How do you, Eric Silver, wish to shape this realm?

The words resonated in Eric’s skull as he felt the power of an entire world thrum through his soul. Power and potential he could shape just like he could transform the territories of Earth.

He could embrace the Path of Endless Bounty and grant this tiny territory channeling so much of this shattered world’s essence in a miracle unlike any he had ever performed before.

He knew that, just like he knew the kiss of a child’s tender cheek against a tired father’s bristles…his beautiful daughter giving him the strength to face another day.

Yet there was another path he could take, even now whispering darkest secrets into his ear that sent delightful, wicked shivers down his soul.

It was a territory that served as the lynchpin for an ENTIRE WORLD!

Resonating with all the power that a fae prince of Winter could desire.

A power that could be HIS!

A single territory sacrificed for his OWN glorious ascension, as he finally took HIS FIRST FATED STEPS ALONG THE PATH OF CONSUMPTION! His birthright. What had always been his birthright. And what the coldly chuckling voice that was an echo of his own assured ALREADY was his sister’s path, freezing territories solid for power and profit under her mother’s careful guidance, thinking she could keep it a secret forever. So many souls frozen to deathly stillness… and Aurelia thought A Master Necromancer would be blind to that bittersweet truth?

And Eric would never judge his beloved Elonia for it, desperate as she was to ascend and survive the mad race for dominion that the Sylvan Faction’s desperate fight for survival, for prominence, had become.

“And you would never judge, would you, Eric?” Assured the coldly chuckling voice. “Now when you can claim a bounty RIGHT NOW That will net you ONE HUNDRED POINTS in Strength, Vitality, and hell, why not? SOUL RESERVES AS WELL!”

Eric shuddered at the sibilant whisper chuckling so coldly, promising so much as he froze outside the door to his house, keys held in trembling hands, a body shaking with exhaustion, pushing himself to work so many overtime hours just to keep up with the mortgage payments, college tuition, bills, insurance, his car loan. Everything.

He wiped exhausted tears from his eyes in a life that never quite was (but very much was!) as the cutting sunlight glare near blinded him, squinting at the figure smiling so coldly, knife in hand.

It was himself from twenty years ago, maybe, before he had fallen fast and hard for a gamer girl so like him, embracing a whirlwind romance and finally escaping his mother’s clutches, and his sister’s fame.

Even if it had been at the cost of everything else, at least he had found true love.

Until the day his teenage bride had died in childbirth, never mind the massive hospital bill that he had spent years paying off after his mother had said fuck you to them both, leaving him with a broken heart, massive debt, and a miracle. A child he had struggled to care for all the years since.

At least they had a home. Even if their home was in desperate need of repair with the roof still leaking after a bad storm, despite his Self-Tube inspired home repairs, the plumbing questionable on a good day, the windows cracked, and their entire neighborhood falling on hard times after all the local factories, final holdouts of the American-made dream, finally shuttered their windows and locked their doors for good. Smirking politicians were patting their fat pocketbooks and ever-increasingly valuable stock portfolios while the people they were supposed to serve continued to fall on hard times, and Eric knew he wasn’t the only one in the neighborhood struggling just to keep afloat, working not five but seven days a week for the sake of a teenage daughter he felt himself growing ever more distant from… now feeling like he hardly knew her at all.

And this man smiling so coldly at him, this boy really, was a reflection of everything he could have been. Should have been. Tall and strong with brought shoulders and absolutely flawless skin, bulging with muscles Eric had let fade as exhaustion left him too drained to do anything but sleep when he got home, even if his daughter did her best to make them both dinner, at least when he had the energy to eat.

“I remember when I used to look like that,” Eric said to his bad-boy mirror image whose smile hinted at jaded knowledge and wisdom so very different from Eric’s own. Yet for just an instant, Eric could so viscerally imagine what it would be like to wake up every day, not drained and bitter, but filled with the fantastic furious energy of youth, an eternal furnace of power and potential that would never dim.

“Then take it, Eric,” his darker half whispered, graceful fingers presenting him with an obsidian knife undulating in the gloom that surrounded it. “Claim all the power you could dream of, Eric Silver. Claim your forsaken birthright. Claim what’s YOURS!”

Eric’s eyes widened, lurching back as his heart hammered in his chest.

He raised his hands to protest, knowing he’d never be caught dead with such a foul looking… his eyes widened. How the hell did that knife end up in his hand? And why did it feel so… slick. So good. Right where it belonged. Light as a feather, and perfectly balanced.

He blinked in the glare, rubbing his eyes with his free hand.

“How did you do that?” He demanded, only to find himself speaking to thin air.

His dark mirror twin was gone.

He shivered in confusion, immediately tucking the knife away, lest a neighbor glance his way, and he was just opening the door when he heard the voice that warmed his heart calling out to him.

“Dinner’s ready, Dad!”

Eric grinned. “Coming, honey!”

Yet before he could open the door, a cold icy touch caressed his throat, freezing him to perfect stillness as sibilant words whispered in his ear once more. “All you need to do is make a single cut, and her strength will become yours. Her hope, her enthusiasm, her lust for life and all its possibilities will be YOURS! As they SHOULD have been all along, after so many years wasted for NOTHING!”

Eric whirled about in furious outrage, trying to catch sight of the psychopath who would tempt him with such hideous acts, only to find no one there. No one, save for the image of his own wild-eyed reflection in the now dark window, even as sibilant words continued to pour into his soul.

“One hundred points into the three stats you value the most, Prince of Winter. For Lillian will be the first sip of an entire world!”

“Never!” Eric hissed, in wild-eyed denial, until the coldly chuckling laughter froze him to stillness once more.

“It’s the guilt, the regret, right? Never being able to live with yourself, once the deed is done.”

“Damn Right!” Eric roared, feeling an echo of youthful vigor with that desperate shout alone.

“Dad, are you alright?”

His daughter’s worried voice froze the heat in his blood.

“Yes, dear. Just give dad a moment!”

“Okay, but the chicken soup’s going to need to be reheated if you don’t hurry up!”

Eric breathed a ragged sigh of relief, before feeling powerful fingers grip his neck, whispering words he was desperate not to hear.

“Not just a hundred points, fool! That’s just baseline! It will be 150 with your Path of Endless Bounty Modifiers which we will immediately tie to Consumption! Then that will be multiplied by 50% with your strength boon and the two sweet, sweet, bronze tier titles you earned. And do you know what the best part is, Eric?”

“Please let me go,” he sobbed, trembling with horror, despair, and growing desperate need. Craving a fix of sweetest euphoria and release, aching… NEEDING the sweet, sweet poison he had fought to ween himself off of for years, but could never quite kick the habit. And even now the dealer was knocking on his door, offering him a week of paradise, for free.

“Not until you hear the best part of my offer.”

“No!”

“YES!”

“Please, I’m clean now!” Eric sobbed, earning cold mocking laughter in return.

“You’re no more clean than your sister is for oxycodone, or your mother is for power. All of you are dirty, dirty little elves and you, my dear Eric, are about to revel in the sweet filth of decadence and corruption like NEVER before. Because when you look into your daughter’s eyes and plunge this dagger of denial into her heart? You will remember NOTHING as you consume an entire WORLD’S worth of POWER! The six million lost souls, the countless millions of mortal slaves and fools that will all fold into oblivion’s realm, their existence will be WIPED OFF THE MAP FOREVER! And no one below Gold-tier will ever know. And save for one sworn foe, not a single Half-step Gold is anywhere near this shit corner of the galaxy, which means you’re up a fuck-ton of points, savoring the sweetest rush you can imagine, and you can have it all for ABSOLUTELY-FUCKING NOTHING! Nothing, save for a single second’s confused regret for shit you can’t even remember, before you’re smiling like a king with the dawn of a brilliant, blessed new day! Savoring all the promise and power that is your birthright! That was ALWAYS your birthright!”

Eric shuddered as temptation’s needle plunged in his arm, his smiling daughter choosing that moment to pop into the living room and plop their shared meal of chicken soup and cheese toast on the rickety excuse that had served as their dining table for years.

A humming Lillian turned around while tucking her hair behind her ear, self conscious about her rabbit ears as she had always been, no matter how Eric had assured her that she was a natural beauty. “Dad?”

Lilly’s bemused half-smile faded, her quip dying on her lips as her eyes filled with sudden horror, seeing the knife in his hand. “Dad?”

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Eric’s heart was pounding as his soul screamed with a hunger, a NEED to FEED!

To take what was his, to claim his BIRTHRIGHT!

“Daddy, what’s going on?”

Eric choked back a howl, feeling his razor sharp FANGS prick his lips, just as they were meant to, Nosferatu and Dark Fae having far more in common with their Paths of Consumption than one might think, and he who could somehow feel the blood of both pounding in his veins was now walking a crooked path that included blood magic and necromancy. So what the fuck did he think would happen when NEEDS which had been denied for far, FAR too long finally came to the fore?

When Eric opened his eyes, all he saw was red.

“Daddy? Daddy!”

Eric choked back the agony in his throat, even as the god-awful sibilant whisper slammed into him with cold pitiless logic that was monstrous in its temptation. “Two Hundred and twenty five points in Strength, Vitality, and Soul Reserves, Eric. AND NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!”

Eric’s howl matched the furious roar for submission echoing inside his skull as his daughter screamed and Eric twisted and charged, eyes filled with bitter hate as he PUNCHED his hand through the glass window that just would not give. Not until his fist BLAZED with the Pristine Essence of Flame did the glass finally shatter as he threw the cursed dagger into the howling void… before quickly shutting the curtains, and all was still once more.

His heart broke, hearing his daughter’s sobs behind him.

“Dad!”

He swallowed the lump in his throat, turning around to see his precious Lilly gazing at him, speechless with what he knew must be horror at how close he had come to proving himself the ultimate monsters, just as vile as any psychopath that had ever lived.

What he absolutely did not expect was her crashing into him with tears in his eyes, sobbing so hard as she clung to him so tightly.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She sobbed as Eric wrapped his trembling arms, one leaking a fair bit of blood, around her tender shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, to which she furiously shook her head, gazing at him with golden eyes so filled with brightness and love.

“I know what you did. What you just gave up. And I…” Her features crumpled. “I know I can never equal the 775 points you lost, just because you chose me, a child you never planned on… chose to love me… when you could have just absorbed this entire realm!”

Eric sighed, gently kissing her brow. “I would never give you up, Lilly. Not for all the world.” His eyes twinkled with bemused mirth. “And now you know that’s not just words.”

Lilly swallowed, forcing a rueful chuckle. “And it really would have been the world,” she whispered. “So many millions and all of Greystone swallowed up, and no one would ever know.”

“I would have known,” He said with a bittersweet smile. “And the shame would have haunted me til my dying day.”

Lilly said nothing, just holding him close as he closed his eyes, smiling fiercely despite the depth of his loss, feeling a lightness in his heart that he had thought forever lost the first time he had given into his fury and killed someone in hot blood. Even if it had been for his sister’s sake, that stain had never entirely left his soul, or sense of self-worth.

“I’d like to think this means there’s hope for me. I’d like to think that no matter how sweet the prize, I’ll never ever use my children like pawns on a fucking chess board!” He roared the last so loud that the door he glared at exploded, and he winced as he gazed out at the doomed neighborhood, grateful that the neighboring houses with their yellow dried out lawns and rusted excuses for cars were void of any busybodies… or any souls at all.

He was afraid his daughter would be terrified of him. Yet all she did was hug him tighter.

“I love you, Dad,” Lilly said, her heartfelt gaze humbling his soul.

“And I love you, Lilly.” He flashed a smile. “And hey, there’s a bright side to all that fuckery as well.”

She chuckled ruefully. “What, that you don’t have to eat my sorry excuse for chicken soup?”

“Well, yeah, your soup does need work,” he teased as she huffed and smacked his chest. “But when a corrupt ancient master stars slipping its psyche in games of ascension it has no business in, it might end up revealing far more of itself than it realized, trying to tempt you with the ultimate fruit.”

Lilly’s petite brow furrowed cutely until Eric whispered his revelation into her ear.

Her eyes lit up with wonder. “But wait! That means that now you can claim a third stat whenever you claim a…”

His finger gently touched her lips, bidding her to silence, frowning at what he saw outside. “Best we say nothing for now. I was going to show you a couple presents that I was putting off til your graduation, but considering that this shadow world’s about to evaporate...” He pointed to the massive howling storm of gray clouds and shrieking winds that filled the air with a dark dream’s death knell as the neighbor’s houses were absolutely torn to shreds.

Lilly shuddered, quickly shutting the door. “So, we’re doomed after all? Goblin fuckery at it’s finest, right?” She said with a bitter smile.

Eric snorted. “Fuck no. It just means we use a back door to get out of here. And speaking of back doors… I think you’re going to love this!”

Lilly’s expressive features shifted from a strained grimace to an expression of teary-eyed wonder as he raced up the steps to their mother’s old room that Eric had absolutely refused to touch, even if it had been years since she had passed on.

“Dad?”

“It’s okay. I think… I think she would have wanted you to see what’s inside.” With those words, he solemnly opened the door that lead not to an ancient bedroom, but to a glorious paradise stretching as far as the eye could see. Even Eric felt a sense of peaceful reverie as he gazed upon countless groves of lush groves tropical fruit showered by pristine waterfalls laden with rejuvenating spiritual energy strategically placed around a massive city carved into the face of the gently sloping caldera. A city made of basalt and pristine white marble glittering beautifully in the light of the setting sun.

Lilly’s eyes opened with wonder. “Father! Is that what I think it is?”

Eric grinned, gently squeezing her shoulder. “A grand sanctuary with a lake of pristine water that will sate your thirst and cure any illness, and mystical fruit groves that might not make you a cultivator, but are certainly good for clearing meridians and most importantly, filling your belly and sating your hunger, no matter how malnourished you were before claiming those fruit.”

Yet Lilly’s eyes were nothing if not sharp. “Dad, those pools… they’re filled with…”

Eric winked. “I know. They are indeed.”

Far from excited, she trembled with sudden anxiety. “But if anyone finds out, the treasure-hunters and mercenaries will flood to Greystone! It will only be a matter of time before our people… my people, are overwhelmed by everyone eager to take that treasure for themselves!”

Eric locked gazes with his daughter. “You’re right. This world’s still occupied by hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Goblin barristers, warriors, assassins, slavers, and every other foul and twisted class and profession that they call their own. If steps aren’t taken, even this territory’s Sanctuary status will only hold for a very short period of time.”

Lilly’s eyes lit with sudden understanding, and a fiery resolve of her own. “Not if I take the fight to them. Not if I purge this entire fucking world of every goblin that ever set foot here!”

Eric felt a warm glow at hearing those words, all the more so when her expression perfectly mirrored his own. “Then it’s a damn good thing you now have an entire army to do your bidding, isn’t it?”

Lilly’s eyes widened. “But father, these are…”

He winked, gently bopping her nose. “They’re yours, Lillian Silver. Yours, and no one elses.”

She swallowed, whispering awkward words before lowering her head. “Dad… I don’t have any Essence affinity.”

Eric chuckled softly. “That’s what has you down? After forging your own absolutely kick ass path and casting two of my favorite spells far better than I ever could?”

She grinned sheepishly. “Sure, there’s that but…” Her features fell with genuine regret. “Dad, I can’t feed upon the territories the way that you can.”

Eric held her tight, rubbing her hair. “That’s fine, Lilly. You already know the secret to backdooring that little complication.”

She swallowed, before nodding her head. “I’m your familiar as well as your daughter. Which means that I can always throw them to you.”

Eric crossed arms no longer weakened by dreams of middle-aged exhaustion. “Yup! I can enhance, but I won’t claim any of them.”

“Because you’re a ‘free agent’” she snorted.

Eric chuckled. “Damn righ. Now enough of that. Kickass as you are, as both a blossming adventurer and a college student, I think things might have been easier if I could have afforded private lessons when you were younger. As it stands…”

Lilly gave him a cute scowl. “Dad, we know this isn’t really, well, you know… real?”

Eric winked. “It’s as real as you want it to be. And if you want to get an A, or even better yet, an S-tier class evolution… best you’d listen to what your tutor has to say.”

Lilly’s eyes widened when he opened the study door, revealing a smiling clean-shaven man in pristine white robes.

“Lillian Hendrix Silver?”

Lilly gulped, nodding her head. “Um… yes, that’s me.”

The man who looked so very much like a monk, or perhaps a cultivator, but was the farthest thing from either, dipped his head.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. Your father had invested quite a bit in securing your future… including an inheritance of your own. So, let’s get started planning your ideal curriculum, shall we?”

Lilly’s eyes widened. She swallowed, turning to her father. “Dad, I thought…”

Eric shrugged. “I think, in this case, all things considered, you can trust him.”

Lilly trembled, slowly turning to face the benignly smiling potency condescending to act as her tutor.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Mr…”

The man smiled. “Please, call me Conceptio.”

Lilly Froze, ears twitching madly. “Father! I know what that name means!”

“Good. He owes you a Silver Tier boon, and unlike the fucking goblins, I think honor and reciprocity is extremely important to this… tutor. We’re it otherwise, our reality would be a lot more chaotic.”

Eric smirked, bowing his head. “I will leave my daughter in your care, Conceptio.”

Conceptio met Eric’s gaze for one perilous moment. It was all Eric could do to choke back a scream, yet the innocuous seeming robed man gave Eric the tiniest of nods. “You’re proving yourself to be an excellent addition to our latest Ascension, Eric Silver. I am quite eager to see what moves you will now make upon the board of fate.”

Eric, for all his arrogance and flaws, new damn well not to overstay his welcome, merely bowing his head before presenting his stunned daughter with one final gift.

“Dad?”

“Every teenage girl needs a pretty ride worthy of her future, am I right?”

Lilly gazed at the brilliantly sparkling key of diamond her father placed in her trembling hands. She took a shuddering breath, as if understanding it’s significance even as her father gave her one final kiss on the cheek, and faded to warm memories and possibility as Lilly found all her attention hopelessly falling to the gently smiling tutor before her.

Conceptio smiled. It was a smile Lilly had no hope of avoiding, every direction leading to his gentle features, as if she had just slipped past the point of no return, all of space bending to the singularity now before her.

“A fitting vehicle for one with your potential, young hero. But you do know you won’t be driving that until you at least hit Bronze, yes?”

Lilly’s cheeks flushed. “Somehow, I don’t think this is the key to a Cadillac, no matter how sweet that would be.”

Conceptio answered with a dry chuckle, saying only, “Come, Lilly. Time is limited, and we have a lot of ground to cover.”