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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/daecrist on 2025-12-28 18:11:54+00:00.

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"What are you laughing about?" Albert said. "This isn't funny."

Liam kept laughing. He couldn't help himself. He kept laughing to the point that the cat finally jumped up on his shoulder and started batting him with a paw.

"Stop doing that. This isn't funny, and we don't have long."

Liam finally managed to bring it under control. Sort of. He was still giggling, and he had to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye.

"I might not know a lot about magic, but I do know that everyone agrees there's not a chance humans can use infernal magic. So I don't know what you're on about."

"Just please humor me," Albert said. "It might be the only way you survive, and I need you to survive. You are my life's work."

"You killed my parents," Liam said. "Why should I do anything for you?"

"Because I wasn’t the one who killed your parents, for one. I had every intention of letting you and them go before I was literally stabbed in the back,” he said.

“But you trapped them there in the first place,” Liam said.

“And I was going to release them,” he repeated.

“But you didn’t.”

“Because I literally had a knife lovingly massaging the inside of my liver!” he said, batting Liam on the head a few more times. “I’d like to see you try to do anything with that sort of distraction.”

Liam glared at the cat. The cat glared right back at him. Finally, he sighed.

“Okay, so maybe some of my anger is… misdirected. Some of it,” he said.

“Then how about this. I can let you live through what is coming," Albert said, turning to look at the garzeth, and then to Ana. "Maybe you and your lady love can live through this. I don't like your chances. This isn't what I was thinking when I did all of this, but we can try."

Liam stared at him, then looked over to the garzeth and he decided that yes, he would like to live for the next few moments. He could figure out what to do about the sorcerer caught in the cat's body later. After he survived this.

"Fine. What am I doing?"

"You have made your Opening Ascension," Albert said. "You need to close your eyes and look deep within you. You need to feel at the core where the mana flows into your body from the universe, and you need to allow it to fill you."

Liam stared at the cat for another moment, and then he did just that. And he was surprised to realize that when he closed his eyes, it did feel as though there was a bright and shining power at the very core of his being.

He'd read people describing it, but he never thought it would happen with him. Come to think of it, this felt sort of like the spot where he gathered together that small lure he used to bait scourgelings. There was something off about that, but he pushed the thought away.

"Okay, I'm doing it," Liam said.

“Concentrate on that point of light. Concentrate all of your attention on it. It will open up, and then you will have reached your Opening Ascension."

"Fine," Liam muttered.

So he did just that. He felt the light opening inside him, and then suddenly it bloomed like a massive explosion going off all through his body. He threw his head back and opened his mouth to scream, but no scream came out. The power pulsed inside him over and over, filling his body, threatening to overwhelm him, threatening to scourge his flesh from his bones.

It was over in an instant that lasted an eternity, and he very nearly collapsed. He looked all around and was surprised to see that there was a faint light glow coming off of him. As though there was steam of some sort, only it was a white glow moving up and off of his body.

"What was that?" he muttered.

"That was the arcane energy filling you for your Opening Ascension," Albert said, looking up and around. "Normally you pull mana from the world around you to reach your Ascension, but in this case the mana from the city is moving over here to give you one hells of an assist."

"Why is it doing that?" Liam muttered.

"Well, because I engineered it to do just that," Albert said. “Of course I didn’t intend for the city to burn. That’s a new wrinkle I didn’t anticipate. Thankfully there's a little bit of prophecy backing us up."

"I don't know anything about any prophecy," Liam said.

"Of course you don't. Those stuck-up prigs at the Academy wouldn't want anybody to know about the prophecy they were trying to manipulate into happening in a manner that’s advantageous to them.”

"I still feel something pulsing inside me," Liam said.

The cat looked at him, its tail twitching.

"What do you feel when you close your eyes?"

Liam closed his eyes, and he was surprised to realize there was more energy pulsing inside him.

"It feels like more of the same."

"Then you're going to have to do the same again and pull in more mana. I don't have time to explain to you how the Ascension works or anything like that. All I can tell you is you need to take everything that you can."

Liam closed his eyes again, and he felt at that same spot. But it felt odd, almost like there was something that was trying to crowd it out. But he knew that he had to do this, and so he felt at it again, tried to focus, but this time around it was almost like it was trying to take control of his body.

He felt wisps of pure light reaching out and whipping through his mind and then moving through his body. It was like ice in his veins. He grunted and struggled.

"What's going on?" Albert asked.

"It's like it's trying to take over."

"Don't fight it," Albert said. "You need to let it move through you. Maximize the mana that flows through your body as you reach the First Ascension."

"I don't know what any of that means," Liam said.

"You don't have to. Just listen to me and focus. Give over control to the mana flowing through you.

Liam figured he was dead either way and this was a small reed to grasp at as he slipped off the edge of a cliff. So he held onto that reed and he relaxed. He tried a mind-clearing exercise he learned in one of Baron Riven’s books that he did sometimes when he was in the middle of the forest trying to close his eyes and feel where the scourgelings were nesting.

And the power pulsed and flowed through him. It was easier this time. There was nothing along the lines of the loud scream that came out of his body the last time. There was nothing like the fire and ice that threatened to scourge the flesh from his body.

It still wasn't entirely comfortable, but it felt easier.

"Yes, that's it," Albert said. "Let it flow through you."

Mana pulled into him. He could see it even with his eyes closed. Flowing from the magical maelstrom all around and into his body. Filling his core. Filling magical pathways that ran through his body that had always been there even though he’d never felt them before.

Submitting to the power seemed to work. No pain. No threat of death. No agony that lasted for what felt like an eternity. Just the mana flowing into him. Filling his core. Stretching it to capacity and then beyond.

Liam finally opened his eyes and turned and looked at the cat who stared back at him. His tail twitched.

"Your eyes are glowing," Albert said.

"Are they?" Liam asked, blinking. Light played across the cat’s face as he stared at him.

A moment later, he felt mana fill him, and that core at the center of his being was pulsing with far more power than it had the first time around.

"What happened?" he muttered.

"Is there anything else you feel?" the cat asked, looking at him intently.

Liam stared right back at the cat and he looked up at the maelstrom of magic all around. He realized the magic seemed to be more dark, with striated purple moving through it now. There wasn't quite as much of the light. Like he’d sucked just enough of it into his core to change the makeup of the mana storm.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean, I need you to feel if you have another Ascension in you."

Only there was already something he could feel inside himself. Something that seemed to be bubbling up. something that was desperately trying to break free. Something that didn't feel at all like the arcane power that had moved through him just a moment ago.

Something that was trying to rip its way out of his body.

He grabbed it and tried to control it in the same way he'd tried to control the arcane energy moving through his body. He had to fight it, and he let out a scream as he tried to push some of the arcane mana towards it.

But it wasn’t arcane power filling him now. He knew he was going for round two as he threw his head back and let out another cry of pain.

"Yes, this is it!” Albert said. "What are you feeling?"

He felt at his core again. He realized there were two in there that were pulsing in counterpoint to one another. There was the bright arcane light, but there was something else in there as well. A mix of darkness and that strange glowing purple magic. Like what he'd seen around the garzeth. Like the kind of power that came off of the scourgelings and the other creatures when he killed them and their essence poured into his body. 

It made him want to scream in pain. It was like that power wanted to flay the flesh off of his body, not just scourge it from him with ice and fire.

He focused on what had to be the infernal ma...

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