The ashlands lay silent around him, husks scattered in trails that stretched across ridges. Zeke pulsed steady, sparks cycling through the Sovereign Crucible, every seam dense and absolute. Yet the expected surge did not come. The sparks folded, layered, refined—but his body did not grow heavier, did not sharpen further. He had reached the plateau.
The realization settled into him without denial. His feast had become fuel without yield, a cycle without growth.
Maw raged instantly. More! Devour deeper! It must give—take until it breaks!Logos was colder, already measuring. Returns diminishing. Plateau confirmed.Neris whispered with steel behind the softness. We cannot push further. The seams will only stretch, not strengthen.Kael laughed wild. Then break the plateau! Push past, collapse if we must!Shade whimpered, fragile but not silent. Collapse will kill us...Vael thundered. We are sovereign. No wall holds us. To stop here is failure.Veyne growled low. Pain does not matter. If it cracks, it reforges stronger.Avaris hissed. Keep it all. Do not waste. If sparks give less, hoard more.Threx crackled with manic energy. Test it! Twist affinities until it shatters, find what the wall hides.
And then Asura pressed through them, the weight of inevitability, neither loud nor sharp, but absolute. The vessel has reached its racial limit. Next step is evolution.
The voices stilled, not silenced but woven into the truth. Zeke did not resist it. He had felt the edges even before Sovereign Crucible—every surge pressing against a ceiling too narrow. Now it was undeniable. The sparks no longer fed growth because the vessel itself was unworthy to hold more.
For the first time since his awakening, he did not lunge immediately at the next fight. He did not stretch nets, did not lash arms in hunger. He paused, and the silence of stillness felt alien. Yet necessary.
He remembered the near-collapse of Sovereign Crucible's birth, the way filaments had splintered and nearly scattered into nothing. Evolution would be greater still. If he attempted it in the open, amidst predators and storms, the result would be death. Preparation was not weakness. It was sovereignty.
He began to build.
Morphic Arms drove into stone, tearing ridges into open hollows. Core Division spread nets through the gaps, filaments layering like scaffolds. Darkness wrapped walls, sealing them. Fire fused stone into slag and cooled it solid, while Light carved clean edges into chambers. Slowly, the earth yielded to him. What began as a shallow pit became a labyrinth, then a cavern hidden beneath the ashlands.
The council murmured with every strike.Logos guided the shape, precise angles, efficient spans.Neris urged concealment, pressing him to bury the entrance beneath woven nets.Avaris hissed, Expand the chambers—make space to hoard more fuel.Kael mocked, laughing, A nest? Are we beast or sovereign? Why crawl when we could burn forward?Shade clung quiet but present, relief trembling at the thought of shelter.Vael bristled. A sovereign does not hide. Yet—yes. A throne must have a hall.Veyne muttered, Walls only matter if tested. Let them try.Threx demanded alterations—sharper angles, more twisted filaments, experiments even in the architecture.Asura pressed steady. Preparation is sovereignty. Build.
Zeke did. Hours passed as he hollowed deeper, weaving walls with essence-thread, reinforcing them until they thrummed like lattices of his own body. He carved chambers into layers, each sealed with nets, each harder to breach than the last. By the time he paused, the nest was a fortress: concealed above, labyrinthine within, fortified on every seam.
Yet he added more still. Traps woven into narrow halls—threads ready to collapse stone on any intruder. Dead ends that could only be passed by shifting filaments, paths only he could navigate. The nest was not only a refuge but a maze designed to consume what entered.
But a fortress alone was not enough. Evolution would strip him bare, and he could not know what would be required when the crucible of change took hold. He needed fuel.
So he hunted again, not with the frenzy of growth but with methodical purpose. Packs fell. Titans bled. Sparks poured in torrents. Yet instead of cycling them fully, he diverted them into Vessel Chambers. One by one, the chambers filled—sealed furnaces of essence waiting untouched. His body thrummed with reserves, each spark stored like coin in a vault. He piled husks in the nest's outer halls, not as waste but as further fallback, their remnants holding fragments of essence he could draw in desperation.
Maw crooned in satisfaction. Yes. Hoard the feast. Never starve.Avaris hissed louder, greedy delight. Mine. All mine. Keep it, seal it, hoard it.Neris whispered approval at the restraint. Finally, not all consumed in madness.Kael sneered, restless. Caution bores me. We should evolve in the open, dare the ashlands to break us.Shade trembled. No. Hide. Please hide. The silence here feels safe.Vael rumbled pride. A sovereign's chamber. Fitting. Thrones must be built before they are claimed.Veyne growled. Let predators come. If they breach, we bleed them stronger.Threx muttered, delighted. So many tests to run when the change begins.And Asura, final and unyielding: Enough. The nest is ready. The fuel is ready. The vessel is ready.
Zeke settled within the heart of the cavern. The walls pulsed faint with his essence-thread, nets sealing every gap. Around him lay husks, reserves, hidden fuel for what would come. Within him thrummed Vessel Chambers, full and waiting. The council hushed, tension sinking quiet under Asura's weight.
And in that silence, for the first time since awakening in this world, Zeke allowed himself to relax. Truly, completely. He did not stretch nets outward. He did not press sparks tighter. He let his form loosen, his lattice slacken, essence flowing in slow steady rhythm.
His awareness dimmed. The weight of vigilance eased. He fell asleep.
When he woke, the ashlands were gone. No husks, no cavern, no sparks thrumming through stone.He stood instead on smooth polished floor, the scent of wood and varnish sharp in the air. His form was still amorphous, but the world around him was unmistakable. Walls of pale cream, windows letting in filtered daylight, shelves lined with books. A hearth unlit but whole.
The living room of the Reed mansion. His home.