280 - A Tribulation (Patreon)

The void of space gained ten million claws, fractally spiraling out of Nothanganathor’s long body as he undulated in the shape of infinity, his head stilled at his center, one eye glaring Red, the other a bloody wreck. Nothanganathor was doing a dance. An Infinite Dance. In an offhanded sort of way, Erick recognized that his infinity symbol was the same as Earth’s symbol for Infinity. This was not too interesting of a fact, because apparently the symbol was the same in many different cultures.

Erick had not seen Nothanganathor start dancing. He just was; he was already dancing, this whole time. Nothanganathor liked attacking like that, Erick reflected. Establishing himself as having done something. The white bastard was a master of Establishment Magic.

Erick could play that game, too, but first he went through the process of understanding the attack so he could better counter it.

Nothanganathor’s fractal claws extended out into infinity, or at least the infinity within this ‘contained’ space, at this Mercury-distance from the Red/Burning-White sun. Nothanganathor’s claws clipped Valkyrie after Valkyrie, though most of them had learned how to be leaves on the wind, bending away from attacks and Siphoning those attacks in turn. Most of them escaped, but the churn was getting deeper. Harder to evade. Nothanganathor had Established himself as an Inevitability.

Erick wasn’t affected at all. In fact, the magic stayed away from him. That had implications as to how this was working, because the attack wasn’t avoiding Erick. It simply did not affect him.

Nothanganathor wasn’t using Malevolence, directly. Not much, anyway. He was Mana Altering it to Void and expanding it outward with resons.

Based on those facts, Erick deduced that this magic was focused on all forces that were subject to time. Nothanganathor had done that because this attack could hurt him, too, because it was just that destructive, and he was more interested in whittling down Erick’s forces than fighting him head-on.

More than that, though, Nothanganathor’s fractal claws were laced with Malevolence on the edges, and every strike against a Valkyrie was a bit of mana grafted back onto Nothanaganthor. This, then, was another of Nothanganathor’s own mana siphon attacks. This was him using his Sign of Power to steal from others.

That was the trick.

He looked like he was attacking everything, but really he was Draining everything— Except for that black planet down there with Everbless and others. That was actively being avoided.

This was a [Void Claw] enhanced with some ritualistic dancing and his Sign of Power. That Sign of Power was the only reason that it was hurting the Valkyries instead of the Valkyries fighting back against it, and Siphoning it apart.

Erick just needed to break up the power and allow the Valkyries to Siphon once again, and then this [Infinite Claw Dance], or whatever, would be a big, big mistake on Nothanganathor’s part. He was spread out all over the place, after all. That much surface area made him an easy target.

Erick spoke, “[Counter—”

Nothanganathor stopped dancing instantly, as though he had never been dancing at all.

Looked like he didn’t want that particular spell broken.

He moved on to other attacks.

He was in five places at once, and all of them were half-illusions and half-truths. Each of them was casting a different magic. One was doing something nuclear. Another was doing something penetrative. Another was doing some sort of grand ice magic. Another touched the void, and shattered infinity like breaking the iced surface of a pond. The other turned to nothing at all, and lunged at Erick, seeking to swallow him whole.

Erick stepped through time.

The nuclear attack was a beam that Nothanganathor swept across the void. It was more aimed at the Valkyries than at Erick. Erick opened a portal and swallowed Nothanganathor’s attack to aim it right back at him.

That Nothanganathor vanished, and so did that Erick.

The penetrative attack had Nothanganathor throwing out lances the sizes of moons, each of them differently-shaped, each carrying different horrors upon them. Fungus, eldritch tentacles, bones and eyes, souls twisted into horrors. Ten of them shot from the white serpent’s body, tearing toward Erick, and Erick could not move out of the way or else they would each strike a different Valkyrie and then infect those million-strong Weavers that the Valkyries linked to. So Erick conjured targets for the lances, summoning souls out of nothing, like slimes. The spears struck those slime souls and detonated their curses. Erick [Grand Reincarnation]d the cursed souls and sent them onto their new lives, cleansed.

The Nothanganathors that did the ice magic and the infinity-breaking magic simply vanished, lost to the illusion. The ice and void-cracking attacks had been too ephemeral to work, apparently. Those Ericks ceased to be; unneeded.

The shadowy Nothanganathor tried to eat Erick, but Erick easily dodged.

The shadowy thing twisted to rejoin Nothanganathor, repositioning.

It was one Erick and two Nothanganathors—

Erick realized, right before it happened, what was about to happen. The shadowy Nothanganathor bit into the real Nothanganathor, and then flowed into that wound like poisoned power. Nothanganathor’s whiteness shadowed over, and he became as bright as an eclipse.

Erick had done a little fuck up.

That shadowy thing had not been an attack. It had been a major buffing magic, made all that much stronger because Nothanganathor had ‘offered’ it to Erick, first. It was some wonky hospitality/weird-thinking that made that sort of thing work at all, but it worked quite well. On the plus side, it had probably been poison for Erick to take that into himself, anyway, so there was never an option to accept that sort of attack/buff in the first pla—

Wait.

It was a poisoned buff.

Buffs on Veird were always bad unless they were made by masters of magic, and even then you didn’t want to do Buffing Magic at all, almost all the time. But here Nothanganathor was, using major Buffing Magic on himself.

“You fucker!” Erick said, realizing a truth. “You poisoned buffing magic for all of Veird, didn’t you!”

Laughter echoed in the void and Nothanganathor joyfully declared, “YES!” He Declared, “NOW D—

Erick squeezed an entire word and power between letters, announcing, “[Animadversion].”

“—IE! Shit.”

A pin of purple magic shot out of Nothanganathor like an arrow released. It was the size of a world. It vanished. It appeared inside of Erick, ephemeral and at the same time large enough for Erick to consider it like standing atop a very pointed pillar ten times the size of his own body. This pillar was already striking at his heart.

And then, paradoxically, his silver shield of thorns caught the spellwork before it ever entered his body. The attack materialized as an arrow and Erick returned the world-sized arrow, shooting it back at Nothanganathor.

The purple arrow vanished again and then reappeared—

A whole third of Nothanganathor’s multi-Jupiter long, shadowed-white body, simply buckled. His spine tore out backward, spreading flesh everywhere. Nothanganathor roared in pain.

Erick almost attacked, but he wasn’t going to take the bait of getting in some easy attacks, even if it really, really didn’t look like bait. He let his [Animadversion] shield dissipate, for it was mostly broken anyway and he didn’t want Nothanganathor to corrupt it with a trick—

Nothanganathor’s shadowed body split away from him, taking his injury with it, and Nothanganathor was whole. He looked exhausted, though, and he didn’t collect all the flesh that he had just lost. The Valkyries feasted instead, their numbers multiplying.

Nothanganathor had lost maybe a few Earths of length, but it wasn’t that much. Maybe 10% of his length?

Also, Erick was bigger now, for some reason.

That black planet down there, where Fallopolis fought Ozzy and Everbless, seemed smaller now, and by a lot. Erick had already ripped out Nothanganathor’s eye once and gained some size out of that, but now he was a lot bigger.

Nothanganathor glared at Erick, opening both eyes. It seemed the shadow magic dispersal had wiped away all his injuries.

The white bastard roared, “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been saving that one! You shouldn’t have been able to do that!”

Something clicked.

That had been an arrow, hadn’t it. Like a real fucking arrow.

Erick roared back, “You even stopped the development of bows and arrows?!”

“Of course I did! Do you know how many powerful spells are tied to arrows!”

Both of them realized something important at the same time.

Nothanganathor liked to take credit.

And.

He would thus be subject to the results of that credit.

Erick fired off perhaps his most effective attack yet, “Stopping progress isn’t in the portfolio of a God of Magic!”

Reality itself pressed down on Nothanganathor, crunching scales and breaking horns, but Nothanganathor turned the strike, roaring, “Cultivating progress is certainly within my purview!”

The reality crush slid off of Nothanganathor.

Erick resumed his argument through [Luminous Beam]s.

- - - -

Fallopolis spun and twirled away from Oozy, who wielded a hammer that glowed with silver and gold.

Normally, getting hit was not a problem for her, but Fallopolis had learned her lesson about Oozy’s endless supply of weapons once already, and then a few more times because she wasn’t used to dancing with someone with endless resources—

The hammer came down in a world-cracking blow that was like unto a god touching the blackened planet. The world broke, and Red filled in the gaps. Fallopolis escaped anyway, flowing around the broken pillars of Everbless that stuck out of the black ground like frozen lightning. Her body was a rush of Darkness; eyes open, mouths eating, fangs biting.

Oozy pursued, wielding way too many trinkets. His armor was an artifact that made him invisible to everything but direct sight. He discarded the hammer he had used twice to attack, neither blow hitting Fallopolis, and the hammer broke in the discard. He reached into one of the broken aerial roots of Everbless and pulled out an arch of wood and a bundle of arrows.

Melemziargo’s voice whispered into Fallopolis’s everything.

“Lifekiller Arrows.”

So, lesser versions of the Absolute Death that Nothanganathor had shot at Erick, and which Erick had reflected.

Nothanganathor shouldn’t have had any of those arrows, but of course he did, since Melemizargo had had them in his armory, back in the Painted Cosmology. Nothanganathor probably had worse arrows, too.

“Not likely, but it is possible. The really bad stuff was set to break if it ever got free.”

Erick really shouldn’t have been able to reflect one of those Big Arrows, though, according to Melemizargo, but the Wizard of Benevolence was growing stronger off of this battle with Nothanganathor. Melemizargo was concerned with that, for any of a hundred reasons. If Erick was growing, was he a threat? Yes, but also no. If Nothanganathor was just leading Erick on, then was this a faulty fight? Yes it was, if that was the case, but in His opinion, Nothanganathor was truly trying, and had been trying this whole time.

Fallopolis simply hated arrows; that was her reaction to those splinters of wood, tipped with death. It was a much simpler reaction. She had never fought an actual archer before, but that’s what Oozy was. He was an archer from a time long ago on Veird, when archery was a small pastime that had experienced a small boom in popularity, and then faded away into oblivion in favor of [Bolt] and [Beam].

“As it had many times over the centuries! That bastard, Nothanganathor! I will rip his soul apart forever!” Melemizargo’s hatred burned a lot hotter than Fallopolis’s. He roared at the back of her mind, “I tried to get people to invent bows and arrows so many times!”

Melemizargo stretched a tendril of Fallopolis far to the right of the battlefield and opened a maw, right as Oozy released his arrow. Instantly, Darkness poured forth, scouring the land for kilometers upon kilometers with [The Breath of Melemizargo].

The arrow didn’t seem to care about that. It punched through Darkness and light and sky and reality, burying itself—

Melemizargo created a heart inside of Fallopolis’s body and the arrow burrowed into that heart. Melemizargo discarded the heart and it exploded into Annihilation. Fallopolis was already moving to intercept three more arrows, each of them flashing purple and aimed at Erick. Would those arrows aimed at Erick have done anything to him? Toothpicks against a world-sized dragon more than a hundred worlds away? No, probably not. But, Fallopolis intercepted the attack anyway.

Three more hearts intercepted those three more arrows, and now Fallopolis was above Oozy, blackening the sky with her flowing ooze body. [Avatar of Melemizargo] was only half under her control, which was the only reason she had survived this long. She usually had full control of her Avatar body, but not when Her God was this close to the battle, when He was this focused on this battle. Fallopolis was an ooze-shaped avatar, though, that could be pulled in a hundred ways at once, if Her God wanted it.

She had fought this way for a very long time, though, whenever she absolutely needed to win, and she was good at being an ooze. She could do this for an age, if needed.

The exact string of events that led to her being a person who became an ooze to fight, and Oozy of the Red being an ooze that had become a person, were unknown to her, but it was probably Fate, like the same Fate written into the sky above. Melemizargo grumbled about how he didn’t like that, because of the implications, whatever they might be. That whole dungeon of thought was too deep for her to explore right now.

She focused on the fight—

There, below her, Oozy floated in his Red armor, nocking another arrow onto the string of his bow. This one was tinged with brilliant gold.

Fallopolis felt Melemizargo fade away as he said to her with her own mouths, “Goddeath Poison.”

Fallopolis vowed not to get hit.

Oozy grinned underneath his helmet, and then pointed past Fallopolis, to Erick, more than half a solar system away. He fired the arrow, and it multiplied to a thousand bolts that flew faster than light.

Fallopolis almost tried to stop the arrows—

Melemizargo stopped her from interfering in their flight path, for any of a hundred reasons. To touch that stuff —even with one’s magic— is to be infected.

The Goddeath Poison arrows sailed on, into the sky and beyond.

Did any of them have any hope of reaching Erick at all? The chance was not zero.

It didn’t matter right now. Fallopolis had 50 more arrows of dubious origin flying at her, anyway. Oozy was firing a hailstorm at her, and none of these ones were Goddeath. With a howling twist, Fallopolis spun herself into an array of black beams that further twisted down at Oozy and at the ground below him. Arrows exploded into hundreds of colors, indication that hundreds of arrows had been fired at her, too, which was weird because she only saw 50. The very air and ground caved into itself in the passing of her magics. She only managed to tear Oozy’s cape from his shoulders.

Fallopolis hadn’t seen that cape before it was destroyed, either.

Oozy became easier to see with her magical senses, but several arrows appeared already lodged in her flesh. She pulsed the arrows away and restored the parts of her that were breaking. At least this stuff wasn’t Goddeath… Hopefully it wasn’t Goddeath. That stuff had to be prepared ahead of time for a specific god…

Ah.

She was probably infected now. Would Her God ever speak to her again?

Oozy grinned and put another cape on his shoulders. Like a shattering of a mirror, Oozy multiplied across the battlefield—

Everbless peeked out from one of the white aerial roots, like a boy peeking through a crack in a door, sticking red leaves through the opening. He did that way too much.

Fallopolis opened up with a pillar of Blackfire that slammed into Everbless’s eyes and traveled all the way through them, to his main body far, far in the distance. His main body exploded in Blackfire. He screamed and focused on putting that fire out—

Everything in the entire solar system turned absolutely brilliant as the light of the battle between Erick and Nothanganathor erupted in more [Luminous Beam]s. The sky was brighter than ten thousand suns.

Fallopolis hunkered down under the lingering power of Her God, while Everbless burned under the light and Oozy screamed in pain.

And then Shivraa was there, at Fallopolis’s side, saying, “You let Goddeath arrows past you, and in you.”

She was blocking the Light for Fallopolis with an aura of ten million mana.

Fallopolis recovered, saying, “I tried, damn you!”

“Your loyalty is noted,” Shivraa said, “It is not your fault. You were just raised this way.”

“I have done so much more for that man than you will ever know.”

Shivraa seemed unconcerned about the destruction, even as the top layers of her body evaporated like ice under a [Flamethrower] spell. “Is that you speaking, or your god?”

“Both!”

Melemizargo was back.

Oh thank Him.

She wasn’t infected with Goddeath, or else He wouldn’t have come back.

Fallopolis hoped that she had been clean, for she had no idea how to clean herself. All she knew is that she did not want to be the vector that had infected Her God.

You were not clean, but those arrows were meant for Erick. The poison was easily removed.

Oh.

Fallopolis grew angry, right alongside a subtle anger inside Melemizargo.

Oozy and Nothanganathor didn’t respect the power of Her God at all, did they! They hadn’t even been using Goddeath to kill Melemizargo! They considered Him already beaten! Fallopolis was furious, but she was still in control.

The light soon faded and Oozy was nowhere to be found. Neither were any of the aerial roots, or the top several meters of land, or much of the atmosphere, though the atmosphere was already mostly gone long before this.

He revives at Everbless.

Fallopolis said, “He revives at Everbless.”

“We are already attacking there. I am here to ensure your triumph. Explain how I can help.”

Fallopolis instantly said, “Believe in Melemizargo, for He is the Darkness that will drown all that needs drowning!”

“I do not worship anyone and I will not start now.”

Surprisingly, Fallopolis was extremely happy with that answer.

Melemizargo was also happy, Fallopolis could tell, but His joy was tinged with need. Maybe Shivraa could be converted? Hmm.

Oozy comes first.

Fallopolis said, “We work to trap Oozy. Not to kill. He has killed himself ten times already to get away from me. We do the same to Everbless. His body moves when he dies as well, but he is still on this planet. Everbless guards much of the mortal-rank armaments that Nothanganathor has given to Oozy.”

Shivraa nodded, and then she turned her gaze toward Everbless in the far distan—

She whipped her head around and then she sliced the air with a tiny knife in her hand.

In that distance, Oozy floated, unseen until he was seen in that moment, but then Shivraa’s knife came down and, much like her master, she carved destruction on a scale only the avatar of a god could do. Several hundred kilometers of land instantly froze over.

Oozy was among that freeze.

Oozy popped like a balloon. Dead again.

“Ah,” Shivraa said, realizing what she had done.

Fallopolis said, “It’s harder than it looks!”

Shivraa frowned.

And then the Valkyries descended out of the void and made harrying Oozy considerably easier.

Sometimes it was hard for Fallopolis to understand exactly how far Erick had gotten in life, at the heights of power he now enjoyed. She was just a Champion of Darkness —Funny way to think about it! Sorry, My God.— and Erick was here with armies of billions of mind-melded warriors, each of them flowing in lock-step with each other, while Erick battled with an ancient Wrongness that was the brother of Her God. There Erick was, in the void beyond the sky, battling the White One which was the size of several much larger planets.

It boggled the mind!

On the other hand, that would be her up there, one day, ending big threats, when Her God rose to the power that he should have had all this time.

If Erick doesn’t steal my Mantle for himself!

Humbly, he truly is not aiming for your Mantle, My God.

… Yes yes. I am grounded again. But I am still slipping, my little Culler. I should not take it out on Erick.

The Valkyries harried Oozy into a trap between a thousand of them where they all linked power to form a cage of brilliant Benevol—

Oozy popped like splash of blood again, his soul slipping through the cage before it could form.

Shivraa slashed out a thousand kilometers away, her tiny ice knife carving a swath of Absolute Winter across the land, intercepting Oozy as he reformed—

Oozy popped again.

The Valkyries kept trying.

Fallopolis thought, ‘This is utterly ridiculous. How is he able to evade these powers?’

A Darkness hummed inside of Fallopolis.

He is linked to Everbless and Everbless is spread across side realities like that Margleknot fellow. Nothanganathor is attempting to have his own Margleknot. It is an imperfect system, but it is a system that is good enough, for now, for doing this much.

Hmm.

Her God communed with others, and Fallopolis waited. She did not wait long.

Erick will not kill Everbless and Sininindi is begging me not to kill him either.

I see now.

The most you can hope to do is control Oozy so he can’t use Nothanganathor’s toys against Erick, exactly as Erick wished you to do when he told you to go here. Perhaps… I was asking too much to have you contain him and bring him to me.

Fallopolis slipped a few beams of Black into Oozy from several tens of kilometers away, drilling through his armor and snapping the Oozy’s 25th new bow into pieces. Oozy cursed at his broken toy, and as the Valkyries tried to surround him again—

A great dome of Benevolence instantly formed all around Oozy, trapping him from running. Fallopolis almost gasped. That had been Establishment Wizardry. The Valkyries had done Wizardry, and now Oozy crashed against the side of the cage and then bounced off, disoriented.

He was trapped.

He tried to kill himself, to pop again, but he failed.

“Oh My God, they did it.”

DO IT NOW.

Time stopped.

Oozy froze. Everything froze.

Fallopolis cackled and twisted with power, flying forward, around Oozy’s cage, like a kraken around a pearl, taking control of the magic from the Valkyries.

I knew I was never asking too much from you!

Fallopolis luxuriated in the praise of Her God as she brushed away the time-frozen Valkyries, who— The Valkyries were still moving. They were still active, even in this [Time Stop]. And they allowed themselves to be brushed away. Oozy would probably be speeding up himself, soon enough.

She had enough time to do this.

She vibrated into the [Benevolence Barrier], using one of her favorite magics to do so, and something she had only started to develop properly in the last 120-ish years; Sanity Magic.

Fallopolis had started her life off as the daughter of a Wizard Mind Mage who ended up Forgotten Campaigned. Erick had given her a lot of information about her mother, and about her history, in what seemed like a long time ago. That information had helped her own Sanity, but it was like learning a fact about something that did not really matter to her anymore, for she had done well in making herself, herself.

Melemizargo had been the one to really be there for her.

Her life before becoming a Shade was a blur, and afterward it was a blur, too.

Most of her life was spent that way.

It was only after the Great Purge of Spur, which she spearheaded all those years ago, did she realize that the insane power of Her God was better used when it was Sane. She recognized that calling for the Purge of Spur had been insane. That Purge had cost them all the adventurers that they preyed upon for their games.

That was, perhaps, her first true waking.

That was when she installed herself into the Crack in the Wall of Ar’Kendrithyst, and made herself every proper adventurer’s first introduction to the Dead City, so that they could fight and survive and grow, like Her God wanted them to, because otherwise those adventurers would just make fools of themselves and die to any number of horrors in the dark. The solidification of her Sanity Magic happened after she culled the Clergy, killing all Shades who were too insane to live.

That was when she became the Culler of Ar’Kendrithyst.

That was also when she became a person who truly dealt in world events on multiple fronts. Mostly as Fallopolis, the ‘Insane’ Grandmother at the Crack of Ar’Kendrithyst. But also as another, who had been working with Silverite all the last hundred years, after the Purge, in order to ensure another Purge never happened, and that the remaining Clergy never again succumbed to insanity. The Clergy would always survive, after all, but adventurers were weak things that needed guidance every now and then.

Fallopolis had been Archmage Opal of Spur, the creator of barriers and the tricker of magic, and she had helped raise a lot of people to power, including Erick, to whom she had taught Tricking Magic.

She used all of that right now, to Trick her way through the opalescent barrier housing Oozy, without actually breaking that barrier at all.

In the Darkness of her body, Fallopolis opened a thousand eyes, gazing upon Oozy, into his very soul, into every part of him that had ever existed, or that ever would exist. With glee in her heart, Fallopolis drowned Oozy in Darkness, invading him in every way possible, as she opened a thousand mouths and spoke with the words of Her God into Oozy’s Everything,

“I SEEEEEE YOOOOU.”

MinE! miNe!! ! mINE!

MinE! ! miNe!! mINE! mINe!!

mINE! MInE!! ! MINE!

MinE! ! mINE! MInE!!! MinE!

miNe!! ! MInE!! !MinE!

MINE!

A cacophony of trinkets burst upon Oozy’s time-locked body, attempting to deflect her attempts at taking control of him, but Fallopolis’s spellwork sunk into his soul anyway. She dragged him kicking and screaming into a new life.

The [Time Stop] broke.

Fallopolis oozed away from Oozy, forming a white stone platform under both of them, under the void sky and surrounded by Valkyries. Oozy lay on that platform, the Red drained from him completely. He was asleep, but not for long.

Fallopolis gathered Darkness into her hands and formed her usual staff. With a click upon the stone, the world vibrated.

Oozy shook awake, opening his bright, bright white eyes, full of new sanity.

Fallopolis said, “Welcome back, Shade Oozy.”

The Valkyries were tense.

Shivraa glared at Fallopolis. She had not been expecting her to do this, but it was done, and now everything that Nothanganathor had given Oozy was now Melemizargo’s, including all the plans that Oozy had ever been a part of.

Oozy breathed out, “The Red is gone?” He started sobbing in joy, “The Red is gone!”

- - - -

Erick glanced over at whatever was happening on that planet over there. Shivraa and the Valkyries had helped Fallopolis trap and contain Oozy, and then Fallopolis had claimed him, it seemed.

Sure. That was fine.

Nothanganathor used Erick’s watching of those events to twist reality into a spear that flew his way, yelling out, “Don’t get distracted now!”

The spear disappeared out of Nothanganathor’s grip and then appeared from an angle Erick hadn’t been watching, which was literally impossible. He was watching everywhere. He had no blind spots. Nothanganathor had created a blind spot.

Erick had a choice, as the spear touched down in the middle of his back, between his wings. He could say he saw everything just fine, which would open him up to some sort of memetic threat which Nothanganathor had waiting in the wings, or Erick could take the hit, which was probably a terrible option—

Erick realized he was already in the middle of a memetic threat.

Erick said, “I can afford distractions while I’m winning.”

His words came out faster than the spear impacted him, and whatever the spear had been trying to do it instead flicked off of his black scales and went spinning out into the void like a planetary-sized length of metal.

Erick’s words, were, of course, turned back on him.

Nothanganathor said, “This is nothing more than my subjects throwing a tantrum.”

Nothanganathor was claiming Erick as a subject?! Ha!

Erick threw off an ephemeral yoke, saying, “A popular uprising isn’t a tantrum. It’s a revolution against someone that isn’t even in charge.”

“So you agree I’m in charge!”

A weak rejoinder, but Erick was the only one that recognized it. Nothanganathor was way too narcissistic to see himself as anything other than the largest power wherever he was. He wasn’t, of course. He was delusional.

Erick said, “You’re dead, and you don’t know it yet. This right here is nothing more than me putting down the creator of an age of destruction, to give rise to ever-flowing bounty from your corpse.”

Nothanganathor laughed. Even though Erick had laced his words with power, even though he had the upper hand, even though he had thrown Nothanganathor’s insidious barbs about sacrifice right back at him, Nothanganathor laughed.

Erick’s verbal spar had shattered upon the twisting Reality of Nothanganathor, as Red words filled the void,

“They make bounty out of all the good things, Erick! Not the evil things! No one wants to live in a universe made of wrongness, and especially not me, or anyone like me! Let me give you a taste of how they would Sunder you into a new Painted Cosmology, if I weren’t around to win this war and save you from yourself.”

Nothanganathor twisted into infinity, his long body curling this way and that, his gaze leveled at Erick. Somehow he had gotten between Erick and the sun. He was backlit, shadowing the sun, casting Erick into that shadow. Claws came out, vibrating from every scale and spine of his long body, carving across Infinity, ripping edges rimmed in Red, reaping Valkyries and Erick’s flesh. The Erased One carved a fractal into Erick’s flesh. Every kilometer of Erick’s black scale and skin and membranous wings became a ritual circle.

Erick screamed.

Oppression crushed him from every angle. He felt no up, or down, or light, or dark. All was Red. All was an anvil and hammer at the same time, pressuring Erick into a mold that Nothanganathor desired.

Nothanganathor carved deeper, saying, “The only reward for good work is more work, so become the ultimate workhorse for the Dark, Erick.”

Nothanganathor released a pulse of Red that annihilated every Valkyrie within half of the solar system and obliterated half of Erick’s body. The rest of Erick’s body soon followed.

Erick knew pain.

In that pain, Erick realized more than he had ever known.

He accepted the Red for what it was; an expression of hatred for an unjust universe.

Nothanganathor screamed, “NO!”

But Erick was already headed Elsewhere.

- - - -

Hovering above a blackened land, Fallopolis witnessed sun-sized waves of Red cascading like fractal claws across the airless sky, and she knew terror. Power flowed out of Nothanganathor and power drilled into Erick. Carving. Winnowing. A wing went flying, followed by the tail and half of his neck and all of his lower body.

Erick stood before a blast furnace, and perished.

Fallopolis didn’t often get scared of things that were so much larger than herself, but when you watched something the size of a planet come apart in bits and pieces, you got scared—

There is nothing to fear, for I am here, and you are fine. Erick will either die or transcend this trial. You need to leave before the wave reaches you. Grab Shivraa and Oozy. Everbless dies hiding from salvation.

Shivraa howled at Fallopolis’s side as she witnessed the death of her King and the eradication of half of her army. Fallopolis wasn’t sure which affected her more. She went numb, floating there, eyes wide and her entire icy-body thawing, as though she was in complete shock. She probably was.

The army that remained beyond the portals far, far beyond the battlefield, managed to kill themselves and retreat back to Veird, faster than flight was possible. Those portals shut.

Of course, none of them could physically see any of that at all. Time was wonky, and light and power were moving faster than physically possible for those with the Sight to See what could be seen.

Oozy had a more normal reaction because he was separated from everything, except for his very new connection to Melemizargo. He was basically a newborn, who could only see the red and white glows in the air, cast from the sun. He had no idea what to make of anything, but he was terrified of why Shivraa was terrified. He caught on to Fallopolis’s fear, as well.

There was barely any time to think. There was absolutely no time to explain anything.

Fallopolis swirled with darkness, expanding and wrapping up both of her targets—

Suddenly a white branch invaded the working, grown from a suddenly-there aerial root. The branch spread out dull red leaves and a tiny spattering of roots into the center of where Fallopolis was already working her magic.

Everbless was trying to come along for the ride.

Darkness was already swirling. The tunnel back to Veird was already opening. Fallopolis had the option to abort her magic, and it never would have worked with the bigger aerial root impeding the space, but then the aerial root snapped off, leaving a red-leafed, white sapling floating next to Oozy. Oozy didn’t seem to understand the sapling, and Shivraa didn’t care about anything right now. Oozy grabbed the sapling to his chest anyway, like grabbing an uprooted bush.

Fallopolis could already tell the sapling was Everbless, and it was either going to interrupt the ritual to get them back to Veird, or it was going to come along for the ride.

Fine. He can come.

Return to me, Fallopolis.

And that is what Fallopolis did, collapsing space and ripping an insensate Shivraa, an ignorant Oozy, and a seemingly-contrite Everbless through a tunnel of Darkness.

Everything clawed at Fallopolis.

Everything was Black.

Fallopolis was the only thing standing between the annihilation of that Dark and her cargo, held within her body. Her presence was the only thing that solidified the way forward, into a tunnel that continued on forever—

The hole behind them was still open, held exposed by ripping Red claws.

Shit.

It was going to catch—

Detour.

The black tunnel branched off every which way, and Fallopolis raced down one of them.

The Red followed.

Fallopolis briefly dropped into a world of chaos that roared back at her with gibbering mouths and tumors untold. She screamed back at them, louder and stronger than any of them. The wrongness of the new world recoiled and the world turned intelligible with stone and trees and Darkness in the woods ahead. A portal opened up before her and she followed through the hidden horrors, protecting her cargo.

The portal shut behind her and she was back in the tunnels between slices of Infinity.

The Red clawed open the tunnels behind her, resuming the chase.

She veered off into another detour.

This world was mirrors and reflections and she was joined by ten thousand versions of herself, all of them carrying cargo onward into halls of Darkness. Red burst out of the mirrors, clawing her way.

She lost the Red in the confusion of it all.

Four more detours later Fallopolis spat out of a hole of Darkness in the air, landing atop the white pillar of Ascendant Mountain, on Veird. The hole closed up behind her as Melemizargo himself grasped the air where the hole had been, appearing like His True Self, majestic and Dark. He threw the portal away, back into Infinity, and Fallopolis knew the path to the big battle was lost to her.

There was no way back to the big battle.

Fallopolis’s part was done, anyway.

Erick was either dead, or not—

Melemizargo demanded of her, “My cargo.”

Fallopolis spilled out of herself, her [Avatar of Melemizargo] falling away, peeled apart by her insistent God.

She became so much smaller as she crashed onto the white stone underfoot, like a shell discarded.

Everbless’s sapling wormed out of Oozy’s grip and tried to plant into the white stone, but Melemizargo whipped the Red thing into a sphere of Darkness, taking some of the ground with it. Everbless twisted his form into a tiny tree, his roots gathering those stones to his body, where he suspended himself among that debris like an impostor of Yggdrasil, who was probably safe and floating inside Benevolence Itself—

Oozy suddenly retched out Red onto the ground. Red Sparks traveled this way and that, but Melemizargo descended his entire clawed hand onto the entirety of the Ascendant Mountain platform. Fallopolis briefly wondered if this was her End, as the world turned Dark.

But it was an Ephemeral Dark. They were not crushed.

Melemizargo’s hand and claws became ephemeral and bright with Darkness, slamming down on the Red and eradicating it.

And then Melemizargo went to work in the Darkness of His own making.

He reached into the Valkyrie, into Erick’s captain of his army, and Shivraa cried out in soul-torture.

She fainted.

Melemizargo pressed further into Shivraa’s soul, reaching, twisting. Shivraa thudded this way and that, as though buffeted by invisible winds. Melemizargo’s eyes opened in the Dark as he stared into Shivraa’s soul, and—

Rozeta stepped to the side, looking like a bright white human wrought woman, singular in the Gloom of Melemizargo. She stared up at the white eyes in the Dark. Her voice was insistent, yet even, “What are you doing, father?”

“The fact that I am doing this at all means that Erick has failed. He has not returned from his death. We are splitting up the Valkyries amongst ourselves. I am taking Shivraa.”

And then Shivraa opened her eyes, and they were full of light. She was a Shade now.

Her Brightness seemed clouded to Fallopolis, though. Full of confusion and insanity.

She did not voice that opinion. She resolved herself to cull Shivraa later, after she had served her purpose, though a part of her was disappointed that Melemizargo was doing this at all. She did not voice that opinion, either.

Melemizargo ignored Fallopolis as He said to His daughter, “You already have all of the Weaves of all of the remaining Valkyries. Split them up however you care to split them. Everbless is also Mine.”

Inside the Darkness of the sphere that contained Everbless, Everbless’s Red leaves and white body turned Black, with only cracks of light appearing in the smallest of spaces, in the twist of bark, or on the edges of a leaf.

Rozeta said nothing. She just stared.

Melemizargo told Fallopolis, “Prepare to repel Paladins.”

Fallopolis prayed for two things in that moment.

She prayed for Erick’s return.

And she prayed silently, so very silently, that Her God wasn’t going insane again.

Melemizargo’s full weight fell upon Fallopolis as he turned his eyes toward her.

Fallopolis splattered.

Melemizargo’s voice called her back from oblivion. “Fall in line or fall forever, Fallopolis.”

Fallopolis came back together, returned to life. She tried to stand. She ended up on her knees, which was as much as she could do. With her head pressed against the stone, she said, “Yes, My God.”

“Cease your madness, Father,” Rozeta said, “There won’t be any paladins coming this way, for if Erick is gone, then we must do what we must. I will begin dispensation of the Valkyries now, and then—”

The sky twisted and spilled with fractals.

Something happened.

Fallopolis had no idea what happened, but from one moment to the next, she had been witnessing the complete breakdown of everything Erick had tried to build, and then she was laid out on the ground again. When she regained her senses but her body was still numb, she saw the world had changed.

The sky, which had been an illusion of blue and clouds and sun, was broken, revealing the black adamantium of the shell of the next layer above them.

Melemizargo was alive, but his body was splashed across the land beyond Ascendant Mountain, like hills of black scales vaguely resembling a dragon, with one arm and one leg raised up in the air.

Blood was everywhere.

Rozeta was in metal pieces on the ground next to Fallopolis.

Shivraa was gone.

Everbless’s cage was gone, and so was the nascent World Tree.

Fallopolis was alone with Oozy.

Everything was silent, except for the breathing of her comatose god.

That had been the Fractal Fairy, hadn’t it, Fallopolis thought, as she managed to rise to her knees, and no further. She steadied herself upon the ground, everything still spinning. And then the full gravity of the situation truly struck her like a sudden vanishing of the ground underfoot.

The ground was still there, but was it, really?

Fallopolis shouldn’t have been surprised at how easy it was to ruin everything that Erick had ever built. Shades had been ruling Veird for 1400 years before Erick came along, but there had been many such potential ‘Ericks’ before him. Shades had often called people Fires of the Age.

And yet, none of them were real Fires.

Not like Erick.

And now the Fire was gone, and the shadowolves had come out.

Fallopolis had toppled her fair amount of cities and otherwise by removing one key person here or there, so this level of breaking shouldn’t have been a surprise. In every breaking, many things happened, all rather fast. First came the frantic reestablishing of whatever norms people could grasp, then came the real upheaval as the previous existence simply didn’t work anymore and people started to realize that fact, and then came dissolution and establishing of new social norms. That is what happened in every breaking, give or take any tens of thousands of specific variables.

And yet the ground still existed in all those scenarios.

Did the ground exist anymore?

Fallopolis lost her sense of self for a long moment.

Moments passed.

“All the Valkyries are gone, aren’t they?” Oozy asked, his voice full of sorrow.

Fallopolis was still gathering herself. She wasn’t sure how to answer Oozy’s question.

So, she was honest, “Yeah. Probably. The Fractal Fairy had enchanted that whole magic to never be corrupted, and every single god here just tried to corrupt it.”

Silence.

Oozy softly said, “You probably could have held out for a little while with them.”

“Probably.”

“What happens now?”

“I don’t know.”

- - - -

Erick wasn’t dead, but he certainly wasn’t alive, either.

He had no body, but he had something of a soul and a mind, perhaps.

The only thing he truly had was a purpose.

To Understand.

Even his enemies. Even people who deserved no good things. Even the worst people imaginable.

Erick still tried to understand.

And then, to help in a constructive way.

- - - -

Nhatuan was an old man doing the job of young men, because he could, and they could not.

He stepped among the reeds, gently pressing them aside as his feet sank into the mud. It cloyed, that mud. His feet were bare, so he did not get overly stuck, but still this was a danger. The reed-liars could catch him and drain him dry if he stumbled into one of them. The mudhoppers might hop into his body, and turn him into mud.

He had to brave this danger, anyway.

Nhatuan was too old for this shit, but he was still one of the strongest hunters of their village, even at 98 years old. He had never accreted as he should have, or else he would be living a lot longer than this… But what was the point of accretion? To live longer under the knives of the Hollow elves? If he had accreted he would have been taken from his family, from his wife and his adopted kids, and then all of their grandchildren. The City took everyone who could accrete. No. This was a better life by far. Even Nhatuan, who had had no children of his own, and had thus helped raise all the other children in the village, was still useful, just as he was.

Nhatuan was old and infertile, but this was a good life anyway.

“A life I will spend well, or die trying,” he muttered, as he moved. “Cloak me Dark, I beg of you.”

He snuck through the reeds, silent as a snake, right up to the walls of the castle. The guards above didn’t see him. Nhatuan was good at blending. He was a hunter, and he hunted well, his small knacks of power serving him well, but he was a hunter of beasts and not of men.

The men in the castle were hunters of men, and Nhatuan was going to die tonight, one way or another, but he was going to make sure his family survived—

A window was open? Just a single leap above the waters? What fool would leave a window open that low! They were begging to be drained by the reed-liars!

Nhatuan thanked the Dark and began climbing, his heart racing hard, his blood pumping harder. His mind was clear and the hunt was on. He scaled into the building, grabbing stone that seemed too easy to grab, finding the window not actually open at all, but half-open. Easily broken, though.

A guard slept in the room. Sleeping by a window? The insanity. Even a cracked-open window was an invitation to be killed out here, at this hour.

Nhatuan’s blade came down in the man’s throat and then whipped around into the man’s chest, granting him his requested death.

The man died with eyes flashing open and gurgles that were easily mistaken for the noise of bugs in the swamp.

Nhatuan breathed hard. Too hard. He had never killed a man except in his dreams. Those dreams seemed so far away, and yet so close, on this night.

God’s own luck smiled upon him that night. The warriors were drunk off of a feast, and Nhatuan found the drunken warriors were easy pickings. Sleeping evils easy to kill. Had everyone taken leave of their senses tonight? A party in enemy territory, held with this much alcohol? Insanity.

Maybe they would all die tonight, as they should have died decades ago when the Hollow elves first came to this land, conquering. Back then they had been a lot stronger than this, though. But were they, really? Nhatuan lamented all the years lost to the insanity of believing these people strong! The ache and pain of their rule! It was all so ephemeral!

Nhatuan was so much stronger than he thought he was. All he had needed was the courage to act.

He should have done this long ago.

And yet...

Nhatuan made it all the way up to the leader’s rooms, which were unlocked. Nhatuan was crying by now, but they were silent tears. He had not wanted to do this. He had thought that it would be harder. But it was not hard at all.

These men were rumored to have orders to kill the villages of the entire swamp and prepare for the expansions of the capital, but they were lax in their duties. They were lax in their patrols. They were not lax in the beating of men and women in the village, and the claiming of First Nights of all new wives, and the theft of every pretty thing anyone ever been found or made in the villages—

Nhatuan breathed in the Dark, and focused.

The man in the rooms ahead had beaten and raped Nhatuan’s granddaughter last week in the process of stealing the necklace of gold that Nhatuan had made for her.

That had been the final breaking point.

No more.

Nhatuan stalked down the stone hallway, the shadows swirling around, the evertorches on the walls making the darkness seem even blacker. He stepped through the black, and his knife became a claw, though he did not notice the claw at all. His senses expanded, though he did not notice the expansion at all. He did not notice how his clothes fell away, and how a delusion he had wrapped himself in finally gave way to a truth.

There was a reason he was a good hunter, and why the reed-liars and the mudhoppers and the fanged beasts of the marsh avoided him, except for when he went in to their territory. There was a reason he had such an easy time killing these men. There was a truth he was still unwilling to see.

But Erick saw it.

There, for the ride, Erick saw Nhatuan’s truth.

Nhatuan slipped into the head guard’s chambers, clipping little alarms in the air that were stretched like webs across the door, breaking their power and preventing them from signaling. He had always had that knack, that ability to just break magic. It was necessary when hunting weavers in the marshes, for weaver threads were always filled with alarms. Nhatuan had never had a second thought about how he could do that, and every time he tried to teach his adopted children they could never grasp his simple explanations.

Sometimes people had knacks that they couldn’t explain.

Nhatuan slipped into the bed chambers of the man he would kill and make everything better.

The man lay in bed—

To the side, chained to a wall, was a woman. She was Aliani; the girlfriend to Nhatuan’s favorite grandson. She was thought lost to the city. She was an excellent seamstress. She had told everyone how she had gained a big opportunity in the city, and so they had a big party for her and gave her gifts and she left. That was what had happened.

This is also what had happened.

Aliana had a chain around her neck and she lay on a reed mattress on the floor. She had a bowl of water and a chamberpot next to her bed, on opposite sides of her area. She had no clothes and only a thin blanket. She shivered as she slept.

Nhatuan had been crying for the pain he was inflicting tonight.

His tears dried.

The Dark visited him as Nhatuan stared down at the head guard.

This man was the cause of the villages’ problems.

Nhatuan had killed everyone else of note in the entire castle, so it was no trouble to start the head guard’s execution with a slash across the throat and hands, quick as a flicker of desire and intent. The man woke, unable to speak, unable to manage magic with his hands, unable to defend himself at all. His eyes were wide open and he gurgled profusely as Nhatuan began disassembling the man.

He started with the man’s feet.

His screams were justice.

When he was done, he noticed that Aliana was awake and huddled in the corner, quietly crying, trying to make herself unseen.

… She was quiet pathetic, wasn’t she?

She probably could have killed that man herself, had she the heart to break out of her station—

There was a mirror.

Nhatuan saw himself in the mirror—

Erick saw himself in the mirror as a very young white dragon with a leviathan-like body, maybe 3 meters long. Underfed. Still full of rage, and yet now, full of surprise. Mana poured out of Nhatuan’s body in that moment, deepening the Darkness all around, and somehow Erick focused inward, realizing that he had deluded himself into believing things that were not true. He had told himself those dreams when he was young were just that; dreams. He told himself that he was not a dragon. That he did not escape the marsh and imitate a boy and then ate that boy and took his place in that family. Good people did not do that. Good people like him, like the boy Nhatuan, did not kill.

That’s what his real parents had told Erick, had told Nhatuan, that he was really their good child, and Erick was a good boy. That is what Erick had believed for so long, easily ignoring the looks his parents gave him when they thought he wasn’t looking.

Erick/Nhatuan was a good boy. He was a good boy, and not a misshapen dragon. He was a good boy, who helped everyone. He was a good boy.

Good boys don’t murder 23 castle guards.

… But great boys did.

Erick coiled power into himself, like he had finally opened his mouth to drink the rain that he had been denying his body all these decades. It was easy for him to become more than he appeared to be; to become who he was.

Nhatuan was a dragon.

When the Hollow elves from the city came to discover what had happened, Nhatuan revealed himself as more than a dragon.

With fire and knives, Nhatuan showed the Hollow elf army that he was also a Wizard.

- - - -

In the brief moments between moments, Erick knew he was not Nothanganathor, and he was not Nhatuan either.

But a part of him was.

Or maybe a part of him had been.

Erick swam in memories older and deeper than either of them. It was like being Ashes Woodfield again, at the Glittering Depths of Greendale, in Greensoil. It was like seeing a great many things, buried, and yet freshly unearthed.

They were all fragments of The Prince.

They were all pieces of Xoat.

That was how Erick was doing this.

He was living memories that weren’t exactly his, and yet, they were.

- - - -

Nhatuan changed his name and found the Painted Cosmology full of people who did not appreciate him, so he moved on to other universes, exploring the cosmos.

- - - -

Erick was Nothanganathor, and also not.

The dragon was a man right now, looking at himself in a mirror, smiling wide. Erick was in that mirror. Nothanganathor only saw himself, though. He looked happier than ever before. Happier than most men. He wore an ornate black robe over white garments, while his room was the room of a city lord; ornate, but not too ornate. Everything was simply nice.

It was centuries since the last time Erick had seen Nothanganathor.

With casual twists of power, Nothanganathor gestured at the mirror, asking himself, “Do I have a fae coming to my wedding today? Or just spying on me from the mirrors?”

Erick found himself stepping out of the mirror, asking, “I’m unsure.”

Before that moment, the visions had been unalterable. He had been along for the ride.

Maybe they were still unalterable.

Erick had stepped out of the mirror and voiced words, but he had been riding a groove in history, and not actually making any decisions for himself. He was here, and yet not.

Erick tried to tell Nothanganathor off, to eradicate him with fire and hate.

Nothing happened.

Erick was chained to the memory of Xoat, here in this place and time, somewhere far removed from Veird and everything that would come later.

Nothanganathor said, “As long as you don’t cause any trouble, I would love your attendance. Gifts are unnecessary.”

Erick found himself saying, “I’m going back in the mirror. I should not be here.”

Nothanganathor nodded.

Erick stepped into the mirror.

Nothanganathor began to walk away…

And Erick followed anyway.

Nothanganathor asked him, “Are you content to only watch?”

“I seem unable to not watch.”

“At least take off the black coat. This is my wedding day. Not yours.”

Erick dislodged the coat that had been put on him when he was in the mirror. It reappeared on his body, and he once again matched Nothanganathor. “Ignore it. I’m already trying to.”

Somehow, Erick could say those words, but not others. Had those words been a part of the history? Or his own addition?

He tried to kill Nothanganathor again.

Nothing happened.

Nothanganathor nodded.

Nothanganathor continued on, with Erick following behind like a lost soul. Guards and confidants asked Nothanganathor what was happening, but Erick said nothing and Nothanganathor told people to ignore him, and so that is what happened.

Soon enough, Erick found himself standing to the side at a wedding he never imagined attending.

He was not Nothanganathor’s best man, for that honor belonged to another, and that role wasn’t even codified like that in this world. Nothanganathor had several ‘best men’. Nothing about this scenario made any sense, because time was moving funny, and fast, and loose. The sky was not really there except in an impression. The crowd was not really there except as a brush stroke of colorful commoners and several noble families, with the nobles more present than the commoners.

Ara, the Witch of the Marsh, was there, for she was the bride.

She was the most real thing here, except for Nothanganathor and Erick. Ara was beautiful. Red hair, perfect skin, a strong build and bright green eyes. Her sisters, second-born Agatha and third-born Aragathara, were there as ‘best women’. Upon looking at Agatha and Aragathara, though, Erick revised his opinion about Ara. Agatha and Aragathara were more real; they had imperfections in their eyes, and bodies, and real expressions of disbelief and acceptance that this was really happening.

Ara was the most beautiful thing there, but she was also a lie.

A conjuring of Wizardry. Her beauty was fake. Her love a reflection remembered imperfectly perfect.

She had been fully obliterated in the Curse of Obscurity and what was left remained alive in Nothanganathor’s Sign of Power, and in the absolute deepest parts of his soul. This event here was, perhaps, the node upon which the entity known as ‘Ara’ still existed, for she no longer existed as anything but this.

Erick looked upon the brush-painted crowd, and saw that they all seemed more real than Ara.

Half of the crowd was full of humans and elves and belonged to Nothanganathor. The other half belonged to the witches, and there were all manner of non-human and elemental and otherwise on the witches’ side of the crowd.

Erick recalled this history. This location. Things look painted because Nothanganathor had made them that way, but this event happened inside the Fractal Universe, for the Painted Cosmology held nothing but pain for Nothanganathor, and so he had sought to make a home here, in this universe, on this world that held so much Darkness from the Painted Cosmology.

A Priest of Infinity, from some culture that Erick did not know and wearing an infinity symbol on his brow, presided over the union, speaking of how Nothanganathor and Ara had fought each other and warred over the world for too long, until a true evil showed itself and both of them put aside their hatred and became one force. The world was saved now, and power would join power to ensure the world remained saved. It was a clunky sermon according to what Erick was seeing, but the two people at the center wanted the union to be expressed in this way, for this was not a simple wedding. It was the healing of an ancient hurt.

Bride and groom kissed.

The vision closed to a focus, and all was left was Nothanganathor and Ara, in an embrace.

Nothanganathor teased his new wife about how she shouldn’t have invited the fae, but he was glad nothing had happened. Ara teased right back about how Nothanganathor must have invited them, because she certainly didn’t.

The newlyweds both glanced toward Erick, both of them surprised, and questioning.

Erick was already gone.

- - - -

In the between-space, Erick saw Darkness.

It roared at him from every angle, with every voice he had ever known. It did not mean to yell, but it had no other way of communication, and so it yelled.

Erick accepted what he saw, and what he heard.

- - - -

Nothanganathor smiled as he woke with Ara in his arms.

Ara was up a second later.

She was even less real in this vision, with only an impression of red around her hair area, green around her eye areas, and pale cream everywhere else, but Nothanganathor pretended she was a real person.

He held a one-sided conversation.

“Let’s stay in bed. The kids are full-grown. We don’t have to care about them anymore.”

“I’m sure they can kill those spirit beasts on their own.”

“Well yes, that is my draconic nature taking over. I was left to fend for myself and I turned out just fine.”

“Pardon you,” Nothanganathor said with a grin, “I didn’t find out my mother was the Darkness until I had already conquered your wor—” Ara said something depreciative. “Oh I’m just teasing!” Nothanganathor laughed. “We conquered it together.”

“Ugh! Okaaaay. We can go check up on them, I suppose.”

“Why yes. I am a magnanimous ruler. I am glad you agree.”

The vision moved on.

Their three kids had been out hunting.

They were now three piles of fractal mush among a swamp of the same.

Everything was corrupted, and it was just the start.

Their world died to corruption and then Margleknot arrived in force, faeries descending from the sky and turning corruption into ash and dust. In the aftermath of the ending of their world, they discovered that their former enemy had left traps in case he had perished, and those traps had sprung.

Nothanganathor held Ara in a space ship while Agatha and Aragathara and the few other survivors banded together.

Nothanganathor said, “We move on, to Margleknot.”

The decision was made before most agreed upon it, but it happened as Nothanganathor wanted, anyway.

Nothanganathor did not get to bury his children, or his family, or anyone else. The corruption spread to many other worlds before it was contained. 460 worlds died before Margleknot ended the threat. Some of those worlds only held 50 people. Some held billions.

All perished the same when corruption appeared.

And thus, Nothanganathor sought to understand what had been done to his and Ara’s world so that it could never be done again.

- - - -

Nothanganathor built an empire around a sun of his own creation in Margleknot. It had not been easy, but Elemental Evil had a way of being very easy to use to get what you wanted, and in small doses it was fine. Nothanganathor knew who he was, and he was Evil, but with a conscience.

Be kind.

Be forgiving.

But retaliate against true pain with annihilation.

It was a good strategy for a king. For an Emperor.

After a long time of empire building, corruption eradicating, and learning, Nothanganathor needed a vacation.

He wanted to go home to the Painted Cosmology for a time. He began making plans, for he would need a True Wizard to travel across the boundary of the Painted Cosmology, and he was not one of those. Escaping the Painted Cosmology had been easy; they let people leave all the time. They hated people who wanted to leave, so they wanted them gone. They loved people coming back, though.

Margleknot and the Painted Cosmology were not on the best of terms with each other, and they never had been. But Margleknot wanted to be be on good terms with the Painted Cosmology.

And so, with plans half-formed, Nothanganathor asked around, and Margleknot easily provided, with one caveat, which was more like a request.

- - - -

Nothanganathor walked onto the ground of his new, temporary home with an entourage of people, most of whom were not known to him. It was a tour-ship of people from Margleknot, settling down onto one of the more populated worlds of the Painted Cosmology. Most of the people here wanted to become immigrants to this land. They wore plain clothes and had brightness in their eyes as they took in the Eternal Plains of the Radiant Depths. This land was one of the nicer ones. It was like ten million worlds all laying beside each other under a bright sky. That sort of physics just didn’t happen in the uber-universe.

Nothanganathor did not look like Nothanganathor.

He wore plain clothes just like Ara, who was a wash of color next to Nothanganathor, and nothing more. They walked with a kid who was not their child, onto the spaceport. The kid had golden eyes, and he knew nothing of anything except for what Nothanganathor and Ara told him, along with a general idea that he was their nephew they were looking after and that his parents were gone.

As the kid took in the sights of the space port, which was really just a bunch of stone and runes in those stones, he exclaimed, “It’s all so big and plain!”

Nothanganathor laughed. A few other people in the moving crowd also laughed at the kid’s words. Nothanganathor said, “You cannot see it, Lan, but this whole place is stringed with magic. They use it a lot more here than in Margleknot, and most of it is invisible.”

“I want to see everything, uncle!”

“We’ll see how far we can get, Lan.”

And so began one of Margleknot’s mundane lives in the Painted Cosmology, overseen by Evil Emperor Nothanganathor and Supreme Witch Ara.

A quarter century passed, perfectly wonderfully.

Lan was walking ahead of his uncle and aunt, leading the way to a playhouse where he was starring in the show. He was excited to finally show them, and for them to finally come, because he had gotten the lead part and that was a big deal. Nothing he ever did seemed to amaze his uncle and aunt, but Lan thought that was just because Uncle and Auntie were from Margleknot, and they had seen everything. They hadn’t seen Lan be the star in the play, though! Lan smiled brightly as he turned, looking at his adoptive parents—

Shadow descended from the clear blue sky with a spear the size of a world tree and stabbed it through Lan, right there in the middle of the street. Nearby houses buckled and broke. People died everywhere.

Lan almost didn’t die, because he was not really Lan at all. Lan’s body unfurled into a tree that he never knew he could be, but it was not enough. He died.

The town exploded in that death.

Nothanganathor and Ara hid behind Nothanganathor’s magics. When the destruction faded, and they were fine, the absolute horror of the moment did not register for several heartbeats.

Shadow floated above the rubble of broken, blackened roots, and broken city, happily announcing, “Damned tree should stay out!”

She flew away.

Nothanganathor and Ara had no idea what had happened.

They had seen it, though.

They had survived.

They still wouldn’t understand any of what had happened until they got back to Margleknot.

Margleknot knew what had happened, apologizing to both of them for putting them in danger like that. He had not thought that would happen. Usually Shadow didn’t kill anyone else but him, but it had been a few thousand years since he had tried visiting the Painted Cosmology, and she must have been wearing a violent sort of persona that day. Margleknot asked for forgiveness, and Nothanganathor was shaken, but he was happy to grant that requested forgiveness.

Nothanganathor wanted another vacation to the Painted Cosmology many years later.

Again, Margleknot provided the way forward, but with the same caveat.

Nothanganathor and Ara got a repeat of the same event, with another version of Margleknot that took the shape of a young woman, and who was Ara’s ‘cousin’. This time no others were involved in that young woman’s death. Nothanganathor had tried to stay distant, but there was still an emotional pain that didn’t quite heal.

The same event would repeat every vacation he tried to take to the Painted Cosmology. The only consolation for the emotional damage suffered was that Margleknot didn’t seem to mind the deaths.

Margleknot had expected those deaths. He kept going into the Painted Cosmology anyway.

Nothanganathor expected the deaths, too, but he loved those vacations. It was like a reward for all his hard work to live a simple life for a little while. And yet...

And yet, Nothanganathor grew to hate Shadow and her ilk, but it was like hating the sky. He didn’t attach too much emotion to all of that hate.

Not yet.

- - - -

Nothanganathor and Ara stood as the sole survivors on a world burned down to the stone.

In this life, Margleknot had tried his hand at being an archmage and he had gained that power, thanks to his uncle Nothanganathor.

And then the Shades had come.

Nothanganathor had killed a Shade that had killed Margleknot’s avatar and all the rest of their little city in the rocks of the mana ocean, and that had been the wrong move. He should not have killed a Shade. He had been too angry to think right. He had been too angry… And now, he had killed a Shade.

There would be reprisal, and running would be a bad idea.

Nothanganathor waited for the Darkness to descend. For Mother to appear.

He did not wait long.

Ikaramaliana was not his visitor, this day. Not his mother. No.

Melemizargo descended. Melemizargo, the Second.

Melemizargo, the black bastard that Nothanganathor hadn’t seen in an age.

Melemizargo saw Nothanganathor.

Memories registered.

Melemizargo jerked, and then he attacked.

He ripped Nothanganathor to pieces, laughing all the while, but he left Nothanganathor alive to hear his laughter, and his booming words,

“Welcome back, brother! Enjoy your stay! I know I will!”

- - - -

Nothanganathor left the Painted cosmology but he came back, time and time again.

Sometimes a local god killed Margleknot’s avatar along with a thousand other people. Sometimes Shadow came herself. Sometimes Melemizargo himself did the deed and he took his time in that killing, being sure to inflict as much pain upon Nothanganathor as possible.

Once, Margleknot’s avatar lasted 30 years. Most of the time Margleknot died within a year.

Nothanganathor was too furious to ever consider not ‘vacationing’ in the Painted Cosmology.

This was beyond personal. This was familial.

This was spiteful.

- - - -

“I want to remove their threat,” Nothanganathor told his wife, Ara, inside a space that no one could overhear. “I need them both gone. All of them; Mother, too. For all time. All their Shades. Everything to do with them. It’s not just protecting Margleknot. It is so much more than that. It is the right thing to do.”

Ara opened her mouth and for the first time this vision, she had a voice. Her voice rang of Truth, “Righteousness has no power in this, Nhatuan. You want it for yourself and that is the entire Truth, my greedy dragon.”

Nothanganathor softly asked, “… So what if I do?”

Ara smiled. Her next words were lost to Obscurity, but she did look directly at Erick, her brushstroke eyes shining green.

Nothanganathor cast a magic and projected it outside of himself, saying, “Fae aren’t allowed to watch every part of my life.”

Nothing happened.

Nothanganathor looked at Erick.

Ara said something.

“Ah,” Nothanganathor said, “Yes. I suppose I should blind the Darkness.”

Nothanganathor cast another spell—

Darkness spilled away from Nothanganathor. Far, far away, and Erick floated with it.

Erick watched from far outside of Nothanganathor’s body as Ara and Nothanganathor had a distant, contained conversation. Space was fuzzy, and so were the walls, but Erick knew enough to understand what was happening here.

Nothanganathor and Ara were brewing up the plan for Goddeath Poison Plan. The actual brewing would come later.

The Darkness raged alongside Erick, knowing what he was looking at, but both of them could do nothing. The past was the past, and both of them were merely observers right now. To what end? Erick could not tell.

He would find out, eventually.

- - - -

Erick knew how the Goddeath plan ended.

The Goddess of Magic died and then held a tournament 50 years after her death to decide the next God of Magic. Melemizargo and Nothanganathor fought in that Tournament of Gods, both of them easily surpassing all other applicants.

The view flowed through tens of viewpoints of that tournament, but Erick did not care to see it all too clearly. He focused on the day before the last battle.

Erick wasn’t sure what he was looking for as he sought the end of that fight, and the causes of all the Sundering to come— Ah.

That was it.

He was looking for causes of the Sundering.

He was making judgments.

- - - -

Erick lay on the ground, his white serpentine body squirming underneath Melemizargo’s claws. He was 99% dead.

He was 100% furious.

Melemizargo had taken Ara and Sundered her last night, before the final tournament round. Nothanganathor had not fought his best because of that. The rage had clouded his eyes. The rage still clouded his eyes.

Nothangnathor and Erick yelled, “Finish me, you tormentor tyrant! If you don’t I will hunt you down for all eternity and bring down everything you are, as you have done to my Ara!”

It was a taunt, for if Nothanganathor could not be God, then he would rather die than live his life.

In that moment, Melemizargo changed his mind about killing Nothanganathor.

Melemizargo declared, “Oblivion is too kind for you.”

Melemizargo breathed in Ascension, the very universe itself dipping its tendrils into him, wrapping him with power, Mantling him in might, with the history of every other God of Magic to come before him. Ikaramaliana’s ghost vanished into her son.

Melemizargo pushed a claw into Nothanganathor, and twisted, saying, “Mine.”

Erick came out of Nothanganathor’s chest, held in Melemizargo’s grip. He was a mote of Darkness and himself, all at the same time, and yet he was neither of those things.

Below him lay Nothanganathor’s still-living body. The serpent was ashen white and red all over, gasping for breath and finding none. He had expected death. He had gotten something far worse. He was too surprised to know the full extent of what Melemizargo had just done. He was in too much pain. He understood nothing.

And then he knew what had happened.

Unbelieving, pain pushed to the side, Nothanganathor whispered, “You took my Darkness?”

Erick tried to tell Melemizargo not to do it, for he was planting the seeds of his own destruction. It was not too late. He could put the Dark back into Nothanganathor and then simply kill the man. But not this. Not this desecration of the Dark. Anything but this.

The Darkness roared with Erick, telling Melemizargo what Erick could not.

No one heard either of them.

Melemizargo laughed in evil delight as he held Nothanganathor’s Dark Mark aloft, announcing, “I Curse you, Nothanganathor. Your scales soften. Your history changes. You are a creature of simple water and nevermore of the True Ocean. Your claws do not exist and all you are is a fish flailing around those much bigger creatures than you. Your only safety is in Obscurity, and that shall be your Curse. Your only blessing is the blessing of Nothing. Become one with nothing, Nothanganathor! I Curse you! I Curse you! I Curse you!”

Elves in the stadium all around, stood up, and sang in unison, “Cursed to smallness! Cursed to Obscurity! For what you did to Ikaramaliana, you are Cursed forevermore! We Curse you! We Curse you! We Curse you!”

Melemizargo broke Nothanganathor’s Dark Mark and Erick was cast adrift on the shards of that Mark as Nothanganathor twisted under Obscurity, the Darkness forever denied to him.

- - - -

Erick did not see Nothanganathor regain power in Margleknot, rebuilding himself and turning his empire over to Morbion Blackthorn, for his empire to become the Wraithborne Tower. He did not see Nothanganathor regaining strength and fighting corruption. He did not need to. He knew what had happened anyway.

Nothanganathor had tried to reclaim his Darkness many times, and in many different ways.

The next time he saw Nothanganathor it was from the perspective of an old woman in a tower overseeing a great city.

He only saw a flash of a white maw, rimmed in Red outside of the wizard’s windows, but it was enough to know the white maw belonged to Nothanganathor. It was enough to recognize Malevolence. The white serpent had tried to steal a Mark of the Dark.

It must not have worked because Erick witnessed, from 6 more perspectives, as Nothanganathor ate him 6 more times. Erick had briefly been a Wizard in a swamp, overseeing mushrooms. A Wizard in a tower, 3 more times, each of the towers looking mostly the same but in vastly different cities and lands. A Wizard in the ocean. A Wizard on a ship in the mana ocean, in the middle of nowhere.

And then Nothanganathor came for the Darkness once more. This time he came with True Power.

Nothanganathor stole the Dark Mark out of a Light Wizard with the Sign of Power that he had stolen from Margleknot’s avatar.

- - - -

The walls were gold. Pillars held up a sky. A hoard of treasure floated on an ocean of Red that was made of chains and lightning. Erick was among that hoard. He was a spot of Black, chained to one of the pillars. Somehow the pillar was connected to Nothanganathor, providing him with mana. Over there was a spot of Blue. Over there was a small garden. All of those powers were chained to pillars. Every pillar held a power; a universal Mark.

There were countless pillars.

Rafts of this or that floated on the Red Chain ocean, each of them holding a treasure of power. Some of the rafts floated below the surface. Some of the rafts floated on a surface that held above Erick, forming the sky. This Sign of Power was ocean and ocean surfaces all the way up, and down.

There was too much of nothing to see, and so Erick ignored it.

- - - -

Erick spent ten thousand years in that hoard, and the hoard grew like an ocean with tides.

Erick watched the treasure build.

He had seen the pattern before there was a pattern.

The hoard of Universal Marks simply grew, for they were usable without being used. Other things were not so chained. Sometimes a thing, like a mirror or bowl or spear or otherwise, would appear on a raft and then leave; gathered and then used. Sometimes a thing would stick around for a while. Buildings floating on islands stayed the longest, but they came and went as well.

The Marks never left; they only piled up.

For a good thousand years, or however-long, there was a really nice temple of water, or something like that, hanging out in the depths of the Red-chain sea, but then the temple vanished. Used, Erick imagined.

And then the real items started to appear. The ones that mattered for what was to come.

They were golden orbs, wrapped in Red, and they floated upon the Red Chain ocean like eggs. They were not eggs at all.

Erick recognized them as Node Network interchanges, though they were certainly not Erick’s Node Network interchanges, and Nothanganathor did not call them that. But that is what they were. First, there was one, and it was tiny. A second one appeared and it was massive. Different variations occurred, and then came standardization; the vast process by which that which works gets repeated, over and over again.

Millions upon millions of standard-order interchanges came and went, like a flow of water. Nothanganathor made them, or picked them up from elsewhere, but considering no one else knew that he had done the Sundering Erick assumed that Nothanganathor had made them himself. Maybe he had had help to make them, but then he had killed those helpers. Erick did not know.

And then one day Nothanganathor appeared, like a worm in the blood, and he organized the hoard.

The rafts with their treasures went down to another layer of the oceans’ surfaces.

The interchanges came up to Erick’s level, and soon, he held, tied to his pillar, above and among an ocean of golden eggs. Still though, Erick saw things that were not eggs. Nothanganathor was not done collecting treasure.

The vast, vast majority of the hoard belonged to those orbs. The Sundering nodes.

Tied to his pillar in the ocean Erick couldn’t see everything, but he saw a lot. He recognized that large, purple, Jupiter-sized arrow, as the arrow that Nothanganathor had used against him in the last battle; the one that had simply appeared in Erick’s chest, before his [Animadversion] had reflected it. That thing was locked behind several failsafes. Erick watched Nothanganathor come back to the Red Chain ocean a few times to renew those failsafes several times over the centuries. That purple arrow remained as one of his largest weapons. It radiated something like Death, but worse. Pure Sundering? Perhaps, but in a more malicious sort of way—

Suddenly, the hoard started to thin.

The Sundering nodes went out like a river of purpose.

This was the seeding, then. The preparation for the Su—

A person popped into the Red Chain Ocean, already dying but not finishing that death. Red Chains grabbed that person and locked them down, layering Red around them so deep and thick it turned to crystal, and the chains dragged that crystal into the depths.

Many people started to appear in the Red Chain ocean.

Wherever a golden node blinked out of existence, a person came back.

This, then, was Nothanganathor drawing people into his Sign of Power and replacing them with a Red facsimile? Yes. That is exactly what this was. This was face stealing at the height of the skill. This was how Nothanganathor would ruin any cosmology he ever wanted to fight, for he would not fight. He would replace people with perfect copies and those copies would fight for him, or maybe they would just be themselves, and then Nothanganathor could just use them as targeting systems for a Sundering.

Yes.

That is how he had done it.

The final piece of a horrible puzzle that Erick never wanted to figure out, he had discovered.

Every single person on Fenrir was a Red copy too, weren’t they.

Even if Erick and everyone won, Nothanganathor would simply Erase them all with a Sundering effect.

But that was in the future.

This was the past.

This was the dispensation for the Sundering of the Painted Cosmology. Over 9,000 years in the making, or maybe something like 11,000 given Time Magics. Nothanganathor planted tiny red-gold dots on this world or that world of the Old Cosmology. Each one held a targeting magic for Malevolence.

It was a Doom.

Time passed, and redgold spheres went out, and people came in, only to fall into the Red-chain ocean and be dragged to the depths, to be placed under Nothanganathor’s complete control.

It was a horror.

Erick could only watch.

Erick had tried to affect the past in many ways but he had always been stuck, unable to move off of the tracks he had been witnessing. He raged.

But then Erick saw it, and the chains around his body became less, for his rage and his Need countered history. He wasn’t going to risk a paradox, which would be noticed. He wasn’t going to make ‘a change’ at all. But he was going to subvert everything that would ever come after this.

Because a red-gold sphere labeled ‘Veird – Idyrvamikor’, floated in front of him.

It was not actually labeled that at all. None of the spheres were labeled. But Erick saw what he saw, and he understood everything.

The targeting system for Veird, for the Sundering, would get turned into Rozeta’s son, and Rozeta’s son would be drawn here, into the Red Chain sea, to fall into the depths. A copy would become the Idyrvamikor that everyone knew and loved. After the Sundering, that very same person would cause the Rage of the Orcols, in an attempt to undo the Death of All Halves. That Idyrvamikor would also become the cause of the Dragon Curse, with his brother, Kirginatharp, becoming the vector for that Curse for the rest of Veird’s existence.

This, then, was the greatest way in which Erick could ever hope to affect the future, in the only way he knew how, because in seeing this golden egg here, Erick knew what had gone wrong in the Sundering.

Veird was never meant to survive the Sundering at all.

It had never had a chance.

This sphere would become Idyrvamikor, on Veird, and thus that targeting system would kill that entire plane of existence.

Time stopped in Nothanganathor’s Sign of Power. The ocean stilled. The chains no longer rattled.

Erick slipped out of the chains that bound him to the pillar, and then he dipped down into the ocean. Idyrvamikor’s sphere floated in front of him upon the Red Chain ocean, and Erick touched the sphere with a spot of Benevolence—

Erick’s hand exploded before he even touched the sphere.

It seemed he couldn’t simply save them all, could he? No. These artifacts were too well made. They were like Solomon’s [Silver Heart]s, but with hidden purposes, like Melemizargo’s dungeon master slimes. Erick doubted even gods could see the Red-beginnings of these people, for if they could, then Melemizargo would have been able to stop the Sundering...

Maybe these things didn’t actually replace a whole person, but instead replaced enough of them to give Nothanganathor perfect leverage over that person?

Yes.

That seemed more in line with Nothanganathor’s whole thing. Just replace enough of a person to give him total control when it mattered.

Erick would have to do what he did with Jane, back in that delivery room, to fix this. He couldn’t wipe away the corruption of Malevolence, but he could take the Malevolence into himself, and change how it expressed itself in the real world, allowing a freer future.

So that is what Erick did.

He placed his injured hand onto the surface of Idyrvamikor’s orb, and said, “I understand your pain, Nothanganathor. I accept your pain, but I deny your choices. You will succeed everywhere else, but you will not succeed here. I claim this pillar of your power for myself.”

The redgold sphere flickered gently, as Erick’s adjustments took hold.

It was enough.

Erick floated back up, into the air, to slip back into his chains, wrapped against the pillar.

Time resumed.

Idyrvamikor’s orb went out, through a portal of Red, glinting with a hint of Benevolence underneath all that redgold. But it wasn’t really Benevolence. It was more like Benevolence masquerading as Malevolence, and yet, in that masquerade, it was truly Malevolence.

The redgold Node Network went out and Idyrvamikor’s existence came back.

He was a big, long dragon, and he fell to the bottom of the Red-chain ocean, insensate, just like all the rest. His copy was out there, on Painted Veird, or somewhere nearby. If Nothanganathor’s plan had worked, then Idyrvamikor probably would have sabotaged the manaminer that would have become the Script, and doomed them all. Rozeta’s son would be there at Veird during the Sundering, so sabotaging the manaminer seemed like the thing to do.

But Idyrvamikor wouldn’t do what Nothanganathor wanted him to do; not this time. Not in this grand working where Nothanganathor would be too busy to notice every little thing. The system had a lot of redundancies, but...

Idyrvamikor would malfunction.

Nothanganathor had built himself upon so many different pillars, but the one that gave him the greatest strength was the one that Erick had just taken for himself. The pillar that made Nothanganathor the Arbiter of Veird, as dispensed by Margleknot and the Fractal Fairy. The pillar that started it all, which was built upon a foundation of Sundering.

Nothanganathor thought he was the cause of Veird’s survival, because it was all part of some great plan of his. But. No. Erick had been the one to claim that seed of strength, in whatever way it could be claimed.

It was almost time to see that seed bloom.

Erick did not try to move again, to undo even more of Nothanganathor’s Grand Evil, for the chains around him were tight, and getting tighter. The Darkness had probably helped Erick slip free of his chains to facilitate his undercutting, but that crazed assistance was done for the moment.

The Moment was yet to come.

- - - -

Now.

Right now.

This, then, was the Sundering.

Erick knew it was happening before it happened.

Tangled in chains tied to a pillar hanging above the Red Chain ocean, inside Nothanganathor’s Sign of Power, Erick witnessed the ocean flow away, all the way away. The bedrock of the Sign of Power was exposed for the first time. Bodies and trinkets lay scattered upon the ocean floor like beached whales and evacuated tide pools.

Nothanganathor curled in the center of it all, a massive white leviathan, wrapped around a bright pearl that infinitely spun inward and outward at the same time. It was the Sign of Power that he had stolen from Margleknot, and it was the center of this ritual, though the seeds had been planted long ago. Nothanganathor used his face whiskers to direct mana flows around the pearl, to pull and push at infinity.

Erick looked up, and saw Nothanganathor looking down.

Erick looked down, and saw Nothanganathor studying the Sign of Power, directing it to work how he wanted it to work. And then Erick looked further down, into the Sign of Power, and he saw himself hanging on a pillar far below.

The Sign of Power contained an infinity, in truth, and now that infinity was being used for fel purposes.

Nothanganathor spoke to his Sign of Power, “For Ara.”

The infinite horizon boiled.

The floodgates opened.

Everything that had left came rushing back in a tsunami of Primal Lightning, red as the blood of billions. The ocean screamed with souls and Darkness and every Element of every color, all of it drowning in Red, Red, Red.

And then the oceans swirled.

The oceans diverted, each power to its place in the layers of this infinite Sign of Power, each slice of this personal Layer filling with organized power.

Nothanganathor kept the slice of this Layer with his Marks of Power separated and central to the ritual. He saw everything rush by, though. He directed his power perfectly.

Erick watched, chained to his pillar, as the Red Chain ocean grabbed each dead person, killing them further if they needed it and ripping them into their constituent parts. Most everyone was dead, and those that survived were dead soon enough. They were just souls right now, and only a few of those souls gave any trouble at all, and not that much. The Red tore at them like a blender.

Souls went that way.

Bodies went that way.

And the Dark Marks within every single person flowed toward Erick.

The Dark inundated him.

Erick accepted it all.

He accepted the pain.

He accepted the memories.

Erick Became the maddened Dark. He Became the raging, fighting, tearing, touching, knowing, questioning, remembering, feeling...

Loving, gentle Dark.

He

Became

Simply

Xoat.