As Zeke knelt beside Talia, he closed his eyes and dove into his skill. In the past, he’d let himself become restrained by the scope of each skill. Every additional rune increased its instability, which necessitated even more runes to keep the structure from collapsing in on itself. In a lot of ways, it was like building a pyramid. The foundation had to be much broader than the peak, lest it would crumble. The problem was that the peak he intended for his latest skill evolution – at least in his analogy – was far wider than its current base.

That meant the foundation had to follow suit, making it the largest skill – in terms of sheer number of glyphs – he’d ever created. Or that was the plan, at least. Even now, he still hadn’t finalized the idea in his head, much less outlined the completed skill evolution.

He’d made the mistake of forging ahead without proper planning before, and it had worked out a couple of times. However, it had also resulted in one great failure that hand ended with a corrupted skill called [Armor of the Colossus]. Fixing it had required him to take a specific class upon ascension. Otherwise, he’d have remained a half-armor, half-cambion freak.

Still, Zeke didn’t have any choice. If he wanted to save Talia, he was out of options. More than that, he didn’t have time for doubts or second guesses. He needed to act, and he needed to do so quickly. So, without further hesitation, Zeke plunged his awareness into the skill and wrenched it apart.

It hurt.

Not physically, but rather in his soul. It wasn’t surprising. Tearing down a rune was not a pleasant experience, and given that this particular skill had been with him from the very beginning, it was deeply entrenched. But if nothing else, Zeke was accustomed to pain, so he forged ahead with undeniable determination. And gradually, he tore it down, glyph by glyph, until there was nothing but the most basic scaffolding in place.

It glowed with power, still, and it was perfectly stable. Zeke intended to use that to his advantage, and he began to attach more glyphs. In reality, there was no such thing as top or bottom, when it came to skills. But Zeke had always used those terms to establish context for himself. Otherwise, understanding the multidimensional composition would have been impossible.

In truth, what he considered the bottom was just the most stable piece of the structure. The load-bearing bits that needed to be more stable than any other parts. Fortunately, it was the part where he’d spent the most of his time, and that effort had paid off in the form of a firm foundation.

Which was necessary for what he intended.

The plans were still quite ephemeral, yet Zeke knew he could make it work – because he needed to. So, he added one glyph after another, slotting them into place more by instinct than guided intent. Those glyphs added together to become larger glyphs, and those, in turn, became even larger symbols. Each bit felt like it took an eternity to fit into place, but in reality, he did hundreds with every passing second.

But it still felt like it was taking too long.

Talia was strong and durable, but she wasn’t going to last much longer. So, Zeke embraced his Path of Arcane Destruction, focusing on the parts that had once been Runecrafting and ignoring the more damaging portion. It was a mental trick that helped his efforts, but it also brought with it a flood of destructive energy that threatened to tear him to pieces.

He ignored that.

Because he’d already decided his path. He would do everything in his power – up to and including destroying his own body – if it meant he’d have a chance to save his companion.

She was like a sister, and in the back of his mind, Zeke knew that he’d begun to equate her life with the life of the brother he’d lost back on Earth. Back then, he’d chosen to give his kidney to Tommy, and he’d died for that choice. Yet, he’d never regretted it. Tommy had kept on living, which had always been the goal. Zeke looked at Talia the same way.

So, he had no intention of holding back.

He kept going, slamming glyphs into place, one after another, until the skill began to take shape. As he built, he sank deeper into his path, sinking deeper into the sea of destruction. Even as he felt the degradation of his body, mind, and soul, he kept going, focusing on the part of his path that he needed.

It enveloped him, wrapping around him to such an extent that he couldn’t even perceive the rest of the world. Instead, the rune he was building was all that existed. And he followed his instincts more fully than he ever had before. For so long, he had neglected that part of his path, focusing instead on the combat applications of destruction. Yet, they were two equal halves of a whole, and though destruction was more overtly useful, the runecrafting portion was just as powerful.

Zeke leaned into that.

And he was rewarded with an intuitive understanding that he hadn’t felt since he’d first committed to unraveling the curses back in the troll caves. It was more powerful now, but even then, his comprehension of the runic structures far outstripped what should have been possible. Part of that was sheer persistence, but it was due to talent as well.

After all, the intersection of talent and hard work was greatness.

He’d been told that hundreds of times in his baseball career, and he’d always tried to apply it to his life. Now, he hoped that attitude would bear fruit.

The skill came together quickly – at least in comparison to the careful construction he’d engaged in during previous skill evolutions. Yet, he felt that it was even more stable than those had been. It was almost as if he was being guided by some divine hand, though he knew that wasn’t the case.

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Not really.

It was all him. A product of thousands of hours of practice and a natural affinity for runecrafting.

Still, in a shadowy corner of his mind, he felt panicked. What if he was too late? What if Talia didn’t survive? What if he failed? But he couldn’t let himself acknowledge those questions. He could only put his best foot forward and hope that it was enough.

But that wasn’t to say that it was easy. It was not, and especially when the structure became more expansive. One little mistake, and he knew it would all fall apart. What’s more, even if it didn’t fall, there was always the chance that he’d built the skill wrong. So, he tried to ignore those fears as he forged ahead.

And after a subjective eternity, he finally slotted the last glyph into place, and at last, he let himself relax. He didn’t know if he’d completed the skill evolution as he’d imagined it – not yet, at least – but he felt completely wrung out. His mind drifted around, lost in an ocean of mental exhaustion.

Then, everything snapped back into place when he received a notification:

Congratulations! You have forcefully evolved the skill [Cambion’s Awakening] into [Touch of Divinity].

With bated breath, he looked at the evolved skill’s description:

[Touch of Divinity] (B) – Through selfless actions, you have proven yourself a merciful demi-god. Weave multiple attunements together to rapidly heal. Use your divinity to extend that healing to a single target. Upgradeable.

That was all Zeke needed to see before he opened his eyes, laid his hand on Talia, and, for the firs time, used his newly evolved skill. The ambient mana went wild as he drew energy from the ground and the air. It swirled around him like a tornado, then funneled into his body. After that, it raced toward the rune and through his hand. However, it didn’t immediately do anything, which he found confusing.

Until he felt something else drawing out of him.

It felt like a piece of his soul was being ripped out, and it was just as brutal as that sounded. The pain of it was completely unmitigated by his racial tolerance, and he couldn’t help but gasp. Yet, he maintained his grip, making the connection between the final sentence of the skill’s description and the agony coursing through his soul.

It was his divinity, and apparently, lending it to someone else – even through the structure of a skill – was not a pleasant process. Still, Zeke didn’t let go, and the skill took hold, channeling that power into the rune and into Talia. Instantly, she began to heal. The blisters closed, scabbed over, and flaked off, revealing the slightly green surface of fresh skin. That too faded until it returned to the same pale complexion Zeke was used to. The only thing that didn’t return was her hair.

Or her black armor.

Zeke ignored her naked form, focusing entirely on channeling his power through the skill until, at last, her eyes shot open. Immediately, she leaped to her feet, whipping her head around in alarm. Confusion quickly followed before she focused her attention on Zeke.

“What happened? Are you well?” she asked.

“Not really,” he muttered, feeling the full weight of his weakness crashing down on him. His shoulders sagged in exhaustion as a hollowness he’d never felt gripped his soul. Still, he kept his wits about him, retrieving some of Abby’s old clothes from his spatial storage and handing them over. Once she took them, Zeke let himself collapse. However, he couldn’t even slip into unconsciousness, the pain was still so intense. Even the echoes of his agony were enough to keep him awake. “I think I tore something.”

Fortunately, now that he wasn’t trying to heal someone else via [Touch of Divinity], the damage to his soul had ceased. And even more luckily, the normal version of the skill – which was only meant as a personal heal – worked quickly to mend the damage he’d endured. In a way, it felt similar to when he’d fueled [Cambion’s Awakening] with unattuned mana, but the current of healing was far more powerful. He could feel his body rapidly rebuilding itself even as the pieces of his divine soul regenerated.

Even so, it took quite some time for the pain to cease. And when it did, it was replaced by exhaustion. He didn’t even have the energy to sit up, much less move around.

“That took more out of me than I expected,” he said in his mind. Even thinking exacerbated his fatigue, though he could at least manage it.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” asked Eveline, her voice small.

“Saved Talia?”

“No. Yes, but that’s not what I mean. Divinity is not a currency to be used. It is a source of personal power.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not accurate,” Zeke said. “Proof is right here inside me. I know you saw it. I know you feel it, too.”

“And it doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve never even heard of something like this happening. Divinity does not flow down. It goes in the other direction,” she said. “That’s part of why those lofty existences in the next realm have underlings in the first place. They don’t just get experience. They feed off that devotion. They use it to fuel the expansion of their divinity. Those deities would consider what you just did an abomination, and an expensive one, too. That much divine power will take months to regenerate.”

“Worth it.”

“You don’t understand. It’s –”

“No, Eveline. You don’t understand,” he insisted. “If it means Talia would live, I would have ripped my entire soul to pieces and shoved it down her throat.”

Indeed, he’d only used a tiny bit, and even that was enough to lay him low. Still, there was no way he’d have chosen differently.

“Then you are stupid.”

“I thought we’d established that a long time ago,” he said. “What use is power if I can’t save the people I love? If I can’t do something good? I mean, what if I ended up hoarding all that power and ascending to the very peak? Do you think I’d be happy, if it meant that I let everyone else die? If I used them as fuel? That sounds like a special kind of hell.”

“Naïve.”

“Maybe,” Zeke admitted. “But that’s who I am. You know that.”

She sighed. “I do,” was her response. “I’d just hoped you would learn your lessons.”

“Nope. I’ll keep banging my head against the same wall until it falls down,” he said. “Or until I do. Whichever comes first.”

She gave a mental shake of her head, responding, “I suppose it was foolish to expect anything else.”

“I am who I am, Eveline.”

That was true, and what’s more, Zeke liked himself. He didn’t think he needed to change, especially when it came to the notion of helping people up, rather than using them to fuel his own rise. It was clearly an unpopular attitude, but it was one he felt confident was right.

Those thoughts and many more raced through his mind as he slowly recovered from his ordeal, and over the next few hours, he decided that, despite the capability of [Touch of Divinity] to heal other people, he would refrain from doing so unless absolutely necessary. The price was too high for common use.

But even so soon after that skill’s evolution, he wondered what it might look like when he upgraded it again.

And even more than that, that success spurred him on as his plans for his level eighty skill continued to take shape.

First, though, he knew he and Talia needed to complete the dungeon. Until then, he couldn’t afford the time investment he’d need to finish building the skill. So, he lay there, focusing all of his attention on his recovery. Because as difficult as the latest challenge was to overcome, there were still more obstacles over which they needed to prevail before they could complete the dungeon and the quests attached to it.