Chapter 732 - Threads of Fate

Aja screamed, her voice echoing across all of reality.  Zeke’s eardrums burst, and his body began to unravel.  A quick pulse of [Hand of Creation] held it together, though not without a good amount of pain.  Meanwhile, Zeke sensed one of the moons shatter entirely.  Vaguely, he was aware that he’d lost hundreds of thousands of worshippers, all in a single second. 

The other moon remained intact, though when he turned to study it, he saw that it had begun to crack.  The only thing holding Okanar together was Aja’s roots, which had wrapped around it so tightly that it was basically just a ball of vines attached to a planet-sized tree.

Of Oberon, Zeke saw nothing, which elicited a not-insignificant degree of panic.  He flew forward, yanking on the threads.  Aja’s scream kept going, though not quite at such a devastating volume.  It felt like swimming against the current of a raging river.  Or like being pulled out to sea by an undertow.  Zeke wasn’t certain which was more appropriate, but it wasn’t long before he slammed into Aja. 

His fist connected with an audible crack, sending a canyon-sized rift to split Aja’s trunk.  It went on for miles, but in the context of her size, it was barely a scratch.  Minor and entirely insignificant.

Zeke didn’t hesitate to reach out and pluck her string, just as he had with Oda.  However, he soon found himself stymied.  The threads that comprised her were all but immovable, and somehow, she felt more real than anything else he’d ever encountered. 

Before he could aim another attack her way, a thousand branches descended upon him.  Despite his attempts to dodge, they speared through his body, sending bits and pieces of rock and metal tumbling through space.  Aja’s wordless scream continued to echo through space, ripping through his mind like a chainsaw. 

He ignored the pain.

He pushed past the damage.

Then, he flexed. 

The branches snapped, shattering into millions of splinters.  Aja’s scream turned from anguish to rage as her attention twisted onto him. 

“You!”

Yellow mist – they were spores, he realized – fell upon him.  Then came the birds.  The insects were next.  Zeke soon found himself being ripped apart.  The monstrous creatures were vicious, numerous, and effective.  As soon as Zeke put himself back together – again, via [Hand of Creation] – they once again tore him apart.

The yellow spores made that much more difficult. 

Zeke lost track of how long it lasted.  But it was way too long. 

In the end, though, it wasn’t him that ended it.  Rather, Oberon finally reappeared from within Aja’s bark.  Suddenly, Zeke understood why Aja was screaming.  It wasn’t because of grief over her brother.  Rather, it was because Oberon had been boring his way through her. 

He burst free in a shower of asteroid-sized splinters, then dragged what was left of Zeke back into the trunk of the tree.  Some of the insects pursued, but most of the monsters were entirely incapable of fitting.

And Aja certainly wasn’t going to let them claw their way through her body.

Zeke struggled against the yellow spores in order to heal his body, though even after a multitude of hours, he still hadn’t managed it.  Finally, they reached a cavity, where Oberon finally let him fall to the jagged wood floor.

He laid his hand on a hunk of Zeke’s torso and channeled divine energy into him.  That managed to push the spores away long enough for Zeke to complete his healing. 

With a gasp, he fell backward, finally whole.

Oberon fell onto his backside, clearly exhausted.

That was when Zeke realized that Oberon was injured.  A hunk of his side was missing, and half of his face had become a bloody mask.  More importantly, his energy signature was weak.  Barely even present.  When Zeke looked at his threads, he saw that they had become further frayed. 

He reached out with [Hand of Creation], but Oberon slapped it away.

“No use,” he coughed.  “This isn’t something you can fix.”

“Let me try.”

Oberon lay back, responding, “Do what you must.”

Zeke flooded his patron with divine energy, but it did no good.  Then, he focused on the threads.  Reaching out he tried to braid two together, but that only made things worse.  Clearly, his talents lay in other areas.  Destruction had always been his forte, and though he could heal, that was a newer development.  Using the threads to create was simply outside of his expertise.

“How do I help?” he pleaded when Oberon didn’t rise.

“You can’t.”

“I don’t accept that,” Zeke insisted. 

“Accept it or not, there are some things that simply will not change,” Oberon responded with another cough.  “I told you before – I am not long for this reality.  I will die, and soon.  Nothing you can do will change that.  I am at peace with that fact.  My only hope is to make it count.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t defeat Aja.  Not alone.”

Zeke was confused.  Oberon had held his own.  He’d even fought Aja to a standstill.  Surely, he could still stand toe-to-toe with the tree goddess.  He said as much, which elicited a bitter laugh that turned into another cough.

“That was nearly everything I had,” he admitted.  “A last stand.  Final hurrah.  Then, I pushed it even further by dragging you in here.  Might as well finish the job, though.  And to think, she was once such an innocent.”

“You knew her?” Zeke asked, hoping to distract Oberon from his devolving condition.  The dwarf hadn’t always been straight with him, but he’d done his best.  He deserved whatever grace Zeke could grant. 

“I did.  I don’t know how long it’s been since she ascended.  An elf.  Back then, they were rare.  They nearly warred themselves to extinction.  Nasty creatures,” Oberon stated.  “But I thought she was different, so I took her under my wing.  She took to it like no one I had ever seen.  What’s more, she inspired unequaled devotion among the other elves.”

He coughed again, then continued, “They always needed a symbol.  Something behind which to rally.  Aja gave them that.  Oda gave the demons something similar, though I didn’t know him at the time.  They were always two sides of the same coin.

“They weren’t equal, though.  Oda was ever a pale imitation of his sister.  He fancied himself her counterpart, but in reality, he was only what he became because of her.  Despite his demonic nature, she had a soft spot for him.”

“She loved her brother.”

“At one point, yes.  But that love morphed into pity.  In turn, that became something else entirely.  She liked having him around because she compared so well to him,” Oberon explained.  “She was the perfect one.  The one who stood in the light and nurtured her beautiful elves to dominance.  He stood in the dark, dragging demons from hell and spreading torturous malevolence throughout the Ethereal Realm.

“She was always stronger.  Better.  More moral.  But the contrast between them made her look better even than she truly was.”

Zeke nodded along.  He’d seen situations like that before.  He had even fallen for the illusion back in his original life. 

“For the longest time, we worked hand-in-hand.  I shouldered much of the burden of her attainment of greater godhood,” Oberon went on.  “And she was a loyal lieutenant.  Powerful enough to challenge even the best among the lesser deities, but she knew where she stood.”

“Until she didn’t,” Zeke guessed.  “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“But –”

“Over the course of tens of thousands of years, people drift apart,” Oberon stated.  “There was no great rift.  No big, defining event.  She attained greater godhood and went her own way.  We stayed in touch.  We were allies.  Until one day, I just looked up and realized it had been a millennia since I’d even spoken to her. 

“Sometimes,” he admitted.  “I do wonder if I should have broken my silence that very day.  I could have.  Perhaps we would have gone back to the way we were.  But I was too busy.  I kept telling myself that there was always tomorrow.  And eventually, I stopped even needing that lie.”

“How long ago was that?” Zeke asked.

Oberon sat up, struggling to make himself move.  Then, he shrugged.  “I have no idea.  A million years, perhaps?  Maybe longer.  One loses count after a while.”

He fell quiet, and Zeke didn’t bother breaking the silence.  Instead, he turned his mind to the problem at hand.  He was stuck inside Aja where she clearly couldn’t get to them.  However, he didn’t think Oberon was going to live much longer.  Moreover, he suspected that, at some point, Aja would grow tired of waiting. 

Would she destroy his armies then? 

What about the moon that had already been shattered?  Were any of his friends there?  Zeke had no idea.  If they had been, he could only hope that they had somehow managed to survive.  It wasn’t impossible.

It just wasn’t probable.

“What do you suggest we do?” Zeke asked.

“Rip this tree apart,” Oberon said without a second’s hesitation.  “That will expose the true Aja.”

“This isn’t her?”

“Haven’t you been listening?” he asked.  “Aja is obsessed with how she is perceived.  She holds herself above everyone else.  Of course she doesn’t want them to know she began her life as an elf, just like countless others.  Indeed, she has likely convinced herself she’s no longer one of them.”

“And is she?”

“One cannot change who they are.  Lines on a status don’t truly transform a person.  Not at the core of who they are.  You are said to be a primordial.  That is only a representation of a characteristic of who you always were.  Perhaps it was only a thread that has only now gained prominence, but it was always in there.  You can neither create nor destroy threads.  I thought you understood that.”

Zeke frowned.  “Can the Creator?”

“He is the Creator. It’s in the name.”

Zeke didn’t accept the limitation assigned to him by Oberon, but he knew it wasn’t the time to argue.  However, the plan Oberon had proposed didn’t require him to rival the Creator.  He only needed to do what he’d always done – destroy things. 

“I think I can do that.”

“I know you can.  That’s what makes you special.”

“What will you do?” Zeke asked.

“When you complete your task, I will give you the opportunity you need to finish the job,” Oberon stated.  He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, then floated upward until he was eye level with Zeke.  After putting a hand on his shoulder, Oberon continued, “Do not hesitate.  No matter what else happens, you need to finish this.”

“What do you mean?” Zeke asked.

“You’ll know when the time comes.  Now get started.  I don’t think I can maintain my strength much longer.”

With that, he fell to the splintered ground.  The hollow had clearly been carved more through force.  Zeke ignored its nature.  Instead, he looked deeper, and that shift in perception gave him a glimpse of the threads that comprised Aja’s tree form.  They were densely woven, and many of them looked like the steel cables that held suspension bridges aloft.  Those were, in turn, twisted around one another in an endless loop that eventually manifested itself in the visible form.

It was easily the most complex collection of threads Zeke had seen since he’d been stranded inside the Framework.  It was even more complicated than what he’d witnessed with the first iteration.  The thing imprisoned in that cube was like a child’s drawing compared to the Renaissance painting displayed before him. 

But Zeke was nothing if not persistent, so he leveraged the full weight of his patience toward unraveling that massively complex structure.  The first thread was stubborn, and it took the whole of his will to pluck it free.  Yet, he managed it all the same before moving on to the next.

He would dismantle Aja the only way he knew how – one thread at a time.