Given how everything had happened in his life since waking up in this crypt, it was pretty on-brand for Inanna’s training regimen to be filled with pain.

Ever since he and the goddess had come to an accord, things had changed between them. Inanna had seemingly given up on trying to throw him into more bargains and instead seemed to be working in favor of the stipulations Lukas had set forth.

To a neutral observer, Lukas would spend hours in backbreaking training, resting only when he passed out from exhaustion. But in reality, he was meeting the goddess in his mindscape and discussing his current situation. Inanna listened to his opinions about the yokai, their society, powers, and agendas. In return, the goddess shared her own experience with ethereal creatures she had interacted with back in her time.

That, and doing their own mindscape training.

Meanwhile, Prophylaxis would act upon his battered and bruised body to make him ready for the next day.

Lots of pain.

Every time he took a breath, a searing burst of agony radiated from his chest. He staved off his next breath for as long as he could, but eventually, his lungs gave up, and he winced as a burning fire took root once more. The cycle repeated every few moments, as his entire reality was consumed by the simple struggle to breathe and try avoiding the torment. The pain didn’t exactly lessen, but over time, it became a little more bearable.

He idly wondered if he was becoming a masochist.

“Good, mortal.” Inanna’s melodious voice felt like a rasp to his tired ears. “Very good.”

Lukas managed to push himself over and onto his back. His arms and legs felt like someone had replaced his bones with lead, and his muscles and tendons simply couldn’t overcome the inertia to make a single movement.

He tried opening his mouth, but it just ended in a fit of coughs and pain surging down his spine.

It hurt, but at least it meant he was alive.

“Get up!” the unrepentantly vicious goddess ordered. “This is your mind. The only pain you shall feel is what you allow yourself to. Pain, injury, fatigue—they are nothing but sensory information fed to your mind. Refuse to let any of it in. Reject it.”

Lukas just groaned from where he lay. It was easier said than done, but he supposed she didn’t get to where she was by stopping to think about things.

Inanna had been teaching him Neural Suppression—a skill that was pretty much an on and off switch for his pain receptors. It was a technique that would allow him to function even with grave injuries. Unlike force bursts or tachypsychia, the concept of leveling up did not apply to this skill.

She had patiently and painstakingly tried the mental route at first, but his ability with psionics hadn’t progressed enough to let him modulate his receptors so freely.

So here he was. Sparring. Or, as Lukas liked to call it, getting beaten up until he looked like one giant bruise so he could practice willing the pain to go away.

And so far, the results were nonexistent.

“On the bright side,” Inanna said brightly, “you are gaining experience fighting an opponent hilariously beyond your own proficiency in combat.”

And as much as he hated it, her words were true. Over the past two weeks, Lukas had suffered through nineteen such sessions. Inanna had come up with all sorts of cruel, inventive, and pragmatic ways of breaking him down. Sometimes, she’d push him through an exhausting number of tasks. Singularly, each task was benign, but in tandem, the experience made him curse his own existence.

Other times, she’d give him an extraordinarily simple task to perform, but under impossibly ridiculous conditions.

Exhibit A—picking fresh leaves and roots from thick underbrush while maintaining his tachypsychia.

Before today, never had he imagined how terrifying it was to watch oneself perform a mindlessly effortless task with extreme slowness. Not only did he have to keep cardiac failure at bay from the exertion, but his patience was stretched so thin that Lukas felt like he’d snap at any moment.

But that was the tip of the iceberg.

There were sessions where she’d conjure an ax, of all things, and rush toward him, making him dodge, jump, leap, and perform all sorts of acrobatics to avoid being torn to shreds. It might’ve all been an illusion—something happening within his mind—but the pain of having the blade go through him was overwhelming. He wouldn’t put it past her to manipulate his pain receptors to crank them into overdrive.

What was worse, he wasn’t allowed to use Kinetomancy to create defenses, instead forced to rely on his developing psionic skills to appraise the incoming blow’s trajectory and get out of the way.

In another, he’d found himself inside a large glass box filled with spiders, worms, and snakes of all shapes and sizes and colors. According to her, it was an exercise in controlling tension and responding to sudden spikes in fear and stress. It had taken him several sessions of suffering through spider bites and snake venom before he’d gotten the hang of maintaining his cool, even under such duress.

Pain, as the saying went, was an excellent motivator.

“You should feel privileged. Healing bones in real life would have been far more excruciating and slow.”

“You’re a true giver,” he groused. If nothing else, it was perfectly clear that this wasn’t training.

It was refinement. Refinement through the furnace known as pain.

“As it should be.” The goddess smiled facetiously. “Teaching is the part of planting a seed and nurturing it. I have seen your memories, seen how you mortals prattle over the feeding of useless information in exchange for currency. Real education is the art of inculcating skills into the future generation—true abilities that will help with evolution. In front of such a reward, pain is no true cost.”

What was he thinking, asking her of all people to train him?

“This isn’t working!” he yelled back. “All you’re doing is torturing me at this point!”

Inanna crouched down beside his fallen form, arching a single elegant eyebrow toward him. “A pity,” she drawled. “And to think you once showed a glimmer of potential.”

A very familiar ax materialized right in front of her, and her fingers easily found their way around the handle into a firm grip within seconds. “Fear not, mortal. We shall not stop until we find it once more.”

With a graceful, gravity-defying swing, Inanna hefted the ax until it was well above her head and brought it straight down onto him.

It was almost surreal. No matter how many times he performed it, each time was different. His awareness of time screeched to an incredibly slow pace, dragging out what should have been the blink of an eye to several seconds. Everything around him became a twisted fusion of reality and a stationary image as the world descended into a strange, crawling mess.

And in the middle of all that, his perception expanded.

Thump!

Once a blur to the naked eye, the falling blade of the ax was no longer as fast as it used to be. It practically crawled toward his chest. He could feel the naked sharpness of the edge, thinner and sharper than anything his mind could conjure.

Thump! Thump!

His body blurred into action. To an observer, it would have been immensely quick, but to his own perception, he was moving at a snail’s pace. First his right leg moved forward, his hip moving in coordination with it. His left hand was slowly shifting upward and sidewards, just enough to get out of the way as the rest of his body dragged and dragged and dragged—

Thummmppp!

The dichotomy was nothing short of terrifying. He could see the ax slowly pass downward, feel it touch the skin from his left arm, and—

No! I won’t let it end like this!

His body screamed as raw force exploded from his arm, pushing him just enough to escape being sliceeedddd—

Lukas let it go. He was already slamming his leg against the weapon’s handle. Somewhere along the line, his brain caught up with the act and strongly pointed out to him how the handle hadn’t fractured despite multiple lifeforce-enhanced punches in the past.

His knee couldn’t possibly fare any better.

Before his instinct could catch back up, his leg was already in motion, smashing into the bar with enough force that, by all means, should be impossible even in his best state. When he first noticed the hairline fracture slowly spreading through the handle’s surface, he realized he was still maintaining his elevated perception as well.

His leg moved a little farther.

And something cracked. Whether it was his bone or something else, he didn’t know.

Another thin fracture appeared.

Followed by another crack.

And then, it exploded with the force of a small bomb. The handle imploded in its center, blasting out small pieces of incomprehensibly hard metal as his leg passed through the area where the handle had been. The dangerous metallic head of the ax, meanwhile, remained stuck to the ground.

Completing his sweeping motion, Lukas flipped back and pulled himself up into a cautious position—half-crouched, hands up and ready to deflect anything that approached.

Inanna let out a delighted, silvery laugh as she clapped her hands. “Beautiful,” she intoned. “Brutal. Vicious. Beautiful.”

But Lukas was far less amused. “Next time you try something like that,” he snarled, “I won’t stop at the ax.”

Before he knew it, her body was spinning, her right leg swerving in a clean sweep toward his head. Tachypsychia or not, there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop her.

Thump!

He crouched lower. Her leg was still sweeping across the air. There was simply not enough time to evade such a hit.

Thump! Thump!

His left hand moved up to block. But it wouldn’t matter. Surviving a hit from Inanna at such close proximity was a pipe dream. At best, he’d be left with a broken arm.

No, the real issue was what would happen after she broke his arm.

He recognized her posture. Her leg was arriving in a single sweep as her other foot remained perfectly perched on the floor. Completely still. Unmoving. Functioning as a fulcrum, one that maintained her balance during the attack. And in a perfectly stable position to pull off a second, consecutive hit to his head as soon as this foot touched the ground.

Thump!

His left hand was now right in front of his left ear. A hit this close would literally kill him. Dreamland or not, he didn’t want to take any chances. The arm would shatter—that much was a given by now. What he needed to do now was ignore the pain, which, ironically enough, was the purpose of this session in the first place.

Lifeforce surged through him, and his body reacted out of pure instinct.

The leg met his arm.

His ulna shattered.

But Lukas was well past thinking about the pain.

Thump! Thump!

Her foot touched the ground.

And her other foot was already in motion.

Had Kinetomancy been on the table, he’d have used the opportunity to push it backward, tossing her off. But it wasn’t, so he did the only thing he had available to him.

He threw force at her.

Of course, an attack like that wouldn’t do jack shit to the goddess. Nothing that he was capable of would even come close to fazing her. But luckily for him, that wasn’t what he intended to do.

In a battle of force versus unyielding strength, the solution you looked for need not be to overpower it. There was a third possibility—to escape her reach. Just because the force of his hit wasn’t strong enough to push the goddess’s leg away, it didn’t mean it wasn’t strong enough to push himself out of reach.

And that’s exactly what he did, allowing the push to send him skidding across the floor—completely out of her reach.

Inanna planted both feet firmly on the ground with perfect poise. “Care to repeat your statement, mortal?”

There was no mirth in her demand. If he didn’t answer appropriately this time, this could very well be his end. But fortunately for Lukas, he was an incredibly reasonable and rational individual.

Except for when he wasn’t.

“I said, I’m not willing to roll over and be fucked on a whim. You might be a reflection of a goddess, but that doesn’t guarantee my obedience.”

Inanna’s inhuman eyes practically shimmered. “I expected no less of you. Were you not strong enough to cast such defiance into my teeth, you would be useless to my purpose.” Her smile widened. “To our purpose.”

He let out a deep, angry growl.

“Look at you,” the goddess purred, as if the raw, murderous desire he was exuding was nothing out of the ordinary. “It seems even weaklings can bite if you push them far enough. How fun.”

Once the grueling training session was finally over, Lukas quickly found himself sitting in Solana’s office room. Despite all of Inanna’s taunts, despite her thrashing him about, despite his pain and broken bones, he had to admit…

SOULSCAPE

NAME

Lukas Aguilar

Type

Base Host

Level

4

Experience

417

Current Threshold

640

Utilized Soul Capacity

2129/2379

ESSENCE

Maximum Lifeforce Output

725

Replenishment Rate

180 / hour

LEY LINE NETWORK

Maximum Mana Output

400

Synthesis Rate

80 / hour

SKILL ATTRIBUTES

SKILL

LEVEL

CONSUMED SOUL CAP

Raw Lifeforce Manipulation

1

50

Momentum Manipulation

1

50

Friction Modulation

1

50

Pressure Modulation

1

50

Kinetomancy (FRAGMENTED)

APEX

1279

Fire Creation

1

50

Fire Manipulation

2

500

Temperature Modulation

1

50

Perception Manipulation

1

50

OMPHALOS ATTRIBUTES

Energy Reservoir Capacity

∞

Current Energy Level

722,415,138 units

OMPHALOS FUNCTIONS

Scan

Level 2

Analyze

Level 2

Prophylaxis

Level 2

Soul Siphon

NA

Alpha Condition`

Level 1

Evocation

Level 1

His progress felt good. He felt good.

Between facing off against Ryu in mortal combat using fire as his primary weapon, and pushing his mind to the extreme edge to master the psionic cluster under Inanna’s tutelage, he could see the changes within himself. Every time he broke through his own limits, he felt a little different, as if he were discovering a new himself, a growing divide between the Lukas Aguilar he used to be, and what he was now.

The process of becoming a monster wasn’t indulgence in the temptation of sin. Nor was it about taking a darker road or losing himself in a single moment of despair.

It was about conscious choice. The act of entering the grinder willingly. Throwing one’s soul into the furnace over and over, being hammered and reforged, blow after blow, until you couldn’t even recognize what came out of it. That was what was happening to him.

And now, he was ready. Both within and without.

“I have kept my word, Outsider,” Solana replied, regarding him with luminous, unblinking eyes. “I have allowed you enough opportunity to harness Quonnan’s power that lay shimmering inside you. While there is much that you need to learn about pyrokinetic combat, no longer is it necessary for someone to hold your hand and teach it to you.”

He glanced at her wearily.

“Therefore,” Solana murmured, “it is time you start fulfilling your end of the bargain. You will traverse out of my territory, and find the core of this anomaly. And when you do it, you shall destroy it.”

“Destroy it?”

Solana waved a hand, utterly nonchalant about the whole ordeal. “I have seen enough to know that you hide several skills. It matters not what you do with the anomaly, as long as its consciousness is gone. But yes, doing so will garner the attention of the beasts that guard the core. To that effect, I will loan you the services of two of my soldiers, to aid you in this quest. My personal servant, Mizo, with whom you are well-acquainted; and Malon, one of the yurei you fought in the beginning. Both of them are skilled at taking out monsters, but will not be able to aid against the guardians.”

“Guardians? As in, more than one?”

“The anomaly around us had ample time to study us. It has crafted a metal that hurts our kind, in whose presence our control grows weaker. It is possible that your Pyromancy might weaken in its presence.”

“Amateur,” Inanna scoffed with disgust. “Her efforts at trying to maintain control are deplorable.”

Even Lukas had to agree with that statement. Sending a reiki and a yurei? That was hardly a random selection. He had assimilated both of those races earlier but had yet to display any of their skills in public. Perhaps Solana was assuming he lacked affinity for ether manipulation? Or was it because she didn’t want to hand over yet another element to him just in case he decided to escape?

Either way, a poor play.

“I see.” Lukas cocked his head. “So your aid is useless when it counts.”

“Had my soldiers been able to exterminate the anomaly, they would have already done so.”

“That alone proves that their presence is superficial.”

“They are there to help,” she insisted.

“Bullshit!” he threw back. “You’re sending them to make sure that I don’t double-cross you and leave when I get the chance. And to keep an eye out for any hidden powers that I have yet to demonstrate.”

“Do you?” Solana’s lips spread into a wide, dangerous smile. “Have hidden powers, I mean.”

Lukas answered with his most condescending smile. “This isn’t a power play. It’s a mockery of one. You and I have an accord, so let me do things my way. You send your people behind my back, and I make no guarantees about what might happen to them.”

Solana’s tone gained an icy edge. “Your reaction does nothing to showcase your trustworthiness, Outsider.”

Because giving someone a choice between death and servitude was such a great way to ensure a trusting relationship, Lukas didn’t say. Instead, he lowered his voice to a bare growl. “Trust isn’t a one-way street. You want me to finish this task? Then quit making things difficult for me!”

Solana threw her head back and let out a…sound. It was a weird mix of a witch’s cackle, and someone being strangled at the same time. Whatever it was, he refused to believe it was a laugh.

“Yes,” Solana replied, a wild light around her eyes, her head swaying slightly. “Oh yes, you will do. Fine, do it your way. You will face no obstruction from me.”

“She will still send troops behind your back.”

I’m counting on it.

“However…” Solana’s eyes twinkled madly. “I will give you one last piece of advice. Take it as you will.” Her voice went down to a whisper. “The world around this anomaly is a vast, nigh-endless desert that hates all things living. Even should you entertain the idea of escaping, you will not go far. I will catch you. And when I do, I will kill you.”

He smiled. There wasn’t an ounce of mirth in it. “I guess it’s beneficial for both of us to stick to our word then.”

“It is,” Solana whispered. “Find the core of the anomaly. Destroy it.”

“And when you do,” Inanna viciously promised, “the real game will begin.”