The journey home was easy and rather fast, the world rushing past us as we ran across the plains.

I knew that my mentor used some type of vita spell to make us faster, and another spell to help us evade obstacles, our group arriving home in less than an hour, the laughable fence we had around our village just now coming into my view, though mentioning that to my teacher only brought a smile.

“We have the priest to protect us from undead and fiends, I keep the fay at bay, and a lack of nearby settlements or forests ensures that we have no reason to fear bandit or monster attacks, which means that we are as safe as we can get without upgrading this place to a town, which we are forbidden from by the major.”

She explained me, making sure a whole gathering of new doubts rose within that I decided to suppress.

Ever since my last mutation, my hunger had changed a little. Every living thing I saw awoke the urge to destroy it within me, the healthier they were the harder it got.

At the same time, behaving as spatium was supposed to had made it clear to me that nothing would be allowed to bind me if I wanted to reach the top, my thoughts drifting to any connections I had and then forcefully shaking my head to get rid of hose Ideas.

While I considered what I would have to do to be light, I was suddenly cought in a violent hug.

Blinking, it revealed my mother to me, who spend quite a while sobbing.

I would love to say I cared about her, but somehow neither her nor my dad were particularly present in my life.

In the mornings she would bring me to the hag, where I spend most of my days, and at night I would see her when it came to food before pretending to sleep and running away.

My father was a little more of someone I had a connection with, watching him smelt steel and force it into shape was beautiful every time I was allowed to witness it once every five days, and the few hours I was simply silent as I watched him were somehow extremely fun, and still I hadn’t missed him.

Some part of me was happy to see them again, but most of me had grown indifferent.

When the greetings were concluded, I shut out their voices, simply trying to Ignore them as their words helped me fall asleep again.

When I awoke next, it was with the witch in front of me, holding my amulets in her hands while they were still connected to my neck, a complex rune circle made around me and the herbs I brought positioned in skulls.

“The only way your parents allow for you to continue with this training is if I put some form of tracker on you so this kind of stuff doesn’t happen again, which I of course agreed to, so, you know, a pact is a pact.”

She said, before placing a small Item on my head while I was still coming to terms with what was happening.

“Now throw it away, they didn’t make me keep it on you, got it? We do not want anything in this circle that isn’t required for the ritual.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

And so I did, making sure the cookie was thrown away while she stepped outside the ritual circle.

“Whats going to happen now is a pretty ancient ritual when it comes to placing curses or otherwise distancing someone from the light, it will only disappear once you are stupid enough to go through a ritual of atonement, got it?”

I nodded while trying to read the sygils myself, the flowers and skulls clear in their effect.

This would be my path to freedom, the wolfsbane meant to ward against something, the skulls meant to make sure a connection to death was established, now I did not know what the other plants were meant for, but I had logged enough similar rituals that I could confirm the hags promises.

“Unless you have any more questions, I would ask you to sit still as I incite the ritual of descend.”

I sat still, feeling my connection to her and knowing it was stronger than I felt comfortable with.

“We ask for the blessing of darkness tonight, and ask it to protect us from the light. Take these fire sacrifices and give your twisted protection to this son of the night.”

The words started as the common language in these parts, before sounding more and more like the one my corrupted screen massages were written in, the power flowing into me speaking to my soul directly.

It encased my soul and began sucking out the eldritch, like a tendril of darkness feeding on my power, but if there was something I had grown good at, it was rejecting to be consumed.

Having consumed this much energy, it became easy to just eat this too, flooding my soul along the tendril and simply placing a cut the moment I felt a weak spot.

You might think that a cosmic entity would have precautions against this type of shit, but my very existence was a testament to how wrong these assumptions were.

Sure, it had a mind bejond my understanding, and a body strong and large enough to tear apart worlds, but this one had been held captive for a long time.

I drew upon it, realizing that the essence came from much deeper into the world, setting cuts from time to time until I was spread thin and began invading the wounds.

The next thing to happen did so in a second. The great whatever pulling back, the second cut giving in under the sudden pull, and me as well as the tentacle tip retreating into my body.

What happened next was what I expected to happen, a sudden burst of power shattering the ritual and instead filling my amulets with the metaphorical blood of this creature, while I struggled to assimilate its energy into mine.

The fight was almost too easy from then on, and as the tentacle was fully absorbed, I realized it didn’t hold a fraction of Rag’algeh’s power, and once I realized that, the tentacle tips power was mine, rattling my body with memories and Images as the mutation I know clearly knew to mean unbound reach the next level.

At the same time, I saw two more images before me. In one, being not quite real was something passive, the word holding less color for me as it became hard to interact with objects.

The other simply made my left eye into an X ray while I was in the passing through objects ability, helping me navigate complex labyrints and breaking out of nearly every situation.

Both smelled of possibilities, but the second was much more interesting to me.

When I opened my eyes again, my left one itched a little before I looked down upon myself.

The witch stood confused in the corner, casting spells like crazy, my clothes had turned black, and all two of my necklaes had dissapeared, with the viper tooth turning black as well.

My blade like focus did what it did best and devoured the cosmic corruption around it, turning a hint of purple as it did so, and leaving me to grin menacingly.

The tooth vibratedas it drew upon some of the effects gathered within, coating me in vita and spatium to stabilise me and allow me to leave the circle.

“Thanks, though I suggest you don’t have any eldritch beasts try and eat me anymore, I kind of don’t like having to hurt my kin.”

I told her, my voice feeling powerful and ethereal at the same time as I left the circle.

“You can bond with minor abominations all you want, but that really isn’t my stile, you know?”

I asked her, prompting a quick nod as I left, my medallion stopping the moment I left the building.

My voice returned to normal as I did so, and Hannibal was quick to rush me for a hug, bringing back light into my confused mind.

“She probably thought she was doing something good, but in the worst of cases, I simply have to leave the village during next year’s end.”

It was a simple hope that helped me retain my sanity that day, but I needed it. When I ran into my bed, I hugged Nemo tightly and went straight to bed, not even eating a I tried not to think of what would have happened had I simply done as probably millions of wannabe dark magicians and undead had done before.

Now I knew an easy source to increase my unbound trait, so long as I didn’t overdo it and actually drew it’s attention.