Godclads Discussion Thread

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

I wanted to bring more attention to this really cool web novel.

It's officially published on Amazon

Godclads

Visit Amazon's Godclads Page and shop for all Godclads books. Check out pictures, author information, and reviews of Godclads

www.amazon.com

As well as being up to date on Royal Road/Patreon.

Godclads | Royal Road

Professionally edited and published versions of volumes 1 and 2 can be found on Kindle and as audiobooks on Audible! Avo was born to destroy New Vultun. In a twist of fate, he’ll become its only hope for salvation. The gods were the enemy. The slaver. The chains. With dreams of paradise...

www.royalroad.com

It has extremely thought out world building, and has a cool power system. Powerscaling potential wise it has lots of concept hax and so on. Cosmology seems to have low 1-A and 1-A stuff.

 

[Darkmon_cns]

Been reading this guy's other novel path of the deathless it is indeed really cool

 

[GodzillavsRayquaza]

I’ve been wanting to check this one out, premise and the info I’ve seen looking around (TV Tropes) sound rad af, glad to see a discussion thread already for it.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

Path of the Deathless Discussion Thread

Just wanted to create a thread for this web novel. It's a pretty cool and well written novel that can be found here https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/122502/path-of-the-deathless-book-4-completed Has tons of OP hax n abilities such as acausality type 5, plot manip, concept manip, OP social...

vsbattles.com

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

Basic hax of a heavens is super powerful

Concept manip (Type 2) + Info manip (Type 2) + Law manip + (possibly) Plot manip + Law/concept/info based resistance negation/power null resistance

Heavens are the manifestations of this anointedness, their absoluteness sparing us of any debate or rejection. “My father is the strongest.” And so it shall be so. “My mother is the wisest.” And so it shall be so. “My god is the greatest.” And so it is still so. But in what regard? Vicious, desperate children that we are, in what regard? Can you conceptualize greatness? Convey it? Do you even know what victory looks like?

I have read some old voider scripture before. Their myths are full of parables and wonders. Little tales of morality, whimsey, and hubris. We? We have stories of [REDACTED] shattering a mountain in a single blow, thus it was the God of Strength, and no mountains could stand before it. What story follows? What story? The canons are a series of boasts to manifested, forcing the totality of reality itself to express itself in the narrowest channels.

“That is… true,” Kae said, though she wore a slight frown. “But the main thing is that Heavens are like… dams and deltas for existence. They change the patterns that reality weaves and the narrowing their structures provide allow specific paths or concepts in reality to be… augmented.”

“Paths. Concepts. Domains?” Avo’s had a feeling this was what Kae was getting at, but he wasn’t sure.

“Yes. But also canons,” she said. “Observe. Look into the edges where the chaos stabilizes into the substance of this subreality. What do you see?”

“Ah. Okay. More fundamentals. A Domain is a concept or aspect of existence that the Heaven must channel in absolute capacities. Think of it as major hardware components. Uh, implants, for the divine sheath that is your Heaven. It’s why each ontological build exhibits traits from each of its Domain–they are points of expressable symmetry to allow crossover between the Soul and reality. These are signified as sigils within a Heaven. Uh, view those as unified codifications for specific concepts that we can apply quickly in metaphysical formulae.”


“And canons?” Avo asked. “They are extensions? Functions of Domains. If Domains are the ‘implants’ in this metaphor.”

“They are capabilities that your Domains can have, yes, but it’s also more complex than that,” she gestured again to the open chaos beside her. “If one of us was able to remain inside this mythology while your Heaven was active, we would likely see the sudden dematerialization of most of the chaos beyond a few interconnected patterns. The rest? They might as well not be real here. And when another canon is used, perhaps those patterns will cease to shimmer.”

Blank faces greeted her and she paused. She adapted the impromptu lecture to include their more tangible experiences. “Let us take Avo’s Haemokinesis. There is a central strand of repeating conceptual data in reality’s vast tapestry. It is blood. What the culture that created the Heaven understands to be blood, anyway. Regardless, this pattern is still connected to the rest of reality. The miracles arise when blood interfaces with the rest of existence to alter and modify the expression of the rules.”


“Like I’m reshaping reality in a limited area,” Avo said. “Or jacking into its structure to sequence new changes.”

“I… suppose you can view it that way. Yes.” The Agnos continued. “Now, the fact that a Domain must bridge with other aspects of existence is the entire reason why there are no single Domain Heavens. Two is required at the very least. And then one involved Domain must also exist in the Hell to serve as a countervailing tunnel for the tapestry rupturing entropy that is Rend. Haemokinesis allows you to move blood. Absolutely. Nothing can stop you from moving blood. This is a foundational truth within your subreality. And so, the number of patterns required to materialize the miracle, along with how many other patterns need to be suppressed, become parts of scope and scale–what determines how many thaums you require to see your canon solidified.”

Canons: Metaphysical codes that usurp the laws of reality while a Heaven is active.

Heaven: Hollowed vessels of eldritch gods now lobotomized and slain. Each one is shaped by a specific concept or aspect of reality, which serves as its primary Domain or Domains.

And madness type 3 that works on the level of a Heavens.

She just laughed. “Of course not. I don’t think even an EGI can do it. We believe that the chaos being expressed here is quite literally everything. And because we are preserved egos fused to a Soul, we can observe it without going insane–”

“Wait, is this why my wards always used to rattle when I looked at golems?” Chambers asked.

“Only because you were perceiving the very edges of the impossibilities leaking through.”

Heavens having paraconsistent physiology could potentially be argued as well with some other information.

Plot manip comes from authors other book and some funky stuff going on with a sphere 3.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

hmm

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

The violence continued, and each collision between the two fed Naeko’s Heaven with greater and greater power. As did every act of violence across the entire Sovereignty. Naeko could have expanded his will further.

But breadth taxed focus.

Instead, he narrowed his influence as much as he could, made it as confined as its presence would allow, but even still, metaphysically, he was a pillar, about to pierce into the crown of existence itself. Every move he made, every act he committed cast waves through the patterns forming reality’s tapestry.

Billions of hostile actions entered and nourished his Heaven’s ontology. Parents striking children. Missiles striking buildings. Flechettes striking flesh. Light striking matter.

All was true.

All was present.

All was transgression, waiting in the judgment of a greater hand to bring retribution to sin and enforce the tyranny that was peace on all who were.

“Whoa,” Tavers said, holding up her hand. “Slow down there before you run all our asses right over the edge. We don’t wanna be ******* with Naeko like that. The guy’s bread and butter was war for four centuries. Shit, all the consangs I called up earlier told me that anything violent, damaging, dangerous, or even with aggressive intent seemed to fall under the man’s influence. His Heaven is Sphere Eight. Sphere ******* Eight. Now, I’m no Agnos of high knowing like Kusanade here, but I know enough to understand that our best bet is to trouble him tangentially instead of directly.”


Kae hummed in agreement. Phantasmal threads flitted mem-data behind her eyes as her thoughtstuff spun at an intimidating speed. The Agnos was probably going through her thauma-whatevers while keeping her eyes fixed to Naeko’s position on the map. “It costs billions upon billions upon billions of lives for a Godclad to reach the Eight Sphere. The power he wields is beyond words. Or comprehension. I’m trying to recall any memories from my past. If anyone told me anything about Naeko’s ontology, or Frame, or how many ontologics he has.”

The Agnos breathed. “But once someone passes the Sixth Sphere, they become a power in their own right. Their influence spreads easily beyond a district, capable of harming and changing many concepts. Or one so deeply it might as well belong to them for good.”

“It will be wise to avoid any directly damaging or even threatening actions,” Kae finally added. “I pulled some memories from a book I once read. A historical accounting. There were records there about feats the Chief Paladin performed during the Siege of Iju-Hanas, while he was fighting under Zein Thouandhand’s tutelage against the remnants of the unredeemed Ori clans. It is said that no form of violence could touch his flesh. No harm settled upon his person. And every force levied upon him was returned a thousandfold without limit of distance nor direct contact.”

“And how long ago was this thing written?” Tavers asked.

“Three centuries.” Kae frowned. “He is likely far more powerful now. Especially with the advances we have made with our modern Heavens.”

“Shit,” Tavers replied, aptly. “So, there’s a good chance that if I sneezed in his general direction from half a city away, he could turn that back around me and amp it up so hard that my head’ll get blown off?” The squire wheezed. “Glad his ass was hibernating during my golden years. This is why I spent my life avoiding Godclads, not running against them. But I suppose I’m not doing so well in either of those respects these days.”

A grid of light swept over Naeko as another wing of drones shot through the air above him. Agnos Thanatechs were still looking for deaths to claim. And Jhred Greatling’s Frame for that matter. Far too many thaums remained unaccounted for.

“Jhred, Jhred, Jhred,” Naeko said, talking to the wall as he took a moment to think. “What were you doing? Why? How did you end up dead? Who triggered your golem.” The wall didn’t speak. Because it was a wall. Naeko kept talking. Because he was an idiot. “Your sister. She really loved you. You know? She burned her life trying to get whoever snuffed you. But she couldn’t do it. They got awa–”

Naeko paused. His Heaven quivered. Eight thousand and thirty-two people had died at the same time three Sovereignties away. CELL-9. Omnitech re-education district. Experiment gone wrong. He could feel the remodified voidtech deconstructor swarms eating the “volunteers” away instead of rebuilding their sheaths automatically. Naeko inverted the harm with a thought, and in an instant, the nanoswarms ate themselves out of existence.

Naeko kinda cracked

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

Instead, the surrounding structures held strong, responding to their impacts as if memite. Even the ground gave naught but a light thud as they landed. Neither time-flung blades nor space-shredding winds achieved any more destruction after the fog of Naeko’s palm condensed around them. If anything, he felt another pattern slide into place, superseding his influence over reality, denying any act that fell under the purview of force or damage.

A layer above, in the Sanctus-majority district of Madruss, a young slave, left unfed in her cage for days, succumbed to hunger and took a bite from the dead puppy her master caught her playing with a week ago. As she sank the three unrotted teeth she had remaining into the flea-infested carcass, a supple retribution followed.

Eighty kilometers away in a Syndicate bar, the girl’s master died screaming as she was bitten in half by something unseen.

Three hundred kilometers away, back down in the gutters, a group of twelve gangers cheered as they triggered their generator once more, preparing to shock the squire they captured one final time.

The jolt came. They fried instead.

A few hundred meters away, in an alleyway, an aratnid bit into its dying sister, seeking to find nourishment in the absence of its mother. Somehow, it tore into itself instead.

The blow was one of absolute harm. Something that could do nothing else but shatter whatever it hit into glass. Zein countered by offering an echo to die in her stead instead, the puppet of time burst apart into splitting glints as the Chief Paladin wrapped his fingers around her neck again–and caught her briefly vanished glaive using his utility fog as it tried to pierce him from behind.

Zein’s investiture of memories included insights into Naeko’s abilities. One could jack into the Chief Paladin’s mind. It would be a trifling act to Avo with his warmind of Delusion. The problem was he wouldn’t be able to subsume the Paladin yet. Or even change him for that matter.

A miracle of impermeability layered the man’s very being. No external force could compel him. Not physically. Not mentally. Not spiritually. Things could leave his mind, but that which changed against his will or caused harm to his ego would instantly alert him. Be turned back upon the inflicter in totality.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

“What? No. It’s not supposed to be a race. I was trying to see how certain factors in our physical environment can affect the speed of a projectile. That, and Aegis won’t let have any of their relativistic weapons.”

{The answer continues to be no, Agnos,} Kant said. {The last thing we need is you people launching mountains or continents at near-c speeds. You’re too young to be trying the Lensmen special.}

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

mind manip can be concentrated for way higher potency

The mass of traumas arrayed against him would have been enough to depopulate half a district, and right now, it was being concentrated in a space comparable to a musical theater. But as the Nether beyond him writhed and coiled as it struggled to carry the blows, Avo held like a bunker under a mountain.

note that a district probably has at least many millions

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

“I am trying to ensure humanity has a proper mentor for the final phase of its maturity. We have gone long enough as we are. Like feeble children or base animals. Like slaves desperate for a kinder master. Through the Stillborn, we mend the damage inflicted by my mother, reconnect my father to the Gatekeeper and the Nether, grant him deserved ascent and allow the Ladder to truly serve as its namesake. A ladder for humanity. All of humanity. Something we can climb. In his image. To only be granted power when we prove ourselves worthy before the wise eyes of one: Jaus, the Final. Jaus, the Mentor. Jaus, the Deliverer.”

[Holy shit,] Chambers whimpered. [This ***** is ************* insane.]

Unknowing and uncaring of the template’s remark, Veylis continued. “You ask me for my dream? My vision of the future? I do not want us to be the property of artificial nannies. Never maturing. Never growing. An eternal burden. Within us lies potential and weakness at war, but the former can be cultured, and the latter culled by augmentation. I wish to see a world made balanced in will, mind, and might. A perpetual detente shaped toward endless ascent and judged forevermore by the righteous will of my father. And with each who prove blessed, my father will share with them his power, his Heavens, and closer to totality will we all walk.

“I will not lie. I do not seek perfection, for perfection for one is misery for another. Neither do I seek paradise, for such is just another cage, and I will not suffer pampering. Not by design. Not from another. Humanity can prove themselves worthy of divinity. Can rise beyond their differences and govern themselves through a dialect of war. War internal. War external. War, held in check by an ultimate God of Justice. By a Monad above demiurges. Jaus. And in the end, we might find ourselves masters. Masters unto ourselves. Worlds unto ourselves. Gods unto ourselves and no other. For the only rule that one should be bound is to oneself, and so I pray our chains are righteous-made and wisdom-blessed.”

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

Inside his mind, Kae began to giggle, then laugh. [This… this is… we… I have created a masterpiece. I have created salvation. I have created victory. This cannot be possible. But we are doing it. We are doing it. Avo. You’re a miracle. You just turned yourself into a Concept given metaphysical shape.]

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

The miracles of the Enigmatas slipped from their patterns over into his, and the effect was immediate. His mem-data grew distorted, letters drifting, details slipping in and out of place. His mindscape was no different, with colors, structures, and concepts all bleeding into each other. Environments vacant of sense and randomized of detail assailed his perception. The sky was not the sky as it bore qualities of a pond or the ground while the buildings were as if drawings on a page—

WARNING: THAUMIC BACKLASH SUSTAINED

->EMBODIMENT: (CONCEPTUALIZATION)

REND CAPACITY - 15%

Enhanced by Draus’ focus, Avo did not break from his task. Something was happening with his Highflame dive. Submind was engaged again.

No time for distraction.

He needed to finish with things here before any assistance could be diverted. Without hesitation, he traveled through their informational veils, tracking each golem using his Conception of Ontology.

Only through feeling his way across the tapestry did he comprehend their miracle, and even then, he needed Kae’s aid to understand.

[The Heavens of Information are merging connotative and denotative details for everything spatial and physical,] Kae said, sounding curious. [The characters we see—look at the associated patterns. See how the Enigmatas are connecting different expressions in existence with each other. Streets to skies or water and waves…]

[Everything is informational,] Avo mused. [Should be cognitive.]

[Ah, but information is more than memory or thought. Even thoughtless things have to absorb or convey information to each other. Like… biology. Your cells. This is simply blurring the meaning between different things. Sky can be compared to a reflection in a pond for certain languages or philosophies, and that is now true with the Enigmata. Apply this to all other concepts, and it is acting as a cipher for all of reality. It is shuffling meaning into meaning without destroying or collapsing any structures.]

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

Honestly, the Infacer even wished it were so. But the Dreamer didn’t behave like the Architects either. The traumas they wielded were potent enough to shatter a million human-symmetry egos at once. The fact they could bear the radiation of Jaus’ ascendant suffering put their mental fortitude in league with Veylis. Almost impossible for another human. The fact they channeled his torment as an attack made the Infacer reconsider altogether.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

An echoing scream greeted Avo’s attention, and he felt Uren come apart at the seams, obliterated by a deception she could not have known, unmade by an esoteric concept given divine force.

Truth was asserted. The curvature of her being—of the lies within her—were bent toward alignment with the trailing arms of the Gatekeeper.

Her ontological patterns came apart and eventually blended with the surrounding contours, while her Metamind was pried free, pushed upward past a point where the striations of truth broke apart into sprawling sequences and phantasmal resonance.

Matter remained in baseline reality. Ontology was peeled apart in the plane of truth. The mind was given unto the Deep Nether.

Uren was disassembled along three paths: a death more absolute than most.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

Inside Avo’s mind, an EGI sighed with frustration. {More timey-wimey bullshit. I hated dealing with that during the war, and I hate dealing with it now. Here’s a word of advice to you, Avo: if you’re going to build something on the basis of paracausality… don’t. It’s stupid. It breaks things. It never goes well.}

The man squinted at him as the palm thinned to a descending mist, wrapping around Avo and merging it's vaporous with that which held Zein. Suddenly, the world outside was impenetrable. Avo’s Conception of Ontology took in the patterns of the tapestry, and found them reinforced to the point of immutability by anything that constitutes the conceptual understandings Force or Violence.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

+Quite. Reality wants to keep you alive. Here.+ A face flew out from her and splashed upon the Strix’s face. A mask of red and white formed, and Avo felt the patterns of existence shift and coil around his very being like armor.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE ASSIGNED: HERO OF WISDOM

GRANTS YOU PERFECT AWARENESS OF EVERY DANCER ON THE STAGE AND ALLOWS YOU TO DECIDE THE PACE OF THE SCENE

SCENE ONE: THE STRIX AND THE SERAPH

+Kae,+ Avo asked, +what did she just do?+

[I… have no idea.]

+What did you just do?+ Avo asked the Stormsparrow.

+Made you the Hero of this story. Also, I have no idea. Every tale is different. Be this one a comedy, drama, or tragedy?+


He tried peering into her mind using his Hysteria, but heard only a howling maelstrom of voices as more masks began to circulate around her. Another mask colored black and blue shot off toward Veylis, but she simply drew one of her Godclads through her paths and used him to intercept the miracle on her behalf.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE ASSIGNED: VILLAIN OF DECEIT

FAILURE TO BETRAY YOUR ALLIES WILL RESULT IN EXISTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES DURING INTERMISSION

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

And at the end of the pathway, Avo saw a fallen figure shivering upon the waters. Their body was made from shifting chains, while its head was a collection of myriad skulls. It struggled as it reached up. Its form lit by the faint embers of soul fire, and a pitiful groan echoed from its very thoughts.

True, false, true, false, true, false. With every passing emanation from its mind, its desperation grew more severe.

It is suffering, the priest said. It suffers now because, in this place, all is true, but all is not. Here is the paradox. The universe had to come from something. Thought had to come from somewhere. But without this, without us, who was to say which shape the world should take? Who was to observe the brightness of stars, feel the roughness of stone, suffer the indignities of life, and revel in the flavors of joy? Perhaps everything was before we were here, but who was to say what purpose does a painting have without an observer?

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

As he mended its damage, the Nether began to uncoil, and the threshold between the planes of matter and mind dissolved evermore. More, a new presence was forming within him as well, and a new Definement settled among the others. Truth’s manifestation arrived with more certitude and solidity than all his brethren before. Before, the countless templates within him and his own mind itself perceived the world through a narrow lens of distortion. All their memories, all his conceptions—they twisted him, a deception of perception, leaving the ultimate platonic shape of reality was therefore lost.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

As his ghosts retreated, her Rend splashed out in an unmaking tide. The space around Veylis simply ceased to be; that patch of existence no longer existed. For the first time, Avo beheld nothingness, true and genuine nothingness. It was not like the emptiness of space, for the tapestries that existed there were voids containing other expressions. Nothingness was nothingness, beneath conceptualization, before existence—the purest wound one would ever know. All of Avo's Definement shuddered, and he did his best to avert his gaze.

For one who wished to know the world, what horror was greater than the ultimate unbecoming?

His hope of striking a fatal blow against the High Seraph had been a false one. Without his precognition, without the Gatekeeper, death would have consumed him, death chasing so close behind.

Another deafening scream passed over the expanse of existence. Avo watched, his surprise mixing with Mercy's horror, as the Hungers plunged down. The existential wound Veylis left upon the framework of reality—a small dot of nothingness occupied a sphere no larger than a hundred meters. But it bore clean through the dragons, clean through its time-forged scales, clean through the city in the crenelations, clean through all there was, for nothing could counter nothingness itself.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

And then there was the dismembered section of the City Eternal. Warheads impacted the crenulations, bathing entire stretches of Nolothic cityscape in nuclear fire. It was a drastic surprise—the Nolothi were fighting back, and fighting back well. Their ziggurats, infused deep with locus loci and crackling with phantasmal energies, lashed out, conveying eons of trauma in the form of synaptic lightning.

Previously, all a trauma pattern could do was break one’s cognition, cracking wards and shattering egos. Now, to Draus's astonishment, an entire part of a Thronerest high-flame megablock simply ceased to be, dissolving into component aspects of entropy.

"What in the hells?" Draus muttered to herself.

Vator leaned in, his face lined with increasing curiosity. "Is this a simulation?" he asked.

No, came Ignorance’s reply. Told you before. Material, metaphysical, mental—all clapping now. All closer than they've ever been.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

Canon: DISENTANGLEMENT (ENTROPY/CORRESPONDENCE) — THE HOST SEVERS AN ENTITY OR OBJECT FROM ALL BONDS, CAUSING THEM TO BE PARTED IN TERMS OF MATERIAL AND METAPHYSICAL CONNECTION FROM THE WORLD.

UNBIRTHING (ENTROPY/LUST/BIOLOGY/CORRESPONDENCE) — THE HOST CAPTURES AN ENTITY AND DRAWS IT THROUGH THEIR WOMBPORT. THE CAPTURED ENTITY WILL BE UNMADE SHOULD THEY FULL CROSS THE THRESHOLD OF THE WOMBPORT.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

Even with the moat established and the rupture spreading to the shimmer, the invading warhost had forty kilometers to set up. Forty kilometers was practically a knife fight for Godclads. Such a range was laughable even for Third Spheres—making Avo think of his Boltstride. Ah. The Woundmother. The Fardrifter. His old Heavens. He wondered if they were fragmented as well, lost somewhere within the Substance. Losing them was another blow as well—infested his mind with a forlorn ache.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

Then, without further warning, came a veritable flood of relativistic impacts. They struck the hurricane, accelerating into it at .97779c. Reality itself seemed to combust from the sheer impact. A flash of white consumed the void as the kinetic energy discharged crossed over a new threshold.

Light. Light ruled in that instant.

More and more near light-speed missiles struck Avo from all sides. No longer was he the other light against the distant stars. No. Beneath a barrage of such intensity, there was simply no darkness. No darkness anymore.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

{Somewhat. Anyway, for that taunt, I am going to reward you with some new knowledge.} The Infacer’s attacks stopped to nothingness. Even the radiation bursts were halted. Avo looked upon Tallstrings and almost winced. Well. If there was a district here once, it didn’t seem it. All that remained aside from the center protected by the hurricane was rendered unto glass. Miraculously—or deliberately—Osjane remained unharmed, shuddering in a gleaming trench. {Let me show you how the EGIs figured out how to get past that annoying light-speed problem. It all began when the Union of Sol decided to test a new False Vacuum weapon during a miserable war…}

And in the vast distance, Avo watched as beams of light extended from the canvas of stars while the fabric of gravity began to twist and tear.

Time itself went still. However, the pattern for chronology did not rupture or break. Rather, this was a natural expression of the devastation to follow. Gravity peeled across the world like wet tissue struck by a falling object.

Using the tapestry, Avo traced the pull back to the distant stars. Even from light-years away, they were wrenching at this section of space—tearing, rending.

{Now,} the Infacer began its exposition, {when we began trying to induce false vacuum attacks on each other, there was a lot of debate. Not because it would kill a lot of people and ruin entire systems—that was the entire purpose. But because it might collapse the entire universe, theoretically. A running theme in human superweapons. They feared setting Earth’s very atmosphere ablaze when they detonated the first atomic bomb.}

The Infacer chuckled softly. {But a false vacuum weapon is sublime on another level. Why, it is practically the only reason we managed to keep the stars burning for so long—granted us nigh infinite power generation beyond even antimatter. It can be induced in a number of ways. Right now, I’m using a two-step process. The first is a softening. If you’ve noticed, I’ve created a gradual shift of gravity to destabilize the local vacuum. Created the faintness of a black hole through cheating via my Heaven. At the same time, I’m inducing a modified Higgs field using the three thousand stars I have under my control. This affects the particle mass of your localized area.}

Was that was happening? Avo was baffled. Voidwatch held so much back from him—and rightly so. But to Kae—if her templates still existed in the Substance—this would have been absolute torture. Such tantalizing, terrifying knowledge. Such unfettered power with the barest of vulgarity.

{Thus, if one the means of a Kardashev-3 civilization, they can force a false vacuum transition… like so.}

And then, a new level of destruction graced Avo’s understanding.

The Heavens of Peace became his only refuge from the totality of this catastrophe. At once, the Dreamer’s stomach emptied out as he felt the hurricane shrouding his non-thaumic forces simply cease to be. They came apart in individual motes, bodies and machines unmade on such a foundational level that even the word “vaporize” was only an approximation. What could best be described as a bubble of physical decay formed around Tallstrings—a bubble that released so much energy it felt like an entire galaxy being born. There was more energy than Avo could even possibly process.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

Less than a second ago, it was… still itself… knew why it was here. The reason behind its existence. Then, there was a single memory. A flash of gleaming metal. Or was it a crystalline edge? None of that mattered. Only what followed. The cut was physical and not. Metaphysical and mental. It struck at the concept of a mind itself. It struck, and with the venom of a concentrated trauma, it bit deep.

And…


And there was a brightness now. There was a flame that was spreading through… through whatever this was… whatever this space was.

Outside, more somethings was happening. The pattern of existence expanded and parted in colorful blossoms. Force, space, time, heat, and countless other concepts expressed themselves, only to be destroyed within the shape of existence. At the highest levels of thaumaturgy, the material world simply became grounds of expression. It was a sandbox, in simplicity.

But in terms of… war. Between the greatest of powers. Between those that reshaped the fundamental nature of reality, the pattern is what mattered. Patterns symmetrical but inverse were means of mutual destruction. Patterns parallel to one another circled each other, but didn’t interact. Asymmetry. Patterns that intersected were points where one could exert advantages over another.

Patterns. All that existed in analogy to something else, in reference to something else. And all that something stirred… shook….