I Can Assimilate Everything

The moment Rose helped him unlock the terrifying genome of the Outsiders, Achilles felt his consciousness flooded with information that arrived as data and as fundamental understanding carved into his very existence.

He obtained a name and distinctions that resonated through every cell of his being with a singular name!

Nar'Thyss.

Weavers of Fables, Shepherds of Stories.

But this was only the beginning.

His existence buzzed with violent resonance as the unlocked genome spread through him like wildfire given purpose.

Platinum color spread across his stellar form, not replacing the purple-gold but weaving through it in patterns that suggested text written in light.

And then, as the transformation reached some critical threshold, he began to receive something more profound than mere knowledge.

A memory. An inheritance.

It came in the way of story itself…a Fable, because this was what the Weavers of Fables were, what the Shepherds of Stories had always been.

Not just observers or manipulators, but beings who existed as living narratives, who understood reality through the lens of dramatic structure!

Achilles felt his vision sink, his consciousness pulled into something that was memory and experience and inherited understanding all at once.

He found himself inhabiting the body of a massive winged butterfly-like creature, but this was no mere Nar'Thyss…this was something ancient, powerful, and currently dying.

The form he inhabited was magnificent in its alien beauty.

Nine pairs of wings spread from a central body that seemed to exist in multiple dimensions simultaneously.

Each wing was a different shade of platinum, from nearly white to deep silver-grey, and within their surfaces moved patterns that looked like text being constantly written and rewritten…stories in motion, narratives taking shape and dissolving.

Nine tails extended from its lower body, each one serpentine and graceful, moving with independent thought. At the end of each tail, instead of stingers or clubs, there were glimmering pages of light…actual pages, as if books had been given physical form and attached to this creature's body.

The pages turned constantly, showing glimpses of different stories, different realities, different possible futures and pasts.

This was a true Nar'Thyss, and Achilles felt his existence resonate within it as the memory-vision continued.

The creature was injured so severely that even its existence, that fundamental certainty of being that transcended physical form…could not heal itself.

Wounds that went deeper than flesh, tears in its narrative structure itself, gaps in its story that threatened to unravel everything it was.

Death was coming for it with the certainty of an ending that had already been written.

Was coming.

But no longer!

Because uniquely, impossibly, it had found a way to heal itself through pure accident that would reshape its understanding of what Fables could become.

Below the dying Nar'Thyss stretched a massive world…continents and oceans, civilizations rising and falling, billions of lives playing out their small dramas unaware of the cosmic entity dying in the void above them.

The Nar'Thyss had been passing over this world, seeking somewhere quiet to cease existing, when its wounds had torn open further.

Its unique authority…that fundamental power that allowed it to perceive and influence narrative structures, had leaked out like blood from a wounded titan.

Platinum-colored particles of pure story had rained down on the world below, most of them dissipating into nothing, too weak to maintain cohesion.

But one stream of authority, through pure chance, had attached itself to a human.

Not a hero. Not a chosen one. Not someone of particular significance. Just a peasant, a young man whose greatest ambition had been to perhaps own his own plot of land someday.

The authority had struck him while he worked in the fields, and he had collapsed instantly, his consciousness overwhelmed by something it couldn't process.

The Nar'Thyss had been too weak to retrieve this authority, too close to death to care about such a small loss.

So it had left the authority where it had fallen, expecting nothing, waiting for its own ending.

Mere days passed in the slow agony of dissolution.

And then, on the ninth day, something impossible happened.

The Nar'Thyss felt its wounds beginning to close. Not healing in any conventional sense, but narrative restoration…its story being rewritten from tragedy to something else.

Energy flowed into its body, not physical or spiritual but narrational, the power of a Fable being actively woven.

The source, impossibly, was that human.

When the authority had struck the peasant, he had been unconscious for three days. But when he awakened, the threads of Fables within the Nar'Thyss's authority had done something unprecedented. They had woven themselves into his consciousness, creating false memories that felt more real than his actual past.

He believed…with absolute certainty, that he had lived another life. A first life in a different world, with different knowledge, different experiences.

He believed his soul had crossed over into this foreign body in a brand new world, and he had chosen to live it to the fullest!

He had named himself something that didn't exist in his language but felt right: Transmigrator.

Using the scattered memory-threads of the Nar'Thyss that had adapted to this world's context, he began practicing what he believed were remembered techniques.

In nine days…nine, that number that resonated through dimensions, he had progressed from peasant to beginner Magus!

His power was real, drawn from the authority that had infected him, but he believed it came from recovered memories and hidden knowledge.

He stood in his village square, demonstrating powers that made him stronger than everyone around him combined, declaring his intention to join the ranks of Noble Warlocks and practice magic until he became the strongest in this world.

And that was when the Nar'Thyss had received the prompt that changed everything!

|A Fable has begun to be spun under your influence. The unique and unfathomably pure authority of Fables has begun to flow through you in feedback.|

…!

The memory continued, showing the Nar'Thyss's growing understanding.

The human wasn't just using its authority…he was generating new narrative energy through his actions. Every impossible feat he accomplished, every destiny he defied, every story trope he unknowingly fulfilled or subverted, it all fed back to the Nar'Thyss.

The peasant-turned-Magus attracted attention, enemies, allies. His story grew more complex, more dramatic. He faced young masters who couldn't believe a peasant had surpassed them.

He discovered ancient inheritances that seemed placed perfectly for him to find. He saved mysterious beauties who became complicated love interests.

Each event, each dramatic turn, generated more narrative energy!

The Nar'Thyss didn't just heal…it grew stronger than it had ever been!