Envy had noticed the karmic threads were about to be broken and panicked. Their connection to the domain was the reason they were able to make a play for ascension to begin with, so with little hesitation, they stopped teasing the boy and fled. They wanted to kill the boy directly, but the system's punishment didn't make it worth it.
They would lose the ability to ascend, unless they could get the boy to attack with something that threatened their life. That was were the problem was, whether the boy had known or not, rather than attacking him with chaos, he had made the smarter choice in attacking the karmic threads that bound them to earth. So they needed to leave, taking the karmic item as far from the boy as possible. "The other side of the planet should give me enough time." Envy thought to themself.
That was when delight spread across their face. They felt a tickle of danger sense, which meant the boy's chaos was already enough to cause harm. Envy prepared to accept the attack and dropped some of their defenses. It would let them actually get hurt and allow them to actually kill the pest. Opening their arms wide to accept the attack, Envy felt as rising panic and sheer terror coursed through them and then the world froze, with the last thing Envy saw being the karmic threads being torn.
When the world resumed, Envy felt their connection to the heavens decrease tenfold. Thousands of years of work vanished in a moment that Envy had no power to recapture. "So be it," growled Envy as their power spiked. They had limited themselves somewhat, but the release of power caused the world to crack and the sky to shatter. Reality bent around them as they descended down towards the boy's friends.
They could have killed them with a thought, but where was the fun in that, where was the justice. Envy cackled as each of the humans on the ground were crushed into the ground. They kept just enough control that none of them died, but they wanted the children to know they had no power to change the future now. "Aren't you all proud of your friend's decision?" Envy sneered and each of their words tried to shatter the ground beneath them. Envy didn't let it and just laughed.
"That boy played with your lives and you'll suffer for it." Pointing back at the girl the boy seemed to be fond of, he flicked a wrist and her body separated in two. Screams filled the air and Envy cackled as he prevented the girl from dying. Envy had kept some of their focus on the ever shifting orb of chaos that floated nearby. The world was being sucked into it in a cheap imitation of a black hole. They needed the boy to be alive, none of this was worth their time otherwise.
They couldn't sense anything through the chaos energy and cursed internally. This wasn't was it was supposed to go. The boy was supposed to get more powerful and make his pitiful attempt at saving the day. The orb continued to be unresponsive, despite all of Envy's attempts at earning a reaction. Sighing, Envy healed the humans to keep them from dying and waited. They needed to make this count and if they were going to sacrifice even more power then needed their revenge to be worth it.
Less than a minute after deciding to wait, Envy felt a tremor across the planet and prepared once again to torture the still crying humans. The orb continued to shift and churn and seemed like something was attempting to break out of the shell of energy.
Before the process could finish, the heavens themselves cracked. Energy of a higher grade than Envy had ever experience poured out across the universe. Each of the humans absorbed some of it and Envy sighed. It would be a pain to drain the energy from mortals, but not impossible. It just meant they needed to keep them alive for longer than they planned. They tried to force themself to ignore what the heavens opening meant though.
They had lost. Either Diligence or Rat ascended, possibly even both, though the heavens had already begun their healing, which meant it had only been one of them. Envy wanted to scream, curse or force a shattering of the heavens themselves, but they had already sacrificed so much power. The boy had taken everything. Everything Envy had been working towards was destroyed because of a small human brat that was sad his daddy died, despite never even being close.
Envy couldn't understand it and that made their rage build even further. Their very being trembled at the idea and Envy cackled. "Well, children, I suppose I have to commend your friend on one thing. he managed to make me resonate with my spirit for the first time in millennium. I'm actually feeling envious." Envy let themself taste the word on their tongue. With it came the slightest resonance and increase in power. It wasn't much, but it had removed a couple years of work.
A loud crack of space being forced apart woke Envy from their musings. Floating in the air, less than a hundred meters away, stood a Monkey with a horned crown that seemed to grow out of its head. It wielded a spear, which pointed directly at Envy's throat. "Oh, its the silly little monkey. I'm surprised you arrived so soon, and not even for your own inheritor. How sweet." Envy said, putting emphasis on the last comment.
"You look a little worse for wear and you feel..." Envy opened their eyes in surprise. Maybe the boy wasn't the worst mortal in the universe. Another treat to devour and shave another thousand years off of their timetable. "You're so weak." Envy said, as a smile spread across their lips.
"Envy," Xerxes said, spitting the words. "Leave the mortals out of this. I'm still strong enough to end you here and now. There is no point in ending a few mortals lives." Envy spat at Xerxes and laughed. "Oh, you sweet silly monkey. You couldn't beat me before you gave up your strength to that stupid Rat. And you think I will let even a bug slip through my fingers, when they have destroyed thousands of years of planning. Spending resources abound, to create regressors to push for ascension. You really think me, a sin, will just let things slid? I could kill all four mortals, without you being able to stop me and I'd still beat you with one of my clones."
Envy shook their head sadly. "I suppose I can forgive you, since you're an animal, but where is the fun in that. Let's show the mortals what real power is." Envy didn't give the monkey a chance to respond and swung a fist forwards. It was a simple punch from the mortals perspective, but it was so much more. Envy dropped their protection of the mortals at the same time and the stupid little monkey spent their own power to protect them. The fist cracked in the air and a hand made of thousands of others hands bent its way through space and cracked against the monkey's body.
It was flung out to one of the other planets in space and Envy sighed. It would take the money a minute or so to return. Sitting down, they didn't notice until the last second as a spear thrust for Envy's hearts. Shifting their internals, the spear embedded itself in pure muscle. Shifting its muscles back, the spear was wrenched to the side and another fist cracked against the monkey.
Blood splattered from both of them, but it was the smallest of injuries for both of them. Envy had to sigh once more, the monkey wasn't strong, but was surprisingly durable. They traded a series of blows and Envy felt themself gaining a greater advantage. The monkey was taking blows unnecessary, but it was trying desperately to keep the mortals protected. Envy laughed and only pushed harder.
First they separated an arm from the ape, before adding the arm to their collection. It was nice and Envy felt a flash of anger as it was slightly stronger than the other monkey arm they had in their collection. It seamlessly grafted itself onto Envy's body, before they shifted it to be one of their main arms. They then proceeded to beat the stupid animal with its own arm. Envy almost felt bad as the monkey was pushed further and further to their limit. Each time another blow landed. Envy expected the ape to flee and leave the humans to their fate, btu it fought on despite the difference in strength.
"Listen, I knew you were a stupid monkey, but isn't this taking it too far? They're just humans." Envy asked, as they separated a leg and then the tail in the same moment. Each was added to their body and Envy sighed in ecstasy as they recovered more lost power. Looking down at the monkey, Envy shook their head in disappointment, it was barely able to stand with a single leg and arm, but still stood in defiance.
Envy opened their mouth to speak, but felt a slap of heat, hit and splash out against their skin. They didn't even have a chance to attack before an intense burning pain lashed out across the rest of their back. That was all it took though, to realize what had happened and Envy turned around with a wide grin on their face. "Well, look who's awa..." They didn't have the chance to finish the sentence as a beam of chaos, thicker than the new arm they had gained, shot straight through their open mouth.
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Envy screamed as they felt every individual cell either rupture or began to grow rapidly and change. "It's not possible, there is just too much chaos." Fear overrode every other sensation as Envy realized what had happened to the boy. "IT'S A FUCKING CHAOSBORN!" Envy screeched. They had heard about them before, but chaosborn were enemies of the gods themselves. It shouldn't be possible for one to exist in the mortal realm, but the boy had somehow pulled more chaos out of the world than should ever be possible.
Envy shuddered even as they fled. The heavens, they had opened. The boy must've absorbed even more chaos as the heavens exposed themselves. Even as they ran, Envy could feel the chaosborn following relentlessly. More holes appeared across Envy's body, even as they repeatedly replaced limbs, flesh, or even bunches of cells. They tried sending out several attacks to slow the monster, but there was a reason they exclusively existed in the higher realms. Any being of mana had no chance in a fight against pure chaos.
Envy used what little connection to chaos they had and tried forcefully redirecting the monster, but it ignore the blast of power, absorbing it into their body, before immediately releasing it in its own attacks. Envy just needed to get back to their own realm, they had more power they could draw from there and they might be able to push back this beast. Even as they drew closer to their realm, Envy saw the world around them dimming. It hurt, it hurt so much more than they could ever imagine, before it was finally done. Blackness consumed them and Envy knew no more.
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The beast rumbled in place as the excess energy was absorbed and sued to create more chaos. It was so simple, when they were human, they should've been able to figure it out, but everything drew back to the origination of existence. With the combination of chaos and mana, they could transform the mana involved and gain more chaos. It was everything, it was power, and it was empty.
Something was wrong, even as it shook its head and turned more mana into chaos. Despite sating its hunger, it still felt like it was missing something. It couldn't remember anything before today. It knew a few things though. It knew it was once a human, it knew it hated that snack it just ate, though it couldn't remember why. It saw a comet of mana fly by and felt its hunger once more grow. While it was smart, it didn't need thoughts to know being hungry was bad.
It caught up to the comet in record speed and began devouring, until it saw beings on it. Even weirded still, they were humans. The beast paused, why were humans important again? It felt its stomach growl and prepared to feed, shrugging off their previous thoughts. They once again began consuming the mana of the comet, though something in the back of its mind kept telling it to leave the humans alone.
It felt its annoyance build, why did the thoughts keep trying to control what it wanted to eat and not eat. Even so, it ignored the tiny beings it didn't recognize anymore, maybe they just tasted terrible.
When the mana was mostly drained, it felt something in the back of its mind telling him to leave some food behind, it didn't make since. It howled its displeasure and space rippled, but even still its mind wouldn't stop its complaining. Maybe the food can make more of itself? the beast asked itself and nodded. It was good it was so smart, who wouldn't want unlimited food. Not even a minute passed, before its hunger wailed at him.
Looking at its food source, it felt true anger rising, the food wasn't making more of itself. It prepared to lash out, but suddenly a source of food entered its perception and the monsters barely gave itself time to congratulate themself on how smart they had been. More food had arrived!
"You poor thing." A voice said and the beast felt itself be startled. It recognized the voice? It wasn't sure, but it saw a woman and felt a whisper of memories come back to it. "Polymath?" It tried to ask, but the words didn't come out right. They sounded more like roars of challenge, accompanied with an ever growing hunger. The woman's eyes grew a touch wider. "You still recognize me?" The beast found itself nodding, but didn't know why. Its hunger complained and it tried to figure out the best way to eat all of the mana standing before it.
Instead of mana, the woman held out a hand and an orb of chaos larger than the woman's head appeared in front of the beast. It howled in joy, before devouring it in a single bite. "That should settle you for a while. Eating mortal chaos energy takes more to convert, so you would be struggling with your hunger, until you starved. Now, follow me." Its hunger making no sound, the beast nodded its head. It could follow the woman for now, if she didn't feed it, they it would just eat her.
Thankfully, the woman did keep feeding them and the beast seeing no reason to complain, continued following her. It had no sense of time, as it had only been alive for a short time and it had used its hunger to gauge everything, but the woman talked to it the whole time they traveled. It had understood the words at first, but after a while, it couldn't understand her, but pretended to listen. If it did a good job, then the woman would feed it again.
They eventually made it to a weird looking planet, that seemed almost bursting with mana. So, the woman was giving it a gift! The beast thought, and prepared to begin devouring the planet, but the voice in its head, that had been absent for so long, warned it from eating the woman's gift. Several seconds passed as it tried to figure out why something was telling it not to, until even more firmly it felt something. "Home. Home. HOME!"
It almost looked around as the voice got stronger each time. It looked at the woman for answers, but she only shook her head. "I cannot help with this, if you cannot bring yourself back from the brink on your own, then I can't trust it to stick." The beast, feeling confused, prepared to try devouring the earth again, before it was forced to pause. The Earth? How did it know that name?
It moved closer, blue waters covered the planet, with green biome and other areas standing above the waters. it could only see a small part of the planet, but this time, without the voice in the back of its head, the words came to it before the thought did. "This is my home?" It was still confused and they didn't come out as words, but as they woman let it move closer, it moved into the planet's atmosphere.
It scanned everything, trying to find something it recognized. Home. It felt itself shudder as it locked eyes with an island off the coastline of a large area of land. It continued to fly in and slowly decreased it size, until it was a human's size. "What's a human?" It didn't know why all the questions were coming back, but looking around more and more seemed familiar. It landed on the ground of the island and began to walk around. It spent several minutes staring at its legs and arms, not sure why it had made either.
After its curiosity had temporarily been satisfied, it continued exploring, but somehow everything was familiar, but just barely not. It felt its hunger begin growing again, but didn't even think to look back at the woman still following him. It was close, it was close to home. the thought resonated like nothing else and it began to remember. It had been fighting something here, recently. It felt its heart begin to race, but it didn't let itself process that it had a heart now.
It felt itself running faster and faster as bodies began appearing. They saw craters in the ground and forced itself to run faster. It felt itself growing weaker as it pushed its hunger further to the back of its mind. It was so close to something, to home. Then, there is was. Four humans were on the ground. None of them looked alive, but it knew mana better than anything else. It still flowed through them.
Unsure what to do, it looked at Aesona. Its mind froze. "Aesona, why do I know that name? The polymath..." It looked desperately into her eyes for answers and she gave HIM a warm smile. He was a person, just like these people. She waved her hand and he saw the injuries of the people on the ground begin to heal. Something in him ached when he saw a monkey slowly regrowing its limbs.
Their throat choked. "Xerxes? Why are you here?" His voice actually made words this time and he felt tears growing in the corner of his eyes. He didn't know why and everything hurt as his body told him to consumed the world itself, but he pushed it back once more. Then his eyes shifted to the man next to Xerxes. The name came to him a moment later. "Malik." He whispered. The women were slumped together holding each other for comfort even as they slept. "Peggy..."
His eyes focused on the last woman. Tears were flowing now and memories of each of them came back to him. they were his friends, his home. He was Owen and the woman he was looking at opened her eyes as he spoke her name. "Myra."
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Aesona left him there. She had disappeared when she noticed he had remembered who he was. She had been siphoning chaos energy from him the entire time they traveled together. She had actually told him several times that she was, but Owen had been no different from a monster for most of their journey.
When he recognized her, she had hoped he would remember, but hadn't been sure. When he had remembered, she had immediately started feeding him the mana she had taken from him only days before. It had already grown into a star that produced more mana than Owen could have ever on his own, at least as a mortal.
Even as he landed on earth, she had been slowly reattuning his body to mana. It would take her millions of years to recover the energy she was spending to forcibly reattune his body, but she owed him. He had saved her disciple, even if he had been a beast at the time. When she had fully reattuned his body, she began her departure.
It wasn't a perfect fix, she had needed to remold his body from scratch, which meant he was a normal human being now. Without accessible mana and without the system. It left him the weakest human on earth, but alive. She hoped the system would maybe make an exception for him, but even she wasn't strong enough to force the system into doing anything at her whim.
She gave one last look back as her previous inheritor embraced the girl. She had been set back millions of years, but seeing the joy on their faces made everything worth it.