The mana sea fell silent.
No wind. No ripples. Even Ruin didn’t move—only its tail flicked once, like the air had thickened around it.
The goddess stood with her back to Pyris, staring out into the horizon where the gold haze of the Mana Pool darkened toward sothing far more infinite. Then she spoke again—but this ti her voice was quiet. Purposeful.
"That’s enough about The One for now," she said, as if sensing the weight collapsing on Pyris’s shoulders.
"Though one cannot choose to beco an Endless, there are... exceptions. Rare individuals who forge a path toward that state. Not because they were born into it, but because the cosmos itself had no choice but to accept them."
Pyris tilted his head, the words catching in his throat.
"For example; Moon was not an Endless from the very beginning! She was just the Moon Goddess." the goddess continued. "Nor was Space. But over ti, through struggle, through sacrifice, through a journey unlike any other—they reached that threshold. And when they did..."
She paused, letting it sink in.
"...You make it so that the Existence realize it couldn’t function without you by wieving your laws into the core of the Existence. And so, they beca Endless."
Pyris swallowed. The idea that one could beco so essential that reality itself relied on their existence—that was the definition of transcending everything.
"But," she turned to him now, "that path is not one you can stumble upon. It must be walked. And every step on it changes you."
She held up a hand. "Tell , Pyris—have you ever heard of the Eternals?"
His mouth opened, then closed.
Already stunned by the flood of revelations, he could only nod. The air around him felt heavy—like he was walking through unseen threads of fate.
She smiled faintly. "Becoming an Eternal... that is the first step to reaching the realm of the Endless. It is the border between transcendence and necessity. And as of now—there is only one true Eternal close to reaching and touch the next level in the path of becoming an Endless."
Pyris’s heart pounded.
She stepped closer, and her voice beca sharper now, layered with divine command.
"To beco an Eternal... is not sothing any awakened, immortal or god, no matter how strong, can achieve casually. You must bend the pillars of Existence itself—Ti, Space, Soul, Void, Balance, Fate—almost each law the Endlesses represent. It is a path of becoming sothing the Existence cannot survive without. The thing that defines an Endless."
Then she swept her hand to the side.
A screen of translucent mana ford in front of them, expanding like a veil parting across reality itself. On it, flickered... him.
His death.
Pyris tensed. His eyes widened as he watched himself—the exact mont it happened. His body broken. Cold. Lifeless. The tistamp of the man announcing his death.
"You see..." the goddess murmured, "to beco an Eternal, one must make their soul Eternal. And there is only one way."
On the screen, just monts after the confirmation of his death, sothing strange happened.
Pyris leaned in.
His soul didn’t move on. It didn’t dissolve.
It split.
One half of it shimred, took on the threads of mory and choice—and reentered the cycle.
The other half?
It lingered.
Frozen. Observing. Rooted in the place between life and the death.
Pyris took a step back—not out of fear exactly, but sothing far more complicated. His chest tightened, not from dread, but a cocktail of awe, disbelief, and that nauseating sensation of watching yourself from outside your own story.
"...What is that?" he whispered.
The goddess didn’t answer right away.
She didn’t need to.
Because even as he watched the screen, he knew.
Sothing had happened at the mont of his death. Sothing no system had calculated. His soul had fractured, yet remained whole. Part of him had moved forward. The other part... had stayed behind.
Anchored.
Waiting.
"You’re not just on the path to becoming an Eternal, Pyris," she said softly.
"You’ve already started. I started it before I reircanated you here! I didn’t et or choose you by mistake or out of pity for the unfortunate soul you were, Pyris!"
She continued.
"Anyway, enough of that! To cultivate an Eternal Soul," the goddess began, her voice low and solemn, "you must first split your soul into three. Each fragnt then walks its own path, each one facing trials unique to its reality. And only when all three reach a state we call the Primus Core stage—only then—can they be rged into a single, perfected whole."
She raised her hand, and the mana screen before them flickered to life again, shifting scenes without needing command or question.
Before Pyris could even respond, he saw it.
Himself.
Or rather, the original Pyris Obsidian, still alive, still unawakened, seated in his room under dim light—ordinary, unaware. The mont felt eerily distant and yet bone-deep familiar. Then a presence entered—not through doors, not through space, but through existence itself. It moved like a force that had always been there and simply chose now to act.
In a single instant, Pyris’s soul was taken.
No struggle. No chaos. It was like watching ti inhale. The soul vanished, ripped from the body without resistance, and the body—empty, discarded—fell limp.
Then, just monts later, sothing else descended. Another soul.
His.
Or rather—the version of him from Earth. The soul that now stood here, inside this vast mana sea, staring at the truth of his own beginning.
The goddess let the scene hang for a mont before speaking again.
"They’re all the sa soul," she said calmly. "You call him the ’original Pyris’—which, I’ll admit, is a little funny, considering it’s all still you. Fragnted, yes. But not different."
She turned slightly, facing him with quiet seriousness. "There are three of you. One: the part of your soul that was taken and cast into the unknown—that which was originally born in this realm. Two: the soul that remains on Earth, still struggling, still human, still tethered to your first life. And three..."
Her gaze deepened, heavy with unspoken weight.
"...You. The Pyris who beca my Champion. And you’re the core soul of the thee. The center. The one that binds the others."
She stepped forward, and the screen faded into golden mist once more, dissolving into the sea like mory.
"Each of the three is walking a different path to reach the Primus Core stage. But yours... yours is the most important. If you fail—even if the others succeed—you will never beco an Eternal. Not truly. Because it is only the core soul that can rge them. You are the anchor. The nexus. The one who must hold the fragnts together when the ti cos."
Pyris’s heart thudded, not from fear, but from the sheer gravity of what was unfolding.
Then the goddess gave him a final truth—sharp and irrefutable.
"The reason I rejected you from the ga wasn’t because you lacked potential or wanted to play ga with you. It was because that challenge wasn’t ant for you. It was crafted for the Earthbound fragnt. He needed to face it."
She raised a finger, pointing not at him, but past him—toward sothing unseen.
"But in order for that challenge to an sothing... you had to register your Soul Essence into the ga system. You had to forge an absolute connection between you the Champion, the Core Soul... and the other one. Just like you ford the connection between the current you and the ’you’ you replaced in this realm. How?"
She lowered her hand.
"You did when you sat in this body."
And with that, the sea of mana pulsed—gentle but vast—as if reality itself had acknowledged the truth of her words.
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