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I noticed that there was a discussion in Othinus profile about her destroying the Index Universe with people asking for her to be upgraded to multiversal level and others asking for proof that she had destroyed everything in the Index universe and that the Index universe she destroyed has 11 dimensions. While I'm familiar with the series I'm not that experienced with the topic of discussing if a character fits those tiers so I'll just put the proofs here with an explanation about the structure of the Index universe and let people more knowledgeable than I am decide if it warrants the upgrade or not.
First point, the Index universe has 11 dimensions. This is easy to prove. Espers who have Teleport-based powers regularly interact with the 11th dimension to realize their "jumps". They are much lower in power than a Magic God. (A) Curtuna's All Dimension Severing Spell doesn't specify a concrete number of dimensions, but it confirms the existence of higher dimensions. (B).
A (Volume 6 - Between the Lines 01): Shirai's ability was called Teleport. It was not limited to three dimension rules, so she could move about freely within space. However, there was a weakness to this ability. Though the phrase "to teleport within space" sounded simple, the theory behind it was to get away from the three dimensions, find her position in the eleventh dimension, and then calculate the vectors to teleport. Such calculations complexity couldn't be compared to the simple commands that ordinary espers would have, like "fire a fireball", or "fire electric strikes".
B (Volume 18 - Chapter 05 Part 10): "This simultaneously severs every dimension at the coordinates whether they are higher dimensions or lower dimensions. It seems the only cross section objects created that we can perceive are the ones that can appear in a 3 dimensional world."
(What…?)
Kamijou was completely dumbfounded.
If what she was saying was true, that sword was a monstrous weapon that could cut right through dimensions which did exist but were more of a concept than anything. No matter how much steel someone used to protect his body, Curtana Original could cut right through the dimension to cleave him in two.
Second point, Othinus destroying the Index's Universe. First we have to talk about the structure of Index's Universe/World. I've seen other people confused by the concept of phases before so I'll try to simplify things.
In the Index universe there is only 1 world. When Kamachi uses world in this context it means the totality of existence, everything. This world is made of several different phases. The confirmed phases in the normal Index world (all except the ones created by Othinus to torture Touma) are: Human Realm (Physical Universe), Heaven, Hell, Underworld, Pure Land, Yomi, Abyss, Olympus, Fairy Island. Nirai Kanai, Asgard, First Sun, Takama-ga-hara, Amaravati and Black World.
In OT Heaven and Hell were described as existing in the same space than the human realm but at different frequencies/wavelenghts, I think we can assume this to be true for phases, as it explains how denizens of those realms do not normally interact with each other and why Marian can cut those phases with Dainsleif without caring for her physical position since they exist alongside the human realm..
Volume 04 Chapter 1 Part 1: "Mm, the high and low relationship of heaven and hell isn't of height."
"Then what is it?"
"Here's an example. Human eyes can't see infrared rays, and human ears can't detect high frequency sounds. You can understand this right, Kami-yan?"
"Ah? Mn."
"The high and low refers to this, anything that's above or below what humans can detect. They can't feel it if it's too high or if it's too low. So even if God is to appear beside Kamiyan, you should be unable to detect it."
Tsuchimikado delightedly smiled.
"Yeah. The low is referring to hell of the devil. What's opposite infrared rays are ultraviolet rays, and low frequency in contrast to high frequency; in other words, an inversion. Though both waves are different, both are still waves. In other words, even if there's an angel standing beside a demon, they won't be able to detect each other unless they interfere with each other in the area between heaven and hell called the 'human realm'."
To recap, phases all exist in the same space, but not in the same wavelength. If it makes things easier for you, instead of using the term filter think of them as different realms: there are several of them contained in a single world. The novel itself described the human world and heaven as realms when talking about the mechanics of Angel Fall:
"The number of humans and angels were already decided, thus in ordinary circumstances, humans are definitely unable to be promoted to become angels. In contrast, angels are never be demoted to be humans."
"Because every single realm is already filled up."
Following off what Tsuchimikado had said, Kanzaki continued, "But this spell called Angel Fall is just as what the name implies, it can force an angel that's in the heavens to become a human. And the human realm is like a cup full of water, if a drop of angel is to fall in—what will happen to the cup of water?"
Magic Gods can freely manipulate phases. Othinus erased the phases in NT9 when she 'destroyed' the world. The novel explains she did so by using her power of creation creatively. She has not technically destroyed the phases in the traditional sense of destroying something, but has instead removed them of existence by rewriting the structure of the world by placing a new phase on top of everything else. The results are still the same, the world has been destroyed, leaving only her and Touma.
Newt Testament Volume 9 Chapter 6b Between the Connected Points: "Have you ever heard of phases?"
"…?"
"This world was not pure and untouched to begin with. Christian, Buddhist, Celtic, Indian, Shinto, Incan, Aztec, Greek, Roman…and Norse. The various religions have placed layer after layer of various phases over the world like thin veils or filters. There is heaven, hell, the underworld, the Pure Land, Yomi, the abyss, Mount Olympus, the fairy island, Nirai Kanai, Asgard, and many others. At any rate, the world you have seen so far has been viewed through various colors of cellophane."
"You haven't destroyed any of those colored glasses."
As his vision wavered and he was unsure who he was speaking to, Kamijou managed to keep his mouth moving.
"When it comes down to it, you are a person who creates. It may be filled with malice and it may be similar to representing 'crushing a house' as 'creating a pile of rubble', but it does not change what you are. You are a person who creates."
"Call me a god. And what I have done is simple. I have created new filters and placed them over the world so the world appears to have changed. That is why the world appeared changed to you. This is a lot easier than destroying everything and building it back up every time. And your right hand contains the power to level out any foreign elements in the world, so it has difficulty functioning when I change the world itself. …Still, results are everything in the world. In the end, history will record it like this: the Magic God repeatedly destroyed the world and created new ones to make a single boy suffer as much as possible."
Every time Othinus erased all phases, either by using her phase powers or by using Gungnir there was a common result. She and Touma ended up in an endless black void called black world. This is basically a blank canvas, a world without any filters, the last layer covering the Pure World, which would be the actual world untouched by magic and religion, the world of science.
New Testament Volume 09 Chapter 6b Between the Connecte Points: The man who names himself the Silver Star seems to have been attempting to directly tamper with the 'pure world' beyond all the filters…that is, the world of science that is unaffected by religion. …Honestly, you are quite fortunate to see this. Not even the Golden cabal of Europe that dreamed in Tibet was able to reach this point."
Of course, this is excluding the secret phase of True Gremlin. Neither Othinus or Touma were aware it existed, and in fact it seems to be isolated from all others and not easily accesed, as Aleister commented.
New Testament Volume 10 Epilogue: It may have been wrong to refer to that place as dark. In fact, the word "place" was not entirely accurate either. Non-existent things could not be explained. Nevertheless, a few voices lurked within where no one could interfere.
[...]
"The concepts of distance and time don't matter here, remember? And I can't leave regardless. Even if I did, I'd just end up gathering unwanted attention on a global scale like Othinus. I was a hair's breadth and an infinite distance away."
"Does the same go for the others?"
"Old man, did you start forgetting things once you became a mummy? The zombie girl, the chimera, and everyone are here. It's just in destiny's hands whether we run across each other in this place where the tiniest gap extends to an infinite distance☆"
[...]
Othinus and Kamijou Touma had been wrong about one thing.
They had thought that world of darkness had been the full extent of the world. They had assumed that pitch black despair had been the product of destroying everything and leaving nothing at all behind.
But in truth, there had been one more layer. It was as uniform as a thin membrane, it had not even the slightest seam, and it could not be detected or destroyed by anyone, but one last phase had existed.
This black world was the place not even Magic God Othinus had been able to destroy.
"Oh?"
"Someone" narrowed their eyes at the intense white light from outside.
That "someone" watched as the perpetrator set foot in that divine territory.
"I had noticed you had not shown yourself recently, but I see you were busy with a touching side job."
The hoarse voice went on to speak a somehow nostalgic name.
"Aleister Crowley the Human."
This magician had silver hair that reached his ankles and wore a green hospital gown. That human looked both male and female, both childlike and aged, and both saintly and sinful. His expression as he answered could have been interpreted as any number of emotions.
"Letting Othinus run free would have been a problem, but I left that to the strength of the world. The world was temporarily led to destruction as a result, but I still had to prioritize this. It wasn't easy converting coordinates filled with non-existent numbers into decimal."
Kamachi doesn't give an exact number of times Othinus destroyed the world. The narration varies from tens of thousands to hundreds of millions or even billions of times. Touma didn't really keep a mental count. He blocked most of the memories of his deaths so he wouldn't be able to keep count even if he wanted. Othinus in NT12 states it was hundreds of billions of times, and she was the one creating them all which I think gives her word more weight than the victim's.
New Testament volume 12 Chapter 3 Part 2: "But still," muttered fifteen centimeter Othinus. "Through all of those hundreds of billions of phases, I missed the Misaka Network that manipulated the border between life and death. Does he also contain the possibility to always show up or appear anew in every world or phase I created?"
To sum up, if we use Kamachi's painting metaphor, there's only a single, unique canvas (world) which contains several elements (phases). Magic Gods are painters. They can paint and make changes in the painting, but thay cannot create another canvas or change it. The Black World is a blank canvas result of the painter (Othinus) painting everything white to start from scratch.
If we want to use a different metaphor we could use computers. The world is a hard drive and the phases on it are folders, each one with different parameters and users. Users belonging to one folder can't enter other folders. Magic Gods are admins who can freely create or erase folders, change the parameters of one folder, etc.. Black World would be erasing all folders. Pure World would probably be something like the source code of the OS.
First point, the Index universe has 11 dimensions. This is easy to prove. Espers who have Teleport-based powers regularly interact with the 11th dimension to realize their "jumps". They are much lower in power than a Magic God. (A) Curtuna's All Dimension Severing Spell doesn't specify a concrete number of dimensions, but it confirms the existence of higher dimensions. (B).
A (Volume 6 - Between the Lines 01): Shirai's ability was called Teleport. It was not limited to three dimension rules, so she could move about freely within space. However, there was a weakness to this ability. Though the phrase "to teleport within space" sounded simple, the theory behind it was to get away from the three dimensions, find her position in the eleventh dimension, and then calculate the vectors to teleport. Such calculations complexity couldn't be compared to the simple commands that ordinary espers would have, like "fire a fireball", or "fire electric strikes".
B (Volume 18 - Chapter 05 Part 10): "This simultaneously severs every dimension at the coordinates whether they are higher dimensions or lower dimensions. It seems the only cross section objects created that we can perceive are the ones that can appear in a 3 dimensional world."
(What…?)
Kamijou was completely dumbfounded.
If what she was saying was true, that sword was a monstrous weapon that could cut right through dimensions which did exist but were more of a concept than anything. No matter how much steel someone used to protect his body, Curtana Original could cut right through the dimension to cleave him in two.
Second point, Othinus destroying the Index's Universe. First we have to talk about the structure of Index's Universe/World. I've seen other people confused by the concept of phases before so I'll try to simplify things.
In the Index universe there is only 1 world. When Kamachi uses world in this context it means the totality of existence, everything. This world is made of several different phases. The confirmed phases in the normal Index world (all except the ones created by Othinus to torture Touma) are: Human Realm (Physical Universe), Heaven, Hell, Underworld, Pure Land, Yomi, Abyss, Olympus, Fairy Island. Nirai Kanai, Asgard, First Sun, Takama-ga-hara, Amaravati and Black World.
In OT Heaven and Hell were described as existing in the same space than the human realm but at different frequencies/wavelenghts, I think we can assume this to be true for phases, as it explains how denizens of those realms do not normally interact with each other and why Marian can cut those phases with Dainsleif without caring for her physical position since they exist alongside the human realm..
Volume 04 Chapter 1 Part 1: "Mm, the high and low relationship of heaven and hell isn't of height."
"Then what is it?"
"Here's an example. Human eyes can't see infrared rays, and human ears can't detect high frequency sounds. You can understand this right, Kami-yan?"
"Ah? Mn."
"The high and low refers to this, anything that's above or below what humans can detect. They can't feel it if it's too high or if it's too low. So even if God is to appear beside Kamiyan, you should be unable to detect it."
Tsuchimikado delightedly smiled.
"Yeah. The low is referring to hell of the devil. What's opposite infrared rays are ultraviolet rays, and low frequency in contrast to high frequency; in other words, an inversion. Though both waves are different, both are still waves. In other words, even if there's an angel standing beside a demon, they won't be able to detect each other unless they interfere with each other in the area between heaven and hell called the 'human realm'."
To recap, phases all exist in the same space, but not in the same wavelength. If it makes things easier for you, instead of using the term filter think of them as different realms: there are several of them contained in a single world. The novel itself described the human world and heaven as realms when talking about the mechanics of Angel Fall:
"The number of humans and angels were already decided, thus in ordinary circumstances, humans are definitely unable to be promoted to become angels. In contrast, angels are never be demoted to be humans."
"Because every single realm is already filled up."
Following off what Tsuchimikado had said, Kanzaki continued, "But this spell called Angel Fall is just as what the name implies, it can force an angel that's in the heavens to become a human. And the human realm is like a cup full of water, if a drop of angel is to fall in—what will happen to the cup of water?"
Magic Gods can freely manipulate phases. Othinus erased the phases in NT9 when she 'destroyed' the world. The novel explains she did so by using her power of creation creatively. She has not technically destroyed the phases in the traditional sense of destroying something, but has instead removed them of existence by rewriting the structure of the world by placing a new phase on top of everything else. The results are still the same, the world has been destroyed, leaving only her and Touma.
Newt Testament Volume 9 Chapter 6b Between the Connected Points: "Have you ever heard of phases?"
"…?"
"This world was not pure and untouched to begin with. Christian, Buddhist, Celtic, Indian, Shinto, Incan, Aztec, Greek, Roman…and Norse. The various religions have placed layer after layer of various phases over the world like thin veils or filters. There is heaven, hell, the underworld, the Pure Land, Yomi, the abyss, Mount Olympus, the fairy island, Nirai Kanai, Asgard, and many others. At any rate, the world you have seen so far has been viewed through various colors of cellophane."
"You haven't destroyed any of those colored glasses."
As his vision wavered and he was unsure who he was speaking to, Kamijou managed to keep his mouth moving.
"When it comes down to it, you are a person who creates. It may be filled with malice and it may be similar to representing 'crushing a house' as 'creating a pile of rubble', but it does not change what you are. You are a person who creates."
"Call me a god. And what I have done is simple. I have created new filters and placed them over the world so the world appears to have changed. That is why the world appeared changed to you. This is a lot easier than destroying everything and building it back up every time. And your right hand contains the power to level out any foreign elements in the world, so it has difficulty functioning when I change the world itself. …Still, results are everything in the world. In the end, history will record it like this: the Magic God repeatedly destroyed the world and created new ones to make a single boy suffer as much as possible."
Every time Othinus erased all phases, either by using her phase powers or by using Gungnir there was a common result. She and Touma ended up in an endless black void called black world. This is basically a blank canvas, a world without any filters, the last layer covering the Pure World, which would be the actual world untouched by magic and religion, the world of science.
New Testament Volume 09 Chapter 6b Between the Connecte Points: The man who names himself the Silver Star seems to have been attempting to directly tamper with the 'pure world' beyond all the filters…that is, the world of science that is unaffected by religion. …Honestly, you are quite fortunate to see this. Not even the Golden cabal of Europe that dreamed in Tibet was able to reach this point."
Of course, this is excluding the secret phase of True Gremlin. Neither Othinus or Touma were aware it existed, and in fact it seems to be isolated from all others and not easily accesed, as Aleister commented.
New Testament Volume 10 Epilogue: It may have been wrong to refer to that place as dark. In fact, the word "place" was not entirely accurate either. Non-existent things could not be explained. Nevertheless, a few voices lurked within where no one could interfere.
[...]
"The concepts of distance and time don't matter here, remember? And I can't leave regardless. Even if I did, I'd just end up gathering unwanted attention on a global scale like Othinus. I was a hair's breadth and an infinite distance away."
"Does the same go for the others?"
"Old man, did you start forgetting things once you became a mummy? The zombie girl, the chimera, and everyone are here. It's just in destiny's hands whether we run across each other in this place where the tiniest gap extends to an infinite distance☆"
[...]
Othinus and Kamijou Touma had been wrong about one thing.
They had thought that world of darkness had been the full extent of the world. They had assumed that pitch black despair had been the product of destroying everything and leaving nothing at all behind.
But in truth, there had been one more layer. It was as uniform as a thin membrane, it had not even the slightest seam, and it could not be detected or destroyed by anyone, but one last phase had existed.
This black world was the place not even Magic God Othinus had been able to destroy.
"Oh?"
"Someone" narrowed their eyes at the intense white light from outside.
That "someone" watched as the perpetrator set foot in that divine territory.
"I had noticed you had not shown yourself recently, but I see you were busy with a touching side job."
The hoarse voice went on to speak a somehow nostalgic name.
"Aleister Crowley the Human."
This magician had silver hair that reached his ankles and wore a green hospital gown. That human looked both male and female, both childlike and aged, and both saintly and sinful. His expression as he answered could have been interpreted as any number of emotions.
"Letting Othinus run free would have been a problem, but I left that to the strength of the world. The world was temporarily led to destruction as a result, but I still had to prioritize this. It wasn't easy converting coordinates filled with non-existent numbers into decimal."
Kamachi doesn't give an exact number of times Othinus destroyed the world. The narration varies from tens of thousands to hundreds of millions or even billions of times. Touma didn't really keep a mental count. He blocked most of the memories of his deaths so he wouldn't be able to keep count even if he wanted. Othinus in NT12 states it was hundreds of billions of times, and she was the one creating them all which I think gives her word more weight than the victim's.
New Testament volume 12 Chapter 3 Part 2: "But still," muttered fifteen centimeter Othinus. "Through all of those hundreds of billions of phases, I missed the Misaka Network that manipulated the border between life and death. Does he also contain the possibility to always show up or appear anew in every world or phase I created?"
To sum up, if we use Kamachi's painting metaphor, there's only a single, unique canvas (world) which contains several elements (phases). Magic Gods are painters. They can paint and make changes in the painting, but thay cannot create another canvas or change it. The Black World is a blank canvas result of the painter (Othinus) painting everything white to start from scratch.
If we want to use a different metaphor we could use computers. The world is a hard drive and the phases on it are folders, each one with different parameters and users. Users belonging to one folder can't enter other folders. Magic Gods are admins who can freely create or erase folders, change the parameters of one folder, etc.. Black World would be erasing all folders. Pure World would probably be something like the source code of the OS.
