Demonic Devourer ch. 116

Nowhere, somewhere

I find myself in a familiar, empty space. It’s not the same oppressive darkness as the hell we’ve left behind. It is, instead, the absence of being. The nothingness is the same as my class evolution.

Now that I have broken the constraints of my existence, I understand this space in a way that I was never capable of before.

Behind the walls of this space, I know, lies the primordial void. What that void is—I still don’t have that level of understanding.

But I know that if I tried, I could break out of there. There’s just one obstacle in my way, and her name is Sapphire.

“Where am I?” I demand. I know better than to try killing her in this space.

And I try anyway. I bring my nullspace into existence, heady with rage and murderous instinct.

Time stutters to a halt just like it did the first time Sierra Manifested her nullspace into mine.

If nothing else, this meeting confirms that Sapphire has a nullspace, too. With the amount of power she wields and the antimemetics she’s used against me, this solidifies it.

Sapphire is the Titan of the Forgotten Realm. She is the first Titan.

That, if anything, angers me further, but though anger has allowed me to break through my limits before, this is far too insurmountable of a gap. Defiance alone is not enough for me to surpass Sapphire.

“There will be none of that,” she says, and my nullspace shatters like sugar glass. “I see that you have been successful, demon girl.”

“I’m not a demon anymore,” I reply. “Not just a demon, at least.”

I tamp down on the anger, then eliminate it. We may both be Titans, but Sapphire still outclasses me by a long shot. Inome was Category 5, and although I’ve broken through the limits of the system, I was Category 2 the last time I checked. I might be able to face Inome on equal ground, now, but Sapphire’s power dwarfs mine.

If she wants this conversation to happen, it’s going to happen.

I won’t waste it on distracting, pointless fury. There is a possibility for me to learn more about her and the nature of this world here, and so I’ll take whatever scraps I can get.

“You are not a demon,” she agrees amiably. “Nor have you ever been. Now, though, you are far, far more.”

“You seem happy about that,” I say.

“How can a mother not be happy for her child’s success?” the Titan before me asks. Just as I am not a demon, she is not a half-elf. Never has been. This form is the one that suits me best, and hers is the same.

“You’re not my mom,” I say flatly. From the twinkle in her eyes, she knows that too. “My mother was a test tube, and my father was blood.”

“True enough,” Sapphire says.

“Where is Sierra?” I ask, tired of this dance around the true topics of this abduction. “What did you do to her? And why am I here?”

“So many questions. The Jade child will claw her way back to reality or die. Adversity—”

“—sculpts excellence, I fucking know,” I growl. I’m not keeping as good a lid on my anger as I should be. What’s wrong with me?

“She is not yet one of us,” Sapphire says coyly. “If she is worthy of the title, she will prove it by navigating her way through that which is not.”

That makes a twisted sort of sense. Sierra likes me in part because of my power, but Sapphire sees nothing but power. Since Sierra’s not a true Titan yet, Sapphire just does not care.

“As to why I’m here?” I ask.

“The answer to that is simple. You are counted amongst the Titans now, little Carnelian, and so I sought to formally introduce you to our cause.”

“Our cause,” I say. “The Titans?”

“Who else?” Sapphire grins, which is a wholly unnerving on an face that doesn’t look like it should ever be warm. “Titan, though, is not entirely an accurate term.”

“Is it not?”

“Once upon a time,” Sapphire says, “we were called gods.”

#

Angelic Tower — Root: The 50th Floor

“The Titans stir awake,” Lyriel says. “All eighteen.”

“There are sixteen,” Adrian says.

“You are mistaken. A newborn was created mere days ago. The Titan of the Broken Hell, or the Paradox.”

At that, Adrian’s heart swells with pride. He knows that he’s barely contributed to it, but he feels as much a part of Evelyn’s journey as she has been of his.

And now, the girl he’s barely been able to keep up with has reached the pinnacle of power.

“That explains one,” he says. “Did Sierra become the eighteenth?”

“The newborn was the eighteenth,” Lyriel says. A flicker of light screams across his vision, and then the fae is there. “The first, Titan of the Forgotten Realm, has hidden its existence from the worldline.”

Adrian has had very limited chances to see a fae up close in the past, all of them involving the imminent death of someone he cared about.

This, here and now, is different. Lyriel does not exude the same murderous aura that the other fae have. They exude… not much at all. The fae’s face is flat, missing any of the organs that the other mortal species have—instead of eyes, lips, ears, or a mouth, their face is just a flat expanse of silver and gold. The rest of their body, similarly, is flat. Of the mortal species, Adrian would compare this fae to a skyfolk first and foremost, but he knows that even the skyfolk are not this unremarkably powerful.

“Is this part of the trial, too?” he asks. “You showing up?”

“I am one with the tower, and the tower is the bridge between your world and mine,” Lyriel says. “The barrier thins. It is beginning to break.”

Adrian makes an affirmative noise. Things must be getting really bad out there on the surface. He’s not terribly excited to see what’s happening.

“By all means, then,” he says. “Carry on with your story.”

Adrian is surprised to realize that he’s genuinely interested in what it has to say.

Then again, why shouldn’t he be? The fae has been alive for far longer than he has. There are chances that it’s even been alive long enough to see the world before the system. Adrian has everything to learn from this creature and nothing to lose except time.

Before, he would have been worried. Evelyn and Sierra are still in the hells, of course.

Now, though? With it all but confirmed that Evelyn has gone full Titan?

The hells should fear them.

Adrian thinks he even detects a hint of fear in the fae’s voice when it talks about her.

Good, he thinks. You should be scared.

“Once upon a time,” Lyriel says, “some one thousand years ago, the gods roamed this planet.”

“I know the story,” Adrian says. “Before the fall, there was no system. Power was gained through contracts with the gods.”

“It was a darker time,” the fae says. “By the end of it all, the mortal and immortal species alike lived in fear. The gods grew proud, and they manipulated the world to their whim.”

“Then, the fall,” Adrian completes. “Yeah. I’ve heard this one before. What about it?”

“In mortal literature, the fall is often stated to have been caused by the gods’ own hubris. They reached beyond what they could survive, they say. That is a lie.”

Adrian should be more surprised, he thinks, but so much has happened outside the context of the system that he’s able to just roll witht he punches at this point.

“Then what’s your version of the truth?” he asks.

“The gods did stretch too far,” Lyriel says. “They sought to create new worlds to exert their dominance over. They meddled with the fabric of reality, even when they did not yet understand it. Our universe could only suffer their presence for so long.”

Adrian wishes Sierra was here. She would have absolutely eaten this lecture up. As it is, he’s alone, so he tried to burn every last bit of this speech into his mind. If—when, he tells himself—Sierra and Evelyn return, he wants them both to know what he’s learned today.

“Reality shattered at the seams,” Lyriel continues. “We began to slip into the primordial void. Into the chaos.”

“You’re going to have to explain that one to me,” Adrian says. “I’ve seen the void before, but there wasn’t anything primordial about it. Isn’t it just the absence of space?”

“The void and the chaos are one and the same,” Lyriel says. “It is not nothingness. It is the lack of order. It is unreality; it is the world, disassembled and blended. It is concepts, disaggregated.”

“That makes no sense, but okay. It’s not reality. It’s… under reality?”

“In essence,” the fae says, exuding a sound that approximates a sigh. “The gods began to break reality, and we blessed few were the only ones that could see it.

”And so, one day, there arose a hero. A small selection of heroes, perhaps—I know not who they are, not anymore. The information about those accursed days has been sealed, but I know enough. They were fae, and they were few, and every odd was against them.”

“Hold on, sealed?” Adrian asked. “What do you mean by that?”

“A god cannot be truly killed,” Lyriel says. “The fall of the gods was not some natural result of the cycle. No, what broke the gods were the fae. It was our heroes, all those years ago, who saved the worlds.”

“And that informs the seal how?”

Lyriel barrelled on as if they hadn’t heard Adrian. “Even broken as they were, the gods still exercised power. Their very existence threatened the stability of ours, and they could not be allowed to remain. Even at the edge of oblivion, they refused to see reason. They refused to bend the knee.”

“Well, the gods are all broken now. What happened?”

“A deal was struck,” Lyriel says. “We know not the particulars, for part of the deal itself was that the deal not be made known. What we do know is that when the first fae emerged, they were victorious. In exchange for our memories, and in exchange for the destruction of the weapon that brought them to their knees, the gods allowed us to subjugate them and use their damaged bodies.”

“Broken gods,” Adrian said.

“Broken gods, indeed. You have seen that us fae are capable of taking and breaking the system. We can function without it just as well as we do within.”

“I have,” Adrian says, remembering the Blessed One that decimated his party. He thinks back to the 25th floor, too, where the fae was freely using magic while the system was off. “Why?”

He suspects he knows the answer already.

“It is, of course, because we made it.”

#

Somewhere, nowhere

Sierra exists in a sea of nonexistence.

Without Evelyn here to be her paradox, there is nothing anchoring her to reality. There is no island for her amongst this infinite, unreal ocean. There is only the quickly degrading idea of Sierra Jade, held together only by her raw conceptual weight as a proto-Titan.

It is hard to kill an idea, but given enough time, the nothingness will assimilate even the strongest of beings. Of this, Sierra is certain.

She needs more power. Sierra needs to advance.

She can see the anchor that stole Evelyn a hundred feet/twelve inches/ten thousand miles away, but no matter how the distance fluctuates, she cannot swim to reach it.

Sierra Jade is not yet strong enough. If she had Defiance, she could create an anchor for herself, but the system’s domain does not extend beyond the pale of reality.

At this moment, she is not real, and it takes everything she has to keep her existence from realizing that.

Sierra would close her eyes to meditate, but she fears that she will forget how to open them.

Instead, she uses her new senses. Her authority is all that is left of her, a Sierra-shaped imprint of hardened sand slowly dissolving into the ocean of what is here and what is not.

At first, she starts changing it in a structured fashion, like she did with Evelyn’s wild existence, but that’s not enough with her. Sierra isn’t strong enough. She doesn’t have the same surge of power. She doesn’t have the system to guide her.

There is no blueprint for this. What has worked before will not work again. Everything is nothing. Existence is an illusion.

Sierra is running out of time.

What is magic? The thought floats through her head, unbidden. A memory. One more fragment of the ideological construct that can be approximated as the formerly living being known as Sierra Jade.

The memory is from when she was six years old. She asks Aunt Marie, who the young Sierra has not yet realized is the same cruel, cold, masked woman who teaches her the true meaning of pain.

Magic? Aunt Marie asks, a thoughtful look on her face. Later, Sierra will realize that these golden few years were a farce. An old monster, playing at being human. At this time, Aunt Marie was nothing but an aunt. Well, that’s simple, really. Magic is a delicate balancing game. It is life teetering on the edge of death. Magic is give and take.

Give and take. The words echo through the mind of the strongest Jade child, and they resonate again, and again, and again.

Give and take. Give… and take. Give—and the thought-being surrenders its fondest memories of its progenitor. It gives up years of its life, becoming less than it was—and TAKE.

Sierra will counterbalance this unreality no matter what it costs her. This is not her end.

Evelyn still needs her.

Give and take, she thinks once again.

She gives more; she takes more.

Bit by bit, the singularity of Sierra’s existence begins to form.

And with it, so does the beginning of an anchor.

#

Nowhere, somewhere

“The fae were the only immortal race,” Sapphire says. “They were the closest to gods, and they wanted our power.

“So they broke us, and they bound us, and they used our husks to fuel their world, and they thought they had won.

“Yet in their dealings, they forgot that gods have never followed their rules. Just like you, we sacred few understood what had to be done. We gnawed off our limbs to free ourselves from our bindings. We took but a limited portion ourselves, but even with our eyes gouged out, our ears cut, and our souls mutilated, a part of us became free.

“We became the Titans.”

#

Angelic Tower — Root: 50th Floor

“Talented though they were, the heroes who bound the gods did not foresee this eventuality, and though they eradicated many, the greatest of them were so great that a fraction of their might was able to slip free.

“They ravaged the world. Nine gods placed their hearts into nine Titans, and once again, the world began to slip. Without the weapon that had slain the gods, we were unable to do more than slow them.

“Fortunately, their desperation rendered them weak, and for a millennium, they were incapable of the same devastation they had once managed.

“In their wake, the forerunners were forced to find a way to preserve the world. To keep it from degrading into the screaming chaos it had almost fallen into once before.”

“And how’d you manage that?” Adrian asks. “The world hasn’t fallen apart yet, has it?”

“Though the created realities of many of the gods were unstable, remaining to this day as pieces that your people call ‘anomalies,’ there remained two of use. One, we claimed for ourselves. The other, swept clean in the final hours of the war against the gods, was a blank slate. With that, the savior of the fae began a working to save our worlds.

“We created the hells. All magic, no matter the age, survives on the principle of a mirror. Every iota of mana spent results in an iota of response. Understanding this principle, we directed these hells to be our dark mirror.

“When we created them, there were nine of them for nine broken gods, and though that number has always remained critical, that reality has grown vastly. Every skill cast. Every monster destroyed. Every Titan awakened. Every action ever taken is mirrored in the hells.

“Knowing this, we took our soldiers and created angels. Objects. Constructs. Each of them functioning with a fae’s soul, but built for the purpose of enforcing the authority of the system. Their very existences stabilized the rifts, though their deaths did—and still do—bring the beginning of collapse with them.

“And in those hells, reflecting that which we had wrought, emerged demons. They were the inverse of our perfect creations. They are born of the wounds in reality, and killing them begins the process of healing. Their existence means there is never a lost hope; their survival means that genocide may yet restore our reality.

“Now, however, the balance is lost. Eighteen Titans awaken at once, and the hells collapse.

“Adrian Stahr, your services are needed. The fate of everything you have ever known and loved rides on it.”

#

Somewhere, nowhere

Sierra survives.

She lives another second, sacrificing everything for it.

And her concept crystallizes.

She gives and she gives, and when she takes, she has formed enough of reality around her to remind the system who she is.

The bones of the gods realize what she has done, but the directions instilled within them cannot process what they should do.

So they give her power, and power, and power, and power.

It tears her apart. It keeps her together. It ruins her. It makes her.

At the end of it all, the idea of Sierra is less than what she was before, but Sierra is something far, far greater.

She creates an anchor with ease. Balancing unreality with reality is trivial.

Why did she ever struggle with this?

#

Nowhere, somewhere

“You said that there were nine gods,” I say. “Why are there eighteen of us Titans, then? Why are there so many proto-Titans? Surely, not all of them were gods, too?”

“The laws of this world are malleable,” Sapphire says. “And there were many, many gods to spare. Every proto-Titan is like you were—a god’s breathing corpse strapped to its soul.”

I think of the broken divinity that I ate to advance myself. She implanted me with that, and I wasn’t the only one of my batch of experiments.

Just how many god corpses are there?

“How did Sierra get there, then?”

“With divinity already residing within you, who do you think stole godhood from the death of Inome?”

My eyes widen a fraction, imperceptible to anyone but her and me.

“So now that there’s eighteen of us,” I say, filing the bombshell she’s dropped away, “you have a reason to take action? Why that, specifically?”

“With the eighteen, each of the gods has a mirror,” Sapphire says. “Throughout the centuries, we have added to our number, gathering until—at last—there is a reflection for each of us.”

I recoil in disgust. “I am not your reflection.”

“Are you not? Are you truly not the being who would do anything for power? Are you not one who chose their own identity, who strikes out against the impossible? Are you not one that defies the system that they made from our bones?” Sapphire practically hisses the last sentence. “In every way that matters, you are my mirror.”

That strikes me harder than it should. I wipe the emotion away.

“And what does this accomplish?” I ask.

“The first step towards our final victory. Nine mirrors for nine Titans. In the times before the fall, the final step to godhood was becoming one with your reflection.”

“You want to subsume me,” I say flatly. “No.”

“It is a melding,” Sapphire says, “not an elimination. You would remain Evelyn Carnelian. I would remain Sapphire Clearwater. We would be one for the purposes of our power alone. No more.”

“If the others have their mirrors, why have none of the gods returned?” I ask.

“We are not what we used to be,” Sapphire says. “Our ascension will see us restored to a shade of our former glory. One god, two gods, three gods—even all eight of the others combined would devastate the world, but they would ultimately fail.”

“And nine somehow makes the difference?”

“I make the difference,” Sapphire says. “We make the difference.”

It’s more tempting than it should be. She’s not wrong. In my heart of hearts, I am still the baby-eating demon that just wants to kill, advance, and survive.

There is no better way to do it.

And yet.

“After your return, what will you do?” I ask.

“Crush the ones who bound me,” Sapphire says. She sounds bored. “They have a weapon that they have no knowledge of. One that alters the very laws of this world.

“It would allow me to return to the era of the fall.”

I stop short, my next reply dying unspoken on my tongue.

“Time travel?” I ask. “That’s not possible.”

“You know it is,” she says. “An upstart Titan did it once, if only for an instant.”

“That was three seconds, not a thousand years.”

“What other weapon would have the capability to truly harm the gods?” Sapphire says, almost wistfully. “Then, they brought an end to this war by striking at our pasts, disrupting our divinities until it took the last of our energy to hold ourselves together. Now, we can strike at theirs, and together, we could fix that which was lost. We could build this world anew, and we could rule it. My perfect little creation.”

If what she’s saying is true, the fae’s weapon is the single most powerful item between the worlds. I could join with her. With her power and mine combined, I know we would slay the fae with ease, no matter how powerful they are. We could use that weapon.

And we could do it again, a thousand years in the past.

I would achieve the peak of power. It would be glorious.

But my answer has been the same this entire time.

“Your model of me has been wrong for a long time,” I say. “I may be your mirror in many ways. I do anything for power—but not just mine. I chose my identity, and I strike against the impossible, and I defy the system—but the system is not all I defy.”

Defiance, I cry out silently. A portal begins to open, directing my way out.

“Very well, then,” Sapphire says, sighing. “I had hoped to do this peacefully.”

My skill dies, snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane.

As I watch, Defiance vanishes from my attribute sheet. A chunk of my authority disappears.

It’s like it’s never been there at all.

“This will take a much longer time if you do not cooperate,” Sapphire says. “Years. Decades, even. Do you want this?”

“I know what I don’t want,” I growl, preparing myself for the fight

#

In the distance, a nineteenth star flickers to life.

#

Nowhere, nowhere

Sierra is here and there and everywhere, and she sees everything. She knows this is temporary—she knows that this void will not be hospitable to her for much longer.

But she has almost all she needs.

Everything except for one person.

She wills the void around her to leave her alone for just long enough to see, and she identifies the anchor.

For every push, there is a pull. For every individual the void allows to continue existing, there is something that must cease.

Sierra dives straight into the anchor just as the primordial chaos arounds it begins to tear it apart.

#

Sapphire’s reality, degrading

Before we can fight, the darkness around us shatters.

The newest star in the constant map in my mind flares into existence, and Sapphire’s fragment of reality splinters into a hundred thousand pieces.

I only catch a glimpse of the crazed amalgamation of blood and authority and nothing and everything that I know is Sierra before she slams into me, sending the two of us spiraling away. Away from here. Away from Sapphire.

Then, as we dive towards our next hell, her form resolves into the same green-eyed beauty I have always known, and I see what she has granted herself.

Path of the Primordial Chaos

Nonexistence is not coherent, but you carve out your corner. For every light that the void devours, there is an equal darkness you distinguish.

Where there is disparity, you bring stability.

You give, and you take, and when it is done, reality is a little closer to equilibrium.

You are that which evens the odds. You are black and white, red and blue, life and death.

You are the Titan of Balance.

“Took you long enough,” I say.