The hearth was unlit, but the faint smell of wood and varnish lingered in the air. Zeke stood in the living room of the Reed mansion. The shelves were lined with books, the windows let in filtered daylight, and everything felt exactly as he remembered. It was home.
But it could not be. He remembered the cavern, the nest of stone and husks, the silence of the ashlands. He remembered letting go, finally relaxing, finally slipping into sleep. And now he was here. He pressed a pseudopod against the floorboards, felt the grain of polished wood beneath him, warm and solid. It was impossible.
Confusion pressed in sharp. Had he returned? Had the mansion survived? Were his parents here? His voice rose unbidden.
"Mother? Father?"
The word echoed hollow through the still air, swallowed by silence.
Then the silence broke.
"You already know the truth."
Zeke turned. From the far end of the room, a figure stepped forward. Tall, radiant, terrible. Silver hair spilled like molten moonlight, faintly glowing. Irises flecked with purple and gold. Black horns curved back from his head, archaic tattoos coiling across his arms and chest. Two vast wings spread wide, purple and gold in color, shimmering like woven dusk and dawn. His shoulders were armored with golden scales forming natural pauldrons, and from his torso extended four arms, each heavy with power.
The figure's voice rolled like thunder: calm, inevitable.
"This is not your home. This is no miracle return. You stand within the evolution space."
Zeke's lattice thrummed, confusion hardening to denial. "Evolution… space?"
The figure's eyes locked onto his, gold and purple burning through.
"Yes. The system has drawn you here, to decide what you will become. This mansion is not stone or wood. It is memory. Your subconscious chose this form, because here, in these walls, you feel safe. It is comfort. Shelter for the trial ahead."
He spread his four arms wide, wings stirring sparks in the air.
"And I—" his voice deepened, heavy with authority, "—am no stranger. I am you."
Zeke's form stilled. "You?"
"I am what you were meant to be. The Asuran Neo-Nephilim Primogenitor. The heritage that was ripped from you." His eyes sharpened, fury under velvet calm. "Do not mistake me for something you abandoned. You never turned away from me. You were torn from me. Stripped. Cast into that husk of slime, robbed of your rightful flesh. I am the body stolen from you. I am the legacy broken apart. And only through me can you reclaim what is yours."
The words landed like knives, deeper than any blade. Zeke felt his lattice twist. Ripped. Stolen. He had never considered it—only survival, only growth. But the figure's voice carried weight undeniable, the weight of what had been lost.
The Primogenitor stepped closer, the floor creaking though it was only memory.
"Through me, you rise to what you were. Apex potential, sovereign mastery of affinity. Four arms for war, wings for dominion, scales for defense, blood for transcendence. A vessel no other can match. You can reclaim your place—not as a beast in the mud, not as an aberration, but as what you were meant to be. Choose me, and rise."
The room shook faintly with his words. Sparks crawled along the shelves, glass windows trembled in their frames. His presence was heavy, commanding, demanding recognition.
And then laughter cut across it, sharp and mocking.
The air twisted as another figure stepped from the shadows near the hearth. This one more human, yet not. His frame was lean, strong, his skin marked by patches of scales along shoulders and arms. Two proper dragon horns curved from his head, slit eyes burning gold. When he smiled, it was cruel.
"Apex potential? Sovereignty? All I hear is arrogance."
The Primogenitor's wings flared. "You dare interrupt?"
The new figure sneered. "Of course I do. You dress yourself in grandeur, but you are nothing more than a ghost. A fossil of a dead world. You speak of heritage stolen, but what good is heritage in a world that does not even remember your name? You don't belong here. You never will." He jabbed a clawed finger toward Zeke. "But he does. And I am the proof."
Zeke's form wavered. "Who—?"
The figure spread his arms, scaled patches glinting.
"I am you as well. Another path. The Half-Blood Drakyn. A native race of this world. Not a relic dragged from another. Not an aberration of slime. Flesh that belongs here." His voice hardened. "With this form, you could walk among the people of this world. You could move freely, learn its truths. You could even search for your family. If they too arrived here, if they too were cast into this place, you would have the chance to find them. You cannot do that shackled to the corpse of a dead world."
The Primogenitor's laugh was venom. "Pathetic. You would reduce him to a mutt. A hybrid begging for scraps. Forever lesser. Forever beneath the pure. You call me arrogance? You are compromise incarnate. A mediocrity dressed as pragmatism."
The Drakyn spat back. "Better compromise than delusion! You promise power, but what will he be? An unknown freak. Hunted. Kidnapped. Used as breeding stock by those who see only anomaly and advantage. That is your grand sovereignty—chains forged by others!"
The mansion groaned with their words, walls trembling, sparks bleeding into the air. Zeke felt the weight of both voices, each tearing into him. But before he could answer, the floor itself rippled.
Essence surged upward, crystalline and liquid all at once, forming a shape neither stable nor still. A body amorphous, shifting between humanoid and monstrous, limbs sprouting and retracting, wings blooming then melting away. Filaments of light wove through it like constellations, inscriptions crawling across surfaces that did not stay the same. And when it spoke, the voice was Zeke's own—distorted, fractured, heavy.
"Past and compromise. Both lies." The Sovereign Slime's words dripped through the air like molten glass. "One is a chain. The other is surrender. Why crawl backward to what was stolen? Why settle for mediocrity in the hope of belonging? You already forged something new. Me. A vessel sovereign over essence itself. The Crucible. Adaptive. Endless. Beyond all molds."
The Drakyn snarled. "You are nothing but a beast. An abomination. No people will ever welcome you. You speak of sovereignty, but you will walk alone, feared and hunted."
The Slime's body quivered, jagged laughter breaking its form. "Better feared than pitied. Better sovereign than a mongrel."
The Primogenitor's wings shook sparks loose. "Better a mongrel than sludge. You call yourself new, but you are nothing but a parody of form. A mockery of creation. Sovereignty? You cannot even claim a shape."
The Slime lashed back, crystalline shards forming like teeth. "And you are a parody of memory. A corpse dressed in light. Dominion stolen from him and sold back as temptation."
Their voices crashed against each other, louder and louder. Words became weapons, tearing at Zeke's lattice like claws. The mansion shook violently, shelves toppling, glass shattering, the hearth splitting down the middle. Sparks filled the air like storms, choking, blinding.
Zeke stood in the center of it all, every word striking deeper than any blade, because each was truth and each was lie, each was a part of him. His past. His chance at belonging. His present forged anew. All screaming, all demanding, all tearing at the seams of his mind.
And the debate had only begun.