Threads of the Soul

Blissfully unaware of his newly acquired overnight fame, and the horde of fanatical fans that came with it, Seth was currently busy living in the moment. No cameras, no phones. Just him laying on the floor as his body devoured itself from the inside out and made every second an excruciating hell of new found pain. But at least he wasn't playing any video games, am I right?

No, unfortunately as amazing as that sounded, it was not a fun ordeal. Incredibly far from it, in fact. How utterly surprising, I know.

As soon as the so-called 'Transcendence' began its process, Corvus collapsed to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut, because that's exactly what he was after that moment. It was only thankful that Seth had moved him to the private location alongside him before he began this hellish process, just in case something untoward happened.

He had been expecting that he would be unable to contain his pain to his main body and that Corvus would reflect aspects of it. Not to mention he had to create the illusion that Corvus was retreating into a private area to undergo his transcendence.

The thought that he would lose his connection to his alter ego, leaving it as nothing more than a simply mannequin laying in a pile on the floor as it was dolled up in a feathered cape, had never crossed his mind. It wasn't just Corvus that lost his strings however, all of his puppets did.

Anything that was connected by his spectral threads lost said connection in an instant. His statues froze up, returning back to their immobile stone state and Geetz up above had returned to being nothing more than an inanimate anime figure.

While he was aware of the abrupt loss of all of his connections, there was little Seth could do about it. He was barely able to keep his thoughts straight, never mind having the mental energy to control his threads and re-establish the lost connections.

When it came to those wondrous threads that tied directly into his soul, even if Seth had the wherewithal to control them it was unlikely that they would obey his command, as they acted completely on their own. As soon as they had disconnected from his puppets, the threads quickly withdrew themselves. Like a tape measure suddenly being let go, they whipped in the air as they retracted back into Seth's fingers, retreated up his arm and once more curled lovingly around his fragmented soul.

Speaking of Seth, the poor young man was currently laying, sprawled out across the floor as his muscles writhed and squirmed underneath his taut skin, as if it was desperately trying to escape the torturous confines of his worthless body. But of course, what they were doing was far worse than that.

Under the influence of the system, his muscles were constantly being torn apart and stitched back together whilst his bones were repeatedly pulverised into dust and reformed. Every fibre of his very being was being constantly obliterated over and over, as he was forced to experience the hundreds of thousands of years of generational evolution in the span of a few minutes. Each change was a minute difference, before he was ripped apart and forced to reform again, ever so slightly different.

Over and over, each tiny difference slowly but surely culminated in what the system deemed to be his 'perfection'.

But such a process alone wouldn't be enough for transcendence, oh no. While that would perfect his form, he would still be restricted by the power of his muscles and the durability of his bones.

So with each destruction and reformation, his body was bathed in the universal energies. Not just his body, in fact, but his shattered soul too. While that was not subject to the gruelling process, for souls did not alter with generational change, it was instead feed a buffet of mana, which forced it to output its own energy and infuse it into his body to stop itself from overloading.

It was this process, his slowly progressing state being constantly drowned and radiated in a mix of mana and soul energy, that was the foundation for his true transcendence.

The objects that he had laid out around him had long dissolved themselves, turning into nothing but a stream of liquid energy that seeped into his decimating body, fuelling his transformation and even infusing their own essence into his very being. New blood flowed through his veins and an almost inhuman heart beat proudly within his chest, churning that blood through his body as it perfected itself.

However, not every part of these Catalyst objects went towards Seth. Even Seth himself, despite all the horrific pain he was going through was not focused on himself, never mind the whims of the Catalyst energy.

Instead of flowing into Seth, they curved in the air, curling around his outstretched hand before sinking into the tiny, convulsing body of Omelette.

Seth dug his fingernails into the wooden floor, letting out cries of agony as his trembling arm dragged him slowly across the floor with muscles that were constantly snapping and repairing themselves. The process was gruelling, made worse by his movement, yet still Seth persisted, trying to get ever closer to his Wyvern pet to try and comfort it as it suffered just like him.

It was clear by the way the bird-like creature was writhing on the floor, letting out whimpering cries and squawks of pain, that he was going through the same process. Yet his changes were much more visible than Seth's.

Omelette's feathers were falling out every second, turning to dust as soon as they hit the floor like they were an ancient sea scroll seeing the sun for the first time in centuries, all before new feathers grew to take their place. Each new coat of feathers was a richer black than the last with a glossier finish, and at some point Omelette's skin began to visibly darken and toughen.

His beak cracked and moulted, giving way to something that looked much closer to a draconic snout. The bones of his wings snapped, not just reforming much growing, as they forced his wings to take on a more robust shape to support his form. The small talons he had on the wings knuckles forced their way outwards, sprouting into fully fledged claws like that of a raptor. Ready to rend the flesh of his enemies, while also being flexible enough to somewhat act as fingers.

However, the most visible change of all when it came to little Omelette was his size. With every new coat of feathers, every reformation of his bone structure, Omelette's body bulged in size ever so slightly. Of course, these 'ever so slight' size increases were happening at a rate of hundreds per second, so much so that his little body rapidly expanded into something that could barely be considered little.

In less than a minute Omelette enlarged from the size of a chihuahua, to the size of a German Shepard, and then even further until his body alone was bigger than Seth himself, never mind including his tail and neck.

Gone were the days of his little buddy perching on his shoulder, as the days of Seth riding his Wyvern rapidly approached at a rate faster than he could ever imagine. Even still, with his little buddy being not so little anymore, Seth continued to drag himself towards the screeching Wyvern.

Letting out a belaboured breathe, his arm trembling and newly formed muscles screaming before they tore themselves apart once again, Seth slowly reached forward to drag himself forward another time. That was until he felt a pair of hands hooking underneath his torso before he was gently lifted into the air.

He was lifted and dragged across that cavernous gap between himself and Omelette in barely a second. What would have taken him so long was achieved in such little effort. But he didn't complain, he simply allowed the hands to rest his body against Omelette as he wrapped his arm his pet, holding him close as they went through hell together.

"T-t-thank... You..."

Seth managed to whisper out before his eyes rolled into the back of his head, his mind finally succumbing to the overwhelming pain as he blacked out.

Tilting his head slightly, Bob gazed at his Father holding the Wyvern tight as he finally passed out. He watched as their bodies changed, perfecting themselves under the direction of some unseen force. Despite the emotionless mask that was his face, and the blank and lifeless nature in his eyes, a chaotic storm of emotions swirled within Bob's plastic body.

He kept his eyes fixated on the pair, watching as they changed and improved together, before his gaze slowly dropped to his own hands as he held them up in front of them. He held his hands steady, watching and waiting, before turning them over and inspecting them closely.

Even when his fathers body finally settled into its perfect form, Bob stared at his own hands with a mixture of anticipation and desperation. Yet no matter how long he watched and waited, nothing happened.

Those hands held up before him remained steady as a rock, not a single tremor, as they remained as plastic as the day they were manufactured. Slowly, he raised his hands to his face, hesitating for a brief moment, before touching his fingers against his face. Yet after only a few seconds of inspecting his facial structure, he let his arms drop limply by his side.

Bob stayed in that position, crouched with his arms hanging uselessly by his side, as he stared blankly at the two, the man and his beast. He remained for what seemed to him like an eternity, but was most likely no more than a minute, before finally standing up straight.

He had work to do.

Silently, Bob turned on his heels, about to once again take up watch before stopping as something skittered across the floor. Casting his gaze down, he noticed a small stone laying a few feet in front of him.

It was one of the stones his father had kept, most likely having fallen from the Corvus puppet when it fell.

Reaching down, Bob plucked it from its place on the ground, only for it to disintegrate as soon as his fingers touched it. The stone dust wafted in the air for a brief moment, before forcing itself inside Bob's fingers.

Tilting his head at the curious sight, Bob inspected his hand once again, but still could not see a single difference, so he simply ignored it as he went back to his diligent guard duty.