251, 2/2

Erick wore a loincloth, the Shield hovering at his back, and the Melemizargo-ish All-Seeing Eye around his neck, as he stood out under the Benevolent Sky, atop a bare hexagonal stone. Two meters away another hexagonal stone had been raised from the ground, to serve as the center of the ritual. Ophiel rested on that pillar right now, along with the core that Erick had made for his specific use which would form the core of his new self.

Several stones away in every direction from that center pillar stood other stone pillars, each of them topped with stone obelisks. Each of those obelisks were carved up and down with wishes for a happy life, good fortune, a joyful childhood, and a bunch of other good luck words and phrases, all of them carved with different Elemental imbuements. Mostly Air, Benevolence, and Healing imbuements, as Air was Ophiel’s base Element, Benevolence was where he was going and was what would have a heavy influence in his life, and Healing was simply a general option that one did for general well-wishes.

The obelisks were made of airstone, specifically, which was the stone that had the most resonance with Elemental Air. It wasn’t air steel, which would have made this ritual truly strong, but strength in this ritual was not something Erick wished to employ.

If a Mortal Umbilicus ritual was too strong, then it would cause deep damage to both the creator and the created when the umbilical was cut. A weaker ritual was necessary here in order to let magic fill in some gaps in the creation of the new person, allowing for much healthier growth afterward. A tattered soul was easier to heal from than a soul which had had something directly removed from it because souls were not like bodies; they were ephemeral things made of thoughts and perspective and dreams. A dream which was partially forgotten could be more easily remembered than a dream which had been completely removed from a person.

Erick said to Ophiel, “Bring in the rest of your bodies, Ophiel, wherever they might be.”

Ophiel chirped, “Okay, Dad!”

[Gate]s opened up in the air, like tiny portals into other parts of the world, which is exactly what they were. Ophiel tumbled out of the ocean in one spot, rapidly catching the deep water that followed him through and dispersing that water to the side of the ritual space. Other Ophiels tumbled out of the freezing skies high above the Surface, bringing that chilly sky with them. One Ophiel escaped a children’s park where he had been watching the kids play, wanting to go play himself. Ophiel came in from the throne room of House Benevolence, leaving behind Kiri and Sunny as they dealt with the goings-on of the day, while another Ophiel came in from a monster hunt, where he was saving people from some sort of hydra—

“Finish that one, Ophiel. We can wait.”

All of Ophiel that had tumbled out of the various [Gate]s launched rapidly and with hard edges to their feathers as they whipped back through the portal with the hydra and the adventurers. Erick suspected that was happening somewhere down in Nergal, maybe… A hundred kilometers south of Eidolon? Erick wasn’t sure what Ophiel was doing down there at all, but if he was helping people, then Erick didn’t mind Ophiel’s forays into the world.

He did that sometimes.

… Erick was going to end up with a teenager when today was over, wasn’t he. Not a precocious little 8-year-old boy, but a teenager, testing boundaries and… Well. Erick wouldn’t be able to truly enforce any boundaries anymore, but… This was fine. Erick smiled as he watched Ophiel clean up the hydra mess and heal up the adventurers, and then come right back through the portal into Benevolence.

Ophiel was a good kid.

All of Erick’s kids were good kids.

And now, all 10 of Ophiel crowded the pillar and Ophiel’s prospective core, like ten little angels… Which were already fighting with each other and pushing each other off the pillar. A few Ophiel ended up on the ground, which was… What it was.

Erick breathed deep—

And every Ophiel stood at attention, waiting for whatever might come.

Erick began, “I love you, Ophiel, and to ensure that you are born correctly, we will be severing you from my soul today. It will be profoundly painful for both of us, but in the end, you’ll be able to eat all the purpleberry pie you want, but you’ll also get a stomach ache if you do that. That’s one small thing you’ll get to learn soon enough. Bodies are not all fun, but they’re pretty great in many different ways. I wish for you to find satisfaction in your new life, for you might separate from me now, but you will always be a part of me, and I will always be here for you. I love you, Ophiel.”

Ophiel chirped in chorus, “I love you, Dad!”

Erick breathed deep, again, and did a very little Wizardry,

“In Benevolence, Ophiel arise,

“In lightning realm, claim mortal guise

“A Familiar soul now transformed

“A boy now born, magic adorned.”

Erick tensed as his insides did a tumble, his soul moving in odd ways as parts reorganized and then shifted again. The stone obelisks shimmered. Quilatalap stood outside of the circle, waiting for the proper moment, his scissors in one hand. Lightning crackled across Erick’s skin—

The Mortal Umbilicus ritual was an unclassed sort of magic of a type that read a lot like the process of a cell undergoing mitosis, in order to split into two new cells. During mitosis, there was a reorganization of DNA in the cell in order to bring that long chain of information into an orderly system, and then copies of the DNA split off into two new cells, made from the stuff of the old cell. This particular ritual did that same sort of thing, but with a pair of twin cores, and not at all like a cell dividing.

It was like a fast-forward pregnancy, but entirely soul-based, with biology coming along later.

A bolt of soft white lightning connected Erick’s core to the core surrounded by Ophiel and ten out of the ten Ophiel winced hard, trilling in sudden hateful flute sounds. Erick’s Benevolent lightning connected from Ophiel’s core, to all 10 Ophiel, like a branching path finding its purpose—

A grand fulmination of Benevolence reached down from the sky and up from the ground, to reach through Erick, striking at his entire body, entering every toe and finger and his eyes, completely ignoring the Lightning Shield on Erick’s back, because this was Erick doing this, and the Lightning Shield was streaming Lightning through Erick just as much as the rest of the realm.

The Lightning of the Shield tingled compared to Benevolence Itself.

Erick did not scream as power tore at his body, shredding his stomach, casting blood into the Lightning as power and soul streamed into Ophiel. But Ophiel did scream, as all of Erick’s gathered Lightning blasted Ophiel into the sky, killing nine Ophiel and lifting a single remaining Ophiel and his core heavenward.

Erick was pretty sure that Quilatalap shielded himself with a sudden flash of grey Death—

And then Quilatalap was in the middle of the ritual, flying in the sky, directly between Erick and Ophiel, his black, Death-forged scissors held forward, ritualistically cutting a soul that had been portioned and stretched between Erick and Ophiel.

Black Death cleaved life from life.

Lightning shattered.

Almost all of the power of the moment recoiled back into Erick, snapping back and wrapping around him, then flowing into him where it would eventually settle down if everything had gone right. A much smaller portion snapped into Ophiel like a bridge cable stressed too much. Ophiel’s portion did not settle at all.

Tiny drops of Erick’s blood mixed, taken from him by the lightning, splashed onto Ophiel’s core, fresh red mixing with the dried red blood that was already there, from when Erick took that secondary core out from his stomach.

Power wrapped around Ophiel and his core, cocooning him—

And suddenly the ritual slowed. The moment of power was done. Erick’s core and soul were in shambles, both of them rocked with cracks and ragged spaces, but Quilatalap rested his free hand on Erick’s shoulder and a quick [Greater Treat Wounds] began to help alleviate some of the pain. Erick worked on accreting his core to heal the rest, fractures and shards gathering under his power to heal his core under a deluge of fresh, directed mana.

Ophiel’s cocoon was still there, though it was about a meter closer to the ground now. It was falling slowly, like a soap bubble, drifting a little this way, then a little that way—

A cool breeze drifted across the land, catching Ophiel’s weightless, airy cocoon, and gently depositing it in front of Erick, where it hovered, not touching the ground. Erick was already mana sensing Ophiel inside so his worries were minimal. All he felt was a deep, exhausted joy.

Quilatalap handed him a small cube of soul balm palm tree sugar.

Erick popped it into his mouth and swallowed the candy. It wasn’t good to swallow soul-healing items that were meant to be sucked on, for the flavor of them made up about half of the healing of the little candy, but Erick had lots saved up; there was no need to be frugal—

Ophiel’s cocoon popped suddenly.

Erick was already there with a cradle of Benevolence and a summoned blanket, to keep his son from falling to the ground or getting cold, as he took him into his arms.

He mostly looked like a 14-ish year old Erick, except with black-feather wings and the skeleton to support those wings, so he overflowed Erick’s arms quite a lot. He had solid bones, so he’d need to use magic to fly, but wings made flying with Air Magic a lot easier in certain ways. Black hair, black eyes, kinda skinny, but he looked healthy in all the ways a kid should look healthy. His soul was strong, yet tattered; exactly like Erick’s. His core was nestled right next to his heart, and though it was big for his body and took up a lot of space right now, he would grow into it.

“And there’s only one of you,” Erick said softly, as he held his son, a few tears falling. “You gonna wake up now?”

Ophiel winced, frowning, briefly opening his eyes and then shutting them again, before curling up against Erick, saying, “I don’t like this. Too much feeling. Everything feels a lot more than it used to feel… But…” Ophiel pulled away from Erick’s chest. “My thoughts are clearer. Oh. This is weird.”

Erick smiled, asking, “You want that pie Quilatalap made for you?”

Ophiel looked up and over at Quilatalap. “… Yes.”

And then he realized he really wanted that purpleberry pie and he flung himself out of Erick’s arms and into the open, spreading his wings wide and then almost tumbling from the tossed weight and unbalanced air pressures. He righted himself soon enough, holding his hands and his arms outward for balance, and then he flexed a little this way and that, feeling himself out. As Ophiel stood tall on his own two feet a wing flicked out, causing him to almost topple again, but Erick was right there to catch him before he fell.

Grinning wildly, Ophiel patted Erick’s arms and then hugged him again, and Erick fell into that same hug, as Ophiel mumbled, “Oh yes. I see the appeal of a hug now. This is nice. Yes. I think I remember this now.” And then he pushed Erick away, saying, “But I want pie!”

Erick chuckled from the sudden emotional whiplash—

And Ophiel commanded, “I want that pie now, Quilatalap! You promised me a pie and I want it!”

Ophiel tried to take a step toward the much, much larger man, his wings flipping backward in an almost instinctive-looking threat display, and he didn’t falter at all. He stood firm, like he had been standing firm for years and not bare moments, almost saying something else about something else… But then he looked down at his hands, and then at the rest of himself. A hand roamed.

Erick laughed then wrapped the blanket around him, saying, “Don’t do that sort of thing in public, Ophiel.”

Ophiel threw off the blanket, proudly standing in the light, saying, “We’re not in public! We’re inside Benevolence! And biology is weird! I have never had biology before… I think … But. Yes. I want clothes! Pretty clothes! With all the sparkly bits that you always have! Yes. Clothes please— I CAN MAKE THEM MYSELF NOW! Let me try…” Ophiel looked to the side and clothes popped into the air. “Yes!”

It was a voluminous robe with bells and bobs and sparkly bits everywhere. Half of those sparkly bits fell off of the robe almost instantly and the robe itself was in tatters, breaking apart into bits of mana. Ophiel tsked, mumbling, “That is harder than I remember it being.”

Erick wiped away a tear from his eyes, smiling as he helpfully added, “Sparkly bits are difficult. Maybe try something smaller for now?”

Ophiel triumphantly nodded. “Maybe sparkly bits are not needed!”

And then he cast again, and this time he ended up with a tunic and brown pants.

Erick quietly inquired, “Want some help putting them on—”

“Nope! I can wear clothes! I have seen you put them on all the time!” Ophiel plucked his pants off of the ground and pulled them on, one leg at a time. They were backwards, though. Ophiel rapidly noticed this, and took them back off before putting them back on. “There! Pants!”

Erick had never been more proud of Ophiel than in that moment. “Pants are good. Do you want some help with your wings and your tunic?”

Ophiel’s black feathered wings shot out and up, and Ophiel jerked at the sudden counteracting motion of his wings pushing him forward a half a meter. He exclaimed, “What! Oh. Wings. Yes.”

Ophiel narrowed his eyes at his wings. In a rapid moment, Ophiel polymorphed his body, his wings vanishing into his back, and he rapidly put on his big tunic without the need for making wing-holes in the tunic or anything like that.

“Ah! Good job Ophiel.”

“Thanks, Dad!”

Erick asked, “You must have Perfected Body and Perfected Polymorph?”

“… I’m not sure?”

Quilatalap was already nodding a little bit in agreement with Erick.

“It doesn’t matter right now!” Ophiel waved off the concern… And then he looked at his hand, as he waved off the concern. Black eyes wide, he smiled, saying, “That’s what it feels like to be dismissive! Oh! That’s fun!”

Erick was about to say something—

But Ophiel rapidly said to Erick, “You and I have much to speak about, Dad, for I have been around for a very long time, watching everything, learning everything I could. And I have learned a lot. Primarily, and of great importance for what comes next, I have gained an immunity to the thing we’re not supposed to talk about. I imagine when Yggdrasil is instantiated he’ll gain the same immunity.”

Erick stared, his heart doing leaps in his chest as he almost told Ophiel to stop talking right now, but no Red Sparks crowded the moment. Even the Benevolent Sky seemed unchanged. Perhaps… Even clearer of Red Sparks than it had been before?

And that meant that they fell off the God Pact world—

Erick instinctively reached for his connection with Ophiel, to reach out into the world, but he felt a ragged hole in his soul instead. It was like punching a fist into an open wound. Erick mostly did not flinch as he rapidly reorganized his thoughts and his course of action.

He opened up a scattering of tiny [Gate]s to look out into the real world…

And everything was fine.

Erick breathed a sigh of relief. The world was there, and nothing was happening.

Ophiel watched him the whole time, saying nothing, waiting for him to be done. Quilatalap was suddenly concerned, too, but that concern passed when Erick’s own alert level dropped to nothing.

Erick could only guess why the Red Sparks hadn’t triggered—

“It’s because I’m not a vector for your infection anymore, Dad, and that makes you much, much harder for that other guy to see. You were already hard for him to see as Wizards often are, but now you’re practically lost in the aether of your own mana production,” Ophiel said, and then, as though the bomb he hadn’t dropped wasn’t already big enough, he dropped another, “And my memories are coming back even more. I’m rather sure I’m from the far future and you brought me back through some Establishment and Time Magics in order to…” Ophiel paused. “I’m not sure, actually. I’m sure it’ll come to me eventually! But that’s for later. We’re safe for now! Though Quilatalap probably can’t be told anything quite yet and he probably shouldn’t be allowed to leave Benevolence right now until we can make him immune, too. Now where is that pie! Is it at the house?

“I think I missed your cooking a lot, Quilatalap, which either means that you’re dead in the future, or we’re a family and this is like a homesickness-thing I am experiencing right now. At the very least, I have spent around 280 estimated years around you and Dad in [Hasted Shelter]s, so I still love you as a secondary father, even if you do not wish to be one— Oh! I need to see Solomon— Oh… He can’t come in yet. Maybe later… Anyway! I’m pretty sure that there was some backward-in-time propagation of my soul from the far future, [Return]-style, but I can’t quite remember everything… Eh! All that future-information will come to me eventually.

“Now where is that pie?!”

A moment passed.

“… Uh,” Erick said, rapidly coming to terms with the fact that his son was some sort of time-displaced person, and yet not quite that at all. But since the Sky was devoid of all Red Sparks, Erick rolled with it. They’d get to all that later. There were bigger problems to solve. Erick asked, “Where’s the pie, Quilatalap?”

Quilatalap looked from Erick to Ophiel, and then back to Erick, saying, “I believe the thing I love most about you is that I’m the ‘normal one’ in the relationship. It is a refreshing change.” And then he sternly looked at both of them, saying, “We’ll speak about this ‘immune’ thing later.”

Erick briefly panicked and then looked at the world through portals again.

They were safe… They were safe?

Erick closed the portals, asking Ophiel, “How?”

Ophiel shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s get that pie— Oh! I know where you hid the pie!” And then he opened up a [Gate] to Quilatalap’s library in House Benevolence. “There it is!”

It was a perfectly made purpleberry pie with a golden, flaky crust and syrupy-purple vents, the entire edge crinkled with the heavy imprint of orcol fingers, which made sense since the whole thing was sized for an orcol, meaning it was practically as large as all of Ophiel’s entire new body. It sat on the kitchen counter of Quilatalap’s personal residence near the library, under a [Ward] of some sort.

Ophiel’s black wings shot out of his back and his eyebrows and a lot of the rest of him, shredding his shirt and his pants with what was either a high Strength, or the weakness of improperly-cast clothes, as he happily exclaimed, “PIE!”

He looked like how he used to look, but black, and with some pale human features under all those wings.

Ophiel reached through the [Gate] with a sudden ripping of magic, only to touch nothing at all. It was all an illusion. As the illusion dissolved it morphed into a sign that read, ‘No stealing, Ophiel.’

Ophiel was absolutely crushed.

He fell to the ground, a tumble of wings that turned back into a boy, bemoaning, “I have been betrayed.”

Quilatalap laughed loudly, saying, “The pie is past the first illusion.” To prove the point, he reached through the [Gate] with grey power, disrupting the illusion and bringing the real pie into [Benevolence]. “You’re going to wait until we can all sit down to have some together, though.”

Ophiel was right there for whatever Quilatalap wanted, saying, “Sir yes sir!”

Before Erick had the moment to think about Ophiel calling Quilatalap ‘sir’, Ophiel had already wrapped a hand around Erick’s arm, pulling him along with one hand as he grabbed Quilatalap’s other hand with his other hand, pulling them both along to the house several tens of meters away, saying, “In the house! Time for pie!”

Erick happily allowed himself to be dragged along, savoring the moment. And then he glanced up at Quilatalap and saw Quilatalap looking strangely, wonderfully happy. That made everything better by at least a factor of 10.

They got to the house, Quilatalap divided the pie, and Ophiel tried devouring his slice of pie like he usually did (but not before complaining about not getting the whole thing to himself), but when the first bit of warm purple filling touched his tongue, he froze. His eyes went wide and the waterworks started. Great big happy tears fell as Ophiel ate his pie slowly, like a normal person, and yet savoring it like it was the best thing he had ever had, ever. Erick was content to watch for a long while, feeling… Quite good.

Saving the world was great and he would continue doing that, but there were reasons to save the world, and Erick had gained one more very good reason—

Ophiel looked left and right at the same time, and suddenly he was two people; one still sitting in his chair, the other flopping on the ground, wings suddenly appearing in surprise and ripping up his shirt again.

Perhaps clinically, Erick observed that this second Ophiel was clothed, which meant [Duplicate] had happened instinctively.

It was something to watch out for later, perhaps.

The two of them looked at each other, one of them with a blue iridescent sheen to their black coloring, the other slightly purple iridescent, like they were two crows of slightly different genetic predispositions. And then they moved a little, with the one on the floor standing up and his coloring turned black-iridescent-blue, while the original sitting down turned black-iridescent-purple, reversing their coloring.

Well that was going to get confusing.

Their souls were exactly the same, too, even according to Erick’s All-Seeing Eye. Both Ophiel looked like rainbow-black feathered beings mostly contained to the core… Which was shared between both of them, now. Somehow they had both gained a core, and both of their souls were the same.

Did Erick have two new sons now? Or was there something weirder happen—

They echoed each other, “Oh. That’s how that works.”

… Oh. They were the same person. For a brief moment, Erick was both glad and sad, for it would have been a wonderful difficulty to raise two boys, or however many they would become.

Probably 10.

So far, the Mortal Umbilicus seemed to have worked perfectly.

Erick asked, “How many of there are you going to be?”

Both Ophiel looked at Erick, saying, “Ten?”

Not a definite answer, then. That same-time response was kinda worrying, though.

“… Are you two [Hive Mind] connected right now?”

“I don’t think so,” echoed both of them. “Probably just… Something. [Telepathy] basic? I don’t know—”

“But I know I want pie,” said the first Ophiel, while the second looked over at the pie, saying, “Pie now; knowing later.”

And then they looked at each other. It was a confrontation without words or anything except a sudden, knowing look. Ophiel #1 was closer to the remaining purpleberry pie, and Ophiel #2 was suddenly very concerned with that fact—

Erick rapidly [Duplicate]ed Ophiel’s slice of pie, saying, “There! No problem at all!”

Both Ophiel looked at him. Then they fought over the original slice of pie while Quilatalap was laughing and Erick told himself that this was fine. Ophiel threw punches at Ophiel, and pie went everywhere. Quilatalap protected the pie remaining in the tin, so the boys fought over their slice even more.

The boys healed fast, and Erick eventually stopped the fight, but then another Ophiel appeared when Erick told the first two to clean up their mess or they weren’t getting another slice. This third Ophiel looked greener in his black iridescence than purple or blue, but then all three of them gained that third color to their black plumage and eyes and hair.

The first two went running to get away from dad, whooping and hollering as they rushed outside of the house to play under the Benevolent Sky.

The third one stayed to clean up the mess they had made.

Erick kept an eye on all of them with his normal mana sense, but since his range was infinite inside Benevolence Itself that wasn’t too difficult. Erick practically always enjoyed this level of observation of his surroundings in the real world, thanks to Ophiel and his expansive mana sense, but in a melancholy sort of way, Erick realized that time was over. Now, he would only be able to experience this phenomenon inside of Benevolence.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Soon enough, even Yggdrasil would be separating, though Erick almost never looked at the world through Yggdrasil’s eyes anyway so that part wasn’t changing too much. It just didn’t feel right invading his privacy like that—

Oh.

The Ophiel by the central lake had lingered for a moment, debating how to go swimming, exactly, causing an orange-tinted Ophiel to leap into the waters, diving deep, splashing a lot. Orange spread throughout the collective and the swimming Ophiel purposefully ripped his clothes apart and transformed his butt to gain a dragon’s paddling tail. He swam fast under the waters, and then leapt up and out.

He called out, “Dad! Come swimming!”

And then a different Ophiel, currently investigating a grove of soul balm palm trees, called out, “No! I want to play with trees and berries! Come make some yellow berries, dad!” He mumbled, “There should be yellow berries, right? Have I seen yellow berries before? … do bananas count?”

Another Ophiel playing on the jungle gyms called out, “I want to play flying!”

The Ophiel on the shore of the lake said, “You all are too focused on fun. We should work some.”

A bright teal-black Ophiel stepped out of the one by the shore, yelling at the other one, “We can’t do anything until red gets here so let’s go swimming.” And then shoved the other one into the water, laughing loud as he followed, ripping off his clothes midair and doing a great big cannonball splash.

A cyan Ophiel swam away from the first swimming Ophiel with a paddle-tail of his own, all striped in cyan and black, saying, “I’m going exploring waters. Fall off into the world somewhere, yes yes.”

And that’s when Erick moved fast, calling out to the entirety of Benevolence, “No escaping this land for now, please!”

A choral response came from all of them, “Come play with us!”

Erick rapidly grabbed Quilatalap’s arm, saying, “We’re going to play. Pick an activity.”

Quilatalap laughed and allowed himself to be dragged away. He chose swimming, and soon, to Erick’s chagrin, as he lounged in the waters of Benevolence, Ophiel began trying to outdo each other to either see how high of an unassisted high dive they could do, or they tried to swim out to Yggdrasil and bother him quite a lot with cries of ‘Look at what I can do!’. They got hurt here and there, but then Erick healed them, or they just ran away saying it wasn’t a bad injury at all.

They liked bothering Yggdrasil a lot.

Yggdrasil splashed them away, his great big tree roots doing a wave, like the entire world moving underfoot, but all this did was cause Ophiel to say ‘Again! Again!’ and to renew their calls for him to join them for a small swim. Eventually Yggdrasil relented and an orcol dropped out of the sky, splashing the waters away much more than his three-meter-tall body should have allowed.

Erick considered the surfboard.

An hour later, Erick was happy to announce that surfing with his sons was a lot of fun, especially when Yggdrasil easily controlled the entire mini-ocean around his floating body. Erick was absolutely sure that Ophiel took a few too many dives and sputtered up too much water, but Yggdrasil just shrugged.

Yggdrasil stood tall on his own surfboard, surfing next to his father, while all 9 Ophiel continually caught the next wave, managed to make it a few tens of meters, before they all rapidly faltered into the water, becoming tangles of wings and colors. Yggdrasil smiled at that, saying, “He’s young. He’ll learn.”

To which every Ophiel tried to reply, “I’m older than you!”