The core transformed. In the technique creator’s memories, it was a paradoxical shape, something that made my head hurt – this was different.

  Three rings spinning around in place, around them there were wings of spirals, and they shifted and turned. An animated sculpture. The trait was alive in the spiritual dimension.

  “I-it’s me…” My throat hurt. I could feel it – a beckoning, a call.

  God’s Flesh (Replica)

  Type: Growing Trait

  Rank: Baron (430 SE)

  Affinity: Onyx-Sapphire

  Description:

  A replica of a legendary artificial trait gem, created with the purpose of absorbing other traits within itself and replicating their effects. The trait was altered to stretch beyond the limits of the body. Due to an insufficient amount of standing emissions, the efficiency is limited. It might… have a mind of its own.

  Endless Potential. The user can absorb traits into God’s Flesh.

  - Integration. All absorbed traits will have 30% of their original strength, but they will not use up a trait slot.

  - Adaptability. Changes incompatible traits during absorption, allowing for contradictory abilities.

  - Vast Volume. Absorbs all other traits and all other trait slots. Reduces total SE by 10%

  Biological Unity. The trait becomes integral to the biology and mind of the wielder.

  - Boundless Flesh. Biological functions become unified, changing the body into a uniform mass. Reduces physical strength by 10%. Increases speed of thought by 10%

  - Mind over Soul. Shapes the soul to resemble the mind.

  “What? Magnus-” Steel held me back.

  How dare she? “I need to absorb it before it’s too late!”

  Kory raised her hand, and a light shone from it. “Calm down.” The call disappeared.

  “Right, right. I’m calm.” I couldn’t stop looking at it. “It’s beautiful…”

  “Looks like a mess to me.” Steel shrugged.

  “It’s not a mess, it’s… It’s everything!” Kory shone more light. Something was not right; this was not a normal reaction. “I meant – the trait is really good and the downsides mean nothing in the long run. I should absorb it.” I couldn’t close my eyes, I couldn’t make myself.

  Steel still held me by my hand. Kory’s frown twitched. She grabbed the trait. “We should use a precision scouter to inspect it-” The world slowed down. I couldn’t let her have it. It was mine. Starpower surged out of my body. I twisted my hand out of Steel’s grasp. Force form – the green dragon was sent flying into the wall.

  Kory gasped, her eyes wide in shock. I condensed the starpower with my quads, it rushed to my legs and transformed into force. Air exploded. I dashed into Kory and grabbed the trait from her hands. She screamed in pain.

  “Stop!” Steel’s plea didn’t concern me.

  Starpower flooded God’s Flesh. I didn’t even need to crush it. It turned into darkness and flowed into me.

  Pure happiness. It was as if my SE increased a thousand times over. It smelled of spice that burned my nostrils and unbound sweetness. We were meant to be – God’s Flesh was me, and I was it.

  No Betrayer could stop us, no geist could kill us, nothing will end my dominion… My eyes opened.

  The sensations were gone… From Kory’s eyes, blood dripped on the floor, her legs faltered, and she fell, despite that she shone more light on me. Kory wasn’t afraid, no, she was concerned, pitied me. For what?

  Something was very, very wrong. I was not me, me was not self. The concepts muddled in my head. The things that happened were not-

  Kory spoke. Words that the translator couldn’t understand. Light burned out of her hands. So much light.

  I was in a room. It was a black room. I could picture the edges, I could touch the floor and the walls.

  A tiny light was there too, right in the middle, in front of me. I didn’t need a scouter to tell me that it was my soul. “Isn’t this ‘shapes the soul to resemble the mind’ too much?” I asked nobody in particular.

  The room shook, no, my eyes were wrong. It wriggled, like flesh. Spikes of darkness surged from the walls.

  Primal panic engulfed me. Before it latched on to my soul, I covered it with my body, or rather, my mind.

  Those desires appeared again, that wish for all-consuming power – for everything, but now I knew that they were alien. I could separate myself from it. Even before I could understand what was happening, starpower circulated through me.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  The same forms I used for trait creation were my weapons of destruction here. I used Concept Target and labeled the room as not me. It was easy, since it was not me. Not me.

  “Not Me!” Idea Strengthening reinforced the concept. The feelings became even more distant, even less comprehensible. I knew it wanted everything, just like I did.

  There could not be two of us. Not without me going insane. That concept was targeted, too. “All-consuming Avarice.” I inverted it.

  I expected something reasonable to appear. Instead this bizarre concept morphed into the idea of “Me.” It inverted to some degree, to some weird and imperceptible degree.

  The feelings disappeared. The room was still again. It was watching me. It didn’t want my soul anymore, because it was content to be separate.

  Darkness receded, light returned. My eyes refocused. The dream ended – I won.

  Kory… She lay in front of me, her body, her lifeless eyes. I did this? No, not me. I wouldn’t. I would never. I could never.

  “Magnus!” A punch rang out like a bullet shot, and my spine cracked. Pure agony scorched my mind.

  I grabbed her hand, it was piercing me right through my stomach. “Healers.” I coughed up blood. “Call the healers.”

  “She’s dead!”

  My eyes were blank. Pain was nothing compared to that persistent feeling. “No.” The word didn’t even sound right.

  I needed to call for help, someone, anyone. Someone who could respond. Someone who had the ability to know... There was someone like that. “I will kill Lord Rame and lead a coup against him.”

  “What are you? How can you?!” Tears fell from her eyes. Steel struck again, crushing my organs.

  “I plan to violate all the rules, I will rebel, I will commit treason, I will kill all dragons-”

  My skull caved in, and everything became dark.

  I was in that dark room again. Still protecting my soul. The dark room was no longer aggressive, yet I couldn’t play it safe. An eye. There was an eye in the wall. It stared deep at me, not at my soul.

  My eyes opened. The smell of medicine tickled my nose. I was in the medical hall, lying on the bed. Awareness crept in, and soon my higher mental faculties awakened.

  I opened my mouth to curse, but there were no curses or profanities that could describe what I felt. It was emptiness. The same emptiness I felt on Earth.

  “How the tables have turned…” I sniffled and rubbed my eyes. Why were there no tears? Was I in the tribulation altar?

  I flared my starpower. The calming energy always had my back; it always protected and reassured me.

  It was different today. Cold. Alien.

  Your SE has increased by 2. From 64 to 66. Effective SE – 59

  “Not the fucking time, scouter.” I sighed. It didn’t matter that it felt different today. I had to act, had to know the truth.

  Strengthening solidified my muscles, but it didn’t feel as pleasant as usual. I threw off the blanket.

  VITA engulfed me, except it was not my VITA – I was wearing something different. Not the slick armor that glowed with purple, but rather a leather coat with the same red cloak. It wasn’t as solid. God’s Flesh has successfully absorbed all my traits, my only trait.

  My thinking was faster, my body felt different. I was different. But there was no time for introspection; I had to figure out what happened to Kory.

  I jumped off the bed. The door opened, and Melissa stood in my way. “You don’t think about leaving early, right?”

  “So what if I do?” I clenched my fists. “What happened to Kory and to Steel?”

  “The guards brought all of you here. Steel is currently resting in her room, and the other girl… She didn’t have much time to live anyway.”

  My aura rose like black mist. “Is she dead?” I wanted to kill someone.

  “Kory is in a partial vegetative state. Avennture took her body for study.”

  I did this. It was my fault, of course it was. “S-so what’s wrong with me?” I sounded even more pathetic with this childish voice.

  “There is a slight malfunction with your trait, but otherwise nothing.”

  “What malfunction?” I gulped.

  “You have recently absorbed a trait, correct? It seems to interfere with some of the VITA’s functions. Sometimes that happens. It will pass.”

  The response was more mortifying than usual. There was nothing wrong with me. Then why was Kory in a coma? Why was I powerless to resist the trait?

  A melodic voice whispered in my ear. “Don’t resist.”

  “What?”

  “As I said, the trait might be interfering with the VITA. It is temporary.”

  I shook my head. What was that voice? “Never mind. Can I meet Steel?”

  “No. She expressed a desire to be left alone.”

  “Can I still visit her?”

  “No.”

  I needed to do something, I needed to fix this. “I’m leaving. See you, Melissa.” My voice was shaking. The woman didn’t even respond.

  Through the winding halls I ran. The surroundings blurred into a haze, and the perfect memory didn’t help. I was in a fog of my own making.

  “Our making.” There it was again.

  I heard it. It was crystal clear in my memory. “Come out!” Was I possessed by a treacherling? Should I use the immutability form?

  “It won’t help.” The voice was magical, like an opera happening in my head.

  “So you try to make me go insane and then what? Out of my head. Now!” I slammed my fist into the wall, cracking the metal.

  “Student, do not attack the hall again.” A passing guard raised her spear at me.

  I shivered. “Y-yes…”

  I ran as fast as I could – to get away from the voice and my own shortcomings. The door to the laboratory stood there. It was quiet. Nobody was here. Nothing but the truth.

  I stepped inside and gasped.

  “Here already?” Avennture clicked his tongue.

  In the corner of the room, there stood a pod filled with a green liquid, and swimming in it was Kory. A mask was connected to her mouth. Avennture was right in front of it, he cast a scouting form.

  “Why is she there?”

  “I didn’t expect her to reach this stage so fast.” He shook his head and tapped on the glass. A wave of light passed through the liquid. “You helped a little, but it was inevitable.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “Do I need to? She was about to fall dead any moment. I didn’t joke about her still walking being a miracle.” He chuckled. His smirk twitched and faltered. “That’s why we worked on a way to preserve her until the end of the year, but now I wonder, will it last long enough?”

  “It has to… It has to, right? Isn’t there anything I can do?”

  He sighed. With a flick of his wrist, Avennture conjured a chair and dropped into it. “You already know what you have to do… It’s just that.” His shoulders quaked. “There might not be enough time.”

  I followed his example. A chair appeared under me. “Is there ever really enough time?”

  He chuckled. “No, there really is never enough.”

  “Make some tea, Avennture. I have to get my mind straight.”

  “As you wish, kid.” He approached the desk. “You know, this wasn’t your fault?”

  My hands sweated, my skin crawled. “How do you know?”

  “Varaxis figured it out.” He poured the tea. “She knew about the trait you were going to make; she knew it would lead to a disaster. Cursed traits are just like that.”

  My throat burned. “Why didn’t you warn me? You could’ve done something.”

  He grabbed two cups. His face was blank. “I only found out the truth after it happened. You were set up… but honestly, you don’t look insane.”

  “I hear a weird voice in my head.” My eye twitched.

  The voice sang, “Not weird.”

  “Not that bad. Varaxis expected you to go completely insane so that she’ll have an excuse to get rid of you.”

  My breath went cold. “What can I do?”

  He laughed. “Keep going – figure out the trait and whatever else is happening. I can try scouting you.”

  “D-do that…” I grabbed the cup of pleasant-smelling tea. “After I calm down.”

  “Sure, whatever. Just don’t go insane here. This lab costs a lot of elementum.”

  I took a sip. It tickled the top of my mouth. Nothing ever felt right. “If you had 15 years left to live, what would you do?” I stared at Kory’s body floating in the pod.

  “Wouldn’t change a thing, kid. Wouldn’t change a thing.”

  The sorrow was suffocating.