"I can't stomach this. You open the path in or I will." Tori was vehemently demanding the impossible. I'd had enough time it convincing my own party, and if not for support from Kate I very well may have relented, but when I saw they could all accept the decision I was sure it was the right one again.

Ten-months had gone by slow, and at half-time naturally anyway, time dragging was not exactly unpleasant. The last six-months in particular were nice with the eight of us enjoying the lake, besides enjoying the maximized energies of all of us benefitting from a light body. Each of them were beyond all basics, although they retained an independence that each was more powerful in their natures my party had followed each of my footsteps.

Sharing the knowledge of how to use them was quick, but removing the bias was time consuming, and only for the last month had we really each begun to discover the capabilities each of us had towards unlocking more secrets to those things we already knew.

We hadn't started out with an intention, so far as I knew we were discussing theories, and in the last days I was struck with a wonder that they brought me to.

"It's supposed to be male. We made him a male, I mean, but we can't tell it." Kate revealed, hands both declaring it, almost like she was selling.

"What. The. Forgive me a second here, but do you know what you've made?" Stupified as I was, it was obvious already.

"He's a man, although, hopefully not as stupid as you're acting. We tried to make a person, and we weren't inclined to add another woman among us, so we made him a him instead of a her." Catherine grumbled, annoyed about the apparent failure.

"So what did we do wrong? Why is he like..that?" Alyssa had motioned towards his crotch, barren from definition, but of course it was by his nature. "He hasn't eaten from the tree. How could he? Since he hasn't eaten from the tree of knowledge, he's pure, so he doesn't have knowledge of good or evil. Short answer, it's there, you can't see it.

"Long answer, catch me another time. Since he isn't equipped mentally to care, neither should you, but for all intents and purposes you succeeded in making a man. I'm just, well, it's pretty impressive. You birthed him, but he was not birthed from anyone, so there is no connection to the original sin.

"Do you realize he's incapable of doing wrong? This man can do no wrong, no wrong, what in the actual fuck? He's completely righteous!"

"I don't like Jack making that face. Has anyone here seen him look like this before?" Catherine said, pretty anxious and looking a little scared at me, holding onto Alyssa's skirt. Alyssa stared at her offending hand for a few moments, right eyebrow arched high, before finally pushing her hand away.

"That's um, actually to admit this for him, that used to be his PK' face. But surely he isn't thinking about killing, or the guy we made killing, my guess is now that face just means mischief." Kate explained this all and I nodded, slow a few times, not sure where my mind was being led yet.

"Well we know where we went wrong, now we know where to go right. We'll need tissue samples, men without visible genitalia are useless." Catherine got a smack from both sisters, worse from Alyssa, Marguetes hand was more or less an unintended barrier. "I knew she'd start thinking of building a harem, still. Find a cleaner dream, Catherine!"

The offender giggled, shaking her head in the negative, but professing guilt with every half choked hiccuping giggle squeaking out. The face she'd made trying not to smile or frown, take her eyes off Alyssa or look her in the eye, and breathe rather than hold her breath or change that rythym at all told on her too well. She was the only person here who could not make herself even appear to decieve.

Nothing was more hilarious to Catherine, nothing delighted her better, no tickling fancy buttered her funny bone more than thinking that she knew something you did not. Discovering it only seemed to provoke her towards doubting you knew as well as her, she was youngest, and foolish as she was or not Catherine was the same type of fool I was.

It wasn't funny if there was no joke, if she laughed, she was laughing because she did know something you didn't most of the time. Paige had a similarity in how she sensed, more than the surface suggested, but for Catherine keeping whatever it was in her heart secret remained prerogative she would not relent on a whim.

"May as well have be sexless, then. They won't be reproducing, but they still should be thinking and moving, right?" Kate suggested, inferring they were looking for guidance, or a helping hand. "You all have to figure out his name, I'd say you should all say it together, since you all made him that way.

"He's still only in your image alone, envisioned into being, not yet animated into becoming. The spirit of the sound you impart will animate his spirit, you'll have to breathe him into being, no new breath comes from within without the breath which comes before ours."

"You mean parents? And God first." Kate clarified, nodding and needing no response from me after the second statement. "Life begets life. Voices are the most moving physical things about us symbolically and literally, sound waves quite lively, and breath is sacred. His spirit can't be named is the problem, you gals are at an impasse.

"None of us, even altogether, can truly speak his name. He is not here, and though he is with us all here, because we can not be with him in this world we can't make his spirit like ours. If God isn't with us and we aren't with him, both, I can't imagine what you might create trying to give him life. It would be the worst mistake you ever make to try this here.

"Maybe one day, but not without God, we need to be with him for that. We're not perfect, everyone here knows we all have flaws, and those flaws would cause worse flaws than us. For all I know what you've made here is the exact reason I was originally sent here, because the timing of one thing and another is as clear a warning as any, and I'm begging you all stop here now.

"One day, not today, this may never be meant or it may be the last thing we are meant to do. The greatest and purest of us might be them chosen to, though none should be any but skeptical that this could be the most irredeemable act of defilement we could aggrieve him with. If you're going to try and mimic our creation, it has to be done with him, for without him you'll be giving life to death."

"I'm out." Kate said, crossing her forearms before slashing down with both, then paling and getting behind me to look at him from cover.

"Are you serious? After all that?" Catherine said last. She was saddened but she left the room less distressed, her and both sisters walking towards the rooms exit where they all stopped and her elder sisters comforted her before she left. Eleanor shrugged. "It's for the best, I saw those movies, and I want no part in making the thing that wipes us all out."

"Good fucking point, there." Paige said, sounding agreeable, but readily disagreeing. After all, her image was the one that had the strongest effect in its making, an it now that it would not go further than this, they had not spoke him into being before they started their attempt and used quantum. Thankfully, they hadn't.

"How can you be sure - first you said he couldn't do wrong without good or evil, now you're saying this will be bad certainly, and you look so moved by what we made I can't stand to let it stop here." "Don't then, but please wait, I may not be sure of much but I know this is one thing you couldn't forgive yourself easy for if it goes wrong.

"It would haunt you, and all of us, just if he wasn't healthy. Have any of you tried something small? Try and make an ant. Name it ant, that'll fit it, and see if when you do it acts as an ant does. Speak and say let there be an ant, give it a body from matter, and if spirit and body mesh I'd wager it has an ants mind."

Paige did it. For a few minutes she prepared herself and took the time to do this. It looked alright, but the queen ant did not move, she didn't move and neither did she react outwards towards us. Curious about why I came up with a simple idea for a stimulus any gamer would instinctively attempt once. A two way trip to a field and back was enough to find my stimulus.

Queen attacked the worker ant right away, incurring no damage and crushing the smaller in two with her mandibles returned to her original state of apparent stasis the moment her jaws had done their work. You would almost have suspected she might be eating it, but there was no movement, it lay in uneven halves on either side of the front of her.

"A sort of summon. We can't assume things here as they would be in our world, even there things would have a similar manner without a true soul, the souls we can create here are unnatural things. Made for combat, not life, I suspect we'd be at risk of offending each others creations if only through the summoner. Maybe summonings do have at least that much a mind.

Pushing down slightly on the queens legs got the weak response of her squeezing herself out from my finger. Pushing down hard, she turned her mandibles towards me until I released, but didn't attack outright. She would have if able to determine what had affronted her, but my offending finger and closest foot were far apart for an ant to sense the measure of me by itself without a colony.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Imagine now, this is an ant that has ants potentials, a human with human potentials might become aggrieved and attack for any reason instinctively. It might not be capable of right or wrong by default, but it is capable of reacting to what it can't act in any true understanding to, and that only makes it all the more dangerous instead of less. It seizes onto stimulus as it senses it should with no remorse.

"Without knowledge of good and evil it's better to put it as morally incapable of the correct decision making. Each would only be capable of independent life, even each other they would react to this way, so it wouldn't be possible to make them more than sentinels here with their current potential. If you give them spirit here, you'll make them more deadly, which wouldn't be too bad for anything not humanoid. Even hominids would be too much.

"Your guy there might instinctively eat whatever food is closest, so butcher whatever is closest when he is. He may rape if he is excited sexually, and because he doesn't have a body I'm not sure what would happen. If he did and there was sin to him, it wouldn't be going too far to say he might become our antithesis. The confusing part is only that he'd seem do it by will, like a poorly designed AE he'd just be reacting to existing logic and emotion. Every fault would become part of his existance."

Paige wept a few annoyed tears before it had faded, and it wasn't an hour later that Tori showed up. On her heels, all those who had first broken through the great illusive barrier without any idea what to expect. On the other side of them with mere days left were things I'd never seen, fast flying big bugs that targeted the heart with venom they injected like a wasp. Like a spider they returned to consume the hearts after and left the rest to wither.

Tori had made her demands when these people between us and the bug-like creatures came both through, by necessity alone the tens of thousands of people pouring in dove down into the water or ran across the floating bridges but neither was certain safety. I sealed the entrance in there, and over time I had alchemically enhanced the metal interior and created a metal exterior leaving the original rock sandwiched between.

"We'll die. Aren't you planning on the two of us going somewhere? You said that whatever you used on me when we first met was an invitation to an event after this, and in order to get there we have to survive this ordeal. It's in this world, but are you sure if you die in this one you get a pass back here?" Annoyed resentment bought us time until the last day.

All at once when nobody had come from the tunnels in any more the attack those bug like beings were orchestrating picked up tempo and unity as if some pheromone signaled to them they were winning, like when you have a heavy burden and can see the place in sight you can let it down, they were eager the way someone weighed down would be to finish a strenuous task.

Tori had come again and made similar demands, more spurred by inaction than any desire to help anyone. I'd refused again, and shown her as much as I could through quantum ability what was going on out there.

People who had been using esper abilities longer than me, grouped in the thousands still altogether no matter their prior allegiances, in the position as survivors sharing a battle but alone rather than together. Best thing, they were not against each other, but the worst one was they weren't together.

Chi waves would knock thousands down for minutes, shortly after there would come another from the same direction, and when not using these powers the individuals would use martial abilities or other magics to clear enfeebled bugs. Qi would do the same, only with plenty of physical damage instead, yet it seemed less effective because they'd get back up.

The differences between qi and ki showed theirselves greatly in this situation, where qi was the superior for external physical force across larger area and distances, but ki was the superior for internal physical force that was meant to be concentrated into the intensity of smaller area or act as a perpetuated shield or hold without near the range.

Ki acted to greater effect on vessels, but qi was less restricted, and finally chi was being used to seep away at the spirits energy as it tried to energize the body. The differences made some things clear.

Ki might seem the most physical outright but it was between the others, things with mass that had spirits. Qi was the most physical, it interacted the most overall and acutely towards potential hostility and overall utility. It was closest to earthly matter, able to manipulate besides strike, while the manipulations of ki were not nearly as efficient towards striking. Chi was the other side, spiritual contact, yet to call it any sort of lethal by itself fell short.

True, you could kill with chi, but the effort to strangle life energy against something alive with highest thought to live was inefficient at best. Sudden and sharp drops in cells energy, blood pressure, oxygen or hormone levels indirectly caused by direct manipulations of life-force made it an extremely useful tool in comparison.

Chi-users were those most lasting and effecting, in between their rotations swapping chi and finishing bugs they seemed to recover most of the energy they'd just used in only minutes, as the increased will to live against encroaching death only empowered their life-force and every efficiency. Only Miasma-users could say the same to lesser extent, their will to kill was waning when someone died, but it waxed a bit with every kill.

Chakra-users were in and out, emotional motivations would allow them surges of what energy seemed to be made efficient by respective tones they'd take, but there were few who had truly taken like a fish to water with all of chakral division of element and ether in one balance, and vision of each chakras concurrent nature of dualities contending. In short, most of the best were students.

Mana-users could heal little, their will to nurture was high but very strained at the same time because the bugs attacks were almost always lethal and none envenomed survived even if their hearts were barely pierced, while still they nurtured bodies to remain whole with stamina and by removing the strains and stresses to keep all fighting.

They were removing cell wastes, hydrating, flashing minds into REM sleep states yet keeping folks in fugue states they could functioning lower in as if in a blackout. Cells were getting oxygen they wouldn't as fast without being in cold oxygen-rich environments, besides nutrients and hydration, from mana.

None of it was going to be enough, and even when the optimal numbers were reached for the last precarious push to survive, the bugs only frenzied and made their final move as well by swarming. You'd have sworn they were already, but when they are swarming insects naturally, bugs swarms are things we can barely understand. We know they defensively swarm, they seem to aggressively defend, but man has never laid eyes on aggressive swarm.

Even the best examples of this are illusions, that angry hornets or hungry locusts can seem aggressive, the hornets defend theirselves and their nests while locusts overbreeding can drive them to seem like an army pillaging its way to war or back home. The locusts are just starving though, they are so starving the locusts behind them are eating the ones in front and the two create a self perpetuating phenomenon.

These were aggressive because they completely abandoned every reason but to kill, evasion and moving without interfering with one another in the air, reflexive mobility inherent towards any reasonable manner of locomotion went and clearly any defensive will abruptly left them in that final flight. As if something simply said in them it was time to overwhelm, they'd done all they could the one way, it was time for the other the moment one shoe was on correctly.

They were defensive before, then they were aggressive. No between.

In less than a minute none was alive, but even before the last humanoid was dead the bugs were stinging and eating each other as well, none of them could regain the reason they lost and the last literally consumed until it died. It did not eat itself or its kind, yet, it ate itself to death. The proboscis it fed with slowly leaked fluids back into some ape type demi-fairies chest cavity where it died.

Most players in the capital were not targeted by these bugs, I looked there last by stretching my senses and Tori's towards there wondering what their fate was, and finding them in a mostly razed city with a dead dragon outside a quarter mangled imperial keep was both a sight for sore eyes and one to feel sore at them over. Some were alive at least, but their year was one hardly worth calling beneficial.

We may have made gains we had not used, but that possibility would not have been as realistic under those conditions, people were not meant to experiences troubles that any type of good sense avoided. This time was spent optimally nurturing growth, in a place that possibility was higher though the clear perception it wanted you to see in would only hold you back from it, and always viewing it as the game it wasn't was only failure.

What would come, now?

Tori's invitation was not simply revocable, I could only accept it, all I could do was wait until the year was up and be taken somewhere or I would have used it ahead of time trying to manipulate it in any way. A months contest, somewhere in this world, and while the others very likely made their way back to earth for a month I would not be there.

So, I told Tori who was still reeling with moderate anxiety over all she saw to wait, and spent the bulk of the last hours with Kate after talking with everyone to the effect of, 'See you later and be safe until I catch up.', where I left myself calming Kate for another separation we couldn't avoid she was aggrieved by Tori over. Alas, all that should be and I hoped for would never seem to come to pass from my perspective.

I wouldn't even have the perspective to feel cheated by what happened for another twelve years, and even by then, Jack as I had been and wanted to be wasn't the Jack I'd be by then. So much of who we are is in memory, it's true, but memory loss teaches us that the conditioning on the person and their body, mind, personality and their muscle-memory are not so pervious as simple memory. They are etched deep.

Everything changed in a moment the last day. I'd been the one to suggest a no contact until the end method, and even if that hadn't unnerved Tori's team, the individual had the power that Tori had only wielded against him in that moment. Something that killing made stronger, not even miasma was empowered sharp and sudden if you killed with it, using it was enough over time like most developments was key.

It had a name I could not hear spoken the way those with that power could not here quantum. Only writing it, or signalling it would suffice, and having it changed your sign and station to your least suitable. To the ones you desired. I killed his avatar to keep my body alive, he had no risk of real death, but he had the same power as Tori. I had assumed it for an illusion really.

It had to be something that only seemed similar. Of course it was a dark reflection, so it would only be appearing as something it was not, and for once I truly let myself fool myself knowingly. For a moment I was where the cusp of all insanity and sin originated, and not even trying to hold that all back was possible, because that was where the weight of all burden finally fell on me and made its full potential known.

The greatest truthful person and doubtful are one in the same. Only the person who doubts everything will always be unbiased enough to ever be expanding on all that they can learn. I could not follow the greater doubt in my heart, that the power they had was to truly change Heart itself, because they had this power over it and that was what he seized upon in me.

All it would take to be immutable was to accept that a truth, nothing else, for the perception to make permanent inaction of any the ability to change my heart. Belief. I did not believe it, and so, though I killed him and seized victory I only lost all that I was. Not the faintest mark of memory of any of the earthly experiences I'd had in any world survived. And like that I was noone.

All I was just in others memories, my memories weren't mine anymore. Nobodies memories.