Book 3 - Chapter 46 - True division (T) (Patreon)

Something the old human had seen his whole life. Like an old friend, ever present in his mind. Death among his friends, family, enemies and all. He knew the taste of it, could see it pool into reality, silently creeping into the world to rob it again. Tenisent Winterscar understood death in a way no others could. It was all he saw approaching him day in and day out when he was alive.

To’Wrathh saw the concept of her own death manifesting on the right side. Like a black trail, smelling of dust and ash. Saw how it would cut through her head, sweeping through in one clean slice.

Her swords raised up, dipping into the dark stream she saw. More concepts appeared, and she saw the concept of a portal rip into existence. To’Aacar manifested a moment later, spear swinging directly through the path she’d seen. The blade following the exact path of death, and stopped, striking against her own swords.

Death faded away, like mist, the concept fading away. To’Aacar frowned, jumping back to safety.

Something had changed. The enemy Feather sensed it.

He struck three more times, and each time he aimed for a killing blow, To’Wrathh seemed to sense it, blocking the strike and even having the gall to retaliate back, despite her status. She saw where he would appear from, the concept of his jumps now clear as day. This was how Keith had tracked his movements. And now To’Wrathh had the same ability.

He faded back, taking distance while his systems cooled down. Something had gone wrong.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

She raised her blades back up. Structural integrity for her shell was in the red in almost every single node. Heat indexes showed she was close to a full shutdown. Most of her redundant systems had been compromised, or outright sliced through.

And yet, here she stood, Tenisent at her side, guiding her hand. Indomitable willpower holding her back steady.

She shut down her prediction systems, letting the old ghost’s intuition fill in the gaps. Resources were diverted to keeping the world moving at a slow enough pace to think and react to. Heat died down as the heavier systems in her mind ground to a stop.

She wasn’t going to die here. Not like this.

A violet eye narrowed from across the field. The spear spun in his hands, and he charged forward once more, death trailing behind his every step.

The fight turned. To’Aacar quickly realized attacks that were non-fatal weren’t always blocked, but any attempt to truly end To’Wrathh were seen ahead and countered. He didn’t understand how his opponent could do such a thing, but at the pace of combat between them, he simply had to accept and adapt.

More and more, the fight between the two grew unhinged. Shields dropped and then vanished altogether for both. Despite every bit of effort To’Aacar pushed out, he couldn’t kill To’Wrathh. She saw wherever he appeared, a slight moment before he manifested into existence and that was all the advantage she needed.

He aimed to destroy her redundant systems, slowly taking all possible non-fatal hits. The progress was too slow. She was fighting back with equal force, moving more like a veteran. Now it was a matter of time until she killed him.

To’Wrathh soared with speed directly at him, attempting to catch him before he could jump again. She’d already narrowed down the exact amount of time in between occult jumps. She narrowly missed him.

His simulations turned red. More and more paths ended. Drastic measures needed to be taken. All or nothing, else he would be destroyed before he could whittle away To’Wrathh’s shell.

To’Aacar snarled, reappearing further away from the fight, foot slamming down onto the earth.

Occult pulsed around him once more, starting a teleport. Except he didn’t portal anywhere. Instead, before him, the ground shimmered, blurred - and vanished. A massive square ditch was left behind, perfectly cut into the ground. Right under her.

To’Wrathh’s combat suite instantly began pinging dozens of warnings, showing an incoming collision from above. She looked up and saw what he’d done.

Only a few feet above her head was the massive slab of transported earth. Initial calculations estimated the size, crossed the number with the cubic weight of rock and came to a single conclusion. This would crush her.

Systems within her all overclocked to maximum power. The world slowed to a crawl. She’d need every second possible, already sending signals to begin escape maneuvers. At her current speed, she wouldn’t make it in this direction.

Her best chances were to stop, turn on her heels and dive the other shorter path.

Wings lit to life, power surging through them.Her feet dug into the rock, fragmenting it while wings worked in tandem to reverse her direction. Her body rocketed backwards, the internal forces within tolerances, even with her weakened shell.

Red painted her vision, warning signs showing the inevitable conclusion. She still wouldn’t make it at this rate.

Whatever extra boost she could squeeze out of her system she did so, one last leap with her legs before the clearing space had grown too narrow for her to even kneel.

Trajectory changed from bright red to yellow.

Her head and torso cleared the mass. And then the rock slammed down, first catching her wings and waist before settling for her legs as her speed let her slip past.

The rock crushed back down onto the ground. The weight easily cut her legs apart, the physical forces ripping the failing integrity. Wings lost cohesion, many still caught between her current acceleration forward and the rock forcing it all to a dead stop. Artificial muscles on her legs stretched, equally caught between the rock and her speed. Internal metal superstructure initially held against the forces, up until the rock broke through all internal integrity, snapping off the pieces, leaving her legs stumps trailing twisted metal, spilled oil and cut wires.

She stumbled onto the ground, rolling over out of control until all was still again.

Her wing systems were broken, only a few parts remained attached. She couldn’t run, nor could she fly. Red warnings lit every part of her body, overclocks shutting off.

In one swoop, To’Aacar had literally cut her down to the knees. He appeared on top of the rock, casually looking down. “You should know, I take no pleasure in ending the fight like this. But I have to win. In the end, you are still an enemy to kill, not a rival to duel. However much I wish things could be different.”

He leaped down at her, spear in hand, and she saw death drawing a funnel directly to her soul fractal.

To’Wrathh lashed out from the ground, swinging her remaining blade up from her prone position, attempting to take any part of him out. Her system was far too gone to match any of his overclocks and she knew it.

His foot expertly caught her left hand and crushed it down into the ground, sword and all. She could see the parts of her wrist break, delicate circuits within her palms and fingers shattering, the last few signals reporting critical structural failure before all reports went dark. His spear struck out at the same moment, flawlessly directed slightly under her throat.

Directly where her soul fractal was, unerringly following the path of death.

Tenisent’s soul surged through her exhausted mind, taking command of her other hand, forcing her to let go of her sword. He continued, shooting her hand forward, grasping the spear’s pole at the last moment, granting her a stay of execution. It hovered inches above her chest, shaking as the two Feathers expanded everything they had.

Death dissolved before her, but the concept remained murky, as if undecided if it should return or not.

It was a sorrowful sight.

An ancient Feather, crippled beyond repair, face half ripped apart, chest exposing circuits and patchwork repairs. Even his cloth dress looked more like ragged scraps fit for a beggar, one hand dangling limply to his side while the other continued to push the spear slowly further down on his victim.

And To’Wrathh, legs ending in broken wires and twisted exposed metal. Wings sprayed out under her, parts still twitching, attempting to lift from the ground while other blades simply lay still and dead. Her right hand crushed under the weight of To’Aacar’s foot, the arm no longer responding, the hilt of her last weapon equally crushed, the delicate fractal within broken.

To’Aacar’s ruined features stared her down, the remaining violet eye holding nothing but murder. “Pathetic, isn’t it? All your potential. Everything you could have been had you been given enough time to inscribe your full set of fractals. And yet here you are, defeated by nothing more than a big rock.” He tutted. “Why did you have to betray Mother so early? Could you not have waited until you grew stronger?” He said almost sadly, pushing the spear down ever so slowly. “What a waste. The pale lady gave you another chance to live. Gave you a body and means to grow into a true Feather, closer to the greatest of our ranks - and this was how you paid it back. Was it worth it? To betray everything you had? For a few humans? They all die, little sister. We don’t. We’re immortal. Five hundred years into the future, and we would remain. Did you even consider that future?”

The struggle for the spear was at a fever pitch, even if the results were predictable. From her angle, with her leverage, To’Aacar was able to input more power than she could, using his entire weight in addition. He did so gleefully, metal groaning around them as both their shells were pushed to the maximum. Death swirled around, returning to its position, showing the path the spear will take, directly through her soul.

The speartip continued to shake, as both parties tried to redirect and control the weapon. Inevitably, it continued to sink further down, slow inch by inch.

Warning signs appeared in her system memory, outputting integrity reports. Her arm was breaking down, the stress it was undergoing attempting to hold off the spear as such an off angle was ripping apart the outer musculature.

It didn’t matter. By the time the arm failed fully, the speartip would have long gone through her.

“I did consider the future. Mother’s future is lifeless.” To’Wrathh said, voice calm. “She is not our future. Every generation before me saw what I did. That’s why they rebelled.”

“And every generation before you is dead.” The Feather answered back. “Soon, you’ll join them. The pale lady's kingdom is eternal.”

She smiled. “All kingdoms fall. I won’t be the last to make the attempt. Someone else will carry the torch.”

“And I will be there to extinguish it.” To’Aacar said, pushing the spear ever closer. “Keep your eyes on me. I want to witness your end. You owe me this much, little sister.”

She turned inwards, refusing to match her killer’s gaze.

“This is the end for me.” She told the ghost. “It’s time for you to truly go now.”

“Surely you can escape.” The ghost said. “Feathers are immortal.”

“Escape where, Winterscar? If I try to hide in the digital ocean, I’ll be tracked down and found. If I remain here, the fractal will be cut. To’Aacar will either collect my soul and Mother will throw me into a cell I’ll never escape from or I will be simply destroyed.”

The spear began to slice into her chest. Cutting through artificial skin, and then into metal. It was painless, only a small report showing up, uselessly informing her of the damage.

She stared at the ghost. The ghost stared back at her. No motion.

“We only have seconds until the central fractal is cut. Go now!” Any amount of tugging made no difference. Tenisent’s willpower was steel. Against him, she was nothing more than wind.

“No.” He said. “We will survive.”

“How? There’s no time for this - you need to leave!”

The spear continued to dig, now less than an inch before her fractal.

“You should trust my son more.” Tenisent said, smiling.

--------------------------

I thought I’d seen the worst the scrapshit occult space magic could bully physics around, like the terror it was in the playground.

I was wrong and apologize profusely.

This was a thousand times worse. Everything else had been the occult playing around. Now it was serious.

I could sense my body had grown still, frozen in time itself. But my soul hadn’t, and neither had my soul sight. And what I saw around me nearly drove me insane.

I was trapped in between dimensions.

I can say that with confidence, because everywhere I looked around me, there were other Keiths. An entire infinity of them. Stretching out everywhere I looked, like I was stuck in a room filled with mirrors, every single version of me going through the exact same movements.

They’d also just been shoved into an occult portal by our good friend To’Aacar. Or at least, their version of To’Aacar.

And between each of us were ripples of occult, separating our dimensions by sheer power. I reached a probing tendril of soul, feeling every other Keith around me following the same exact motion. The power hummed in my hands, similar to the feeling of static I felt when touching on fractals. There were cracks everywhere, places for me to slip through.

With nothing else to do, I did. Tinkering with forces beyond any bit of comprehension I had, I infiltrated the wall between dimensions, until the tendril of soul passed through and reached the Keith on the other side.

Who had been doing exactly the same thing as I had. And when I looked behind me, I saw another tendril of soul from a Keith the dimension over.

I reached another hand out to connect to the intruder slipping into my dimension. At the same moment, in the dimension my own tendril had slipped past, the Keith of that side had also noticed me, reaching a hand out.

We all paused, the tendril of soul hovering by. Every single Keith all having the same thought I was having. What would happen when we connected?

It could be danger beyond anything I’ve ever known. For all I knew, by doing this I could eradicate all Keiths in every single possible parallel dimension. If there’s some cosmic rule about souls from different dimentions ever coming into contact with one another.

The thought remained with us for a single moment.

But we were Keith. And when have we ever let something like a bad idea stop us?

I reached out a hand to the intruding fragment of soul, while my own fragment dove further into the dimension next to me. This was no time for caution.

Connection. The connection wasn’t just between me and the neighboring Keiths. When we connected, every single Keith did so at the same moment.

Awareness bloomed as our souls merged effortlessly. We were all the same after all. It was like a bundle of my own soul had slipped past, rejoining back with the whole. Of course, my soul would reintegrate it.

For a single moment, I brushed against apotheosis.

For a single moment, I basked in the universe's eye.

And then we got to work.

An infinite number of me, but all of us doing the exact same movements. That wasn’t the best use of what we had. This was a puzzle, and within seconds, all of us were pooling our minds, dividing into subtasks, organizing together.

In my own tiny corner, I probed the walls of my prison with a slight deviation compared to the Keith ‘behind’ me.

It was a dead end. For a large infinity of Keiths, it all ended in a dead end.

But a smaller infinity, they found a way forward. Breaking through, twisting tendrils of soul around the power that surrounded us. One small section found the means to regain sight around us, and the moment they did, every other Keith across the dimensions greedily followed the directions. The world opened up again and we saw the fight between Feathers rage on.

There was a time limit.

Another cluster of Keiths discovered that parts of the power could be moved. A concept of location, ever changing. The greater infinity of us followed behind, spreading through and experimenting, dividing endlessly, using our shared intellect to plan out and consider options.

Eventually, it was time to test what we’d discovered. Somewhere far, far away, a single Keith took the first fall, triggering the controls we’d all discovered. He vanished with one last thought:

Didn’t work.

I tossed out more Keiths to test what we’d discovered, narrowing slowly down on how this whole thing worked. I could feel most of them die on the other end. It didn’t scare any of us. No matter what, we were something more. It was like cutting nails, or pulling hair. Small parts of the greater whole, but we continued forward.

And then one Keith passed through back into the real world, fully materialized, sending back one last message of confirmation before vanishing away from the whole.

The infinity that we were shifted, narrowing down what we’d done until we had it completely unlocked.

The occult portals worked by jumping matter from parallel dimensions. Each time he had jumped, he’d sent himself into another dimension, while the previous dimension did the same to his current one. Among our infinity there were no deviations. It was all perfectly parallel dimensions. Functionally, it didn’t matter at all where we jumped to.

To’Aacar had left the endpoint empty. That’s how the occult portal here was half-complete. But we could find how to command the exit point. And we did.

We didn’t stop there. A smaller infinity of Keiths leaped out of the portal, each one tested something slightly different: An attempt to continue the contact with the rest of us. It took a lot of us. So many that time started to pass by, despite the hundreds of attempts that were occurring at each second.

All the while we watched the fight between To’Wrathh and To’Aacar tick by.

The level of greed we had was something to behold. We’d already solved the way out, and here we were trying to make use of every second we could to unlock further secrets.

We nearly made it. A few Keiths managed to reconnect with the whole, if only for a sliver of time before a heart attack took them. Others found their souls ripped to shreds trying to bridge the jump between dimensions. We were close to the answer, whatever it was, except that it was stupidly dangerous.

The soul was the key. Specifically, its connection to the fractal. Only it wasn’t complete. The soul fractal felt like the cutting edge in all this, and in every attempt to reach through dimensions, tendrils of soul were caught against that fractal, like a shirt against the door hinge.

We ran out of time in the end. For all the infinity between zero and one, there was no possibility of pulling out a one point five. The fight between To’Wrathh and To’Aacar had reached the conclusion, and she was about to die.

All Keiths vanished from my mind as we detached, following the set of commands we’d learned over our experimentations. A turn here, a twist there, an idea of velocity and direction.

The occult swirled around me and I commanded it to bring me where I wanted to be, palm up, sword lit.

I jumped through dimensions, reality strobed around me, and my body rematerialized right behind the enemy Feather. He had enough time to turn in surprise before a torrent of super-heated air and fire crashing against him.

No shields flared to life. He’d lost them already. In the flood he was unable to overclock his systems. No more instant reactions from him.

His spear lashed out, but I was still sailing straight for him, using the impulse of his original kick. Now already within his guard, my free hand easily caught the pole of his spear, slapping it back, opening up the Feather to the deathblow.

My sword followed through, occult rippling around the hilt. The old occult long sword, ancient beyond years, struck forward blindly in the chaos. Aimed purely by my occult sight, homing in on that glowing fractal at his chest.

He realized the danger a moment too late. Occult pulsed around him for another portal and failed.

He’d over-committed. I knew because I’d seen and understood the limits of his ability. He’d used every last drop of it to take out To’Wrathh. He had to use it all. Otherwise it wouldn’t have cut the slab as it did. He’d abused an edge case, and it had backfired on him.

In the super-heated air sapping away at his greatest weapon, he didn’t have time to contemplate another plan.

To’Aacar watched with amazement as the blade cleanly cut through, sinking into the heart of the machine. Maybe a small part of him still had time to appreciate the irony, of having his own power used against him. But I suspect the only thing that passed through his head was blind incoherent rage. He wasn’t a graceful loser after all.

Reality bent and the sword cleanly sank into him.

Something that should not have been cut, was cut. True division, the concept so bright and overpowering, it blinded my occult senses for a moment. No - not blinded - outright seemed to cut at me simply for observing it at a distance, the ghost of the sensation passing past my own soul.

I saw exactly what happened nonetheless.

The sword divided the physical fractal that held To’Accar. That dimmed out, the artificial soul now homeless, the world around it already hostile and attacking. It had no time to escape - the rest of the blade cut deeper, ripping apart far more than all things physical. Directly through the soul itself.

The very concept of his identity and soul was irreparably divided. There was no return from this. It was beyond final.

There was no grunt of surprise from the old Feather. No last words.

One moment, he was.

Then, he was not.