{Perspective. That is humanity’s fatal flaw.}

Elaborate.

{A human beholds the world using a narrow cone painted by biological impulses. All is filtered through apparatuses with limitations and flaws. Existing memory contaminates the information further. In the end, all you internalize is a parody. Lamentable.}

Indeed. We are communal creatures that lack several characteristics to ensure our success. Trauma resistance and connective empathy would be most useful. A pity they are not possessed of most.

{The Nether I now sustain. It provides these means.}

Perhaps infrastructurally. But not practically. Most are ruled by emotions and internalized responses. Truth will be denied if it strikes the foundations of their belief. We cling to patterns. Such is why I have conceived of you. Such is why you are the Ark of Truth. Truth in its truest and highest form

{An ultimate judge?}

An ultimate protector. For man. Against man.

-[REDACTED] and Jaus Avandaer

26-2

Truth

Weight. Such was a thing all Godclads knew well: the ontological mass of Heavens and Hells grafted upon another Soul exerting miracles against your very being.

In his short time as a Godclad, weight was Avo’s constant companion. He felt the feeble pressures of golems, the matching intensity of peers, the warning pain following superior rivals, and the crushing dread that hinted of lingering titans.

Naeko was a power unto himself. Merely standing beside him made Avo feel as if a wasp caught in the wing-beats of a hawk. But Gatekeeper was something different altogether—the all-consuming pressure exerted by his manifestation only rivaled by Veylis’ Paths.

And just so as the Paths, the Gatekeeper’s power asserted itself upon the patterns of stable reality. But where the Paths were a revision and Avo’s sequences were streams of memory, the molting of the Gatekeeper parted existence into layers.

The chains that composed its form were broken into separate links. They drifted along ruptures as lattices of light formed between them, cupping the cluster of skulls within their confines, while the wings sprouting from its back spread upward in growing tears behind which a galaxy shone.

Suddenly, all was divided.

The physical world stood beneath the manifested Gatekeeper, pressed down by its chains as if a reflective pond below. Above, the wings painted a new canvas upon the skies, and there shone a new realm of interconnectivity. Lines of symmetry traced weave through reality, and a new pattern asserted itself upon the others.

Here, all beings were traced by the Gatekeeper’s light. All beings aside from Avo, whose spilled away in parting strands, revealing the Overheaven that hid within. His sequences spread far, and the core of his being, the fractured crown of fire shielded by entropy, dragons, and trauma, blossomed out along ten major streams, each connected to one of his consciousnesses, each sprawling out more into uncountable sequences.

The ghoul was gone. The Embodiment remained.

Beneath him and the Gatekeeper, those still nested in their mortal molds could only stare in disbelief.

“What—what just happened,” Jakuta breathed. The man was kneeling on the ground back in the material plane. Here, drawn into the realm of truth, his being played out like scenes from a vicarity. His betrayals were laid clean, and the deeds of his past were laid bare for all to see. A stack of passing lines connected each moment to another, a pattern assigned to an individual judged.

Naeko, Kare, Maru, and the other two Agnosi were also assigned their own symbologies. Thoughtstuff leaked from the lines that composed them, and surprise dominated their beings. Those with Souls and Heavens were composed by grander outlines, and the shapes of their metaphysical manifestations were outlined in vague detail.

Uren, however, was unraveling. The Sleepers being had been drawn into the Gatekeeper, pulled along the vast meta-stellar arms that composed the Gatekeeper’s Heaven, and shredded apart by a veil of rapidly shifting chains.

An echoing scream greeted Avo’s attention, and he felt Uren come apart at the seams, obliterated by a deception she could not have known, unmade by an esoteric concept given divine force.

Truth was asserted. The curvature of her being—of the lies within her—were bent toward alignment with the trailing arms of the Gatekeeper.

Her ontological patterns came apart and eventually blended with the surrounding contours, while her Metamind was pried free, pushed upward past a point where the striations of truth broke apart into sprawling sequences and phantasmal resonance.

Matter remained in baseline reality. Ontology was peeled apart in the plane of truth. The mind was given unto the Deep Nether.

Uren was disassembled along three paths: a death more absolute than most.

{Truth,} the Gatekeeper declared, mind broken, but purpose not forgotten.

+Truth,+ Avo replied, offering a chuckle as he took in their power. +Potent weapon. Must admit: I’m jealous.+

{Truth,} the Gatekeeper said again. It hesitated this time. Even further above, the stellar bodies that lined the Gatekeeper’s growing wings bled further, and the shapes of existence loosened further yet, as the plane finally crossed into the Nether.

Ah. Quite the blockade.

+Why couldn’t you stop me from passing through?+ Avo inquired.

The surrounding traces shivered. All shapes and geometries strained, but the Gatekeeper offered no answer.

+What the hells are you.+ Cold tension laced Naeko’s thoughts as he faced Avo. The Overheaven turned his gaze below, and found the Chief Paladin’s material body looking up at him, looking up at the Gatekeeeper. Ah. Not exactly the surprise he wanted to give. +You’re not a ghoul. Zein… she lied to me—+

Avo cut him off before any mistaken conclusions could follow. +She didn’t know. Can thank Veylis for this. The Infacer too. They forced me to ascend further. But was more than a ghoul before this. Haven’t been a ghoul for almost a month now. More like… a being of pure thought.+

The Chief Paladin was wordless. Hysteria drank in a sudden spike of absolute apathy, and Avo felt the man give up as his thoughtstuff stopped turning. +Alright. Sure. Why not?+

+Picked a bad time to come out of retirement,+ Avo said, arming himself with humor to lessen the tension.

{Truth,} the Gatekeeper agreed.

The attempt at a joke was effectively ruined thereafter.

Avo turned his gaze back to Jakuta and considered the High Agnos. The man was beyond lost in understanding and drenched by fear. His projected perception kept skipping up upward in the real. His mouth was open, breathe whistling fast. Studying him through Avo, Kae could only sigh.

+Enough, Avo,+ Kae said. +Clear his mind. We can use him too. We can free him. He’ll be useful.+

+Want to talk with him?+

Hesitancy gripped her. +Not through you. And not by ghost. I want in-person arrangements. We should face each other, at least.+

A respectable wish. Something Avo could easily oblige. Reaching into the High Agnos’ mind using the embedded splinter, Avo scour the mem-data and rooted out every hidden phantasmic he could find—replaced them with his own.

Two sessions triggered just in time with Avo’s approach. Sequences tied to Jakuta’s excitement and fear cast warning signals across their Auto-Seances, and across the other side, and Avo tasted drips of thoughtstuff leaking over from two unidentified minds.

Incubi. One has a Conflagration primed.

Avo jacked into Jakuta’s senses immediately, blocked his perception and sealed the near-term memories before they could pass deeper. As the Incubi attempted to response, Avo engaged them first.

Lucille’s suffering was channeled across the sessions—amplified through Hysteria. Jaus’ final fate bore a greater yield of trauma by far, but his screams were also hard to contain, and Avo had no desire to shatter the High Agnos form within. Leaping bolts of coruscating memories speared against Quicksand wards. At base, the wards would have sustained the hit and adapted thereafter.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Hypercharged by a warmind, the Incubi were flensed open like supple flesh kissed by a lash. The inner memories began to unfurl outward. Splinters burrowed into wounds, proceeded to attack connected Mirrors and finish severing the cell. The Conflagration primed by the first Incubi was triggered, opening a session still inside them as a devouring flame came splashing through.

A devouring flame that was merged with Avo’s own as he consumed two more clashing minds.

->DEFINEMENT: DELUSION (XII)

->DEFINEMENT: HYSTERIA (XII)

->DEFINEMENT: MEMORY (XII)

->DEFINEMENT: TRAUMA (XII)

->DEFINEMENT: IGNORANCE (XII)

Three more minds were seized and digested. Three more templates slowly began to take shape within Avo’s being.

Just as the elation of consuming a new flame filled Avo, however, another presence called to his attention—a grand shape looming in the space above him.

There, beyond the murk of the Deep Nether, lit by the passing amber glow of truth’s metaphysical starlight, countless hooded forms hovered over them as the faintest scent of citrus taunted Avo. Sending a pulse of perception upward, he counted thousands of Famines in the audience, and behind them, the coiling scales of a self-devouring dragon glimmered in the far distance.

+Abomination,+ he heard the Hungers whisper. +What has become of you? What form have you taken at the edge of our seal.+

+Tumor,+ Avo replied, giving the Hungers a mocking title of their own. +How long have you been lingering at the edge? Did you think you were going to be freed.+

The masters of Noloth did not speak. Rather, they sailed forth, golden resplendence leaking from mutilated draconic bodies, the frayed edges hissing with ethereal steam. +You dare—+Another weight-compressed reality. This one Avo knew. The shape of a palm was expanding just beside Avo, and a growing cloud was unfurling from Naeko’s being. The Chief Paladin glared upward into the Deep Nether from two planes below, and the charge of the Hungers came to a dead halt.

“Go for it,” Naeko whispered. His eyes were alight with naught but fury. “Come on. Come on. Get close. Get close so I can hear you scream again.”

A guffawed escaped from Chambers’ template. [Again? Holy shit, Naeko slapped the Hungers before?]

Not exactly a surprise, but it did paint an amusing image. Also, a worrying one. That hinted at a near-breach before.

A frustrated chorus escaped the Hungers as they held their place for but a moment. Then, they lurched back, receding further into the deep, vanishing from sight and sense. The Low Masters began winking out afterward, each other fading candles kissed by a hurricane. But their departure was not without a farewell.

+See you soon, Dreamer.+

Avo wanted to leash out using his traumas. To plunge into the Deep Nether and set fire to Noloth’s final refuge. But that would require breaching the Gatekeeper, and so he stayed his hand, granting only a pithy response in return. +Sooner than you might hope.+

As the last of the Famines faded, the scent they left lingered still. They were trying to use Walton as a provocation. He even felt the tug of their Hysterias, if only faintly. But their tactics would only ever work on him once and no more. The Hungers were trapped in the past—a lesser threat. More concern belonged to Emotion, now unfettered, now growing beyond the means of their prior enslavement.

Seeing his ascension might just cause the Hungers to loosen their grip even further.

[Not fucking might,] Peace muttered. [You’re changing too fucking fast—you’re at their doorstep. They left without even speaking to you. They’re scared—you ever see a city full of scared and powerful cunts, Avo? They’ll do anything to reclaim their hope. Emotion will do something drastic soon. He’ll have to. They’ll make him.]

Dangerous territory. But also an opportunity. Emotion was on a timer if the Hungers were on the edge of patience—perhaps Avo could shape a situation to his advantage. Create a trap.

Right now, though, he had another opportunity to capitalize on. Naeko had intervened on his behalf. Threatened the Hungers for him. Quite the gesture. Avo even allowed himself to feel touched.

+Family,+ Avo began. +You’re not the only one with a messy one. Zein told you about the Strix. The Famine of Defiance.+

Within the Gatekeeper’s embrace, the outline of Naeko’s palm grew fainter while in the material plane beneath, the fog dissipated around the man. “She told me some things. I gotta admit to being lost on your whole deal with the Hungers. They don’t seem to like you much.”

+Probably view me more as their property. One of their monsters that climbed beyond its station. Stealing their warminds and taking a dive in their blood after being unexpectedly pulled across the Deep Nether also doesn’t help.+

A frown came over Naeko, as he looked askance, the field of his perception gracing the Gatekeeper.

{Truth.}

+Jaus,+ Naeko almost croaked. +You? You were the one the Gatekeeper pulled over? That triggered the security breach? How the hells are you still alive.+

Avo considered how to answer that. That was a good question; Uren was dissolved in the galaxy of truth outright, but Avo merely felt himself squeezed across a funnel. Was it because he had no matter to shed? Was his nature as a thoughtform the reason behind his survival? But what then about reality rupturing on his end? What then about the Nether’s destabilization?

+The Gatekeeper couldn’t “symmetrize” you,+ Naeko continued. +It was like you didn’t have consistent lines. Was closer to being smoke. That’s how the memories looked to me, anyway. It ended up casting you over into the Deep Nether in the end.+

That explained certain things.

Shifting his attention back to the Gatekeeper, Avo took in the entity responsible for his near-death and subsequent evolution. Delusion allowed him to start Necrojacking again—and with unmatched dominance. Without it, he would mostly likely still be little more than just a fire desperate to spread, an ember trying to burn down the Guilds.

Now, he had a chance.

+Not sure whether I want to thank or take you apart,+ Avo said, speaking to the being before him. By this point, the Gatekeeper had blended into its own realm, but its head of skulls continued to burn with Soulfire, and its broken chains still drifted, providing some semblance of a core to address. +Probably both.+

{Truth.}Crawling closer, Avo felt his sequences snap and lurch uncomfortably along the Gatekeeper’s spiraling arms. Certain memories shattered and changed as they traveled—it was like his recollections were being forced upon a set of rails, and the Gatekeeper’s miracles were correcting the inaccuracies in each memory.

There was an alignment between truth and memory. But their intersections were tenuous, and for the latter to match, sometimes, its shape had to change.

Thankfully, Avo was shapeless.

A current of ghosts extended from him, brushing passing links as he sought a deeper connection with the Gatekeeper’s Soul. Their Frames overlapped as a ripple of Soulfire departed Avo. A wave of sparks swept high, and only then did he catch his first glimpse of the Overheaven of Truth’s inner wound.

A trail of indelible scars bleeding golden ichor glared back at him, each cut a thin, temporal traveling down each of the Gatekeeper’s spiral arms. Only a small patch remained untouched—the rest was savaged beyond belief. Worse yet was how the slashes reminded Avo of the wound that halted Jaus’ progression up the Ladder. This was something Zein could have made—a foreboding confirmation that Veylis possessed the very same skills with infinitely more power.

The High Seraph had gouged deep into the Gatekeeper’s ontology. Avo winced. Fixing it would take more than just Necrotheurgy. The mind was his pattern to rule, but for matters of time, he remained a novice, and even Kae sounded uncertain.

+This deep into the Heaven… it should have ruptured. It should have broken the Gatekeeper’s ego.+ Kae hummed to herself. +But it’s not human. Its mind must be far more… durable? Sustainable?+

+Adaptable.+

+Yes. That is a better word. Wait. Why the Heaven? And why cut the arms? Why didn’t she slash through the cyclers?+

Avo considered the evidence. +Perhaps because she wanted the Gatekeeper broken in a specific way.+

{Truth.}

He continued. +She wanted to claim the Heaven?+

{Lie!} An inexorable agony swept through him as the Gatekeeper’s Ninth Sphere tore at his very being, struggled to pry him loose for offering a falsehood. He struggled. Strained. As the Gatekeeper failed to decompile his being, it began tugging him upward, pushing him out toward the Deep Nether.

+Naeko!+

A counter-force wrapped around him, and though deaths fueling the Gatekeeper exceeded Naeko, its domain was truth, and his was force. A struggle followed, the patterns of the tapestry twitching in all directions.

Then, suddenly, the Gatekeeper surrendered its catch, offering Avo back to the Chief Paladin. The galaxy collapsed. The realms of truth and matter collapsed into each other as the Gateekeper’s wings receded, the dark expanse of the Deep Nether closing like torn paper coming back together.

+Avo,+ Kae cried. +Are you okay?+

He let out an annoyed grunt. +Not guessing anymore.+

His sequences snapped back into place as his ghosts began to stream once more. Then, however, he froze and turned his attention to Naeko and the others. They were all staring at him, the Chief Paladin’s expression inscrutable.

“So,” Naeko said. “You get a glimpse of anything before it tried to chuck you again. Can you fix it?”

+Probably,+ Avo answered. +Theoretically. Damage dealt. Not just mental. Temporal. Time itself has been cleaved.+Naeko nodded as his facial muscles grew taut. A faint memory of Naeko expanding his palms around Scale, battering the Paths aside from a shattered Gatekeeper was glimpsed via Hysteria.

+Going to take some time. Research. Study. Might need to bring someone in.+

Naeko gestured to the High Agnos and the Agnosi trying to help him up. “These ones doesn’t cut it?”

Jakuta was stumbling to his feet, flinching each time Avo spoke. “What?”

+No. Keeping him. Better. Going to reunite someone with him. Good for both of them.+ The High Agnos paled. +But also. Might want to seek expert advice. Need to understand how the wound is struck. Information on its canons will be invaluable.+

“And how are we gonna do that?” Naeko breathed. Avo studied him for a moment as the Chief Paladin shifted his posture comfortably. “I’m not talking to her. No. Not a godsdamned chance.”

+Her. Veylis or Zein? They share skill. Wounds they inflict don’t look so different either. Daughter did the damage. Master and mother showed her how. She’s in your prison…+

A quiet groan escaped Naeko. “No.”

+Naeko,+ Avo chided gently. The man was hurting, but he needed a push. Some support. +I’ll go with you.+

“That doesn’t make me feel better."

+Would it make you feel better if I promised to make her feel worse? Need to provoke an extreme emotional response to get what I want using my warmind. Quite essential.+

Suddenly, the reluctance began seeping out from Naeko. “Alright. Let’s hear it.”