380. Cease to Be (Patreon)

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[A/N: Chapters this week: 1/3

Next chapter: Thursday]

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Shen could see things he couldn't describe and understand secrets he couldn't make sense of. He knew of things and didn't, was existences and wasn't, could do stuff and couldn't. He was power incarnate, yet he was limited by his previous self.

Most of what he saw, felt, and knew were beyond his reach, but his Path was his to command. Everything in it was. Everything was also pushed to the extreme limits his already crumbling True Self could barely withstand.

He extended his hand, and all Energy in the Voided Subnode came to him. They supported the Axioms of the Spear into materializing into a spear of pure qi, so condensed it became a crystal almost dense enough to form a black hole. Qi wasn't meant to be kept in that state and kept turning into steam, like ice, which was pulled back into the weapon soon after.

He threw it at Valentina.

Shen had never specialized or cared for throwing motions. He had known some, but his Spear was meant for close combat.

Not anymore.

Now, his Spear was meant for whatever any Spear had ever been meant for. Everything a Spear was, anything it could do, was part of his current self. Killing Weapon, Shaft, and Extremity were attributes he could use at will as he controlled the entire Axioms of the Spear. They were only four of everything he used as he threw.

The other Axioms in his Path were also his to command, but he couldn't add them to his weapon or attack right now. He could only do one at a time. Wielding the entirety of the Laws of one Axiom already took enough of a toll to crack his True Self.

His soul was damaged and should be infected, but Reality itself refused to contaminate him. It didn't mind that he would be broken beyond salvation after this was over, but it wanted him to be well enough to act until he burned out.

Shen's weapon didn't move, yet it changed places. His spear didn't cut Spacetime as much as it ignored it. That level of manipulation should be impossible even for A-ranks, according to what he had just learned of the rigidness of the Aspect of Space, but the Aspect itself embraced his weapon. Reality was on his side. It didn't resist his moves.

The spear was meant to appear already inside Valentina.

It didn't.

Two realities superimposed on each other, the one he and Reality itself meant to happen, with the weapon inside the Primordial, and another where her power or armor denied Reality's Will. The latter won. Shen's spear merely struck the armor faster than light.

The sound and shockwave caused by his weapon's slight movement at such speed cracked Spacetime—the Axioms, not Aspect and Expression—and formed... non-holes. There were holes, and the Void should be peering from the other side, but instead, Shen only glimpsed a secondary layer of pure Space—the Aspect. Reality was holding that Voided Subnode firmly. Not even the Void could interfere with what was happening there.

Shen was unaffected by the shockwave. It went through him harmlessly. The armor of the two Primordials also resisted the impact.

The Emissary fared both far better and worse. When Shen took all Energy from the Voided Subnode, the place became soft. It couldn't sustain itself without Energy. It started imploding under the weight of Axioms that were breaking down, and every Void Spawn expanded in size, as existence itself didn't repel them as strongly.

Then, crystalized qi moving at lightspeed released wisps of Energy also at lightspeed and a massive shockwave. It behaved like shrapnel and shredded all creatures nearby like paper. Even the black lightning surrounding the Emissary was torn apart.

The Emissary didn't revive again because the entire Cohort had been obliterated at once, and the smoke had nowhere to go.

That was just the collateral damage from Shen's attack. He was that strong now.

Shen's actual target also suffered. Valentina's mirror-like armor absorbed at least half the throw's power, but it was pierced in the end. The spear went through, and Shen glimpsed a Primordial for the first time.

It felt even more marvelous than what he could see of Reality.

It was like witnessing the Origin of All and the Ultimate Finality simultaneously. Alpha and Omega made one, intertwined into a project with a scope he couldn't even begin to guess. Nebulas of pure Will were bottled inside the purple-transparent energy being. The Wrath of the Heavens, pure Tribulation Lightning, had been tamed into a complex web of patterns that formed a structure beyond the three spatial dimensions. The Axioms of Reality were inside Valentina, but they existed more like suggestions and "filling" to the unique existence she had been hand-crafted to become.

And in the center of everything, pulsating like a spherical heart of pure golden Order, was power inexplicable. Overwhelming. Impossible. Everything she was came from and went through that sphere.

Shen didn't know why he called it Order, but the name came to him, and he knew it to be the truth—and at the same time, he came to know where his True Boundlessness came from.

Even until now, he had lacked the knowledge. Now, he knew True Boundlessness came from an anti-Axiom that only existed when someone pulled it into their Path. A quantum Axiom of sorts.

It came from Chaos.

He suddenly knew that Reality was Order, and Chaos was a demand from the Aspect of Change. An opposite that made it whole. Something that didn't exist—

No, it did exist.

Chaos was meant to coexist with Order; Reality demanded this strange duality in itself. He glimpsed Chaos in the layer of pure Space surrounding the Voided Subnode. Change and Will were meant to be everywhere, even in the Aspect of Space, as did the hints of Chaos that Change demanded.

And yet, Chaos was absent in the Voided Subnode. It was the Alliance that removed it and feared Chaos.

The moment Shen touched that truth, part of his mind was simply unmade. The Alliance still had that Voided Subnode under its command, even if it had been otherwise isolated. Shen had come in contact with a knowledge he shouldn't, and a small part of Reality, which he now knew to be tamed, ripped the knowledge directly from his mind. He could've resisted with a Realization, but he had none. The nature of his newfound power was of a different, raw, brute kind.

His focus returned to the battle at hand. His spear had pierced the armor and kept going. It cut through Valentina's thin, energy-like membrane.

Then, it touched the thing inside her, her unique existence.

Qi was never meant to contest against something like that. His spear melted like snow touching the sun.

Yet, her innards were also never meant to be exposed to the elements or attacked.

It was fundamental physics that damaged her. The shockwave of an object moving at half the speed of light—after the armor slowed it down. It didn't shred her like the Void Spawn, but half her chest bent inward and became a pulp. The structure inside her suffered a heavy strain but resisted. She had been injured, but her essence held firmly.

Shen willed qi to become Lightning—

"CEASE TO BE," Valentina screamed, and the golden orb inside her exploded.

Golden light encompassed her entire being. It consumed the Wrath of the Heavens inside her and pushed outwards, beyond his body. Faster than instantly, it encompassed all of Reality and held everything in existence, demanding obedience to her command.

The multiverse twisted. The Axioms of Reality twisted and rotated and fought each other to accommodate a new absolute rule: Shen couldn't exist. They were reshaped, for he had to stop being. Nothing else would be accepted.

This was to an attack what a gamemaster editing a character was to an NPC throwing a punch. That thing inside Valentina was the closest thing to the Absolute Power that was Shen's Will. He hadn't known it was possible.

He wanted it.

Even as his existence was unmade, he reached for it. The Axioms of Lightning were made manifest through the qi that had melted as it touched Valentina. They pushed hard into her, trying to go deep into her.

His qi never managed to get inside her. His Will was denied. He kept trying but ultimately gave up. The structure inside her could resist anything.

Half of Shen was gone when he turned his qi into pure True Boundlessness.

He had no reason to do so beyond the simple fact that Valentina's inner structure was very well made. It made sense to try to unmake it. He didn't think it would work because True Boundlessness was both an Axiom and not. He didn't even know the name of the Axiom which it came from. Yet, he would try to remove all the boundaries that kept Valentina whole.

The moment that Axiom-that-was-not touched Valentina's innards, something weird happened. The very Aspect of Change manifested almost physically through Shen's qi and unique Axiom. Seeing Change directly was like seeing everything that could be in a single point of space. Like watching the entire existence of a galaxy, from birth to death, and every single manifestation it might have had over eons, all in a single instant.

His mind broke right then and there. Shards of consciousness watched as Change infiltrated Valentina's existence and inflated her, focusing on removing boundaries.

Valentina became a balloon. The structure of her unique existence instantly grew to encompass the Voided Subnode. She became the Voided Subnode itself, an omnipotent God. For her to desire anything was for it to be made true in there.

Alas, her fundamental self was one of...

...Order?

The word came to what remained of Shen's sapience and felt wrong, as if he was never meant to know it. As if he should not physically be able to know it. But Change was also inside Valentina, and some rules were behaving erratically.

Anyway, her fundamental self was one of Order, and Order demanded things to obey rules, which was why the Void, the absence of Reality—and its Order—could ignore many of them. Change didn't help her ignore the rules that went against her. One such rule was that she couldn't have absolute power over all the creation inside her without fueling her power with Energy.

The Tribulation Lightning inside her, the bottled Will of the Heavens, the very structure that made her; everything was spent just to maintain her life. She had never been meant to exist that big and powerful. At least...

...not yet?

Valentina's life burned away as the power inside her was consumed to maintain her existence. The golden sphere sucked everything greedily. The Voided Subnode itself shattered, and the sphere tried to consume pieces of it to sustain itself.

It only delayed the inevitable for an instant.

The other Primordial said something, but Shen never registered it. Her words also tried to reorganize Reality, but they were like... like the words Valentina used against Shen in the past. Weaker. Localized. Not near enough.

As a last act of desperation, the dwindling sphere inside Valentina reached for Shen.

That was an act that changed everything.

It grasped him, who had become pure Energy under Reality, and pulled heavily. It symphoned Reality itself through its connection to him. Alas, what remained of Shen was already half-unmade. If the golden Order orb wanted to keep consuming Reality through Shen, it needed to let him live a little longer.

And so, the command for him to cease to be was halted.

It was as if the cogs that made everything suddenly stopped moving. Reality cried as it fought itself twice in a row. This time, it had to make Shen's existence possible.

The sphere itself, however, paid a hefty price for instinctively countering its own previous command. It needed to do so to keep using Shen as Energy, but paradoxically, it lacked the Energy to revert its last command. The thing directly shattered in the middle, and half of it dissipated into nothingness.

Even as it dissipated, however, it was also canibalized by the other half, used as more Energy.

It stabilized.

It became Shen's True Boundlessness's turn to lack the Energy to keep going. All the qi in the Voided Subnode now belonged to the golden orb. Whatever extra Energy Reality sent Shen was siphoned into the sphere. His attack faded, and Reality pulled the Aspect of Change back.

Valentina became normal-sized again.

If things had ended there, she would've survived.

However, what remained of Shen's mind suddenly understood that Reality's plans were never simple. He suddenly knew it had invested a lot of effort into guaranteeing Valentina would die today. He could almost see the series of coincidences after coincidences that shaped him into what he was and placed him right there. He could also see the countless other coincidences that didn't come to pass and other things he could've become or places he could've gone to. Reality never pushed anyone into making any decisions, but it knew what would happen, and some "random" events here and there could have momentous consequences—especially because it also knew how likely anyone was to react to it. When Reality wanted something enough, it was almost impossible for one of the billions of scenarios it had prepared for its advantage not to pass.

Valentina's existence was stable, but she still needed Energy to survive. The golden sphere—the Voice inside her—was still consuming Reality through Shen. Instinctively. It pulled...

...and touched something it shouldn't.

It pulled from his connection to the Abyss.

The last trace of Shen's mind imploded as the Primordials attacked the Abyss for the first time since an age so long past only accounts of legends about myths remained about it. That was enough for a cataclysm no one expected.

Treaties woven into the rules of all existence were broken.

Valentina tried to turn the Abyss into fuel to keep living. The Abyss had never given Energy to any non-Abyss denizens, but it could do so if it wanted. It had no Sentience, but the collective minds of its beings all unconsciously reached a conclusion on the same time as to whether they were willing to help her.

They weren't.

Valentina pulled from the Abyss, and the Abyss pulled back.

Samir—the Node, with all Subnodes—shattered as a Primordial Voice was pulled into and consumed by the Abyss for the first time ever. It was the youngest Voice the Primordials had, too, who had just joined the Choir and hadn't been so well-bound by the Primordial Song. It was even weakened, cut in half. Vulnerable. Malleable.

Usable.

The Abyss kept pulling—

Another distant Voice commanded Reality, then another. A Chorus of Seven Voices demanded an unbelievable Change, and it happened.

Reality realigned.

The Abyss could no longer pull anything belonging to the Primoridals into it. Ever.

But it took a toll. A heavy, unimaginable toll much beyond Shen's fading mind's ability to understand. One the Choir itself hadn't expected.

As for Shen...

Reality itself wasn't sure if he was meant to exist or not after the conflicting commands it received. But it didn't matter. He had been unmade and consumed. His True Self was but dust fading into nothing.

Shen ceased to be.

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[A/N: And so this arc ends.]

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