The two phantoms that had stopped the World's Will watched me as I broke the limitations set on humanity. They looked at each other with glowing eyes, and both seemingly smiled in they're own way. The World's Will realized what I had done and begrudgingly decided to make contact.
~
The state of my room was surprisingly normal after all the theatrics that went on, and as I opened my eyes I couldn't help but notice what seemed like faint, transparent chains floating everywhere in sight. After a few moments I heard the sound of breaking glass as a chain snapped. My perception on the world gained a newfound clarity and I relished in the feeling. My eyes glowed with a shimmering silver before settling back down to the stormy grey from before.
My body felt as though thousands of pounds of weight had been lifted, and it gained an even more vibrant glow of vitality.
'Vesemir was right, you are a monster in human skin. I'm sad I have to deal with you on my own now too.'
The ring, who had been mum for hours, finally decided to comment on my newfound strength.
"Oh so now you decide to speak. Couldn't you absorb some of the overflowing energy and save me half the hassle? The hell were you doing? Vesemir is dormant in my core now!"
The ring stayed quiet for a moment before responding.
'I couldn't. The rules of Transcendence are clear, albeit with loopholes here and there, but very clear nonetheless. No outside force can assist in breakthroughs to higher planes, regardless of what type of breakthrough, whether it be physical, magical, or spiritual.'
I could only frown at that, scratching the side of my head.
"Then why could Vesemir help me at the final moment?"
'Did I not just say there are loopholes? Vesemir technically IS you. He's just your mana core in a sentient state, so he could help you because he is you. I could have done the same if (ahem) you had bonded with me like I have been trying to have you do. Where's my apology now master?'
I let out a heavy sigh at that.
"I'm sorry for blaming you for something you could have helped in if you had elaborated the terms and conditions of an agreement you were being mysterious on all week."
Violent mental coughing entered my mind before an 'apology accepted' resounded in there.
"Well, will you explain now why Vesemir told me to bond with you? Or do you plan on avoiding an explanation forever?"
'Fine fine. In short, the bond directly allows me to manifest as something akin to a soul armament. Soul armaments are accessories, armors, or weapons that directly link themselves to your soul and quite literally ride or die with you. If you die, we crumble away and cease to exist anymore, joining you in the afterlife. I'm going to be honest, my true form isn't actually a ring. This is just my sealed state so that you'd be able to wield me. Oh oh, and since I'm attached to your soul, the stronger you get, the stronger I get, which means all these breakthroughs in strength you've been having is a shit ton of wasted potential. I'd be roughly 20x stronger if you had bonded with me right from the start. Teheh.'
My face froze at this info dump. 'Soul armament...not a ring....20x stronger...wasted potential...'
"FUCK!"
I crumpled to the ground, wallowing in all the wasted "xp" that can never be gotten now. All true gamers in the world at that moment felt the heavy feeling of loss in unison, clutching their mountain dew and cheetoh filled hearts in agony. A few of them even proceeded to press "f" in their chats with seemingly no reasons to do so.
A moment of silence settled in until some random voice chimed in.
"So brat, how does it feel breaking the restraints of mortality you had, huh? Maybe feeling a little light? Maybe feeling like a whole new world has opened up for you? Maybe you feel like the main character now? C'mon man, get up already. You going to ignore me like this the whole time? Helllooooo, is this thing on?"
My head slowly raised as I looked around the room, only to still find it empty. No one was here to be speaking, yet here I was hearing a disembodied voice.
"So um uh, who are you? Sir? Mam? If ya go by it/they I won't judge man, it's 2023 after all."
I felt the air tremble and watched the sky go dark outside.
"Listen here ya little shit, I don't have a gender, so don't label me with one. I'm the motherfucking will of the world! Yes, I am the sentience of the entirety of the world. You can literally just call me Will if you want. Now answer me, how and why the fuck did you break your mortal shackles??"
"Oh that's it? That's an easy one, Phil? Was it? Anyway I just oversaturated my body with mana until it kinda just, accepted how much I was feeding it? So to overcompensate, my body created a new "vessel" for it to hold the new amount of energy. Pretty simple if you ask me."
The sky rumbled with a sinister pressure permeating the air. Lightning crackled to and fro in the thunderhead above.
"You fucking brat! I said call me Will! And why the fuck did you make it sound so simple??!! Creatures aren't supposed to be capable of using mana on this planet in the first place! and secondly, up until you did so, no creature on this planet could survive anything remotely similar to such a high intensity evolution over such a short period. It is fundamentally not supposed to be possible on this planet, as I made sure of that!"
Understanding washed over me upon realizing what Will had said. 'That explains the fierce resistance at the final steps. The world didn't want me to exist. But wait..'
"If that is the case, why did I manage to do so? I mean I can say that I had a bit of help, but if you're saying all creatures on this planet couldn't ascend, what made me different?"
"That is what I'm trying to figure out! I was getting ready to fry you when all of a sudden, the thoughts of destruction in my mind seemed to disperse, as though the feeling had been a dream. Next thing I know, you had ascended without my knowledge and now here we are."
"I'm not calling you out or anything, but it seems like you fucked up big time considering you apparently had one job, and didn't do it."
"Hey I'll have you know that -"
There was a pause in his rant that did not go unnoticed.
"Fuck! It seems I just got more shit added onto my plate. You, brat, yes you. Don't you fucking think about ascending higher while on this planet, cause you just opened a whole can of BS. I'll also let you know, keep on your toes, cause the BS seems to be heading this way. I don't know when this week it will get here, but I'm too busy now to be entertaining them. Anyway, Adios bitch!"
With that I felt a weak presence leave my surroundings, going up and into the skies.
'Well that was weird. Master will you do the bond now? It seems you'll be needing me soon.'
"Yeah yeah, sure. Is it gonna hurt like my baptism or will it be worse?"
'It is painless. It is going to be more like feeling a new presence in your subconscious permanently.'
"Well that definitely sounds too easy to be true. Are you downplaying this?"
'Why is it that you're such a wuss? I'll admit that before your first baptism it would have stung, but with you chalk full of so much mana, its more likely going to feel like a warm bath. Now lets get started.'
From where the ring rested on my hand, a strong push of warm energy slowly made its way through my whole body. It crept up my arms and and circulated throughout my blood stream before finally resting somewhere in my head. The more energy that escaped the ring, the more the ring seemed to melt into my skin, until the whole process finalized and the ring had turned into nothing but a black tattoo around my right forefinger.
The warmth I had felt suddenly enveloped my eyes, causing them to feel a little irritated, before settling once again, only to leave me looking at my forearms and biceps. They were enveloped in strange, intricate designs, with chains and circles displayed everywhere and Latin characters sprawled everywhere in between. My right arm had them in black while the ones on my left were in white, and as they crept up to my shoulders, they seemed to feed into a silver color.
I walked over to the mirror and was shocked to notice an enormous silver marking on my back, with wing designs spanning from my collarbone down to my waist on both sides, and in the center was a Taoist symbol with yin and yang being surround by the common Chinese zodiacs of Dragon, Dog, Goat, and all the others. What was weird was that they were not in the shape of the original zodiacs, but different depictions from other religions and lore. The serpentine water dragon from Chinese lore was replaced with the western depiction of dragons, with four legs and two wings.
The goat was the satanic depiction of, well, Satan, with a humanoid body, goat head, with three eyes. The dog looked liked the Norse sealed beast of Ragnarok, Fenrir. All the other depictions had similar changes, causing me to have to take a second look to figure out what they all were in relation to all the lore I could remember. Surprisingly, some were from very out of place myths while most came from stories of demigods or gods themselves in humanoid form. There was only one that gave me the most trouble, being that of the tiger. The depiction for it, while it WAS a big cat, was not in fact a tiger, but a lion. The symbol was of what I could only guess to be the god, Maahes, the Egyptian god of war.
While I was staring into the mirror ogling the newly discovered tattoos, the ring decided to speak up now.
'Ah, so much better. I felt so trapped in that ring. This feels sooooo comfy master.'
"Ah right, you said something about being sealed, right? Well? What is your original form?"
All I heard was a 'fufufu' in my mind when the ring marking on my hand crept up and spread out, covering my hand and forearm before stopping at my elbow and materializing into a solid form.
'Soul Armament: First form, Devourer's Pride. At your service sir.'
The corner of my mouth twitched a few times at such a cringe name. A heavy sigh later:
"Is there a reason to call yourself like that? What's up with the cheesy naming sense, like, did you think of that yourself on the spot?"
An awkward silence ensued.
"..."
'...'
"..."
'Sir, that was rude. That is my name, and you completely insulted it. Clearly you don't want to know my effects in this form. Hmph.'
"But don't you just eat energy like before, while just adding some defense along my arm? From the name I could figure that was the only difference at this point. Am I wrong?"
'...I hate how simple you made it sound...jerk.'
~
"Ughhh, why is it everyone in this house, including me, are prone to getting knocked out, or injured? This shit sucks."
"Quick talking, you're making my headache worse. Let's just go and check on Jason before he somehow invokes nuclear explosions because of whatever stupid reason he'll come up with."