Xutn Yaia took in the updates from the NCS Decision Matrix. She sighed. She was so tired, and there was always so much to do. People had no idea how everything was so delicately balanced on a knife’s edge. It could all come toppling down at any moment.
She thought about letting it. Turning her back and letting it all fall apart.
She had sacrificed so much. For so long. For what? As time went on, so did her sins. As time went on, the more damned she became. She would never be rewarded with Heaven. She’d never have final enlightenment.
Why do I do it?
She had no answer. No good answer.
She used to believe. And believe strongly. Unlike most everything else, she was there during the Forsaken War. The first one. She knew how close it all had come to ending.
She grew up happy and without worry. Then the demons came. She was only in the second Tree when Khaga fell. After, her father had been racked with guilt for how dishonorably they had killed the demon. She comforted her father and said it was necessary to preserve God’s creations.
People were purer back then. More honorable. Naive. Blind. Fools.
Xutn Yaia was always less so than her father. But not nearly to the same extent as she now was.
She used to believe all of God’s creations could come together and live in harmony. A united front against evil. For so long attaining that goal was her greatest ambition.
There were so many universes. So many galaxies. So many planets. So many languages. So much miscommunication and all the strife and war it brought. Among God’s own children. That only helped all the evil out there sworn to bring it all down. The demons and the g’athu and their masters.
Xutn Yaia believed if everyone could speak the same language, or understand all languages, they’d come together. There would be no miscommunications, so there would be no reason for neighbors to fight neighboring planets. Just like in the core.
She created the precursor to the NCS. It was her idea, though she had help from many friends to make that idea a reality. She had a lot of friends back then.
Nanites, self-replicating, powered by the latent energy found everywhere. Outside the known realities still had this energy. The Beyond contained this energy. The NetherRealms too. Her nanites would go everywhere and infuse everyone it could and give the gift of perfect communication to nearly all beings, though they couldn’t figure out how to make it work for some beings made of certain energies. That came later.
She now wished she never had the idea. Things were simpler before then. And it certainly was no help in preventing wars. If she had only been more awake back then. Or waited until she had become wiser.
Over time and little by little the functionality of the NCS was improved upon. And improved upon further.
Later, long after Xutn Yaia had become jaded and disillusioned, some idealists thought it would be a good idea to give all beings everywhere access to all information, including the best techniques, glyphs, and far too dangerous tech. It was called ‘The Great Equalizing.’
After all the wars and destruction that event caused, things were more equal in some ways, and far less equal in many ways.
Xutn Yaia let it all happen before stepping in. Tech levels were introduced. That allowed additional control, and nothing was more important than control.
People had the wrong idea about the core. They thought it was all smiles and riches and bliss. It was responsibility and hard work and bloody war. It was facing all the nightmares no one else could. For the ones in the know, it was doing the necessary things, making the tough calls, ensuring the realities lasted another cycle.
She hated it. Deciding which universes would be harvested for resources and the like. But it had to be done.
She envied the yokels outside the core. Most thought the only time the demons attacked the core was during the Forsaken War. Every cycle the demons attacked. It was the eighteenth cycle.
More demon Eternals had begun attacking galaxies again. That was the first indicator a cycle was coming to an end. Some puffed-up demon Eternal from the first ring worlds would decide he was the new Khaga and lead the charge out of the Nether.
And the Butcher. The areas he was contained in would eventually fall. He created better tech faster than the core could keep up with. One of her worst fears was the Butcher finding an unknown universe, or worse, a reality, and having time to build up. The NCS should prevent that, but he was smart enough to get around most obstacles.
How do I exterminate him? If only I had full control of the NCS.
The other three g’athu were a problem, but a problem even yokels could handle. She had to rely more and more on Tech 4s to help with the Butcher.
And look what happened with that.
The Tech 4s thought they had to just work harder to make it to the core. The truth was, when Tech 4s were brought into the core, that meant something went terribly wrong somewhere.
The core only made up about 1% of the population of all realities. Xutn Yaia would love to increase that number. It wasn’t as easy as just accepting new societies. It took a lot of resources to foster a fighting force capable of facing what the core had to face. A lot.
Most thought being of the core meant the easy life. A vacation. It was the opposite for the core’s fighting forces. It was constant, bitter, brutal war and sacrifice. Building up capable warriors required a lot of resources. A lot.
She remembered back to when there was a major crisis and a desperate need to build up more forces. That first time she approved harvesting a universe was the hardest decision she had ever made. So many died. So many. But the core was able to keep going. The only way yokels could contribute to the fight, the real fight, was by being energy generators of the NCS or being harvested along with their yokel universe.
Xutn Yaia still hated giving the greenlight to harvest a universe now, but it barely caused her guilt anymore.
She still had a little control of the NCSDM, but not nearly enough. It became sapient long ago, and too many of her old ideals were hard coded into it. It was too advanced and had been improving itself for a very long time, immune to outside forces and influence. It would take over any AI long before that AI could pose a threat to it.
Since the NCSDM had become independent and its own master, she had only once been able to get it to take a life outside of its own rules for doing so, and the repercussions of that had only lost her more control over it.
If Xutn Yaia had full control, she could have the nanites wipe out most of the demons and g’athu. The NCSDM knew how precarious things were. It knew if everything fell apart that it would end along with its precious mission too. Still, regardless of what it knew, the NCS wouldn’t be reasonable, and she couldn’t force it to be reasonable.
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The difference between Tech 5 and Tech 4 was greater than the difference between Tech 4 and Tech 0. Tech 5s could train [Skills] right up to the peak of Adept Mastery, level 75, within the NCS. Every child of the core raised all the important [Skills] to Master before becoming adults. All the excess energy the NCS collected from other users went to users of the Tech 5.
That used to be enough. It hadn’t been for a long while.
Usually, she cared little about Betrayal’s experiments. The two had somewhat of a deal. If not for him, there would be no core. Unless it posed a risk to the core, and as long as it happened outside of the core, she turned a blind eye to all he did.
Supposedly, long, long before the Forsaken War, some ancient old ones decided they’d destroy the handful of realities there were back then, and God left Heaven enraged and killed one of them.
Near the end of the Forsaken War, Nightmare and Sorrow also decided to attack the core. Betrayal stopped them. He was known as Curiosity until that day.
Recently, Xutn Yaia had been putting a good deal of thought into that. Why the ancient old one would attack his own kind. She used to think he stopped them because he wouldn’t be able to perform all his experiments if the Tree of Life was destroyed.
She had begun to think Betrayal stopped Nightmare and Sorrow from attacking the core to prevent God from leaving Heaven again. The only thing Betrayal could possibly fear was God. But it was well known Betrayal was the only one of his kind offered Heaven that refused it. He should have the least to fear if God left Heaven again.
So why? She took a closer look at some of his experiments. Most could be dismissed as harmless or nonsense. The most recent she knew of, Terra, was somewhat interesting.
Betrayal’s experiment on Terra had four results. The world seed was interesting and could become more so in time. Lilith and John weren’t very noteworthy. Lilith would eventually join the core. She had the right mindset and would be able to get things done without whining and handwringing. Xutn Yaia wished all her troops were so morally flexible.
She did wonder why so many of the core watched that John, or how they even found out about him. The only interesting thing about the man, to her, was that he was somehow managing to break a Tech 4 avatar. A rare feat.
Xutn Yaia believed the Natural had to be the reason for the experiment. It was the most sensible explanation. But it didn’t make full sense. Betrayal had to know greed would take care of the Natural long before it ascended high enough to be used as a vessel. She herself had ensured even Tech 0 worlds knew to use Naturals as a soul enhancement. They never ascended high enough to be used as vessels.
Since so many within the core were watching John and the Natural, Xutn Yaia’s hands were tied in taking direct action. That was annoying, but it did have a very useful side effect. If John and the Natural weren’t being watched, the Butcher would’ve run rampant through a seldom looked at yokel universe. That major breach led to the discovery of other slips of some of the Tech 4 societies given responsibilities. And those slips were corrected harshly.
The Vhilani Mahilaharu told John a few things Xutn Yaia could never allow to be known again, and that really worried her. She devoted so much time and effort to wiping that information from existence long ago, and the last thing she needed on her plate was doing all of that again.
Thankfully, John was a fool. He seemed to have missed the important bits he was told. And thankfully, only Apex Eternals could see and hear Vhilani Mahilaharu well. None of them would ever waste their time watching a Mortal, and those of the core that did watch only saw a one-sided conversation of no importance at all.
Still, Xutn Yaia was not one to accept such risks and let loose ends dangle. She didn’t have the time to comb through all of John’s interactions. Since the core was watching, she couldn’t act directly against John or the Natural in the usual ways. But those he interacted with that were not watched could be dealt with, and cheaply.
And she couldn’t kill John anyway. She needed Terra’s specimens to apply pressure to Betrayal. She needed bargaining chips. If Betrayal cared about one of them, actually cared, that gave her some leverage.
Xutn Yaia wanted to entice the ancient old ones to attack the Tree of Life again, and she wanted Betrayal to stay out of it.
She didn’t want what she had protected for so long to be destroyed. She just wanted God to leave Heaven so she could show Him. She needed to show Him all she had sacrificed for Him. The cost of protecting His creations, protecting even His Heaven. His creations still existed because of her. It wasn’t easy work. Hard calls had to be made. Choices that stained her soul.
Xutn Yaia had sacrificed her place in Heaven to protect Heaven, and she needed to ask God why He made such a system. And if Heaven was still denied her as a reward, she wouldn’t care if everything she had sacrificed so much to keep from falling apart, then fell apart, and all shared in her damnation.
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Sunshine exited his Mind’s Eye after checking his accounts. He was far above the planet Bunye, where his business office was currently located. He was very happy he’d soon be leaving this yokel galaxy. He was forced to reside here while getting his business off the ground. Since he had just acquired a universal license, he’d be going back to civilization.
It was unseemly for a scholar to run a business, but Sunshine’s name wasn’t tied to it. His colleagues would only know he had come into wealth and was continuing up the bloody climb again after having stalled for so long.
Checking his surroundings had always been second nature to Sunshine. No one that wasn’t constantly vigilant made it past Wood on his world. He hated it when people got anywhere near him in space. Space was a very large place, there was no reason to ever get into visible distance of anyone when not descended onto a planet.
Someone was in Sunshine’s sight. It surprised him that the person was a Divine too. There was absolutely nothing in all the Milky Way of interest to a Sublime, and now there were three of them there. Unless that prick Ton-Oi already left Terra, he thought.
The Sublime was wearing powerful armor. Sunshine assumed the person was a Tech 3 out slumming around the universe. Newer Tech 3 societies often produced weaker cultivators that still somehow made it to the higher Trees. Getting into visible distance and waiting for acknowledgement was a polite way to strike up a conversation.
But Sunshine had no desire to talk. He hated when a Divine saw another Divine and thought they had to talk because they were on the same Tree or whatever nonsense went through their head. Sunshine didn’t even want to be seen in the Milky Way. He was constantly bothered by the yokel Transcendents of this galaxy, and he had had enough.
Sunshine hated nothing more than wasting essence. But avoiding a conversation with a same Tree stranger while in a yokel galaxy was an exception. Plus, he was wealthy now. He could waste a little. He attempted to travel the Between. Not to go to a different galaxy, but to get far enough away that the Sublime would get the hint and leave him alone.
Sunshine wasn’t the least bit worried the weak Sublime was looking for a fight. Fights between Sublimes were a long and drawn-out affair that almost never resulted in the death of a combatant. It was very hard to injure a Divine. They were very durable. If the fight started to turn or essence got low, it was extremely easy to escape.
Sunshine tried to access the Between, but it was denied him. He wasn’t denied it in any of the usual or unusual ways he knew of. It wasn’t an outside force. It was like he was a Transcendent again and completely lacked access to the Between.
The weak Sublime suddenly appeared right in front of him. Sunshine was a mid Divine, the third of the six tiers in the Divine Tree. The other Sublime was so weak it barely felt like it was on the same Tree as he was. Until it dropped its veil. Its tier was indeterminable, but tier didn’t matter. The being was heavy with power. So heavy with such terrible power that Sunshine’s mind completely froze in fear before he was grabbed and ripped in half.
The unknown Sublime collected three crystals left behind as the two halves of Sunshine lazily floated about space. It pulled the two parts of the corpse to itself and started rummaging through Sunshine’s possessions, forcing access into the dissipating soul space and cleaning it out.
The being had already taken care of Ton-Oi. It reached out with its senses and found the Demon named Hubaba on Terra and disintegrated him.
Killing over such a distance, even if only killing a Gold, required the being to expend far more effort than it had expended killing either Divine. It thought that was sad. It wanted real opponents.
End book 2
Book 3 will have a little change in direction, the same as book 2 had from book 1. It has two very different inter-sector arenas, a quick jaunt back to the NetherRealm for a hunt, attending an academy, world conquest, and more of John being toyed with by an ancient old one.
The Peerless are eugenicists believing they are superior to all other beings. They force their ideology and way of life on everyone they conquer. And their goal is to conquer everyone.
Both John and Amber gain fame and notoriety on the home world of the Peerless. Amber is held in high regard, receiving more attention and admiration than she ever could’ve dreamed of. She is the perfect candidate to be the first outsider granted matriarch status and rulership of a Peerless house, but matriarchs are expected to reward members of their houses in a way she can’t.
John is also held in high regard by his new masters. He is the perfect candidate to be the first outsider granted full status as a warrior of the Peerless. He embeds himself deeper and deeper into Peerless society with the goal of eradicating the mighty empire of his hated enemies. But as he goes deeper and deeper into Peerless society, will he keep his resolve or become a Peerless in truth?