Nephthys stood at the top of Nemesis, the peak of the Crashstone pyramid that enclosed the entire mountain. Her hands were held out to her sides, angled away from her body in a sort of upside-down ‘Y’ shape. Though she was focused on her spell, she could not help but notice that Akhenaton’s equipment was gone. Even the altar she had been brought to this world on, anchored to the pyramid’s peak with strong nails, had vanished
She let the thought exit her mind and refocused on circulating her mana. She had spent most of the night going over her spellbook and made several key realizations. First, mana circulation patterns were not strictly necessary. Or, rather, they maximized efficiency, not enabled the spell.
She had compared spells in her book thoroughly and found similarities between circulation patterns and spell effects. She surmised that circulation was universal, but different methods were optimized for different effects. Fire spells, for example, all shared nearly the same circulation pattern, with only minor differences depending on spell power and complexity.
Her second realization was that circulation only primed the mana for manipulation. It had nothing to do with creating the spell itself. Granted, circulation was also crucial to spells that affected one’s own body, but as a Djinn, most of those were moot anyway.
Mana seemed to require a sort of ‘inertia’ or ‘velocity’ to use. Spells could be cast with stagnant mana, but it would create strange, unintended artifacts in the spell and, in the worst case, backlash the caster. It was almost like circulating the mana ‘convinced’ it to cooperate with the spell.
Nephthys also discovered that her Djinn body had unbelievable benefits that were not present in Prelude. This entire process of ‘convincing’ mana was largely irrelevant to her. She still circulated it, but her body itself was mana-made flesh. She could manifest the circulation patterns instantly, the mana ready to use.
She currently attributed this to being a Djinn, but truthfully, she had no idea if that was the case. It could just as easily be the void engine within her chest, constantly pulsing out obscene amounts of mana. Perhaps it simply attributed the mana to her or something? It was part of her, so the mana it produced might be attuned to her already.
It could be neither of those. She had no idea how this world and its magic worked. Any explanation could be equally viable.
Whatever the case, the pattern formed within the body primed the mana for use in a spell, but the spell itself was no simpler. The mana seemed to require a sort of consent to be released, and that instant of consent was the only opportunity one had to define the parameters of its release. In other words, a spell had to be formed at the speed of thought.
Her body seemed to have some instinctive memory of spells, as they largely cast themselves without her direction. In fact, just like the light spell she tried first, when she tried to interfere in the process and give direction, it did not go well.
It took hours of constant practice, but she had sussed out the reason. Spells were not simply instructions conveyed mentally to mana; they were a subtle art form. Looking beneath the hood, so to speak, she discovered that during circulation, as the spell began to activate, it passed through her head and a sigil of intricate runes.
This sigil was made of wild patterns of swoops and whirls, all circling and intertwining each other in dizzying arrangements. They varied vastly in complexity depending on the spell, and Nephthys had only begun to understand them. These whorls corresponded to effect duration, those runes signified the exact effect, and other mysteries were becoming clearer, but there were so many pieces to this puzzle that she had only identified the corner pieces.
The spellbook was functionally a recipe book for spells, which aligned with how spells were learned in Prelude, so she should not be surprised. In the game, one had to delve into ancient Praxic ruins. These were ruins left by the high-magic empire of Praxia, the precursor to all modern peoples.
The game’s backstory, told largely through item descriptions and NPC chatter, saw Praxia unite the entire world under its banner, ushering in an era of ‘peace’ in which magic flourished. Their ruins were the primary source of spellcraft in Prelude, with the looted spellbooks providing players with a veritable arsenal of magic, from simple utilitarian spells like Light, all the way up to spells of army-scale destruction.
Nephthys was unsure if it was the spellbooks themselves that somehow came with prescribed instructions for spell effects or her own memory of how spells in the game behaved, but if she did not consciously interfere with the magic, she could cast spells from the game flawlessly. She could even cut the casting time down to being near-instantaneous with her hyper-efficient mana circulation.
This was not good enough, however. In her mind, wielding cataclysmic destruction without understanding it fully was beyond foolish. Constantly shooting a gun without understanding how it worked was a great way to shoot yourself by accident, and the more powerful the gun, the more powerful the backlash.
It was also true that one could only smash her face against a task for so long before a mental reset was necessary. She had already pondered over magic for the entire night. She was likely to see diminishing returns for any further time and thought, so she had resolved to take a break by shifting gears.
She had always thought it peculiar that her Celestial path was locked, mostly. As soon as she escorted Akhenaton back to Nemesis, the skill tree had unlocked, yet only a few abilities became available. Akhenaton, then an NPC, had merely stated that the full range of the Primarch’s abilities would reveal themselves ‘after her ascension.’
Nephthys had written this strangeness off at the time as unfinished content. Perhaps these special trees were not fully developed and would be expanded in future updates. Their acquisition was already incredibly obscure, so perhaps the devs simply thought they could implement and update them before players actually found them.
Now, though she could not see her path as a UI element in the game anymore, she somehow felt there was more to discover. Maybe it was some instinctual itch built into this body, or perhaps it was her memory of Akhenaton calling her arrival in this world an ascension, but there was a certainty deep in the back of her mind: her Primarch path was finally complete.
A torrent of mana gushed from her body, swirling about her and rocketing into the sky like a purple geyser. She lifted her head, staring at the dull red sky above. It was strange, despite the rising sun and the sulfurous clouds obscuring it, she could feel the starry void—waiting, watching—just beyond reach.
Of course, a product of her stats and skills transferring from Prelude was vastly increased perception, so she was fully aware that she was being watched.
“Something I can help you with, Ramose?” she asked without turning.
Ramose, standing by the stairwell with his hands clasped behind his back, blinked in surprise before schooling his expression.
“Nothing that cannot wait, my lady. Please, do not let me impede your experiments,” he said, bowing.
Trying to decide if I’m fit for the position? Spying on me for potential weaknesses? Whatever, I’ll give you something to think about, she thought with a small smile.
————————————————————
Ramose observed Nephthys, a cold sweat running down his back. The energy pouring out of her would have crushed anyone below level two hundred outright. Even at level four hundred seventy-six, he felt an overwhelming desire to kneel, as if something inside his soul recognized power and bent toward it. Devas were fond of hierarchy and structure, so perhaps it was an instinct related to that.
Truthfully, the proper etiquette in a situation like this, where he needed to speak with the guild master while she was clearly busy, would be to wait behind the closed door until a moment presented itself. That would enable him to afford Nephthys privacy while waiting for the least obtrusive moment to interrupt.
However, he simply could not resist watching her magic.
Though his role as overseer put him firmly at the top of the hierarchy, below only Nephthys herself, it was largely administrative. He seldom had the chance to see Nephthys in action, sating his curiosity only through stories the others told. He knew of her unrivaled, destructive prowess, but he had to see it for himself.
That she was aware of his presence was already proof enough that she was beyond comprehension. As far as Ramose was aware, there were scarcely any beings above level three hundred in this world. That put him firmly above even the highest echelons of power, yet he suspected that Nephthys somehow eclipsed even him.
The power pouring from her began to settle into a glow that surrounded her, hovering just above her skin. The temperature dropped precipitously, Ramose’s breath frosting before him. This region likely had not seen temperatures this low since before the Skyfade.
After only a couple of seconds, rather than frosting as he breathed, his breath was forced from his lungs, drawn out completely like an emptied bellows. The cold was now violent, as though the subtle bite had become ravenous. Devas were not required to breathe, nor were they particularly affected by a vacuum, fortunately.
This would be one of Nephthys’s abilities that Ramose had heard others speak of: Moon Dominion. He looked up eagerly, a light shining in his eyes.
The choking clouds in the red sky parted, as if separated by a divine hand. The moon appeared in the hole, its eerie light shining a shade of cold purple down on the pyramid. Morning had fully broken, yet the sun itself seemed to have retreated at the sight of this dread moon, miscolored and ominous.
Nephthys raised her hands, now held out to her sides in a cross shape as she stared up at the moon and the starry sky beyond it. Darkness suddenly descended, as if a void in space had manifested around them, or perhaps they had ascended into it. Stars blinked into being all around him, nebulae spilling across the abyssal expanse. It was eerie and beautiful, a perfect encapsulation of cosmic indifference.
These stars, this moon, these nebulae, they were not aware of Ramose’s existence, and they would be unaffected by his absence.
“Can you feel it, Ramose?” Nephthys asked, her words not of sound but pure mana, vibrating the space as she turned toward him.
It was just Ramose and Nephthys, staring at each other amidst a field of stars. Beneath their crushing indifference, certainty overcame him. Ramose understood.
This is what he had been looking for—who he had been looking for. Devas crave structure, but not for its rigidity or stability. They crave purpose above all else.
Always, Ramose had watched worlds and the tiny beings toiling within them. Always, he had wondered why they toil. Why struggle and writhe? They live such short, meager lives. What could they possibly hope to achieve before, within a cosmic blink, their lives were erased?
Gazing upon his lady, her hair floating in the void, her skin reflecting the glow of condensed mana around her, and her eyes like the sun itself peering through the cosmic abyss, he knew he had found the answer.
“The stars are always present. The sun, the clouds, and the sky can hide them, but their influence is always here. And the stars are always on our side,” she declared, a small smile upon her lips.
This being, this goddess-made-flesh, would provide for him. He could find meaning—build something meaningful—beneath her celestial gaze. As he had the thought, goosebumps traveled down the back of his neck toward his arms, his hair standing on end.
This was someone he could follow.
**Author's Note**
Thanks for reading this far! This is a series I have been writing on Patreon for a while, so we're on chapter 45 there, if that's something you're interested in. Otherwise, I plan on posting here 2-3 times per week.
Thanks so much for reading! 😁
**End Author's Note**
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