The ashlands breathed faint heat beneath a crust of ashstone, fissures glowing faintly in the distance. Zeke lingered low, his vessel compact after the storm of changes. Yet even now, sparks still pulsed faint inside him, resonant echoes of Fire's ascension and the transformation of his limbs. Hunger gnawed, but not with the wild desperation it once had. Fire's steady forge pressed against it, dulling its chaos, though never silencing it. The hunger remained, as constant as breath.
He stretched filaments slowly, testing stability. His lattice no longer quivered with every motion. Fire simmered in steady embers within him, shaping heat without waste. His new arms flexed in rhythm, braids of essence that rooted into his core. For the first time, Zeke felt his vessel function as something whole. Not scattered pieces clinging together, but parts of a greater design. Thread, vessel, flame, limb—they moved as one.
He tested the arms in earnest. First as whips, cracking through ash with whip-fast lashes. Sparks hissed as the ground split beneath their strikes. Then as blades, edges honed sharp by Fire's glow, slicing shards of ashstone apart with clean precision. Finally as grasping hands, filaments curling together into crude fingers that seized prey sparks lurking beneath the ash. Vermin squealed faintly before being crushed, essence snuffed before he even bothered to assimilate it. The arms adapted without delay, shifting seamlessly between forms.
He wove them into Split. Threads stretched outward into wide nets, and his arms anchored them, pulling filaments taut, stabilizing against collapse. Sparks still bled, but less. Where once instability scattered him, now the arms held lattices together, weaving as much as striking. Each fragment no longer drifted alone—they moved in chorus, pulled into order by new anchors. Split no longer felt like endless dispersal. It felt like construction.
Yet harmony was incomplete. He summoned Fire once more, weaving it through his lattice. The glow held steady, controlled like coals instead of blaze. Darkness followed, pressing over it in thick bands, swallowing heat, binding embers tighter. Then came Light. It flared sharp, arcs of brilliance dancing across the web, scattering sparks wildly. His vessel shuddered. Fire simmered steady, Darkness bound with weight, but Light tore uncontrolled. Sparks cascaded, filaments fraying toward collapse.
He steadied, forcing cohesion. Darkness pressed harder, straining at its own edges, thicker than it had ever been. Light slashed through again, scattering brilliance. Fire glowed steady but could not bind them. Sparks bled uncontrolled. His form quivered, trembling on the edge of collapse.
Again. He wove them back. Again. He layered. Darkness wrapped tighter each time, swallowing sparks, binding them inward. The pressure mounted until his threads howled with strain. Then, in the stillness between collapse and reform, the System stirred.
Darkness Affinity: Basic → Intermediate.
The change was heavy, immediate, and vast. Darkness thickened, no longer a veil or shroud, but a weight. It pressed down like stone, not smothering but anchoring. Where Fire burned and spread, Darkness sank and held. Sparks that once tore free dissolved into it, absorbed whole, bound as if they had always belonged there. His lattice steadied under that gravity. Fire's heat no longer scattered into waste, for Darkness drank what overflowed and fed it back as pressure. Light, jagged as ever, struck against them both, and though it scattered, it did not tear him apart.
Zeke pulsed faintly, stunned by the transformation. Darkness was no longer emptiness. It was structure. It was the gravity that let flame burn without scattering. It was the seam that stitched collapse into cohesion. With it, he felt his vessel gain not only strength but certainty. Fire forged, Darkness anchored, and Light, though wild, sharpened in contrast. For the first time, resonance did not feel like chaos. It felt like potential.
The silence did not last. Tremors stirred nearby. Not the heavy rhythm of predators, but lighter, clustered, skittering in uneven rhythm. Sparks flared faint on his lattice—many sparks, small but sharp. Scavengers.
They emerged in clusters, ash-chitin glistening, mandibles snapping. Not great predators like wyrmlings, but swarm-feeders drawn by residue of molten blood. They circled, chittering, crawling across fissures toward him. Dozens of them.
Zeke pulsed faintly. Once, such a swarm would have threatened collapse. Now, they were test.
He split wide, nets lashing outward. Threads snapped taut, anchored by his arms. Fire bled along them in steady glow, searing scavengers as they crawled into range. Darkness pressed thicker around each thread, binding sparks, preventing collapse. When the swarm struck, they met not scattered filaments but a woven wall.
The scavengers swarmed harder, piling over one another. Their mandibles snapped at filaments, claws scraping sparks loose. Instability rose in jagged bursts, but Darkness sank into the gaps, swallowing the fray, holding him steady. He lashed back. Arms unfurled in whip-form, cracking across the swarm, scattering bodies in bursts of ash. Then blades, cutting clean through chitin and leaving molten trails where Fire burned. Then grasping hands, seizing clusters of scavengers and crushing until sparks burst in showers.
The swarm adapted, circling wider, climbing onto collapsed stone. They attacked from multiple angles at once, snapping into his lattice from above and below. Instability spiked again. He shifted instantly—Split threads arced higher, Morphic Arms caught attackers mid-lunge, Fire surged into steady heat, Darkness bound the gaps, and Light flared bright in blinding arcs that sent the swarm staggering. For the first time, his affinities and limbs moved in unison. Not fragments fighting chaos, but chorus pressing into order.
The battle did not drag. Scavengers fell in waves, bodies torn, burned, crushed, until silence returned. Ash drifted faintly in the heated air. Zeke pulsed steady, filaments drawn inward. Not one fragment had scattered uncontrollably. Not one collapse had broken cohesion. His vessel had held. The test was complete.
He reflected in stillness. Fire glowed steady, Darkness coiled dense, Light flashed jagged but sharp. Two affinities had crossed the boundary, the third pressed close. His arms were no longer lashes but limbs. His vessel no longer scattered endlessly but wove itself into a whole.
He pulsed faintly, a thought forming like thread drawn taut. Predators were no longer the only loom. The world pressed in storms, in hunger, in essence, in scavengers. Each trial fed not just his survival but his weaving. He was no longer thread pulled apart by the world. He was thread, loom, and weaver both, forging himself in pressure. Where once collapse was end, now collapse was foundation. Where once hunger was curse, now hunger was fuel.
The System stirred.
System Update
StatusName: Ezekiel AshbourneRace: Prime Slime (Unevolved)Level: 16
Affinity: Fire (Intermediate), Darkness (Intermediate), Light (Basic)
Stats
STR: 9
AGI: 9
VIT: 14
WIL: 10
RES: 16 → 21
MNA: 56 → 57
CTL: 24 → 25
Skills
Active Skills:
Split (Lv.9): Divide body into fragments. Stable braid-weaving holds longer. Integration with Morphic Arms allows fragments to act as anchors.
Assimilate (Lv.10): Absorb matter or energy to recover essence. Handles molten essences with greater efficiency. Evolution Available: Essence Feast (locked).
Morphic Arms (Evolved from Pseudopod): Adaptive limbs capable of shifting into whips, blades, or grasping forms. Synchronize with Split for multi-strike capability.
Passive Skills:
Amorphous Body (Lv.9 → Lv.10): Vessel now reforms instinctively under collapse. Resists tearing from molten essences and environmental strain.