You’d think that after siphoning not one, but multiple creatures—physical and ethereal, of different sizes, temperaments, and skills—Lukas would have reached a state when he’d have understood the underlying concepts behind Soul Siphon. Every siphoned creature would boast a certain amount of Soul Capacity, all of which would be filled with its own plethora of skills. The same skills that Lukas could later assimilate into his own schema by sacrificing appropriate Soul Capacity.

So it was quite natural that after the well-timed Level Up, he was looking forward to assimilating some of the skills from this aquatic monster that had tried to possess him and unwittingly ended up being siphoned.

Instead, he got this.

MONSTER PROTOTYPE: MARID

Spiritual Parasite. Subspecies of KAMI monster prototype. Energy Core constitutes mana forge for Water. Capable of water creation and manipulation.

APTITUDE

LEVEL

SOUL CAP REQUIRED

Possession

1

50

Water Creation

2

500

Water Manipulation

3

5000

Pressure Modulation

2

500

Aptitudes. A new curve ball that the universe had decided to throw at him.

Lukas grimaced. If what he understood was correct, this new classification was akin to disks containing compressed information on skills. A backup of sorts. Using Alpha Condition to use the marid’s skill wouldn’t work, because he needed the skills engraved on his soul first to use them.

In short, Alpha Condition was useless as far as kami were concerned.

“I swear it’s like the universe goes out of its way to fuck with me!” he snapped, kicking a pebble that had been innocently sitting on the floor.

“Do not be so arrogant, mortal,” Inanna chimed in. “You are not significant enough for it to register your existence. That said, this creature reminds me of the Ugallu. Ereshkigal’s familiars. They manifested as negative aspects of the World—drought, plague, flood, earthquakes, and the like.”

“Whatever,” Lukas growled. “Either way, I don’t have the available Soul Capacity to use right now. I’ll just leave it on the backburner until I can.”

“An appropriate resolution. Perhaps there is hope for you yet.”

“Very funny.” The expression quickly fell off his face. “Something about this bugs me though. All those monsters… It’s unlikely they were just coming at me to attack. This marid must have been attacking them, but that strange guy from earlier also used water attacks. What are the chances that—”

“There are two powerful water shapers in the vicinity?” the goddess mused. “Unlikely.”

“We don’t know much about the Empire,” Lukas defended. “It’s possible there are more of these…adventurers around. Maybe having a marid might be more common than we think.”

“Anything is possible.”

“But there was that guy earlier. And now a kami. Maybe…” A strange inflection hit his tone. “Maybe there are more of them around?”

“Mortal, restrain yourself from doing anything monumentally insane.”

“Give me a break!” Lukas scoffed. “I’m not going to go look for them or anything. But you know…there’s always the chance that others might not be as trigger-happy as that guy.”

“Your optimism feels strange. The parasites have offered you home and hearth. They trained you in skills and gave you knowledge, yet you would not think twice before trying to escape their clutches. On the contrary, the first humanlike creature has tried to deal a lethal blow upon your person. Yet, you would give them a second chance simply because they look a certain way?”

“I’m not—” Lukas began hotly.

“You are,” the goddess replied reprovingly. “Your excitement is proof in itself. Why is it that appearance alone counts so much in your eyes?”

What bullshit! Lukas thought. Appearance was no guarantee of character or competence. One couldn’t be a good lawyer if one made one’s assumptions based on looks alone. Saying that he was being too trusting and optimistic just because they looked human was—

His lips parted, but the words did not come out of his mouth.

It couldn’t be, could it? Just because someone looked human didn’t make the person trustworthy, but if the choice was between someone that appeared human and an animal, who would he trust? After everything was said and done, he was a human, and would always instinctively favor his own species. Looking at a dog being run over by a car might elicit sympathy out of one, but it was momentary at best. But even the most law-abiding citizen would falter if asked to kill someone, even if the victim were guilty of committing heinous crimes. At a fundamental level, humans were humans, and animals were animals.

Inanna was the shadow of a goddess that existed in his mind. Still, she appeared human. Felt like one. Interacted like one. Reasoned like one. Even with all her quirks, Lukas had no problems choosing to trust her over all else. It was probably also why he was so comfortable with Solana, despite knowing that she was the most dangerous creature in the entire yokai territory. Quonnan was weaker than her, as was Ryu. As was that Nihil fellow and the reiki called Mizo. And yet, Solana was the only one that looked human.

More than the others, anyway.

“I—” he began, but stopped, noticing the sudden stir in the water all around him. The ripples were unsteady, and were growing with time. He glanced toward the wall on the other end, from which the ripples seemingly originated.

Had he misunderstood something? Surely there was nothing there after he had—

“Beware, mortal,” Inanna interrupted. Her voice resonated with something he couldn’t quite place. “A greater power approaches. You must—”

BOOOM!

Before Lukas knew it, several tons of frosted rock came blasting out of the wall. The noise that accompanied it was terrible. The destruction, appalling. Frost-covered stones were skidding in random directions, with several of them shooting in his direction. Water splashed everywhere. Lukas fell down to one knee, bent forward at the waist, and hastily drew a force shield over him. The entire arena had been engulfed in a strange fog of dust and…coldness.

Then he saw her.

She was lean and tall, closer to his own height. Blonde curls fell on both sides of her head, shining as if flecks of ice were embedded into them. Thin, piercing eyes held a most alien smile while her right hand held a disembodied spideresque monster by the head, before flinging it to the other side. She adorned a pale sleeveless shirt with trousers that felt similar to his own, and looked entirely too pleased to see him there.

Lukas gawked at her. Brown eyes met glacial white.

And then, the Screen popped up with a most unexpected notification.

Predator found you.

Predator?!

It was one of those moments that would have had dramatic music if his life were a movie, but instead he got the constant pitter-patter of water dripping to the floor from the rocks above.

But just in case, he drew up on his power, which covered him like a cloak, ready to defend, to attack, to protect or to destroy. He didn’t know what this girl wanted, but he did want her to know that if she had come looking for a fight, he’d be willing to oblige her.

Analyze.

BREMETAN

Bipedal, lifeforce-producing organisms. 99.9% similarity with the HUMAN species

?

78% Spiritual Similarity with Yokai Species.

92% Spiritual Similarity with Monster Prototype MARID.

Lack of physical body. Energy Core employs Wind Mana.

?

34% Similarity to Earthly Frost. Lack of Physical Body. Lack of Spiritual Body.

Energy Core employs ???

“Can I help you?” he offered in fluent Ualbesh.

The girl met his eyes. “Give it to me.”

“That’s…very forward of you,” he replied, rubbing the back of his head.

“I sense a pattern, mortal. First myself, then Solana, and now her. Perhaps you are a masochist deep within?”

For the love of all that’s holy, I really hope that ain’t the truth.

“You’re rather uppity. For food, that is.” The young woman tilted her head slightly. “Now, give the kami back to me.”

“Kami?” Lukas asked, feigning curiosity. “What kami are you talking about?”

The blonde seemed amused. “The water shifter. The marid. I can sense it within you.”

“The marid?” he repeated, recognizing the term. “Why didn’t you say so? That thing nearly killed me.”

He called upon fire, manifesting it as a tiny fireball at the tip of his finger.

“Fortunately, I happen to have a counter for it.”

That seemed to give her pause.

Lukas smiled inwardly. Part of his learning program with Ryu had been about gaining a good understanding of the world around them, especially the politically divided zones in the Asukan Empire. He had crafted a proper backstory for himself, with enough random titbits thrown in to pass as an adventurer. Lukas had argued about the possibility of encountering other Asukans during his voyage to the core of the anomaly, and it would be a terrible thing if they realized that he was an Outsider.

Solana had not been amused.

From what she had told him, the number of Asukans wielding more than one kami could be counted on one hand. In that light, him performing a nifty fire trick was easy and legitimate proof of him not having the water-type kami.

“A Cyffnarian pyromancer.” The girl licked her lips. “How interesting. Very well, perhaps my senses had me fooled.”

Lukas shrugged. “Happens to everyone. Now if you don’t mind, I’d really like to be on my—”

Shink!

A jagged shard of ice slammed into the floor, inches away from his feet, impaling the rock. Lukas took a moment to see the hit and one more to register that it had indeed been ice that had cut through the rocky floor. He slowly turned around to look at her.

Ice. There are ice-types as well? But that explosion couldn’t be from ice. So…what was that from?

The girl gave him an impish smile. “No one is going anywhere.”

She took a step forward.

“Bite me,” Lukas shot back.

“Oh, I will.”

Lukas weaved an immaterial wall of lifeforce around him. He solidified his hold on his own power, and stomped on the ground. The cracking sound of it echoed back and forth across the half-destroyed chamber.

“Walk away,” he growled. “I’m not kidding.”

“I want to see what is so special about this power exuding from you. It beckoned me from so far away. I must have it.”

“Mortal,” Inanna whispered. “Kill it.”

Out of nowhere, a spinning projectile of jagged ice came shooting toward him, straight for his heart.

During the course of his training, Lukas had traded blows with several individuals. There was Quonnan, fast and furious with a proclivity for throwing overpowered bursts of fire to overwhelm her opponent. There had been Ryu, whose speed allowed him to blitz through the opponent’s attack without even resorting to using fire. And finally there was the thoggua, whose skill at vibration sensing and precision allowed it to slay dozens of creatures without moving from its position.

This blonde girl made all of them look slow.

The shard of hoarfrost clashed against the layer of lifeforce he had conjured around himself, lighting it up like a floodlight. Despite doing all he could to divert the energy, the blow hit him like a professional linebacker. If it wasn’t for the lifeforce shield taking the blow evenly across its surface, Lukas was sure the icicle would have pierced through his body. Instead, he was thrown against the floor and somehow managed to turn the momentum into a roll.

He must have clipped his head at some point, because stars were swirling in his vision. But that wasn’t all that happened. His shield hadn’t borne the brunt of the attack, nor had it shattered.

No, it had been dispersed. Absorbed. As if imploding into itself or—

He glanced at the piece of hoarfrost, now several times larger than he remembered from a second ago, and his eyes widened with horror.

Did that thing just—

Before he could finish the thought, a raw, invisible wind came rushing toward him. Lukas was lifted up and thrown against the wall. By the time he managed to push himself upright, he was beyond scared. The girl was powerful, fast and capable of using ice, force, and probably wind unless he had made a mistake. Her speed was absolutely nothing to scoff at, and if he didn’t up his game, he’d be deader than dead. Lukas forced all thoughts and doubts from his mind and readied himself for a second time.

“Disappointing,” said the girl, walking toward him again. “I had hoped you’d put up a better show than this.”

A flash of sensation flickered over him as the girl drew in power. A lot of power.

There would be no stopping this attack. This girl was on a different level with force manipulation, and her style favored mid-range combat. If he wanted to make a difference, he’d need to change that first.

Pumping lifeforce into his legs, Lukas dashed forward. With a sudden sprint, he appeared right in front of the girl, a blade firmly grasped in his right hand.

The girl snarled, and extended her own hand.

Lukas expected a blast of wind, maybe accompanied by force or something similar. What he got was a bolt of pure, crushing force that blasted forth from her palm. The air screamed and the chamber shook as the terrible attack impacted against his shield. Lukas’s eyes shone, and his teeth clattered in his skull as he caught the bolt of destructive force on his shield. He had a feeling it was actually penetrating his defense.

“You must redirect it!” shouted the goddess. “Release it with a counter evocation, or you will feel the impact of the hit. Use the reflection technique!”

That’s too—

“NOW!” commanded Inanna, and Lukas obeyed, his whole body trembling with effort to contain the tremendous force. Pushing his hands in the girl’s direction, he poured fire to join the spell he had caught, feeling the shield grow hotter by the second.

“Enough. Now reflect it,” the goddess intoned.

His right hand balancing the shield in place, Lukas moved his left hand in a graceful lateral arc, extending the shield around him. The destructive force was guided through the shield, the rotation guided by its own inertia as it traveled in a perfect circle—

“MY TURN!” he shouted. Mixed with his flames, the girl’s attack was now a spiraling typhoon of crimson flame that shot back toward her. She realized what had happened a tad too late, and hastily surrounded herself with a wall of pure ice.

It barely made a difference, as the blonde was bodily picked up and thrown back, only to be promptly buried under the rubble of the destructive force.

“That,” Lukas panted amidst heavy breaths, “was one crazy move!”

“You spent too much energy redirecting the attack,” Inanna told him thoughtfully. “Now, kill it while you still have the chance!”

“What’s the hurr—OH CRAP!”

He had but a moment’s warning. The entire wall facing him exploded with a deafening sound, as huge sections of it came crashing down. Within a single instant, the entire chamber was reduced to nothing but a land of rubble and floating dust.

And in the middle of that, bruised and charred, stood the blonde. Her face was red with pain and fury, but the sinister smile upon her face promised retribution of the worst sort.

“Impressive,” she said, something dangerous in her eyes. “I have not been hit with such force in years.”

“What do you want?” Lukas snapped. “You know I don’t have the kami you mentioned. So why the hell are you attacking me?”

A blue blur came out of her hand, hissing like a striking snake, and stabbed outward toward Lukas, who sidestepped the blow.

“A frost whip. How droll. You need more imagination,” Lukas chided.

“An excellent suggestion,” she replied, and sharp icicles protruded out of the whip as she snapped it back to her. A long, jagged, frosted dagger appeared in her left hand. From her posture alone, he could infer that she was skilled in using that particular weapon pair.

That was fine. He had something ready for her this time around.

Holding a dagger in reverse grip in each palm, he beckoned her forward.

“Come.”

...

...

...

A single clash of weapons. Then they separated.

Three seconds later, another clash. Another disengagement.

Two seconds.

One second.

Half.

One. Half. Two. Half. Half. One.

The rapid skirmishes began as quickly as they ended. Traveling all across the chamber. Back and forth. Scattering sparks along the floor like small geysers of fireflies in the night.

“HAAA!”

Lifeforce-enhanced metal blades met an unholy frosted chain, cutting through with impossible ease. It was more like the frost momentarily expanded when it touched the metal and became brittle, shattering and allowing the blade to pass through. The remains scraped against the flats of the victorious weapon as they passed.

The wielder of the butchered chain moved a bare centimeter out of the way of the edge of the tool that destroyed her weapon, and subsequently contorted out of the path of its matching partner. The maneuver prevented her from accurately lashing out with a kick that would have crushed the skull of her opponent.

The fighters passed one another, another failed attempt at the other’s life. But it was far from the last.

Both kept moving, turning with the momentum they gathered. Power was gathered. Tools were repaired. Bodies were reinforced. Eyes narrowed.

This was how Lukas fought with the girl. A never-ending series of single passes that had them gambling with death every single time. It was a battle between two forces that did not possess the ability to stop the other without severely risking themselves.

The blonde’s speed was leagues above what any human could ever achieve naturally, and the strength of her blows could easily destroy bones and bodies with the slightest touch. Her lean physique might be defensively weak, but the speed it offered more than made up for it.

And that was without considering the frost and wind.

Weapons crashed. Bodies moved.

Lukas’s lungs were on fire, desperate to supply oxygen to his body tissues as he pushed himself farther than should have been possible. His limbs shouldn’t have been able to move under the combined stress of his exhaustion and her overwhelming blows.

The surging lifeforce kept him focused and hyper-aware, but the slowly developing exhaustion was slowing him down. His body was still in pain from the wounds he had gotten from her, but Prophylaxis was perpetually healing him. Shatterpoint Intuition allowed him to intuitively determine the best place to ensure a killing blow.

But the two still weren’t enough.

“My apologies,” the blonde replied, “I really am trying to make this painless for you. But your constant attempts at deflection are irritating me. Hold still, please.”

Lukas spat out a tooth and rose to his feet again, gripping his blades in bloodied hands. He hacked away at the frost chain, but it shattered again. He didn’t care. He’d stopped keeping the count after the first thirty times it happened. Honestly, Lukas wasn’t sure how he was keeping up.

The spar with Ryu felt like it was an eternity ago. He remembered the moment when Quonnan’s instincts had taken over him, and quadrupled his speed by going all out on his lifeforce. He had practically vanished from one point and reappeared at another in the blink of an eye. There had been a similar moment when he was sparring with Inanna but even then, it was his max. Half of that was far below what he was at now, and yet here he was moving at only double speed, courtesy of accelerating his body with lifeforce and using tachypsychia in healthy doses.

He shouldn’t have been able to improve his performance by this degree in so short a time.

But it didn’t matter.

Just a little faster, he thought drunkenly as he matched weapons with her, and I’ll be able to keep up.

The lifeforce-enhanced blades were a horrifically overpowered tool for this fight. Something about the frost made it go brittle the moment it touched them. Though incidentally, the very act also dissipated the lifeforce from the blades, as if the frost was consuming it. But that made no sense.

Ice simply didn’t work that way. Did it?

The girl already had her fair share of bruises and weeping cuts on her body from when she had underestimated him early on. She had not made the same mistake twice.

Lukas reinforced his body far beyond what he had normally thought possible. Every single muscle fiber and every bone fragment was oversaturated with it. Raw Lifeforce Manipulation wasn’t a skill he had managed to progress beyond Level 1, but he wondered if it was still out of his reach given his current prowess.

Momentum Manipulation doubled the acceleration and power behind his blows. Shatterpoint Intuition guided them through paths of least resistance.

Every time they passed, the girl would reconstruct her broken whip.

Faster.

Every time they passed, she had to abandon her attempt to destroy his body with a single blow in order to avoid a counterattack with his blade, lest she be impaled through the heart or the neck.

Faster.

Every time they passed, the girl’s features became just a hair more monstrous. Her glacial eyes became sharper and glassy, and an arctic mist cloaked her form little by little.

It was a game of low-risk, high-reward tactics. Exposing themselves like that wasn’t in either’s best interests, even though the fight had devolved into a never-ending series of skirmishes. Small bouts that compounded into a battle of attrition—something that played against both of them.

Every time they passed, Lukas would pour a little more lifeforce into the blades.

Faster.

Every time they passed, he lost himself more and more to primal instincts that were not him.

Faster.

Every time they passed, Prophylaxis healed him a little more.

Faster!

Just a little more and he’d cleave her head off.

Faster!

Just a little more and his body would fail.

FASTER!

“You cannot keep going on like this,” the goddess warned. “You must end this fight.”

Easy to say, Lukas thought, swaying his blade in a lateral swing and bringing it inches close to the girl’s neck, even as the chain came inches from striking his own heart.

Both spun around and dodged each other’s blow.

“You’ve done it before. Do what you did in our last spar.”

Had he been able to spare unnecessary energy in facial muscular constructions, he’d have rolled his eyes. Do what he had done during his last spar? It had gotten him kicked in a way that had jerked him out of sleep and he had felt the pain for a lasting number of days. And all he had accomplished was a single hit on her knee, and that after taking a…

“Take a blow,” Inanna finished. “Find an opportunity to take a calculated hit. Use it to deliver a final strike.”

He had done something similar back then, albeit subconsciously, and he wasn’t even intending to achieve that. But the goal of that spar hadn’t been to win, rather to land a blow on her, regardless of the cost. On top of that, he had been operating from the mindset that it was all in his mind, allowing him to be significantly mre callous with his self-preservation instincts.

But to apply such to a real fight? One with his life on the line?

His muscles clenched painfully as he forcefully turned, and just for a moment, he stalled.

The girl recognized the opening instantly and moved in to exploit it.

Thummmp!

The steady, overemphasized beat of his heart came into focus and the world slowed around him as his perceptual dilation set in.

Thump! Thump!

Her left hand shot out, the frosted dagger piercing through Lukas’s right palm, right through the middle. Every bit of protection from the conjured metamantic layer dissipated as the dagger drove through body tissue, carving a bloodied hole as it tore out from the other side. Her knee moved in simultaneously and slammed right into his abdomen.

He let it.

Thump! Thump!

It hurt. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d shattered through several vertebrae and actually split him in half. It was still nowhere compared to that one mind-shattering blow the goddess had let him taste in a sudden loss of control.

His injured right hand flexed like a viper’s maw, grabbing at the girl’s very momentum. Shatterpoint Intuition guided him to the most optimal path to pull on the velocity guiding the girl’s neck and yanked her forward.

And then he stabbed her with a lance of pure, blue flame.

At the same time, an obdurate wall of wild wind crashed against his chest. Even if there was the slightest chance that his rib cage had gotten through the ordeal with some light chafing, this blow powdered them to bits. Lukas widened his eyes as he heard several snaps from his chest. Blood erupted out from his mouth.

WARNING!

Extreme physiological damage to Host Body. Lifeforce Drainage below Critical Limit.

Shutting down offensive functions until Prophylaxis Recovery is complete!

That, Lukas drunkenly agreed, as his head smashed against a particularly sharp rock, was all kinds of bad.

The girl staggered back, the blue flame now having left an open gash, starting from the neat hole through her chest, all the way through her left shoulder and a very thin scratch on her chin. The flesh was completely charred black, with blood oozing out of it, a horrible mix of red and black ichor. Given how she was stumbling around, there was no doubt the blow had been fatal, or at least near fatal.

Not that it mattered. At this rate, he would be dead soon.

He coughed out a wad of blood and forced his lungs to breathe. He tried to make his nerves ignore the signals of his destroyed rib cage by passing lifeforce. He needed air more than he needed the warning that he had been hurt.

It didn’t work. Maybe he’d need to pour in a little more—

Blood drained from his face. His stomach suddenly felt bottomless as the surging lifeforce was squirreled away toward his right palm. He could feel his heart beating slower and slower. Had he subconsciously activated tachypsychia? Not that he could tell. His vision became increasingly hazy by the second.

And yet, he couldn’t help but stare at the deceivingly inconspicuous thing that was on his body.

The shard of ice that had penetrated through his flesh.

It was now twice—thrice—no, several times more than that.

And it was expanding. Already he could see jagged lines of thin ice crawling out of the completely frozen and ice-clad appendage that used to be his right palm.

That was what was draining his lifeforce. Not his battered body. Not his injuries. Not the system.

He had seen it before. The frost had gobbled up the lifeforce from his shield, lost its momentum, and dropped down to the floor. Was it the same whenever the frost whip crashed against his lifeforce-enhanced blades? The frost gobbled up the lifeforce and expanded, becoming brittle.

At least, Lukas thought with growing delirium, I killed her with that hit.

“You might want to check again.”

The blonde was down on all fours, crawling like a wounded spider as she held herself up with her hands. The burned area was sort of seething, with some kind of thick mist or steam, as her body tried to fight the injury he had inflicted upon her.

It took him another second to register what it was he was seeing.

It wasn’t steam. Wasn’t mist either.

It was frost.

Growing on the surface of her body. Cooling it. Freezing it.

Lukas had no clue if having a kami with powers of ice manipulation could do that to the wielder, but he sure wanted to find out. Ice that absorbed lifeforce? Ice that healed? What kind of fucked-up world had he ended up falling into?

Her eyes locked on him as she pushed herself to her feet. “Taking the hit on your arm like that,” she cackled. “That was a mistake.” At his glare, she cackled even louder. “If you’re frustrated, I understand. You feel overwhelmed. You fear you’re going to die, so you’re lashing out. You want to hurt something. It’s not your fault. But disfiguring my face like that is an unforgivable crime—”

Disfiguring? Lukas stared at her in disbelief. It was barely a scratch.

“—And I’m afraid I’ll have to take it very, very seriously!”

A shaft of ice tore out of the cave floor, piercing through his left leg, just above the ankle. Before the pain could even register, two more rose up, piercing through his other leg and left hand. Lukas found himself completely spreadeagled, trapped and bleeding, with only one foreseeable conclusion ahead.

One that he wouldn’t be able to escape out of unless—

“Tell me, mortal, are your morals worth your suffering?”

Inanna had once asked him that. Back then, he was completely healed, and in possession of new powers and alternatives. His morals were what was left of the true Lukas Aguilar, that was what he had said. But when faced with imminent death, was it really an excuse he wanted to hide behind?

Three times, she had offered him the chance to serve her. Three times, he denied her. The first, while offering information about his own nature as an anomaly. The second, after he’d faced Quonnan and survived. The third, right after he’d woken up and found himself healed.

There hadn’t been a fourth time. And if he didn’t do anything, there wouldn’t be.

“Tell me this before you die.” The blonde trudged forward, the lines of white around her becoming more and more distinct. “Who are you?”

Lukas coughed again, spitting out blood. “Someone who’ll kick your ass next time if given the chance.”

“Answer me, and I will grant you a swift death.”

His answering grin was bloody. “That’s your attempt at negotiation? Don’t quit your day job.”

Prophylaxis: 11% Complete

It was too slow. His body was battered and broken, and he was overwhelmed with bone-crushing weariness. Mana generation would be unavailable until Prophylaxis was over. If he didn’t pull off a miracle, it would be Game Over before he knew it.

He looked at the blonde again. That dimpled smile, the perfect surety in her manner and expression, was something more than rampant ego or fanatic conviction. He had studied similar characteristics as part of his study program on human psychology.

It was pure madness. Whatever else this blonde was, she was calmly and horribly insane.

You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? he asked the goddess.

There was no answer.

You told me you’d have me beg at your feet for power. Well, I’m not gonna do that. But in the spirit of survival and…and to fulfill the promise I made you earlier, I’m willing to agree to a bargain—

“Denied.”

Lukas gasped in surprise. Inanna had never been one to reject a chance to settle on a bargain. She had gone out of her way to orchestrate things that would arrange for more bargains. To deny such an open offer was completely contradictory to her behavior.

Meanwhile, the blonde edged closer.

Lukas panicked. Look, the circumstances are crazy, and I want to survive. So if you don’t get off your royal ass and jump on it, I’m walking!

“What you can offer, I have no need for. And what I need, you decline to offer. As such, I have no reason to bargain.”

So you’d blackmail me into working for you?

“The only thing I have done is refuse an offer. A notion you are rather familiar with.”

Bullshit, Lukas snarled, panic rising up his throat. You’re bullying me into accepting the job—

“You have made it very clear to me that you will not willingly accept my offer,” Inanna reasoned. “And having you as a puppet will render you useless to me. I must therefore see to it that circumstances force you to accept my offer.”

How is that any better?! This—this isn’t fair!

“Life is hardly fair, mortal, as you well know.”

Why would you do this? We were developing something nice here. A partnership. Why now of all times?

“Because it is necessary,” Inanna intoned. “Perhaps to protect you from destroying yourself, or perhaps…because I simply can. In the end, it does not matter. All that matters is what is. You know what I want. I know what you want. The ball, as you mortals say, is in your court.”

Lukas clenched his teeth, inhaling and exhaling a few times, if only to keep the desperation from leaking through to his voice. A part of him pointed out that maybe this was Inanna asking politely, because she could have always made him into a puppet. He was already learning from her, and they had long since determined that sooner or later, he’d have to accept the deal. Rejecting it now was only delaying the inevitable, not solving a problem. He already had too many problems. What was the need to create more?

There was a curious expression on the blonde’s visage as she peered down at him. “The power that exudes from you is odd, stranger. You wield flames, but there is no stench of a kami. None of their spectrum. Tell me what you are, or I will make you.”

“Bullshit. If you could do that, you’d have done it by now, instead of standing there looking stupid.”

She took another step toward him, now inches away from where he lay. “I prefer to attempt reason before I destroy a mind. It’s a taxing activity.” She frowned. “That damned changeling makes it look easy. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather cooperate?”

Lukas gulped. She was talking about psionics. His training with Inanna had given him more than a little introduction to the subject, but mental resistance wasn’t something he had forayed into so far. Alpha Condition was usually good enough to tackle the invading instincts of his siphoned soul prototypes. But a direct psychomantic attack, on the other hand—

“Stay away from me,” he warned.

It didn’t deter her. There was a slow, sinuous enjoyment to her stride. She bent forward, her arctic fingers grabbing his chin as she made him face her.

Inanna had warned him how plenty of things could affect him if he was caught aware in a direct gaze between them. The glacial eyes kept gazing at him, as Lukas tried his best to keep looking in all possible directions except at her.

“Stop. Avoiding. Me,” she snarled, and dug a frosted finger into his chest. The sudden jolt of pain startled him, and suddenly, he was losing himself in her eyes. Literally. There was no sudden vacuum, pouring his thoughts out. There was no sudden feeling of intrusion, no pain or agony. Instead, all he felt was—

Exhaustion.

Here he was fighting monsters, in a place he didn’t want to be, for a goddess he couldn’t even trust. He had survived extensive trials, but after each one was yet another ordeal to take care of. Another monster to fight and bury, with the only alternative being death.

His shoulders helplessly drooped as a horrible weight settled onto his heart.

Hadn’t he been through enough? More than enough? Hadn’t his life handed him enough misery and grief and pain and loneliness these past few months? First, he’d lost the life he knew and found himself inside this hellhole. Then he’d been constantly forced to fight to survive. The yokai were yet another nail in the coffin crafted by a goddess that constantly pulled him into her eternal servitude through bargains.

It was always something else, something new and scary galumphing toward him by the legion. What was the point? No matter what he did, no matter how much stronger or smarter he got, no matter what monster prototypes he collected, the bad guys would only become bigger and stronger. All of that suffering, in a hopeless attempt to return to a home that may not even exist anymore?

Was he an idiot?

His hands shook and knees weakened, slowly losing their ability to stand firm. No, it would be far simpler to just give up. Let someone else suffer her whims. He’d earned his rest.

The blonde goddess that stood before him offered sweet rest. Freedom from his suffering. Eternal silence. All he needed to do was—it was—

No.

He was forgetting something. Something he could do. Something that could help him fight against this. Lukas knew if he could just focus on that for a second, he could get things back on track. Something—something—

Psionics. He remembered.

Skill Inactive.

The murkiness around his thoughts darkened.

He tried to move his head, his hands, his eyes.

He remembered something else this time. Alpha—Alpha Alpha—Alpha what? Condition. Yes. Alpha Condition—

Alpha Condition Inactive.

“Get out!” Lukas yelled, bashing his head against the floor. “Get out! Get out! GET OUT!”

“Give up!” said a voice of utmost serenity. “Give up and become mine. I will devour your soul and digest that potential brimming within you. All your pain will end. Just…give in…to me.”

That was when something clicked within him, and Lukas understood. Understood what the girl had just admitted. What it meant to him. What it meant to the entity residing within him. Add in the discussion that had just happened—

Lukas couldn’t help it. He barked out a laugh.

The look of confusion on her face only made him laugh harder. It didn’t matter if the action sent flares of agony down his spine and made his insides burn. The irony of the entire situation was simply too funny to ignore.

“She—she was right. I really do have the most bizarre luck.”

The blonde arched a pale eyebrow at him.

Lukas laughed again. “You’ll find it troubling to devour my soul.”

“And why is that?”

“Because,” he coughed out, “if you try that, it’ll throw a wrench in her plans. Take my word for it. She will take it very personally.”

“Oh?” said the soothing voice, though an undercurrent of incredulity was vivid in it. “And who is she?”

An amused smile graced his lips as the first stirrings of a primal flame kindled within him. There was that all-too-familiar feeling of weightlessness. The sudden splash of liquid chill entered his mind. A most familiar sensation of power—power too great, too bright, and too devastating for him to even comprehend—emanating out of him, seeking a way out, begging for release. Lukas let it flow through him, the thin smile now spreading across his face.

In that brilliant light, even the murkiness of the blonde’s Psychomancy began to dissipate like morning mist.

And from deep within that primordial power came something else. Lukas’s lips opened, and his vocal cords constricted, speaking words that were not his own.

“That…would be me.”