Have you ever opened a fresh stack of printer paper? I guarantee almost everyone has, but imagine if you hadn't. Imagine that someone just handed you the unopened package of printer paper, to you that is all there is to it. Just a slightly heavy package, of course you might believe that there is something inside, but it is a mystery to you.

That unopened package of paper is a lot like Fracture. There are hundreds of layers all stack up upon each other to create a cohesive whole. A single unopened package of paper. Then imagine that you stacked this unopened package of paper on another and another and another times a thousand.

You might just start to understand the planes, the planets, the splitters of reality, pocket dimensions, and civilization's that make up the universe that Fracture is a part of. I bring this analogy to your attention because much like a stack of papers, what affects one piece of paper affects all of them. Curves, bumps, wrinkles, and rocks mare the surface of every page changing the whole stack above and below. One of the things that is hard to transfer are rules. The rules of reality might be ironclad in one place, but like tissue paper thin in another.

So it was quite lucky that our little bug activated its new skill underground.

Stygian could feel all of the soul fragments nearby. Unfortunately that didn't help with identifying characteristics of the fragments. So it was time for some experiments. Stygian examined the closest fragment, the piece looked like a topographical map, with hills and mountains. Searching through the ample selection found one with similar patterns, then wiped away everything defining from the first fragment. The idea was to have a blank core then one non blank piece to determine what that style of piece did. Hopefully. After all the texture could mean absolutely nothing.

Once the blank sphere was done Stygian carefully layered the fragment on top then following an urging from innate knowledge of a Soul Eater, stuffed the whole thing inside the forehead of a random skull. Being directly responsible for its creation our bug had a bond very similar to that of soul familiar though weaker. Almosted like a tamed or imprinted monster.

Name

Physical Modifiers Attributes Unique Statuses

(Blank)

Null Null Artificial

Age

Living Dead

10 Seconds

Varying Volatility

Species

Tiny soul

Skull-Soul Construct

There were no Skills available to view. The only unexpected status was Varying Volatility which had no description of what it did. It sounded like the skull may or may not explode. Which wasn't exactly a failure, but also not exactly what our bug was aiming for. Stygian tossed the skull into the distance hoping it would explode, but no such luck. On to a new test subject. This time Stygian grabbed a different style of soul, this one looked like river's from above. This one was also packed inside the forehead of a skull.

Name

Physical Modifiers Attributes Unique Statuses

(Blank)

Str: -100% Str: 3 Artificial

Age

Con: -99% Con: 2 Living Dead

9 Seconds

Tiny soul

Species

Skull-Soul Construct

Well that was useful, but not really useful for a skeleton. An attribute without a body was completely useless. It seemed that the volatile trait went away too, so progress? Maybe. It was strange how it had two attributes now instead of just one, or was it more strange that it was only two attributes. Perhaps if there was more of a body then there would be more attributes?

Stygian pulled the newly formed soul out of the skull and began to shape another tiny soul. This time Stygian connected the soul's together the way it's own was intertwined with the twins, and pushed one soul into the cavity once filled by the brain and one soul into a rib cage.

Name

Physical Modifiers Attributes Unique Statuses

(Blank)

Str: -90% Str: 5 Artificial

Age

Agi: -90% Agi: 4 Living Dead

12 Seconds

Con: -70% Con: 3 Binary soul

Species

End: -70% End: 3

Partial Skeleton-Soul Construct

So the river patterns were stats, and linking two souls in one body creates a binary soul. Which can act both independently and in harmony, a lot like Stygian soul familiar's. Once again Stygian dissolved the construct, having a new idea Stygian expelled some water from the garden and bound the binary soul to the newly created mud and the skull. Or tried to but the mud was much harder to bind a soul too. In the end however, Stygian succeeded and created something called a skull-mud elemental. What is more confusing however is that the status of living dead was removed and the agility attribute rose to 10. So the medium used had as much to do the stats as does the configuration of soul pieces.

Next Stygian tried to bind a soul to the fire , but that was even harder than the mud. Which put the task out of Stygians reach... for now. All of a sudden Stygian started to feel some of its connections snap. Stygian tore it's attention away from it's experiments, and saw mounds of skeletons pulled together forming a single entity that was smashing the ever living shit out of the Fyreflies. Calling back the Fyreflies, Stygian directed all of its focus on the undead behemoth. Will soul's to become visible, Stygian saw thin connections weaving the behemoth together.

Whoever created this monster, couldn't play with souls like Stygian could and had to rely on other methods of creation. Effective, but losing parts of the whole weakens the entire creation. Well I suppose that's true of everything, but for the undead it's a bit more detrimental. Undead were mindless constructs unable to resist, say a furious bug ripping out all of the soul fragments keeping you together. Now with a truly massive amount of material to work with, and access to the souls of dead Fyreflies Stygian began to craft its first true soul construct.

Stygian gathered up the most predatory skull it could find, for better combat potential not because it looks cool. Then gathered all the intact spines, ribs, and two sets of arms that Stygian could lay out in a pattern like a scorpion. Four arms in front, two with rib bones for fingers, six legs all made from rib, and finally a tail made of spines tipped with a blossom of rib bones. The whole thing was slathered in mud to connect all the pieces, then the souls were added. The soul of the Fyrefly would serve as the head, the Host-worm soul that was attached to it in life will be bonded to the mud, 12 tiny souls will serve as limb coordinators, blank except for the stats grafted onto them. One tiny soul for each leg, one for each arm, one for the spine and tail, and one for the rib blossom. All woven together like the binary soul's, but a soul system. Which also vaguely resembled a solar system with two suns orbiting each other and small planets in different orbits.

The Fyrefly had also received every soul segment connected to the fire thread.

As Stygian tried to finish the construction our bug was assaulted by fatigue, the construct was resisting. It took everything within the little bug to hold on to its creation, it would not let this masterpiece go uncreated. Stygian refused such an outcome.

Name

Physical Modifiers Attributes Unique Statuses

(Blank)

Str: -50% Str: 10 Artificial

Age

Agi: -50% Agi: 23 Minor Hivemind

11 Seconds

Dex: -50% Dex: 15 Hierarchy of Soul

Species

Mnt: -60% Mnt: 10

Bone-Mud Elemental- Soul Construct

Con: -20% Con: 30 End: -20% End: 15 Vit: -20% Vit: 10 Abilities Unique Skills Skills/Spells Combust Shared Bonds Fire Cloak Earthen Poison Fire blast Harden Shapeshift Symbiotic Mind Control Combat Level1 Magic Level 10 Earthen Death Elemental Level 1 Pyromancer Level 1

Now that was a soul construct, it inherited a lot of the status from the Fyrefly and Host-worm, but some of it was brand new. It was an Earthen Death Elemental, that could light shit on fire real good. And as it's creator Stygian could directly choose starter skills for pyromancer.

Job Skills/Spells/Abilities Level Slots Pyromancer Intense Heat 1 1 Pyromancer Death Flame 1 1 Pyromancer Internal Combustion 1 1

Intense Heat increases how fast things would burn in a pyromancer's flame. Death Flame was a special spell due to the strong element of death existing within the construct. The fire could burn living things with greater ease because the flames would suck the life out of a target as they burned. Internal Combustion will light a fire on the inside of a target with low magic resistance. Finally Stygian gave its new creation a name.

"I name you Prime. May you be the first of many, now go and destroy." Stygian activated diligence and watched the monster scuttle off.

Burning and crushing with a ferocious pace Prime began to utterly devastated the undead. It was a beauty to behold, when the elemental ran out of steam Stygian would switch while it rested by the fire. As they rotated Stygian began to notice that undead were becoming more and more complex, as well as tougher. Early the bug had been lucky to find a predatory skull now there were undead beasts abound a plenty. Soon Stygian would need a proper rest. There were sure to be a plethora of skill up and maybe even some new spells. Having activated Repulse and Telekinesis, the bug began to understand how to stop and speed up the motion of an object. How to take the energy of motion and how to add more energy without touching it. Stygian also developed a way to, as the bug would say, punch out the soul.

During one rotation Stygian noticed something weird. Over their current bonfire was a near invisible pixie like shape. The only thing that gave it away was the blindingly bright soul attached to the shape.

"Shoulda known I couldn't hide. Not from you, not after what you've been doing to my puppets." The voice was so slow that it seemed to make everything else slow down too. Their form became more substantial revealing a gray green pixie sized man. He seemed solid but was floating in midair. He also had an ominously green glowing crown on his head. Well circlet is more accurate since it only had one point on it

"You're puppets? So you're the necromancer who raised all these bodies?" Asked Stygian with it's faux pixie mouth. Vae had said it was a very bad idea to establish mental connections with strangers. If this stranger had the mental strength to animate so many skeletons, then it was a very bad idea indeed.

"Hm, kinda. My energy kinda permeates my surroundings breathing unlife into the dead. I just give them some basic rules." The potential necromancer took out a pipe, packed something in it, lit it, and took a long pull. As he did reality seemed to slow down even further. "Now that I've answered you, how are you breaking my hold over the puppets? You can't be taking the reins for yourself, we enter a mental battle if you tried."

"Your control relies on the soul fragments of the dead, I'm merely stripping away the fragments. With nothing to latch on, you're puppets as you call them break. Now tell me who or what are you?"

"You must be mistaken. Souls are not connected to the body." The man narrowed his eyes, and things slowed once more.

"Well, that's how I understand it." Stygian felt a dislike for this being grow as though they could never get along. "Now answer my question."

"Very well, I sacrificed myself to make sure intruders could never make it into our great city. As a Horned necromancer raising the dead came easily to me, my evolution to a revenant made me half living half dead increasing my effectiveness further, finally I earned my halo for my sacrifice." It was then that it clicked for Stygian.

"You're a sloth demon." With that Stygian activated it's diligence aura. Which really only affected the bugs perception of time, this necromancer seemed to be able to actually slow time down.

"Actually that isn't entirely true. I'm no longer a demon nor an angel, I am a Crowned."