Chapter 24: The Vestige
"Move. Move. Move."
Yukeli pleaded with himself in silence, gathering every fragment of will he still possessed, trying to stir even the smallest muscle of his own body.
Useless.
His body did not respond.
It did not obey.
It was as if it no longer belonged to him.
He could feel it with absolute clarity. Every fiber. Every bone. Every invisible flow that sustained his existence. He knew his body now in a way no human could ever know. He felt the changes. He felt the difference. His body had become superior. His mind had become superior.
And yet…
He felt weak.
Small.
Inferior.
Trapped within himself, unable to act, unable to resist, unable to flee. Like a motionless animal before a predator. Like living meat awaiting the inevitable slaughter before a superior existence.
'Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.'
The curses echoed in his mind, hollow and useless, but they were the only form of resistance left to him.
Until that moment, everything had been fascinating. The fear existed, yes. The danger was real. Death had been close more than once. Still, there was fascination. Power. Evolution. Ascension.
To become something beyond human was like crossing a forbidden threshold. Like stepping into a territory that all of humanity desired but could never reach.
He had felt special. Chosen. Like the protagonist of a story that only existed in fantasy.
But this was no fantasy. It was real. And it was happening far too fast.
Waking up in a strange world. In a strange body. Surrounded by forces, creatures, and laws he did not comprehend. Being dragged from one life-or-death situation to another, without preparation, without explanation, without choice. It was suffocating.
Even so, Yukeli had endured. He always endured.
Adaptation was his nature. It was what had defined his existence from the very beginning.
He had no memories of a childhood. No memories of a family. No memories of a name. Only the void.
He had awakened in a hospital bed with a completely clean mind. A blank slate. No language. No identity. No past. He had been less than human.
But he learned. He observed. He imitated. He adapted.
Step by step, he built himself from nothing. He learned to speak. He learned to walk. He learned to exist. He learned to survive.
The world had no mercy. He was wounded. Betrayed. Beaten. Used. He went hungry. He felt the cold. He felt pain. And he did the same in return. He hurt. He wounded. He survived.
He did what was necessary. Always.
That was why he believed he was different. More resilient. More adaptable. More capable. He had survived everything.
But this… this was different.
When he looked into the eyes of that existence, knowledge was not learned; it was infused. A flood of wisdom that pierced his consciousness.
He understood, in a painful snap, that Consciousness was the aspect of the mind within the Primordial Essence. It manifested through pure information. At low levels, it allowed one to read structures; at high levels, it made telepathy a trivial tool.
By engraving the Mind Rune—that fragment torn from the serpent that he could not digest directly—this aspect had calcified within his being.
Runes were anchors. Unlike pure Essence, which was chaotic and moldable, Runes organized the three fundamental pillars: Mind, Body, and Soul. They were not just energy; they were the architecture that gave shape to existence.
Absorbing Primordial Essence was an act of pillage: stealing pieces of these pillars from another life to make one's own existence denser. More solid. When the process failed, the "system" did not permit waste; it compressed what remained into an Arcane Rune or an Artifact.
By engraving the rune, Yukeli accepted a fragment of another existence living within him. His reserve grew, and his consciousness extended like an invisible limb, allowing him to sense the truth before him.
The being he observed did not hide. Like an open book, it let itself be read.
'Interesting.'
Yukeli felt the thought, cold and alien, sprout in his own mind.
'You are a peculiar creature. Very peculiar. I have done you no harm. On the contrary, I shared my banquet with you, and thanks to that, you have reached the intermediate stage. So why do you look at me with such crawling terror?'
The question was a silent insult. That thing controlled him, invaded his mind, dominated his body—and it still expected gratitude? That he would accept being just another puppet?
'Hmm.'
The sensation that followed carried a genuine curiosity.
'Your perception is distorted. I do not interfere. I am no different from a tree or a spring of water. The Awakened feed upon me and grow stronger. All I ask in return is that they carry a part of me. You saw. The creatures of this woods live, hunt, and evolve. To call them puppets is… rude.'
Yukeli felt a contained killing intent then, a coldness that cut deeper than the crystal around him. Forcing his jaw against the paralysis, he managed to squeeze out the words:
"I saw… saw what you are. I felt your hunger. Your thirst. Your desire. Why do you expect me to feel anything but fear?"
Silence. A vacuum in Yukeli's mind.
Then:
'You received an Infusion of Wisdom? How intriguing.'
There was a new emotion there: amusement.
'You truly are peculiar. Even with no defenses raised, your consciousness reached so much of me. So that is it… you felt the Giver of Strength.'
The presence vibrated, almost as if it were laughing.
'I am not the Giver of Strength. If I were… your thread would have already been cut. You would be dead before you even perceived my gaze.'
Yukeli's confusion was palpable. The entity continued:
'I am but a vestige. A shadow left behind when He ascended to where you cannot even look. Vestiges do not normally possess consciousness. But He was… absolute.'
A heavy pause.
'When I was abandoned, I continued to exist. I continued to feed. I evolved in the darkness of what He discarded.'
Then, with a gelid pride that made Yukeli's soul tremble:
'I have become something new.'
'I am the Fruit Merchant.'