We were excused quickly after Glaustro’s final warnings on the dangers of ascension. His parting words were particularly impactful, even if they failed to dissuade either of us from trying.

“If you go too far, you’ll cross the threshold of reality reserved for mortals. You will get a peek at things best unseen by more fragile minds. If you can’t deal with that, it will break you, and not even ascension will fix you up.”

Standing in front of the sergeant’s temporary home, right under the sunlight streaming through the glass dome far above our heads, both Mia and I shivered.

There was a coldness clinging to me in defiance of the balmy temperature. A coldness that stemmed from deep within my essence, rather than anything physical. It felt like the very bond I had forged with the Abyss itself was shivering in warning. My mind drifted and my guts churned.

I started walking in silence, and Mia followed.

In a way, my circumstances were not at all brought about by my own hands. Sure, I had decided to boost my ascension. I had killed and stolen and fought to survive.

But the start of it all? Well, waking up in the body of a boy dying because demonic mana had shredded his soul wasn’t an ideal start, and it was definitely not my choice.

Sure, it beat being dead and getting slowly devoured by the Abyss, because my previous life had somehow sucked enough to land me straight in hell. But I wasn’t the one who signed up for the Legion of Torment. It was Hayden who was raised to glorify the legion life, and who volunteered to have Abyssal mana shoved in his chest.

No, winding up in the legion was not my choice. But after that, I couldn’t deny that I did have choices. Not good choices. Not even remotely survivable choices. But I had them.

I could have tried to run away, or even tried to help the locals survive. I would have one hundred percent gotten myself run through by a demon or another recruit, but I could have tried. Maybe, in spite of everything, it could have ‘redeemed’ me.

The thought just never crossed my mind, even when I hadn’t finished absorbing Hayden’s memories. Of course, those memories made the point moot. They assured me no salvation was coming, regardless of what I did.

I tried not to think about that topic, but with my education, it was hard to keep my head in the sand. After all, the Cradle of Reason was part of what they covered in the training camp I grew up in.

That Hayden grew up in, I reminded myself half-heartedly, even if it was a losing battle.

I wasn’t Hayden. But could I even pretend I was the person I used to be? With who knows how much of my soul devoured by the Abyss, only for those bits to merge with the shredded remains of Hayden? And that was before I willingly shoved the remnants of other souls into my own through Abyssal surgery, in order to steal their knowledge.

Clarinette was the one who impacted me the most, true, but all the souls had left a mark. I now walked with my back held unnaturally straight. I was ambidextrous and preferred to use my left hand instead of my right. I even had impeccable table manners.

Since most of the powerful figures in Berlis were nobility, I had unknowingly picked up more than a few snobby habits. The only reason I wasn’t sneering down my nose at people was the harsh reality of being a grunt in a demonic army. That fact was very effective at curbing any and all hints of pride.

I let the distracting thoughts fall away with a sigh, letting my mind drift back to what I was so ardently avoiding.

The Cradle of Reason.

Heaven, in all its disappointing glory.

Except, the Cradle was no more heaven than the Abyss was traditional hell. While the Abyss was ruled by emotion, the Cradle was… reason. Pure, absolute, and unyielding.

There was no ‘afterlife’ as I had always thought of it. No divine refuge for the souls of the dead.

Just the Abyss and the Cradle.

Emotion versus reason. Demons versus angels. Two directly opposing natures and aspects of reality, rather than bastions of good and evil.

Even if the math could ever add up for me, would I want the Cradle? Rigid obedience and logical perfection, with no true feelings in sight, for all eternity?

By comparison, shoving some souls into crystals and munching down on them almost didn’t sound so bad.

Almost.

“Are you… alright?”

Mia’s hesitant voice snapped me out of my daze, and I shot the woman a confused look.

“Sorry?”

“You seem troubled. I — I’m not good at helping people. I don’t know what to say, or do. But, I’m… here?”

She sounded so uncomfortable, I almost laughed. The only reason I didn’t was knowing it would likely hurt her. Instead, I stopped and properly took her in.

Every line of her face, every inch of her body, betrayed how out of her depth she was. She held herself like she was about to bolt, and there was a deep wariness etched into her features. But in spite of that, she looked me right in the eye, her own eyes shining with concern.

I wasn’t sure what to say when faced by such earnestness. Though I did consider her to be a friend, and willingly shared my resources with her, neither Mia nor I were good at the touchy-feely stuff. To see her express her concern so openly threw me off balance.

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“I’m not. Alright, I mean.” I faltered, emotion seeping into my voice for a moment as the dam I constantly kept up threatened to crack. “All of this is… too much.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before daring to look at her again. “But I will be.”

Mia bit her lip and visibly hesitated before moving towards me with glacial slowness. I let it happen, stiffening when her arms closed around me. Then, just as hesitantly, I returned the hug.

We stood like that, frozen, for what felt like a small eternity.

When we clumsily disengaged, I had to admit that a part of me had unclenched a little, and I felt just a bit more prepared to tackle what was to come.

I cleared my throat, trying to keep the hint of a flush off my cheeks.

“Um, thanks,” I mumbled.

Mia was now refusing to meet my eyes. Her ears were flicking in every direction, and her tail was slashing wildly through the air, but she was doing a remarkable job of keeping her features otherwise clear of emotion.

“You are welcome. Now, shall we?”

Her question confused me until I took a proper look at my surroundings.

In my daze, I had walked through the underground city with remarkable accuracy. We had almost arrived at the Absorption Station. I could just make out its dome of influence a few streets over, rising above the unusually low buildings that made up most of the local housing.

I hadn’t made a conscious decision to visit immediately, but in a way, this was for the best. For all my pretense of being one hundred percent ready and set on proceeding with the plan, doubt gnawed on me under the surface.

I had already gotten myself into a ton of trouble just because I couldn’t manage fifty percent of my ascension. Going over that number was, as everyone seemed keen to remind me, an incredible risk.

Then I glanced at Mia. Neither of us had a place in this new world of ours without strength to back us up. And, judging by the determined look in her eyes, the cat girl was far more decisive than I was.

Besides, looking at her reminded me that this time, I wasn’t alone.

I smiled.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

We walked on in a companionable silence. Both of us knew that what we were about to do was final, in a very real, irreversible way. Perhaps only one of us would emerge from the station with their mind intact. Perhaps neither of us would. Regardless, in that moment, we were content to share the walk with someone who was in the exact same situation, and whom we could call a friend.

“See you soon.” It was all I could bring myself to say when we finally reached the dome.

She raised her eyes to meet mine, and in that moment, the rest of the world fell away. It was just the two of us, doubt and fear shining through both of our expressions.

Finally, her gaze grew firm, and she nodded.

“See you soon.”

With that, she plunged into the dome of the station and vanished from sight.

I stood there for a moment, my hands clenching and unclenching at my sides. Then I summoned my own conviction and took that last step.

The station’s familiarity was both reassuring and ominous, considering all I had gone through under its protection. The perfect sphere of isolation was the Abyss’s gift to its recruits. It was a safe, personal space to absorb souls, upgrade compatible soulbound items, or push one’s ascension further.

I brought up the summary of my progress effortlessly, eying the fifty percent mark on the ascension meter. I had treated it so casually at the start, with no real knowledge of what it meant or what it would do to me.

Already, I was… altered. My eyesight was far beyond what a human could boast of, even allowing me to see in darkness. My physical toughness and tolerance to temperatures were significantly enhanced. I was now careful to smile tightly and never open my mouth too wide, lest I reveal how inhuman my tongue had become.

Frustratingly, even that final change was beneficial. It was much easier for me to form inhuman noises now. In fact, I was willing to bet that I could effortlessly speak any language, no matter how alien the anatomy of its origin species.

All the changes held benefits. But they were still changes. I was changed. Even at fifty percent, I was fundamentally a different being from the soul that had woken up in Hayden Hall’s body all those weeks ago.

Nevertheless, my steps were steady as I approached the main feature of the station. When I reached the half-reclined surgical chair in the very center of the dome, I sat down without hesitation.

Everything was just as I remembered from my last station visit. Around the chair, tendrils of some alien flesh swayed, bearing instruments of all sorts, each and every one menacing in its own way. Scalpels, tongs, grasping claws, and more wavered all around me. When the tendrils swayed out of my view and reemerged, I could swear that what they held shifted every time, switching to more and more alien items, all meant to pry apart and then stitch together a soul.

My soul.

The process was as disturbing as it was painful, so I was more than a little thankful that I had no use for that aspect of the station at the moment. Instead, I reached into the purse attached to my hip and slowly pulled out souls, counting until I had a nice even five hundred in a heap on my lap.

For a torture device, the station’s chair really was comfy when you lay back on it. Comfy enough that I almost wouldn’t regret it being my final experience with a sound mind and clear consciousness.

I allowed myself one final moment of reflection. Memories drifted past my mind’s eye, both original and inherited. None of the lives I could remember were particularly great. Not my first, not Hayden’s, and definitely not the lives of the souls I had absorbed.

Struggle marked each and every one of them. Struggle against circumstances beyond one’s control. Struggle against poverty, or sickness, or pain, or the forced railroading into a life governed solely by the whims of those with more power than you.

That was what it all came down to, in the end.

Power.

The power to resist. To make your own way. To afford yourself the luxury of safety, friends, mercy, or even basic choices.

It was for the sake of all those things that I forced myself to stop hesitating.

I raised the first soul and willed the station to imbue it into my ascension. Instantly, that same feeling of euphoria I had experienced last time swept through me, engulfing me in tides of acceptance and warmth and encouragement.

However, this time, there was a difference. This time, I kicked off the process knowing what was to come. I did it not as a simple mortal, but as one who had experienced death twice. As a mortal who had foresworn his old world of origin and forged a link to the Abyss.

So, this time, I could keep track of what was happening.

Sinking through all the emotions, I buried myself into the core of my being and beheld my soul in a way I had never managed before.

I watched as the Abyss grasped the soul I offered it. Swiftly, the Abyss melted the soul in a stream of power, washing away all its memories until only its raw essence remained. Then, gently, the Abyss guided that essence into my soul. My soul devoured it eagerly, and the red swirls surrounding me grew by a fraction.

Soul after soul, I focused on the absorption process, trying to ignore all else. I watched, enchanted, as the fundamental nature of my existence was altered.

The red swirls grew, then merged, then gradually occupied more and more of my soul. I was tainted in the colors of the Abyss, claimed beyond my own declaration of allegiance, converted into something approaching its own true children.

The final glimmer of my soul’s original off-blue colorlessness held out in the very center of my chest. I’d originally thought that all the red had leached into my soul’s frame from there, but that was not the case. The Abyssal mana was swirling around the core of my soul, cradling it, longing to consume it.

That core couldn’t hold out forever. With the final soul I fed to the Abyss, a swell of Abyssal power swept into me, overwhelming all resistance.

My eyes shot open. I gasped as my consciousness slammed back into my body. All my muscles seized, locking up.

Then the visions drowned me.