Chapter 36 : Allied Against Fate (1)

My whole body was inhabited by a foreign entity, I still couldn't see anything, and yet, my sight has never been as clear as it is right now.

I was able to feel everything in my surroundings, as if by lending my body to the Revered Mother I gained a portion of her omnipotence senses.

'Is that how you feel the world ?'

[It is a part of it, yes.]

'I now understand better why you don't want to be stuck here for an eternity...'

The feeling of being able to know everything happening inside the whole Singularity was strange.

While it might look like a sort of advantage, especially for spying, in reality, it was more frustrating than anything else.

It was as if I was stuck inside a bottle, able to know and see everything that was outside but unable to reach any of it.

While I was trying to understand my current state, I felt the Mother activate my dark blade and do a little cut on my left palm.

Blood flowed out for a few seconds before the cut got covered by my black matter.

[I also understand how painful it must have been for you, a lowly organic life-form, to undergo all these difficulties.]

It was the first time the Revered Mother felt physical pain.

Not being bound by the material world implied that no matter what happened and for how long she lived, she never experienced the most basic things of life.

Happiness, sadness, hunger, pain, suffering, sleep...

What defined all the living beings, even the etheric ones such as the Scyllas or the Nihil Conscientia, were all concepts totally stranger to her.

'If you understood what is living earlier, you would have stopped your children before they provoked so many disasters and brought death to my universe.'

[Maybe, or maybe not. Maybe I would have asked them for more sacrifices. Who knows ?]

'...'

After a few moments, I felt the Mother resume walking into the temple.

'You said you were about to do an important ritual ? Is that true ?'

[It is much more than a simple ritual.]

'What are you going to do then ? How do you plan to break this so-called River of Fate ?'

She didn't say anything, but I felt her pointing my fingers to the ground.

'Is this whole sphere made of Black Matter ? It feels the same as Tassadar, the one I have fused with...'

[Yes. Your symbiont comes from there. Inside this place, at the center of this sphere, is the Singularity Origin. A single point in space where no laws are being applied.]

I felt my body move again, while the Revered Mother continued her explanation.

[Under this temple is the place where the two universes collided. Instead of merging or getting destroyed, they pushed themselves away... But they also bonded with each other.

Inside this sphere is the Singularity Origin. It is where I resided for so long, unable to escape. The only spot where both universes are tingled with each other.]

It was hard for me to understand everything she said, but from the emotions I felt running through my body when she was talking, I knew this was an important place for the Revered Mother.

'Why did you need my body for this ritual ? You couldn't have possessed a Scylla instead ? Or just do it yourself ?'

[If the Scyllas are my children, it is because they share some of my properties. Unfortunately, they are also ruled by some of the absolute laws that restrained me here for so long.

They are not even supposed to be in the Singularity anymore, this is only thanks to Primus's ingenuity that they could create these clones and hide their souls from the Singularity laws.]

'So you needed a compatible foreign being, not native from neither the Void nor the Singularity... which is me ?'

[Exactly.]

Everything happening made no sense to me, but being in this kind of omnipotent state made me realize something important : even the Revered Mother is powerless against those absolute laws regulating dimensions and universes.

And yet, she was trying to go against one of these laws, Fate, to finally set free from those shackles and cease her existence.

'If you succeed to get free from your Fate, why not try living on your own instead of just ceasing to exist ?'

[You are smart, Human, but still naive. When it comes to breaking the rules regulating the universes, there is no such thing as a choice. Nothing can exist after breaking one of those rules, not even me, for the same reason that nobody is supposed to break an absolute law. This, is the paradox that I plan to exploit to end my life.]

She used my dark blade to draw a circle on the ground, and then started engraving different symbols all around it.

[What I am about to do is not only breaking a rule, but it is going against it. I am immortal, not bound by time nor by anything related to the material world.

This, is the only way for me to finally find the rest I longed for so long.

This, is the only way for me to end my existence.]

'And I guess that I would not be able to survive this either...'

[Indeed. Strangely, since I took your body and joined the material world, I feel bad for you. Your life has been nothing but ordeals and suffering, and by helping me, you will also be considered as going against Fate which means that your soul will definitely cease to exist.]

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'If my sacrifice can stop the Scyllas and restore a semblance of peace and tranquility in my universe... I am ready for to give my life for it. My species is still alive with my squad members. There are only two males and two females, but no matter the time it would take I know how resilient can the human race be.

I also know my doings have a much deeper meaning ; my sacrifice to help you will serve as a new foundation for my species during the next millenniums.'

My body stopped moving for a moment, before the Revered Mother told me with a deep voice.

[Deficient One, Lone Slayer, B213-84, Jun-Yeob... No matter the name the people gave you, they will only remember a fool who purposely gave his life to a crazy deity to destroy two dimensions.]

'I trust my squad and the Third Legion Admiral, they will be able to escape before it happens. Anyway, if your ritual is really going to destroy both the Void and the Singularity, it would only fix an event that should have never happened at first.'

[I think the same. You are brave, little Human.]

After long hours of discussion, the Revered Mother finally ended her work.

The entirety of the floor inside the temple was covered with sigils, strange emblems, and weird runes.

During this time, when I asked where these symbols and this language came from, she explained to me the entire story of her Children, the Scyllas.

___

At the beginning of its creation, the Singularity dimension was populated by terrifying existences, so powerful they were able to defy logic itself.

It was a place of pure chaos, where cosmic beings would do nothing else but fight and destroy each other, without any reason other than pure madness.

All these cosmic existences, born at the same time as the Great Collision, had no rules, hierarchy or any kind of society.

It was the survival of the fittest in its most brutal form.

And yet, amidst this chaos, a group of individuals decided to unite their kind to survive against these stronger foes. They created the first social group inside the Singularity : the Scyllas.

They were the first generation Scyllas, those I used to call the Ancient Beings.

For thousands of years, the Singularity dimension was in a constant war between each of its native species.

These Ancient Scyllas went close to going extinct multiple times already, as they were being attacked on all fronts by many cruel and merciless existences.

They arrived at a point where they had to take an important decision that would change their fate forever : do they stay in their native dimension and fight until the end, or do they migrate out of the Singularity into unknown territories ?

This simple decision generated something much more serious than the perpetual war they were in : it completely destroyed the Scyllas' unity, and split them into various factions.

The majority of them stood in the Singularity, determined to fight and survive in the same place that give birth to them ; they were the Ancient Beings, those who made my ship, its army and everything else I found in the Golden Hangar.

Another group decided to flee and explore the outside of the Singularity, they invented a new way of dimensional travel and ended up reaching my native universe : they were the current Scyllas progenitors.

At last, a few independent Scyllas decided to act on their own : some discovered the Void out of the Singularity borders and established themselves inside this opposite dimension, while some others discovered yet another universe, and never came back from it.

In the end, after an endless era of hundred of thousands of years spent fighting, the Ancient Scyllas who stood inside the Singularity couldn't resist any longer and they finally got vanquished by the cosmic opponents they fought. Only a few relics from their past battles have been found until this day.

On the other hand, the Scyllas who previously migrated to my universe developed themselves, improved their technology, replenished their numbers, and most importantly : they evolved.

They evolved so much and ended up so different than their ancestors who stood in the Singularity that even their souls have mutated.

When they tried to return to their former dimension a few centuries later, their souls got violently rejected by the absolute laws regulating dimensions.

None of them knew why, but they all agreed on forgetting their grim past to keep moving forward and develop their species in this universe that has become their new home.

Several millenniums later, a group of Scyllas scholars discovered some pieces of information about their forgotten past : they believed they were all children of a divine deity they called The Revered Mother, who was still living in the Singularity and guarding their former dimension against the Void, another dimension they just discovered.

These Scyllas were the Elders, led by Primus One.

For the other Scyllas who have since long forgotten and denied their grim-dark history, Primus and his men were nothing but fanatic cultists so obsessed with the past until neglecting their own future.

The more time passed, the more the differences between both factions grew further and the animosity got stronger, until the day when a conflict couldn't be avoided anymore.

A major war opposing the cultist led by Primus One, against the Purists commanded by the traditional Scylla Assembly was declared.

And so the Dark Ages began.

The Revered Mother didn't explain to me everything that happened from there, she just told me that this war was the most significant and bloodiest conflict that has ever erupted in my universe.

Thousands of stars system have been destroyed, millions of planets have been reduced to dust, and untold billions of lives have been lost.

The cultists, fewer in numbers, were slowly losing territory and were about to be eradicated until the Elders sacrificed themselves in a last-chance attempt : they succeeded in baiting the Scylla Assembly and their huge army into a deadly trap that reduced their forces by half.

Primus led the final battle, and only after many struggles did he finally won ; after so many years of slaughter and massacre, this fratricide war finally ended...

Primus One was the sole survivor out of all the Elders leading his faction, and since then he did everything he could to rebuild his people and make them into a strong and united group able to dominate their whole universe.

Only then could they be ready and never be beaten anymore, until the day their Revered Mother will finally descend upon them.

What happened next was what I already knew, or guessed.

Primus One started the Void Rifters research so he could preserve the life of his brothers when another war erupts.

Then he discovered that, while the Scyllas can't enter the Singularity or the Void themselves, they can instead send brainwashed Void Rifters in their stead to conduct research and military operations inside those two dimensions long forgotten.

These operations led to the destruction of more worlds and the death of more innocent lives, generating a new major conflict, but this time against the native species living in the Void.

Thanks to the loyal Rifter army they spent so many resources developing, the Scyllas were able to fortify the Singularity, creating many bastions they called Holy Island and even taking control of the main system where their Revered Mother was supposedly sleeping.

Ecstatic from discovering his Mother System, Primus One decided to start a new ambitious research project. It should allow him and his brothers to bypass the dimensional laws and permit them to enter the Singularity without risking that their souls get ejected into nothingness : it led to the Templar Clones program, and then the actual war against the last Void Legions invasions.

I learned more things in just a few hours of talking with the Revered Mother than during all those years I spent inside the Singularity.

I had to admit, the Scyllas also went through a lot.

It doesn't excuse them, nor does it reduce my hatred towards them, but it made certain things more understandable.

While Primus One and the actual Scyllas destroyed many worlds, killed untold billions of innocents, and antagonized the entirety of Void natives against them... it was just the best way they found to survive and get stronger.

I remember the words Primus One said about my people the first time I woke up in their mother-ship, since then I never knew if it was true or not.

If this was the truth... then the humans did the same mistakes as the Scyllas, but just on a smaller scale.

If we truly kept killing each other throughout our history, if we invaded unknown territories merely for personal gains, if we slaughtered a mass of innocent people without any good reason to do so...

Then the Humans were not better than the Scyllas.

Maybe this is what Fate is about.

No matter the race, the species, the location, or the era, it always comes down to the same situation : people killing each other for no proper reasons.

It was only then, after these few hours I spent talking with the Revered Mother, that I understood why she is so eager to go against Fate and cease her existence.

This River or Fate is nothing but a foolish theater play that does not take into account what matters the most : the will of its performers.