Everything spun around me. I couldn’t feel my legs or my arms. As if drudging through mud, my thoughts were slow and sluggish.

  The confusion didn’t last long; slowly, my vision returned to focus. I was in the middle of the woods, surrounded by dragon trees. Green grass whistled beneath my feet. In the sky, there was an orange star – a real one… Or as real as this place was.

  There was this feeling of unreality, it was all so clear, so vivid and bright, but each time I looked away, it wobbled. Each movement gave an unparalleled sense of freedom. Even the air was different from usual. This was a dream.

  A steady rush of water drifted from beyond the trees… I cleared my throat. “Kory! Is this you?”

  It might not be a dream, and this could be just an illusion made by someone malicious. It’s better to pretend to be clueless.

  Bushes shuffled nearby, and from them a small dragon emerged. She didn’t look pale or tired. Kory appeared with a somber frown. “Eh… Magnus?”

  Confusion was understandable as my voice was nothing like that in reality, nor was my height… “Yes, it’s me. You’ve already seen me in a dream.”

  “You look different. Again.”

  I slicked my hair and approached her. “Does the appearance matter? Why’d you pull me here?” I glanced into the sky. A massive dragon flew through. Not a human one, but a real massive dragon. This must be Cradle. The place from Rame’s memories.

  “Steel vanished from the dream.” Her voice was deathly serious.

  “Did she wake up?”

  Kory gulped. “Impossible – it was different.”

  I clenched my teeth, suppressing the rising panic. “Do you have a plan?”

  “I-I sensed alien starpower before that… I can direct you there.”

  “How long ago did she vanish?”

  “Just now. I pulled you as soon as I could. Time is weird in dreams.”

  I groaned. The Betrayer was winning… Of course, I would take any opportunity to kill it. “Do it. The more we talk, the less time there’ll be.”

  Kory sniffled. “If this kills me, please, tell Steel to carry on…”

  My eyes opened wide. “Wait, maybe don’t-”

  I was back in the land of the living. I lay on the floor with my hands shaking. “Fuck…” I groaned and jumped up. “Why does this happen to me? Always bullshit.” The announcement still blared.

  Steel wasn’t on the bed. She vanished, just as Ivaldie did. Did she die? Did Kory die? Dread crawled inside me like a parasitic worm. I was going to be all alone again.

  If I don’t risk my life. “The choice was already made – I have to follow through.”

  “Don’t worry, master, I’ll always be with you!” The sudden voice nearly made me jump.

  “Thank you, trait.” It didn’t make the sour taste in my mouth any weaker.

  I clenched my fists, tensed my core, and exhaled starpower. “I will be the supreme wizard, or I will die.” Hot iron burned in my veins, spurred by the fear.

  I condensed the starpower with my biceps and directed it towards the detection form – a circle. The dense energy flowed through the pattern, and I ordered the flow to scan, to see.

  The field of perception spread out, more powerful than any I’ve created before. I could touch the surface of starpower that went through the walls, the energies that subtly flickered in the air.

  There was an outlier, a familiar sparkly speck of starpower. A nearly fluid energy that dripped with desperation and fear. Touché.

  It formed into a simple path of breadcrumbs; some surrounded the place where Steel slept, but there was also some of it on the wall. Just a few drops, but their shape… They looked like snowflakes that were constantly growing.

  I rushed to the wall. There was still something there. A slit between the flows of starpower. Right in the middle. I ran my hand through, nothing happened. I pushed my starpower inside. The wall didn’t react.

  “Please, please work!” I roared and punched the wall, and cracks spread through. Yet there was no magic. “Trait, please tell me you can do something.”

  My assistant didn’t respond. Not even an iota of emotion, not even a comforting phrase.

  Someone slammed the door open. “What is going on here?” It was the guard who looked over us.

  “Steel! My friend was sleeping in the room with me – she vanished. There is weird starpower in the wall.” I panicked, I shouldn’t have told that.

  The guard’s helmet shone. “I sense nothing.” She grasped her spear. “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything; she just vanished like all the others.”

  She froze in place. Then her starpower surged like a wildfire. “You weren’t supposed to know that. You must be infected. Suppress your aura and surrender or face death.”

  It was all going wrong. I gasped in panic, unable to take in enough oxygen. “I swear I didn’t do anything. I-”

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  “I figured it out~” A tendril emerged from my VITA, before the guard could lunge, the tendril shone with bright purple. The wall split in half, and a jagged, flickering portal got unraveled.

  I stood there with an open mouth.

  “Get back!” The guard shouted, and she lunged at something right behind me.

  A hand grasped my neck, then another and another, all had hundreds of tiny fingers growing from the sides, like a monstrous millipede. My starpower couldn’t flare; I struggled, pushing myself against the wall.

  The guard pierced one of the arms, but then – they pulled me in. Existence stopped for a moment.

  It was a state similar to anesthesia. I felt a faint sensation of numbness… something crawled inside of me, crawled everywhere. I got cut, and I wanted to escape. Shadow figures blurred across my vision, and the horrifying sensations kept happening.

  Then a screaming, weeping, laughing, growling voice rang through my mind. “You’re mine now, Friedrich… Whether you want it or not.”

  I tried to shout at it, tried to force it out. Nothing happened.

  “Your sturdy little mind is nothing but a toy to the Myriad Gods. If you can’t defeat me, you can’t even hope to touch them.” The screeching sounds burned my earholes. “Give up your body, give up your trait. Together we shall conquer this Galaxy and I will defeat my kin, eat their rotten cores and make the reality as it was meant to be.” It giggled, it was as if needles pierced my skin. “It will all be yours – everything, just like you wanted.”

  Then a sensation. A feeling so intense I’ve never felt before in its entirety – pure hunger. The desire to make it all mine, to take every potential and twist it together under myself. That hunger I imbued with desire for knowledge.

  “Master belongs to me, worm.” Such fervor, such poison. “Know your place.”

  The hunger burned. The crawling intensified as if the ants under my skin were set ablaze. There were no restrictions on it now, no stopping. Eternal hunger.

  All of its nine voices screamed. “What is this?!”

  God’s Flesh – it was a natural predator to geists. Traits are just manifestations of spiritual phenomena, just like them.

  My eyes opened.

  I was stuck to the wall of my room, held by pale fingers. Everything inside was made out of body parts… The table had human legs; there were faces twitching on top. The papers thrown all over the ground were made out of teeth.

  Worse, my stomach gurgled and I burped something vile. It was crawling out of me again… This time, I was ready.

  I flared my starpower, channeled strengthening to the heights I’ve never done before. All the while it slithered.

  The fingers holding me ripped out. First, I freed my legs, then my arms. They wriggled over my body, trying to hold me back, and I crushed them into dust.

  I fell on the floor. My throat felt swollen, my legs and arms shook. I gurgled and retched. My jaw cracked, and a worm with a thousand fingers emerged.

  Before it could move, I slammed my fist on it, turning its body into mush. Then it became light. The agony was terrible, but starpower held my mind together.

  I fixed my jaw with a crack. Like a madman, I scratched my tongue, trying to curb the acid. Then the door made from skin banged open, breaking the still air.

  My eyes widened in horror. It was a young dragon-girl. Out of her wide open mouth, tendrils made from pale fingers stretched out, wrapping around her arms and legs. Her eyes were pure black.

  Anser

  Species: Dragon-Tiershen (Standard Genome)

  Age: 9 standard years

  SE: 43

  Affinity: Onyx

  Description: A student controlled by a treacherling.

  Time slowed down. I didn’t hesitate. I slammed her to the ground with a force form. “Assistant, geist disassembly!”

  “On it~”

  But suddenly, the fingers unwrapped from her arms and made a form. Force lost its grip on Anser. It was a dispelling form. The girl grabbed onto the floor and jumped with her hands, trying to pounce on me.

  I summoned a barrier, and she slammed into it, but the barrier disappeared into light as the fingers channeled dispelling again. But now she was looking at me.

  Our eyes met. A surge of starpower and the freezing gaze activated. Her skin got covered with frost, the fingers stopped moving, and she froze. Ignoring the aching pain, I dashed and grabbed her hands.

  I flooded her body with starpower. Fear, horror, despair, pain – these things were clear in her energy, yet starpower moved against her desires. I directed the flow towards the treacherling.

  It was different from other geists – the way its body was structured was more orderly, more intentional, yet every ridge of starpower was infused with terrible hatred.

  “Now!”

  Hunger simmered into the energy. The structure was demolished into pure potential, and the treacherling turned into light. A tiny 11 SE ruby-onyx gem lay on the ground. Anser dropped down, and I exhaled.

  Your SE has increased by 4. From 71 to 75. Effective SE – 72

  Your mastery of Strengthening Form has reached Baron

  Your mastery of Force Form has reached Baron

  I grabbed a healing panacea and gulped it. Then I forced one into Anser’s mouth. Hopefully, she was still alive… I shuddered in horror. Footsteps resounded from beyond the door. More of them.

  But if Anser was alive, that meant everyone else should be too… Ivaldie, Steel, Louize – they were all alive.

  “Fucking bastard Betrayer, I will turn you into an eternal suffering trait.” While murmuring curses, I conjured numerous starpower constructs all over my body. Light in my forehead to help with the awful blood-red lighting, a barrier to protect against injuries, and bullet launchers imbued with freezing and absorption.

  It took barely two minutes, but the footsteps were already close. I dashed out of the door, ready for war.

  The corridor looked almost as usual, the engravings were inverted – dragons were destroyed by geists. The crimson lights made everything feel as though it was covered in blood. The starpower here flowed in jagged patterns.

  I had to find Steel and save her… “Trait, can you open a portal outside?”

  “Sorry, I’d need direct access to the dungeon boss.”

  “Figured it wouldn’t work.”

  I slammed my foot on the floor and spread a perception field. In the distance, three vague figures were running. One had a very familiar starpower. “No fucking way.”

  I dashed across the corner. Steel was right in front of me. She was two meters tall, partially transformed. Wounds littered her body, but they were already closing. And her SE was 89… She was at 62 before getting kidnapped.

  Steel gasped and then smiled widely. “Magnus!”

  Her back exploded, and she flew at me. I dashed away. Two possessed students were there. I shot the freezing bullets at one of them and cast a freezing gaze at the other.

  Bullets pierced her chest. My eyes met with the other and she froze too. The bullet wounds didn’t bleed. Fingers wriggled on the girl’s body, and tiny red missiles appeared around her.

  My bullets shot, her missiles flew. The bullet pierced one of the missiles, exploding it – the others blew up in a chain reaction.

  The other girl didn’t fall down from the freezing. Slowly, the geist’s fingers curled, and terrible pain shot in my chest. I recognized the flow – it was mental pain… An illusion.

  I dashed towards her and slammed my fist into her stomach. Cracks resounded, and she flew away.

  I heard a roar. Steel charged beside me, right at the missile-thrower. She crashed into her and bashed her into the wall.

  The two fell on the ground.

  “Steel, hold her, I’ll remove the treacherling.”

  She nodded and lifted the girl into the air. I dashed closer and started flooding my starpower. The student was unconscious, but despite that, the treacherling still struggled. It was not long before it turned into light.

  I telekinetically pulled the other one to me, and Steel pressed her body to the ground. A disassembly later, the two were free from the parasites. I fed them healing panaceas.

  “Steel. How are you not possessed?”

  “The trait returned me to consciousness.” She nodded. “Let’s kill the Betrayer.”

  I nodded. “Let’s kill that fucker.”