Light erupted from his prone form, illuminating him from the inside out, as if he were possessed of a miniature sun. His skin glowed—spearing rays of blinding radiance streaming from where invisible blades had parted flesh. The lines which effectively crisscrossed the entirety of his body. Space rippled oddly, a creeping force draping him in an etherial shroud.

  Dancing, wavering in serpentine patterns—as if sunlight playing off ocean waves. A peculiar strength stole through him then. There came a cool wave of confidence. And with that surety came unparalleled vigor. It enveloped his badly mangled body. Spilling over the uneven chunks of what had once been part of him like a creeping golden mist.

  And so it was that, just as quickly as he’d been dismantled, his body began to reassemble itself. His deflated chest cavity filling out with a sharp pop. The great pools of blood, so deep they might have drowned him, swiftly retracting. Thin, ropy tendrils looping backwards to fill his swiftly sealing veins, like fine iron shavings to a lodestone.

  Finger bones reattached themselves, his nose, barely hanging on by a flap of cartilage, snapped back into place. The fine knitting of muscle and bone swift, if not seamless. That same golden, glossy energy acting by way of adhesive. Hundreds of hair thin fractures, lines dipped in liquid gold, which continued to persist long after his miraculous reconstitution.

  Ultimately giving him the patched together look of a much beloved, if sorely abused, porcelain doll.

  Then, and only then, to the blank astonishment of all, did Y. Jun rise unsteadily to his feet, pushing past his gaping companions to confront the looming threat. It was his fight to win, after all. He was just glad he’d been able to shake off that queer spell of drowsiness before anyone he truly cared for could get hurt.

  Jun stepped out onto the edge of the land golem’s broad shoulder—wind from the high altitude plucking free long strands of stray hair from his blood matted scalp.

  Eyes alight with an inner intensity, he looked out over the fell gathering of sworn enemies—black silhouettes against an overcast sky. There were hundreds of them, near a thousand all told. This despite Cutting’s mad dash. All his glorious feats and commendable efforts. And so it was that, as he looked out over the crowd, part of him wondered what all they were waiting for. Surrounding them on all sides, and in overwhelming numbers, they didn’t even deign to move, let alone approach. Thankfully it wasn’t long before he received the answer to his unspoken question.

  Several bolts of nothing arced forth from apparent vacuum—spawning as if from thin air. Though unlike before, this time they found him ready. After all, he didn’t need to see a thing to know it was there. Merely feel the spark of its challenge with every iota of his being.

  To know with a conviction that defied all reason.

  With a surety that put all other convictions to shame. And so it was that, with a righteous cry that carried with it the weight of untold convictions, Jun swung at the absences which sped toward him unerring, applying every ounce of stubborn willpower and determination he could muster.

  “Supreme Unlimited Splitting Chop!”

  Unseen grit and limitless potential practically bursting at the seams, he spun.

  Heartfelt Arsenal!

  An axe, large enough to be wielded by the golem they rode upon, suddenly appeared, conjured into being right when he’d needed it most. Arms wrapped around its bulky hilt, like a child around a tree trunk, he swung. Carved.

  Then, he cleaved the very sky in two. He sheered straight through the bolts of nothing like they were nothing. Then the floating contingent of voidling’s they’d swiftly overtaken.

  And finally the angelic host’s treasured golden citadel, even as it sat atop its lofty vantage many many miles away. Space roiled, the firmament trembled, before a black scar was rent in the sky itself. This one far larger than any that had come previous. And unlike all the others before it, this one appeared to be there to stay. There was chaos among the Cthulle.

  Chaos among the host. Chaos among the humans, and the armies, and his friends. His friends.

  “Jun…!”

  Jun turned. His vision able to make out the blurry face of friend Eleanor, if not all of the individual features involved. He grinned at her, even as something warm and sticky leaked from his eyes, his nose, his mouth.

  “Mission accomplished!” Y. Jun slurred cheerily. “I’m… going to lie down now.”

  And with that, he promptly fell over, slumping bonelessly to the floor. Or, less “the floor,” so much as the golem’s massive shoulder, as it were. Some quick thinking, and cat like reflexes on the part of Eleanor, all that saved him from tumbling over the side. Barely conscious, Y. Jun felt himself rocked, ever so gently, cradled in the arms of someone warm and familiar.

  There was shouting, some heated argument, before the rocking was accompanied by the flapping of wings. And so it was that Jun found himself watching, from over Eleanor’s shoulder, as the titanic golem slowly retreated from sight. As a rather angry looking creature emerged from behind it, swiftly overtook it, then hurriedly continued onward—hot on their heels.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  He saw the hulking figure disappear, only to reappear far closer, even more angry than it had been before. Felt something invisible arc forth, strike him, though the feeling was strangely numb. And then the dark entity was gone, space wildly distorting around them, before the scenery as he’d known it changed in its entirety.

  Scarface came to an abrupt halt before the massive rift in the sky, tentacles lashing in furious agitation, fists clenching in impotent rage. A call echoed. An inaudible chime. Mother projecting her will at the worst possible moment. Scarface stared at the jagged portal for several long seconds. He even briefly contemplated disobeying his mother’s summons. Before he eventually turned, gathered up his surviving kin, and began the slow trek towards the family compound. It would appear the soul transfer had been successful.

  Eleanor looked out onto a desolate landscape of gray ash and rock. In the distance, broken clock towers hung suspended, gently bobbing in the air, as if loosely holding the shape they had once belonged to, even though a great many sections were noticeably absent. What she’d first mistaken for a far off mountain range revealed itself, after further inspection, to be a skeleton merely the size of one.

  Layered with ash and obscured by the haze of distance, it’d been rather hard to tell. Notably, there was no celestial body gracing the heavens—sun, moon, or otherwise—though, nevertheless, high above them shone the brilliant blue of a cloudless sky. Apart from those peculiarities, the place where they now found themselves appeared to pose no real danger, at least as far as they could tell.

  Eleanor wouldn’t be letting her guard down for a moment.

  Gently setting her familiar down, she was surprised to find him still conscious, if barely responsive. Thankful she’d had the wherewithal to prepare for something like this, even if she’d never believed the circumstances would ever prove so dire. She dug through her pack for the soul fruit with the greatest potency. Cutting it up with her tactical knife, she attempted to feed him small pieces while Lucile and her team did their best to calm their mounts. After a time, the woman herself sauntered over, plopping down unceremoniously with a puff of dry ash. The woman coughed, desperately trying to wave away the cloud.

  “Well,” the woman grunted, having finally caught her breath. “What now?” she asked.

  And damned if that wasn’t a good question.

  Inside the Pantheistic Workshop

  Jun slowly opened his eyes. To any unknown third parties spectating him in that moment, it would have been immediately clear that something about him had changed. Something intangible, yet fundamental. A simple weight to his presence that hadn’t been there before. His gaze now one of startling maturity. His body language calm, confident, and brimming with resolve. Fully aware that was probably the last trial he’d take for a while now, he could only hope it would be enough.

  It was show time.

  Glancing up and to the side, he took in the massively projected screen. There, he watched through his own half lidded eyes as the girl, who might as well have been his minder at this point, hand fed him slivers of some delicious looking fruit. If he could have salivated in that moment, he would have.

  Gods above did he miss the taste of food. What passed for fare in the trial worlds tasted flavorless in comparison to even his foggy remembrance of what food used to taste like. Even the fading echo of a far off memory was better than the bland slop he’d been choking down the last two decades or more. Breathing in deeply, he rid his mind of all extraneous thoughts on the exhale. Instead using the newly freed up real estate to go through a quick mental checklist in his head. By the seventh go around, he recognized that he was stalling.

  “Nothing for it I suppose,” he sighed.

  If I may reiterate my earlier argument. This is very poor decision making. You would do well to reconsider.

  “Do you have any better ideas?”

  For a price.

  “I’ll take that as a no then. Well, wish me luck.”

  I would rather you not waste yourself on this fools errand whatsoever. This body of yours? It should not need mentioning that it is currently in such a state of disrepair as to be barely worth the salvaging.

  “Ouch. Tell me how you really feel. My face is still more or less intact out there, you know.”

  There are other bodies in circulation. Better bodies. Those highly suited to your unique set of advantages, without the disadvantages inherent to that spongy form. That is to say, less inhibited by inferior biology and outside tampering.

  “I like my biology just fine, thank you very much, tampering and all. Besides, I’ve seen what you consider ‘superior biology.’ I think I’ll pass.”

  The Cerulean Florensai are a miraculous feat of natural selection studied and deified the many worlds over. The perfect amalgam of natural physiology, and raw, unfiltered arcana, their species began its infancy by clinging to the sides of celestial mana vents, the kind fully capable of fueling entire solar systems with their potent arcane magics. In their ascendancy, they can grow to dwarf entire planets in scale, and their mastery over the fundamental forces of both creation and chaos are unparalleled in all the known worlds.

  “Sure… but what you always somehow forget to mention is that they also look like if the flu sprouted a legion of veiny vine tentacles. Don’t know if you knew this about me, but I’m actually a pretty big fan of opposable thumbs! And, you know, not being a giant writhing snot creature.”

  It is a lack of imagination that keeps you from greatness.

  Jun snorted, was about to reply with something sarcastic, when he staggered from a sudden and overwhelming sense of vertigo. There was a voice, a cry for help, not heard so much as felt. It was terrified, familiar, and oddly… near by.

  As if it were only a scant arms length away, no matter how little sense that actually made. On impulse, having learned to trust his instincts where things of this nature were concerned—letting them guide him where his conscious mind could not follow—he reached out and grabbed ahold of that despairing presence, giving it a sharp tug in his direction.

  And just like that, with a pop and a brief displacement of air, a shivering, half inconsolable Ivory appeared in his arms. It was a contest to figure out which one of them was more surprised.

  Then, for an unknowable time thereafter, he merely held her as she wept silently into his chest—a tiny, insignificant weight in his arms.