The golden sky of the Savage Lands felt oppressively heavy. The rusted iron walls of the Colosseum were gone, shattered into millions of fading light particles when Gideon's head hit the floor. The dense jungle had reclaimed its space, but the center of the clearing was still a scorched, obsidian wasteland, a permanent scar left by the clash of concepts. Ren Hanshin stood alone in the center of the devastation.
He didn't move or dismiss the Embrace of the Weaver coat. He just stared at his own hands, his physical body was fine. His Divine Vitality ensured he didn't even feel fatigued. But inside his head, something was deeply wrong. There was a strange, reverberating warmth sitting at the base of his skull. It felt like a phantom heartbeat, a second rhythm out of sync with his own chest. His thoughts were echoing, as if he were standing in a vast, empty canyon and someone was whispering the words back to him right as he thought them.
"System," Ren said, his voice sounding hoarse. "Status window."
A golden screen with crimson borders formed in the ash filled air.
[Name: Ren Hanshin]
[Race: Ascended Human (Demigod)]
[Class: Demigod of the Crimson Thread]
[Level: 12 (Divine Tier)]
[Stats]
Divine Strength: 18
Divine Agility: 25
Divine Vitality: 15
Divine Mana: 85
[System Notice: Calculating accumulated EXP and Karma from mass elimination event.]
[Total Avatars Slain: 2,141]
[The host has absorbed an unprecedented volume of Karma.]
[Total Karma Points: 1,850,000,000]
Ren ignored the billions of points. He didn't care about the Divine Tier jump. His crimson eyes darted to the bottom of the interface, to a hidden stat that was flashing with an urgent red light.
[WARNING: Divine Vessel Integrity Shifting.]
[Soul Synchronization with 'God of Fate': 37%]
Ren stopped breathing. 'Thirty-seven percent. Before he dropped into the Savage Lands, it had been fifteen. When she forced the Tears of the Sovereign down his throat, she had bonded their souls to keep him tethered to her. But jumping twenty-two percent in a single afternoon?'
He ripped his dark shirt open, looking down at his bare chest. The shimmering crimson brand over his heart, the intricate crest of the Weaver had changed. It was no longer just a small emblem over his muscle. The jagged, shimmering red lines had crawled upward, branching out like veins, wrapping around his collarbone and creeping toward the base of his neck.
It was an infection. The crimson chat box manifested, the text scrolling so fast it was almost unreadable light.
[The God of Fate is pressing her face against the screen, weeping tears of joy!]
[God of Fate]: Do you feel it?! Do you feel me inside you?!
[God of Fate]: When you summoned the Loom... when you slaughtered all those filthy pigs... our minds touched, Ren! We were perfectly, flawlessly aligned!
[God of Fate]: I could feel the blood on your hands! I could feel the hatred in your chest! We killed them together!
Ren stumbled backward, gripping his head with both hands. The headache was blinding. The dual resonance in his mind was getting louder. He remembered the moment before he cast the spell to wipe out Gideon's army.
'I am feeling another technique to expand my mana, but a mortal can have only a single domain,' Ren had thought, staring at the incoming golden meteor. 'Why do I have two? No time for these thoughts.'
Now, standing in the quiet ash, the horrific truth clicked into place. Jubei's teachings were perfect. A Domain was the ultimate reflection of an awakened soul. It was the act of downloading one's internal self into the physical world. Therefore, it was mathematically impossible for a single soul to possess two different domains.
Silas was Death. He only had the Silent Grave.
Gideon was War. He only had the Endless Battlefield.
But Ren... Ren had two.
When he fought Silas and the SSS-Rank Wyrm, he had used The Executioner's Block. A blood sphere of crushing gravity and severance. That was his domain. It was born from his mortal trauma, his three years of being crushed under the boots of guilds, and his cold desire to cut away anyone who tried to control him. It was the manifestation of Ren Hanshin's soul. But when he faced Gideon's army of two thousand avatars... he hadn't used gravity.
He had summoned The Weaver's Loom. An ocean of blood and millions of crimson threads that manipulated probability and executed brutal slaughter. "That wasn't my domain," Ren whispered to the empty clearing, his voice trembling. "That was yours."
[The God of Fate is smiling warmly, stroking your cheek through the connection.]
[God of Fate]: Yes, my beautiful, clever king. You finally understand.
[God of Fate]: A mortal soul is too small to hold my power. But because you wear my brand, because our souls are synchronized, you can act as a conduit. You opened the door, and you let my Sovereign Dimension bleed into the mortal realm.
Ren's fists clenched so hard his knuckles popped. To wipe out an army of two thousand elites required an incomprehensible amount of processing power. The system had broken trying to calculate the damage. By maintaining The Weaver's Loom for so long, and by such an overpowered, high-tier divine magic through a mortal vessel, Ren had burned away his own barriers. He had stepped out of the driver's seat of his own body and let the God of Fate take the wheel to conduct the massacre.
That was why the synchronization rate had increased to 37% suddenly.
"If it hits one hundred percent..." Ren gritted his teeth, looking at the hovering omni-view camera. "What happened to me? Do I die?"
The red light on the camera blinked. The text in the chat box turned soft, obsessive, and devoid of sanity.
[God of Fate]: You will never die, my sweet Ren. I would burn the cosmos before I let your heart stop beating.
[God of Fate]: But one hundred percent, there will be no more 'you' and 'me'. There will only be 'us'. Your thoughts will be my thoughts. Every time you close your eyes, you will see my throne room. Every time you speak, it will be my voice.
[God of Fate]: You will ascend past Demigod. You will become my true avatar. We will share one mind, forever. Doesn't that sound beautiful?
Ego death. She was trying to overwrite his soul. She loved his rebellious, anomaly nature, but her jealousy was so that she couldn't tolerate him having a single thought that she wasn't a part of. She wanted to wear him like a tailored suit.
"I am not your puppet," Ren snarled, his crimson eyes glowing with defiance. He pushed his Divine Mana inward, wrapping it around his own core, trying to build a wall to block out the suffocating warmth of her presence. The temperature in the clearing dropped. The ash on the ground frosted over.
[WARNING: CONSTELLATION 'GOD OF FATE' IS DISPLEASED.]
[God of Fate]: Do not push me away. Do not build walls in our house.
[God of Fate]: I gave you the power to kill War! I gave you the power to survive! Without my Loom, that army would have ground your bones to dust! You need me!
"I survived Silas without you!" Ren shouted back, his voice echoing over the ruined landscape. "I broke his law with my own domain! I don't need you to fight my battles for me!"
The camera hummed loudly, hovering an inch from his nose.
[God of Fate]: You are acting like a spoiled child. I am only trying to protect you. I am trying to elevate you above these filthy mortal dogs.
[God of Fate]: But if you insist on playing with your own toys... fine. Use your little gravity sphere. Bleed for them. But remember this, Ren.
[God of Fate]: The moment you are overwhelmed, the moment a blade comes within an inch of your beautiful neck, I will take over your vessel and summon the Loom myself, and when I do, the synchronization will break fifty percent. You cannot escape my love.
Ren stared at the red text. He knew she wasn't bluffing. If he was pushed into a corner, she would possess him to save his life, and in doing so, she would erase another massive chunk of his humanity. The rules of his survival had just drastically changed.
He had to win it precisely. He couldn't afford to be pushed to the brink of death or on massive, destructive spells. He was strictly forbidden from using The Weaver's Loom. From now on, he had to rely solely on The Executioner's Block, his own soul's domain and his mastery of Jubei's martial arts. He had to fight as Ren Hanshin, not as the Weaver's conduit.
Ren let out a long, slow breath, forcing his raging mana to calm down. He buttoned up his dark shirt, hiding the spreading crimson brand from his own sight. He wore the Embrace of the Weaver coat to tighten around his shoulders, treating it purely as armor, trying to ignore the comforting, intimate warmth it provided.
"Four avatars left," Ren muttered to himself, looking up at the golden sky.
'The Avatar of Wealth. The Avatar of Magic. The Avatar of Mischief. The Avatar of Light.' Ren thought, his eyes devoid of sanity and emotions.
They had just watched him massacre Gideon and an army of two thousand. They wouldn't fight him in a massive colosseum again. They knew brute force was useless against him. They would use traps or illusions. They would try to outsmart the anomaly. Ren extended his Divine Perception across the Savage Lands.
To the far north, deep within a jagged mountain range shrouded in a shimmering blue blizzard, he felt a dense, refined mana sign. It wasn't the chaotic, bloody energy of war or the quiet rot of death. It was structured, calculated, and arrogant.
The Avatar of Magic. The Chosen of the God who had designed the S-Rank Labyrinth Ren had broken on his first day.
"You want to play games," Ren whispered, his crimson eyes watching the distant northern peaks. "Let's see how your spells handle my power."
Ren bent his knees. The obsidian ground shattered beneath him as he launched himself into the sky, activating his Divine Agility. He became a blur of black and crimson, tearing through the clouds like a cruise missile, heading straight for the frozen mountains. He was going to end this Draft, and he was going to do it with his own two hands.