Making out was as far as Arden and Vera got with each other. They weren't interrupted or anything, they just decided to stop while they were ahead. They would continue and truly celebrate once they found Sya, and everything was right with the world.

  Of course, that didn't stop Vera from teasing him, telling him that she wanted to see what his mouth was truly capable of when that time comes.

  Now, they were sitting in front of each other on the bed facing each other, talking about soul clusters. Specifically, they were talking about bringing someone else into a soul cluster. To do that, Vera had to begin with the basics of a soul cluster.

  “What do you know about the stars? Not the stuff that has to do with Starborn, just the basic science of stars.”

  “Not much,” Arden replied. “The sun is a star and it's basically just a big ball of gas, right?”

  Vera nodded.

  “Right. Do you know how they were formed?”

  “Not really.”

  “Alright, stay with me on this. Out in space, these giant clouds of dust and gas exist. They slowly come together to become large enough that they are held together by its own gravity. That is all we really need to know as it pertains to soul clusters. Now what do you know about the soul?”

  “I think I know a bit more than a layman on this subject,” he said, as he thought. “I know that all of our Starborn-ness comes from the soul. Our cores are formed in the soul, and everything else comes from the core.”

  “Right. The core takes root in our soul, and condenses Stellar Essence to make itself larger. Stronger. Now, here’s a question for you. How is our core any different from a star? We as Starborn are essentially the building blocks of the cosmos, just on an entirely different scale. Our cores are like stars, which means our soul clusters are outer space, full of energy to be used.”

  “But if our cores are like stars in the way they absorb stuff from their surroundings, and the soul clusters are like space, then how come our souls aren’t being destroyed by our cores?”

  Vera held up two fingers.

  “There are two reasons. One, is the nature of the soul. It is inviolable, and indestructible. Nothing can be allowed in or out without permission, and nothing can get in with brute force. That includes the hunger of our cores. Instead, it gets power from the outside, which is reason two.”

  “From the outside?”

  Arden contemplated for a moment about what it meant. The answer came to him with a jolt. He opened his inventory and pulled out a red marble. One of many he had collected up to that point.

  “Star cores?” He guessed.

  “Correct,” Vera responded.

  She picked one up and held it between her thumb and forefinger. Red energy swirled inside of it Like a galaxy.

  “These things are what keep us alive. Starborn don't need nutrients from food anymore, because we no longer have a human body, and the food isn't broken down normally. Our bodies are, in simple terms, magic. These cores act as our food, and when we eat them, they are broken down into pure stellar essence and injected into our bodies to keep us alive and fuel our powers. But that isn’t the only way we use cores.”

  She gave Arden his core back and pulled a red star core out of her inventory to showcase what she was talking about. She wasn’t going to use one of Arden’s hard earned cores on herself. Because both of the star cores came from the same place, they were identical.

  “To advance our ranks, we need to absorb the cores. When we absorb the cores instead of eating them, the stellar essence is injected into our soul clusters for our cores to grow. Once the cores absorb enough, they split into a second core, then a third, and so on until we have five, and each core gives us a new power.”

  That made sense to Arden. He already knew that your rank determined how many powers you had, but he always figured that it was just an arbitrary amount of essence listed by the Status. The science behind it was interesting to Arden.

  Though, it didn’t really help him unfortunately, considering he didn’t use stellar essence.

  Before Arden could bring up that point, Vera clasped her hands around the core, and smashed it in her grip. A small wave of energy pulsed through the room. She opened her hands to show Arden the aftermath. The star core had been reduced to pebbles, and all of the red energy had been removed.

  “As you’ve seen, to absorb the star cores, you just need to smash them in your hand. Make sure it's covered completely, or the stellar essence won’t be completely absorbed. The energy can go crazy and even destroy something. I distinctly remember you saying that you wanted to bomb Miasma with the cores.”

  “I’m still undecided on that.”

  Arden remembered something.

  “So, Starborn need star cores for three reasons, then. Sustenance, evolution, and currency. Because Starborn use star cores like money, right?”

  Vera held her hands over the small trash can next to the bed and rubbed her hands together, cleaning off the remnants of the star core.

  “Right. At least when it comes to deals between Starborn as a Starborn. If you get hired to do a civilian job, then you’ll get paid in normal money. You want to buy a Satellite? That will cost you cores.

  ‘So I only need maybe a third of my cores, then. Since I don’t need them to evolve or stay alive. That means I can splurge on some more expensive items. Or…’

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “So how do I get you into my soul cluster?”

  “It's simple. You just need to allow me in. It's your soul, meaning it's inviolable, but you control it. You can bring people with you if they consent.”

  “Do you consent?”

  “Yes.”

  Arden looked into his inventory and saw that he had 25 red star cores. Nineteen from the mooks of the mausoleum, two from the Maverick itself, and four from the Stonelord. He had thrown away the two he collected from the Stonelord’s spawn in hopes that it would go for the cores and not him, a plan that ended horribly.

  Not for the first time, he wondered what the hell was wrong with the scaling of Celestials. From a loot standpoint, why was the Maverick worth only two of the nameless weakass skeletons, when it was capable of rolling over everyone there? Why was the Stonelord only worth twice as much as two Mavericks? Surely it was worth more.

  Arden ignored the Celestial economy. He grabbed eight of his star cores out of his inventory and held them out for Vera to take.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I want you to have them. I don’t need them. Actually, if we’re both paradoxes, I guess you don’t need them either.”

  The look of befuddlement on Vera’s face was something that Arden would have as a memory forever.

  “Arden, what are you talking about? Paradoxes need even more star cores than normal.”

  Now it was Arden’s turn to be confused.

  “Huh.”

  Both sat in silence for a moment. They both already knew that the other was a Paradox, thanks to the Status messenger telling them before their trials. It appeared that they both thought that their respective traits were identical as well.

  “You know, that makes sense,” Arden said. “Paradoxes break causality, so it wouldn’t make sense for them to be identical. I guess we have even more reason to explore each other’s soul cluster.” He extended his hand to Vera. “Ready to see what's in mine?”

  Vera took it.

  “I’m ready to see what's inside you.”

  “Did you have to phrase it that way?” he sighed. “Close your eyes.”

  Arden clicked his tongue at her self-satisfied smirk as she closed her eyes. He also closed his eyes and pictured his soul cluster. The endless horizon of stars floating in the nebulous clouds that floated beyond his view. The satellites orbiting his red core.

  He opened his eyes to find himself and Vera somewhere completely different than what he expected. They weren’t in the hotel room, but they also were not in Arden’ soul cluster.

  “The hell?” he muttered.

  “Can I open my eyes yet?”

  “Uh…”

  Vera opened her eyes and flinched at the sight. She looked around the grotesque environment and then back to Arden.

  “Is this your soul cluster?”

  “I don’t think so? It wasn’t like this before. When I created it, it was just a pocket from outer space. A cosmic void with stars and stuff. It was beautiful. Honestly, I thought it would be a relaxing place to stay.”

  Vera gestured to the red expanse.

  “This doesn't seem very relaxing to me, Arden.”

  Both Arden and Vera were unsettled by the changed soul cluster. The walkable space of the cluster was no longer seamlessly connected to the void beyond with an invisible wall. Now, the walkable space had an enormous rib cage wrapped around its edges. Arden was able to confirm from the rib cage that the walkable space was many times larger than what it had been in the trial.

  His core was no longer floating in the air. Well, it was, but not in the same way. Before, it was floating halfway up the space. Now, it was floating between two pillars made of bone that extended from both the top and bottom of the cluster, with only a few centimeters between each. Blood oozed from the top of the bottom pillar down its side, staining the off white bone red.

  Arden looked out through the ribcage and noticed the stars.

  “At least the stars are still there.”

  While the stars were in fact still there, they were also no longer floating. Throughout the cluster, all of the stars in the distance were tangled in a grotesque web of sinew and bone, like an evil puppeteer was holding them hostage.

  “I don’t like this anymore,” he said.

  He looked back to Vera who was approaching the bone pillars holding his core. She had a confused look on her face when he approached.

  “You alright?” He asked.

  She pointed at his core, and he turned to look at it. It didn't look any different from before. Just a red sphere slowly turning like a red star giving off a dark heat

  “Is it not supposed to look like that? I thought it was supposed to look like a star,” he said.

  “Look closer.”

  Arden did as she told him and focused closer on it, and noticed it compress slightly before fully inflating again. He watched as it continued to do so in a steady rhythm.

  “Is it beating like a heart?” He asked.

  “Looks like it.” Vera looked around. “This looks like when your doppelganger attacked us.”

  Arden kicked himself for not noticing it sooner. It did look a lot like when the doppelganger released the power of the Archon of Life.

  “Oh,” he said in a long drawn out tone. “Right. I guess it did happen like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “You weren't here when we killed the doppelganger. Basically, he tried to assimilate me into him. Some stuff happened, and I absorbed him instead, taking his legacy as well.”

  “So now you have two Legacy Abilities?”

  “Not anymore. They were taken away before the trial, so I became a husk. Like the doppelganger. The Status told me that if I did good enough in the trial, the two legacies would evolve into one legacy. My legacy, with elements of both previous ones.”

  He looked up to his core, softly pulsating like a beating heart, then around the rest of the soul cluster in all of its horrific glory.

  “I guess this was part of the second legacy. Or my legacy now, actually.”

  He glanced at the giant rib cage looming over them and gave a low whistle.

  “You can't deny it looks raw as hell. The rib cage at least. I'm not sure what to think of the stars being trapped by viscera though.”

  “It's an aesthetic for sure. I think you'll get used to it. Personally, I like the web. I find the prospect of your soul holding the universe hostage appealing. You wouldn't happen to be secretly evil, would you?”

  “Define evil,” he said.

  Arden looked at the pillar leaking the blood. To him, it was the most unsettling thing in the soul cluster, and the only thing he actually hated.

  This was his soul, so he knew exactly when the blood would stop. Never. Just like his ability said.

  ‘I'll keep being a human, just you watch.’