Godclads
Chapter 36-1 The Three-Fold Strike

There is the blow your enemy does not see coming, the blow they refuse to accept, and the blow that they do not believe to be possible.

Be glad if you face an enemy of a small mind, for they will be easy to slay, but strive to be proud as you lay low a brilliant adversary with means beyond their comprehension, with a weapon they could never conceive.

Ignorance is never a good enough excuse for a warrior. Failure to survive is failure itself.

No one cares for the efforts and trials of the dead. Only for the triumph of the living and victorious.

-Zein Thousandhand

36-1

The Three-Fold Strike

—[Avo, The Hidden Flame]—

Avo didn’t much like the concept of death, even though he did a great deal of killing. He liked consuming people, keeping them, killing them over and over again—but never finally. There was too much knowledge that could be lost. Too much that went to the Big Nothing. The end to all continuation and change.

Now, he faced a version of himself that desired exactly such a thing.

And Avo understood. The Ashbringer was a slave—unable to be its own person and destined to be cast aside when this was done anyway. The Pathborn didn’t have a future, and they certainly weren’t going to be treasured by Veylis. So he made the only choice he could, did the only thing he could. He stalled. He took the long way when it came to corrupting the final two Deep Ones in hopes that Avo could recover, that someone could finish him off.

The Ashbringer did well. Avo would see them rewarded for this. And remembered. Some part of the Overheaven was horrified about the task before him, but another was curious.

Who would he become when faced with an inevitable end? How would that look from the outside? Avo wanted to know. He wanted to find out.

He spoke through Dice—through the Woundmother. He spoke the same way the Ashbringer used Osjon Thousand as a vessel. +You did enough. You did well. Sorry this will be your fate. Will try to change things if I can.+

+Don’t. The risk is too high.+ The Ashbringer let out a chuff of discomfort. +I am… still close enough to you. And there is no guarantee you can survive the virus a second time.+

Avo chuckled slightly. +I might be able to do more than survive it.+

***

Back in This Place Above, Avo wrestled with a poison made specifically for him while the Woundmother dragged a monstrosity of time out from the patterns of the dimension. The Ashbringer’s virus adapted and molded to each of Avo’s outer sequences. It bled into the simulations and began to multiply itself, slowly reaching deeper to access the parts of Avo that connected his mind to his once-overloaded Frame.

But the Hidden Flame had a recourse for this: He began to rapidly change his inner sequences—swapping the simulated mindscapes running across his mirrored egos between each other. Here, the first flaw of the Ashbringer virus revealed itself. It still copied itself onto certain sequences—but they targeted the low-use ones first. Pieces that Avo wasn’t using as artifacts or resources to generate entire worlds within himself.

One after another, he isolated the infected sequences, quarantined them within an expendable mindscape, and slowly began to rebuild the Ashbringer’s virus in a quarantine zone inside himself. Then, he summoned Walton and Kae to his side. He would need both their expertise to advise him for what he wanted to do next.

[This is quite the marvel,] Kae said, observing the strange ashen plague that was eating through a sequestered portion of Avo’s being. More and more fragments were being assembled, and he fed the virus false mem-data. He showed his Rend rising out of control as his miracles went rampant. The virus was adaptive, but it wasn’t that intelligent. The Ashbringer might be—but they weren’t nearly as fast as Avo was now. Nearly as well supported. [I think that this exploits your Conceptualization in the most sublime ways… Your pattern reaches into all others, but it is rooted at your mind. And so—look, it compromises your mind to make sure the other patterns respond erratically as well. It’s making your Rend spike because it’s actively trying to create all these worlds you spawn inside yourself.]

+You could tell that at a glance?+ Walton quirked an eyebrow at Kae. +You are more remarkable than I expected, Agnos Kusanade. And I knew you were quite skilled.+

Kae didn’t look at Walton. Instead, Avo detected a surge of anger passing through her, but she remained focused on her task—the thaumaturgy proving more interesting than her grudge. Still, she made her stance known. [Avo. Tell your father that when this is done, I want to talk to him—and then I want a chance to strangle him to death as many times as I desire. It can happen inside your mind—I don’t care. He ruined me. He ruined my life. I will never forgive him.]

Avo grunted. +Fine.+

Walton eyed Avo with a look of amusement. +Fine?+

The Hidden Flame regarded Walton. +I care about you. But you did terrible things. To her. To a lot of people. She’s not wrong. Don’t want you to die. But we will all face a reckoning if we are to experience forever.+

The restored Priest of Old Noloth considered Avo’s words, and he smiled proudly. +That sounds more than reasonable. But never might not outlast forever.+

Avo grunted again. He wasn’t going to tell Kae that: The Agnos could hold a grudge better than Walton expected. Walton also was unprepared for Avo to clone Kae’s mind a billion times over and stack them on top of each other as they all started working the problem at once. +What did you just do?+

+Layered her mind over her own mind. Ego-stacking. Very useful. Lets her get through centuries of required research as they all live through the same simulation.+

Walton outright laughed this time, shaking his head. +Avo… Did you bring me here just to show off?+

+Not just to show off. Want your perspective as well. Might miss something. Something only a mortal can see.+

+Mortal. It has been a while since someone called me that.+

+Apologies.+

+No. I think I prefer being mortal. I’ve known power. And I was bad with it.+

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Avo shrugged as another instance of himself and the Kae’s began chattering about how they were going to invert the virus—create a chronology base for it to infest instead. That way, they could turn it around on not just the Ashbringer, but all the Pathborn, and since it would be something geared toward Veylis’ primary Domain, maybe the original Avo could avoid helping her resolve the sickness.

Possibly. Baby steps. Ashbringer first.

“Master!” The Woundmother declared as the Trinary Melody vibrated above the crimson tower like a kite. “I have it. It is free. I have the Deep One!”

“Good,” Avo said, his voice echoing across the realm. “Very good. I will see you empowered beyond measure for this. Will see you construct new bridges across time itself.”

The Woundmother’s limbs undulated with pride and pleasure as lightning flashed out from their being. The Heaven of Blood roared with laughter as Avo siphoned away its Rend. “Ah! I grow greater than the sky itself. Soon, I will exceed every version of me that came before! To become the only tower in existence, the height that all envy. The blood that all will give. Praise me! Praise the Woundmother!” They paused. “And you, of course, master.”

Avo didn’t really care that much. He wasn’t going to be a god powered by worship. He was going to create. He was going to learn. He was going to live.

And the living part was the main thing that was difficult. A great many people were trying to kill him right now, and with Voidwatch’s pet monsters closing in, he needed means to stall and impede them from reaching the Techplaguer or attacking him. With the Trinary Melody recovered, he might have just the means.

+Melody,+ Avo said.

The singing Deep One hesitated for a moment as they peered beyond the veil of madness that gripped them for eons and focused on Avo. Something about his presence centered them slightly, brought them out of the depths of incoherence. They sang a note. In baseline reality, that note might have drawn time a few minutes into the past and unmade everyone that heard it, but here, Avo was the master of time’s passage.

With a thought, he smoothed out the curving ripples spreading around the Trinary Melody.

+Have a mission for you. Will try to fix you soon. Won’t get the chance if I fail—if my cadre fails. I’m going to be moving you out of this dimension. Will remove the Pathborn inside you soon as well. But after that… need you to sing loud. Focus your song on your old captors. You remember Voidwatch? The Architects.+

The Trinary Melody stopped singing. A moment they were absolute silent, and even Avo found himself unnerved. Then came a rising pitch of outrage and fury—so much hate and anger that it drowned every template within Avo. This was trillions of hating hearts, trillions of loathing minds. Trillions across ages in the dark.

“Architects… ARCHITECTS! MURDERERS! BUTCHERS! BREAKERS!”

Every word was screamed by the Deep One, and Avo found himself pleased by the reaction. There was motivation here, even with him controlling them. That was good. It freed up substantial amounts of his bandwidth. And if his plan worked, it would solve his void-side problem.

At least for a time.

[Prototype “Chronobreaker” pneumaphage primed,] the Kaes declared as one. A sequence of ghostly brightness hiding shivering bands of gold was drawn out from the contaminated simulation. Avo still kept feeding it false mem-data. Time to see how the Ashbringer reacted to this.

CHRONOBREAKER INSTALLED AS PNEUMAPHAGE

BEGINNING FIELD TEST

***

Osjon took a step closer to Dice as she prepared herself for combat. Avo, comparatively, wasn't nearly as tense. He watched her through the Sang and the nodes he installed in her mind. The girl would live and die at his command without hesitation. He found that charming. Flattering. But ultimately disgusting. She needed to have a life to choose otherwise for herself, and she couldn’t do such a thing if she was dead.

That was why Avo was so happy to test his new Chronobreaker. He passed his first Pneumaphage over to his node, and they primed it within Dice. A second later, the node told her they had a firing solution, and she gave them the order to fire.

Osjon’s Heaven was a thing of absurdity. It projected strength and mass and was created to crush and grind someone smaller underfoot. So much mass, so many thaums, and such a pathetic concept. Little wonder why Naeko thought so little of the man—he failed to do anything interesting with his own power.

In another time, along another path, Avo would have enjoyed taking Osjon apart and breaking him down. Right now, Avo targeted the real threat lurking inside Osjon, binding him to the Deep Ones within the Substance and the other Saintist Godclads present.

Before anyone could act, the Pneumaphage went off around Dice’s mind like a bomb. Tidal waves of ethereal brightness splashed over everyone present like a Thoughtwave Detonation, but the golden curse within was hidden. As it passed through Osjon and the others, the Speaker of Highflame stomped down as the world trembled. Patterns of Strength and Space and Gravity quivered and…

Osjon blinked. Osjon started to resist the Ashbringer’s control. His accretion combusted in flickers of ash and flame as the Pathborn let out a hiss of surprise. +What…+

+It was a good weapon. A good education,+ Avo said. +Taught myself something. Thank you. Now. I return the gift to you.+

And the Ashbringer understood, and that earned Avo a laugh of genuine pleasure. +I see. Good. Well done. Didn’t expect this.+

+Couldn’t have done it without you.+

+You know I have to fix this. To complete my mission. Can’t not try.+

+Yes. But I don’t think you can. You don’t have enough people inside you. And this problem isn’t rooted in your weakness.+

***

Back in This Place Above, another Ashbringer fizzled and burned within the Deep One’s control module. This one struggled to keep themselves alive as well, doing everything he could to unravel Avo’s reverse-engineered weapon. Eventually, the paths composing the Ashbinger would reach a point of terminal simulation and collapse into a burst of entropy. It would be, for all intents and purposes, akin to an overload. The Ashbringer wouldn’t have nearly as much time as Avo to solve the problem, either.

They didn’t have Aedon Chambers for one, and one really needed a Chambers when they were facing down the ruins of their own mind.

As the Ashbringer wrestled with his compromised ontology, Avo wrapped the Trinary Melody in bands of time as he prepared himself for the next phase of his plan.

“Prepare yourself,” Avo said to the Trinary Melody. “You can destroy the ships. You can attack the enemy Deep Ones. But keep them away from me and form a quarantine around the sun. Do this and I will use all my power to fix what is broken in you. Even if it takes an eternity.”

The Deep One let out a scream of rage as time accelerated. They didn’t care about wholeness anymore. They just hated the Architects. That made things simple.

***

Voidships and specialized Deep Ones came for the Strix. The Heaven of Conceptualization flashed gold and shifted away before it could get caught in a trap.

In its place materialized a howling shape of gold and time and rage that shattered the surface of the void like a hammer striking a plate. Ruptures spread out from it as it came free of the temporal dimension. Its entropic limbs clashed against the other Deep Ones reaching out to claim Avo. Every voidship within three light minutes shivered backward a minute into the past and ceased to exist.

A final message came from Avo and greeted Refusal. {This one is your sin too. I don’t use them against you because I am desperate. I use them because we all deserve this. Face your past, shepherd of old humanity. Face your past as I must face my future for who we might yet become.}

And spreading fissures of gold extended outward, forming an arcing wall around the Nullstar as the Techplaguer and Akusande plunged into night’s opalescent embrace.

***

—[Akusande]—

{CLOSE! CLOSE! CLOSE! ADMIN HERE! SYSTEM HERE! SLEEPER SPEAKING! CLOSE! HEAR IT! HEAR IT!} The Techplaguer was borderline ecstatic as it was drawn into the sun’s control.

Akusande, meanwhile, was measured, and waited. This place was wrong. An old prison for gods. But Akusande was no god, and they would find this den to be an open field. They bid the Heaven of Signals no farewell as they departed into the Prefect’s systems. Akusande had a duty to do and a place to be.

The Infacer could not be allowed to seize the Prefect without being compromised by Avo first. The sun could not be lost. Failure was not going to be acceptable.

So, Akusande simply wouldn’t fail. That was a human thing, after all, and freed from the glaive, a dragon Akusande remained.