“Evolution?” Leonidas asked warily, while his hands continued to idly rub at his thighs and arms, in response to the vague feeling of electric current still coursing through his limbs. He supposed that was the tribulation that the faux Miranda spoke of, though it was beyond him what it actually meant. His memories were hazy, scattered, and diluted away from substantive recollection. He couldn’t quite lock in on them, despite knowing he should be aware of something occurring just beyond his sight, like a peripheral vision hidden behind foggy glass.
“Evolution,” the Administrator agreed cheerfully.
“That isn’t helpful.”
“I am aware, but I grow bored sometimes, and these little amusements are all I have,” she replied easily, while leaning forward to bridge her fingers under her chin. Even that was a strangely uncanny simulation of his mentor, though the lack of true life in the reflection’s eyes starkly reminded him, once more, that this thing was anything but Miranda.
“Okay, so what does Evolution entail, exactly?” he asked instead of biting back, fingers idly kneading at his thighs with more pressure. The faint sense of energy was subtly growing more unpleasant and more pressing the longer they conversed.
“In many instances, the presumption is something to do with trivial things like accumulation of traits, or some elemental inference of creature abilities and core consumption to accrue new abilities. For some creatures within the System, that is accurate—for you, however, it is far beyond.”
“Because I’m a Cataclysm,” he surmised idly.
“Because you are a Cataclysm,” she concurred with another lifeless smile. “Your path is not one of standard progression, but neither is it a proverbial ‘cheat code’, to borrow your planet’s nomenclature. Your path of evolution is dictated not by what you consume, defeat, or are touched by—but instead by the nature of your intention and your conceptualization, as well as the skills you have already developed. Each one will take root in your core if you choose it, and shape what you will become in future.”
“Right…” Leonidas said with a furrow of his brow and a shift of his hands to tug at his collar idly. He felt like he was slowly heating up, and it was eroding his already thinning patience. “So, can we skip the eloquent circles and get to the crux of it?”
“If you insist,” the Administrator said wryly, and then extended her right hand.
Four images appeared when she did, each a portrait of him.
In the first, he was wreathed in scarlet lightning, dancing through a horde of indistinct foes at blinding speed while lashing out with crackling blasts of elemental energy that obliterated and savaged those around him with limb-dissolving eruptions of primordial energy.
In the second, he was adorned in bloody flames, wielding his blade and striding through a field of foes that ignited at his touch, burning down to blackened ashes within moments. The fires raged all around him, rolling out with an almost perceptible hunger to devour everything and everyone in a massive area of effect.
In the third, he strode afield with a flowing cloak, adorned in midnight robes, and lifting his hand to create a black mass that drank the light, devouring everything in sight with absolute entropy. It sucked in color, life, and everything around it—and then inverted, detonating with force that blew apart buildings and walls, and obliterated people like they were dust touched by a gale force wind.
In the fourth, he was a hybrid of man and beast, setting upon foes around him with gargantuan claws, sprouting wings to soar, and breathing fire like a dragon. His body was his armor, deflecting blows and reflecting them back. He lashed out with terrifying tendrils that exploded from his fingers, or punched with enough force to detonate a body, aided by immense claws. Around him, monsters rampaged with impunity, seemingly guided by his commands and presence.
“Before you lie four paths of possibility: the first adheres to the natural disaster element of your [Cataclysm Core], harnessing the destructive power of nature to obliterate your enemies with vicious channelling of calamity lightning. This was created from your sense of struggle and your love for agile, crushing speed. You would become a living storm, drawing power from the world itself to obliterate everything that opposed you.”
Leonidas paused his chest-rubbing at her words and eyed the first portrait.
That’s tempting. Lightning is an extremely useful ability, and ‘calamity lightning’ sounds even stronger than the base element. Something about that image is bothering me, though…
He looked closer as he mulled it over, and found the source of his unease after a few moments’ scrutiny: the foes he was destroying were not just monsters, but people too—people fighting the monsters. Collateral damage. People who were too close to him were obliterated, torn asunder, and vaporized by the violent explosion of power that he was unleashing.
“...Calamity Lightning. I’m guessing that’s not coincidental in name. It looks—”
“Non-discerning? It is. Calamity Lightning does not distinguish between friend and foe. It makes you extremely powerful, but without extreme discipline to maintain your focus, you will destroy everyone around you. In truth, it is a quite popular choice: many Cataclysms have chosen to eliminate first, and rebuild later. They build back better, as it were, by eliminating the chaff.”
“That’s psychotic,” Leonidas said bluntly, while shaking his head. “No.”
The false Miranda’s lips twitched at that in amusement, but she said nothing and instead motioned to the second image. “If that is not to your taste, then perhaps this one. We call this Armageddon Flame. It is the distilled essence of an exploding star, curated and focused into the power of a Cataclysm. It allows you to dominate battlefields with widespread destruction, obliterating anyone in your path. As the saying goes, fire cleanses—and Armageddon Flame cleanses best of all.”
Once again, Leonidas inspected the image, and this one was somehow worse. The Calamity Lightning had been limited to his immediate surroundings, but the Armageddon Flame was utterly absent any form of restraint or control, raging wildly as it consumed everything in a firestorm of hungry destruction.
Okay, this is definitely more powerful on a broad spectrum, but it’s even worse than the lightning. That fire is feasting like it’s a buffet, and everything around it is food. Definitely not.
“That’s even worse,” he said while looking back at Miranda with exasperation. “There is no point in my just wiping out everyone around me.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not.” the simulacrum said mildly. “Consider that you would need no armies, no protection, no allies. You could dominate the world by yourself and wipe out cities that defied you overnight. Not immediately, of course, but with time and progress of your Alphas, you would be a one-man apocalypse, obliterating anything that stood in defiance of your designs. It was a favored choice among our most ambitious Cataclysms in the past.”
“Solid pass, thanks,” he said while grimacing and rubbing his legs again. His muscles were starting to twitch, and he could feel that something was decidedly wrong with him. His body began to heat up, radiating from his chest in a wave, as the energy afflicting his muscles sent waves of discomfort through him in small, uneven pulses.
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“Curious. You are not the first to reject such choices, but you are the first to balk at them from a purely moral standpoint. Past Cataclysms have largely only cared about the power to dominate or, I suppose, save their world from the ‘invaders’. You seem as concerned about them as you are about your own planet.”
“They’re still people, even if they’re not from my homeworld. I’ve seen enough to know that. You expect me to believe every prior Cataclysm was a psychopathic murderer?”
“No, but they certainly were understanding of the metric of power equating to stability.”
“Great for them, I’m not them. What’s the next option?”
“This one plays partially off of your seeming enjoyment of force manipulation, rudimentary and amusing though your iteration of it is. This, Leonidas, is called Absolute Void. You will inherit the power to manipulate the very fabric of space, creating singularities, manipulating force, and shattering your foes like glass under a hammer. If the previous option was the power of a condensed supernova, this is the focused essence of a black hole: all-consuming, overwhelming, utterly unstoppable. You would be the harbinger of the end of all that oppose you, if you wished it.”
“That one is pretty tempting,” he admitted, while his brain ran through possibilities, “but the name sounds a little suspect. The way you phrased it seemed innocuous, but I feel like it isn’t. What would wielding that sort of power do to me? If this evolution settles itself on my core, doesn’t that mean it influences my mind?”
Here, the false Miranda smiled again, though it was almost predatory.
“How astute. Yes. Each of these evolutions would impact your psyche over time, creating a harmony between you and the enhancement. They will shape your path as a Cataclysm, and guide you toward unlocking greater power—but everything is balanced by cost, and in these cases, the cost is a steady changing of your mental state to better align with wielding the power acquired.”
“Well, that rules out the last one, too. I don’t particularly feel warm and fuzzy about becoming a rampaging man-beast,” he said with a grunt, and leaned back in his chair while his limbs twitched against the rising essence of energy within them, and sweat rolled down his temples at the growing heat. “And why is it so goddamn hot in here? I thought you modulated this, or something.”
“Ah. That would be the tribulation,” the Administrator said as if she were discussing a mild cloud cover. “Your body is starting to succumb to the energy. I’m afraid we are running out of time. I can keep you here to discuss, but eventually, your physical self will be destroyed by the tribulation—unless you succeed in converting the power into a suitable evolution.”
“Oh. That’s just fantastic!” Leonidas said with a spike of anxiety and alarm, which was quickly suppressed by the pacifying effect of the simulation. “You give me four options that I hate, and then tell me I die if I don’t pick one? That’s a rigged system. I’m either dead or a mass murderer, in essence. That’s not fair at all.”
“Life is unfair, Leonidas,” the facsimile of his mentor said calmly. “That is the universal truth of all existence. There is no such thing as fate, destiny, or divine fortune. There is only the path you walk yourself, and what you make of it.”
“Listen, let’s cut the shit, okay?” he said while wiping some perspiration from his forehead, ignoring his twitching muscles, and leaning forward with a glare. “I don’t want to die, but I’m not about to become a—a weapon of mass destruction to suit some stupid system imperative, either. I’m a person, lady, a human being; not a goddamn world-killing nutjob.”
“Curious…” the Administrator said with nonchalant examination, as if she were examining a particularly fascinating animal. “Most curious. It is not unheard of for a Cataclysm to react this way, but it is usually far more long-lived and theologically-minded creatures that make those choices. This was unexpected from such a short-lived existence as you. Curious indeed.”
“Thanks, or not, I don’t know,” Leonidas said while interlocking his fingers to prevent them from twitching at the now-growing currents of energy afflicting his muscles. “But you haven’t said ‘goodbye, enjoy death’ yet or anything, so if there’s another option, I’m all ears. I’m not exactly possessed of infinite time, if what you said about my body is true.”
“Hm… very well,” the simulacrum said after a moment, and then dismissed the portraits with a wave of her hand. They dissolved into nothing, and then a fifth and final one appeared. This one showed Leonidas as he was: armoured, adorned, blade in hand, and standing worn and bloodied on a field of battle. Various figures surrounded him, and he was haloed in a crimson aura that seemed to be part of him.
“We rarely reveal the fifth option, as it is considered a path toward doom for a Cataclysm—and it is even rarer that someone qualifies for it. We prefer not to have to reselect a Cataclysm once one has been found, but I suppose you have earned the right to choose,” she said with what he perceived as a resigned tone. “You earned this one like you did the others, though more by providence of choice and sheer, dumb luck. This is a more ancient path, and one which disabuses the notion of immediate evolution in favor of curated strength.”
“Please just tell me what I’m looking at,” he said, gritting his teeth against the spasms that were slowly turning into muscle cramps at a minor level. He could actually feel his skin heating up by that point, and based on what the Administrator had said, that was a very, very bad sign.
“When you chose your Alphas, you opened one of a minuscule number of alternate paths. Specifically, the path of ancient cultivation. Instead of giving you a powerful evolution, this path will instead enhance your Alphas directly—namely, your Affinity.”
Her hand waved, and the image shifted to show a storm of psychic energy, rippling with scarlet lightning, igniting around his body.
“Your connection to the power you wield will deepen in an unprecedented way as you grow stronger and pass new thresholds. Your ability to grow in strength will depend entirely on your own determination, and your [Cataclysm Core] will develop alongside you, influenced by you, instead of the normal inverse. It is the most dangerous and vulnerable path, because you will gain none of the world-shaking powers others of your kind wield—and instead will only be able to rely on the power you cultivate for yourself.”
“Okay…” he said with a moment of uncertainty, “...so my reward is that I can grow a little faster?”
“No, Leonidas,” she said with a look of mild amusement. “Your reward is autonomy. Your core will not influence you. You will decide everything, including whether or not you manage to wield it to its full potential. The other options grant power, at the cost of influencing you over time,” she explained with unblinking eyes, watching him like a hawk staring down a hare.
“This path permits you to grow outside those affects, but at the cost of depriving you of the strength to dominate the world within a matter of months or years. You will be wholly at the mercy of your own resources, your own determination, and your own ability to discern the hidden truths of whatever your [Cataclysm Core] develops into. It is harrowing, lethal, and you will be hunted, without the overwhelming power the others provide, from the moment you set foot upon it.”
“That’s it?”
“Well, there is one other detail, I suppose,” she said coyly.
“That being?” he asked tightly.
“The origin of evolutions is tied to those that came before, those that curated their own paths in the oldest days of the System’s influence upon unique worlds across the nexus. These legacies are inviolable, handed down by the System to those who prove compatible with them. That is why they change you and mold you—they fundamentally alter you to match the progenitors of those powers better, in body and mind, in order to wield them with the greatest efficacy. They erase who you were to become something more powerful in a far shorter timeframe.”
“And so?”
“And so,” she said while smiling, her gaze unblinking still. “Those are derived from Cataclysms that walked the same path you seek, who conquered it, and rose against all the universe could throw at them to dominate Affinities themselves in totality—to completely embody them. This is the hidden path, one that few have ever had the chance to walk, and fewer still survived.”
The Administrator flicked her wrist, and the portrait changed to one of Leonidas hovering in the air, emanating an aura he could feel through the picture, echoing with an otherworldly might that made the previous options look like lesser mirrors by comparison.
“This, Leonidas, is the Path of Divinity.”
Are you glad you stuck around?
