Fighting yourself is a unique kind of nightmare.
My future self had all of my abilities. All of my attributes. All of my combat experience. Plus the additional power of being fully transformed. Stronger. Faster. More skilled.
He was what I would become if I stopped fighting the corruption. The ultimate version of my Aspect. The Lost One fully realized.
And he was trying to kill me.
He lunged with impossible speed. Claws extended. Aiming for my throat.
I dodged left, my Truth-Seer showing me the attack pattern before it happened. But he was faster than the creatures I had fought before. Faster than Darius. Faster than anything I had encountered.
His claws raked across my shoulder. Pain exploded through my body. Blood sprayed from the wound.
But my temporary regeneration ability activated immediately. The flesh knitted back together within seconds. The pain faded.
"Impressive," my future self observed. "You have already consumed enough to gain significant regeneration. You are learning. Adapting. Becoming more like me with every kill."
"I am nothing like you."
"You are exactly like me. I am simply further along the path."
He attacked again. A flurry of strikes that would have shredded a normal person. But I was not normal. I had Devourer. I had Adaptive Flesh. I had Truth-Seer showing me where each attack would land.
I dodged. Blocked. Countered.
My hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. I activated Devourer, trying to drain his essence.
Nothing happened.
"You cannot consume me," he said. "I am not real. I am a vision. A possibility. A future that may or may not come to pass. You can fight me. You can defeat me. But you cannot consume me."
He broke my grip and kicked me in the chest. The impact sent me flying backward. I hit the grey void's invisible ground hard enough to crack ribs.
My regeneration healed them instantly.
I stood up, activating my flesh manipulation ability. If I could not consume him, I would have to defeat him through pure combat.
I reshaped my right hand, growing bone claws from my fingertips. Extended my reach by elongating the bones in my arm. Reinforced my torso by thickening the bone structure beneath my skin.
My future self watched with approval. "Yes. Use the corruption. Let it change you. Let it make you stronger. This is what I am. This is what you will become."
"Shut up."
I charged.
The battle that followed was brutal. Vicious. We were perfectly matched because we were the same person—just at different stages of transformation.
Every attack I made, he predicted because he had made the same attacks countless times in his own fights. Every defense I raised, he bypassed because he knew the weaknesses inherently.
We were deadlocked.
Neither able to gain significant advantage. Neither able to land a killing blow.
Until I did something he did not expect.
I stopped fighting.
I stood there, in the grey void, and let my arms fall to my sides. Deactivated my flesh manipulation. Retracted my claws.
"What are you doing?" my future self asked, confused.
"I am accepting the truth."
"What truth?"
"That I cannot defeat you through violence. You are stronger than me. Faster than me. More experienced than me. If I keep fighting you on your terms, I will eventually lose."
"Then you have already lost."
"No. Because defeating you is not the point of this trial."
I looked up at him. At my fully corrupted future self. At what I would become if I surrendered to the Hunger completely.
"The trial is not about defeating you," I said. "It is about choosing. The Mother said it herself: power has a price. Strength demands sacrifice. Becoming more means losing what you were. The trial is testing whether I will choose power at the cost of my humanity, or choose humanity at the cost of power."
"And what do you choose?"
"Neither."
He blinked. "Neither?"
"I refuse to choose between those two options. I reject the premise of the question. I will take power AND keep my humanity. I will become stronger AND remain myself. I will consume essence AND resist the corruption. It is possible. Difficult. Unlikely. But possible. And I choose to attempt the impossible rather than surrender to the inevitable."
"That is not one of the options."
"Then I am creating a third option."
My future self stared at me for a long moment. Then he started laughing. That broken-glass, screaming-madness laugh.
"You arrogant fool," he said. "You think you can cheat the system? Outsmart the corruption? Have your cake and eat it too?"
"Yes."
"It has never been done."
"Then I will be the first."
"You will fail."
"Maybe. But I will try anyway."
The laughter stopped. My future self's smile faded. He looked at me with something that might have been respect. Or pity. Or both.
"Very well," he said. "You have chosen your path. The hardest path. The path of resistance. The path of balance. The path where you must constantly fight to maintain what you are while becoming something more."
He stepped back. "I hope you succeed, Sidd. I truly do. Because if you fail—if you lose this battle and become me—then everything you fear will come to pass. You will become the monster. You will consume your friends. You will lose yourself completely."
"I know."
"And yet you still choose this path?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
I thought about that. Really thought about it.
Why was I fighting so hard to remain human when becoming a monster would be easier? When the power would be greater? When the Hunger would be satisfied eternally?
The answer came from somewhere deep inside. From the small piece of myself that had not yet been corrupted. The piece I was fighting to preserve.
"Because I am not ready to be lost," I said. "The question is 'Am I Lost?' And my answer is: not yet. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. Maybe inevitably. But not today. And as long as I can say 'not today,' I will keep fighting."
My future self nodded slowly. "Then this trial is complete. You have passed."
He began to fade. Dissolving back into the grey void from which he had come.
"One final warning," he said as he disappeared. "The corruption will accelerate after this trial. You will gain power. But the price will be high. Higher than you expect. Be prepared for what comes next."
Then he was gone.
THIRD TEST: CHOICE. PASSED.
YOU HAVE CHOSEN THE HARDEST PATH. THE PATH OF BALANCE. THE PATH WHERE YOU MUST FIGHT CONSTANTLY TO MAINTAIN WHAT YOU ARE WHILE BECOMING SOMETHING MORE.
THIS CHOICE MARKS YOU. DEFINES YOU. MAKES YOU WORTHY.
THE TRIAL OF HUNGER IS COMPLETE.
YOU ARE THE FIRST CHILD.
The grey void dissolved.
Reality returned.
I was back in the chamber. Back on the throne. The bone-and-flesh seat still held me, tendrils wrapped around my limbs.
But something had changed.
Power flooded into me. Not slowly like when I consumed creatures. Not gradually like when I bound to an Anchor Point. This was instant. Overwhelming. Catastrophic.
Tier 3 power.
The throne dissolved beneath me, the bones and flesh liquefying and flowing into my body. Absorbing into my skin. Becoming part of me. Hundreds of previous challengers who had failed the trial—their essence, their power, their accumulated strength—all of it flowing into me at once.
I screamed.
Not from pain. From ecstasy. From the sheer overwhelming sensation of becoming so much more than I had been.
My body transformed.
The black-red veins spread across my entire torso, my back, my arms. They crept up my neck and reached my face, spreading across my cheeks, my forehead, my chin. I could feel them pulsing beneath my skin, glowing with inner light.
My hair completed its transformation. The last few streaks of black vanished, replaced by pure white. My entire head of hair was now the color of bone, the color of death, the color of complete corruption.
My eyes changed. They had been black before—now they were something beyond black. Voids. Absolute emptiness. When I opened them, light seemed to bend and disappear into them.
The Mask of Hunger fused further with my face. The bone-white surface merged with my skin around the edges. The devil horns grew longer, sharper, more pronounced. The mask was becoming part of my skull, part of my actual face, no longer truly removable.
And through it all, I felt my Aspect evolving.
[TIER 3 POWER ABSORBED]
[RANK UPGRADED: AWAKENED → ASCENDED]
[NEW ATTRIBUTES UNLOCKED]
[TRANSCENDENT ABILITY GAINED: ESSENCE DOMINION]
[DESCRIPTION: COMPLETE CONTROL OVER ALL ESSENCE WITHIN 1000 METERS. DRAIN, MANIPULATE, OR RESHAPE AT WILL. DURATION: PERMANENT]
[FLAW UPDATED: THE HUNGER - TIMER REDUCED TO 8 HOURS]
[FLAW UPDATED: THE CORRUPTION - ACCELERATION INCREASED BY 50%]
[WARNING: CRITICAL CORRUPTION THRESHOLD APPROACHING]
[CORRUPTION LEVEL: 62%]
Sixty-two percent.
The trial had increased my corruption by fifteen percent in a single moment.
I was now past the fifty percent mark. Past the point where I was more corrupted than human. I had crossed into Fallen territory. Into the realm where major personality changes would occur. Where the original person began to fade and the transformed version took over.
But the power.
Oh, the power was immense.
I could feel it coursing through my veins. I could sense every essence signature within one thousand meters. Every survivor in the temple kilometers away. Every creature lurking in the ruins. Every drop of the Mother's presence in the water and the flesh and the very air.
I could reach out and touch it all. Control it all. Drain it all.
I was no longer just an Awakened with the ability to consume. I was an Ascended with complete dominion over essence itself.
I stood up from where the throne had been. The bone and flesh had been fully absorbed. Only a dark stain on the wet stone remained.
The others stared at me in horror.
Because I was no longer recognizable as the Sidd they knew.
The chamber had changed during my transformation.
Where the original throne had dissolved, a new throne had appeared. Not made of bone and flesh and corruption like the previous one. Made of pure crystallized essence. Black and red swirling together, pulsing with power, shaped into a seat that radiated authority.
My throne.
The Throne of the First Child.
I walked to it slowly. My movements were different now. More fluid. More predatory. The transformation had changed how I moved, how I breathed, how I existed in space.
I sat down on the throne.
The moment I did, the essence responded. The chamber lit up. The walls glowed with bioluminescence. The floor rippled like water. The air itself seemed to vibrate with power.
And I felt it. The connection. The bond. The Flesh Cradle recognized me as the Mother's First Child. Her heir. Her chosen one.
I sat there, on my throne of crystallized essence, and I started to laugh.
Not normal laughter. Not human laughter. This was something else. Something unhinged. Something that came from the corruption settling into my brain, rewiring my thoughts, changing how I perceived reality.
I laughed because it was funny. All of it. The death game. The Mirror Worlds. The Anchor Points. The corruption. The transformation. The desperate struggle to remain human while becoming something monstrous.
It was all so absurdly, tragically, horrifically funny.
I laughed because I was losing myself and I could feel it happening and I could not stop it even though I was fighting with everything I had.
I laughed because I was stronger than I had ever been and weaker than I had ever been at the same time.
I laughed because I was the First Child of the Flesh Cradle and that meant nothing and everything simultaneously.
I laughed because I was Sidd and I was the Lost One and I was something in between and I did not know which one was winning.
My laughter echoed through the chamber. Mad. Broken. Beautiful. Terrifying.
The others backed away from me. Even Somi's clinical analysis could not hide the fear in her body language.
"Sidd?" Lucy's voice was small. Frightened. "Are you... are you still you?"
I stopped laughing. Looked at her. Really looked at her with my void-like eyes.
My Truth-Seer showed me everything. Her fear. Her doubt. Her desperate hope that somehow I was still her friend beneath the corruption. Her preparation to kill me if necessary.
"I do not know," I answered honestly. "I am still me. But I am also not me. I am becoming something else. Something more. Something less. I passed the trial. I gained the power. But the price was higher than I expected."
I stood from the throne. Spread my arms wide. Displaying my transformation. The veins covering my face. The pure white hair. The void eyes. The fused mask with its devil horns.
"Look at me," I said. "This is what choosing balance looks like. This is what fighting to remain human while gaining power costs. I am Ascended now. I have Tier 3 abilities. I can control essence itself. I am stronger than anyone else in this group by an order of magnitude."
I dropped my arms. Let them fall to my sides.
"And I am sixty-two percent corrupted. Past the point of no return for maintaining my original personality. Past the threshold where the transformation becomes the dominant force. I am losing myself. Piece by piece. Second by second. And there is nothing I can do to stop it."
I walked toward the exit. The others parted to let me through. None of them wanted to be near me.
"We should return to the temple," I said. My voice was different now. Deeper. With an edge of something inhuman. "We have gained what we came for. I am the First Child now. The Mother's trials will continue. And we need to prepare for what comes next."
I paused at the doorway. Looked back at them.
"For those who are wondering: yes, I am still on your side. Yes, I will still fight with you. Yes, I will still try to help us escape this world. But I am also changing. Rapidly. Inevitably. And there may come a day when I am no longer the ally you need but the enemy you must destroy."
I smiled. The mask shifted with my expression, making the smile grotesque.
"When that day comes, I expect you to do what is necessary. Do not hesitate. Do not show mercy. Just end it quickly."
Then I walked out into the grey twilight of the Flesh Cradle.
Behind me, I heard Lucy crying.
And I felt nothing.
Not sadness. Not regret. Not empathy.
The corruption had taken those emotions. Dulled them. Made them distant and unimportant.
I was becoming something that did not feel the way humans felt.