The normal advancement to gold consisted of establishing a connection with the monster core. In Sabrina and Rim's case, Isaac had prepared them so that, in addition to being able to extract more Qi due to their preparation, they would also extract the physical characteristics from the monster.

In doing this, Rim and Sabrina should immediately be able to utilize an initial form of the oversoul. In case all went well, of course.

Rim did not believe in luck. She saw the result as the natural sum of the efforts made.

Thus, she smiled as she looked at the metallic world around her, confident that she would soon advance. Metal Qi was sucked through her channels, which directly fed her core. The energy absorbed was so great that it was physically painful. Rim had never felt anything like it.

She thought she heard Hector calling her name. Perhaps he was standing next to her physical body, standing by for some emergency. She saw no problem with that. If she had to be helped, let it be by someone who shared the same weight she carried on her shoulders.

Now Rim had entered a trance-like state, so that her senses were messed up. Isaac had said that this would happen, but Rim had not imagined it would be this way. In front of her, she could identify something that looked like a ball, permeated by silvery energy.

"Come forward, daughter of Gam."

She shuddered at hearing that name. She avoided speaking it aloud, afraid that just the simple sonority would alert the ghosts of the past.

Concentrating, Rim entered her own core. All around him, the environment began to change. Her footsteps echoed on the new floor. The room felt like the interior of a church, though all decorated in metal.

In front of her stood a titan. Unlike Dante and Sabrina, and even to some extent Hector, Rim did not need to create a path. She already had one that she liked very much ready to be followed.

The titan was huge, having to hump to fit into the environment. This was no surprise, after all, this was no ordinary titan.

Rim Qi typically served to control metal. However, each metal was actually a mixture of several by-products, so the purer and higher grade the metal, the better Rim could control it.

There, she felt as if she were in heaven. Everywhere she threw her Qi, she felt only the purest finesse of metals.

The titan stared at her. As she got closer, the empty eyes, indicated only by the absence of mass and an orb of energy in the middle of the hole, followed her.

"Hello, titan. I humbly come to request your power. I fear we have reached the limit of synchronicity in my core," she said, bowing her head. Even she knew the time to be humble. At least she tried sometimes.

"I see truth in your words. A real breakthrough... your father would be happy," the monster said, plucking a few tears from Rim's face. After all that time, she would finally be a little closer to what was left of her family.

As if a mountain were collapsing, the Titan shrank in size, until it was condensed into a small, core-like mass of Qi.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"We should start now," said the monster's voice, this time coming from nowhere specific, all over the room.

Accessing the core in front of her, Qi began to fill Rim's meridians. She approached the sphere, which seemed to call to her. Placing both hands there, she could feel her meridians about to tear, such was the energy accumulated there.

At that moment she forced herself to think about her family. What was one more challenge after so many? She stole for them. She killed for them. That would be just one more step in her journey.

It would all be worth it, as long as she could get her revenge. After that, she would be one step closer.

That was enough to keep her steady, even in the face of the flood of energy. Today was not a good day to fail. And she would not.

—

"Join me, promised one. Power, glory, revenge... everything you desire will be within your grasp."

Sabrina knew whose voice that was. She still remembered, just after her parents had been taken down the road with no return.

So lonely, so... empty of life. In retrospect, she should have been easy prey for the demon. A few words were enough to convince her.

She clenched her fists. The environment she was in was not much different from the one on the other side. A cave almost completely taken over by darkness.

The only light came from him. The demon. During all these weeks of preparation, Sabrina had prepared herself to advance to the gold. But, she knew she couldn't trust the demon. Once she began the advancement process, she would be in a fight against herself. One she couldn't lose.

"You want your belongings back, don't you? You want to remember everyone who helped you along the way. You owe them at least that much, little Sabrina...," said the deep voice.

Taking a deep breath, she focused on the flow of Qi in her meridians. Several times she had heard that a cultivator with a demon soul could not have free will. She was living proof that this was possible. And that would not change. Not today.

She stood up immediately. She felt her hair waving, even in the absence of wind. Her Qi hissed, like a snake in search of prey.

Fixing her eyes on the one she had long tried to hide, Sabrina flinched. If only the legends were correct, and the demons were indeed monstrous creatures, chimeras of vile beasts.

But no. In front of her stood a perfect, immaculate replica of her mother. As she walked slowly, tears formed in her eyes. She blinked and brushed them away, but they did not seem to stop.

"You won't get what you want. No demon is going to get control of my body until I find out who did that to my parents."

A frightening smile broke out on the monster's face. Sabrina wished she could tell the smile was animalistic, hostile. But to her, the exposed teeth in front of her tasted of nostalgia, of memories she had long tried to forget.

"Of course, my sweet child. When did I ever cheat on you, anyway?"

Sabrina knew that the demon had several times tried to take control of her body. She felt the attempts, but she stood firm through them all. She also knew that with each step taken toward heaven, the difficulty of repelling the attempts would increase.

"No more small talk. Let's get down to business," she said eagerly. The less time she spent there, the better.

The creature that lent the shape of her hand was crumbling into energy. In front of Sabrina, an orb of concentrated Shadow Qi began to form.

The mass seemed to darken the darkness itself, like a miniature vortex. Sabrina could sense danger from there.

Without further ado, she channeled as much Qi as she could and wrapped her hands with hundreds of other shadow hands coming from her hair. Protected to the maximum, there was no going back. It was now or never.

When she came into contact with the orb Qi, she immediately felt as if there was another will in combat with her own.

According to Isaac, the normal difficulty of moving to gold while forming an oversoul was the synchronicity required with the monster core, which is why the preparation was so time-consuming.

But in her case, that part was not difficult. She quickly felt the orb being sucked through her meridians, which vibrated from the pressure. In the region of her core, she felt the orb spinning rapidly, expanding, contracting, far from the stability she had achieved in the Silver.

The breakthrough had begun.

This was where her fate would be decided.