Path of the Immeasurable Swarm [Worm/Cradle]

[Jack Stargazer]

The Tinker-15 in Ward built a canon that can suck up an entire planets atmosphere and launch it as a projectile at the speed of light, repeatedly.

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Man am I glad I never read Ward.

Fair enough, the world building is ridiculous if that's true, but I'll take your word for it. They still lose to Judges but probably beat most Titans. I think Yerin post canon still takes one. All of their precog shards would be useless against conceptualmagic bullshit, and if there was some way to block them off from other dimensions (which seems like a basic feature of Authority in locking down space) I still think that's a silver bullet against entities. It'd basically be a lobotomy.

 

[Zoolimar]

All of their precog shards would be useless against conceptualmagic bullshit, and if there was some way to block them off from other dimensions (which seems like a basic feature of Authority in locking down space) I still think that's a silver bullet against entities. It'd basically be a lobotomy.

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Somehow I doubt it would be that easy. You need not just to "block dimensions" you need to do it in all the ways Entities did it to themselves. They fight each other constantly and fought even more before they embarked on their journey. Dimensional blocking, attacks of all kinds, all the things they could think of they have already done. Authority allows to enforce the techniques beyond what Entities can achieve, at least at the upper level, but there is no guarantee that it is inexhaustible. And it still relies on the concepts available to the user and the knowledge they possess. If Authority wielder doesn't know how to block something or that some method of circumventing their techniques exists they will fail eventually.

Abidan theoretically have an upper hand in a fight but below Judge it's not a given they will win. Especially since Entities have way more experience in combat than most Abidan.

Most Abidan won't even be able to wrap their heads around 10^80 universes that Entities access which would make most of their techniques if not useless outright still way less effective.

 

[Denty]

Man am I glad I never read Ward.

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It's not even a new concept that Wildbow pulled out of his ass since full force of Shards or Tinker 15 have been put out years before Ward was even written

You can build anything, and you can manifest advanced materials with which to build more, secreting it from your body. Further, your produced gear upgrades itself over time.
However, this comes at a cost. Your volition is gone, the shard is in full control, and in the course of its building frenzies, you're a mind trapped in a body that has been altered to a cyborg state, every limb and joint bending painfully in the wrong directions as you scurry and lurch this way and that, vomiting out materials that tear up your throat and mouth, and knock teeth loose, or feeling red hot agony as ceramics and hyperspecialized alloys thrust their way out of your body in spears and slabs.
Because the shard doesn't know how to take care of a human body, you fester, maggots eat dying flesh, you starve, and the solutions the shard devises and tinkers to sustain its host only barely keep you sustained, hauling you back into existence when your body or mind start to give. It needs you sane, for the occasional reference, so it drugs you to do just that.
Your waking existence is forever dying and slowly going mad, but never quite getting that release, filled with dread for those moments that are absolute torture, where the shard produces materials. Your sleeping existence is worse, because you get a sense of how the shard thinks, and of why things are the way they are. You were a threat to Scion, his path to victory figured that out, so he took you out of play in the most efficient way possible. By destroying you, and making you a tool against humanity

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Look at Noelle or the Bitch epilogue chapter for what a shard does when it's really unleashed - depending on the host, the nature of the unleashed power can vary, specializing as it develops toward a task/specific implementation.

Grue's power would just spew darkness out in very direction to pretty much blanket and isolate an entire city, his body would become a vehicle for the power, and he'd mutate, quite possibly turning the 'tap into other passengers' ability into a link to just absorb power. Broken/dead shard, he'd continue doing so until those passengers lashed out, creating isolated, power-based effects/chunks of Grue in the midst of the city.

Tattletale's power would just scale up constantly in power, reach, and intensity of detail. The shard might not have broken 100% clean - Scion might have given it some tools somewhere in there, so I can imagine a Tattletale-sub-entity scaling up to a breaker state or tapping into a tinker ability to network/develop more hardware/brainware to process it all. Scale up to processing multiple dimensions at once, and develop/manifest/obtain a weapon. Going back to the tools Scion gave, a simple blaster power with a clean, possibly invisble terrain-penetrating laser, with Full-bore-tattletale focus at work to discern the best possible weak point? Or even just a Tattletale in the middle of it, holding a gun? Picture her systematically picking off threats one after another, from highest priority to lowest, from the center of the incident sites, maximum range.

Basically, you unshackle, the power scales up, the mind/body start to break down, and if the host is lucky, the shard can provide some means of housing the new data and form.

Standalone, without a host, the manifestation for the shard itself confronted in its own world, would be very similar in execution.

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These were put out since Worm ended and while Wildbow was still working on Pact and Twig, he is just making do of the already existing WoG he has given

Fair enough, the world building is ridiculous if that's true, but I'll take your word for it. They still lose to Judges but probably beat most Titans. I think Yerin post canon still takes one. All of their precog shards would be useless against conceptualmagic bullshit, and if there was some way to block them off from other dimensions (which seems like a basic feature of Authority in locking down space) I still think that's a silver bullet against entities. It'd basically be a lobotomy.

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Titans and Endbringer are really below Monarch class beings. To destroy Endbringers you just need enough power to wipe out the Indian Subcontinent to skeletize Behemoth and reveal its core

Monarchs have repeatedly been called out to be able to Crack the planet itself, Cradle is a Saturn sized planet, just the distance between Blackflame and Moongrave is greater than the diameter of out planet. That is just for one continent

 

[EnlightenedFool]

To destroy Endbringers you just need enough power to wipe out the Indian Subcontinent to skeletize Behemoth and reveal its core

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No? That was explicitly not enough. Behemoth was completely unaffected beyond the cosmetic damage. Scion was the one who killed him. There's WoG that Endbringers are mostly unkillable through conventional force. Their core is so dense that it weighs as much as a Galaxy (which is dumb, but whatever) so it would take literally astronomic amounts of power to kill them in a conventional way. You pretty much need some level either dimensional fuckery (Sting, G-Drive) or quantum fuckery (Stilling).

 

[Zoolimar]

Their core is so dense that it weighs as much as a Galaxy (which is dumb, but whatever) so it would take literally astronomic amounts of power to kill them in a conventional way.

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That was Tattletale power making a mistake due to using mostly human level sensors to build the model. You actually need "just" enough energy to break a planet's gravitational binding to scatter it all over the cosmos to kill an Endbringer. Of course if they are not trying to counteract it with their own powers - like Behemoth who is a dynakinetic.

Basically if you have a bomb big enough to blow up Earth you can kill an Endbringer. Shame the planet it is on won't survive but sacrifices need to be made.

Though it would really depend on the powers of the shard behind the Endbringer/Titan. Something like Alexandria's shard would be extremely hard to kill through simple big numbers.

 

[Denty]

No? That was explicitly not enough. Behemoth was completely unaffected beyond the cosmetic damage. Scion was the one who killed him. There's WoG that Endbringers are mostly unkillable through conventional force. Their core is so dense that it weighs as much as a Galaxy (which is dumb, but whatever) so it would take literally astronomic amounts of power to kill them in a conventional way. You pretty much need some level either dimensional fuckery (Sting, G-Drive) or quantum fuckery (Stilling).

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It literally did turn Behemoth to skeletons

Phir Sē's light faded, and the barrier collapsed.

Dust cntinued to fill the area, plumes of it.

Behemoth lurched forward.

Not quite Behemoth, but a skeleton, something like a skeleton. Emaciated, a black-red frame dripping with ichor, it had all of the key features, the basic underlying structure with the horns and the gaping mouth, the claws and the way the shoulders were broad enough to host his bulky frame, but a good eighty percent of him had been torn away, shredded. A skeleton covered in a veneer of meat.

"Go," I whispered, feeling a quiet despair. "Go home. Go underground. Leave. We hurt you as badly as we've ever hurt you bastards. That's enough."

He reached out, and lightning reached across the landscape, striking Golem's metal hands, into the grounding wires I'd rigged. The hands melted with the intensity of the strikes.

Behemoth wasn't any weaker than he had been. Not in terms of what he could dish out. As much as he was wounded, he was healing. Even from where we stood, I could see him healing, flesh expanding, swelling, regenerating.

The Endbringer lurched forward on three intact limbs, starting to glow with that radioactive light of his. He was ignoring or ignorant to Eidolon's escape, as the 'hero' carried Rachel away, the dogs following on the ground.

He was continuing to make his way towards Phir Sē, who had formed another portal, was gathering power for a second strike.

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It is "cosmetic" because as shown immediately Behemoth was still functioning completely and is not inhibited by such damage and would just heal

It still however exposed the Core of the Endbringer that is very vulnerable

The "mass" of an Endbringer refers to the skin if you want to dig through it but it is still just a projection of the Core. It is not the Core itself

If one threw an Endbringer into the sun, though, given what the core is, both in immensity and that it's essentially a doorway into multiple realities, a lens to make the Endbringer projections manfest as reality

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The Core is much more vulnerable, per Wildbow you can pop said Core without even going through every layer just with enough pressure. Good enough hax would also be able to do it

And they still do not have defenses against funky conceptual shennanigans

 

[Roth963]

And they still do not have defenses against funky conceptual shennanigans

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I think their size is enough for most beings, there is a difference between destroying a boulder and destroying a planet, and the endbringers functionally got well the size of galaxies, I wouldn't really expect the average silverlord to do much to a galaxy.

 

[DoorAlarm]

I think the thread's starting to derail a bit with the whole entity debate, especially since it's already been answered by the author.

With that said, I was rather surprised by just how friendly and personable Malice was to Taylor when compared to the last time they met.

Also, I really liked the hug scene between Taylor and Charity. We didn't really get to see them interact privately all that much through the fic, so it's nice to see that they do indeed care for each other.

Finally, I'm surprised Sesh would go along with this scheme. Didn't he basically just lose a powerful and loyal Herald for basically no gain whatsoever? Like, I can't see a world where this scheme would have worked out for him, since worst case scenario Malice would have intervened and squashed Xorrus flat.

It would've been a win for Shen had that happened, but what would Sesh have gotten? It's just overall weird, especially since it came pretty close to violating his oath.

 

[Denty]

I think their size is enough for most beings, there is a difference between destroying a boulder and destroying a planet, and the endbringers functionally got well the size of galaxies, I wouldn't really expect the average silverlord to do much to a galaxy.

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That refers to them if you try to take out all the mass of an Emdbringer by digging through it. Alexandria punches them to send them knocking back and Endbringers are canonical about 9 tons in weight, it is through space time shennanigans that they can project the mass from their core. There are plenty of context entries about how Endbringers are

However it doesn't change that to open up the Core of an Endbringer or to attack through an Endbringer to destroy its core needs much less energy and power than destroying a Galaxy nor does it change the specific weaknesses and abilities they don't have defenses against

 

[Roth963]

That refers to them if you try to take out all the mass of an Emdbringer by digging through it. Alexandria punches them to send them knocking back and Endbringers are canonical about 9 tons in weight, it is through space time shennanigans that they can project the mass from their core. There are plenty of context entries about how Endbringers are

However it doesn't change that to open up the Core of an Endbringer or to attack through an Endbringer to destroy its core needs much less energy and power than destroying a Galaxy nor does it change the specific weaknesses and abilities they don't have defenses against

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They are space warped, like a galaxy being condensed to endbringer size, but stretching across dimensions instead of real space, just like Chavaelier's ability, it let them select what properties appear, this is why they weight only nine tons but still got crazy durability, so functionally speaking, they are big, even if you say the galaxy thing is just equivalent, they probably have the mess of at least a large planet.

In cradle, no monrach can destroy a planet, despite all their conceptual abilities, those things don't scale to planetary level, and the endbringers being a planet condensed into a building probably doesn't remotely change it.

Some being can manipulate things on massive scale, like judges can slices through ula universe as collateral with a serious attack, and there is probably a power level between just ascended and them, but I personally doubt basic sage or even monrach can do something to them if they can't do the same to a planet.

So like, if you can physically blow up a planet, sure you can do it, but when I said the average silverlird probably can't do much to a galaxy, I spoke of them doing something like sage and using the way to conceptually attack them, something that probably wouldn't get the benefits of big enough attack transmit through the layers and destroy the core.

 

[ZhaneSilverman]

In cradle, no monrach can destroy a planet, despite all their conceptual abilities, those things don't scale to planetary level, and the endbringers being a planet condensed into a building probably doesn't remotely change it.

So like, if you can physically blow up a planet, sure you can do it, but when I said the average silverlird probably can't do much to a galaxy, I spoke of them doing something like sage and using the way to conceptually attack them, something that probably wouldn't get the benefits of big enough attack transmit through the layers and destroy the core.

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I'm still relatively new to Cradle stuff, so I'm not sure, but I do know that Monarchs operate on a super-planetary level. Like someone with the Aurlieus bloodline can literally observe everything on the entire super-planet at once. Monarch's can know anytime anyone on the planet says their name. Stuff like that. So I wouldn't be surprised if they actually could destroy something the scale of a regular planet.

On a different note...do we know how entities/shards/endbringers would handle the unveiled spirit of a monarch? Or even a sage? Cause I'm pretty sure that legit kills lower ranked people on Cradle where everyone has at least some level of cultivation. Wouldn't that just straight up erase people/beings that haven't developed their spirits?

 

[Roth963]

So I wouldn't be surprised if they actually could destroy something the scale of a regular planet.

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Their biggest attacks seem to reach continent level, but that's cradle continent, which are bigger, but I am not sure they are entire planet bigger, up for interpretations I admit though.

Cause I'm pretty sure that legit kills lower ranked people on Cradle where everyone has at least some level of cultivation. Wouldn't that just straight up erase people/beings that haven't developed their spirits?

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Probably not, Eithan for example use pure madra, which can attack 'souls' and madra, WoG is it is not useful against people not from cradle because the stuff it targets ('souls' which are basically renments, madra channels and so on) are stuff only natives of cradle have.

 

[derivativeoflife]

So like, if you can physically blow up a planet, sure you can do it, but when I said the average silverlird probably can't do much to a galaxy, I spoke of them doing something like sage and using the way to conceptually attack them, something that probably wouldn't get the benefits of big enough attack transmit through the layers and destroy the core.

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The whole point of operating on a conceptual level is that physics stops mattering. Even if an Endbringer has the mass of a planet condensed in its core, conceptually, it's not a planet. It's a monster. Therefore, Monarch Yerin could kill it even if she couldn't destroy a planet because killing monsters is what she does.

 

[Quest]

Their biggest attacks seem to reach continent level, but that's cradle continent, which are bigger, but I am not sure they are entire planet bigger, up for interpretations I admit though.

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The closest we come to a direct statement I recall regarding how much damage a Monarch could do comes from one of Will's death match short stories featuring Eithan vs Will Wight, where the Will SI reasons as the author of the story, he should be able to create whatever he imagines and then imagines 'a construct: a floating red-orange eye, packed with Striker bindings empowered by a Monarch. One of these guardian constructs could drill through the crust of a planet.'

This was supposed to be a weapon meant to defeat underlord Eithan. It's a useful reference and I personally feel like an actual monarch could destroy an earthlike world if they wanted, though not dbz level casually.

 

[Roth963]

The closest we come to a direct statement I recall regarding how much damage a Monarch could do comes from one of Will's death match short stories featuring Eithan vs Will Wight, where the Will SI reasons as the author of the story, he should be able to create whatever he imagines and then imagines 'a construct: a floating red-orange eye, packed with Striker bindings empowered by a Monarch. One of these guardian constructs could drill through the crust of a planet.'

This was supposed to be a weapon meant to defeat underlord Eithan. It's a useful reference and I personally feel like an actual monarch could destroy an earthlike world if they wanted, though not dbz level casually.

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Definitely not casually, their continent busting seem to be attacks they need to charge, going by what we see in the book, it seems the collateral damage of casual fighting is mountain ranges being destroyed

Spoiler: Potential spoilers for final book.

although the final battle against Malice was significantly smaller in scale, or at least in collateral, with a forest outside the fortress they were fighting at surviving mostly unscratched, if I remember correctly.

That's unlike the ones against dreadgods, in which Lindon and them basically flattened a massive empire even while Lindon was trying to pull them away.

 

[p235711131719]

I think the thread's starting to derail a bit with the whole entity debate, especially since it's already been answered by the author.

With that said, I was rather surprised by just how friendly and personable Malice was to Taylor when compared to the last time they met.

Also, I really liked the hug scene between Taylor and Charity. We didn't really get to see them interact privately all that much through the fic, so it's nice to see that they do indeed care for each other.

Finally, I'm surprised Sesh would go along with this scheme. Didn't he basically just lose a powerful and loyal Herald for basically no gain whatsoever? Like, I can't see a world where this scheme would have worked out for him, since worst case scenario Malice would have intervened and squashed Xorrus flat.

It would've been a win for Shen had that happened, but what would Sesh have gotten? It's just overall weird, especially since it came pretty close to violating his oath.

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That is a good point. I think it is important to note that this is the opening stages of a Monarch War. For reasons after one of the Dreadgods died the number of Monarchs on Cradle needs to go down. Sesh and Reigan Shen likely have picked Akura Malice and Northstrider to kill first and it is almost certainly mutual. Sha MIara and Emriss Silentborn are more neutral.

So the opening salvo was to try and kill the new up and comers before they get too powerful. Mercy especially but Taylor, Yerin, Lindon, and Eithan are also important. Also Sesh probably expected Shen to keep Malice busy long enough for Xorrus to retreat.

Sesh would probably have happily traded 3 archlords and Sophara for just Mercy. Xorrus dying is a much bigger blow and the Akura and Aurelius took no losses at all. Sesh is going to be really pissed at this outcome.

 

[Jinx999]

Especially as he's just lost a lot of his high level forces. He's going to be extremely limited in what he can do now, without violating his oath. If he does decide to exile some more of his loyal followers with strong hints at what they should do - they're going to think about what happened to the last lot. And he doesn't have an endless supply of powerful, loyal and disposable minions.

 

[Deathwings]

Mind you, the Entities are way, WAYYYYYYYYY too similar to Gu for that to be entirely innocent.

 

[Lankris]

What a great story! I'll probably pick up Crade after it finishes. Normally I wouldn't worry about fanfics colouring my perception of the original, but this one probably has the power to do so.

It's good to see that the author wasn't discouraged by all the whining about how Taylor was being turned into a side character for Cradle mains and how she was being made irrelevant. I think the author maintained a good balance between the two sides of the story and seeing her in mentor/supporting role was quite interesting. I may be missing context form the Crade side though. Doubt it would make thouse arguments any less rediculous. That was like saying Aragorn was irrelevant in Lord of the Rings. I mean, think about it - he wasn't the one to destroy the Ring, he wasn't the one to kill the Witch King, he didn't vanquish Saruman. He wasn't even able to save the Hobbits without help form the elves in the first book.

One thing I did agree on with some of those commenters is that it would have been good to see Taylor get more action. And now we did. And it was absolutely glorious! Can't wait for more. Right now, paradoxically, I am probably even more excited to see her travel through all the Akura lands and explore more of the world than for the Tidewalker battle. And she now has the authroty and power to change some things along the way.

P.S. Brace yourselves for the upcoming "Yerin/Lindon/Mercy have been made irrelevant and a side characters in their own story!" xD

 

[p235711131719]

What a great story! I'll probably pick up Crade after it finishes. Normally I wouldn't worry about fanfics colouring my perception of the original, but this one probably has the power to do so.

It's good to see that the author wasn't discouraged by all the whining about how Taylor was being turned into a side character for Cradle mains and how she was being made irrelevant. I think the author maintained a good balance between the two sides of the story and seeing her in mentor/supporting role was quite interesting. I may be missing context form the Crade side though. Doubt it would make thouse arguments any less rediculous. That was like saying Aragorn was irrelevant in Lord of the Rings. I mean, think about it - he wasn't the one to destroy the Ring, he wasn't the one to kill the Witch King, he didn't vanquish Saruman. He wasn't even able to save the Hobbits without help form the elves in the first book.

One thing I did agree on with some of those commenters is that it would have been good to see Taylor get more action. And now we did. And it was absolutely glorious! Can't wait for more. Right now, paradoxically, I am probably even more excited to see her travel through all the Akura lands and explore more of the world than for the Tidewalker battle. And she now has the authroty and power to change some things along the way.

P.S. Brace yourselves for the upcoming "Yerin/Lindon/Mercy have been made irrelevant and a side characters in their own story!" xD

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Are saying after Cradle finishes or this story finishes? Because Cradle has finished.

It is really interesting seeing how the Cradle characters develop differently here. I am really liking this Mercy. Lindon has probably suffered the most compared to canon although he is still ridiculously good.

 

[Capture_God]

This story is incredible. It scratches all the xianxia itches I have in all the right places, but I have a serious question. I know Worm but is the source for the rest of the cross a good enough read on its own? A Practical Guide to Evil, great crossover I found apgte to be highly recommend, Savage Divinity crossovers themselves are fine though recommends for the source are scarce. So is Cradle a good read on its own, or is derivativeoflife just an epic author.

 

[p235711131719]

This story is incredible. It scratches all the xianxia itches I have in all the right places, but I have a serious question. I know Worm but is the source for the rest of the cross a good enough read on its own? A Practical Guide to Evil, great crossover I found apgte to be highly recommend, Savage Divinity crossovers themselves are fine though recommends for the source are scarce. So is Cradle a good read on its own, or is derivativeoflife just an epic author.

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I would definitely say so. The main story has a less of a focus on the Akura and more on Lindon and Yerin although Mercy does come in after several books.

If you are enjoying the setting it is definitely worth a try. There are 12 books in the series. Worth reading the first one at least. Although the first one mainly takes place in Sacred Valley with all those awful elders. So be prepared for that.

 

[OctarineShrike]

This story is incredible. It scratches all the xianxia itches I have in all the right places, but I have a serious question. I know Worm but is the source for the rest of the cross a good enough read on its own? A Practical Guide to Evil, great crossover I found apgte to be highly recommend, Savage Divinity crossovers themselves are fine though recommends for the source are scarce. So is Cradle a good read on its own, or is derivativeoflife just an epic author.

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Cradle is great popcorn fiction on its own. Serious page turner. Though it's been said to seriously hit its stride around book 3(Blackflame) IIRC.

Edit: also what p235711131719 said

 

[VagueZ]

This story is incredible. It scratches all the xianxia itches I have in all the right places, but I have a serious question. I know Worm but is the source for the rest of the cross a good enough read on its own? A Practical Guide to Evil, great crossover I found apgte to be highly recommend, Savage Divinity crossovers themselves are fine though recommends for the source are scarce. So is Cradle a good read on its own, or is derivativeoflife just an epic author.

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I'd say yes. It's a very solid adventure story, which strikes its own happy medium between classic xianxia and high fantasy. It's a quick, lively read that's always got something going on and continues at a good clip. It's not life-changing deep fiction, but it's not trying to be. It's trying to be an adventure story you'll want to enjoy, a rousing good yarn with no pretensions of depth.

If you're unsure, keep an eye out: when Will Wight releases a new book, which is typically about twice a year, he'll have some of his other books free, so potential new readers can get a taste/general advertising. I tend to see them and try to link them to places that might appreciate them, and I know others do, too. You can get an actually-free, non-piracy look at the series by doing that.

Alternately/additionally, I also do a Cradle quest, linked in my sig, where I'm trying to match a lot of Wight's style as I go, barring obvious differences like being written in second person present instead of third person past and generally being a quest instead of a wholly preplanned narrative, so that's the quick way to take a different look at it.

 

[Bel]

If you're unsure, keep an eye out: when Will Wight releases a new book, which is typically about twice a year, he'll have some of his other books free, so potential new readers can get a taste/general advertising. I tend to see them and try to link them to places that might appreciate them, and I know others do, too. You can get an actually-free, non-piracy look at the series by doing that.

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Related to that, he has a new book coming out in about 10-12 days, so if you are thinking books up in Cradle, you might want to keep that in mind.