Divine Apostasy Book 11 - Chapter 51

Chapter 51

A group of melee fighters in heavy armor broke through the shadow trees and rushed Ruin, likely trying to stop any attack on their weaponless commander.

The Assessor charged as well, using her shield as a battering ram.

Ruin transitioned into unarmed combat and met them all with his Bamboo Viper Steps.

The Assessor’s stun slid harmlessly off Ruin as he casually sidestepped her shield bash. He struck her plate armor just hard enough to transmit small pulses of force into her body. Three rapid strikes later the Assessor’s body had locked up as her nerves overloaded her sensory system.

The fighters arrived and struck with swords and hammers. Ruin stepped calmly through the throng, leaving a trail of incapacitated attackers behind him.

The ground opened and Ruin’s trees sank out of sight. Portals opened under or in front of all the defenders and, in a blink, he was alone.

A figure exited the temple above and strode down toward Ruin as if on invisible stairs.

This newcomer wore a heavy cloak wrapped around his body with the hood thrown forward, mostly hiding the silver mask underneath.

Ruin gave a small wave. “Hey, Lir. It took you long enough.”

“Who are you?” Lir asked, stopping twenty feet away.

“I already told you. How’s the earth thing going?”

Lir went still and Ruin sensed a pressure building against his mind.

“Are you stupid?” Ruin screamed.

If Lir attacked Ruin mentally, the Temple could damage himself severely. Ruin couldn’t minimize it, since the damage reflected automatically. An attack with any strength usually proved fatal for the aggressor.

Ruin spun his Core Velocity up to ten thousand and energy exploded outward, his center incapable of holding it all. He shaped it into a giant hand, grabbed the temple hundreds of feet above, and yanked on it.

The avatar of Lir in front of Ruin stumbled, and the mental attack dissipated before triggering.

The rampant energy saturating Ruin’s body fueled his anger, and he screamed at Lir. “Stop screwing around! You’ll get yourself killed!”

Ruin barely stopped himself from slamming the Third Temple into the ground. With savage intensity, he exerted his Will over his violent emotions, calming himself. He slowed his Core Velocity to one thousand and released the Temple.

Lir’s avatar bowed. “Greeting’s Architect Starfield. Forgive the delay in verifying your identity. Your reaction to a mental attack brought the statistical likelihood of your identity over ninety five percent, bringing it into the predetermined range of provisional acceptance.”

The Third Temple slowly climbed back into the sky as Ruin strode over to Lir.

“Wait, you had a predetermined plan for verifying me? What’s provisional acceptance?”

“Of course I have procedures to verify your identity. Deities possess powerful methods to hide or substantially alter themselves. Protocols must be in place for such eventualities. Today’s determination took longer than calculated because your alterations exceeded the normal standard deviations. The lack of Harmony or internal communication increased the complexity of our interaction by a factor of twenty-two point—”

Ruin held up a hand, interrupting Lir. “That’s good. Let’s keep it simple.”

“Confirmation now over ninety-nine percent.”

Ruin frowned. “Just ninety-nine. How do I get to a hundred? Like, are there things you won’t do or tell me based on these percentages? What does that decision tree look like? I think we need some type of safe word or something. Maybe a secret handshake.” Ruin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Can you whistle?”

“Statistical models have reached consensus and withdrawn the provisional acceptance.”

“Does that mean I’m at one hundred now?”

“Correct.”

“Huh, I cared about that more than I thought, which seems weird. Maybe it’s because I’m having identity issues right now. Anyway, I’m glad you’ve planned for stuff like this. Good job. How are things going here?”

“Well within predicted norms. Integrating the cultures from the North and East has advanced faster than projected despite the fact you killed the gods that ruled them.”

An image of the two dead gods wrapped in a cocoon of gems along with Fractal flashed through Ruin’s thoughts. The Dungeon Keeper was studying the gods’ souls. “Did you figure out a way to revive their people?”

“Yes, thanks to the entanglement storage arrays Fractal provided. Naktos to the south has remained quiet but is communicating peaceful intent through a high priestess in the temple district.”

“Valora,” Ruin said. “I know her. Cut off her arm, actually. Anyway, what else?”

“The Goddess Wenquian to the west is anxious to prove her loyalty to you after narrowly avoiding death by your hand. She is providing intelligence on Izac. He appears to be assembling an army on the west coast. We are the obvious target, but that is not yet confirmed.”

“And all the political and Class changes?”

“Very positive, although many of the Priests have objected to the availability of Classes they deem unnatural and evil.”

“I figured that might happen. Doesn’t change my mind though. If someone really wants to be a Rotmancer or,” memories of Lylan’s excitement about the Class changes crossed Ruin’s thoughts, “or a Witch, they should have the option. Let me know if things turn into more than grumbling.”

“Summons for aid from this group of Classes has increased by three percent. I am closely monitoring the effects of all your changes.”

“I know, which is just one of the millions of reasons I value you so much. Thanks.”

“It is my duty,” Lir paused and then continued. “And my pleasure.”

Ruin smiled and patted the avatar on the shoulder, happy Lir was still embracing his newly forming emotions.

“Since you don’t sound very busy, I have a favor to ask,” Ruin said. He considered the likelihood Lir would detect Ruin’s sarcasm. “That was a joke. The busy part, not the favor.”

“Ah, I was wondering. Thank you for the confirmation. I have added this exchange to my prediction model. How can I be of service?”

Ruin removed the sigil book he’d bought from the System store in the Destruction Realm and handed it to Lir.

Lir took the book with silver hands that sizzled and smoked from the Destruction Essence saturating the pages.

Ruin detected a faint vibration coming from Lir before the Avatar quickly flipped to a few different pages.

Lir handed the book back to Ruin, who accepted it with surprise.

“Did you just absorb that like Rami?” Ruin asked.

“Yes, she explained the process well enough that I have implemented a less effective version. Its quality and accuracy are acceptable on well preserved and organized manuscripts, which is what you provided.”

“I’m impressed, Lir. That’s a powerful ability.”

“Thank you.”

“Okay, here’s what I need. Are you familiar with those symbols Gunder talked about when discussing the power of Bards?”

“Are you referencing the physical manifestation of wave forms of various tones and their combinations into chords, melodies, and harmonies?”

“Yes, exactly. He showed me different shapes forming in sand created with just his voice.”

“I am familiar with the most common tones and their simplest combinations.”

“Great. So I think the sigils covering the towers and detailed in that book are all pieces of those sound shapes. I’m hoping that you can run through some sigil combinations and try and match them to sounds.”

Five complex shapes appeared in the air between Ruin and Lir, each labeled with one of the five Towers.

“What are those?” Ruin asked.

“The book you presented details each of the five Towers with exhaustive commentary concerning the five sigils each Tower provides. If one assumes each Tower’s five sigils are part of a single sound-shape as you call them, then I can, with a ninety-nine percent probability, present the completed shape for each Tower.”

“What? Seriously? Just like that?”

“Not exactly just like that. It took sixteen trillion comparisons to reach a ninety-nine percent confidence interval which was only possible because each shape contained five known sigils. Unless you can provide additional boundaries or rules for assembling the remaining sigils into sound-shapes, the calculations will take ten months at a minimum.”

Ruin snapped his fingers. “I do have more information, although only for one Tower at the moment.”

Since Ruin couldn’t mentally communicate with Lir, he projected the sigils he’d been offered at the end of the Dark Tower’s first sigil dungeon along with the details he’d gathered for each.

Ruin spoke as Lir absorbed all the new information. “My guess is sigils with similar or overlapping powers likely come from the same sound-shape.”

Lir finished. “Cross-referencing with the book of sigils, these sigils are only found on the Dark Tower. I will initially assume that each Tower contains the unique sigils for its own sound-shapes. Do you know how many there are for each Tower?”

“I don’t know how many sound-shapes per Tower. Sorry. I need a better name for those things, too.”

“The Dark Tower analysis will proceed faster with this additional information. If you can obtain similar details from the other Towers it might reveal a pattern that speeds the entire process.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

The five sound-shapes that Lir had revealed still slowly rotated in the air. Ruin studied each of them and Lir produced the tone combinations that created it.

“These are complicated,” Ruin finally said. “It’s more than I’d hoped for, Lir. Thank you so much.”

Lir bowed and the shapes disappeared. “I am happy to be of service.”

Ruin grew serious. “I’m not kidding. I’m so lucky to have people like you in my life. You just pieced together, in a literal blink, what I think is a profound mystery. Not just in our universe, but the Outerverse as well.”

“It pleases me to hear this. Thank you.”

“Now I just need to regain Harmony so I can slap those shapes on my Meridians.”

The portal back to the alchemy camp reopened.

“Hey, before I forget. Can you get Cyrilla a new sword. I kind of dissolved hers. Give her something better than what she had before. Oh, and my shadow fog might have eaten through some of the bowstrings. They might need replacing before their next fight.”

“I will see to it.”

Ruin patted Lir on the shoulder. “It was good seeing you friend. Do you need anything from me? Everything going okay on your Earth thing?”

Lir hesitated.

“Say it,” Ruin said.

“There is something strange about that planet. It almost feels familiar to me. Perhaps that is just Uru’s influence. She was very fond of that place, and perhaps that affects my judgment. In any event, the dungeon recently exposed by the Crossing Ring explosion is powerful.”

“How powerful? Like Blapy powerful?”

“At a minimum, yes.”

“At a minimum? You think it might be more powerful than Blapy? How can that be?”

“I do not know, but we should proceed with caution when interacting with anything or anyone associated to that place.”

“Okay, warning taken. But I don’t plan on going back there.”

Lir didn’t respond to that and after a few moments Ruin thanked the Temple one last time and returned through the portal.

As Ruin stepped into the familiar camp, he wondered what kind of dungeon could equal or surpass Blapy’s power. He had no intentions of ever finding out.

With Archangel hearing, Ruin detected Sift’s faint scream followed by Lylan scolding him for being a baby.

Ruin smiled as he headed toward his friends. Lir had provided the Meridian Hardening shapes far quicker than expected, so Ruin could advance his timeline as well. It was time to discuss some time dilation with his friends.