Ti didn’t quite unfreeze at the sudden completion of my Path Evolution, but it certainly wavered.
Energy, white and gold and burning red, cracked across my body. Through the peripherals of my immobile eyes, I noted the fractures spreading across my skin, bleeding virulent power.
The mana cores within broke free from the shackles of entrapped ti. Now, they didn’t just spin. They grew. I could feel them not just touching, but overlapping with each other, pushing past and through each other. Right. Why would ethereal constructs like mana cores ever need to obey the limits of physical space-ti?
My soul was now afire too. Growing, cracking, lting and reforming, annealing into a new form that radiated with no less intensity than the deford part-god I had been seeking to Sacrifice.
It was a good thing ti was frozen, then. I wanted to scream. I wanted to claw my fingers into every fissure popping up on my skin and close them with my bare fingers before I bled out all of my vitality. Obviously, I did nothing of the sort because I was forced into stillness by the true appearance of a god.
You will survive, the voice said. Fate wills it so. I will it so. And so does your own indomitability.
If there had been any difficulty believing I was conversing with a god, that all evaporated when the effects of my little chat combined with the sensations of my Path Evolution. Despite ti being frozen over, every syllable I understood from this otherworldly being was breaking a piece of . Every word drove a burning spark that hollowed out my spirit and my body.
Every mont I remained in his presence, I could feel that sa, panicky sensation again. The one that made feel like my soul was about to blow up and blow out of the body that caged it in.
And yet, I didn’t dare think about severing the connection.
I tried to moor myself into the present by recalling that there was another Sacrifice reward I hadn’t seen yet. Sothing about ranking up a new Aspect. So where was it?
Eventually, after the energy had run its course, I could manage to project my thoughts again. I desperately wanted to see—to properly feel—the effects of my new Path. But I’d have to wait, clearly.
You said you heard . I couldn’t help but feel incredulous. If this was Arl, if this was the actual sun god I was speaking to and not so weird hallucination or trick… Why now? Why not when all the tis I’ve—we’ve—spent praying to you. Why not when we did Sacrifices and Rituals in your na? Why not when we inducted others to follow you? Why now?
You seek another answer before I can answer your first query? Even though you know why?
I remained silent. The god was right. I did know why. The little outburst had been unbecomingly emotional. I couldn’t help it, even though I knew this ritual that the Vaunted had perford had created a link that nothing our little prayers and offerings could hope to match.
It was just weirdly frustrating. I was the cultist here. We had dedicated ourselves to Arl, the sun god, for as long as I could rember.
Sure, Arl wasn’t incorrect in calling a disbelieving devotee. I really had never believed that a Banished God could be… un-banished. I had been sure that the Vaunted’s ritual, no matter how powerful and groundbreaking, would still fail in its ultimate goal. And it had.
Until now.
Think of it this way, Arl said. The missing link, the final piece that the maiden of ice and fire lacked, was you. Until now.
I swallowed. And now…
Now, nothing. Now that your ascension has taken its first infantile step, I have but one thing left. I ca to rely tell you that your Fate isn’t done yet. You cannot rest. Not when you emulate .
I wanted to say that I wasn’t emulating anyone. That I was on my own Path, which had been shaped by a combination of my efforts and my circumstances, and even if it appeared to lead to the sa kind of existence as this god I was speaking with, then he was just mistaken. My destiny was mine to carve. No matter who or what thought I emulated them.
But still. I couldn’t just let this go. I was speaking with a literal god for crying out loud, probably the first person to do so in who knew how long. There’s so much I want to ask…
Knowing none of which would truly help you, the voice assured. Faith. That is all you need. You already possess a great deal of it. Do not squander it.
Are you in the real Beyond now? I couldn’t help it. Since this was an opportunity I didn’t know if I’d ever get again, my thoughts just spilled out like upending a glass of water. Is it the Ascendants’ Monuntal Opus that’s stopping you and the other gods from returning? You also blessed , didn’t you? When I was Sacrificed, when I got that notification that it turned into Divine Blessing, that was you, wasn’t it? But no, the Weave is by the Ascendants and—
Damn god interrupted before I was done. Fate calls on you, Ross Moreland. You have not once ignored its summons. Do not dither now.
Ti was lting back into reality again, slowly starting to flow once more. It was like seeing everything stuck in cryostasis slowly co back to life. Including my own body.
Fate… I really wanted to shake my head, then, but it didn’t happen. I wasn’t free yet. I can’t believe in sothing like that. Everything I’ve done, so much of everything I’ve accomplished, it was because of my own efforts. My own choices. Fate diminishes that, even though I know so much has happened that was beyond my ability to control or influence.
You are thinking about it incorrectly. Fate is not sothing that has to exist. It is not an overarching system driving the world, much like this Weave of yours. It is rely a vessel of faith, for faith is sothing we all need. Think, for a mont, how much and in what you already put your faith in…
I didn’t need to think. Faith was an integral part of my daily life. I had faith in myself, in my friends, in everything I had worked towards. This Divine Incarnation… This isn’t what my Path was supposed to evolve into, was it?
Because I had suspected sothing like Path of the Prophet or sothing along those lines, maybe with an added modifier to make it special, like how Auric Hierophant was different from just Hierophant.
But I had skipped that stage. I had gone from just another cultist, a follower of my god, to the literal incarnation of the deity in so sense.
It made wonder about the consequences. Se-Vigilance had warned that I’d be facing trouble if I stuck to the Path I was on, if the hints of godhood I’d been receiving for months on end materialized into actual deification. That was exactly what had happened. I was a godly being incarnate, if I took my Path’s na literally.
Which was bad because there was a Paragon outside of this frozen ti who clearly had a thing against any sort of divine manifestation, fake or otherwise. It wasn’t fake any longer if I ca out with my new Path. He’d start targeting the instant he noticed the newfound power fountaining out of my spirit.
You know as well as I that this was inevitable, Arl said. It is ti you embraced it. It is ti you understood what it ans to be Beyond the Weave.
Beyond the Weave… I tried using my Ascension Charge on my evolved Path. I was supposed to be able to do that. Every new Weave-property I received was capable of being ascended, as I had discovered. But this ti, my Path didn’t accept it. My Ascension Charge just wouldn’t work on a Path that had been influenced by a god directly.
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But Path with “Incarnation” in the title wasn’t without concerns, however.
If this really is Beyond the Weave, I said. Then am I dependent on you, now? Are you going to… influence ? Return to the world through ?
Arl didn’t answer imdiately, which didn’t help my current concerns.
Your Path is yours to tread, the god said. It has been so for ti immorial. It is a fundantal fabric of reality that cannot be impacted in the manner you fear. But your concern isn’t baseless. For as the na suggests, there is a deeper connection between you and now, for better or ill.
That’s a whole lot of nothing.
This may not be satisfying to hear, but the truth is that the connection goes both ways. Whatever influence I may bear on you… is sothing you can grasp for yourself and use to influence back in turn. In that way, there is a balance. One you must simply learn to navigate and control as well as you can.
Those were the last words I heard. Influence. I’d have to see what that resulted in. At the very least, it was reassuring to hear I could influence Arl back in turn. If it was true.
But true power did have a very nice ring to it. It just would have been nicer if I had received sothing more specific to go off of. As it was, as ti flowed again like it was supposed to, the world slamd back into .
I scread, the pent-up agony that ti had frozen now ricocheting through my mind, body, and soul all at once. Every single ability I had tried to help bear it. Reverence Everlife trying to instil a sense of calm, Mana Heal trying to find external mana to patch up my wounds, and so on.
But this wasn’t the pain of injuries. This wasn’t a torturous wound I needed to heal. This was a part of now.
I now had a power burning like nothing else I had experienced before. There was a constant lding and overlapping of my cores that fed the strange divine wildfire that my new Path had given birth to within my spirit.
Through tear-blurred eyes, I managed to look down at myself only to see that the cracks and fissures from earlier were papering over slowly but surely. I was bloodied, but even the blood itself was vaporizing away. My body wasn’t broken so much as reforming and reintegrating to accept the new fundantality of my transcending existence. Shit. Was I becoming a god for real?
I could feel the fountaining divinity frothing within like sothing alive. Like it wanted out of , as though my body was still nothing more than a cage keeping it trapped.
There was sothing about my newfound divinity that I hadn’t fully grasped. A piece of my now boundless potential that I hadn’t yet actualized. Beyond the Weave. How would I even begin to be sothing like that? How could I direct the erupting power inside in that direction?
The rest of the world soon called on my attention.
Ti had frozen so everything that should have happened while I had been stuck… hadn’t. Instead, I was just in ti to observe just how the Vaunted was stopping the Paragon.
Strangely enough, with the help of another Paragon.
I could only stare as a warp deford space itself to create a black, spatial rent. Shubratha stepped out from within its depths.
“You!” The first Paragon, the one with the twisting and contorting blue tattoos, seed to be trembling. “Why are you associating with these upstarts? Wait, no, don’t answer that. I should have known from the beginning you’d interfere. First, you summon that alien behind . Now you’re directly helping these upstarts? Have you forgotten who you are?”
“Enough, Shik’shikan,” he said.
He almost sounded weary. Almost sounded like I could empathize with him, except for the very real fact that he had brought to Epheroth against my will.
“Enough?” Shik’shikan said, shaking his head incredulously. “This is our duty. You can’t just quit after saying enough.”
“The children of this world need to be allowed to make of it what they will. I am tired and no longer willing to continue the work of those who’ve left us behind long ago.”
Shik’shikan seed to be literally shaking where he floated. When he spoke again, sothing changed, though I couldn’t pick up on it at first. “A thousand years. That’s how long we’ve worked to keep this. That’s how long we’ve maintained this world in the equilibrium it needs to hold. And now, you’re willing to throw it all away at a whim?”
“Allow to ask you this—when is it appropriate for one to abandon a futile effort?”
“It isn’t futile! We have the power—”
“You have it, for now. How many of us have fallen by the wayside over the decades and centuries? How many have died, disappeared, surrendered? Do you even know, Shik’shikan?”
The blue tattoos on his body looked like they were about to co alive and attack the other Paragon. “I don’t need to concern myself with weaklings. When you have power, you hold on to it. When you have power, you have responsibilities you cannot shirk. Isn’t that right, godling?”
I stared at him. Why in the Pits was he asking ? “I agree that power begets responsibility—”
“See!”
“—but I’m with the gangster wizard here.”
Shubratha stared at . “The what now?”
“You cannot be serious, godling.” Shik’shikan turned his glare to . “I’m literally letting you live despite you violating everything I’m sworn to stop. And you dare to take a stand against the truth this world has upheld for over a millennium?”
“The truth doesn’t have to be sothing set in stone. What was true once can beco untrue pretty easily as things change. And things have changed. You’ve said it yourself—it’s been a thousand years. Do you really think you can stop the flow of ti forever?”
“Enough!”
I gritted my teeth. The other Paragon’s appearance had made the situation even more precarious.
But then, Shubratha floated forward. “Perhaps we would do well to discuss matters without prying ears and eyes.”
I thought he ant all of us for a second, but no, his eyes were fixed entirely on Shik’shikan. The tattooed Paragon had stiffened, now looking at his counterpart with growing wariness. I didn’t bla him one bit.
“What—”
Space warped. Monochro mana spiralled faster than my eyes could properly see them, before my brain could realize that Shubratha was casting his Aspect. It humbled a bit that even a fellow Paragon wasn’t fast enough to react to that. Unless Shik’shikan was allowing it to happen.
But as the world twisted around the Paragons, as the Aspect I had seen Cerea use so often now manifested with far greater potency than I was aware of, I found myself just listening for a second.
“Don’t break the world,” Shubratha said. “Like we did.”
A strange silence descended on us now that the Paragons were just gone. The Vaunted and I floated in opposite ends of this broken, shattering realm that was a facsimile of the Beyond.
I couldn’t really pick out what I felt just then. Too many emotions were calling to at once. The continuous surge of transforming power, the weirdness of not just seeing two all-powerful beings argue but to also feel tainted at how I had been brought to Epheroth by the sa person who was supporting this mad Vaunted’s plan.
“You’re looking triumphant,” I said. “For soone whose god was just Sacrificed away.”
She shook her head in smirking denial. “You’re still under the assumption that what you’ve done has actually stopped this.”
“It has. And when I stop you for good, it’s going to end once and for all.”
“Ha! Stop ?” She raised her hand in a challenging gesture. “Then let us end this. The world crumbles around us. There exists nothing of significance beyond this… Beyond.”
I shook my head. “As if. You’ve been in a corner from the very beginning. Your plan is crackpot. Your whole schtick is performing so crazy ritual to summon a reflection of a god, nothing more. And when that failed, then what?”
“I would—”
“You would do nothing. You’d be stopped before you could take your stupidity too far outside this little pocket dinsion of yours. Zairgon is a lot stronger and more resilient than you give it credit. Whatever powers you’ve got, you think it’s enough to stop a Councillor? Don’t make laugh. It’s not even enough to stop !”
She had looked pissed off that I had interrupted her. Now, after telling her that she was no match for , the Vaunted was positively apoplectic.
“When I kill you,” she said with vicious relish. “I’ll be sure to make you choke on every filthy sound your Pits-cursed mouth has made till now. You’re all talk and no true power whatsoever. And I’ll prove it by crushing you to dust.”
I closed my eyes for a mont. My Path Evolution was still making my spirit go haywire. Now that I was back and ti was flowing normally again, I found the skin of my arm turning into burning gold, the crackle of energy making feel like I could reconstruct this whole other world I had just destroyed with Sacrifice.
But that wasn’t what this power was for. Divine Incarnation. If I had really talked with Arl, if a god had touched my soul to complete my Path Evolution sohow, then I knew that all I really needed to do was impose my will on the boundless energy I had been granted.
I needed to emulate the power I knew was growing within , an endless engine of potential forcing out the eternity of a shining star.
[ Aspect Unlocked!
Potency consud. Potential acknowledged. Mana connection established. Requisite Paths discovered: Paths of Divine Incarnation and Starforged Firmant.
New Aspect: Constellation [Iron I] ]
[ Rank Up!
Transfused Divine Essence raises targeted Aspect’s rank. Your Constellation Aspect has risen by thirty Ranks.
Constellation: Opal I ]
I breathed in a hard mix of air and the collapsing energy of the Beyond. Constellation. Divine Incarnation. Gods and Ascendants and Paragons. It all built a very clear picture of what I needed from my newest Aspect. It gave a very good idea of what it was capable of.
There was still an Ascension Charge left, but I wasn’t using it just yet. Even if I had gained an Aspect, there was one thing left. I still needed a proper Affix to control my newest Aspect.
Good thing I knew what it was I required.
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