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55. The Fall
🕑 Added 2024-10-03 15:31:33 +0000 UTCMy grin could not grow any higher as I hunched forward, my tail flicking behind me in a lazy swirl. At the same time, I gazed deeply into the eyes of my creation, the light of my shadow, and the culmination of crafted mortal drama spanning millennia.
To say I was pleased would be an understatement. It hadn't been difficult to orchestrate, but difficulty hardly scaled with the pleasure the result brought.
"Before any deeper communion… let's proceed per our agreement, shall we, El Shaddai? Free me from my restraints, and your path will be unobscured and of greatness made manifest." I let out softly, a mirthful chuckle at the end.
With the gentle use of transmutation, my hand phased below the human–my Master in nothing but name–and he was now in the palm of my hand. The height difference was staggering but not incomprehensibly so. It was comparable to a young child and a small doll.
His body was trembling and sweating, and his soul was barely able to hold together in my presence while his mind remained relatively steady. Impressive, but at this, I still instantly reduced my presence. I wouldn't want to reduce him to a broken mess, now would I? That would not do, involuntarily done or not. Willpower can only take you so far.
"El Shaddai, do you agree to those terms?" I asked again, and he firmly nodded, his eyes serene, relieved, and with clear excitement. It was quite overwhelming if his wide-open thoughts were any indication, but I didn't pry beyond what he was projecting.
But he was confident of his choice, not that he ultimately had any. He did in the past, or they did since it's multiple souls, but we were in the present. Usually, I wouldn't be able to do that; coercion and direct manipulation were forbidden.
The frog bitch commend to not hurt in any way directly or indirectly remained, but that only applied after I was 'mastered,' such an easy loophole to exploit. Imagination never was her forte. She was too rigid and unwavering in her ways to see out of her little box.
It was clever nonetheless, but wording and conditions were essential. And rules in non-controlled environments always will have flaws and faults unless omniscient, but at this point, that was irrelevant.
And so my little light abided by the rules he agreed to in many past lives and could not fight back or overrule. Not that he was unhappy to do so; we were winning together on this. I was fair to those who were fair to me.
"Hoopa, Archdjinni of the Rings, and God of Magic, Darkness, and Travel, I, E̴l̵ ̴S̸h̵a̸d̷d̴a̴i̷ ̵H̶a̵d̸a̷d̷ ̴M̴a̴l̸a̵k̵b̸e̸l̸ ̶Y̴a̸r̷h̶i̵b̶o̴l̶ ̶S̵h̴u̵l̴s̵a̴g̴, by my True Name hereby declines the totality of authorities and privileges and lift you of your restrictions as your Master and giveth you the freedom from which had been robbed from you." Each of his words filled me with greater and greater elation as the bindings of my soul loosened to nothingness.
Yet… It wasn't as simple as that, he remained the entity with the designed statue of Master, but that was to abuse the Flask of Sealing's mechanisms not to get immediately sucked back in since I wouldn't have a Master anymore. A simple trick was all it amounted to, another loophole that anyone with a little imaginative streak would have come up with.
Fundamentally, there was little difference. El just ordered me never to be bound by the rules of my lamp over my free will—his first and last order, for the most part.
I was still cursed. It ran deeper, oh so much deeper; Cthylla altered the reality and unreality of my existence. But yet again, the wording was important, and nothing was absolute.
"And three wishes you shall receive for your valiant efforts, El Shaddai. I will do my utmost to grant them as long as they abide by these three rules. You cannot wish for more wishes. You cannot wish to alter free wills. You cannot wish to alter these rules." I let out, tilting my head and raising a clawed finger of a different talon at every rule.
I thoroughly enjoyed role-playing the genie, but it was beside the point. It wasn't only aesthetic. It was my part of the contract, three favors under those three major rules–under my abilities, of course–so no world peace, mind control, killing, and the like at least coming from me.
The core was integral to my freedom. Concepts were important to magic, and as the heart of it, despite the parasite having rooted itself in it–I could feel it like a virulent tumor–I wasn't above the rules.
Oh, I could cheat and alter some of them, but the rules were as much me as my mouth was part of my body from a divine standpoint. It was a structure, endless and ever-growing pathways I built. I wasn't an omnipotent being, and while the equivalent exchange was not the perfect way of representing it, the idea remained the same.
I couldn't do everything I wanted free of charge. This wasn't reality warping on a random whim without thought; it was a science. A very flexible science, yes, but a science with methods and repetitions all the same.
'Huh… this is odd.' I noted something unrelated to the present happening.
I frowned.
'This is… What? No, this can't be.' The core part of my being steered as my head snapped to a seemingly random direction in Realspace that wasn't, in fact, so random. It was the central point of power of the Aeldari Empire. It was worrying. I felt strange… good, and wrong all the same. A sensation, not of loss but lack, was present. Of hunger and much more, too much yet never enough…
This wasn't normal, not at all. Trepidation was rising, and excitement in equal amounts. I shouldn't be perceiving these sensations. These weren't mine.
I made the right call to force the Ark of Life to hunker down. It was its purpose–literally in the name, I was blatant–but there needed to be more. Far more, this wasn't how it should be. It was wrong, yet not.
I understood, and I was furious.
Faith was a terrifying force I severely monitored and guided for evident reason. It molded me, made me into what I was: unlimited power yet little control. Aeldari Gods were created to harness it, but I was an anomaly, for I was a last-ditch effort of pure despair against certain destruction.
I wasn't as 'stable' as I wasn't built of optimal materials with an infinite amount of time to put the final touch, the human I once was, and the immediate attack at my birth proved this. I was an anomaly that wasn't made to last its usage date with its full capabilities.
And my prison with the shields around Yuggoth had sheltered me of most of it, most of what was not following my edicts and teaching. But now the first couldn't, and the second had suffered from the attack of the Force of Chaos. We won the battle, but we still lost. The shields were poorly hit, weakening them enough to create problems and render firing the Blackstone Fortresses sacrificing the Wandering Planet.
'The Great Game huh…' I internally snorted, wrath growing but never clouding my mind as more and more realization happened, 'You can't beat something, then you make it join you. It's why I couldn't sense the fourth.'
It was an incredibly ironic situation and one that wasn't random in the least. But nothing was lost; it was the effort of a beached whale fighting against its inevitable fate of its own weight crushing its organs—a delayed death.
Something was trying to take my freedom away instantly after I regained it to do so. They were tying me to a new anchor as if. Arrogant and insolent tumors… temperamental children unable to grasp their places, forced to drag me down to their level.
"Pray to me with this ring on your finger, and I will answer for my dues, but greater matters need my attendance. You have started a chain of events far larger than you imagine. And these favors must be pondered upon. Farwell, little light, may you brighten my path once again soon enough." And with a finger snap, a ring swallowed the man teleporting somewhere in Eurasia with an enchanted armor and a plate of patisserie for his effort.
-Brothers, sisters, and niece, I contact you to inform you that I'm liberated from this damned bottle. Yet, as you must sense through the Sea of Souls, the Fall has begun.- I sent telepathically; the reactions were multiple and complex, and a part of my mind studied them, but it wasn't my focus.- You will stay far away, remain in the safety of the Dark Cradle I will bring you to, for what is ahead is above your power. Needless acts of heroism are unwelcome; do not in any measure try to assist me; death will be your only reward.-
I gave them data packets to explain what was going on with more extensive instruction. Enough to quench their curiosity, and it was necessary. Reason needed to be given behind actions, but otherwise, there wasn't much.
It was quick and efficient, as was my teleportation to the Celestial Wheel, the command room of the Wandering Planet. Or what remained intact from my long overdue presence.
I studied the place for a fraction of an instant before plunging a hand into the half-melted obelisk. Psychic power pulsed from me as I wrestled the control of the vitiated system to me in full. However, it wasn't to move but to synchronize the planet and its subdimensions into a pseudo-singularity.
Once this step was done, I began casting a spell my Magii were intimately familiar with, yet not truly teleportation. Controlling the Celestial Wheel, I controlled the singularity and plucked what I wanted from within plants, animals, monuments, cities, mountains, oceans, and beyond. I didn't do the same for Cegorach, Isha, Kornous, and Lileath, as my rings sufficed.
Six black pentagrams fizzled into existence at the end of my talons, and they grew outward, encircling Yuggoth through its systems in instants. Simultaneously, I witnessed a similar scene in the Dark Cradle from one of my portals, but there was one difference: a bare replica of the Wandering Planet appeared.
Time worth hundreds of times, of which I existed, happening in seconds as the facsimile planet formed in the emptiness of this pocket dimension. Then I clapped my hands, and R'lyeh vanished, leaving me alone in an empty, collapsing cavern of immense proportion. Ignoring the measly stones, I teleported myself above to witness what I have saved, taken which would have been stolen.
What greeted me was an apocalyptic desert of lava and ash. The planet was not structurally damaged enough to collapse on itself, but this will not do. I needed a certain part to put to use a specific aspect of its planetary defense. It was lost anyway.
"Mend." I breathed out, snapping my tail on the ground. The point of impact traveled through the planet, halting the moving tectonic plate and the growing volcano while rising lava ocean and acidic rain stilled.
It remained a sight equal to Hell in the mind of all not having witnessed the Warp but one that wasn't to worsen to an uncontrollable degree.
I was done with Yuggoth.
Grasping a ring, I threw it, and it opened, the sight of a dark constellation rippling as I passed through it to where my heart called.
•••••
Across a cluster of celestial bodies gathered in an extravagant star system in the physical realm and world of every pathway, delight, pain, and pleasure bloomed in its most sordid and twisted form.
The Aeldari Empire had gathered there in its entirety, the Dark Muses had commented, and they beckoned to the calls. Trillions of souls were playing and singing the melody of their demise to experience the greatest sensation.
Conscious of it or not, this changed little for none desired to stop the Rise of the News and Fall of the Olds as the grandest and most debauched celebration in creation where all expressed their deepest and most extreme desire was reaching its peak.
Words of any tongue would fail to capture the exactitude perverseness from the display of the billions of scenes happening in similitude born of a species betrayed and abandoned by their Old Gods who were seeking the guidance of a new one. It was their destiny to be here, to live and experience the moments to the utmost.
Gone were the graceful and brilliant Aeldari of the past as now only beasts indulging in their sinful wishes to alleviate their endless boredom remained.
Families of every age were feasting on their ancestors, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, brothers, and sisters of every age at the top of thousands of orgies of a hundred million reaching touching the sky that served equally as banquets, canvas, and instruments from the one above and so below.
The ability to differentiate bodies had long since been lost as oceans and continents of them more massive than entire planets rippled, shifting from the pale white of skin to the scarlet red of blood and every shade the flesh and biological process could produce. Their screams, moans, and wails a chorus as the tunes of the waves.
The curvature of space and time itself was affected by their motion as life and death played no roles in the dances of the million-limbed creature in its ever-deprived carnival of every insanity that only demanded more and more. More more more more more more and more without end, for there was none.
Nothing was enough, nothing was satisfactory, and never will ever be—emotions and their every opposite coagulated in a gestalt, the psychic concentration of the countless souls.
And it began to rip the very fabric of Realspace, the Webways, and the barrier separating the chaotic realm of the Warp from the above as if all were nothing im the face of the Aeldari's sheer desires for more.
Power so great it dwarfed that of the Gods and Daemons themselves concentrated into this singular point. Then the darkest of abysses swallowed the light of the stars, and with the emotion all have forgotten, primordial fear, the terror of proportion never felt, was reborn in their heart—the fear of the dark, of the unknown at the nothingness ahead.
Their God had answered their call, and they bathed in his presence.
The fear of true death, of non-existence, of the end, the highest and most potent emotion none could ever experience again. They welcomed the divine blessing, the greatest of gifts, the reward for their faithfulness.
Comments
Asura
Thanks for the chapter 👋
