Genesis & The White Room
Genesis had survived the birth of Ivoryta.
She had endured the cold invasion of the symbiont through skin, blood, nerve, bone and DNA. She had felt her heart stop beneath the living white surface. She had nearly disappeared inside another form of life and had returned not alone, but joined.
Since then, the Ivory Skin had become part of her existence.
It slept within her cells.
It awakened beneath her command.
It could rise across her body in pearlescent light, seal her from neck to feet, become a shield before danger struck, create blades from her arms, reinforce her muscles, sharpen her senses and translate imagination into living attire.
Genesis had learned the Complete Form.
She had learned Liberata.
She had learned to conceal the symbiont beneath Sapiens skin.
She had learned to wear cultures as living form.
She had learned to allow Ivoryta to become wild when battle demanded it and elegant when sovereignty required it.
For the first time since her creation, Genesis believed she had reached the edge of what she could become.
Kronos allowed her to believe it for seven days.
On the eighth, he called her to the Hall of the First Light.
The hall stood on the highest terrace of the First Seat, open to the dawn of Urkulo.
The First Seat was the first great palace, sanctuary and centre of authority ever raised upon Urkulo. It was the physical residence of Kronos and Genesis, but it was also far more than a royal home. It served as the original heart of the emerging Kwasar order: a place of government, study, creation, training and spiritual guidance from which the future of Tzion began to take form. Within its halls, Kronos observed possible futures, studied the Ex-Codice, forged the first sacred instruments of the Kwasars and prepared Genesis for the responsibilities that awaited her. The First Seat was therefore not simply a palace, but the first institutional foundation of Kwasar civilisation—the place where divine vision became law, training, culture and destiny.
The Hall of the First Light rose above the clouds of Urkulo. It was an open ceremonial chamber built to receive the earliest light of dawn and to overlook the vast landscapes of the Mother Planet. Enormous columns of white stone surrounded a floor polished so perfectly that it reflected the sky like still water. Beyond the colonnades, oceans of cloud drifted far below the palace, while the distant mountain peaks emerged through the mist like the spines of ancient gods. The hall was used for moments of revelation, solemn instruction and decisions that could shape the future of Tzion.
Genesis arrived at the Hall of the First Light wearing the Ivory Skin in its Liberata Form.
The pearlescent Bio-Skin flowed over her torso, hips and legs in elegant patterns, while parts of her shoulders, arms and back remained Sapiens in appearance.
Her black hair moved in the wind. As she approached Kronos, its colour began to change without her even noticing, taking on the same violet hue as her eyes, as though her body instinctively responded to his presence.
He stood at the edge of the terrace.
As always, he wore the Sublime Skin.
Genesis had seen it since the earliest days of her training.
White cosmic matter embraced his body without seam or division. Golden lines crossed it in precise geometries, flowing from collar to chest, shoulders, arms and legs. They did not appear painted upon the white. They seemed to live within it, like sunlight trapped inside the laws of creation.
She had once believed it was merely the vestment of an Architect.
Now, after Ivoryta, she understood enough to know that it was something more.
Kronos did not turn when she approached.
“You have become comfortable,” he said.
Genesis stopped beside him.
“That sounds dangerously like criticism.”
“It is observation.”
“I survived fusion with a creature that entered my DNA. I learned to make weapons from my own skin. I can become a queen, warrior or stranger with a thought. I believe I have earned a little comfort.”
Kronos looked at her.
His expression held affection.
And concern.
“That is why comfort has become dangerous.”
Genesis glanced down at the Ivory Skin.
“She is not weak.”
“I know.”
“She grows stronger every day.”
“I know.”
“She listens to me.”
“Most of the time.”
Genesis raised an eyebrow.
Kronos almost smiled.
Then his eyes returned to the horizon.
“Ivoryta has given you survival. Adaptation. Biological power. She has made your body capable of resisting what would have destroyed you before.”
“But?”
Kronos turned fully towards her.
“But survival is not the highest form of protection.”
Genesis studied the golden lines of his Sublime Skin.
“You are going to tell me what that is.”
“Yes.”
The word silenced her.
For as long as she had known him, Kronos had avoided explaining the full nature of the sacred vestment. He had spoken of its meaning, its relationship to the Architects and Pioneer Spirits, but never of its origin.
Genesis moved closer.
“The Sublime Skin.”
Kronos nodded.
She reached towards one of the golden lines crossing his forearm, stopping before touching it.
“Is it another being?”
“Not as Ivoryta was.”
“Then what is it?”
“A transformation.”
Genesis looked up sharply.
Kronos continued.
“The Ivory Skin is not the final state of the symbiont.”
The wind seemed to withdraw from the terrace.
Genesis looked at her own arms.
Beneath her pearlescent surface, Ivoryta stirred.
Not fear.
Recognition.
“A transformation into what?”
Kronos’s gaze lowered towards the white living surface covering her body.
“Into Arkana.”
The name moved through Ivoryta like a distant shock.
Genesis felt the symbiont tighten around her ribs.
She placed a hand over her chest.
“She knows that name.”
“She knows it as instinct knows fire.”
Genesis breathed slowly.
“What happens when Ivoryta becomes Arkana?”
Kronos looked towards the dawn.
“The living white remains. But a deeper structure awakens inside it. Golden streams emerge through the Bio-Skin, not as decoration, but as architecture. The symbiont ceases to merely protect and begins to create laws around the host.”
Genesis glanced again at his skin.
“The golden lines.”
“Yes.”
“They are Arkana.”
“They are the visible language of Arkana.”
Genesis remained silent.
Kronos lifted one hand.
Golden light travelled across his palm.
The air bent around his fingers.
For a heartbeat, Genesis saw impossible things.
A mountain rising without touch.
A flame bending sideways.
A distant cloud collapsing into a spiral.
Space itself folding in a thin golden line before sealing again.
Then the light faded.
Genesis stared at him.
“What was that?”
“The beginning of what becomes possible after the transformation.”
Her voice lowered.
“Teach me.”
“No.”
The answer came so calmly that it took her a moment to understand it.
Genesis’s eyes narrowed.
“No?”
“I will not teach you.”
“Why?”
“Because I cannot.”
“You are wearing the thing I am asking to learn.”
“I was born able to manifest it.”
“And Polaris?”
“She was born from my essence. For her, the path existed before she knew how to walk it.”
Genesis folded her arms.
“So I am the only one who must suffer for it.”
Kronos did not soften the truth.
“Yes.”
She looked away.
The word wounded more than she expected.
Kronos stepped closer.
“But you will not suffer alone.”
Genesis turned back.
Behind her, the air ignited.
Red light descended in a vertical flame.
Ex-Codice rose from the floor, pale and luminous, gathering around the spiritual fire. Limbs formed. Breath entered. Long red hair fell across glowing shoulders.
Polaris opened her eyes.
Green at first.
Then blue.
Then green again as her physical body stabilised.
She stood before them in a fully material body, clothed in the pearlescent white of the Ivory Skin, smooth, radiant and alive.
Genesis looked from Polaris to Kronos.
“Why her?”
Polaris answered before he could.
“Because the transformation cannot be taught by an Architect who was born already knowing it,” Polaris said.
She moved closer to Genesis.
“It must be awakened through the bond between a Kwasar and her Pioneer.”
Genesis felt Ivoryta stir softly beneath her skin.
Kronos intervened.
“I can show you the result, Genesis. I can explain the nature of Arkana, reveal its principles and prepare you for what it demands. But I cannot lead you through the transformation itself.”
She looked at him.
“Why not?”
“Because there was never a threshold for me to cross. I did not have to awaken the Sublime Skin. I was born knowing it. I did not learn to reach that state through fear, pain, necessity or union with another soul. It was simply part of me.”
Kronos lowered his gaze towards Ivoryta.
“Your path is different. Ivoryta must discover how to become Arkana with you. The transformation cannot be imposed from outside, nor can it be transferred as knowledge. It must emerge from the relationship between the symbiont and its Host, and from the spiritual bond they both share with their Pioneer.”
Genesis looked at Polaris.
“And she can teach me?”
“She can guide you,” Kronos replied. “Polaris knows the Sublime Skin, but she also knows your soul from within. She has felt your fears, your limits, your wounds and your will. She can perceive what Ivoryta does not yet understand and push both of you towards the point where transformation becomes necessary.”
He paused.
“If I attempted it, my power would become an interference. You would look to my authority instead of your own strength. Ivoryta would respond to my presence before responding to your need. I might be able to force an appearance resembling the Sublime Skin, but it would not be a true ascension. It would be a borrowed form, dependent upon me, and it would vanish the moment my will ceased to sustain it.”
Kronos’s expression grew more solemn.
“The Sublime Warrior cannot be created by an Architect. She must be born from the Kwasar destined to become her.”
Polaris stepped beside Genesis.
“I cannot give you the transformation,” she said. “But I can take you to the place where you and Ivoryta will have no choice but to find it.”
Kronos turned towards the interior of the palace.
“Come. There is somewhere you must see.”
Together, they left the Hall of the First Light.
The open terraces and dawn-filled colonnades gave way to the silent interior of the First Seat. Kronos led them through corridors of white stone, beneath vaulted ceilings crossed by streams of restrained cosmic light.
They descended.
At first, they walked down broad ceremonial stairs. Then the architecture narrowed around them. The polished walls became older, smoother and almost completely without ornament. The sounds of the palace faded until Genesis could hear only their footsteps and the quiet breathing of Polaris beside her.
They passed beneath halls Genesis had never seen, below the libraries, the armouries and the chambers where Ex-Codice was studied. They descended into the foundational levels of the First Seat, where the palace was joined directly to the living stone of Urkulo.
At the end of the final passage stood an enormous circular door.
It was set into a wall of seamless black stone.
The door itself was pure white.
There was no handle.
No lock.
No inscription.
Only a thin golden line running around its circumference.
Genesis stopped before it.
“What is this place?”
Kronos stood beside the door.
“The White Room.”
Genesis looked at the silent entrance.
“It is beneath the palace?”
“Beneath its oldest foundations,” Kronos said. “I created it before the First Seat was completed. Everything above us was built around it.”
He placed one hand against the white surface.
Golden light travelled beneath his palm.
“The White Room is not merely a chamber. Its visible walls contain a controlled reality formed from the pure essence of my own energy—the same power from which everything within the Universe of Tzion was created—combined with Ex-Codice, temporal architecture and the possible memories and futures of Tzion. Within it, the ordinary laws of Urkulo may be suspended, altered or replaced.”
Genesis approached the door.
“What can it become?”
“Anything its Magister can construct clearly enough,” Polaris answered. “A battlefield. A city. An ocean. A dying world. A place without gravity. A future that has not yet happened.”
Kronos nodded.
“The room allows those training within it to summon Proferrum weapons and armour at will. The weapons can appear instantly in their hands, allowing them to experiment with different forms of combat and refine their skills through constant practice. It can also recreate landscapes and enemies drawn from the possibilities I have witnessed. It was designed so that Kwasars and Pioneer Spirits could prepare for dangers that the present Universe has not yet learned to fear.”
Genesis looked at Polaris.
“And she can remain outside me in there?”
“Yes,” Kronos said. “A Pioneer’s material body is normally temporary. Ex-Codice can grant physical form to the spirit, but separation places increasing strain upon both the vessel and the bond with its Kwasar. As you already know, within the material Universe of Tzion, you and Polaris can remain separated in two physical bodies for only one hour.”
He looked towards the white door.
“Inside the White Room, that limitation does not exist. The chamber continuously sustains Polaris’s body with its own Ex-Codice matrix. It preserves the connection between spirit, vessel and host without forcing her to return to you after a single hour.”
Polaris stepped beside Genesis.
“Within the room, I can remain physically manifested for the entire training.”
“You will eat together,” Kronos said. “Rest together. Fight together. Recover together. You will live as two distinct beings while strengthening the union that connects you.”
Genesis studied the door again.
“How long?”
“Twelve days will pass in Urkulo.”
“And inside?”
“One year.”
Genesis turned slowly towards him.
“A year?”
“The White Room does not stop time,” Kronos explained. “It expands experience within its boundaries. One day outside corresponds to approximately one month within.”
Genesis glanced at Polaris.
“So we will be alone together for an entire year.”
Polaris smiled faintly.
“You say that as though you are already afraid.”
“I have shared my soul with you.”
“That is not the same as sharing a room.”
Genesis looked back at Kronos.
“And you remain outside?”
“Yes.”
“You cannot enter?”
“I can,” he said. “But I will not.”
Genesis frowned.
Kronos’s expression became solemn.
“This transformation must belong to you and Polaris. If I enter as Architect, the White Room will answer my authority before it answers her instruction. You would continue looking towards me whenever you were afraid, injured or uncertain.”
He looked from Genesis to Polaris.
“For this bond to ascend, the two of you must learn to stand without me,” Kronos said. “And the White Room will give you everything you need to do so.
“As I have already explained, Genesis, within these walls you may summon Proferrum weapons and Proferrum armour at will. Polaris, you may reshape the chamber into any world, battlefield or environment you can imagine.”
“Use those gifts to create the trials I will no longer create for you. Explore unfamiliar weapons. Develop new forms of defence. Test combat techniques across hostile worlds and impossible conditions. Push one another beyond the limits you already know.
“Let imagination guide your training, but let discipline transform imagination into skill. Fail, adapt and begin again until neither of you requires my hand to rise.
“That is how your bond will ascend. And that is how you will awaken the Sublime Warrior already waiting within you, Genesis.”
The words settled heavily between them.
Genesis looked at the white door.
Then at Polaris.
Her Pioneer extended her hand.
“Prenova?”
Genesis took it.
“Magister.”
Kronos pressed his palm more firmly against the door.
The golden circumference ignited.
The immense circle separated silently down its centre and opened into absolute white.
There was no corridor beyond it.
No visible floor.
No wall.
Only a boundless, nuclear-white emptiness waiting on the other side.
Genesis felt Ivoryta tighten around her body.
Polaris closed her fingers around Genesis’s hand.
Kronos looked at them both.
“When this door opens again, twelve days will have passed for me.”
Genesis looked into the endless white.
“And a year for us.”
“Yes.”
Kronos stepped away from the entrance.
“Inside, Polaris is the Magister. The room will answer her mind. You are the Prenova. It will not end a trial merely because you are wounded, frightened or exhausted.”
Genesis looked at Polaris.
“You neglected to mention that.”
Polaris’s expression remained perfectly calm.
“I was waiting until escape became embarrassing.”
Genesis almost smiled.
Then Kronos touched her cheek.
The tenderness of the gesture contrasted with the terrible place waiting before her.
“Return to me,” he whispered.
Genesis covered his hand with hers.
“I will.”
“This time, I have no doubt that you will return,” Kronos said. “I have seen it in my visions. That is why I can let you go without fear.”
Genesis held his gaze.
“I feel it too. Not as a vision, but here.”
She placed a hand over her heart.
“I know this is a path I must walk. Whatever waits beyond that door, I am meant to face it.”
Kronos looked at her with quiet pride.
“Then go.”
Genesis nodded.
“And I will come back.”
She released him.
Then she and Polaris crossed the threshold together.
The circular door closed behind them.
Kronos remained alone beneath the foundations of the First Seat, facing the silent white stone.
On the other side, Genesis and Polaris stood at the beginning of a year.
The White Room
There was no visible floor.
No ceiling.
No horizon.
Genesis stepped through the threshold and felt solid ground beneath her feet, although she could not see where it began or ended.
The whiteness was not the white of stone, snow or cloud.
It was nuclear.
Perfect.
Without shadow.
The doors closed behind them.
Kronos disappeared.
Genesis turned immediately.
Nothing remained.
Not even the outline of the entrance.
Only herself.
Polaris.
And infinity.
Genesis’s voice sounded strangely small.
“This is it?”
Polaris walked several steps away.
“This is nothing.”
“That is usually what ‘white empty room’ means.”
Polaris ignored the remark.
“The White Room is connected to probability, memory, Ex-Codice and the possible futures Kronos has seen. It can become almost any environment. It can manifest weapons, armour, weather, gravity, enemies, armies and places that do not yet exist.”
Genesis looked around.
“And you control it?”
“I am the Magister.”
She pointed at Genesis.
“You are the Prenova.”
Genesis placed a hand on her hip.
“I thought you were my spiritual companion.”
“I am.”
“My friend.”
“I hope so.”
“My other self.”
“In part.”
“And now you are going to order me around.”
Polaris smiled.
“Relentlessly.”
Genesis sighed.
“This year will be very long.”
“Yes.”
Polaris walked farther into the white.
“Before we begin, you must see what you are trying to become.”
Genesis followed.
Polaris stopped.
Her Ivory Skin shone softly over her material body.
She lowered her arms.
Closed her eyes.
And breathed.
Nothing happened.
Not at first.
The transformation began so slowly that Genesis almost thought she had imagined it.
A thread of light appeared beneath Polaris’s sternum.
Gold.
Not bright like flame.
Deep like the first ray of dawn inside a sealed temple.
The thread moved upward.
It divided at the collarbone.
One branch travelled across her left shoulder.
The other crossed her right.
More gold appeared beneath the white Bio-Skin, following lines that had not existed a heartbeat before.
Polaris’s breathing deepened.
The white surface around her chest tightened.
A vibration passed through the room.
Genesis took one step back.
The first golden stream emerged visibly from beneath the Ivory Skin.
It did not tear the white.
It transformed it.
Liquid gold flowed across Polaris’s chest in two symmetrical arcs. Fine lines traced her ribs. Others circled her waist, climbed her spine and descended along her arms.
The empty room began to tremble.
Genesis felt the pressure before she saw its source.
Polaris’s power was rising.
The white beneath her feet cracked.
There had been no visible floor until that moment.
Now the surface revealed itself through fractures spreading outwards from her body.
Polaris opened her eyes.
They burned blue-white.
The gold intensified.
Her red hair lifted around her as though submerged in an invisible sea.
The Ivory Skin became radiant.
Golden trims widened over the shoulders, narrowed along her arms and formed luminous patterns over her thighs and calves. At her chest, the lines gathered into a symbol like a star opening inside a circle.
Polaris’s hands clenched.
A low cry escaped her.
The sound deepened.
The whole White Room bent around her.
Wind exploded outward.
Genesis crossed her arms over her face as the force struck her. Ivoryta instantly covered the exposed parts of her body. A shield formed from her forearm.
It shattered.
Genesis flew backwards.
She twisted in the air, landed on one knee and drove a white blade into the floor to stop herself.
Polaris continued rising.
Gold burned across every line.
Her aura expanded into a vertical pillar.
The whiteness of the room darkened around her, not because light had diminished, but because her radiance had become too great for the simulation to express without contrast.
Then the transformation reached its final point.
Polaris threw back her head and cried out.
The golden streams erupted.
They raced across the Ivory Skin in perfect geometries, sealing into an immaculate white-and-gold form.
The pressure vanished.
The silence afterwards was immense.
Polaris stood at the centre of the broken white plane.
Her Sublime Skin had awakened.
The pearlescent white remained alive beneath the surface, but now gold moved through it like conscious sunlight. Every line pulsed with contained force. Her body seemed lighter and heavier at once, both flesh and divine architecture.
Genesis stared.
This was power achieved through matter.
A transformation.
A state.
A warrior standing on the far side of an impossible threshold.
Genesis rose slowly.
“You could have warned me about the shockwave.”
Polaris smiled.
“I wanted you to feel the difference.”
“I felt it with my face.”
“You protected your face.”
“After it hit me.”
Polaris extended one hand.
A sphere of blue-white energy appeared above her palm.
Then she closed her fingers.
The energy vanished.
She rose from the ground.
No wings.
No visible support.
She simply lifted into the air as if gravity had stopped recognising her.
Genesis looked up.
Polaris vanished.
A violent gust struck Genesis from behind.
She turned.
Polaris stood there.
Genesis had not seen her move.
“What—”
Polaris raised two fingers.
Genesis felt her body leave the floor.
She rose ten feet into the air.
Then twenty.
“Put me down.”
Polaris tilted her head.
Genesis moved sideways, dragged by invisible force.
“Telekinesis,” Polaris said.
“I know what it looks like.”
“No. You know what the result looks like.”
Genesis tried to move.
Ivoryta thickened around her limbs, but there was nothing physical to resist.
Polaris lowered her hand.
Genesis fell.
She landed, rolled and rose with fury in her eyes.
Polaris pointed towards the empty horizon.
The White Room opened.
Visions appeared.
A Kwasar lifting stone without touching it.
Another moving faster than sight.
Another flying over an ocean.
Another speaking directly into a distant mind.
Another calling fire from empty air.
Another shaping water into living serpents.
Another freezing the atmosphere.
Another raising walls of earth.
Another healing shattered flesh.
Another opening a portal between worlds.
Another sensing life through mountains.
Another absorbing enemy energy and transforming it into strength.
Genesis watched in silence.
“Vision Powers,” Polaris said.
Genesis turned towards her.
“All of that becomes possible through the Sublime Skin?”
“Possible. Not given.”
Polaris descended until her feet touched the floor.
“The transformation does not grant every power. It makes the Kwasar capable of creating pathways towards powers that do not yet exist within the body.”
Genesis looked at the visions.
“So I imagine a power and receive it.”
Polaris’s expression hardened.
“No.”
The single word struck like a slap.
“Never say that again. Never teach it. Never allow a future Kwasar to believe imagination is escape.”
She walked closer.
“Imagination is blueprint. The Kwasar must conceive a power clearly enough to understand what it requires. Then the body must be broken and rebuilt until it can produce the effect. The Bio-Skin must stabilise it. The Pioneer Spirit must sustain the will. The mind must survive the transformation.”
Genesis watched a vision of a Kwasar attempting to fly.
The figure rose.
Then fell.
Another appeared, surrounded by flame.
The fire turned inward and consumed the outline.
A third tried to open a portal.
Its body stretched between two places and vanished.
Polaris closed the visions.
“The Vision is the beginning. Training decides whether it becomes power or death.”
Genesis’s gaze moved to the gold lines upon Polaris.
“And Asgardio?”
Polaris became still.
“You know the name.”
“Kronos told me that Ivoryta was the first requirement for unlocking the abilities of Asgardio and travelling across the Universe at speeds beyond that of light.”
“It is.”
“But not the last.”
“No.”
Polaris raised one hand.
A golden line appeared in the air.
It widened into a thin opening.
Through it, Genesis saw a dark sea beneath three moons.
The opening closed.
“Asgardio is not ordinary movement. It is not speed. It is not simply teleportation.”
Polaris touched the gold at her chest.
“Ivoryta remembers the body. The Pioneer Spirit remembers the soul. Arkana creates the route. The Kwasar commands the crossing.”
Genesis stared at the place where the opening had been.
“You can go anywhere?”
“No.”
“Not yet?”
“Not without a destination I can hold. Not without sufficient energy. Not without risk.”
Polaris looked around the infinite white.
“The Universe is too vast for guardians who arrive late.”
Genesis absorbed the words.
Polaris smiled as she prepared to reveal more of the Sublime Skin’s secrets to her Prenova.
“But what makes our Sublime Skin truly special is its ability to create our sacred armours, which we call ObiceX.”
The gold along her chest thickened.
White and golden matter rose from the skin itself.
A breastplate formed.
Shoulder guards unfolded.
Segments appeared along her spine, ribs, hips and thighs.
Within seconds, Polaris wore a sleek exoskeletal armour over the Sublime Skin.
It had not been placed upon her.
It had grown from her.
“This is my ObiceX,” Polaris said. “But it is not bound to a single design. I can reshape it at will.”
The armour changed.
It became heavier, broader, shaped for war.
Then lighter, streamlined for speed.
Then ceremonial, covered in living geometry.
Then it withdrew into golden trims.
“After the transformation, Arkana can design and manifest armour through will, imagination and training.”
Genesis looked from the vanished armour to Polaris’s eyes.
“So what do I gain if I become Sublime?”
Polaris approached until they stood face to face.
“You gain nothing.”
Genesis frowned.
Polaris placed two fingers against the hollow at the base of Genesis’s throat, between her collarbones.
“You become capable of earning everything.”
Then she struck.
Her palm hit Genesis’s sternum.
The White Room exploded.
The First Defeat
Genesis flew through the white.
The impact emptied her lungs.
She turned mid-air and forced Ivoryta into Complete Form before striking the ground. The Bio-Skin absorbed part of the collision, but the force drove a trench through the simulated surface.
Genesis came to a stop on her back.
Polaris stood where she had begun.
“You could have said we were starting.”
“I struck you.”
“That was the announcement.”
Genesis pushed herself upright.
The Ivory Skin thickened around her arms.
Then, Genesis remembered Kronos’s words: Within the White Room, you may summon Proferrum weapons at will.
A Proferrum sword appeared beside her.
The White Room had read the desire before she spoke it.
Genesis seized the hilt.
The weapon was immense, wide enough to split a beast in half. She lifted it with both hands and charged.
Polaris waited.
Genesis crossed the distance in a blur.
She swung at the neck.
Polaris moved one inch.
The blade missed.
Genesis reversed the strike.
Polaris bent beneath it.
A white tendril erupted from Genesis’s waist and lashed towards Polaris’s ankle.
Polaris rose into the air.
Genesis followed with a leap, Ivoryta reinforcing her legs. She turned and drove her heel towards Polaris’s head.
Polaris caught the foot.
Genesis’s eyes widened.
Polaris rotated once.
The world vanished into white motion.
She released.
Genesis struck the ground hard enough to form a crater.
Before she could rise, Polaris landed upon her chest.
Not heavily.
Casually.
Genesis tried to move.
She could not.
Polaris’s foot held her down with effortless pressure.
“You are relying on Ivoryta to react after your decisions,” Polaris said.
Genesis formed a blade from her forearm and slashed upward.
Polaris vanished.
Genesis rolled aside.
A kick struck her ribs.
The Ivory Skin hardened too late.
She skidded across the floor.
Genesis came up on one knee, breathing hard.
Polaris appeared ten paces away.
“You move quickly,” Genesis said.
“No.”
“You disappeared.”
“I moved.”
“That is not helpful.”
“It will become helpful when you stop complaining.”
Genesis roared and attacked again.
She summoned twin Proferrum blades this time, shorter and faster. Ivoryta created two additional arms of white matter from her back, each forming a curved weapon.
Four blades crossed towards Polaris from different angles.
Polaris raised one finger.
The weapons stopped.
Genesis strained.
Nothing moved.
Polaris closed her hand.
All four blades shattered.
The Proferrum weapons broke into simulated fragments.
Genesis stared in disbelief.
Polaris crossed the distance and punched her in the abdomen.
The world folded around the impact.
Genesis left the ground.
She rose high enough that Polaris became a small white-and-gold figure below.
Then Polaris appeared above her.
A double-fisted strike sent Genesis back down.
She crashed.
Silence returned.
Polaris landed beside the crater.
Genesis lay at the bottom, Ivory Skin cracked and smoking.
Polaris waited.
Genesis opened one eye.
“Was that necessary?”
“No.”
Genesis groaned.
Polaris offered her hand.
“That was the gentle version.”
Genesis stared at the hand.
Then at Polaris.
Then she took it.
Polaris pulled her upright.
“You are stronger than before,” Polaris said.
Genesis spat blood onto the floor. Ivoryta absorbed it and began repairing the damage.
“You have a strange way of praising people.”
“You asked to awaken the Sublime Warrior.”
“I did not ask to become part of the floor.”
Polaris smiled.
Genesis studied her in silence.
“I did not know you were this powerful,” she said at last. “I had no idea. I thought our abilities were similar, but now I realise the difference between us is immense.”
“For now,” Polaris replied.
Genesis frowned.
Polaris stepped closer.
“Little by little, I will reveal the true extent of my power to you. But remember this, Genesis: my power is also yours.”
Genesis looked at her.
“We are bound by the same soul,” Polaris continued. “We exist separately, but we live through one another. Any power you witness in me is a power you may one day learn to reproduce, refine and make your own.”
“You truly believe that?”
“I know it.”
Polaris placed a hand over Genesis’s shoulder.
“We are soulmates in the deepest sense of the word. What awakens in me can awaken in you. What I have mastered, you are capable of learning.”
Her expression softened.
“The difference between us may feel immeasurable now. It will not remain so forever.”
Polaris smiled.
“Tomorrow, we begin properly.”
Genesis looked into the endless whiteness.
“How long did this fight last?”
“Thirty-seven seconds.”
Genesis closed her eyes.
“One year.”
“Yes.”
“This was a mistake.”
Polaris placed an arm around her shoulders and helped her walk.
“Probably.”
For the first time, Genesis laughed.
It hurt.