After entering his World that Walks form, Dei flew high into the clouds so as not to scare the people below while he tested his new speed, blurring from horizon to horizon. To him, though, the ground seemed to scroll by, and he enjoyed using his enhanced senses to watch people going about their day before they fell out of view.

When they'd both adjusted to their current- though not top- speed, he finally asked what'd been on his mind since The Mother's soul.

"So what did becoming chaos born do for you?" he asked telepathically.

"It is… difficult to describe, mostly because I do not yet have the spark required. As best I can tell, I'm supposed to be able to utilize pure chaos but there's just… none. I don't know how to make any and I cannot find any in the air, though my body continuously attempts to draw in something so I know I should be able to."

Dei frowned, 'Chaos isn't really present in the world anymore, is it?

'Oh, but what about my chaos aura?' he realized.

"I might be able to help you use some once we're in an area I don't mind shredding, perhaps over the ocean? I can supposedly create chaos, you might be able to draw from that."

"Hmm, hm true, but I do not believe that will be all. Zyz'Ti said something about trials and passing them to gain a pseudo affinity, and I believe I will need to find one of those if I want to use it. I would not mind experimenting with it, though. Also, for whatever reason, I must be in a humanoid form to create paths in my body that will contain chaos. This is why I chose the form I have, because I the chaos organ would not form unless I was humanoid."

'Interesting…"

"Do you think it has to do with pseudo-affinities and their paths?" he asked, "It seems like magic near the beginning of time worked a lot different, mostly based around concepts that were not yet widespread. After all, I assume there were no Ascenders at the time, which means no affinities. So what carved the paths in magic? My best guess would be that Primordial Slayer guy. Maybe he could use magic without limit, and people could only follow in his footsteps so that's where the first spells came from. I'm not sure, but I'm trying to find a way for a concept to become more widespread without a divine backing, and someone who can alter reality would be the only real way. In that case, maybe you have to become closer to him in form to use his magic, otherwise you aren't following in his footsteps?"

"That is a logical conclusion, let us assume this is true. That would also give me a hint as to how I could unlock a new path and what the trials might be. Outside of a Celestial Parasite, what could I do to prove I am following in his footsteps?"

"I'm not sure but- wait, actually, Perumah how are you going to unlock your new affinity? I thought you had to cannibalize one hundred members of your own Race or something?"

"That will not be an issue. It is already done."

"Oh… uh, what about the part where you have to enjoy it?"

"I bring pride to myself from my victories scored over other hives."

"Hmm. This would be a lot more horrific if you weren't a plant. Maybe? Actually, plants can be sapient as well now… hm. I'm just going to ignore this."

They continued to theorize about what she might have to do to get the full use out of her chaos-born-status, but it was ultimately not the worst if they couldn't find anything. She did, after all, still have at least one path. From what Zyz'Ti said, most users back in her time didn't have any at all, so she was more than ahead of the curve.

* * *

When shore was no longer visible and they hadn't seen any boats for the last ten minutes, Dei decided to fully cut loose with his speed, burning through his SP as quickly as his body would let him.

The roar of air muffled abruptly, and he sat in a world of absolute silence.

'Did I… pass the speed of sound?'

He gradually slowed, and noise returned. He was braced for an eruption of force catching up with him, but to his surprise, there was nothing.

'Okay so I'm not breaking the sound barrier?'

He tried again, and when it silenced, he observed his surroundings.

The two dorsal wings on his back seemed to hum to life, glowing ever so slightly. When that happened, the friction on his body from the air fell away, and he was able to glide through the air unimpeded.

It was Perumah that figured it out, her and her fancy ability to see magic in the air.

"The wings are emitting some kind of concept that forms a pocket of smooth space. I believe the air displaced by your passing snaps back into place, meaning the force exerted on your surroundings is not present for long enough for it to create a significant pressure difference."

"I'm smooth enough that the wind slides off me, got it."

"Sure."

* * *

In the middle of the ocean, Dei thought back to the screen for the Skill he was about to use- [Hellish Divergence].

[Hellish Divergence - Level 1 - Passive

Hell is not created, it is existence. Where there is life, there will be death; In order, there is chaos; and in pleasure there is pain. To create a living hell for all is to attune yourself to their every pain, breaking them down in the fires of agony. Chaos is all, it is uncontrollable and unfathomable for most, but the eyes above look kindly upon you. While chaos cannot be controlled, it can be guided by the hands of power.

Laces Presence with Holy Chaos, giving rise to miracles and calamities alike]

Passive Skills couldn't exactly be controlled or empowered in any way, only turned on and off. When he activated it, he would be handing over a portion of reality to the affinities connected with him.

Perumah flew high above in the distance, carried by her cloak, while he stood on the surface of the water. He was 99% sure that he would be able to protect her from chaos by linking their souls with Connection, but he wanted to get a feel for it before experimenting.

Looking inward, he found the switch for his Skill and was startled to see it in such detail.

He saw the grand construct of a Skill before him, a near-unfathomable thing, in perfect clarity. More than that, he knew exactly what every individual bauble did.

Still, he hesitated to touch it. Knowing what a brick was and knowing how to build an entire university were two far different things.

The stark difference could only be the result of one thing- Knowledge, the new Leviathan addition to his arsenal.

He didn't normally look closely at his Skills, so he hadn't noticed it until now, but he spent a moment investigating what Hellish Divergence did to see if he could divine more from it.

Stolen story; please report.

He first looked for the "Influence" aspects of it, trying to figure out what it did. In place of a piece, he found a wall of hollow openings, slots for something to be placed, and a filter behind them. Chaos would exit through these holes, but there was a place at the end for the chaos to become… jaded. Before leaving the Skill, the chaos would run through something that would narrow its effects.

'I see! So things like Wrath could put a Wrath filter over my chaos, making it lean closer to that affinity, though not directly controlled!'

Next, he went behind the scenes of the Skill and found a targeting mechanism. Contrary to what he expected, there was nothing preventing the chaos from ripping him to pieces. Instead, it got around harming him by ensuring the Chaos had "Force" and "Interaction" filters within it, meaning it was able to push itself. This was important because the Force aspect blasted it out from his skin, and the Interaction aspect made the chaos push itself away from its origin.

He would be surrounded in a film of chaos, perpetually pushing all the rest of it away; his flesh would never touch it because the Force grew weaker once it left his body, meaning the force of new chaos would always exceed that of old chaos.

This was also how it decided radius, and how far the chaos would affect. With each level, the Skill had more power to work with, which increased how much it could influence while increasing its effects, basically strengthening everything about the Skill. That's why it never listed what would be improved with each level. The only thing that grew was the power source, which let every other facet draw more energy without compromising its purposes.

Just by looking at the Skill, he could also verify that if he linked his soul with Connection, they would be safe. This was because they would also start emitting chaos, forming the required layer of protection.

The core of the Skill, the power supply, was but a flickering candle of unfathomable energy.

Chaos.

Where did it come from? Nowhere, it just existed. How was it contained? A complex labyrinth construct that perpetually mirrored it back into itself.

'Incredible… it's all so clear to me. I can see everything…'

He wanted to stare at the Skill for hours, but he was on a schedule. He could experiment more as they went.

He returned to the button that would activate the Skill, the one that'd open the gate to the chaos' mirror labyrinth, and made sure Perumah was far away; now that he had a better idea of what it was, he knew this was going to be far more dangerous than he thought at first, and he didn't exactly think chaos would be sunshine and rainbows.

It was even more dangerous than his second guess.

The moment chaos ran through the construct, Dei watched several filters seal every single opening in the spell as tightly as they could- his affinities were attempting to choke the Chaos out and neutralize it before it ever even hit the surface. He had a bare moment to wonder why.

The instant chaos came into contact with the air Dei erupted into a continuous exploding ball of fire; everything within a hundred feet of him was caught in it and vaporized. Arcing lightning shot out of him, striking at the clouds and ocean before returning to dance in the flames surrounding his body before looping outwards once more, even further empowered.

He cut the Skill, but the chaos fought back. The labyrinth creaked ominously, and Dei quickly formed a ball of Presence that pushed into the Skill, commanding it to shut down.

Finally, the door slammed shut and the power source was sealed away.

The energy still running through the construct was quickly pulled away, and the explosion sputtered to a stop, the lightning gradually losing its bite and returning to nothing.

Steam filled the air while dead fish boiled to the surface, the only sound a gentle sea breeze.

"Okay… I don't think that's what was supposed to happen."

"How positive are you?" Perumah shouted down at him.

"My affinities tried to shut the Skill down before it even activated, I think it's something to do with the physics of Earth. Also could you come down here?"

"No. Send a line of Connection to talk to me!"

He sighed, but obliged. He couldn't blame her either, that could've been horrific.

He started to explain his idea to her. "The physics on Earth insist that mana can only exist in the bodies of people, but the chaos Skill is made to leave my body. I believe the vacuum of mana in the air makes it so the chaos is pulled out of me endlessly, while the Reality Being named Separation pitches a fit that mana exists and starts ripping it up. Not consciously of course, it's just that its mere presence does that to mana in the air, stopping it from existing. There's clearly a close connection between chaos and mana, so there's a link there that's doing something. Basically, I think the chaos is turning into pure energy, so even the smallest wisp of power results in a massive, forceful explosion."

"If it's pure energy, why would it do… all of that?!"

"Do you know what would happen if antimatter and regular matter touched to create pure energy? A big explosion. I think Separation is taking on the role of anti-chaos here, and fuckin everything up."

"How sure are you?"

"Not at all. I just felt all the chaos forcing its way out of my Skill and I don't think it's conscious, so I'm gonna assume it's something to do with the laws of reality. Either way, this is a total dud right now. At least I can launch an amazing AoE attack against anything near me? But I won't be able to do that anywhere close to civilization. As a matter of fact, I'm afraid of doing it near a continent at all, because if the affinities hadn't pulled me out of the fire, the explosion might've even reached you."

He sensed her displeasure through the connection; not at him, just the dangerous accidental use of his Skill.

He felt like sweating when he remembered his [Starved Bastion] Skill, which created a world of entropy within his soul and came from the same chaos class. He would not be turning that one on until he was out of this universe and away from Separation, because he didn't want to risk a hint of chaos appearing inside his body and blowing him to smithereens.

"Now for the real question… what happens if you're connected to me when I activate the Skill?"

"No."

"Darn… it'd be cool though, and I wanna see what it looks like from the outside! Maybe I could channel the chaos through only you!"

"No!"

He chuckled, "Alright alright. What did you see though?"

He felt her revise some of her memories and package them up and send them to Dei.

From an outside perspective, he turned into a literal star. The chaos went to an exact range and abruptly stopped.

Not only that, but Dei watched the results emanating from the explosion get suppressed- it was like the world attempted to prevent chaos from leaving any lasting effects. If chaos created heat, the universe created cold; if chaos tried to shake the air, there was suddenly a force pressing opposite to that; even the lightning was smothered the moment its bastion, the area of destruction around him, faded away.

'Verrry suspicious.'

* * *

They held no more experiments from that point forward, and quickly made it to the north pole. Dei expected there to be a camp or marker of some kind, but was immediately disappointed. His compass just started to spin, he was suddenly there, standing on ice under a blizzard.

"What?! This is it?" he said, looking around.

He wasn't sure where the seam was and wanted to test something, so he sent out the hairs of connection on his back. Because he had a mile of slack to work with, he spun them around and found what he was looking for quickly- confirming the underwhelming state of the exact north pole to be right here.

"Why is this unexpected? Earth's denizens are far too weak to the elements to reside in such a hostile environment for an extended period of time. What did you expect?" Perumah asked, baffled.

"I don't know… a station of some kind? Some people living here, studying the poles or something?"

"The snow caps on Avium move places gradually, so it would be difficult to stay at the right place with a permanent fortification if Earth is similar. Though I understand your befuddlement more now- there is much to be learned about the poles. Perhaps Earthlings could figure out multiversal travel if they spent more time around their dimensional seam?"

"Yea, I guess… Whatever… we're here. We can now take Victoria here whenever we want, so do you want to go back?"

She almost spoke up but paused. "Actually… We should enter the seam first."

"How come? We already did that back on the gate world, yea?"

"True, but that was in System territory. We know that the System makes things tamer, more equalized. System space is a kind of domesticated reality, while we currently reside in the wilderness. I believe we should guarantee nothing dangerous sits between worlds before taking an Earthling here."

"Ah, good point honestly… didn't think of that. Alright, ready?"

She hummed in agreement, and he saw the blade part of herself extend as she crouched down ,ready to launch into action.

He rolled his eyes at how cautious she looked, but didn't begrudge her the peace of mind.

'There's nothing outside the quarantine that can really put up a fight anymore. Most stuff has some terrible stats compared to what Classes give you, and everything outside the System is even weaker than that.'

Grabbing both sides of the tear in reality, he channeled his Void affinity and pulled it aside.

A tentacle shot out, slamming down on him so hard his body embedded itself into the ice beneath him.

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