Lou’s body lay in a spidersilk hammock, alongside the others. Not quite dead; it was a miracle what healing could do. The doctor labored over his body, drawing out the poisons one by one. His fingers dipped through the skin like water; he drew out small, dark kernels of toxic material, his fingers turning black where he touched them.

But the damage done was past what the spiders’ healing could do.

“Soul venom.” The matriarch said to Nic, via Inkspur’s translation. “Very unpleasant stuff. Made by refining the anger of dead spirits…”

“It cannot destroy a soul. Very difficult to destroy a soul. But it has severed the connection between body and spirit. He will not move again. His eyes see, his lungs work, but nothing is at home.”

“Can it be fixed?” Nic was too the point.

His concern in coming here was Redjaw. The beast had been injured deeply defending him; his tough, resilient flesh was scarred with dozens of overlapping cuts, each reaching deep, into the organs and the viscera. Spiders clambered around him now, applying their healing venom directly to the wounds.

“Difficult. Difficult.” The matriarch muttered. “In my past life, when I was a renegade, I had a companion who used similar poisons. They were the hardest for the rich to heal; no amount of medicines or doctors could do so.”

“But…”

“One family, they found a way to restore their poisoned heir; they paid a cultivator of some power to construct a new body. One that was not crippled. The soul, they transferred. The boy was saved, although, his body was forever one of steel and glass…”

“Then there is something I can do.” Nic sighed. He’d been keeping the Samsara Trees secret; other factions would make a point of trying to conquer Winterhome over that level of treasure. The trees could cure all manner of ailments, and for the mortal races who couldn’t evolve, they offered a path towards stealing the strengths of monster-kind, infusing the blood and power of the beasts into a humanoid body.

It would actually be a waste for Nic or his familiars to use them personally. They would evolve on their own, after all, and whatever body they achieved via the Samsara Trees would someday be left behind; it was humans who truly needed to find ways to transform their bodies.

Nic wondered if the System could tell he was using Sula’s stardust, luck that had been ‘borrowed’ from other chosen…

It had given him a Jade tier reward, all right, but not one that suited him…

“You can heal him?” The matriarch asked, her eight eyes flickering in surprise.

“Mm. Take him to the core of the temple. Sofia will let the golems know to let you past. She’ll explain what to do from there…” Taking out his tiger-tooth dagger, he cut himself along the palm, soaking the point in the blood that welled from the cut. “And you’ll need this…”

In the end, it was all he could do. Lou hadn’t started out on Nic’s radar. He wasn’t an exemplary fighter or a natural talent. But he was skilled at organizing his team, and always knew where to place himself to defend them, where they were weak and needed to be reinforced. He moved on the battlefield with a sure confidence that better technical fighters lacked once the stakes were real.

He’d earned his Secondary Shard in battle.

And he’d faced down one of the dhampir assassins, apparently alone. They’d been watching, somehow. They targeted the three Nic had favored.

As best Nic could tell, Lou had been able to force feed his assassin a talisman at close range, detonating it before falling unconscious.

Nic couldn’t let him die if it could be helped. Coldly withholding resources…

He’d already have to deal with Nylea. Once she found out about this, she’d know he could have helped her with her curse, and chose to keep that secret…

He let out a sigh.

The atmosphere in the hospital was dark. They had been overburdened only an hour ago, the beds full of groaning patients, the air full of the stink of blood. Now most of the patients had slipped away, leaving only a few sleeping wounded and the lingering stench…

Nic patted Redjaw on the head before he left. The wounds were bad, but his constitution let him shrug off the poison. Lindwurm’s reveled in the noxious and the foul.

Sitting outside, Nic took out Sula’s last gift. She’d given him the Stardust, the bones of a city beast, and a pouch of tobacco. He sprinkled a pinch of the dry, amber-brown twists into a rolling paper and rolled it into a smoke.

The lights of Winterhome blazed, reflected on the water among the stars of the night.

Mist drifted over the water. Out of the forest stepped Ettrai, the strange deer-beast that spoke for the monsters.

“You did good.” Nic said, without turning. The handrolled cigarette flared slightly as he breathed in. “We probably would’ve lost the town without you leading the charge.”

The smoke did very little for him; his monstrous body was too strong.

And smoking was a dumb idea anyway, since his entire strength was based on clear, controlled breathing. He took another puff and stubbed it out. What he’d wanted was more the idea of a smoke, anyway.

“As did you. Felling a D-Class monster from a rank below, make no mistake. That’s impressive. But you’ll be heading off your own soon, I imagine. You can only keep sharp by cutting forward. Who will lead when you’re left behind, I wonder.”

“Eventually? Tarquin. I’m going to take him adventuring with me for a while, but I want him to take over the city in the end. And I imagine Sofia will always be making twice as many decisions as whoever’s supposed to be in charge.” He let her suffer for a moment before adding… “But I guess you could try running things for a bit. That’s what you want, right?”

“That would be correct. I want power, and a share of the wealth a city will bring.”

Nic rolled his eyes. At least she was honest…

He preferred the Natives, he realized, because they didn’t want things from him. Not the same way that everyone from the conquered worlds did. Every monster, every Invader, they all had deals to cut; they never made a move without thinking of the profit to be gained.

The Natives could be greedy and short-sighted, sure, but it wasn’t held up as a virtue. And when the chips were down they banded together for survival, instead of silently planning to throw the others down to lift themselves up.

They really were worlds apart; before the System and after, two separate minds. It might be as simple as the fact that, without cultivation, you had to band together to get anything done. It took the work of thousands to lift up a city…

Or one supreme cultivator waving a hand.

And Nic…

Nic should have been like the rest of his kind. Nic should have been, if anything, the most ravenous among them. He’d suffered in scarcity for long enough…

And he had the power to justify taking what he wanted, after all…

But he felt the trap closing around him, when he thought like that. He saw the walls of the city again.

It was a trap; it was all a trap. If he truly went all-out in the pursuit of power, allowing himself to shed everything that slowed him down, what was the power worth?

It wouldn’t be the strength of someone free to make their own choices, to help who they wished to help, to kill who they wished to kill; it would be the power of a slave, pursuing more strength endlessly.

The power to do anything you wished…

But a prison inside your own head, binding you to only see one direction. Forever.

Ettrai waited silently. Nic shook his head and said, “Sorry. Got lost in my own thoughts.”

“Few things are more important to a cultivator. My master once slaughtered fifty seven warrior-monks who came to ask him a question; they interrupted him during a moment of enlightenment, and his insight was lost.”

Nic made a face.

“You are a very different kind of cultivator, clearly.”

“Most people would call your master a maniac.”

“And you are not most people, either. I’d caution you not to forget that. If you wish to hold yourself to a moral code, do so; perhaps those of higher rank should be held to higher standards. But you do nobody any favors, least of all those you rule, if you think you are one of them.”

“Others will obey the law because they fear or love you; you will only obey it because you fear or love yourself.”

Nic paused, and then half-nodded, mulling it over.

She was definitely sharp; he just didn’t want that sharpness in the form of a knife, stuck into his back.

“As far as I’m concerned Reuben is in charge of the humans, and doing the construction work around town. He’s good at organizing that stuff.” The man was simply wherever he needed to be, like magic. He kept a hawk’s watch over the people who worked for him. “But I need someone who knows cultivating, and can teach others how. If you want a share of Winterhome…”

Nic’s insights were limited. He’d been taught how to cultivate as a human, but the theoretical knowledge had never translated to anything. His homeworld was too scarce of resources to learn through repetition and steady practice.

How Nic cultivated now…

Was wholly Nic in origin, and likely wouldn’t work for anyone else.

His favored method of meditation was simply running through battles, endlessly. Some past and others future. Since he’d gained the crystalline eye, these imagined fights had taken on new dimensions, filled with perfect measurements and statistics. They were closer to simulations now.

It wasn’t the peaceful clarity that his teachers had always told him to strive for.

But it was Nic’s own way.

“If you want a share of Winterhome, show me five E-Class warriors before I reach D-Class. Otherwise, the whole city’s too far behind to help in a fight…”

“This can be done.” The faun agreed, lowering her head. “And it will be. Lord Winterhome, I will see to this matter in your name.”

And then she was gone, fading into the mist.

Nic waited for a moment more, and then called, “Sofia?”

“Yes, Nicolas?” She was there in a heartbeat. “Things are looking positive for the city. We lost many people, but our core strengths have held solid.”

“I wasn’t worried. I trust you, and I trust Winterhome. But…” Nic paused for a moment. “I was supposed to die a while ago, right? That’s what you said. Sophonts are, like, given to people Pathos wants to watch, because they’ll probably do something interesting and die right after.”

“That’s a harsh paraphrasing, to be sure, but yes. Yes, I’ve stayed with you a week longer than any previous host, now.”

“And I’m interesting enough that they won’t be calling you back anytime soon, right?” Nic smiled faintly.

Unleashing nuclear fire…

Killing an Inquisitor…

Discovering a new Concept…

Creating a new bloodline…

He might be an insignificant blot on the face of the cosmos, but if all the gods in heavens looked down on him, he’d still be able to hold his hands out wide and challenge them to say he hadn’t made his mark.

“Mm. The Aleph alone is interesting enough to justify years of study. If you’re worried about parting ways…” She smiled. “Don’t be. But thank you.”

“I figured, but… What do you want to do?”

“I was made to help restore the Etude, a fallen world. And now I’ve traveled through dozens of worlds in the process of being torn apart…”

“By the System.” Nic raised an eyebrow. That sounded…

“That would be dangerously close to disagreement with the System’s goals. No. By people, following the System’s commandments in greedy, short-sighted ways. I want to make this world better, Nicolas. I want to see grass grow from the dust and know it will continue growing for generations after we leave.”

“And you?”

“I guess I just want to get my punches in before the fight’s over.” Nic answered carelessly.

“Nicolas. Nic. I was honest with you…”

“I want to go back to the city I was born in, and show them that I won.” Nic answered again. “That I’m not just stronger now. I’m better than they were, when they made that place how it is today. And I want to fix things. I want to be strong enough to make things right.”

“It’s a good goal…” Sofia said.

And for some time, they watched Winterhome together, the lights dancing on the water.