Sorin chose to steel his heart. He pushed onward despite his uncertainty at what would happen to him without basis of his cultivation.

  The seventh cycle saw his muscles, nerves, and ligaments melt away. This included his fully sanctified flesh where, theoretically, his power was stored.

  Yet these too proved to be arbitrary mortal restrictions. He didn’t need God Fire to surpass mortality. He didn’t need the flames of faith to transform his body.

  No, what needed was to let that part of him die. His cultivation was but another mortal shackle that he needed to shed before ascending.

  He didn’t even pause when the eighth cycle took his bones. Those physical things he’d painstakingly forged and tempered became insubstantial. The melted into the strange substance that now made up his ambiguous physical form.

  Yet when he arrived at the ninth cycle, he paused. Not because of hesitation, but to remember the trials he’d undergone.

  His path had been severed many years ago due to the unfortunately crippling of his cultivation. His mana sea had scattered, and he had been forced to reforge his mana pathways.

  Now, they were as useful as his previously damaged organs. They were toxic remnants that would sever his path if allowed to fester. He pushed forward through the widest, deepest, and somehow fastest portion of the river as it ripped out his meridians and mana pathways like an adult might rip training wheels off a bicycle. He no longer needed these restraints. His future path would be unbound by convention.

  This included the skills that collapsed as he entered the shallow ocean at the end of the river. Without the framework they operated on, these things were useless paperweights and tangled karma.

  They had helped him, yes, but their help was no longer required. And neither was the steady syphoning of significance Lord Hope and several deceased deities imposed upon him for using them.

  In the end, all that remained was power and meaningful entanglements. His body a font of power, and the mana inside it was starting to show signs of fusion.

  As for his heart and soul, they’d been thoroughly cleansed and pruned. The web of karma tying him to the many beings of Pandora was tarnished gold. All that remained were three small threads, mortal matters that he would soon resolve.

  I could transcend mortality completely here and now, thought Sorin. A river of confidence surged through him. A river he forcefully stopped as he realized foreign Authority was responsible for it.

  Sorin looked up to see a specter floating above a mountain of ice. It blocked the exit of the shallow lake he found himself in. The ‘water’ level rose by the second.

  Before addressing the specter, however, he turned towards the river and acknowledge the benefits he’d received. “The favor you’ve done me is immense,” said Sorin, bowing deeply. “I will make sure to repay it.” His words solidified the thread of karma between him through formalized oath, resolving one of the three remaining karmic threads.

  Having finished with the river, Sorin walked through the shallows toward the mountain of ice. The rules of Styx no longer bound him, as only two mortal karmic threads still bound him.

  He inspected the mountain and the chains that bound the specter. Its karma was linked to Ratten, but this connection was overruled by an even more powerful entity. That same entity’s powers coursed through the mountain of ice that prevented souls from being funneled out of Underworld.

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  The mountain was cold and oppressive. It radiated imperial might not unlike Ratten and Aaron, the two forgotten deities. A fierce battle had broken out between Ratten and Aaron, but Sorin immediately discovered hints of cooperation in the damages wrought. The battle is fake. Planned. Many karmic threads lead back to this mountain, including Gabriella’s.

  “Why did you attack me just now?” asked Sorin. He focused his ‘eyes’ on specter and found a blurry name. “Hypnos? A god who survived the Cataclysmic Emergence?”

  “Survived is a generous assessment of my current condition,” said the specter. “Just as ‘god’ is a generous assessment of my status. I am no more than a guardian slave, planted here by a greater master to defend the seal on Hades’s Underworld Bident.”

  Sorin’s eyes narrowed as he realized the name was no longer blurred. It’s a rule that blurs it out. A rule created through a powerful Authority, now cancelled out by my own.

  “You’re saying you attacked me to fulfill your duty as guardian?” asked Sorin.

  “Precisely,” answered Hypnos. “Unfortunately, the nature of my Authority is such that any further attempts will be easily rebuffed. I see no need for further acts of aggression.”

  A few strings of karma glowed as the specter spoke. “Stop pretending,” said Sorin. “You’re clearly in league with Hades.”

  “Just so,” said Hypnos. “I was instructed to pass along a message: melt the ice if you wish to retrieve Gabriella. Perform this task, and I will consider our karma severed. Both the karma between you and I, and the karma between I and Persephone.”

  Sorin snorted. “How generous of Hades, sparing an innocent victim in exchange for the completion of a task no one else can accomplish.” The game they were playing was now blatantly obvious.

  He took a several steps to circle the exposed side of the mountain. Somehow, Gabriella had been placed inside the mountain of ice, nearest the Underworld Bident. A tiny opening had been drilled into the ice mountain to produce a thin trickle of Underworld authority that led back to Ratten Hades.

  It was a relatively simple hostage situation. Mesa Payne’s ‘information’ had been intentionally leaked. Gabriella’s essence had also been leaked through the ‘new’ ingredients for the Kepler Clan’s Death Tincture. These had been planted to lead Sorin to the Hyde Clan and this backup entrance to Pandora’s Underworld.

  “A few things still don’t make sense,” said Sorin. “Aaron’s energy is clearly effective against this ice, judging by the marks that have been left on it. He could have easily freed the bident.”

  “With the current restrictions on his authority?” scoffed Hypnos. “Lord Zeus would die of exhaustion before he managed it. In case you haven’t noticed, this ‘ice’ is formed from titanic energy. Some of the purest titanic energy.”

  Sorin frowned as he parsed this information and made a few deductions. Hypnos was lying; both about Zeus’s ability to free the bident and his energy stores. “Zeus and Hades are brothers. This power shares certain traits with their energy. It was…” Several pieces of information he’d collected at the Order of Phantasia clicked. “Chronos. Their father. It was their father who sealed them. He isn’t dead. Or he wasn’t, at least. It was him to who placed this seal on the Underworld Bident.”

  Hypnos shivered when he heard the ancient name. “Your speculations are correct. Unfortunately for both Zeus and Hades, his Authority supersedes theirs. It was only via treachery and an alliance with their siblings that they were ever able to overthrow him and exile him. They thought him long gone, but when he came back with reinforcements...”

  The story made sense to Sorin, but there was something off about it. Something that made him want to cover his bases.

  “Fine,” said Sorin. “I’ll extract the Bident alongside Gabriella. I agree to Hades’s terms. Performing this duty will sever all karma between me and him, and between him and Persephone, and therefore, Gabriella.”

  The shallow lake pulsed alongside the River Styx accepted his oath. A binding contract was formed with the river as the guarantor. It would now be impossible to back out from extracting the bident. Likewise, Hades would be similarly locked in. This agreement would even sever the karma sewn via Sorin’s predecessor, Asclepius, which Sorin had only recently noticed was a limiter on his authority.

  “I cannot guard you as you accomplish this task, but I will ensure no one else approaches the mountain, as duty requires,” said Hypnos. He retreated but couldn’t fool Sorin’s senses; he was part of the mountain and could project his Authority through the mountain at will.

  “Try to stay back as much as possible,” said Sorin, fully expecting the specter to betray him. He pressed his hand against the mountain and injected his newly reorganized 9,000-poison into it.

  Ice trickled into the shallow sea as it melted, releasing tiny specks of titanic energy that Sorin’s body gobbled up without hesitation.