Kaelan's second clone awakens from long stillness, memories from the main body settling into his mind like a tide returning to shore. Spirit spreads outward, tasting the world—and he discovers people living around him.
Once, he hid inside this stone and fell into deep sleep, absorbing the world's energy without meaning to. Years passed; his silent cultivation turned barren sand into rich soil, coaxed life from dead earth. Trees rose, water gathered into a pond, and an oasis bloomed in a merciless desert.
Now, a small village stands here.
They worship the stone.
They worship him.
With the main body's memories settling fully, Kaelan reflects. Becoming this world's god—another path to its origin.
His essence has merged completely with the stone; injuries mended, soul rooted. He is not an outsider anymore but a child of this world. Even if he were to emerge, the world would not resist him.
Yet he does not rise.
As an unborn stone spirit, he remains tied to the world's pulse, hearing the whisper of earth law clearly—pure, patient, sacred. If he is born, that tether will sever. Here, he is safe. Here, growth is quiet and limitless.
He gazes—spirit-sight soft—at the villagers bowing, praying, building lives under the shade of the oasis he unknowingly created.
They think of him as their god.
The villagers are humanoid—nails like beast claws, black scales across chest and back, living in hide tents, shaping crude stone tools. A civilisation in its Stone Age, raw and earnest beneath a harsh sun.
Kaelan watches in silence for days, stone-flesh unmoving, spirit drifting like dust in still air. Slowly, their guttural speech unfurls meaning. He learns their tongue, not by sound but by patience.
Then tragedy.
A hunting team leaves the oasis—and never returns.
Fear spreads like rot; hunger soon follows. The tribe kneels before the sacred stone, voices hoarse with prayers, asking their god to save them.
Kaelan feels them.
Golden motes drift into him, soft as fireflies, shimmering like the breath of hope. Power of faith—recognised from ancient inheritance, yet alien in practice.
He draws it in.
For a brief heartbeat, his mind clears—like a horizon wiped clean of dust—and then the clarity breaks, leaving a sharp hunger in its absence.
Exhilaration.
Temptation.
He wants more.
But faith grows only if the people live and multiply; birth requires patience, not emergence. If he breaks the stone and rises, he can save them easily—but he would sever his bond with earth law, and that, he will not sacrifice.
He searches memory, searching for a thread, a method. The first clone used feathers to create dependants—but Kaelan, in this shell, has no feathers, no body outside stone.
So he turns inward.
Spirit sinks deep. He finds it—his life origin, coiled like molten gold in the heart of stone. If he splits pieces of it, he can grant power, form dependants, and help the village survive.
But life's origin is life itself; spend too much, and he dies.
So he must choose.
Not all.
Only a few.
He chooses only those who will carry his will forward.
His spirit sweeps through the village, touching every life, weighing hearts and instincts. Five stand out—two young men, three young women—bright threads in a tapestry of fear and faith.
He cuts pieces of his life origin.
Agony devours him—silent, suffocating—stone body trembling in the night like a mountain suppressing a scream. No sound escapes, and no villager stirs, unaware of the sacrifice bleeding beneath their god's stillness.
The five sparks of life origin drift from the stone and sink into chosen bodies.
Five villagers bolt upright and scream as the transformation seizes them. Their cries rip through the night, waking the camp in panic. Spears clatter. Children wail. The tribe rushes toward the afflicted—
—and the stone flares with divine light.
A voice touches every mind: I am pleased by your faith. These five are blessed with my power.
Fear melts into awe. Kneeling bodies pierce the snow-silence of the oasis.
The transformation ends only when dawn breaks.
But the chosen do not stand reborn as warriors.
They collapse—bones sharp beneath skin, scales dulled, hair shed, bodies starved and empty as husks.
Weak.
Barely breathing.
Groaning, eyes sealed by exhaustion rather than choice.
Faith wavers.
Confusion ripples through the tribe—were these chosen, or cursed?
Kaelan whispers again, calm and absolute: Feed them.
Relief and devotion mix; villagers hurry into the oasis, gathering fruits, leaves, roots, and precious fragments of life. They feed the chosen mouthful by mouthful.
But supplies dwindle.
Whispers rise alongside worry.
With hunters gone, every berry spent on the five feels like throwing hope into a fire. Did the god lift them—or doom them all?
The five don't feel anything different, trembling in equal confusion.
Kaelan reads their minds with ease and speaks within them, saying their hunger exists because their bodies haven't yet eaten the new form of nourishment.
The oldest woman asks in her mind if he is a god.
Kaelan answers yes without hesitation.
A man says the village doesn't have enough food, and Kaelan simply tells them to go hunting.
They look at the villagers filled with hope and worry, exchange glances, and declare aloud that they will hunt.
As they turn to leave, Kaelan stops them through their minds and says he will teach them how to use his power.
They halt, nervous but obedient, and address him as Lord.
Kaelan warns them not to resist as he enters one body, then chooses the oldest woman, whose transformation is the most refined.
His consciousness sinks into her easily, and control comes effortlessly, like moving another limb.
The villagers sense the shift in presence, fear and reverence rippling across their faces.
He closes her eyes, feeling the power inside her body, yet refrains from using it because her energy reserves are low and needed for the hunt.
He studies the flows of his power within her like one reading their own heartbeat.
He opens her eyes and speaks, his voice calm yet carrying divine certainty, telling the others to follow so he can teach them to hunt with his power.
He walks out of the village in her body, and the four transformed villagers follow like silent shadows behind their god.
The morning sun rises over the arid desert, scorching sand turning gold under its harsh light.
They travel in silence, heat clinging to their skin, and Kaelan notices insects skittering under rocks and reptiles basking before slipping into shade.
Hours pass without prey, and he feels the strain his divine force puts on the woman's fragile body, her muscles trembling under the pressure.
He calculates time, realising he must find prey soon or risk breaking this vessel beyond repair.
He stops, closes her eyes, and sinks his awareness into the sand, sending waves of power like silent pulses beneath the earth.
The world returns to him in vibrations, and he turns toward the distant echoes of life buried in the dunes.
Ahead, a herd of giant scorpions appears, some as tall as the woman he controls, their chitin glimmering like black iron under the sun.
The scorpions spot them, claws rising, and several charge across the sand with terrifying speed.
The four transformed villagers scream in fear, instinctive terror gripping them.
Kaelan bends the sand with thought alone, forming a massive arm and fist that erupts beside him, slamming down on the charging scorpions, crushing some and shattering others.
He repeats the motion, sand limbs striking, scattering and injuring the rest until only crippled scorpions twitch on the ground.
He stops, turns to the four, and speaks through the woman's voice with cold calm, telling them to finish the wounded themselves.
The four exchange glances, and one woman—Sa—whispers, unsure, "God… how?"
Kaelan answers, "Close eyes. Feel breath."
They obey, shutting their eyes, breathing unevenly at first, then slowly finding rhythm under the oppressive desert sun.
He does not say meditate; such words do not exist for them, their language still simple, still forming under survival.
Minutes pass, and when their breathing steadies, he murmurs, "Continue. Now you feel my power inside."
Silence stretches; then faint wonder breathes across their minds as they reach the tiny spark within.
"Now spread it," Kaelan says. "Let my power go outside the body."
Moments later, he senses gentle waves leaving their frail forms, faint but real.
"Good," he says, voice dry like sand, "Now control sand with my power."
The desert shifts softly around their feet as grains tremble, tiny ripples rising like shy creatures learning to move.
They strain, hands trembling, focus raw and untrained, yet the sand answers, however weakly.
He watches a brief moment more, feeling the woman's vessel reaching its limit, body collapsing under the pressure of hosting him.
"I am leaving," he tells them. "La will sleep."
His consciousness withdraws, and the woman's body folds to the sand, unconscious but alive.
The four glance at her with concern, yet they do not panic; instead, they continue practising, clumsy but determined, still shaping the sand in tiny trembling motions.
Kaelan returns to the village.
Hours later, two of the transformed villagers appear at the dunes' edge, dragging giant scorpion corpses behind them, shells scraping dirt.
The villagers erupt in cheers, astonishment, and joy mingled with relief—food, and proof of divine favour—yet worry lingers for the three who have not returned.
One of the returned speaks, voice rough from hunger and effort, "Hunt many. No killed. Rest, stay protected."
The villagers nod, pride and fear tangled, and a group rushes out with transformed hunters to retrieve the remaining scorpion bodies from the desert.
Hope rises in the village, fragile as new sprouts in sand.