“Name it.”

“As a god of death, I have dominion over the end of the cycle of life. All things die. They must.”

“A god. Not the ?”

“Magic is power. I am not the only one. But I am the most interested one in performing the task.”

He nodded at that. It made sense there could be multiple gods of stuff since the power was out there to be had by anyone. Take himself for example. He was a grab bag of power. Even though he was pretty certain that was more by design than by luck or happenstance.

“You said everything dies, but gods don’t die.”

“Not of old age or hunger, but they can and have ended before.”

“If you’re aiming at a point, can you make it?”

Death gave him an appreciative smile. It liked that about him. His sense of urgency. For a being as long lived as it was, time was relative. On the order of eons, not minutes and moments like it was for Akamori.

“I know the Crystal mother has warded your soul with a Gold Seal. It maintains your soul’s integrity as it traverses the Maw. It reduces the likelihood of you being broken down in someone or something new. It keeps you separate from the System. I seek to restore balance and right that inequity.”

What she asks can’t be granted . Bahumet said gravely.

Death smiled. “It can,” she said in direct reply.

“But I am not so callous as to remove the System’s guardian from play. I will uplift you, so that you may do your duty. And when you are finished, your role will no longer be necessary and you can finally return to the system.”

On a fundamental level, her words resonated within his soul he was ill prepared to articulate. She wasn’t speaking to Akamori. He was just the most recent face in a line of them. She wasn’t even speaking to Bahumet or Frank. Death spoke to the whole of the entity they unraveled from. Tentatively tied together by the Gold Seal like divine chain stringing the soul shards together.

When Akamori spoke, it wasn’t with his own words or voice, and yet, they sounded like him.

“This is either a great trap. Or a great gift. Effectively, they execute the same end. So really, I guess it’s the outlook that changes. Since that’s the case, I’ll accept. The system needs protection. And I can’t do that if I lack the power. But you’ll need to explain the details, Lord Death.”

Death’s smile warmed, and she offered him a polite bow and nod.

“Always a pleasure Xanofex. After all, I’ve been a great fan of your work across all your incarnations. But times are changing. Events are unfolding. The Ascilonians are moving again. Purgatory’s streets will overflow if we are not careful.”

“And you need me to keep the genocide and murder at a stable level, is that it?”

“It’s a crude way to phrase it, but yes. Take your dance partners, for example. All those souls trapped in these wilting husks could not move on because of the necromancers. You have power, but not the right kind. To tackle undeath, you need true death. You need me. But my help does not come freely. I seek to alter your gold seal. An… amendment, if you will. I will leave the Crystal Mother’s trademark protection against aether corruption. But sealing away your strength?”

Death tsked as she studied an undead man who’d been pawing at Akamori before she’d pulled him out of the time stream. Half his face was missing. Where an eye had been, now only a single ghostly white and green flame of an eye sat, locked onto him like a homing missile.

Lord Death rose, studying Akamori for a moment, taking slight pleasure in the way he seemed extra cautious around her.

“So the rumors are true. You’re not exactly fond of beautiful women, are you?”

He shifted in the grips of several hands as though he’d tried to shrug and remembered he was being held by several pairs of hands.

“They always seem up to something.”

“Here? You’re correct.”

“So you’re old, powerful, and well informed. Point taken. So you want to alter my seal, which I’m strangely fine with. What else?”

“So he does read the fine print.” She noted with a hint of satisfaction. “Dedicate your work to the truth of the system. Birth. Life. Death. Afterlife. Ideation. Rebirth. Honor the finality of that, and dedicate your work to my cause, and I will give you two miracles.”

“Two?”

“A fair price for the alteration of your soul, and an eternity of service.”

“Ok, but let’s talk specifics, then. What kinds of miracles are these?”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“The first is an aura modification. You’re already able to lace it with aether and divinity, but it lacks that certain finality that only death can bring. So I will allow you to channel my aura in its place. I will set anything undead a blaze in a ghost flame that will work like void flame to the undead. It will cleanse the rot of undeath on the souls and allow them to ascend to the soul realm.”

“That’s one. What’s the second?”

“That one, my friend. Is a surprise. But it will be well worth it. Now. Our time is coming to a close. Are the conditions of our compact to your liking?”

“I accept.” Xanofex said through Akamori. A sense of contentment about the decision rippled through him like a comforting summer breeze. Most would be too afraid to lose their get out of jail free card. But for him? It just made the journey more exciting.

“Very well. Conditions accepted Xanofex of Theferyis.” Her eyes flashed with divine radiance and something simultaneously warm and cold touched his soul, altering it.

System Info: Ghost Fire: Channel the raw, undiluted aura of Lord Death itself. All undead must make a resolve or resilience save, whichever is higher. Failure means institutions dissolution of the undead. Success results in the curse of Ghost Fire being applied. Ghost Fire functions just like void flame but leaves the living and the inanimate alone. Undead will take on an escalation of soul damage.

“Good luck.” Death said, before disappearing instantly. Time crashed back into motion at the same time, except everything changed. Akamori sat there stunned for a moment. He had so many questions and no time to focus on them. At once, he felt Death’s aura blast out of him, and not just him, but all his squad. Like a quarantine field, it locked off the end of the corridor and everything within it ignited with ghost flame as soon as he started striking them. Everything they touched caught flame.

It reminded him of a spectral variant of Morwen’s Amaterasu’s flame spell, but cast by hand. Similar to Amara’s method of fighting. He glanced down and saw his hands wreathed in ghostly white/green flames. It didn’t burn at all, though. But he knew it would burn down the dead with zealous greed.

“What do we do?” Sgt. Corthon said as she tried to coordinate her marines into something of a concentrated effort.

“Pray that you survive this,” Akamori said back handing a zombie in the face so hard its head exploded in a puff of white flame that lit all the others up behind him.

Until this moment, Sgt. Corthon had not been a religious woman. She’d been spiritual but never a religious or worshiping woman. In that moment, she’d converted. She’d seen too many miraculous things to deny the power the mages brought to the table. She whispered a soft prayer; the action drawing equal reactions from her surviving squad mates.

Sala raged his way through the undead ranks like a massive red furred were ape. Smashing and blasting his way with abandon until he liked up with Helios, and the two went to work dismantling the horde. Tapping the flesh abomination on the shoulder, he left little burning dots on its shoulders as it turned to look at him before Akamori punched it in the jaw so hard the bone shattered and its head was shoved into the saw blades, grinding it up like boney mulch.

Akamori set to clearing the line in front of the defensive emplacements. Buy the marines some breathing room. He didn’t have room to use Thanaton, so he stuck with hand to hand, just like his father had taught him. He gave himself to the work.

A sort of battle meditation settled in for him as he flowed from patterns to patterns, striking and shifting position to capitalize on opportunity and momentum. He left a trail of blazing ghost fire in his wake that left him alone while it burned his enemies down to ash. The thrust of dead bodies faltered. The tide was pulling back slightly.

Akamori surged with the flow, chasing the undead back even as rows fell to his newly gifted power. He could feel the divine gift Death had given him. Where before he’d been but a mere spark in the darkness, he now felt like a runaway blaze given life by a powerful wind.

Flow the wind. Become Air.

It was the mantra that Hravesvalgyr had imparted to him. He took a deep breath and let it out. The divine fire within him pulsed for a moment, an ember gifted oxygen. Each breath stoked the flame. All the murders. All the suffering. All the loss.

He looked up and saw his parents before him. They both smiled proudly.

“Let it go, son. Let it all go.”

For Hoshun. For Hidros. For Eryn. For every innocent who’d suffered to the Sauridius. The seething power that began as a spark exploded.

System Info: You have activated the Unlocked Seal ability. While the entirety of Xanofex must remain sealed. It is now possible to unlock the seal at will. Doing so restores all resources, resets all cool downs and timers, and increases damage and speed by an order-of-magnitude times three. This includes divinity spent. Both temporary and natural as long as the expenditure is within the previous 24 hours. While your gold seal is unlocked, you will exist in a pure state of your true power.

An explosion blew the undead free for several meters. It burned most to ash, others lost clothing, hair and flesh. A ragged child stumbled free of him with one of its arms burned to the shoulder. Ash crumbled from the cauterized stump.

Electricity crackled around him as he trembled from the surge of raw power. He flexed his shaking hands, trying to get a grip on the power.

We’ve elevated beyond our level. It will take some time to acclimate to the power. Ease into it slowly or it could burn us out. Bahumet counseled.

“No time.”

Two angry golden red orbs burned like suns where his eyes had been. All he saw before him was an abomination of the system that had to be purged. Turning back, he saw the sparks of life that were the marines and his squad. He could remember a time he lacked the power to save them. Strange that it was only a few years ago, and yet, it felt like so long.

He blazed and surged forward, setting corpses to fire as they struggled to react. The curse of Death’s aura combined with his own, countering the necromancer’s power. He stormed his way into the tide of death like a massive fireball. Ghost Fire ran rampant. Undead crumbled to ash as he channeled high magnitude spells that would have drained him several times over. Large draconic void wings grew from his back, sweeping out like an autonomous pair of arms. Slashing and blocking.

Some gods were kings of a single domain. Some were simple. Elemental and Planar gods. Others held both power and age, and their domains were facets of the very system itself. Death was one such being, and had gifted Akamori a substantial portion of power. He was no mere godling now.

Even as he tore his way through the undead, a deeper part of himself was reawakening. And he knew in that moment he would never be the same. His concept of self was, once again, irrevocably changed. The more he grew in power, the more of himself he lost to Xanofex. The being loomed over him like a dark shadow that grew larger by the day.

Akamori worried that there’d come a time where he’d see himself as less Akamori, and more Xanofex. What would happen when that day came? Who would remember those who died on Hidros? On Honshu? Who would make sure it didn’t happen again?

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