Arthur worked quickly. He wouldn’t be drinking his latest elixir until Vira returned, and every second that passed was worth its weight in gold. He repeated his earlier shenanigans and slammed his fist against his nose, doing his best impression of a pressurised hose. This time, he remembered to recall his soulbound cauldron first, transferring his completed elixir to a glass jar.

  He lost hundreds of millilitres of blood every second, fast enough that his health was dropping at an alarming rate. When he started to feel lightheaded, Arthur eased off a little. He focused the remnant energy in his skeleton on replenishing his blood supply. While all this was going on, Arthur reached out to Wovan. His Soul Splinter was currently gorging herself on the remains of Shylo’s army.

  He communicated his intentions to her as carefully as he could, something that had become significantly easier since she’d evolved and he’d learned Link. Her task was perhaps the most important part of his plan. While the Silverglade Palace was a powerful monster, significantly stronger than Wovan had been in life, he didn’t have an overpowered trick like sharing the effects of his source title to completely break the scales of power.

  His plan with the palace was a little different. The ordinary house mimic had come so far through the quality of materials it had absorbed and the prey it had killed. Arthur would utilise that trait and take it to the next level. He’d all but killed the monster with his first attack against Shylo, and still the Avatar had managed to utilise its powers to give him all kinds of grief.

  A pseudo-territory. That's what Vira had called it. A place that made its Lord nearly invulnerable. Now, what would happen if Arthur took that foundation and fed it the remains of a dragon and the most potent materials he had access to, one of Wovan’s many bodies, and the greatest source of vitality he knew of: himself. Or more precisely, his severed right hand.

  The most important material, however, was what he’d just sent Wovan to retrieve, a splintered shard from Haadran’s world core. It was a difficult task, impossible normally, but Wovan was the perfect spider for the job. With its Avatar recently deceased, this was the weakest the planet would be in a long time, and it had no defences to speak of. Eight minutes later, Vira teleported back into the basement with a large rucksack in tow. The only sane remnant of Viktor's consciousness accompanied her.

  The ancient dragon stared at his corrupt counterparts with clear disdain, though Arthur could see a hint of fear beneath the veneer of arrogance. This was a stark picture of what he could have become, a puppet soldier of corruption. The ancient dragon turned and glared at Arthur.

  “Boy, what crazy plan have you concocted now, because if you use my heart for anything weird, I swear I’ll beat you black and blue, my lacking body be damned.”

  “You can stop the stupid posturing, you old coot,” Vira muttered, opening her rucksack. Viktor stared at her aghast as his heart and remaining body parts tumbled to the floor like ordinary junk. The bag had clearly been a magic item, because they’d been perfectly masking the priceless treasures they contained. Arthur looked at the shadow bowl filled with his blood. 800 litres. Maybe 900. Not bad for a few minutes of work. It would have to be enough.

  Arthur resummoned his trusty bowl and walked towards the mimic's monster core. It was the biggest he’d ever seen. The attack that had killed the monster seemed to have changed its properties a little and tinged it with the poison affinity, which opened some interesting opportunities when he finally made it his Soul Splinter.

  Arthur grabbed the core, ignoring how it blistered his skin and ripped it from the ground. The dark green deepstone beneath him immediately dimmed, and he shoved the massive orb into his cauldron, which was now the size of a large bathtub. Viktor and Vira watched him work with growing fascination as he poured 200 litres of his gathered blood into the pot.

  He knew instinctively what his soulbound bowl was capable of. Instead of dissolving the core as it should have, his blood remained inert, held at bay by his will infused through his soulbound item. Next, he grabbed the container of Viktor's blood, the last six litres of it that existed. He dumped it into the cauldron, ignoring Viktor's shocked gasp.

  “You can start working on that time-altering magic, by the way,” Arthur announced as he continued to work. “Make the rune circle big enough that I can lie down within it comfortably. Use my blood to draw them. There's plenty enough for the job.”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Arthur sighed in relief when neither of them asked any questions and immediately set to work. It seemed they could sense his nervous energy. Arthur could feel it building up. He was under more pressure than he’d ever been before. Counting down the lease of your life tended to do that to you. One unexpected variable, and he was sure he’d blow like a keg.

  The modified ritual Iris had drawn for him had burned away with his Secret Notebook, but his memory was good enough nowadays to recall it with perfect detail. He still had the tools he’d used the first time when he’d created Wovan, which felt like years ago, and though his canvas was far worse today, Arthur had a feeling it would lead to some interesting results.

  Pulling out his paintbrush, Arthur began drawing the runecircle on the ground. The mimic's core was far larger than Wovan's had been. That meant that his proportions were slightly different, but Arthur ensured that every rune was perfectly scaled up to size. The deepstone ground was uneven and filled with bumps, but Arthur incorporated the deficiencies into his work.

  Halfway through it, Wovan returned to the basement. Seven of her bodies were missing, having been lost to the dangers that plagued anyone who ventured tens of thousands of miles beneath the ground. Arthur grinned when he saw her, though. She would only return for one reason. One of Wovan’s bodies stepped forward, a larger one that had clearly died and been reborn through The Firebird's Rebirth. She hacked and coughed up a shard of obsidian glass half again as large as she was. Arthur identified it and grinned.

  “Is that… is that what I think it is?” Vira whispered.

  “If by that you mean a splintered fragment of the world core, then yes, yes it is. I’ve got everything we need now. How are things on your end?”

  “We finished a few minutes ago.”

  “Let's get this show on the road, then.”

  Arthur flexed his shadow magic and summoned sinuous strings of darkness that formed runes across the room. “Use my blood to finish drawing the runes following the guidelines my shadows show you.”

  When Vira didn’t move to start work immediately, he turned to face her.

  “You’re creating another Wovan, aren’t you?” Vira whispered quietly.

  Arthur nodded. “I hope to, yes.”

  “Is that wise? Creating her is what got you into this mess in the first place.”

  Arthur nodded, “I don’t want to just master nether. That's not enough to make me important enough to keep alive. I want a way to gain control over planets affected by corruption, too. This is my ticket to that.”

  “Haadran is one of those corrupted planets," Vira replied, "you want us to help create and gift you the keys to our world.”

  “If things work as I hope, then yes, though I’d phrase it a little differently. You’d be helping me make keys that I could use to gain a foothold on your world. There's a big keyword there.”

  “And you need those two crazy spirits to do that?” This time it was Viktor who asked the question.

  Arthur turned to look at the corrupted remnants of the proud dragon. He'd already drawn half the required runes around it. “A palace needs its guards.” Arthur shrugged. “I can’t think of anything better than a dragon. Besides Wovan, of course. Being fallen won’t be a problem, since this new Soul Splinter is going to be steeped in corruption.”

  Vira sighed and took the paintbrush from him. “The only reason I’m helping you is I think I’ll at least live long enough to regret my decision this way.”

  Arthur smiled. “Good choice.” Grabbing the jar containing his elixir, Arthur used Homunculus' Eye to identify it.

  Good thing that's exactly what I’m looking for. Arthur walked into the runecircle Vira had prepared. He considered cross-checking it with Cyprus but decided against it. If the ancient healer still wanted to double-cross him after everything that had happened, then his situation was well and truly hopeless.

  “How exactly does this work?” Arthur asked.

  Vira answered without looking up from her work. “It accelerates the biological functions of anything within it by a factor of twelve, even your ageing. Whatever your refinement may be, it's still a biological process. Doing it in that circle will make it significantly faster.”

  Arthur nodded out of habit, even though Vira couldn’t see it. That was as sound an explanation as he could expect. He stepped into the circle and raised the jar to his lips. He hesitated for a second. These core slots were opportunities he would never get back. Shylo's was powerful enough that he wouldn't regret it. Samuel's, however, was far weaker than he'd hoped for. Arthur sighed. Chasing a perfect path to power would mean nothing if he died today. Sometimes, you had to make sacrifices. It was just another transgression he'd have to lay at the feet of the bastards coming after him. Arthur briefly considered attaching his consciousness to one of Wovan’s bodies to better observe the process, but decided against it. Who knew how that would affect his refinement? There was no time for second thoughts now. It was time to become fallen.

  Arthur knocked the jar back and began to drink.

  Patreon will be continuing as normal.

  Links to the audiobooks.

  Etherious: Originator

  -

  Here

  Here

  Here

  ?Goodreads

  Patreon is available with access to 8 advanced chapters.