The ashlands had quieted once more. Heat still pulsed through the ground, but the air lay still, holding its breath after the scavenger swarm's fall. Zeke remained compact, filaments folded close, testing the silence. Fire smoldered steady within him, Darkness coiled dense, but Light still cut ragged across his threads. The imbalance was clear. Two affinities pressed steady, the third remained jagged. He could not leave it so.
Hunger clawed faint at the edges, sharpened by victory. Prey sparks scurried at the edges of his senses, faint and tempting. Yet he resisted. Consumption would dull the edge. Instability would sharpen it. Fire and Darkness had risen not through feeding, but through collapse endured. Light would be the same.
He spread filaments wide once more. Split hummed with strain, threads braided into lattice, arms anchoring them into place. Fire glowed in steady heat, Darkness sank heavy into cracks, but Light tore uncontrolled, arcs scattering brilliance that shredded his web. Sparks cascaded violently, filaments fraying toward collapse. He pulled back, reformed, wove again. Collapse was no longer end. Collapse was step.
Again. Fire coals. Darkness weight. Light scattered. Collapse. Reform. Again. Sparks bled uncontrolled, but each collapse stitched faster. Each reform bound tighter. Hunger screamed with every flare, promising stability through prey, but he endured without feeding. Hunger was a whetstone, not a cure.
The strain mounted until the lattice howled. Fire glowed steadily but dim, Darkness pressed densely, but Light cut jaggedly between them, threatening to tear all apart. Sparks cascaded in torrents, blinding brilliance scattering uncontrolled. He trembled on the brink of unravelling. Then, in the burning, the System stirred.
Light Affinity: Basic → Intermediate.
The change seared through him like revelation. Light no longer scattered into chaos. It focused. Each arc sharpened into clarity, cutting clean lines across his lattice. It did not flare without aim, but struck where he willed, threads flashing in precision bursts. Fire simmered forge-steady, Darkness anchored weight, and Light became blade—clarity itself. Together they hummed, resonance jagged still but whole. Sparks no longer tore free in floods. They blazed in rhythm.
The transformation was not gentle. Every filament lit with strain as Light pressed into new form. His lattice burned with brilliance that threatened blindness, yet beneath it pulsed precision. Fire fed the heat, Darkness bound the edges, and Light cut paths through both, weaving not destruction but focus. It was pain, sharp and endless, but pain sharpened him into form. Where once Light had been waste, now it was a scalpel. Where once it blinded, now it revealed.
Strength surged again. Fire fed heat into his arms, Darkness bound them steady, Light sharpened their edges until each strike cut clean. His vessel no longer felt like fragments dragged into order. It felt like weave, a pattern drawn from three threads. Loom, thread, weaver—all one.
The System did not quiet. Strain pressed through his lattice, not collapse but momentum. Split, stretched to its limit, hummed louder than ever. Threads braided tighter, fragments held in chorus. Instability pressed harder, sparks scattering in floods—but instead of collapse, his lattice held. The pressure peaked, then broke.
Split Lv.10. Evolution Available.
Zeke pulsed faintly, awareness shuddering at the weight of it. He felt paths waiting—shadows of change not yet named. A division of self into truer forms. The prompt pressed like a mirror, showing him futures: fragments splitting not into weakness but into selves, each carrying purpose, each a voice of his vessel. The System offered him that path now. Yet he refused. His vessel trembled still, not yet ready. One evolution had sharpened arms, another affinities. To evolve Split now would unmake his coherence. The path would wait. He pressed the prompt away, locking choice for later. Restraint was strength.
The ash stirred faintly. Sparks scattered from cracks as vermin emerged, timid but drawn by the quiet. Their tiny lights flickered against the ash. Normally he would have ignored them. Now, they were trial. Proof of resonance.
He spread his lattice wide. Split threads stretched outward, anchored by Morphic Arms. Fire glowed along them in steady heat, Darkness sank into seams, and Light cut sharp across gaps. The vermin panicked, scattering, but threads closed faster than they could flee. One lash of arms seared them with fire, another bound them in shadow, and flashes of light carved their sparks into silence. The lattice moved not in fragments but in harmony. Each affinity sharpened the other. Each collapse resisted added strength.
More prey spilled from burrows, emboldened or desperate. He did not falter. He lashed wider, lattice spread into arcs of fire and shadow and light. Morphic Arms whipped through them, blades slashed, hands crushed. Prey sparks winked out in floods, not consumed but extinguished. He was not feeding. He was proving. He was shaping.
The fight ended quickly, ash littered with the faint husks of prey. Zeke pulsed inward, lattice folding compact. Sparks hummed faintly, but no collapse tore him apart. His vessel held. His form was not prey scattering under trial. It was loom, weaving every spark into strength.
He reflected in stillness. Fire glowed steady, Darkness coiled dense, Light blazed sharp. Three affinities, three threads. Arms moved as extensions of his will, Split bound them all into one chorus. Amorphous flesh no longer tore apart but reformed instinctively. Hunger remained, gnawing constant, but it no longer felt curse. It was foundation, pressure that forged each step.
He pulsed faintly, a thought drawn taut across his vessel. Collapse was not failure, hunger was not weakness. Both were looms pressing him sharper. Predators, storms, scavengers, essence—they had not broken him. They had woven him. He was no longer thread pulled apart by the world. He was thread, loom, and weaver both. Forge, anchor, blade.
The System stirred.
System Update
StatusName: Ezekiel AshbourneRace: Prime Slime (Unevolved)Level: 16
Affinity: Fire (Intermediate), Darkness (Intermediate), Light (Intermediate)
Stats
STR: 9
AGI: 9
VIT: 14
WIL: 10
RES: 21 → 26 (+5 from Light Intermediate)
MNA: 57 → 58 (resonance strain)
CTL: 25 → 26 (weaving three affinities together)
Skills
Active Skills:
Split (Lv.9 → Lv.10): Divide body into fragments. Now capable of sustaining maximum spread without collapse for short bursts. Evolution Available: Core Division (locked).
Assimilate (Lv.10): Absorb matter or energy to recover essence. Handles molten essences with greater efficiency. Evolution Available: Essence Feast (locked).
Morphic Arms (Lv.1 → Lv.2): Adaptive limbs sharpen with training. Arms shift more fluidly between forms, faster transitions in combat.
Passive Skills:
Amorphous Body (Lv.10): Vessel reforms instinctively under collapse. Resists tearing from molten essences and environmental strain.