Hahah oh that was awesome I love seeing how both side have learned from each other! And Panaka he's really had quite the interesting effect on things hasn't he.
I wonder just what Gojo and co thought about this whole battle it's going to be amazing to see the aftereffects of all this!
I hope that he doesnt finish the heroic realm too fast, I was hoping more time as a hero. But well, I suppose two or three more worlds might be interesting.
I think Zagreus has done only 6 labours, there are still 4 to go, and he probably won't immediatly become a Tyrant, so he's still got some time as a Hero.
I hope that he doesnt finish the heroic realm too fast, I was hoping more time as a hero. But well, I suppose two or three more worlds might be interesting.
Percy Jackson seems likely to be next since they said they were reading it. Unless they do their own custom stuff the only events in the first series which is the only part their doing would be finishing the second titanomachy. Given its a whole world of myths he could very very easily make something to increase rank there happen. Hes going to be making basically a dionysian legion and turning dionysus and hades into his dionysus oh and zagreus but their not shown in canon percy jackson anyways. But basically the first five books could easily just be non factors since cultivation is personalized and while any book is worthy of a cultivation feat none are worthy of it for zagreus. Not that he'd join said quests but he'd change the whole plot by introducing more power systems, making a new legion, messing with romans, and introducing cultivation. Not to mention hes apparently gonna introduce a new reincarnation process to monsters so while they'll still reincarnate they'll reincarnate with a fresh start and no old memories so far less skilled and they won't hold their old grudges who knows some may adapt to modern times better.
Hmmm, in PJO I can see a plucky Hero during the war doing funky things with the mist, basically with Zagreus' introduction the scales became much greater and the collateral damage much higher so a demigod ends up sacrificing themselves to split the mortal and mystical world even further apart.
Basically what Gojo did but more metaphysical and not shinra tensei-ing a new moon (Artemis would not be pleased) and making it so the divine exists apart (even more so).
Percy Jackson seems likely to be next since they said they were reading it. Unless they do their own custom stuff the only events in the first series which is the only part their doing would be finishing the second titanomachy. Given its a whole world of myths he could very very easily make something to increase rank there happen. Hes going to be making basically a dionysian legion and turning dionysus and hades into his dionysus oh and zagreus but their not shown in canon percy jackson anyways. But basically the first five books could easily just be non factors since cultivation is personalized and while any book is worthy of a cultivation feat none are worthy of it for zagreus. Not that he'd join said quests but he'd change the whole plot by introducing more power systems, making a new legion, messing with romans, and introducing cultivation. Not to mention hes apparently gonna introduce a new reincarnation process to monsters so while they'll still reincarnate they'll reincarnate with a fresh start and no old memories so far less skilled and they won't hold their old grudges who knows some may adapt to modern times better.
Well yes I have been waiting for that too, but I was hoping he will go to Mushoku Tensei. The author seemed he liked the series and I have been watching the anime for a while preparing for the next jump there. I will be sad if we never got there because we have other stuff to do.
Well yes I have been waiting for that too, but I was hoping he will go to Mushoku Tensei. The author seemed he liked the series and I have been watching the anime for a while preparing for the next jump there. I will be sad if we never got there because we have other stuff to do.
I know, but I also know he was interested in that series too from some of his posts. Not only that but he said something of going there to know how to deal with curses, which was aparently important in order to deal with Hera.
Since you all are so keep about it, please post the index of next worlds while I finish writing the climax of WoR. We had more or less ironed down the list months ago but so much happened that I kind of forgot. Someone literally posted a list.
Well, there was that RWBY/Exalted fanfic, Lord of light, Warhammer (40k or 30k, can't remember, but I think it was 40k), DC (don't know which universe), PJO. These are only the ones I remember though.
The order of worlds was never explicitly mentioned, only that some worlds would happen when Zagreus' was in the Tyrant realm. Like DC and 40k.
Well, there was that RWBY/Exalted fanfic, Lord of light, Warhammer (40k or 30k, can't remember, but I think it was 40k), DC (don't know which universe), PJO. These are only the ones I remember though.
The order of worlds was never explicitly mentioned, only that some worlds would happen when Zagreus' was in the Tyrant realm. Like DC and 40k.
It was 30k as he was going to interact with emps, it was dc/marvel crossover. There was also mushoku tensei, percy jackson first series, and a cultivation setting during the heroic realm which I hope is btth cause tod&g is basically dead and never finished and in pure power sage emperor should be better than him. While btth has a greater setting its just on one fuck huge jupiter sized planet. Most other cultivation settings stomp him or he stomps sometimes both. For example douluo dalu mortal world he could probably of stomped when he was at the peak of sophic realm at his strongest before heroic realm but anything in the god realm would fucking stomp him no harder than if he was in the civic realm. Also he listed stuff such as avatar which he'd return to in the tyrant realm and jjk and stuff and golarion. Some stuff about fear and hunger but I don't know when he'll be returning there might be a god.
Heroic
-Pjo
-Mushoku Tensei
-Exalted Rwby crossover (END)
-Worm (at the beggining)
-Xianxia (Tales of demons and gods) or Star wars (possibility)
-Lord of Light (Im pretty sure this was only once)
Heroic
-Pjo
-Mushoku Tensei
-Xianxia (Dont remember, that one of the time travel)
-Exalted Rwby crossover (END)
-Worm (at the beggining)
-Star wars(at the beggining)
-Lord of Light (Im pretty sure this was only once)
Star wars was either that or cultivation. Exalted/rwby was at the very beginning of tyrant realm. You got pjo, mushoku tensei, and a xianxia world right though. Left out the marvel/dc cross in tyrant realm, and warhammer 30k, revisiting avatar, and other previous worlds during tyrant realm. Also bruno said about fear and hunger but never said when.
Their was also Bleach he was going to once he was a Tyrant still very much looking forward to that other then that I'm 95% sure you settled on PJO for the next for Zagreus.
Other than that the only 100% confirmed world was that RWBY/Exalted world where Zagreus will reach Tyrant realm.
So PJO, Bleach, RWBY/Exalted and revisiting Avatar are the only ones as far as I can recall that are pretty much confirmed everything else was pretty much still in the air with a few that had a strong possibility but not set in stone yet. Such as Star Wars, Tales of demons and gods, and Mushoku Tensei.
Their was also Bleach he was going to once he was a Tyrant still very much looking forward to that other then that I'm 95% sure you settled on PJO for the next for Zagreus.
Other than that the only 100% confirmed world was that RWBY/Exalted world where Zagreus will reach Tyrant realm.
So PJO, Bleach, RWBY/Exalted and revisiting Avatar are the only ones as far as I can recall that are pretty much confirmed everything else was pretty much still in the air with a few that had a strong possibility but not set in stone yet. Such as Star Wars, Tales of demons and gods, and Mushoku Tensei.
it was tales of demons and gods or btth most other xianxia were too powerful until godhood or higher. It was star wars previously but he changed his mind and did golarion. He also 100% said he'd do a marvel/dc cross world. Also yeah bleach and I forgot but he did say something about mushoku tensei so he could deal with hera.
it was tales of demons and gods or btth most other xianxia were too powerful until godhood or higher. It was star wars previously but he changed his mind and did golarion. He also 100% said he'd do a marvel/dc cross world. Also yeah bleach and I forgot but he did say something about mushoku tensei so he could deal with hera.
Honestly like I said only a few worlds have been pretty much set and frankly I think that's fine everything else has just been speculating and suggestions which I thank has worked well overall.
Iz – the erstwhile heart of ancient Sarkoris where all the realm's chieftains used to gather. Nowadays it balances on the edge of a cliff overhanging the Rift, seemingly unable to decide whether to stay in Golarion or to collapse into the Abyss. The masterful masonry derived from its stone masters has been stepped into Abyssal emanations. A dead city turned death trap. One who enters may never leave as this is the nature of the bottomless pit called the Outer Rift.
"Questions, questions… What is to be done with vanquished foes? What is to be done with treacherous friends? I know the answer to these, and to many more questions."
Areelu Vorlesh's vengeance against the country that betrayed her. A tragedy brought about by mortal hands. Sarkoras was once as wild as it was beautiful, never once ruled by a single king or faith. A land of freedom… however, that freedom was not extended to all. Arcane magic was regarded with suspicion, which grew into hatred. Said hatred was eventually returned in fully with added interest. After all, there is no such a thing as scales to the human heart - a reminder of the perilous nature of the cardinal virtue of Justice. Yet I held no doubt in my virtuous heart that the sight of this desolation only brings one feeling to the Architect of the Worldwound – Retribution.
Cultivators rise on the virtues that had built the strongest empires of history… but they also fall in just the same way. As above, so bellow. Cultivation was humanity's long march towards the light of enlightened civilization reflected in a single man's journey. As such the souls of cultivators were grand things, marble cities built by their unwavering souls but internal strife had toppled more than one great empire into rubble. Sarkoris was just another such victim, the forensic pathologist in me diagnosed.
In any other story, it would have be the perfect stage for a climatic final battle. But now it was just a tourist trap littering the background of my vista as I flew on scarlet wings of my [tyrant raptor] to the place where everything started. Threshold.
Threshold of the End.
Baphomet's last display of power gave me the opportunity to walk through the blockage of endless demonic legions unmolested and reach the heart of the Wound in the world. the place where the first rift between the planes was opened one hundred years ago. The place where this story will end.
As much as I would have liked to decimate all demons in my path while they were helpless, the operational principles behind time stop would forcibly force me back in synchronization with the time flow if I happened to interact with those stuck in it. No Dio Brando shenanigans for me. Then again, maybe this is for the best. The possibilities of time manipulation for an inspired mind are too tantalizing, like a forbidden fruit. The Witch of Threshold started studying rifts and soul-changing forces long before the witch hunters of Treshhold knocked on her door. She had no intention of applying such knowledge at the time, but… some temptations are night impossible to resist given the right motivation.
Once the mightiest fortress of these lands, it became a fertile seedbed for rebellion. The incarcerated arcanists, who were as free-spirited and defiant as they were clueless, paved the way for Areelu's ambition. The cosmic irony of self-fulfilling prophecies – the high-minded and wise rulers of Sarkoris engendered the means for their worst fears to be realized. It is so tragic that it becomes kind of funny. I couldn't help but laugh despite my best efforts.
Before I cross the final threshold, some preparations are in order. Since Panaka proved to be a ridiculous child who revels in doing as he pleases outside the supervising gaze of his elders, stealing my Soul Cauldron to fulfill his trill-chasing tendencies into the realm of legends, turnaround is more than fair. So I also stole from him in turn – the Cosmic Caravan and Its Journey Across the Night Sky.
The Magnum Opus of Stargazers worshipers of the empyreal lord Pulura who managed to quarantine themselves from the Abyss and hide from its demons through her divine favor and intervention of their patron when the Wound was first open. For the last one hundred years, they monitored the Worldwound and compiled ephemerides from inside its night sky, data about the movement of the celestial bodies of other planes.
Based on ancient Azlant astrological workings, the Cosmic Caravan makes its way across the night sky throughout the year in a perfect circuit comprised of constellations, each holding deeply mystical and metaphorical meaning. It is their hope that they could use it to weaken the connection between the Threshold and the Abyss.
This confidence is not unfounded. Through their divinatory workings, they managed to make sense of the senseless chaotic maelstrom created by Areelu. To make something clear, the Worldwound is more than a rift, it has a life of its own, making it far less malleable than it owes to be. Yet these stargazers discovered that there are certain days when the Wound influence is most malleable and even predict when such a rare phenomenon would next come to pass. Today is a once-in-a-century opportunity, the day the Wound is most malleable! Like clay in the hands of a pottery master.
Panaka didn't even suspect why I didn't pipe when he asked to reschedule our march, he thought I was galivanting the Sarkoris' Scar tying loose ends before the final battle. Loose ends such as Areshkagal. Her epithet of The Enigma is a clear giveaway of her true intentions – she lures seekers with knowledge with the tantalizing secrets of Creation because the Faceless Sphinx finds pleasure in subduing powerful seekers of knowledge and nobody fits the mold more than Nenio, the kitsune scare even me sometimes. With my dominion over the dead, it was easy to subjugate the masked ghost luring unsuspected adventurers into revealing everything he knew.
This happened to include that a powerful simulacrum endowed with a portion of the demon lord's essence was puppeteering it from Golarion ever since before the Worldwound. While what I gained from it was less than what I would have gained from the full quintessence of the demon lord, I would never miss the opportunity to sink my teeth into the influence of a demon lord. It helped that it was really compatible with the quintessence of the brain collector alien I acquired back in Numeria.
Coupled with the quintessence from Baphomet/Asmodeus I have a complete circuit to impose my own design. Gods are not the only entities capable of altering the course of events – Heroes are semi-divine because they imprint defiant miracles in the world written in the stats themselves. As a cultivator of the 6th rank of the heroic realm I have done such six times, only half of a complete constellation set. But so what? In the first place, the sacred covenant between the mortal and the divine had been broken by Raging Heaven. Instead of providence, only another back-breaking labor awaits the completion of the heroic realm. If not the 11th, then the 13th will be the labor that closes a hero's epic.
Because some things can't be inherited, they can only be taken. The voice of Fortitude told me when I asked for advice on my incoming journey. He had a face even a mother couldn't love, mostly because our faceless divinities bear visages that could not be remembered. Looking at a dead god is a religious experience of rapture at best or a convoluted way to suicide by god at worst. Dionysus's second mother died like that, so it was kind of a dick move on my part to do the same when the god jokily dared me to look at him in jest. I looked at the face of Fortitude and remembered his face by committing it to memory with the entirety of my tripartite soul. My first act of audacity and hubris, but in my defense, my drinking partner at the time delivered the most inspirational speeches. I was simply overtaken, drunk by his enthusiasm. Plus, I knew there must be a method to the madness that allowed The First Son to Burn to acquire a divine constitution.
By using the constellations of my Epic for the Cosmic Caravan I will not only close the Worldwound without killing the 'key', healing the Wound that threatens to kill the mortal world. Using the superlative intellect of Baphomet, Asmodeus's axiomatic nature, and Areshkagal's affinity for the occult and occlusive opaqueness under the converging frame of the Golden Thread, I lay the groundwork from a miracle.
The moment I pour my influence over Threshold, I am forced to stop riding the coattail of Baphomet's time stasis. In minutes a teeming horde of demons will jump my ass with reckless abandon as soon as they sense me. Unfortunately, they won't have the opportunity. The Zagreus Cosmic Caravan and Its Journey Across the Night Sky manifest much like a mantle-type barrier, an aurora boreal embroiled with a tapestry made of my constellations forming a heavenly circuit that sealed off Threshold.
Now I just had to reach the beating heart of the beast and squeeze it dead.
-//-
When in Rome do as the Romans, in the Abyss dance with the demons. My moon-scorched form could be easily mistaken for a unique Balor, and it is more than skin deep. This curse from the hateful moon good can be said to be a manifestation of your worse self, it has high metaphysical affinity with the Outer Rift. And I have gorged myself with the soul of so many demons that this form shifted to reflect the pinnacle of its nature's design. Even Areelu's barriers and wards meant to deter non-demons fail to trigger.
A good chance for me to break in [Serenity] and clean the rusk from [my new shadow style]. Combining a dimensional cleaving blade attuned to Rher's suffocation capable of smothering distances with this jujutsu sorcerer barrier-inspired fighting style is a winning combo… which kind of grates me! Poor Kusakabe probably thinks I lowkey dislike him but the truth is that his name sense is what truly is at fault – Evening Moon Sword Drawing, Hazy Moon, etc. Rher does not deserve any credit!
It doesn't change the fact I am a murder blender with it too. If it is in my admittedly formidable sight, then I can cut it no matter how far it is from any range. The blade also ignores durability as the Soul Liberation Blade, which also makes the wounds hard to heal unless you have a good awareness of the contour of your own soul. So let's just say I look quite at home in this demiplane of pain and fury. It was odiously nostalgic, like I never really left- escaped Termina. And all my adventures have been just a delusion… what a beautiful dream then, my life has been so far. I am glad. That is why I must kill this nightmare Sarkoris have lived for the last one hundred years.
It seems Areelu made a point to pick up the dregs left destitute by Deskari. Plague and vermin demons abound now under the witch's thumb. Balor swarm lords, vermin rift worshipers, freaks, and degenerates whose names were not even worth writing about. The abyssal chaotic essence of my demonic katana assisted by my rhetoric and heroic glory frayed the rules of nature to ensure I could cut these monsters down as soon as I spotted them, allowing me to move even beyond my already prodigious speed like a walking wall of spinning blades.
Eventually, I even ran across a jailed beyonder from the plane of Order, Axis. He seemed to have been captured attempting to close the Worldwound. He took one look at me and asked for death. While my captain virtue is Hope, I am of the opinion Death is always an escape option so I granted it. He was basically being used as a power breaker to stabilize Areelu Vorlesh's rituals anyway, he knew his death would cause the collapse of some of the witch's defenses and thought inconveniencing her was worth his life. His quintessence was also a great addition to the Vortex Dragon in my Heart Chakra, something I could use in the ritual to come. No point in being wasteful here. The guy realized he was dead weight and he still wanted to close the Worldwound more than he wanted to live, he would have approved… Asmodeus, is that you?
Fucking great! Really hard to keep track of the devil on my shoulder when I can't differentiate him from my own thoughts because I was the one that invited him inside in the first place. Ablon and Reila will so much chew me out for it when they find out… meh, a problem for future-Zagreus, fuck that guy!
The Inevitable's death destabilized the design of the Architect of the Worldwound and his quintessence helped me exploit them to create dimension rifts by cleaving reality itself with Serenity, bringing me closer to Threshold's beating heart.
I next landed in her office/sanctuary which looked much like the previous one with the addition of tragic touches of personality, experienced misery, and deteriorating madness downward spiral instead of sterile professionalism. A small fortune into ruined diamond broken shards from failed resurrection spells, piles of resurrection scrolls ripped to pieces, papers with a schizophrenic mix of tidy data collection mixed with compulsory writings spelling 'I promise' add infinity.
"A person can be in possession of the greatest treasure and never understand its worth. A person can live the happiest days of their lives, and not know that one day it will come to an end."
I could literally hear the distant echo of words, promises, and cries. Naturally incurred curses… Gojo might be right, love is the most twisted curse after all. For its branches are long enough to connect all.
I know. I know I shouldn't sympathize… but my virtuous heart only heeds to its own council in the matters of passion. Areelu suffered, but she was also responsible for countless other such tragedies that never saw the light of a campfire. For me of all people to be so self-conscious of my own power to indulge in the most aristocratic luxury of letting wrong-doers go scot-free… to emphasize with the criminal over its victims would be a betrayal to its victims. It won't be long before I start to defend monstrous acts spurred by malice, envy, and anger. Then I would be lost, cast off from the proper path of virtue. That is why… I will hurt Areelu where it hurts the most.
It was time to end this. Once and for all.
-//-
The beating heart of the Worldwound was a sight I would never forget, no matter how long I lived. That I knew with authority. The maelstrom vortex of Abyssal power that my exceptional yet ultimately mundane senses didn't do justice to what my more exoteric senses perceived. It was the mouth of the demon, so to speak, manifested in Golarion, swallowing this word with ravenous bottomless hunger and spite for all living things.
Partially shrouded under its shadow I found its Architect basking in its foul radiance.
"A dear guest on my doorstep!" Areelu opens her arms like a welcoming host. The gesture doesn't seem feigned, but I feel a strange, menacing tension behind it, like the echo of a nervous chuckle that was never uttered. The wound on her chest pulsates with a purple gangrenous glow. "Please, do come it. You have been long awaited."
Areelu's silhouette looks just as unreal as the sounds that fill the place and the vortex of malevolence and magic power over our heads. Her voice is dull, tired, frayed… it was as if both reason and madness had used and disabused her until she was teetering by a tread. That was the real Areelu Vorlesh… a truly sad sight.
I did not pull my moon-scorched form back from the surface. It didn't feel… appropriate. Only Panaka, his companions, and a handful of my direct subordinates knew about it. The same went for most of my students. Yet Areelu regarded it with minimal fuss. I got the sense she too understood how life could lead one to end like this. It almost made what was to follow easier.
"Despite everything, it still is an honor to finally meet one of the greatest minds of Golarion. I am sure Nenio would be over the moon having you breathing in her presence." I said, as an icebreaker, my voice like gravel and nails in chalk board.
"Well, now. I reluctantly am also forced to agree." The witch admits while holding the book I gave to Suture. "It almost made up for your violation of my secret refuge in my laboratory. What was recorded there was not meant for your eyes!" She said with a hard and unyielding voice, like a proper matriarch reining into an unruly child.
"You will have to excuse me for that. Panaka was at the age where he needed a hand as firm as it is patient to guide him into a man of virtue. When a man takes upon himself the mantle of mentor to another, he becomes partially responsible for part of everything that follows. Be it good or ill. Forever. It is a form of guardianship." I explained myself like a tutor reporting to a parent, as Areelu was genuinely interested in my reasoning. "The ideal of cultivation is to begin at the foot of the mountain and end at the peak… but the experience of cultivation, on the other hand, is the reverse – cultivation is a chariot teetering on the peak of a mountain. Once it starts rolling, there's no stopping it until it hits the bottom. In pieces or otherwise, and Panaka was a troubling case from the get go."
Areelu's knuckles left imprints on the book I gave her. "Things certainly would have been easier had I had this tome from the start of my experiment. What a stroke of luck that a bolt of sentimentality when I created him a new vessel would have allowed for such a clear resolution. Twins…"
"That is why I had to avoid you from interfering. Let me ask you this, had Panaka failed to act as you hoped he 'should', would you have continued with the experiment or would you have severed the pieces of his soul you had stitched in him to restart from scratch? In the hope to resurrect your soon as he once had been?"
…
…
We stared at each other for a long time. We both knew the answer to that already.
"What ifs don't matter. Not anymore. Not after everything. It is as you say, it was naive to hope to resurrect my son precisely as he had been but I can see so much of him in Panaka. There is so much of his former self, so much of me…" Areelu said while digging her nail over her own Wound. She was also a 'key', and she intended to die so the Worldwound could be closed and her son could be saved. Coming here wasn't necessary, except for the fact Areelu desperately wanted to see Panaka with her own eyes one last time. To confess everything, to leave her final wound on him.
"That is why I can't allow you two to meet. If there is something that belligerent and willful boy has kept, it is the desire to revel in the freedom of doing things his own way beyond any adult supervision."
Both of our minds instantly came back to the recorded image projected from Areelu's own memories. Something she held so tenderly and dear that she thought it would stir something if Panaka were he to see it.
"Mom, I know you are watching. You would never leave me in danger, would you? But you let me learn things. Try things. I… oh, thank you mom." The boy said shyly, but then a mischievous glean entered his eyes. "But one day, I will sneak out without you noticing and do everything my way!" He boasted with an infantile sense of invincibility any parent would find endearing, including myself.
The usually inscrutable witch of the rift swallowed in an attempt to keep her crumbling composure. "I could not believe you allowed him to go through with that stunt using the Soul Caldron! It was… beyond reckless."
"You were watching too, weren't you? Why didn't you step in?"
"When planting a seedling, give it soil, space, and moisture. Nothing can grow in cramped captivity."
She herself recorded those words.
"You know this already Areelu – all good mothers eventually, inevitably, fail. All children eventually spread their wings and fly to more eventful shores. I, his father, told him his life story was his own to pen down. That is why I let Panaka go through with his audacious decision… and that is why I am here now. To cut that umbilical cord that bonds you two together." I say while pointing my blade at her Wound, which perfectly mirrors Panaka's own.
"I thought I had hidden my home well… but I was wrong. They found it. They found us. At that hour, I was there, in the laboratory – that damn laboratory I loved so much! I was absorbed in one of my experiments when the hunters arrived on our doorsteps. I was sitting at my desk, recording my observations, thoughts, and calculations, as was my habit. That was when I heard the noise outside. The fight was brief. It barely lasted a moment. By the time I sensed something was amiss, and hurried out to see what was happening – I was too late. All I could do was cradle the body of my dead child… and cry after their departed soul… 'I promise'." The formidable demonic witch that threatened the entire world and was compared to demon lords poured her heart out to me. Because I was her savior.
"Everything I have done is for a single deeply personal purpose… a promise. I am not concerned whether it was justified, moral, lawful, or pious to any god that might have cared to listen to my prayers. When I realized that I never would see my son again… I rebelled. Not against those that had murdered my child. Not even against Sarkoris. My uprising was against destiny, death, and the laws that gods had forced upon our lives! I realized that I wouldn't be satisfied with simply returning my son to life. I had to shatter this order once and for all! and make sure neither gods nor death itself could ever stand between us. Only by stepping beyond the bounds of what had been ordained for mortal kind, by obtaining power that rival the divine, could we become free." The witch's words were so filled with purpose and bore such intensity that this might as well be her captain virtue. Her exhaustion is pushed back, her voice is so strong and intense that everything else I had heard from her so far sounded like lies in comparison as a storm raged in her eyes.
She kept on, "And with this new purpose, I turned myself into a half-demon. Fusing the spiritual essence of two planes was the only way I could achieve my goal. I let the Abyss into my soul – and into this world. I opened the Worldwound." Areelu chuckled. "I danced around three demon lords, making them assist me, without ever revealing my true intentions. They just assumed they were dealing with another power-hungry mortal. But in reality, I was after one thing. I wanted to find what was left of my son's soul – and power that would prevent anything from harming him again."
…
"And I got everything that I wanted, didn't I? I have wandered in the dark for so long, but now I finally see clearly. I know how my path must end. The Wound will erode my son's soul as it does mine. Let me put an end to my creation. Let me step into the flames and perish so that I can heal him. So that his new life won't be marred by our association." Vorlesh was now back to her perpetual resting bitch face, unreadable safe for her crimson eyes growing bright as she looked at me with renewed purpose.
Good, she found her sanity- no, she had never been as insane as she presented herself in the first place. I was right to choose her after all. She is perfect. Exactly what I needed.
"No, I am afraid I can't let you do that," I answered.
For the first time in our confrontation, Areelu was truly flatfooted, stepping back instinctively. "Why!?" She whaled in outrage.
"You are not the only one keeping secrets, and this book in your hands isn't the only thing I made together with its co-author."
The look of puzzlement soon turns to dawning comprehension when her focus turns toward the portrait of the happy couple printed on its dust jacket. "… you can't possibly mean-
"Tragic stories like ours are not that uncommon, my dear witch. Come to think of it, even the genesis of cultivation was caused by a father's transgression against the Heavens when he stole from it a sparkle for the sake of his freezing and blind children…
"I will admit it out for you – Areelu Vorlesh, I am you."
My words were like a sucker punch to Areelu's stomach, the way she convulsed in place show how deep my words had cut. "What… what are you- no, what happened? What are you planning? All these years I have been playing a game with mortals and forces beyond mortal comprehension. But now I am a pawn in your game. I do not know your next move. I can't even imagine what plan you have in mind. So explain it to me – one step at a time." She concluded. She already knows I won't betray her son. There is some bitterness in my interference but she saw the wisdom of it. Now that her goal has concluded the witch is finally freed to care enough to lend an ear to another for no other reason than kinship and sympathy for another who shares her circumstances.
"There are questions… that are better left unasked. There are memories that ought to rouse a storm in your soul – but instead you look into them and see nothing but emptiness. Unknowing is the worst punishment."
"It is Uncertainty that kills a man. That is why Ruthlessness… is kindness upon ourselves. Due to my partner's traumatic past concerning body autonomy, I elected to let her walk away from my life while she carried our child. She was a headstrong, prideful, and strong woman… and those traits led her to keep her status to herself... but even then, I knew. For life is one of the tools of my trade… yet I elected to respect her wish in the naïve hope we could mend things in time. Little I knew back then that I was practically the one who killed her by giving way to guilt. My sin is that I have been far too kind to others but a monster to myself. If I had been more selfish..."
"Did the child die with the mother?"
"I don't know. Her killed wore her body like a meat suit to get the drop on me. As soon as I could I searched for any clue… but I found nothing. Nothing. I intended to extract the truth from her killed but the bastard killed himself taking what he knew to the grave! Plus, there were other urgent matters to take care of back then. People who depended on me. People that my virtuous heart would never allow me to abandon. I… hoped, that some of my allies would find some lead after following Kenjaku's trail but even after years I am the only person alive who even knows of her… but this is what makes what I am about to do viable."
"I am afraid I don't follow."
"When a mortal is born, the Fates weave his future and swaddle him in it," he recited. "Men cultivate virtue so that they can cast off that swaddling weave, rejecting their will, be it for better or for worse. After all, if the Fates are defied, who else can tell a man to die? The Wheel Turning, my foundational mystery, it relates to [samsara] – the way things must happen as the world moves on. In a sense, it intersects directly with the design of the Fates. Destiny. This is the prologue of my Dominion. Tyrants are good for two things – transgression against higher power and creation of a new order, the power to rewrite cosmic law inside their domains the same way demon lords shape their realms at will."
"But this goes beyond power over destiny, we are talking about rewriting the past- Areelu's eyes widened as she turned toward the Worldwound. "But time travel is far from impossible, especially for the chaotic force of the Abyss that reject all rules of nature… the barrier you erected outside, you planned this! From the beginning! You intend to use the Worldwound to reach into the past! But how?"
"Asmodeus gave me the answer himself. Or rather the context for me to put the pieces together, something I had overlooked, samsara is a circuit. I myself would rather classify it as the [Eternal Recurrence] as the Wheel Turns, like clockwork. By tying her altered past to my future ascension into the realm of Tyranny I can create a perfect loop that will serve as proof of my transgression against the Fates. I let Yuki live her life as she pleased until it killed her. But our child is a different matter, I will usurp the design of the Fates and rewrite a destiny of my liking for my child."
"Hah, ha ha ha! What a pair we make! A devouring mother and a tyrannical father! It is almost poetic! So this is the role you have for me then? You said yourself that your child's existence is mostly unknown, so you are aware of the danger of rewriting the past. You intend to send me through time and space to whisker your child away to safer shores. Quite the bold plan! And considering your wording you won't be relying on my goodwill to see us through it either. But aside from the matter of compliance I can't help but wonder how you can pull this off in the first place. This feat seems beyond even you."
"I will be honest, I am desperate. I have been searching high and low for an answer and ever since I found myself in your world… and I found my answer in Numeria, Land of Fallen Stars." Areelu was quite right about how poetic this story has turned out. "My people ascribe Reason to Philosophers enabled by their endlessly wandering minds, Passion to Heroes fueled by their burning Hearts, and Hunger to Tyrants because our faceless divinities cursed them to starve with an appetite that can never be satisfied."
It was a cosmic cruelty that all tyrants would eventually hollow out from within. The heartlessness did not help in such a matter either but was incidental. The Fates went out of their way to cripple and sabotage Greek cultivation which speaks of its potential. My virtuous heart is safeguarded by my divine daemon, and she would never surrender it in my coronation day. Which left me the question of how to seize a crown for myself through force.
Bakkhos believed every man's potential was the same, we were all equally worthless under Raging Heaven. It infuriates me that he thinks of himself as the most hopeless of them all in the first place, but this was inconsequential. I just had to prove him wrong. The main problem is that the path ahead is unmarked. Above the third realm, the heavens obscure all mortal sight with storm clouds and wrath. The names of those who came before us were censored from mortal memory and their faces were scoured from our holy places, everything beyond the realm of Tyrants is unknown. A Tyrant, then, is a man following his gut to divinity, for lack of any other guidance.
The gut, the enteric nervous system, can be said to be smarter than the brain in its own way. The Heroic Realm was created when the Heir of Raging Heaven gave the Champion, his half-brother, his senselessly beating heart. He took it and refined it into something glorious. There is no reason to mess with a winning formula, that is why Logic used her divine authority over technology and our shared dominion over dreams to link me to the [Divinity Drive] so that I might use it as a template to refine my gut through my silver bright starlight marrow.
The [Divinity Drive] capacity to change universal constants gives it infinite computation power capable of answering any question. The reason I don't turn my brain into one is because it would make a lobotomized blind idiotic god. But the gut is already kind of like that. This is the equivalent of giving myself omniscient instincts and an endless power source. The Divinity Drive is also a true perpetual motion engine, perfect to counter a tyrant's insatiable hunger; rather, a tyrant's body might be the only living lifeform capable of housing such a god-like organ. A tyrant's absolute authority over his own flesh coupled with the aforementioned properties are what allowed me to put together such an audacious plan.
The layered plates of my stomach unfurl like a blooming iron flower, revealing the Maw of the Abyss, and at the bottom of said maw Areelu saw the nascent Divinity Drive. It was still under construction and Argyrchiara has been channeling all the [faith power] harvested from my worshipers across worlds to keep this project afloat plus all resources I could find.
A common mistake of cultivators is to draw a line in the sand between acts of nature and acts of cultivation as if the two are clear and distinct from one another. As if there's any separation at all. Areelu herself is something of a scientist who adhere to scientific rigor while studying the deepest mysteries of her world. But when nature shown itself to be both conscious and hostile research becomes… dicey.
This is my answer. My contribution to the generations that will follow after me. I am reforming the Tyrant Realm by doubling down in hunger, on taking. Someday it may be possible to bypass it entirely but. But this day is not today.
"Now, brace yourself Areelu Vorlesh. I have come past the point where unforgivable mistakes can be tolerated. And what is dominion without subjugation?" I explain as I take a battle stance.
The witch smiled in answer. Through my orphic heart sense, I could hear a clear melody of approval coming from her as if I had passed some secret test with flying colors. We really were too much alike, weren't we? Turnabout is fair play – I took her child after everything she went through to save him and she repays me in kind. I will never hold him or her, I can only imagine how my and Yuki's features blended together like specters haunting me from the corner of my sight. Areelu would have it all in my stead… it certainly feels like I am indeed carving my own heart from my chest like a tyrant owes to. It is the kind of pain that only cultivators owe to know, the gargantuan deep of our souls only give us more room for new heights of suffering.
"Unknowing is the worst punishment. Knowing in the other hand… knowing is eternal, unabated pain."
We both had already said everything that needed to be said. We understood where each other stood and what was to follow. Now it was time for action. And Areelu started our bolt by showing off Baphomet was not the only one with new tricks. She is the original 'key' of the dimensional rift connecting the Material Plane and the Abyss, she certainly felt the most keenly what Panaka did when he pulled down the ladder. For her it was just a matter of effort to reach for it to scale up to where he now stood.
The bolt of tribulation lightning racing down her head was the gong of our bolt. The battle was joined.
-//-
There is a good reason battles between heroes are the subject of Epics. As significant existences, the subject of these tales are uniquely excellent existences. Incomparable in their own way, their names become synonymous with virtues in themselves. Be it humble architects, weavers, and sweet-voiced singers, they invited tribulation simply because they were better at what they did than even the divine.
The vital sea of Areelu's soul expanded again and again as she broke through the glass ceiling of mythical power. One rank in the realm above equals ten in the realm below. She lacked the heart flame of a Greek hero that Panaka enjoyed due to his split foundation but Areelu made up for it with familiarity as the power of the Abyss suffused her body and soul. Making her a larger-than-life figure than she already had been a moment ago and would be a moment from now.
Arueshalae told me about the implicit authority demon lords command, leading lesser demons to instinctively submit in their presence. And considering how seriously the Abyss takes the concepts of rebellion and anarchy, that is saying something. While not quite at the level of demon lords, Areelu has enough command over the Outer Rift to summon and enslave a platoon of balors through a supercharged Gate spell when the mortal peak would be of two in exchange for rare components and sacrifice of part of one's own essence. Bitch barely looked winded!
I can't be that surprised about it though, she is not called the Architect of the Worldwound just for show. Areelu excels at the conjuration discipline of magic. That is why I am using [Serenity] here despite [Promised Death] being a better direct counter to demons. It was made from Deskari's Rift Carver and inherited its properties. Being capable of cleaving through 'the world itself'. Even higher-order dimensional beings can be cut as long as they exist in the world, and combined with my fighting style and disregard for time-space continue meant that if I really tried, I could cut through everything inside my simple domain. My own version of Kusakabe's slash barrage, judgment cut ending my way to an overwhelming victory.
I cut through everything inside a seven-hundred-meter radium. My slashes left trails of impossible colors through all directions as space and time were rented to pieces. Areelu herself dodged it by briefly escaping into the Abyss, but now that I had seen it for myself it won't work a second time with a little bit of adjustments. The balors themselves had no resort though. But instead of exploding in the death throes as was typical of their kind, Areelu stole for herself their final breath. Harvesting them as ingredients for her next attack.
For the first time since I read the Babylon Stone Shard the meaning of words slips from my mind. The demon witch's words were like blades to my ears and the mudras she performed made my eyes bleed. Despite the opaqueness of her mystery, I could still deduct her intention. It was the genesis of the Abyss. The how and why it differs from Primordial Chaos. This was the very essence of [rejection] and severance from a higher power.
Her spell detonated in a conflagration that blew the copse-fortress of Threshold sky high. Faced with such an overwhelming attack I resort to the same strategy I used against Yuki's Black Hole but the hatred of the Abyss showed itself capable of reaching me even beyond the confines of time and space. The caustic essence of the Abyss was like a bath of acid, breaking me apart at my seams. Any other existence would have been undone but the captain virtue of my mystery faith was Fortitude. The quintessence of Storm King, Khorramzadeh closed the seams between the boundary between my body and soul, preventing my tripartite soul from being rented to pieces. The Iron God carapace gave me the hardness to endure the alien unmaking trying to ground me into anything. Then my sheer abundant vitality gave me enough robustness to live through what would have killed lesser existences.
Areelu lived to her reputation of being more dangerous than demon lords. The battle barely started and this was the closest anyone had ever come to kill me since I reached Golarion. If I had not grown so much during my crusade this would have been my end. But she overcapitalized, channeling power beyond her means. This gave me the opening I needed. Areelu demonstrated sharp enough senses and reflexes to avoid the trajectory of my slashes… but what about thrusts?
I use a Gatotsu (牙突) thrusting stance meant to be performed with a katana and suffocate the distance separating me and Areelu. It cannot be called a faster-than-light attack since it counts as a form of teleportation, there is no momentum behind it, but Serenity was more than sharp enough for me to pierce Areelu's heart.
She looked haggard and sweaty after her last display of might but I don't look much better myself. Of course, I fully intend to capitalize on my advantage. While I have to take care to not kill her instantly, Areelu's demonic constitution meant she was far sturdier than most would believe. Fortunately, Rher's penetrating sight gave me insight into how much is too much as I carved the witch's body open. She was stunned by my sudden appearance and devastating blow, staring into my eyes while chocking on her own blood. But she is far from beaten.
No way I am giving her another shot. I still had to close the Worldwound in the first place! So while still hilt deep inside of her I slip myself to take all the possibilities arrayed in front of me, attacking her from every commensurable angle by refracting from space-time continuity.
Unfortunately for me, her own first miracle also involved dimensional shenanigans. She could not block or deflect so she anticipated what she could and redirected some of my attacks by opening 'wounds' where I was most likely to attack… right back at me too. Again. I am starting to see a pattern here. I have been stabbed by my own sword dozens of times.
I burn through all the nectar flowing in my veins to put myself back together to power through her counterattack. Collapsing her ribcage with a Star Rage fueled punch that sent her flying like a peddle bouncing off a lake. Fuck, but is this being far more difficult than it owed to be?! She is weaker than me! So that is how it feels? No wonder I get on everybody's nerves. Her endless bag of tricks is getting to my nerves!
Which happens to include battlefield superiority. Areelu's influence reaches for the Worldwound, and she uses her privilege as a living avatar of the Abyss to bring more creatures from the Abyss. And would you look at that? A fucking Kaiju a few pounds away from being a spam of Rovaguk, monster god of destruction, is crawling his way from the Wound. I intellectually knew that every plane was endowed with its own fauna and flora, from virtuous beasts touched by each's plane unique nature to unique creatures only found there. But this is a bit ridiculous!
Quite clever too. There is no way she can use that spell at will but killing it will not only give her more resources but also free her to summon more creatures. She is shamelessly exploiting my overwhelming attack power against me since she knows I need her alive. But considering she also has to control the beast, Areelu won't be able to summon more creatures as long as I keep this baby Tarrasque at by.
I manifest my pneuma as two towering pillars of my hands of carrion intent, these hands overlay each other in a monument to cast the shadow of a dog and a bird, manifesting two nightmare shadow beasts of comparable size Areelu's monsters.
A hound that crawled straight out of the underworld, made from liquid shadow slithering is a macabre mimicry of muscles comprised of numberless serpents, its three giant heads held a hundred red eyes like blood drops and its mouth a pit of cruel dancing thorns. Moonless Cerberus.
A vulture adorned with all the royal colors of the night in its elegant plumage and bearing a farseeing gaze that seems to perpetually peek beyond the horizon. As expected of royalty, it was accompanied by a discreet entourage always peeking from every single one of its crevices. Creatures of the most diverse forms, a true menagerie of the magical fauna of Golarion. Valkyrie Vulture.
I am sure the sight of us would make for a killer album cover. The pyroclastic storm from her spell rages over our heads, creating an oppressive mix of shadows and white flashes. Yet her monster's crimson skin shines like an aura of rusty blood. And at the head of the beast stands the half-demon witch responsible for such acrimony.
I wonder what she saw in turn, looking down at me.
Her monster howled loud enough to shake the earth and heaven, its breath was like a typhon cleaving valleys through brute force and the precarious tectonic integrity of Sarkoris finally gave in, suffering a magmatic eruption as our battlefield became a lake of fire.
Despite that, my shikigami moved unhindered ahead. These familiars can be said to be alter-egos of my manifested intention so their power has grown as I advance. Cerberus chainsaw mounts found purchase into monster flesh and countless snakes manifested from its back, attacking anything they could reach like drilling whips.
Areelu's behemoth used of his overgrown forelimbs that it almost dragged down the earth to attack my shadows. Its cruel claws left caustic wounds in my spirit through soul resonance, followed by a coppery foul taste, but despite it neither familiar retreats. Valkyrie Vulture peaks at its eyes while raining black tar down its throat and wounds that solidify into monsters down its frame. Cerberus's inky flexibility managed to tangle its legs and hold the vicious stalemate.
In the meanwhile, their masters played the deadliest game of cat and mouse. The blessing of the Abyss had granted the two of us fully functional wings which to defiantly soar in the skis with, in violation of divine design that intended for mortals to be earthbound.
The giant monsters served as a dynamic obstacle course for our bolt, forcing us more often than not to take circuitous paths avoiding wandering monsters and trashing giants alike. Areelu's own repertoire of abyssal spells also complicated things, being completely unlike what one expected from a more or less settled field such as warfare spellcraft. From swarm of raptors, to blades of blood that exsanguinate a victim dry to confounding veils of silken sin that confound and occlude her presence. There was a common pattern too, they mimicked the power of demon lords… mysteries of the Abyss.
Areelu truly is the exception. It just takes one moment, one fateful encounter, one small shift in perspective to give rise to outrageous growth.
When does a comet become a meteor and a does a candle become a blaze and does a woman become a monster?
She might be crafty, yet I am much stronger. In a grand parade of one hundred Heroes, only one among them could be expected to ascend to the realm of ravenous authority… in a world symposium of one hundred kings and queens of glory, only one could rise to be half a step from heaven. There is more that separated heroes than standing alone. Am I hesitating? Well, it is not like I planned any of this. I decided to become a hero because I could not live with my own powerlessness, but this is different. What I search to rectify… isn't my decision but the outcome derived from my own actions. I am searching the world for no other reason than my displeasure with it. Hope springs forth eternally, like a curse.
Time to end this. My sword can do more than cleave through space alone. My blazing heart flame ignites behind all my five eyes. Areelu's own influence rises in answer to the challenge, slippering out of my simple domain through a new wound. What she doesn't realize it that I am not called the best barrier user in the world for nothing, we are still inside my Cosmic Caravan and Its Journey Across the Night Sky.
Areelu noticed something was wrong when it was far too late. Even as an avatar of the Abyss, she isn't completely untethered from the rules of nature of the material plane. She was sharp enough to put the pieces together: The Abyss can challenge the timestream as it challenges all orderly existence with its existence, today is the day the Worldwound is most malleable, and I had prepared for this confrontation.
The Architect of the Worldwound halted her frank flighting retreat and charged at me with a giant Warhammer made of ice she manifested from the ether. Sensible choice, if she could just save herself once then my ploy could not be as easily replicated while she keeps her guard up.
And yet, it was far too late.
The quintessence of Asmodeus brought about an iron-wrought frame to my thoughts, even the chaotic emanations of the Abyss could not confound my Golden Thread calculations. The quintessence of the vortex dragon stacked with the sensitivity to chaos from the Inevitable gave me the means to reach for what no mortal being should be able to perceive. Then I fueled my life to the flames of my ambition at the altar of my first labor.
Kronos holds the reigns of an ineluctable march through time. We are all bound to it as the Wheel Turns. The distance that separates me from a golden bright existence can't be measured in kilometers or leagues but in years and epochs. Yet a hero's creed is liberation and defiance to great imposition. It's only justice that rules break when we are involved.
When I next bring my katana down, I don't suffocate the space between myself and my target. Instead, I smother the infinity separating certain past from incoming present, changing the ordained future. Seizing the march of time and forcing it into a knot, a wheel toward a new future. A proof of concept of my thesis was downsized to a smaller scale and instrumentalized for an immediate purpose.
I cut down the Areelu that existed in the past like a mirage, slashing her from shoulder to waist and bringing my vision into present reality.
The witch finally falls down, pulled down by gravity for her sins against nature. It was a fatal blow but not one that she would succumb quickly to. Nothing that I couldn't treat. As look would have it, I have just the perfect bitter medicine for it.
When I finally reached her prone form she had her face fixed on the crimson sky crying rivers of bloody tears. An unfortunately common weather phenomenon in this Tormenta. I approach with measured steps, looming over her prone form between my legs.
Despite the pain, she still managed to keep her composure. "Well? You don't actually have all the time in the world, or you know? This… is an acceptable outcome." She confesses while swallowing the pain. "Now that I reached the end of the line, I realize it… while I reject the gods and while I could never bring myself to regret my actions… this doesn't mean my resolve made what I did any easier." The half-demon confessed her regrets. This, after all, was a eulogy of sorts. "My goal was to fulfill my promise and then die for my son's sake… now that I care to think about it… it was kind of self-serving… This Wound… hurts and kills me as much as it does to the world… and I am tired of pain after all. Pain I brought others in my blindness..." She closes her eyes and waits for the inevitable.
When does the ripple becomes a tide wave and does the reason become the blame and does a man become a monster?
It wasn't like I couldn't understand Iomedae's point. The hunger for standing is the root of all cultivator's sins. It is said that the ladder toward raging heaven is only one man wide, but who decided that in the first place? Isn't it just an excuse that cultivators resort to shy away from responsibility for their actions? This is my first time stepping over someone's head for no other reason than my own gain since I started to seriously pursuit virtue. But I know if I start now, I am liable to never stop. There will be a next time, and another, and another after that one as well… having a heart doesn't make me less of a treat to the fragile souls under me. Maybe this is my sin as well – that I can brazenly hope I am the lone exception.
My downward spiral of thoughts was mercifully halted by an incoming Suture, doing his best to sneak a knife between my ribs despite his ruined and unresponding body barely held together. It was as I expected, what hold these two together is more than the iron brand between master and slave.
Making full use of my tail, I casually wrap my extra appendage around the wretch's arm and then torso, immobilizing him in one move. "Suture, so nice of you to join us. We can't start without you, after all."
"You know me, chief! I've been waiting for you to get distracted so I can stab you in the back." The demon answers honestly in the rough accent of his.
When the Worldwound first opened, the Suture was one of the more powerful of Deskari's demons, yet as the first demon to step through the Worldwound after it was opened, he absorbed all of its latent power, becoming the final sacrifice to stabilize the rent between worlds. Yet this power also binds him the same way it does Areelu. His name isn't a coincidence, he is a Suture to the Wound his master inflicted on the world.
"Now then," I cut my palm in Serenity's blade deep enough to reach the bone, pouring my vital essence, the ruby riches settled inside my bones. I force both Areelu Vorlesh and Suture to consume my starlight marrow in an omophagia ritual.
[You are Nothing. King of no one.]
The liquid purpose burns a trail down their throats. It melts through their flesh, burrowing through their forms following channels that do not yet exist. Their body convulse and their limbs seize into violent spams as the silver-bright starlight marrow makes a semblance of their forms, settling in their bones. The circuit of branching lights runs up their spines until it reaches, inevitably, the brain. Starlight marrow flickers for a bare moment, and then it explodes through their brains and back down their spines. The marrow spreads through every inch of their forms, and it burns. It melts and it sears. Their blood boils within their veins.
[A drop is all that it takes to make a crow out of a man.]
I seize two crows in hand, I bring them to heel, I beckon them.
"You now are less than what you were a moment ago... My shadows now!" I declare my ownership. It's been… more than two decades since I turned someone into my slave. And slave they were, prisoners inside their own form. My starlight marrow compels them to the point they can't even think of escaping. A most insidious form of restraint made of invisible bars. A body can be said to be the first and last domain of every soul but a tyrant is above crude iron chains, after all. I simply can't admit space for any careless mistake from these two while they are out of my sight.
They slowly stood up on shaky legs, yet stronger than they had been a moment ago and what they would be a moment from now. There are no longer any need to exchange words. I simply pulled the reigns.
I could feel the crusader armies rounding up the scattered demonic forces. It's time to end the crusade once and for all.
As the crows take position inside the Wound, I pull my moon-scorched form back under my skin. I resume my puer aeternus form and with the guidance of my muse pile drive Bounty of Nature into the ground. The natural mystery of the mystic swamp proposes all things are connected and now I use my artifact to create a circuit connecting my silver-bright Sarkoris and my Cosmic Caravan and Its Journey Across the Night Sky.
At this moment I could feel all of Sarkoris and the Worldwound with night-perfect and omniscient awareness. I witnessed the crusaders' marches and the demons' defiance with stark clarity as if the entire country was a super-resolution map in my mind's eye.
Having set the stage, now it was time for me to seize it in hand.
I reach into my deep pocket of paradox logic, retreating not one or two but three golden apples produced from the processed souls of three demon lords. Without any preamble, I scarf them down. Their perfect impossible taste dancing in my tongue was just an afterthought in my calculations. Fuel for my endlessly wandering mind, ever-burning heart, and bottomless stomach.
My muse's silver bright laurel crown resting in my brown is the proof of my rulership over this land. The titans and their godly children were the first ordered existence to emerge from the primordial sea. Humans, made in their image, are an example of order made of chaos. To cultivate virtue was to make order of a chaotic soul and through my campaign I cultivated virtue and enforced order in my domain, cultivating Sarkoris in a reflection of my soul. Now it was time to seal the deal.
I threw fifty hundred years of my life, all the stock accrued from feasting in the souls of two demon lords, into the flames of my virtuous heart and asked a single question to my kingdom as my first royal decree: If I could relive this moment of triumph for fifty hundred years, how much greater could that act have been?
This question had a directed purpose, intended to manifest a very particular effect. Cultivation is not the act of one day, but a thousand virtuous steps in lockstep to a celestial dance harmonized with heaven. Today's victory didn't come about by my efforts alone, they are one hundred years of struggle. From my enemies and allies alike. All of our best efforts elevated to the power of five hundred. This was no longer an act of passion alone – it was an echo of the fourth realm. A promise of things to come.
Once more I know the closed doors of raging heaven and again, I receive the same answer.
**********************************************
***Zagreus Heals the Wound of the World***
**********************************************
The circuit created by Bounty of Nature acts as intended, mending this battered land with renewed breath and vitality. The onlookers witnessed in astonishment as the scars littering Sarkoris as patchwork faded in the morning mist as if they had been just a nightmare all along.
The Worldwound itself mend together in slow-motion yet my heroic senses could still see the mirroring wound on the crow that once had been Areelu Vorlesh also closing. The same phenomenon also happened to Panaka, I could sense, being connected as I was with the land.
But in the end, the closing of the Worldwound had been a side project for me from the very beginning. From the very start, I came here to solve MY own problems. My crow's sorcerous working is perfect as far as I can see and with it, I reach my covetous hand through the labyrinth that separated the present from the past, to reach the presence I had only ever known as a bud in Yuki's womb. Even if I am never to hold this child, the only stars under his or her sky will be mine own – my blessing and my curse, my sincere wish for them to prosper.
This life is amazing when you greet it with open arms,
Whatever you face you will be fine if you are leading from the heart,
No matter the place you can light the world up. Here is how you start,
Greet the world with open arms, greet the world with open arms!
Argyrchiara gives voice to the feelings in my heart through a melodious prayer that will breach the distance of ten thousand worlds. This is the peak of neglectful and helicopter parenting. The nature of standing, that which separates greater existences from their lessers, is that of a ladder. It's only natural for parents to seize every advantage to place their children further to the top of the financial, social, and political hierarchy – but only a tyrant would dare to blatantly transgress against the authority the Fates hold over destiny, building handrails and clear open sky up to the realm of legends.
I seized the Wheel Turning with both hands and forcibly shifted its axes to my design.
It is official, I am in the same category of father as Damon Aethus. If a mortal's reality is fixed unless they tread the perilous jump that separate mortal from the divine, then no matter how far she run, she will never be cursed with a choice as all the right alternatives will spring forth as long as they live as they should. As I intended. Their only choice of emancipation, to squeeze their way out from under my thumb, will be by casting off their silk bonds of mortality.
What are the odds they grow up into an irreverent and rebellious teenager the likes of Griffon? It somehow feels like one of these setups where I get punched in the throat as first greeting.
-//-
[AUTHOR'S ROOM]
Yeah, this is the plot twist chapter! Those who had read Poison know how I love those. This is the Megumi identity reveal equivalent, or did you guys forget why Zagreus went to the Worldwound in the first place?
I told a Tyrant was a Tyrant. While greeks and romans had the concept nobilitas, that stated you can inherit excellence but you had to confirm them into the present. That is the root of 'some things can't be inherited, they can only be taken' mindset. In that sense, much like the concept of 'hero', the Greek concept of tyrant also differs from our modern sensibilities.
Much of the negative connotation come from Plato, who himself argued in favor of a 'philosopher king'… with himself as the most prominent example. Really, it's this sort of thing that gives Nietzsche legs to stand on when he says philosophers are shameful degenerate. Only those that lack the strength of character and arms to command resort to arguing – Appeal to higher power.
At its roots the word tyrant carries no ethical censure – it simply referred to anyone, good or bad, who obtained executive power in a polis (city state) by unconventional means. This was often achieved by heading coalitions and their historical record is not as bad as some of us would like to believe.
That is why Zagreus decided to 'reform' the tyrant realm by focus on adding to it instead of taking things away. In this sense, Sisyphus, the twice risen tyrant, is the true paragon of the Tyrant Realm. All tyrants worth telling stories about as protagonists of their own tales have transgress against higher power at some point. People don't tell stories about Sisyphus's cruelty though he was cruel. The point of these tales is about their brazen audacity and his reaped punishment. The fate of being condemned to endlessly endeavor a pointless task resonate with people back then as it resonates with people of today. It is likened to humanity's meaningless search for truth and purpose. That is why instead of despair, some high mended thinkers like to imagine defiantly meeting his fate as he walks down the hill to begin rolling the rock again.
I had said before that the Divinity Drive would come up again. This is what I meant. Tyrants are creatures of purpose and design. Zagreus needs to finish his ten labors before he can enjoy any of the benefits of being a tyrant though, because as of right now, his nascent DD is nothing but a bottomless pit swallowing his resources. Someone asked what Zagreus was doing with the Faith Power of millions of people. Here is your answer.
And for those curious about Yuki's fate. Yuki's death is a canon event. Zagreus wound not jeopardize the life of everyone in JJK for her sake alone. Mortals live under back to the future time traveling rules but heroes like Megumi, and company do not. Zagreus don't know what might happen if he changes her fate but he would rather not find out. Areelu's only job is to save the kid and squibbed out to 'safer chores' in another world. In hindsight this is an extremely callous action from Zagreus, but he is respecting the actions of his past self. Some people don't want to be saved.
Zagreus doesn't know. He knows they existed but everything else is unknown. Areelu and Suture have to take the child and then leave JJK world to avoid causing a time paradox in JJK world. Zagreus doesn't have how to track them down either. He will know if Areelu or Suture died but he can't sense where they are.
Holy fuck that was EPIC!! Also yes that was a plot twist no one saw coming I think honestly between the four sorcerers Yuki and now his child seeing where everyone ends up and what they'll do is getting pretty out there but it's also so much fun.
Also I now have the image of Zagreus's kid looking like Aventurine from Honkai Star Rails.
Anyway the effects and consequences of all this is going to be amazing.
Edit: Also Zagreus just casually admitting to adopting Panaka Zagreus is such a dad at times isn't he.
