“The first step to victory is singular dedication,” Perumah whispered in his head, but he was distracted, focused on the corrupted Iora. Cutting down with Perumah, he saw the space fold over Hatred’s Call, Perumah sliding through the empty space harmlessly as the monstrous figure kicked off the ground, the wall, then out of the house. “Our domains are our wills made manifest. If there is any wavering in you or you are spread thin between purposes, your force is reduced. This is why you deal little damage- you’re thinking in more than a Warforged mindset, you want to attack and kill with every tool in your arsenal. I tear through it, as I’ve put every piece of myself into the attack.”
She drew his attention to the thorn which moved from his shoulder towards his hand. His eyes flickered down to it, but he was already moving to chase after Hatred’s Call when the world turned gray once more, and he knew it was doing something. Leaping out the window after it, he watched it run down the street towards the gate, around as fast as Iora would be… meaning, not fast enough; it was weakened from either its failure or the timeline healing, now stuck with Iora’s body.
Perumah arrived in his palm, and said “This spike is truly my body. I am not hiding within you nor sending out one of my roots that resemble you, because I will put everything into the strike. If this thorn is damaged, I will be as well. If it is destroyed, I die.”
He was faster than Hatred’s Call, and it was not close. Appearing in front of it, his hand whipped out to cut into its neck, when he felt the area twitch like a muscle. His arms bulged and he fought back, but he lost, and was redirected- rather than cut its head off, it curved down, gouging the arm slightly before it moved away.
“This world is Hatred’s Call. Until you utilize your domain, the sway it holds will mark it impossible for you to hurt it in any meaningful way. I am a killer, but I’ve never been a mover. My power is narrow, but I cannot push through its haze for the strike. You must do so.”
Without its unnatural strength, Hatred’s Call was much easier to block or contain, and Clever fed him theories- it appeared the construct they were in now, the village, was locked so to say, and Hatred’s Call could alter the timeline no longer, not until it reached the exit- the shredded remains of the stone entrance to the village his mother had escaped from.
Even as an impossible force of nature, even with the world moving at its word, even Hatred’s Call could not delve into the past with unlimited strength. With its failure to kill his father, it was trapped in the “True” timeline.
They were beginning to understand.
It went after key moments, and if it could force a wide enough deviance, its timeline would become the true one, or at least that’s what Perumah and Clever believed once combining their knowledge.
Without the ability to pull itself out, it needed to reach the gate and leave this “battlefield.” Dei would have to do everything he could to prevent that, learning how to utilize his domain as he went.
Iora’s speed, especially without her staff, was pathetically predictable- but its mind was not limited to Iora’s, and this world moved to its true mind’s speed. It could react faster than even he was able to.
Delving into the Realm of Dreams to attack the mind, he felt a tether form between himself and a distant wall, pulling him away. Turning to cut through it with Perumah, he considered what to do.
The Warforged affinity, the temporary name he’d decided for it. It involved pitting two forces against each other, leaving a result between them that was different from both and better than the sum total of their parts.
Flipping over, Perumah’s blade sliced the tether and he phased back into the world to kick off the house. Gravity shifted to yank him away from Iora’s body and the moment he touched the house, his feet failed to connect, phasing through.
He clicked his tongue as he was deprived of the burst of speed he’d wanted.
“The world is fighting back,” Clever said in his ear, “It becomes harder for it to impose itself. Two rules. I believe two rules is its limit, perhaps three if it’s willing to surrender some dexterity.”
The fragmented pieces of his mind connecting with each of his friends felt like a hub as he served as a crossroads, filtering what was necessary and theorizing as quickly as he could.
Now physical, Fendrascora extended outwards from his back with spider-like legs and Clever shared his awareness of the different potential timelines, all of them arcing towards Iora while Dei burned SP to propel himself through the fluid Spirit Realm below and around them.
To be Warforged… what did that mean in this context?
“This is the part that’s going to hurt,” Perumah whispered in his ear, and he could only agree, parts of him already arriving at the thoughts conclusion.
He could feel the tentative Grudge holding him together: the purpose mirrored off his domain, and the way it shattered. [Cycle of Sealing] intentionally imbalance itself, using a process similar to what he’d seen Ashvorn do, without destroying anything. Instead, he likened it to some kind of water balloon, squeezing one side to push everything to the other. It strained itself to pour everything into the singular face, into the Rage. If he’d failed to contain that Rage when first becoming a manifestation, the affinity would’ve popped, killing him.
To intentionally create an imbalance was antithetical to the purpose of the affinity, and doing so damaged its purpose.
So what could be done? What could he pit himself against? Hatred’s Call was the world itself, and he was his domain. He could not choose to be both the whetstone and the blade. If he were to be the one attacking, he needed a third party.
Or, a second party twice.
The Grudge was not Warforged. It was against him, but it was held by him. Mana was burned to give birth to it, and it was elevated to a purpose of its own.
Fendrascora’s legs phased through the ground, Hatred’s Call denying their grip on the world; the Spirit Realm became inaccessible to him, his attempts to use it as his anchor to move forward failing; several of Clever’s timelines were disrupted and decayed rapidly, the organized nature of the System working against them, making them predictable. For a moment, Dei believed their assault would fail, when an urgent notification made itself known.
[DIRECTIVES VIOLATED: System Self-Mockery detected, resetting to baseline]
Something they’d done had made the System reassess itself and realize it was a fake. He wasn’t sure what its goal was by resetting itself.
When Clever’s limited timelines screamed out, thrashing in his control, several things clicked into place.
‘The glitch.’
In interfering with the System-approved timelines, Hatred’s Call had awakened it to the fact that it was placing artificial restrictions on Clever. Though it was unable to help them directly, it was re-implimenting its own glitch.
His thinking speeds far surpassed Clever’s, the lizard not even realizing a wave of information barreled towards it dangerously.
He smiled, ‘I trust you, Clever.’
Utilizing the same loophole, he used [How About a Demonstration?] to hand [Overmind] to Clever.
* * *
Clever’s world froze, only Perumah quick enough to respond properly to any of his requests- at least at first
Endless possibilities opened before him, but it was different now. They did not despair or resist, they worked with him. When he’d last tapped into such a force, the miniscule differences between his timelines caused their synchronized thoughts to spiral and clash.
Yet, there was no Time here, no matter what Hatred’s Call wanted. There was no innate will within the affinity and its concept to stilt the minds, a fact that Clever had not even realized until now.
The endless Clevers became a hive. There was no despair, no loathing for being fakes. They were all him. There were no parallel Clevers, only HIM.
The branches twisted, forming shapes in accordance to his will. He slipped through the grasp of Hatred’s Call, the Celestial Parasite utterly unprepared for what Clever did not even know was a Forbidden Spell: [Clever’s Resonance]
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Everything stilled, the Identity inhabiting Hatred’s Call unable to keep up with infinitum.
Endless time. Outside of the Earth Primordial’s limitations, he was bound only by the true limits of a Celestial Parasite: None.
Hatred’s Call was not meant to be defeated, it was limited by its wielder, the very narrow mind within when compared to what its resources could have.
For an endlessly narrow moment, Clever was allowed to experience eternity.
Two eyes opened, comprehending, and discovering the purpose laid before it. Looking up, it lay eyes upon the Other(s): the Eldritch One(s), those/that of self before even the Primordials. They were the source of HP/MP/SP, basic laws. The Eldritch One(s) preceded everything, and they were still alive, but they were kept at the edge of reality, pushed back by the observed physics.
The Clever’s Resonance made endless discoveries within its eternity, but eventually returned to the task at hand. It knew it would not remember any of this, the mind within a singular Clever too small to understand.
Hatred’s Call. Grand eyes analyzed it, knowing that he could not directly harm it, as the continuous timeline did not yet note Clever, and his domain held no base off which to springboard. In an eternity, there was eternal stillness as well, absolute stagnation. He could not improve here, and he could not affect anything other than time. He was little more than a ghost
He delved through Dei’s meanings, his domain, and what he could do.
Five moments would be used to arrange for victory, after which, [Clever’s Resonance] would fade and be forgotten forever… and it was okay with that.
Looking at its friends, searching through the timelines, it reminisced of the last time it almost awakened, when Perumah was immature and would have betrayed them. It saw her now as she was, she would never leave them, never turn her back.
Dei believed that if he fell, she would move on, but Clever saw it now, he saw her path being severed. All four of them were required to reach the end.
Dei wanted Clever to situate them in the perfect timeline to damage Hatred’s Call, but he would do one better.
He allowed one moment to advance, situating their souls in the timeline where they were directly in front of Hatred’s Call.
A second moment progressed, and he found the perfect meaning to choose. Dei and Perumah were to be the central part, the Warforged One themselves, they were the spell. He arranged them.
The third moment came to be, and he did something he felt terrible for, but knew Dei wanted. Dei fed mana to the Cycle of Sealing in order to turn himself into the Rage Beast and feed his Grudge.
Clever set into motion feeding that grudge back into the Cycle of Sealing. [Eldritch Self] changed Dei’s body in certain ways, letting him delve into himself to move forwards, and Clever utilized this now to… refine the Grudge’s purpose. Cycle of Sealing could, theoretically, endlessly feed its results back into itself, but with every twist, Dei’s will would become more strained, until he inevitably failed and his domain was shattered, killing him.
During the fourth, he delivered a calculated amount of information, something he knew would not kill Dei, but would assist him in the next steps.
The fifth moment would come later, but it would be arranged. The timelines were pruned, until they all exited at the Gem Dweller Capit-
A wall stopped him. THeir exit point was decided long ago.
Clever frowned as he realized he wasn’t alone here. Despite everything, despite being outside of the space regular affinities existed in, Karma was still here. It hadn’t known all of this would exist, but its purpose could not be denied. The prophecy was arranged, and Dei would be spit out at his original village.
Looking forwards and wondering why, Clever’s minds expressed shock, and immediately fought to prevent this- but Karma was an immoveable object.
Clever’s minds approached infinity, Karma had already arrived. He would never be able to surpass it.
‘Despite all my power, there are things even I cannot do,’ the Resonance thought and sighed. Even with millennia of planning ahead, the future still seemed unsure.
It centralized itself within its own soul once more, and the Resonance faded. Dei’s [Overmind] was given back, and Clever completely forgot of his time alongside the Eldritch One(s).
* * *
Dei felt his mind bulge under the deluge of information, but the echoes of Clever’s order to ensure he traveled down the optimal timeline rang true. His Grudge twisted into himself, serving as the whetstone for his blade.
It was agony incarnate, and felt utterly wrong, but he knew it was the correct course. His entire body changed from its fiery red to a silvery sheen immediately, and he cut towards Hatred’s Call.
Giving up his Manifestation form, Dei instead became The Warforged, a perfect embodiment of what it meant to be his concept, leaving nothing behind. His every action was his affinity.
Yet the balance was tenuous, and he felt himself coming apart at the seams. It was a manipulation of the highest order, a borderline ascendant use of his spell as he changed the definition of existence.
There was no blink or even movement. Everything was fed towards his existence and his attack.
Dei appeared in front of Hatred’s Call, but he could have been anywhere and the strike would have landed, space utterly meaningless.
From an outside perspective, he merely looked at Hatred's Call, and it was split vertically down the middle, Iora’s two halves falling to the sides with a vaguely surprised expression.
As she fell apart, so too did the rest of the world, a break perfectly aligned with Dei’s attack appearing in the ground as the world separated to reveal the white space beyond and the shattered moments.
The shadowy cyclopian form of Hatred’s Call was only able to glance at Dei for a moment before the damage to Iora carried over to it as well, and it was separated to reveal the white nondescript innards.
His senses faded, but Perumah welcomed the Oblivion, seeing how Dei’s strike had reached even the Identity of Hatred’s Call, severing it.
Every version of Hatred’s Call throughout the multiverse was struck at the same time, all of them dying. The Celestial Parasite was, even if only temporarily, damaged on a fundamental level that would take time to recover from.
Without its trap in place to keep them still, Perumah felt them be drawn along a path back to Avium, their souls knowing the way through Oblivion by using their previous location as a reference.
She did not fight it, even if she could, lest they lose their way, and before she knew it, sight and sound appeared once more, Dei gasping sharply before crumpling to the ground.
The Warforged form had consumed every remaining second of his Manifestation form, and he knew he was out of commission.
But he’d done it. He’d slain Hatred’s Call, and from what he gathered, he’d killed it before it could even mature its power- something it never believed was possible.
Meditating so as not to lose himself to the pain breathed deeply. He was vaguely aware of where they were- the central market of his home village, far from the demon-kin’s battle front, away from danger.
Yet…
“Dei,” Clever started grimly, then stopped, unsure of what to say.
Dei felt it too, [Vigilance] warning him of a very familiar threat.
Despite his aching body, he forced himself to stand, to face the threat.
With calculated steps, the shadowy [Tyrant Lizard] advanced on Dei slowly.
He could sense the emanations from its soul. This was not the hollow path it’d held before, the powerful waves of heat enough for him to Identify it without even sending out the spell.
[Demon-Kin: Estimated Level: 500 by normal standards, 650 by yours]
It was as powerful as he would be at level six hundred and fifty.
The demon-kin did not seem gleeful or smug. It stared at Dei with the professional expression of a laborer completing his final task.
Hopeless.
Yet, he raised his hands, holding Perumah between them like a sword, ready to face what he knew was his demise.
Perumah herself… he felt the emotions swirling. Confusion, grief, contemplation.
She didn’t know what was going through her mind, she held no reference for how to describe it, until he finally felt her… understand. Something new appeared.
“We won,” she said in disbelief.
The emotion matured within her.
Wrath.
“We won,” she growled, voice more feral than he’d ever heard breaking through her dignified facade.
A warm liquid dripped onto his head, a faint pitter-patter tapping the stone around him, gradually becoming louder.
The air took on an acrid iron tang, an invisible tension grasping at the air.
The trickle became a downpour, and Dei lifted his free hand up to catch the falling raindrops.
Blood.
He felt the roots spread throughout him bulge painfully, Perumah’s blade cracking down the middle with the snapping of bones.
His eyes widened as the edge lengthened, crack widening to reveal a maw of teeth.
The two halves split again to become four, and a hollowness filled the air as life fled beneath the final predator, the apex.
A tanned, bloody hand broke free from the center of Perumah’s bloom, grabbing the teeth and using them to pull herself forward until she was halfway free.
The “Flower” connected to him detached, falling downwards. His body was in too much pain to move quickly enough to catch her, but before he even could, legs sprouted from within as well, and she landed on her own two feet.
The four tooth-filled jaws of her flowers expanded outwards from the center of her back, scarlet roots expanding outwards in whips that conveyed a tense, aggressive intent.
The same black-and red flowers draped themselves down her back, her hair sagging under the downpour.
Though he could not see her face, her body language screamed of fury. Aggression.
Bloodlust.
[WARNING: Crimson Rain, the Twelfth Apostle of the Moon, has manifested near you.
Fleeing is recommended, slaying is preferred]
