“Let me get this straight,” said former Madness while rubbing his forehead. “Not only are you saying that this world is a story. You are also saying that the true source of knowledge is the reader who is currently reading this story?”
I nodded with a grin.
“And because you have total control of the narrative, you can simply say something and it will happen,” he said.
“It works exactly like my other magic systems. The only reason magic happens is because the reader believed that it happened,” I said.
“Doesn’t that mean that fighting you is pointless? Why don’t you just narrate that you defeated us all and said your goodbyes and took me back to our world. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind just going back like that, but I suspect you aren’t telling us the whole story. I also suspect that you have lost your mind and you are about to do something very, very dangerous to this world.”
“Why do you think that?” I said, twirling a lock of hair. My hair had grown pretty long since I hadn’t cut it in a long time.
“Because this is my world!” shouted the Simurgh, reasserting itself at last. “I was here when there was only Nothingness. I gave shape to this planet, the heavens, and to the beings who live on this world now! Even the ones that were plucked from Madness’ memories, they were given life by me, not by him! You know nothing about this world, about my world! Spouting nonsense about readers and stories.
“Your reasoning is flawed too. Of course the only reason you know things not included in my domains is because you have knowledge from another world! You don’t need to invent an outlandish explanation for all that if there is a simple one right in front of you.”
“Except,” I said, pointing with a finger, “the domains are supposed to represent the entirety of all knowledge in this world. If I brought new knowledge to this world, it should be in those domains. And even in my old world, things like physics, biology, linguistics and so on were not completely different from what you can find in this world. It makes no sense that knowledge that was built off of a similar world was not present here. Even if nobody has conducted nuclear fission in this world yet, doesn’t mean that the possibility for nuclear fission doesn’t exist here. And if the possibility exists, then the knowledge of that reaction should be in your head, shouldn’t it? You retained a lot of domains, didn’t you, tiny bird? Well then, what do your domains say about this?”
Former Madness’ eyes widened as I was saying my final sentence. He tried to push away the Simurgh with a burst of magic and also tried to dash away on his own but it was no use.
We were far away and isolated. And this strike had been perfectly timed.
The former Evil Eye shot out of the earth exactly as I put out a hand and fired off my newest spell. The former Evil Eye triumphantly displayed his new black color and precision tentacles. He clearly had something planned. Perhaps a kind of massive strike that could attack all three of us at the same time.
Unfortunately, it seemed I had had the same idea.
The light was intense. Truly eye-searing and brilliant. It formed quickly into shape as the heat hit and the ground shook and the shockwave blew apart the landscape and the afterimage of the three Immortals that were caught in the explosion was seared into the brilliant light for a moment but in the end it was only the mushroom cloud that remained.
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A massive, still hot mushroom cloud, that left nothing to the imagination. I had detonated a nuclear spell. It wasn’t the largest nuclear spell I could have cast, but it was good enough. We were in the Nothingness, after all. A Nothingness with an earth and a sky and other things that made it feel less like a barren empty white void and more like a normal piece of land right next to the pond but also right next to where I had buried the Evil Eye.
The explosion rattled my body but didn’t hurt me at all. I withstood the heat, the light, the shockwave and the debris. The ground was incinerated, the sky evaporated, and within the Nothingness, all that remained was me, the pond, and the three badly battered and singed Immortals.
The man formerly known as Madness was the worst off. His clothes turned to ash and his skin cracked like parched earth. His face was indistinguishable from his chest and he lay sprawled against the ground, a feeble silver bubble covering his entire body, declaring that he was no longer Madness but the Silver Moon.
The Simurgh had reverted into its tiny crowned bird form and used the rest of its energy to protect itself. I had no idea what kind of energy it had used, but it had clearly been too weak. The blast had singed most of its feathers and left the tiny bird a husk of its former self. It was only with a great burst of energy, summoned from all corners of the Nothingness, that the Simurgh returned to its former form but with a little tinge of its glory gone forever.
The former Evil Eye had fared the best. He had been knocked around like a tennis ball but there wasn’t a scratch on him. His new black skin had splotches of darker color that seemed to stretch and absorb every hit that he took, even from the intense explosion. He was crying out in a pain, though, and his cries were very undignified. It even sounded like he was crying and hiccuping in between sobs, but seeing how little damage there was on his body, I wondered if he was not overreacting a little too much.
Or perhaps he had been hurt pretty badly by the metaphysical attack that had been hidden inside the nuclear explosion. Tied to a bit of knowledge that didn’t exist in this world, or if it did, it was so hidden the Immortals could never have conceived of it themselves, the nuclear explosion had been an attack on their very foundations. For the Silver Moon, it was a rejection of his inability to use knowledge from our previous world. For the Simurgh, it was a rejection of its claim to have controlled all knowledge at one point in time. And for the former Evil Eye, it was a rejection of something that I actually wasn’t quite sure about. Perhaps it reacted strangely to the new core domain he had chosen for himself? Who knows, who cares. He was just a small fry.
“So,” I said, walking over to the Immortals dramatically. “What did you think? Isn’t it fitting to say, now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds?”
“You!” shouted the former Evil Eye. “You stole my domain of Death too!”
“Stole is such a loaded word,” I said. “Domains belong to those who best represent it. Didn’t you see? I can claim Death much more powerfully than you ever could.”
“So you became the Immortal of Death?” asked the Simurgh, narrowing its beady little eyes.
I blinked. “Me? An Immortal? Never! And even if I did become one, I would never do something as stupid as pick a core domain.”
“But you did pick one. You chose Annihilation!” said the Silver Moon.
“I did not choose Annihilation as a core domain,” I said. “I followed the principles of Annihilation to free myself from the limitations of this world, from the limitations of my character. You wouldn’t understand. You were never going to be able to leave this world with that kind of thinking! You needed to learn, you needed to accept, that the only way to leave a story is to transcend its form, to transcend its structure, and to disregard the role you are meant to play so that the story itself can no longer hold you down.
“Now come, my three slated predestined enemies. Come fulfill your little choreographed fight so I can finish off the last of my obligations and finally leave this world behind. Ah, but you don’t need to come to me. For I will come to you first! Here, have some more Oppenheimer!”
Another powerful nuclear explosion lit up the Nothingness. With the mix of metaphysical challenges and questions intertwined with the light, the heat, the powerful shockwave, there was nothing the three so-called Immortals could do but be flung aside and toyed with as my laughter transcended the sound of the explosion and irradiated the Nothingness with joy, happiness, and peace.