“…what?” I asked in complete disbelief. I suppressed a small laugh from escaping me at Shurenga’s ridiculous words. “I’m not killing gods here, Shurenga. Most of the people I’ve stolen Skills from have been regular mortals.”

  Well, I’m not killing gods yet. I hadn’t forgotten Alveron’s request just after the events of Caer Drarrow to slay his Grandfather the Mad God, nor had I forgotten said grandfather’s stirring last week.

  But my laugh died in my throat at the complete seriousness that which Shurenga was treating her words. This wasn’t a joke to her. “Consider this, Nathaniel,” She said softly. “At first, I was puzzled by the spontaneity of your ability theft. There was no clear connecting element between the mortals you slew and gained new powers from. That was…until you stated that both times you triumphed over specific Calamities and gained powerful abilities from them. There is a connecting element between Rhazal, Father of Monstrosity, and Tatsugan, Dread Wyrm. They are both Godbound.”

  A frown slowly crept over my lips to match the one Shurenga sported. “In other words,” I said slowly. “The pet super-weapons of the ‘gods’.”

  “Just so,” Shurenga inclined her furry head. “But do you know how the long banished ones imbued such frightening existences with the control and obedience required to direct them, even after millennia? It is because each of them were implanted with a fraction of a fraction of their Mantle. Their Divinity itself.”

  I was…very startled to hear that. “What? Mantles are…divine? But I’ve seen regular, if not powerful people use them all the time! Grey for instance sure as hell isn’t a god!”

  Shurenga quirked one eyebrow at me. “I see your education on matters of import has lagged somewhat, Nathaniel, if you have yet to be instructed on what Mantles even are. Come, sit with me. I will explain, and you will understand my reasoning.”

  I did as Shurenga asked, sitting cross-legged on the balcony as the saber-tooth sat on her haunches and loomed over me like a large, feline school teacher.

  “A Mantle is an expression of power that those of your kind forge from a fragment of your boundless soul, upon breaching what is termed the fifth ‘breakpoint’,” Shurenga lectured patiently. “In other words, when you reach level five-hundred you undergo the process to create one. It is a container and a separate spiritual being all in one. It lingers about the existence of its owner, out of phase with reality and dwelling within the Concord. In a sense, it is not dissimilar to Spirits themselves. And yet, it has no mind nor driving will beyond that of the one who forges it.”

  I furrowed my brow, considering her words. I…could see how that fit in, with my limited understanding of how Mantles manifested themselves. I’d always thought they were odd, in some way. It didn’t surprise me to learn they were partly Spirit-based.

  “At the levels you are aware of, Nathaniel, people tend to use them as a weapon. A cudgel, almost.” Shurenga tsked at her own words, shaking her head. “When a Mantle is manifested into the physical world, it has very distinct, wholly unique effect on the environment around them. Tell me, what have you experienced in this regard?”

  I gazed past Shurenga, thinking. “Grey’s…darkens the world around him,” I started slowly. “Like a sort of localized night. Honoka’s heats up her surroundings, feeling like you’re standing right next to a bonfire. My old commander’s sort of…sharpened the air, making it feel like it was almost shaving you. And…,” I paused before continuing. “An old enemy’s felt like a huge, bloodthirsty bear was breathing down my neck.”

  I don’t think I had ever once more the death of General Longstripe, and I never would.

  “All plausible, and all unique,” Shurenga stressed. “Mantles are, in essence, the load-bearing pillar for the growing power of ‘classers’. As they grow in power, their own strength begins to weigh on the world around them, and it is necessary to lean more heavily on them as time progresses. Thus it comes to be that this is the origin of the disease known as ‘Core Collapse’, that your…acquaintance Shacklock is suffering from. His Mantle is cracking slowly, and in the coming decades will fail entirely, spilling the whole of his gathered strength into the world of the physical. In…a likely very odd manner, from the feel of his spirit.”

  Huh. That was very interesting, in an academic manner. I was always glad to learn more about how the strength and abilities granted to me by my Status would advance in the future. Not to mention the actual mechanics of how it all worked.

  “But…what does that have to do with Divinity, and how I’m stealing Skills?” I asked in confusion.

  Shurenga was quiet for a moment, staring off into the distance at the physical form of her ‘aunt’. “The Great Spirits do not know what it is that the ‘gods’ stole, in order to ascend into the existences that they did,” The daughter of one of said Great Spirits said. “But they know what it did. Whatever it is that the Seven gods of Order and the Seven gods of Chaos stole, it implanted itself into their Mantles. And they ballooned, magnifying over and over and over again until their strength grew to the extent that it outshined even my Father at his zenith. Within the Concord, their Mantles hung like great and terrible stars that drew all within their orbit, nearly subjugating the totality of Spirits within that realm to the will of the new ‘gods’. A greater weight fell upon their mere existence, and they manifested strange and frightening powers of a kind that we do not believe originated from the ‘System’. This added weight, this…Spark, for the lack of a better term, came to be known as ‘Divinity’.” Shurenga turned to me with a grave look on her feline features. “And they wielded it with impunity, easily conquering all seven planets within the already existing portal network and bending them to their will. One of these methods was the doling out of portions of their infinite Mantles, and implanting it in carefully selected monsters…to create the Godbound.”

  I considered the contemplative feline sitting before me for a moment. “You…talk almost as if you were there.”

  “Because I was,” Shurenga said softly, smiling slightly at my startlement. She laughed lightly. “I was very young, however. I came to be some few decades before the advent of the War in Heaven, when tensions between the gods were once again reaching their height. I was…the very first of the Mystic Beasts, as you know them, at first an experiment on behalf of my Father. He did not consider me as his daughter until many years had passed. He did not set out to discover a new method of reproduction for Spiritkind with my creation. Rather, he was looking for a weapon, something he could aim at the hearts of his tormentors. The Spirits had suffered under the yoke of the gods for such a long, long time by the point I came into existence that my Father’s frustration reached a boiling point. Thus, he implanted a portion of his strength into a young cub that stalked this isle in ages past, with the intent of raising me into a naked blade raised in vengeance. I was reared in secret and instructed in combat by my Father and his siblings, only…I was not needed. The gods fell into a greater conflict than any they had instigated until that point and slaughtered each other. In the end, I and the other Mystic Beasts that the Great Spirits had borne were not needed for their original purpose. Instead, we became their children and heirs instead.”

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  “You, Taran, and…” I trailed off, but I think my meaning was clear.

  “There are many of my kind out in the wider world, Nathaniel,” Shurenga smiled at me almost mischievously. “Perhaps you will even meet them, one day. But we have strayed from our original conversation. While the Godbound were actively implanted with a portion of Divinity, there were those who were passively granted such grace. You’ve even met one of them.”

  I was silent for a moment, as I realized who she was talking about. “‘The gods were physical existences, after all,’”, I quoted softly from memory, recalling the words of a hidden Elven sorcerer. “Alveron. The gods had children, and those children…”

  “Received a portion of their parents’ Divinity,” Shurenga nodded. “A small portion, admittedly, but enough that it boosted their potential to the point they were known as ‘Demigods’. This Divinity does not fade with time or the passing of generations. It continues to exist within a bloodline, propagating itself unto the successive children of the line, over and over again, stretching its tendrils unto each newborn heir of those ancient thieves. Thus, when you strike out at an opponent possessing the Spark of Divinity and slay them with the scintillant fire of your kind…”

  “It acts as a conduit,” I breathed in shock, finally realizing the implications of what Shurenga was saying. “I’m not really stealing a Skill, am I? I’m stealing the Divinity that exists within them. Either from a distant ancestor, or from the god that created each specific Godbound!”

  “Exactly, Nathaniel, exactly!” Shurenga leaned in closer to me almost excitedly. “Through you, I believe the System is reclaiming whatever it is that ‘gods’ stole so long ago, to Spark their own Divinity! You do not retain it, I believe, since you do not possess a Mantle of your own for the Spark to settle within. Rather, it passes through you and back onto the System itself. What is left behind is a gift from the System for services rendered. A Skill, or a Talent, meant to empower you for further reclamation. However…the passing of Divinity through your soul has left a mark upon you. An almost scent, if you will. Have you perhaps noticed that it is easy for those of power to notice what you truly are as a Precursor? To those with sharp enough senses, none need to actually use an ability similar to your Observe to tell, even if they do not recognize Divinity for what it is. The bedrock of your soul feels different to other mortals, even if you are still one yourself.”

  I leaned back on my hands as I absorbed Shurenga’s words, almost reeling at the enormity of them. Everything…all of it…

  It fit to me, from what I understood of the nature of Precursors. All of us had an ability similar to my own The Scintillant Blade, from what Alveron had told me. While it was a great force equalizer with the ability to strike through all Mystic defences, its true purpose was to act as an almost…an almost siphon against whatever soul, spirit, or bloodline that possessed an ounce of Divinity. And through that Skill, the System was reclaiming, bit by bit, whatever it was that the gods had stolen from it in ages past.

  I let out a shuddering breath at the implications.

  It turns out I had stumbled into a role that was almost natural to me when I joined the Nocturne Division. I was existentially intended to be an assassin, poised at the hearts of the gods. If…the Divinity I stole passed through me when I killed someone that possessed a bit of it…and it wasn’t implanting into a Mantle because I didn’t have one…

  What would happen when I did? More than that…

  What would happen if I actually killed one of the gods? They presumably possessed a much larger portion of Divinity than the mortals and Godbound I’d already slain.

  This was too much for me to think about right now. I had too much on my plate to consider matters of becoming a fucking god.

  I couldn’t deal with it right now.

  I shoved such thoughts away, and focused back on Shurenga.

  “During their time ruling the seven planets, the gods had many children,” She mused. “It is unsurprising that you’ve encountered a handful of their descendants as opponents. That some would rise to the position of an unyielding knight in the service of a prison warden is almost expected. Or even, perhaps…the blood would manifest itself as one of the ruling houses of Dwarven kind.”

  Magnus and House Savoy. To think, that feculent little psychopath would be one of the descendants of what was likely to be the Dwarven god.

  Somehow I was unsurprised.

  “I have a request, Nathaniel,” Shurenga said suddenly, pinning with her amber eyes once more. “I suspect you still hold the Spark of Divinity within you, waiting within your Status for you to update it once more. Then, it will pass back onto the System, and you will receive your gift from it. I cannot sense it at the moment, hidden within the complex mechanism that is a Status. However…I might be able to sense it at the point of passing if you allow me to observe the process. Then, we will have confirmed our suspicions about the mechanism of your Skill ‘stealing’, and how it is not truly spontaneous at all. With your permission?”

  I met her eyes, and after a moment's thought, nodded my head wordlessly. After all, I had nothing to lose. I’d been about to do that anyway before the daughter of Tarus had dropped her bombs on me.

  At the movement, Shurenga leaned down until her large, feline nose was barely an inch away from my chest and closed her eyes.

  I took that for the prompt that it was…

  And called for Hidden Amidst the Spheres.

  I wordlessly clicked yes, and the moment I did, I heard a sharp intake of breath from Shurenga. That…told me quite a bit, but for now I focused on what the System was telling me.

  Vacua Vestiga…even the name felt hollow somehow, never mind the ability itself. I could tell it was a Talent of some kind, and, well…

  I’m not sure it did anything. But I could already tell why.

  The moment I gained the ability I’d stolen from Tatsugan, I felt Synergy start to pulse once again, resonating both with the ability I’d just gotten…

  And my other, newest class Skill.

  Manifestation of Agony, my Sprite Skill.

  I…

  Had the System…deliberately fed me a Talent that was meant only as something to combine with another Skill of mine?

  Was that why it had felt so…miniscule when I stole it from the dying form of Tatsugan?

  Wordlessly, I activated the combination ability I’d received as a gift from the System for my creation of a way to break the bonds of Mystic slavery. As I did, I fed it both Manifestation of Agony and Vacua Vestiga.

  With the crimson and azure space of my soul, I felt a new, much more powerful Skill bloom into being. Like Vis Maledicata Exactoris, this too was directly chained to the star of my soul. Where that one manifested as one of Rhazal’s Revenant hounds, patiently waiting for the moment I called on it, this one appeared as something just as familiar.

  One of the Wyrmkin formed of what appeared to be a shadow. In the space of my soul, it flitted to and fro, almost hiding from my sight, barely visible. Though it nearly hid from me in the shafts of alternating red and blue light, I could tell this new Skill would come easily when called.

  I…checked my Status again, to find a pop-up waiting for me.

  Though I wasn’t focusing on her, I heard Shurenga’s next words, said in an almost reverent tone. “And so the shadow of the gods passes back to its true master…”

  I closed my eyes at the implication.

  It…was all true. Alveron’s suspicion about Precursors…Shurenga’s suspicions about the purpose of it…

  I was meant to kill the gods…

  And reclaim their Divinity.