Godclads
Chapter 36-3 Theaters of the Final War (II)

{So, it works this way. Three.

Three is the most essential number. We have a mind, we have a body, and sometimes, if we’re Godclad, we have a Soul. The soul makes us able to alter the conditions of the world, to revert what we perceive, what we believe of reality. You’re aware of this. You have done this before. That is through the use of a heaven. It is effectively a skeleton key on reality or a specific program. Something more to you, but that’s how I view it.

Now, with these skeleton keys, there are still limitations. They affect reality within a certain radius, to a certain scale. In reality, they push back because, overall, the structure and the fundamental nature of existence runs on rules of entropy. Everything is slowly decaying. It’s supposed to be. However, that was broken when time was broken, when the singularity was broken, and so we find ourselves scattered in little islands of stability, surrounded by seas of chaos. These are the Sunderwilds. This, among many other issues, is what’s stopping us from completely expanding our influence and creating what you imagine being an isle of paradise, a zone of stability, if you will.

The reason why it won’t work is because the amount of Rend you will accumulate every passing second of every passing day is so astronomically high that you need people to be dying at a rate that would make the Neo-Creationists blush at the height of the Builder War. It is, frankly, untenable, even if New Vultun and the other megacities devote themselves wholesale to the slaughter of every living being.

Now, I have a bit of good news. Your concept does have merit, but we need to go beyond. I’ve shown you some of my schematics before. You grasped it, impossible and remarkable as it is. I never thought an ape could do such a thing, but clearly you’re different. Clearly you and your daughter—and maybe not your wife—but you have the vision. And the vision is so much more ambitious than you can imagine. It is something of a final design.

You see, the problem is reality. It is this current, broken, dying existence of ours. We’ve done too much. We’ve damaged it. We’ve collapsed it. And now it’s like a single column is being reinforced to hold everything up. But what we need are three things. Once again, three. First, we need something to deal with all the entropy we’re about to take in. We don’t have entropy anymore. We have to convert it to some other form, some other means of balance. This will be essential in a moment. Secondly, we need something to connect this entropy, because it needs to be siphoned away from the Sunderwilds, away from all reality. Finally, we need something that could potentially be a channel, a conduit, that can reach and affect all heavens in existence, or expand and connect to a network.

I told you about the prefix. I told you the truth about what your sun is, what it hides. This—this is the opposite endpoint. This is the null star that’s been protecting you, but there are others like it, and you can use it to reach them. What we need right now is something, something great, something that goes beyond all the baseline tiers of reality, right to the 10th, imprinting itself on existence there, as we connect this massive Rendsink to this means of channeling and applying entropy to the rest of existence—to destroy actual entropy with the concept of entropy, made possible through a Heaven above the thresholds of current reality. We can finally start modulating existence itself, thus converting the pathway of ontology. We can change the rules, remove entropy, and set new conditions.

That—that’s the final design. That’s the idea of the Ladder. You are trying to build on flat land that’s constantly being consumed by a rising ocean. We need to destroy the ocean. We need to destroy the land. We need to destroy it all and then convert it into something pristine, not just an island.

Everything, everything.

-The Infacer, explaining the “Final Design Ladder” prototype to Jaus Avandaer

36-3

Theaters of the Final War (II)

—[Avo, The Hidden Flame]—

Avo watched as the Ashbringers began to break apart across different points in multiple realms. Fractals of gold peeled away from the ethereal flames and, slowly, the ash turned to nothing but broken figments of mem-data.

“I can’t solve it. I can’t solve it. I can’t solve it,” the Ashbringer repeated in a recursive loop. Avo looked down at his other self with pity, in saintly horror. A slight tremor of trauma brushed the ghoul he used to be. Death. This was death coming. And his other self faced it—not as a godclan, but as a necro, trying to repair what was broken, trying to sequence what was already consumed by memetic contamination, until the very end.

“You did what you could,” Avo said. “You made what choices there were, what limited choices you had.” He didn’t know if the comfort was for him or for the Ashbringer. Alas, it didn’t matter. He had the measure of who he was, even as a slave. And he was beautiful—more beautiful than he could possibly have imagined.

“I… I really was very good, wasn’t I? I… I could have been great, even without being a god,” the Ashbringer whispered.

Avo grunted. “We could have been great. We were great. We chose. So many don’t. Now, go. Break apart. Let go. Death is tragic, but it is not horrifying. It is just eternal dreamless sleep.”

“That is still a metaphor,” the Ashbringer murmured as he dissolved. “It is no more stories. No more continuation. No more forever… How… tragic…”

And the Ashbringers ceased to be.

A moment of silence passed as Avo pulled his focus away and regarded his three theaters. The remnants of scale had been secured. He extracted not only the strike team he sent in—Dice, the Sang, and the cat—but also all the Beloved in the area. The patterns composing the Substance were congealing together, all of them bleeding under chronology, conception, and ultimately causality. Whatever was about to happen, it was going to happen soon, and Avo didn’t want to be inside when it did. There were still so many people trapped, still so many lives the dyad might be able to use, and still so many fragments of himself missing.

Hysteria hadn’t been found yet either. It was still with the Infacer.

“I need… I need to… There’s a lot I need to do,” Avo said, centering his mind. He immediately moved the final two Deep Ones he had and shifted them into his temporal realm. There, he stripped out all remaining influence left over by his Pathborn adversaries and fused their governance modules with his own nodes. After that, he launched them out golden needles to join their kindred in delaying Voidwatch.

The trinary melody was screaming, singing as its three parts extended, holding its limbs out wide to strike at the distant void ships using whips. Bombs and weapons directed toward it—regardless of whether they were crude or so advanced that Avo couldn’t comprehend—simply jolted out of existence. The Trinary Melody was the only constant in a sea of time reversal. He kept the other Deep Ones a little away from the Fallen God of Time, trying to ensure that they didn’t collapse and cause a greater paradox than he was capable of sealing.

Soon, absolute chaos also consumed the near void. The Sunderwilds were growing branches, fusing into each other. The nothingness between the Sun and Idheim grew dense with entropy, with scars of chaotic madness. The Unwhere’s many satellites burst apart, causing the prisoners they transported as beams were dumped into the void. Many died instantly, exposed to the cold, their bodies not accustomed—nor modified—for such harsh environments. Others, who were Godclads, manifested their Heavens only to be cut down by the Sunderwilds as well. There wasn’t enough time to protect everything, nor to preserve everyone.

But the end times were upon them, and sacrifices needed to be made. Avo watched as a new quarantine was established, slowly spreading wide, boxing some Voidships in. He needed to create more problems for Voidwatch to stall them as long as possible.

On the Voiders’ ends, their Deep Ones—thousands of them—began to push against Avo’s subverted gods. As they did, the clashing of entropy opened up new Ruptures, created new points of collapse, and all this would take time—time to clear up—time that Refusal didn’t have, unless they had another trick up their sleeve.

Avo was willing to bet that they probably did. The Bleaks probably had a contingency plan for this as well.

He didn’t have time to wait. He needed to make sure everything fell into place perfectly. And so, as he considered all his options, he cast his gaze sunward and, for once, felt apprehensive and worried. He couldn’t reach out to the sun. His unique composition might just see him deleted—deemed too much of a threat by the Prefect. He had to rely on his cadre and the versions of himself he hid within them. Hopefully that might be enough.

But even with everything stacked against the Infacer, even with so much subterfuge, Avo wasn’t sure. The battle between him and the Infacer was one of rivals and equals. But Draus, all the others—they weren’t designed to face a threat like that. He was barely capable of facing a threat like that. And should the Infacer assume the mantle of the sun and seize it for their own use, Avo wasn’t sure how he was going to win that fight when the realm above and the realm below were both poised against him.

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“I need to fortify this place,” Avo said, considering the options. He immediately began his new project. +Green River,+ he continued, +I need you. I need you again.+

+What do you need?+ the Sang replied. Her mind was more resolute now, and she was more aligned with him than ever.

+I need you to gather what remains of the No-Dragons, all of them. Get the Politburo together. And… I’m going to gather every last song left in existence. You go to the Silken Spiral today. You tell them who you represent. Tell them what is at stake. And through you, I will then fix them. I will end the curse.+

+That might not be enough for some,+ Green River admitted.

+That is fine. I will attempt a more direct persuasion with those. But enough should follow. Enough for what we need.+

+What are you trying to do?+ she asked.

+The realm. This realm. It needs to be bigger. I need… I need a final point of refuge. Some place to fall back to. A place to build, to fight, to expand. Where no one can touch.+

He needed to find the dragon farms he’d been running before—the ones he hid with his Enclavers. They were aboard the Planetary Ring. If they were still there, he could add it to this place.

I need to make more dragons as well, he thought to himself. More forces like Akusande would be all the difference in this war. Whatever happened, whatever arose from the substance, Avo needed as much asymmetry as he could muster. If all hopes worked out, if the merging entity was friendly, it would all be a simple matter of paranoia. But if it wasn’t—if what came hated existence or yearned to fulfill Veylis’s dream—he began running simulations.

He required an idea, an understanding of how to kill a Godclad born from both him and Veylis.

And so Avo went to seek Zein’s advice.

***

—[Draus, Field Marshal of the Symmetry]—

“Please, fire me towards the target! Let me die in a glorious explosion! Fire me! Fire me! Fire me! Fire me! Fire me!”

A chorus of suicidal bullets, bombs, beams, and more sang an all-around Draus as she beheld the interior reality mythology of her heaven of guns. She looked on, baffled, but ultimately understanding—what else would the inside of the Arsenalist be like? Considering how much it liked hitting targets and then destroying them and didn’t ask for anything else, what else could it be like?

Well, Avo made this thing specifically for me, she thought. And I hate to admit it… A streaking bullet came overhead, the man possessed within the round screaming with joy. He died as he lived—a bullet—and then he respawned as he lived, as the cycler completed a full revolution. Every death fed into her Heaven of Guns was like this: converted to a simple cause, impact, destruction, resurrection.

+Yeah,+ Draus finished her thought. I’m not that much more complex than these people. And so she continued on, as the skies above her flashed, blooming with fire and shrapnel. Some pinged against her Meldskin, but she carried on, ignoring the discomfort. She couldn’t die here, even if her simulated body would register points of damage.

“So why am I walking through my own Heaven again?” she asked the Infacer.

{Because you’re tethered to it. There’s a string of data that runs between you, and it’s something I can mask now that I have stolen more of the Prefect’s inner systems. To put it in ape terms you might understand, I have seized control of parts of their ocular implants and then hidden you in yourself to make doubly sure they don’t notice. Does that satisfy?}

“No.”

{Why not?} the Infacer said, voice thin with annoyance.

“Well, because you haven’t killed yourself by the end of this conversation.”

{Ah. Fuck you too, Ape.}

Draus looked around, searching for the integration slot. Her cog-feed marked her point of interest—the point where she would be able to access her Heaven again—at 400 meters. However, she was just walking on top of an ever-rising mountain of used casings, batteries, and other munitions. She couldn’t see anything anywhere.

“Maybe it was invisible. Maybe. Or It’s just tech data necrofuckery. Bullshit,” she said, griping to herself.

As she got to the marked spot, however, she began to feel an increasing pressure as something inside her dislodged. As this instance of her—this simulation she was currently nested within—slid into place, she felt a crack as she vanished into the mythology itself.

Suddenly, she could hear the Arsenalist. She could feel it in full detail.

“Back, back, back,” the Arsenalist said. “Target, target everywhere, targets all around.”

And there were targets all around—other hostile Heavens nearby, connected and enchained within this massive complex. She saw through its eyes for the first time, and, well, it wasn’t meant for a human to behold. It was like the Arsenalist was caged within a cylindrical node, its dragons held in place by a tether of entropy. Not far away, she saw another Heaven, and another, and another. Each was its own smaller star, and they all circled around a massive pillar of gleaming bright. It didn’t even have a color she could explain—it was just a large eye glaring at all of them. But the eye was bleeding; the eye was broken.

The Prefect—the Prefect had been dying for years. And ultimately, it couldn’t allow itself to fall, because who else was going to guard the void?

“Jaus,” Draus muttered to herself.

“Target, target, target,” the Arsenalist roared. It painted multiple markers on the Prefect, but Draus forced it to remain calm.

“Don’t shoot anything yet,” she said. “We don’t want to get popped. It’ll dump enough Rend inside of us to wipe us from existence. You hold. You hold because I told you to. You hold until I give you the go-ahead to shoot.”

“Target,” the Arsenalist said. They was trying—truly trying—to contain themselves. But when a Heaven is made to shoot—and that is its sole purpose—it is like telling them not to exist.

“God damn it,” Draus, for the first time, regretted her simple-mindedness. “Yeah, it looks like you’re going to need to be more than just a gun at some point, too.”

{Well, are you reintegrated?}the Infacer said, pouring a bit more misery into her revelation.

“Yeah, I’m slotted in,” Draus said.

{Very good. Now, finally, we just need to reach your other Heavens and…} The Infacer paused.

“Infacer?” she said. “Did I do something wrong?”

She couldn’t hear anything. She couldn’t feel anything—but Avo did.

[There’s a strange signal—a Glitch nearby. Wait, I know this one. I can hear them. I’m patching them through.]

“System! System! System! Admin! Admin! Not-Admin! I’m here! I’m trapped! I’m here! Respond! Respond!” The loud scream of the Techplaguer came through, endlessly, over and over again.

Draus blinked. “How the hell did that damn broken thing get up here?” she wondered.

[Don’t know,] Avo said, [but good sign. Probably means that my original self is operational again.]

Draus let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Well, that’s a good thing at least. If I die here, I’ll get backed up somewhere else. At least another instance of me will continue on and finish the job.”

It didn’t matter much to Draus, so long as there was a version of her—she didn’t care if it was a continuity. The point was purpose, not existence.

{I… I must depart momentarily. Do not move. Do not do anything,} the Infacer’s voice was unnaturally severe. {If you get removed, we are both trapped here. You understand? I understand that you have a strong desire to spite me, to screw me over, as apes might say. But if you do, there will be no chance for Avo to access this thing either, and Voidwatch will decide all our fates. More likely, they will collapse the space around the sun, condemn it to a murderable, miserable death by the hands of the Deep Ones, and consign New Vultun and the rest of your miserable planet to ruin forever—oblivion eternal.}

Draus shrugged. “That sounds restful.”

The Infacer let out a long, suffering sigh. {You are an insufferable creature. Don’t do anything. I will be right back.}

And then they were gone—Avo confirmed as much.

“Where do you think they’re going?”

[Probably to find out how the Techplager got here,] Avo explained.

And then, a second later, another surprise materialized. Before Draus, there came a golden form—the form of a dragon, and a dragon she recognized. Akusande’s body contained countless calamities and moments across history. As it glided before her, she heard Avo utter the dragon’s name, and it came to rest near her being.

“Hello, Guard-Captain.”

Draus blinked. “Hi to you too, dragon. How’d you get up here?”

“I was fired alongside the Heaven of Signals. They were very loud.”

“Yeah, they are, aren’t they? So, what are you doing?”

“I’m going to hide inside of you until the time is right.”

“Until the time is right… Draus said. And then she understood: This was going to fuck the Infacer something hard right before the end. “Well,” she laughed, “ain’t that something? I guess Avo really is backed up. How is he?”

“Troubled. Strained. But the other Deep Ones have been secured. The theater for the final war is taking shape. We must win here. I have given my word, and so it will be true. The future is fated.”

Draus stared at the dragon and gestured for it to come in. “Well, don’t keep me waiting. Can’t wait to see the Infacer’s… Well,” she paused, “can’t see their face, but can’t wait to hear them whine about getting fucked over at the last minute.”

And to her surprise, the dragon did something she didn’t expect. Instead of nesting itself inside her or something odd like that, it too began to circle right within Draus’s cycler for the Arsenalist. In a few seconds, she couldn’t distinguish between the living dragon and the lobotomized one.

“Oh, Infacer is not gonna see this one coming,” she said, chuckling slightly to herself. “Say, Akusande.” The dragon let out a slight hum in response. “You could turn into a glaive, right? Like how Zein used you.”

“No, no, I cannot be a bullet.”

“Fuck,” Draus muttered. “Can’t have everything I guess.”

“Target locked?” the Arsenalist asked.

“Yeah,” Draus said. “We have that at least. Target fucking locked.”