“Please! NO!” Osiris screamed, trying to break the binding.

“Shush! It is fine, child; do not fret; your father is here, and he will make you perfect, so just settle down.” Orion said in a calming voice, trying to soothe Osiris’s squirming.

“No! Please! Master! Save me! Please!” Osiris wriggled more and more as spit and tears flew around the room as he screamed and tossed.

“Such an unruly child,” Orion said with an annoyed sigh.

“Ivan,” he called out, pointing his finger at a desk with vials and equipment, “Bring me that thing you use when they start squirming.”

In his rampant screaming, Osiris followed his father’s finger and saw what he assumed to be a man standing completely still beside the desk. But just like everything in this gods’ forsaken room, he too was marred by gods’ know what.

Osiris looked as the marred man walked toward them holding a vial; his eyes and mouth had been sown shut, his nose gone, and two large holes were in either side of his neck. The top of his head had the skin scraped off so you could see the top of his black and charred skull, or so Osiris assumed.

The man, Ivan, silently handed Orion a sealed vial of some strange orange liquid, “You know, son, it took me and Ivan almost seven thousand years to make this little potion…”

Osiris shrunk back as he watched Orion fiddle with the vial, scared of what was inside and what it would do to him. He unconsciously glanced around the room, not even he was sure as to the thought that was crossing his mind now.

"Ivan, would you like to take care of this, or shall I?" Orion asked with a grin, dipping the needle into the orange liquid and coating its tip.

Ivan remained motionless, seemingly uninvolved or maybe just uncaring of the current situation, “Haha, right, he is my child, so I must be the one to do this,” Orion's response was laced with mocking laughter as he acknowledged his duty to take care of the task at hand with a wide, almost unsettling grin on his face.

“Please, N…” Osiris tried to plead, but it did little good as the world began moving slowly.

Orion’s hand was thrown back over his head, the needle laced with the liquid slightly extended from the bottom of his gripped fist. It came down like a hammer where his neck met his chest, almost instantly knocking what little breath Osiris had out of his body.

The cold of the metal piercing Osiris’s skin seemed to last forever as it slowly sunk through. Then he could feel the needle try to penetrate his bones; luckily or unluckily, his bones seemed to resist this needle, if only for a second, before the weight of Orion’s fist smashed the bones around, letting the needle finish its trek through Osiris’s throat.

Osiris tried to scream, but breathing was almost impossible, with his throat crushed. Then the burning, he could only assume it was from the orange liquid, but he could feel the cold burning sensation slowly pulse through his body. It was slow and began as nothing, but it rapidly escalated into a pain more extreme than anything Osiris had ever thought imaginable.

“Moth…Mas…Anyo…” Osiris tried to scream for help, but words were impossible between the pain he was experiencing and the location of broken bones.

Orion watched his son writhe in pain, a sad expression on his face, “Oh son, I know,” He gently rubbed Osiris's face with the back of his hand in a caring manner, “It will be fine. Father is here, and I will give you all the love and care you need until you are perfect, just like you should be.”

Osiris tried to move away, but his body was convulsing, and all he could do was make short gasps of breath, “Pl…se…s…ve…me,”

“It is fine, son,” Orion said with a smile as he walked out of the room, “Ivan, keep an eye on him while I am out for a bit.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Osiris tried to watch the man leave his eyes begging for help, but all he got was a prideful smile, and as the white flames around the room died, so did something inside of him.

“Pl…” Osiris tried to beg Ivan for help.

The man, seemingly uncaring for Osiris's plight, reached for the needle, still piercing Osiris, pulling it out before returning to his standing position. The last thing Osiris saw before the lights of the fires died was Ivan turning around with a deranged smile on his sown and scarred face.

Time passed in a slow, grueling manner, and the only reason he knew that time passed was his father’s verbal documentation that he would tell himself when he visited.

“I am so proud of you for persisting for these five years,” Orion said with a proud smile as he looked at his son lying motionless on the dark stone slab, “Now that the foundation of your body has solidified, we can finally start.”

Osiris lay on the cold stone slab, too exhausted to do anything; through either luck or a curse, his mind stayed intact despite all the torture and experiments this deranged man put him through.

Though his appearance had degraded in the last five years, his health was even better now. Through these crazy experiments, he had gone from a normal Seedling at the zero-star to a Seedling at the precipices of the third-star, all while lying on this cold stone slab. If there was anything wrong, it would be the white flame he produced when his essence flowed through the branches in his body.

Orion’s hand lit in white flames as it snaked from his fingertips to his shoulder, “Bear with this. It will be over before you know it,” Orion said, moving his hand to cover Osiris’s mouth, shoving the white flames down his throat.

“Now let me explain a bit about your new powers,” Orion said as the flames coursed through Osiris’s body.

“First, the Burning Ash Race is the strongest when it comes to flames; this includes that goddess.” Orion moved his hand away from Osiris’s mouth, letting the flames escape to cleanse the outside of his body.

Osiris grit his teeth as the flames licked every part of his body. The pain was bearable, but he knew this was only the beginning.

“The Burning Light Race is known for its black flames that can even burn the light around it, but the Burning Ash Race burns everything, even the ash.”

Osiris could feel the white flame trying to break into his life seed and essence art seed; he knew that if it got in, it would alter them into whatever this deranged madman desired. The more he resisted these flames, the more intense the pain, and with these flames coursing through his body, he could not even cry because the flames would lick them away like a thirsty beast.

“But unlike what I said earlier, the Burning Ash Race did not come from a natural mutation…” Orion looked at Osiris with hardened eyes, “An organization sought to use the Burning Light Race to destroy the gods, but they were not strong enough, so they sought more power.”

Osiris could feel himself growing even weaker as white specks of the flames grew inside his essence art seed.

“That organization took many men and women from different races, hoping to create a race that could further increase the Burning Light Race's power. Then I was born from their little experiment…”

Osiris tried to scream, but his chest was full of flames, so when his mouth opened, it spewed like water, overfilling a cup.

“They kept their distance from me… Not bothering to tell me anything. I lived an everyday life like anyone else from the Burning Light Race… that was until I noticed that I had life essence. Excitedly, I told the village head and was whisked off to the Divine Race to train. That was when they approached me.”

The flames walking all over Osiris' body grew as his essence art seed turned white.

“They told me the truth about myself and what I was supposed to do. I took it as an opportunity and secretly did experiments. That was also when I started to go around having children as unlike what the world thinks, only my progeny can become Burning Ash Race.”

Osiris looked at the man calmly, staring at him, “Please…Stop…”

Orion looked at this emotionlessly, “Four thousand years I hid and experimented; the progress was slow. That was when suspicion was cast upon me, so I had Ivan and others from that organization continue while I acted as a good little Divine Race Master. Then I met Hermes…”

“Stop…” Osiris tried to plead again as he felt his life seed change to something he did not know.

“He was a talent I never knew was possible; I was jealous, but I wanted to know how far he could go. I told him what I was doing, thinking he would understand… but he did not.”

Osiris screamed as something inside him broke.

“I was never angry at him for what he did, but…” a creepy smile slid across Orion’s face, “It does not mean I do not want revenge.”

Orion moved his hand under Osiris's chin, “Now call me Master, son.” he spoke calmly, “And I will give you what Hermes could not… Power.”

“Master, yes, Master.”