the sound rang out clearly in the quiet building. “I apologize. To you.”

“To me?” Matt asked, gritting his teeth. “To me?”

Again, the old man nodded. “Yes. To you.”

“What about Fio, huh?! Have you apologized to her?!” Matt demanded.

“No,” Rae said. “I have not.”

“You spill her blood, you carve up my friend and then you have the audacity to drag me here just to feed me an apology? The fuck do you expect from me, bastard? For me to shake my head and smile and wave it away as no problem? To go easy on you?!” he snarled. “Fuck off. I don’t care what you’ve done since. I don’t care how you’ve repented. You carved her up in here. For that, I will never forgive you.”

Rae swallowed. “Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry.” Drops of water fell to the ground beneath his head.

“Bastard. You are a fucking bastard. You took a kid and… turned her into a war machine or something, fuck. All discipline, all iron, all unyielding, right? A blade never breaks, and all?” he pulled out his sword. A shattered thing, patched with blossoms. It was ugly and beautiful all at once. “And what, you’re sorry to me?”

Nothing.

“Say something!” Matt yelled.

“I’m sorry,” Rae said again. The words came out a wheeze. “I… I-” he paused.

“What?!” Matt yelled again, outraged.

“I couldn’t look her in the eyes,” Rae said. He still faced the floor. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t. So here I am. With you.” A sob. “Practicing.”

At that, the young swordsman paused. All the anger, all the bravado from a moment ago fled. The floor beneath the old man’s head was wet. A steady drip-drop fell from his face onto the wooden boards. 

“What are you sorry for?” Matt asked. It was cold now, like a snowy winter night. Cutting to the heart of it.

“For hurting her. For being too harsh. For each and every unfair cut to teach her an unfair world. For being a warrior and trying to force her to be one,” he said.

Matt nodded. “And?”

“I want to do better,” Rae said. “It’s been years. I need to do better.”

“Can you?” Matt asked.

Those words were the harshest he could. The apology? It mattered, yeah. It was chill. Important, even. But it was like opening the door to an unfinished house. Rae needed to build something, to do better. And Matt… well. The Rae from Neamhan was better than the one from Eden. So he needed to know which one this was.

“I… will try,” he said. “Fio cared for me on the other side. My wife did, too. I’d forgotten about all the war and the slaughter. It was so distant and now…” he grasped the air, then slammed an empty fist down on the wooden boards. “It’s there, but not. It’s far away, but so close. I fought and killed for decades, under a half-dead, forgotten god. For a whole world, where every loss meant another city, gone. Another culture, wiped out.”

“So what?” Matt asked, cruelly. “You have your reasons. Those are not excuses.”

Rae nodded. “Yes. They are not. So I apologize. I take accountability. I hurt someone who did not deserve it. I thought it was for the greater good—” Matt scoffed “—but it should not have happened. So, I will do better. I will guide and protect her. As a teacher should.”

For a long, long moment, Matt let those words hang in the silent air. He stood there, and thought. Fio would want to forgive him. She’d wrap this old fool into a hug and cry and say it was all fine. She was like that, and that’s why they were best friends.

But Matt? He wasn’t like that. He was much, much colder than that.

Slowly, he took a deep breath. “Get off the ground,” he said, sighing with exhaustion, dragging a hand through his hair.

Morosely, Rae followed the instruction. Matt waved his hand, brushing aside the dust, and the remaining tears sticking to the old man’s face. It all vanished with the wind. The two stood opposite each other for a long moment.

“How sturdy are these walls?” Matt asked. He felt angry. A torrent of it boiled inside him, but his voice was relaxed. Calm and brutally aloof, almost uncaring.

“Very,” Rae admitted. “Carved by an archmage. I can break them, yes, but not with just stray hits.”

Matt nodded. “Alright, old man.” He drew his sword. “Fight me.” His face, for once, was ice-cold. There was no battle-lust, no hunger, no furious joy of life and death dancing at the edge of a blade. This was a simple test.

Rae smiled sadly. “I thought you might say that,” he said, grabbing the empty air next to him. Ricipia, the Sky Terror, appeared in his empty hand. “Battle is a conversation between warriors, right?” the old man asked.

“Sure,” Matt nodded again. “But that’s really not it. I just wanna cut you, fucker.” And then, he stabbed the unforgivable bastard, Fio’s master, mentor and teacher, and the asshole he’d decided to forgive already. He just had to bleed for it a bit. 

He’d endure it. A good blade never broke, right?

Chapter 251: Separation

Chapter 251: Separation

There had once been a vast world of steel.

Trees made of needles. Grass shaped like blades. Filled with creatures more sword than living, filled with things meant for violence, competing for sharpness

It had been a land of brutality and savagery. Where beings butchered relentlessly. Where bodies were crumpled and carved apart. Where life was all about killing.

Unyielding metal sliced through soft flesh, spilling blood that was devoured by the ground itself. Steel begot steel, and writhing branches of cutting metal jutted from the ground like spikes. 

Anything that walked was impaled or cut apart. Malevolently mauled and brutally bisected. 

That world of steel was gone.

Violence had been turned into past tense.

Brutally butchered bodies? None. Sinister songs of steel? Erased.

An entire world… was flattened.

Mercury stood in front of a bastion. A single, titanic castle from cold metal, resisting the waves of his liquid silver. It was the only bastion. This world had been devoured by the stifled silence, and the tides of <Grief>. And in doing so, Mercury had understood.

[Your understanding of <Grief> has increased. <Grief (medium) -> (high)>]

There was plenty to grieve. Every lost life, every branch of malevolent metal grown from spilled blood. He saw it all, broke it all to the ground, and grieved for everyone who’d died. Because those people, humans, sipisc, elves, dwarves, even a draconic child, they deserved it. 

He breathed, slowly, and an entire world’s worth of silver slowly flooded around him. The domain crawled closer, bit by bit, and he saw that the Stifled Silence had evolved to Rank 1.

[Stifled Silence:

Grade: Bound A - Proficiency (139/1000)

Rank: 1 - Growth (266/1000)

Attributes: <Vast>]

[<Vast>: The Stifled Silence was always meant to be a zone of sincerety. Of truth. Where words are only spoken when they matter. Now, it reaches a whole realm. Falsehoods and noise are done away with, and in the vast ocean of resonating quicksilver, there is a simple truth. Sometimes, one must listen.]

The bastion had defenders within it. Though, calling them defenders was rather generous. Really, there was a mindless legion of automatons. It was another manifestation of violence, another more insidious one.

In the last residence, the last wellspring of wrath, there was systemic violence. A coordinated, armed force of centurions, meant to bring down low any who oppose. To create scapegoats out of the entire world and spread fear. In the truest of ways, it was an army of puppet soldiers, held by a single puppeteer.

At the very center of wrath, there was a creature that Mercury would kill. He did not yet know what kind of creature that was, he didn’t know its powers, but none of it mattered. It’d die, anyway.

Silence reigned. In perfect quiet, with not a noise at all, an ocean of quicksilver flowed across the flattened world. Rid of violence. Its heart, shattered. Mercury had reduced down this terrible place of anger to a shadow of its former self. In a way,it was a little like how Finva of Dust had reduced the once opulent realm of gluttony down to the ashen plains.

It survived, it grew again, but Mercury would leave no such chance. The colosseum was shattered in a way that the faerie could never have done. The champion of wrath was still in that realm, rather than lost and somewhere else. But not for too much longer. Wrath was done.

Minutes passed.

An ocean of quicksilver gathered. 

Titanic, shimmering waves of a silent storm behind Mercury. For the first time in hours, he spoke, at the walls of the bastion.

“Break,” he commanded.

His voice rang out crystal clear in the silence, a demand that the world had no choice but to <Answer>. A <Truth> that was amplified by his previous silence.

Metal shattered. 

The bastion wall shrieked as bits of it wanted to tear from one another. I would be mended in a heartbeat, but a heartbeat was all it took. In a moment, the tsunami crashed into the castle. Cracked walls were torn down by the flood like fragile glass. 

Horrible rending shrieks of tearing metal were silenced by the flood, silenced by Mercury’s crown of vines. Metal walls and towers fell apart into shrapnel, disintegrating like a sandcastle swept aside by waves. An army of coordinated soldiers, each one reinforcing all others… shattered.

They crashed into the ground, getting torn to shreds by unwavering masses of silver. Mercury stood with a sad look in his eyes. There was no joy in killing a world, even if it was necessary, if it was the right thing to do. 

Waves of silver rose and roared, fell and fractured fragile soldiers. Bit by bit, metal was shorn. The castle fell in the span of ten heartbeats.

And, of course, within it, something stirred.

Wrath had a single champion left. The most angry creature in this realm. It burrowed from the ground, stirred by the violence. From the center of the castle rose… a manticore. It had the heads of a lion and a dragon, the wings of a bat, and from its back, there was a scorpion’s tail - except, instead of the stinger, there was a gun.

It looked at Mercury, eyes blazing with scarcely contained fury. A raw wrath spilled from it, so enormous that the silver ocean was pushed aside, split as if cut by a blade. The tail took aim, and fired.

Somehow, Mercury had not expected a gun.

Being on the receiving end of one was bizarre. He’d avoided them like the plague wherever he could. Even when he still lived on Earth, he was only held at gunpoint once. And now, during his second time ever, he was shot.

Despite everything he might say about wrath, the manticore could not be called a bad shot. The bullet roared towards him with indignation, cutting a line of scarlet light through the air. It pierced into his right air, pulping the flesh. It tore through his flesh, mangled the bones around his eye socket, smashed through the inside of his skull and exited out the back.

Bits of bone and brain were splattered into the silver sea. Mercury felt a part of his processing power fall and slide away. His brain was splattered in some ways. It was hard to put into words - in part because those bits of him might have just been pulped. And yet, despite it all, his zeyjn snapped back into place.

A second part of his mind stirred, taking the place of his physical brain that was just torn to bits. His own blood and viscera coated the Dracoleather Cloak, but soon sloughed off. Bits of red dripped to the ground. Mercury breathed, letting the pain flow along the <Babbling Brook>. 

Wasn’t it funny that even with his brain in tatters he still needed to use the Skill to let the pain pass him by? He noted it with dull indifference, as the second bullet hit him. It landed in his chest, tearing into his collarbone and getting deflected to the side. There, it tore through one of his ribs, then a second before finally exiting out of his body. 

Dispassionately, Mercury activated <Hydration>, <Shift>, and <Resolution>. Silver string of flesh wove and pulled the wounds shut, as new bones sprouted within his chest. It would take him a bit to regenerate, but he did not need two eyes for this.

After all, Mercury saw everything around him. In his domain, nothing could hide. He <Grieved> the lost parts of himself, and fed that grief right back into his tide of silver. Amplified by his own marrow, the tide surged against the bladed aura.

The manticore shot again, but this time, the gun barrel found itself faced with an ocean of shiny metal. The bullet crashed into the waves. And there it suffocated.

Quicksilver solidified into grasping, reaching tendrils. A forward whirlpool breaking the momentum of the bullet, then swallowing it entirely.

A third of Mercury’s mind stirred, woke, and joined the fray. With three of them puppeteering the ocean, he created grasping tendrils of liquid silver, shooting at the manticore. It roared, biting and splitting the metal. The aura of wrath oozed from it in thick clumps of red, like crystals of blood, severing the flood.

Bits of silver turned crimson, splitting apart. But then, there were more limbs reaching in.

Wrath had been an army. An unbroken flood of steel. And yet, all of it had fallen. One by one, ground to dust. 

Now, an entire ocean was at Mercury’s beck and call. If he was in danger from a gun, he would simply break line of sight.

Blood still oozing from the remainders of his eye socket, silver bands of a material that was neither light nor flesh weaving around the back of his head, Mercury sank into the ocean. Slowly, the waves rose higher, devouring him. He did not need to see, because the world could not hide its secrets from him.

“Drown,” Mercury commanded. The words rang out, into a world that was already fragile, already consumed by his silver storm, and his decree was enforced by his silver crown. When he told it to drown, the manticore may have strained, but the world itself listened.

Plains of metal where there had once been violence drowned in quicksilver peace. The ground that had once been covered in knife-like grass was now flat, and crumpled in on itself like aluminium foil. The sky crinkled and crashed in on itself, falling into the ground. The two met at the edges, then crumpled inwards, breaking into pieces.

The manticore screamed at it, but its roars suffocated, too. Red fury pooled out from it in a cacophony of violence, but it simply would never be enough. Silver silence flowed into both its maws, clogging up its teeth and drowning the monster. It was angry about that, too, but it would never be angry enough.

Second by second, the word shrunk. There was a pressure outside that should have been a vacuum, but wasn’t. The void itself pushed in like gigantic hands, and the reality broke and tore and shredded itself, until every millimetre of it was filled with an ocean of silver.

Because, unlike the fragile realm, the silent silver storm around Mercury did not break.

It held the shattered bits of the world together. The discarded, crumpled edges simply drifted into the ocean, and the quicksilver flowed out to mend it. Mercury’s nexus fed off of this world, too, and slowly, the crumpled sphere that remained was polished from the inside out.

Until the manticore roared again.

Blood red violence spilled out, cutting the ocean. It clipped Mercury’s heart, carving right through his ribcage again, and spilling a bit of crimson from him, only to find bands of silver closing the wounds, his body shifting. He grimaced, forcing his heart to keep pumping, his blood to keep flowing, letting the pain drift away.

Blades of unrestrained fury cascaded out through the ocean. Gashes were cut then flooded back with silver, but those rent’s in reality also cut open the sphere of this realm. The manticore, in its death throes, had opened up the way to the Void.

Mercury felt it before his adversary ever could.

<Nothingness> pooled at the edge of his awareness, just a hint outside his silver sphere. There was a gap, a moment of pause in his protection of this realm. A single wound carved into an unblemished surface. Colourless ink hungrily flowed inside that dead space. Fraying threads discontinued, consumed by that wound.

The Void appeared. It crawled inside his ocean, then all at once, spread.

Like an infection, any bit of silver touched by it was torn at, corrupted, devoured. The remaining chunks of wrath he’d not yet absorbed were bitten and chomped at by the touch of that vast, empty, horrible nothing. Out there, his silence was worthless. There was no sound, and yet, it roared. There was no anger, and yet, it caused violence.

Shredding through his silver at breakneck speed, Mercury <Manifested> his dream. Green grass bloomed, instantly turned a shiny metallic colour as the Stifled Silence covered it, drained the colour from the world. But that verdant life from within him kept the void at bay.

It was imperfect, but he didn’t need perfection. All he needed was a few more moment.

The ocean shook with the death throes of the manticore. Bullets flew out, blades of glowing red fury flew through there. They sought out Mercury, wanted to make him bleed, but it was too late. He saw them now. Dodged them, now. The thing roared and shook and stirred, but he simply walked towards it.

And then, with his Dracoleather Cloak, he channelled a ton of electricity through his ocean.

A bolt of lightning zapped through the metal, striking the monster, charring and melting its metallic flesh. The Cloudmatter Shawl swelled with dark lightning, and another explosion of it flared, echoing the first. Yellow-purple lightning tore through the space of metal and emptiness, breaking and shattering the remainders of wrath, until that last star was extinguished and consumed. Until it drowned.

In the end, that was how wrath died.

Not with a scream or a roar, but with a crumpling whimper at the center of a stormy, silver ocean.

[You have killed the Avatar of Wrath. Get: 25 000 Exp, 9 000 Gold, <Fragment of Electric Fury>]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

Mercury took a deep breath. There was a ringing in the air. From where the manticore had been, there was a string that he plucked, that resonated as it shattered, sending a ripple through reality. It was another brush with the third veil, one he felt ever more clearly. But there was more to be dealt with, still.

He felt the way his Cloudmatter Shawl stirred. It had taken the lightning from the Dracoleather Cloak, and now, the fragment was absorbed by it, too. Back when Yasashiku made it, he’d said the item would be easily bound, and now, that time had come, apparently.

And it resonated with his cloak as it did so

Green leather was consumed by the shawl, scintillating lightning crawling along the blob of fused material as the void encroached. With a gentle sigh, Mercury sent it to coalesce in the safety of his mindscape. Wrath was gone. He had feasted on it.

The grass around him disappeared as he dispelled his dream. A while ago, he had received a Skill. One he’d not been planning to use for a while, one he’d wanted to use when he felt ready. But now? It was time.

When his dream disappeared, and Mercury was stranded in the gaps between worlds, <Voidwalker> triggered.

Mercury blinked, and his perspective changed.

There, in the Void, there was <Nothing>.

Absolutely nothing.

In a very substantial way, Mercury did not exist. There were titanic leviathans all around him, ones that could swallow planets, even stars in single bites, and yet, none of them existed at all. There was no weave. There were no dreams. No life, no sound.

Everything about him, everything about this place, was fake.

A moment passed, and Mercury’s not-heart didn’t beat. He didn’t see anything stir in the emptiness around him, and he didn’t hear any of the million not-sounds. And, at the same time, he saw everything. Every moment, every world, every realm was a single step away because the space between them was nothing at all and he could so easily cross it with a single thought.

Of course, thoughts didn’t exist there at all, so Mercury did not think. And yet, he existed. His reality was frayed and out of place and yet, it found itself inverted, through <Voidwalker> and a twist out the other side of <Grain of Infinity>. The white hole at his center turned black and inverted him inside out, turning him into a shadow of a shadow that wasn’t real.

[<Grain of Infinity> has levelled up! <Grain of Infinity lv. 1 -> 2>]

He didn’t tilt his head at all, and he didn’t wonder what this felt like, because the notion of feeling anything was silly. He didn’t take a deep breath.

[<Voidwalker> has levelled DOWN. <Voidwalker lv. 1 -> 0>]

And somehow, that reduction of his Skill to nothing, an inversion of an inversion of an inversion in a way that shunted him out from reality and forced him to exist in a place that didn’t exist at all… made it easier. 

He not-breathed.

Gentle rain didn’t fall. Black droplets ascended upwards towards clouds that were below him. It swirled and twisted around him.

On a <Babbling Brook>, Mercury let all those terrible, unparseable sensations fade away. He could not tell what was happening, but all he had to do was allow it to wash over him.

<Lucidity> fell through the inversion of <Grain of Infinity>. Its effects were twisted and returned in on themselves. He fell into a <Trance>. A half-asleep, half-dreaming thing where the irreality was a little more bearable.

[<Voidwalker> has levelled down. <Voidwalker lv. 0 -> -1>]

Ah, negative Skill levels. How lovely.

The very thing his survival was now based on sat at a solid negative one. Below zero. And yet, he felt its effects. The way that the <Nothingness> grew a little less turbulent. He took another not-breath, and slowly, gently, sunk into ihn’ar.

Where everything was one, nothing was distant. In a way, this Void was everywhere, so he was, too. In a way, it didn’t exist at all, so he didn’t, either. Where did it all loop around? Like a snake eating its own tail, everywhere looped around to nowhere. Like a quantum particle in a superposition that enveloped the entire universe with its waveform.

Mercury lifted the golden veil of reason. The iridescent veil of reality parted like a gossamer curtain. And he stood in front of the third veil, one that had seemed so distant for so long.

Except, he saw it.

The curtain was white. It was an opaque, perfect white. The kind that was so self-evident, so simple, there was no reason to ever doubt it. Like the walls of a flat, freshly painted, it was…

Separation.

It was the white veil of separation. 

Mercury gazed at the idea that things were separate. The very concept that stopped him from losing himself in everything and everyone else. The idea that he was on his own. That there was something like distance between people, staring down the artificial barriers he put up himself.

Very gently, Mercury’s lips twisted into something that wasn’t a smile. He tapped that wall of white, and it rippled, then shattered. The veil of separation was torn apart, and revealed the truth of connection.

His eyes bled. His heart exploded into crystalline shards of- it didn’t matter. His body was ravaged. Blood spilled through his fur as that thing barrier to the outside unravelled. Mercury was everywhere, and he didn’t exist at all, he was ouroboros, he was infinity, he was the space between a particle core and its shell. He was…

Who was he?

A gentle rain fell.

Liquid silver swirled.

Pinpricks of magic littered the sky.

Mercury breathed in a place where he shouldn’t have. His skin stretched back over muscles that weren’t there at all. A broken heart beat in his chest.

[Your understanding of <Nothingness> has increased. <Nothingness (medium> -> (high)>]

His name was Mercury Rainfall Starlight. And frankly, he wanted to go home.

What a silly idea that was. Everything was connected, and everywhere in this place was the same. Really, he was already home.

Mercury took a breath. He closed his eyes. When he opened them, he smelled plants and paints, cake and fire. He smiled. 

“Hey Zyl,” he said. “I’m home.”

Chapter 148: Matt’s Motivations

Matt stared at Fio as she made another outrageous claim. Fighting the goddess and winning? Was that the surge of Qi he’d felt before?

He felt within himself, where that influx of power coursed through his newly advanced wellspring. It was like eating a natural treasure, and it had allowed him to easily reach the second step. That power increase, after his level-up, meant he was stronger than ever. 

Slowly, Matt took a breath. Plum blossoms slowly wreathed around his hand. He put on a smile, looking at Fio. “Sounds wild. Good job,” he said. 

“Thanks,” Fio replied. “Just glad Reya’s safe.”

“For sure,” Matt said. He looked at his friend. Slowly, a second ticked by, then another.

“Well?” Emilia asked. “Are ya gonna grab your upgrades, princess?” 

“Right!” Fio said, shaking her head as if clearing cobwebs from it. Then, she went to Hir’s altar, placed a hand upon it and closed her eyes.

Matt waited another second for the next cataclysm, then closed his eyes. He took in another deep breath, smelling the plums, visualizing his inner world, his path. Ascent of the Blossoming Firmament. It used to be about groves and such, but then he stepped past those, and aimed higher.

It was funny, the way one’s path through life shifted. Matt had once forsaken his father’s dojo, and yet, here he was, wielding a sword. He hated knives and cooking, but he swung his blade. And every time he did, he felt that glint of potential. That innate talent.

He knew he had it for cooking, too. That he could have become the best chef in the world, maybe, but he hated the thought of that.

Sometimes, Matt wondered what it was like to just be mediocre.

Drawing in another breath, he ran a hand alongside the bark of a plum tree, taking a step along the stairs hewn into the solemn mountain he envisioned. The sky was pink, awash with falling petals. He stepped higher.

Truly, meeting Fio and Ann was the best thing to ever happen to him. Because, as much as he competed with them… he was also lazy about it. He could meditate more, advance faster if he tried. But he truly didn’t want to. He didn’t want to lost himself. He didn’t want to be the best. All he wanted was to be good enough. And for these people, he was.

Again, he breathed the flowers. He looked at the pink sky, and let out a long, deep sigh. Sometimes, it all felt so heavy. The pressure to succeed. Sometimes, he wished he’d just die in the next battle he took part in, but then he drew his sword, and felt the change.

It was still him. It would always be him. There was no demon coming out to play - every single beautiful stroke of his weapon was his own, every single masterful cut driving him further to perfection was his. And yet, he hated that part of himself. He wished he were a bit worse at killing.

Another breath. Another sigh. Slowly, calmly, Matt took that fear of himself and let it go. He placed it on one of the falling leaves, and let it drift down onto the fog that covered the entire world below. All there was to do was ascend higher, he didn’t need to look back. Down low was a place for him to leave the worries and creeping fears that he hated himself for.

Slowly, gently, Matt took another step. And opened up the status sheet granted to him by the Gift.

[Name: Matthew Myong

Class: Blossom Swordmaster (26)

• Techniques

  • Sword Techniques

    • Sword Technique - Fundamentals (Ascended)

    • Scattered Sword (Inevitability)

    • World Rend (High)

    • Edge of Infinity (Basic)

  • Qi Techniques

    • General

      • Aura Sense (High) (Perceive your surroundings by being in touch with the energies suffusing them)

      • Qi Segmentation (High) (Split your strength into parts, imbuing each with a fragment of will)

    • Plum Blossoms

      • Whirlwind Step (Great) (Shape the storm to support your feet. Walk where you will it.)

      • Sword Dominion (Great) (Your Qi infuses your weapon perfectly. It is an extension of your tranquil storm.)

      • Disparate Manifestation (High) (Wherever your storm reaches, so does your weapon, and so do you.)

      • Fury (Basic) (You know anger. Allow it to fuel you.)

• Stats

  • General

    • Strength: Greater (Intermediate)

    • Agility: Novaic (Lesser)

    • Endurance: Greater (Basic)

    • Resilience: Greater (Basic)

    • Manipulation: Novaic (Intermediate)

    • Capacity: Novaic (Basic)

    • Absorption: Greater (Greater)

  • Qi

    • Plum Blossoms

      • Purity (Superior)

      • Realm (Maelstrom)

      • Stage (2nd Step)

      • Path (Ascent of the Blossoming Firmament)

• Disposition

  • Covenant

    • Protection (You have found your haven. Those in it are precious. Those who threaten it shall die.)

  • Temperament

    • Remembrance (You hold onto kindnesses, and onto grudges.)

    • Vanity (You strive to have your excellence acknowledged, to be appreciated. But not too much.)

    • Easygoing (Forgive others quickly, when in your favour. Find levity in small things.)

    • Brittle Steel (Hard yet tense. You endure much, but when broken, you shatter.)

    • Battleborne (Lose yourself in the bloodlust. There is calm to be found in war.)

  • Talent

    • Prodigy (Learn a thousand things when taught one. Your talent is unmatched in the worlds.)

    • Sword God [Evolved from Sword Saint] (Your blade may split the skies. Swinging it is more natural than breathing.)

    • Furious Fighter (When steel clashes with steel, the world clears. Carve your existence out from another’s corpse.)

    • Perfect Perception (See a move once, and replicate it easily.)

    • Harmony (Your body moves as your mind wills it.)

    • Muscle Memory (Each movement is carved into your body, and perfected in moments.)

    • Stormbringer (The wind loves you. It follows in your wake easily.)

    • Peerless Perfection (Your grace is unmatched. At any stage, your abilities are stronger than those of anyone at the same stage.)

    • Blossom Destiny (No path could be better for you. Stride forward, advance with ease.)

Current Status: Tense]

The words of the Gift rallied in front of his inner eye, and he looked at the list of his talents. No new ones, this time. Occasionally, they’d pop up, made easier by [Prodigy]. One of them had evolved. [Sword God], now.

He supposed that was suitable for his swordsmanship ascending. That probably meant he was as good at swinging a sword as a weak god of swordsmanship might be. He didn’t have their raw capacity for Qi, of course, but that would come with time. The additional levels went a long way in allowing that.

Slowly, Matt breathed in. Then out again. He let the world pass him by, adjusting to how his body had changed. To how the storm in him shifted. So tranquil and yet so violent. 

He thought back to the moment when he had ascended his swordsmanship. 

It was during the battle with Black Swan. She had been on the third step of the Maelstrom realm, and yet, he beat her. And he beat her… before advancing.

When he thought back, the memories were in the stark clarity of battle. Everything but his sword lost its meaning, everything but the flow of the fight forgotten. And yet, when it came to war, to butchering his opponents, he remembered every bit of it.

Each illusion he’d carved through, each bit of flesh he’d mangled. And of course, the moment he won. When the lady Swan thought her poisons had finally taken him, when the divine purity of his Qi roared through his veins, when he swung his sword once and it was more than inevitable.

A single strike of his had advanced his fundamentals, triggered [Scattered Sword] and [World Rend] and [Edge of Infinity] all at once. A thousand lines had appeared, carving up the pocket dimension, and every single illusion in the sky had been bisected at once.

As had the real Black Swan.

The cut was hair thin, her body fitting together like puzzle pieces. A heartbeat passed after her death and his storm had torn her body to shreds. A tattered corpse. He’d carved his life out of her.

And then, the dregs of her Qi were drawn into his storm, into his wellspring in a tornado of purification, and he’d advanced. Through murdering another. Again.

He breathed, and meditated. He let the hatred for himself go. He’d protected Fio and Ann. His haven was threatened, and he killed, that was all. Whether that made him good or bad didn’t matter, it simply mattered that his friends were safe. If they needed him to… he’d fight the gods. Just like Fio had. 

The thought made him smile. She’d outdone him again. He’d need to chase after her to catch up. For bragging rights, and to see her annoyed expression. That’d be fun.

A tap on his shoulder shook him out of his meditation. He opened his eyes. The others were talking, Reya signing at Liam excitedly, and him translating for Emilia while Eric stood, relieved. Olivia was with Iryel and Chris, watching Fio go through the process of levelling. She was taking a bit, as she usually did.

Instead, in front of him, was Rae.

The old man who’d saved Fio. The old man who’d beat the hell out of her in the name of training. The old man who’d made her cry and then stomped away in fury and disappointment. 

Matt looked at him. He’d not forgiven Rae. “What is it?” he asked.

Fio’s teacher looked at him for a long moment. His eyes were unreadable, his face set in a tight, aloof blankness. “Would you walk with me?” he asked.

“Why?” Matt tilted his head, frown deepening. 

Rae slowly nodded. “Because I wish to talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

The old man paused for a moment, then ran a hand through his hair. “I think we both have plenty to talk about.”

Matt felt the anger bubble up. “Oh really? And what would that be, huh?” It took him quite a bit of effort to not insult the old man.

Sighing again, Rae leaned forward. “I want to apologize,” he said. “Properly. Please.”

Almost on reflex, Matt wanted to spit venom in the old man’s face. But, looking at Fio, he sighed. She’d never say it, but she wanted him to make peace with Rae. She’d wanted him to do so for a while.

Did people ever change? Matt knew they could, hypothetically, but it had been very clearly shown to him that it was almost impossible for most. People didn’t like seeing their flaws, didn’t like changing. They were complacent - same as him - and so he was slow to forgive when people slighted his friends. 

Slowly, Matt forced himself to nod. “Sure,” he said, though the word came out tense and through gritted teeth. He expected nothing. Less than nothing. If anything, he expected Rae to fuck this up, royally.

Instead, the old man simply nodded, then turned around, and walked out of the temple. “We will be back soon, he said just loud enough for the others to hear. And then, Matt followed him out. He felt this would go poorly, and yet, he decided to see how it went, once again. Because his friend wanted him to.

Chapter 250: Bleeding Heart

Chapter 250: Bleeding Heart

Zyl’s heart beat and the entire mountain erupted into fire. Rock turned soft around him, glowing red with heat, and the human guise of Bael began to sizzle. Their skin cracked and turned even darker. Then, teeth grew from those cracks.

Maws began to open across the demon’s body. Zyl frowned in disgust, but still punched again, activating <Stellar Heart> to power his actions. The power of an entire sun burned in his chest, and he slammed his fist forward so fast that the air screamed and boiled.

Bael twisted backwards, getting a glancing blow that still shattered bones, cratering the mountain behind him, sending molten stone splattering around. The air burnt around Zyl, a heat-haze so dense it looked like tiny flickers of lightning. Bael’s maws grinned, tongues lolling out from sharp teeth, twisting into smiles.

They tasted the burning air. “You’re a dragon,” he said, matter of factly.

Zyl nodded. “And you’re a demon. A demon ruler, I’d wager. Which number are you?”

Again, the demon’s grin widened, splitting his face. Horns sprouted from his head, as his body snapped and twisted into its proper shape. They formed a crown of twisting black thorns, branching off like antlers. His scleras turned black, and his eyes a dark, glimmering purple. “I’ll enjoy tearing your flesh.”

“Careful,” Zyl chided. “You’ll burn yourself.” His heart thumped in his chest again, the wave of heat so intense that some of Bael’s teeth cracked. The demon hissed at the pain, yet still charged in again. 

Except, it was hardly a charge. A giant maw on his stomach opened, and simply devoured the space between the two. One moment, they were distant, and the next, they were right next to one another. The demon went to punch Zyl, only to have his attack turned aside, as the dragon was simply far more proficient in hand-to-hand combat.

Bael didn’t need to hit, though. A maw opened on the back of their arm, biting into Zyl’s flesh with razor sharp teeth, grinding against and tearing into his ruby scales. Blood spilled from the wound, hissing as it met the demon’s tongue, but still being devoured.

“That hits the spot,” Bael groaned, eyes rolling back faintly. Zyl grimaced, punching the demon in the face again, sending him slamming into the stone once more. Lava bubbled and flowed over the demon’s skin, bits flowing into his open mouths, hissing and burning.

Grabbing his jaw, Bael pushed it back into place, clicking his bones together, even as they twisted and grew. “Lizard was always one of my favourites.”

Zyl didn’t banter. Instead, he just breathed. His heart beat, pouring heat into the surroundings. He was growing warm, and he could feel it. Slowly, he called his memories of fighting back. There were Skills he had left unused for a long time, simply due to the fact that they were not suited to being used in a civilized place.

<Heat Diffusion>, <Flame Emperor>, <Domain of Incineration>, <Return to Ash>... one by one, his powers flickered on, fed by the star in his chest. Zyl breathed the incinerating heat, feeling just how close the air got to igniting in his lungs. He moved his hands, now turned to draconic claws, wreathed in so much heat that bits of plasma clung to them as he moved.

Bael shifted, growing ever larger and tougher. He grinned his hundred maws, and attacked again. A monster of hunger and strength, met by an incinerating flame. 

There were bits of Zyl’s own ruby scales covering the demon - some kind of absorption ability activated by eating, he guessed - but those didn’t matter. Without his resistances, his own body would crumple against his fire. Bael was an idiot to try and fight him.

When the space between them disappeared, and the demon wanted another morsel, something very simple happened. He opened a maw, and his skin melted. The tongue was instantly turned to ash. Teeth cracked and exploded into boney shrapnel from the heat. For just a moment, fear flickered on the demon’s face.

<Rending Fire>, <Flamescourge>, <Solar Furnace>. 

The demon tried to walk backwards. <Spatial Fire>. 

Behind him, space itself burnt away. His path of escape was turned to ash. Flames so bright they transcended colour began to wreathe around Zyl. He breathed, and the air instantly turned to plasma in his lungs. It messed with the way this shapeshifted form should have worked, but that was fine. He had his <Stellar Heart>. 

Within him, a fire burned. The world got to feel what it was like, now. And, in response, the world burnt.

“Dragonfire,” the demon hissed through gritted teeth, barely keeping himself intact, his flesh regenerating as it was burnt off his bones. “How terrifying.”

Zyl smiled, just a little. “Don’t worry,” he said. “My flame is special, even among dragons.”

Screaming with hunger, the demon threw itself at him again, teeth grinding against Zyl only to fall apart moments before they touched. His skin was even hotter than the world. Breathing calmly, Zyl activated yet more Skills, meant to channel and control the heat he contained within himself. 

Then he raised his hand, and a beam of it tore forward.

It tore right through Bael, burning a fist-sized hole through the demon’s chest. Then it burnt through the mountain. And then another mountain. It tore through all of the atmosphere of Chronagen, tearing forward in a straight line, only affected by gravity, but fast enough to escape the planet without stopping.

The beam of plasma escaped into the sky, leaving a faint hole in it.

Vomiting blood, the king of all demons laughed. “Oh, you’ve done it now,” he said. Finally, he entirely abandoned the human form. In front of the dragon stood a monster. Tall as a house, covered in terrifying maws, with claws and dark scales… a shifting leviathan with the best attributes of dozens of deep-sea horrors. 

“Let me show you the horror that is hunger,” he said. 

A domain of devouring essence poured out. It tore into the flames, and designated them a meal, eating at the heat, even as it dissolved into ash. Rows of teeth turned into dust, only to have that dust eaten by yet more maws. The hunger was infinite, looping in on itself, devouring the remains of what came before. 

It was evolution. Thousands, millions of years of adaptation squeezed into a single moment. If a maw lasted even a microsecond more in the heat than another, its code was propagated and mutated further. Bael’s hunger was not as basic as that for flesh, it was a hunger for progress, for power.

A thousand rows of teeth dug into the fire, incinerated, and were replaced. Bael’s skin changed colours, rotating different configurations as its burning slowed. It stopped sloughing off his bones, instead smoking and blistering as it burnt. He caught fire, too, then extinguished himself. 

Then, he took a step towards Zyl. Space cracked, and the ground fractured below them, creating a pit for the melting mountain to flow into, forming a lake of lav as the heat melted thousands of tons of stone.

Bael grinned an ugly smile with both the maws on his face. He reached out, and his skin melted away, leaving a charred skeleton. His bones weren’t right. They were covered in protrusions, a little like a fish skeleton might be. The heat turned them black, but they didn’t fall to ash.

Skeletal fingers closed around Zyl’s neck. He tried to dodge, but the hunger pulled him back in. The hand, too, was like hungry rows of teeth, closing around him. Once more, his scales were crushed, and once more, blood flowed from those wounds.

They were barely an inconvenience, but power flowed from those gaps in his skin. Bael was devouring it, fueling his own adaptation with Zyl’s heart. That, too, was fine.

Zyl gently hung there, held in a vice grip that crushed his throat, but he didn’t mind too much. Instead, he simply tapped his tie, placing it in his inventory. It was a lovely tie that Mercury had gone for him, and he was reaching the point where unfortunately, any clothes not made from his scales would burn to bits, even if he enhanced them.

So, he said a mental goodbye to his current outfit, and summoned his armor on his body.

It was only natural that he had a set of clothes that could withstand his fire. Was he supposed to run around naked after each fight? No, that would be unbecoming. A ruby suit, woven from threads of thinned scale, appeared on his body. And then, he deactiavated some Skills.

A partial calling on his true form meant that he needed to remove a couple seals. Spikes grew from his shoulders, pushing through the fabric. His elbows, too, sprouted sharp blades, and pristine, softly pink horns began to grow from his head. They curved backwards in jagged, geometric shapes, forming half-arches and graceful curves.

In a way, they looked like a runic enchantment.

When the flames filled the hollows within them, those enchantments activated.

Reality twisted. Time itself caught fire, sputtering out of function. Zyl moved in a timeless world, his hand snapping upwards. The air burnt to dust as it resisted him, and was simply removed. His horns were powerful enough to commandeer their own Skill, the <Rose Crown of Desolation>. 

Almost gently, he moved his hand through the space where, outside of burnt time, Bael’s arm would have been. The appendage disintegrated before his touch. Mana poured from his heart in a torrent, his inner flame burning bright as the sun. He moved infinitely fast, making him the only light in a world of darkness. 

And when everything was dark, the light became absolute.

He punched forward, lazily, straining against the hold of the world, feeling reality shake, and another arm of Bael’s instantly turned to ash. A third punch tore a hole in the demon’s stomach, to the point where his upper and lower body were connected only by threads of tissue to the side.

Then, time restored itself.

A torrent of heat flooded out of Zyl, leaving him gasping. The demands of his <Crown> were high. Almost too high. His heart tore mana out of the air, reducing the ambient density down to almost nothing. Zyl spluttered for breath, even as his throat knit itself back together, the tooth-marks disappearing in moments.

Bael vomited a torrent of blood, a similar amount erupting outwards from the hole in his chest. All around it, his flesh was scorching, but Zyl had entirely eradicated parts of his body. Half the demon’s arms were gone, reduced to ash, and multiple organs had simply disappeared.

“Fuck,” Bael groaned, painfully. “That hurts, you draconic bitch.”

Zyl looked at the demon, who was somehow still alive. He drew in a breath of not-quite air, since it instantly ignited in his mouth. Still, he spoke. “What’s your rank, demon?”

Again, those maws split into a grin. “Fine, you’ve earned it. Number one.”

“What?” Zyl’s eyes widened.

“Number one. Tippy top. I’m Baelzebuth,” he said.

Frowning, the dragon waved his hand. “Then regenerate yourself already. What do you want from me?” he asked.

The demon’s face fell. “What?! You’re gonna stop, just like that? C’mon, at least lemme eat an arm or something!”

“No,” Zyl rolled his eyes. ”I’m not feeding you my body parts.”

Bael grumbled in annoyance. “Fine. Stupid dragons. Never letting me get a proper bite.”

“What do you want?” Zyl huffed again, annoyed. His suit was ruined, his throat ached, his hair was messed up by the horns. It would be such a chore to get everything cleaned up again. Not to mention the lava lake he’d made. 

“Fine, fine,” the demon said. His missing body parts were regenerating, if a little slower than usual. He took one remaining arm and scratched the back of his head, where charcoal black hair sprouted from his demonic visage. “Well, see, I was trailing a wandering archway, and I smelled its trace on your house.”

Zyl blinked in confusion for a moment, but didn’t need much longer to put the pieces together. “Ah,” he said. “I see now.” What had his boyfriend gotten himself into this time?

- - - - - -

Around Mercury, the ocean of glinting silver was no longer calm. Bits of metal laid strewn across it, thousands of discarded blades, the fury carved out of them, rusted and amalgamated by his Stifled Silence. He demanded the world be still, and yet, the ripples still spread from those broken bits of fury.

His entire body had been carved multiple times over. Enough so that he got another level in <Tempered Body> and <Combat Sense> each. He had knit himself back together and regenerated so often that <Hydration> had even levelled up twice.

[<Hydration lv. 4 -> 6>]

But by now, the endless anger that wrath had poured into him was exhausted, too.

They had fought for hours. Days, probably. Multiple times, Mercury’s zeyjn changed shifts, another mind of his taking over when one of them was exhausted. The eternal war that raged across the steel forest was brutal, a violent dance of death where everyone lost.

So much metal had fed into the Stifled Silence. So much of it had been ruined. His flesh was cut, his blood was spilled, only to be once again devoured. The amber in the center of his crown had turned a reddish hue, fuelled by Mercury’s own vital fluid, and the silver wreaths of it had grown after devouring so much steel, so much <Grief>.

Because, in the end, that was what he felt in the fight. There was no glory or happiness to be had from crushing wrath. Sure, he was happy that its violence would be slowed from now on, but he still had to be the one to break it, over and over and over. There was no fun in that. All he felt was a simple necessity, the same way he might feel a need to put down a rabid animal.

Sighing, Mercury focussed. His thoughts had been drifting more, as he drew further on <Grief>. Powered by his <Grain of Infinity>, the silver ocean that poured out from him, the domain that demanded silence, grew with each second. He killed more avatars of wrath, tearing the stars from the sky, and for some time, the fury grew with each kill.

Then he killed and broke more of them. They ate each other when he didn’t dispose of them properly. Rage fed into itself, creating more and more of it.

Only to be shattered again.

And, eventually, there was no more spite to give. The anger broke, and could not rise again. The bodies falling from the sky diminished. The hailstorm of metal and sharpness slowed, and Mercury’s body no longer spilled more blood. His tongue was dry and his eyes ached from straining, but he was alive. And the anger was dead.

Standing over the vestiges of smashed steel and irate iron, Mercury grieved. What a shame it was that the world would come to this. The way this twisted land of metal was made to be so hateful. He wondered, then, if the forest had always been there, and only twisted by wrath, or if it was wrath that spawned the steel forest.

No matter, now. After all, that forest had been reduced to plains. Mercury’s quicksilver had swept the lands, and for miles, the trees had been flattened, as the Stifled Silence drank deeply.

Once, that woven crown had belonged to Yearning, a ruler that Mercury had, in some way, killed. Now, it belonged to him. It was his silence, his decree to demand that the world mourn with him. Wrath was silenced, fury fell on deaf ears, and the world was allowed to weep.

Rain fell.

Mercury looked at the starless sky. He absorbed the last bits of broken wrath, letting them be eaten up by his <Grief>. Steel dissolved into smooth silver, and flowed aside. Soon, the only thing that remained of the harrowing battle was a memory. A slightly larger weave of silver upon Mercury’s head, and a slight shift in the hue of the amber gem of the Stifled Silence.

That was all that remained of wrath’s great war. Wrath’s last war. Where it fell against just one person.

He breathed in for a long moment, then out for even longer. Mercury looked in the distance. Wrath had fought him with each of the stars in the sky, but he knew there had to be something more. Some avatar of this abominable place, something truer than the horde he had broken. 

Slowly, Mercury walked. With his step, the tide of silver flowed forward, eating into the trees, expanding a little more. It spilled out around him, an ocean of it, drawn as thin as he could make it and still devour the trees. He let it expand, since there was no reason to condense it. Maybe if he needed to hold this realm together, but there was no such need.

After all, he was here to break it.

With an ocean of gleaming silver at his beck and call, Mercury walked forward. The forest didn’t put up a fight. Its mindless fury fell to pieces before he even got close. Steel tendrils lashed out pointlessly, splattered silver coalescing back into the flood. Trees toppled, blades of grass broke.

Mercury marched forward, an inevitable tide swallowing the world of steel.

- - -

Blood.

Everything in this colosseum was so full of blood. Mercury’s raindrops turned red the moment they hit the air, soaking up the scarlet fluid, not letting it go to waste. He refused to feed wrath with it, the voyeuristic spectators already cheering at the sight of it.

Instead, it all was soaked up by his rain, and cycled back into the Dream of Starvation. Gleaming, stygian steel ebbed and flowed at Mercury’s call. It was stronger than ever before, being fed in a meal it understood. Having devoured Tor-Tern’s bloodlust, now being fed by the endless waves of furious combat.

Another strike, another <Severance>. Limbs flew from a body, and Mercury was splattered in red before the gladiator was unmade, falling apart into loose threads that Mercury wove into a path. The Dream of Starvation slithered through his fur, picking it clean of crimson.

In the sky, the baleful heart of the colosseum was closer now. Mercury could hear his own blood rush in his ears, pulsing in time with the heartbeat of the star. The path was closer. The fury clawing at his mind stronger than ever. This core of wrath was one anchor - the heart of its dream. It was this part of his’ duty to destroy it.

Breathing, Mercury let the rain cloud around him more strongly. It fell in an endless torrent, setting the red world awash with freely flowing water. The blood slickened the sand, sticky and everlasting, only to be drowned in the pouring storm. The world strained to contain it, and Mercury strengthened his footholds, keeping the loose sand from washing away.

He stepped forward again, and <Itinerant> carried him further than he ever should have gotten. The spectators were split between cheers and yowls, as he gave them what they wanted to see, only to ruin it. He came out clean, even after the killing. His heart remained steady, his soul remained calm.

Mercury took another deep breath, unravelled another handful of souls, and stepped forward again.

Distance crumpled as the dream struggled to stay alive. It spluttered and coughed against his serenity. The demands for violence grew ever more incessant. Never had this colosseum intended to be calm, never had it been meant to endure cleanliness. The sand was meant to be sticky with blood and fear and fury.

Unfortunately, that didn’t matter. Even as the dream of violence wanted to fall apart, Mercury’s understanding of the <Dreamweave> kept it held in place. Of course, he saw the tearing gaps where the void may come in, and yet, he simply strode across them. The world drifted in fragments, ripping, tearing, recombining, and he simply had to stride his path through it.

[<Tracking> has levelled up! <Tracking lv. 1 -> 3>]

And, of course, he had a guiding, bloody star in the sky.

Another step, another heartbeat, another wave of fury passing over him and streaming off him as the river in his mind carried it away. He listened to the rain, pitter-pattering on the soft sand. He listened to the soft humming of the Dream of Starvation as it wolved down the blood. It was close to another evolution, he knew. 

He listened to the storm flow around him, listened to what his storm meant. 

Another step, another heartbeat.

He saw the tether holding the star up in the sky. When he had visited gluttony, the dream was starved, the nexus chained down, yet this one was different. A pillar of dead bodies, crystallized in red ruby, made of solidified blood, held it in the sky. It was a monument to decadence, to murder, and Mercury felt horrible indignation rolling off the corpses.

Each of them was furious to have died. Each of them wanted nothing more than to stab their killer through the throat and bring them down with them. These people had been broken long, long ago, reduced to spectres of this abominable place.

Mercury breathed, and a final step carried him across dark patches of void, across thin threads of dreams, and to the foot of the pillar. Another heartbeat washed over him, stronger than any before. Bloodlust clawed, roared at him. He felt the unending fury that wanted to consume him, the hunger for war and murder and desolation. The urge to destroy.

It was an eternal reminder of what he did not want to be.

After all, Mercury knew he was an angry person. He knew that he had a temper when it came to certain topics, that he could snap at people and be impatient. But that was not who he wanted to be.

And so, even as the familiar anger washed over him, the familiar desire for vengeance, he let it go.

That did not mean that he forgave. It did not mean that he forgot, either. He could be plenty angry at, say, his parents. He grieved their abandonment of him as much as he hated them for the cruelty. And yet, he did not want to tear them limb from limb. He did not want to spill their blood and watch it drain into the sand.

He hated them. But that was all, and that was fine.

The intense fury sunk away into crumbled bits of ember. Then those, too, were extinguished by the babbling brook. He did not forgive, did not forget, but he had moved on. He faced the future, he did not let the anger hold him back or control him. His decisions were just his own. He did not want to be an angry person.

He would be kind where he could.

[Your understanding of <Rainfall> has increased! <Rainfall (low) -> (medium)>]

A storm crashed into the pillar of blood. The crystalline construction was assaulted by winds and water, and instantly, it began to crumble. There was a furious resistance, a thousand wails from hungry wraiths who were holding onto their lackluster leisure of watching murder. Pretentious cowards who simply wanted to see everything burn.

Others’ suffering was just their amusement, right? These people, dead and bleeding from eternally open wounds, how funny, right? No.

<Grain of Infinity> burned, and he turned up his Skills to eleven. Mercury would not watch these people be violated further. Soft water crashed into solid crystal, and the pillar broke. The bodies within unravelled, their wounds disappearing as their bodies were unmade. Rivers of blood were turned into bands of dreamy white, woven to keep the void at bay.

A veritable ocean of blood, feeding the pillar, poured into the Dream of Starvation. It fed the weapon, as it was used to end a nightmare rather than bring one. Mercury stepped into the empty air, supporting himself with <Force of the Hecatoncheires>. It was a bit awkward, but since he was doing shift work on his minds, his rijn were unavailable at the moment.

It was fine, still. He walked into the air, and the storm rose at his demand. The wind carried his steps. And he stepped upwards.

<Itinerant> burned, powered by the star that hummed in his chest. It spilled forth power, ruinous amounts of energy that let the Skill go further beyond what it was ever meant to. A single unsupported, impossible step, carried mercury dozens of metres into the sky.

[<Itinerant> has levelled up! <Itinerant lv. 7 -> 8>]

The star was far up, and he would crush the entire pillar as he headed there.

Crystalline blood broke, and Mercury walked. The world fell apart, but Mercury held it in place. The spectators screeched in anger. Some of the ghastly wraiths rose from their seats, approached him, only to be torn to shreds by the winds of the storm. 

The Cloudmatter Shawl resonated with the Skill, expanding into real stormclouds, pouring out even more rain. Lightning flickered alongside the dark firmament, charging his Dracoleather Cloak, and when he asked it to, he sprouted ethereal wings of crackling lightning. 

He breathed. The storm welcomed him into its embrace and he soared higher on the winds. Furious lightning impacted the pillar, splintering and splattering the scarlet fluids, only for the rain to feed it to the hungry Dream that enveloped Mercury. Another step.

Another heartbeat. Wrath, clasing into the storm, slipping off, failing to take hold. It was, after all, pointless. Mercury did not want to be angry, and so, he could not be made furious. His heart was calm, even as the air roared in his ears, as the world buckled and broke, splintering into black patches of void.

Spectators shattered. Crystals combusted. Each time some of those manifestations of fury fell, Mercury felt a blip of something. A glimpse of connection, a thread tying them to the star. He saw the red heart, the nexus, beating, and he soared up higher.

It grew in his vision. An enormous monument to decadence, to exploitation, to instilled fury clawing at people’s minds until they broke to become bleeding cogs in the system. Scapegoats, one and all, made to hate each other, and for what?

When his rain fell upon wrath’s core, the heart was beating. When the storm descended, it fought with everything it had. It clawed, tooth and nail, with a ferocity only found in beasts. The heartless heart of violence morphed and shifted into claws and blades and teeth because it was all that it knew, and yet, when those implements of harm fell upon the Dream of Starvation, they simply fed the weapon.

Raindrop after raindrop, mercury eroded the nexus. Wraith after wraith, the spectators flew to their doom. The realm shook, rapidly being unmade, and the threads wanted to fall to the nearest point of existential gravity - into Mercury.

The entire world fell apart, and it fell into him.

Thread after thread, falling through his storm, cleansed of the permeating violence, adding to his story. When the time came, and this place grew too weak, too incomplete, Mercury triggered his <Dream Manifestation>.

His own world flowed into existence wherever there were gaps. The green grass devoured the threads, tearing into them and adding them to the mass that was his own inner world. His nexus, the silver star that had once been gluttony, wove each thread into the cocoon of reality that made his world. More segments of patchwork sky were stitched on. The misty rain of his dream domain joined the <Rainfall> around him, empowering the storm.

And the heart of horror at the center of wrath was washed away.

[You have killed the Heart of a violent Dream. Get: 10 000 Exp, 10 000 Gold]

[Level Up!]

In front of Mercury, wrath crumbled. A million broken, tortured souls, finally released from its clutches. The Dream of Starvation bathed in the blood, greedily eating the vestiges of wrath. The storm carried away the scarlet remnants, washing away the bits of the heart and the red that tainted the sand.

A world of violence was cleaned until none of that anger remained.

Mercury breathed in deep. He let the storm wash over him, knowing that his task was mostly complete. The dream of wrath was gone, forever. This part of him was left floating in the morphing, adapting dreamscape of his own, and island of safety in the void.

Kim, his gardener, was tending to the plants. Whisperstar flitted across the newly woven sky, exploring the way this realm had changed. Arber’s avatar grew healthily, already well over a dozen metres tall. And Old Uunrahzil rested under the shade of that faerie tree.

Gently, Mercury smiled. It felt a little like coming here. He let the wakefulness of this mind go, dispelling the <Manifestation> of his dream, letting all of this, and even this part of himself, fade to irreality. Letting himself rest. 

The grey metal of the Dream of Starvation floated off him, glowing with power. It had been fed a world of blood, and now, it would evolve and grow, he was sure. 

[<Dream of Starvation>:

Grade: Bound C - Proficiency (1673/1000) - <Evolving>

Rank: 1 - Growth (2113/1000) - <Evolving>]

He let the metal hover around the silver sun. He breathed in the fresh air, free from the stench of battle for a moment. He joined old Uunrahzil under the tree. His teacher radiated a soft smile, and a promise of safety. 

And then, Mercury let this part of himself sleep. The last vestiges of Wrath could be killed by the other version of him out there.

Chapter 147: Divine Right

I found myself standing in a world of pure white. The ground was covered in a thin sheen of milky water, and the sky was just as pale as the ground, too. There was a grayscale reflection of myself that distorted as my feet moved.

There were two other people. Reya, our Saintess, a web of golden lines across her, being held in someone else’s arm. The person cradling her was a beautiful woman with golden hair, and vibrant, emerald eyes. She wore a circlet, as well as a white, long robe. 

Lurelia.

Streaks of gold trailed through the air between the two. I could hear Reya’s heart beat like a hummingbird’s wings, rapid and frail. Lurelia breathed in, golden mist seeping through her nose. She hummed a patient lullaby, somehow cradling Reya with kindness as she sucked the life out of her.

I felt furious.

In my rage, I stepped forward. Astraeus appeared in my hand and Cass’ avatar manifested just above my shoulder. My feet hit the water, sending out ripples that brushed against the goddess’ feet. She looked up, and her beautiful lips curled into an even more beautiful frown.

“What brings you here, my child?” she asked. Her words shook the world, and I felt them vibrate in my chest. There was a desire to tell her everything, to spill all my secrets and worries and cry and be safe. She would hold me, if I just asked.

But I didn’t. Never.

The iron of my will manifested, and golden Qi covered my skin. “What are you doing to our healer?” I asked.

Lurelia gave me a sad smile, the kind you might give to a child who doesn’t understand something. It was condescending. I hated it. “She is my priestess. It is only right that I collect my due.”

I felt my teeth grinding against one another. “Fuck that,” I said. “Fuck that, and fuck you.”

Defiance laid at my very core. My path was endless freedom. The kind that could not be taken away. The kind that extended to my friends. Not the kind that divines just got to steal when they think it’s their right.

My maelstrom roared with defiance. I felt  the danger as the goddess tilted her head. My ruinous wings flared behind my back, and my talents screamed.

[Golden Glass Maelstrom advanced to 2nd Step.]

Lurelia sighed, seeming almost sad at the situation. “Is this how it will be, child?” 

“I’m not a child,” I said, slamming the back of Astraeus on the floor, sending splashes of brackish water flying. “Especially not one of yours.”

At that, the goddess had the gall to look offended. “Then you shall be taught a lesson.” She gently laid Reya down, and then took a step towards me. The golden web still wrapped around our priestess, but at least her essence wasn’t being drained anymore. I heard her heartbeat slow down, and pointed my spear at the goddess.

A moment ago, Lurelia had been standing in the distance. A heartbeat later, she was already within striking distance. She was so fast, I could barely see her move. Her hand struck me - a simple blow. A slap. It made my head snap to the side, leaving a red imprint on my cheek. But it was nothing less than indignation.

Ruin flared behind my back. She had the audacity to hit me. This fucking bitch. The constellation in my chest lit up like lines of fire in the night sky, each and every talent in my network flaring. I was not enough to beat the goddess, that much was clear, but I did not need to be.

“That was a warning,” Lurelia said. Then, there was an echo of my death. My own voice ringing in my ears. I ducked. A blow so fast it would have easily taken my head off carved through reality just above me. “That was a promise,” she said.

Fine then. 

A second version of myself clawed her way out of my chest. Astraeus hummed, stabbing forward, as my maelstrom activated. At that, Lurelia seemed surprised, for a moment, then angry. “You steal from me!” she yelled, rushing at me, only to be intercepted by Ion. 

I swap places with another reality where I had been running since the fight started, appearing far, far away. Ion dies a second later, re-emerging from me. “Nasty fight,” she said. “Let’s fuck her up.”

All around me, the realm warps. I don’t know where I am, but I do notice Qi pouring into me in droves. Power is being usurped, in a way that probably should not have been possible. How did I make it here?

Lurelia appeared in front of me. “Leave my sanctum!” she roared, now livid. Another teleportation took me further away, the stream of Qi letting me move far more than I should be able to. When she tried to come closer, I noticed Cass move.

My little keeper floated out in front of me, and pulled at the air. “Leave us alone!” she said, and half-translucent barriers wove from nothing in front of me. There was some change to my maelstrom - an infinitesimal amount of power being lost. Some kind of energy that I could barely interact with, but that was being eaten up by my gateway, strengthening the network, now being redirected to defense.

When the goddess tried to kill me again, she slammed into the barrier… and bounced off.

She screeched like a fury, but Cass and I were in sync. Already, she had wrapped the tip of Astraeus in the strange, glass-like substance, and I stabbed forward. This time, the goddess had to retreat, for long enough that Ion also started draining this place, pouring more Qi into my maelstrom, to the point where it felt like it was bursting.

I had to get rid of the energy before it burned through me, I realized, and so I poured it into the air, creating dozens, hundreds of golden spears. Each shard of my wing became a weapon, flaring behind me. A second pair sprouted, powered by a world of Qi, pouring into them faster and faster as that whirlpool in my soul spun.

“You do not know what you are doing!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be antagonizing us!” I replied, angrily. Lurelia dashed at me again, and I felt an invasive presence in my mind. It made me wanna give up. Wrap her in a hug, and let her ruffle my hair. It met the iron wall of my will. I would not let her cut my head off.

Instead, I ducked again, twirling Astraeus above my head. The goddess hissed, jumping back, letting Ion leap at her back, grabbing onto the robe and driving her spear into the divine’s shoulder.

My other self paid for it by having her head ripped off, and a new version appeared from within my gateway. Cass hovered quietly, weaving more glossy barriers and weapons, coating some of my spear-wings. I flared them, lashing out at the goddess and shooting a barrage of glass coated feathers at her.

She screeched, leaping back half a world of distance. A moment later, she was before me again, and then I was gone, reappearing where an alternate version of myself had stood in a reality that never happened. Ion flung herself at the goddess without hesitation, and I quickly joined her, stabbing at her torso while my other self went for her shoulders.

Lurelia wreathed herself in a blanket of golden divinity, flaring out to wrap us in chains, only to be met by tiny blades of glass on our skin. Cass wove the power that I could barely perceive, and her mastery was skyrocketing, propelled by my own talent. She was, after all, a part of me.

Hissing in anger, the goddess retreated again. A few steps back, when Ion threw her spear. She dodged that easily, but in exchange, a chain of golden glass wrapped around her ankles. I’d stolen the design from Lurelia herself, brute forcing it with power.

A third pair of wings grew behind my back. The maelstrom in my soul drew in more Qi than I could spend. It was blazing through my skin. Lurelia stumbled for just a heartbeat, but it was enough to throw my spear, coated in that horrid power that Cass held. She twisted her body in a way no human could, avoiding a fatal wound, but it dug into her waist, tearing a hole that erupted with golden ichor.

“Gaaah!” she screamed, flinching backwards, scabbling on the floor. Fear lit up in her eyes. “Stop! Stop!” she called. “Why are you doing this?!”

I blinked. Was she… so afraid of pain? It occurred to me, then, that Lurelia was not a fighter. Her powers were based on healing, often even mental. The kind that made you recover faster, need less energy, that might shield you in a pinch. But she had probably not been ina  fight, not been actually hurt, in decades.

Pathetic.

“How are you surprised that I’d be mad when my friend touches your altar, then screams in pain?” I ask, rage still boiling in my veins. More chains weave from my overflowing Qi. My wings grow larger, my silhouette wreathed in gold. “What were you thinking?!”

“She is my priestess! Her worshippers are mine, her Divinity is mine!” the goddess complained.

I scoffed. “Yours? When you have done nothing for those on Nemahan?” I demanded.

“Yes! Mine by divine right, child!”

Her face was so outraged, torn between fear and indignation, as if my question was somehow ridiculous or insulting. Maybe both. I recalled Astraeus, then threw him again, piercing through the wings of light behind her back and shattering one of them. She flinched in pain, and my spear reappeared in my hands.

“No. Not yours. You will leave Reya alone.”

“Even if I release her, anything gathered while under my banner is still-”

I shook my head, slowly. “That’s not what I said. I said you’ll leave her alone. You’re going to give her divinity when she asks. And you’re going to be taking none of the spoils of her efforts.”

“What?! You expect me to invest with no return?!” she asked, aghast. 

It’s almost funny the way her facade of motherhood crumbled the moment she was asked to put up. “Yes,” I said, easily.

“Preposterous!”

More Qi pours into me, and I form it into wings and chains and spears, even as my mind burns. I manifest a thousand constructs, held in place by my novaic manipulation ability, and my equally powerful endurance. Lurelia crawled backwards a bit, and I took another step to remain close. 

“It was not a question.”

“I refuse to negotiate until you stop draining my divine realm!” she said.

Ah. So that is what I was doing, then? Draining her divine realm… Well, I didn’t mind too much. She’d stolen from Reya, so I didn’t mind stealing from her in return. “No,” I replied, simply.

“No?” she asked, aghast.

“Nope,” I replied. More Qi poured into me, setting my mind on fire. I mentally poked Cass about it, who poured it across my gateway, across my network, and into the others. With Matt, Liam, Emilia, Rae and everyone else taking a part of the energy, it was a lot more manageable.

I breathed. “You have no leverage here. I don’t care.”

“But… if you ruin this realm, it will take decades to remake!” she complained.

Slowly, a smile spread across my lips. “I don’t care,” I said, easily. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

She gritted her teeth, final bits of resolve finally crumbling. “Fine!” she yelled. “Fine! I agree. Just get… get out of here! Gah!”

With a terrible shunt, I felt a force rejecting my presence. I could have stayed if I forced it, but, slowly, I relented. 

Opening my eyes, I found myself back in the temple, my hand on top of Reya’s. By now, the priestess had stopped her shivers, and looked at me, with tears in her eyes. Then, she shot me a smile, and elbowed me.

I took a step back, and she nodded, closing her eyes again, still diving into the class selection. What a tough girl. 

Matt’s eyes were closed, Qi swirling around him. Liam’s hand quickly squeezed my shoulder. “What happened?” he asked, full of worry.

“Oh, you know,” I said, calmly. “I fought the goddess. And won.”

Chapter 249: Inevitable

Chapter 249: Inevitable

Fury poured from the sky like an unending torrent. There was so much of it. This whole realm was an embodiment of wrath, after all. It was never meant to be exhausted in its anger. 

And yet.

More and more of that insidious, destructive emotion flowed into Mercury. He felt it roil through him, goad him into anger, coax him to give in to it all, and he resisted. He breathed. And gently let the feelings go. 

They drifted down the river in his soul. They entered the lake like rain, and were carried off as sediment. Anger poured off of him like soot from his fur. Mercury breathed, gathered himself, and faced the fallen star of wrath.

His mind was tranquil. Truly, within his heart, he held no hatred towards wrath. All he did have for it was… sadness. A deep well of grief that told him what he saw was a tragedy. A twisted remnant of something that had once been beautiful but was now twisted by this anger.

Ah, how he <grieved> it.

Silver metal flooded from him, amplified by the Stifled Silence. A torrent of quicksilver consumed the spikes, the sharp edges, the fury. Like a hug made of steel, it wrapped around the blades of wrath’s champion. 

“Shhhh,” Mercury hummed quietly. <Grief> wrapped and strangled the monster, wrestling it to the ground, its limbs bending and creaking, then breaking in fury. It cried and roared, feeling no pain and only anger, but the noise was swallowed but the Stifled Silence. The crown of vines demanded peace from the world. “You can rest now.”

With a final noise of wrenching brittle steel apart, the star came undone.

The world of fury roiled, irate at the infraction on its anger. Furious at having its wrath subsumed. The sky bubbled like a frothy ocean wave, and then, the stars began to rain down by the dozen.

- - -

The colosseum was slick with red, but at the same time, it was cleaner than it had ever been before. Mercury’s path was a wide streak of yellow-white sand, rather than the smeared, dirty orange it was everywhere else. Gladiots swarmed him every step, but pelted by the rain and unmade to reinforce this fading dream, they simply fell.

None of these could stand up to his will for even a moment. He was recovering faster than they exhausted him, slaying the lines. The Dream of Starvation fed and grew, to the point where it began crawling alongside the underside of Mercury’s neck.

Amusingly, the item seemed to naturally gravitate to his mouth. It wanted to coat his fangs, to rip and tear into flesh, he noticed. Which was kind of funny to think about, since it would make him like a pseudo-vampire.

He could, after all, sustain himself off of only blood, and it would be absorbed by the item, too, letting it grow stronger. A dark-steel vampire, a creature of very literal nightmares. He smirked a bit, and then let the thought go, drifting down the babbling river that streamed through his mind.

Instead, his <Oceanic Consciousness> briefly slowed down time as he leaned into his <Combat Sense>, sidestepping another attack, and <Unravelling> another one of the gladiators, this time a beast wrapped in steel armor.

With <Itinerant> and <Truth> guiding him, it was easy to find his way through the colloseum, even when the direction that was the “center” changed, repeatedly. It was almost meant to be a maze of blood, the center spots reserved for the most baleful, hatred filled combatants, tearing each others’ throats out.

Mercury was not that. This world knew that he felt no anger, and constantly tried to, unsuccessfully, infect him with it. And so, he was denied entrance into that inner sanctum - or at least, they attempted to keep him out. Equally unsuccessfully.

“Where is your heart?” Mercury asked the sky.

And the sky <Answered>.

It had no choice.

The sand bubbled and shifted, but the meandering path appeared nonetheless. Wrath struggled against this event. It placed traps, obstacles, bodies in his way, but…

[Level Up!]

At the end of the day, Mercury was very good at <Seeking Secrets>. 

Hidden paths were revealed, barriers were broken, and he walked through the sand, carrying a hungry <Rainfall> with him. Droplets of water fell on the sand, washing away decades of blood and decadence. The audience in the stands watched with dissatisfaction. Even when he killed, no blood was spilled, instead being devoured by the Dream of Starvation.

Step by step, Mercury wandered across the sand, the distance vanishing in the wake of his Skills. 

[<Itinerant> has levelled up! <Itinerant lv. 6 -> 7>]

Slowly, wrath bent and broke. 

- - - - - -

There was a knock at the door. That, in and of itself, wasn’t too strange, really. Zyl often had visitors. Lucia and him were much closer now, and he was one of a few people Yvette could reasonably try and fail to cut. Plus, if he lost an arm in the whole business, it wouldn’t be too hard for him to regenerate. Even if it might make painting troublesome.

No, what was strange was the pull Zyl felt. He’d just eaten, after all, so he shouldn’t be hungry, and yet, his stomach growled just a bit. He creased his forehead at the bizarre effect, but went to the door anyway, slowly pulling it open.

In front of him stood a handsome man. He was tall, with sharp ears, but he was not an elf. He may impersonate one, but he did not do so perfectly. His skin was purple-grey, mottled with darker bits, and his eyes like pits of charcoal. A second pair opened on his forehead as he observed the dragon, and the dainty, humanoid mouth began to smile a little too wide, revealing a row of fangs.

“Hello there,” Zyl said, when the strange visitor did not speak. The dragon moved a few strands of his hair out of his face, brushing his gloved hands back. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

The not-elf sniffed the air for a few moments, and Zyl felt the anger knot in his stomach. “Yeah,” the creature growled, voice deep and smoky, like someone had chewed on charcoal and ash for years. “I need a meal.”

Zyl slowly tilted his head. “There are plenty of food stands in central plaza, you can find some there,” he said.

“Ah,” the not-elf said, mouth splitting even wide, almost reaching his ears. “That won’t do at all.”

He placed his hand in the doorframe, and Zyl frowned a little. “Are you here to cause trouble?”

“What, me?” the thing asked, smiling brightly. “Not at all.” Its eyes glinted at the lie.

Taking a deep breath, Zyl closed his eyes, and a single heartbeat thrummed through his entire being. Fire wyrmed through his veins. He huffed through his nose, and his breath steamed in the crisp morning air. “Are we doing this?”

“Oho,” the intruder said with a smirk. “You’re feisty.” He moved closer, standing almost nose to nose with Zyl, halfway into the door the dragon was still holding. “If I come in, what are you gonna do about it?”

Zyl smiled brightly, kindly. “I’ll have to break a few of your bones, so please bear with me.”

Bael took another step forward. “Try me,” he said.

“Don’t mind if I do, then,” Zyl replied. Another heartbeat roared through him, and his hand latched onto the demon’s shoulder. Used to the sudden violence, a blade rose from Bael’s skin to pierce Zyl’s hand, but only ground and sparked against his tough scales.

The dragon simply wrapped his fingers around the sharp extension, straining and reinforcing his muscles as he lifted the demon off the ground. Bael’s wide grin turned into an expression of surprise as their feet left the ground. Zyl’s heart beat furiously, each thump enough to shake the world.

Wings sprouted from his back, and he stepped forward, out into the light of the sun. His wings grew, and he flapped them once. A dozen Skills triggered to enhance his flight and he darted into the sky. Bael wriggled in his grasp, raking claws across him, tearing bits of tough scales away, but Zyl barely regarded the pain.

He simply soared higher, above the clouds, then darted north, towards a chain of uninhabited mountains. In the blink of an eye, the two were wrapped in whipping winds, staying just under the sound barrier. Bael gritted his teeth, grasping onto one of Zyl’s wings and wrenching.

The sudden brutality of the motion tore the limb free from the dragon’s back, sending the two tumbling through the air. Zyl suffocated a scream in his throat instead filling his body with incinerating heat. His skin began to glow as he wrapped one hand, then two around the demon’s neck, scrambling to stay on top and slam him into the mountain.

Bael headbutted him in the nose, spilling some more of Zyl’s blood, then howling as it touched upon their skin. Grey, pallid flesh burnt away under the incinerating heat of dragon’s blood. Zyl’s heart beat. The gaping hole where his wing was seared shut. Smoke enveloped him.

“I really liked this suit,” he growled, angrily.

“Should have had it enchanted with self-repair,” Bael complained.

Zyl slammed a fist into the demon’s face, sending more cracks through the mortal mask. “It was. You tore those runes.”

“Oh,” Bael said. “My bad.” Then he bit into Zyl’s shoulder.

Somehow, even when his claws struggled to find purchase, the fangs instantly splintered the ruby scales covering Zyl’s skin. Microscopic protections broke and shattered, and boiling blood, hotter than magma, spilled into Bael’s mouth. 

The demon’s eyes rolled back a little as he feasted. Ah… When had he last truly lost himself to hunger? It remembered now. The vestiges of <Gluttony> that the thing had shaken off, they reawakened at the sight of such a delectable morsel.

But then, a fist slammed into its face. The facsimile, shapeshifted skull cracked and fractured, spilling purple blood, and then, the collision finally came. Zyl slammed Bael into a mountain in one motion so swift and inevitable, the destroyed a few hundred yards of stone entirely.

Teeth were ripped out of flesh, and both combatants roared in pain as their shapeshifted forms broke and splintered.

Bael grinned furiously, a second maw splitting open across the shattered skull, shifting away from the humanoid guise. The demon that had once been the Thing dug itself from the rubble. Half of a mountain had collapsed, but that was nothing. The prey was bleeding, the hunt was on, and it was hungry.

Zyl, meanwhile, brushed off the dust. He shed a part of his human guise, the tiny, dust-like scales shimmering and growing, enveloping more of him. Ruby-red sprouted from his skin, and he grews taller, his legs digitigrade, claws growing from fingernails. His spark lit up, a fiery sun inside his heart. Zyl breathed, and the air turned to flickering plasma for a moment.

He would not die. Mercury would come home to a hale and hearty house, he would make sure of it.

Even if he needed to burn this demon to ash.

- - - - - -

Steel.

Mercury’s entire world was a blur of moving metal. 

Colossi made entirely from blades, woven sharpness given form, assaulted him. From any angle, in any shape. Some of them are like beasts, others more humanoid, but limbs were simply a suggestion. He found that they could adapt their shape easily after one absorbed another’s cutoff arm, made it into a maw, and droze fangs of razor-sharp knives through Mercury’s shoulder.

There were, of course, solutions to the problem of having them consume each other to grow and shift.

Mercury could, and did, simply eat them himself. It was helpful for his <Tempered Body>, actually, since the steel was very strong. Of course, he relied on <Babbling Brook> to cleanse it of the mental poison it was laced with - namely turning him angrier - and then needed both <Nutritional Preservation> to help hi digest it, and <Hydration> as well as <Shift> to help him properly adapt it to his body.

But with each bite, his skin grew stronger.

[<Tempered Body> has levelled up! <Tempered Body lv. 2 -> 3>]

Attacks that had carved through him easily began to glance off of him. His insides stopped rupturing after each hit, his organs growing more resilient.

[<Hydration> has levelled up! <Hydration lv. 3 -> 4>]

Mercury felt the way his own will pushed against the attacks, too. It was almost like his rijn was encasing his body, holding it together and shielding it. That was probably a side-effect of <Resolution>. He breathed in deep, and let the Stifled Silence expand further.

That was the second trick he had. The <Grief> that he channeled through the wreath of vines around his head swallowed up the metal, consuming it entirely. The silvery crown was hungry for more, consuming the noise, too, slowing each of the attackers down. Blows clashed against waves of steel, the world itself resisting the noise and movement.

It demanded quiet and peace, entirely antithetical to wrath, and so, the two were locked in an eternal battle. And that battle was an aid to Mercury, weakening the hold that anger had on his mind, as well as the creatures he was battling. 

In addition… it made his voice mean more, and he hadn’t spoken in a while. “Perish,” he told one of the fallen stars, a towering abomination the size of a house. The creature of fury writhed, refusing to die at a simple command, and yet, the world moved against it. All that was needed was a push.

Mercury jumped forward, <Biting> the monster’s leg, and that was all it took. The titanic warrior folded in on itself like crumpling aluminum foil, furling into a terribly heavy, perfectly smooth sphere that Mercury quickly picked up with the Cloudmatter Shawl. Another incarnation of wrath used the chance to swipe metal across his back, only to be smashed aside by his rijn.

<Grain of Infinity> flared with resplendent light, fuelling his movement, allowing yet more <Grief> to swallow the world. Silver metal consumed furious abomination, swiping them away in a tidal wave. <Force of the Hecatoncheires> wielded his javelins in an unending storm around him.

Each impact of the bone-spears channelled lightning through the Dracoleather Cloak, charging it up and zapping the incarnations of wrath. And yet, there were just too many of them. 

Hundreds of colossi surrounded Mercury. He dealt many, many blows, but at the same time, he could not avoid all of theirs. Even though <Combat Sense> did a lot of heavy lifting.

The Skill had previously gone underused due to massive stamina expenditure, but with <Grain of Infinity>, that was less of an issue. Inside his chest, Mercury felt that infinitely compressed pinprick of energy spew out more and more power through him. Elegantly, he sidestepped yet another blow, letting a second glance off his rijn, then parring a third with three of his javelins. 

Quicksilver rose up into a frozen shield of metal to turn another blow aside, and then he travelled across the landscape of grey with <Itinerant>, space warping around him as he reappeared a hundred steps away.

He <Dashed>, he <Severed>, he <Bit>, he tangled them up in <Thread>, and he hid in his <Veil> to strike from the shadows. Liquid metal in the shape of <Grief> rose up to destroy them, and his understanding of <Metal> as well as <Magical Metallurgy> let him find their weak spots. 

Second by second, he was straining his mind to take them down, fighting off the insidious anger, and the dozens of bldes flying towards him at any second, letting them glance off him. Wrapped in a delicate dance, he severed another appendage, quickly compressing and swallowing it.

A torrent of rage flooded his being for a moment, only to be carried away on the <Babbling Brook>. Like blood, it dissolved into the water, simply travelling downstream until it was gone. The anger bled away, leaving his mind clear and his skin tougher - though not tough enough to withstand the next blow.

Brutally, a sword slammed into his back, cutting a deep furrow into the Dracoleather Cloak, and carving a bloody chunk out of Mercury. He let the pain slough off him, too, remaining focused and simply dancing out of the way of the next blow as he willed his body back into one piece. Blood stopped spurting, and <Threads> of pure <Resolve> wove from the open wounds. 

Silvery, ethereal bands of light sprouted from the wounds, attached to each side, pulled the bleeding flesh back together and then dissipated, leaving his skin whole but for a bit of missing fur. For a moment, Mercury considered getting some form of Skill to turn his body toxic. That could be useful, after all.

Then, he breathed, and simply dove into the fight again. He was fighting a war against anger itself, and it demanded his attention. So, he battled it, dancing across the quicksilver blanketed world one step at a time.

- - -

In the colosseum, Mercury was killing. Life by life, he reaped the bloody tide of this world. His <Rainfall> was unabating, unstoppable. Each raindrop fell through armor, through skin and flesh, through hide and fur. They tore bloody holes into anything they rained on, piercing through any defense.

And then, they hit the sandy ground, taking more blood with them, as they coursed back towards Mercury.

In this world, right now, he was the center of gravity, after all. The eye of the storm. He could just have the rain dissipate, taking all the blood with it, but the Dream of Starvation was hungry, and he did not at all mind feeding it. 

So, through the ground, the rain turned towards him, cleansing more of the sand in its passing, and feeding the grey steel of his hungry item. He thinned out just slightly on his back legs, letting the living metal envelop his mouth, turning his fangs even sharper. He did cut himself a little, but after a moment of adjustment, he was able to easily close his mouth again.

Wonderful. Now he could level <Bite> without worrying about getting stabbed in his tongue! Mercury made liberal use of this advantage, <Dashing> at gladiators as the rain pelted them, and tearing into them with his teeth.

Some tiny, animalistic cat-brain part of him delighted in that, even if to his human mind it seemed more like a desperate move. Yet, his jaw was a lot stronger than any other muscle on his body, and backed by his points in strength, he could really <Bite>. 

With just his normal teeth, he’d eaten nails. Now, after an evolution, his <Tempered Body> Skill, and coating them in the Dream of Starvation? Mercury’s fangs handily tore through metal, breaking apart armor and flesh and spilling yet more blood on the grey metal.

This method even seemed to please the colosseum a little. Despite the way that wrath quaked and protested, the way became easier. Mercury had to use less energy on forcing it open. It wanted to see bloodshed, after all, and he was, somewhat, giving that.

Even if the remains of those ancient warriors then dissolved into dream-thread to steady a world that was simply not meant to hold someone like him.

The colosseum was a place meant to grind down one’s resolve, to break and tear and carve limb from limb. Yet, to Mercury? He simply kept his leisurely pace, his Skills showing him the way as he carved through.

Blood cleared his way, even as he cleaned it away. There was no hurry. His exhausted mind went to rest, and another of his zeyjn took over, fresh and ready to bring more carnage. He breathed, letting the rain wash the blood from his fur and into the waiting maw of gray steel encasing his body.

Bodies broke, one after another. The world pressed against him as the spectators roared, but failed to keep him away. Insidious poison poured into his mind, and yet failed to take hold. Wrath and violence burned and blurred all around him, but Mercury simply washed it all away.

This world was becoming his, already. Each step, he threaded more of the dreamweave in order to hold him. Each step, more of that ownership turned over to him. Wrath’s tenuous hold on its bloody battleground was disappearing, like sand slipping through its fingers.

Mercury breathed. Winds tore across the sands, and the world creaked apart. Mercury could see the connection to the stands, to the ethereal forms of an audience that demanded blood. There were fewer of them now.

He looked at them, seeing threads, tying them all together, to a central point in the sky, like puppets to a star. Then he blinked, and the threads were gone. He breathed. It was the third veil again, so tantalizingly close, yet so far. He wanted to just reach out and grasp it, but he couldn’t. When he moved toward it, it slipped away.

So, Mercury simply breathed. He called upon <Itinerant>, taking another step along the path that he was meant to take through the sands. The world bent, his tithe of violence adequate, his tithe of blood entirely unpaid. But it did not matter.

After all, this was starting to be closer to his realm than anything else. 

When he finally saw the red star high in the sky, hovering in the horizon, Mercury grinned. Grass was beginning to grow from the desolate sand. The tide of violence slowly stemmed. The horrible fury clawing at his mind slowed.

Wrath was, step by step, suffocating. He looked to the star, feeling anger try to invade through the piercing light, and fall away the moment it touched him. He breathed. Rain fell. 

Inevitably.

Chapter 146: Nostalgia

Standing in front of the mirror, I took a long, deep breath. It wasn’t the same anymore. Not the one in my bathroom, the one that Zinnic had shattered. This was the one in our gateway hall, custom made, and blessed by the Gift. 

Gently, I moved my fingers across its surface. 

They didn’t smear or dirty the mirror. Instead, They just sent a gentle ripple across the glassy surface. It was strange just how strongly this piece of glass resonated with my affinity. Tiny streaks of gold were left behind when I touched it, slowly fading away again.

What did a water cultivator feel when it rained? Was this how Liam felt when he was around shadows, how Emilia felt when she was enveloped by the earth?

I breathed. My heart beat in my chest with anxious excitement. I didn’t need to be scared anymore. 

The others were all through already. There was a chance for problems to come up when I was in-between, so I was set to go last. Even Rae had already stepped through, giving me one more glance. And so, I closed my eyes.

For a long, endless moment, I waited. I listened to the beating of my heart, the rushing of Qi in my maelstrom. I breathed out, letting all the air in my body go, forcing out any fear, any doubts. My will turned into solid steel.

I opened my eyes.

And then I stepped through the mirror.

- - - 

Liquid glass wrapped around my face. It rippled and stretched, but it didn’t seem as overwhelming anymore as it used to. I held my breath, until that sheet of glass passed, and once I was fully in between worlds, it felt almost like an embrace.

I was a gateway, and so, to some degree, this was where I belonged. My place. 

Around me, there were a million other mes, each one transitioning between worlds. Some of these would come to me as Ion, or maybe, I would go to them. Regardless, we would help each other. Some were alternate versions of me who had gone earlier, some had hesitated a moment longer. All of that was fine.

The sky shook.

High above, I could see the keepers stirring. 

Hungry gazes twisted until they reached us. Eyes, Matryoshka, Swamp, and Possession. The first and last of those had rents in their glass shells, in the strange almost-bodies that contained their concepts. Rents that I had cut into them.

A smile blossomed on my face, even as their power crushed down on me. It echoed in my ears, making me feel the blood rushing through me. They couldn’t tear the gateway from me, but they could try. Try to send me someone else, somewhere I might die, spawn me in the middle of a nest or something.

But they failed.

My maelstrom churned, whirled, and an infinite amount of copies of myself repeated the same action throughout the astral realm. Cass appeared floating behind me, and Astraeus easily came into being, my fingers already wrapped around the weapon.

Smiling, I slammed the butt of the spear on the not-path that I was walking on twice. “Come at me!” I roared my challenge to the heavens.

Because that was what cultivators did.

Instantly, the keepers flared with fury and hunger and greed. They were the sky above the sky, and this should have been their domain. White, glass lightning arced down, and yet, I turned it aside. 

Astraeus caught the bolts before they touched me, and discharged them harmlessly into the ground. Golden glass started bubbling and boiling around me, turning the astral realm into my playground. Cass contested their powers, manifesting mirror-shields and weaving thousands of gossamer-thin glass threads to cut up the sky.

I roared the challenge, I stepped up into the air, my Qi flared and burned, and infinite waves crashed into infinite keepers, each version of me fighting her own fight. They were powerful, here. They were stronger than me. And none of it mattered, because they were cowards.

When my attacks approached them, Eyes ran first. It warped in on itself, and, with a motion as if its full body blinked, winked out from existence. Then Possession. Swamp and Matryoshka sent down arcs of disease and forbidden knowledge, and I battled them for just half a moment, until the pull from the other side increased.

[Fio,] Cass reminded me.

Softly, I sighed, and dropped my shoulders. “Yeah,” I said. “Of course.”

I let myself be pulled, and disappeared from the astral realm again. Eden called, and quite frankly, I didn’t have the time to play with these clowns instead.

- - -

Stepping out from the gateway hall in Eden was nostalgic. My guild and master were there, waiting for me. Eric was awkwardly fidgeting, Liam was stretching, already working on his body with the shadows, and Emilia was pulling out bits of her armor from her inventory. Matt stood a small distance away, glaring at Rae. Reya leaned against a wall, looking a little woozy. 

Everyone but Marie and Ann had made it here. 

I breathed, gently placing the loss aside. A second passed, then Eric nodded at me. He hadn’t come through our hall, instead choosing his own access point, which was fine. Now, though, he had to go through with it.

He looked at me, unable to hold my eyes for more than a few seconds. I sighed, and walked up to him, clapped him on the shoulder, and included him in the damn [Transference] network. He flinched for a second at the motion, but then, I just pushed him towards Emilia. “Make this dork less scared of us,” I said, smirking.

Grinning brightly, she saluted me. “Aye aye, captain!” she said, then went on to ruffle the cleric’s head, and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. I smiled at the display, and Reya gave me a small nod, seeing the way they played around. 

Matt pushed off the wall, standing next to me. “Make it through okay?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, all good,” I said, and a small smile appeared on his face.

“Awesome,” he said. Then, he turned towards the entrance of the gateway hall. “Oh, sounds like the welcoming committee is here,” he noted.

And they were. Iryel and Chris. Hir’s angel looked tired, still having the characteristic bags under his eyes, and a slight stubble on his face. But still, he was smiling, and gave us a small bow. “Welcome back,” he greeted us. “It’s good to see you again.”

Chris, for their part, gave us a wave with their human shell. The smile stretched along their face with practiced ease, even if it was still a little unsettling. “It has only been a while since we met, but it is good to see you again.”

The angel turned to Rae, too. “And, of course, we are happy to welcome you back to Eden, Spear God.”

At that, Rae’s face flushed slightly, and he gave an awkward frown, scratching the back of his head. “Don’t get too used to it,” he said. “I’m really rather tired of fighting.” Then, he glanced at me. “But, well. At least it doesn’t feel so hopeless anymore, now.”

Iryel nodded gently. “Yes,” he said. “We are glad to see more people reach the next realm. And…” he glanced at Reya, for a moment. “It is good to see people pursue the pinnacle of their arts, always.”

The mute girl gave a soft smile, and a few hand signs at that. Iryel simply nodded, and turned around. “Enough of the greetings,” he announced. “Let’s go to the temple. Watching you get your levels will be my first break in half a year.”

 I laughed at that. “You’re an idiot. Do you even sleep?”

He shrugged. “Once a week, maybe.”

“Moron,” Matt sighed.

- - -

We went to the temple. 

There were five altars there, one for each of the living divines. There was also the altar to the keepers in the gateway hall, which could fulfill the same functions without the… well, the trouble the divines often caused. But, despite that trouble, we were saving their world.

So, they were thankful to us. Hopefully thankful enough to make some concessions this time.

I was to go last in our group, since I was staying in Eden, so the others went first. One by one, they placed hands on their chosen altars, closed their eyes, and levelled. I could see it when they stiffened and walked away awkwardly, struggling to control their motions. Levelling was just as unpleasant as ever, then.

Not looking forward to it, I still knew it had to happen. 

Rae took a longer while to sort through his options than the others, and when he stepped away, he eyed me with a somewhat strange glint in his eyes, but smiled nonetheless. There must have been something special in there, for him. “All okay?” I asked.

He turned to me, somewhat surprised at the question, but then gave a warm smile. “Ah, to have a disciple care for an old master. It warms the heart,” he said. “Yes. I am alright. Thank you for asking, Fio.”

Matt clicked his tongue a little before walking up to the altar, glancing at Rae with disapproval. He’d never liked him, and that bad blood didn’t seem to have lessened even after our excursion into the category five gate. But that was fine. For now, they didn’t need to love each other.

I did see my master giving Matt a sad look when the demiboy went to the altar. But he remained silent, simply waiting as our swordsman took his levels, then strode back. I saw Matt taking deep breaths as he stepped away from Ru’s altar, his eyes glinting sharply, but he simply leaned against the wall, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes, cycling his Qi.

Then, Reya’s turn came about, and we would finally make the request we had come here to collectively make. Our mute saintess gave us a nod before striding forward confidently, Eric’s eyes glued to her back with worry. 

Gingerly, she reached out to touch the altar. 

Instantly, the room flooded with radiant whiteness.

Reya’s hand remained glued to the altar, but her mouth tore open in a gurgling screech. Her skin glowed from the internal brightness, and Liam flinched in horror, dashing at her. He grabbed her shoulders, and tried to pull her away, but her hand remained glued to Lurelia’s altar, even as the light burnt her.

It arced off of her, slamming into him like a lightning bolt, and sending him sprawling against the wall. Eric looked around in a panic. “Help her!!” he yelled, rushing forward himself, only to be disposed of instantly.

But his words shook me from my stupor. I rushed forward, placing my hand on the altar too, and the world went white with resplendent, divine agony.

Chapter 248: Anger Overflowing

Chapter 248: Anger Overflowing

Mercury, now a level 1 Lumyron, opened his eyes.

With the efficiency of his stats having doubled, he felt much stronger than he used to. Mercury could feel himself existing in the colosseum as well as in the steel forest of wrath itself. He wore a silver crown, and black, liquid metal was wreathed around his legs.

The Dream of Starvation had drunk from Tor-Tern before, and was hungry for the blood in the colosseum. Meanwhile, the Stifled Silence rang with <Grief>, flooding the metal forest with liquid silver, silencing the cries of fury from wrath.

Both versions of Mercury stepped forward, the gilded Drcoleather Cloak draped over his back and billowing slightly, and the Cloudmatter Shawl wrapped around him. 

Inside his chest, there was a <Grain of Infinity>. It bubbled and boiled, ready to be used. He fed its power to the <Stifled Silence>, just to see what would happen, and his silver crown roared in response. It soaked up the power easily, and the wave of liquid metal that spilled forth from him redoubled in intensity.

His willpower already made it an enormous thing, a sinister flood that soaked into the ground and ate away at the metal, that soaked up the fury that permeated this place and reduced it to nothing. But with <Grain of Infinity>, it turned into a veritable storm of silver. Instantly, the area it filled expanded, more than tripling in size. More and more silver spilled forth, turning the world quiet. 

Trees made from knives and needles were swallowed entirely, and when the wave receded, all that was left behind was a smooth, mirror-polished sheet of metal under his feet. It was so flat, so flawless that Mercury could see the sky of glittering stars reflected in it. It was a polished, calm surface like that of his own <Still Mirror>

Mercury took a step, and the liquid rippled for a moment, then stilled again. As he moved forward, the sphere of perfect silence moved on with him, but the result remained. Where his <Grief> passed, the metal was stripped of violence. The trees were gone, and the animated creatures that would try to devour and kill anything that stepped foot in this realm were gone. 

They didn’t even give him any exp, since they weren’t really alive in the first place.

Gluttony at least was a place where real things could live, if only to devour one another. Wrath did not. All it needed was fury and violence. Nothing was needed for perpetrating that other than death. Every single creature within that realm was an extension of its anger, destroying anything it invited into that realm.

And so, it was flattened.

Wrath had bitten off more than it could chew. Mercury refused to bend to the fury, and even the infectious light of the stars, trying to drive him mad in anger, was simply swallowed into his <Still Mirror>. He felt the lake of that Skill growing more and more as he used it to swallow up the anger, but it was fine. His mind was strong, and he refused to be shaken.

So, he took another step, leaving a quiet, still land behind.

Meanwhile, in the colosseum, blood rained down. There were thousands, millions of creatures, having been trapped and killed over the chapters. Each one had been infected with unstoppable fury, forced to fight and die and bleed, forever. 

A soldier swung his sword at Mercury in a desperate, violent movement. In response, the mopaaw swung his front paw. An invisible line of <Sever> streaked through the air and, backed by Mercury’s stats and enhanced by the Dream of Starvation, cut through the sword and bisected the whole man.

[Killed an Infected of Wrath. Get: 500 Exp, 50 Gold.]

In the middle of the motion, his upper body separated from his lower body, cut in two at the waist. The dream of starvation drank the blood before it could hit the red sand, and the corpse of the soldier dissipated, devoured by the angry arena, set to reappear from the sand somewhere else down in this realm of violence.

More creatures charged at Mercury, things that had once been people with hopes and desires, reduced to puppets of violence. And for each one, he moved one of his legs, cloaked in dark grey, hungry steel, and killed them. 

Sometimes, when they fell, they looked afraid. For those, he cloaked them in his <Rainfall>. The wind, for a moment, carried their fear and fury away, and let them die in peace, just once. For just a few moments, they would not need to fight, until the sands took them and forced them to fight all over again.

But then, the rain also fell on the sand, and washed away the blood. Teeth and splinters of bone were ground into dust, no longer stabbing into his feet, and the red was turned back to yellow-white as he walked forward.

Whenever his paws came down on the tainted ground, though, they ate at the blood by themselves. The Dream of Starvation had become more powerful, and as it had, it also grew hungrier. After drinking from the fae realm, it was now more than happy to eat into the essence of this angry place.

And so, whenever he killed, the Dream of Starvation ate again, more essence flooding into the dull metal, giving it a red, almost demonic sheen as it grew ever so slightly, enveloping more and more of Mercury. Very slowly, it climbed up his legs to his shoulders.

He could feel its hunger through their bond. But it was a quiet, insignificant thing. In truth, the dream was just an item, one that was bound to him, and not one that would bind him. Even its hunger was just the simple knowledge that he could make it grow stronger by feeding it, by cutting with it.

In this place of violence, then, there was no shortage of things to cut. 

Mercury simply did as he always did, and walked forward. Bodies dropped around him, men and beasts falling into the sand. Some were larger, towering things, tough things, but Mercury cut them all the same. <Sever> was enhanced by <Grain of Infinity>, too, feeding the skill power. And Mercury was stronger than any of these infected, and that was the <Truth>.

So, each attack found its place, and if one was not enough, he simply cut again. His stamina was dropping with each strike, coursing through his muscles, but that was fine. He had enough of it, especially with the speck of infinity within him rushing to refill that well of power.

Really, for this place, Mercury was unstoppable.

It was meant to grind someone down bit by bit. Throw a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand bodies at someone and chisel and chip away at them. To infect them with anger and wear them down until they get devoured by this place’s unending fury, turned into another puppet.

And it would never happen with Mercury.

Each droplet of violence that fell onto his <Oceanic Consciousness> was cleansed away, and his mind returned to a <Still Mirror>. He had two of his zeyjn controlling both bodies of his, and two more resting, ready to cycle if needed. The rare times anything came close enough to actually harm him, he still had Juno to protect him, as well as his defensive Skills.

His body was woven by his mind. Even as the world tried to wear away at him, the coarse sand was turned fine, and needle-like grass was flattened into a calm ground. He felt wrath buck and rage against this indignity, throwing more and more bodies at him, but it would never be enough. 

Attrition simply wouldn’t beat Mercury.

Calmly, he looked to the sky, at the myriad stars of pinprick fury, and asked. “What’s your <Answer>, then?”

And the sky started shaking. 

- - -

When Mercury demanded a reply, it was inevitable one would come. He felt the rush of his abilities, and snapped at wrath. Demanded it to simply face him in combat.

There was only ever once possible answer, though.

Violence.

His demand for battle was something this place of rage answered easily. Turns out the stars in the sky were not just decoration. As he asked for wrath’s reply, one of them replied. It fell.

The red star streaked through the sky and slammed into the silver next to him, cratering the mirror surface the steel forest had taken. 

A champion of wrath rose from the wound on the world. Mercury felt the fragile reality of this place tremble under it, and he saw the way the threads of the world bent around it. Wrath’s plane, this forest, was made from a hundred tiny nexuses, each one wrapped in strings, woven into one another.

Now, a nexus stood in front of him. A colossus of steel, a twisted abomination meant for violence and murder. It was a thousand swords, grafted into one another to shape limbs. Twisting steel, wreathed into horns and claws all over, each limb a sickle, each movement a slice.

The air hummed as it moved, a towering thing twice as high as any of the trees. It was a monster, and as Mercury looked at it, the monster screeched. The roar was piercing, more like the noise someone might make when being stabbed through the stomach. Mercury nodded slightly.

It was a reasonable answer.

In an instant, the thing was upon him, a thousand blades barrelling towards him. The thing knew nothing of form or skill, simply relying on brute power, supported by the system. The air hissed as it moved, and a monstrous blow came at Mercury’s face.

There was a crack as it broke the sound barrier, but Mercury didn’t hear it - after all, the Stifled Silence forced the noise to disappear. A wall of quicksilver came up to meet the attack, slamming into the gigantic monster, only to be sliced apart by the aura of sharpness it exuded. Each knife cut about a meter out from it, carving furrows into the ground and making the giant whistle as it moved. 

Mercury slammed his rijn into the blow, which took a cut, too. He felt a knife grind against the edge of his solidified mind, but it failed to cut, leaving a simple furrow on the malleable sheet of invisible force. But he did knock the blow aside, making the creature stumble and burrow into the ground.

The winds started howling a moment later. Rain fell. The drops were split when they hit the creature, but halves of raindrops were simply more more rain. Just the same, they fell through the monster. 

Some droplets split a thousand times, cut on infinitely thin bits of magical sharpness, spreading like a faint haze, but so what? There were hundreds more drops falling from the sky, and some burrowed into the thing anyways. Its violence was formidable, but it was no storm.

With another scream of iron grinding against iron, the thing threw itself forward again. The rain carved holes into its body, but those didn’t stop the violence. Mercury shoved it with his rijn and <Force of the Hecatoncheires>, but it simply pushed past that, too, cutting the invisible force, and giving him a phantom pain in fingers he didn’t even have.

Then it reached him, and raked a claw across him.

[<Tempered Body> has levelled up! <Tempered Body lv. 1 -> 2>]

Blood splashed out - only to be instantly frozen by the Stifled Silence. The crimson liquid slowly was drained of colour, until it was silvery and metallic, like everything else in that world.

Mercury frowned slightly, then focussed his will. <Shift>, <Hydration>, <Tempered Body> and <Resolution> triggered, guided by <Medicine>, mending his body. The wound closed like a clap of someone’s hands, the flesh simply closing up against itself, woven shut by silvery threads that disappeared a moment later.

“Huh,” Mercury said, the pain gone in a moment. “How strange.” It was a little weird, being able to mend his body with just a twist of his mind. But since he got cut, maybe he ought to take it a little more seriously?

<Sever> activated once more, this time enveloping his <Rainfall>. The Storm turned furious, slicing winds joining the raindrops. Each one that touched the thing sounded like a clash of blades, or, well, it would have sounded like that if there were any noise. But in the aura of the Stifled Silence, the clash was quiet and muted.

All that Mercury heard was a gentle breeze against his skin, quiet quicksilver waves on his paws.

The roaring flood of brutal waves and slicing winds that tore the monstrosity to bits went unnoticed.

He simply blinked, and watched the thing washed away with the wind.

Again, he turned to the sky, cocky. “Is that all?” he asked, demanding an <Answer>. 

The stars started to rain.

- - -

In the colosseum, Mercury was being exposed to a similarly rigorous fight. The crowd that was content to watch jumped from their seats and flooded the arena, trying to get their claws on him. But here, he didn’t even try to toy with them. Here, he was stronger than outside.

Because the colosseum was a dream, a thin gossamer realm stacked on a flimsy foundation. And so, he didn’t hesitate, and used <Unravel> instead of <Sever>.

Bodies stormed him, incarnations of perfect fury, hosts of wrath that had been chosen and elevated as its ultimate guardians. Then, they fell apart in front of him.

One after another, they came apart. Angry, vengeful specters, simply dissolving into a mess of component strings, then let go of. He didn’t weave them back together, didn’t remake them, Mercury simply took their tapestry apart, then cut the threads in half.

Thus, they were undone.

A warrior who had won over a thousand battles, wielding an axe as large as himself, simply dissolved from his feet upwards. Stumbling, crawling across the sand as his legs disappeared, until his hands, too, fell apart into disparate strings. 

Those dissipating threads were scattered in the storm of his <Rainfall>, washed off the reds of anger and violence, stripped from the infectious desire for pain, and left clean. Like shirts having their colour wrung out. In a way, it felt a little bit like recycling.

Taking the fabric of those who had been killed and made into tools of war, and undoing them. Those disparate threads would go on to do… something, probably. Maybe strengthen the weave of this dream in general, since their reality would instead feed into this one’s. Or, of course, there was another option.

Mercury activated his nexus, calling the threads to himself. That brightly burning star that anchored his inner world started to glow, greedily tethering more threads to itself. He fed it white gossamer, made from taking apart people who should long since have laid to rest, and he hoped the Caretaker might approve of it.

These people’s stories had been over for a while, forced to go on in perpetual anger. Now, they didn’t need to fight anymore. It was the best mercy he could give them, because he couldn't wash the anger away when they were still in a human shape, and he couldn’t put them all back together.

In a way, it was sort of similar to what happened to Kim, his gardener, made from the disparate threads that the remaining servants of Joy had been woven of. Except, this time, the dissolution was more complete.

Mercury sighed a little. He could consider the ethics some other time. In truth, he was simply killing these people and then using the remains of their corpses. Really, it was more like burning them to ash, then using that ash as fertilizer. There, that was an analogy he was fine with.

So he continued to burn them down, grinding them apart with rain as he took their threads and unmade them.

Sometimes he’d even take those threads and lay them on the ground in front of him, just to make sure the world didn’t break apart as he walked. It was almost meditative, and he found himself easily slipping into ihn’ar.

He watched as the golden veil of reason was pulled aside almost by itself, making the nonsensical entirely mundane. He watched as the iridescent veil of reality parted, showing how flimsy and ephemeral this dream within a dream really was. And he brushed up against the third veil again, catching glimpses of threads that weren’t threads at all, ones that shouldn’t have existed.

Threads that weren’t even part of anyone or anything. Ephemeral things that lead from somewhere to somewhere but had no substance in and of themselves.

And then they’d slip through his mental fingers like the loose sand underneath his paws.

He sighed, softly, and let it go for now. He didn’t have the processing power needed to try and smash through that veil, or decode what those threads meant. He’d get there in due time. For now, all he needed to focus on was simple, and almost pure in that way that fights often were. He had to find the centre of the colosseum and take down its source, the origin of all this anger.

- - -

Steel and silver danced. One choked the other, wrapping around it like a snake. Tendrils of liquid metal, crawling up titanic bodies carved from sharpness and violence. Stars fell, crashing into the lake, and yet, the earth remained calm.

The violence blurred into one. Thick fury ran over the land in swathes, and Mercury could feel the steel underneath his feet vibrate. The very fabric of this realm laid in anger, in hurt, in pain. It wanted to rise up as blades and cut the flesh of his feet apart. It wanted to drink in his suffering and drive him mad with fury.

But Mercury’s soul was calm. Even as more and more and more violence mounted, it all fell into that lake, the <Still Mirror> that sat at the centre of his being.

Fury fed into the lake like an everlasting stream of red. Like a crimson rain, drop by drop falling, disappearing, and growing still once more. But then, it didn’t end, and Mercury could feel the lake start to swell again.

It was a bizarre feeling, that for the first time he was stretching the limits of his Skill. It had almost gotten to that when he was burning himself alive and using it to simply make the pain disappear, but this kind of fury was worse. It was infectious. The red drops tried to turn that entire lake red, even as the Skill resisted it.

But, at the same time, it was excellent practice for the Skill.

Mercury leaned into it more actively, devouring more of the fury, even his innate one, until he felt himself grow calm. It was a shaky, unsteady calm, and he fed the lake even more. He let himself be cut, feeding it pain, feeding it disappointment, feeding it with his own <Grief>.

And that last step, finally, made it overflow.

Liquid silver flooded the <Still Mirror> of his mind. Burning red anger twisted and churned in those waters, and they broiled over the shore, the lake’s surface rippling.

Emotions bubbled forth and Mercury felt the fury actually grinding against his mind for a moment. But then, He focused. <Still Mirror> was never a Skill for suppressing emotions, it was always one to accept them and let them go.

He took a breath, he saw the anger and the grief, and he gently took them, and let them drift away with the flood.

[<Still Mirror> has levelled up! <Still Mirror lv. 9 -> 10>]

[<Still Mirror> has met the necessary qualifications for evolution. Evolve? (800 Skill points)]

Slowly, he smiled, and, slowing down his perception of time with <Oceanic Consciousness>, he confirmed the prompt.

[Evolution confirmed. Engaging. Please pick an option to evolve the Skill into. The price will be the same (800 Skill points), no matter which you choose.]

[1. <Babbling Brook>

2. <Numbing Apathy>

3. <Reservoir>]

[<Babbling Brook>: Offering the most straightforward path of advancement, this Skill allows your inner tranquility to grow. In addition to the still mirror lake, there will be a brook, flowing to and from it, bringing any troubles to be cleansed, and sweeping them away easily. You may remember them, and cycle your emotions, and you will process them more easily and completely. Find peace within yourself.]

He liked this one. It suited him rather nicely, he thought.

[<Numbing Apathy>: Emotions wash you by. You are able to isolate and discard them, leaving yourself empty of trouble. Apathy is unending, and will take anything you throw at it, grinding it down to dust. Choose whether to keep your mercy. Numb yourself when you must.]

This one seemed a little extreme. Apathy was certainly… useful, he supposed, but it also seemed annoying to deal with. A mismatch to his personality. Mercury liked feeling joy and belonging, and sometimes he even wanted to feel sad. Becoming numb wasn’t his path. 

[<Reservoir>: Your lake turns into a reservoir, ready to grow when needed, and empty back out. Any emotions stored within can be unleashed, on yourself or others. Let them feel the pain you’ve kept quiet for decades. Let them unearth what lurks underneath the water.]

Menacing, but again, not for him. Mercury did not need more ways to inflict pain or fear on others. 

Smiling softly, he picked <Babbling Brook>. 

[The individual has acquired the Skill <Babbling Brook lv. 1> through Skill evolution!]

A river opened up in his mind, and he felt all the fury drain away with ease. The still lake grew calm and tranquil again. Fury passed through him and was carried away downstream, disappearing in the distance.

He breathed in deeply, smelling the scent of rain and metal and blood being washed away.

He breathed, and opened his eyes. Mercury faced wrath, took a step, and let the world quiver as he began to break that anger apart.

Chapter 145: Clearing Up

The day after the funeral, I went on a date with Ann. We got ice cream, walked around the city a little, bought some more clothes, the usual. 

Now, technically, using magic in broad daylight was illegal. We aren’t generally supposed to use our supernatural powers in areas where they might inconvenience or hurt civilians. However, given the fact that the illusions Ann cast just stopped people from exploding with joy whenever they saw us, I think it was a worthy trade off.

We paid for the ice cream, then sat down at a decrepit, cracked once-fountain. The view was just as crappy and grey as everywhere else, though some plants had, admittedly, begun writhing up through the concrete, fed by the lingering energy in the air. They were somewhat odd-looking things; grasses that were a little sharper than normal, flowers that bloomed a little brighter, but they are a form of life.

I didn’t know how to feel about that. At the end of the day, the opening of gates had killed thousands. Millions, even. My mom almost had a heart attack about thrice when I told her I was going to pick up a weapon and start killing monsters. It had introduced a new drug, and a power that I’m now rather certain that Zinnic had done human experimentation with.

And yet, despite all the very distinct suffering it caused to humans, I could see that the world was healing, little by little. And breaking, little by little, to.

Ann leaned down, and pushed some mana into the ground, making one of the flowers spiral upwards in growth and bloom, its buds unfurling to a radiant yellow. She picked it with a smile, then gently pushed the stem into my hair. 

With a smile, she called me beautiful, then kissed me. Her lips tasted of vanilla and cherries. 

I let the moment linger, then looked to the grey sky, seeing rays of sunlight filter through the smog. In a way, that was beautiful, too.

Then, though, Ann took my hand. “Do you remember what the sky used to look like?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I remember. Dimly.”

She smiled wider, grinning a little, then stretched her hand upward, as if reaching for the clouds. I followed along, confused, wanting to see what she was getting at.

Then her lips moved. She spoke a hundred syllables in mere moments, humming a sing-song chant as her raised hand flicked through sigils. The mana around us stirred, like dancers coming alive to the beating drum of music.

For a moment, the world thrummed, resonated. Then, the magic drew taut like a string, and lanced upwards into the sky. And there, it unfurled.

Like a flower, Ann’s magic blossomed. Leaf by leaf, string by string it unfurled. 

The smog cleared.

I don’t have the words to describe what it felt like to look at the sky and see it cloudless. 

Mana roiled and pushed, the dancing threads of power pushing aside the walls of grey. The smog, the constant fog, that hung in the sky and near the ground parted. For the first time in decades I saw the sky of my home world.

The ice cream must have slipped out of my hands when sunlight - real sunlight - hit my face. I looked at the sky, seeing it as blue. I looked up and saw the sun, the way it was too bright to look at, the light no longer diffuse. And everyone nearby stopped, too.

Ann reached out, trailing a finger across my cheek and wiping away a tear. We stood there for a long, long moment. I stared at the blue. 

She took my hand, and pulled me into a hug. I breathed in again, and the air felt almost clean. It had been months since I’d breathed clean air. No chemical smell from filtration, either. Just… clean.

It took me a second to even just wrap my arms around Ann, but when I did, I squeezed her. “Thank you,” I said. “Can you do that anytime?”

“Yeah,” she said with a smile. “After the rank up, I can.”

“Can you show the others? Beth?”

“Of course,” she nodded, patting my head. 

“Thank you,” I repeated. “It means… a lot.”

Ann smiled, and kissed me again. “It’s alright. Anytime.” Then, she looked at the splattered treat on the ground, and quickly cast a spell to clean up the mess. “Come on,” she said, taking my hand in hers. “Let’s get another ice cream. You can look at the sky as long as you’d like.”

I smiled. “Don’t have to ask me twice.” Then I kissed her one more time.

And, after a quick stop, I did just as she’d said. I sat and stared at the sky.

- - -

Now, seeing some conspiracy theorists interpret the lovely gesture Ann had done for me as an omen of good now that Zinnic was finally off the picture was pretty funny.

Really, just seeing people post about it in general really was quite entertaining. Especially for Matt. He lost his mind laughing. Sure shut him up when he actually got to see the sky, though.

Wasn’t it funny, though? Our guild was called Dawn of Ambition, and now, well - one of us was literally responsible for having the sun appear in the sky. If that was not magic, I did not know what was. 

Ann and Ivan were already working together on using some of her newly made weather magic in filtration devices, trying to create things that could permanently clear the air. Mana was a valuable thing, since any periodic element could be turned into it, and it could turn into any element on the periodic table.

The transmutation wasn’t easy, though, so the two would still be working on it for a little while. That was fine, too. It was a ray of hope, a very literal ray of sunlight in this dreary Neamhan. Alongside all of the horror and the killing, there was the very real possibility that in trying to take from me, the keepers had given us the pieces needed to fix our world. And something about that was wonderful and funny.

But by far my favourite part was getting to show Beth.

It was so selfish of me, but I insisted on it being just me and her and Ivan. It was entirely unfair, but neither my dad nor my mom were invited. They’d get their chance - but I’d get mine first. No politics, no arguing. Beth got to have her moment of wonder.

So worth it.

When the clouds cleared, and she saw that the sky was blue, her eyes widened like saucers. She had to hold up her hand to shield her eyes from the sun, having looked at it a bit too much, but nothing that a small visit to Reya after couldn’t instantly heal back up. 

“Whoa,” she gasped.

“It’s cool as frick, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yeah!!” she yelled. “It’s so bright! Was it always that bright?”

Ivan nodded. “It was,” he said, somewhat melancholically. “And it will be again.”

“That’s so cool!” Beth said happily. And it would be, when the time came.

“It will be,” I told her. “It will be.”

- - -

We picked up Liam and Emilia from the “train station”. It was nice, seeing them again. It had only been a handful of weeks, but still. When you lived with someone, that kinda absence was rather noticeable. 

The two stepped out of the mirror. The one we had in the basement of the guildhouse. It was easy for me to send them to Eden, but receiving them as a mobile target was a little trickier; so we just used the stationary mirror in the basement instead. 

When they stepped out, I hugged each of them. They both looked just the same as when they’d disappeared, if a bit stronger. I could tell they were also approaching their breakthroughs to maelstrom. Liam was a little closer than Emilia, but her foundation was solid, so I was sure she’d manage soon, too.

None of that mattered when I patted their backs. “Welcome back, to the two of you!”

“It’s good to see you again, too,” Emilia said with a smile, smacking my shoulder roughly. She was stronger than she should have been… had they gotten more levels? 

“How was your vacation?” Matt asked with an amused expression.

Liam snickered at the phrasing. “Oh lovely. Clear skies, kind people, plenty of things to see. We did quite a lot of sports, too, see?” he asked, flexing his limber muscles.

After a short laugh, Reya pecked him on the lips, taking his hand in hers, and casting a small Divinity spell on the both of them, clearing away the nausea that usually came with changing worlds. Her hands flicked through a few signs, which made Liam smile.

“I missed you too,” he said. 

“Wow, no love for your best bud Matt, huh?” our swordsman said, rolling his eyes. 

Liam laughed. “Yes, yes, I missed your sny little comments too, Rat.”

Marie tapped her fingers against her arm. “On a genuine note, how are things in Eden? Chris was a bit cagey about it.”

Emilia shook her head. “Not great. Not… horrible, I s’pose. Orvan’s death did a lot to help the people come together. Iryel has been leading a few parties further into infested zones, and they’re working on using Divinity to clear out the Echo, but it’s a time consuming process, and there are quite a few nests with fragments causing trouble.”

“They requested that Fio should head over and clear up a few of them,” Liam added. “You’d have a much easier time closing those half-gates than any locals. Plus, it would deny the keepers the power to reclaim them,” he explained.

I grimaced a bit at that. In the entire country, there were only five people capable of fighting at the fifth realm. My very retired master, Rae, the government agent, Lyra. The other three were Matt, Ann, and me. We’d just recently sent Stella to Eden - her body there was probably more healthy, but still. She didn’t have a gateway, and probably didn’t want one, given all the complications about going back to Neamhan.

Not to mention the target on my back…

Softly, I sighed. “I get that,” I said. “But it doesn’t feel quite… fair, right now?”

Then, Ann looked at me with puppy eyes. “Fio… if they need you…” she trailed off, not finishing the sentence. 

And of course, I understood. It was, after all, her world. She wanted it to be safe, to do well. In the same way that I wanted to see Neamhan’s skies clear of smog, she probably wanted to see Eden’s world clear of Echo. 

I sighed, again. “Yeah,” I said slowly. “I get it. I do.”

Marie nodded slowly. “Well, neither me nor Ann can really come with. But you will need backup. We also will need Matt here.”

“Sorry Fio,” he said with a bit of a grimace, rubbing the back of his head.

Softly, I smiled and nodded. “It’s alright.” Then, I turned to the others. “Emilia, Liam, Reya?”

Our cleric gave me a long look, then a somewhat strained smile. Her hands came up again, and she signed a few words for me. I looked to Liam, who was quiet for a long moment. Then he looked at me. “She’s suggesting you take Eric.” 

Ann’s eyes narrowed a bit. “Is he willing to help now that things are less dangerous?” she asked, somewhat sharply.

Reya rolled her eyes a little, but nodded. That was pretty much exactly what Eric was dealing with. He had been scared before, and now that the immediate danger to his life was less, he was willing to go to Eden like. Just the same as most reflectors. 

I nodded slowly. “Okay,” I said. “That’s fine, yes.”

“Then I’ll be coming too,” Emilia said with a smile. “Can’t have you all on your own.”

Liam looked at Reya as she signed some more. “She’s saying she’d prefer to stay in Neamhan, since she’s really the only one who can deal with Echo. So her absence would be very distinctly felt.”

She elbowed him.

“Very fucking distinctly felt,” he amended.

“Sure,” I said with a smirk. “Me, Emilia and Eric, then. I’m excited to pick up my levels.”

“Actually,” Matt noted, “if our contributions on Neamhan count to some degree-”

“They do,” Emilia interrupted with a nod. “After all, we’re still siphoning resources from the usurpers.”

Matt nodded. “Since those count, I’d like to head over for a quick second, too. Just to grab the levels.”

“So, you’ll all be going for a moment, then,” Marie noted. “Except me and Ann, of course.”

At that, my girlfriend grimaced a bit. I could tell she wanted the extra levels, too. Bigger numbers meant more power, after all. Still, I nodded. “It makes sense to get everyone as strong as they can be,” I said.

“So long as it helps us,” Ann nodded, though still somewhat upset. She didn’t want to be left behind.

I gave a small sigh, then smiled and squeezed her hand. “I’ll talk to the divines,” I said. “Let’s see if we can’t establish some kind of agreement.”

Chapter 247: Evolution part 4

Chapter 247: Evolution part 4

Mercury faced a world of steel and flooded it with quicksilver. 

Fire blossomed around him, radiant heat washing over the world. An ethereal, half-real citadel burning into the world, turning the metal soft and malleable. Mercury manifested a rijn with each of his 4 zeyjn, creating hammers.

The world was steel, and it was forged.

Furious trees lashed out with swordlike iron branches to cut Mercury apart, only to be unmade into plates and nails. <Grief> mixed with the power of the Stifled Silence, weakening the metal, turning it malleable. The fire softened it up even further. Then, <Magical Metallurgy> went into full effect and let him shape it as he wanted to.

Mercury stepped forward, and a half dozen furious, mindless monsters were turned into nothing but plates, hinges and nails of magical steel. When the creatures grew larger, from weasels into bears, rather than folding them into nails, he simply created bricks, condensing and wholesale flattening them.

<Sever> cut them into smaller, more manageable bits, and <Force of the Hecatoncheires> held everything in place to ensure he struck true. In the end, since the movements of his mind were invisible, the way it looked was simple.

Mercury walked across an ocean of shiny quicksilver, and wherever that circle of wondrous quiet touched the furious world, the world folded. It bent inwards, the anger beaten out of it in a few swift, invisible distortions, and cut apart into metal parts useful for building houses.

Steel trees were hammered down into plates. Leaves became nails. Claws turned into screws, and wings into hinges. A thousand wrathful abominations assaulted Mercury. Furious chimeric creatures of violent steel. They shimmered with the gleaming grey of metal, only to crumple in on themselves once they entered that sphere of heat and grief and calm, dissonant hammering.

All that sounded in that tiny ocean of liquid metal was the soft chiming of a hammer.

Hours drifted by with Mercury simply taking slow steps, hammering away at the world, and eventually, one of his minds grew weary. So, he left it to rest, smacking the realm with only three hammers. Those, still, were enough.

[<Multitasking> has levelled up! <Multitasking lv. 42 -> 43>]

Then he was down to two. Finally, a single one.

This was worse. His speed slowed. But, rather than worry, he simply laid down, placing his head on his paws, closing his eyes, and waiting. Fury rained down on him, the world seeking to twist who he was, but it all met his <Still Mirror> and was swallowed up. Mercury refused to let his <Truth> be one of anger. 

Maybe this place demanded his fury, but that wrath was a lie, and he simply declined.

And so, somehow, most of Mercury slept in the place of wrath. He didn’t scurry, didn’t hide away, didn’t creep into some crevasse and hope he wasn’t found. A part of him, a little more than a quarter, simply stayed active and protected himself. 

Rest came at a price in a place like this, of course, so his other three minds found themselves pulled, tethered to some kind of angry sun. It pulled and tore at him, until, with a soft sigh, he let a part of himself be carried off to its “hunting grounds”.

This one didn’t have nightstalkers and draining fog. The realm of sleep wasn’t a horrible labyrinth. It was, instead, very simple.

A colosseum.

Every single soul ever devoured by this realm, forced onto a battleground of red sand, stained thick with blood and teeth and shards of bone. Millions of dead warriors, forced to fight forever. To die, over and over and over and over and over again.

Mercury found himself in the middle of a bloody battleground that was impossibly vast, and yet ringed by a sneering audience, demanding more. More blood, more pain, more suffering, more anger. To cut someone down who threatened to kill oneself. To fight the odds. To grip the blades of swords and kill and main and hurt.

He took a deep breath, and let it all wash over him. He took the horrid anger this place wanted to instill in him, the way it made his mind try to pull itself apart, and he gently placed it on a river and let it go. Like a boat made from leaves, it travelled down the stream until it was out of sight.

Rain began to fall around Mercury in that second world. 

Outside, he was wreathed in lazy, flowing, unstoppable quicksilver. In the dream, there was a patiently unyielding storm, hugging his shoulders as a cloak may. Drop after drop of wonderful rain fell, swallowing up the cries and the fury of the world. Wind blowed their hatred away. 

Those who laid dying, suffering in pools of their own blood, were washed away too. A million raindrops pierced them without resistance, and their mind found a tranquil peace, for a little while, until this place put their rotten vestiges back together to suffer again.

And that was all he could do for now.

In that dream, too, Mercury walked. Wherever he stepped, the rain washed over the sand, and some of the blood was washed away. Sloughing off and carried away by the rain, leaving the sand a quartzy white. A rainstorm raged gently, and the world calmed.

Mercury walked, and walked, and walked.

And then, he sat down, too. 

There were a lot of things Mercury was bad at. He couldn’t hit very hard, really. Well, in reality, he could hit hard enough, but he couldn’t explode entire mountains or anything outrageous like that. He couldn’t split the seas, or move at the speed of light.

But what he was very, very good at… was being untouchable. 

In the very middle of a hostile world, in the center of its hunting ground where his mind was being run ragged with fury and bloodshed, and the outside, where he was being drowned in an ocean of steel, Mercury sat. Then he closed his eyes.

[<Oceanic Consciousness> has levelled up! <Oceanic Consciousness lv. 6 -> 7>]

As amusing as it was to prove himself to this place, Mercury didn’t want to do just that. There was, after all, a species evolution ready for him to trigger.

And it was a big one, too. He had gained a total of 100 levels now. Most Skills evolved at level ten, too, so surely there was something special about level 100. His last evolution had been unique, already, so he was excited to see what this one held.

With part of his mind hammering the metal world into shape, and another part cleansing the infinite colosseum, Mercury focussed, quietly, and spoke to Appy. “I’d like to trigger my species evolution.”

[Congratulations! You have reached level 40, making you eligible for evolution. Your total levels reached are now 100. Your summary of experience, of joy, of desire, is considerable. The system recognizes you.]

[Mercury Rainfall Starlight. Summarizing. The individual has made friends, lost friends, killed, survived, fought and starved and thrived. The individual has learnt ancient forms of magic, has grasped the nature of things and related to them, has grown as a person, has acquired dozens of Skills through their own efforts and evolved them. They have unlocked, selected, and achieved thriving success with a new species and added it to the database for further eligible evolutions. You have usurped hills to entire realms, fragments of worlds. You have torn and you have mended the fabric of reality and the weave that holds it all together.]

[You have laughed. You have cried. You have found suffering and joy. You have desired.]

[You have lived.]

[Due to your lived experience, you have reached a total level of 100. This major milestone doubles the effect of all attributes.]

Holy shit.

[The individual has reached level 40. You are now eligible for evolution. All options are unique. Please choose one of the following:

Fyron: 

One with flames, this creature no longer requires a physical form. Woven from threads of liquid fire, its body is malleable and near impossible to damage. You may reshape yourself from an ember or a pile of ash, and you grow a spark of flame within yourself, a budding star.

Ocyon:

Within this species, there is a lake. It is the deep and unending river of one’s consciousness, unstoppable, unholdable. All disturbances may float on it and carry on, or be swallowed by the depths of the water. The world bends to your will, waves weaving webs of wily thought. Never ceasing, an existence that simply washes over anything trying to impede its everlasting march.

Wryon:

It knows. That is at the heart of the wryon - it knows. There are secrets, and you will find them. There are truths, and, truthfully, they are yours already. When you ask, threads come undone, ideas unveil themselves, and enlightenment follows in your wake. You may ask, and with your question, there will, inevitably, be an answer.]

Mercury took a long breath. Those were who he was. In a very real way, these three choices were the culmination of what the system thought he was worthy of. But…

He smiled. All of these held little hints for him to follow through on. Very slowly, he breathed in, then out.

“Hey, System? I’d like to make a <Bet>.”

Instantly, the world fell a little more quiet. After all, this was the culmination of who he was as a person. And yet, he was going to see about getting more?

“I would like to wager that I’ll find a fourth option,” he said, calmly.

For a short moment, silence.

“If I find it, I would like to ask for an additional upgrade for it. If not, you can strike the wryon off the current list.”

[Accepted.]

The weight of the wager settled on his shoulders. Mercury breathed and accepted it. And, despite it all, he smiled. Because, for his next magic trick, he was going to exploit a few details about his current build.

There were two centerpieces to this little trick of his. One was <Seeker Of Secrets>, his good friend Appy. The second piece was <Truth>, his most evolved Skill. And, of course, a whole lot of supplementary pieces.

See, the fact that the system accepted the wager meant that there were more options. There were a few reasons for them not to be displayed, and a few he could discover, but Mercury never was a quitter. He wouldn’t settle for options that had been deemed unsynergistic to him, ro even too weak.

He was going for something stronger than the other ones listed. 

First, the simple <Truth> of the existence of another option meant that <Seeker Of Secrets> had an easy angle of attack. Ihn’ar wrapped around his mind like a glove, enhanced by his newly gained <Lucidity>, and as he broke the second veil, he cracked the world open.

“Go get them, Appy.”

[Of course, dum-dum.]

His friend, an agent of the system, used those cracks in the very idea of reason to turn onto itself, like a snake eating its own tail. System turned against system, a Skill meant to discover <Truths> used against what was hiding them.

And, of course, if Appy was the one hiding the truth in the first place, that meant she should have no trouble finding it. That train of thought, in turn, activated <Perceived Ease>, breaking down the very real barriers that should have been there.

<Intuition> and <Itinerant> combined to whisper a path through the twisting maze of system data, through the winding bits of knowledge that would have been species he deemed unworthy. Mercury started bleeding from his eyes from the strain of navigating a maze of data mostly on instinct.

<Hydration> activated as an aide to <Oceanic Consciousness>, letting his mind adapt to the digital maze of information that sought to burn through his synapses. His brain regenerated as his blood heated up and bubbled. Firewalls began to appear, but he dipped and dodged them, and whenever one was unavoidable, he threw <Sever> at it.

And once after another, the maze relented. Mercury darted through its paths, searching for the greatest secret he could find, for the details that he was never meant to achieve. For the <Truth> that he deserved. One after another, species flitted by and were discarded before he even saw their details, because they were simply not enough. 

One by one, the data points were collected, and a picture of the web arranged itself in his mind. The ideas behind the species, the things that tied them together… and Mercury felt himself brush up against the third veil again. 

His nose began bleeding, and he felt his heart cramping up, but he still kept searching. Appy tore through the maze that she was born in, as she should be able to. That was the <Truth>. 

The Skills twisted in on their purpose to unveil and unwrap the working to him that were meant to be hidden. A personalized, infinitely adaptable assistant to allow people to reach their desires - and that primary function was now being used and exploited to reach deeper. 

A million moments passed in no time at all. It took only seconds for the adventure to make Mercury’s heart stop, but that wasn’t enough to kill him. His stamina expanded, meeting his cells, and he whispered a plea to the <Water> in his blood to keep moving - and it did. He felt his brain frying, but his regeneration and <Oceanic Consciousness> kept him alive.

Any detail that would have killed him just for knowing it was swallowed up by <Nothingness>, any stray emotion that might have consumed him devoured by <Still Mirror>. And, throughout it all, his <Intuition> guiding the path.

Winding paths were conquered, defenses avoided, hidden from. The third veil taunted Mercury at the edge of his mind, but instead, he leaned on <Voidwalker> for the very first time, zipping through the growing gaps in the maze as reality failed. Step by step, his journey took him closer to that destination that he was never meant to reach.

Then came the penalty.

[For the duration of this bet, <Truth> is disabled.]

Instantly, the system’s protections against exploitation set in. It was meant to be fair, after all, and without Mercury’s <Truth>, his Skills didn’t properly work on it. Instantly, he felt the strain on his head triple, and more of his minds had to pick up the slack, roused from their sleep.

His <Dream Manifested> around him, and he grit his teeth, refusing to have that ability sealed. 

And, in truth, it wasn’t fully disabled.

The system, after all, wasn’t what gave Mercury his powers. He, himself, was.

And that’s the <Truth>.

<Rainfall> raged against the imposed limitations, and the storm pushed them off just enough for his Skill to sputter back to life, and turn Appy’s ability to act back up to full power. Another firewall shattered, and Mercury felt <Itinerant> tell him it was the end of the journey.

<Intuition> screamed at him, screamed to move and take the packet of data and power in front of him - and Mercury did just that. He reached out and took the <Secret>.

[Additional evolution unlocked.]

The system notification announcing it was perfectly calm as everything snapped back into place, like a taut rubber band.

[The individual is encouraged not to put their survival at risk for better evolution options. The individual is additionally encouraged to simply continue living and reach another evolution threshold. There are no limits imposed upon them.]

Mercury smiled, just a little. 

[The system is attempting to act with the individual’s best interests at heart.]

“Of course,” Mercury confirmed. “Could I please see my additional option?”

[Applying upgrade to secret evolution.]

[Upgrade applied.]

[Lumyron:

One and all, where the light falls, this creature sees. Meaning is meaningless, the hidden is unveiled, and existence is just an inversion of <Nothingness>. Lumyrons are creatures which may maintain their mortal shells entirely through willpower. Answers appear before you ask. At a thought, reality fractures. Opposites are a simple step away, achievable through inversion. Bringing metaphysical weight and the power to alter reality itself, the Lumyron is as inevitable as it is unfathomable.

Due to your outrageous bet, the capabilities of your previous evolution options have been partially woven into the Lumyron. Your elemental abilities are heightened significantly. Your mental abilities are increased significantly. Your affinity for knowledge, secrets, and truths are increased precipitously.]

With a gentle motion, Mercury selected the choice that was at the very end of the maze, the very limit of what he could acquire at this moment, and then improved beyond. It was, very simply put, powerful.

“I would like to select the lumyron, please,” Mercury said.

[Acknowledged.]

[The individual is now evolving.]

Despite the fact that his previous actions, by all rights, should have upset the system, the sheet of light descended as gently as ever.

A familiar blanket of white wrapped around his eyes, blocking out the bloody colosseum he was in. The tense feeling of wrath pulling at his mind vanished. He found himself in the same not-space that the system usually put him in.

Except, this time, it felt almost… fragile. 

Mercury had become more “real”, as the system liked to call it. And, as that had happened, he’d grown his own world, and the outside had slowly turned more and more fragile. If he sank into ihn’ar, the gaps would become so apparent he almost couldn’t avoid looking into the void. 

Of course, he could also stabilize that himself, but it was still different from the usual feeling. Rather than staying chained to the ground by gravity, it was like… having to let it affect him.Make a conscious choice to stay anchored.

It wasn’t difficult, but there were fewer chains. Fewer… safeguards, really. 

He took a deep not-breath and waited for the change to set in. In that way, too, this evolution was different. He felt the light thicken before it began to seep into his skin. A blanket of radiance that altered what he was. Glimmering motes that pulled and stretched his metallic skin, made his bones larger as his skeleton adjusted itself to stand taller.

Inch by inch, he changed. Luminescent and <Nothingness> spiralled around him in a cascade of things, and after a few moments, the latter started interacting with his body, too. 

<Nothingness> dug holes into him, for lack of a better word. The luminescence left his shape entirely dense, without anchors, and now, that infinitely small darkness that roamed between the threads of reality bored holding struts into Mercury. Through those microscopic gaps, he became more stable, more “in control” of who and what he was.

What a bizarre process it was, seeing his evolution take place. There were a hundred minor changes, too, to his bone density, his skin, his fur and how it interacted. His eyes, especially, were changed. Even more than they already were.

It made sense, after all, he needed to see the truth of things before he even asked. He felt his skins resonate with the formless solidity of his shape, the way it made things easier for <Hydration> and <Shift> to change, while simultaneously becoming hardier. It was a bizarre effect, really.

And then came stranger and stranger changes yet. Ones related to the very ideas embedded in his body, tiny tweaks to his mana veins that made them strangely resemble runic arrays or mana formations. He felt himself change in a million ways, ones he could finally, for the first time, notice, but yet not quite understand. 

But that was fine. He breathed. 

A tiny <Rainstorm> sprouted in his chest, and let him find air even in this everchanging not-place. It filled his wispy, will-fuelled body, and made him exist just a little more solidly. 

Oh, right, he was fuelled by his will now. 

<Prevailing> triggered, and the ephemeral bits of his body instantly coalesced into a solid physical shape. The changes had mostly passed. He was taller now, standing about the head of a cheetah, maybe a little taller than that. It put his head right around the height of Zyl’s ribcage. 

And then, bit by bit, the motes of light withdrew, and Mercury found himself back in that bloody colosseum. Except, this time, the wrath wasn’t tearing at his mind. This time, he felt the sand warp around him, drawn into the thin tendrils of his tornado. 

His fur had intensified in colour. It was still the same silvery-white with purple stripes, but each bit of it had gained some of that depth his eyes used to have, where it was easy to almost get lost to him. It made his silhouette both indistinct, and yet sharp, making it hard to look away, but also hard to see properly. 

Mercury could see all around himself, too. His eyes were no longer needed for something as simple as sight. Instead, they were piercing. Stabbing through obstacles as if they weren’t there at all, unravelling the truths of the world as easily as breathing.

In front of Mercury, the colosseum began coming apart by itself, struggling to hold onto him. A flood of warriors poured towards him, driven by furious bloodlust, only to have scarlet droplets mix with a thick sheet of rain that ate away at their very existence.

All of it happened in Mercury’s line of sight, since everything was in his line of sight. Every secret he stepped near to, every person whose aura he witnessed, everything. While his fur was ephemeral and warping, his eyes were even more so. They had become deeper than even the darkest abyss, infinitely consuming and hungry. Each gaze pulled at the world with hunger, with a starving kind of ravenousness that was simply irresistible.

Mercury breathed.

The hunger disappeared into the void of his <Still Mirror> and he looked upon the world normally, the hints of swirling abyss in his eyes sealed behind layers of purple stardust clouds.

He looked at his notifications.

[<Prevailing> and <Perseverance> have fused into <Resolution lv. 1> through evolution.]

[Your existence has become more closely realized.]

[Your ability to understand has increased.]

[Your mind has become more powerful.]

[Acquired the Skill <Answer lv. 1> through evolution.]

[Acquired the Skill <Grain of Infinity lv. 1> through evolution.]

He smiled. Three Skills. More than any evolution ever before. And their names were rather incredible, too. He sent a small inquiry through <Seeker of Secrets>, querying their descriptions, and, by itself, <Answer> triggered and made the request inviolable.

[<Resolution>: A Skill intended for individuals whose physical and mental state is tethered more completely. Your resolve may reconstitute your body. As long as your bones are unbroken, your will is reinforced in turn. To kill someone with this Skill, their mind must be shattered, and their will blown away with the wind.]

It was an even stronger evolution of his survivalist kit. A true guarantee that, as long as he had a mind to think, he would not die. Simple as that.

[<Answer>: To ask is to want. The individual may now feed on knowledge, sustaining themselves off of secrets in addition to other means of consumption. To ask is to demand, too, and the individual will have an answer. When a question is parsed with great intent, the target will feel a growing pressure to answer. No limits in targeting.]

The next Skill was one that, effectively, turned him into an infovore. He could eat knowledge - not that he consumed it, entirely, really. He just subsisted off of gaining things for himself. What decided how “nutritious” a piece of information was, he wondered?

And, of course, the second part of the Skill. The fact that it would add intent to all questions asked, and if he didn’t allow someone to remain quiet, he could pull the <Truth> out of them. Terrifying. 

Additionally, he already noticed the “no limitations” part. After all, the Skill had instantly worked on the system itself, pulling the information on his new Skills.

And finally…

[<Grain of Infinity>: At the very heart of the user lies a simple truth. You are unending. There is a hole within you that is a budding flower and a grain of stardust. It is infinity, it is giving, and it is inversion. You may draw from or feed this grain for various effects, and use its depths to alter the effects of your Skills.]

This one, despite the work of <Answer> was cryptic, but it was also his most impactful new Skill. He could tell that it was there, quietly, a manifestation of his silver sun, a tiny grain that was shimmering yet dark. It was, in and of itself, a contradiction that should never have been possible.

And yet, there is sat, right within his heart, within his core, within the deepest recess of his self where that last bastion of inviolable will laid. A pull that was thin but irresistible. A push that would not stop, ever. A gentle, entirely unstoppable force.

He took a deep breath. 

The Skills were strong. They added to his build and expanded its scope. Mercury felt strong. Ready.

Finally, he called up his Status.

=

Status:

Mercury Rainfall Starlight

Level: 1

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: 2200/2440

Mp: 3500/3614

Sp: 1500/1534

===

Strength: 130 (+5) -> 140

Vitality: 224 -> 254

Dexterity: 154 (+30)  -> 164

Agility: 171 (+30) -> 191

Intelligence: 192 (+40) -> 222 

Wisdom: 175 (+2) -> 205

Willpower: 418 -> 468

Luck: 175 -> 195

===

Ability points: 201

World points: 6345

Skill points: 3200

===

Gold: 24 265

Beast familiars: 1/2

=

200 Stats. 100 Ability points. 1500 Skill Points.

Combined with the doubling of their effects, Mercury really felt the change. He was much stronger now. Harder to kill, and with a few new tricks in his box.

He took a deep breath, and the <Rainfall> around him wove into a typhoon. Instead of tiny droplets, it became a hurricane of destruction, amplified by his will, his resources, and the infinity quietly humming in his heart.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, his real eyes, and stepped forward.

Maybe it was time for Wrath to quake in fear.

Chapter 144: Tyrant’s Legacy

I woke up. It was a long, dreamless night, and I overslept a bit. I stretched in bed for a long moment, taking my time to slowly open my eyes. I took a deep breath, letting the first moments of the day come to me.

Still in my pajamas, I went downstairs, grabbed some breakfast, drank some coffee, and stared out the window into our drab but changing world. It was still grey, too grey for my comfort, but it was no longer the same. It shimmered with magical energy to my eyes, and that had to count for something.

Then, I flooded my mouth with Qi to kill any harmful bacteria in it. 

Which was a bit of a strange sensation. It was like pressing soft metal through the gaps in them, like simultaneously flossing and brushing. But it was also fast, effective, and meant that my breath smelled clean. It was efficient, even if it felt a little weird.

When that was done, I read a bit on my phone until the others walked downstairs. Eventually, I called up the Gift, looking at my status.

[Name: Fiona Bellum

Class: Superimposed Paragon (20)

• Techniques

  • Spear Techniques

    • Spear Technique - Fundamentals (Inevitability)

    • Swift Spear (High)

    • Momentum Shift (High)

    • Unyielding Metal [New!] (Basic)

  • Qi Techniques

    • General

      • Aura Suppression (Intermediate) (Keeping your Qi contained inside your body allows you to appear perfectly ordinary)

      • Aura Sense (Intermediate) (Perceive your surroundings by being in touch with the energies suffusing them)

      • Manifestation [New!] (Intermediate) (Summon and shape your powers, altering reality)

  • Golden Glass

    • Spear Spirit (High) (Your weapon - Astraeus - has resonated and fought with you. Now, it actively cooperates)

    • Weapon Unification (Great) (You and your weapon are one. You need not hold it to wield it.)

    • Inexplicable Reinforcement (High) (Your Qi makes your body incredibly tough, flexible, and fast. When in peril, you superimpose yourself over it.)

    • True Mirror (Great) (You and your Keeper work together. Manifest them and your gateway where your will reaches.)

    • Parallel World Manipulation [New!] (Basic) (Infinite reflections, potential choices. Call upon their strength and make it yours.)

• Stats

  • General

    • Strength: Greater (Intermediate)

    • Agility: Greater (Greater)

    • Endurance: Novaic (Lesser)

    • Resilience: Greater (Superior)

    • Manipulation: Novaic (Inferior)

    • Capacity: Greater (Superior)

    • Absorption: Novaic (Inferior)

  • Qi

    • Golden Glass

      • Purity (Perfect)

      • Realm (Maelstrom)

      • Stage (1st Step)

      • Path (Soar through endless Freedom)

• Disposition

  • Covenant

    • Familiarity (Your care comes in layers, always possible to rise or fall.)

  • Temperament

    • Impatient (Time ticks and you wish to be ahead of it.) 

    • Disciplined (Your command over yourself is admirable.)

    • Iron Will (Your tenacity is incredible, even among the outstanding.)

    • Compassionate (You truly care. So you find joy, and you find suffering.)

    • Optimistic [New!] (See the good in others. Forgive and uplift, even the undeserving)

  • Talent

    • Slight Edge (Average is below your standards. Go above, even by a little.) 

    • Single-Minded (Your focus is your strength. Once your mind is set, nothing will shake you out of it.)

    • Superimposed Experience (You can place another’s experience onto yourself. See the world from new perspectives.)

    • Precipitous Wings (Growth lies wherever risk does. Find it, sprout wings, and soar through the sky.)

    • Sparking Nova (evolved Budding Nova) (Within you, the future burns bright. You saw the stars, right? Stay kind to yourself.)

Current Status: Sleepyhead]

I took a deep breath after looking at it, and nodded. A lot had changed. My attributes had become novaic, partially, jumping up across the major realm gap. My techniques had become substantially more powerful - and my crude manipulations of energy were now powerful enough to be recognized as techniques. 

The Gift took notice of my ability to manifest my Qi, probably shaped by the way I could use it to conjure a barrage of spectral spears, or wield a few of them floating around me. The technique combined with my novaic manipulation of energy for truly monstrous speed and power.

The other new techniques were [Unyielding Metal], one that relies entirely on martial masters to be unfaltering, and [Parallel World Manipulation], which I earned through my liberal use of alternate versions of myself - both fully and partially manifested, to swap places, heal wounds, and call upon their skill.

I breathed out, and looked at my temperament, finding that it deemed me no longer impatient. The line was struck through, fading and disappearing from my eyes, and a new one replaced it. I’m deemed [Optimistic]. It’s funny, but at the same time, it makes sense.

After all, it takes an idiot like me to still give my parents another chance after everything they’ve done. They didn’t deserve it, so they better live up to my expectations.

Finally, my [Budding Nova] became a [Sparking Nova] which makes sense. The star in my chest that I saw was burning brightly, now, folding in and out in a cascading wave of colours. It glowed and fizzled, excited at the prospect of interaction, hungry for more.

With my path, I’d made my step towards greater power, and I was ready to take hold of it.

Finally, I looked at one more menu.

[Gateway: 

• Strength: 79

• Fragments: 87

• Figments: 9

• Manifestations: 1]

My gateway was even more powerful. I’d taken fragments from the avatars that attacked me, and from a few bosses in the gates, and it had continued to grow. I could feel my second manifestation close, just at my fingertips. 

Not quite there yet, but soon enough.

Then, I closed that screen too, and took another deep breath. I got up, stretched a little, gave a big yawn, and looked around the others. “I’ll be right back,” I said, casually.

After another moment, I stepped forward, teleporting with the Wanderer’s Key, and went to kill a man.

- - -

Mr. Henney was not a good person. He had never been.

He was born into blood money, taught to treat others with contempt and use them for his purposes. From the very start, he’d been cruel and callous, seeing humans other than himself as no more than tools to achieve his purposes. He’d held Stella’s - Eagleeye’s, since tools didn’t deserve human names - treatments over her head to manipulate her.

There were more than a few situations he’d swept under the rug where he’d had people “take care” of his competition. Bodies dropped into lakes, buried in the middle of dark forests, moved out of the way. He was and had always been cutthroat.

Zinnic was the biggest corporation because of that. Because exploitation was unbelievably profitable. He could light cigars with dollar bills and feel nothing at the motion. He’d cornered not just one world but two, establishing his organisation to sponsor people over on Eden, bringing back resources and amassing power.

And when after all this time the keepers and usurpers were interested in Neamhan, he was who got approached to help facilitate the transition of their world into a magical age. He’d put out propaganda, manipulated the public into accepting things, made them look harmless. He’d decided where gates would open, which ones would break.

Thousands of lives gone when he decided to have a break in a city to create fear, just to leverage that fear into heroics by clearing it with Zinnic soldiers - and that was what they were. Not cultivators, not mages. Soldiers. His private military force, enough to topple the government if he wanted.

Not that he did so, of course. The government was useful. He left it alone, and they didn’t bother him, in some kind of mutual respect. It was dirty, of course, as all business was, but he didn’t mind. His own hands were clean, after all. He simply paid people.

And yet, as he read the newspaper, he could not believe it.

Simply put, it wasn’t possible.

All three of his maelstrom soldiers, dead.

Wiped out by a couple whelps in the wellspring realm.

It was impossible. It never should have happened. And yet, there it was. Black on white, ink on paper. The usupers, the keepers, and all the overwhelming force he’d brought… crushed. Killed. 

And so, when I found him, he was in the midst of packing. A suitcase in his hand, as he wheeled it towards the elevator to take it from his private suite down to the ground floor and with a flight already booked.

I can’t properly describe his face when the world parted and I appeared in front of him, but I can say that his jaw dropped to the floor. For just a moment, his mouth opened, then closed like that of a dead fish. He dropped the handle of the suitcase, and the metal fell against a cold, unyielding wooden floor.

“Good morning, Mr. Henney,” I greeted the old man.

Another moment passed, and then, with practice, he gathered himself. To his credit, he was stoic for those last seconds of his life. His mouth twisted into a thin line, a faint frown, and his eyes narrowed at me. “Ms. Bellum. We can talk about this,” he said.

I smiled, pleasantly. “Please, talk.”

“Do you want money? Your family will be cared for. I can pay for your father’s treatment, make sure your sister lives in a nice place, that your brother has all the equipment he wants. I can-” 

To the very end, he didn’t get it. Didn’t understand the simple fact that money wouldn’t buy me. That there was no price he could name to make me do his bidding.

My spear lashed out and cut through his neck.

There was a horrid wrenching noise, and the cut sewed itself shut again. Mr Henney gasped, his eyes bulging like a fish as he doubled over, clutching his neck. He was panting for a moment, then vomited, staining the precious hardwood floor. Bile joined the spilled blood.

I looked at him, at the way the world had Echoed when I cut him. There was something there, some other secret. “How did you do that?”

My question was enough to give him hope, and I saw light ignite in his eyes. “Well, Ms. Bellum,” he started. “We can talk about-”

No. 

Instantly, his slimy, grating nature was too much. I cut again, and the world lurched. Echo gathered from the man, resonated with my Qi, and made it brittle and decay. His neck snapped close again, but he looked pale from blood loss. The trick was costly, and I felt it poke at my skill with parallel worlds.

Now, his gaze turned to fear. “W-What do you want?!” he demanded. Hopeless clinging to the thought that there was something to save him.

With a sigh, I answered. “Nothing,” I said, quietly. “There is nothing you could give that would make me less angry. Nothing to spare you. You committed one too many wrongs, and I’m okay with destabilizing the world a bit if it means getting rid of a parasite like you.”

“No,” he stammered like some cliche villain. “You’ll be just as bad as me, a killer!” I stared at him. “There will be a power vacuum, someone worse will take my place. You won’t know when the keepers will attack and where the gates will open, you won’t-”

The metal of Astraeus glinted in my hands, lashing forward, right through his heart. This time, I left it there, not pulling back. The world lurched, as if to teleport him backwards, but I contested it. The Echo flared, trying to break my hold, and I beat it into submission. 

Blood started running from Henney’s lips, and as he opened his mouth to give a wheezing gasp, a torrent more flowed out. It stained his precious suit, his precious floor with all the blood that it already should have been stained with. 

His words suffocated in his chest, even as his hands weakly closed around Astraeus’ blade, trying to pull the weapon out. His heart and lungs were pierced through, his fingers bleeding as they scrambled against the sharp metal without finding purpose.

And then, when he was dead, I flourished my spear to get the corpse and the blood off, and flooded the area with enough Qi to incinerate the blood. Then I left. A tyrant’s end was bloody and swift. None of his begging amounted to anything, in the end. As a corpse, he was just the same as anyone else. No better.

- - -

News reports flashed up about a death from heart failure. 

Two days later, there was a funeral, and almost no one came. Just me and Chris. They wanted to see our customs.

Some official read off his list of accomplishments, and his very short list of acquaintances. One son, Richard Terril. One estranged daughter. None of his competitors visited. No friends. A few bodyguards and hitmen, and a few government officials to deal with the will. 

They shovelled earth over the coffin, and then we called it done. The only person to speak was his estranged daughter. “My father was not a good man,” she said. “For all his faults, I can call him determined, I suppose. May his remains remain untouched.”

And that was the nicest thing anyone said about Jonathan Henney. His grave read: “CEO of Zinnic Inc.” A company that would disappear like the rest of his legacy.

His son looked at me, and I looked back. 

Richard Terril, the same man who had come to threaten me before, now stood in front of his father’s grave. His shoulders now slumped. “All assets shall go to my son, Richard,” an official read out. “Who, hopefully, shall keep Zinnic’s name alive, keep my legacy alive.”

I looked at him, for a long, silent moment, and he balled his fists, then nodded, eyes closed.

The next day, the company changed its name.

And the world moved on.

Chapter 246: Holding up the Sky, just for a Moment

Chapter 246: Holding up the Sky, just for a Moment

Proving that he meant well was rather easy when he did and had a Skill to show people his sincerity. In the passing weeks, he once again took to just… solving people’s problems. He fixed roofs and broken doors, he listened to people’s problems and took away the pain of injured people, helping the healers.

He was good at that. He helped clean the water with some elemental manipulation, helped keep homes with non-functioning heating warm, and was especially good at resolving trouble with nightmares and insomnia.

A few weeks passed, and Mercury found himself more popular than ever. Life was silly that way. But hey, if becoming a bit of a celebrity meant his eccentrics were more likely to be tolerated, then that was fine. He didn’t mind helping people, after all. The usage of his Skills and abilities made for very good practice.

There were multiple times he felt himself brush up against the third veil again. It felt softer than the previous ones, but somehow spongy and stretchy. He couldn’t just bash his head into it and shatter it, but he’d find the way eventually, he was sure.

For now, all he did was practice and meditate and work. Trying his best to be happy, and all that. And for the most part, it worked.

- - - 

Another year passed.

The wedding was wonderful. Mercury was Iris’ best man, and Yvette a bridesmaid. Zyl carried their rings. There was cake and laughter and happiness.

The fireworks were almost as beautiful as the smiles.

After that, pages drifted by.

Mercury learned more about runes, and about smithing. He twisted his rijn into tongs, into hammers, into gloves, into chisels and stakes. He’d improved by miles. <Magical Metallurgy> went all the way to level 6. <Medicine> reached level 9. <Force of the Hecatoncheires> went up to 3. 

The most substantial change he’d gone through was one night, when he gazed at the stars, enjoyed the silence, and smelled the faint bits of festival food in the air. It had triggered a massive Skill fusion.

<Enhanced Hearing>, <Enhanced Smell>, and <Night Vision> had fused into <Greater Perception>. 

A much more versatile Skill that seemed to also feed into his supernatural senses, which was nice.

[<Greater Perception>: A Skill that enhances every sensory ability by the individual and enables some synergistic crossover. The world becomes clearer to you. If you can detect something with one sense, it will be easier to detect it with another. Yes, food will taste better if you can see it.]

The description was rather plain, but Mercury didn’t mind at all. It was a nice Skill to have. 

He spent quite a bit of time with Juno, teaching her a bit of magic, playing hide-and-seek like games to train stealth. She took rather well to shadow related abilities, though whenever she did transform into one, it took on a silvery sheen. Almost like moonlight, spilled out across the floor. 

It was enough to level up his <Beast King> to level 2, after all this time. He looked at the ability with a wistful smile. It was, after all, one of his oldest companions. 

Many things happened in a year, but at the end of the day, it was still quiet. People visited. They talked, they drank, they sparred, they found hobbies and dropped them again. Zyl got good at painting, and a few flowers he particularly liked were preserved in the silvery amber from the Stifled Silence, hanging in their house. 

Avery liked board games, and Mercury made more than a few of those, recreating some from earth with wood and metal. This made him practice turning his rijn into a whole host of new tools. Rasps, especially, were tricky, since they needed to be coarse, and maintaining such a specific, small structure, was difficult.

But it was also good practice. He used <Sever> for planing and cutting and flattening. The Skill made near perfectly smooth slices of wood. And with <Water>, he could coax any felled trees into drying out much faster. 

All of that was to say that Mercury had gotten rather good at a few different crafts. He was now much better at working with metal, wood, runes, and even weaving. His own <Thread> Skill had picked up 2 levels, putting it at level 9 and probably just short of an evolution.

A lot of his Skills were like that. Sitting just in front of an evolution, but not quite having crossed the threshold where he could evolve them just yet. That was okay, too.

It was after more than a full year, when the days were just starting to cool again, that things eventually happened. 

Well, that was a bit of a cruel assessment of the situation. Things had been happening for the whole year, it was just that bad things coming for him specifically waited until that moment. 

Mercury was looking up at the night sky from the roof of their house. He’d added a bit of an extension to the ceiling, a small platform for him to relax in. It was made from wood and thread, forming a flexible web of fabric. Like a silvery, thick spiderweb. Or catweb, really.

As he stood on that place, he felt the world grow thin.

That, by itself, was not that special. The world grew thin every so often, he’d noticed. There were simply times when reality was less real, and felt less real. He’d become attuned to those moments, that felt like he was in two places at once, like his own voice echoing in his head, like every second had passed already.

It was a little bit like a mix between a deja-vu and an experience of the world as unreal. 

Except, this time, that moment didn’t simply pass peacefully. Instead, the thinning grew stronger, until the world was dissonant and rung in Mercury’s ears. He sighed, quietly, and opened his eyes. 

Ihn’ar enveloped him like an old friend’s embrace, and the layers of falsehood were peeled back like an onion. Mercury saw the sky, glittering with stars, as an imposed tapestry, woven from pretty fabric, spray painted by someone really rather talented at graffiti. There was the tip of a knife poking against it, tearing through those ethereal, dream-like threads. 

A sword of Damocles, hanging over Mercury’s head like a guillotine.

It had only been a matter of time, really. When he was in the fae realm, wrath had found him. He’d killed gluttony, a wandering arch, and now wrath had latched onto him.

Mercury made his rijn into a needle, and stitched the fabric of the world closed against the knife. He stirred, and walked to Zyl, bearing the strain of keeping the sky up with three of his zeyjn, leaving the fourth free for conversation.

“Hey, Zyl,” he said.

The dragon turned to face him, drops of paint splattered across his handsome cheeks, a brush still held in his gloved hands. He was painting. Had been painting, at least. “Yes, dear?”

Holding his gaze, Mercury sighed softly. “It’s time,” he said.

“Ah,” Zyl nodded. “You have our connection ready?”

“Yes,” Mercury said.

“Juno in your shadow?” he asked.

Mercury smiled at his boyfriend’s worries. “Yes,” he said. “I’m all ready to go. Give everyone the letters I’ve prepared. I’ll see about visiting Kintra on my way back.”

Zyl nodded, then smiled, running a hand through the mopaaw’s silvery fur. “Alright. Enjoy your travels. I’ll be just around the corner if you need me.”

“Of course, Zyl. I love you,” Mercury said.

“I love you too,” the dragon replied, pressing a kiss onto his lover’s forehead.

And then, he had to watch him go.

- - - - - -

Zyl knew it would not be easy. He’d known it from the very start. That Mercury wanted to see more of the world. And that he did not yet have a place there.

He’d known that the mopaaw would find a day, a quiet, beautiful one like today, and then walk. That he’d simply wait, hoping he’d be back. Knowing he’d be back, really, since the mopaaw seemed to make the impossible possible. 

And yet, he could not help but worry. It was in his nature as a partner, that he wanted the one he loved to be safe. They’d started off on an impulse, but by now, he truly did adore his boyfriend, wholeheartedly. Mercury had saved him, and he’d saved the mopaaw in turn. It was as simple as that: 

If Mercury asked, Zyl would put his life on the line.

Yet, he didn’t ask.

Mercury simply walked off, on his own four legs, and Zyl saw him strain to hold up the sky. He saw his back get smaller as he walked down the streets, eventually hopped over the city walls, and disappeared beyond them. 

Zyl had known that his boyfriend was meant to be an adventurer… but that did not make it any easier to see him go.

The dragon gently placed down the brush, placed his face in his hands, and let out the sigh he’d been holding in. 

He’d not asked to come along, because he knew Mercury would agree, and he’d dislike it. Zyl loved being part of those adventures when it was his time to be. But, for now, he respected his partner’s wishes. 

Even when it hurt to see him walk away.

- - - - - -

The day was bittersweet.

Zyl hid that it killed him not to come, but Mercury bore with it. His boyfriend was doing him a favour, and he would not make it any harder on the big guy. Instead, he simply walked.

It was kind of funny how that worked. There was something amazingly freeing about picking a direction and just… walking. Mercury knew he’d be fine. He could eat almost anything, didn’t need air to breathe, and could make his own water. There was nothing to be scared of, so he simply leaned into the freedom of it all.

He was <Itinerant>, and as he moved, the world writhed to let him. Distances shortened, and he was over the walls in a few short steps, beyond them in a single hop. Breeze sat outside on the grass, looking at the sky. 

“A storm, Biso,” the kid said. “A storm of fire and fury.”

Mercury smiled at the ghost of a dead boy, and nodded. “So it seems.”

“You’re walking towards it,” Breeze noted. “Shouldn’t you run?”

“When we played tag, didn’t I chase you, too?” Mercury asked.

At that, Breeze paused, then smiled brightly. “Yes! Okay.” He raised his hand to point into the horizon. “Catch that sword, Biso!”

Gracefully, Mercury nodded. “Of course.”

Another step, and his <Truth> boosted <Itinerant>, turning the spell into effective teleportation. After three steps he’d made it to the edge of the forest around Stormbraver. One more and the lights of the city disappeared. 

Silence.

What dominated the empty forests at night was silence.

Oh, sure, there were insects and critters, but they were still quiet. The sound of life, holding its breath. Suppressed by the falling sky.

Mercury looked up, and took a breath. He let go. A million red stars bloomed above him, tiny knife points pricking through the fabric of reality, and the world opened up like a yawning void. Wrath fell like a lightning bolt.

Electricity coursed through his veins, and he felt his muscles cramp. Furious monsters of steel fell onto him, dragging metallic teeth across his skin - and failing to pierce it. 

He took a deep breath, summoning air into his lungs. Claws raked against his <Tempered Body> and failed to leave anything more than scratches. Tiny little reaves that barely hurt. Then, with a twist of his mind, he summoned <Grief> and <Metal>. 

A tide of silver spilled from Mercury, and devoured the metallic monsters. They sank into the liquid, and their bodies dissolved. They unravelled, joining the flood of quicksilver before they could resist.

Mercury looked at the sky, an open, bleeding wound in the world, torn by an angry sun, and he pulled it open. A curtain of reality, parting against his touch, and unravelling to let him step forward.

Fury washed over him with the cold embrace of certainty, the knowledge that violence would come, and Mercury sighed. He summoned the Stifled Silence, a silver crown weaving around his head. The Dream of Starvation cloaked all his paws in a blanket of dark metal. The world settled around him, with starlight amber filling the gaps.

Mercury made his mind a needle and wielded it with the deft certainty of practice - and the rift sealed behind him. Then, finally, he looked forward.

Gluttony had been desolate. Plains of ash with no end. Where gluttony had starved, wrath was feeding.

Roiling violence was all this realm knew. It was cast from metal, full of razor sharp edges. Each blade of grass was an actual blade, sharp enough to impale one’s feet on. Each tree was decked in a thousand needles, bladed leaves gliding on the wind and scraping against metallic skin.

Creatures roiled. The floor was covered, no footfall free from monsters. Steel abominations, with no mind but violence. They were woven extensions of the core of this realm, single minded in their desire to show the world their ferocity. Mercury appeared in their midst, and a hundred thousand eyes snapped to him.

He saw the dark sky, full of red stars. Saw the furious sun hang in its middle. Saw the vast castle of dreaded iron in the distance. He breathed in and the sterile air smelled of blood. Mercury smiled. 

This was where he needed to be.

-

[Main Quest: “Wrath” 

Condition: The individual has made their way into the steel garden, the home of fury. An angry sun seeks to wipe you from its world. Repair the tapestry. 

Reward: <Veil> mastery increase, <Sever> mastery increase, <Combat Sense> mastery increase, <Cloudmatter Shawl> becomes bound item.]

-

The realm shrieked at him.

It was a horrible noise of rending metal, tearing into his eardrums, telling him to disappear, to die in a ditch, that he was a worthless piece of trash that deserved only spite and anger. It sent the clear message of hatred.

And it couldn’t throw him out.

<Guest> and <Star Usurper> were already hard at work, forcing this angry plane to accept him. When he was cloaked in his <Veil> and a thin haze of <Rainfall>, there was simply nothing wrath could do to just throw him out - except try to kill him. 

A tide of metal bodies fell on him and did just that.

But, just before the first one even got to him, Mercury smiled. He was happy. Even when it hurt to leave home, it still felt right. This place was horrible. It was all sterile, angry metal. Sharp edges and a lust for blood. And Mercury loved it.

He really, truly loved it. Because it was new. A part of the world he had not seen before - a part of the world separate to where he usually was. Cutting open the fabric of reality and taking things, he supposed. And it was so pretty, in its own, horrible, jagged way. 

[Level Up!]

Mercury smiled, seeing that number tick up to forty. He felt the change, instantly. A coil of power building in his chest, burning around his heart, like a compressed spring ready to snap. As soon as he asked, he would change. But, before then… There was metal to be smithed.

- - - - - -

Baelzebuth, ruler of the demon realm, stirred in their chair. Lazily, they blinked open the four eyes on their head, raising one of their four scaled arms, and bringing an oversized piece of meat to the maw on his stomach. 

He stretched, popping the set bones in his spine, then consumed some more with the maws on his palms. Only one was brought to his face for a yawn.

“Aaaaah,” the man who was once the thing said. “If I keep going at this rate, I may as well pay a visit to sloth.”

He snickered at his own joke, fanged mouth lazily twisting into a smile, tongue hanging from it. They felt the whispers of the world shaking. The way another fragment of horror had scraped against it, wanting to take and devour.

One of his siblings, certainly. This one seemed rather angry, so it was probably wrath. It was a sight, seeing red stars blossoming up. When had the last full descent been? It must have been a while… But seeing those stakes of steel pierce the earth was a sight. Baelzebuth couldn’t even eat them.

Slowly, he rose from his chair, stretching his senses outward to see just how it had gone.

Then, he found himself surprised. The location wasn’t right. 

Usually, his siblings only fell upon the world when in certain places. Oh, they moved, sure, but the patterns were predictable. Neat, even. Calm little adjustments for their twisted, alien minds. Wrath fell in the far west, feasting on the bloody war between devils and demons. 

And yet, now, he felt it in the east. From the central continent. How curious.

Bael’s stomach rumbled with the same hunger it always did. He frowned, running razor sharp claws over scaled skin and crossing his second set of imposing arms. He hummed a bit, then ate some more, until the food in his chamber ran out.

Then he sighed. If his sibling had found a new host, there’d be a bloodbath. He’d tolerated the vestiges of gluttony on the central continent, since it wasn’t as infectious, but wrath descended more often and more angrily. So, he looked closer, just to make sure it hadn’t spread like the furious sickness it was.

And he found, through the borrowing of a scrying skill of some horror of the depths he’d consumed a hundred years ago, that the descent had been bloodless.

“That’s new,” he said, rubbing his chin and leaning forward. His maw twisted into a wide grin. “My, my. Not even any damage? How out of character.” Did wrath decide to be a pacifist for once?

Hah! Unlikely. 

Instead, it was much more likely that something bizarre had happened. Ah, and he was ever so hungry for news. For anything of interest.

With a rumbling sigh, the supreme ruler of all demons, the escaped avatar of gluttony, the monster of evolution, the Thing, rose from its perch and walked. Rumbling steps down a hall. 

Ah, and hadn’t some of its subordinates been in the area recently? Who was it again… Zagan, right? He grinned. “Let’s see what all the fuss is about, then.”

Chapter 143: Ride Home

We killed the boss of the gate and then left it.

Rae exited at the same time as us, relying on the flash of light from the opening of the gate to dart away. I’m pretty sure Lyra, the government’s maelstrom cultivator saw him, but that was fine. She kept quiet about it.

Instead, a dozen cameras flashed in my face. Reporters, cameras, the whole nine yards were there, and a thousand pictures were shot all at once as the gate snapped shut behind us, reality mending with a soft pop. The edges of the rift pulled back together, and as I looked behind me, I thought I could see an amphibian, frog-like eye staring at me hatefully for a brief moment.

Yea, that was surely not gonna be a problem.

With a deep breath I faced the reporters and the flood of questions. Ann squeezed my hand, while Chris stared at the flashing lights and Matt put on a blindingly bright smile. It was almost enough to make the reporters forget about the very human blood he was splattered with. Almost.

When they realized the state of Zinnic's ex-cultivators - all of them looking ragged and downcast - the flood redoubled, and Lyra handed us a microphone with a thin smile. Her lips moved and with my enhanced self, I could read them. “Good job, Fio.” That was all, apparently.

She handed Matt the mic. There were more, but he was the best of us at the initial greetings. “Good…” he looked to the sky, “evening, everyone!” His mic peaked faintly, and some guy at a pult turned him down a bit, while still trying to keep his voice above the clamor of reporters. “I understand you have a lot of questions, but please, let us give a short summary first, yes?”

Another few moments passed and Matt patiently waited for the endless barrage to slow down. When there human noise had mostly faded, and we just heard a bunch of camera clicks, he put on that bright smile again. “So, let me cut right to the chase! In this gate, Zinnic tried to kill us.”

Instantly, the crowd roared again, but at a few gestures from Matt, they quieted down. “We killed their upper echelons instead,” he said, then quickly continued speaking before more noise came up. “White Tiger is dead. Black Swan is dead. Eagleeye is dead,” he said. “Olivia is the only member of Zinnic who surrendered. Every other one of them fought us. So, we broke their cultivation. They're no longer superhuman.”

Chris nodded sagely. “This is true,” they said. “Zinnic also tried to kill me.”

“Now,” Matt said. “I’m sure there will be at least some papers that will say we were the aggressors in this case, right? We could have backstabbed Zinnic, because anything that happens in gates stays in gates. There is no way to prove our innocence, beyond testimonies. But maybe we blackmailed Zinnic. So, let's just look at raw numbers instead. Even with a backstab, we never should have won. But we did. Because when driven to the edge, we thrive.”

Slowly, his smile grew a little menacing. “So, please. I humbly request you keep us in your good graces, and that we can continue earning your trust. Thank you,” he said, with a small bow. Ann and I followed suit, and shortly after, so did Chris. More moments passed. “Now, any questions?” Matt asked.

A dozen hands shot into the air. I held back a soft sight. It was going to be a long day.

- - -

We went home much later that night. I couldn’t see the stars because of the smog, but I was rather sure they were up there, glimmering and twinkling when we went home. The reporters had riddled us with questions, and then we’d also had to give a report to Lyra, Trevor, and the rest of the government agents.

And, of course, I had to give Ivan a ride home. “Y’know, broski, if you got those cross-gate bodycams done soon, it might buy us a lot of goodwill,” I said.

He laughed. “Yeah, right, Bell. As if it’s that simple.” He shook his head, amused and exasperated. “No, I’m not gonna get them done soon. You’re lucky your phone still works. I know signal’s been getting spotty since the world has changed. I’m mostly working on satellite tech right now to keep communication up, yeah?”

“Hopefully the density increase will start slowing a bit,” I said, sighing softly while leaning against the window of the taxi.

Ivan shakes his head. “I doubt it,” he said.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Well, we haven’t really tackled the cause yet. Except for those two avatars…”

Thanking the divines for soundproof glass and luxury taxis, I put my head in my hands. “Yeah,” I grumbled. “I know. We needa kill the keepers and the leaders of the usurpers. There’s more work to be done, always more work.”

“Just the leaders?” Ivan raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you wanna kill them all?”

“No,” I shook my head. “Most of the usurpers are mindless. Even strong ones. Some of the wellspring, even maelstrom level monsters are just… animals. Following their instincts. Living. They’re more like…” I waved my hands in the air helplessly, not finding the words.

“Invasive species?” Ivan supplied.

“Yes!” I said. “They get carted around by the keepers and the leaders of the usurpers, and wreak havoc in new biomes that were not made for them. Then, they change the world to suit them. But so many don’t know what they’re doing. Even the nests… are just that. Nests. Habitats in places where they aren’t supposed to be.”

Ivan nodded thoughtfully. “Makes sense,” he said after a while. “Striking at who actually makes those decisions seems like a smart move.”

I smiled. “Thanks,” I said. Then, there’s a bit of silence, until I move to fill it. “How’s your magic coming along?”

“Second circle, now,” he said with a small smile. “It’s so much easier than cultivating, I dunno how you do it. Mana listens when I make it do stuff. Qi needs to be wrangled. It’s like coding in a computer compared to wrangling a batch of particularly angry snakes.”

A small laugh bubbled out of me, and Ivan smiled. “Yeah, it can be that way,” I said. “Mine feels like a dragon, sometimes.”

At that, he laughed instead. “Yeah, you would think of yours that way. Arrogant idiot sis,” he said, throwing an arm around me. The jab had no heat at all.

“Oh yeah? Gotta keep up with my silly genius brother,” I return, lightly smacking his side.

“Why thank you,” he says, giving a mock bow. “Then I’ll do my best to do as much as I can, gotta keep you moving. And provide you with internet. Whatever would you do if you lost access to all those novels?”

I smirked. “Teleport to the moon for fun, or something?”

Ivan paused. Then, hesitantly, he asked. “... Could you?”

“Hm,” I tilted my head, thinking. “Dunno. Probably? I don’t see what would stop me. I don’t think the vacuum or cold would give me too much trouble. Worst case I use Qi to warm myself up. I’d have to hold my breath, though, which I can only do for… what, half an hour or somesuch?”

“Is that peak wellspring or early maelstrom?” he asked.

“Ah, wellspring,” I said. “I… don’t know, actually. With maelstrom, I’m unsure if I need to breathe,” I replied earnestly. Qi could do a lot, after all, so fuelling my muscles and brain with it instead of air wasn’t outrageous.

The upgrade to maelstrom had changed its intensity, malleability, and even the rate at which it was produced by a lot. The biggest change, of course, was being able to manipulate Qi externally. I could probably take away control of their own abilities from anyone in the core realm or below, which was a scary thought.

Ivan smiled softly. “Do you feel like your humanity is slipping away?” he asked, quietly. It was a question with no heat, half teasing, but also half genuine. I looked at him for a long moment, trying to read what he was expecting, but he gave me no tells.

I sighed, leaning against the cool glass of the window again. “Yeah,” I said. “It does. Well, physically, at least. Cultivation has been surprisingly easy on my emotional state.”

“Finding a path that suits you does that, I suppose,” he said.

Gently, I tilted my head. “Hm?” I asked.

“Ah,” he said. “Well, we’ve done some tests, and cultivators do develop rather extreme personalities, oftentimes. It usually happens when they follow a path that doesn’t suit them. When the demands of their cultivation clash with who they are as a person. It doesn’t just make it near impossible to advance at some point, it also changes the way you act. Your Qi controls you, not the other way around.”

I shivered a little, suddenly a lot happier that I had helped dad find his own path back in the clinic. That seemed scary. Still, most probably wouldn’t advance far enough to really see the effects of that, right? “Were the tests largely on reflectors?” I asked, to be sure.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Largely. It’s troublesome, but not nearly as troubling as, say, Echo. Mana does the same thing to a lesser degree, and Divinity… well, our only sample is Reya, so I cannot say much. I’d assume that if it comes from an external source, it made people more likely to exhibit traits possessed by their chosen patron divine.”

“Scary,” I said.

“Yeah,” Ivan nodded.

Then, I closed my eyes, enjoying the cold of the glass on my cheek, instead of worrying too much. More minutes passed in silence as I digested the words over. It made me wonder, what was the price of power?

It was so intoxicating, but it also came with requirements. I had Cass in my mind, and I loved her, of course, but I also couldn’t have chosen not to have her. Which was a little troublesome, I supposed.

In my case, I’d made the best of it, but not everyone was likely to be as lucky. What about Matt? Was his battle-fury the result of who he was, or the result of his cultivation technique?

I shook my head, smiling a bit. In his case, it was likely that his technique made him calmer. It was all soft movements, pleasant smells, and elegance. Compare that to his brutish lust for hacking things apart, and I was really more worried about it dragging him down.

But with how much of a prodigy he was, I didn’t think I’d need to worry about that. No, if anything, Matt could use the calm. A few dozen more minutes, and the taxi dropped us off at the guildhall. I gave an autogramm as well as a tip for the late driving, then dragged myself in through the door.

I put on my pajamas, brushed my teeth, then dropped into bed next to an already asleep Ann. I was tired. As I stared at the ceiling, my thoughts slowed by bit. Tomorrow’s Fio would deal with the media backlash. Tomorrow’s Fio would see about what to do with Olivia and Rae.

Tomorrow’s Fio would cut off Mr. Henney’s head.

Chapter 245: Metallurgy

Chapter 245: Metallurgy

[<Apprentice Runecarving> has levelled up! <Apprentice Runecarving lv. 1 -> 5>]

Over just a few days, Mercury had improved his enchanting by a lot. With four separate streams of consciousness, it was easy to learn new runes, apply them, and also try out different methods of enchanting. He’d not yet seen a lot of success in positive enchanting - forming the inscriptions out of material, instead of carving them into something.

However, when it came to actually carving, his technique had improved more than his levels might imply. There was a simple reason for that, too. Well, two reasons, really.

[<Sever> has levelled up! <Sever lv. 6 -> 7>]

<Nothingness> and <Sever>. They made carving runes into things easy, even when he just used his mind. He could manipulate his rijn to enhance the effects of the Skills by giving his mind a sharp edge, then carve through almost anything. <Sever> was an expert at disconnecting bonds, and wherever it failed, <Nothingness> simply erased whatever was there from existence.

And so, Mercury found himself surrounded in a few hundred discarded, broken, jagged diamonds. They were almost as terrible to step on as those infernal plastic bricks, so he had made a habit of using <Force of the Hecatoncheires> to sweep his entire floor clean by simply levitating anything below a certain weight, then placing it into a bin.

As for where the trash ended up, well, Stormbraver had a rather ingenious network of purification in the sewers, making use of death-aspected mana to kill off tiny bacteria and spores and such. Then, there was fire mana to incinerate anything else. 

Or, sometimes, he just asked Zyl to destroy it all. 

And so, after a couple days, Mercury managed to enchant his first diamond without actually cracking it in half.

Applying his rijn as a cutting tool inside of an object was an interesting experience to say the least, and it felt a little bit like trying to squeeze his head through a too-small hole, but he managed it anyway. Largely thanks to <Sever> having virtually no restrictions on how to use it, which let him figure out how to go about it.

After all that work, he had a pretty complex network of runes etched into the gem. And it was still a network, though he did link them together at odd angles, and carved them into different orientations. But the runes themselves were all still done as if working with a flat object.

Were there three-dimensional ones? Surely, there had to be. Ah well. He’d learn about them in due time. Currently, his setup had netted him more than a level a day, so he was definitely improving rather quickly. Which made sense, given his Skills.

Though, according to Yvette, he was still not exactly great at martial arts. He watched her create an aura around her sword, but it just didn’t click for him. Maybe he should ask her to use it on him someday…

Mercury shook his head. No, no. He had enough of a habit of losing legs. Only one of them was still an original, dang it, and he wanted to keep it that way.

By now, at least, most of his back legs had regrown. He was only really missing his ankles and paws, and he would be ready to walk on his own four legs again. What a day it would be.

For the moment, though, he put those thoughts aside and focussed on the diamond in front of him again. There were a hundred tiny lines inside it, refracting the light, breaking it up. The thing definitely felt more fragile than an unaltered diamond may have been, but it also did what it was meant to.

And it was meant to be a trap.

Light shone onto it, refracted off the runes, but at the same time, it was captured, replicated via a small absorption of environmental mana, and then repeated. It gave off a soft, shimmering radiance that mimicked the light source that hit it

Ah. It mimicked the first light source that hit it. Dang it. That left no room for Lucia’s fire at all.

With a sigh, Mercury purged the mana from the enchantments. As soon as he powered them, it would be ready to capture more light. 

… He’d made a camera. Damn it.

Well, not quite of course, since the way it mimicked light was more fractured, but still. Captures light, needs a dark room or the film needs to be remade… yeah, it was a camera. If he kept developing it, there was a good chance he could just make it function like a normal camera.

That could be fun, but he didn’t really need to. His memory was enhanced many times over by his stats and Skills. Well, it might be fun to have mementos, though… He put it on the list of his projects. There was still so much else to do, too.

With the diamond made, though, he went on to refine the design for a few more hours until morning broke. After last time, another midnight visit didn’t seem like too brilliant an idea. Plus, Iris wasn’t supposed to see it before it was done, so, rather than visit at night, he just asked for Lucia specifically a few hours after dawn.

By then, he’d gone through three more iterations of the ring design and had improved it a few times over. It still needed to be kept in darkness until it was ready to go, though, so he kept it inside his inventory, depowered. Eventually, Lucia did come out to meet him, having asked Iris to make tea for them.

In that minute where she was supposed to go and “greet” him, Mercury took out his trusty, enchanted log. And, despite very vocally complaining about how horrible it was to expect it of her, Lucia did crawl into it. 

The inside of Logston, whose name Mercury still smiled about, was pristine as always. He’d built a table inside it, which was a fun little project that reminded him of his Earth days when he had to buy things for the cheap during his attempts at college. It was simple stuff, since he wasn’t particularly good at woodworking yet, but it was still his. He’d carved little cat faces into the chair.

Very crude ones, but he liked them.

“Hmpf,” Lucia said, clearing her throat. “Well. Having endured that bit of humiliation, this better be worth it. What is it you have?” she asked.

Mercury smiled patiently, and gestured for her to walk along, taking the few steps over to little pandora. The smithy was open to the common room, though it had a sliding door of framed sapphire to keep the heat in, if needed. The sapphire was used like milky glass might be back on Earth.

They walked into the smithy, and Mercury quickly explained the diamond. “It traps light, see, but that means that the only light can be the one you want me to capture.”

“What about warmth?” Lucia asked.

Mercury frowned a little. “Not this one, but I might manage for the ring. If you want it set in one.”

At that, the priestess flushed a little. “Yes,” she said. “I would like it set in a ring.”

“Well, there you go. Now, let’s get this stone done. I’ll turn off the light then hand it to you, and you channel your fire into it, simple as that,” he explained.

“Understood,” Lucia nodded. With her acknowledgement, Mercury turned off all the lights. Then, he pressed the diamond into her open hand.

Fire blossomed like a flower. Gentle, golden light spilled from Lucia’s hand, warm and bright. Mercury, now attuned to the music of <Fire> could hear it. Hear that it was those parts of it that warmed and embraced, rather than angrily destroyed. The flamer danced, sending flickering shadows all across little pandora.

The diamond glimmered and sparkled in her open hand, bathing in the soft radiance, the light wrapping and spilling around it, then flowing into the mana laced pathways. Carbon shifted and glowed as the primed enchantments activated, tiny furrows filled with fire, fed by ambient mana to keep it alive. 

Glowing, flickering lines of gold began flowing through the clear stone, reflecting and sparkling off its facets. A tiny fire, trapped in the stone, retained its radiance even when the flame on Lucia’s hand closed up like a flower’s bud, retreating back into her palm. The stone shimmered, the glow now coming in tiny panes where the cuts of the gem reflected it.

Lucia looked at it for a long moment, then smiled. “It’s beautiful,” she said.

“I’m glad you like it. Is it warm?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not at all. But the light is.”

That meant it was reproducing infrared as well, most likely. “That’s a good start,” Mercury said. Since he’d already figured out patterns and brute force methods to transform his own mana into heat, doing so for an enchantment should also be reasonably durable.

It was a fun quirk of runic magic; the fact that it was a language meant the he could translate his own experiences into it reasonably well, now that he understood it a bit better. But the fact that it was a language also might mean that he could use runic magic to work back to the original. 

Maybe he could even, say, figure out how to make spatial expansion enchantments if he studied his log enough. Another project to work on. Mercury put it into the box with all the other things he still wanted to try.

Smiling he turned to Lucia. “C’mon, let’s go have tea with your girlfriend,” he said.

For a moment, her smile widened, then faded as she looked at the exit. “Oh. Right. I suppose I must.”

She crawled back out of the log, perhaps even more annoyed by it than when entering.

- - -

Bit by bit, Mercury found that magic was really all about connections.

When it was an enchantment of light, it didn’t resonate as much, but now that it was related to warmth? There was a resonance that pulled at him. Mercury could feel it. 

Tiny string connecting it all.

<Fire> was a word. Associations, however, carried meaning. Fire was warm and bright and hot and burning and angry. It was as much necessary for life as it was dangerous. And yet, he could decide which bits of fire mattered to his magic.

He felt it resonate with his understanding of thermal energy more than anything. The patterns he had used to transform his mana, make it into magical energy, and then use that energy to warm something up. The way he had warmed the carriage when he first travelled with Lucia.

And that same resonance stretched through the rest of his status. <Warmed Up>, an ability made to help him expand his stamina more quickly, was one of warmth. <Tempered Body> smelled of ash and steel. 

But those associations were, at the end of the day, just loose connections. He felt the threads linking them together, the bare bits of understanding that allowed him to interact with fundamental forces of the world. That let him cast magic, but they were loose. He could pick and choose. 

So, there was a different binding thread. He knew there had to be one, but he couldn’t quite find it. When he sank into ihn’ar to meditate on it, he felt himself brush up against the third veil again. That fundamental blockage that he knew was there, but he couldn’t quite break.

Grumbling about it, he kept trying to enchant different rings. 

This time, Yasashiku didn’t provide the product, so he had to make them himself. He’d asked Lucia what she wanted, and it was complicated. First, she wanted interwoven strands of copper, tin and iron, which he told her was not happening because it would be an absolute nightmare to put together, not to mention enchant. 

In the end, they settled on a much simpler, silver ring, which Mercury was more than happy with. Silver seemed to resonate both with <Metal> and his <Grief>, for some reason. It meant that he could shape it more easily than steel, even if the softness of the metal gave him some trouble at first. 

But, after some time, he managed to engrave runes on the inside of the ring that would let it capture warmth. This time, he had to be a little more clever in how he applied them, though, since keeping it in an absolute zero environment before exposing it to Lucia’s flame was likely impossible.

Instead, he used a series of mana gates that he learned from making light switches, of all things, to be able to activate the enchantment. Hopefully, that’d work. For good measure he also made a version of it that had the runes on the outside.

When he finished the finicky work that was socketing the gemstone in place, he took a breath of relief. His crafting skills had both levelled up once more, and eventually fused. It happened automatically, as these skills generally seemed to work.

[<Apprentice Crafting lv. 10> and <Apprentice Runecarving lv. 10> have evolutionarily fused into <Magical Metallurgy lv. 1>!]

Functionally, it was better than either of the Skills. He could now see the natural flow of mana in a workpiece, and the way that the runes altered it, making the pinpointing of patterns easier, and letting him analyze the properties of magical metals just by eyeballing them. 

He gave a soft sigh. Despite the achievement, he felt conflicted. That enlightenment felt so close, yet he just couldn’t quite reach it. He wanted to, though. He really wanted to. 

Of course, the fact that he “wanted” it didn’t make the veil budge. Still, he was figuring out where its edges lay, bit by bit. It was just a matter of time, as it always was. And time continued to pass.

- - -

Iris loved the gift. Lucia had to be very clear that it wasn’t a proposal, to which Avery mischievously noted that it wasn’t a proposal yet.

In response, the ex-assassin got on one knee and pulled out a ring of her own.

Mercury knew it, of course, because Yasashiku had made him forge it as a “practice piece”. The mopaaw eyed the sneaky old bastard with an expression somewhere between surprise, happiness and begrudging amusement, and his crafting teacher simply smiled behind the mask, even having the audacity to shoot him a cheeky wink.

The crafty - pun intended - old bastard. Mercury shook his head, then let the two women have their moment, clapping his ghost hands as Lucia went stiff as a statue. Then, she fell into her girlfriend’s arms, and accepted.

Public proposals were truly troublesome, Mercury noted. But, well, after getting a ring, Iris must’ve been pretty sure that the answer was a yes. So, perhaps she was willing to take the risk of the trouble. Or maybe they’d discussed it beforehand.

Whatever the case, the two seemed pretty happy, and Mercury let them have their moment. Zyl seemed greatly amused by it, and with a muted thundercrack, Otto showed up to congratulate them as well, pulling both women into big hugs.

Then, they celebrated.

- - -

The next day, a mildly hungover Mercury got to greet Gorm Gorm from the city council at his doorstep. <Hydration> activated, and very rapidly, he flushed all the trouble out of his system, but for just about half a second, his face must’ve looked rather amusing.

“Good morning, councilman,” Mercury greeted the oldie. “How may I help you today?”

Gorm rubbed his impressive mustache, his expression inscrutable behind his eyebrows. “Why, young man, I believe you may be able to. Do you, at all, know why yet another walking disaster is in our city?”

Mercury looked behind him, finding Otto passed out on the floor of the kitchen with an arm around Marcel’s shoulder. Avery peacefully hung in a makeshift hammock Mercury had woven from his own <Thread>, comforted by the Blanket of Dreams, which he had ‘stolen’ from Mercury. 

He turned back to the councilman, his lips pressed together to make a wide line. “... Oops?”

The old man gave a long sigh, muttering about kids these days. “Now, young man, I’ll need to ask you to please try and bring a little less trouble to the city, otherwise we will have to discuss banning you.”

At that, Mercury looked at the old man, holding back a burst of laughter, mostly successfully. A small snort did escape his nose, though. “Pffffft. Really, now?”

“Yes,” Gorm said, nodding gravely. “We are yet recovering from war, and such uproar is… difficult. The bishop Nemo has also complained of you.”

Slowly, Mercury’s face tilted into a frown. “Really, now?” he asked. “Has the bishop given you much trouble?”

At that, the old man’s eyebrows knitted together, face scrunched up with displeasure. “Why, not that I would know. All we received was a single complaint about a lightning bolt in the middle of the day.”

“Hmmm,” Mercury hummed. That seemed reasonable enough, at least. “I appreciate your visit, councilman, but I would ask you to be a little less troubled about these matters. None of us want to seem ungrateful, but the truth is that we live in this city like everyone else. I understand that sometimes there is some ruckus, but no more than any other.”

With a tap of his cane, Gorm Gorm shook his head. “What we fear is not what you have done, it is what you could do.”

“Then it should be in your best interest to appease us, yes?” 

“Of course,” the councilman nodded. “Why else would I be speaking with you?”

Mercury gave a long sigh. “I see.”

“I am glad you do, young man. Thank you for at least hearing us out. In the future, please do use the city gates? They are there for a reason. Ah, but with that, I shall be off. Much administration to do,” the geezer said, then turning around and walking away with rhythmic taps of his cane.

Again, Mercury sighed. He’d never gotten along with old people. Or government employees.

The city council did a fine job managing Stormbraver, but they really kept everything… mundane.

“Boring, don’t’cha think?” Avery asked, quietly enough for Mercury to only barely hear it over Otto’s snoring.

Mercury smiled a little. “Aren’t you always on about keeping the city safe, Avery?”

“Kahaha. That’s my job, man. Of course I keep it safe. But there’s a difference between safe and stifling, y’know? Why do you level up, Mercury?” he asked.

“So I can be free,” he answered without hesitation.

Avery smiled, looking at the ceiling. “Exactly. To be free.” He scratched the back of his head with a hand. “And then some old fart comes along and says you gotta use the gate and go through extra procedure ‘cuz you’re higher level. Ain’t that stupid?”

“I do get it,” Mercury said. “But it’s frustrating.”

“Yeah,” Avery said. “It drives away powerful people, y’know. The type of people most places would be glad to have around. Zyl grew a whole city around a little mansion of his, cuz the people knew he’d look out for them.”

“Power should only be had by trustworthy people,” Mercury said with a sigh. “But is isn’t. And that, in and of itself, is sad.”

“Yep. Wanting to hurt people will give just as much levels as wanting to help ‘em. And, well, combat skills usually grow in combat.” He gestured at the room. “All of us got some skeletons in our closets. Well, except Marcel maybe. Maybe.”

Mercury sighed. The system, in its ways of enabling desire indiscriminately, caused problems. Even institutionally distributed power was troublesome, after all. Could Mercury just strongarm the council into letting them do whatever they wanted? Sure. But he didn’t wanna use Zyl’s name to threaten them, and his own exploits were more impressive in other realms than on the mortal plane.

Gently, he closed his eyes, taking a few minutes. He liked Stormbraver. It had, in many ways, become his home. He should visit Kittra again soon, too, but this place was his in so many ways. Which meant that he didn’t wanna lose it.

The ethics of power were truly messy.

“Got any advice for me?” he asked Avery.

“Sure,” the guild master nodded. “Time is the biggest one, really. They let you get away with stuff if you don’t do any harm for longer. I’m strong, but I can do whatever I want, cuz people know me. Raise your fame up a bit more. Show your truth to the people.” He smiled, gently. “Show them that you’re a cool critter.”

Mercury smiled at that. It was really rather simple, but at the end of the day, bending the rules was always a matter of trust. Mercury knew what he was about. “Thanks, Avery,” he said. Perhaps it was time he’d show off his <Truth> to the people of Stormbraver as well.

Chapter 142: Shattered Paths

Matt stood in front of a corpse.

I say “a corpse” because the lady Black Swan was no longer recognizable at all. Matt’s powerset included razor sharp petals being blown into a raging storm of metal. There was no skin left on the body. I would be better served describing the remains as a meaty skeleton than anything else.

Rae was already off again, probably helping Olivia and Chris. Matt, though, still had his sword drawn.

He stood above the body, staring. His eyes were wide open, his pupils dilated and wide. His breathing was ragged. There were tiny wounds seeping black blood all over his body, but he lived.

Then, his head turned to us.

The motion was slow, each tiny movement controlled. He stared for a long, silent moment. “Are you real?” he asked quietly. His head tilted to the side. “Or another illusion?” Gently, with all that same deliberate slowness, he brought up his sword.

I looked at him, at the way he moved, and I had to wonder what the fight was like. Qi raged around him, drawn into a maelstrom, and it was clear he’d also reached that realm. Was it a lucky matchup? I didn’t think he’d have gotten Rae’s help - if he did, I think he might’ve just fought my master instead.

“Put the sword down, Matt,” I told him.

Slowly, he tilted his head. It was all done with that terrible deliberateness. Each movement calculated, not a twitch of his fingers out of place. “Why?” he asked.

“I don’t wanna fight,” I replied.

Still, the sword remained between us. He breathed out, and his breath stirred the plum blossoms in the air, dancing gently. “See, Fio,” he said. “The lady Swan used curses and illusions. And the illusions fed off my memories. So, if you’re you…” his lips twisted into a grin. “Then maybe you should show me something I couldn’t know.”

“How realistic are we talking?” I asked.

Slowly, he moved his sword through the air. It was a broken blade, half of it made from stitched together, glowing pink petals. It sang as it moved. Reality warped around it. He hummed, softly. “Say, if you manage to stop a proper swing I’ll consider you real.”

I rolled my eyes. “You just wanna keep fighting.”

“Maybe,” he admitted with a twirl of his sword. “I am also questioning how real anything and everything is right now.”

“Swing at me already, Rat,” I said, holding up Astraeus.

And Matt swung.

Somehow, despite him having recently broken through, that single movement was more terrifying than anything White Tiger ever did. He didn’t even take a step. Space was cut to ribbons between us, and his sword reached me before the motion even finished.

Instantly, I brought Astraeus up to block. My Qi roared, coalescing around the weapon with the sheen of liquid gold. A whole storm descended on me, cutting, violent, unending. It felt like a bolt of lightning, with the weight of a lifetime of training alongside it.

Matt didn’t hold back, not an ounce, so I did not either. My ruinous wings flared, the world itself gathering, growing denser. A dozen realities stacking on my spear, superimposing and growing ever denser.

I saw, for the first time, as the world flickered, torn between what to do. We were not yet at the realm where we wielded it as a weapon, yet I could feel my influence on reality, now. The way Matt was carving through it, and how I consolidated it.

The blow made my ears ring. Sparks flew from where the steel flowers slammed into golden glass, and for a moment everything went white. My bones vibrated from the impact, but it stopped.

With a resounding ringing, his sword of pink flowers hung in the air. Slowly, he took a breath, and I saw his pupils contract. Then, with that same deliberate slowness, he sheathed the sword. Another deep breath later, he managed a calm, serene smile. “It’s good to see you, Fio,” he said.

Finally, the tension disappeared. I managed to grin, and pull him into a short hug. “Good job, Matt. Maelstrom, huh?”

He smiled, and nodded. “They used to call me Maelstrom Matt in college.”

At that, I laugh. “No they did not!”

“No,” he said, smirking and shaking his head. “They did not.” Then, he paused, for a moment, taking another breath, and looking at the corpse. He turned to me.

“Want me to burn it?” Ann asked.

Matt nodded gratefully. “Yeah, please. I-”

He didn’t need to elaborate. As soon as the command came, a blazing inferno swallowed the body, turning the bones into ash within a moment. Then, the earth roiled, and swallowed up the blackened soot, leaving nothing behind.

“Thanks,” he said. Then he took another deep breath. “Sorry,” he said. “The fight took it out of me a bit.” He placed a hand on the back of his head. “Illusions are messed up, girls! Seriously. I just kinda hacked at anyone I saw for a while. I’ve killed you a half dozen times by now.”

“That sounds unfun,” I said.

“Yeah, sure is. Ah, but we do still have some murdering to do, don’t we? Divines, that feels gross to say,” he bemoaned with a crooked, sad smile.

Ann put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay,” she said. “I... Fio and I sent someone to Eden. If we wanted to we could...”

Matt raised an eyebrow. "We could, what? Exile them? We'd need to ensure they can't really come back."

Looking between the two, I heard the sentiment. We were stronger, now. We had all the power. Every bit of it. Did they deserve to die? Maybe. Did I like being judge, jury and executioner? No. So what other solution was there? Sending them to Eden didn't really work, if they could just come back and after our loved ones. But there was one thing that came to mind.

"We can ruin their cultivation," I whispered.

Instantly, both their heads snapped to me. "What?" Matt asked. His fist trembled on the hilt of his sword.

"You mean to shatter their paths," Ann said, quietly. Her eyes were thoughful, compared to Matt.

I nodded, slowly. "Yeah. They might... might still have access to Qi on Eden. Never here, though. It'd let them... live like before the gates started appearing."

"It's cruel," Matt ground out between teeth.

"Crueler than death?" I asked him, giving him a slow, sad look.

He stared at me, clenching his sword tighter until his knuckles turned white. Matt's eyes shone with that same fury that appeared when he fought. His voice came out dry, raspy, cracked. "Yeah. To me, it sounds worse."

Ann looked between us. "So we ask them," she suggested. "Death or Broken Path."

At that, Matt breathed out. A long, suffering exhale. "I guess... it's better than just killing them," he said grimly. Slowly, I saw the rage drain from him. All that was left was defeat. We'd ruin their chances at cultivation. With their paths ruined, they'd never use Qi again. Never. And to someone like Matt... that was terrifying.

I clapped a hand on his shoulder, and he looked at me. There were no words I could say to fix things, but it was a choice we could give them, at least. To defect Zinnic, lose all their powers on Neamhan, and become regular people. We'd obviously still have to report them to the government, since some of them had killed before... but we'd figure it out. With the help of Lyra and the government, we could make it work.

Matt sighed. "Right, right. We'll shatter their paths. Let's see how those Qi-cookies crumble," he said.

"I'll happily provide the heat for the oven," Ann said, rainbow flames flickering across her fingers.

I laughed. “You’re both such dorks. I love you. In different ways, of course.”

Matt snickered. “Yeah. You’re a good friend Fio.”

Ann placed a kiss on my cheek. “Love you too,” she said.

Then, we all teleported, and I smacked the butt of my spear on the floor. A flood of mana poured out, a tide of gold that instantly froze anyone near me in place. I formed it into chains, and half the people from Zinnic were forced to the ground. Only a few moment's later, Chris' human shell appeared next to me with a splash of water, their body covered in cuts and burns.

“Hello there, Fio,” they said with eerie calm. “I will be placing this shell near you due to being rather close to dying. I would be really rather displeased if I were to mourn one of my bodies here, so I will ask you to take good care of it.”

Then, promptly, the wounded human collapsed like a puppet with their strings cut.

I caught Chris’ body and gently placed it down on the ground. They and Olivia had been doing good work, fighting, surviving while outnumbered. The swordswoman wielded a rapier and a dagger rather well, and Chris’ leshi and rockhound shells were still causing a lot of trouble. But despite that, there were simply too many other cultivators. Five of them had been killed, but that still left over a dozen.

Not that that mattered.

Ann and Matt descended, and the fight took all of thirty seconds. It was like swatting flies.

Ice and petals roared into the field, ravaged the earth until it was desolate, and Zinnic's cultivators were smacked against the ground, encased in chains of gold. I conjured up barriers around Chris’ shells and Olivia. Then I took a breath, and stepped forward.

In the end, none of them wanted to die. Every single Zinnic cultivator who was still alive asked to have their Path shattered. I broke their wellsprings. My Qi pushed inside their veins, golden glass invading their wekksprings, encasing them, breaking them. It was a violent, painful process, and I had Cass help me teleport the broken shards of their cores out of them. Their foundations were ruined. Their Paths in pieces. It was exhausting, gruelling work, but after two hours, it was done.

We'd told them in simple words that they were to live quietly. Help on Eden. Never show their faces to our family. Never break the law. And quietly provide an accurate report of things to the government when we were out. That was all we told them.

Of course, we were still in a category five gate. There was danger, there were usurpers, but that was fine. We gathered back up as a group, leaving the remaining grunts with Olivia and Chris. They were now far stronger than any of the ex-cultivators. And we dealt with the bodies of the upper tiers.. Tiger and Swan got burnt, Eagleeye was on Eden. Eyes was devoured by me.

In a way, it was funny. So long ago, Olivia had killed Edians, and I’d punished her for it. Now, Chris was called over onto this world, specifically to kill and guard some Neamhanians. What a strange twist of fate. I sighed softly at the realization. Minutes had passed, and there was work to do.

I got up, and soon, Rae followed my example. He stretched, cracking a few joints, and rolling his shoulders. “Alright then,” he said. “Let’s clear this thing so I can go home. I’m tired. These old bones aren’t made for this.”

With a small laugh, I raised my spear. Freedom awaited, and I was going to find it.

Chapter 244: Romance

Chapter 244: Romance

“Okay, let’s do this,” Mercury said.

“Are you sure?” Zyl hesitated. “I… don’t know if I’m ready.”

“Don’t worry,” Mercury reassured him, “I can handle it.”

Zyl nodded, slowly. “Okay,” he said. Slowly, warmth started to spread, then envelop Mercury.

“Oh wow that’s hot,” Mercury said. 

Then, his fur started to smoke. Despite the resistance he’d built up to heat, it couldn’t stand up to dragonfire. A moment later the hairs caught fire, burning away with an acrid smoke. 

Luckily they had decided to do this outside - in a spot prepared by Yasashiku, no less. It was to the back of his workshop, a smaller platform with high, multi-layered walls to insulate the heat. 

The first layer started melting after a minute. It was reinforced stone, compacted into bricks and forged as magma. And yet, in front of Zyl’s dragonfire, it burnt all the same. Mercury felt the fires brushing against his skin, his entire world enveloped in blazing red-white. There was nothing other than light and heat. 

He took a breath, feeling the fire burn up his nose and into his lungs, searing his flesh. It should have hurt, yet it all fell into the <Still Mirror> of his mind. Maybe the pain was part of what defined fire, but if it was, Mercury would simply find another path.

As his skin began to bubble and blister, heating up in the unforgiving heat that seemed to eat away even at his mana and stamina, he sunk into ihn’ar. The roaring of the flames grew quiet, and the wind they whipped up calmed. One by one, distractions dropped away.

The ground beneath Mercury melted, turning into lava. It was kind of amusing, really. See, Mercury could choose to sink or swim in it depending on how he changed his muscle density and <Tempered Body>. He chose to stay standing on top of the liquid floor, even as it shifted under his limbs.

Lava burned at his skin, his bones beginning to liquify next. They would have burnt, but there was very little air in his body currently, and the pressure built so that they couldn’t simply become gaseous and evaporate. 

It was a horribly uncomfortable feeling, and Mercury laid down. Zyl’s dragonfire burnt the very air itself, and Mercury’s body began to fail. His blood boiled, his proteins searing in his own fats. His eyes were closed by now, and he ignored the distant bubbling sensation within them.

Instead, Mercury focused.

What was fire?

Clearly, it was washing over him right now. Dousing him. Stone melted, hair burnt away, the air itself whipped around him silently. Noise fell apart as the particles moved so quickly as to make it irrelevant. 

The temperature kept rising. His body started failing in a dozen separate, debilitating ways, but he kept it together. He <Prevailed>. The evolution of <Survivor> said that wounds healed faster if he willed them to, and Mercury did just that. <Perserverance>, the Skill he gained from fusing <Unbroken> and <Unfatigued>, meant his will proved adequate.

Dragonfire raged. It furiously set out to devour everything fed to it. Mercury could feel that.

It burnt away at his will, at his sense of self, at the ground and at the air. It was all-encompassing and furious, raging, tearing molecules apart with the anger of-

That wasn’t right.

Mercury discarded the idea of fire as anger. That was simply not who he was. More and more, the heat bubbled and streamed, the stone beneath his feet slowly beginning to move some more, as parts of it began to literally boil. Rock turned to gas in the terrifying heat of the fire.

He focussed more, listening. There was a hunger to the fire, consuming, disassembling. It fed off of other things, requiring fuel. It burnt away magic itself, tearing at anything even remotely flammable to keep itself going. Fire was starving-

No. He shook his head. That was wrong too. Mercury refused to let his fire be founded on the grounds of destruction. Even the required hunger that no living thing could avoid, because change needed energy.

Energy?

Mercury listened closely, once more. He brushed up against the ephemeral third veil for a moment, and paused. He listened. Practiced. Learnt.

There, deep in the fire, was a heartbeat.

It thumped, sending waves of heat throughout the world. Burning, consuming, moving… dancing.

The heart beat, and the world changed. Fire rippled across it, spreading, inviting, and, to some end, irresistible. When fire asked the air to dance, it danced. When fire asked the stone to dance, the stone moved. It liquified, it turned into gas, it broke and moved and changed.

That was the essence of fire - change that fuelled more change. Energy and motion, like an invitation to a party. Mercury smiled. Fire fire brushed against his skin, and he felt that tug, that wave, that beckoning finger… 

And Mercury gently declined.

[The individual has acquired the ability <Fire (lowest)> through a specific action.]

[Level Up!]

He breathed out, and the fire brushed against his skin. It was still dragonfire, so, to some degree, he couldn’t fully decline, but he could still ask it not to pester him. Of course, this contested Zyl’s will, so it still burnt him. But not enough to overcome his resistances.

Asking a tiny bit of the fire more sternly to form into legs for him, Mercury walked out of the pit of magma he was in. 

When the world cleared up and he saw something that wasn’t white hot light, it was Zyl’s face, torn between focus and concern. Then, when he saw Mercury exit the plume of radiance, Zyl’s face brightened, and the stream of flames cut off. That thundering heartbeat quieted down again, and the flames abated. 

The dragon quickly wrapped Mercury in a hug, and the mopaaw was sure to return it. He looked rather majestic, probably, with the fire still clinging to him like a mantle. He was planning to keep it that way until he could use <Shift> to make his fur grow back. 

“I was worried,” Zyl said.

“You didn’t need to be. How much of your full force was that?” Mercury asked.

Zyl brushed his fingers through the flames that lingered above Mercury, the fire gently brushing against his gloves. He smiled. “About a third.”

Mercury laughed. “Damn. And here I thought that was at least half,” he said.

Slowly, Zyl shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “If I went full force… well, I might’ve turned some of the air into plasma via heat only.”

“Oh, dang. Ionize me, captain,” Mercury said.

The dragon waved him off with a smile. “Oh, stop, you.” Then, once more, he ran a hand through the flames. “I take it that it worked?”

“Yeah,” Mercury nodded. “Brilliantly.”

Zyl rolled his eyes at the pun. “You’re a dummy, Mercury,” he said. 

“Sure am.” Mercury took a moment to squeeze Zyl with his ghost hands, then looked at the little chamber they’d prepared for the experiment. Layers of wall were molten away, and a small rain of pebbles had fallen since the gaseous stone lifted up into the air, then solidified and came raining right back down. 

There was, for sure, a lot of horrible stuff in the air in that little chamber, so Mercury took it upon himself to call down a quick <Rainfall>, washing away the damages. There was a lot of hissing and some steam, but by the end of it all, the rocks were solid again, and the air cleaned.

In fact, it smelled softly of rain. With a final smile, he turned to Zyl. He could deal with the third veil later. And his level took him to lv. 39, just one away from the next evolution. He’d probably get there whenever he broke past the veil. It shouldn’t be too long, now that he’d found the shape of it…

Instead of indulging any of those thoughts, he discarded them. “Hey, Zyl?” he asked. “Let’s go home.”

“Gladly,” the dragon said with a smile. “But get your fur back first. I don’t want you setting the house on fire.”

“Ah. Right.”

- - - 

“You don’t need to do this anymore, Lucia,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” the priestess asked. “Well, I want to.”

Mercury bravely endured the onslaught of golden flames. “And why is that?”

“Because I am angry. This lets me discard that anger, for once,” she said, almost cheerily.

“Why does that need me to be there?” he asked.

Lucia gave a sinister smile behind the veil of fire. “Because you burn.”

“What?”

“Fire doesn’t smell right if there’s nothing burning,” she said, seriously. “You? The burnt hair smell helps it feel real. Plus, there’s a hint of wood in there, too… cedar?”

“That must be from <Grass>,” Mercury said. “Or my shampoo.” 

The priestess laughed at the admission, cutting the flames short. “Chuchuchu. You are delightfully funny sometimes,” she said, then haughtily turned. “Come. Let us do things in the city.”

Mercury tilted his head. “You wanna… do things? With me?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Why?”

Lucia glared. “Because we are friends,” she said, tilting her chin up. Then, to the sky, she mumbled quietly. “And Iris’ and my anniversary is coming up and I would like help picking a nice gift.”

At that, he smiled a bit. “Okay,” he said, plainly. Lucia smiled, too, though she quickly hid it behind a cough. 

“Right,” she said. “Thank you.”

Briefly, Mercury thought about it. If it was their anniversary… then he must’ve been in this world for a while, now. Over 2 years, certainly. It was a little tricky to keep track since birthdays weren’t a huge celebration here. He must be, what? Somewhere between 38 and 40?

Oh gods.

He might be 40.

Suddenly, Mercury found himself glad to live in a world that did not often consider birthdays. 

Shaking his head, Mercury found himself very skilled at directing his entire attention to Lucia and their little project. “What kind of gift would Iris like?” he asked.

“Something special,” Lucia said. “She likes dresses, pretty things, shoes, stones, flowers, jewelry… but something normal won’t do.”

“Propose to her,” Mercury suggested.

Instantly, Lucia combusted into an inferno, blasting him with a wave of fire that he gently beckoned into the sky, keeping it from accidentally singing any pedestrians. Lucia choked in the middle of the plume of smoke, coughing hard. Then, she broke out into a long bout of nervous laughter.

Mercury gave her a few moments to compose herself, than smiled a little. “What are customs for partnerships here, actually?” he asked.

She stared at him, then glared for a moment. “You didn’t even know?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I think I know.”

“You think??” she snapped, then dragged a hand through her hair. “No, no. It’s alright. Allow me to enlighten you. There are procedures, legal and religious, to unite lovers in the eyes of whatever institution they may be pledging themselves to. These rituals are different based on each institution, and range in terms of malleability.”

She gave a small sigh. “Most of them share a few traits, though. They require two or more legally recognized people to engage a Bond, and those people need to have reached adulthood in the eyes of the System. They then pledge to remain together for some amount of time, generally upwards of a year, often forever, and for this duration pledge to share their belongings and troubles. Something along those lines, anyway.”

“That seems rather formal,” Mercury noted. “Does it not require love or somesuch?”

“Not at all,” Lucia shrugged. “It is perfectly suitable, common even, for friends to enter legal Bonds in order to ensure that they have someone in position to take care of one another in case of an accident or similar event.”

“Neat,” Mercury said. “How elaborate are the ceremonies?”

“They range from signing a form to a multi-day party.”

“What about the Church of Order?” he asked.

Lucia stiffened faintly. “Well,” she said. “There are separate procedures for platonic and romantic marriages.” 

“Mhmmm,” Mercury hummed. “And you would want the romantic one, of course.”

“Right,” the priestess said slowly. “We would host a small reception for one day, mainly to sign the papers, a large party on the second, and on the third, a celebration that is entirely up to the couple.”

Mercury smiled as they walked into the first jeweller’s store. “And how would you, say, propose such a thing?”

At that, Lucia ran beet red again, and shook her head. “No! Absolutely not.”

“Alright,” the mopaaw smiled. “Then, let’s just see about a gift instead.”

With a stiff but grateful nod, the priestess took a deep breath to regain her bearing, then regally walked along the displays, browsing the many gems placed there by the purveyor of this place. Slowly, she let her eyes browse over many of the shiny stones. She hummed, dissatisfied.

“No,” she said, then moved on. “Nothing like that.”

Mercury just nodded, and they moved on to the next store.

And then the next.

And the next after that. 

It was going to be a longer day, it seemed.

- - - 

“You look tired, my guy,” Avery said. 

Mercury laughed in reply. “Technically, I’ve not slept in a few pages.”

“That’ll do it,” Avery nodded sagely. “Why not?”

“Inefficient,” Mercury said with a shrug. “I don’t need the sleep.”

“Yet you look tired.”

“That’s cuz of the magic,” Mercury admitted readily, then retrieved a gem from his inventory. “See, Lucia wants me to help make a gift for Iris. Nothing we find in stores is good or personal enough. Needs to be a real proof of love, right?”

“Right,” Avery nodded, crossing his arms.

“So, I ask Yasashiku, and he gives me some cryptic advice. Something about finding what’s within and showing it without. Then he grabs a piece of coal, smacks it with a hammer, and hands me a half dozen tiny diamonds.”

Avery chuckled, then nodded along seriously. “Of course, yeah. Logically.”

“Since then, we’ve been experimenting with the gems. Yasahiku keeps throwing me more whenever we run out. Lucia blasts them with fire and I try to trap it within,” Mercury explained.

“Makes perfect sense to me,” the seeker’s guildmaster replied. “And did you manage?”

“No,” Mercury grumbled. “No, I didn’t. Light is dang slippery. The diamonds are also like. Not hollow. How am I supposed to stuff something into a full thing? That’s dumb. This is all dumb.”

“Kahaha. You sure are a funny guy, Merc. Look, have you tried hitting it harder? That’s how I solve my problems,” Avery suggested. “Fact, if you ask, I’ll smack the diamonds for you. Surely nothing could go wrong.”

Sighing, Mercury took a few gems from his inventory. “Go ahead, then,” he said. “Knock yourself out.”

“Hopefully I won’t,” Avery retorted casually. He eyed the diamond critically, eyes glinting behind his sunglasses, then shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “This won’t do.”

“What?” Mercury asked.

“I ain’t kicking a diamond sitting on a wooden table. Marcel will literally kill me.”

“Already bought the coffin,” the receptionist provided helpfully. “Go on, guildmaster. See what happens. See what happens. I’ll snap your neck, yea? Don’t worry, it’ll be quick.”

Mercury giggled at their antics, then returned his look to Avery who shrugged. “Alright, where then?”

“Just outside?” he suggested.

Mercury paused. “Actually, I have an idea,” He said, then smiled. “Don’t get scared, now.”

<Dream Manifestation> activated a moment later, and the world changed.

Wooden tables and chairs as well as the job board were replaced with green grass, rows of flowers and tall trees underneath a patchwork sky. There hung a silver sun and a nexus of threads, shining from above, as it softly rained. It was a warm, dim day, with long shadows and calming light. 

Avery spun around, giving a low whistle. “Damn,” he said, “where’s this?” His head swivelled to an enormous tree, easily as thick as a house and five times as tall. Arber’s avatar. “And what the hecc is that?”

“Faerie gift,” Mercury waved him off. “Don’t sweat it. This is my dream world. Or something like that, anyways. C’mon, let me show you a place.” 

The mopaaw took a step and the entire world lurched, the <Dreamweave> pulled along and distances became meaningless. A second passed as Avery and him remained <Itinerant>, and then, they stopped. They were in a patch of ground that way, in every way it could be, featureless.

Green grass over brown soil, and nothing else entirely.

Avery looked at it, confused. “What’s this now?”

Mercury smiled. “That soil is harder than diamond,” he lied. “And that’s the <Truth>.” A shimmer passed over the world, and suddenly, he wasn’t lying anymore. 

The godseeker rapped his knuckles against the stone. “Huh,” he said. “Well alright then. You sure have been busy my man. Kahaha.” His laugh was low, for once, filled with dark glee. “Then, I s’pose I’ll let loose.”

Monster replaced man.

Avery, the human, disappeared. In favour of him, there was Avery, the monster. Dark scales sprouted from his equally dark skin, covering it in thick armor. Claws sprouted from his feet and hands, and his face grew rather severe. Mercury could hear his heartbeat, even standing a bit away from him, as it faintly shook the ground.

Where Zyl’s was strength and heat, Avery’s heart was raw force. The kind it took to crush something to powder, to break bones and snap trees like twigs. He was strong. Stronger than he had ever been.

“You haven’t been slacking, have you?” Mercury asked with a smile.

“Kahahaha! What, when I have someone like you setting the pace? Nah. I’d be ashamed of myself if I let myself look like a coward in front of my employees,” he said with a bright, feral grin. “Now, spread out ya diamonds and lemme crush ‘em.”

Not needing to be asked twice, Mercury took out one of the gems, and placed it on the hard dirt. The earth shone with the vague power of an infused truth, one that shouldn’t have been there and yet held. The weave pulled tightly at it, and the earth listened when Mercury asked, the roots of the grass holding it all in place.

There was a soft ringing when Mercury put down the gem.

A moment passed quietly. “You can-” Mercury started, but he needn’t have.

Avery breathed out. For a moment, the world slowed. Mercury felt himself standing in a place awash with monochrome. Colour faded. 

First, the shockwave hit him. Then the sound. A moment after that, he saw Avery move.

The kick came out so fast it broke the sound barrier. A thundercrack whipped out as Avery’s leg cut the air, raising above his head and crashing down like lightning. Scales slammed down on diamond so brutally that the earth shook. Wind smacked into Mercury like a wall of air.

Another moment passed, quietly, as Avery drew his foot back beneath him, and placed his hand’s together, centering himself after the sudden violence. 

There was a soft crack. Then, the tiny gemstone cracked in half. 

“Whew,” Avery said. “I was worried I’d hurt my foot! Seems I still got it tho,” he added, grinning, crossing his arms behind his head.

Mercury looked at the two halves of the gem. “Huh,” he said. That was… new. Could he do something similar? Swing his ihn’ar and crack a diamond in half? It literally moved at the speed of thought, and he was pretty stubborn…

“There you go again,” Avery chuckled. “Already thinking up some scheme to do something dang outlandish. Focus up, bud. You wanted to trap something in the diamond. Now you’ve got to halves. What’s the program?”

“Right,” Mercury said, looking at the two halves of the gemstone. He ran a paw across it, focussing on the way it felt, balancing on his two prostheses of ice. The diamond felt rough, but it had split along a lattice, one that was clearly there.

What did trapping something inside a gemstone even mean? 

A diamond was a simple thing. Carbon molecules, bonded to one another, generally in layers. The bonds were hexagonal within layers, and connected up or down to other layers respectively. In a lot of ways, a diamond was a little like a slanted beehive of carbon.

So, how could he trap something within that? Scratches were akin to removing a small part of that lattice, leaving a mark. Creating a tiny hollow, that might refract light a little differently. Could he trap light that way? Not really. He wanted it to show outside, after all, so it couldn’t be a real trap.

No, it would have to be more magical than that. 

If he was thinking of magically modifying a material, then the first thing that came to mind was runes. What were runes?

Runes, in a lot of ways, were gaps in a material, filled by mana, that altered the material they were placed upon in some way. They were scratches. Gaps in molecular structure. 

… Could he write runes into the atoms of a diamond?

No, that was probably a little too ambitious for him. 

Then what? Could he scratch a diamond? Maybe, if he tried. Should he inscribe runes into it then glue it back together? Carbon atoms were a little far away from what he could do with <Grass>, even if it let him manipulate earth to some degree. How troublesome.

Did he need to split the diamond in half, though?

Well, testing first. 

Bringing his rijn to bear, Mercury hardened his mind into a thin chisel, and a second rijn manifested to trap the diamond in place. He dragged his solidified will across the surface of the gem, without leaving any damage. 

Inacceptable.

Mercury’s mind was strong. This diamond had never made it through what he had made it through. Really, he was doing it a favour by letting it be part of a project he had with his friends. It should want to be scratched, frankly.

His mind hardened further, the needle growing thinner. It raked over the surface of the diamond again, unmarked. Mercury took a breath. A moment passed. His mind was the strongest, and that was the <Truth>.

Limits and reason faded away, as Mercury dragged the chisel crafted from his thoughts across the diamond, and left a scar.

Slowly, he grinned. “Take that, stupid rock!”

But he wasn’t done. Making a cut with his rijn was not all that he needed to do. There was, after all, more work to be done. If the most basic part of a rune was a single scratch, a line, could he invert it, and make a rune from the <Dreamweave>? Or, if gaps were needed… <Nothingness>?

Chapter 141: Magic

Ann was having some trouble. A lot of trouble, even. There were three arrowholes through her, mostly in non-vital areas, but they still rather hurt. Blood flowed from her wounds in a steady trickle, well, more like a steady flood. 

She grimaced. A pulse of Mana flowed from her heart, scanning through the area, touching upon every leaf, every piece of bark, every blade of grass.

A disturbance. A blur, streaking towards her. 

She contorted her body, speeding up the motion by puppeteering herself with threads of magic, and the arrow, just barely, whistled past her, grazing her cheek. Of course, it was poisoned, the Qi burning in her wounds. 

In a heartbeat, a flame sparked from her hand, streaking through the air and exploding where the arrow came from, hitting nothing. The wind whispered, as Eagleeye spoke.

“C’mon girl. I don’t wanna drag this out. Win or give up already. Hunting humans is no fun.”

The voice echoed in the forest, bouncing off of trees and branches, the direction scattered. It drifted into Ann’s ear with the wind and was gone a second later. She snarled.

“Then stop fighting,” she growled.

A sigh drifted to her. “No can-do, sorry. Just business. Ain’t no one else got the money for my treatments,” she said.

This was something that Ann had found out over their fight, because it was the only times she got a chance to fight back. Eagleeye was sick. Horribly, horribly sick. She would have died years ago if her body wasn’t in stasis, in the mirror. In fact, she could only come back to Neamhan now, because there was Qi, and cultivation allowed her to survive.

Just barely, though. She needed medicine, equipment, blood transfusions, everything Zinnic could throw at her. It was a shit relationship to be stuck in, but she couldn’t get out of it. It was Ann’s life… or hers.

Maybe Reya could heal her?

Ann didn’t finish the thought, having to duck aside another arrow. It crashed through a half dozen slanted Mana barriers, deflecting off to the side where it “harmlessly” exploded a handful of trees. 

The mage grimaced, lacing her Mana again. Threads of it wove into densely packed shields, a dozen constructs hovering around her, a storm of solid barriers that was just barely enough to weather the arrows coming her way.

She just couldn’t find the archer. Ann was fighting as if blind. It was frustrating, but all she could do was set vast swathes of the forest on fire, but then, the nature of the cover simply changed. It went from leaves and foliage to thick smoke. 

A dozen spells flicked out, trying to catch the elusive archer, but none found her. It was a battle of endurance, and Ann was found wanting. She was panting, bleeding, clutching at the Mana around her. The world obeyed her whims, her throat raw from chanting, her hands flickering out to form sigils, but it was simply not enough.

Another arrow came, barely flicked to the side, shattering half her barriers. She remade them, painstakingly weaving Mana threads until they were solid, making new barriers. Poison burned in her veins, and she cast a spell that manipulated her blood.

Yes, it was technically blood magic. Yes, that was technically forbidden. But it also made it so that thick globules of green-black, hissing blood dripped to the forest floor and her pain eased a little. 

Magic was, in so many ways, limitless. Ann didn’t have any singular element, any path she was locked into. The smoke in the forest was as much under her control as the leaves of the trees and the soil in the ground. She could manipulate the world as if clay, and yet she could not catch Eagleeye.

Another arrow, another deflection. The four rings around her heart ached, spinning as quickly as they could, dragging in Mana. The first unlocked it, the second condensed it, the third collected it, and the fourth produced it. Her mind led that ethereal, thin force, guiding it into solid shapes, manifesting it into elements, into minor minds.

Mental construct, mind magic, another forbidden one, allowed some sentience, and she created a dozen artificial smoke elementals to scour the forest for Eagleeye, only to have them instantly shot down.

Ann grit her teeth, and cast an invisibility spell after deflecting another arrow, then dropped to the floor. Another, silent casting, suppressed all sound around her. She darted into the undergrowth, running to find some space where she wasn’t in a sightline. 

A dagger slipped into her side, and she twisted, forcing the metal to grind against magically reinforced bones. A scream tore free from Ann’s lip, and she reached out with her Burden of Lordship, causing a wave of immense gravitational power to crash down… and miss.

She clutched her side, stemming the tide of blood, and spat. “Fucking hell that hurts.”

“Sorry,” Eagleeye said, as genuinely as possible. “The poison was as painless as I could make it, yet you’re still alive.”

Ann frowned. “Fighting’s a lot less fun when you don’t wanna kill me.”

Somehow, despite her foe being invisible, Ann could tell the archer shrugged. “Sorry,” she said again. “It is what it is.”

And then, another arrow hit Ann, sneaking between her rotating barrier to strike her thigh, digging a hole through the muscle, glancing bone. Ann screamed, again, using more blood magic, to the point where she was getting light headed.

“Sorry,” Eagleeye repeated.

“Fucking piece of…” Ann cursed, then resumed her chanting, desperate to survive. The fight sucked. It wasn’t fun in the slightest. More flames, more water jets, more blazing bolts of power tearing through the world, hitting nothing at all.

Until, all at once, the sky split open.

Ann was, for a moment, blinded. A radiant bolt of lightning slammed down, searing her vision white. The thunderclap rolled over her like a shockwave, tossing her back, making her ears ring. It was so loud she didn’t even hear Eagleeye scream.

Rae stood there, spear in his hand, in front of a bloodied archer. He hummed, softly, stroking his beard. “Hmmm. How troublesome. I don’t think you deserve to die,” he said.

The archer looked at him with terror and pain and disgusting and fury all at once. She threw up, onto the floor, from having her body burnt, lichtenberg figures snaking their way across her skin. 

Ann, for a moment, felt bad. But then, Rae just smiled. “Well. Now with those wounds, you might be able to win. Good luck, Ann. Kill her if you want to, or don’t.” A bolt of lightning, and Rae was off.

Eagleeye was still kneeling on the floor, her skin charred. She looked up at Ann, then took a shaky breath, spit some blood and broke out in a smile. “Well, fuck,” she said, grimly. “This wasn’t how I wanted this to go.”

She looked almost sad, but then she pulled an arrow from her quiver, and the world shook. Qi dragged through the air, coalescing at the tip in a cascading spiral of venom and wind. And, for the first time, Ann saw it.

There was a thought that sparked in her head.

Mana was hers to control, just as Qi was Eagleeye’s. It streaked through the air, drawing into her arrow. Ann manipulated no specific element, just the world itself. So, if she demanded it, what stopped her from manipulating the Mana in the world?

A mental barrier? Difficulty? Oh, please.

She was a genius. A prodigy. The kind of mage that appears once in a thousand years, then her talents were further enhanced by fragments from a half dozen archmages. 

No, the world wouldn’t deny her.

For the first time, Ann reached out, and commanded not her own Mana to form a ring, but the ambient in the world around her. 

There was hesitation, the knowledge that it shouldn’t listen, shouldn’t obey, that it was not hers. But Ann disagreed. She was a mage. Every bit of Mana was hers. If the world wanted it, then the world could wait its turn.

Ann forced the issue. She commanded, her lips moving in words she, herself, didn’t understand, but they came instinctually. They were the culmination of years of practice, of hard work. She breathed, and the world listened.

A tornado of magic roared into being around Ann. Mana screamed as she dragged it into herself, around her heart. Swirling, spinning, a disc of tiny, magical debris like the ring around a planet. It spun and swirled and coalesced.

And then, the arrow reached her.

It struck through her chest, tore out her heart, and Ann grinned a blood smile. Because, suddenly, it didn’t matter anymore.

So what if she didn’t have a heart? The Mana in the world screamed, the tornado doubled in intensity, and her lips moved, her hands danced. The whole world was a puppet and she the puppeteer. Magic danced as she beckoned, and more Mana flooded her chest.

More and ever more, until the magic was so dense it was visible. A thick haze of scintillating colours, and Ann, herself, being reborn in its midst. It gathered, collected, and crystallized, until, in her chest, there was a new heart. One made of magic, made of crystalline Mana, clear as glass, with a faint rainbow sheen. 

Around it, five circles of scintillating magic roared, screamed their dominance. They danced and writhed, and Ann took a breath. 

The holes in her body filled with magic light. Rainbow auroras glowing in beautiful, multicolour sheens. Ann, finally, after seeing what the fifth stage looked like only once… reached it. 

She looked to the sky and touched the sun, and the heat was glorious.

[Congratulations! You have stolen the will of the world in your Burning Passion. You have ignited your infinite flame. Wish for something and watch magic do your bidding with your Circle of Dominance.]

Ann’s eyes changed, with the same rainbow resonance of her crystalline heart, pumping blood through her. Eagleeye looked at her with mild horror, and yet, the archer nocked another arrow.

But the mage reached out. The Mana listened. Coalesced.

No longer did she weave a barrier, she simply wished it into being and the world listened. She didn’t even feed it her Mana, all she used was willpower, and the environmental Mana listened. It coalesced into a scintillating barrier, almost invisible, like magical glass. 

Ann smiled, dubbing it prismaglass in her mind, and watched as the arrow pinged off of it.

Eagleeye looked on, then lowered her bow. “Well,” the older woman said, “shit.”

- - - - - -

When I got to Ann, the fight was already over.

There was a hole in the middle of her chest, filled with colourful glass, and I could see a crystalline heart beating in its middle. Her Mana was a storm, consuming the world around her in a storm of magic. 

This fragment of reality, a temporary pocket dimension, was ripped apart at its constituent parts and dissolved into Mana. The trees disintegrated into less than ash as their molecules became magic, the ground was slowly evaporating away, adding to the streams of that radiant circle spinning in her chest. 

Eagleeye kneeled on the floor in front of her, and I saw the familiar traces of my master’s lightning still arcing around her. She turned to face me with a bitter smile. “Oh,” she said. “Tiger’s dead, too, then?”

“Too?” I ask, arching an eyebrow.

She laughed a horrible, dark laugh. “Ah, yeah. Seeing as I’m facing my execution.”

Ann looked at me, and smiled. Brightly, for a brief moment. Then, she withdrew her Mana. All of it flooded into the pounding heart in her chest, spinning among those ruinous circles. They glowed with a faint light that hid away all the destruction they could do. It was terrifying to think about, but a few more minor steps, and Ann would be able to throw spells like that meteor Orvan summoned. 

“No,” Ann says. “I don’t think I wanna kill you.”

The archer snorts. “What’re my options? Don’t kid around. Once you’re out of here, Zinnic’s fucked,” she spat. “And if Zinnic is done for, I lose access to the treatments. And I fall apart, again. Nah. Just kill me.”

“Do you have family?” Ann asked.

Eagleeye glowered. “Yeah,” she said. “What’s it to you?”

“Think they’d miss you?” Ann asked again.

At that, the woman frowned. “Yeah, they would,” she said. “But so what? I’ve killed people before. Having family doesn’t just absolve that.”

I tilt my head at the conversation. She seems… surprisingly reasonable. But also very bitter. “How’ve you survived if cultivation can’t heal you?”

She snorts. “I didn’t. I was dying until the world changed. I could only cross over once I was able to get a core in this body, and that wasn’t even. A wellspring isn’t enough, nor is a maelstrom.” She spat blood. “No, all that’s keeping me going is specialized Echo-resonance chambers. Stuff that you can’t do, plain and simple.”

And there, she’s right. We don’t have anyone with capabilities to handle Echo. But Zinnic… does? Have they been experimenting with it?

“Yeah,” Eagleeye said. “Look on your face tells me everything. Kill me.”

“No,” Ann refused. She looked conflicted, so I waited for her to continue. “There’s a whole other world out there for you to save.”

“I’ll die before I make it to my mirror outside the gate,” she said with a shrug. “No point.”

Ann looked at me, and I nodded. “I can send you to Eden,” I said.

She just stareed at me, blankly, for a second. Her eyes shone. “Oh,” she said. “So that’s why we wanted you dead so bad, huh.”

“Yep,” I said.

Eagleeye gave me a long look. “My name’s Stella,” she said. “My only remaining family are my brother, Emil, and my niece, Bernadette.” Then she gave me their addresses. She coughed up a handful of blood. “If I can cling to life a little longer over in Eden, then I’ll head there. But you gotta promise to take care of them,” she said.

I nodded. “We will.”

Stella smiled. It wasn’t that grim determination to face death anymore. Apparently, a single bit of hope was all it took for her. “When your Saintess reaches the fifth realm, call me back, alright? I’d like to know… well. I’d like to see my brother again, if I can.”

Ann nodded. “Okay.”

“Cool,” Stella said, slowly closing her eyes. “I’ll be off then. Uh… beam me up, or something?”

I almost laughed at that, but in the end, just used the Wanderer’s Key to step to her side. Then I placed a hand on her shoulder, and she vanished, turning to rippling glass before disappearing through my gateway.

Two down. One to go.

Ann kissed me. 

Chapter 243: Absolute Power

Chapter 243: Absolute Power

When Zyl came back, Mercury was in the process of trying to cut a cake with his rijn.

This, of course, was difficult. He’d gotten good at making platforms from it, or blunt force, but hammers weren’t exactly useful for cutting things. The same went for <Force of the Hecatoncheires>, which was great at grabbing and moving and, well, applying force, but very bad at actually cutting stuff, unless he used a knife.

He definitely could have just used <Sever>, but when there was a cake on the line, it was rather great practice for his abilities. He’d hate to smash a cake to pieces after all. 

Despite these misgivings, Zyl was, in fact, splashed with white frosting as he opened the door.

There was a long silence, and then both of them broke out in laughter. Zyl quickly licked his lips. “It’s good cake,” he praised.

“Shame it’s going to waste.”

“What?” the dragon cocked an eyebrow. “You haven’t learned time magic yet? Can’t you rewind it back into place?”

Mercury laughed, again. “Tragically, I find myself incapable. But it shall only be a matter of time. You see, there is a future in which I do learn it, then it should retroactively affect us, and the cake shall restore itself!” He posed dramatically.

Nothing happened.

With another laugh, Zyl quickly incinerated the bits of frosting on his face and in his hair, then swept Mercury up in a swift hug. “Whoa,” he said, laughing. “You feel a bit heavier.”

“Ah, that’s the steel nails I’ve been eating.”

“The what?!” Zyl laughed some more. Then, he shook his head, a wide grin plastered on his face as he ran a hand through Mercury’s supple fur. “You’re ridiculous,” he said. “And I missed you very much.”

Mercury smiled brightly. “I missed you, too,” he said. For a few moments, the two just hugged each other, Mercury making liberal use of his ghost hands. 

Then, after some time, Mercury broke the silence. “So, what’ve you been up to?” he asked.

Zyl smiled, just a faint bit. “Boring things, all in all, though some greatly amusing ones, too. I’ve grabbed a few things from the mansion to take to here. And, of course, administration.”

“Administration?”

The dragon rolled his eyes. “The most boring, dreadful stuff. Nobles wanting to broker trade deals with me rather than Unbar’s merchants. People trying to get me to join their families to strongarm other nobles into giving up land… politicking. Dreadful, I tell you.”

Mercury snickered a bit. “Oh, I can only imagine how horrible you felt. What, did the marriage proposals not measure up to standards?”

Laughing, Zyl ruffled Mercury’s fur. “Sasasasa! No, none of them did. I’m, after all, taken, and I don’t think we’ve discussed an open relationship.”

“I’d prefer to keep it closed,” Mercury replied succinctly.

Zyl nodded and smiled. “Entirely okay. I think I’d prefer that, too.”

“Very well then,” Mercury espoused. “It is written in stone. Until the end of the world.”

“Come now, surely we can outlast a few worlds, at least,” Zyl winked. “Or maybe you plan on repairing all the fabrics of all realities?”

Mercury laughed. “Hahaha. Who’s to say, Zyl? With a dragon by my side it feels like the sky’s the limit.”

“I wouldn’t be opposed to a date in a balloon,” the dragon flirted.

“Deal,” Mercury said instantly. “I’ll even get us another cake.”

“Can we afford that?” Zyl asked with a bemused smirk. 

“Why yes!” Mercury said happily. “I have taken on missions from the seeker’s guild again, and upgraded my license to B-rank! It’s a little low for what I can do, but well, rating me higher against metaphysical threats only made little sense. And a physical B-ranker can still break my bones.”

Zyl nodded, slowly. “Reasonable,” he said. 

“I also am now doing actual blacksmithing work for real people,” Mercury said happily. “Selling nails was getting old, but now that I can ‘hear’ the metal properly, I’m making axeheads and hammers, that kinda stuff. And a lot of fittings,” he added. “Hinge-parts, pins, reinforcements. I’ve even been called to do on-site work.”

“Impressive,” Zyl praised. 

Mercury smiled. “It’s nothing super special, but it’s stable.”

Again, the dragon ruffled his fur, in what was slowly becoming a habit, apparently. “I’m glad to hear it, really,” Zyl said. “Money isn’t much of a worry, since neither of us particularly need shelter anymore, nor do I exactly need food, but, well. It’s still nice,” he said with a smile.

“Yeah. Less about the physical need and more about the emotional safety it gives at this point,” Mercury said. “Home sweet home, and all that. It’s nice. Having a place to come back to, to feel at ease in.”

Zyl nodded. “Just so,” he said. “And, well. Something to protect, right?”

Mercury tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“Ah,” the handsome dragon scratched the back of his head. “Well. It’s easy to kind of… get lost in things, rights? In the search for more power, more freedom, so it’s good to have something grounding you. Something to lose. I think that people who’ve lost everything need a home more than anything else.”

“Huh,” Mercury hummed. “I… I guess so. I can’t really disagree at least,” he said with a smile. “What’s your home then?” he asked.

“You,” Zyl said. “This house, Stormbraver as a city to some degree, and, of course, Unbar. Lucia, Otto, all the people I care about,” he said. “Yours?” 

“You, as well,” Mercury replied easily. “Then my friends. Kittra and Avery, Juno and Yasashiku, all the others,” he smiled. “This house and Stormbraver, too.”

“A simple answer for a simple problem, right?” the dragon asked, smiling teasingly. “For most people it can be that simple. People you care about, places you live in or used to live. And yet, some people lack it. I think that’s sad.”

“Yeah,” Mercury replied. Then, for a long moment, neither spoke. “I’m grateful I found you.”

Zyl smiled, brushing a hand through Mercury’s fur. He wasn’t wearing his gloves, as he usually did. “I’m glad I found you, too.”

Mercury laid his head in his boyfriend’s lap. And the two enjoyed one another’s company for a long moment.

- - - 

“You didn’t burn down the garden,” Zyl commented at Lucia. “I’m impressed.”

The priestess rolled her eyes at her long-time friend. “You truly have no faith in me.”

Zyl’s smile widened, showing his canines. “Yeah,” he said. “None at all.”

“To be fair, she did burn a chunk of plantmatter, just usually the bits that needed to be burned,” Mercury added casually, enjoying the sunlight on his fur.

Iris gave a small giggle, covering her face, then clutched Lucia’s arm and elbow. “My lady would never do such an undignified thing as ruin your garden, lord Zyl,” she teased. At her words, Lucia very quickly got the flames that were licking at the grass below her feet back under control. 

A small request from Mercury later, and the lawn was pristine again. 

Taking a moment, Zyl strolled through it on the small gravel paths, running gloved hands over the flowers delicately. He smiled. And for a moment, Mercury thought he could look at it all day. But, of course, it didn’t last quite forever.

They had a gazebo in the garden now, where Zyl sat down. Ruvah was in the process of creating a little contained river system for it, too, helping with soil moisture as well as atmosphere. A small project for them all to meet occasionally. Larash had worked with Yasashiku and Mercury to build a gazebo in the garden, too.

None of them were woodworkers by trade, but then again, that was fine. They had generalised crafting skills, and whenever something went horribly wrong, Mercury just asked the wood to relent and fix itself. It was similar enough to grass. Probably. Apparently.

And so, after Avery had helped paint the thing, they now had a white gazebo in the garden, with a small, circular coffee table, and a small river running by it. It was nice. They sat, they drank tea, and they chatted. 

Lucia talked about reading quite a bit, working her way through a library, and Iris took up dancing, since a merchant caravan was passing through town. They’d also bought some new dresses, with many layers of thin silk. Zyl found them pretty, and Mercury found the many layers of fabric to be very loud. 

They bickered about it a little, in a friendly way. Lucia only set him on fire, once, and her flames left the gazebo untouched. Zyl looked on a little confused.

“Since when has this become a habit?” he asked.

Lucia just gave a defeated smile, and Mercury broke out into a wide grin. “Oh right, Zyl. Seeing as you’re rather hot, can I ask you to set me on fire later?”

The dragon blinked, somehow torn between blushing and confusion. “Wha?”

Once more, Lucia rolled her eyes. But before she could ruin the surprise, Mercury doubled down. “Oh yeah. I’ve taken to it. The smell of burnt fur in the morning, y’know? It’s gotten rather dear to me now.”

“Have… have you become an arsonist, Mercury?” he asked, confused. 

At that, Lucia’s palm met her face. “No, you dunce,” she groaned. “He is trying to comprehend fire. Nothing else.” 

Iris’ face was lightly flushed, and Mercury broke out in laughter. “You have no shame,” Zyl sighed, embarrassed.

“What’s a bit of teasing between friends,” Mercury said, smiling. “But yes. I’ve been trying to understand the essence of fire. And metal, but I’ve succeeded with that. So it’s just fire left.”

“I see. That makes more sense,” Zyl said. “I, uh, are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“He’ll be fine,” Lucia waved him off. “You could hurt him if you really tried, but he’s tougher than he looks.” 

Mercury smiled. “I am. I’ve got a body strengthening Skill, a ton of vitality, and a few regeneration Skills to boot. I’ll be okay. And I’m very adjusted to fire by now.”

Zyl hummed thoughtfully, then gave a small smile. “If you say so. I’ll do my best to be gentle.”

At that, Mercury laughed again. And, once more, Lucia smacked her face. Iris busied herself pouring more tea and rapidly changing the topic to something more shared. What the future might hold for them. Goals and aspirations, as well as duties.

Iris was plenty happy to continue in her work as a maid, for one, and was pleased levelling her skills related to it. Sometimes, well, she needed to stab a few people, but nothing too troublesome came about. Times were relatively peaceful, for now. Though she was sure they would not remain like that forever.

Still, with bishop Nemo no longer causing too much trouble, there weren’t any pressing issues. Avery could easily handle the occasional rifts - though Mercury was quite keen on diving one, too. He was curious what arches were like now that he had a little more practice in dealing with realms and dimensions. 

Were they like the fae realm? On the verge of collapsing and barely holding together? Like his dream? Why did they hold creatures and make them more aggressive? Maybe they were more similar to the domains of the sins, like Gluttony, which he’s, somewhat ironically, devoured. 

He shook his head. Those were big concerns for later days. For now, he wanted to comprehend fire, get better at enchanting, and improve his skills with ihn’ar, maybe even tackle the next veil. Magic and <Shifting> and maybe seeing about making more use of <Revelation>; his somewhat neglected first Skill.

Lucia, for her part, was quite happy with just helping out in the community. It was quite necessary, since the whole “priestess” stuff often got a little draining, so having some parts of her life where she didn’t need to be a paragon was good for her. Reading helped, but spending time with people outside of church was nice, too.

She even helped around construction sites occasionally. Her high level came with a reasonably high strength score, even if it wasn’t her focus, and she gave archery lessons occasionally. 

Mercury, for a moment, considered attending. It feels like he would be rather good at using a bow with his <Force> Skill. But then, he decided he was rather happy with his javelin-wielding. There weren't any particularly high-levelled javelin- or spearwielders around, though, so he made do with training with Yvette.

Which still mostly consisted of him staring at her as she slowly swung her sword and went through stances. Was he learning? Probably, definitely. Was it the most efficient way to go about things? No, but then again, he had four minds, so watching her with one and practicing magic with the other three seemed reasonable. 

Zyl was happy to treat this time back in Stormbraver as a holiday. He wanted to do some more painting, of flowers, and maybe eventually of people. “Oh, the merchant caravans have brushes, actually,” Iris noted.

Instantly, Zyl stood up from the table. “Really? Where?” he asked. After being pointed in a direction, he promptly sprouted wings and flew off.

“Does he realize they’re staying in town for a few more days?” Mercury asked.

Lucia just shrugged. “Let him be impulsive. It’s not like he got to enjoy many hobbies before now.”

Mercury just nodded, thinking that was fair. And so, they sat and chatted for a little while. When Zyl came back, they took to playing card games for a bit, before the others left again. It did make Mercury think of the board games he still remembered back from earth, and he considered reinventing at least a few of them. 

Well, they had a variant of chess, of course. But maybe he could make some kinda city-building or forestry games. Certainly none of the capitalism inspired ones. Then again, the pseudo-feudalism here was not much better, either. And Mercury couldn’t even really fix it, cuz then what would he do? Elect himself as lord and make decisions?

It didn’t sound so appealing anymore. The fae were already too much with pretty much having bullied him into getting a plot of land, but that had been somewhat necessary, even if it technically made him almost head of something like a thirteenth court.

Gently, Mercury shook his head, discarding the thoughts again. Life was silly like that, there were always more things to do, after all. But, then again, plenty of them were fun to do. 

Chronagen was also bizarre that way. When he had to fear for his life, it was rarely institutional or anything. It was just people taking a dislike to him. There were no passports or bureaucratic legal systems; if he wanted to leave somewhere he could just walk away. 

With his Skills, all he needed for food was a bit of greenery, and he didn’t need shelter, either. No sickness or anything. So, he had the essentials covered, and needed to find fulfillment in other ways.

And, as he had shown before, that fulfillment came from helping people, to some degree. There was something nice about just making things for the sake of making them, like crafting a few hundred nails. But there was also fulfillment in seeing and helping them be used in making someone a home.

That was what he wanted to do, at least for a little while. To practice and improve his skills at making items, for others and for himself. With the magic to assist him, being able to split his mind four ways, and being able to control a hundred hands at a time, he could effectively learn to make anything he needed.

Maybe it was time to consider becoming vegetarian, too? He didn’t need for much, so requiring other creatures to die for his pleasure felt a little weird. Something to consider, at least.

After heading home, Mercury took a shower, then quickly dried his fur off by simply requesting that the water slide off him, and it did just that. He still shook himself a little, then watched it all run down the drain and, just for fun, cast a freezing spell. 

It was kind of funny. Zyl had a habit of longer showers, but whenever they ran out of hot water in the reservoir, he would just put his hand on the pipes and solve the problem. He just went and heated the metal until the water was boiling.

Mercury found those kinds of tricks endlessly delightful. They’d gotten supernatural powers, mostly through blood, sweat, tears, effort, and some amount of luck - though that was also an ability here. And now, Mercury used them for the silliest things.

Cutting cake with his mind. Heating up shower water. Drying himself off. Making sure the mattress was just the right temperature. Climbing up roofs and enjoying the view. Diving into lakes to see the fish. Sneaking up on his friends and scaring them, just for fun. He used <Night Vision> to look at the stars, and sometimes broke the golden veil of reason to think about what he could cook.

When he needed to make someone a gift, he could use <Thread>, with the unique effect of slowing thoughts, to make calming blankets. He used <Intuition> to figure out which stalls sold the best food. <Unravel> to help untie knots or repair clothing, and ice and shadow magic to make himself prostheses.

There was a saying that absolute power corrupted absolutely, but Mercury didn’t think that was necessarily true. Despite how inhuman he was these days, the fact that he thought four parallel thoughts, that he never slept, that he could walk in between the gaps of reality and see the void that eats away at the world…

He was, at the end of the day, just some guy. 

Just a person, trying to do his best to live happily.

He read books, he grew flowers, he laughed with his boyfriend, and he hung out with his friends. They played games, they chatted, they were sad and they were happy. They went swimming in the lake, they built sandcastles, they ate food. 

Everything was so mundane. Mercury had powers, yes. He could, reasonably, wipe out a city. Hell, back on earth, he doubted a tank could have killed him. And despite that, despite the fact that he could level building, could literally break a person apart by reducing their reality to nothing at all, he didn’t do that.

There wasn’t even the urge to. His power, which was most certainly absolute compared to a lot of average people on Chronagen, was used in ways that just made him happy.

And that was what they were meant for, at the end of the day. To increase his own happiness, and that of those he cared about. That was all it was needed for. Nothing else.

He took a deep breath, enjoying a ray of sunshine coming in through the window. Slowly, the sun was setting, and dusk approached. He closed his eyes, though his mind kept working. He didn’t need to sleep, so he instead moulded the cold and the dark, weaving and practicing. 

Not because he intended to use it, not because he wanted to create undeads or become an assassin or anything like that… but because it was fun. Because he wanted to understand it, to see it, to share it. To make fun magical displays for kids, to see the world a little differently, to understand it all a little bit better.

Mercury practiced in the safety of his house, listening to the powerfully beating, dragonfire filled heart of his lovely boyfriend. Because magic was awesome, and he loved it. And that  was enough.

Chapter 140: Maelstrom

I stood before the thing that had tormented me. The things that had taken my agency and taunted me with it. That had kept me from my world, that had tried to steal my soul, that were still trying to cut me to ribbons just for a shred more power.

An avatar of a keeper. Eyes. Perception. An infinite amount of blossoming pupils shoved into a body made of translucent glass. A gateway to a place where all was seen, where there was no escape, where everything was watched and known and categorized.

The world was a stage and it was the audience.

Eyes was, in a lot of ways, insidious. It was Perception. It was a finder of secrets, of weakness, of twisting paths down an endless spiral. There was no escape, no relaxation, no privacy and no safety, because at the end, everything belonged to it. 

It saw me. It saw Cass, it saw Astraeus, and it saw Ricipia, the spirit in my master’s spear. There was nothing to hide from the thing. It knew my fears, my weaknesses, my insecurities, my joys, my interests. If it worked with manipulation, they could make a pretty convincing fake, really.

But they’d never work together.

Because they were, all of them, too greedy.

The avatar before me was, in many ways, terrifying and imposing. It was a symbol of my fear, it was a symbol of the limitations placed on me, a symbol of the cost. That there were creatures out there who would pay blood and misery of any number of people if it meant advancing their goals even a little bit.

Be that the endless legions of the usurpers, sending mindless animals and cruel generals into areas simply not meant for that, or be that the terror of the keepers, making pacts and invading worlds to hopefully dig at the scraps of warfare and death like vultures.

And in that bit of knowledge, there was an epiphany.

The keepers were, at the end of the day… Pathetic.

Rae pointed his spear at the thing. “Look at them,” he said. Despite everything, despite their cruelty, their cold calculations, despite the crimes, he still used 'them'. Calling the keeper with the grace that a person deserved. “This is the kind of being, the kind of person that has been defining you for so long.”

“This is all they will ever amount to,” he said. “Aimless desire. A despicable need to take and rise and collect and hoard. To own. It’s disgusting. It’s pathetic. It’s greedy and it will never be enough to defeat you.”

I look at him, and nod, a little.

He grabs my shoulder, shaking me a little. “Listen, I mean this. These? The keepers? You’re already beyond them. You don’t know it yet, but you are. Crush the glass, break the window, and step out through the empty frame. The world awaits, Fio. Just reach out and walk.”

Astraeus hums in my hand, reassuringly. I can feel Cass at the back of my mind, encouraging me to take the step. Rae smiles at me, gently, then looks into the distance. “Okay,” I tell him.

“Good,” he says. “I’ll get going. Need to make sure your friends get a fair fight, too. They’ll grow from it, don’t you worry. They’re rather brilliant, like another thick-headed student of mine.” And with a final, mischievous smile, he was gone.

It was just me and Eyes.

Well, me and Eyes and Ion. 

My other self crawled out of my chest again, my skin rippling like glass. She stood next to me, swinging that mirrored version of Astraeus, looking so real, and yet out of place. We, I stood in front of the avatar. 

An avatar of Perception, of the all-seeing Eye, of invasiveness and discovery and curiosity and knowledge. That was everything it was meant to embody.

So why was it so tiny? Sure, it was sized like a human, yes, but all it had done during the entirety of my fight with the Tiger was mess up my senses a little. Give me a slight feeling of vertigo. Was that it?

Even Manipulation had put up a better fight, a dimension of glass and puppets and strings. Was I stronger now?

The star in my chest thrummed. The answer was really rather simple. Yes. Yes I was.

My gateway had grown again, my seals lifted, the ambient Qi feeding me with power. My wellspring poured out golden glass, my ruinous wings spread behind my back. I was stronger. My numbers were bigger. This avatar was simply not enough. 

I stepped forward, and we fought. 

Astraeus crashed out like a thunderbolt, a new talent having blossomed and taken root in my network. Rae had a few of them, I knew that much, yet the one he shared was rather simple. [Mastery]. It increased learning depending on passion and obsession.

It slotted in perfectly for our special band of slightly suicidal idiots. I took a deep breath, feeling the way it resonated with all the rest of the things pushing me forward. The very real danger that Eyes could kill me made my [Precipitous Wings] flare. The star in my chest hummed, spun, and picked up fire.

Sometimes, things slip by your notice. When Astraeus struck with a thunderclap, crashing into the glass cage that kept Eyes trapped, that allowed the keeper to manifest, the physical form of the avatar, that was when I saw how the star in my chest had changed.

A blossoming Nova sat there. Radiant and golden, ready to take to the skies. 

Somehow, somewhere along the way, I had long since earned my wings. My path, Stride beyond Inflicted Skies, hummed gently, almost yearning. 

Glass cracked, splintered, shattered. 

The keeper took a heavy blow, staggering back, fragments of the shell pinging off, leaving tiny cuts in my skin. When the world shifted and my Perception betrayed me, Cass was there, righting it. Astraeus guided my hand to deflect an oncoming attack that I could not see, even if I tried. Ion fought in front, taking hits.

My parallel self was already forward, ready for me to trade places, and I did just that, appearing next to the keeper. I lashed out with my spear, carving another wound. My vision went black, and I called my parallel self on top of me, stacking out bodies, superimposing my resilience and doubling it.

An attack struck my shoulder, digging into the heavy coating of Qi, resonating, echoing, and then reaching my shoulder. It dug barely half an inch in.

When my vision cleared, I cut off the weapon that I could not look at. Eyes was stopping me from seeing their attacks. They were messing with my perception, with what I could see, making my every sense unreliable. I heard Matt yell for me, I smelled burning car tires like in the crash.

And yet, and yet…

My heart beat, steadily, one after another. Qi poured out of me, coated me, and Ion flew forward. She crashed into the avatar, sending it flying like a ragdoll. “It’s funny, y’know?” she said. “I died a thousand times over in a half million worlds… and never once did this wretch kill me.”

Will shaped Qi, coalescing it into spears behind me, darting forward. A barrage of golden glass, chipping and breaking away at the avatar. The glass grew thin, eyes inside pressing against it. 

For a moment, my vision sprawled again, but I was ready, adjusted. Cass instantly adapted, and it took only a split second for me to regain my bearing. This keeper, like all of them, simply wasn’t a fighter. 

I breathed, and stepped forward, tapping to the [Wanderer’s Key] as the world blurred. My glass cloak billowed behind me, shining golden in the light of the setting sun. It was dusk in the fragment of a world, and it was pretty.

My spear went through Eyes, shattering the avatar with a dull pop. Astraeus pierced a million pupils all at once, shattering them as they fell apart into fragments of crystal, then dust. The avatar broke against me.

It broke so easily, I was almost disappointed.

But, way above that, was the knowledge that I’d won, again. That the Tiger, Manipulation, Perception, the keepers, the usurpers… none of them were good enough.

The sun set. 

My star budded and bloomed in my chest. Petals unfurled like feathers on a pair of wings made from disjointed fragments of a broken mirror. Ruin and radiance weaving and winding in scintillating smears of golden glass.

I breathed. 

They weren’t enough. They never would be. No one would ever be enough, anymore. Never.

Conviction came from conflict. A burial of glass bones within my soul as I stole what the keepers had gambled. My gateway grew, and I was stronger yet. My star glowed, screaming against the confines that held it, unravelling more and more as it was meant to be a network, a supernova, a galaxy all at once.

And I let it.

For the first time in so very, very long, I understood. The fact that while I needed to fight for it, to go to war to maintain it, that it wouldn’t be easy… that, at the very same time…

I was free.

[Congratulations! You have broken the bounds of the sky in your Stride. You are free. Soar, to where none can hold you, fly, to where you are absolute. Take the freedom that belongs to you into your Maelstrom.]

[Golden Glass Core advanced to Maelstrom Realm!]

[You have acquired the path [Soar through endless Freedom] at Maelstrom realm, 1st step.]

The sky broke. My inner world morphed, and the glass ceiling, the arduous path, the suppression… it all shattered in the wake of my maelstrom. Qi bubbled out of the center of that dreadful power, then circled, spun, and drew in more. It was as though I’d become the center of a small world, and in an instant, the glass ceiling was eaten up by my power.

My Qi raged in a torrent, eating at anything that opposed me. That was what it meant to go beyond wellspring. It was why my attacks had never reached the Tiger. His Qi simply superceded mine. It was how my master flooded the whole world with white radiance, how his storm so easily ate up Whiter Tiger’s light.

A maelstrom, an endless thing that drew in everything around it. A little like a domain, perhaps, yet different. It eroded any power who would try to influence me, and yet it welcomed my allies. Astraeus and Cass were bathed in its wondrous power, my spear growing stronger, sharper, ruthlessly powerful.

Each muscle in my body was stronger, and I felt the amount of realities I existed in double. Now there was me, and three more parallel Fios. And, of course, Ion, and three parallel worlds for her. And then, with my gateway even stronger after devouring what remained of Eyes… I felt that another manifestation could be called upon. Another one of myself with yet more parallel worlds.

It was reflected in my maelstrom, too. It was of golden glass, refracting, breaking the light, turning its center into a glittering cacophony of chaotic radiance. There was no end to it, simply shining rainbows, like glass shards. My wings grew, my talents soared, and the budding nova in my chest exploded into motes of stardust.

I advanced. I breathed.

And freedom found me at last. 

Faced with the choice of what to do when the world finally felt open, I got to make choices. And my very first choice was to see Ann.

Chapter 242: Metal

Chapter 242: Metal

More days passed. Enough for it to go from Blossom to Scorch. The days became hotter as the pages drifted by. 

Mercury took care of the garden. He practiced smithing and runecarving, as well as his magic, nabbing a couple levels here and there. His <Ice Magic> improved from level 5 to 6, and his persistent plan of setting himself on fire netted him a level in <Hydration> and greatly enhanced resistance. 

He found it only a little funny that he literally did have the whole “burning blood” thing that hydras sometimes had going on. But it still didn’t let him get the understanding of metal he wanted.

It was frustrating, like banging his head up against a wall. Apparently, just getting heated up and getting quenched wasn’t quite enough for him to get the forging process. Slowly, though, another brilliant idea was bubbling in his mind. A few, actually.

To get closer to metal, he could just… eat it. What if he ate a bunch of it?

“Why are you chewing on my nails, Mercury-kun?” Yasashiku asked.

All in all, his voice really was surprisingly measured. Mercury’s teeth were very hard, but not quite harder than metal, so they chipped a little as he ate, then regrew stronger. He could have reinforced them with mana or stamina, of course, but it wouldn’t feel quite honest. So, instead, he leaned on the natural strength of his body, and his Skills. <Nutritional Preservation> and <Bite> in particular.

[<Bite> has levelled up! <Bite lv. 5 -> 6>]

Case in point. 

“Trying to understand metal better by integrating it into my body,” Mercury explained.

Yasashiku stared at him for a long, unending moment. Mercury looked back, mouth full of metal nails. The old man slowly brought a hand to his face and massaged his temples. “Okay,” he said. “You… do your thing.”

The mopaaw continued chewing nails happily.

Bite gained another level over the next couple days, but other than a mild tummyache and slightly stronger teeth, Mercury didn’t feel too different. Of course, he was not yet out of ideas. With more iron in his nutritional storage, he could pull on it with <Hydration> and even <Shift>. 

This little combination of maneuvers could let him create biological flesh-iron constructs to strengthen his skin. Which was fun, but by itself didn’t much other than make him look like some kind of cyborg thing. 

It did have a use though!

“I need you to hit me with a hammer,” he told Yasashiku.

The old man blinked. “This is getting ridiculous,” he said, giving a long, suffering sigh. 

“Have you never done something seemingly idiotic in pursuit of a Skill?” the student asked.

Unfortunately, Yasashiku did not have a rebuke. “I have,” he said, mournfully. “Fine then. Get into the forge.”

Eagerly, the mopaaw did just that. His smithing teacher turned on the fire, working the bellows, and Mercury really got the full metal experience. He felt the way the flames billowed around him, pulling at the metallic sheen wrapped around his fur, the way his body took in the heat and yet kept functioning.

His heart moved boiling blood through his veins, and he could feel the way the heat rippled through him, from his skin to his flesh and bones. He’d gone through it a dozen times over by now, and bit by bit, that familiar softness set in.

That, too, was something he could resist by now. He could shift and adapt to make his bones remain sturdy, but this time, he allowed it. It was necessary for what came next. Iron flooded his insides as his biology shifted to include a vastly increased amount of metal. 

And then, when his fur went from silvery, to red, then to white hot, he was pulled out of the forge and placed on the anvil. Yasashiku tossed his forging hammer up and down once, his eyes inscrutable behind the crow mask. “You’re sure about this?” the smith asked.

Mercury just nodded.

“Fine then, have it as you must,” the smith said.

And the hammer came down.

The first blow sent Mercury’s entire world reeling. It crashed into his side, into his ribcage, and he felt the sensation of his whole world bending. His bones, malleable as they were, simply dented inwards, as did his metallic skin. His fur was flattened down to a thin plate.

It felt bizarre, but also like he understood something. There was a clarity building behind his eyes, growing even more near as the second hammer-swing came down on him, impacting him a little further up. The shock went through his heart, shifting it slightly, but it still beat without trouble.

All Mercury felt was an internal pressure, slowly relieved by the heat. Things moved, but everything moved in tandem. With purpose. Another blow to shake him, this one landing on his hind leg, pressing the base of it flat against his torso.

How bizarre. It was so, so strange.

But with the iridescent heat, with the glimmer of the forge, he slowly started to get it. Metal was useful for tools. It wasn’t meant for that purpose, but every which way that society interacted with imbued it with purpose. Naturally, the substance itself didn’t mind either way, it simply had properties beneficial for shaping.

The ability to move and hold a new construct, to be hard when needed and soft when put into extreme conditions. To bend and not break. It made sense.

Another hammerblow, and finally, the picture was complete in his head.

Metal was, in and of itself, just another material. But associated with that came qualities. With the way that it had been passed down in tradition and practice for hundreds of years, there came ideas. To be tough as nails, for a sword to cut straight and true, for a shovel to dig dirt. Metal was one of the cornerstones of civilization.

It was, in a lot of ways, the very burgeoning seed of creation.

Now, passed through years of practice, he found himself in that place. Where he was the metal, the cornerstone, his own creation in a lot of ways. Mercury was shaped by his own mind, by his own ideas of what he should be, and he could be reforged as often as it took to become what he wanted to be.

That was what metal meant. 

To suit his own idea of what he wanted to be, step by step, with a promise that no matter what, he could try again. Bending, but never breaking, always finding his way again. 

[The individual has acquired the ability <Metal (lowest)> through a specific action.]

[The individual has acquired the Skill <Tempered Body lv. 1> through a specific action.]

Mercury breathed. The next hammer strike rang out against him… and rebounded. He knew what he was about, and no one but him would forge him anymore.

With a deft application of <Metal>, <Shift>, <Tempered Body>, and <Hydration>, Mercury snapped back to his regular shape, the metallic glint on his fur disappearing. The heat bubbled off of him in a moment, sliding away like dirt under a summer rain.

He looked at his teacher, at Yasashiku, and dipped his head a little. “Thank you, teacher,” he said. “This was enlightening.”

[<Clarity> has levelled up! <Clarity lv. 9 -> 10>]

[<Fast Learner> has levelled up! <Fast Learner lv. 5 -> 6>]

[<Clarity> has met the necessary qualifications for evolutions. Evolve? (500 Skill points)]

Mercury smiled at his notifications, as Yasashiku shook his head. “Of course, Starlight-kun. Let me know if you require help again. Hopefully you can finish this piece soon, then?” he asked.

With a quick look at the metal, Mercury smiled. He understood now. “It’s tongs, isn’t it? I’m supposed to make tongs.”

The old man nodded approvingly. “That’s right, yes. It’s a more difficult project, and you need to split the block in two then rivet it together. Well, unless you can more directly shape the metal, of course.”

“I think I can make it in a single piece,” Mercury said with a smile. Well, not entirely, of course. But he wouldn’t need to make the rivet as its own thing at least. But first, he was curious about his new skill and evolution.

[<Tempered Body>: A Skill meant to increase raw physical might of the wielder. Every point of strength, every point of vitality, now counts as more. It is a multiplier to something already formidable, making you tough and strong as steel. Temper your body and shape it to your will.]

Kinda what it said on the tin, then. While <Hydration> promised adaptation, this one promised strength. Every level would make his muscles and bones and everything else about him more powerful. From his snout to the very tip of his tail. He wondered what the limits were. Could he, at some point, deflect a sword on his eyeball? 

Maybe. But it also required him to temper himself, which he didn’t quite understand. Really, it probably just meant taking hits and training. Letting <Hydration> adapt himself into something permanently more powerful, so on and so forth. Maybe forging himself with his own rijn?

The effects were already obvious even just at the first level, turning him far tougher than he’d been. Well, as long as he wanted to be. Every bit of his body’s flexibility was retained, so when lost, his muscles and fur were still soft. Though he could turn his fur hard and spiky as steel now, turning him into a budget hedgehog.

Actually, his fur was probably sturdier than any hedgehog’s needle, so really, he made all hedgehogs look like budget Mercurys. But that was besides the point.

<Clarity>, one of his old companions, was finally ready for evolution. It was a part of his build that let him actually understand the mind bending patterns and similarities he regularly dealt with. Hopefully, once he understood it, getting a grip on fire would be easier.

While he did now grasp the essence of metal and what it meant for him, he had yet to fully understand fire. It was kind of funny to think about. He used to be, and probably still was, rather hot-headed. He had things that made his anger flare up instantly. And yet, fire remained out of reach. 

Well, for now, he could just as well focus on evolving <Clarity>. 

[Evolution confirmed. Engaging. Please pick an option to evolve the Skill into. The price will be the same (500 Skill points), no matter which you choose.]

[1. Lucidity

2. Resonance

3. Eidolon]

Curious names. He liked them.

[<Lucidity>: This Skill allows the individual to see as though awake. The world is a dream stacked upon a dream stacked upon a dream. You peer into essences, into truths that those who sleep cannot fathom. Burn the truth into your mind, and hope its incandescence doesn’t turn you to ash.]

Very ominous. Mercury smiled. Given its name, the fact that <Lucidity> retained to dreams did make sense, and also made him immediately more drawn to it. Dream magic was, after all, kind of his specialty, and peering past those dreams sounded a whole lot like seeing the <Dreamweave> for what it was.

Plus, of course, the general boost to understanding the Skill seemed to provide. It sounded like a strong choice. 

[<Resonance>: Increase your resonance with concepts. Let their essence ring through you and crash into the world. Manifest them in rippling waves of power.]

This one sounded rather combat-oriented… well, not quite. It was focused on the expression of power, rather than the acquisition of it. A boost to what he had rather than what he could have.

In a lot of ways, this one most closely fit <Rainfall>. After all, that had come about when <Breath> resonated with him as a person. If he grabbed this, it would probably increase that power even more. But…

Did he need that?

In a lot of ways, it felt weird. To draw things into himself like that. It felt almost invasive, an unnatural resonance. Sure, it made him more suited for it, but Mercury didn’t think he wanted something like “wrath” to resonate with him at all.

With a small smile, he placed the Skill aside. It was strong, yes, but it would only ever do what he already could with a little effort. No.

[<Eidolon>: Through a flicker, see the whole. An eidolon categorizes, it is the image that you catch a glimpse of, the idea of a thing that everyone knows yet is always out of reach. No longer. Reach for the image and find it, encompass the knowledge. Once you catch a glimpse, see the whole.]

A curious description that puzzled him a bit. Seeing the whole from a glimpse. But that did mean he first needed that glimpse…

Oh. This would probably let him level up his concepts faster? Taking something from lowest to low a bit faster, stuff like that. 

Huh. That was interesting. It wasn’t an effect he could create by himself… except when he could. He’d done it for <Grief>, hadn’t he? That one rang out closer to himself. It made sense. 

So, with this, he would level them faster. In a lot of ways, that felt kind of odd. These concept hinged on his understanding, his experience of them. Understanding them fast, was that robbing him of experience, or granting it faster? If he wanted to experience more, he could just up his zeyjn again. 

Four minds were plenty, especially since he didn’t need sleep and could still overclock them. No, thank you. 

He picked <Lucidity>.

[Evolution selected.]

[The individual has acquired the Skill <Lucidity lv. 1> through Skill evolution!]

His Skill points went from 2000 down to 1500. That was okay though. The world lit up for a moment, then settled back down. <Lucidity>, as a Skill, slotted nicely into his build, into the way he used ihn’ar and <Seeker of Secrets>. It suited him the best out of all the options. 

As the way he was able to look at the world shifted a little bit again, Mercury smiled. Yes, it really suited him.

It was a tiny glimpse, only the faintest idea, but he could swear that it was there. That the <Dreamweave> that let him create something from <Nothing> in his dreams was also there in the mortal realm. It was stunningly real, the realm powered by so much mundanity that it was impressive. But it was, nonetheless, magical.

Somewhere in there, Mercury could probably find existential dread, if he went looking. If this place was a dream, was he real? Did anything he cared about matter? At all?

But he didn’t go looking. 

Instead, he let that impression fade. If he was a dream, then he would simply eventually weave himself into reality, no trouble. If he was real, then he was real. So, no skin off his back either way.

Not that it would be easy to take skin off his back. With <Tempered Body> and the ability to integrate the things he ate into himself, Mercury could probably become tough as steel in a little while. He just didn’t really want to? Eating metal wasn’t quite his idea of a good time, after all. 

Well. It wasn’t that bad, to be honest, but still. 

Tempered body was about becoming what he envisioned himself being. And he did not envision himself as the embodiment of “You are what You eat.”

He’d happily leave that for other people. There were plenty of Skills for that out there. No, he’d continue using his entirely overtuned digestion abilities for eating herbs and spices and other tasty foods. Like a normal person. 

- - -

Lucia knocked at his door.

“No,” Mercury said.

“C’mon,” she asked. “It really is good practice for my Skill!”

“I’m not letting you set me on fire today.”

“It doesn’t even hurt you,” the priestess protested. “In fact, I believe I have greatly helped you in the acquisition of greater abilities for yourself. So much so that I think you owe me a little.”

Mercury looked at her for a long moment. “You’re not letting this go, are you?”

She tilted her head a bit, smiling. “I don’t currently plan to. I could, probably, be convinced, but frankly? It really is a good outlet. It helps you train, it helps me train, it is an emotional outlet… I believe that it fulfills almost all criteria of spending quality time with each other.”

The mopaaw gave her a leveled stare. “Right,” he said. “Okay. Fine. Sure. In fact, I’ll get Zyl in on it when he’s back.”

He did, after all, still need to learn fire properly. The burnings continued.

- - -

Mercury was at the forge, standing on a chair so that he was at the right height to see the anvil. His mind was a hammer, and the metal acquiesced his request, same as he listened to the metal.

There was a strange interplay there, almost like a song. A harmony of when to strike, and where. Mind ringing on metal, the anvil rebounding some of the strike. 

It was a little amusing, feeling rebound on his rijn. It wasn’t affected by gravity, after all. The construct was simply wherever he imagined it being. Which meant that with his faster mind, he could sling it through the air at instant speeds.

Though the was it transmitted force was also weird, more reliant on how much force Mercury imagined transmitting, and his willpower to enforce it on the world. There was no real “speed” for his rijn, and no real “mass” to it either, so sadly, his classical newtonian equations wouldn’t be of much use.

Instead, he leaned on his instinct, and the things he’d learned and knew. His rijn moved, smashing into the metal, singing a ringing note of shaping and creation. The block of steel bent, deforming. And then it was hit again, and again.

Focus coursed through Mercury, leaning forward, senses trained on the metal. He looked at it, willing it to fulfill its potential, both as a gentle request and as an order enforced by his mind. It was a strange dichotomy, but it did what he intended it to do.

Parts of the metal pulled and moved as if alive, writhing to form bits he could not have created through forging, while others, where he needed to do a lot of shaping, were simply hammered into shape. Strike by strike, the thing took shape.

He created two handles, two gripping surfaces, partially with ridges, and a rivet for the hinge. Except, of course, that he simply beckoned the hinge to emerge from one of the handles, the glowing metal shaping to meet his desire, and placed the second handle atop it. Then, with a single strike, the rivet was bent into place, and the tongs were finished.

Mercury quenched them with <Force of the Hecatoncheires>, the Skill still very useful for delicate or forceful work. It didn’t require as much imagination on his rijn, but was also more limited in applicability. And that was fine, for now. Maybe he could meld them someday? An amusing thought.

“Good work,” Yasashiku praised. “A solid pair of tongs. We still need to finish and anneal it, of course.”

The mopaaw nodded along, pulling them out of the oil as it stopped smoking. 

When they did the rest of the process, first hardening the steel further, finishing it, making sure the pieces fit perfectly, Mercury was there. His newly gained budding understanding of metal was helpful, letting him watch and assist it in the processes.

In fact, with all of his perception-based skills, he could almost feel the structure of the metal. Not just in the way the grain flowed, but in the way that the micro-crystalline structures were oriented. There was something to be learnt there, so he watched closely.

There were pockets of perfect crystalline alignments, and then jagged gaps where they weren’t aligned. Of course, turning the entire tool into a single crystal lattice would be a horrible idea. Far too rigid. It would be hard and brittle. Meanwhile, creating many smaller pockets would make the steel soft and bendy.

Amusingly, by seeing these, he could reasonably manipulate the properties of the metal if he controlled the bits of grain. If he were stronger, maybe he could even control each atom, though that was a pipe dream for now.

Instead, Mercury simply asked. Parts that bent were made to bend more, parts that needed to be hard and heat resistant were asked to have their grains meld together. And the metal listened. 

During annealing and finishing, the workpiece did as he asked, the grains flowing, and melding to suit the way they would best serve their purpose. And after a day, it was finally done.

“Congratulations,” Yasashiku said with a clap. “You’ve made your first tool.”

Mercury smiled, happily. “Yeah. It’s awesome. But I can’t exactly use it, can I?” he asked.

“Of course you can,” the old smith chided, eyes crinkled in a smirk. Mercury thought there was an edge of cruelty in them. “You learnt how to swing a hammer by meditating on it, right? Now, you got tongs.” He waves his hands. “Go meditate. Figure it out.”

Dang it. But fine, Mercury would learn. And then, when he was done, his rijn would be ready to grab things. His toolbelt shalt be ever-growing.

Chapter 139: [Spear God]

Rae took a deep breath of the fresh air. 

He felt at ease.

Complete.

Life was long. Especially for an old man like Rae, life had been long. Thousands of little experiences played into it, a million, billion tiny decisions. What to eat for breakfast. What movie to watch. How many hours to dedicate to training.

Who to kill.

Another deep breath. His blood was rushing through his veins, unprecedented. That was why he’d retired. Because it was risky. Because he was a hot-headed idiot. But he was also tempered, now. A year of calm, of amnesia, of soul-searching and centering himself had reduced his world down to the things that really mattered. His wife, his love, and Fio.

It was a day ago that she had knocked at his door. Shown up, nervous but firm. He’d almost have described her as looking grim. 

“Rae?!” White Tiger bellowed, interrupting his thoughts.

The old master frowned, just a little. “Shhhh, Tiger,” he said, then smiled. He closed his eyes and looked to the sky. “I am reminiscing.” Then the smile turned mischievous. “A fossil like you surely knows what that means.”

And then, he reminisced. Memories came easily, flowing like water.

The knock on the door. The awkward silence. Dancing around the topic for just a little bit, before Fio broke like a waterfall. He’d asked how he could help, and she’d told him.

She’d told him about Zinnic. About the way they’d treated her family, about the thing they were planning now, about how they lacked respect, lacked kindness and lacked foresight. He’d listened, patiently, and asked again: How could he help?

It was the question he most dreaded. The question he always knew would, eventually, come.

“Master… would you hold a spear again?” she’d asked.

Rae, naturally, had no memories of holding a spear. Not before now. But he wasn’t stupid. He felt it. Felt it in the way he watched Fio move, felt it in the way she swung that blade at the end of a stick around. He knew spears. Like the back of his own hand, no. Better than that. He knew spears.

White Tiger tried to strike him, but all Rae needed to block was his will, not his sight.

“Yes,” he’d said, and whispered now again. It was a difficult answer to give, but it was the same. Ingrid was more fond of Fio than he was, and if he made excuses about making her sad, she might smack him over the head with a baking tray.

He smiled at those thoughts. At the knowledge of his past. His full past.

Another deep breath. 

“Why are you here?!” White Tiger demanded.

Rae smiled, so brightly. “What better reason is there for an old man to fight, than when his family asks?”

Fio was family, to him. She was his pupil, his darling star in the sky. His bond to that ethereal past he didn’t remember, to that agonising hole in himself. Always respectful, always appreciative, kind and patient with his antics. If she asked him to fight, then there was no doubt.

“You have no family,” White Tiger spat. “You and your-”

Rae breathed out. “Hey,” he said, leveraging his weapon for the first time, pointing it forward. “Don’t finish that sentence.” That wound was raw. The one that told him that he would never, ever have children. That he was born to die alone.

And then, now, he had someone he could call granddaughter. Without guilt. Blood ties? They didn’t matter. Family was chosen. And they had chosen each other.

So, when she had asked him to put on the ring, to sleep a little before he fought, he agreed. He trusted Fio with his life. He trusted her as his eyes grew heavy, as he fell asleep on the kitchen table, and as he awoke before a storm of annihilating, scintillating light washed over him.

Slowly, he turned to his pupil. “You did good,” he said, ruffling her hair. “Now let’s see what these old bones can do.”

It was time, finally, to fight.

- - -

White Tiger came onto him fast. The old bastard was aspected towards light, after all. Fast, ephemeral, untouchable. But Rae was not like that, not at all. Oh, sure, his aspect sounded similar, but it was not quite the same.

Rae breathed out as the other old man rushed towards him. The air crackled, faintly. He drew arcs in the air with his spear, spinning it, and turning aside the Tiger’s charge with a deft flick of his wrist. It was a blow.

“Fine then!” White Tiger bellowed. “Let us exchange pointers one more time, old enemy!”

The air buzzed, hummed, sang to Rae. His spear, Ricipia, the Sky Terror, resting in his hand like an old friend, an eternal, reliable companion.

Electricity buzzed, until the hair on his body rose. His smile widened, threatening to split his face. The storm coursed through his body, old techniques flickering to life, one by one. Mixing and mashing with new talents, new powers granted by that network of his disciples, a wonderful thing it was.

As the tiger came close, fast and untouchable as light, Rae manifested his aspect. He opened his core, and let it all pour out, and it felt like summer rain on his face.

In a moment, the sky was blotted out. Tiger’s Radiance a candle to a bonfire. Clouds gathered, dark and foreboding, unstoppable.

Rae was not as fast as the Tiger. He was not as untouchable, not as conniving, not as tricky. He was, however, greater. A bolt of lightning split the sky, and Rae’s grin turned terrifying, his presence descending like a sledgehammer, like a god taking up arms. “Exchange pointers? You love your allegories, eh, bastard?! Well, let me tell you something!” 

The words poured out as a roar. “This old dog still has some bite! And you? You’re a mutt that needs to be put down!”

Tiger screamed in defiance, and rushed in. His wings of light flared. His ruinous power enough to tear into the clouds, to shatter the ground, to break and destroy everything in its path, to send scathing incandescence over everything and everyone.

It was met with ruin.

Lightning. That was Rae’s aspect. Simple, pure, blinding, incandescent, terrible and horridly powerful. 

If the Tiger was a streak of all consuming incandescence, then Rae was a summer storm given form. The Tiger roared half a screech, and Rae’s spear met him like a guillotine.

There was no contest. 

With a crash so loud that it could tear a man’s head off, lightning lanced down. It spilled out of Rae in an absolute torrent. A violent deluge of tearing electricity, surging after his spear. He drew out an arc - not that of a circle, but an arc of electricity. 

A flash, a bolt, and a scream.

Tiger lost his left arm.

There was no blood, no wound, already seared shut. The old man gasped, spitting blood. The world itself shuddered at the noise that came a moment later, a rolling thunder that sent rae’s hair billowing, and sent cracks through the eyes that surrounded them. It dispelled the fog, the illusions, and everything else.

Rae poured out enough Qi to blot out the sun, and then some. It was terrifying, it was beautiful, and it was freeing. His blood boiled, lightning coursing through his veins, and he felt stronger than ever. His path was the lord of the storms, and he sure felt like a king right now. 

“H- How?” Tiger gasped.

“Oh,” Rae said, swinging his spear to the side, splashing off bolts of electricity as though cleaning away blood. “It’s simple, really. My numbers are bigger than yours.”

White Tiger’s eyes widened. “What?”

“You’re on the second step. Maybe the third, right?” He grinned. “I’m on the sixth. My techniques are better. I have more talent, both natural, and thanks to my lovely disciple. My path suits me better. I’m more skilled, more powerful, and more talented than you. But, most of all? I want this.”

“I want to win, so bad. I’m going to cut you down, and then prepare the rest of the fuckers from Zinnic as training dummies for Fio’s friends. You’re dead, Tiger. A dog that didn’t know when to stop. Fucking. Barking.”

At that, Zinnic’s greatest asset grit his teeth. He was a dog?! Fuck that!

He was a tiger! The top of all of Eden! He’d fought Rae in a dozen matches before, and they had always been equal! Where was the old bastard getting this from? What kind of last battle had he had before his retirement?!

No, he would not have this! He would fight, he would bite and chomp and tear, and he would win, damn it! He charged.

Rae smiled, then turned back. “Hey, Fio? Look closely. Let me show you why I have my title.”

I looked at him with wide eyes and nodded. 

He stepped forward to meet the tiger.

- - -

What followed next is something I cannot properly describe. It was, in all essence, a conflict between masters. Two prodigies, who had dedicated decades to their weapons. Dedicated thousands of hours, tens of thousands of hours of sweat, blood and tears. 

I looked as my master used only one hand, matching the Tiger. He was no faster. No stronger. Nothing.

All he did was meet the old man with pure, brutal technique. A hundred strikes came in a single second, and Rae turned aside each thrust, stopped each line, constantly maintained his threat, forcing the charging Tiger backwards.

His feet shifted, his spear went up, batting aside that of his enemy, and met his throat, gracing it with a tiny, barely visible nick. “Dead,” Rae declared. 

White Tiger roared. They battled again. It was wonderful, stunningly beautiful in the way that only absolute mastery could be. A tiger with wings going against a god. My master strode through the sky, his feet stepping on crackling lightning, while his opponent flew on five steps of glowing wings.

Scintillating annihilation passed me by, blowing back my hair as it tore into the distance, just barely deflected by my master. The backside of his spear came down on the Tiger’s nose with a crunch. “Dead,” Rae declared.

Another scream, another fight, another half thousand exchanged in a few meagre seconds. And then, again, as each time before, my master won. His spear stopped just in front of the Tiger’s heart. “Dead,” he declared.

“Dead.”

“Dead.”

“Dead.”

And then, one of those times, the eyes in the sky glowed, and my master frowned. His final attack was knocked aside, in a moment of confusion. White Tiger swung towards his heart. I thought Rae would die, and he just snorted.

In amusement. 

A tiny thundercloud spawned there, and when the Tiger touched it, there was another brutal roll of thunder, a titanic explosion. A thousand lightning bolts all at once, tearing apart White tiger’s spear, sinking into his arm and drawing lichtenberg figures of blackened, ruined flesh onto it.

“I fear there is another target my student will learn from, Tiger,” he sighed. “Any last words.”

“Fuck you. Let me talk to the girl,” he said. 

Rae looked at Fio, raising an eyebrow. “Do you want to?"

Shellshocked, it took me a few moments to reply, but I nodded. “Okay.”

I walked up to him, kneeling, one arm entirely gone, the other mangled and broken. His hair was a mess, and the burns even extended into his face. He was dead, already, for sure. But he looked at me.

“You were strong,” he said. “Clever. You’ll go further than me. You might be a cub but… spread your ruinous wings and soar.” Then he paused. “Ah. I have no right to lecture you. Disregard my words.”

His blood lips turned into a smile. “Let me say my proper final words, then.”

White Tiger, the old man who had fought all his life, braced. He placed his hand onto his thigh, and held his head forward for decapitation. “You were right,” he said. “It’s a shit idea to get buried in a coffin. Burn my remains."

That was all. Rae nodded, and then a lightning bolt crashed down. The Tiger was turned to ash, all at once.

We were quiet for a moment. A long, long moment. Then, I got a little nauseous, and Rae looked at the sky.

“... Right,” he said wistfully. “We aren’t done.” Then, his eyes turned to the ground, flicking across it. “Come, Fio. Let’s shatter that old mirror, too.”

Chapter 241: Entirely Average. Probably. Maybe. Surely.

Chapter 241: Entirely Average. Probably. Maybe. Surely.

Lucia was having a lovely, calm night. Much of it was spent cuddling Iris in bed or reading until she dozed off. She still did not often sleep well, per se, but she did sleep better these days, which was an obvious improvement from how things had been in the past.

She did not, however, get to sleep through the night. In the middle of it, when most regular people decided to get their rest in, there was a noise. Of course, while Lucia was a lighter sleeper than Iris, the former assassin was a lot more perceptive than her lover. So, when there was a noise, Iris awoke first.

This did have the consequence of also waking up Lucia. The Voice of Order rubbed her eyes and looked on blearily, giving a big yawn. “What’s up Iris?” she muttered. “Come back to bed.”

“Something’s at our window,” Iris said, warily. The shadows in the room wrap around her, and it feels a little brighter. 

Lucia blinked a few more times. It’s… gosh, what time was it? Slowly, through, she rose from the bed, and ignited her inner flame. The sleepiness slowly bubbled and boiled away, and she took a deep breath. How bothersome.

A flicker of anger sprouted and fanned her fire. Was this a new assassin? One of the skinstealers? She looked out of the window, and there was another tapping noise. 

Oh god. She recognised it. This was worse.

Before she could say something, Iris carefully approached the window, knife in hand, and slowly opened it. Her eyes flickered with detection spells, and landed on a particularly dark blob that stood out against the sky. “Good evening,” Mercury said. “I need-”

Iris yelped and stabbed. The mopaaw hopped back, off the fall, and started plummeting in the open air, before suddenly smacking into a platform of pure, solid force. “Okay,” he wheezed, air knocked from his lungs. “I probably deserved that.”

“... Mercury?” the maid asked, looking down at his splatted form.

“That’s the one,” he replied.

Very slowly, Iris put her knife away. “What, exactly, are you doing here? Why are you… covered in ash?”

He blinked. “See,” he said, “now the hostilities make a lot more sense. I entirely forgot to look into the mirror. Is Lucia home?”

The priestess stepped up to the window, with a long, suffering sigh. “Haaaaah. Yes, Mercury, I’m here. What do you need?”

“Awesome. Can you set me on fire?” he asked.

Lucia looked at him. Iris blinked. “What?” the maid asked, confused. Lucia, for her part, didn’t need to be asked twice.

She eagerly obliged.

- - - - - - 

In an entirely unsurprising turn of events, getting burnt by Lucia hurt a lot more than the average fire he was able to make with a little bit of wood in the chimney. Mercury felt it run across his fur in a blazing conflagration, but frankly, the pain was minor. The bits of it he did feel were simply swallowed up by <Still Mirror>, not even providing an obstacle to his focus.

At the end of the day, his body was simply more resilient. And, while the priestess did need a suspiciously low amount of prodding to throw a full scale fireball at him, he didn’t think she truly meant him harm. They were both gay, how could they dislike each other?

Surely that was how that worked. Surely.

Mercury smiled a little, and slowly discarded his silly thoughts, instead focussing on the nature of the fire. It came easily, as Mercury slipped back into that half-obsessed, enlightened state he’d been in before, when he came up with the brilliant idea to light himself on fire.

His fur caught easily, frankly. Its outer layer was thick, and burnt off quickly, preventing the fire from spreading to the lower layers. Unfortunately, there was plenty more heat, so those lit up, too. <Hydration> was already busily adjusting him to be more flame resistant, the regrowing fur being tougher and tougher to light up. 

But Mercury didn’t mind any of that. The adaptation presented by his skill simply made him closer to fire. The blood pumping through his veins heated up, and he could feel the way the light licked at his eyes. It was all at once horrible and absolutely fascinating.

And then, Mercury imagined what the metal must feel like. He needed to burn hotter, turn up his internal temperature even more! 

“More!” he told Lucia.

“Move upwards,” the priestess countered. “I will not set fire to the buildings around you for this new fascination of yours.”

That made sense. With a quick, shaky hop, Mercury landed on a higher platform of rijn, then repeated this process. When he was firmly above the window, Lucia’s worries about causing any structural damage to other places was quickly dispelled, and she let out a veritable flood of heat.

Mercury’s blood boiled, then adapted to the higher temperatures, then boiled all over again. Somehow, despite that, it was still painless. Was he supposed to feel pain? Did metal feel hurt when it was smithed? Maybe it was appropriate for Mercury to feel pain?

He decided against it for now, simply letting the knowledge of the heat wash over him. He blinked a few times, getting the blood out of his eyes before it evaporated anyways. Frankly, it was surprising that the fire had not yet damaged his eyes, but it was probably related to his rapid adaptation.

Second by second, his temperature rose in a torrent of white fire. His fur singed down to his skin, and then his skin began to blister, too. Hmmm. He needed to be more like metal, then? Ah, but didn’t he already have an understanding that worked like that?

<Grief> triggered. The sense of loss made Mercury hard but brittle, and the heat softened it again. No, was it warmth? Huh. How amusing. His understandings interacting so reasonably with one another.

Warmth melting the shell of loss and grief, as flame would turn metal soft. He laughed at that, just a little, finding humor in the strange circumstance. Then, he was again too busy being burnt alive to focus.

Now, after only a few minutes, the fire stopped. Mercury looked down and saw that they’d drawn quite the crowd, including Gorm from the city council. The old man was waving a cane disapprovingly, yelling about “youngsters” and “fire”, which seemed about in character.

Mercury had to concede that maybe he had troubled a few people’s sleep. Maybe even worried some of them. Which wasn’t exactly nice of him to do, so Lucia stopped the fireworks.

Compared to the crowd though, she shot him a bright smile. “That was lovely,” the priestess said. “We should do that again sometimes.”

Iris gave her a look, and then Mercury another. Then, the maid gave a sigh, and headed back to bed. “Good night, Mercury,” she said. “It is good to have you around again.” Then, she smiled a little, and closed the window.

Mercury, for his part, was happy that Lucia agreed to help him out. But did she really have to be so enthusiastic about it?

With scorched, regrowing fur, he hopped across platforms of rijn back to his home. The only hint of his stay near the church being faint particles of ash down on the street. It was an uneventful night.

[<Soft Steps> has levelled up! <Soft Steps lv. 1 -> 2>]

- - -

The next morning, Mercury used <Rainfall> to cleanse away all the ash and dust from his fur, returning to his usual appearance. <Hydration> helped him regrow his fur coat rather quickly, and it even seemed a little shinier, now, as well as more heat resistant. 

Which was good, given that he planned on doing this a few more times.

He understood fire a little better already, he thought, but it wasn’t quite good enough yet. In fact, it was still an infantile, blooming understanding that would certainly need more time. But he had the whole night to meditate on it, which helped consolidate the experiences and glimpses he’d gained during his nighttime escapades.

Yasashiku was, at first, impressed with Mercury’s progress. The old man praised his understanding of fire, and even said that he was glad Mercury had decided to meditate. Parsing experiences with thought was important, after all.

And it was true. Mercury had spent a good chunk of the night meditating. But he had also lit himself on fire, and when his old teacher heard that, he was much less excited.

“Oh, you wanna know how metal feels, huh, Starlight-kun?” he asked, a vein on his forehead throbbing as he cracked his knuckles. “How about I shove you into the forge and hit you with a hammer a few times, huh?!”

To which Mercury elegantly replied “Glbrlhrghflrharbgh!” as his head was, indeed, shoved into the forge. 

It was a day full of exciting learning experiences.

- - -

At the end of the day, he still had not forged whatever it was that Yasashiku wanted him to make. He hit the metal with his rijn over and over, and as much as the old man grumbled, he did still try to teach Mercury to the best of his ability. 

He was building his foundation, even if it felt frustrating to hammer away at the same problem day after day. His “training sessions” - if one could call them that - continued. Lucia set him on fire, Yvette showed him swordplay, and when he thought he needed to know what an impact was like, he had Avery kick him.

The guildmaster was the least enthusiastic about it, actually. Avery had no particular desire to hurt Mercury, at all. In exchange, Marcel found the whole thing completely hilarious. He’d laugh, even as he healed Mercury after the fact, helping his regeneration along. 

During the nights, Mercury meditated on <Grief> and on heat. On the way they seemed to interact, what it meant to burn, really. How could he encompass all of those emotional meanings, and combine them with the mundanity of heat and burning and the way it chemically changed things?

Wasn’t it a little funny that fire was one of the fundamental elements, with air and earth and water when really it was much more of a process? When it was so much more complex? Like, sure, the sun gave off heat, but did it count as burning? He sighed, and let that thought go.

His thoughts were being too complex. What he needed to do wasn’t grasp all the intricacies and definitions of fire. Just its nature. Just the idea of consuming a thing to make something warm. How bothersome, though, that it just didn’t quite click for him.

Slowly, Mercury let it go, and focussed on some of his other Skills and abilities. The world was big, after all, and he had much to learn.

- - -

“Ruvah, I want to know what it feels like for metal to be quenched,” Mercury explained.

His friend, currently assuming a shape similar to him, a cat made from a shell of ice with liquid water swirling in between, gave him a long look, then laughed. “What a silly proposal!” she said. 

Lucia nodded. “I tried to tell him that, too. Aren’t things usually quenched in oil, too?” she noted.

“You can use water. It causes a different effect, making things harder but more brittle,” he said. 

“So what?” Ruvah asked. “The priestess-”

“Lucia,” Lucia said.

The water elemental nodded politely, and smiled. “Lucia will be our… forge, I suppose?”

“I am going to set him on fire, yes,” she readily admitted.

“And then… you want me to drown you?” Ruvah asked, tentatively.

“Exactly!” Mercury confirmed with a little too much enthusiasm. His friends eyes him with a little bit of worry. 

“... Right,” Ruvah said slowly, then turned to Lucia. “You are sure this is safe, yes?”

Lucia looked at her for a long moment. “Yeah, sure,” she eventually said. “Completely safe. I’ll slow roast him, don’t worry.”

Mercury smiled a little. Lucia may say it, but he also knew she’d been holding back. If she really, really tried, she could have done a lot more damage than some light burns on his skin. He was tough against elemental effects, but not nearly that tough, especially when he wasn’t using any of his abilities to mitigate the damage.

No, Lucia could certainly hurt him. But she hadn’t. All she’d been doing is… venting, a little, maybe? Was this how people at these levels interacted? If Zyl smacked a regular human on the back, did he just run the risk of snapping their spine? Maybe that was why Otto often hesitated to touch other people.

“I’ll be okay,” Mercury assured them both. “Really. This will help me.”

With a shrug, Lucia turned to Ruvah. She hummed, noncommittal, then promptly lit Mercury on fire. 

The fire caught on his fur, instantly lighting him up in a blaze. Lucia very casually fed it, a steady stream of golden flame from her palms licking Mercury’s fur. He got singed, then heated up.

His adapted body dealt with fire much better already. <Hydration> seemed to make somewhat permanent changes to him, and he was now rather flame resistant, but he still heated up all the same. Energy poured into him, until Mercury’s skin was hot enough to cook on. And then, he grew hotter still.

A minute passed, and by the end of it, he was taking on a subtle glow, his body radiating out thermal energy in the form of light. Hotter and hotter, still. Mercury only spent a brief moment in his own head joking about how hot he was, then rapidly moved on. He didn’t say it out loud, because filling his lungs with fire was a particularly unpleasant experience he had no desire to repeat.

For now, the pain simply dropped into <Still Mirror>.

More and more, he was burnt. His skin charred. His bones began to flake, and his health slowly sank. And still, his body adapted. He <Prevailed>. His wounds knitted closed as he willed them to, and his body grew ever warmer still. 

The sensations that came with it were bizarre, to say the least. His bones felt so malleable in the heat, that a simple casting of <Shift> could maybe entirely rearrange him. His skin and muscles seemed to struggle, their proteins tangling and saturating in the heat, his fat trying to melt, only to be kept in place by his Skills.

There was a physicality to this magic. To those Skills, and the way they focused on his body. The same kind of feeling he got from his stamina-based abilities. Something he hadn’t trained nearly as thoroughly as he ought to do. 

Was there a secret in that? Some kind of stamina aspect that he needed to master before understanding metal? He thought about it, letting <Clarity> guide him, but came up empty. In the time he took to consider it, the cobblestones started feeling just a little too soft underneath his feet. 

Ruvah, too, seemed to notice, and Mercury got to experience one of the most bizarre sensations he had ever gone through. Rapid cooling.

See, when things heat up, they expand. Mercury was made of flesh and blood, so his cells expanded quite a bit in the heat. And now, all of a sudden, there was a medium in contact with him that cooled him down, cooling his skin way faster than his internal organs.

His cells contracted, and some of those connections broke. He shrank. His bones solidified after a moment as the heat propagated through his body. His joints popped, and his skin cracked all over, like a porcelain figure. 

The water hissed furiously, as if enraged with Mercury’s state of being. Metal that was cooled with water also cooled quickly. That cooling, and the way it caused the metal to contract, was what introduced the stresses in its crystal lattice. 

Mercury was, decidedly, not made from a crystal lattice that could turn brittle, so in a few meaningful ways, he broke apart - and then a quick cast of <Shift> knitted him right back together. The cobblestones cracked from the temperature shift, and an enormous cloud of steam rose from his body.

Then, for a brief moment, it was a confused Lucia, a worried Ruvah, and a very wet cat standing on cracked pavement. Until Mercury burst out in laughter.

“Hah. Hahahaha!” he laughed, heartily. “That was,” he said, “without a doubt one of my silliest ideas ever. I should have more of those! How fun. How novel. It felt like I was kind of being pulled apart from the inside? But like, different. Like each of my bones had eaten a lemon and was cringing up! Yes. I felt like I’d been suffused with lemon.”

Wait.

Was there actually a connection there? Contraction meant an increase in density, and often an accompanying increase in hardness. So, in a lot of ways, was the contraction of muscles not something that turned them into something akin to metal? Or maybe each fibre was like it? There was also metal in his skeleton and-

“He’s having the look,” Ruvah noted. 

Lucia nodded, solemnly. “Give him a few minutes, I’m sure he’ll ask me to light him on fire again.”

- - -

“Light me on fire again!” Mercury yelled with excitement.

Ruvah grumbled, bringing out a single, silverish coin, and placing it in Lucia’s hand. A pale. Mercury tilted his head. “We made a bet,” Ruvah said. “I lost.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Lucia consoled him. Then, a stream of fire distracted him from his thoughts.

- - -

Evening eventually came, and Mercury still had not quite comprehended metal. It was kind of funny, really. He had never pushed himself like this before. Not on purpose, at least. But he felt a lot closer to both fire and metal, by now. Which was nice.

Also, he now knew that his body was rather more… malleable than it had any right to, maybe? Most people did not casually get heated to the point where stone started melting.

Well. Not that he could do it all at once. Lucia had very steadily increased the temperature of the fire, giving him a chance to grow used to the effect. Otherwise, he’d be in trouble. He also knew that her fire could bite a whole lot more if she focussed or used the rest of her Skills.

Still, even considering all of that. He could, reasonably, with enough prep, just maybe give swimming in lava a try. Which was a weird thought. Mercury was no stranger to adjusting his mindset to… less than human standards, but this one still was particularly difficult to adjust to.

Humans used fire, but were also scared of it. Getting burnt was, after all, a rather miserable experience. Maybe Mercury ought to embrace a little more of that to understand metal and fire? He’d been swallowing it all up with <Still Mirror>. But perhaps, that pain was part of the experience?

… Could he change his nervous system with <Shift> or <Hydration>? Just disable his sense of pain?

Hmmm. Something to think about, at least. Probably not something he’d do. Well, maybe soften or dull it? Vitality did that to a degree, and so did his Skills, though. At a certain point, pain didn’t make sense for some things, anymore, because it was just… fine? Not that big of a deal?

Like, sure, getting stabbed in his heart was unhealthy but it wouldn’t kill him. Probably. Maybe. Surely.

He decided to shelve that train of thought for now. Mercury gave a grand sigh, limping home. His prostheses were getting better, but since using ones made from ice gave him the most trouble, that’s exactly what he decided to do.

Also, having one of his zeyjn try to maintain a block of ice within Lucia’s flame was great practice for his freeform ice magic casting. He was getting better at that, by now, too, using the mana conversion circle to imprint the magic with an aspect, then weaving the rest himself.

More and more, the circle was starting to look a little bit like a crutch, though. There had to be easier ways to give the mana an aspect. He blinked.

Daydreaming was really a bit of a troublesome interest.

Giving a much smaller sigh, Mercury went home, made himself a small meal using a dozen ghost hands while meditating on the secrets of the universe with his other three minds, watered the plants in the garden, read a book to completion, then went to bed.

What an average day.

Chapter 138: A Tiger with Wings

White Tiger and the Avatar of Perception came crashing at me. Those were my enemies. Ann was fighting Eagleeye, Matt was duelling Black Swan, and Olivia and Chris were taking care of the small army Zinnic brought. 

My world shifted and changed. Eyes blossomed. The avatar unravelled like a flower, petals of grotesque pupils unfolding in a myriad kaleidoscope around me. The entire world became nothing but eyes, my own perception of it scrambled. My usual ability to see through reflective surfaces overloaded and failed, collapsing in the face of a million perspectives.

I felt veins strain in my eyes, my Qi rushing through me, reinforcing my body. White Tiger crashed into me a moment later. He was like a beam of light, disintegrating into immateriality before his spear came slamming at me.

Just in the nick of time, I brought Astraeus up to block, the blow heavy enough to send me flying before I caught myself on a platform of Qi. Parallel reality me stopped earlier, and I swapped places when White Tiger came to strike me again, teleporting to dodge.

A second passed, and my sense of direction was scrambled. Up and down were meaningless, so were back and forward. The world bent a hundred different ways, and it hurt to even look at. I gave a silent roar, unsealing my gateway.

More power poured into me. I called upon a second version of myself to appear, and she tore free from the gateway inside me. White Tiger apparently wasn’t expecting a third hand to claw its way out of my belly, holding a copy of Astraeus. His spear clanged against that of the other me, and I lashed out with my own, making him jump back.

A second hand, then a head and two legs followed in seconds, and then there were two of me. I channelled more Qi into my alternate world ability, and so did the other Fio. There were four worlds intersecting onto each other, now, two versions permanently realized, and two more as shadows of possibility.

“I need a better name,” my alternate self said, brushing some hair from her face. She had a grim look to her, veteran-like.

“Pick one quickly,” I said, sending a manifested spear of Qi at White Tiger, which he quickly deflected. The world twisted again, and I almost threw up, feeling my stomach twist.

“Ion,” she said. “Still part of our name, after all.”

Oh divines. Did all alternate versions of me have a terrible sense of humor?

That thought fell apart when I was forced to swap places with the parallel version of me, avoiding a lance of light. “Okay! Ion! Kill him!”

“It’ll be my pleasure,” she said, angrily. Then, she swapped places with her parallel version, suddenly standing in front of White Tiger. I used the Wanderer’s Key, and stepped through space, appearing behind him, then deflecting an invisible spear crafted from intent, while swinging my own back at him.

White Tiger was surrounded by them. A dozen illusions of blazing white light swarmed around him, massive spears acting like angry hornets, wielded by nothing but his will. He was powerful. Unending. Of a higher realm than me.

Qi spilled out of him like an endless waterfall. It stormed around us, trying to rip me apart, tearing at every single thing I manifested, and drawing it back into White Tiger. It was like a singularity, like a black hole, inescapable and inevitable. 

And then, there was Eyes. My idea of the world was scrambled yet again, a million pupils tracking my actions, and when I intended to step back, I moved forward. A millisecond later, Astraeus made up for my mistake, barely flinging my hand upwards, catching another attack. A tiny nick appeared on his blade, instantly mended by my Qi.

Matt flew by me, enveloped in a blinding storm of petals, a tornado of pink bigger than any he’d conjured before. Cass fought inside my mind, and my sense of direction righted itself. I stepped backwards, out of Tiger’s range, stabbing at his back as my fractal wings unfurled themselves.

But the old man was not without tricks. He, too, grew a pair of wings. They were radiant, feathery, looking divine. And then he grew a second and third pair.

They flapped once, just once, and the world exploded. White Tiger slammed into me a moment before I heard the supersonic boom caused by his movement. A torrent of burning light cascaded over my skin, burning and tearing like acid. I screamed a roar, coating myself with Qi, being ground up, before those wings flapped again.

Ion was his next target, being torn into by half a dozen blindingly bright weapons. She whirled and danced, summoning her will to create invisible constructs and fend him off, superimposed her alternate, healthy self over wounds, and then I stepped in, stabbing at the Tiger’s back.

He vanished again. [Above!!] Cass yelled in my ears.

I stepped through the air, and the Wanderer’s Key roared to life, tearing space. A moment later, an incinerating pillar of light slammed down where I just stood, eradicating part of the world. A shiver ran down my spine. The fear of death.

My [Precipitous Wings] flared to life, harder than ever before. A million thoughts raced through my head, and the same is true for Ion. She threw me a quick glance, then disappeared mid step. I looked at white Tiger, and my idea of space flipped again. I could barely see the blur of light as he flew at me.

Astraeus helped me again, bringing my hand up and deflecting a blow that should have killed me. My hand was left ringing, but I grabbed the empty air with my left, slamming an invisible spear towards the old man, only to have it disintegrated by the horrible light. My hand burned, my skin bubbling and lifting in flakes of ash.

I superimposed onto the damage, teleporting with another step. Ion appeared behind him, taking his attention again, and I stepped one more time, teleporting. I needed to find Eyes. The Avatar, not the constantly blooming constellation of Perception above me.

The power of the keeper made my head ring, and I tasted metal in my mouth. My eyes pulsed again, and I could feel the blood flowing through me. More Qi poured into my body, reinforcing it, and I stepped into the sky, sending a lance of Qi upwards.

It caught. One of the pupils got struck, and then popped like a balloon. My lance slammed through another half hundred of them, but then the hole in the sky closed again, more and more eyes blossoming where the others left.

They winked open in empty air like flowers unfurling in the early days of spring. It was horrifically beautiful. 

A lance of light struck my back, burning a hole as deep as my spine. I screamed, then superimposed an alternate version. That Fio hid, and was never hit, so her health transferred to me, and my worlds collapsed into one. 

White Tiger grinned. His face appeared before mine, teeth bared in a snarl. He’s as much of a battle maniac as Matt. His spear came towards my face, and I swapped places with Ion’s alternate reality. She’d just used it for a heal, so I appeared right on top of her, and we tumbled together in a heap of limbs, but a quick use of the Wanderer’s Key set us both upright, and we exchanged another flurry of blows with White Tiger.

His spears are burning hot, blazing fast, and almost entirely unavoidable. A cascade of them crashing into me, unendingly, while I could barely tell what the world is about, stuck with this horrible disorientation. My head pounded some more and Cass just barely fought off the effect before I got sent flying by another blow.

More blood in my mouth. More pain blossoming in my abdomen. Another mend, another version of me. Ion set off for Eyes, and White Tiger slammed into me one more time. “Come on, cub!” he roared, slamming his spear towards me. “Pierce the clouds! Defy the heavens! That is what cultivators do!”

“Fuck off, old man!” I spat, slamming my spear forward. He deflected the blow effortlessly, masterfully, and I felt space twist through my talents. I spun to the side, seeing a blazing tendril of incinerating light burn the air where my heart would have been. Another brush with death, another bare survival.

My wings flared with life, my spear sings through the air, crashing into that of the old man. His hair was blown back, showing me a feral grin. He opened his mouth, and a lance of light shot forward from there. I ducked, and it passed just over my head, making the air smell of burnt hair.

Not that that sensation lasted long when my idea of the world twists in on itself once more. Pain blossomed in three spots on my leg, spears of light piercing through them, leaving round holes. I superimposed myself another time, pushing the horror aside. 

Air hissed through my teeth, and the old man laughed. “You’re a monstrous cub,” he complimented. “But I am an old monster, too. Respect your elders!”

Another stab tore through the air, just barely avoided in the dance of death between us. White Tiger took the lead, forcing me back, and back, and back some more. My parallel selves were sent scampering away, hiding, hoping to live, to be used as expendable heals, or teleports to avoid instant death.

It’s not sustainable. It never was. My Qi was running out, declining precipitously. With every drop I spend, my wings flare a little brighter, they magnify all my other talents. Another stab went through my leg, and I could feel my resilience struggle against its limits. My stat increased, and another stab met just a little more resistance. 

Each second, each passing moment, the gap between us was closing. I just had to live. To last. To-

White Tiger’s wings flared brightly, and a stab came. My arm rose, but it was too slow, my Qi torn asunder by his power. It landed in my chest. My heart pierced, broken, shattered. 

My eyes snapped back open, my consciousness one with Ion’s. My gateway glowed, and another me crawled out of me. “Ion?” I asked.

“Not quite the same,” she said grimly. “Before you ask, you’re still Fio. Still just the same as ever. It’s weird and fucky, but trust me on this: You are yourself.”

The existential dread retreated for just a moment, and I nodded. “Right,” I say. 

“Let’s break Eyes while Tiger is confused,” Ion commanded, already shooting forward in a blaze of gold and glass.

I followed, just a second later, looking for the avatar of the keeper, when there’s a horribly bright flash and Ion turns to cinders. Tiger stands there, four pairs of wings behind his back. The glow from inside him was so bright, his skin looked translucent, blinding. Like an angel of death.

He laughed. “A monster of many shapes will turn to ashes too!” 

Another me crawled out of my chest. “Well, that one was short lived,” she commented. 

We both stepped to our parallel selves, letting the Tiger’s blaze pass between us. Then, once more, my perception twisted in on itself, painfully, worse than ever before. I could feel my wings flaring against the hopelessness, but for the first time, they didn’t feel like enough. 

Matt flew by me again, bloodied and hurt, his lips stained red. It hurt to see him like that, but the light in his eyes was still on. He trusted me. I needed to win. I needed to-

Black Swam appeared behind Matt, and caught sight of me. It took only a moment, only a look between her and the Tiger, and a torrent of dark wind slammed into me. I spun in the air, confused, disoriented, my world crunched in on itself. Astraeus seemed equally confused, and a blaring conflagration came towards me-

The world twisted one more time, and Ion got lanced through instead of me. Another version of her crawled out of my chest. “Huh,” she hummed. “Spared you a helping of horror, huh? Worth it,” she said, smiling grimly.

“Must I kill you two at once?!” White Tiger raged. “Fine then! I shall burn you all!”

Light spilled off of him in ever brightening powers, scintillating colours spilling forth from his skin. It was pure, incandescent, and world consuming. A fifth pair of wings grew from his back, and their feathered ends formed almost a perfect circle.

“Witness the skies, cubs!” he said. “See what it takes to defy the heavens!!”

And then, the time came. The light that spilled forth was much too strong, much too right. It was a simple difference in rank. I was endlessly powerful in wellspring, an absolute existence there, but I was, quite simply, not in the realm above. I was found wanting.

So, I did what all heroes do. I asked for help.

Gently, I reached open my inventory, and pulled out a single man. The ring on his finger turned to cinders and ashes as my hand touched him back.

[Rae Mullner has been added to your [Transference] network.]

My master’s eyes snapped open. The stasis, inflicted by the ring, vanished. In a single instant in time, his memories returned, easily mended back onto his wounded self, fully restored. My unsealed gateway synchronised his bodies across worlds in the same moment, and his cultivation, all at once, bloomed.

He reached out into the empty air, into his inventory, and withdrew a spear. My master looked at me with a casual smile, and swung it.

Not a drop of radiance touched my skin. Rae, the [Spear God], entered the battlefield.

Chapter 240: Idle Time, Barely Idling

Chapter 240: Idle Time, Barely Idling

Peace.

It was, in a lot of ways, a rather strange thing to adjust to after coming back from the fae realm. 

Day after day, Mercury would wake up. And there would be nothing. 

No threat to his life. No new event to attend to. No schemes being played to sabotage him. He just got to sleep, and experience a little bit of sunlight whenever he chose to. He’d go downstairs, have breakfast, and then do… nothing particularly special, really.

Oh, well, that may be underselling it. He did a lot of different things. Magic, first and foremost. It was kind of fun, after all. Mercury loved magic, he loved making things from it. Shadow kind of lended itself to that, amusingly.

Ice was nice and all, but it wasn’t exactly suited for weaving. That particular skill was one that came a little easier to Mercury now, given his experience with weaving dreams and his own <Thread>. But ice?

Frozen water didn’t like to bend, or make flexible strings. It was rigid and brittle. In a lot of ways, it was closer to metal than fibre. Ice was, after all, a rock. As silly as that sounded, Mercury remembered that bit from highschool geology. 

Compared to that, shadows were quite malleable once he knew how to ask them to be. It was a little funny, communicating with them, but he also understood them rather well. Better than he did water, even, according to his abilities. He could ask them to raise up, to become three dimensional, to warp and twist, or to form threads.

And that is exactly what he did. 

When he wanted to lay down, he wove hammocks of magical darkness, and occasionally, he even tried making his prostheses from it. He also tried doing the same with ice, making sure to practice that bit of magic, too, even if it felt a lot more clumsy due to his lacking skill and the unsuitable material.

But that was fine too. Mercury was in no hurry to be perfect. There were too many projects to tackle for that. Luckily for him, there was a lot of him to go around and practice.

And, as much as he liked lazing about, sleeping too much did get boring, especially when he wasn’t really tired. These days, he slept a few hours every few days, when he felt his minds were exhausted enough. And since there was no real reason not to, he usually kept his mind split, practicing different things.

The variety was fun. He tried making one prosthesis from shadow and another from ice, which went about as poorly as he would have imagined it to go, being complex to manage, and hard to do. But that was the fun of it.

He failed. Over and over, he failed at a lot of things. He practiced his forging with Yasashiku, and he made a lot of mistakes. Wasted energy in swings, hits that were off-center, quenching and tempering too long or too short, wrongly timing his swings, and so many more. He messed up his prostheses, his woven shadow hammock ripped and left him flailing to get his legs under him before he hit the floor, and sometimes he’d get a little too liberal with his use of <Training Weights> and fall flat on his face. 

And that, too, was just okay. Every time he failed, Mercury just got back up and tried again. He carved dozens, hundreds of runes, buying another book from his shop, for 5000 Gold, that contained a bunch more runes for him to learn. He had the money, after all, so he saw no reason not to spend it.

Really, the most awkward bit of time was when Zyl had to go back to his mansion in Unbar for a page or two, dealing with some general politicking. It meant that Mercury was temporarily in charge of the garden, which was a daunting prospect. No matter what, he couldn’t ruin all the work his boyfriend had put into it.

So, he got help!

“You want me to prune this?” Yvette asked, brushing the tip of her sword against an errant leaf. 

“Yes,” Mercury nodded readily. “You’re the most skilled Swordswoman I know.”

She gave him a small smile. “That’s far from being a good gardener, you know?”

That much he did know. However, the only actual gardener he knew was Kim, who was part of Mercury’s dream world and could decidedly not exist outside of that quite yet. Maybe Arber counted, too, but they were also difficult to get into this world. So Mercury had to turn to… local help.

“I understand,” he nodded. “So, can you do it or not?”

Yvette looked at the plant, then sighed. “Yes,” she said. “I can. But I don’t know how well.”

“Oh, worst case I’ll just blame you and Zyl will sort it out,” Mercury said calmly.

“... This shall be my most perfect work yet.”

Mercury smiled. “I am glad we came to such a clear understanding. Now, then. Show me.”

And Yvette did just that. The tension she’d felt from Zyl’s name slowly drained from her shoulders as she drew her sword. Her wings unfolded behind her back, and she took a deep breath. Then, her sword moved.

It wasn’t fast. In fact, Mercury would describe the motion as slow. Like a paintbrush going through a swamp. But it was, at the same time, inevitable. When her sword came into contact with the plant fibre, it did not slow down. It didn’t even hesitate.

Cells were separated from one another, cleanly split in a perfect cut as a single leaf and its stem fell to the ground. Yvette breathed out. “Which one next?”

Mercury listened to <Grass>, telling him what would be best for the plants. How to make them grow in ways that were both healthy and also beautiful. It was minor maintenance, so he did not want to overdo it. “That one,” he directed, pointing at it with the Cloudmatter Shawl.

That particular piece of clothing serves him well these days. The smoky tendrils could almost be used like hands, especially for lighter things, letting him split his mind and telekinesis further. It was a lot more… broad, he supposed, than his <Force of the Hecatoncheires>. Whenever he moved the shawl over a place, it could simply swallow items placed upon it.

Which made it great at swallowing up nails or other workpiece he made with Yasashiku, storing them temporarily to be deposited later, but also made it a great cleaning tool. If he wiped it over dirty dishes and willed it to absorb only the dirt, that’s exactly what it did, letting him easily dispose of the waste.

And, of course, it was also good at telling an overqualified swordswoman where to cut the plants. Yvette sighed a little, but did as asked, going through the leaves bit by bit until Lucia showed up.

“Mercury,” she greeted the mopaaw. “You asked my help?”

“Yes!” he said. “Thank you. Yvette and I are taking care of Zyl’s garden for a little while.”

“I can see that,” she noted. “It is a lovely project. To see him take to gardening was surprising, but Iris and I have spent many a pleasant evening here.”

“Then you’ll surely be happy to know that you can now contribute to it! You see, we’re producing some plant waste, and instead of composting it all, we were curious if you could burn some of it for ash for fertilizer?” he asked.

Lucia’s face fell just a little. “You called me here. To be your incinerator?”

“That’s exactly right,” Mercury said with a smile.

The priestess stared at him. “Well, the good news is that I am angry enough to light this whole place on fire right now, so I shouldn’t have too much trouble doing your little task.”

Iris patted her head a little. “There there,” she said. “Nothing humiliating about helping out our friends. I quite like gardening. Does that make me inferior in any way?”

“... No,” Lucia admitted begrudgingly. 

“See!” the ex-assassin clapped her hands excitedly. “Now, I’ll start gathering debris, and you prepare yourself for a big fire. The hotter the better!”

“Yes, love,” Lucia said with a small sigh, getting ready to do the task she’d been assigned.

Mercury was just a little curious. What was hotter? Zyl’s dragonfire or Lucia’s rage? 

A small smile found its way to his lips. What a silly thought. They were probably just hot in different ways. Well. Mercury knew he personally found Zyl hotter, but that was for an entirely different set of reasons…

“Where do I cut next?” Yvette asked.

The question tore Mercury from his thought, and he listened to the world again, pointing to another bit of the garden with his raiment. “There,” he said.

Again, her sword moved in that slow but inevitable way, slicing cleanly through.

“How are you doing that?” Mercury asked. 

“Hmmm?” she hummed curiously, moving her sword again. “Doing what?”

“The slow cuts.”

“Oh,” she said, then gave a small laugh. “It’s a technique for practice. All about controlling your pull and edge alignment. And a little bit of aura, of course.”

Iris snickered at that. “A little bit of aura, she says. As if it were that easy. If you wanna learn swordsmanship, Mercury, don’t start with that.”

Huh. What a curious question. Did he want to start learning swordsmanship? Well, maybe not swords. But he did have a cool thing going on with his javelins, and being able to wield twenty of them, if he added aura to the mix…

Yvette looked at him. “Oh no. I know that look in your eyes. No. Absolutely not.”

“C’mon Yvette,” Mercury chirped. “Just a little bit. A few rounds of sparring. Just-”

“No. I candidly refuse. If you want to learn, just watch closely,” she said, rolling her eyes just a little.

Usually, Mercury didn’t do that. By now, his gaze could feel like a rather severe weight for people who were not used to it. There were lighter versions of perceiving someone than witnessing them, after all. Most of the time, he just looked at them like a regular human. Sure, he might also see people’s auras and perceive their shadows, might have a sense for the water content and airflow through their bodies, might have some idea of their body temperature… but he didn’t see them.

Mercury took his ability to look through people, down into their truths, very seriously. It was to the point that he had developed a sense of when someone looked at him, something he thought quite a few people in the higher levels shared. But, well, since Yvette specifically invited him to, he didn’t feel there was much need to hesitate.

He sunk into ihn’ar, lazily breaking the veil of gold and iridescence. By now, he had done it so often it came easily, and he slid down that slope of perception so quickly that he felt something click into place. A little space for his mindset to sit.

Every time he used that strange ability to perceive of his, that little space grew more vast. He was building a network of understandings and knowledge - but he was also brushing up against the bounds of it. Mercury was starting to feel his understanding knock on the next veil he had to break. A shapeless, invisible wall at the very edge of his mind. Minds? Whatever.

He thought that part was most likely linked to his personal <Truth>. After all, a chunk of that <Truth> was that he was, in so many ways, <Limitless>. His old Skill, which had since evolved, but was forever part of <Truth>. He could feel that bit of it now, pressing against the wall in front of him. Letting him see it for what it was - thin and brittle.

Finding a veil was half of breaking through it. Mercury had found it, but now he needed to break it. That mostly meant identifying what it was about, then pushing through. Like how the golden veil had been about whether things were reasonable, and the iridescent one about whether they were real.

But, right now, that was not the focus. Right now, he was meant to watch Yvette swing her sword. So, he turned his eyes on her.

She paused. Glanced behind herself, at his eyes. He wasn’t <Unravelling> anything right now, but he was using all his other learning based Skills, so there was a similar, eerie depth to his eyes. Yvette gave a soft sight at that. “I should have known,” she said. “Well, not that it matters. Go ahead and look then.”

With another deep breath, she set her posture again and swung her sword. It moved glacially slow, now, even slower than before. Yet, when Mercury listened very, very closely, he heard a faint ringing sound. A tiny noise, somewhere between a hiss and a struck bell.

He looked closer. 

The air was being cut. It didn’t move out of the way as it did with most small things, but instead, Yvette was applying a faint pull, and a tiny string of aura, and the air split. Just drifted to the side, cut in half, before reforming. A tiny, near-perfect vacuum trailed behind her blade.

It came upon the plant and they came apart almost by themselves. Mercury tried to understand what was at play, but there were a hundred factors all at once. The way Yvette moved her body, the muscles involved, the way her elegant sword had been made, the way mana and stamina moved, and the way she applied Skills to the slash.

All of it was fascinating. And all of it was almost entirely impossible to recreate for him.

He didn’t have muscles that worked the same way. Maybe with <Shift> he could give himself a human arm or something, but recreating the whole chain of the body would be difficult. Still, he could learn a lot from the way she blended mana and stamina. 

A moment later, the cut was done, and then she made another, and another, and another. It became almost a game that they repeated, moving from plant to plant. Occasionally Iris would sweep by, grabbing the plant matter and tossing it into the incinerator Lucia was running.

“This is surprisingly fun,” she mumbled, begrudgingly.

“Just don’t burn down the bits of the garden we wanna keep,” Mercury chided.

“I would nev- oh, right, oops. Yes. I shall be more vigilant,” she corrected herself with a small cough, stomping out some fires in the nearby grass. The day went on some more after that.

- - - 

When afternoon rolled around, Mercury came to Yasashiku’s smithy. The Cloudmatter Shawl was shining with a faint yellow radiance, as if having absorbed some flame.

“You look a little singed, Starlight-kun,” the old man said with his arms crossed. 

Mercury looked at him, opened his mouth, and coughed up a cloud of ash. “Phaaaaaaaawk.”

At that, the old man nodded approvingly. “To acquaint oneself with fire is an amicable pursuit, my student,” he said. “But do beware of the dangers.”

“Lucia set on me fire,” Mercury said, after coughing up some more ash.

“I see,” his teacher said, nodding sagely. “A much less amicable pursuit.”

Another moment of Mercury staring passed silently, before the old man coughed awkwardly. “Well?” he asked. “Why did she set you on fire?”

“For telling her to watch her flames,” Mercury said.

“That does seem like it would do it. Well,” Yasashiku patted his leather apron. “Nothing to do about it. You’re rather resilient, so I’m sure you’ll be fine. Back to work!”

Mercury stared for a moment, then gave a long sigh that swiftly broke into an ashen cough. “Fine,” he said, stepping up to the forge. “Fine, let’s do this.”

And they did. First, they sourced some metal, taking scraps, putting them in a box and forging them together with heavy hammer strikes, until they were left with a homogenous blank. For once, it was bigger than anything Mercury had worked before.

He’d made nails, small ones, big ones, everything in between. This was not that. It was not that at all. “What are we making?” he asked.

“Patience,” Yasashiku instructed. “Let it appear in the work.”

Mercury rolled his eyes. “Fine, I’ll give it time. Just let me know where to hit.”

At that, his teacher smirked, just a little. “No,” he said. 

“No?” Mercury asked. “Then, what should I do…?”

With raised eyebrows, Yasashiku smirked, underneath that crow-mask of his. “Listen to the metal. Hear what it wants to be,” he said.

“I have literally no idea what that means,” Mercury said.

The old man nodded. “All things we learn are things we did not know before. You learnt to use a hammer. Now you learn to listen to metal. This piece?” He gestured at it with a lazy motion. “It screams what it wants to be. Any novice could tell. Forge it.”

Mercury looked at his teacher, putting on the mysterious act again, then gave a sigh. “Fine,” he said, bringing down his mind as a hammer onto the elongated block of metal. There was a ringing sound, and it deformed.

“Wrong,” Yasashiku commented.

The mopaaw struck again, varying his angle and direction. “Wrong.”

He struck one more time, changing things around. “Wrong.”

Mercury frowned. He was definitely missing something, but figuring out what it was that he was missing would take a lot of time. He racked his brain, and hit the block again, trying to “listen”. “Right,” Yasashiku commented.

Huh. Had there been something different this time? Mercury thought about it, then hit the block again, trying to reproduce it. “Wrong,” the old man commented. He pulled out a chair, sitting down and watching the mopaaw at work, striking the metal on the anvil. “Wrong. Wrong. Wrong again,” he said.

On and on that little game of theirs went.

A dozen wrong hits came before a single time that Mercury was deemed to have done things “correctly”. Each hit, he spent a moment thinking it over. The way it sounded, the way it felt. In a lot of ways, those were linked. The movement of the metal caused the sound. 

Hitting a softer part would create a dull sound. Hitting a harder part would be louder, creating more ringing. But those weren’t what he had to listen out for. What did it mean for metal to “want” to be something?

It didn’t really make sense at all. Metal had no desire, no wishes. A piece of steel could just as well become a knife as it could become a hammer. There were differences in thickness, in shape, in what kind of steel you would use for different parts… but at the end of the day, it was just metal.

A malleable lattice of atoms, loosely bonded together due to the way electrons interacted between them. One that could  bend and shift and solidify all over again. Mercury gave a soft sigh. That wasn’t the right track, not this time.

Thinking of the atomic composition was still a little bit too complex, even for him. Four zeyjn, <Oceanic Consciousness>, and his high level of <Multitasking> simply were not enough to account for the amount of atoms in a metal blank. He sighed, again. So, what was the right track, then?

What did Yasashiku think metal was?

No. That was the wrong question again. He struck the workpiece. “Wrong.”

Like clockwork, the answer came after his strike. And like clockwork, his strikes fell, hammer beat by hammer beat. He looked at the meal, saw it shift and reform. Listened to it, felt the sensation of it against the hammer of his mind. It wanted to be something? He had to coax that out of it?

“Wrong.”

Mercury placed the piece back in the forge, reheating it for a little while, then continued his work on it. “Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.” Strike by strike, he let the hammer fall. An hour ticked by, and he’d had to reset twice over, forging it into a blank once more.

Yasashiku just watched, arms crossed, only speaking when a step was in the right or wrong direction. It was exhausting, but Mercury still listened.

He struck the metal. “Right.” He furrowed his brow. Yeah, that one had felt right. He hit it again. “Wrong.”

Damn it. 

Mercury frowned, but kept working. This time, he thought about things before strikes. Instead of comparing previous moments, he looked at the piece, the sum of everything ever done to it, and thought about where it should end up. What was he making? What was it destined for?

He hit the piece, and it felt wrong. Yasashiku’s voice didn’t come after that. Mercury looked at the old man, and found him with his eyebrows raised. “Focus,” he said. “Listen to it.”

Another hammerblow. A little bit of slag fell to the side, off of the hot metal. It changed its shape a bit, but it was wrong. Mercury followed his intuition and hit a little differently the next time. No, it wasn’t his intuition at all. It was his <Intuition>.

The second strike felt right. The material crunched under the blow, deforming and changing shape, and it was correct. He heard it, and felt it. That it was correct.

Instead of one in twelve, his success rate went up. One in about seven hits was right. After another reset, he got it down to one in three. 

Nighttime came around. Hours had passed, and Yasashiku, eventually, held a hand over the workpiece. He smiled, faintly. “You’re getting it.”

Mercury nodded a little.

“But that’s no excuse for bothering others. Smithing is noisy. We’re calling it a day.”

“I can work inside little Pandora-” Mercury tried to protest, but Yasashiku cut him off.

“We’re calling it a day,” the old man said. “Don’t seek enlightenment in frenzied bursts. Learning is slow and steady. You will learn more tomorrow, and the day after. Put it down, let it settle.”

At that, the mopaaw bristled just a bit. He hated putting things down when they were this close to finished. And he could work it out. He didn’t even need to sleep anymore. So why did he have to stop now?

Then, the old man grabbed the glowing hot piece of metal with his hand, and took it off the anvil. “Put it down,” he repeated. “And you’ll gain more from it than one burst of growth.”

Mercury paused, considered it, then sighed. “Fine,” he said. “Fine.” In a lot of ways, he was an expert in how he learned. He had so many Skills dedicated to understanding things, and with each piece of knowledge he comprehended, it got a little easier. But that did not mean he was perfect.

And while indulging himself here would be fun, he did decide to drop it. There was, however, the hunger to know more inside him. The veil he had yet to break, the metal he had yet to understand, the idea to get along with fire…

Fire.

Slowly, a smile spread across Mercury’s lips. He knew what he’d spend the night with.