What’s next?

A man stood in front of Thales, he was big and well built despite his age, Thales was over 6ft but this man was 6'6, a behemoth of a man.

Thales noticed something else strange about the man that was his father.

"You have an extra finger, none of my siblings do though, only you"

Ghalib grimaced.

"That I do, is it really that interesting?"

"Well yeah, I haven't seen anyone with 5 fingers and a thumb on one hand. Your other hand doesn't have extra digits"

"Excellent detective work, glad your eyes are of the common man at least" Ghalib said with contempt at what he perceived to be idle chatter.

"You are my last child; sadly you killed my two daughters Bithiah and Renee"

"Well you truly were my only child anyway"

"Why are you talking to me about killing? No siblings remain that came into the world with you." Thales retorted.

"Is that not the natural result, Thales my child not everyone is fortunate enough to be born an absurdity, to attain perfection I stained my hands with the blood of my brothers and sisters, I consumed the remains of my fallen enemies and now only I remain as the perfect organism and the strongest venerable, lastly you will be the desert, so sweet the euphoria allows me to drift upwards to the realm of the Eternal sages, I am sorry Thales, I've been perfect and as perfection it is my duty to kill you my only son."

"There are other rank 5 beings in our world, but only you the successor can challenge my identity and my goal, not a dream but an objective, can you defeat me, can you become nothing less than perfection? I think not, but as your father I say your death may be swift."

"In what way am I an absurdity?" Thales interest was piqued at this; Sahib and Sophie were no easy opponents even if in the end he had stepped on them like insects and used them as soil to sprout as a great plant.

"You… Should not exist, aside from that, I was not allowed to perceive your battle, but my intuition told me, you accessed exceed rank power. This is not wisdom cultivation, to use an analogy a, Exalted Venerable momentarily can use the powers of an eternal sage the apex of cultivation and become higher dimensional beings, the sages are absurdities they can touch the other side, and become exceed, exceed ranks even now I am not worthy of saying what that entails."

"So Sophie and Sahib became extra dimensional entities so while Sahib thought he had discarded physical form, it is more accurate to say he attained a physical form alien to those that inhabit 3d space and Sophie the same. They were creatures of hyper-depth if we are ordinarily creatures who have depth, even an ordinary infinity is hard to describe the difference between realms, but I went a step beyond the matter considering higher and lower regions of space" Thales had closed his eyes and thought deeply, but even he didn't understand what he had become, he simply didn't remember what happened all that he knew was he had killed and eaten both Sophie and Sahib.

"I should tell you, un-child. What the next game is it's a game that will take place in 2 years when you come of age."

"Yes tell me then scumbag who dares call himself my father" Thales snorted and scowled, but made sure to have his eyes trained on Ghalib.

Ghalib ignored Thales comment but provided the information as that was his duty.

"We must kill the web spinner, she is an exceed rank. Formerly of the deity class, but she was injured and shudders in fear in the dark now, was attacked further and dropped to a shell of its former self, in a breath it would have dealt with us formerly, now it is merely <> instead of <> Exceed. "

"We don't know how it ended up how it was but if you reach enlightenment maybe you can find out how it fell from grace originally at least, even if how it burnt at the stake escapes history"

"The web spinner in question is The Mother Spider Clotho of clan Moirai the ELOHIM of House Miray however she has been excommunicated from said clan and put to death, so the game is called, "Cut the thread"."

Thales subconsciously shook, his throat felt dry, beads of sweat gathered on his brow, he noticed this sensation and he wiped his brow.

"Mother spider… The figure from his book, Eternal Monomyth primordial… who are you?"

"Don't be startled if you think you have any chance of succession if not lay your life down now." Ghalib said misinterpreting Thales's anxiety to be at the thought of challenging him.

"Why would I do that? Hehehe you are not the one who will win"

"Oh? Sorry I can't see myself losing but I like the spirit"

"The game starts when you come of age, you must retain your guardian from Darwin's game if they live, and you must choose a guardian who does not belong to Darwin's game that is all"

"Does your guardian live?"

"But of course, I've been perfect" Ghalib said expressionlessly as if it were a matter of fact.

"This will be the 7th time this round of the game has occurred in history."

"… I am sorry Thales son of Ghalib"

"For what, for a son dying before their father" Ghalib said with sorrow in his eyes and some sort of conflict, what could such a man be conflicted about?

"I don't care, but I'll apologize for killing my father I suppose even though you haven't earned that title"

"Yeah I haven't been a good father, but all will be fine when I enter the quintessential realm of wisdom"

"Sahib confused a 4d status for perfection but that was relative, he did not know true perfection"

"Sahib… who was that again" Ghalib said seriously.

"Your son, I killed him"

"I have one son, you you're not calling yourself a name I have not given you now, are you?"

"No, never mind, is that all?"

"Are you going to choose your guardian outside of the games?"

"Not yet"

"Then the last thing is here is your reward, they're sol fragments, the currency of this world, if you gain a certain amount you are relatively wealthy, wealth doesn't matter though unless you are the wealthiest indeed a hard goal when the fragments are hard to not reduce to simpler forms, you will gain 285 fragments this will give you the monetary rank called, illusion of uniqueness, be grateful that you have a monetary milestone, connecting fragments and gaining enough is rare, albeit you are the second lowest rank, but a lot of society cannot reach even the first, most of society is poor, well in the country we live in, under this particular Sage, we are an independent house in another's territory, so explore it."

"This is all, until next we meet in the cylinder of fate, my boy Thales Miray"

"Well that was something, I suppose it is time to see people again and work on fixing William"

Ghalib went back to humming and playing the piano, what was this song?