The balance of power had shifted irrevocably within the swirling soul-storm. The primordial, who had once been Life itself, now found himself being actively assimilated into Ray's soul instead of the other way around. The stark reality was finally upon him; even having recovered his memories, his soul was but a mere fragment of what was once divine, a ghost of a god facing the tenacious will of a mortal who had already passed through death's door. They had reached a stalemate, a precarious equilibrium where Ray was actively consuming more memories, pulling at the primordial's essence as if he intended to devour the divine being whole. This stalemate was a ticking clock, a countdown to mutual destruction, and both occupants of the non-space could hear its relentless, psychic echo.
The primordial, who had once been Life, now felt a sensation he had never known in all his eons of existence: genuine, soul-deep panic. His gambit, his desperate attempt at resurrection, had failed catastrophically. The boy was not just resilient; he was a corrosive force, assimilating him, digesting millennia of divine experience through the brutal, simplifying lens of human will. To continue was to guarantee mutual annihilation. The fusion would create a mad, broken being, and his vengeance—the sole purpose of his lingering existence—would be lost forever.
"Enough!" The voice was still vast, but the crushing, divine weight was gone, replaced by a strained, metallic tone, the sound of utter exhaustion and concession. "Your soul can't sustain the fusion of memories from thousands of years of what I've lived. You'll fade away, and so will I. A pointless end for us both, don't you agree??."
Ray held his ground, a flicker of human defiance burning like a cold star in the heart of the cosmic storm. "You tried to erase me. Why should I listen now?"
"Because I am offering you what you lack," the primordial's presence shifted, shedding its grandeur and becoming pragmatic, sharp. "Power, enough power to rival gods. How about a truce? I will halt the integration of my memories. I will grant you access to my knowledge, to the power of the Nyrr we now share. In return, you aid me in my revenge."
He let the offer hang in the void, then delivered the masterstroke, aiming for the raw, bleeding nerve he had seen in Ray's memories. "I have seen your life, boy. Do you truly wish that to be handled like that? Treated like a dirtbag, mauled by everyone, being weak forever? I can make you stronger than you can imagine. You just have to kill a few people for me in return. Nine, to be accurate."
Ray's consciousness stilled. He caught onto what the primordial was thinking,'Kill the Nine Trueborns? The living embodiments of Wrath, Despair, Deceit?' It was insanity. A suicide pact written in divine blood. He saw the memories of their power, the casual ease with which they had killed a being like the Tenth.
But then he saw Lucas's face, smirking over his broken body. He heard the cold finality in his voice. "Nobody will suspect a bunch of high schoolers." He had been weak. So weak that his death had been a triviality, a bit of messy cleanup. He was already dead. What did he have to lose?
"You're lying," Ray projected, the thought laced with a cold clarity he'd never possessed in life. "I've seen your memories. Even if you are the embodiment of life itself, you are capable of deceit."
A pulse of something akin to respect came from the primordial. "A fair concern. Then we shall bind ourselves in the oldest way, with a Soul Contract. Its terms cannot be broken without annihilating the soul, only soul that we both share."
A shimmering lattice of energy, woven from strands of their combined souls and the hungry darkness of the Nyrr, materialized in their shared mindscape. The terms were brutally simple, etched in golden letters that gave off the energy of ancient power:
1. The being known as Ray shall hold sovereign control over their shared physical form and consciousness.
2. In exchange for the knowledge and power of Ashborn, Ray shall aid in the destruction of the Nine Primordials.
There were no loopholes. No hidden clauses. It was a pact of mutual desperation.
"So," the primordial's voice was a whisper now, stripped of its grandeur. "What do you say, boy? Will you die as Ray, the victim? Or will you live as something more?"
Ray looked at the contract, then into the abyss of his own past. He had chosen death once, in a final act of defiance. Now, he would choose a far more dangerous path.
"I'm dying anyway," Ray said, his decision solidifying. "Might as well die with a bang and take a couple of gods along with me."
With a thought that was both his and not his alone, he reached out and touched the contract. It flared with incandescent light, binding them together. Partner and prisoner, student and master, mortal and god—two ghosts in a soon-to-be machine.
As the pact sealed, the storm of Nyrr, now focused and purposeful, collapsed inward. It spun, compressed, and solidified, weaving bone from memory, flesh from emotion, and blood from raw, hungry power. It formed a vessel: a single, obsidian egg veined with pulsing, verdant green light. It fell through the layers of reality, a silent comet, and landed with a soft, final thud in the depths of a forgotten forest in the demon world.
And there, it waited.