"Hope, Effierath, and Lust. Stop."

They halt.

"You three are my dragons now; it's payment for being dumbasses. Go to my Chronovoid Temple and convert species. You'll be bound more tightly by my strictures than other dragons, and Temp will personally keep an eye on you. At least until I've determined you're not evil. Still, you'll receive the usual perks of being a dragon if you do well."

Lust says coyly, "Ohh, if I'm naughty~, I'll be... Bound~?"

Oi. No. What is wrong with you? You're not even the embodiment of lust anymore.

I look closer at her. She's... Some kind of mimicry worm? She looks humanoid but she obviously isn't. Her skin is a shiny black but it's ridged like a worm's. Maybe she's some manner of leech? She isn't a species I've seen. She's not actually a worm nor a leech, I think, but some sort of odd alien. I'm curious what form her dragon body will take.

"Not like that, Lust. I've bound my species itself with a strict code of ethics. If you did the same crap as you all did with the Abyssal, you'll get far weaker and become ill. If you went through with it like the others, I wouldn't need to kill you because fate itself would instantly strike you down. I am fate, among many other things. The upshot is that I'll guide you to far greater power if you earn it."

Effierath complains; her flames turn dark yellow.

image [https://timjames.net/data/acd/images/172.png]

"Hey, wait— we didn't know. How's that fair?"

"Three others: Pride, Justice, and Deception. They all disagreed with your actions from the start. You, on the other hand? You appear to have fewer reservations than Hope and Lust, seeing as you didn't even fight after witnessing what you'd soon unleash, plus you're still complaining despite all you've done. Putting aside Deception, maybe you should think about what Pride and Justice saw. Then, think about what Lust and Hope saw. Clearly, they were not willing to move forward for reasons which escaped your notice. Be more honest with yourself, Effierath."

Her flames become a bright yellow and shift chaotically.

"Wait, how do you—"

I cut her off. She doesn't need to know I compelled her to tell me all that.

"The answer is always going to be that I'm way more powerful than you can comprehend because I'mma dragon. Rawr! Now shush and be more contemplative."

I gesture to the three of them, then continue speaking.

"Go to my temple and do as I said. You can't run, because I've already got you under my most powerful ability. I can force you to go there, but I hate taking away free Will. So do as you wish. You'll suffer if you disobey, however. Especially you, Effierath. You're on thin ice. I may kill you like I did Greed if you run off without following my orders. I've no desire to warp your Will or debate you. It'll just mean your life isn't worth saving if you choose freedom over repenting for murdering a hundred and eighty billion sapients."

Effierath's flames turn grayish white.

"I'm sorry, WHAT?!"

"You heard me. A hundred and eighty billion people died. That's the lowest estimate. You're lucky I haven't cut you down where you stand. Now go! I'm tired of looking at you."

Her flames turn into a mixture of black and white stripes, like my own body.

She's not mimicking me, though. That appears to be how she expresses emotions.

She turns around and flies off. Lust begins laying down an inscription.

Then, I realize Hope is assembling some sort of Rube Goldberg contraption from odd jagged parts.

She quickly 'finishes' assembling it, but there's still wires sticking out and random crap hanging off the side.

Also, for some reason there's a jagged blade clamped around her insectoid legs. Why, exactly? Are you really going to attempt interdimensional stellar travel with that? Ragh. I'm starting to see why she turned into Hope.

I decide to ignore those three and sink deep into thought.

Regh.

I'll be honest.

I meant what I said, but I consider my dragons my family. I'd never let those three live if I didn't personally hear their confessions under compulsion. They should NEVER be allowed to be a dragon, regardless. The reason I forced them is because of what the God of Time knew about the chaos rifts. Not enough— not nearly enough for my liking.

Enough, however, to know that they should be given a chance. The sins and virtues are connected to the strength of the chaos fissures, so they're responsible for saving more lives than they've taken. Reviewing Pride's third-person video of my 'death,' I've become wary that these fissures may likewise be connected to myself. My fate talent.

The God of Time knew what he was doing when he killed the sins and virtues. He chose to take the town away, spatially, which collapsed the third and final set of rifts. It was not to stop them, no, his goal was to unite those energies within the sins and virtues.

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First, spatial twisting. Then, spatial tearing. The third would've been chaos rifts— I'm sure of it. He was too, since he could see my talent.

Status, Chronovoid.

Chronovoid (Evolving)

Your fate is forever pinned to the chosen pivot.

Mere fate is too weak for your powerful control.

Perfection, too shallow for your consideration.

Time, too inconsequential for your existence.

All that remains is chaos.

What shall be birthed from your completion?

What shall lie beyond infinity?

It shall be you.

Pivot Type: Chronovoid

Related Fates: Chronovoid, Chronovoid, {err...}

Bonuses: Chronovoid

First, the talent itself which stacked and stacked is EVOLVING. This could be beyond catastrophic the moment it finishes.

Second, it now wants to conquer chaos. Since it partially follows my Will, perhaps that means I subconsciously want to conquer chaos. Since I love to conquer everything, this is understandable. Unfortunate, too, because before the talent— before I got a taste, I'd had no appetite for chaos.

The God of Time. He brought all the 'chaos' they'd collected directly into my body.

What is chaos? Randomness. Lack of form. Incoherence. It's a concept.

However, our Wills do form connections with the world at a physical level. The Will can create order from chaos, if only by imagining connections within that chaos.

Quantum physics. A collapse of the wave function?

It's not that sapient species have some secret power of observation which changes reality. It's not even that there's a difference between experimental error and the uncertianty principle. That's a premise those human physicists had back on Earth, sure, but it's nonsense. Fact is, observation of any kind invokes an EM field.

The whole 'collapse of the wave function' theory is like claiming a baseball should not move when blasted by the winds of a thousand tornadoes. Of COURSE it moves. It moves before you can observe it, as though you'd went back in time. But you didn't.

Schrodinger's cat? A complete and utter fallacy. The idea that the uncertainty of quantum states can be separated from experimental error is nothing more than a misunderstanding of how quanta are constructed. Mortals don't realize that the so-called 'dark energy' that they can't see is what's driving their inability to formulate fixed quantum states.

Ironically, it's this very deviation between experience and knowledge which allows one to manipulate the universe with Will alone. A mortal's Will can encourage quantum probabilities which are otherwise seemingly illogical. Not necessarily through some quantum-specific organ, either. The brain is enough all on its own.

Our minds are a part of reality. They're implemented in most species through a brain. While a brain may or may not contain a mechanism to alter quantum states, they can surely form neuronal patterns which do. Even the firing of a synapse can push countless quanta quite violently. If a mere measurement can do it...

How large is a neuron's electric pulse?

It's a tiny charge! Yes, very tiny.

How large are quanta?

MANY orders of magnitude smaller.

Indeed.

It works.

What about a video camera? No, what about recording the quanta by measuring surrounding quanta so that we're not directly impacting our subject? So long as something is generating an electromagnetic field, it'll contaminate the experiment. It must for it to interact with the quanta in order to record it. Much as we'd like to say we can mathematically exclude the effects of our measurement, the parts of physics we don't understand will step in to make that measurement uncertain. The Uncertainty Principle is nothing more than an erroneously inverted perception of causality.

Mana, also known as energy, operates the universe. A little push here, a tiny shock there, and suddenly a knife passes through your hand without harm. Which is nearly impossible— but it can happen. And if it does, don't expect to replicate it. Not because it's supernatural, but because the conditions for such a situation can't be easily scientifically replicated. The controlled conditions of a laboratory are antithetical to the chaos needed to form a quantum state unstable enough that mere mental interference could bring about such a dramatic change in reality overall.

It's not like a mortal can openly Will the universe to change. Far from it. Potential is needed.

Plus, mentally grabbing at those little bits of quantum static is HARD. Which makes it inconsistent. Unreliable. Unscientific. If a mortal tries to do anything on the quantum scale with their mind, then whatever neuronal patterns their brain may have previously used to perform some quantum task shall be used differently. Remember, even tiny changes in the electromagnetic environment must drastically change the outcome of any such experiment. Engaging the mind with the Will or allowing the subconscious to prevail are two entirely different neuronal mechanisms. Naturally, the electromagnetic field being generated by the brain must be different. To say nothing of replicating the potentials needed to engender such a complex result despite using so little energy at a starting point.

The dominoes must line up. That, is the role of chaos.

The purpose of magic, then, is to turn the unreliable into the scientific through sheer force of Will. By using Mana to isolate the electromagnetic state of a system, we can drive quantum changes without the uncertainty of our of mental state getting in the way.

Which means a functional Will is incompatible with chaos. What of raw emotion, irrationality, or even insanity? Those may still form a solid Will. Such a Will cannot be self-consistent, but it also can't be chaotic.

If the Will has ANY structure, perhaps by virtue of... Being a Will?

It's. Not. Real. Chaos.

What does it mean when matter or energy is chaotic? Is it a wave? No! A wave is undefined. Chaos cannot BE defined. It isn't a value at all; it's simply impossible to pin down.

A Will can form order from chaos, but cannot turn chaos into matter or energy. Chaos should stay undefined even when forced to appear defined by sheer force of Will. By consuming this so-called 'chaos,' and merging with me, the God of Time has directly amplified my already unparalleled ability to alter reality.

A reality which I can already warp via three methods.

Deciding future probabilities: fate.

Deciding present physical laws: perfection.

Deciding past occurrences: time.

Like metric expansion, he's taken 'chaos' from the universe and added it to my form.

The universe becomes more reasoned, and I find it easier to deconstruct. It becomes more discernible, and I find it easier to understand. It becomes less resistant to change, and I find myself more able to transform it.

All without a rise in my strength.

That's why my talent is evolving. Higher-order concepts like fate are no longer enough. Now, it's aiming to redefine evolution: to put what I represent in place of chaos itself. To remove the sole agent of arbitrary change.

The physical attribute, which, like time, should always remain a concept. How was reverse time travel achieved?

I don't yet know. What I do know is that chaos' physical expressions— the structures which defy it and in doing so define what it is not, are concentrating within my form. Am I being used to create a defined chaos? A paradox?

Really?

Was a single contradiction not enough?

Chaos is becoming real within me!

And that, more than anything.

Must remain impossible.

...

Reah, he knew.

...

Didn't I?