SSS Awakening: All My Clones Have Divine Bloodlines!-Chapter 52: [God Of War]
[Congratulations. You have fulfilled the requirements to awaken your second clone.]
Evan stopped for a moment, surprised, though the surprise didn’t last long.
Something shifted inside his SoulSea.
He felt it before he saw it, through his soul, through his skin, through senses that were sharper now than they used to be. A faint point of light appeared beside Shadow, small at first, then expanding rapidly until it became a sphere, crimson orange, glowing like a coal pulled from a dying fire.
’This...’
He recognized it immediately. The resemblance to what Shadow had been before becoming his clone was unmistakable. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦
’A fragment of inheritance,’ he thought, recalling what the system had called it the first time.
The base form of what would eventually shape itself into a clone of his own.
He had been slightly caught off guard by the sudden event, but his composure quickly returned, his gaze sharpening.
’Just as I thought.’
The system had never told him the exact criteria for obtaining more clones. With the first one it had taken him a while to figure out he needed to awaken, but for the second? He’d had no idea. Only suspicions. And now one of them had just solidified.
The evolution path’s stages.
He had received his first clone when he became an Awakened, an F-rank, the lowest Rank of the first stage. And now the second, the moment he fulfilled the criteria to become an Ascendant.
Coincidence? He didn’t think so.
’Hey Bruce, so my future clones unlock as my evolution stage increases?’
He asked already fairly certain of the answer.
[Yes and no.]
The system’s voice rang once in his mind, brief and characteristically unhelpful. Evan had learned by now that there was no point in pushing. If it wanted to elaborate, it would have done so without being asked. That much he’d figured out after spending this long with it.
He set the question aside and turned his attention back to what was in front of him.
’Alright. Let’s see what bloodline I’m unlocking this time.’
He stepped closer and placed his right hand over the sphere.
Just like last time, it reacted instantly.
Not a cloud of black smoke. An explosion of crimson flames that expanded like a small sun, flooding the space with blinding light for one breathless instant.
Then the sun began to twist.
The flames, rather than dispersing, folded back on themselves like liquid matter, obeying some invisible shape that forced them into structure. Five distinct points formed first, slowly consolidating into four limbs and a head. Still unstable, still incomplete, not a body, not yet, but a mass that approximated his proportions and silhouette.
No flesh. No bone.
Only compressed flame, sealed inside a humanoid outline. Trembling, but alive.
Like Shadow before it, this was a freshly spawned existence, a fragment of divine inheritance that had only just begun to take shape.
The moment the process finished, a system screen opened in front of him.
---
[Name: none]
[Rank: F]
[ESS: 0%]
[Title: Spawn]
[Bloodline: God of War]
[Synchronization: 1%]
[Skills]: 3
[Description]: A progeny of flame, born to consume and reduce all things to ash. Yet it has already stepped off its original path, reshaping the same concept of destruction into something more deliberate, conquest and annihilation.
---
Evan read the description and frowned slightly.
’Born from flames... but a God of War?’
At first glance it seemed more like a fire deity than anything else, but the description made it clear that this fragment belonged to a lineage that had deviated from its original concept entirely, building something new on top of the foundation it was born with. Which would explain why the thing standing in front of him looked like a living flame given shape.
Because the original concept was fire.
’Is it really possible to deviate from one’s original concept?’ he thought, genuinely caught off guard by the implication, and as if the system had been reading his mind, it didn’t wait to be asked.
[Yes, it is possible.]
[By definition, Gods are beings who have transcended the mortal limits imposed upon them, reaching a higher state of existence than what they once were. This is typically achieved by taking one’s concept as a foundation, the guiding principle that shapes what an existence becomes. More often than not, that concept is already determined at birth. But it does not have to be.]
Evan listened, slightly taken aback.
As far as he knew, the path of evolution was built around one’s innate concept, like having an elemental affinity for water or fire. One was supposed to cultivate that concept, understand it, and use it to grow stronger.
Going against it usually slowed progress, or worse, made it unstable.
It was basic knowledge among the awakened.
Which made the system’s words all the more surprising.
[Just as one can push against their mortal limits and break through them, so too can one push against the concept they were born into. Following the standard evolutionary path tied to one’s innate concept is not a requirement. One can deviate. One can forge a concept of their own.]
[But only those who manage to do so, truly do so, earn the right to call themselves Gods in the fullest sense of the word. Without that quality, divinity remains out of reach, no matter how far one goes along their evolution path.]
The last lines carried something strange in them.
The system’s tone was the same as always, flat, even, without inflection, and yet there was something underneath it. A trace of arrogance, maybe. Or something closer to contempt. As if it hadn’t just shared information most people would never encounter in their lifetimes, but had instead pointed out something obvious that the majority of people kept getting wrong.
"You’re pretty talkative today, you sure you’re okay?"Evan asked, almost involuntarily, still caught somewhere between processing everything he’d just been told and trying to make sense of the system’s attitude whenever divinity or gods came up.
It was like it was mocking them. Their understanding of it, the way they conceived of these things, all of it seeming, by the system’s implication, to be considerably further from the truth than most would ever realize.
[I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Host.]
’Yeah, sure.’
He didn’t bother arguing. He turned toward his new clone instead,
"Well then... I guess it’s time to put you to work. We don’t keep freeloaders around here."
