H-how is this possible? I have no path? All my efforts… These gods want to drain it all away? All because they don't like me?! The hell?!
What right do they have to write my fate?
There are four Paths the system grants to the Awakeners. Each path carried its own strength, power and cost.
The Path of the Ruin; a master of collapse and decay, sensing weak points in objects, plans, or even people, exploiting them to spark cascading failures.
Path of the Sovereign; absolute authority users. Practitioners who could bend wills, impose rules, and enforce obedience. They defined zones where their influence strengthened and opposition faltered, projecting invisible laws that punished any who acted against them.
The Path of the Weaver. Subtlety and manipulation made flesh. Those aligned to this Path saw the world as literal threads of life, weaving objects out of their core, and nudging events into desired outcomes without confronting them directly.
And lastly, the Witness Path. The observers. They could replay past occurrences, anticipate actions, and even feed on emotional residue to sharpen perception, and manipulate to their advantage.
But you, Fateless, are exempted from all.
[ "Don't cry, child. you were only not destined for any path." ]
[ "The other… Forces did not find you interesting enough to grant you one." ]
Fèi Míng hadn't stood a chance to blink before the void thickened around him, the intangible dark gaining a grainy density that pressed against his skin.
Suddenly, long clawed fingers curled into him from behind. Shadow-dark palms clamp both shoulders, dragging his back flush against something tall. A wide unhinged grin splitted open above his head, a mouth too wide to belong to a face.
Before his body could decide on an appropriate protest, more hands manifested—three of them—each one a different shape of wrong, longer at the knuckles, thinner at the wrists, grabbing his shoulders with a synchronized curl of fingers, pinning him in place.
Fèi Míng felt his pulse spike once, the heart misfiring upward against the heat flare rising through his chest. He swallowed it down anyway. Would I die here? I don't want to die. I don't want to—
[ "Be still, dear child. I would never kill my favourite player." ]
RiaKai's three golden eyes, suspended ahead in the abyss, as the mouth behind him curved further into a smile.
[ "Yes. I know the shape of your dread," ] RiaKai began, voice lowered to that grave octave again.
["Death,"] they continued. [ "You wish not to die for spectacle, yet you salivate at death you curate. Delicious hypocrisy. Very fun." ] Their third eye lowered, hovering inches from his nose.
The shadow-hands tightened a fraction, and Fèi Míng felt the warmth bloom sharper under his sternum again, the burn from earlier throbbing, the heat seeping outward beneath his chest in hot waves.
RiaKai lifted their gaze, their eyes turning crescent moon. [ "Your fear of death wholly delights me. But, it holds you back from your full potential I wish to see. Having facing death twice, I truly sympathize." ]
["Mortal fear is simple," ] they hummed.
[ "Yours is crooked. A broken compass that only points to the corpse it wants to avoid." ]
[ "Hence, the other Forces find you dull. A rounding error. A blank tile in a board game with delusions of narrative symmetry." ]
["So—let us ruin their fun."]
Fèi Míng's eyes snapped up, pupils slicing thin under the glare of the triad-suns. "A god… helping a human? What more could a devastated person like me wish for? Immortality all for the sake to spite you all?"
The mouth behind him exhaled a small laugh. [ "Why yes!" ]
What? Really? Is this god crazy?
RiaKai's smile faltered.
[ "I certainly am not crazy. You are my favourite! Why shall I risk denouncing my position to sneak in a Dream just to meet you?" ]
[ "I shall grant you the Fifth Path." ]
[ "The Path of Insanity." ]
Fei Ming scrunched his face. The path of insanity? I've never heard of it before.
The abyss shimmered and coiled as RiaKai spread their starlit arms outward.
[ "No mortal seeks forever without unraveling. Madness is the toll, the tariff paid at the gate."]
RiaKai pointed a shadow-finger upward.
[ "You will no longer fear death. Nor die of age. Nor plague. Nor wounds that mortal hands deliver." ]
[ "But immortality is fed… not gifted." ]
Offering me Immortality? Of all my probabilities, this was the least to expect. "Explain." gods are so unpredictable.
[ "Each week, an Arena descends, you will enter." ]
[ "And when a Player dies by your design, your hand, your catalyst, their 'Core'— the very Essence of a being's soul or life source—will surface, condensed from soul into something real enough to hold." ]
[ "You will take it into yourself, absorbing the Core one by one till… you reach the perfect stage." ]
[ "Each Core is a rung upward the Immortality 'ladder'. A step toward forever." ]
[ "Wouldn't that be the perfect way to exact your revenge on those who rejected you? To spite them?" ]
Fèi Míng exhaled through his nose, the motion sharp and not-impressed. There must be a catch. Unless this god willingly allows me to steal from them. My calculations don't quite add up. "And the loopholes?" he asked.
RiaKai's eyes narrowed.
[ "There are none." ]
Then they added, while grinning:
[ "If you engineer a death, you own it. And if you own it… you feast." ]
Fèi Míng grimaced, heat still simmering under his skin. "And what do you consume from me?"
RiaKai's eyes slanted into crescents, as if delighted. The mouth behind him grew smugger.
[ "Only a tiny tithe!" ]
[ "Ten percent of your humanity. The very essence that makes you human. Forever mine to savour." ]
[ "Your Essence of humanity looks so nutritious! I desire to have a bite. Feel the euphoria you always felt." ]
He pondered on the thought. A god that feeds on human emotions, offering me a cursed fifth path? He found the cost acceptable only because the interest rate on god-bullshit was finally written in a language he understood: spite.
But what if RiaKai was lying? There simply wasn't anything worth gaining from a human.
[ "I have no reason to deceive you." they murmured, leaning closer, [ "My reasons and objectives are far beyond mortal comprehension. And you, Fateless, loses nothing at the long end." ]
I should accept. What more is there to losing 10% of my humanity, anyway? It only drags one down from their full potential.
Twirling around Fei Ming, their eyes ahead widened in pure delight.
[ "Pluck a star, swallow a sun. Make them rue what they've done." ]
[ "Take the eye and the Core. Take the rest." ]
Fèi Míng stared, unimpressed but sparked in the inevitable. He clenched his fists. I, Fei Ming, the only son of a crazed father. Named out of nothing, born into dirt, abandoned from the beginning, now hated by the unknown… I refuse to wander around this world without a path.
I could do just about anything without being bound to death.
Anything…
What a thrill it would be to spit on these cosmic slugs' faces.'
He cracked a thin grin as he declared:
"I accept it."
The shadow-hands released him entirely, dissipating into ink-like smoke that drifted upward and hung instead of falling, and RiaKai's third eye drifted forward to meet his forehead gently.
[ "Swallow and eat to your fill, dear child." ]