White-hot mana channelled through my body, rushing through my arms to alight with burning threads on the heart I held in my grasp.

[ Sacrifice

You have Sacrificed 1 [Moderate] Heart of a Gold-ranked Cultist [1] / 1 [Major] Remnant of a Beloved Relation [2]. Windfall bonus activated.

Reward [1]: Inherent Aspected Potency of a Gold-ranked Cultist [Hierophant] now suffuses your body for 1 hour and 50 minutes. All Iron-ranked Attributes raised by 15 Ranks for 1 hour and 50 minutes. All Silver-ranked Attributes raised by 10 Ranks for 1 hour and 50 minutes.

Reward [2]: Relation’s Dream of [Growth] comes to fruition. ]

[ Rank Up!

Your Path of the Newborn Star has risen by one Rank.

Path of the Newborn Star is evolving...]

As the blue screens faded, the world around me changed. I let Escinca’s body drop to the ground as gently as I could and got to my feet, my eyes taking in how everything around me was shifting. Changing. Turning dark. Turning into an area not dissimilar from the visions I had of Arl, the sun god, in a void.

The temple wasn’t gone, nor was anybody inside it. I’d have been pissed if that was the case. Another vision now and I really would have considered killing whoever had come up with that bullshit.

But no. Whatever was going on, whatever strange but familiar space that I was starting to inhabit was superimposing itself on the temple itself. I was still where I needed to be.

I was just also somewhere else I needed to be.

Nobody else seemed to see the change. Well, nobody only included Glonek, who was finally getting a hold of the Oath fires by simply coating his entire body in his own burning blood. His skin bubbled and popped, his flesh steamed and sizzled, his eyes were back to normal, clear and crystalline and redder than blood.

“Something is different about you,” he noted. “What did you do?”

What he didn’t seem to note was how the walls and floor had turned dark as the void, though with the faint outline of bricks and broken masonry here and there. What he didn’t see was the tiniest glimmer of distant stars embedded inside every square foot of the temple.

“What did—” Glonek’s eyes sharpened as he looked past me. “You’re burning.”

I felt that way too. Every step I took seemed to leave a trail of heat behind me, heat that was coming from within me. A blistering, shining heat that crackled with building energy inside my body, ready to come out in the same kind of furious waves that the vampire felt so free to unleash with his fiery blood.

“An evolution?” Glonek asked incredulously. He laughed. Then he began strutting towards me too. “Like that will help now, you little mortal mongrel.”

He rushed at me.

I met him with my own charge. For the briefest instant, lasting less than a fraction of a second, it felt like I was struggling against an enormous weight all around me. A heavyweight pressure like I was at the bottom of the ocean, crushed by insane weight.

Then I burst free. Glonek charged. But I dashed in faster.

The widening of his eyes was like a drink enlivening my very soul. His clawed fingers tried to reach me, but I was quicker. Stronger. The mace struck his chest with a sound like I was hitting solid rock.

Glonek cried out as the force sent him staggering back a couple dozen feet, his body struggling to stay upright. I hadn’t injured him. But the blow had shattered the armourlike coat of blood on his chest.

“What?” He cursed. “How? From just an evolution? Impossible.”

The only answer I gave him were more strikes from my mace. He tried to create some distance like he had before, but my Agility was way higher than his now. His evasive manoeuvre failed. I didn’t even get to enjoy the shock warping his face before it met my hammering blow.

With a shriek this time, Glonek went flying backwards. He was back on his feet in the blink of an eye, despite his face dripping blood and bits of his shattered cheek.

He spat it out. “You—” His eyes flickered to where the Elder was lying prone, motionless. “You Sacrificed hi—”

I wasn’t letting him finish that stupid sentence. I wasn’t letting him get those idiotic words out.

Another hammering blow crushed into his guts, this time sending flying back almost twenty feet, completely crushing his bloody armour to pulp. There, now I could beat him down for real.

“Shut your stupid fucking mouth and die,” I growled.

I was on him before he could fully get up again, my mace crashing down. The blood on him exploded.

My Vitality was so high that the damage from the blast of burning blood didn’t harm me overmuch. Unlike where the previous instances had me being immolated from the inside, I now felt like I had just touched a hot stove. A terrible sensation, but one I could force myself through after all the training I had undergone.

The real problem was that the blast had taken Glonek well out of my reach. My hammer crashed down and left a crack in the void. There was no bloody vampire paste, disappointingly.

“Brute force isn’t going to work,” Glonek growled. “I don’t care what you did to gain a little bit of extra strength and speed, you lumbering buffoon. But you have no way of killing me.” He was gloating even as his body regenerated, even as he grew back to full strength. “And when you finally exhaust yourself, I’ll rip you to shreds.”

He was right. Bastard though he might be, and as satisfying as it was to beat him to a pulp like he deserved, I couldn’t keep it up forever. So what if I had almost two hours of time left? That was still finite. Unlike the vampire’s regeneration, which seemed to have no limits whatsoever.

Considering I had seen Scarthralls who were much weaker and probably had much less mana recover constantly from horrific injuries, I suspected the regeneration itself wasn’t a regular Aspect. Kind of like how Sacrifice could utilise the mana from my unawakened core.

“I don’t need to fight you forever,” I said, rushing at him once again. “I just need to beat you to a pulp until the Ritual starts. And then you and every fucking Scarthrall will be dead.”

Glonek’s eyes widened in disbelieving surprise. His mouth opened, probably to ask how the Ritual could be completed with Escinca dead, but I managed to shove the mace into his mouth. His lips and teeth once again exploded out in welters of blood as he fell back, a brutal kick from me sending him staggering back.

Unlawfully taken from NovelBin, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I had noticed that the mace blows weren’t harming him permanently. Unlike the tied-off Ritual, the Blessing from Escinca had died with the Elder. That was alright. I was still killing this bastard.

With a scream, Glonek tried to fight back. His fists hammered in claw-tipped jackhammering blows. I caught a vicious kick at my waist. The hits hurt. High as my Vitality had no doubt grown, the bastard vampire was still more than strong enough that I needed to take care.

But he wasn’t so fast that he could dodge my counters. He was no longer so much stronger that he could shrug off my blows, Blessed or otherwise.

When my lip split, I made his cheekbone collapse. When I felt my upper arm sporting a swelling where my bone had no doubt fractured, I dislocated his shoulder entirely. When a kick broke my ribs, my retaliating blow had made his diaphragm collapse inwards and his whole body bow down.

And we were both healing back from the wounds we delivered onto each other. Glonek had his unstoppable vampiric regeneration to count on. And for me, Mana Heal driven by all the external mana from Mana Injection was enough.

We both staggered back at another vicious exchange, surrounded by stars, dripping sweat and blood, half our bodies broken but healing at the same time.

“You Pits-cursed, swine-born human,” Glonek grunted out. His eyes were wild. Glassier than ever, driven by a furious, insane light. “If I don’t break past Gold at this rate, I’m going to—”

I yelled and rushed at him. This was still a whole fucking game to him. This was all just another way for him to grow stronger.

He had thought that I was just going to keep attacking like I always did, but anger gave me different intentions this time. I lowered my shoulder and tackled him, sending us both to the ground.

“You piece of shit!” I shouted. I beat him down, hammered away with my fists, my knees crushing into him as I weighed myself heavier and heavier to prevent him from getting away. “Why are you so selfish? So evil?”

I didn’t even realize I had dropped my mace, and I was barely aware that I was activating Sacrifice even as I continued my severe beatdown.

[ Sacrifice

You have Sacrificed 1 [Minor] Bludgeoning Weapon. Windfall bonus activated.

Reward: All blows with aggressive force will now possess a bludgeoning effect for 30 minutes ]

I wasn’t even sure why I burned my mace away with Sacrifice. Didn’t fists already have a bludgeoning effect?

Well, turned out they were extra bludgeoning now. My fists didn’t feel heavier, didn’t form spiky hard edges or protrusions like my mace. But every strike that landed crushed the vampire under me that much more easily, that much more eagerly.

Not that Glonek wasn’t screaming and fighting back. His hands clawed at me, his nails scoring deep bloody grooves on my skin. Even with my higher Vitality, I couldn’t fully fend him off.

With an almighty, shrieking heave, he somehow managed to upend me. I stuttered. How? After I weighed myself down so much?

Now Glonek was trying to hit me back with a furious rain of punches and clawing strikes, trying to shut my attacks down. We were just constantly hitting each other, devolving into an animalistic mess.

“I’m evil?” he screamed at me with so much force that his spit was replaced with all blood around his mouth. A broken fang bounced off my face. “I, who gave you meagre, worthless humans something to live for? I, who gave so many of you Pathless imbeciles a Path that they could finally make use to make something of themselves? I, who am turning around the fortune of Ring Four, of this entire worthless sty of swine shit, by myself?”

“You’re a fucking vampire,” I shouted back. I punched back too, as hard as I could. It hurt almost all over half my body, but I wasn’t going to relent. “You’re killing people, attacking them, turning them into monsters like you against their will. You’re making them suffer. Painting your actions in an imaginary positive light won’t make all the suffering go away.”

“Ever heard of growing pains?” Our hands locked together for a second but then I crushed his palm and fingers. In response, he ripped the stumps of his arm out of my grip before stabbing my chest with the jutting bone. “That’s what this is. When there is massive change, suffering is sure to follow. It’s unavoidable. And this is the only way you will ever change things. The only you will ever make a difference.”

The vampire’s blood was flooding all over me now, turning to fire, burning away my own skin and flesh. He was pouring out too much, even as he regenerated from the wounds I delivered. Did this fucker have no end to his mana pool?

But the worst part was how I was burning alive. Now the bloody flames were eating me from the inside. I might have grown resistant thanks to the boost from Sacrificing the Elder’s heart, but that didn’t make me immune. If I had been here in my normal state, I probably would have turned into a pile of blood-soaked ashes by now.

As it was, a scream ripped out of me as the pain just grew and grew.

“You’ll see real pain for what it is,” Glonek said. I could see him salivate with what remined of his gory mouth. The one eye that I hadn’t managed to blind and pop glared at me with the light of a mad fever. “You think you’ve suffered? Don’t make laugh. I’ll show you what real suffering is.”

The heat was devouring me alive, worse than how my gluttonous core swallowed up mana. Heat. I gasped in a shocked, recollecting. Heat that I had been feeling burning with me—building inside of me—ever since my Path Evolution had started.

Heat that was swimming within me like lines of pure white-hot flames. Threads of power, not unlike that of Gravity and Sacrifice.

“What—” Glonek’s eyes widened. “What are you—?”

A flash of burning white energy rippled out of me, colliding against the blood, aflame though it was, and vaporized a heavy chunk of it.

[ Aspect Unlocked!

Reach recognized. Mana connection established. Requisite Path discovered: Path of the Newborn Star [Evolving].

New Aspect: Heat [Iron I] ]

[ Path Evolution

Your Path of the Newborn Star [Evolving] has Evolved your new Aspect.

New Evolved Aspect: Flare [Iron I] ]

I stared at the two blue screens even as I continued driving more and more of my newfound power through me. More of the burning sizzling sensation emerged outwards, making the stars in the void around us glimmer and glitter ever brighter. Livid heat was now a flood around me, like I was swimming in pure fire. In pure, obliterating warmth.

Like I was turning into a miniature sun.

Glonek screamed and shot off me like I had become a flame that was eating him alive for a change. Half his whole body was scorched, crisped and charred dark. He was recovering, of course, but there was genuine fear in his eyes.

Not because of the heat I could control through my newly evolved Flare Aspect. Not because of the fact that I could just burn away the very blood he was using in an attempt to incinerate me.

No, it was because he was realizing what my evolution actually entailed.

Then Glonek shot past me. It wasn’t surprising. Whatever grand designs he had, whatever plans he wanted to bring out, pride wasn’t something he intended to stick to. Not in a fatal way.

But he wasn’t getting away that easily. Not from me.

I caught up to him in a few bounding steps. Everything was still a starry void around me, but I was spatially aware of the layout of the temple. I knew that when I reached him, when I hammered into his back, I was sending him sprawling out of the temple now.

Outside into the sprawling void.

It was a little different here. The solid ground felt to me like it was that fathomless sea of darkness from which the god had first arisen in my very first vision. I walked on it to get to my quarry, but I felt like one small mistake, one wrong step, and I’d be sinking into the infinite, lightless depths myself.

Whether that was something that would actually happen wasn’t something I intended to find out.

What I did intend to do, however, was finally end this.

My heated charge had burned Glonek’s lower back straight to the bone, and the mana I had sent off via Mana Injection into what was left of his tattered trousers I now weighed down with Gravity. He was locked down only for an instant.

And it was just that instant I needed to stand over him.

“You will not,” Glonek sputtered. “You will not kill me, you mongrel.”

“You’re dead already, Glonek,” I said. “I just need to beat it into you so that you realize.”

I focused on the other different sense of power within me this time. Another sizzling thread, burning with a different intensity. An illuminating intensity.

There was heat materializing from deep within me again, but with it came a new power I could modify to my will. A shining light that I had full control over, regardless of what I did with the burning warmth.

[ Aspect Unlocked!

Reach recognized. Mana connection established. Requisite Path discovered: Path of the Newborn Star [Evolving].

New Aspect: Light [Iron I] ]

[ Path Evolution

Your Path of the Newborn Star [Evolving] has Evolved your new Aspect.

New Evolved Aspect: Illumination [Iron I] ]

I smiled as the blue screens faded in a second, raising my fatally-glowing fists over Glonek. There. Just what I was waiting for. And then another happy little surprise.

[ Path Evolution

Your Path of the Newborn Star has finished evolving.

New Path: Path of Burning Starlight [Silver I] ]