The next time Finn opened his eyes, it was to a pitch blackness and a sharp, stabbing pain in his head.

For a disorienting moment, he didn't know where he was. His face felt stiff and crusty, caked with blood that had dried for hours. When he tried to move, every muscle screamed in protest, and behind him, his wings were cramped and hurting from hours of being in the same position.

The memories came flooding back in a rush. Garuda. The divine trial. The impossible flight across cosmic distances. The Aspects. The Divine Essence. Garuda's final words…

Finn's eyes snapped fully open, adjusting quickly to the darkness thanks to his enhanced Ferropteryx sight. He could see everything clearly — the wooden beams of the ceiling, the pool of dried blood surrounding him in a dark circle, and even the trees outside the window that swayed in the soft night breeze.

He tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. His head swam and the room tilted sickeningly in his vision.

Blood loss… Finn groggily realized.

His body was severely weakened from bleeding out of seven orifices for who knew how long.

But he was alive. And more importantly, he'd survived contact with a deity like Garuda.

As Finn thought of Garuda, he remembered the last prompt he received when a change occurred in his soul before he passed out.

Then he took a slow, careful breath and called up his Soul Register, bringing up the prompt yet again.

[SOUL REGISTER UPDATE]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[DIVINE ESSENCE DETECTED]

Classification: Rank II – Cosmic Enforcer

Quantity: 0.27%

Status: Integrating

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

There it was. Confirmation that what he'd experienced was real.

Rank II.

Finn stared at those words, feeling a cold knot form in his stomach.

Just like every other Ossuarist, understanding what was displayed on his soul register was inherent. It was a seamless transfer of meaning that didn't need words.

And that was why Finn doubly felt the weight of what he'd faced.

How his soul register could make classifications about gods, Finn didn't know. But that didn't change the fact that he now knew what Rank II meant:

Cosmic Enforcers & Destroyers. Calamities even at the level of Gods.

Below them were three ranks of Gods, who were powerful in their own right.

And above them was only one rank. And going by the short man — Osmund's history lesson, that would mean it was the rank of the Great Ones. The Absolutes.

Finn had just dabbled with the projection of a being that was a level below the greatest rank of deities!

The thought alone made him question whether Garuda even meant him any harm in the first place.

Because if He did, he would have been dead twice over.

In fact, Finn noticed that not once had Garuda attacked him throughout that projection.

Did he lack the capability to attack me in that space? Finn thought. Because for a moment. The deity had been angry when Finn stole that minuscule part of His Divine Essence.

But that wasn't the only puzzling thing.

He dismissed his soul register as his mind moved to the other issue that bugged him.

Just days ago, Osmund had told him about Gods. About Faith-based power systems. About divine beings that had slaughtered Transcendents like they were insects. And then, mere days later, Finn found himself face-to-face with a divine entity?

What kind of coincidence was that?

Is this because I know now? The thought crept through his mind like ice water.

Is awareness a trigger for my Errant Heretic title to begin actualizing?

It was an unsettling thought. As if knowledge itself was a catalyst, actualizing aspects of his title that had remained dormant in ignorance.

But there was nothing he could do about it now. What was done was done.

Finn forced himself to stand, using the wall for support. His wings scraped against the wooden surface, sending fresh waves of cramped pain through his back.

The partial transformation had lasted for weeks, but now it felt more oppressive than ever. It was a constant reminder of a soul mass he still hadn't properly controlled.

But that, at least, was something he could fix.

He pushed his doubts and thoughts of Garuda to the back of his mind and focused on the immediate problem. The Ferropteryx had been a nuisance for too long. It was time to finish what he'd started.

Finn slowly lowered himself back to the floor, this time in a more loose cross-legged position. He was going at it right now. Despite his current state of weakness, despite the blood loss, he felt confident. More than confident.

The insight he'd gained simply by observing Garuda's Divine Servitude was substantial. Profound, even. He hadn't stolen the aspect itself but he'd gained a fundamental understanding of what it meant. The paradox of sovereignty expressed through service. The strength of choosing to bear another's burden.

And that understanding was more than enough.

Finn closed his eyes and dove into his soul space.

The Ferropteryx was there, still raging. It sensed him the moment he entered, and its consciousness lashed out with the predatory fury of a sky tyrant that had just survived an attempt on its fundamental nature.

But perhaps because of what Finn had just faced, even the Ferropteryx's domineering tyranny felt… tame.

He wasn't even going to bother trying to carefully coerce the true psyche of the Ferropteryx by finding a weak point through its memories.

Instead, he was going to brute-force his way just like he'd done with the Crimson Fist Baboon.

Using the insight he'd gleaned from Garuda, Finn constructed his own interpretation of servitude. Then he brutally pressed this understanding against the Ferropteryx's consciousness.

The eagle soul mass resisted, throwing up the same walls of pride and isolation that had created those debilitating debts in the first place.

But Finn remained unfazed.

Fifteen minutes. That was all it took.

The Ferropteryx's nature changed after Finn forcefully adapted its mass to the aspect of servitude. It still had that pride. It still had the ego of a sky sovereign. But the difference now was that it no longer directed those at Finn, rather, it subjected itself to him wholly.

In the real world, Finn immediately felt the difference.

His wings began to retract. He could feel every feather folding inward, every muscle relaxing, every bone shifting back to human configuration. The metallic feather-like hair that had covered his skin for weeks faded away rapidly.

The enhanced musculature that had changed his posture returned to normal. Even the predatory edge to his thoughts — the constant low-level urge to hunt, to dominate, to head to high places — finally receded.

Finn opened his eyes and let out a long, shuddering breath.

His back felt normal. Human. For the first time in weeks, he could lean against something without worrying about his wings. Could walk through a doorway without turning sideways.

He brought up his Soul Register again, calling up the specific section for the Ferropteryx:

[CHAOTIC SOUL MASS]

Species Name: Iron-winged Ferropteryx Eagle

Rank: 15 / 21

Type: Beast Soul (Metal & Wind Elemental)

Assimilation: 79%

Mythology Aspect Used: Divine Servitude (Self-Insight)

Adaptations Left Till Soul Drift: 0 (Further adaptations not advised)

Time Till Next Adaptation Recovery: 0 Days (Further adaptations not advised)

[SOUL DEBT]

Current: Require a need for high-altitude flight once within every thirty days.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Finn stared at the new debt and felt a wave of relief so profound it nearly made him dizzy.

Once every thirty days.

That was nothing compared to the hell he'd been living through. No more sporadic bloodlust. No more predatory insomnia keeping him awake all night and sluggish during the day. No more claustrophobic panic when grounded. No more skin-crawling revulsion at human touch. No more crippled healing if he dared accept help.

He just had to fly high once every month.

That was just as simple as Syf's soul debt. He could live with that. Easily.

…But there was a wistful edge to his satisfaction.

As he thought of Syf, he lamented the fact that the Ferropteryx would still never become a shadow manifestation, separate from his body, able to act independently while he remained fully human.

The Ferropteryx would never be that. It was still an embodiment manifestation, requiring him to physically transform to use it. He couldn't summon wings while keeping his human form unchanged.

But there were upsides.

Finn focused, calling up just the Ferropteryx's enhanced vision without manifesting the full transformation. His pupils shifted and changed form, and suddenly the dark room became clear again.

Like an apex bird of prey, he could see details the human eyes could never see. All while still maintaining his human form.

He dismissed it, then tried the hearing. Then the smell. Each sense responded independently, requiring only minimal changes to his body. Just his pupils, or within his ears, or his nose. Nothing that would draw immediate attention in casual interaction.

And that was not all…

The fact that his assimilation had reached as high as 79%, coupled with the fact that this was an embodiment manifestation, meant that the Ferropteryx's natural affinity for Metal and Wind was now accessible…

He focused on a small iron nail that had been left on the floor, probably from whatever furniture had been in this room before. With a thought and a mental tug of his will, the nail moved. Just a few inches, sliding across the wooden boards as if pulled by an invisible string.

Metal magic.

Finn released it and switched focus. The air in the room stirred, he subtly controlled the flow of the soft breeze coming in from the large windows. It circled around him, moving with his hand as his mind directed its flow.

Wind magic.

A slow smile spread across his face. This was tangible progress. Real power he could use beyond just transforming into the Ferropteryx itself.

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