Chapter 2457 (Patreon)

ToC: https://www.patreon.com/posts/23899958

Only one today, but its a big one.

And the next one, out tomorrow, is even longer =|. This is it. We are going to finish.

________

Randidly Ghosthound waited for the representatives of the Providence Squad to arrive with his head held high.

His mind remained torn in a thousand different directions. He spewed out huge currents of Aether and Nether, more every second as he paid the bill for the Nexus renovation Neveah had structured. He ignored the tugs on his consciousness to fix the flaws in time. He felt Neveah and Pine’s movements as she steadily convinced him, even while the universe soul still carried a deep icicle of depression that left the fabric of the universe chilled. His Nether Core whirled so quickly he wondered if the actual physical heart, located in the core of Kharon Academy’s Labyrinth, had turned molten.

All of it eroded him in the smallest bits. Yet he had experienced a version of this a half dozen times with the Visage of Obsession. And if anything, the process felt cleaning. He forgot he housed a universe, he held a half finished Samsara event, that he was just a projected being generated to protect the Alpha Cosmos.

His heart beat quickly, feeling real in his chest. His name was Randidly Ghosthound and he housed a manic glee as the unknown approached.

The Alchemist calculated the likely outcomes. Yggdrasil creaked and groaned as it released all of its pent-up growth and thickened its canopy. The Songstress of Absence sang and sang and sang, working herself up for this grand finale.

Tiamat, Dread Chimera and Grey Fear, looked at Randidly with its focus on another matter. Can you feel them coming?

The starfield around him glittered, silent and imposing. Yet even as that approaching, blazing star resolved itself into a flaming chariot with wheels as large as mountain ranges, the shadow of the approaching figures pressed against him. It was not just history or density of Nether than leaned against him, but also the presence of their Vessels, which could only have been refined through multiple Pinnacle events, rivaling his own.

Despite himself, Randidly couldn’t help but flash a cheshire smile as he answered his images. Every trick deserves an audience. Let’s leave them riveted, shall we?

Congratulations! Your Skill Arch Heretic’s Thaumaturgy (P) has grown to Level 1983!

Providence has detected the activation of a lesser System! Superseding-

Pantheon Intervention: We refuse.

Warning! If you refuse to comply-

Pantheon Intervention: Do your worst.

Congratulations! Your Skill Apostate Moirae’s Seditious Touch (GD) has grown to Level 1722!

The brushes with the Providence System felt feather light, quickly rejected as they failed to find easy Aether to grasp on his person. Yet Randidly could begin to feel the austere methodology present in this glittering starscape. From the depths of the Nether Core, where the door to the sea of shapes hummed, he felt the glimmer of a resonance.

If the Nexus, and by extension the Alpha Cosmos, felt akin to a pool of images, with each individual floating and affecting the larger environment somewhat, this… was a place drained of that suspension fluid. All the images and significance stood on their own, isolated by a harsh structure. The shadows that Randidly sensed, of the Eternities, were just the way that his senses picked up on the foreign powers.

Such a vast and cold place, Randidly observed. Such rigid labeling and structure.

But while the energies of Aether and Nether were kept curiously isolated, Randidly’s skin soon heated with the approaching furnace of a chariot. The transport rumbled as it closed the distance and Randidly could feel the six presences headed his way. As they neared, their ‘shadows’ became increasingly clear. The peculiar combination of Aether and Nether of the multiverse felt incredibly dense. A few drops of cool sweat slid down his spine. His smile just stretched wider and he made a few more preparations.

At the distance of perhaps only a mile away, Randidly had a realization. The structure of their powers are layered. Purposefully. They probably experience an Eternity, bastardizing the process of Aspect creation, by using their own selves as the Aspect. Which isolates their energies, creating the first stages of this horrible, mausoleum feel… but then they reach the Pinnacle. They step outside of the threshold of their bodies, allowing to push past the barrier create by the Eternity event… and then they use the freed energy to experience another Eternity…

Over and over again, until they form those tension filled statues…

So this is the Path they have chose. Randidly flicked a sleeve and darkness billowed out from his back. The evolved form of the partial Aspect gifted to him by Nyx, Tiamat’s Veil of Death and Shadow, spread out like a dove blanket to obscure the space behind him. He couldn’t yet call on the full might of the Nexus’s darkness, but he pulled a fraction of it, those hungry ghosts willing to be led away answering his call. Tens of millions of spectral hands curled into claws. He stood at the head of the army, ready for his resistance.

He might feel their shadows stretching across him, but Randidly Ghosthound had a lot of experience fighting in the shade.

But he didn’t stop there. He blinked once, twice, and on the third blink his left eye became completely obscured by darkness as an event horizon opened from his bright pupil. It swirled lazily for a moment, allowing the Songstress of Absence to pass through his body and hide herself in the folds of the veil behind him. Randidly Ghosthound’s third image pressed and pressed, distorting the space further.

The fabric of the multiverse was stronger here, held in place by the long shadows of the Eternities. They applied enough pressure it squashed all the interstitial, gaseous image fabric he had grown used to. But Randidly Ghosthound had experience a Pinnacle even and was at the cusp of an Eternity. He squeezed and even this turned to putty beneath his fingers.

Congratulations! Your Skill Tiamat’s Veil of Death and Shadow (ND) has grown to Level 1813!

Congratulations! Your Skill Siren’s Dirge of Bottomless Taking (P) has grown to Level 1757!

The constant flow of VPs had pushed him back up to 3000, even though only a short amount of time had passed. Randidly’s eyes flashed in anticipation. Only a little bit more now…

He poured those 3000 into his Impossibility Creed. He flexed his fingers. He looked up and welcomed the six presences who exited the flaming chariot and flew out to float above him in the starfield.

Each popped, to his vision. As though an artist had traced their edges, to emphasis the pressure they exerted just by existing.

The leading figure was a gargoyle, his stone features implacable. Muscular arms hung down from bulging shoulders, while talon-tipped wings hung from his back. Making eye contact made it slightly difficult for Randidly to breathe, as the heaviness of this existence leaned against him. Both the gargoyle’s image and his significance were hidden in the churning patterns of energies running through his body, but the sheer presence of his Vessel set Randidly’s teeth on edge.

Randidly had to wonder how many times the layering process occurred, as these individuals managed multiple Eternity and Pinnacle events. And from a quick scan, the gargoyle was only the third most powerful individual in the group.

“I told you this would be worth it,” A golden haired woman with skin the color of tree bark whispered to a similarly colored man next to her. The duo, who seemed to be siblings, stood to the right of the leader. They regarded Randidly coolly, as the gargoyle pivoted and gave them a look.

The gargoyle cleared his throat. “Randidly Ghosthound. You have flaunted the rules of Providence by refusing to accept the restrictions on unregistered users. Do you dispute this?”

Even the words had a compelling affect, likely due to the intensity of these layered existences. Yet Randildy’s body could withstand their displeasure. Which, he suspected would intensify before the showdown was over.

Still, Randidly hesitated before answering. He sounds so officious… is it really possible I could just… buy time by playing along with their bureaucracy?

“I do.” Randidly said, lifting his chin.

“Ahem, let me assure you, your word will not be enough to convince us,” The gargoyle’s lip curled upward. But it was also obvious he was enthused by the prospect of Randidly’s denial. “With my privileges, I can view the activity logs. You burned away the restrictions as soon as they formed, with waves of raw energy. How do you explain this?”

Your restrictions were so weak that just the humming of Aether and Nether through my body annihilated them. How the hell is this my fault? Randidly complained inwardly, even while he felt lightheaded from the volume of force rushing through his veins. He considered said, “I didn’t understand the process. I know better now.”

The gargoyle seemed to consider this. “Hum. You are newly arrived and therefore unregistered. I also possess the capability to assign a field identity, which can serve as your registration. So long as you comply, we will view your earlier transgression with lenience. I shall begin.”

In Randidly’s chest, he felt Neveah and Pine conversing. Wanting to buy them time, he simply waited for the gargoyle to move.

…but as soon as the process began, and he could feel his lips pulling back and showing his teeth. What the hell is this?!

A Field Identification under the purview of Providence has been initiated. Processing…

This time, perhaps because Randidly had gotten a better read on the way Providence operated, he clearly sensed the mixed energies of Aether and Nether shifting into place around his body. A framework formed directly in front of Randidly. It twisted in front of him, his skin crawling with the wrongness he witnessed. Because stretching before him, an open, pulsing  gullet of sharp energy-

It took a notification for him to guess why no one would think him appalled by this sight.

Congratulations! Your Nether Penance Empty Vessel Fosakes the Path has grown to Level 1811!

Congratulations! Your Grand Fate Temporal Thaumaturgy Mends Eternity has grown to Level 1811!

They are showing me a Path, Randidly blinked slowly as he considered the vague distortion right in front of him, in his awareness just a lightly tinted screen. He barely registered it, because what waited beyond was so disturbing. I just can’t see it.

Likely, the hint of a Path offered would be enticing. Or perhaps more subtle, just a reflection of what a more powerful form he could become. A distorted reflection, an aspiration, a tongue-in-cheek bribe persuading him to follow their methods. Yet that flimsy lie only made his lip curl.

What Randidly did see was a helixing series of spiked Aether rails. He saw the true face of their Field Identification. Once Randidly took a step through that Path, he tried to touch the image of his future these monsters offered, those rails would snap into place. His awareness stretched, further and further, following the two energy retrictionsas they swam closer and closer as they progressed, in the process driving the spikes deeper and deeper into the target.

Until an identified individual found themselves frozen and inert. Until the tracks had been thoroughly driven into the image and ideology that all an individual could do was follow the layering method, demonstrated by these monsters, to find strength in their lifelessness. To embrace the calcification of their being.

Randidly Ghosthound chuckled. In a wave of energy, this time purposeful, he annihilated the innocuously named Field Identification.

The gargoyle shifted his weight. “You refuse?”

Before Randidly could answer, another voice cut across his.

“Clever. You used the disturbance of erasing the restriction to mask your true purpose in arriving… but did you really think we wouldn’t notice?” The female humanoid on the gargoyle’s left, wearing a black crown and with a blindfold tied across her eyes, sneered. From her tapping foot, her patience had clearly run out. “The opening of a sub-universe. Well, interloper, don’t bother with subterfuge. Since you came here with a plan to waste our time, I hope you are prepared for some… bumps.”

The blindfolded woman, the most powerful individual in the group, gestured. Randidly didn’t feel her energies activate at all. She didn’t appear to use an image. She simply… mobilized her Vessel, not in a physical way, but in a domineering way. The inert statue moved.

She told the multiverse the way it would be, with all the static depth she possessed. His instincts shrieked in warning.

Randidly’s Skills, the spatial distortions from the Songstress of Absence and the Veil from Tiamat, were shredded. After a second of glittering images fragments obscuring the truth, the distortions vanished, wiped away with a stern intention. Randidly clenched his fists at the casual display of power. Behind him, a portal unfolded, showing a vision of the Nexus, from where it connected to the wider multiverse.

For all their frigid stillness, the power of these monsters is real. Randidly bit his lip. So much for stalling.

The portal that would remain there, a bleeding vulnerability, until Neveah’s Engraving finished its work and Randidly’s Vessel could engulf the Nexus.

Until that work was complete… Randidly needed to face these monsters alone.

Yet truthfully, it wasn’t the woman, despite her obvious power, that made Randidly the most nervous. His gaze shifted to the last two individuals of the six, who stood slightly behind the woman, like assistants. On the woman’s left was a shorter individual, cloaked in shadow and lazily flicking daggers across long fingers. And on the woman’s right…

A man with white hair and a monocle in his left eye. He dressed like a scholar. As Randildy’s expression hardened, Randidly saw himself, in all his anxious fury, reflected perfectly in that monocle. He was seen in his entirety, a desperate man with black hair and intense emerald pupils.

Then the white-haired man tilted his head and smiled. The reflection shifted, showing a soft, blue grey eye.

Pangu. Randidly’s jaw clenched. Well, I guess all the elements are really present.

“Do you want to do this,” The blindfolded woman drawled out the words. Randidly could see that gargoyle pressing his lips together, clearly wanting to interrupt her, but lacking the authority. Randidly rolled back his shoulders as she finished her sentence. “The easy way, or the hard way?”

She watched him closely, reveling in the disparity between their powers.

“Your universe has value to us,” The bark-skinned woman spoke. “Surrendering it without a fuss will earn you our goodwill.”

The gargoyle seemed emboldened by another individual speaking. “Even so, we must address the matter of the refused restriction and Field Identification-”

“Choose now,” The blindfolded woman raised a finger so it pointed straight up at the sky. Even through the bare image fabric of the multiverse, Randidly’s skin buzzed with the implied threat. The gargoyle visibly deflated.

Randidly steeled himself and sent a message to Neveah. Brace for impact.

The blindfolded woman seemed to sense his resolve as Randidly flared his defensive image. She clicked her tongue. The finger swung down.

The force punched a hole directly through Randidly Ghosthound’s chest, taking most of her heart and a portion of his left lung. His wound spat a mist of blood backward, failing to cloak the glowing portal in the least.

*****

“Sorry about the ride. Our usual means of transportation… is indisposed at the moment.” Neveah said as she released Pine.

Pine shook his head, calming his racing heart and tried to remain focused. “I do not mind. And this place… this wilderness is what you desire?”

To be truthful, Pine had loved that Neveah relied on physical power to speed them across the spatial divides. They had raced through the cracks in space, crossing from the Nexus proper into the Alpha Cosmos by sheer didn’t of momentum and ingenuity. From there, they had gone away from the Ghosthound’s origin planet to one of the orbiting moons. There, Neveah had taken Pine out away from the few cities to this distant place.

Yet it wasn’t just that. There was also the strangest familiarity in how Neveah moved, in the passive Aether patterns she maintained around her body.

The two were entirely alone. Crossing into the Alpha Cosmos appeared to have a screening effect, so that the dark subconscious no longer hung like a depressed cloud over Pine’s mood. Several wide fields stretched in front of them, messy with tall grass. From a look at the soil, Pine could tell it was rich, but it was also studded with stones; the land would need to be worked for a bit before it was useable for anything. And in the distance, he could see small ridges.

Only in those ridges did Pine sense local wildlife. The place was untouched.

“Not this place specifically, but what it could become. I want… I want it to be over too,” Neveah said quietly, she turned and looked at Pine and her eyes glistened with tears. “I understand that sentiment. I am… quite like you, I believe. I am bound to Randidly Ghosthound. I sense his suffering each day. And it… is a strain. I support him as best I can… but I want him to stop pushing himself, to stop throwing himself into these situations, to simply… simply accept the gift of this land and retire from his battles.

“It might be difficult for you to envision, but Randidly Ghosthound… he has a capacity for joy that is difficult to fathom, considering his work ethic and determination to ignore that part of himself. I have seen him take fields like this and turn them into gorgeous farms. He grows food, cooks it, eats it, shares it with friends. There is such a contentment in him then…”

Neveah closed her eyes as tears ran down her cheeks. She wept silently, just a little bit of her inner pain leaking out. She didn’t even wipe the tears away, as though this happened so often she couldn’t be bothered to address it. “I want that for him. For him to understand that’s enough. That he doesn’t need to be more than just that man. So, so badly.”

Pine felt a strange stirring in his heart. Perhaps to cover up the strange emotion suffusing him, he coughed. “I do not mean to question your desire… but is this desire not for someone else? I do not think you can lecture me on my indecision, if your desires are also not your own.”

Neveah barked out a laugh. She reached out and slapped her cheeks. “No, that’s fair. We truly are… more similar than I expected. But can you see the possibility of this? That is what I wanted to show you. My desires… it is not anything specific. Just… I see the life we have been living, the… Path, we have taken. And I want it to be different. A different way. These wild places remind me of possibility and potential. That we could always shift and go somewhere new. Do you see it?”

A breath of wind came through the fields and the grasses sang their support. Here, the whole world could change. There was nothing holding them back.

Pine blinked as he listened to the rustling weeds. There wasn’t another soul for miles. Just the ground, beneath their feet, the grass, the stones. Neveah hadn’t asked him what he would do with this place, but rather whether just looking at an untouched location, did he sense the potential? He had to admit, as he allowed his senses to wander around the unused space, he felt something.

A different Path, huh…

However, the moment was short. Neveah suddenly frowned. “Ah, be careful, this might be-”

The whole world beneath their feet wrenched sideways. Pine almost toppled over, despite his low center of mass. And his connection to the wider Nexus informed him it wasn’t just their planet, but all of the worlds were suddenly and powerfully buffeted.

“What was that? Did the Engraving-” Pine paused at the concern he heard in his own voice. What did it matter if the Engraving failed?

Didn’t he want everything to end? At least his part in it?

Or did he just want a fresh start?

“Ah, no, the Engraving should be fine. That’s just Randidly getting into a pissing match with a bigger bully.” Neveah shook her head. In that small motion, she was rueful, fearful, exasperated, worried, and affectionate. “No matter how many times he gets punished for it, he always gives them the first shot. He will make them pay for that privilege, but… well, we should be getting back. I hope you… enjoyed, seeing what I do.”

Neveah waved her fingers, conjuring several Engravings. Weirdly, Pine looked at the moments and felt another hint of that sensation of familiarity. “The way you use Engravings… where did it come from?”

“Ah. I wondered if you noticed. I… have a theory.” Neveah was briefly still. But then she put her hand on Pine’s shoulders and they were moving again, hurtling across vast distances. They streaked out of the Alpha Cosmos and back into the Nexus proper, and suddenly Pine could feel the darkness pressing against him. Suddenly all the hope and possibility he saw in that grassland shrank and vanished. He felt small.

He felt afraid.

Yet despite a faint trembling, he latched onto that strange sensation of familiarity. He looked up at Neveah, as they slammed back into the ground, standing now in the middle of the golden Engraving. It was an enormous, hulking thing now, wreathed in golden veins that held everything in place. He couldn’t see its edges, where the three circles whirled around the central portion.

Neveah, after another hesitation, turned back to Pine. The floating golden sparks cast strange, living shadows across her face. “I can tell you, if you wish. But… well, it is a delicate time. Perhaps it is better to wait.”

“Tell me,” Pine said. Their environment was light and motion, chaos and oppressive darkness. He didn’t know what he wanted, but he knew everything was about to change.

Neveah looked at him with sad eyes. They were emerald, like the Ghosthound’s but so much softer and more solemn. “We… come from the same place.”

That just made Pine frown. Neveah shook her head rapidly, and Pine realized she was nervous. “No, ah, that’s not a helpful thing to say. Umm… I’m not sure how much you know about your parents’ people… the people of Elhume and Yystrix. But they have a constant population. Couplings have two children, who are formed from half of each of the parents. And after those halves are given away… the parents waste away. What I mean to say…”

Pine suddenly understood. His eyes widened.

“I have suspected for a while. But… I was afraid to tell you. Because… because of me, she-”

“You are my half-sister.” Pine looked at Neveah. “Your familiarity; you have the same energy mannerisms as mother. She… created both of us.”

Now it was Neveah’s turn to blink. She offered him a brittle smile. “Yes. She was already wasting away while she… well, she helped shape Randidly’s growth. She laid down the groundwork for him to possess a Vessel, while running simply on fumes of what she once was. We didn’t know until she was gone, what she had given. Or what it cost her. And-”

Neveah was almost babbling now, all of her calm sophistication vanished. “And I bet you were wondering why she never came back. It might have felt like- like she abandoned you. But she didn’t. She wouldn’t. It was because of me-”

“It is not your fault,” Pine blurted out the words. His emotions spun within him, too complex and layered to separate. It was a tightness of his throat, a heat in his chest, a constant, desperate thrumming. Perhaps a portion of it was almost accusatory, after feeling abandoned for so long, wanting to push it all onto her like Neveah so feared, but-

But Pine felt her guilt. And he has suffered for so long under a similar guilt, he spoke from the heart before he had a conscious reaction.

“It is not your fault,” Pine repeated as his feelings percolated down through his body. A half-sister. A mother who hadn’t abandoned him, not like he expected. A father who now stood, empty as he was, because Pine had asked him. A plan for a better Nexus. A cold one, in which he was left alone, but… “She… she was just like us, wasn’t she? Giving, even when she shouldn’t.”

“Wanting happiness for someone else. Wanting to lead them to a different Path, even until the end.” Neveah nodded. “Not being afraid… to walk that path alone, without recognition.”

Pine fell silent then, confused and lost. The golden light raged and swelled around them. The darkness pressed down against his chest. With the new information, Pine wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted.

But… he did want a chance to find out.