The Grand Weave

Seeing the god made me slow my breathing and observe him from afar. While Cal's posture may have seemed stern, his face was not filled with anger. If anything, the god looked more concerned. Only when I glanced back behind me did I notice something was wrong. The beastkin was still thrashing around, pushing against his restraints, but the screaming was gone. Outside of my breathing and the flicking of Cal's tail, all noise was absent from my surroundings.

"Nifty trick you learn when you get access to more mana. It takes some skill, but you essentially smother an area with a weave of mana to create a barrier. I'll teach it to you when you tier up," Cal explained before I could ask.

"I'd like that. Won't say no to learning from a god," I replied.

His face twitched a little before he rolled his eyes and slowly lowered to the ground. With a snap of his fingers, two familiar-looking couches appeared. While gesturing to the one behind me, he sat back on his own couch. Something about the sofas rang a bell in the back of my brain. They seemed familiar in a way that I couldn't place. Sitting down, I felt myself sink into the cushions with a relaxing sigh. They had more padding on them than even my bed at the inn.

"Comfortable?" he asked with an amused expression on his face.

"Very."

I channeled my mana and undid my skill. Zharia reappeared in a flash of light and landed in my hands. Lightly stroking her feathers, I placed her next to Áine, bouncing up and down on the back cushions.

He sat and observed the two familiars playing around on the conjured furniture for a while. There was a smile on his face, and his eyes sparkled with amusement. A guarded part of me subconsciously lowered my defenses even further, and my anger completely faded. All the stress in the world left me with an exhale, and I started to sink into the cushions and truly relax.

"I've been watching you from time to time. I wasn't able to see you when you went to the fire plane. I was curious to know what you'd end up contracting with, but I have to say, good job. A royal phoenix as a contracted familiar. Very few souls in the universe can claim to accomplish such a feat."

I frowned. Looking over Zharia, nothing about her tiny, sparrow-like body screamed royal to me. "Royal? Zharia, are you a princess or something?" I asked skeptically.

Zharia bounced once and landed on my shoulder. "Of course, I'm a royal phoenix, master. Do you not see my feathers?" she chirped as she spread her wings.

"You can tell by the number of colours her feathers have. Red, gold, blue, orange, and I imagine she'll acquire her fifth color when she evolves, either the third or fourth tier. She'll be absolutely stunning when she matures."

Zharia cooed as she strutted back over to Áine. I was afraid her head would explode if she got any more prideful. An awkward silence followed till Cal cleared his throat.

"I want you to know something. No matter what happened inside that rift, I'm proud of you. To do what you did while not even being tier one, without having been in this world of magic for more than a month, it's beyond impressive. And you should never forget that. You're not useless, not dead weight. Without you, that rift would have ended much sooner," he said seriously. He leaned forward and held my gaze, his eyebrows furrowed.

"Even if you say that I should have done more. At the very least, I should have held onto Sam. Now she's dead. I'm only alive because I had Áine, and last I checked, Sam didn't have a healing skill," I grounded out, my tone harsh.

"Then silence yourself and stop the self-doubt and blaming. I took so long to greet you outside the rift because I was busy calling in a favour. Sam's alive. I don't know where she is as she is still traveling through the void, but a goddess who is a seer tracked her soul. She is still alive."

I shot out of my chair and stood up. My fists clenched, and I stomped down my desire to cuss him out for not leading with that info. "Can we get to her, can you? She could be dying right now!" I yelled.

He pointed to the couch and waited until I sat down to speak. "The answer is no. When the rift broke, you two were spat into the void, the space between reality. Time, distance, everything loses meaning in there. Even on the off chance she does appear back on this planet, you'd never be able to physically get to her in any meaningful time. Cyrus, do you even understand the large this world is?"

"What do you mean?"

With a sigh, he sat back and tilted his head to the sky. The sun was hidden behind clouds of grey, with the occasional beam of light piercing in spots where the clouds were thinnest.

"As I was recovering, I was given a chance to explore memories of your old world. Earth, I believe you called it. Certainly bold to call your world dirt. If I were to put into perspective how large this world is compared to your old one, I'd say it'd be the difference between Earth versus Urah-nus. This world is massive in comparison and lacks the easy forms of travel you'd have access to on your old one, not to mention the spatial anomalies or expanded zones that Inoria is known for. You may never see Sam again for a long, long time," Cal explained.

My anger flared and then dived. The tug of war between rage and normalcy raged for over a minute straight. I bit my lip and tasted blood. It no longer tasted like iron. Rather, it tasted almost like wine, a savory sweetness that filled my nose with its scent.

"There has to be something you can do. You are a god. You're telling me you can't even do something as simple as that?" I grounded out accusatorily.

He chuckled a short mirthless laugh. "I think you don't understand how godhood works, Cyrus—something I'll correct in the future. Us gods are limited, shackled by rules and covenants. The current iteration of the Grand Weave has a much stricter policy on what the gods are allowed to do to mortals. Especially mortals who are not directly related to us in some way, whether that be via position or kinship. Maybe if I was a bigger god with followers around the world, I'd be able to step in and find a way to help you reunite with Sam. The truth, though, is that I'm not. I'm barely even a god at this point, Cyrus. My powers are beyond weakened, and I couldn't interfere directly."

I contemplated his words are looked at him closer. I couldn't tell if anything was physically wrong. The truth was, I barely knew Cal. Maybe he looked slimmer than the last time I saw him, but it could have easily been me imagining things.

"There's really nothing you can do? Nobody, you can ask?"

"No. I would have if I could, but I can't. Your most realistic choice is to continue living and growing strong enough to seek Sam out yourself. Ascend, Cyrus. Become immortal and use that strength to shape reality for your own whims. She is a big girl, tough as steel. Believe in her to grow strong on her own, and you'll be fine. It beats pleading to the air, hoping for a miracle that won't come."

Zharia and Áine came over and nuzzled into both sides of my neck. It was soothing and helped me settle down my emotions. I didn't want to accept his words. I didn't want to wait and hope I'd see Sam again someday. But, if even a god says so, I couldn't ignore it. This wasn't some story about a hero who defies the gods and always wins through the power of hope. He was right. There was nothing to do but become strong enough to do something. However long that'd take.

"Thank you for checking up on her. You didn't have to, and I know I barely know you, but nonetheless, thank you. At the least, I can cross that off my list."

He chuckled in response and gave me a faint smirk. "Yeah, we'll need to work on that. I'm starting to get worried that the list will never stop growing. Don't get me wrong. I'll answer any and all questions you have for me, but at some point, you should probably find a library to sit down and study at."

I looked back at the inn and stared at the now-closed door. The screams were gone, but a low-pitched howling sound came through every dozen seconds.

"Since you can apparently read my thoughts, I guess there's no reason to dance around the issue," I stated, giving him a low glare. "What the fuck is wrong with me? I'm starting to feel bipolar, going from one mood swing to another. I'm not an angry person. I have never raged the way I did. It's like I'm no longer in control of my body."

In response, he snapped his fingers, and an orb of scarlet flames appeared above his palm. It slowly changed shape until it represented what looked like a tiny silhouette in the form of my body.

"First of all, I won't be able to read your thoughts anymore. Now that you know, unless you want me to, your mind is your own. Not to say I couldn't force my way in, but I shall refrain from doing that to my own blood. Focus on what's in my hand. This is you, wholly intact, Or to be more precise. It's what you are supposed to look like. You can't see the individual mana particles there, but they exist and help form the whole. You can't see the intricate weaving of magic to give shape to this, but it's there. With my complete control over my mana, you can barely even tell this is made from fire, flames, billowing, and moving," he explained.

With his other hand, he conjured a ball of black fire that slowly overtook the silhouette. After the black flames settled down and disappeared, he held up the now ragged-looking silhouette. "This is you after your brief dip into the void. You see how your body is no longer whole. Shredded, ripped, beaten down." The once stable flame was now flickering in and out. Where once a homogenous colour of scarlet red, there were now streaks of black spreading throughout the body like poison. "After you came out of the void, this is the state your body was in. Your mana pathways were infected by hostile mana that, while quick to fade, entered your body like a whirlwind of blades ripping into it from the inside out. You repaired them to the best of your abilities through time and lots of mana. You recovered the whole, returned the flesh, aligned the metaphysical, and gave it time to heal. Except, there was something you didn't fix. Something you had no idea existed and would have been able to heal."

He closed his hand into a fist and slowly spread out his fingers. This time, instead of a ball of flames, it was an ephemeral crystal of soft pink light. I couldn't describe it, but it felt familiar and foreign. Like a face that I knew I should recognize but couldn't quite place.

"And what is that supposed to represent?" I asked, already guessing at the answer.

With a smirk, his eyes flashed a myriad of colours. The floating crystal exploded in my sight. The world faded away, and I was quickly overtaken by the endless patterns and sigils woven together in a lattice. I couldn't look away as the sigils and runes seared into my brain. As blood started dripping from my eyes, the crystal returned to normal. My heart was beating fast, and I gripped my head between my legs, groaning softly.

Áine's healing magic washed over me, and I slowly regained my breathing. When I looked up and saw the smile on Cal's lips, my anger flared again. If it weren't for the flood of thoughts coming from my familiars, I would have lost myself to the emotion.

No longer smiling, he made the crystal disappear and lowered his hands into his lap. "You're lucky that wasn't a real soul that I exposed you to. To an untiered individual like yourself, it would have turned your brain into an irreparable mush. That was a facsimile of your soul, Cyrus. And from your experience, I'm sure you can tell how complicated souls are. It's why we gods laugh at the face of necromancers who claim themselves a master of souls. It'd be as if they painted with legoblocks and called themselves an artist," he explained in a derisive tone.

"And what did that experience teach me outside of trying to turn my mind into putty and give me a killer headache?" I growled out.

"It taught you that no matter how impressive your healing is, how amazingly good Áine can be at using her skill, you would have never been able to tackle something as complicated as damage to the soul. And what you don't know, what you lack, relative to my point, is that the void damages more than just your body, physical or otherwise. It damaged your soul, Cyrus. Albeit minute damage, more like a tiny scratch than an actual wound. It was enough to weaken the framework for the seal inside you." He let out a deep sigh when I said nothing and laced his fingers together. "Tell me, Cyrus. What's your name?"

I snorted, half in confusion, half in the strangeness of such a question. "You know my name. It's Cyrus."

"Cyrus? Cyrus, what?" he asked seriously.

"What do you mean? It's Cyrus. What are you getting at."

"Did you never stop and think as to why your status only says, Cyrus? Come on and tell me. What is your full name?"

"It's Cyrus! My name is... Cyrus..."

I stopped and tried to think of my name. When I couldn't, I pulled up my status and stared at the top of the page.

STATUS

Name: Cyrus

Race: Reborn ( Felkin)

Age: ??

Tier: 0

No matter what I thought of, I couldn't remember my middle or last name. I knew I had a name back on Earth. My parents were... I couldn't think of my parents' names. Only their faces blurred out and undetailed.

I held my two familiars close and tried to relax my stiffened muscles. "I... I don't know what my last name is. What's going on?"

"The seal was meant to last at least a year or more. The void may have only inflicted a surface-level scratch, but that was all it took to unravel the memorylock. And with the memorylock coming undone, your body's instinctual urges and feelings are bleeding through. All that rage and anger, the adrenaline that comes whenever you face danger, is no longer being filtered and toned down. You're not insane, Cyrus. You're being forced to experience the emotional aspect of being a part of demonkind."

When he opened his mouth to speak again, he raised his hand to cover it and started coughing. The cough became wet hacking as obsidian-colored blood seeped through his fingers. He conjured a folded, embroidered cloth to wipe his mouth dry.

His tail stopped mid-flick, and his eyes stared at the door to the inn. "Ah, curses. The wards are gone. Incoming." he muttered.

I wanted to ask him what he meant, but there was a loud crash, and the door erupted into a forest of vines. There was a moment of heavy pressure pushing down on me, but it disappeared about the same time Brelten came rocketing out of the inn. Covered in a growing set of wood armour, with an emerald aura flashing from his body, the tall man brandished his mace with a shield of thorns in his other. When he landed, he looked over and took in the scene. His eyebrows cocked at the sight of me sitting on a couch, but his weapon and shield slipped from his grasp when he looked over at a waving Cal. His jaw slacked open, and a genuine look of panic appeared in his eyes. The next second had me open my mouth in wonder as Brelten slammed his knee into the ground and hung his head.

"I, Brelten Gitollo, apologize for my actions! I greet thy god and beg that the village be spared of all blame."