I am become a god. What gods should be. Higher than high, greatest of great.

  The power that’d thrummed through him as he tasted the blood of the Rynu’nakar had almost killed him instantly. The Daimon within him had gone insane, jabbering in nonsense sounds. His flesh had become a rippling canvas of distortion: mouths opening upon random limbs, great tongues lolling and wagging, speaking in time with the insane verbiage spilling from the Daimon’s mind. He had felt the blood in his veins glow superhot, molten.

  And then he had abandoned his body altogether.

  White light had enveloped him and he had felt his being expand beyond the confines of flesh, encompassing the earth, the mountains, the sea, the stars. He had expanded until he encompassed all of Erethia, until he dared reach out to touch the moon, touch Nilldoran, touch the farthest stars of the Great Dark. He was a vessel great enough to hold the universe, the fluid of life itself pouring and pouring into him, causing the walls of his urn to tremble with bottled jubilation.

  He’d shrieked, moaned, writhed.

  The phantom of his mind had passed through stone, flowed down riverbanks, sailed upon clouds.

  He had seen glimpses of the past. And perhaps the future too.

  Such life! Such life!

  Now he understood all. He understood why the Daimons hated and yet revered the gods. The gods were the source of life such as the Daimons had never tasted in all their long years of evolution upon Erethia. They were a spark of some immortality that hailed from another part of the universe.

  It has been so long! The Daimon cried. So long since one of us tasted one! We ascend! We ascend!

  His ascension to Daimonhood had been one thing, but now he experienced something else entirely greater. It was not that his body changed, although it did, his muscles waxing greater, hideous, leathern wings sprouting from his back more than twenty feet in width. No. It was his mind and spirit that changed. It was as though he’d lived in a mansion for many years, and only now discovered new rooms. Or perhaps the room had always been there, but shrouded in a darkness as impenetrable as steel. The darkness had been lifted. Lights shone in the rooms. He saw, clearly, the whole house, the many rooms, and the secrets of ages.

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  Or so he thought.

  For the feeling was fading, dying. He knew not how long he had dwelt in such ecstasy, but now reality was returning. His eyes ached as though he had been staring into the sun. His limbs burned furiously. His spine in particular was sore, torn asunder by the emergence of his new wings.

  The hard earth beneath him. The taste of blood still fizzing and sparking on his tongue as though charged with lightning.

  There were people screaming, wailing, scampering to and fro. The village of Dreamholding was in uproar. Blood, body parts, and rubble lay everywhere. There were armed guards fighting, but they were dying. The great titanic Daimons were taking care of the populace while he absorbed all the power he could.

  His teeth and tongue were buried in the rent neck of the corpse. It was a weightless thing, now, save for the iron hand, armour, and mask. The body itself was withered, sepulchral, a husk. The flesh, once hale, now shone whiter than snow.

  Nothing, nothing left!

  He threw aside the body and stood. The world turned beneath his feet. He could feel its rotation along the invisible axis that hung in the depths of the Void. When he closed his eyes, he could hear the susurration of Memory’s jungles a thousand miles away. The clouds murmured and spoke, prophesying rain. He was one with all.

  His brethren, too, spoke to him, via the vast mind-link, the web of their shared thoughts, shared memory. He heard their praise, their joy, their ebullience. He was chosen, transcendent. He had risen higher than any before him. Daimoniac. Mortal. Daimon. God. I am the perfection nature so long sought, he thought. I am all.

  But his work was not yet finished. And there were those who still barred his path. The other gods and their schemes. He had gleaned something of their plans from Beltanus, deciphering the language of memory which was encoded into the essence of blood. Every living thing carries memory within it. It is invisible, yet its weight is felt. And he could drink it, claim it as sustenance.

  Telos, too. Yes, still, after all that’d happened, he had not forgotten about Telos. The thief of joy. The one who had gotten away. But now, for the first time, he felt no burning desire for revenge. He would meet Telos again, in time. Even if Telos were the last man upon earth. The Daimoniac had time—infinite time.

  But my work is not yet done. The Nergal awaits.

  Beltanus, it seemed, was not certain—this was good. But he could not leave anything to chance. He would have to find it himself. The task would be much easier now. The soil itself spoke to him, the wind was his messenger, the sky and mountains his witnesses.

  Without a word, he spread his wings and took to the sky. Like a black bolt fired from the bow of hell, he hurtled into the white heavens, leaving the devastation of Dreamholding behind.