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The walls of Hump’s soul ballooned as they took on more essence. they strained beneath the pressure, stretched to their limits as the Divine Spark raged within him. One lapse in focus—one slip in his concentration—and he knew his very soul would rupture.
He felt the motion of it through him like a great tide. Essence cycled through his core in endless waves, drawing on the Divine Spark’s fire and feeding. The dense spirit forged core spun at his centre, dragging in more and more power like a cyclone, compressing it tighter with every breath, binding essence to a new intent. Not the world’s, not the spark’s, but his.
This was no longer the flame of Ordana, but of Ignarok. Of Hump the Hedge Wizard. Of the Bearer of Infinity.
And what remained of Ordana’s intent didn’t like that. The Divine Spark didn’t sit passive. Her intent burned through the essence flooding his soul. Fire, fury, destruction. Its natured seared into him, trying to shape his essence into something vast and catastrophic.
A change came over the chamber as his will met the spark’s. Lava churned beneath him, rivers of molten stone spread across the floor, white flames burst from the cracks in the earth and climbed the walls until the very realm of the phylactery shook around him.
Hump gritted his teeth and continued to drag that essence into his core, compressing it harder. His soul felt like it was tearing apart. The Divine Spark fought him at every step, trying to align his intent with its own once more, even as he sought to do the opposite. It wanted him to surrender to its nature so that the power could settle cleanly within him, just like before.
For a moment, Hump almost let it happen. The pain was overwhelming. Coherent thought left him, and there was only the sensation and the desire to give in to its intent. To capitulate to its authority.
The temptation of fire called to him. It was so easy. So simple. Burn away weakness. Burn away doubt. Burn away every enemy before they could threaten those he cared about.
The lava answered those thoughts immediately.
The chamber shook violently. Molten cracks split wider beneath him. White fire surged high enough to brush the ceiling, and the Time Stop Hourglass destabilised around him. The flow of time returned.
“No, kid!” Walt shouted from somewhere beyond the flames. “Whatever you’re doing, stop doing it! You’re going to destroy this whole place.”
Hump barely heard him. The power was intoxicating—divinity finally at his fingertips. That feeling—that power—that he had craved for all these years. Every time he’d seen a god pillar. Every time he’d witnessed how easily Chosen could improve.
And this power was even greater.
It was power that the gods had wielded. Authority over reality itself. Not merely spells or essence, but the ability to impose meaning upon the world. To change the very laws by which essence functioned.
The fire wanted catastrophe. It wanted dominance. It wanted to set the world afire, and from those ashes, something new would emerge.
Hump’s Soul Manifestation swelled around him. The dragon in his blood roared as rivers of lava erupted outward in all directions. Spell formations appeared in the air around him, hundreds upon hundreds of glowing runes unfolding through the chamber like the stars igniting in the sky. The very spells that formed the phylactery revealed themselves before his eyes.
Yet the formations were becoming unstable.
The flames deformed them, twisting their structure. Plague Zombie Tom cowered against one wall. Walt hit outside the door.
This was wrong. The thought cut through Hump so suddenly. This isn’t me.
Hump cycled his power, drawing back the essence the Divine Spark had won from him, dragging it deeper into his soul. Beneath the fuy and destruction, he searched for the thing that had always defined him.
Not fire, or wrath, but endurance. Resistance to those that would enforce their will upon him and innocents. The will to stand against those that sought to do harm.
The beacon in the dark.
A change came over Hump’s soul. The blazing fire of the spark shifted as the White Flame grew. The light that revealed truth. The fire that burned corruption.
And suddenly, it all clicked. A Soul Domain wasn’t merely his will enforced upon the world, it was law. An authority that essence itself was forced to obey.
Gius had declared that all things decayed in his realm. Hump’s own magic could hardly resist its corruption at first, but with time, his intent and soul had hardened to it. Ordana’s spark declared that fire was destruction and rebirth—energy in a pure, chaotic form.
Hump’s truth was different. It was a truth forged in him through tutelage, failure, and successes. Instilled in him by his master, the previous holders of the Book of Infinite Pages, Vivienne, and Ado, his instructor in Drakalyn.
Magic was meant to illuminate, not dominate. To understand the Will of the World, not to bind people in chains and cut them off from it.
The moment that understanding settled into his soul, he sensed a change. The Divine Spark stopped feeling wild and untamed. It still tried to convert his essence to its own intent, but it was no longer an impossible force. Its essence bent to his will instead, reshaping itself as it passed through him. Turning into a flame that burned away at corruption and illuminated the dark.
He seized upon that understanding with everything he had. Again and again, he cycled the essence through his Spirit Forged core, compressing it tighter with each pass. The process was agony. It felt as though his soul were being hammered apart and reforged anew beneath unimaginable pressure. Cracks spread through the walls of his soul only to harden once more as he forced them back together. The dense cloud of essence surrounding his core spiralled inward, condensing into something heavier and more stable.
The Divine Spark raged through every layer of him, but now Hump understood what he was building. The core was the foundation—a vessel forged of his intent and capable of containing his authority.
His law imposed upon the world.
The change ripped through Hump’s soul with each cycle of essence. His core grew denser. The essence flowing through him no longer felt chaotic or borrowed but carried his intent. And with it, the chamber changed in reflection.
The streaming lava slowed and steadied, no longer erupting wildly but pooling deliberately around him. The spell formations suspended around him sharpened, no longer distorted, their runes becoming clear to him. Every path of essence exposed in intricate detail. The very truth of this pocket dimension revealed to him, even if it was beyond his current understanding. White fire kindled over the pools of lava, flickering in low, contained blazes.
Hump breathed deeply, a calmness coming over him as his authority finally took shape. His soul emerged once more, but it was different to its usual manifestation. This was no aura projected by his soul, but a sphere of dominion bound to his intent. A place where the very Will of the World was changed to fit his desire.
Within his domain, essence itself would be forced to show its true nature. Corruption would burn. Falsehoods would unravel. Hidden magic would reveal itself beneath the White Flame. And he would endure at the centre of it, incorruptible, unbreakable.
The lava rescinded. The cracks in the ground smoothed over by his will. The white fire remained, illuminating the chamber and the spell formations all around him. He sensed that if he wished it, the earth would shatter to his will and lava would spew forth. In here, the world answered him instinctively.
On his belt, the Book of Infinite Pages shook.
THE BOOK OF INFINITE PAGES
Soul Domain – Authority of the White Flame
DescriptionA Soul Domain establishes a practitioner’s authority over the world, through which essence is forced to obey one’s truth. Within this dominion, the world bends to the meaning and nature the practitioner has carved into their soul. In this place, their authority is absolute.
EffectsHeightened perception of essence, allowing better detection of enemy spells and increased spell casting speed.Domain Casting allows multiple spells to be maintained at the same time by manifesting them in the domain through the Book of Infinite Pages, with each additional spell requiring increased effort.Authority of the White Flame forces essence to reveal its true nature. Hidden spell formations, illusions, corrupted essence, and concealed magic become visible.Hostile spells and manifestations are destabilised as their structures are exposed and disrupted. Corruption, poison, curses, and shadow are significantly weakened.Allies experience increased clarity, resistance to fear, and strengthened control over their own essence and intent.Molten earth and white fire manifest throughout the domain, burning away corruption and hostile essence.The Book of Infinite Pages perceives, analyses, and records spell formations within the domain’s authority.
Hump let out a long breath as he stared at the new entry within his spellbook. The words shimmered faintly in the glow of the white fire around him.
Soul Domain.
The seventh rank.
For years, it had been impossible. More recently, a distant goal to strive for. But in his mind, it was still a threshold reserved for legends of ancient wizards with power enough to reshape the world. Even after everything he’d achieved, part of his still viewed it as beyond his reach.
Yet here he was, surrounded by white fire and cooling stone while reality itself bent around his will.
He laughed quietly under his breath, almost in disbelief. “I actually did it.”
The words felt strange out loud. On any other day he would have been elated. Instead, his mind was already racing ahead to the problem waiting outside. There had been a purpose to all this. It was only step one in a very arduous task. With his advancement complete, he had two-hundred or so Divine Sparks still to deal with, but with his domain, he felt he could get them to move. Before, it had taken time to get the spark to do anything, but with his authority, it should be different… theoretically.
Hump grimaced at the thought. Theory had a bad habit of exploding in his face.
“I take it from the reading that it’s over, kid?” Walt asked cautiously from the doorway.
Hump glanced up.
The house spirit was still on the threshold, clearly avoiding stepping inside.
White fire still drifted lazily through the room, curling around floating spell formations that hung suspended in the air like constellations. The molten cracks in the floor were gone, but the heat still radiated from the stone.
Hump nodded. “I think so.”
“You think so?” Walt repeated.
“Won’t know until I experiment a little further, but for now, everything feels stable.”
Walt barked a laugh. “Good, cause that was looking real sketchy there for a minute. Thought you were going to bring this whole place down. I thought this chamber was designed to take a beating so that what’s his faces’ daughter could beat up our zombie friend here all she liked.”
“You mean Gius and Irila,” Hump said. “And yes, so did I. Seems it wasn’t designed with combating Soul Domain’s in mind.”
Only then did Hump properly take in the state of the room. Plague Zombie Tom had backed himself into one corner, but he was no longer void of emotion. Instead, he stared silently at the white fire flickering above the floor, utterly captivated by it. He didn’t have time to investigate him now. What he knew was that he’d managed to reach him, and that the plague domain that had contained his soul was gone.
There might be something that could be saved.
“I need to get back outside,” Hump said, rising to his feet. He stumbled, steadying himself on the wall, feeling far less certain of himself all of a sudden. “There’s going to be more sparks, Walt. We need to find a way to handle them.”
“The last one came in going wild,” Walt said. “If you want to do this, they need to be stable when they arrive.”
Hump let out a breath. “I’ll see what I can do.”
With a thought, he rescinded his domain. It was finally time to put an end to this. For good or ill, he would take the Divine Sparks, and the Old Gods would be free. What happened next would change the world, and he suspected would involve a whole lot of running.