Chapter 11: Tempering
Dax stepped into the consuming darkness of the chamber—a void so absolute it pressed against the skin like a physical substance, thick and unyielding. He moved through it with unnatural certainty, footsteps silent on the cool, seamless floor that seemed forged from the heart of oblivion itself. His hand found the familiar contours of his throne, and he settled into it with the effortless grace of a king reclaiming his rightful dominion.
He whistled—a single, soft note that vanished into the blackness without echo.
Instantly, light erupted from hidden panels embedded in the walls and ceiling, banishing the shadows to skulk in distant corners. The illumination revealed a command center of stark, imposing beauty: sleek lines of obsidian and chrome, holographic interfaces flickering faintly in standby, the air humming with latent power.
Dax sat enthroned upon a massive dais of polished obsidian that drank the light greedily, reflecting nothing. He rested his chin on a clenched fist, intense gaze fixed on the colossal observation window dominating the far wall—a panoramic view of a vast, empty plain stretching to artificial horizons.
Behind him, Micah stood rigid, mind reeling as he struggled to comprehend the impossible scale of the room—endless, sterile, a realm unto itself.
Dax's voice broke the silence, calm and measured, carrying the weight of absolute authority.
"Do you understand where you are?"
Micah swallowed hard, voice emerging hoarse. "The architecture… it defies reason, Master. I am in your world, but I do not know it."
"This is the Testing Ground," Dax explained, eyes never leaving the window. "A dedicated sector of my laboratory. Here, your new form will be tempered and measured."
He lifted a single finger.
"Ceron."
In the space between heartbeats, the glass-bodied robot materialized beside Micah. A slender limb touched his shoulder—and the world dissolved into a nauseating blur of streaked light and warped space.
Solidity returned an instant later.
Micah stood alone beneath the artificial sky of the immense field—kilometers wide, bounded by distant, shimmering barriers. Ceron had already flickered away, returning to her post beside the throne.
It just warped space itself, Micah breathed inwardly, the words a ghost on his lips.
From his throne, Dax noted the observation with a flicker of cold satisfaction.
A slender black lens descended silently, positioning itself before Dax's mouth. When he spoke again, his voice boomed omnipresent—echoing with godlike authority across the vast plain.
"Don't hold back."
The scale of his power… the absolute control…
Awe warred with deep-seated terror in Micah's heart.
I may perish from the revelation alone.
"Begin!"
Micah obeyed without hesitation.
He spread his arms wide. The air itself seemed to still, holding its breath.
His silver-blonde hair lifted as if submerged in invisible currents.
Then the ground beneath him erupted—fracturing violently, collapsing inward to form a deep, yawning crater.
Almost immediately, the floor began to flow like liquid mercury—material knitting itself back together with seamless precision until the surface was once again flawless, unmarked, eternal.
Micah ascended, hovering as the atmosphere compressed around him—drawn inexorably into the vortex of his awakening power.
A nimbus of golden, lightning-like energy crackled to life, enveloping his form.
Then it erupted.
Torrential streams of pure, refined aura poured from his body—a wave of palpable force that flooded the chamber with the light of a contained dawn, illuminating the plain in blinding radiance.
"A commendable display," Dax's voice cut through the torrent, cold and sharp as a scalpel. "But I perceive a ceiling. Stop holding back."
Despite the ocean of power roaring within him, a shard of ice-cold fear lodged in Micah's core.
The command could not be ignored.
His eyes blazed with incandescent light.
The left shone with brilliant, divine gold—the echo of his past faith.
The right pupil narrowed sharply, flesh around it shifting and reforming into a vertical, draconic slit—radiating ancient, predatory instinct.
Simultaneously, his magnificent hybrid wings unfurled to their full, terrifying span—one of radiant, feathered light; the other of gleaming, impenetrable golden scales.
"Magnificent!"
Dax's exclamation rang like a gunshot in the silence.
He vanished from his throne.
Reappeared directly before Micah—close enough to feel the heat of his aura.
His own pupils dilated, revealing the swirling crimson cosmos of his Origin Eyes—vast, hungry, infinite.
He gripped Micah's bicep firmly, touch clinical and assessing—fingers probing the flow of power, the pulse of life beneath reborn flesh.
A slow, demonic smile of pure, unadulterated discovery spread across his face.
In a movement faster than thought—faster than perception—he pivoted.
No flash of light. No sound of tearing flesh.
He simply turned.
And placed a severed forearm—Micah's forearm—neatly into Ceron's waiting pincers.
When did he—?
Micah's gaze dropped to his shoulder.
The limb was simply gone.
The space where it had been was clean—cauterized perfectly, as if it had never existed.
No sensation. No warning.
Only the impossible, silent reality of absence.
A heartbeat later, agony arrived—a searing fire that clawed through nerves and bone.
Yet it was utterly eclipsed by mind-breaking shock.
I was once hailed as the swiftest man alive.
'Strongest' is a transient title, passed like a crown.
But speed… speed was my essence. I didn't just possess it; I embodied its very principle. I was a manifestation of motion.
As if in a dream, he raised his hands to his face.
Both were there.
The new arm had already fully formed—skin flawless, muscles pulsing with vibrant, terrifying vitality.
Such regeneration… it's instantaneous.
This is a second constitution—an artificial apotheosis!
This blasphemes against the natural order.
This… this belongs among the legends of the Ten God-Bodies.
He has forged a God Body!
The revelation teetered on the edge of madness.
The hypothesis was correct, Dax mused inwardly, satisfaction blooming like a profound, quiet warmth. Ultimate power is a worthless tool without a vessel that can endlessly rebuild itself from catastrophe.
He turned his attention to the wings—fingers running over the impossibly soft feathers of the angelic side, then the cool, resilient scales of the draconic.
With methodical, unhurried precision, he plucked ten primary feathers from the angelic wing—each one shimmering with holy light.
He produced a slender vial and drew it across the membrane of the wyvern wing, collecting shimmering golden ichor that gleamed like liquid starfire.
He soaked the plumes in the divine blood before handing the priceless sample to Ceron.
His gaze then fell upon the cyan tattoo glowing faintly on Micah's chest.
Anomalous.
The mana conduits I fused into his being feel vacant. Dormant. Like a circuit with no current.
His eyes scanned the sterile, controlled air of the chamber.
The truth dawned with the force of a physical blow.
The very fabric of this place was inert—a perfect vacuum, a reality severed from the world's natural flow.
A tremor ran through Dax's frame—subtle, but unmistakable.
Seeing his master's agitation, Micah took a concerned step forward.
The movement seemed to break a dam.
A burst of wild, ecstatic laughter tore from Dax's throat—pure, unhinged epiphany reverberating off the distant walls, echoing into infinity.
Is he… breaking?
Micah stared, aghast.
"Master? Are you alright?"
The laughter ceased as abruptly as it began.
Dax's face smoothed into placid neutrality—as if the hysterics had been nothing but a fleeting mirage.
"There are fundamental truths that remain invisible to the common eye," he stated, voice flat and utterly emotionless. "We simply have to know how to look."
Stunned into silence, Micah could only offer a slow, deep nod of uneasy acceptance.