Matthias was a bit shocked when he hit the threshold to compress his mana and rise in rarity once more. His armies had not yet reached the enemy dungeons. He had not given rise to a new sapient species. He had not even defeated a powerful enemy. He had simply reached the threshold.

  Now that he was paying attention, his passive rate of mana gain was rather large. Since he had begun experimenting with using threads of influence to funnel chaotic mana inward, he had been gaining a slow but visible trickle of mana.

  “Looks like I can ascend rarities again,” he noted to his fairies.

  To call them fairies did not feel quite right anymore. They were both about four and a half feet tall and still developing physically. As a result, he had introduced them to the addiction that was shopping and fashion design. The two had hit the ground running. To be fair, they had not had much time with it, but they seemed to enjoy it.

  Lucy mostly wore open-backed sundresses. She liked dresses of all kinds, but the sundress was one of her favorites. Chloe had settled on jeans and open-backed turtlenecks.

  They were also going through physical changes as they grew. Lucy was becoming more avian. Her nails were growing harder, and her baby fat was melting away into lean muscle. Her feathery wings were now similar in coloration and design to those of a peacock. Her eyes glowed emerald green instead of celestial gold.

  Chloe, meanwhile, was taking on a more reptilian look. Her musculature was heavier, including along her wings. A few claws now grew from her wing knuckles. Her teeth were mostly fangs. Her pupils were slitted, and her sclera were yellow tinged with orange, though not quite gold. She also had patches of black and red scales along her forearms.

  “You two look so much different,” Matthias marveled as they landed near him.

  “And it is all your fault,” Chloe accused. “Do you even know how itchy shedding is?”

  “I kind of like my changes,” Lucy admitted.

  “You would,” Chloe teased, as if that were a bad thing.

  “You sure you’re all right?” Matthias asked, noting her higher-than-average level of snark.

  “I’m just hungry,” Chloe assured him. “I’ve been really hungry ever since we started growing. No matter how much I eat, I’m still hungry.”

  “Ah, good old hollow-leg syndrome,” Matthias teased.

  “What?” Chloe asked, narrowing her eyes.

  Matthias chuckled as he conjured breakfast burritos for her. Chloe dug into one the moment the smell hit her nose. Lucy made sure to snag one as well.

  “It’s a common thing with children about to hit maturity,” Matthias informed her. “Your body needs fuel to grow. That hunger is your body telling you that you don’t have enough yet.”

  Chloe just nodded in understanding as she greedily inhaled her food.

  “It will probably get worse once I increase my rarity,” Matthias continued.

  “Don’t hold back on our account,” Lucy added.

  “But this will be the second-highest rarity,” Matthias noted. “Is something special going to happen?”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Both his fairies shrugged.

  “You have broken every expectation we were given,” Chloe admitted before digging into her second bacon, egg, sausage, cheese, and hash brown burrito.

  Lucy nodded in agreement before adding, “Normally you would gain some new ability or greater augmentation, but you’ve already received such things in the past. We have no idea what will happen.”

  “Fine. I’ll just get it over with,” he sighed in an exasperated tone.

  Walking over to the bench beneath the willow tree, he entered a meditative pose before triggering his upgrade.

  A moment later, he felt as though his mind were ripped from his body and core. His thoughts did not merely fragment—his awareness condensed. He found himself suspended in a liminal space, and in that place he understood something instinctively:

  His mind was no longer flesh, nor light, nor mist.

  It was obsidian.

  A vast, seamless block of black glass, smooth and impenetrable, reflecting nothing and everything at once.

  Before him stretched myriad paths.

  The first path brushed against him—true divinity, an ascent into becoming a flawless avatar of his concept. The moment he turned to examine it, something struck him.

  A sharp crack echoed through the void.

  A sliver of obsidian sheared from him.

  He felt it.

  He felt the piece separate. He felt the edge where it had broken away. He felt the new surface exposed—sharper than before. The shard did not fall. It did not drift away. It simply remained where it had been severed, suspended in the dark.

  Pain lanced through him—not dull, not distant, but precise. Intimate.

  He rejected the path.

  Another presented itself: a darker road where he would enslave his concept and wield it like a chained beast. He shifted his awareness to study it.

  Another strike.

  Another fracture.

  More of him sheared away.

  Each evaluation was a blow. Each consideration a chisel. Each rejection the sound of stone being knapped by an unseen hand.

  The next path compressed the whole of his influence into his body, freeing him from the lands to which he was bound. He turned toward it.

  Crack.

  A larger shard this time.

  He felt the edges of himself grow keener, more defined. But he also felt the loss. The pieces remained scattered in stillness around him, and he was aware of every single one. He could feel their absence and their presence simultaneously.

  Another path offered to thrust his concept into his fairies—make them avatars and lighten his burden. He examined it.

  Crack.

  Another shard.

  He was becoming sharper. More precise. But smaller.

  The next would twist his concept toward one extreme or another—distill him into something purer, narrower, absolute.

  Crack.

  Pain flared so brightly he nearly lost cohesion. The sound of shearing obsidian reverberated endlessly through the void.

  He did not know how many paths he had considered.

  He did not know how many fragments of himself now floated in the dark.

  He only knew that every choice cost him something.

  He rejected path after path. Each one was either a step toward the heavens, a step toward the abyss, or a step toward abandoning the responsibility he had claimed.

  Crack.

  Crack.

  Crack.

  The obsidian block that was his mind was no longer seamless. Facets had formed where there had once been smoothness. Edges cut where there had once been breadth. He was being shaped by refusal.

  Ground down.

  Honed.

  Reduced.

  The pain intensified until it felt as though his very existence was being carved into a weapon. He remained aware of every fragment suspended around him. If he fractured too much more, would there be enough left to remain whole?

  Still, through the haze of agony, he sensed one more path.

  He turned toward it carefully.

  This one did not strike immediately.

  It did not demand ascension. It did not promise domination. It did not tempt him with escape.

  It was deeper. Quieter.

  It offered to entrust his concept to the spirit of the world itself—to ingrain it into the bones of creation. To let his idea become part of reality rather than a mandate imposed from above.

  He studied it, trembling. He could feel how thin he had become. How many edges now defined him. How many fragments hovered in silent orbit.

  He did not know how many more blows he could survive.

  He did not know how many more paths existed beyond this one.

  Part of him whispered that this too might be another form of surrender.

  Another way to relinquish control.

  But beneath the agony, beneath the ringing fractures and the scattered shards, there was something else.

  Relief.

  Not from weakness.

  From alignment.

  This path did not try to reshape him.

  It asked him to root.

  And he was not certain he could endure another strike.

  With what remained of his will—sharp, diminished, honed to a cutting edge—Matthias chose that path.

  There was no final crack.

  Instead, the obsidian dissolved.

  In the next moment, all he knew was darkness.