Nic vanished and reformed far away in a crackle of lightning. He could hear a scream of rage echoing across the plains, and he knew he'd be lucky to escape again. The old man would rip this place apart to find him. It was one thing to escape a mindless husk, another to leave a powerful, crafty opponent behind you.

Nic lifted up the scroll. "Sofia, now."

"Nicolas, I can't condone this, but- I can't let you die here either."

His left eye blazed and a thin crystalline scraping sound echoed painfully through his skull. The System's seal on the forbidden scroll began to twist and bend, runes flashing into existence and breaking apart seconds later, like the links of a chain being broken through. Moment by moment, the seal failed as pressure mounted in Nic’s skull. The sheer amount of mental energy being used as his left eye burned with unsustainable power…

It felt like a needle passing through his eye and into the meat of his brain.

But the runes were becoming clearer.

One by one, Nic shouted the words of the scroll, pushing aura against the failing seals. As his energies crept through, a light began to burn in his hands. It was golden like the dawn.

“... and walk this poor earth, feet stained in ash, until all roads become one road, until each horizon in each of the eight directions is a home…”

In the distance he could see the ghost of Li Blackleaf flying towards him. The smoke-ghost had become a ray of gray-black light that pushed the meadows apart, making the grass sea split apart as it shot like a comet after Nic.

“... and one man may be a devil but he is a devil only to himself, for his fate is his own making, and what is angelic cannot be cut from what is unrighteous and sinister…”

The words poured from his mouth until they acquired a rhythm, a relentless pace. It was as if the scroll was speaking through him. At the same time, the pull against his energy magnified, until the flow of aura from his fingertips into the scroll was like a raging river. Even if he’d wanted to, Nic couldn’t have stopped…

He was a vessel for the scroll’s magic as its words chanted themselves in his voice.

“Die, brat!” The old ghost shrieked out.

But it was too late.

As the final word crossed his lips, a wheel made of red flame and drifting clumps of ash materialized over head. It was divided into six segments, each carved with a vision of heaven or hell.

And from the center shot a ray of light that struck against Li Blackleaf’s outstretched hand and annihilated him. The last thing the old man said before he was scraped clean from existence was a small, mumbled ‘oh’ as if he’d finally remembered something he’d always known but sometimes forgotten.

Nic stared at the space where the old man had been. Behind him, the wheel dispersed on the winds.

There was finally silence.

The grass bent low as the wind turned.

With a sigh Nic tumbled back into the grass. “Sofia…”

“We need to do a full assessment, Nicolas. Activating that evil work could have changed any number of things, or imprinted you with a heretical Concept. Your soul is compromised…”

“I’m not healing…”

Sofia paused. It was true. His body was covered in brutal injuries which had been only half-healed when he’d begun to read the scroll. Now, they lingered. Blood dripped from his wrecked body.

“Maybe… This is curious, but maybe it’s simple aura exhaustion. You gave everything to that scroll. You might just not have enough left…”

“No.” Nic croaked. “Even if I burnt myself to the bone, there’d be something left.” He dragged in a breath, cycling the thin traces of natural energy down into his core to become Essence and aura. With all his will he tried to guide the aura to feed his regeneration, pushing it towards his injuries.

Nothing.

His cells refused to animate and multiply, his flesh refused to regrow itself. Something was in the way. Dark blockages that radiated a strange, numbing energy revealed themselves as he tried to manipulate his Essence within him.

Ash. Infused with death and suffering.

Nic sighed. Why did every evil power he encountered try to crawl into his skin without offering him dinner first? First the strange crystal growths of Lavhin’s experimental Sophonts. Then that cursed talisman Baby Boots had used on him. Now the ash of a heretical scripture.

He paused, and reached up.

“Oh…”

“Yes, I’m…” Sofia’s voice sounded strained. “Well, I’ll recover. And that’s what matters Nic. You’ve taken worse abuse, and I can pull my own weight…”

“You sound like me.” Nic scoffed.

The crystals had expanded again. His eye was effectively gone, although he could still see out of the dark, crystalline orb of blue that had replaced it. The sensation of being able to reach out and tap a finger against his own gaze without flinching was bizarre. Spikes and crude geometries of crystal spar extended all the way along his skull, forming a ridge, like a scar made of out of glittering blue stone.

There was a faint blue tone to his sight, now.

Nic groaned and rolled over, struggling to stand. A vulture had landed on a nearby tree and was eyeing him. That was his sign to leave before the locals decided to make a play against their weakened guest...

His legs felt weak underneath him. He stared at his hand and…

Diagrams unfolded. He blinked, but they remained. Strange information-runes and trajectory lines extended from his every movement. A flow of gold was visible beneath his skin.

“Is this…”

“This is how I see the world. It seems we’re sharing it, now.” Sofia sighed. “I just- I hope-”

Nic waited, flexing his fingers and watching in wonder as delicate lines and charts depicted the exact mechanics, his muscles appearing underneath his skin to show how they shifted. He pushed aura clumsily into the fist and threw a punch.

The charts went crooked. Dissatisfied scribbles writ themselves out around the blow. He was using…

“Twenty-seven percent efficiency?” Nic gawked.

“-I remember those things from Lavhin’s laboratories. If our minds get too close, the interference might drive us both mad in the end. Even accessing a fraction of the System Memory would crush you like a- a-”

Nic snapped back to reality at the growing panic in her voice. “Like an egg, Sofia. But I won’t. Whatever this is, we’ll figure out how to use it together…” He had to absolutely clench his jaw to make the next words even pass his lips. “And I promise to use it… responsibly…”

Even if saying that felt like ash in his mouth.

“Nicolas, I could swear I’ve heard that before. With mixed results. But- thank you.”

“Come on. It’s math. Am I going to break the rules so I can do extra math?” Nic said casually.

At that moment, the System spoke.

A Quest is Bestowed: “Shepherd the New Organism”

You have set foot on a Heretical path. However, your sins are few and can be forgiven. Retrieve the new life you have created; the humans of a nearby Settlement have adopted it as a pet. Guide its growth. Bring forth its potential.

Retrieve the variant lifeform (0/1)

Reward- Heretical Absolution, Healing Assistance

Failure Condition: Return to Winterhome without the lifeform

Punishment- Heretical Branding

Nic groaned slowly, letting his breath in a long ribbon of anger and frustration. Of course. He’d taken one step over the System’s hard lines, and rather than just smiting him down immediately…

It was using that transgression as an opportunity to strong-arm him into doing its dirty work. Somehow, he wasn’t in the least surprised. The only odd element was how much the System seemed to care about the little blob of ooze he’d created by accident.

“Sofia?”

“We really have no choice, Nicolas.”

“I know, but- why is the System such a dick?”

He grimaced and continued to walk, wearily placing one foot in front of the other.

---

Nic collapsed sometime near dawn. He had reached civilization.

A broad stone tower stuck out of the earth. Four long windmill blades extended from the peak, each a crimson sail carved with golden inscriptions. It turned in no wind he could feel, but drew constantly from the natural Essence of the world, drawing it down into a field of red poppies that expanded across the hills in a field of natural treasure.

A gathering array. It took energy and made medicines.

Nic saw people on the balcony above. Shadows moving about.

He didn’t have any more in him. For days into weeks he’d treated his body as a machine run on regenerative power. One scrape after another, his answer had been to take every iota of pain and grow back. There had been no true exhaustion. He had pushed forward without limits.

That part of Nic had been violently amputated. With the ash clogging his veins, it was all he could do to reach the base of the tower. “Inkspur…”

The little wyvern hopped onto his back.

“YES! I shall PROCLAIM YOUR DREAD PRESENCE…”

“Inkspur…” Nic choked out. “Just… say whatever it takes to keep me alive…”

And then he tumbled down into the dirt.

---

Nic awoke bound. At first, he thought his condition had worsened, and the ash had stolen his cultivation inside him. Even before he opened his eyes he could feel its cold presence under his skin.

But that wasn’t what was restraining him.

Thin vines of plant matter tied his arms together. Little blue flowers bloomed where the tendrils extending up his arms. Instantly, Nic tried to draw from his cultivation to rip them apart.

What he got was splitting pain as the roots shot down into his skin and pierced his meridians. The living matter drank the aura from his veins and more flowers bloomed, starting as waxy buds the color of open sky and blossoming into an electrifying shade of blue.

He groaned, and tried again, on pure strength. The flowers were wrapped around his bones. After a few seconds of painful trying, he’d only pulled out perhaps a millimeter of blood-drenched root, and the pain had made his eyes fill up with white flames.

For a long moment Nic sat slumped, breathing slowly, heavily, sweat running from his face.

“Cultivation map…”

His Essence would tell him how long he was asleep, and how bad the damage the flowers were doing was.

But it didn’t appear. Nothing happened.

“Cultivation map!”

Nothing.

“Sofia?”

And then he felt the silence.

It was a dead, numb void in his head where he was used to having a steady thrum of thoughts and emotions, brushing against his own like conversation from a distant room.

Sofia wasn’t there.

He looked down at the flowers binding him and raw information blossomed across his vision. Vertigo stung against the pit of his stomach. It was a sea of knowledge, vast and infinite, drowning him as he stared into the depths.

Nic’s head stung, a drill of pain moving in behind his crystal left eye.

“What…”

He looked up at his surroundings. Information runes continued to blossom, telling him about everything his eyes settled on. It was so overwhelming that he wasn’t actually learning anything, or seeing anything, he was just being drowned.

Clenching his eyes shut tight, Nic forced the runes out of his mind, raising walls to hold back the tide.

Only then could he open his eyes and see what surrounded him. Relief flooded his soul as the constant feed of information was cut off.

It was a cage of glass. The walls, ceiling, even the floor was made from panels of deep emerald glass set into a frame of iron. Sunlight fell through, creating a summery atmosphere. He was in a small cubicle of a room with a cot and a small pit to shit in.

There was no door. No bars.

He could simply walk out if he wished.

So he did.