Chapter 33

  1

  John’s mind was a mess of incomprehensible sensations and emotions. His thoughts were scattered, and he found it hard to focus on anything. Pain and euphoria warred with hunger and loneliness to provide a constant inner turmoil.

  His unconscious mind had no reprieve from the conflicting information for what seemed like days. He began to despair that he would stay trapped in torment forever. But as his sanity moved perilously close to the edge, his trial finally got a break.

  Light shone into his eyes as the world around John slowly came into focus. He was in what amounted to a jail cell, though the clear glass floor, walls, and ceiling were incongruous with the idea of incarceration. John assumed he was still in Ozone base.

  The room was unadorned apart from a small area in one corner for relieving oneself. John’s arms were constrained behind his back, which was propped against one of the four plain glass walls. He looked down at the floor.

  Far below the glass, John saw what looked like clouds passing by. Ozone base really did seem to exist high in the sky. He wondered if it had the ability to roam, like his own did.

  The thought hadn’t occurred to him before then with everything that had been going on. Now that it had, he supposed it made sense. He had a base that could travel across the ground, why wouldn’t there be bases that could fly?

  John pondered the thought for a moment in his befuddled state but soon turned his mind to more relevant matters. His body felt completely sound; there was no trace of the corrosive damage that had been done to his cells.

  Did K?tha have some way to heal him? Or had it simply been a much more potent form of Falsification? Had he really been hurt so badly or had it been a ruse that he didn’t see through in the heat of the moment?

  “Hello, John,” K?tha’s voice suddenly sounded to his left, banishing all thoughts of the previous confrontation.

  John turned his head to see the shapeshifter standing on the other side of the glass wall. He wore his familiar confident smile, and John understood why. He held all the cards, and John was at his mercy.

  “What do you want?” John demanded.

  “Straight to business! I like that. Let us not waste time on pleasantries.”

  John only stared at the man with renewed hatred. Not only had he not gotten revenge for the Polymorph’s treatment of Liz and her brothers, but the bastard was smugly standing out of reach, ready to demand something of John. The thought made his blood boil.

  “As I have already told you, you are much too useful to waste by killing you. I confess, as powerful as I am, there are still some things I cannot do. That is where you come in,” K?tha explained.

  “No. It isn’t,” John disagreed.

  “I don’t see a lot of choices for you,” K?tha countered.

  Before John could respond, he felt a horrible burning sensation spreading through his body. It sent jolts of pain through him at irregular intervals. He doubled over, which caused him to fall onto his side as his hands were unable to catch him, bound as they were.

  The pain eventually subsided, leaving John’s limbs spasming randomly. He breathed heavily, having nearly bitten his tongue in the ordeal. While he sat there on his side trying to catch his breath, his captor spoke again.

  “As you can see, I have more of a say in what you’ll do for me than you think. I’ve left a piece of myself within you. And it doesn’t matter how hard you struggle against me. It doesn’t matter how much you hate me. You’ll serve your purpose, like all the others did.”

  “A piece of yourself?” John asked, trying to contain his disgust.

  “That’s right. You see, I’m in complete control of my biomass. Even the parts that get separated from me respond to my intent. And when I put part of myself inside something, I can use it to do all kinds of fun things,” K?tha explained.

  As he spoke, the room seemed to rotate until John was sitting on the ceiling. He looked down at K?tha who now stood upside down, watching him with interest. Then John seemed to melt off of the ceiling and into a puddle on the floor. Slowly, he bubbled like hot oil, growing and piling on himself until he once again sat upright with his back to the wall.

  The experience was jarring. He hadn’t felt any pain, but his body had actually felt like liquid for a few moments. He didn’t know how K?tha was able to manipulate his perception so effortlessly, but it proved once again how formidable the shapeshifter was.

  “Apart from that, you’ll find that as long as a piece of me is in you, I can use your nervous system do almost anything. For example,” K?tha said.

  John felt his head lean forward a few inches before it slammed back into the glass wall behind him with a tooth jarring impact. Lights danced in John’s eyes, and he couldn’t see anything around him for almost a full minute. By the time his vision cleared, K?tha was already talking again.

  “You can try to fight it. But I am integrated into your cells themselves. Any action you take is at my bidding. And my bidding is exactly what you will do.”

  “Fuck you,” John spat.

  The world disintegrated into pain and torment. John felt like he was lying on a hot bed of coals while someone jumped up and down on his chest with a pair of spiky boots on. He screamed until his throat cracked, but the pain didn’t end until K?tha was satisfied.

  “It’s all fake. It’s not real. He’s tricking your brain,” John tried to convince himself, but he wasn’t sure he was right anymore.

  “You can do as your told, or you can stay here forever,” K?tha offered.

  “You may as well kill me. I’ll never do anything for you,” John persisted.

  “If I wanted you dead, it would be no great task. You don’t get that mercy, however. For as long as I have need of you, you’ll stay alive. And if you don’t want to cooperate, I can always pay another visit to a certain someone. You know she didn’t take your advice? Came back to the Garden the very next day. She’s got some potential too. Not as much as you, but still. It’s a shame, really; destroying such a useful tool. But some tools are useful even when broken.”

  The threat wiped away any semblance of sanity from John’s mind. He was immediately spitting invectives at the man like a cobra spitting venom. He swore for as long as his breath held, and when he was done, an unnatural silence pervaded.

  “Do you truly think anything you say can change your situation? Sheep do not become wolves just because they’re sick of being hunted. You’ve already lost. Now you’ll serve. That is a fact you cannot escape.”

  “And do you truly think anything you say can change my mind? If so, then you’re stupid and ugly,” John shot back.

  “I do not have to change your mind. As I said, you have already lost.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m going to help you.”

  “Oh, but that’s exactly what it means. And I can prove it. Watch,” K?tha said.

  And with that, John sunk into utter darkness once more.

  2

  Pain brought John back to awareness. He screamed as his muscles burned in agony. The sensation only lasted a few seconds, however.

  As it subsided, John opened his eyes hesitantly. He was expecting to see the same enclosed room he had been in before. What he saw instead made him feel like he was dreaming.

  He was lying on his side in a dark cave. His surroundings were lit only by an eerie blue light that came from a large pool of water close by. It cast shadows on the cavern around it that danced as if the source of light were in perpetual motion.

  There was nothing else in the room, and John soon got nervously to his feet. The ceiling of the cave was lower than his natural height, leaving him stooped. The walls were rough, clearly not an excavation, but a natural formation. He approached the water cautiously.

  John tried to summon his armor, hoping for some kind of protection from the unknown. To his dismay, there seemed to be a solid wall in his mind between him and the Soul Wall. He couldn’t access any of his gear.

  John was barely clothed at all, most of his attire having been dissolved by the acidic gas K?tha had fought him with. Without his armor, he may as well have been naked. There was a chill in the air, and one that couldn’t entirely be attributed to being underground. It felt like something dangerous lurked nearby, watching and waiting.

  His eyes fell once more upon the glowing surface of the water. As he walked closer, he could see what looked suspiciously like a massive doorway reflected on the liquid. It was built into the far wall, and he couldn’t make out more than the shape of the hole. The pool of water seemed to be the only barrier between himself and the door.

  John stopped at the edge of the water. There was an almost tangible feeling in the air, and it was surging from the pool in waves like invisible ripples. He stuck his hand out over the water and immediately felt a slight electric current pass through his body.

  He took a step back and looked at his hand in surprise. It had felt like touching an electric fence, and the tingling in his fingers told him he needed to be careful. He stepped forward once more to inspect the pool more closely.

  As he was waving his hand through the strange static field, the source of the glow within the pool shifted suddenly. Before John knew it, there was a bright flash of light, and he found himself doubled over at the edge of the water. His nerves were on fire and his body was convulsing. Something had electrocuted him.

  His head turned involuntarily toward the water as his muscles spasmed. In the couple seconds before it jerked in another direction, John saw something horrifying in the pool. He caught sight of giant teeth spread wide to receive him if he had fallen forwards instead of backward. Then his head jerked in another direction, and the waiting horror was gone from his sight.

  With a terrified exclamation, John took control of his limbs once more and scrabbled furiously away from the water. He didn’t stop until his back pressed against the far wall. He spent some time after that just panting in fear.

  What in the hell had he seen in the pool? Was it as large as it had looked? And what was with the electricity? John’s head spun as he panted, staring at the pool.

  “Stop playing around and kill the fish!” K?tha suddenly said in a harsh tone. .

  It came directly from the depths of his mind, like the Polymorph truly was a part of him. John wasn’t sure, but he thought the voice had sounded distressed and possibly even pained.

  In any case, the point of John’s presence in the cave had been made clear. K?tha was using him to remove an obstacle in his way. And while John hated the wretched shapeshifter with every fiber of his being, he had no doubt that he would not be allowed to leave until the task was done.

  He didn’t even know where he was even if he could find a way free of whatever K?tha had done to him. And he would likely be dead from starvation long before he found a base to return to earth. On the other hand…

  John looked past the pool to the barely illuminated archway. In all his time in the Garden, he hadn’t seen a single building or structure that wasn’t part of a base. And that included suspicious archways. Maybe the solution to both K?tha and his return to earth could be accomplished by going through with the task he was being forced into.

  John warily inched closer to the water once more. He was watching for signs of the monster he had seen. To his simultaneous horror and satisfaction, he didn’t have to look very hard.

  The source of the glow coming from the water was actually part of the creature itself. A small glowing globe shone in the body of an immense fish. The fish itself was nearly transparent, with its bones seeming to refract the light of the globe that bounced around its body as it swam. It was this effect that seemed to cast dancing shadows all around the cavern.

  John inspected the creature with a mix of fear and fascination. It clearly had enough intelligence to hunt beyond its domain. Only chance stopped him from falling into the belly of the beast.

  He briefly pondered crossing the water by wing, but even if he could use his summoned souls, he would have discarded the idea. The moment his hand had passed over the water, the fish had known. If he was flapping massive wings just inches above the water in the cramped passageway, he’d be dropped in to feed the beast for sure.

  “I can’t kill it without some kind of weapon,” John finally said, addressing his captor.

  “You’ll figure it out,” was the only reply.

  John cursed and stepped close to the water. He was still hesitant to approach any further, but he wanted to get a better idea of what he was dealing with. It was the first time he had faced an aquatic foe since the ooze that had swallowed him on his second excursion.

  This was undoubtedly a foe of much greater capability, however. He could tell now that the beast was attuned to electricity just like Suné. It was actually some kind of electric core that was providing the light to the room. John could see it discharging throughout the fish’s body now and again.

  “I can’t get close, and I can’t attack from afar,” John noted.

  He was struggling with a solution. If he had nearly any of his soul weapons, he could easily dispatch the fish. But for whatever reason, John still felt his access to them was locked down. He wondered if there was a deeper reason for that.

  “If I just had my bow. Even if I couldn’t kill it with an arrow, the poison would probably take care of the rest,” John thought aloud.

  “Wait a second,” he suddenly said, the thought giving him an idea.

  What he needed was a way to hurt the fish without being able to get close to it. That was a tricky proposition, but luckily, it was less problematic than it would have been for a land bound animal. He already had a handy medium to work through.

  John started manipulating his spirit to flow in a couple different ways. First, he projected Neutralization out from his body. It connected with the static aura the fish was supporting and passively assimilated with the field. To John’s great relief, there was no reaction from the fish.

  The next thing he did was try to use Annihilation on the electric charge running through the water. Unfortunately, the fish seemed too formidable to overpower in its own home. John quickly abandoned the attempt before it exhausted him.

  Unperturbed, John tried a new tactic. He hadn’t touched on the branch much yet, but he’d gained recent experience combatting it, so John attempted to circulate the pathways of Contamination for the first time. His mental acuity was tested to its limits as he struggled to maintain Neutralization on the pool while he experimented.

  He took his time with the new branch but soon found that his efforts just couldn’t match the strength of the electricity the fish was dishing out. Any Contamination he was able to accumulate was purged before spreading more than a few feet into the water.

  That led to John’s continually depleting reserves being further divided. He split his active circulation into three instead, equally providing sustenance for Neutralization, Contamination, and now Culmination. He hoped to bolster the spread of poison through the water.

  As he pushed his aura into the water, he was elated to see his Contamination efforts remain stubbornly in place despite the attempts to eviscerate it by the lightning charged water. His joy was short-lived, however. He soon found that while the toxin was unable to be purged by the fish’s defensive capabilities, John was also unable to force the contaminant to spread further into the water.

  John was growing tired of dividing himself by then, but he had one more desperate idea to infect the fish. It wasn’t something he was sure would work, as he had the least experience or grasp with this particular branch, but there was no time like the present to experiment.

  Feeling almost impossibly wrung out, John split his remaining spiritual essence into four. Neutralization kept him safely in contact with the electrified waters. Contamination provided a toxin to battle the fish. Culmination provided the strength for that toxin to survive the electric purge. And now, John tried his hardest to divert his remaining energy to the fourth aspect, Dissemination.

  This was a branch more akin to Neutralization. It involved a heavy amount of projection. John’s fatigued spirit was on the verge of collapse, but he spread his aura out to the extent of his abilities. And through that aura, he projected Dissemination. The spread of an idea, concept, substance, or spirit, to the exclusion of all else.

  Dissemination was meant to be used in conjunction with other branches, such as Falsification, Isolation, Annihilation, and yes, Contamination. It was the medium John had been hoping to find in the water itself. The moment his aura spread over the pool; he could feel his Contamination spread with newfound vigor.

  His stamina was fading fast, but he could see the difference in the water. An ink-like substance was spreading through it like a cloud of night. The fish seemed to have an instinctive reaction to the presence of his Contamination.

  It swam around in circles like a trapped rat as the encroaching cloud closed any avenue for escape. John watched it struggle with detached interest. The scene felt reminiscent of his previous fight. Only this time, he was the toxic attacker.

  He felt an odd sense of revulsion at his mirrored position. He despised K?tha for everything he had done, yet here he was victimizing a creature in the same way. But the moment passed quickly enough.

  For one thing, John did not choose to be here. He didn’t want to fight some random lightning fish, who knew how far underground. But the fish had proven itself dangerous even if he meant it no harm.

  And for that reason, John watched on without remorse as the huge fish frantically scrambled around the water until the black cloud of poison overtook it. Immense blasts of lightning targeted the inky pervasion, but it only scattered the darkness for a few seconds before it closed back in. Within another minute, the pool was entirely black.

  Sparse illuminations still came from below, but they quickly became weaker until the water was calm. John waited for several more seconds before it happened. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the body of the fish floated upside down to the surface.

  “You have killed Divine Elemental Cavefish. You have received soul of Divine Elemental Cavefish! Divine gene available for harvest!”

  “Congratulations! You have unlocked the Trial of Ascension!”

  “Trial of Ascension Progress: 40%”

  “2 of 5 Guardians have been defeated!”

  As John watched, the body of the fish began to dissipate as the Jaguar’s had. It had floated almost within reach of John, so he stepped into the water and grabbed hold of it. He pulled it to dry land just in time for the Divine gene to fall to the floor with a clatter.

  As the rest of the fish melted away, John was already wiping away the remnant personality of the fish from its gene. A few moments later, John was swelling with more energy than he’d felt in weeks. His exertions were rewarded with another notification.

  “You have consumed gene of Divine Elemental Cavefish! You have received zero Divine genes!”

  The energy he felt coursing through him seemed to search for something it couldn’t find for a few seconds before leaving his body entirely. He was astounded at the phenomenon, but after a few seconds, he remembered the limitations he had placed on himself with his Oath of Revenge. He had forgotten that his progression was frozen, and in his desperation to gain enough energy to purge the Polymorph from his body, he had completely wasted the Divine gene.

  “Fuck!” He cursed.

  “That is enough. Your purpose is served,” K?tha said.

  Even before he finished speaking in John’s mind, he felt extraordinarily drowsy. His spiritual circulation fizzled as his ability to interact with his pathways drastically diminished. He fell to the ground in exhaustion as the world faded to darkness around him.

  3

  “What is your cultivation method?”

  John didn’t know how long he had been unconscious. It seemed like a lot longer than any normal sleep he received. Having no way to know for sure, he tried not to consider it.

  He opened his eyes to see K?tha standing over him, albeit safely behind a glass wall. The faux man was studying him like he had never seen anything so interesting. John groaned in annoyance and turned away.

  “Fuck you,” he said to the opposite wall.

  “You have more versatility than even me. If given the chance, you could become quite the troublesome adversary.”

  “When I do, you’ll be the first to find out,” John promised.

  K?tha only laughed. His perpetual unconcern made John want to grit his teeth until they cracked. Especially since he knew how accurate the smug Polymorph’s opinion was.

  “Since we are asking questions of each other; I have been wondering how you managed to get Liz here against her will. Transition pads require consent, and I can’t imagine she wanted to be brought here and tortured, even her unconscious mind would have rejected the idea.”

  “There are tools and resources that you are still unaware of. One of which is this token,” K?tha said, holding up a coin.

  “What does it do?” John asked, already familiar with the Garden’s prize system.

  “This is called a Return Token. Using it will take you back to the last base you visited. After I put myself in her body, it was easy to take control of her limbs and use it. Now, I’ve given you an answer. Will you reciprocate? Or do I need to ask again?”

  John didn’t answer. He knew he would pay for his silence, but he refused to give his enemy any satisfaction. The pain that came a second later blinded him to anything but the agony.

  The torment did not end with an admonition to answer K?tha’s questions. Instead, John’s body and spirit were raked by the foul intrusion for long minutes, ending with the contamination shifting back to drowsiness. He sunk out of consciousness while his nerves still screamed.

  John’s sleep seemed incomprehensibly long. He toiled in whatever creations his mind came up with for what seemed like weeks. He had no way of knowing the true passage of time; but his body never seemed malnourished. Either time was passing much more slowly than he could tell in his stupor, or he was being fed nutrients through some unknown method.

  When he opened his eyes next, John was once again standing in an unfamiliar area. It was extremely disconcerting. One moment he was asleep, and the next, he was fully awake and standing upright with no idea how he had come to be there.

  “How does-”

  John’s rhetorical question was cut off by the sudden appearance of something fast and hot. Only his insane reflexes allowed him to twist out of the way of the attack. He felt an immense heat pass him as the creature fell to the ground, disoriented by its lack of success.

  John turned to get a good look at the beast. It was black, sleek, and incredibly nimble. Even as his eyes settled on it, the creature shook off its confusion and bounded away.

  John was surprised to see an extra pair of legs on the dark figure. They seemed designed to grip the ground as the beast moved, lending extra speed or power to its actions when the case called for it. Apart from the general shape of a cat, the thing didn’t look like any beasts John had ever encountered.

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  Its head was small and round, not having any ears that he could see. A mouth that spread far wider than that of a normal beast split its head across the middle. Its eyes were without any white, instead housing a monochrome red that made John think it was a demon. A barbed tail lent credence to the thought.

  Further inspection was lost to him as the creature bounded away. John watched it duck behind a large tree and lost sight of it. He knew it wasn’t done with him, so he simply inspected his surroundings in preparation for its reappearance.

  He was standing in a wooded area, not unlike most any other area John had explored since coming to the Garden. Being outside this time, he could see that it was somewhere near mid evening. The sun had disappeared behind a high horizon and dusk would soon set in.

  “Ah!”

  John shouted in pain as his cells finally realized the true magnitude of the heat that had just passed by. Looking down, his entire right side was blistered with second degree burns. His tattered clothes smoked, and little embers ran along what fabric remained. John looked back up in horror for the beast that he was sure was approaching.

  Only then did he notice the state of all the plant life in the area. Shrubs that used to grow in abundance in the area were mostly reduced to piles of ash. Some of the smaller trees suffered the same fate, having no leaves to speak of and thin frames burnt to near charcoal. The larger trees survived to a greater degree, but it seemed nothing was completely safe from the immense heat of the strange beast.

  Just then, the silent assassin dove back into the fight. From over John’s singed shoulder, he felt the approaching heat wave once more. This time, he dove far out of the way to avoid the burn.

  His face was scratched and bloodied by something sharp as he landed, but as long as he avoided the beast, he didn’t care. It did make it difficult to see his foe’s next move, however. He scrambled to his feet in concern that it would dive on top of his prone form.

  He quickly twisted around the nearest tree and leaned against it as the suspected attack barreled past. The heat of the singed tree against his back was bad enough, but the almost impossible level of heat coming off the colorless beast was on an entirely different level. It felt like a mobile sun, devastating everything it came near.

  The black monster continued past him and mauled a tree instead. Its savagely long claws made deep gashes in the bark almost effortlessly. Bright red coals blossomed in the grooves.

  “A fucking weapon would be nice!” John shouted to the sky.

  If he expected an answer, he was disappointed. His only reward was the renewed savagery of his newest foe at the sound of his provocative shout. John danced around his safety tree as it attempted to launch itself at him.

  After two more failed attempts, the beast tried a new tactic. With the first sound John had heard from it, the demon howled in fury. He watched in interest as it hopped back a few paces from the tree.

  Before he could wonder what it was planning, the monster opened its hideously wide mouth and spit at him. The projectile saliva was far from feeble, however. Instead, what looked like a baseball sized stone of molten metal shot from its mouth like a bullet.

  John’s eyes widened in alarm as the ball exploded against the tree he hid behind. The entire tree exploded into pieces, many of which impaled John to lesser or greater extents. He flew back like a character in an action movie as the concussion took him from his feet.

  He felt his back slam into another tree, this one much less sturdy. It gave a sharp crack in protest as some of its smaller limbs were broken by his intrusion. He fell to the ground with a pained cough.

  His entire face was blistering from the heat of the attack, and his body was impaled in at least a dozen places by small shards of wood. He coughed a hearty amount of blood from his lungs as he struggled to breathe properly.

  He knew he didn’t have the time to waste on things like feeling the pain, so he shakily climbed to his feet just in time to have to dodge another attack. The beast launched itself at his throat this time, and if he hadn’t tripped backwards on a root, it may have found its mark.

  Instead, it’s blisteringly hot body only ravaged his skin by proximity as it passed over him. John screamed in renewed pain, but he quickly climbed to his feet and ran from the beast. Without a weapon, he had no hope of killing such a creature.

  He was sprinting in the direction of the blasted tree when he heard the beast scream in frustration once more. Without turning around, John knew what was about to happen. Even before the first blindingly hot claw sunk into his back, John was screaming in horror and agony.

  He fell to the ground, but not before instinctively tossing his body to the side to dislodge the terrible beast. He felt its claws which had sunk firmly into his bones as they burned his flesh, rip ruinously from his body as its weight carried it from his back. He heard a pained shriek which seemed to cut off abruptly, but John’s world was nothing but searing agony across his back and to the deepest recesses of his being.

  He hit the ground with a grunt of pain that was lost on him as the rest of his mind screamed at the sheer depth of his injuries. He could feel his entire back cauterizing all the way down to the bone. Deep wounds he would never be able to fully excise from his body were sizzling like flesh after a cattle brand.

  He poured his spirit into Neutralization, but he already knew that some wounds were too severe to erase entirely. It did help to ease the pain slightly, but an ache that went bone deep was not easy to soothe. While he was groaning and unwilling to move so much as an inch, he heard the familiar notification.

  “You have killed Divine Abyss Lurker! You have gained the soul of a Divine Abyss Lurker! Divine gene available for harvest!”

  “Trial of Ascension Progress: 60%”

  “3 of 5 Guardians have been defeated!”

  John was flabbergasted. He hadn’t taken any time to consider why the beast didn’t attack him further. His pain had made it impossible to focus on such musings.

  Now that he heard the confirmation of its death, that question at least had been answered. The next question he had of course was how the hell he had killed the beast. As he agonizingly rose from the ground, he got his answer.

  It sat impaled at a horrific angle upon the very tree it had blasted to pieces moments before. When John had thrown it from his back, it must have landed on the shards of the tree hard enough to run it through. A horrible black liquid seeped down the tree like tar as it fell from the body of the Abyss Lurker. The body started dissolving even as he watched.

  Another thought occurred to him, too. It hadn’t escaped his notice with either of his most recent foes that they had been named “Guardian.” He had no idea what this ‘Trial of Ascension’ was, but it was becoming clear that K?tha was using John to dispose of difficult opponents.

  John rose shakily to his feet and looked around the area. After a moment, he found it. Just like in the cave with the pool, John saw an extremely large and ornate door nestled in an archway. Suspiciously, the archway and door appeared not to connect to anything at all. They just sat out of place in the middle of the woods.

  This time, John could see well enough to make out five emblems on the door. Three of the five were now lit in different colors. One an emerald, green tornado; another was a lightning bolt glowing a blue that was so light it was almost white; the third was a flame in a deep black, glowing despite its darkness.

  Of the two unlit emblems, John could see a snowflake and, though he couldn’t be sure, what appeared to be a boulder. Neither of the emblems had even a hint of color. They both sat lifelessly, waiting to be discovered and awakened.

  “Thank you, John. You’re even more useful than I dared to hope.”

  John felt the intense drowsiness taking over before K?tha had finished speaking.

  “No! God damnit! No!” John shouted in frustration.

  He furiously circulated his spirit into Sterilization and Neutralization alike as he felt his body grow heavy. He activated Sublime Apotheosis as well, hoping to give himself just a few more seconds. It was all for nothing, however.

  John felt his efforts stir curiosity in the invasive consciousness, but he was far too ineffective to pose a threat. He fell to the ground painfully on his injured back. The darkening sky suddenly went black above him.

  4

  “Why don’t we get to know each other a little better. What do you say?” K?tha asked.

  John was sitting against his cell wall as always. His excruciatingly aching back told him the Polymorph had not given any kind of medical treatment. The deep soreness he felt told him the wounds were no longer recent.

  “How long have I been here?” John asked.

  K?tha was sitting cross legged in his human form across from him. The taller man stared at John like he had never seen anything so interesting. He smiled at the question.

  “Time is certainly marching on but never mind that. I’ve been extremely impressed with your performance. Keep it up, and I might just let you come with me through the door.”

  The deflection annoyed John, not least because it worked so well.

  “What are the Guardians guarding?” He asked.

  “Long ago, I discovered a doorway in the middle of the desert. I had been traveling for days in the sand before I came across it. While I was looking at it, I was attacked by a truly remarkable foe.”

  John understood that he was talking about the first of the five Guardians. He remembered the emerald, green light upon the door in the forest. K?tha continued speaking a few seconds later.

  “It seemed to be a sand ooze, but it attacked with the power of wind. It created gusts of wind which it rode like a sentient sandstorm. With each pass, its grains cut into me like microscopic blades. Luckily, my body is extremely resistant to physical damage. It was a hard fight, but I eventually infected the mass of sand with so much poison that it was too wet to move. After that it was fairly easy to find its core and destroy it. That’s when I learned of the five Guardians, just as you now have.”

  “So, you found all of the other doors? And what? You are too weak to kill any of the other Guardians yourself?” John asked scathingly.

  “I admit it. We all have our limitations. I wonder exactly where yours lie,” K?tha returned.

  “Well for one thing, I can tell you with utter certainty that I’m not going to be able to keep this up without a weapon of some sort. Or at least some damn armor! I almost died last time. I can still feel the thing’s claws in my bones. And my back feels like it’s on fire. You couldn’t do anything to ease my suffering after all my effort?” John asked, honestly a little indignantly.

  “I confess, your wounds are beyond my ability to mend. They carry the essence of incineration. I… am not suited to heat,” K?tha Apologized.

  “Or lightning either, I’m guessing?”

  K?tha smiled, but didn’t correct him.

  “How about ice? Would you survive being frozen and smashed like a pane of glass? Be careful K?tha. I can see more of those limitations you were talking about. Or should we call them weaknesses? Threats to your safety? I wonder what would happen if that demon had latched onto you? You might have bubbled right away like steam on the breeze.”

  K?tha’s smile faltered as John spoke. To his credit, he did not appear overly concerned, though he did start to look at John with a much less confident expression. After a moment, however, the smile returned along with a fa?ade of unconcern. John hid a smile of his own at the seed of doubt he had just planted.

  “You’ve got quite the extraordinary mind, John.”

  “And I’m not even the smart kid in my family,” John said.

  “So, have you guessed the type of trials in store for the last two Guardians then?” K?tha asked.

  “One is something ice related. The other might be earth. I wonder why you need me for that one? I can’t imagine you’re at great risk of being smashed to death by a boulder.”

  “Excellent deductions. And as I’ve said, we all have our limitations,” K?tha responded.

  “Well one of my limitations is my flesh. So, either give me something to fight with next time, or let me have my armor. Or at least my wings so I can keep a psychotic demon cat from tearing searing chunks from my flesh!” John shouted angrily.

  “That… is something that can be arranged. Though I fear you don’t have a weapon strong enough for the next Guardian.”

  “Let me worry about that. Just let me access my Soul Space next time,” John demanded.

  “Very well.” K?tha conceded.

  “You still haven’t told me what this is all about. What are these five powerful beasts guarding? What is the Trial of Ascension?”

  “That is a secret that few have ever uncovered. If you study the door thoroughly, though, you can discern hints of a trial unlike any other that the Garden has to offer.”

  “A unique trial?” John asked.

  “Indeed. You see, I could have passed from this world long ago. Moving on to Stage 2 would be no great feat for me. But what then? I’ve spent centuries here. Learning of this world, conquering as much of it as I can. Collecting the memories of those from beyond its borders. People like you.”

  John’s stomach twisted in disgust as he thought of Liz.

  “If I move on, just like that, I’ll be back to square one. I have to admit, the idea has kept me here for longer than I like.”

  “What do these doors have to do with it? What is the Trial of Ascension?”

  “To unlock the doors is to unlock an evolution more powerful than simply entering the purification pools.”

  “How do you know that?” John challenged.

  “Because the pools are free for all to enter just once. After doing so, you may not return again, no matter how long you remain in the Garden,” K?tha said.

  “And is that what you did? Entered the pool? And that’s how you unlocked your ascended state?” John asked.

  “That’s right. As I was saying, the chamber is free to enter for all who are worthy of moving on. But for those of us native to the Garden, the only way onward is to pass through the great barrier that divides this world from Stage 2. Those barriers are only located within the chambers.”

  “And you didn’t go through it. What’s wrong? Even with all your power you’re still afraid?” John sneered.

  What might have been rage blinked across the shapeshifter’s face, but it was gone too quickly to be sure. John smiled at his success in bothering his nemesis. K?tha responded in a slightly annoyed tone.

  “Alas, I did not. There was too much I didn’t know. I was still too young. I didn’t want to move on before discovering all I could about my new abilities. But after I left the chamber, the option was closed to me. Now I’m something of a double-edged sword. Few in the Garden are more powerful than me, yet without opening the door I can never move further.”

  “If that was true, you wouldn’t need me to do all of the work for you. There are plenty here who are more powerful than you. Even after your pitiful evolution. I have a fox friend that could fry your ass into crusty little flakes with a single bolt of lightning. Don’t try to pretend you’re something special,” John burst out.

  K?tha had started looking unpleasant at John’s words. He was certain the man would retaliate with some kind of brutality. But at the mention of Suné, his face froze in a rictus of open fear.

  “You’ve befriended the fox?” He asked in horrified curiosity.

  The change was so abrupt that John was taken aback. K?tha quickly recovered, hiding his true emotions behind a wall of deception. But John had seen it. Proof of the Polymorph’s fatal weakness.

  “That’s right. We’re close acquaintances. In fact, I’m actually a bit late on repaying a favor I asked of her. I sure hope she doesn’t think I’m trying to skip out on her and come looking for me. Oh well, I’m sure you can handle it even if she does have a locator token with my blood on it.”

  “What is a locator token?” K?tha asked, and the alarm in his voice was music to John’s ears.

  “You’ve never heard of them? Oh, that’s right! You’re a scheming scumbag piece of shit. You wouldn’t know about them. See I got a few of them as a prize for finding someone I know who was lost for months. You being a self centered, sadistic, isolated loner, I’m not surprised you’ve never received any.”

  This was all, of course, a lie. John hadn’t received any such thing. He wasn’t sure such a token even existed, though he certainly wouldn’t have been surprised to know it did.

  The point was that John’s lie was having a serious impact on K?tha. The implications of what he was saying were dawning on the Polymorph, and he did not seem to appreciate them. John pressed on while he had his foe imbalanced.

  “Yeah, you just take a drop of your self, blood, spit, sweat… probably a few other possible mediums as well but the point is, after your identity is recognized by the token, whoever holds it can always find you, no matter how far you go.”

  K?tha’s reaction to his words gave John exactly what he needed. They may have been lies, but his open terror at the thought of Suné coming to find John told him that K?tha had a severe handicap to lightning. He remembered how distressed the Polymorph had sounded after John had been shocked by the fish.

  “Careful K?tha, there are real predators out there.”

  “That’s enough of this,” K?tha said.

  His angry tone did nothing to hide his fear. He stood and turned away from John as the drowsiness took him once more. John just smiled at his tiny rebellion. As he passed from awareness, he hoped the seeds of doubt he had planted would grow into disgusting and insidious weeds. He felt comfort at the idea as blackness descended around him.

  5

  “This again? John asked as his eyes suddenly became focused.

  He was standing alone, this time on a wind kissed mountain. Grey skies made it hard to tell what time of day it was. The stone beneath his feet was black and rough, but it provided good enough footing. John looked around for his newest task, but he couldn’t find any trace of danger.

  “You have access to your precious tools this time. Do not disappoint me.” K?tha said in his mind.

  John checked, and sure enough; his armor appeared on his body a moment later. With a smile, he also summoned his wings and began rising into the sky. Before he could go too far, however, he felt a warning from within him.

  “Do not get any clever ideas. I can still control your body. Falling from the sky would not be a fun experience for you,” K?tha said.

  John could feel the slightest hint of drowsiness course through him before dissipating. It was a threat that he was sure would be carried out if John tried to flee. Instead, he hovered over the mountain, inspecting it for signs of life.

  He found the door first. It was nestled against the stone of the mountain. At further inspection, John could see that the peak was actually broken into a dozen jagged spires. The door sat on the inside of the crown the peaks created.

  “So, this is the stone trial,” John guessed

  He didn’t feel overly cold for being on top of a mountain, so, he assumed he wasn’t looking for a beast of the ice element. Nevertheless, he kept his eyes peeled for any signs that he was mistaken. After five minutes, though, he still hadn’t seen so much as a pebble move.

  “What am I looking for here?” John asked of the ever-present entity in his mind.

  “No idea,” K?tha admitted.

  “Seriously?” John asked with incredulity.

  “Seriously. I only found the door. I have not provoked its Guardian. I suggest you do some investigation.”

  “Damnit,” John cursed under his breath.

  His hatred of the Polymorph only grew with each new task he was given. He could still feel the searing heat of the Abyss Lurker deep in his flesh, like the attack had just happened. Any sudden movement exasperated the discomfort.

  John slowly lowered himself to the stone of the mountain. The small bowl created by the many spires of the mountain top was covered with small stone debris. John landed once more upon the mountain and hesitantly approached the door.

  His footsteps were light, aided by his wings to keep his presence minimal. Nevertheless, as he approached the door there was a great rumbling disturbance beneath his feet. John immediately launched back into the air just as he heard a massive cacophony of stone scraping against stone.

  He flew more than a dozen feet into the air in only a second as the mountain itself seemed to attack him. Massive, jagged spikes akin to the peaks themselves protruded from the entire mountain in every direction. Within seconds, the top of the summit was riddled with stalagmites.

  John gasped in alarm at the sheer abruptness of the attack. He had barely made an impact upon the stone, yet whatever guardian lurked here had immediately noticed his presence. Moreover, it had not needed to reveal itself to attack him.

  “No wonder you couldn’t kill it. You can’t even find it,” John sneered at K?tha.

  “Well then, you’d better prove your superiority, hadn’t you?” Was the unbothered reply.

  John ground his teeth in frustration at K?tha’s puppetry. He dreamed fondly of the day he could pay him back for all of this. Until then though…

  John looked down upon the stone with curiosity. As he watched, the mountain grated against itself once more, and the shards slowly receded. There was still no indication of what was causing the changes to the stone.

  Having no better option, John simply waited for the ground to settle. There was no way of getting to the beast, and without knowing what he was facing, he could hardly formulate a strategy. John sighed as he realized what he had to do.

  Itzukiel’s Mercy appeared in his hands, and John started circulating his spirit. Culmination blossomed in him as he inspected the area. His eyes turned to the spiritual, and he scanned the mountain for signs of his foe’s aura.

  He was not surprised to learn that most of the mountain top was draped in the aura of something. It appeared as a deep grey color, and John had the feeling that whatever he was facing was heavily tendered towards stone and nothing else. He expected whatever it turned out to be to have high defense.

  His inspection, insightful though it may have been, did little to locate his foe. All he could see was the indication that it could pass through stone like swimming through water. Ripples appeared in the aura like stones being thrown on a calm lake.

  “Okay, well that’s not unhelpful,” John told himself.

  He tried to pinpoint everywhere a ripple appeared in the stone aura, but the effect was so scattered that it was impossible to predict where the next would come. He gritted his teeth in frustration at his situation. Still, it didn’t change the path forward.

  With all of his accumulated Culmination, John massively increased the force with which he could swing his arm. He flew down to hover just above the stone of the mountain. Then, like a blacksmith on an anvil, he brought his hammer down.

  A sound like a gunshot echoed through the air as his attack slammed into the stone. Massive cracks in the mountain crown spread out like veins. Shards of stone exploded in all directions as his hammer pummeled the rock.

  John felt more than heard a pained cry deep below the surface of the rock. Its protestations reverberated through his weapon and into his arm. John’s eyes widened, and he launched back into the air just as another series of massive spikes erupted from the mountain.

  This time, however, they didn’t content themselves with poking up. Each one was fully ejected from the mountain, traveling like spears to impale John. His reflexes saved him from the worst of the attack, but two smaller shards still punched through his armor to stab his gut and left leg.

  “Agh!”

  He screamed in protest as his flesh was pierced. The force of the attacks was so great that even after having to punch through his stout armor, they retained enough momentum to pass entirely from his body and the opposite side of his Chimera armor as well. He coughed a mouth full of blood out and nearly lost his position in the air as he struggled to maintain his composure.

  Luckily, the wings attached to his body were not flesh and bone. Being constructs of his own mind, they were subject only to the limitations of his will, not his body. That allowed them to keep performing their function despite his temporary loss of control.

  John increased his altitude further as he looked down upon the mountain. His previous attack on the stone was unrecognizable in the aftermath of the stone beast’s retaliation. The whole of the mountain top was riddled with sharp spikes, and unlike before, they did not recede.

  John started to grow dizzy from the continued loss of blood in his leg and stomach. Nevertheless, he circulated his spirit not to repair, but to attack. After several seconds, his potential force had skyrocketed.

  Over the next several minutes, John repeated variations of his first attack. His efforts were met with retaliation each time, but he was thankfully able to use his shield and agility to avoid further injury. After the fifth strike upon the stone, he finally got the reaction he had been hoping for.

  After the beast’s repeated failure to further injure John, it finally rose to the surface. The stone parted like water as its head emerged. What he saw when it did was both surprising and fitting.

  A massive, all-black armadillo poked through the surface of the stone and stared at him with menacing black eyes. John was startled at the size of the beast, but he had to admit that an armadillo was an apt creature to find playing around with stone. They were stone burrowers by nature.

  As soon as he saw the beast, John shot the dart from his shield. It flew unerringly towards the armadillo, but when it hit the shell of the foe, it bounced away ineffectually. A second later, it had folded its head against its chest and rolled back into the stone as if it were no more solid than the ocean.

  John had no time to curse his bad luck, as right when he thought the beast was receding, a boulder the size of his head suddenly launched from the mountain like a bullet. His shield arm was out of position while the rope dart retracted. Only his quick reflexes saved his head from the projectile.

  He swung his hammer down at the incoming rock. His timing was off, but he managed to catch the edge of it before it slammed into him. The impact meant for his face instead clipped the shoulder of his shield arm.

  John screamed as even that glancing blow dislocated the joint. His armor was amazing, but the great weakness was blunt force. It could not stop sheer inertia from devastating the flesh underneath.

  He spiraled lamely toward the ground as his mind was once again overcome with pain. He recovered in time to fix his altitude, though his shoulder was too damaged to consider another attack. Coupled with the blood he was still losing, John decided to regroup.

  He flew higher until he felt confident that he could react to any further shots by the beast. Once he did, he dropped his armor to properly study the damage to his body. The diagnosis was not great.

  He bled freely from the two shards of stone that had shot through his armor, and one of them looked like it had grey powder mixed through the blood that ran from it. Thinking of the constant burning sensation on his back, John assumed the essence of earth or stone was suffusing the wound.

  He was starting to understand that when an individual mastered their essence, they could use it in ways that were far more damaging than simply attacking. Wounds holding essence were harder to heal from, and John already had two foreign essences ravaging his body. This third was an unacceptable addition, and John quickly began purging it before it could gain much purchase within him.

  He didn’t know what long term effects an earth essence would have on his body, but if it was anything like the pain he felt from the Abyss Lurker’s attack, he wanted to take care of it immediately. Having lost consciousness before he could do the same for his burns had left his body inundated with the essence of heat. That had made his efforts to fix the damage since ineffective. It would take far longer to recover from them.

  Wanting to avoid a similar outcome here, John quickly used a combination of Sterilization and Neutralization to counteract the damage. The former trapped any lingering essence from the attack and purified it for John’s own use. Neutralization came after to close the wounds and return his body to its natural state.

  His efforts took several minutes. During that time, he also inspected his dislocated shoulder. The rock had smashed into him with enough force that it would have killed him if it hit the intended target of his head. He groaned in discomfort as his use of both Sublime Apotheosis and Neutralization forced his shoulder back into the socket.

  “Even with armor, I’m not safe,” John lamented.

  The thought gave him pause. He was also in a battle against a foe with armor. And if it worked for the armadillo, why not him? John looked at the hammer in his right hand.

  He doubted he would be able to get close enough to attack the beast with it. He needed a way to strike with great force from a distance. He found it a bit unfair that his foe had such a ready source of ammunition.

  “If only I could send the rocks back at it. I bet the force could hurt it just as easily as me.”

  John considered the idea for a moment. He couldn’t think of a way to return the attacks, but something else did occur to him. What if he didn’t need to return the attack? After all, it was only the damage the attacks inflicted that he wished to replicate.

  That touched upon one of the few branches of Third Eye of Callysta that he had yet to broach. It was a complex theory that involved mutual response to an action, wether it be energy, potential, or even damage. With a sigh, he decided it was time to practice Reciprocation.

  6

  John had yet to put much time to Reciprocation. The reason was because he had found it a complex branch to comprehend. It involved creating spiritual ties, which meant John had to connect with his intended target.

  His work with Neutralization told him how to go about it, but the familiarity ended there. Once the link was made, he would need to channel a steady supply of Reciprocation into his target to supply potential. After that, any energy the beast expended to interact with him could be returned in any form John chose.

  There were several limitations to this. The greatest of which was John’s own understanding of energy expense. He could only reciprocate the expenditure he understood.

  For example, he could understand the force a thrown boulder contained, as well as the pain and damage it caused to whatever it struck. Those were affects he could Reciprocate. He could not, however, reciprocate the spiritual damage the essence of stone had done to him unless his understanding was great enough to accurately recreate the essence.

  Since he was lacking both time and luxury to achieve such an understanding, John hoped the physical aspect of the attacks would be enough. After giving himself the time to catch his breath and regroup, he summoned his armor once more and started the baiting process over.

  After a few minutes, his efforts were rewarded. The black armadillo rose from the stone like a shark fin rising ominously from the sea. It stared at him like it had never seen anything it hated more.

  John didn’t hesitate to enact his plan. His bow was in his hand in an instant, and all of the potential for Reciprocation he had been accumulating condensed into an arrow on his drawn string. He took just a second to imbue the arrow with Neutralization as he made a spiritual tether with it.

  Before the beast could sink beneath the stone once more, John released his spirit arrow. It flew unerringly and sunk painlessly into the hard shell of the armadillo. The lack of pain didn’t dissuade the beast from retaliating, however.

  Just like before, the beast dove back into the stone while simultaneously launching projectiles at John. This time, John was ready for them. He raised his shield to intercept as half a dozen basketball sized boulders flew at him like they were as light as feathers.

  Two of the projectiles missed him. Another clipped his side, spinning him partially around in the air as he had no leverage to resist. The fourth and fifth rocks slammed into his shield arm; one against the sturdy shield and the other against the arm itself. The final boulder hit him in the leg.

  John was severely out of position by then, having been knocked around by each projectile that struck. As a result, his body was almost completely sideways when the last boulder hit him. It contained such force that John pinwheeled through the air.

  His sudden aerial cartwheeling caused his wings to lose their hold on physics. He flew upwards until gravity took control once more, whereupon he executed a graceless dive, still flailing in a generally rotational manner. His fall ended in an extremely painful shard of stone catching him upon its razor-sharp spike.

  John’s stomach parted like water to admit the fist sized spear of stone. Blood immediately fountained from his mouth, running down the sides of his face to pool in the back of his helmet. Somewhere far below, an absolutely chilling scream of pain could be heard.

  Spikes thrust from the stone seemingly at random. All across the mountain top, stone spears emerged like quills on a porcupine. Some came free of the stone entirely, launching away like they were thrown by the arms of masters.

  John was mostly unaware of this, consumed as he was by the spear that had already impaled him. He only took special interest in the event when a stray shard of stone from an errant spear sliced his cheek open in passing. By then, though, John could do little more than wait for whatever was happening to stop.

  His wish was granted a few moments later when the entire mountain seemed to shudder before going completely still. John coughed another painful lungful of blood out before his body relaxed. As he was trying to decide how best to pull himself from the stone spike, the desperately needed notification played out in his mind.

  “You have killed Divine Stone Armadillo! Soul of Divine Stone Armadillo gained! Divine gene is available for harvest!”

  “Trial of Ascension Progress: 80%”

  “4 of 5 Guardians have been defeated!”

  John exalted in his victory, but he was extremely surprised by the turnout. Not only had he killed the beast with its own attacks, but he had also received another soul tool! In fact, all three of the Guardians he had killed granted him their souls.

  In the past, the ratio of slain beasts to soul rewards had been much lower. He wondered if the souls of the Guardians were something like guaranteed prizes for overcoming such powerful foes. If they were, John actually felt a pang of regret at not having a shot at the first Guardian.

  Such concerns were for those who were not currently impaled on a giant spike, however. John groaned and tried to feebly pull himself from the stone as his armor disappeared from his body once more.

  “Very good. You won’t be needing souls any longer,” K?tha said in his mind.

  “I… need,” John feebly tried to speak.

  His lungs were filling with blood, and there was no telling how much damage his other organs had suffered. The grey sky above him faded from his sight quickly as his eyes lowered in exhaustion. Before he lost all reason, though, he saw an almost clear liquid pour from his body.

  “So, he’s hiding himself inside me,” John thought.

  That was important information to know. If the Polymorph was controlling John remotely, there was little he could do to strike back. But John had the feeling his nemesis wasn’t as powerful as he tried so hard to appear. It was likely that he needed most or all his strength to keep John subdued in the manner he was.

  John smiled as the first inkling of a plan occurred to him. Despite his repeated injury, despite his impotent servitude, despite all of the injustice he felt at his situation, John fell into the blackness with joy in his heart. Now, he could fight back.

  What is this chapter called