Коллективное Творчество – Verse and Dimensions: Stories (страница 10)

Matharin quickly approached one of Peralitus’ created omniverses and made a certain traveler unobservable to all entities within his home. The traveler was given many abilities that would aid him in escaping the omniverse and his mind was filled with thoughts of leaving the omniverse. Importantly, the traveler thought that a supreme entity named Peralitus had granted him these many gifts and would strive to meet the SuperGod so more abilities can be granted to him. Perhaps, the adventurer would be given creator-level power. When the traveler left his own monocosm he would unknowingly take steps that would disrupt the balance of many other monocosms, as Matharin planned. Logixel, upon seeing the many lives taken advantage of and ruined by Matharin’s scheme and unable to see how her actions would save him and his brother, begged Matharin to undo what she had just done. Matharin, mind half destroyed from the search for her sabotage, calmly explained to him that it was too late to undo anything and that all would be well once Xenixel came back from his most recent mission. Matharin told Logixel to go back to his monocosm as she manipulated another monocosm in a specific way to send a message to the distant Paradoxus, influencing him to go back to his home monocosm.

Empiroxus, Xenixel, and Conceptilum returned from their mission with grave news—the Beyond bubble collapse foreseen by Xenixel was going to occur at any moment. Unbeknownst to Matharin, Xenixel’s mind had been partly destroyed from his vision and he was not in a state where his judgement would be sound. Upon his return, Xenixel was informed by Matharin that Peralitus had caused a major disruption in the balance of Beyond. Many monocosms were destroyed and the traveler had been given nigh-omnipotent powers. This was not something Xenixel had wanted to find out upon learning that the collapse that the Council had delicately maintained and structured their bubble to minimize the risk of its destruction was due to occur. For all he could tell with his impaired mentality, Peralitus was a traitor who disobeyed his orders and had set Beyond up to be destroyed. Peralitus needed to be exiled. He stormed off to search for Peralitus and exile him. Empiroxus and Conceptilum quickly told Matharin about what Xenixel had found out about the collapse. It was at this moment Matharin knew that she had set up her home and her family to be killed. Matharin wanted to undo the atrocity she had done, but it was too late for that. Empiroxus went off to find Abstractil, Conceptilum went to look for Paradoxus and Logixel, and Matharin had to find Peralitus before Xenixel did.

Xenixel had found Peralitus first and ordered him to leave the Council at once or he will activate Hellensoerensen in order to perform an execution. Peralitus was shocked. He had not known what he had done wrong and Xenixel would not listen to his pleas for mercy or information. When Matharin arrived at the scene, Xenixel ordered her to retrieve Hellensoerensen. Peralitus, in a stroke of fear, agreed to leave upon hearing Matharin’s orders to get the automaton. Upon hearing Peralitus’s agreement, Matharin was ordered to help Xenixel escort him out of Beyond. Matharin, aware of the upcoming collapse, knew that Peralitus would die either way from exile or execution. Her sabotage had put Peralitus to his death and she felt terrible. Xenixel stated that if Peralitus was ever caught within the bubble, he had to be executed upon sight. Matharin reluctantly complied. The Council needed to repair the damage Peralitus was thought to have caused and Xenixel needed to ensure that every SuperGod who resided in the bubble would not betray him as Peralitus did. All of the SuperGods were called together and had to take an oath. They were to follow Xenixel to the end and prioritize balancing Beyond above all else. Matharin realized she was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Three of her eggs had not hatched yet and she could not help but wonder what kind of life they would have after their hatch. She could not just leave the Beyond bubble with Conceptilum and her creations—while the damage left it vulnerable to collapse, it was still by far the most stable and safest place she could take refuge in. Not only was the impending collapse going to make interbeyond space too dangerous to travel to, but a likely bitter and vengeful rogue Peralitus was roaming around. Matharin had no choice but to stay.

The Council discussed what to do about the traveler and the Eternal Legion which was now pent on destroying the Council. The traveler could not be found within Beyond so it was likely that he had already left the bubble and that the collapse would probably kill him off before he became a threat to the stability of Beyond anyway. The same was found for the Legion—which was seen as an insignificant group that would never pose a threat to the Council.

Xenixel found out that a variant of trosinium only found from the collapsing monocosms within a nearby parallel Beyond bubble was needed patch up an area of Beyond or else the number of monocosms within the bubble would be reduced to a smaller infinite cardinality. Knowing the risks of going out on a mission like this when the storm could happen at any moment, Empiroxus volunteered to go. Empiroxus managed to retrieve the trosinium and was going to re-enter his home bubble but before he tried to slip into the bubble, he was attacked.

Matharin’s mind was flooded with visions of Empiroxus being ambushed by an entity that hailed from outside of Beyond. She reasoned that the entity was Peralitus and as the visions were so intense, Peralitus had really come back an opportunity to revenge his exile. Alone and not willing to report her visions to Xenixel, Matharin located the battling entities and upon arriving at the scene, Empiroxus was very close to death. Though Matharin knew that she should follow protocol and report the presence of an enemy SuperGod who attacked a Council member, she decided against that and instead brought Peralitus’s attention to her.

Matharin explained to Peralitus that she was the one who got him exiled in the first place and bluntly told him to let Empiroxus go as he played no role in his exile. Matharin then told Peralitus that she was willing to be slain by him if it meant he would no longer be a threat to her family. Peralitus was shocked at what Matharin had said to him and wondered if the Council had set up a trap of some sort. While Matharin and Peralitus confronted each other, Empiroxus entered the Beyond bubble, abandoning the trosinium in a lapse of judgement, and tried to search for either Abstractil or Conceptilum, though his fading from existence caused great difficulty in doing so. Empiroxus eventually found his fellow SuperGods, alongside Conceptilum’s sons, and a Xenixel getting ready to deploy Hellensoerensen. Xenixel had the same visions as Matharin as Empiroxus got attacked and seemingly nothing was going to stop him from erasing Peralitus from existence. Xenixel ushered the fading SuperGod into the automaton in order to have six SuperGods activate Hellensoerensen and the Xenixel set off to destroy Peralitus. In his manic state, Xenixel, the SuperGod who once enforced consideration of consequences and coordination within his home, never once thought about the consequences of having two inexperienced juveniles, an injured and dying SuperGod, and himself with his partially destroyed mind—the epitome of coordinated individuals—having partial control over a bot that had gone through very few trial runs.

Hellensoerensen arrived at Peralitus’s whereabouts and in the irradiated space that signified the collapses of many nearby Beyond bubbles, the SuperGod was found over many scattered barren, lifeless Godverses—the remains of Matharin. Paradoxus and Logixel were very stressed upon the sight of the CouncilGod’s remains and consequently, Hellensoerensen’s motions became chaotic and sporadic. Conceptilum did nothing but stare at the hollow verses that once composed the SuperGod that accompanied him for a significant portion of metatime—from the time within the bubble that they helped each other survive in, to the time devoted to upholding the values of the Council, to the few times they interacted with their sons. Conceptilum had lost one of his few friends and in his daze, he was unable to think about the following protocol. Conceptilum did not realize that as he gazed down upon the verses, Peralitus had been erased from existence by Xenixel. Conceptilum became so lost in his state of shock, that at first, he did not realize the storm had caught Hellensoerensen and his own Beyond bubble. Without the trosinium supposed to patch the bubble, many monocosms were destroyed. Conceptilum was so dazed that he also had no realized that Empiroxus had just succumbed to his injuries beside him. With help from his sons and Abstractil, Conceptilum soon snapped out of his trance and his first instincts were to protect his children—both hatched and unhatched. Every living SuperGod within Hellensoerensen but Xenixel escaped the bot as it grew more and more corrupted—eventually destroying Xenixel by ripping him into godversal shreds dangerous for any SuperGod come in contact with. Abstractil decided to retrieve the trosinium needed to aid in defending Beyond that her partner was meant to deliver while Conceptilum and his sons headed straight for the monocosm that held the SuperGod eggs. When Conceptilum and his sons arrived at the monocosm, they had found that one of the SuperGods had already hatched. Not only that, but the young SuperGod had used nearby resources to create a defensive barrier around himself and several nearby monocosms. Conceptilum quickly realized that this SuperGod, like his recently passed mother, possessed omniscience^3. The SuperGod let the trio in and introduced himself, calling himself by the name he gave himself—“Unthil”—following his introduction up with a remark that if anyone made fun of the name he gave himself, he would “kindly shove them back out into the Beyond storm.”