It was like trying to move a limb that had been amputated.
The ntal command went out, the intent was clear, but the chanism to execute didn’t exist.
The spirits’ laughter erupted around him, openly mocking him.
"He doesn’t understand!" the silver-haired woman cackled, genuine amusent bleeding through her contemptuous mask. "He tried to use borrowed power in a realm that only recognizes what belongs to the soul!"
"Pathetic," another voice added, dripping with disdain. "Completely reliant on gifts from others. Take those away, and he’s nothing. A warrior without weapons. A mage without magic. Just a confused child wondering why his toys stopped working."
"This is what passes for a Soul Warden now?" a third spirit questioned, shaking his head with theatrical disappointnt. "Malakai would be ashad. We’re all ashad. The title deserves better than soone who can’t even access his own power."
Jack’s hands clenched into fists, rage building in his chest as the mockery intensified. These spirits thought they knew him. Thought they understood what he was capable of based on a single failed attempt to channel elental magic.
He stopped trying to channel external power and instead reached for sothing deeper. Sothing that wasn’t borrowed, gifted, or contracted from external sources.
Sothing that was his.
The transformation began imdiately.
Black spread across Jack’s skin like ink dropped in water, starting from his chest and radiating outward in patterns that followed his circulatory system.
This was pure darkness, the absence of light made physical and bound to flesh.
His muscles swelled, not grotesquely but swiftly. Every fiber restructured itself for maximum efficiency, for killing potential that transcended human limitations.
Horns erupted from his temples, curving back slightly, their surface rough and ridged like volcanic glass that had cooled too quickly.
His eyes shifted, pupils elongating into vertical slits while the sclera darkened to match the void above.
His vision sharpened, seeing in spectrums that humans couldn’t process, tracking movent and heat signatures that would have been invisible monts before.
His teeth sharpened, canines extending into fangs designed to tear flesh.
His jaw restructured slightly, becoming more pronounced, giving his face an angular predatory quality that human bone structure couldn’t achieve.
The aura hit like a shockwave.
The overwhelming and oppressive force of demonic essence was unleashed, unburdened by the usual limitations of its human vessel.
Jack’s presence expanded, filling the space around him with malevolent energy that made the obsidian beneath their feet crack in spiderweb patterns, spreading outward from where he stood.
The temperature dropped.
Not from cold, but from the absence of warmth. As if his transford state was consuming heat from the surrounding environnt and converting it into raw power.
The laughter had died by this point.
Every spirit went silent, their mocking expressions transforming into shock that transcended simple surprise into genuine fear.
The silver-haired woman took an involuntary step backward, her eyes widening as she processed what she was seeing. "This... this is..."
"Impossible," another spirit finished, his voice barely above a whisper. "Binding a demon to your soul. rging demonic essence with your fundantal being. That’s not... You shouldn’t be..."
Kael’s glowing eyes narrowed, his body tensing as he reassessed Jack with new understanding.
For the first ti since Jack had arrived in this realm, the forr Soul Warden’s neutral expression cracked, revealing respect beneath the weariness.
"You bound a demon to your soul," Kael said slowly, his voice carrying across the sudden stillness with perfect clarity. "You rged demonic essence with your fundantal being at a level that makes it inseparable from your existence. No one has ever accomplished that before."
Jack’s transford voice erged deeper, rougher, carrying harmonics that normal human vocal cords couldn’t produce. The sound resonated in ways that made the spirits flinch, despite their incorporeal nature. "Is that a problem?"
"It should have killed you," Kael replied, his tone mixing respect with disbelief. "Hundreds have attempted what you’ve accomplished. Thousands, perhaps, across the millennia since demons first entered this tower. They all tried to fuse demon souls with their own, thinking it would grant them power without the limitations of contracts or the obligations that co with divine blessings."
He gestured at the silent spirits surrounding them, his movent encompassing the entire group. "Most died screaming as the demonic essence tore them apart from within. The energies are fundantally incompatible with human souls. Demons exist in states of perpetual hunger, endless violence, concentrated malevolence that corrodes everything it touches."
Kael’s gaze tracked across Jack’s transford state, noting every detail with the practiced eye of soone who’d seen countless failed attempts. "A few survived long enough to realize the transformation was irreversible before madness claid them. They beca monsters in truth, losing everything that made them human while retaining just enough awareness to understand what they’d sacrificed."
He paused, his glowing eyes eting Jack’s slitted pupils.
"You’re standing here, conscious and controlled, maintaining a transformation that should be consuming your sanity with every passing second. Which ans you either got impossibly lucky, or you’re far more capable than your reliance on borrowed elental power suggested."
The silver-haired woman who’d led the mockery had recovered so of her composure, though her contemptuous expression had been replaced by sothing approaching cautious respect.
"This... this is you. Not gifted by gods or the primordials."
She circled Jack slowly, maintaining careful distance as if approaching a dangerous predator. "This transformation is bound to your soul at a level that makes it inseparable from your existence. It’s part of you in ways that elental magic never will be."
Another spirit, a man with dark hair and a scar across his throat, spoke up. "How did you survive the binding process? What thod did you use to rge demonic essence without being consud by it?"
Jack considered the question, his demon form radiating power that these spirits couldn’t dismiss or diminish. The truth was complicated.
His transformation on Floor Twenty-Four had been less a conscious choice and more his system guiding him toward it.
The system had facilitated it, providing structure and limitations that prevented the madness these spirits described.
But explaining that would reveal details about the System that Jack wasn’t certain these spirits should know about.
Kael’s earlier comnts about Malakai suggested the forr Soul Warden might have possessed similar tools, but confirming the System’s existence felt like crossing a line he couldn’t uncross.
"Trial and error," Jack replied, his transford voice making the casual answer sound ominous. "Pain and adaptation. I needed power that was mine, not borrowed. So I took it."
The simplification wasn’t entirely dishonest. He had endured catastrophic pain during the transformation.
He had adapted to survive what should have killed him. The System had guided the process, but the willingness to attempt sothing that dangerous had entirely been the System’s choice.
No one knew that his system had convinced him to eat demon hearts to survive in the tower.
Kael studied him for a long mont, those glowing eyes seeing through the partial truth to the deeper reality beneath.
But he didn’t press or demand a more detailed explanation.
"Regardless of thod," Kael said finally, "the result speaks for itself. You’ve accomplished what hundreds failed to achieve. That earns you at least a asure of respect from those who understand the difficulty."
The other spirits murmured in agreent, their earlier mockery replaced by wary acknowledgnt.
They still didn’t look friendly, but the contempt had been tempered by recognition that Jack possessed sothing genuine beneath the borrowed power they’d been so quick to dismiss.
"However," Kael continued, his tone shifting back to instructional, "your demon transformation, impressive as it is, doesn’t solve your fundantal problem."
Jack’s slitted eyes narrowed. "What problem?"
"You’re a Blank Slate," Kael stated flatly, delivering the assessnt like a dical diagnosis. "You possess no natural elental affinity. The Golden Lightning and fas you wield in the physical world are loans. Power funneled through you by your contracts and blessings. Draven’s mark channels lightning. Emberion’s favor provides fla. But neither elent belongs to you."
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