[Warpworld] Ch 44 – A Crushing Advance

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            The Warp screamed and railed, raged and writhed, moaned and groaned, all the while it was Burning and being washed back by the Weight of the World.

            We had advanced hundreds of meters the dawn after the Warpstorm broke, the amount of power fed into the Land clearly only helped by the occurrence. I wove more layers of Sealing Circles around the new reality as it surged forward, the old Rings now buried, concealed, immune to direct harm, and yet still contributing all their power to layers on layers of restraints.

            The Walls of Fire clung to the Warp and extended sideways as I added more and more to them, dozens of miles long now, reaching almost halfway around the Warpzone, the vortex of heat and magical consumption they were setting up only building. In sum total, they were doing more work than my constant slamming with Shards and the Waves of the Weight of the World the elves and saurids were mustering, but all my power was being directed at one narrow area, which was rocking the whole Warpzone and sending repeated cracks in their control and structure of the thing.

            If they didn’t keep constant attention on what I was doing, I could break the thing wide open and Reality would come flooding in. Their little Rift in Reality would collapse like a soap bubble popping as the full pressure of the Mortal Plane came in and forced it out and away, past the Veil.

            My Pyramid’s Domain was still Burning at it as well, still leeching away the power that was trying to leak into the mortal world, and was slowly and constantly expanding at varying rates of speed as it did so. Its Veil reinforcement was not allowed to waver, so it wasn’t growing quickly, but it was quite unshakable as it did so.

            It was a lot of rep counts towards a very specific purpose, which magically was gelling towards a very specific configuration of power rising in opposition to the Warp, all working off my Champion of Creation Title, and Heavenbound Pact.

            The Warp Gods weren’t Aberrants per se, described to me more as massive psychic and divine leeches, siphoning off the negative emotional and spiritual powers that they represented. As they weren’t true Gods, it was the emotions behind Faith that gave them strength, not the Faith itself, and they were Chaotics, meaning they were addicted to surges of power, singular events, as opposed to a steady and constant harvest.

            One hero or champion falling to their blandishments was worth far more to them than a thousand peasants bending a knee and raising their children to venerate them. They were whimsical and erratic, ever trying to be unpredictable and ‘interesting’, doing something newer, better, more dramatic and awesome and pay attention to me, I’m the best!

            Totally spoiled and rotten children, in the view of most true gods.

            The gods of this place, however, were no stronger than Lesser Gods in our parlance, tied to races and species and with specific identities, forged out of almost the same things as the Warp Gods themselves, except Faith and belief drove them. It divided them among near-absolute racial lines and Domains of authority, making them rivals for the same souls, even as the Warp Gods leeched off everything nigh-equally and preyed upon all their worshipers without giving a hoot for their ‘natural’ divisions.

            There was no doubt these same gods lived and died with their followers, and had probably done so multiple times when the world ended. Whether or not they knew the truth of the matter was a different story, however.

            But vivic fire was here now. I… was here now. Things were going to change, as even if the Warp Gods destroyed the world entire, they weren’t going to be able to restart it with vivic fire here… and the power they spent to do so was going to be consumed and lost to them forever, meaning this time around, there were real stakes to them.

            Whether they believed I was truly a threat to them was a different story entirely. Could they even take a mortal seriously after all this time, given how many had bowed to them and their power in the end?

            I had to admit I had never handled so much magic at one time concurrently, and then kept at it for such lengths of time.

            Mortus Dius, all nice and Hardened, Impervious, and Indestructible, took the vast majority of the physical stress with all the mana moving through him. My Staff was resolute, unflappable, and looking forward to this thing’s Last Day, and the Last Day of the Warp Gods’ hold on this world. The screaming head of the Avatar of Klaw also seemed designed to support this whole Warp-screwing effort, bending everything I was doing in manner both bold and subtle to destroy the Warp as efficiently and nastily as possible.

            It really wanted more living stuff to annihilate, but nothing of the Warp could enter the Warpeater Pyramid’s Domain at this point, at least not without the direct help of the Warp Gods.

            I’d notice such a presence immediately, and I’d already proven I could take out a vivus-immune, supposedly magic-immune Avatar of Klaw. Was I going to be much worried about anything else?

            Well, short of a personal appearance, and, mmm, they probably wouldn’t like how that turned out, either. The Warpeater Pyramid had digested enough power to give even one of the Warp Gods themselves a really painful time, and if I blew it in one’s face, the total disruption of Warp energy and cataclysmic surge of vivus would slam shut this Rift nigh-instantly.

            It would also wound the god responsible severely, and their rivals would have absolutely no sympathy for them if that happened. Such was life among Evil Chaotics.

            I could tell I was working on some sort of Title, although I wasn’t sure what it was. Definitely anti-Warp. I was using Sevenfold Theurgy to strike with harmonization deep into the core Chaos that empowered the Warp, basically killing it with serenity, the Dreadskull on Mortus Dius showing the way.

            I was using the Sublime Chord to manipulate the Waves being thrown by elves and saurid to ever-greater effect, while also weaving their magic together more smoothly.

I was adjusting the Domain of the Warpeater Pyramid in tiny little ways to more efficiently eat and process the material of the Warp, and Feed it all to the Land.

            I was also making concentric Seals about this Warpzone, concentrating and magnifying the Land’s disdain for this Rift, containing it and its surges, forcing it on the defensive, and only getting stronger with each hundred-plus mile long Circle of Rune-Shaped stone I brought into existence.

            I was manipulating the Walls of Fire to erode the Rift ever more quickly, while quietly pushing the generation of a vortex that was forming in a certain way without worrying about the final form of it. Something random, something that would be seized upon by the Warp, a wild factor they could use against me...

            All this was a steady, constant, erosive pressure that was withstanding all the surges and pulses from the Warp without giving way, simply enduring and continuing, rapidly reclaiming any advances given up once the forces stopping me waned.

            For beings as Chaotic as the Warp gods, it had to be maddening to watch, let alone endure. The constant pressure defying all their efforts was simply not the way things were supposed to be here… although it had to make a wonderfully distracting new branch to their little game of worlds restarting.

            They were just supposed to be in total control of such events, not, you know, subject to haphazard wildcards coming in from beyond the mortal world.

            Like they had. I doubted they appreciated the irony at all, especially coming from a mortal.

---

            “Master Aelryinth?”

            It was another of the periods of rest. Time was pretty fluid and non-constant here, so I was calling them when I was calling them, and the elves and saurids obeyed, seeing no reason not to and realizing I was doing it for their benefit, not because I thought they were weak.

            If I was still launching cannonades of Shard volleys into the Warp while they rested, well, I was a freak.

            “Elder. How may I help you?”

            Master Artlis was still gratified I addressed him with polite respect, despite there being a significant gap in our powers, such as they were. “I had an idea,” he ventured carefully, sitting down on the Disk floating there at an inviting hand wave.

            “Go on.” 

            “The… Lightning Cannons of your Pyramid. Could they not be used to add to the efforts we are putting forth here?” he asked.

            “Mmm. In theory, yes. In practical terms, no,” I shook my head. “Realistically, it’s not worth it.”

            “Oh?” He wasn’t surprised I’d considered it. “What facts am I missing?”

            “There is no amount of magical power you can call on that is more efficient than simply throwing the Weight of the mortal realm at the Rift, much like you are now. However, doing so lacks feedback. You only see the results over numerous hours of constant effort, and even if it is increasing, it is not as visceral as me tossing Shards so loudly and brightly at it.

            “You’re looking for some sensory feedback to tell you that you are doing the right thing. The cannons would be bright and loud and appeal to the will to do battle you have.

            “So, to list out the points: Realistically, the amount of magic you use to generate lightning to charge up the cannons would be better spent throwing Reality at the Rift, instead of powering up some rail guns.

            “In practical terms, to be efficient, the ammunition would have to be enchanted to somehow explode in vivic fire as it enters the Rift. This naturally means that it is not reused… and I don’t have any small hills of enchanted ammunition around, you might have noticed.”

            He smiled thinly at that. “Could you make some out of the ruins of the Creators?” he inquired.

            “Yes,” I confirmed his suggestion. “However, I could not do so without giving up my enCirclement of the Rift as it stands, and I could only make one round at a time, which would be fired off far more quickly than I could make them.

            “I guarantee you that if we had a great number more people to help do what we are doing, it would be an option. Throwing massive Energized Isotopic materials at the Rift, which explode in vivus as they enter, would be very loud, very showy, and quite effective.

            “If I’d had a month of exposure to these metals to build up a stockpile of cannon rounds, I most certainly would have prevailed upon you to fire them all off, to much pyrotechnic enjoyment all around, I am sure.

            “Lastly, you don’t want any feedback from the Warp.”

            He stiffened, hesitating a moment before replying. “Sensory feedback,” he finally stated, his golden eyes suddenly hard.

            “Yes. The touch of your lover’s skin. The soft words your mother whispered to you in her arms. The admiration of your peers and rivals. The glorious triumph on a battlefield won in blood. The grim determination of enduring and persevering despite all odds. The glow of good health and surging vitality.

            “These are the sensations they will reach out to you with if you could feel them, and so, you do not want to feel them. You want to push avalanches down the mountainside and watch them crash into the sea, filling it up little by little as you do.”

            He sighed. “I forget again how insidious they can be…”

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