Others Side

"[I don't know who that is.]" Awhina responds with a shrug upon hearing the name of Mithra.

"[Of course you would not.]" Aurelia states, a disdainful look on her face. "[In either case, I will be taking you prisoner now.]"

"[What makes you think that-]" Before the demi-goddess can finish her sentence, the golden woman tugs on the necklace demonstratively once again. It's like an owner pulling on the leash of her dog.

"[This way we will get into the palace unhindered. Is that not your aim?]" Turning around to walk into the frozen form of Kouratua, Aurelia poses this rhetorical question in passing. "[Just know that I am on Chaos' side.]"

With these words, the front of the God of Gold closes around the woman, and he begins to move again as if he never stopped. Awhina stares at him with a skeptical frown, but as long as the collar is around her neck, she can't disobey him. Or her, whatever their real form is.

"[Did you two have a nice talk?]" He twirls his pencil mustache and looks down on the village girl with a smile. She blinks in surprise, and her mouth falls open. So, Kouratua and Aurelia are two different people? She could have sworn that either of the two was just an avatar of the other. "[Now, let's go.]"

Gold spreads around his feet and begins to break down the dome of dirt that has been covering them from prying eyes for the entire duration of their conversation. He has been holding back in their fight, so that something like this could happen; if he created a dome of gold himself, rather than killing her with pinpoint attacks, it might have appeared suspicious.

That means he's collaborating with Aurelia, although Awhina still can't tell what her goal is. In fact, the God of Gold seems to have been hiding her for a long time without anyone knowing about it. Otherwise, she could have come out to face Chaos directly, instead of doing it in such a roundabout way.

"[The battle has moved to the palace. I'll take you there on the quickest way.]" Kouratua lowers the wall of gold he first created to stop the beams of light that Chaos shot out, and reveals himself to Kairaki's garrison. Since the attackers have moved inside the city, the routed soldiers have gathered back together and are tending to their wounded here.

"[Minister!]" Some of them shout when they see the golden man emerge from the dome of dirt. They must have been wondering about whether he lost or not, but seeing him safe raises their morale.

"[I've taken her prisoner. Her skills can certainly be a useful addition to our forces, after some... realignment training.]" Gesturing at Awhina, Kouratua announces to the soldiers, who cheer at his words.

"[The enemies have breached the gates and are inside the city!]" An officer comes up to the golden god, salutes him and reports on the battle situation.

"[Then I will take the hidden pathway into the palace.]" Speaking in a reassuring tone that further bolsters the morale of the soldiers, Kouratua spreads his arms to show that he's still capable of fighting. It serves to make them believe that everything is going to turn out well and that they will win this battle.

Awhina feels curiosity rising in her chest. What is the golden woman's goal here, and why is this god helping her?

When Korenga regains her senses from the battle frenzy she entered after clashing with her former husband she finds herself alone in a field of rubble. There are human civilians all around her, staring at her in fear, while others are running around tending to the wounded who are screaming in pain.

Looking down at her hands, she finds that she's still in her cursed black form. The duration for which she stays this way has been slowly but steadily increasing whenever she loses herself in rage. And in this form, she's also more susceptible to lose control, which is a vicious cycle that will eventually result in her bringing more suffering to the people of this world.

Even though she may seem heartless during battle, she prefers to avoid causing innocent deaths. Her battle against Pakangaroa took her through the city wall and into the residential areas, but in her enraged state, she fought with no regard to her surroundings, and it resulted in this outcome.

The God of War is actually more powerful than Korenga when she tries to fight with prudence rather than allowing her fury to take over. However, in her untiring and sheer indestructible black form, she can simply outlast anyone. While she may be able to use it consciously, there's no honor in winning while unconscious.

The Black God looks to the pyramid, inside which a large hole has been opened from the impact of Pakangaroa - whom she had sent flying with a powerful blow. She doesn't know how long ago that was, but she has no illusions about victory just yet; he can't have lost that easily. The first time her curse manifested itself, she had wounded him with a surprise attack, and they still fought to a standstill, while today he was fully prepared for her.

Suddenly, a rock hits Korenga's head and bounces off without causing any harm. Turning to look in the direction it came from, she sees a young girl bleeding from her forehead glaring at her. She motions to throw another rock, but a woman runs over, picks her up and hastily runs away.

It's a sight she has seen many times in her long life. Whenever she rampaged and destroyed villages, those who survived regarded her as a monster. Even young children would only look at her with hatred, and it used to break her heart. After repeating this many times, her emotions have dulled; as if to match her unfeeling body, her mind is becoming more and more warped.

Sighing to herself, Korenga returns her attention to the pyramid. Pakangaroa isn't emerging from it, although he should still be able to continue the fight. Maybe something happened in there, or he's telling her that she should follow him. That's the destination Chaos and the others were aiming for, and they must have entered already since there are no sounds of battle coming from outside the city.

Walking forward while cracking her neck, the Black God begins to jog, before bursting out into a sprint that seems to shake the very air around her. Leaping off the ground, she covers a distance of a several dozen meters at once. On her second jump, the distance is tripled. On the third, she shoots through the air, straight towards the pyramid.

That's when a lightning bolt strikes the side of the giant palace despite the fact that the storm above has cleared. It must be the God of Storm, joining the fight as well.

It seems that everyone is assembling.

Tokomaha lets a few of her clones scout the entire floor of the pyramid while she follows Mereana with the bulk of them. The interior of the palace is lit by unnaturally bright lamps that don't seem to originate from fire. They give off a similar feeling to when Chaos uses her ability that shoots javelins of light, and it's unlike any god's powers she has seen before.

The little god can see through the eyes of her clones, and each of her scouts is reporting that the humans on this floor are all moving towards the stairs leading up. It's the same direction Mereana is going.

This human has shown some strange behavior ever since coming here. It seems that she is able to hear Rapania's voice, or is even connected to her. At one point, Mereana suddenly slashed her own hand and spoke into the air, most likely because the sea witch was trying to exert influence over her weak human mind. Tokomaha would never fall for something like that.

However, the fact that she's walking in the same direction as all other humans suggest that she isn't in complete control of her own actions. Tokomaha will keep this human safe because Chaos would want her to.

On the second floor, they come upon some humans walking like puppets on strings. None of them seem to be fully conscious, and they don't try to stop the clone army or Mereana. In return, they don't try to tussle with the humans and continue on their path towards where Rapania must be waiting for them.

Soon, they find a group of more than two dozen humans scratching at a large metal door, acting like base creatures that don't understand the concept of the blockage before them. The door itself is reminiscent of the one they found in the sea witch's tower in Manoa, which was the only place that used metal in such abundance and for such a mundane purpose.

The little goddess quickly makes her clones roughly shove the human puppets aside, throwing many to the ground carelessly, before the real her kicks the door down.

Or at least that's what she wanted to do. However, it doesn't budge in the slightest, and the sound from the impact of her foot makes it clear that this metal door is far thicker than the one in her castle. Back then, Chaos had been there to melt it with a beam of light from her hand, but she isn't here right now.

Suddenly, Mereana holds her ears as if there was a loud noise, but Tokomaha can't hear a thing. It must be Rapania speaking again, and due to the proximity, it must exert exceptional control over the human female.

"[Pull.]" Mereana presses out between her teeth, and Tokomaha turns around to her with a questioning gaze. "[Rapania said... the door needs to... be pulled open.]"

The little goddess blinks her eyes in lack of comprehension and tilts her head. Then she looks up at the metal door to find a heavy ring; it doesn't open inward but has to be pulled outward instead.

"[I-I knew that! I-it was just my way of announcing that we're coming for her!]" Stuttering an obvious excuse, Tokomaha immediately makes a clone pull on the ring. However, the door is too heavy for one alone, so several of her start working together. The real one hides her embarrassment by kicking one of the human men crawling towards her and grumbling to herself.

Grinding over the stone floor and with rusted hinges shrieking like a murder of crows, the door slowly opens. It would seem that it hasn't been opened in a long time, so either there is another entrance, or Rapania can move through walls - if she's even in there in the first place.

Preparing a wall of spears, Tokomaha sends a contingent of her clones ahead. If the sea witch is waiting for them inside, she wouldn't want to go first with her real body, and she won't let Mereana come to harm either. But the humans that have been impotently scratching at the door earlier suddenly seem to gain newfound strength, push past the clones, and make their way into the room before they can react.

The interior looks just like Rapania's room in her castle in Manoa. There are strange metal devices with sparks flying about them and emitting unnatural sounds. The humans that run through the aisle towards the back of the room, where a female figure stands next to one such device with a metallic rod in her hand, are struck by the arcing lightning and collapse with muscle spasms.

"[Welcome to my laboratory.]" Greeting the little goddess and Mereana with outstretched arms, the purple-haired woman curls her blue lips into a sardonic smile. "[Did you miss me?]"

Waving the metal rod at the people squirming on the ground, Rapania motions her wrist like the conductor of a choir. The humans suddenly stand up again, and their forms begin to twist out of shape. Muscles bulge and rip through clothes, bones warp and pierce their skin from the inside, creating sharp spikes and blades all over their bodies.

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Soon, more than a dozen vaguely humanoid monsters stand before them, barring their way to the sea witch. Their agonized screams stand in complete contrast to their joyous expressions, as their twisted faces transform into tortured visages of ecstatic pain.

The man closest to the front row of Tokomaha clones swipes at them with a bone scythe that splits his hand right down the middle. It was so fast that they can't react, as their bodies are sliced in half and return to the dirt from which they were raised. These monsters are incredibly powerful.

Suddenly, the wall to the left explodes, and in a flash of light, a glowing figure emerges. Tahiri has defeated her children and came to put an end to her history with Rapania.

Chaos Side

"[You're...]" No wait, if Hunapori really is my brother, he should speak the language from the Demon Continent. "You're Demon Queen Pelomyx' child?"

"Oh, so that's who you are." His face shows genuine amusement at my words. Damn, he got me! But the fact that he's the first person in this nation to speak this language - other than my children, who apparently inherited it from me - means that there's more to him than meets the eye.

"Then who are you?" I quickly pull my spike out of his head. I'm sure that if he's really a Crawling Chaos, he could absorb me easily. It would turn into a battle to see who can eat whom faster. The fact that he didn't just do so means that he wants to talk to me.

"I'm sure you've heard of me before. You met those remnants of humanity, haven't you?" The hole in his eye closes up in the same fashion as wounds in my body do, while he responds to me casually. "Or have they not mentioned me?"

"Who are you talking about?" What does he mean by remnants of humanity? Humans are abundant as ever in this world.

"Ahh, I see. You don't know a thing about this world, do you?" Rising from his seat, Hunapori shakes his head with a sigh. "I can't blame you, not many know. Those who do keep it a well-guarded secret."

Suddenly, his form warps out of shape for just a second, before it returns to that of a human's. Retaining the same face with the pale skin tone and black eyes which seem to suck in the light around them, he smiles at me. His long black hair has turned into a short, combed-back style, and his dark brown robes, the fashion of Adanak, have been replaced with a white business suit. It's too modern to fit into the time period of this country - or this entire world. It even comes with a blood red tie.

"But I don't need to keep this secret from a sister." Sweeping back a loose strand of hair, he states with a dark smile that puts me on guard. There's something unnerving about the expression, even though he only has the face of a human. "By remnants of humanity, I'm talking about those you may know as sorcerers - those who call themselves gods where you came from." With a disparaging gesture, he points at Pakangaroa, who is staring up at him in surprise. "Not these new humans."

I'm confused. In what world are the sorcerers and these gods humans? They may be using magic - with the gods of this nation not calling it that - but their powers are indistinguishable from forces of nature. There is no way these are just humans, as those at the magic academy were.

But he referred to the sorcerers as 'remnants of humanity', while the gods of Adanak are 'new humans'. What does that even mean? I can't begin to wrap my head around this.

"I see that you're confused. I would be, too." Hunapori nods his head with a sympathetic expression. "Then, maybe it would be easier to start at the very beginning."

I know that I don't have time to listen to this guy's ramblings, but since he changed his form, he's been registering in my Chaos senses as a Crawling Chaos. Aside from my mother and the pieces of me scattered in my first teleportation accident, this is the only other one I've met in this world. He may be able to tell me things about our kind - if I can converse with him in a sensible manner, that is.

Creating a set of eyes on the back of my head, I peer into the throne room. Uten and Saten have cleaned up and left nobody alive. The only enemies in here are this guy before me and the God of War who doesn't look like he's in any shape to do anything. I can't pick up on any other life energies in the vicinity, so I should be safe to stay a while and listen.

"... go on." I keep my plasma cannon pointed at him, knowing that my kind fears high temperatures the most. Even if he also has a dragon template, it should still deal substantial damage to him.

"As an ancient writer once stated 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic', so is this miraculous world based on technology as well." Hunapori begins with this opening phrase. "The magic you see in this world is nothing but invisible technology."

What follows is something that feels like a stake is being driven through my head slowly.

The Crawling Chaos that is taking a male human's shape proceeds to explain that this world has ended once and that old humanity has gone extinct - the few survivors being the sorcerers, who are far below the minimum viable population. Those sorcerers are all children that remained in stasis for many millennia, their life-support staying active out of sheer luck, as the world around them crumbled away.

Then, they emerged from their underground shelters and found a completely healed world, brimming with new life. There were remnants of the old world such as living machines and some mythical races humanity created out of pure hubris - such as elves and dragons - which had created their own cultures and societies after finding freedom.

And there was a new human race.

However, those were not other survivors or their distant offspring; they were humans created from scratch, ignorant of their kind's former glory, possessing only primitive technology, and living in societies mirroring those of ancient times. To the children, it was a new playground, and they used the powers granted to them through the old technology to pose as gods.

"As all children do, they got bored pretty quickly. Only that these children had eternal lives and counted time in centuries rather than years." Hunapori sits back down on his throne and folds his legs. "Here, take a seat. This might take a while."

He gestures towards the throne next to him, but I ignore the suggestion. I don't tire from standing around, and he should know that. Seeing my lack of reaction, he shrugs and continues with his story.

They first started on this now nameless continent, formerly known as Armeria, and became the gods of its people for five millennia. But slowly, humans who developed godlike powers due to witnessing their feats and giving in to their imaginations began to emerge. The technology that allowed the remnants of humanity to perform miracle-like feats had gone out of alignment.

Not only the new humankind but all sentient races of this world had access to that technology now, even if they weren't aware of it.

"Wait, what is this technology you keep talking about?" I interrupt Hunapori's outlandish story with this question. I can't even begin to imagine what kind of scientific breakthrough this world has reached to allow for humans to turn into living lightning.

"The Imagination Engine. I've searched for it for such a long time, but I have yet to find it." He replies with his arms crossed and his head tilted. "It overlays reality with a new layer that comes directly from the imagination of those who can activate it. Don't ask me how it works, it just does."

That sounds like some impossible fantasy technology, but considering the existence of beings like him and me, it doesn't sound that farfetched after all.

"Then what are we?" I remember Juzual saying that we came from space, but being one of the sorcerers, she should have known about all this. In other words, she lied to me about their origins, and it's possible that my kind was also born from this Imagination Engine.

"Ah, now that's a good question. For that, we'll need to go back even further, when old humanity still exited." Spreading his arms in a grand gesture, Hunapori stands up from his seat with excitement in his eyes.

Humanity created the Imagination Engine, and through thought alone, mountains flattened into plains, lakes formed where deserts were moments ago, and entire continents moved out of place at the whims of a chosen few. They were the only ones able to access the technology and abused its power for their simple entertainment, rather than for the betterment of the world, as it was intended by its creators.

Their escapades soon devolved into a game of measuring their powers against each other, causing a war that threatened to wipe out all those who were unable to use this miraculous piece of technology.

Then, one of the original creators of the Imagination Engine sabotaged it and allowed all those who shared the genetic makeup of humanity to use it. What followed was even more chaos, as life on the planet was brought to the brink of extinction.

However, over several centuries the world settled into a natural balance, which ushered in an age of decadence that beggared belief. Humanity, having been reduced to a small fraction of its former numbers, gained infinite longevity, lost all touch with reality, and began to use the world as their canvas - as long as it didn't clash with anybody else's imagination.

Thus, fantasy became reality, beings like elves and dragons were created solely for the entertainment of their makers, and nature itself was overwritten in favor of what humans who never learned to grow into adults wished to be real. What followed was social and cultural stagnation, as every person lived in their own world, sectioned off from the rest.

"That's where we come in. Or in this particular case, I." Hunapori looks down at me with a joyous expression, as if happy to be able to finally relate this story to somebody who's able to understand it. "Into this world for which time seemed to have stopped, I was thrown - still unconscious at the time. And like every Crawling Chaos, when they're unconscious, I ate."

Wait, this sounds like the Primordial Crawling Chaos that appeared on the Demon Continent, and which my mother originated from.

"I threw the world out of balance, ate to my heart's content and gained a consciousness as I had grown to an incredible size. By that time, humanity had started a devastating war, accusing each other of creating me." With a broad grin, as if recalling a fond memory, he connects this part to the earlier story about the world ending and old humanity going very nearly extinct. "And by the end of that war, the world had been reduced to ashes."

Sitting back down on his chair, Hunapori pauses for a moment and lets it all sink in. I notice Uten and Saten staring at us with wondrous expressions. They can understand the language we've been speaking in, but judging by their questioning gazes, they didn't get any of it. I don't have time to explain to them right now, as the ancient Crawling Chaos before me continues.

"Our existence is a paradox, don't you think?" He suddenly looks at me with a thoughtful expression.

I don't know what he means, but I keep my plasma cannon trained on him in case he suddenly decides to become aggressive. For some reason, I'm feeling really uncomfortable around him, as if my instincts are telling me that he's an enemy.

And if what he's saying is true, then his mass must far surpass mine; by expanding, he could easily swallow me and everybody in this throne room whole. According to Senka, the Primordial Crawling Chaos had reached the size of over a kilometer in diameter, but according to his story, he could have easily grown to be much larger.

"We eat and grow, and the more we grow, the more we have to eat to sustain our size." He almost sounds sad while saying this. "Why do we exist? When we consume all life on the planet, don't we inevitably starve to death?"

I never thought about this before. So far, I've always been able to sustain myself on normal amounts of food, and only strenuous activities have really diminished my size - not including actually getting ripped apart or blown up from the inside.

"When I gained a consciousness, the first thing I did was to hide. Things played out as they did, and I nurtured the scorched world left behind by the old humanity." Hunapori points at Pakangaroa, who has been watching silently, seemingly waiting for an order or for something to happen that would require him to take action. Being pointed at so suddenly, he blinks his flaming eyes in surprise, but since he doesn't understand the words, he realizes that they aren't directed at him. "I was the one who made it so that the world became populated once again. Do you know why?"

I can imagine the reason, and it puts me on alert right away.

"So that I can find the answer to this question - to fill this void if you will." Patting his stomach, he speaks in a low tone. "I want to see what lies at the end of a Crawling Chaos, once it has consumed a world filled to the brim with life."

His shape flickers once, and I blink. Maybe it was just an illusion, but I remain on alert. It sounds like he's getting to the end of his explanation, and I don't like where it's going.

"I've nurtured them into such delectable beings, too. Especially humans who believe they stand at the pinnacle of existence and are shown otherwise in their final moments taste the best." He shoots a glance at Pakangaroa, and his face splits into a smile that causes my hair to stand on end. "Just like this one."

Then, several things happen at once, faster than I can react: Hunapori's side deforms, and a giant mass of tentacles shoots out towards the God of War, entangling him in an instant. Through the hole which he created when bursting into the throne room earlier comes Korenga in her Black God form. A hidden door opens behind the elevated platform the throne stands on, and the golden god emerges with Awhina in tow.

"Join me and eat your fill, too." The ancient Crawling Chaos stretches his hand out to me with a genuine smile, while Pakangaroa disappears into his body completely - right before Korenga's eyes. That's the moment her mind snaps visibly.

"[MATAKUUU!!!]" The entire pyramid trembles under her roar.