There were two shafts leading into the Brightheart city. One had been dug upwards by elemental messengers, and that had bee the main shaft. The other had been dug down by regur messengers. It was now heavily fortified, even though the messengers on the surface were gone.

  In that sed shaft, Jason’s avatar floated in the air, at the very edge of his domain. There was a Brightheart fortress on the spot and Jason was h in front of a wall that sealed the entire shaft. A peared in front of him, just outside his area of trol. She had pin, stark features, pale skin and dark hair. She wore a simple grey dress with a faded blue flower pattern.

  “You want something from me,” Death said.

  “I do.”

  “Is a temple of my chur Brightheart territory ditional oing what you want?”

  “No. This is ohing and that is another. Your miracle helped save them. It put to rest their fallen who had been perverted into macabre creations. If they want to worship you for that, or even simply be grateful, I won’t get in the way. To do so because you refused to give baething I already traded away would be petty.”

  Death nodded.

  “Such would be unbeing at our level. I will return what was taken, Jason Asano, now that it ot be used for its inal purpose.”

  She held out her hand and a sphere appeared over it, shimmering blue, silver and gold. Jason reached out to touch it and it vanished.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Thank you for stymieing Uh. The greatest opportunity to enact his purpose iuries was quashed because of you.”

  “It took a lot more thao stop him, and he aplished far more than I would like.”

  “We share this view. But we must accept that we did all we could, and celebrate that it was more than what was likely. In immortality, there are no absolutes in victory or defeat, especially over time. People live and die. Civilisations rise and fall. There will be a time whehis p will be gone, and we gods with it, yet you will remain. You are so very young for an immortal, and some things, only time teach. But you will learn them, whether you like it or not.”

  “I suppose I will. Thank you, Death.”

  “Thank you, Jason Asano.”

  The pair vanished, and the Brighthearts watg from ihe fortress allowed themselves to breathe again.

  ***

  The creation of the prime avatar was a surprisingly uacur affair. The reality material taken back from Death was added to the swarm of lights in Jason’s void and they coalesced into a body, floating naked and hairless in the dark. Jason stood at the doorway to the void in a basic avatar, along with his familiars.

  “You should make some tweaks,” suggested, pointed up and down at the body. “You could ge that part.”

  “You just poi the whole thing,” Jason said.

  “I know where I ointing.”

  “You do realise you look exactly like it?”

  “Yeah, but I make this look good. It’s about how you inhabit the body. Gravitas. You wouldn’t uand.”

  Jason gave his familiar a ft look.

  “Don’t feel bad,” said. “I just happen to have a primal huhat the dies respond to.”

  “Are you getting ied in women?”

  “Io. Wait, do I get to eat them?”

  “No!”

  “Then definitely not.”

  “Please don’t go arouing women.”

  “You’re saying that I eat men?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “I said okay,” insisted while Jason stared at him with suspi.

  “.”

  “Yes?”

  “You ’t eat gender fluid and non-binary people either.”

  “Oh, e on. It’s like you don’t wao eat anyone.”

  “You eat monsters.”

  “What about people who attack us? You wao not help in fights until I make sure they aren’t on the list of things I’m not allowed to eat?”

  “Look, if it es to a fight, you … nibble.”

  “Nibble?”

  “Yeah. Nibble.”

  “So, I eat bits of people?”

  “Bad people. In a fight.”

  “That sounds like a double standard.”

  “It’s about text. It’s like how, in everyday life, I don’t get to stab people. But in a fight, I’m allowed to stab people. So, whe in a fight with people, that’s when you’re allowed to, you know… eat them a little bit.”

  “So, if I start a fight, I eat people?”

  “No starting fights. And if a fight does happen you ohem a little bit. No fully eating people.”

  “Not ever?”

  “Maybe if they’re already dead. And they really sucked. Or it’s really important you rebuild your biomass immediately.”

  “This is all too plicated,” said. “It sounds like you’re making it up as you go along.”

  “That would be accurate, yes,” Jason aowledged.

  “See, this is the problem,” said. “The dies like me because I’m definitive in my as. If I want something, I eat it.”

  “Please stop saying ‘the dies.’”

  “One of us should,” said, pointing to the avatar floating in the void. “You clearly need some help, physically. Maybe reduce the a little.”

  “The did reduce a little.”

  “And there’s that much left? How many rank ups will it take before you have a normal person’s face?”

  “You have the same face!”

  “You o grow back that beard. Do you still have some of Jory’s hair growth cream?”

  “Look, I just took the tempte for my body and adjusted for normal gold-rank ges. It will work better as a seat for my sciousness if I don’t go messing around with it. And it’s more an oihan a cream.”

  “Mr Asano,” Shade interjected. “Could I, perce, make a request?”

  “Of course,” Jason said. “What do you need?”

  “For this versation to end before all two-hundred-and-eleven of my bodies decide to destroy themselves rather than tinue listening to it.”

  Jason looked at Shade from under raised eyebrows.

  “It might be time to get started, yeah.”

  Jason’s basic avatar vahe prime avatar floated out of the void and through the doorway. As its feet touched the catwalk, it opes eyes. Jason’s sciousness settled into it, turning it from a thing into a person.

  Jasohe spiritual noise fade away as he inhabited his new avatar. For years he’d been dealing with an awareness of every a of every person in every domain he possessed. Louder were the tless people across the os ected to the System. His perception of them was sealed away, lest it destroy his mind at his current level of power, but it was a os worth of muted mumbles.

  His perception of his domains and the System were still accessible, should he have need of them, but they weren’t pressing in on him. The prime avatar was like a quiet room in a busy house; the noise couldn’t get in until he stepped outside. For the first time in a long time, Jaso like a retively normal person.

  He held out his hands and stared at them as he flexed his fingers. When he rubbed his hands together, he smiled at the sensation.

  “A real body,” he said. “It’s still an avatar, I know, but it doesn’t feel like one.”

  “Fingers aren’t all that,” said. “I went without fingers for years, and I turned out fine. we go eat something now?”

  Jason chuckled.

  “Sure, buddy. Let’s go get some lunch.”

  “ it be people?”

  “No! We just talked about this.”

  “ we be flexible? How about if I eat a crappy person.”

  “What did I just say about eating people, ?”

  “Wash them first?”

  “I’m pretty sure I said don’t.”

  “Then we go have a fight? You said I eat people when we’re fighting.”

  “Mr Asano,” Shade said. “Perhaps before we eh the topic of lunch, you should eh the topic of pants.”

  ***

  A spherical cloud pluhrough the upper atmosphere, dropping from a space station shaped like Jason’s head. Fmes ignited around the cloud from the fri of their rapid passage, but the cloud was ued. Ihe cloud it was cool and stable. Jason, in his new avatar body, rexed and ehe ride.

  “I o deal with the things inside my realm first,” Jason told Shade. He was reing in a cloud chair while Shade stood primly beside it. and Gordon were eagerly watg the dang e light that filtered through the wall of the sphere.

  “I would have thought you would rush outside your domain,” Shade told Jason.

  “I want to, and that’s why I haven’t. I’ve been in here so long that, once I leave, I’ll keep finding excuses to not e back. Carlos has gone pretty stir-crazy as it is, and I should prioritise his work in any case. It help a lot of people. Maybe even some of the vampires oh.”

  “I sel keeping your expectations measured, Mr Asano. Even if he is successful, in developing a treatment for vampirism, it will only work on lesser vampires. Those who have had the curse forcibly inflicted upohat is not on oh. The vampires there have always been cautious when propagating their own kind. They make ghouls and blood servants rather than lesser vampires.”

  “I know,” Jason said softly. “It’s just that so many have died, or been bled out in those horrifying farms. It makes me wonder if I should have stayed and fought.”

  “No, Mr Asano. I fidently say that if you had stayed, you and the vampires would have ultimately entered a race to see who could inflict the worst atrocities oher. I have no doubt you would have won against the vampires, but it would be the Earth that lost. Be it you or the vampire queen, the world would be ruled by a monster.”

  “Yeah,” Jason agreed. “I guess leaving was best.”

  “And humanity must be allowed to resolve its own challenges.”

  “Do you ever get sick of being right, Shade?”

  “I have made my own mistakes, Mr Asano. You just don’t notice with the frequend magnitude of yours.”

  utterly failed to smother a ugh while Gordon’s giggle was the sound of a trig stream. Jason shook his head at the abject betrayal of his familiars.

  As their dest tinued, Jason pulled up his character sheet. Looking over his abilities, he smiled at the effects of using great astral beings to grind levels. His abilities ranged from the third to fifth level of gold rank, and for the first time, his perception power wasn’t the highest, if only by a slim margin.

  His cloak power was integral to the way he fought, even the way he moved. It had bee a part of him and he felt exposed without it. But while he had no shame in his i ways, spending all his time in a ade of darkness was too edgelord for even him.

  The cloak was also the opposite of inito. Now that Jason could disguise his magic eyes as normal ones, many activities would be a lot easier. Something as simple as going into a bakery and buying a pie would be less hassle if his nebulous eyes were hidden. A void cloak that was blown by dimensional winds would undermihat signifitly.

  The biggest ge was that he had left the identity of an outworlder behind. inally, his character s had listed his race as a formerly human outworlder. It now said ‘nature’ instead of race, calling him a ‘prime avatar of an astral nexus.’ He wasn’t sure if dropping the term ‘race’ meant he was now beyond mortal cssification, or if the system had gotten more politically correct.

  Was it an internal ge, based on his nature or ging sensibilities, or something more external? Social ge was slow in Pallimustus, but rapid in many parts of Earth, especially the ones Jaso with. Was the system reag to ging values? He decided to put the question to Shade.

  “The System is clearly tied to you, Mr Asano, but also to the os at rge, now. As such, I am not sure aher than you could determihe truth. If I were to forward a hypothesis, it would be that ‘race’ is a term you toames oh and ot adequately represent the breadth of individuals it now o. As such, it has taken the broad term ‘nature’ to represent the nature of people across the os.”

  “That makes sense. I’ve still got the six powers that used to be racial gifts. They seem a bit OP, if I’m beiirely ho.”

  “Mr Asano, your transdence, inplete as it is, has taken the form of an astral nexus. While this is not something I am aware of from experie seems clear that what you are a nexus of is astral kings, great astral beings, and gods. The three supreme entities of the os. You may be g in capabilities pared to each — often signifitly so — but your power reflects aspects of all three. As your prime avatar is a direct embodiment of that power, were you expeg any less?”

  “That’s fair, I guess.”

  “And you should not uimate the abilities of others. What may seem unassuming at first may prove more powerful than you realise. Look at the abilities of Mr Standish. His gifts focus on knowledge and magiot overtly powerful, but in pying to his strengths, they led him down a certain path. Imagine if he had meneric abilities that did not make full use of his astounding mind. If he used special attacks instead of spells, like most humans. Would he be a middle of the road advehat no one had ever heard of, or a Magic Society official in a backwater branch? What of the knowledge he used to stop the Builder from initiating his invasion years early? Would he have spent the years of your absence devising a method to repair the liween two universes? You ge worlds, Mr Asano, but so does he. Without him, you would have failed many times, and it was his i abilities and their evolutions that set him down that path. Just as your do for you.”

  “That’s defirue. My abilities almost seem disappointing when you put it that way.”

  “I am disappointed in the ohat allows me to turn my shadow bodies into transport. Now that it allows and Gordon to alter a vehicle I create, I just know they’re going add…”

  The shadow creature shuddered.

  “…colours.”

  Jason Asano

  Nature: Prime Avatar of an Astral NexusCurrent rank: Gression to diamond rank: 29.5% Attributes

  [Power] (Blood): [Gold 3][Speed] (Dark): [Gold 4][Spirit] (Doom): [Gold 3][Recovery] (Sin): [Gold 3] I Gifts

  [Prime Avatar][Numen][System Administrator][Sacred Phoenix][Relics of the King][Panquin]

  Essences (4/4)

  Dark [Speed] (5/5)

  [Midnight Eyes] (special ability): [Gold 5] 19%[Cloak of Night] (special ability): [Gold 5] 28%[Path of Shadows] (special ability): [Gold 4] 88%[Hand of the Reaper] (special ability): [Gold 4] 86%[Shadow of the Hegemon] (familiar): [Gold 4] 88%

  Blood [Power] (5/5)

  [Blood Harvest] (spell): [Gold 2] 17%[Leech Bite] (special attack): [Gold 4] 76%[Feast of Blood] (spell): [Gold 4] 09%[Sanguine Horror] (familiar): [Gold 4] 67%[Haeme] (spell): [Gold 4] 63%

  Sin [Recovery] (5/5)

  [Punish] (special attack): [Gold 4] 59%[Feast of Absolution] (spell): [Gold 2] 58%[Sier] (special ability): [Gold 2] 56%[Hegemony] (aura): [Gold 5] 16%[Castigate] (spell): [Gold 4] 40%

  Doom [Spirit] (5/5)

  [Inexorable Doom] (spell): [Gold 4] 66%[Punition] (spell): [Gold 4] 04%[Bde of Doom] (spell): [Gold 2] 99%[Verdict] (spell): [Gold 4] 12%[Avatar of Doom] (familiar): [Gold 4] 72%

  Annou: Due to the release of Book 11 on Kindle Unlimited, chapters 791 - 882 will be removed from the site oh or 10th of July, depending on timezone.