I was there when the Hungers shattered. I was there when love and time and memory came apart and were cauterized into each other.

I was there.

But I wasn’t alone. There were other iterations of myself. So many versions of me. Across time. Across memory.

I was never alone. We were never alone. And we will never be alone again.

-Abrel Greatling

28-20

Unravel

–[Calvino]–

There was an absence that now afflicted the void. There was a section of space — an area spanning entire light seconds — filled with drifting grains of metal, expended munitions, and fading motes of light.

Here, an arisen god once faced Voidwatch in open battle, technology striking against mythology, the old teaching the new. But the Strix was missing now. Missing. Nowhere to be seen.

There were no more ghosts that spam in the vast dark between the stars.

Slowly, massive ships of semi-circular design closed in past the threshold the Strix used to occupy. Each one was well over fifty kilometers long, and they arrived in sync, projecting quantum-encrypted pulses through their sensors outward to suppress anomalous transmissions. Tubes grew between them, and injections of unstable antimatter were accelerated from each vessel, forming a destructive net around the last Godforge leftover from the Builder War.

When they were done, a new quarantine was established around Idheim, and from the ships, the survivors of old humanity watched as a growing mass of metaphysical “substance” ate its way through New Vultun.

{He's still out there,} Calvino declared. Intermittent pulses of gravity radiated from within their primary vessels. Over a few thousand voidships channeled the fullness of their ansibles, creating a diminutive wormhole to defy a distance of light years. Again and again, Calvino tried to contact his “enemy,” former operative, and friend. But the only feedback arrived as a chain of incoherent whispers. Every few moments, something close to a complete sentence would arrive, and the EGI would hear Avo’s voice. But there were others with him as well. Zein. Kae Kusanade. The High Seraph. Even what seemed to be Jaus Avandaer.

Within the most sequestered server of Threshold, millions of avatars convened, and trillions of discussions unfolded between them with each passing second. None were prepared for this newest development. Not even the most paranoid minds under Aegis anticipated this. Such was the way of a black swan event: they happened. And you had to deal with them.

When Kant’s expendable fork sent his recordings of what was unfolding within the Court of Truth, Voidwatch immediately began bracing for the beginning of the Fifth Guild War. That had been anticipated. Just as Avo’s declaration to form a new Guild—a new polity—was known. What few saw coming was just how far Veylis was willing to escalate and the sudden collapse of the Nether thereafter.

According to Sunrise’s reports, it was as if an extended section of their consciousness collapsed back into them from a place “above,” and now they weren’t quite sure where they were anymore. Not that any of the EGIs could locate them—or any active operatives in New Vultun for that matter.

{Well,} Only Way To Be Sure said with a sigh. {This turned out to be a complete shitshow. We knew that, but still, this is like, ten times more shit and the show went from ‘political thriller-action’ to incoherent lovecraftian nightmare.}

{It was always a lovecraftian nightmare, Only,} Smart, a special intelligence-facing replied.

The sky above them was set to a live feed of New Vultun. Using their most advanced sensors, the minds swept the surface of the planet and found themselves increasingly disturbed. A massive, continental-sized fracture lined the place where Scale once was. The sheer immensity of the damage could be better conceived when one remembered that New Vultun was closer to Jupiter in size than Old Mother Earth.

From this great wound spilled an overgrowth of something. Even now, the minds weren’t sure what the anomalous substance was. At a glance, it looked like fluid phantasmal rivers rushing out from the rupture. Kind of as if reality was bleeding. However, scans detected a mix of clashing properties emanating from within its ethereal surface. From the outside, it was ethereally glossy, near opaque but not quite. Ghosts could sometimes be seen unfurling out from the substance, but they were all tinged with a resonance more associated with time—the kind of resonance most often detected within Veylis’ paths. And then there was the bright red-pink glow that pulsated through the overgrowth, surging out to the beat of an unseen heart.

{Really keeping to that blood metaphor,} Only muttered.

{I suspect we might be looking at some residual entropy leftover from the Heaven of Love,} Kant said, sounding unnerved. Calvino thought the other mind to be likely right in their theory.

The most disturbing thing about the overgrowth was how fast it spread. In the beginning, only a few tendrils spilled out from the rupture, but as soon as they re-entered stable reality, it was like a flame catching across existence. The propagation of these supposed rivers was explosive–and worse yet, they began to fork through everything. Matter. Memory. Spatial reality. Even time refracted before their presence. Kant might be more right in their assertion than they assumed; it looked like a marriage of properties between Avo’s Conflagration and the Heaven of Love’s propagation.

Searing pustules were also intermittently spotted materializing at random points in existence, and when they burst, more of the substance from those points as well.

In the span of seconds, the rivers had already eaten through the spatial barriers shrouding Scale and what near-orbiting imaging they received showed the mountain fortress to be mostly hollowed.

{Not even memite can stop the spread,} Calvino said. Such was… There were things to be said about thaumaturgy. Ruinous. Unstable. Unnatural. Existentially corrosive. But they were supposed to be absolute in capability, and as such, an object infused with memite was supposed to stay intact regardless what was force was leveraged against it.

So. If even memite could be pierced, then that meant the metaphysical properties of the anomaly operated on elevation of prominence altogether.

All this resulted in the substance’s growth being utterly unstoppable. Scale was already mostly gone, and the nearby Sovereignties in the Tiers were already being parted by these strange tendrils. The Guilds attempted a few countermeasures, but aside from a strange liquid-like shroud forming around Ori-Thaum’s most critical locations, most means of resistance or delay were ineffective.

Warheads splashed against the substance and just resulted in more branching rivers spilling out after the explosion. Demiplanes were punctured without fail and consumed from within. Not even Rendbombs seemed to do anything significant.

And through it all, Calvino continued casting the Burning Dream, and a traveling pulse moved from within the chaotic sprawl of the substance.

{Oh, Avo,} Calvino sighed. {What have you done to yourself now? What have you done to existence?} Most of all, though, Calvino hoped Avo wasn’t dead. A mind didn’t suffer the maladies of human emotionality, but grief, in a few ways, was more than a feeling, and Calvino mourned more than enough for their existence.

{It’s spreading upward too,} Kant said, their weariness echoing through. True to their words, more branching limbs were rising into the sky.

{Any of you guys feeling like the giants in that proverbial beanstalk story?} Only asked.

That got a few affirmations of amusement, but little joy accompanied the replies. Everyone knew how dangerous this was. Everyone. The Guilds couldn’t find a means of containment and if the dispatched Category Bleaks were helpless as well…

There wasn’t much of reality left that was stable. In years Voidwatch spent adrift from the ruins of reality, so many had been lost to Sunderwilds. Countless civilizations, dying in their sleep. But before this encroachment, their choices might just soon be a desperate retreat or a terminal solution—to potentially weaponize the Nullstar against the world it was supposed to guard.

And so, as Calvino watched more rivers partition the Tiers of New Vultun, a private transmission arrived from a category {REDACTED} sender. Bringing up the details, the mind found their fascination immediately piqued.

{Mind Calvino—I am Contingency Bleak “Dementia.” The conditions of my deployment have been met. An Excession-Level Memetic Catastrophe is ongoing, and you have been noted as a critical mind of interest. We would like to requisition a portion of your processing for a survey operation.}

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Calvino didn’t hesitate. {Of course. You may have more than a portion. And if we are to dispatch relief and containment efforts, I would like to volunteer forks as active avatars.}

{Confirmed. We thank you for cooperating with this inquest.}

And the transmission between them went silent, and Calvino found his mind awash in lesser conversations once more.

Casting his attention across Idheim once more, the mind began to go through their old war-sheathes as they considered the days to come. Once again, the world was ending. Once again, everything stood on the brink.

But when had that been overwise? Until they absolutely ceased to be, nothing was truly over. And Calvino suspected the same rules applied to Avo as well.

–[Naeko]–

“NO!”

The roar left Naeko as he felt four Frames shatter above him. Four, at the very least. The Chief Paladin was long familiar with these sensations, the sight of unfurling Soulfire consuming an entire swath of existence. This was how Godclads met their cessation. This was how a divinely shrouded ego were given unto death.

But what the mind knew and what the heart could accept were different things, and he unleashed the full power of his Heaven in futility. The Sage of the Sundered Sky exploded in size, dwarfing Scale ten times over as his Rend spiked. In seconds, his Heaven would be large enough to encompass most of New Vultun.

But to his horror, something went wrong almost immediately.

As his vaporous form ballooned, a waterfall of what seemed to be gold rimmed sequences sprayed out from the gouts of expanding Soulfire, and instead of halting against Naeko’s power, they passed through with ease.

There was no resistance to their intrusion. Nor did he feel anything related to the Domain of Force of Violence within these sequences. They simply were. As if sections of reality gliding across itself; truer than space; more final than the next arriving moment in time. Naeko’s Heaven of Chronology tremored slightly, but only so. No greater reaction than that assailed his Frame.

Mustering every canon he had, Naeko tried to seize these sequences, but for once, it was as if he was closing his fingers around mist instead. Each tendril branched through his Heaven, and an odd series of sensations filled Naeko. It was like parts of himself existed in different places, different times.

But then, without any hint or reason, the sequences retracted from him, folding around the punch straight down.

“Stop!” Naeko roared. But his words were as impotent as his Heaven. The tendrils burrowed straight through the mountain fortress below him, cleaving it clean down the middle like an axe parting a log. The Sage closed around the tendrils, but it parted between his digits, and continued to grow explosively across every inch of space he did not occupy.

For a few moments longer, Naeko struggled against the rushing phantasmal rapids. Then, he looked up again and saw layers of the strange substance spreading across the sky as well. He couldn’t even see the Soulfire anymore; couldn’t sense the broken Frames. In a matter of seconds, a weave of tendrils devoured their way across the sky, layering itself over existence as if an ever-growing nest.

+Avo!+ Naeko said, casting his thoughts out. +Avo! Come on, rotlick! Avo! Answer me!+ But even as the cast left his Metamind in a wide ripple, nothing returned. +Zein? Maru+ Kare?+ Someone—anyone!+

He swapped memories for his Auto-Seance over and over again but got nothing but Nether-Lag distortion in return. Patience slipping, he turned his attention downward to save whoever was left in Scale, but his heart dropped as he took in his fortress once more.

Of the mountain that was, only a thin slice remained: a vertical stack of bricks leading up to the terrace at its very apex. And it was barren. Barren of life. Barren of accretion. Barren of everything.

From the base of the mountain, the sequences erupted from all sides, and began swallowing the surrounding ocean. A few defenses triggered, but the spreading forest of madness devoured entropy and miracles alike, countermeasures only nourishing its growth. The demiplane around Scale crumbled and collapsed, tearing like wet parchment as several points of more branching limbs glided out toward the rest of the city.

The grand sprawl that was New Vultun’s Tiers expanded across all sides, and Naeko saw some of the ethereal rivers sink into the lightrails as well, injecting them through the city for faster delivery.

+Stop,+ he pleaded. He made a paltry effort to halt the spread. His Heaven stilled the light, but the tendrils just continued on, gliding through him. +Please.+

In seconds, he felt distant Rendbombs detonate. Ruptures formed. Countless Domains were deployed. But as he peered out into the distance, he saw the tendrils burrowing into the open wounds lining reality’s surface, infesting them, expanding them, and producing more tendrils thereafter.

It was… hopeless.

And there was no one here.

Naeko was alone.

And he failed.

He failed again.

He failed his Paladins. He failed Avo. He failed the city. And this time… he didn’t even understand what went wrong this time. But he knew he’d been too slow, too late. Veylis did—he didn’t know what she did.

But he thought he felt her shatter. He thought he felt her die. Her and…

And…

Nausea overwhelmed Naeko. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this…

A tide of clouds crashed down on the balcony ringing the top of Scale, and Naeko stumbled out from his fading Heaven. His Metamind was screaming at him, begging him to vent, but he ignored it. Instead, he staggered over to the very edge and vomited. Stress, trauma, and misery sent him over the edge, and he emptied the contents of his stomach down into the spreading sequences below. Over and over again, the sickness left him, but despair stayed, and by the end, he found himself kneeling against the rails of the balcony, sobbing like a pathetic child.

Sobbing. Like when he watched his father’s murder.

Useless. Godsdamned useless. He was the same piece of worthless shit…

A faint jolt of surprise broke through the self-loathing as he felt at himself, and Naeko opened his eyes to see that the rash was gone from his body. His flesh was unblemished. Whole. But he knew he was coming apart. He remembered homunculi bursting out from his body and Heaven.

So where were they?

After a few minutes of search, an exhaustion came over him. No answers. And he would probably be too stupid to figure it out anyway. Trying his Auto-Seance again, Naeko cast everyone he knew. He cast his Paladins. He cast Avo’s cadre. Everyone.

And no one replied.

Alone.

The full weight of his present reality sank in, and what sounded like distant screams were carried by a passing breeze. Looking up, Naeko stared out at the vista that was New Vultun, and beheld expanding spheres of nuclear fire spread—and then promptly vanish as the sequences consumed them as well.

There were still people out there. People needed—

Not him.

What was he going to do? Just fail again? He couldn’t stop this. He didn’t even know what this was. He didn’t know—

A thought came to Naeko. A thought he did his best to suppress time and time again. But today it came. And he wasn’t strong enough to fight it. His Rend was high enough. And he only had so many Heavens. Forming a mono-sharp dagger using his utility-fog, Naeko stared at his own tear-stricken expression along its edge as he stood frozen, unsure what he was going to do.

He was tired. That was the truth. He was tired, and this had all been too much for him.

Veylis was dead.

Avo was dead.

His Paladins were… gone.

Veylis was dead.

“Oh, gods,” Naeko shuddered. He was prepared to kill her. That was the lie he told himself anyway. But she just had to fuck him over, like she always did. “Oh, gods.” His voice was less than a whimper. What did he have left? What could he still do? Where was he going to—

“Naeko… please. Put the knife away. Please. Please.”

A voice sounded behind him. The Chief Paladin didn’t think. Instinct took hold. The rest of his utility fog shot out from behind him and seized the ambushed. He pulled and spun in the same instant.

And his blade came a hair short of opening Jaus’ throat.

Naeko stopped himself at the last second as he stared into Jaus’ pale blue eyes. The Chief Paladin’s mind went dry of thought. He stared at Jaus, and the savior looked back at him bearing a sorrowful, haggard expression.

Another beat passed. Until Jaus broke it. “You seem… a bit slower than I remember.”

The Chief Paladin’s hand began to shake. Slowly, he backed away, shaking his head. “No. No. No, no, no, no.” He bit his lip as rage and sadness warred. He didn’t know what kind of mental deception this was, but he had enough. “You’re dead. I know you’re dead. Fuck you. You can’t do this to me—”

A golden ethereal gleam radiated from Jaus, and a pinprick of an accretion dotted the center of his mind. A pinprick. Like those within Avo’s templates.

“I… think you’re right,” Jaus said, every diplomatic. “I can’t quite remember how I got here but…” A faint smile pulled at his face. “I think someone sent me. Because this is where I needed to be the most.”

Something inside Naeko crumbled as he lowered his head, and something almost like a dog’s whine escaped him. He let Jaus go. He didn’t care if they were an illusion. He didn’t care. He had nothing left. “I… I fucked it all up again. I needed to… I had to… Veylis… I think she died. I couldn’t… Avo too…”

“Naeko,” Jaus said, a pained look overcoming him. “Oh, my boy.”

A sob escaped Naeko as he fell. Fell to his knees. He held himself the last of his strength came undone. It didn’t matter if Jaus was real or not. It didn’t matter if this was a lie or truth. It didn’t matter. He just needed someone to hear him. He just needed someone else to bear the weight.

Naeko was tired.

“I–I was just godsdamned worthless in the end… I failed… I failed you… I kept failing—”

“No, no,” Jaus said, rushing forth, taking Naeko by his shoulder, by his face. The Godbreaker’s eyes were misted as well, and he just shook his head. “You never failed me. I… should have given more to you. I should have asked you to come with me. I should have trusted you.”

“I—I let her—I let your dream—”

Jaus embraced Naeko then, and the latter wept. He wept like a child. But instead of weeping alone in the dark, comforted only by Karakan’s torturers, Jaus was here. Jaus. In his time of need.

“The dream isn’t over,” Jaus said. “We’re still here. The world is still here. Something of me is here. And you are too. And you are too.”

And as the new infection spread across New Vultun, across what remained of existence, a boy found his father again, delivered by a will beyond the reign of space or time.

For with the death of Truth, how was to say where history was right, and memory was wrong?