Anon died.
His body in reality collapsed to the ground completely. His spirt and sea of consciousness had been destroyed. He had made a gamble and he had lost.
Or so you would think.
When the ball of potential that became his colorful hourglass was created. It had been crafted from the potential of an entire universe. It was only because it interacted with Anon that he learned how to mimic it. That was how he made his Mask of Truth. But now both artifacts were destroyed!
But just like when his mind was injected with the memories from the hourglass when deciding its name. Anon had experienced something similar here.
He was dead.
But when does a person truly die? When their heart stops? When they stop breathing? When their brain activity stops? By all these measures.
Anon was truly dead.
But this is where the magic happens.
Anon had thought it was truly bizarre that his axiom state was much like the ghost of legends. Able to walk through walls. Turn invisible. Fly.
Was it a coincidence? It lacked organs and was almost like a phantom.
When he first experienced the backlash from the conflict of his 'Concentration' refilling his spiritual energy. He became curious about this superposition.
In combination with his true vision that changed his entire outlook. His thinking was not normal. You could even consider him a little 'trigger' happy.
His body was lifeless and no longer glitching. A cold corpse lay on the ground. Half of the hair was white. The other half black. It was as if he was half human, half ghost.
His eyes were closed. But if you could see them. You would notice that one eye was white. The other was normal.
In Anon's final moments. He grasped 'infinity' by abusing his 'true vision'. He completely digested the mental attack of his distraught hourglass.
It wanted Anon to feel its pain.
Despite his consciousness getting scattered. Despite his body being a corpse and unresponsive to commands.
Axiom 'laughed'.
It wasn't his body.
It wasn't his soul.
It wasn't his spirit.
It wasn't even his consciousness.
Anon was dead.
But Axiom was just getting started!
"The key isn't the artifacts themselves. While powerful and supernatural. They are made from the souls of a dead universe."
"Why is it that the culmination of souls can allow one to do things that go against the logic of the world. It doesn't make sense."
"Unless..."
"It isn't the souls at all!"
Axiom was blasted with information. But he didn't become confused. The information was far more weird then when he spent centuries absorbing soul fragments.
"That's it!"
"If I truly want permanent power. I must understand it completely. I must understand EVERYTHING!"
Unfortunately. When the Mask of Truth was destroyed. The balance had been broken between both artifacts. This meant that it was like a flashlight on at night. It was like a beacon attracting other entities.
Cracks started to open all around the world. Breaches in reality.
Axiom didn't and couldn't care. He felt like he was on the edge of grasping infinity. He didn't care about his body. He didn't care about surviving.
He cleared all thoughts from his mind and focused completely on understanding 'everything'.
His physical body that was dead was sucked into a crack in reality as eldritch entities invaded and destroyed his world. He had caused the apocalypse of a world.
But he didn't care. All of this felt oddly familiar for some reason.
Axiom started to organize all of infinity.
His luck was a bit insane however. Not from what he was doing. It was a 'coincidence' perhaps. Thanks to his 'timeless' declaration warping his physical body. Then having it pulled into a crack in reality.
It was basically preserved for eternity. But this wouldn't really matter.
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Thousands of years passed.
Axiom was face to face with infinity. It felt as if he was suffocating from the information. But he didn't stop. If infinity were alive. In a staring contest between the two.
Axiom wouldn't be the first to blink!
Hundreds of thousands of years...
Axiom had long forgotten about himself.
"I understand now. My current existence. I am the stimulated response from the timekeepers mental attack."
"It wanted me to suffer forever..."
"But this..."
"It is quite fun!"
Millions of years passed...
"There is no end to infinity. I haven't made any meaningful progress."
Axiom didn't despair though. He had long learned to love the process. He loved learning.
Billions of years later...
"So that's it! Who knew that one could ignore time completely?"
Trillions of years later...
"How dull. The requirements for heavenly treasures are so low?"
Quadrillions of years later...
"Hahahahaha!"
"My current state is probably the depths of hell for anyone other then me..."
"Trapped forever with my thoughts..."
Quintillions of years later...
Axiom never gave up. Every single second. He was expanding his thinking and probing this special 'state' he had found himself in.
The hourglass had essentially trapped him for an eternity as 'revenge'.
But who knew that Anon was a monster? Who could remain sane for such a long time? This was ridiculous!
Sextillions of years later...
"What is the possibility of creating a time machine using my 'mind' alone?"
Septillions of years later...
"I see."
"An overflow... huh?"
Octillions of years later...
"Memorizing the universe..."
"Is it possible?"
Nonillions of years later...
Decillions... Undecillion...Duodecillion...
Tredecillion...Quattuordecillion...
Quindecillion...Sexdecillion...Septendecillion...
Octodecillion...Novemdecillion...
Vigintillion...
A centillion years later...
"six octillion one hundred three septillion seven hundred and seventy-two sextillion three hundred and thirty-one quintillion four hundred and forty-eight quadrillion nine hundred and fifty-five trillion three hundred and forty-two billion one hundred thirteen million eight hundred and fifty-three thousand two hundred and... damn. I lost track for a millisecond."
Axiom looked at a mechanism he had built that was made from six octillion different parts. It was a giant mechanism he was building to condense his consciousness.
He made a single value error out of six octillion parts. But he wasn't satisfied.
He had been working on this mechanism for about a centillion years. But one mistake and he scrapped it.
He wanted perfection.
"One..."
"Two..."
"Three..."
A centillion years later...
"six octillion one hundred three septillion seven hundred and seventy-two sextillion three hundred and thirty-one quintillion four hundred and forty-eight quadrillion nine hundred and fifty-five trillion three hundred and forty-two billion one hundred thirteen million eight hundred and fifty-three thousand two hundred and... Fuck it. I don't like how the front looks. Start over!"
A centillion years later...
A centillion years later...
A centillion years later...
A centillion years later...
A centillion years later...
A centillion years later...
A centillion years later...
A centillion years later...
"six octillion one hundred three septillion seven hundred and seventy-two sextillion three hundred and thirty-one quintillion four hundred and forty-eight quadrillion nine hundred and fifty-five trillion three hundred and forty-two billion one hundred thirteen million eight hundred and fifty-three thousand two hundred and eleven... what!?"
Axiom realized something that scared him.
"No..."
"That's impossible!"
Axiom's 'will' had become like a blackhole. The universe literally couldn't support his mind anymore. Just like when the universe collapsed when invaded by other entities before.
His thinking alone was destroying all of reality.
He had memorized infinity. He was suffering from success!
The mental attack of the hourglass. Despite being EVERYTHING it had. It was like a grain of sand getting thrown into a ocean and even that was being generous towards the current Axiom.
If a powerful eldritch entity looked within Axiom's 'mind'.
They would go insane instead.
The carrier of Axiom's consciousness finally shattered. But he hadn't been idle these 'years' he had spent learning infinity. In an instant he connected to every version of himself.
He then noticed something interesting.
He saw a familiar scene.
"If you do this. You will destroy all of reality..."
"They don't care about mere ants. Those monsters just want to consume ALL!"
Anon opened up a gateway to the other side.
Axiom then realized something.
He wasn't human at all anymore...
He WAS the entity that invaded reality! He had caused the collapse of the universe that initially set him down this path. He started to laugh.
"Ignoring time..."
"Creating heavenly treasures..."
"I didn't make a wedding dress for myself..."
"I'm the whole damn wedding!"
Axiom simply observed various realities. But his mere 'look' destroyed countless worlds.
He then felt as if he was being watched. He then realized. It was himself!
"Anon...?"
Axiom looked at his past self and watched as 'Anon' started to bleed from every orifice on his face just from this 'look' that was quite 'gentle'. Anon then collapsed.
Axiom felt a ball of potential created from the collapse of a universe fuse with Anon.
"Time is quite... interesting!"
Axiom put a fragment of himself in the ball of potential and shaped its innate abilities from the subconscious desires of Anon. He watched everything play out as it should.
Axiom guided himself down the familiar path. Even the battle that gave him his axiom state was orchestrated... He had allowed a small portion of himself to enter as the 'bait'.
"I have a REAL BODY!"
"You are a FAKE!"
Axiom was quite amused by his actions. Things had a different perspective when watching them now...
He then found the moment he was looking for!
He started to merge with Anon.
"Who am I?"
"I am..."
"I am Axiom!"
Axiom then said mentally:
"Checkmate! Self!"
He continued to watch history in the making.
He got to a very important point.
"I've always wondered what would happen to my axiom state without an artifact."
"Let's us see..."
"Destroying a heavenly treasure is absolutely insane. Who would be so dumb to waste such a gift?"
Axiom watched the hourglass helplessly get destroyed countless times. Despite seeing this scene millions of times. Axiom's perspective on numbers was a bit abnormal. A million was an incredibly small number to him.
But he felt the despair of the hourglass.
Soon the hourglass did something insane.
"It's so beautiful!"
"Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!"
It hit Anon with everything it had. The 'mental attack' that made Axiom a anomaly. But Axiom was 'smiling'.
"What happens if I stack 'infinity'?"
It turned out the reason the artifact could show Anon infinity was because of Axiom! Axiom was a reality warping entity it seemed.
But only by understanding infinity could he truly become Axiom.
But Anon had died from his gamble.
He had lost... right?
His corpse was cold. Half the hair was white. The other half black. One eye white. The other normal.
His eyes were closed. But he was frowning?
Axiom then opened his eyes!