Where there was nothing, there started a song.

  It echoed across strings of glass, mirror-diodes and hearts. Across a shared connection, both intimate and distant. A promise to look into the future together.

  The song sought the connection and swam across it. Ann was sitting in the living room, reading from a book she’d picked up a few days prior. She was resting, sitting comfortably, when her heart thrummed.

  Mana-glass pulsated with power. It was so loud she heard it, and then the melody lit her blood on fire. Not a painful fire, but the kind that she felt when Fio whispered to her. The kind that pulsed with energy and want and love. The kind that promised that there was nothing they could not face.

  Ann heard it, she heard the song, and felt it thrum through her veins all at once. A promise, a resonance, an Echo of who she was and who she could be. Perhaps, to some, that would have been overwhelming. To others, it would have been enough, it would have been a comforting sensation.

  But the mage was a genius. She was a former goddess. She had reached the summit of existence - and she would reach it again. Not as a divine, this time, but as a mage. So, when she heard the song, there was only one thing it could be.

  Insufficient.

  It was not enough, because nothing could ever be. Ann felt echoing notes thrum through her existence, heard them thread themselves through the others, their thin connection strengthened. She felt the way that the music entwined with the talents that they shared, that were transferred between them, and felt them reinforce.

  All at once, she became a bit more of a prodigy. A bit more adaptable, a bit more hardy, a bit more of everything. And it was deemed too little. Inadequate.

  Her mana raced through her veins, and it met the song. A torrent of liquid magic cycles through her, the circles around her heart expanding. Five circles to encompass who she was, five circles that spun with power that could level cities. All at once, she turned it on herself.

  Magic burnt. It hissed through her in an explosion that tore her blood vessels open - or would have, were they not reinforced by that same energy. She gently closed the book and placed it aside, casting a dozen spells in the space of a breath. Reinforcement. Enhanced Focus. Time Manipulation. Compression.

  The song suddenly grew. It arced in tone, and echoed each spell over on itself. The magic fed the song, and the song fed the magic. Mana thrummed with resonance, and Ann felt the way it changed. It went from gaseous force to ephemeral strings.

  A tapestry that wove her very being. She reached for those strings, and played them lke a harp, driving the song higher. She added her own notes, she matched the Echo at every step, and demanded more. Demanded she be more, because she was more. She was a genius, and within the span of half a minute, she’d melded this force with her previous cultivation base.

  Echo bent to her will. She understood where it came from, she already drew the conclusion of why Fio had lanced it through the network, and she already added her own symphony to it. And yet, she was angry.

  Because, half a millisecond before she finished, somehow, that fucking Rat had done the same thing!

  - - -

  Matt was a prodigy. When the song reached him, it was just before he swung the sword. When the motion was halfway completed, the song thrummed and enhanced it. When he finished the single swing, he had woven his own part into the symphony.

  It came as naturally as breathing to him. Power. He was meant for this. He knew what he was about.

  Tragically, Matt was a swordsman. It took a single swing and the song sang of his storm. Blossoms danced and whistled, each movement of his blade another resonating note, each gale of wind marking a new beat, a repetition, an enhancement.

  Echoing threads glowed in his core, each petal resonating, duplicating, humming like the dying embers of a fire, like fireflies in the night. He felt the storm ebb and flow around him with newfound strength, with support that was unlike anything before, he felt his mind speed up as the world heard him.

  His will was absolute, as sharp as his blade. The world heard his song, and was carved apart without resistance. A thin smile appeared on his lips.

  Somehow, Fio had done it again. She’d found yet another new step-up in power for them all to exploit. And then, he frowned. When he thought to check, Ann had already mastered her usage of Echo. He furrowed his brows. That damn genius just had to show him up, didn’t she?

  - - -

  I shook my head. Looking at the absolute insanity that was my friends. I had barely just conceived of using Echo as a resource, and not even a minute later, Ann had created a new Mana-Echo amalgam. Matt had somehow fully integrated it with his Qi and created a sub-core within his maelstrom.

  Then a few minutes passed, and the archmages followed, as well as Liam, Reya, Emilia and Marie. Everyone across the network got the hang of Echo quickly, and each resolution was easier than the last. Because every time someone added to the strange song, more of their talent flowed through the network.

  Which was good, because I was going to need it.

  Unlike the others, my integration did not go as easily or smoothly. No, I had a bit of a tougher time, because when I picked up the song, it suddenly spread. Like an infection, it spread across every connection I had - and for our network, that was useful. They fed the song. I could feel the resonance building from that.

  But it also spread to my spear, Astraeus. Even to the gateway within me. The song spilled into Cass, and then it spilled through that portal, and in one blindingly bright moment, it infected everything.

  Every version of me. Every alternate reality that had another Fio in it, every success, every failure, every ongoing battle. A million, billion, trillion instances of me suddenly saddled with Echo.

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  And then their resonance crashed into me.

  That was when I learnt what violence meant. In a single, all-consuming blast of noise, an Echo brushed by my soul. It was magnified infinitely, an unspeakable number of worlds each adding more to the song. A cacophony of noise so unimaginably loud I cannot describe it.

  I felt like an ant caught up in a tsunami. It was as if the entire world’s ocean suddenly crashed into my fragile shell. The sheer ambient pressure was enough to rupture my skin, to crush my bones. In the first heartbeat, my eardrums popped. Then, every single blood vessel in my body shattered at once.

  Describing it that way feels like an injustice, but it felt like within the span of a second, I was turned from a human to a bloody smear on the ground. The sheer volume of power was so overwhelming I should have simply died on the spot, and yet, that power also reinforced me.

  It was mine. Despite being created by so many different me’s, and all of my friends, it was a strength meant to be shared. The song bled across the connection, and the roaring torrent fed into my friends.

  Matt’s Qi surged, and his sword turned sharp enough to cut the world in two. Ann’s Mana heart spun faster, the energy humming and screaming, as her spells supercharged, and she caught a glimpse of the entire tapestry of fate at once. Even Reya’s Divinity redoubled, and in a single moment of divine fortification, the Echo fed into her forge, and she smithed the beginnings of true divinity, breaking through to the fifth rank as well.

  Liam fed the Echo to his wellspring, turning it into a maelstrom. Marie lit up like a beacon, developing a three-threaded energy meld that fused her wellspring into her Mana heart. Emilia simply stood and endured, like the wall she always was.

  Power threatened to consume us, but instead, the chorus rang higher, our voices sang louder. Even with my bones shattered, the golden glass within me was the same, and I knew what I needed to face.

  That I was no longer human.

  My skin washed away like ash in a breeze. It flaked off me, and the blood disintegrated. Heat washed over my body, and the dirt that could have once been considered biology was stripped in moments. Instead, what remained of me was gold.

  Golden glass.

  The thing that had been underneath my skin, growing with every gateway I absorbed. This was where Ion and Vivi had come from, too. This was… my gateway, my soul, my inner realm, my maelstrom… it was me.

  My Qi responded to my will. My iron will, which remained despite everything. It moved when I wanted to. It shifted with my desire, and it held steadfast in the storming song. Even when the noise got so loud my mind should have broken, it never did, because it was simply noise.

  It was the world roaring as it witnessed all my lives, all at once. Each step ever taken, each step not taken. Every possibility realized, every battle won. It drew from my best and my worst, from each life and each death that I could have gone through. And I breathed it all in.

  Resonance filled me. My existence Echoed across the realm, and I felt the song thrum and climb and grow like a living thing. It melded with my gateway, threaded through it, and soared. It Soared through endless Freedom. As I was meant to.

  My ruinous wings spread. Crystals, droplets of golden glass hanging in the air, refracting the setting sun across the snow. Golden light wrapped around me in rings, and the star within my chest burnt brighter. The nova within me grew, consumed, and sustained itself off the song.

  The gateway within me reflected each and every usurper I had ever faced. The way they used, threaded their powers was mimicked, and their states of mine were consumed. [Superimposed Experience] flared like never before, as a hundred thousand experiences threaded through me.

  Perhaps I should have leaned on the strongest one. On the frog-demon who seemed to haunt me. On the flame-giant as it killed Orvan. On the one that had burnt my skin off before Stella saved me, but all of those experiences were only fuel to the fire.

  No, the one I listened to was of the leyburn.

  At the very beginning, where I had been shattered and reborn. Now, too, it was happening again. A song filled me, every corner of my existence, and when that began to flag, I thought back to who I was. Stubborn, petty, compassionate, optimistic. I would not break. Against the song, against the storm, I would never break.

  In those final moments of the building song, I remembered who I was. Where I’d come from, and where I was headed. The past was already written, but the future was to be determined by us. I smiled brightly, and the storm collapsed.

  Each note, each verse, each beat of the song coalesced within me, writing a new talent, a new path forward. It fused into my Qi, into my cultivation, because it was still the same, after all. It was the eternal pursuit that defined me, the thing that I had been doing and would keep doing. To seek freedom.

  And then it was over.

  All at once, I consumed the song. Its building resonance shifted and built me up rather than breaking me down. Golden glass rippled with noise, hummed with resonance, and blurred. Ethereal, drifting notes rebuilt me into something that wasn’t quite human, but human enough.

  My skin returned. My hair grew, blood vessels sprouted, and after everything, my heart beat once more. My existence was the same, I was the same, but I was also more. So, so much more.

  Saph looked at me with shock, staring at the wings behind my back, now adorned with chiming wreaths of resonance, glowing bands of gold that hummed as I moved. They looked into my eyes, saw their new depth, and I knew they’d changed.

  “What’s different?” I asked, smiling gently.

  “Your eyes are… a little more yellow.”

  “Just a little?” I asked.

  Slowly, they nodded. “Just a little. They are still brown. But they feel… deeper.”

  That was a strange description, but I simply nodded. It made sense. Then, I took a deep breath. In, then out. The music quieted, and the world hummed in acceptance of my presence. Finally, the song faded into the background.

  My metamorphosis had passed. I had changed, yes. I was stronger, faster, more real. I had grown, and so had my potential. In fact, there was something different about the network.

  [You have Grown. Your [Transference] now shares a part of all talents of each individual in it.]

  And that difference was one I felt. Each of my movements was different, as dozens, maybe hundreds of new talents suffused my being. It was incredible, to see how others saw the world. Perspectives that grew and bubbled and drove me to be even stronger. It felt wonderful - and strange.

  I could see the world as Saph or Chris saw it, for example, and it was so very different from mine. For the triz-adu it was all more malleable, ephemeral and impermanent. A cycle of loss and gain, where each moment had to be cherished, and eventually let go of.

  Compared to that, the crystalloid in front of me saw the world as almost immutable. A steady growth forwards, a crawling, climbing vine. An acceptance at anything that would happen to it as simply another step forward.

  Saph, I noted, saw even our interactions as inevitable. Simply another step forward. One that they regretted less than they’d thought, one that turned out rather pleasant, but still a simple step. A natural conclusion to who they were, and what their life was.

  I breathed.

  And then, I saw my new talent.

  [ - Parallelity (Your actions Echo. You are the song. Embody all aspects.)]

  Then, I felt it rippled through the network. And, all of a sudden, every single one of my friends also was tuned into their alternate selves, and their own songs budded, sprouted, then soared.

  It was less violent a rebirth then mine, but it was a rebirth nonetheless, though helped along by the spreading tree of talents we had amassed. Within moments, they all grew again, growing stronger from each parallel world in which they existed, and even from those where they didn’t.

  We blossomed like flowers, in that single moment, and the connections we had made with each other drove us to even greater heights. The resonance rang through the network we’d built, through each member of it, and I simply listened to our symphony.

  I sat and listened for a long moment, until the sky split and divine lightning speared down on me.