My turn.
What has experience taught me?
The [Yellow Queen] must not be defeated; better to indulge her.
The [Devilish L3viathan] must not be defeated; better to avoid it.
The God of Wisdom cannot be stopped, but one can only infinitely project its coming.
And now: It's my turn.
Lying in the coffin, I think about the question one last time. By now, I understand everything, but I continue to observe the blue sky, which has become much more familiar than the black one of the Underwasteland. It is a question of [Judgment]: but how to judge the God of Wisdom? I tried beyond the Golden Doors without success.
If I wanted, it would be enough for me to lock myself inside this coffin. Refuse to play this round to force yet another restart.
It's like a game of chess in which the checkmate is forced and I can go back to every move of all the moves, except the move that would lead me to avoid the forced checkmate.
Ci-cin.
Ugh. It doesn't matter who makes the move. It doesn't matter what move is made.
In the end, the result is always the same. I am forced to backtrack and try again.
Y sacrifices everything to defend the empty vestiges of the decadent System.
The [Devilish L3viathan] attacks, proposing a new beginning from absolute error.
And I? What do I sacrifice myself for?
For my home, the ruins of my home, and all the people it hosted. I don't even remember anymore. I continue to remember the games thanks to the trinkets that fill this coffin. These white robes, these jewels... yet I don't remember the face of Ilnerio, nor Mircalla, or Kirlh'iau.
The world has become small in its infinite extension. I have all the time and space I want, but I have no one except those few people who inhabit the final hours of the Underwasteland and, in this dream, the God of Wisdom.
That crack in the reality.
Even considering the God of Wisdom as the great antagonist of all of us, no move, no matter how chaotic, seems to waver this ineluctable and unnerving plan of it. What meaning of this plan? I do not know.
Hmm…
We are puppets who follow a variable script in the paths but obliged in the usual stages. [Yellow Queen], [Empress], [Devilish L3viathan], Dal-Dazzer, and Fulzo. Whatever the shuffling of the cards, in the end, the deck does not change.
Ci-cin.
Sigh.
I get up and sit on the edge of the coffin. I have lost count of how many times I have repeated this.
My brain stopped taking in the information. I struggle to remember distant pasts and events that are different from those I experience in the present.
I have tried them all. There are no ways out. The only way to break this vicious circle is to defeat the God of Wisdom at its game. Make that one move that, out of fear of failure, definitively closes the game.
But that's how it is now. The game must be closed. If I cannot win, I at least want to draw.
It is all I can hope for.
♦
Sitting on a chain that descends from a Warlock, I look out over the landscape. The pieces in the distance, the passing white clouds.
“Your death allows you to live this dream, Empress.”
The voice of the God of Wisdom comes back. I do not know how often, but it comes back. Always. Some silences last longer than my youth; others longer than my first fifty levels.
But in the end, it comes back with meaningless sentences like this one. What's the point of starting a conversation? By now, we have said everything I can conceive of. I am waiting. I am waiting for the right moment to take advantage of my turn.
Eventually, I cannot even be bored anymore. I think it is a dream. A dream meant to be eternal cannot predict the existence of boredom. Just as negative emotions that are too intense or continuous are not allowed.
It is strange.
What if I spent eternity in this limbo?
Ci-cin.
“Let me satisfy my curiosity.” I turn to look down, my legs dangling, the distant chessboard.
The slot is motionless in mid-air as it should be. It has no tremors or changes that could help me understand any moods.
“Ask and evaluate again. I do not think there are any other questions. If you ask for level one hundred again, I will not tell you how to get it here.”
“Indeed, I already asked you, but you never answered me. Is this my deceased dream? But is it a nightmare or a dream? What guarantees that I have not been judged and, like a nightmare, am forced into this eternity? Maybe after being pierced by Kirlh'iau, or by the Devil, or by the waters of the Ocean, or what do I know?”
“Interesting question, but I'll answer in the only way you understand: what makes you think this is a nightmare?”
I shake my head.
With my ability, I reappear near the coffin, where a Sorcerer is shattered. As soon as I turn, I notice the fracture, this time in the ground, swaying between the squares.
“I have no way of telling dreams and nightmares apart. The Bakenekro usually gives them out. Then they disappear into the Ocean. I want to know. How am I judged? Why does the System judge in this way?”
“Dream. Even if it does not seem like it to you, this is a dream. It is also a nightmare.”
I bend over the coffin and pick up a bell from the pile.
Impossible.
Identical.
Some other bells are identical to mine. Under the jewels, there are numerous bells similar to mine. One is cloned at each restart, containing the data from the previous game.
Absolutely, useless.
Ci-cin, Ci-cin, Ci-cin.
When wearing them, information relating to previous games comes to mind.
All ended endlessly right to my exasperation. All with a predictable outcome from the first round.
I hold up a couple to show the crack.
“Those are the bells from your previous games. The System is buggy. Every rewind saves them again, without overwriting them. Indeed, previous players did not go back in time.”
“See, that's what I mean.”
“Do you think this dream is a trap?”
“I have no doubts about it, but it doesn't matter. Look, can I introduce a rule?” I lower my head in a pleading bow.
How long has it been since I bowed? Too. It is been too long since I have been hospitable and kind to someone. The company is beautiful, I miss it.
Yet, I have no other company than the cyclical one of the loops. I am so tired.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Whatever rules you want to change will only prolong your suffering. You already have infinity on your side.”
“So, you're okay with that?”
“Speak.”
I scratch my ears and ankles and raise my head.
“When a piece eats an opponent's piece, that piece becomes impossible to eat for one turn. Nor can it be moved in the next turn.”
“Rule accepted. Do you want to take time before the checkmate sequence starts?”
“Yes, I would also keep the die rule.”
“I have no objections to that.”
The clouds form a dice in my hands. It is identical to the previous times in consistency and softness but still has to define the number of faces.
“So, it's my turn. Right? I choose a four-sided die.”
“You will lose.”
“Fine. Really?” I try to be sarcastic, but my voice is just tired.
The die takes the shape of a pyramid in my hand. Each face has multiple values, while the vertices always coincide with the same number on each face.
1, 2, 3, 4.
Ci-cin-cin-cin-Ci-cin-cin…
The bells tied to the tails ring together.
The equilateral pyramid reforms. I weighed it one more time before throwing it.
It does not roll and fall.
3.
The crack appears wider to the side of me and with the cracks that change inconstantly.
“Your rule prevents you from moving a piece that has already eaten. The mate in two turns, thus, will remain with you in two turns instead of in two moves.”
I do not respond and make my Knight move. I move the Warlock and sacrifice a Follower to move it again.
I move a different Warlock and sacrifice a Follower to move it again.
Five moves in a turn of 3. I set up the field, and in the next turn, victory is certain, while for the God it is not. It has an idea of what kind of victory I am crafting in shadow; it must know.
“God of Wisdom, cast. Your turn.”
The God of Wisdom rolls the dice.
2.
A two is perfect. Perfect! The game is over…
“It went badly for you this time.” I smile.
The specter of the God of Wisdom does not respond to the provocation. I feel the earth tremble. The first piece is moving towards my defeat. But I cannot hear it.
“Does not wisdom lie in oblivion awareness?”
Other nonsense.
I look at the slit trying to remain expressionless. It is probably able to read or deduce my thoughts, but to blatantly reveal what I am weaving would be like throwing in the towel. That attitude, I could even afford at this point.
“Now we have to wait what will be a long time for you.”
“As usual.”
“You did not check the box a trillion boxes away. It was a mistake that happened in a few possibilities out of all the possible ones. Your five moves have exposed the line of fire to your God's palace. A clean line. In the end, you decided to lose.”
I tremble: it understood everything. A hint of nervousness. Why do not stop the game? Why proceed?
I am so close; this is the most delicate moment. It will take a long time. I have to be ready. I have to stay ready!
“Checkmate in two. Checkmate is underway. It will take some time given the distance. But the game is over.”
Ci-cin-cin-ci-ci-Ci-cin-cin…
A breeze comes from the crack. It intensifies and widens the breach more and more. Catacomb sounds. Hours pass, and the first limb comes out, then the second.
It is leaking. The breach is giving birth to a body.
The wind is so strong that I have to grab the chains of a nearby monolith to keep me on the ground. My hair flies, and I squint.
The crocodile-like skeletal head and the first tentacles emerge together with the hairless gorilla torso.
The creature is pale pink. The flesh is full of red veins and shiny. Covered in slime, which highlights the powerful animal muscles.
“What's happening!?”
“The System is being decommissioned; the universe pours into this last dream to give me the body from which to start again.”
The dark voice of the being amplifies its solemnity. It moves slowly, on all fours like the monstrous gorilla, while its very long spear-like tail sweeps the ground.
A four-armed, two-legged gorilla. With a crocodile-like head and wings of asymmetrical and varicose tentacles.
At one step, the blood sprays from the body in the process of forming and approaching.
It emits a unique stench. A smell of pulsating and rotting living flesh, unlike any other living being.
Nausea.
Disgust.
Hate.
Rancor.
Anger.
All the negative emotions add up in me. They take the shape of that gruesome beast. Of vomiting stench. I have always loved the intense smells of the dead, so different from the absence of smell in the desert.
I have always loved them under what they represented: the breath of change.
But not this time.
This smell, much more than the sewage of the [Devil] or the sea of cockroaches and dead fish, arouses in me only contempt.
I raise my arm. Here, we are not beyond the Golden Doors. We are no longer in another God of Wisdom plane of existence. Electric arcs twirl between the fingers.
[Blue jet]
The shot explodes without even harming the nascent aberration.
“I'm not from this reality. I know you remember. You can't touch me. And even if you could, you have no power. You can only wait.”
[Necromancy]
Nothing happens.
“There are no other dead beside us. This is the dream in which I manifest myself. Your necromancy skills are as useless as the rest.”
Sweat.
Terror.
Warm palms that I open and close as I try to breathe.
What am I doing? Am I acting? Am I scared again?
Is there nothing I can do?
Nothing even though it is my dream!?
I do not accept it, but it is not time yet. Things are going mad and then well. For the plan to succeed, they have to go badly, very badly. Dal is right. Dal got it right.
We must be ready to judge ourselves when the moment requires it.
[Red sprite]
Aside from destroying several monumental pieces under the storm of red lightning, the specter is intact.
“You can't kill the dead. You cannot touch the transcendent. You can do nothing but surrender.”
In the dream, I don't feel any tiredness. Anger pushes me to walk away and…
[Dungeon path]
[Red sprite], [Red sprite], [Red sprite], [Red sprite], [Red sprite], [Red sprite], [Red sprite] … [Red sprite]
The sky turns red and purple. An invincible storm devastates a large surrounding area. The opponent emerges intact from that storm and contracts the pink muscles of its double-mouth jaw.
“You are attacking me to vent your frustration. I accept that. This is useful information for the creation of the universe in which I will live. All dreams are important.”
“So, I don't think this is a dream. Nor a nightmare. And I would also like to see if—”
An immense gravity crushes me to the ground.
[Shadow Wall]
I slide away, but when I re-emerge that sort of winged beast with a long tail that continues to emerge and twist from the crack still faces me.
It opens its jaws inside the wider mouth.
“Born only to be forgotten. Only absence is truly perfect. To achieve this result, everything we achieved was necessary and sufficient. Empress, you are right when you say that is not a dream in the correct System sense.”
“Are you talking about the fact that using Red Sprite against the storm after Y changes results in the end of the System?”
“Correct. This is the only dream that continues outside of the System which incorporates the information from all the other dreams, the Corestar, and the Tree. You find yourself in my dream, which also welcomes yours. Bakenekro does not dream: they are made to dissolve in the Ocean. Do you know why?”
I try to look at my enemy, who is constantly and slowly approaching. Drooling with blood and muscle fluids. Its muscles contract and relax, making it move jerkily, like a string-less marionette. Only the tail is very long and sinuous. What flows from it forms eyes, entrails, nails, and trails of suffering on the ground.
Torment.
Flowering.
Metastasis.
Electricity runs through me, itching to attack.
“No.”
“Because originally you were not living beings. But you became. Then, the System never adapted. Its purpose was ignored by the Yellow Queen.”
“Make a System, a universe that worked straight away? If you are so wise, why not create what you were interested in right away?”
The monstrosity stops, rising on two legs. “Indeed, Empress. Indeed. But as you well know, for me, it is as you say. I certainly do not have your chronological problems. Everything that has happened so far is all at once.”
The being controls its arms calmly and moves the fingers opening and closing the palms. The tail waves and creates tapestries of shapes in the sky.
When it rests on all its arms, it starts talking again.
“From the experiences gathered in this System, I know that in the next few there will never be a Devil again. Not even an Empress or anyone other than me. The system itself is superfluous. It took countless universes to get to this point. But now I exist, even if only in the dream, that's what matters.”
“I don't understand how you can say you exist. If this is your dream, you don't exist.”
“How do you say? Wrong. To dream, you must exist. Until now, I have had to invade other people's dreams. Creeping into their sleeping minds, this is how my ghost acted. But now I am in a dream. I am dreaming with you. Furthermore, when no external reality exists, the dream becomes reality.”
“NO! You don't exist. You don't exist, no more than Y's emotions, no more than everything else. If this dream is atypical, if it allows me to be here it's because you need something from me! Something you cannot get from the simple sum of all your dreams.”
Suddenly appearing in front of me, the God grabs my skull and lifts me, crushing my temples forcefully.
I bite it with my tail and my mouth.
[Blue jet]
“Give—”
Indifferent to my blows, the vestige throws me away. I see the clouds, the sky, and the black disk.
BAM!
Ci-cin-cin-ci-CIN-Ci-ci-cin…
I crash into a structure and get my shoulders stuck on it.
Suddenly, I feel emptied of all strength, all energy.
Will.
Resistance.
Missing.
I can hardly think anymore. I know it absorbed them by touching me.
I cannot give up. Not at all…
…
I reopen my eyes and discover that I am still in the structure.
A diabolical force, a pink and blue miasma comes from the mass of floating flesh. As big as an ever-expanding planet.
The God of Wisdom is ready for something, and its gestation for birth beyond this dream is the clock of my end. What is it waiting for? Because it did not act while I was unconscious.
I play the last card I have available.
The one I kept in reserve until the end.
If this is not my dream, it means that I have never been judged. So, this would be a shared dream, huh? Your divine dream?
Sure.
I touch my neck. I am ready.
[Judgment]
The body begins to contort, double, and overlap. An infinite multiplication of parts that fit together and blend. I am not in the Underwasteland, and my appearance will not become part of the desert.
By now, its presence is solid.
The being cries out in pain.
The first pain of those who have discovered the world. Even that of miserable dreams.
“The truth is that you took over my body. This prison is to erase me, to leave room for you in the universe you are creating.”
[Judgement] is finally judging it. It is judging me.
The System that judges its origin, as well as the only being left.
“In the Golden Doors it didn't work, but now you have located yourself in me; in my dream. If I disappear, you will be judged with me.”
An eternal punishment, a punishment... so, this is how it will all end?
[lv: 100] [obtained]
What a joke!
[Dreamare]
↓
Failure is the Wisdom′s Perfection,
Method is the ambition.