The wind howled across the charred remains of the eastern outpost.
Smoke rose from broken towers. Ash clung to Riku's arms. His Specter form shimmered, flickering between real and not, shadow and boy, warrior and weapon.
Valen crouched over a dying Reborn—a Chimera Path user whose skin had become scales mid-battle, whose eyes had shifted into slits. The poor soul twitched, muttered in three voices, and dissolved into dust.
"Another failed one," Valen whispered. "Their soul cracked."
Riku stood silently, watching the body fade.
It didn't feel right.
He'd died twice.
Yet his soul hadn't splintered.
His power only grew more focused. His mind stayed sharp.
Why?
He clenched his jaw.
That's when—
The world shattered.
Time stopped.
Space folded inward.
Color drained from everything except the blazing light above.
A soft hum filled the void. Something ancient. Something absolute.
From that light, she descended—
Lirith, the Goddess of Rebirth.
Wings of shifting crystal. Hair that moved like threads of moonlight. She wore no crown—but the space bent around her as if the universe itself bowed.
She stepped toward Riku, her feet never touching the ground.
"You are not like the others," she said.
Riku froze. His mark burned under his ribs.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
Lirith's voice echoed like stars falling into oceans.
"They are fragments. You are core. Their power is imitation. Yours is origin. You were not granted strength—you were born to hold it."
Riku blinked. "But I died. Twice. I lost everything to gain more."
"And yet you remain."
She hovered closer, eyes like galaxies.
"Valen fears you will break. Elyos believes you are unstable. The others call you lucky."
Her expression turned sharper—intense.
> "Do not listen to them."
Riku flinched.
> "They are weak. They were never made to endure the cycle."
> "You… are something greater."
The space around him surged. Images appeared in the void:
— Elyos, kneeling before a false idol.
— Valen, crying before her first death.
— Dozens of Reborn, burning out in seconds.
And then—
Riku.
Standing.
Surviving.
Evolving.
Lirith raised her hand. A new mark shimmered in the air—unlike any path he'd seen before.
It wasn't Phoenix, Seraphim, Abyss, Titan, Chimera, or Oracle.
This one pulsed with all six colors. Shifting. Breathing.
A Seventh Path.
> [Origin Path] – You do not adapt to power. Power adapts to you.
Riku's heart thundered.
"What… is that?"
Lirith smiled.
"Your true soul. You were never meant to follow the system. You were meant to overwrite it."
She placed a hand over his chest. Light burst across his vision.
"Walk your own path, Riku. And when the gods fall… you'll stand over them."
And then—
the light vanished.
Time resumed.
Riku stood alone in the ash. But something had changed.
Valen looked at him. "Riku… your aura. It's—what happened to you?"
He opened his palm.
The mark on his ribs was gone.
Replaced by a new symbol: A spiral of shifting runes, endlessly evolving.
He spoke only one word.
> "Origin."
End of Chapter 8
Chapter 9 next—where Riku begins testing his new Origin Path power in combat, and other Reborn begin to sense a "distortion" in the system, triggering a response from a forgotten deity imprisoned beneath Velmora?