Far to the south, in the ocean domain of the Four Rotating Islands, a cursed child was born.

  He was brought into the world in a simple home. Part of a village that had grown like a weed on top of one of the many small landmasses caught in the maelstrom orbit of the main islands.

  First came his elder twin brother, cold and grey. Once the parents and the midwife caught sight of his still chest, their hearts broke. It wasn’t until the mother’s contractions started again that a glimmer of hope returned. None of their simple attempts at divination and the snippets of advice they had received made them suspect she had been pregnant with twins.

  At the sight of the second-born, their expressions turned solemn. He lived, his chest rising and falling, but there was something wrong with him. Albino pink eyes stared with unnerving intensity, framed by locks of pale, bloodslick hair. Such abnormalities were not uncommon in the Four Rotating Islands--they were, after all, Leviathan’s old hunting grounds. The very soil of their sparse land had become suffused with his essence, and traces of his qi stained the waters.

  No, their discomfort went beyond the physical. To glance upon the baby was like catching a glimpse of a taboo manuscript. Blue-green runes flickered in and out of existence around him--something that, under normal circumstances, mundanes like his parents and the midwife should never have been able to see.

  Cyril found himself standing in the middle of the room, an unnoticed phantom. In previous visions, he had lost most of his sense of self as a distinct entity. Some interaction between the Library’s involvement and the circumstances of his breakthrough had transformed the nature of the vision. It felt far more controlled, though less personal than a natural breakthrough. Relevant knowledge, such as the specifics of this unfamiliar location, simply existed within his mind.

  He attempted to cast Translate on the runes flickering around the baby. Nothing happened.

  Interacting with the vision was beyond him, it seemed. Though dreamwalkers and others with astral techniques existed, as far as Cyril knew, he had no particular talent for the art. Elys may have been capable of it with her upper-echelon Knowledge techniques, but astral Dominions moreso fell under the purview of the Phoenix’s mysterious counterpart--Ziz, the Titan of Wind and Void.

  Cyril would have to be content to observe.

  Though he couldn’t decipher their exact meaning, the blue-green runes around the baby were a divine glorification. The Dominion of Knowledge was celebrating the birth of this child. He was one of heaven’s chosen.

  As expected, the mundanes understood none of this. Unable to appreciate this miracle, they hurriedly snipped the umbilical cord and fled from the home. In their panic, it never occurred to them how easily the mother was able to flee despite her arduous labor.

  Arms crossed, Cyril watched the door slam shut behind them. From his perch on the wooden floor, the baby likewise followed their departure with vivid pink eyes.

  Day and night cycled rapidly out the window, weeks passing by in moments. The baby never cried. Only once did his eyes shift, to focus on the bundle of his stillborn elder brother nearby.

  Eventually, the door slammed open. A wizened old woman forced her way through. Bent over at a brutal angle, she came up no higher than a man’s waist. Despite her appearance, she had no trouble beating the grasping arms of the other villagers away with her cane.

  Her name was Granny Hearth, hedge witch of the small satellite island. Though she was only in the Middle Condensation Stage, she may as well have been a local deity to the resident population.

  “That’s my grandson, you backwater ingrates!” With a snarl, Hearth kicked the door shut behind her. None of the villagers seemed willing to press the issue, especially once she had entered the domain of the cursed child.

  Hands crossed behind his back respectfully, Cyril watched as the grandmother intoned funeral rites over the deceased elder brother. Then, she gathered up the naked, solemn child in her arms, cooing at him and making silly faces. As she carried him out of the home, the gathered villagers parted, giving them a wide berth. “Burn the home,” she commanded. Without bothering to look back , she strolled out of the village of less than a dozen squat buildings. Dark smoke soon trickled up into the sky behind her. An interesting gesture--both a respectful pyre for the dead, and a punishment for the neglectful parents. Cyril approved.

  The grandmother carried the child back to her humble abode on the outskirts of the village, near the island shores. Her home was full of mystical trinkets--herbs dangling from the ceiling, haphazard stacks of books. At the sight of it, the baby smiled ever so slightly.

  At the sight of his upturned lips, Granny Hearth turned weak at the knees. “Beloved,” she named him.

  In the blink of an eye, years passed. The solemn baby grew into a solemn toddler, then a young child. Blue-green Knowledge runes flickered about him like a swarm of fireflies.

  Beloved dug into everything he could find, grubby hands constantly in motion. As he matured, he took to sitting on the sands, his inscrutable eyes analyzing the erratic currents formed from the flux of the four main islands. Seashells and coral and other bits of organic matter would flock about him, gathering into concentric circles.

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  According to Granny Hearth, he had an unparalleled affinity for Death, Knowledge, and at least two other Dominions beyond her ability to guess. Beloved never spoke or communicated in any way to confirm her suspicions; he merely frowned at any mention of his mystical affinities.

  On his sixth birthday, Granny Hearth settled down beside him on the beach and told him about his family. How his elder twin had died, and his parents still lived in the village, refusing to ever visit. When she was finished speaking, he stood up and walked back to the village.

  An aura of gravitas radiated from the child. The villagers stared as Beloved entered their midst for the first time since Granny had carried him away. Frozen in place, they behaved as if a wyrm had slithered into their midst. Ignoring them, Beloved stopped in front of the rebuilt home of his parents. His stance was brave, confrontational, a child confronting a behemoth.

  Cyril caught sight of Beloved’s parents in the window, terrified. Beloved clasped his hands together in a basic mudra; motes of blue-green and purple-black swirled about him as he cycled a true technique for the first time.

  Flakes of ash peeled away from the building. Bone dust seeped from the foundations. It coalesced together in front of Beloved. Ripples of Earth qi disturbed the ground, forming a basic magic circle. From the center emerged the figure of a desiccated newborn: a golem of ash, dirt, and bonedust. A complex Knowledge rune adorned its brow.

  “Demon!” shouted one of the villagers. Others soon began to take up the call, though none dared approach.

  Ignoring them, Beloved scooped up the effigy of his deceased twin and cradled it in his arms. Then, he spoke his first word, his voice hoarse and raspy:

  “Brother.”

  Silence fell over the village. Without bothering to glance around him, Beloved departed from the village. To Cyril’s surprise, the infant-golem began to move, mimicking the uncertain actions of a newborn.

  Necromancy? The villagers seemed to think so. Cyril was not quite so certain. He suspected he had discovered the point of this vision--or, at least, the aspect of it most relevant to his goals. Without any formal training beyond flipping through Granny Hearth’s ancient, mostly-incorrect books, the heaven’s-chosen prodigy had discovered how to construct a golem with some degree of independence.

  Cyril attempted to memorize the mudra, the rune on the infant-golem’s forehead, all of the conditions of the ritual that Beloved had intuitively known. He doubted he could replicate the technique without Death qi and whatever other affinities Beloved possessed. Still, one of the most fascinating aspects of cultivation was that the same end could be reached through myriad paths.

  Cyril half-expected the vision to end there. Instead, years flashed by. Beloved grew into an adolescent. As time passed, his solemn nature subsided somewhat, smoothed away from Granny Hearth’s unconditional love and affection.

  The infant-golem eventually broke apart, returning to the earth. In its place, new golems emerged. Replicas of marine life: earthen jellyfish that floated through the air, exotic birds wrought of vibrant darkness, clever lizards. A herd of them followed Beloved as he ran and danced along the shores of the island.

  A few years later, Granny Hearth reached the end of her lifespan. She passed in peace on her cot, with Beloved holding her hand. In his eyes, there was no sadness; Death swirled within them, flecked with blue-green Knowledge, and his expression was one of infinite comprehension and acceptance.

  This time, Beloved’s ritual was far more complex. He danced, chanted gibberish, his hands flashing in a sequence of mudras Cyril could barely follow. The floorboards of Granny Hearth’s home warped and twisted. Books flew upward, shedding pages that attached themselves to the wooden planks. Qi stained the world.

  Within moments, the materials formed a near-perfect replica of Granny Hearth, down to her wrinkled, stubborn expression. Beloved smiled at her and departed the home, leaving her cooling corpse behind. They danced along the shore, surrounded by animal-golems.

  Soon, some of the villagers took note of Granny Hearth’s absence. Cyril wandered amongst them as they discovered the taboo, terrifying nature of Beloved’s powers. Was he enslaving their souls? Stealing their likenesses, confusing the angels of death who should otherwise guide their passage to the underworld? Cyril wasn’t sure if they were wrong.

  Then, one day, the island faced its first true attack in ages. Ever since Beloved’s birth, no monsters had dared to venture out from the sea. But the stain of Leviathan’s presence had grown stronger recently, and the waters had grown dark. From the depths emerged a score of nagas, clad in coral armor, each of them exuding the might of the Late Foundation Stage.

  Soon after they stepped upon the shores, bristling with their own assured might, a swarm of golems set upon them. Granny Hearth’s wood-and-paper form leapt among them, devastating blows from her fists caving in their armor and shattering their bodies. In less than a minute, the much-diminished group retreated back into the waters, terror upon their serpentine faces.

  Several villagers, who had taken to spying upon Beloved, witnessed the massacre. Despite their mundane nature, they understood the calamity that had been avoided. Many other satellite islands had been killed in the endless cycles of violence that permeated the area of the Four Rotating Islands.

  A day later, some of the villagers, their heads bowed and expressions sheepish, brought gifts and alms to Granny Hearth’s home. Sacred rites were performed. Beloved’s parents stood in the back, most ashamed at all, staring at their son with longing.

  “Will you forgive us for our ignorance?” they asked.

  Beloved shrugged, and returned to dancing along the shore, surrounded by his herd of golems.

  And thus a new tradition was born throughout their humble island. Whenever a villager died, a golem was formed in their likeness, from their bones and ash and from the earth. These sentinels lined the shores of the island, watching, waiting.

  Even expeditions from the main island were not permitted to enter Beloved’s island. A scion in the Spirit Severing Stage visited to witness the legend for himself; upon seeing the rows of golem-villagers and swarms of animals flitting about, he called the ships under his command to a halt. With wonder, he stared at the young man dancing among his creations, wreathed in Knowledge and Death and Life and other qi beyond his understanding.

  He bowed, and the legion of golems bowed in return.