Chapter 404 - They Can't Have Him (Patreon)

CONSISTENCY!!!! RAAAAAAAAAGH! NO EXHAUSTING SNOWSTORM OR FLUCTUATING BRAIN PATTERNS STOPPING ME NOW, MOTHERFUCKA!

Also, hi! This chapter turned out extraordinarily different than I expected. I might fully rewrite it! I'm not sure yet! But it is done and it is monday so chapter time it is! Enjoy!

(Also also, I had to hold back so hard not to title this one "Chapter 404 - Son Not Found". Who knows, maybe the rewrite will give me something more in that vibe!)

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I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE WHY ANYONE WOULD STILL BE READING THIS, BUT FOR THE SAKE OF POSTERITY IF ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE, I FEEL INCLINED TO PUT THIS TO DOCUMENTATION.

ALSO, TELEPORTATION HAS BEEN RESTRICTED, AND SO I AM JUST AS TRAPPED HERE AS ALL THE REST OF YOU WHO NEVER FUCKING LISTEN. 

EVERY SENSOR IN THE CATHEDRAL AND THE RESEARCH INSTITUTE AND THE MISSIONARY FIELDS JUST BROKE. ALL OF THEM, SAVE ONE. EVERYTHING DEDICATED TO WATCHING EXISTENCE AS WE PERCEIVE IT TURNED TO SHATTERED RUIN, ALONG WITH THE MINDS AND BODIES OF MOST OF THOSE STILL OPERATING THEM. OR STANDING AROUND THEM. OR IN THE SAME BUILDING AS THEM.

THE END CAME FOR US, AND IT UNDID MILLENIA OF WORK LIKE A CHILD WIPING AWAY A DRAWING. 

BUT. LIKE I SAID. ONE SENSOR REMAINS. 

IT IS NOT DESIGNED TO DETECT THE COMING OF THE GREAT ADVERSARY. IT IS DESIGNED THE POSITION OF A SINGULAR BEING, AND IS REINFORCED ACCORDINGLY WITH THAT BEING’S POSITION IN OUR HISTORY.

I CAN’T SPEAK TO ANY PRIVATE VAULTS OR HIGHER RANKING SENSORY ENCHANTMENTS, BUT THE LAST STILL-FUNCTIONING ONE I HAVE ACCESS TO TRACKS THE GREAT HERETIC.

AND GUESS WHICH FUCKING BITCH-BASTARD ALARM JUST GOT ADDED TO THE CACOPHONY.

GLORY BE.

-Official documentation from the Department of Eschatology, Mortaria, Second District, Office of Bishop Ruk Citra

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The world sits in a frozen tableau.

In the echoing aftermath of the Cold Sun’s attention, pushing through all of the violence of the moments before, there is stillness. Some of the clergy, especially those standing witness further out, shuffle or shift as they hover, or lower themselves to the earth, as if unconsciously trying to combat the stasis the land is still echoing from. The strongest among them, however, remain absolutely still, and whether or not they succumb to the urge to move, every pair of eyes is on the thing wearing the body of the loudest Bishop among them.

The Corpse Martyr.

Po.

“Not how I was expecting you to look,” Kai Ra says sincerely. 

It throws its head back and laughs, Seo En-Hyun’s frame fitting snugly but stiffly against it. “What’s appearances, amongst things like us? I’d say we both do our reputation justice, and isn’t that what matters, junior sister?” 

Kai Ra looks down at herself, the eyes of worms secondary to the paradox of seeing without sight. 

She is a mound of writhing black bodies, sizzling toxic ooze and egg-pellets of Gu beetles making the only real distinction between one bit of twisted biology to another. Her Deathlessness makes biology both all-consuming and alien- she doesn’t need her pieces to be intact for them to continue existing. Wounds make for anchor points, gaping holes make for tunnels through flesh, dissolved bio-tissue with just enough matter left to work as glue and muscle at once. 

And that’s before the weapons. 

Her Dao saturates her, Agony, Guns and Blades manifesting from the fusion of her comprehension and the materials at hand, bending the rules of existence into their own shape. 

Recursion. Paradox. Undeath and existence and madness and comprehension, all together in one form.

She looks like shit. 

“Lots of things matter,” she says instead.

Seo En-Hyun’s skull smiles wider, the ghosts that make up his form equally empty-eyed yet still real in some unquantifiable way. 

“On this, we can agree, dear junior sister. Lots of things matter. So many things. So very many. Don’t tell that to the bodies around here though. They don’t like to think about that.”

“Outcast. A Second Apostate Arrives For Execution.”

The corpse of a ghost king frowns, turning its head up to look at the sky. 

“Don’t take that tone of voice with me.”

In the bent-inward space of the battlefield, the sky is almost as twisted as the ground. The stars are warped, their positions swapped and contorted, and the ground spirals inward, and below the sky but above the dirt, there is a city and constellations of Death.

On a throne a thousand miles away and in the sky right above them, a glowing darkness makes the world writhe and strain against its grave. 

Empty robes full of Echo glare down at the pile of rubble surrounding those that defy its will. 

But they don’t advance. And none of the other Bishops make a move.

They stand in silence, as if waiting for someone else to make the first move. 

They’re more afraid of whatever the Corpse Martyr is then they ever were of her. 

Rai Jin steps forward, slightly out of the defenses she and Li Shu have around them. Li Shu, for her part, is still holding firm, still keeping the magics active. The glow on the horizon of Viviae’s burning continues, and several Bishops look over as she continues to weave new patterns of starlight and keratin, but none move to interrupt her. She just keeps burning and grinning and working, but Kai Ra can tell from the bleeding that she can’t keep it up forever. 

Her son approaches the puddle of wraithflame, wearing Seo En-Hyun’s face. 

“You… you look like… why are you so much louder than them? Than anyone else? Why…”

“Ah. not good for you, junior brother. Seeing too much all at once. Shut your eyes, take a breath. Digest.”

“No. No, there’s… you’re different than the others. Why are you so much deeper? So much quieter? It’s…”

“Junior sister? If you would? Our junior brother has eyes bigger than his stomach, I’m afraid. He’s impressive, to be sure, but there’s only so much he can handle at this point.”

“He’s done well enough so far.”

Still, she does move closer to him, wrapping some of her undying flesh around him to pull him back. He turns to her, and she notices some of the ways his body is being affected. It’s not Death, though, not like before- she can’t sense his cells failing, only when they finally and completely come apart, the moment where they become something else. 

For a moment, as she touches him, her sight magnifies. His ability to see almost… carries through. 

Everything is or isn’t.

Duality. Limitless and Divided. Always CHANGING from one to the other. 

She sees her son, and it’s like seeing him in solids and voids. Like he’s bubbling, changing constantly as he comes and goes, like she can see all of the spaces where he isn’t as he becomes what he is. 

Bubbling. Real and ENDed. There and not. 

And then she focuses, because the poor kid is about to have a damn breakdown, and she has more important things to deal with. 

His eyes are wide, his cultivation perturbed, roiling like there’s too much pressure, like a temperature has been set to boil. Despite herself, she takes the Corpse Martyr’s advice. Rai Jin steps back, but only because he follows her guidance, his body not as strong as hers. 

“Careful,” her son whispers to her. “He’s… it’s… it’s a lot. I can hear the way that… like a rock in the ocean. Too solid.”

“You flatter me, junior.”

“You Dare-”

Seo En-Hyun’s heads snap up to the sky, and there is a snarl in the throat of what’s wearing his corpse.

“You Don’t Speak To Me Like That.”

And suddenly there’s pressure.

Like everyone suddenly feel a hundred miles beneath the surface, like there’s a bubble of density beyond all others floating between the Corpse Martyr and the empty robes of the Holiest of Holies. 

The corpse behind the robes, quiet on its throne, says nothing. But it is sitting upright. If it were alive, it might be at attention. 

And then it fades. Two competing statements of Truth, one against the other, from beings beyond superhuman, and one wins out. 

“Not here. Not now. Not ever again. You want to talk your Truth, your attempt at Law, you do it to your little worms, not to me.”

“You would dare defy us like this again?” asks the robes. 

Seo En-Hyun’s corpse laughs. It laughs, and laughs, and laughs. 

Then it turns to Kai Ra, ignoring the other corpses entirely. 

“I like what you’ve done with yourself. I really do. I don’t quite understand it, but isn’t that how it always is? The further we advance, the further we get from each other. Growing is to be distinct, and no matter how close we are to each other, the difference only grows. Still! I can be impressed, even if I don’t know the details. You emptied out your DEATH, huh? Most of it, anyways. Swapped it for END. Bold. But then, how would you be my junior sister if you weren’t?”

Some of the orbiting stars of Mortaria, made of machinery and industrial slaughter, start to shift. Less than an inch, but two of them are moving towards the city’s main territory, as if getting ready-

The corpse of Seo En-Hyun turns one of its heads to them, and they go still immediately. The bonds of Death, which she can no longer feel but can kind of see bubbling the way her son was, the way everything is if she squints, still between them and the city.

“Who gave you permission to move?” Po asks, his voice quiet. 

“You do not command the Church, Martyr,” says the empty robes. “You are outcast. Excommunicado. For your cavorting with the darkness, with the vileness of that which we see as opponent, and you Are. Not. Welcome.”

The wave of Intent and Truth that washes from the corpses above for the third time. 

The world seems to hold its breath. 

“Are you going to let it talk to you like that?” Kai Ra asks.

“Ha!” Laughs Po. “A shit-stirrer, I see! The rumors hold true! The Pack tells many tales of you, but your ability to start a fight is legend even among beasts.”

Still, its heads do turn. 

“There’s consequences to it. But I’m not going to fight your problems for you, dear sister. You’re doing a fine job as is. Your Witch is about a third of the way through burning a countryside, and I haven’t seen them put this much effort into anyone besides me in years.

“But… I could. Solve this. If you wanted.”

The air is tense enough to cut with a knife. 

“What’s the cost?” she asks.

Seo En-Hyun’s body smiles. 

“You have to ask.”

…

She reforms a head just to be able to turn it to stare at him.

“What?”

“What?”

A hundred Bishops all tremble under the rage that echoes from the empty robes. 

“You would threaten war? Here? Your arrogance is as impressive as it is foolish. How would your spat at the Wall fare without you? How bold are you, to assume you would ever again leave this place, having refused our mercy?”

The ground shivers, like gooseflesh, and she can see little bits of it shaking and trembling, eager to rise, eager to come unalive and hungry. 

The Fallen Kingdom stands on the knife edge, ready to resume its assault. Multiply it, likely. No one seems quite as inclined to hold back at the moment, and considering she just saw the Holiest of Holies throw a half-dozen Truths, made up on the spot, against the god behind the moon, the two it used on her…

The two.

And only two. 

Why not just say she’d already lost? Why not just say she was powerless?

It couldn’t. It can’t. 

And… most of what it did against the Cold Sun didn’t really work. 

Seo En-Hyun’s smiling ghost meets the gaze of her head, backlit by a pinpoint of a Halo.

“Don’t think like a mortal. Think like you’ll still be here later. Think what good-will from an immortal godhead might provide. Considering our senior up there just poked its head through the sky to take a look at you, I’m willing to bet that you are going to do dramatic things, and having you think of me as your senior sibling, while not essential, would be nice. So just ask me. I’m willing to help.”

She looks at it, and…

There’s parts of it that bubble. That END and do… the opposite? Kind of? Moments and fragments and pieces of a picture coming together and apart always and forever. 

But there’s something at the core of it that just looks like a single, perfect point. Like the shape of something cast in absence. 

Like that black hole, shaped into someone.

She wonders how she looks like to herself.

Strong.

But not strong enough to do it alone.

She looks back at Li Shu, who is still holding on, if only barely. Her body is straining, her cultivation and Craft both crackling with power and at their absolute limit. There’s no doubt that there are spells and abilities counter-attacking her flames at this point, and the way she’s using Life to burn through the fungal landscape of Viviae won’t keep forever.

Burning a city-state, from a thousand miles away. Li Shu’s come a long way too.

Kai Ra wouldn’t have gotten where she is without help. Wouldn’t exist without her help.

Li Shu, standing next to Jin, holding him and somehow managing to alleviate some of his fever and overloaded body with her Sacrifice even with everything else going on. 

Jin, his eyes aflame with perception, smoke and whispers drifting from him as his cultivation strains against his limitations.

Dink around his neck, warped and still lightly steaming against the fabric of Jin’s robes.

“Please, senior brother. Help me.”

The Corpse Martyr smiles with a dead demigod’s teeth.

“Of course, junior sister. I grant you the most fitting aid I can offer.”

It waves its hand.

And Jin and Li Shu and Dink are gone. 

And standing beside her central mound of worms and undying flesh is an avatar of the END.

“Shall we get started?”