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Chapter Fourteen

Bellerophon the Galestalker, known informally as the Fallen Star, has decided to step back from all roles regarding the Order. This follows his disastrous encounter with the deity Quetzalcoatl and his permanent maiming therein. The High Court of New Rome wishes him a fruitful life, and thanks him for his continued sacrifice. Zeus before all.

Imperial Missive from The Court of Divine Zeus, Eternal Emperor of New Rome, 3481

* * *

I tossed the question of getting stronger around in my head for the next few days. The best idea I could come up with was somehow finding and killing another Horror to try and absorb its nanites. However, it felt plain stupid to go after one alone. Another option was manually grinding attributes, improving them via activities that strain the attribute, like lifting heavy things for might. I had no idea where to begin with that one. Gaining might made sense, but how do you strain your intellect? Or become a more arcane person?

Thankfully, before I had the chance to start looking for more monsters created by the System, Delta returned to the grounds of Alewife. It'd changed dramatically in his absence, but, a semblance of the same hierarchy remained. Prospero had kept a tight ship, beginning with his ordering of the slow process clearing the ruined orchards. Additionally, he’d sent most of the garrison back to Lille. From there they’d be reassigned to other holdings belonging to the Radeosi. They were the lucky ones.

As for the rest of us, we slept each night in the cramped servant’s building at Alewife, which by some miracle had been spared the ruin brought onto the rest of the grounds. Given that it was now the only livable option, I felt calling it 'the servant's building' was a bit of a misnomer. Everyone slept there.

Delta was delighted to find out that the stone structure of the manor’s basement had been left intact. If anything, it was the only part of the compound entirely unchanged in the aftermath of the blaze. He’d met with Prospero as soon as he'd got back, had a few long discussions that I wasn’t privy to, and then came out and told me to be ready for my lessons at the usual time.

So, that night, I waited impatiently for him to arrive. There was so much for us to go over: my new ability [Windslash], my encounter with Beluga, and what options I had to gain power. There was just so little time. I’d be leaving for my service to the Legion in a little under a week.

I fought with myself extensively over what I was going to ask him first: I wasn’t sure which was most important, or what he’d be able to give the best advice on. It didn’t matter. In the end, the words that came out of my mouth as he entered the basement caught even me off guard.

“Delta, how do you kill a god?”

He stopped dead in his tracks and took a deep breath.

“You don’t. You’d get torn up into a thousand itty-bitty pieces and then fed to whatever dog has best pandered to them that week.” The look he gave me told me that he thought I was planning something stupid. The kind of look that’s equal parts judgment and observation.

“I’m not going to do anything as dumb as a pile of rocks,” I insisted. “I was just curious about how it’d be done.”

He gave me a long, skeptical side-eye.

“It’s not easy. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be called gods,” He began.

“I’m steadfast in my belief that any question asked should be answered. All knowledge should be free. I’d be a lousy educator if I didn’t believe that.” He drew a knife from the belt at his waist. It was a small thing. He rolled it across his fingers repeatedly in a motion that looked more difficult than practical. “But, some knowledge is dangerous. So I return your question with a question: do you know what it takes to be considered a god? Anyone can live forever under the System. Few have reached the apex.”

I shook my head. I could honestly say I’d been wondering about it. What made Beluga greater than Grady? Other than the fact that Beluga still lived.

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t understand why you aren’t a god. I thought you were, but Voltani implied you weren’t.”

The knife Delta was fiddling with slipped. It cut his finger. Due to his regeneration, the wound closed in the blink of an eye.

“Voltani shouldn’t be talking about what he doesn’t understand," he said through gritted teeth. "The final hurdle is the ability to cause damage past the regenerative capabilities of the System. It is the action of stepping beyond that which made you. In order to become a god, you must be able to kill a god.”

He put the knife back into its sheath.

“Some, like Zeus or Baba Yaga, have been kicking around since the original ascension. Others are newer creatures. But, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that to be a god is to be an arbiter of death itself.“

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Being able to kill an immortal made you a god. The divine were capable of doing the impossible. I didn't feel like my original question had been answered, but, in the process, Delta'd highlighted a glaring flaw in my understanding of the System.

“If that’s the case, what’s the supplication attribute? Isn’t it your devotion to Zeus?”

“We could call it that, or, we could call it a more accurate name. Tribute.” Delta walked over to a weapon rack and removed and handed me a steel blade.

“I think that’s more than enough theory for today. Prospero tells me you broke one of my swords. Can you do it again?”

We spent the next handful of hours practicing blade work and integrating [Empower] and [Windslash] into my regular fighting style. I’d previously just been using [Empower] on my every blow, but Delta had decided that I’d reached a point where the extra time committed to hitting harder made me pointlessly vulnerable, especially when I now had another option for dealing damage.

There was an interesting synergy between the two abilities: a [Windslash] created by an [Empowered] strike would be more powerful, but you couldn’t directly empower a [Windslash]. It was explained to me by Delta that [Windslash] seemed to copy blows rather than create any of its own.

“It’s an oddity that you developed a wind-based ability at all,” Delta had explained. “It’s not impossible that you got it from Grady, but I wouldn’t have expected that level of intact nanite memory. Usually, abilities don’t transfer over.”

“What’s so strange about a wind-based ability?”

I was curious because I'd seen plenty of them, all fairly recently. They couldn't have been too uncommon. The timing of my question was poor. I’d chosen the middle of a particularly difficult balance exercise, and talking served only as a distraction. I fell flat on my ass whilst listening to his explanation.

“You’ve got little to no natural affinity for the element. Wind is based upon your being quick. And, I’m sorry to say this, but I’d describe you as lumbering on your best day.”

Ouch. That hurt my feelings.

I didn’t find it all that surprising that I’d gotten [Windslash]. After all, wind represented a large portion of the abilities I’d been exposed to. Prospero had used wind to fly, Beluga had his cyclone, and if Voltani’s words were to be believed I’d bet that Delta had wind abilities too. Someone with a title as wind-related as Galestalker oughta.

I suspected that the System was actually more aware than the [Status] let on. What if it was learning from the superior Users around me? What if within the source of our power, there was some form of intelligence? It had aided me before in both the unlocking of the Behemoth and coming to me after I killed Olle. The timing of either event was a little too perfect for it to be up to random chance. Somehow, the System was watching. Helping.

We continued on with the martial side of the lesson for a little while after that until Delta called for a stop. It was a good thing he did, too. The familiar ache of exhaustion was beginning to set in on my body. He'd made an announcement as we finished up.

"I've spoken to both Prospero and Jacobi, and we've come to an accord regarding your time here. It's getting cut short. It's for the best if you head for Lobsterhead sooner, rather than later. You leave tomorrow morning."

He left me standing dumbfounded in the basement. I hadn't even been given enough time to properly worry about it. I hid myself away in the content of the day's lesson as an escape.

My personal belief system had been shaped in no small part by the streets of Lille, where bullies had run rampant. The System had given me the power to change that. To do something.

Still lost in my thoughts, I met up with Toby after I finished my dinner. We wandered until late in the evening, long past the setting of the sun. We stood on burnt stumps, stared at the stars in the night sky, and talked about what we thought the System was. It wasn't unusual for our conversations to be influenced by my lessons with Delta- I think we both thought his topics were interesting.

That night, Toby wore his cloak embroidered with stars. The one I'd thought was silly. His face was pensive, his hand on his chin. The darkness hid his youthful features and made his silhouette seem vaguely wizard-like. The glint of moonlight off of the metallic stars of his clothes only enhanced the effect.

"Where do you think it all came from?" He spoke to me out of the blue. He was standing on top of a stump, which made him approximately eye-level with me.

"What all came from? What're you talking about?"

"The System," he said and hopped off his stump. "What made it? What caused the original ascension? Why?" There was a lot to unpack in those questions. I knew next to nothing about cosmology, I was even a little shaky about the definition of the word.

"I'm not sure. All I can say is that people talk about the first ascension like it was a bad thing." Toby frowned at my answer.

"That's all I know, too. History has remembered the event as the so-called 'Ascension of Fools' but what was so foolish? They were the first gods. The first people made powerful."

I raised an eyebrow at him. He probably couldn't see it in the dark. "Is the System making people powerful a good thing?" I asked. I thought back to what Delta had told me earlier in the day. A god was someone capable of killing the unkillable. Some of the powerful, like Beluga, were simply the best murderers.

The 'Ascension of Fools' was the event surrounding the beginning of the System. It was steeped in mystery, and widely believed to have taken place around the same time the ancients produced their cities of kahncrete and steel. The relics of which still appeared all over the continent's landscape.

"Divinity is the ultimate achievement of humanity, Ghul. There is no nobler pursuit than trying to ascend. Why do you think all the best hero's stories end in godhood?"

I couldn't help but think of Grady's end. I disagreed with Toby on this, I knew. I shrugged as an answer to his question. He continued on without prompting,

"The Gemstone Knight, the Patchwork Doctor, Serenity the Sage. Each is a parable trying to teach us that only the great become godly.."

He rambled on for another few minutes about how being a god was the end-all-be-all of morality. I sat there and listened to him for all of it. Toby was my friend, and, I knew that soon our paths would be forced apart. The next day, actually. That night I just wanted to listen to him talk.

I hadn't realized it yet, but, I think my heart had already said goodbye.