The fire consumed him.
Ren had thought he understood pain. He'd stripped his own skin, watched it burn, stood for twelve hours as raw muscle bleeding onto concrete. He'd thought nothing could be worse.
He was wrong.
The Eternal Flame didn't just burn. It unmade. Every nerve ending that remained in his exposed muscle tissue fired simultaneously, sending signals of pure agony to a brain that was rapidly cooking inside his skull. The heat bypassed the surface and attacked from within, boiling the fluids in his cells, denaturing proteins, breaking down the very structures that allowed him to exist.
Am I going to die?
The thought floated through his fragmenting consciousness.
No. I will not die. I will live.
Ren bit down on his tongue. The piece he'd already damaged earlier tore further, and fresh blood filled his mouth. The pain was almost laughable compared to the fire, but it served its purpose. The sharp, focused agony cut through the haze, gave him something concrete to hold onto.
Stay conscious. Stay awake. Have to realize. Have to understand.
Hours passed.
One hour. Two. Five.
Ren stopped being able to track time. There was only the fire and the pain and the desperate struggle to keep his mind from shattering completely.
His body charred. The exposed muscle tissue blackened and cracked, fat rendering out and dripping into the flames beneath him. The smell was nauseating, but he couldn't smell anymore. His nasal cavity had burned away.
Ten hours.
By the tenth hour, Ren's body was charred beyond recognition. He looked like something excavated from Pompeii, a humanoid shape made of blackened carbon and crumbling tissue. His red tentacles had burned away completely, leaving nothing but stumps on his back.
His eyes were the worst part.
Without eyelids to protect them, Ren's eyes had been exposed to the full force of the Eternal Flame from the moment he'd jumped in. He watched as his corneas clouded over, as the aqueous humor boiled away, as the delicate structures inside began to cook and collapse.
The terror of watching your own eyes burn while being unable to close them, unable to look away, unable to do anything but witness your own destruction, was indescribable.
His vision darkened. First at the edges, then spreading inward. Colors faded to grey, then to black.
Blind.
He was blind now. Standing in fire, body destroyed beyond any hope of natural recovery, unable to see, unable to scream because his vocal cords had burned away hours ago.
But still alive. Still conscious. Still trying to understand.
What is the principle of skin? What am I supposed to realize?
Ren's mind grasped desperately for an answer. He thought back through everything that had led him here. The surgeries he'd performed. The transformations he'd undergone. The path he'd chosen.
Identity and Skin. "You show who you really are when you wear the skin that is not yourself."
But what does that mean? What is the core truth?
His thoughts scattered, reformed, scattered again. The pain was too much. His mind couldn't hold coherent thought for more than a few seconds at a time.
Then a memory surfaced.
The battle. When he'd fought the Skin God's avatar.
He remembered the moment she'd tricked him, disguised as Sarah. The way she'd worn another person's appearance so perfectly that he'd been completely fooled.
He remembered her true form. The patchwork skin. The multiple faces. The mouths screaming from within her flesh.
And he remembered something else. Something that had happened during that battle.
The Plague God. Morvexis.
Ren's fragmenting consciousness latched onto the memory.
The Plague God had appeared, summoned by Ren's Dominion of the Crawling Madness skill. And he'd spoken to the Skin God's avatar. Spoken with such casual contempt that it had shaken her to her core.
What had he said?
The words came back to Ren through the haze of pain and approaching death.
"Ah, my old contagion made flesh. How long has it been since I've smelled your rancid hide?"
The Skin God's avatar had tried to maintain composure, but her multiple faces had betrayed her. Fear. Hatred. Forced smiles despite the terror.
"Still covering yourself in someone else's skin and pretending it's power."
That was it. That was the key.
"Still clinging to scraps of flesh while the world itself longs to rot."
The Plague God had leaned closer, his presence alone causing the avatar's patchwork flesh to smoke and blister.
"Still as pathetic as ever... Skin."
The casual dismissal. The contempt. The way Morvexis had looked at her like she was nothing more than an annoying insect.
Why?
Why had the Plague God, a being of cosmic authority, dismissed the Skin God so completely?
But wait. That's not right.
Ren's thoughts crystallized through the pain.
Morvexis was the Plague God. A being of cosmic authority, yes. But the Skin God was also a cosmic entity. They were equals. Old enemies. Old rivals.
So why did Morvexis treat her with such contempt?
Not because the Skin path was weak. Not because it was inferior.
Because the Skin God's avatar was doing it wrong.
"Still covering yourself in someone else's skin and pretending it's power."
Pretending.
That was the key word.
The avatar was using the Skin path as a tool for deception. For disguise. For wearing others and calling it strength.
But that's not what the path is about. That's not the principle.
Ren's mind raced, piecing together the truth.
The Skin God's avatar wore patchwork flesh. Multiple stolen faces. Incorporated souls screaming within her form.
She accumulated fragments. She replaced instead of creating. She borrowed authority from what already existed.
That's why Morvexis despised her. Not because the path was weak, but because she was using it in the weakest possible way.
The skin defines identity. But identity is not static. Identity is not borrowed. Identity is chosen.
"You show who you really are when you wear the skin that is not yourself."
That's the paradox. That's the truth.
When you wear someone else's skin, you're not hiding who you are. You're revealing it.
Because the choice of which skin to wear, the choice of which identity to adopt, that choice reveals your true nature.
The Skin God's avatar chose to wear victims. To accumulate suffering. To define herself through consumption.
That revealed what she truly was: a predator. A parasite. Something that needed others to exist.
But that's not the only way to walk the path.
You could choose to wear the skin of a hero. A savior. A god.
You could choose to become whatever you needed to be, not through theft, but through transformation.
The skin doesn't define you. You define the skin.
That's the principle. That's the truth Morvexis was mocking the avatar for using it incorrectly.
The person who wield the la as a coward.
She thought wearing others made her powerful. But true power comes from choosing who you become.
Ren understood now.
The Skin path isn't about deception. It's about transformation. About the ability to become anything, anyone, to adapt and evolve without limit.
It's not borrowed authority. It's the authority to rewrite yourself.
And that's just as powerful as any cosmic law. Just as fundamental as entropy or plague or any other force of nature.
Because identity, true identity, is choice. And choice is the most powerful force in existence.
This is only the beginning. This is just one Law. One fragment of cosmic power.
When I rank up further, I can choose another Law. And another. I can wield multiple Laws, combine them, create something new.
The Skin path is my foundation. But it's not my limit.
I can transcend. I can become cosmic. I can stand equal to beings like Morvexis.
Not by abandoning the Skin path, but by mastering it. By understanding that the skin is not a prison. It's a canvas.
I am not defined by what I wear. I define what I wear.
And through that definition, I define myself.
That's the power. That's the truth. That's the principle of the Skin path.
Time.
How much time remained?
Ren couldn't see. Couldn't track the hours. His body was nothing but charred meat and crumbling bone. His consciousness was a flickering candle in a hurricane.
But he'd realized it. He'd understood the principle.
Then he felt it.
A countdown. Not visible, not audible, but present in his awareness like a ticking clock inside his skull.
Five seconds.
Four seconds.
Three seconds.
The ritual was ending. Time was running out.
Two seconds.
I understand. The skin is not limitation. The skin is transformation. Identity is not borrowed. Identity is chosen. I am not what I wear. I am what I choose to become.
One second.
I am Ren Hector. I am Dr. Nox. I am whoever and whatever I need to be. And through that choice, I define reality itself.
Zero.
Ren's body exploded into a bloody mist.