Li took a moment to see the figure that looked like himself. His human self. Exactly identical, wearing his farmer's guild jacket, dress shirt, and pants, granting it a formal air. The only difference was, of course, that it was colored completely in black – the same shade of black as the water outside, contrasting it with the dull and light shades of grays around it.

"Does that form not encumber you within these boundaries?" said his copy, extending a cordial hand to Li to sit on the stool opposite of it. "Sit in comfort, for whatever form you choose, it is all the same."

Li paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts, then decided to entertain this thing, for he still had the gut feeling that all he wished to have and know lay here. He shifted back to his human form, and as he sat on the stool, he began to realize that he had never once stepped foot into the cottage in his true form.

"So, what are you?" asked Li.

"What am I?" repeated the clone, and it was then that Li realized it was exceedingly difficult to get a read on his copy's facial expressions. They were wreathed in flickering, ever moving shadows, almost rendering him coldly faceless. "I am you. And you are me."

"I've heard that before, and I'm beginning to want a clearer answer than that."

The copy sat up straighter. "Of course, you would. You have never liked being in the dark. Not when you were little, and not now when it comes to matters of knowledge.

Then let my words flow simply: I am your eldritch being manifested."

"And why do you have to exist?" said Li as he peered at the clone, feeling strangely disembodied talking to someone that he realized at an instinctive level was equally himself as he was now. "I know I have several sides to my power. My power as a forest guardian and, of course, my eldritch powers, but my guardian powers have never had to manifest another being like this."

"Why do I exist?" repeated the clone. "Because you wish me to."

"No, if anything, it's just an inconvenience," said Li. "I can sense it. You have the power that I want. Control over the power around us. If you are me, then you can yield that power to me."

"You do not desire that."

"I'm pretty sure I do."

"If you truly did, then I would not exist." The clone crossed its dark legs together and peered keenly at Li. "Let me elucidate. You believe you have a sense of self. That is your humanity. You wish to retain it because you know that others rely upon it.

The old man, and now, your newfound daughter. Family."

"The same was said to me about my forest divinity. But gradual exposure and experience with it has granted me far more control over my divine powers without having me lose any of my humanity. The same can be done here."

"You know that is untrue. Your forest spirit aids you greatly, sacrificing her own autonomy such that you may have yours. But it is true that you can have full reign over your forest spirit powers and still maintain your human sense of self ideation.

The same has been done by spirits and divinities many times in this world."

"Then I see no issues here. I do not need all this power now. Only a piece of it to shape to my will."

"That, I can do for you."

Li paused. "You will do that for me? If this is my power, should I not be doing this for myself?"

"Is that not what you have created me for?"

"I don't recall ever creating you."

"Recollection is ephemeral. In flux. Particularly within the confines of human comprehension and interpretation. But it will be sufficient for me to explain.

Think, and remember, the times you have used powers you deem 'eldritch'."

"I've been using my eldritch powers ever since I came to this new world," said Li. "And I haven't used them to the point I've been losing my humanity just yet. I can afford to use a little more."

"Yet the times you did use them, did you not feel a sensation? A creeping, foreign sensation icily crawling through your being? The thrill of destruction, of enforcing the ultimatum of chaos upon matter – an ultimatum that you interpreted as bloodlust? As cruelty?"

"And that bloodlust and cruelty passed because I knew to moderate my usage of those spells," countered Li. "I never let it fundamentally change who I am."

"No, you did not. By creating me." The clone tapped the back of its head. "All that which you thought was cruelty, bloodlust, coldness, your human sense of self understood was foreign, and thus instinctively and subconsciously rejected, shunting it all away here.

In this formless, infinite expanse between the Inner and Outer, you, while planting seeds upon firm soil, also planted seeds here. But only was it when you first came to realization of this space's existence, of realization that you were something beyond, that I was birthed.

Birthed for Order."

"See, that also makes little sense to me," countered Li. "When I made that decision for Order, it was because I knew there was power within me, around me, and I wanted to use it to help. That was me, my human self, not anything else.

If my human understanding is so limited, then how can it make a decision like that? Influence the power that you feel is forbidden from me? Even create you who is trying to deny me now?"

"Because your human self is still a sense of self. In some intrinsic, albeit infinitely miniscule manner, it does represent your being. And you, fundamentally, are a being of Order. Creation. You may consider your decision to have been choice, but, in better terms, it is more an affirmation.

This does not mean that the entirety of your human being is compatible with the flow of creation around you. It merely means that the absolute, bare essence - the universal constant of your being which favors Order that exists regardless of your form - may imbibe these waters.

Should you choose to fully assimilate with this power, you must shed all that which is not Order. That heralds many things, but to you, the only gate that closes you from these waters is your sense of humanity.

You may open that gate, but the you of now wishes not to make that decision."

Li thought about this situation for a few more seconds, connecting dots here and there in this abstruse conversation.

"In essence," concluded Li. "You are what Iona is to me for my divinity. A sort of 'Root' for this eldritch power."

"A roughly apt comparison, but you must remember, I am still you. When you granted the little hero power, that was me. But I am you. Our wills are intertwined. They may seem separate now, but one day, they shall merge, and 'we' will become 'I'."

"I…have an idea of what you mean," said Li, knowing that as time passed, time long enough to be incomprehensible to his human self, time long enough where all that he held dear to him had faded, he would inevitably merge with this existence and become something more.

Something cosmic in scale. But that was a tale far, far in the future. What mattered now was what he was here for in the first place: a cure to the eldritch rot, and it seemed he would not have issues getting it.

"Then I shall create what you desire," said the clone, as if reading Li's mind. It opened up its palm, and a little droplet of water so small that it would have been invisible to the naked human eye appeared hovering above. "A cure to the new demon rot. I will create the spell."

"A spell?" wondered Li. "I can use my divinity as if it is secondhand nature to me. I am assuming this is not the same."

"You assume correctly. The primordial power of the intermediary must be fashioned into a form comprehensible and familiar to you. Spells."

"Then," theorized Li. "Could I not wish for any number of spells of any power and ability?"

"You could, for the power around us is that of infinity. The power of Order and Chaos combined. That which gives substance to matter, shape to space, temporality to time.

That which extends across the cosmic, across swathes of stars, across galaxies that spin in cycles unfathomable to any mortal perception. That which extends even beyond the boundaries of the observable, to the Intermediary, to even the Outer," said the clone. "But the more power you grant me to fashion and shape, the more I may take over your being. The more we become one."

"This is sounding more and more like a parasitical relationship."

"Not so, for you are me, and I am you. Consider me a limiter. Power that is within your bounds, I may fashion. Spells of the caliber which you possess now, for example, I may create. But they will follow all the rules which you have tied to the conception of 'spells'.

They may exhaust your mana. Require significant time to channel. Require resources, sacrifices. And so on and so forth. But power that is outside of the boundaries of your human self, power that warps the laws of existence, of matter, space, and time freely, are gated from you.

A gate, I must remind you, that is of your own creation. A gate represented by myself."

"I am beginning to understand, and I don't need power of that scale. I already have more than enough as is," said Li. "When the time comes and I feel I am ready to become something more, when I know nobody is relying on myself as I am now, I will open this gate you speak of myself.

For now, make me that spell. I'll tell you specifications about what I want."

"Very well," said the clone. "And know this: you will never be forced to break that gate. You will never be compelled against your will. To pass through it and become something beyond, you will do it through your own complete volition."