…Horrifying? Conflicting? Dangerous? Free?

How did I see myself now? What was I, really?

A lot of emotions went through my head over the passing days.

My body was finally starting to respond to me slowly, but my mind still failed to recognize my face whenever I saw it in the mirror. I was afraid that on some deep level my mind and soul was slowly warping, changing, fusing to that of the monstrous dragon, irrevocably altering my sense of ‘self’.

Would I change further, mutate into a monstrous dragon? What if the Empire captured me, experimented upon me in the name of Equality? I wouldn't put it past them to try to take me apart organ by organ just to figure out what the hell I was. If I was the only one of my kind… could I ever even start a family? Could I ever…

I drowned this line of thought before I started crying. I was strong.

I was finally free of my Vows, forever, permanently. I wasn’t human, but so what? Delta and Dante clearly weren’t entirely human either. By Equality, Delta could simply move from a human body to one made almost entirely from freaking ants!

I couldn’t stop thinking about Slava.

I wouldn't put anything past the enigma that was Academic Kerenski, the arithmancer and scientist from another world… a truly terrifying world without magic.

Were all people of Earth like Slava or was he unique, someone too smart and also too stupid for his own good? I smirked at the thought of him rushing into dragonfire to pull my eviscerated body out of the burning skyship.

On one hand it felt nice that someone cared enough to rescue me, on the other it had been an incredibly foolish thing for him to do. The way Delta had explained it - Dante didn’t actually know if I was inside the dragon-harassed skyship, he based his entire rescue operation on a hunch.

Over the past week I had levelled up yet again. Delta had started feeding me solid food and with it my experience shot up yet again. I wasn’t sure what she was feeding me, but my crystalline hair was growing at an astonishing rate.

Now standing upright on my own feet, I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror once again, trying to get used to my new appearance. I was currently wearing a typical Skyisle peasant’s tunic and a couple of basic shiny necklaces, likely purchased by Delta from the local market. The tunic fit me well. I didn't know when Delta measured me. I stared at my crystal hair and wiggled my bewildering wide ears beneath my shiny mane ever so slightly, rotating them. My hearing was definitely several times that of a human.

The small, ruby gemstones glittered in the light, casting reflections all around the room.

“Was it necessary to make my hair stand out this much?” I asked.

“The spell to convert organic matter to living crystal wasn’t exactly finished, plus Dante meddled with it considerably,” Delta shrugged. “It was a work in progress. Be glad that you’re alive at all and not spontaneously combusting.”

I noted that she was standing behind me.

The insectomancer? looked a lot shorter today, her body less lanky, less insanely armored and pretty mundane.

Today, Delta was... just a human teenager who was wearing a very colorful blue and white silk dress. Glancing at the dress, I saw a ridiculously detailed, silk-woven drawing of a city in it. The city was framed by buildings with far too many windows, which were also much taller than the spires of Cessna.

The buildings were topped with red, five-point stars. Strange-looking coaches wrapped in metal and glass stood in the streets beneath the towers. Colorful red banners fluttered in the wind held up by crowds, featuring words that I could not read.

Was this a picture of Slava's homeland? It had to be. I distantly recalled seeing this exact view, with these tall buildings inside Slava’s dream world.

“Am I going to spontaneously combust?” I inquired tentatively, pulling my eyes away from Delta's mindbogglingly detailed dress. Did she use ten thousand ants to weave it?

“Nah,” the silver-haired girl shrugged.

“Why are you in your human body today?” I commented on her appearance.

“We’re going to town," Delta said. "You need to walk more. I’m not going out as Elder Delta with you. Today I’ll be... just Destiny.”

“I see,” I said.

“Mhmm,” Delta nodded. “We’ll do all the things that girlfriends are supposed to do like shopping for clothes and uhh… making fun of dumb boys. Well, one boy in particular.”

“Are we friends now?” I squinted at her.

“Well... as much as I’d like to, I can’t banish you forever,” she shrugged. “On the account that you now own Skyisle. Plus Dante will be disappointed if I don’t get you in tip-top shape soon.”

“In tip-top shape… for what?” I inquired tentatively.

“Oh... the usual stuff,” she smirked.

“Lugging rocks?” I sighed, thinking back of my time with the twins a year ago.

“Lugging very big rocks!” Delta nodded.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to lug big rocks,” I said looking down at my skinny teenage arms. “I… uh, don’t have my strength-reinforcing skills anymore. In fact I don’t have any skills…”

“You’ll get there eventually,” she laughed. “Why haven’t you invested your points into things? Aren’t you level three already?”

“I don’t know what to invest in,” I sighed. “The Soul-Song doesn’t see me as a human anymore. Do I even have a soul anymore?”

“What?” Delta tilted her head. “You definitely have a soul. A good rock-hauling soul.”

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I glared at her.

“Alright, alright,” she laughed. “I’m kidding about the rocks. We have magitek tools for that nowadays - been lugging rocks without you for nearly a year.”

“How do you know that I have a soul?” I asked. “What kind of an insect can see souls?”

“Not an insect,” Delta shook her head. “I can see directly into the Astral Ocean as a Phantom.”

“R-right,” I nodded.

Awkward silence stretched between us.

“How did you become an Astral Phantom anyways?” I raised an eyebrow.

“I became an Astral Phantom when some kind of magic shoved Dante into my unborn body,” Delta shrugged. “Dante separated us, but I retained some of his memories, plus the memories of an Alanian Agromancer and her Dryad bestie. I’m weird, okay? Archpriestess Giovashi’s machinations were supposed to kill me or make me into a ghoul… but Dante saved me, made me what I am now.”

“I... see,” I said. Was Delta... getting used to me? Why was she revealing so much all of a sudden?

“Mhmm,” Delta bounced on the balls of her feet. “Isn’t he clever? ...Wait, why am I selling Dante to you?”

My mind was reeling sideways at Delta’s revelations.

“Anyway,” Delta continued. “I can see souls through the Astral. Human souls look like pretty stars with a thousand threads. Yours looks like…”

“Like what?” I prompted as she made a dramatic pause.

“Like a little ball of light with a cute red dragon snoozing inside it,” she stated sagely.

“A... cute dragon?” I repeated. "Are you messing with me right now?"

Delta broke out into a fit of giggles.

I couldn't help but smile too. Were we finally getting along?

Delta and I walked into town. The silver-haired girl was in hyper-cheerful mode, chattering away about how incredible Dante's identify spells were and what they could see and do. My brain didn't understand half of the words she said and I started to tune her out as I looked around, taking in the sights and sounds of the little mountain town.

I noted that the townspeople were giving me questioning looks, their eyes focusing on my crystal hair.

"Don't worry about them," Delta said, following my gaze. "They're just curious about the new person in town. Great changes are coming to Skyisle! Soon you won't be the shiniest thing around!”

"What kind of things?" I raised an eyebrow.

“You’ll see!” Delta grinned at me.

I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about great changes. What was Slava planning?

"Hey Jovakinn," Delta declared, strutting to a craftsman that was adjusting a building's beam with his magical... wooden armacus.

I watched as the craftsman waved at Delta. My eyebrows went up when I noticed that the entire town of Skyisle looked like a massive construction zone.

"What's going on?" I asked Delta as we walked away from the craftsman.

"We're expanding," she said simply.

"Expanding?" I repeated.

"Someday Skyisle is going to be the biggest, best city in the entire world!" she declared.

"What?" I blinked. "How?"

"Dante," she said as if that explained everything.

"Dante?" I repeated.

"He has a plan," she nodded. "A grand, master plan. We've been selling these shiny tools to people! Ones that help them bypass their level cap!"

"What is this plan?" I asked, not completely sure if I wanted to know.

"You'll see," she said with a sly smile. "In due time, you'll see."

I looked around me as we walked. Nothing looked the same as it did a year ago. The town had changed from a boring, decrepit, dying, little village to a booming center of... activity.

"Is that... an Equality-damned necromag... Inian obelisk?!" I yelped when I noticed the looming, gargantuan, black, eldritch structure in the center of the town square.

"What?" Delta blinked, following my gaze. "Oh, that's just a fountain."

"A fountain?!" I repeated, my voice going up an octave.

"Yes, a fountain," she said. "Dante had it installed a while back. He said it would be good for the townspeople's health and morale!"

"It's an Equality-damned necromag obelisk!" I whisper-hissed at her. "Can't you see the dark magic radiating from it?"

"Nope," she said, tilting her head with a wide smirk. "Should I?"

"It's an Inian Obelisk!" I repeated. "They were used to harvest the souls of the living and the dead!"

"Really?" Delta scratched her chin. "That sounds like a rather tall tale, darling."

My eye started to twitch.

Delta started to giggle.

The townspeople of Skyisle looked happy. There were kids playing beneath the accursed obelisk, firing spells at each other. The town looked a lot greener too. Perhaps... purpler if anything. Skyisle was green before... but now there were magical-looking, purple-orange-leafed trees blooming everywhere, their leaves glittering with sparkling reflections.

When we got closer to the obelisk I noticed that it was indeed standing in a stone fountain, its base framed by a very large purple tree.

"What in the Astral is going on here?" I muttered. My eyes shot back towards the group of kids. They had wooden armaci with violet crystals strapped to their wrists!

A girl jumped over the fountain's parapet, her wooden armacus unfurled into its weaponized state.

"Hold person," she yelled and a spell struck out from her tool towards the group of kids defending the center of the fountain.

"Shields up!" A boy yelled.

The kids brought up their wrists. A hexagonal wall of magical shields formed in front of them and the spells fired by the attackers fizzled against it.

"W-what the shit..." I blinked, trying to clear my eyes. The youngest of them looked like she was eight! EIGHT! They were engaging in a mock battle using spells way above level 20!

"What?" Delta asked, following my gaze. "Oh, they're just playing a game."

"A game?" I repeated.

"Yes, a game," she said. "Dante invented it. It's called 'Conquest'."

"Conquest?" I repeated.

"Yes, Conquest," she said. "It's a game of strategy, see? The object of the game is to capture the enemy's flag."

"And the enemy is...?" I prompted.

"The other team, obviously," she said.

"Of course," I muttered, shaking my head.

I noticed that advancing kids had blue cloths tied to their arms or heads while the obelisk defenders had red ones. A large, red flag was flapping in the wind, held by a tree branch about three meters up in the air. The very thick, purple-leafed tree had formed a small fortress of sorts around the base of the Inian obelisk. Some of the branches moved, occasionally blocking spells as if the tree was participating in the defense. Kids with red bandanas were sitting or lying down on large branches, firing spells at the blue team below.

"Shield-piercers on! Advaaaance!" The leader girl yelled, swinging her armacus. A shield-breaking sword manifested there. It was one of the Imperial spells in the Overseer's armacus!

I froze in shock, my mouth open wide. I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. What I was seeing was simply put - impossible.

Armaci required high-level Imperial artificers to produce and had ludicrously expensive magisteel components!

I hiccuped as the swords struck the shields and magical sparks rained down into the fountain as spells all around exploded. Some swords shattered, some shields held on. It was a genuine, coordinated, magical battle, something that I hadn't seen since my time at the Cessna Academia of Magic.

The adults working the shops and doing the construction didn't even bat an eye at the ridiculous magical battle taking place in the center of town.

A magical missile struck the girl in the head and her armacus flashed bright orange.

"Oh woe! I have been decimated! Curse you, reds! Avenge me, friends!" She dramatically fell backwards into the fountain.

"Come on," Delta grinned. "Lets go pick out some clothes! You can play Tag or Conquest with everyone later!"