Коллективное Творчество – Verse and Dimensions: Stories (страница 27)

Kotoblade was intently paying attention to Logixel and Imaginatim. He seemed rather disappointed at Logixel and rather wary of Imaginatim. Kotoblade calmly asked Logixel how he felt after all these eons, even mentioning him by name. Logixel was very perplexed. He had no idea how Kotoblade knew his name or why Kotoblade acted as if he knew him personally. Kotoblade did not seem to notice Paradoxus, who was now focusing his attention on Kotoblade. At any moment, Paradoxus might strike. At last, Paradoxus could no longer restrain himself and he blindly attempted to attack Kotoblade. However, Unthil managed to block Paradoxus’s attack and absorb retaliating blows that Kotoblade attempted to deal to Paradoxus. Kotoblade wasn’t about to tolerate SuperGods attempting to attack him. Kotoblade, in a rage, called for his army to attack. He then decided to erase Unthil from existence with his new omnipotent^3 powers.

The imposter Conceptilum got a hold of the severely degraded Unthil and began to viciously deconstruct the far weaker SuperGod. Shocked but realizing that Unthil was giving the SuperGods a chance to escape, Paradoxus swiftly erased a significant number of lowly entities with zero hesitation, firmly grasped onto Logixel and Imaginatim and got away from Kotoblade and Realitus as fast as he possibly could. While Unthil felt the sensation of his siblings’ presence fade as they ran, total nothingness started to surround him. As it did, Unthil remained unable to tell how Realitus felt in the moment. As Unthil’s consciousness was fading away, an outline of an image of his father remained ever present until everything at last disappeared.

Paradoxus, Logixel, and Imaginatim managed to safely flee from Kotoblade and sought refuge near a cohort of monocosms where Hellensoerensen was hidden. Paradoxus was tempted to ask to activate Hellensoerensen, but Logixel told him off before he could. Logixel using Hellensoerensen as a means of erasing or incapacitating Kotoblade was an extremely bad idea as that would also potentially erase or incapacitate Conceptilum if the SuperGods were not too careful. Paradoxus pointed out that it was also a very bad idea to leave the bot alone and free for Kotoblade or Realitus to use. Upon the mention of Realitus, the older SuperGods thought about him. They were very baffled that the SuperGod had joined Kotoblade’s side. Paradoxus wanted to knock some sense into the younger SuperGod, while Logixel wanted to remain hopeful that Realitus would realize the mistake he made before it was too late. In the moment, Realitus likely did not realize that his leader was even possessed and Kotoblade took advantage of Realitus’ desire for attention. Paradoxus criticized Logixel’s optimism—Realitus is far too stupid to realize any of his mistakes. This mistake would not be any different whatsoever and the young SuperGod would never learn. Paradoxus noted that Unthil would likely agree with his opinion on Realitus. Logixel, after shutting Paradoxus up after the older SuperGod mentioned that Realitus was dropped as an egg, thought deeply about Unthil and what he had told the SuperGods. He hoped that Unthil was telling the truth about his devices and that he would appear to them at any moment. Paradoxus hoped that Unthil had told the truth too—but he was more keen to tell Unthil off and have him provide even more information on the situation with his powers. Kotoblade had to be dealt with promptly and without any delay. The older SuperGods remembered to direct their attention towards Imaginatim. They noticed that she was starting to act oddly again. Imaginatim was chatting to herself, having a full conversation with what seemed to be no one at all. The older SuperGods were about to dismiss this as an instance of a new imaginary friend, until Imaginatim referred to her new friend as “Unthil”. Logixel was ecstatic and desperately inquired Imaginatim about Unthil while Paradoxus surveyed his location, in case Unthil was nearby. Unthil was not present at all. The older SuperGods began to grow very worried and unsettled.

Realitus was very alarmed when Conceptilum had slaughtered Unthil. When Conceptilum had agreed to take away Unthil’s power, Realitus had imagined that the omniscient^3 would be simply demoted or perhaps exiled. Instead, Unthil was, at least to him, undeniably permanently erased. Unthil was his least favourite sibling, but he was somewhat unsure about his father’s decision being the right one. Realitus tried his best to convince himself that the decision was entirely in the right—Unthil being gone would mean that he would no longer be around to boss the younger SuperGod around and tell him what he did “wrong”. Deep down, Realitus wondered whatever happened to Unthil being the favourite SuperGod of Conceptilum and wondered if his siblings were right about his father being an imposter too, but he did his best to repress such thoughts. Conceptilum was finally praising him for his work and allowing him to manage Beyond—this was what he had always wanted. Realitus’ other three siblings had fled from Conceptilum and it was possible that they might escape Beyond entirely—leaving the burden of managing everything to only him and Conceptilum. All throughout his life, Realitus had claimed he should run the Council but at this point, there practically was no Council—there were no SuperGod subordinates he could order around—just only one superior. Realitus thought about how he could get Paradoxus and Logixel back to the Council so that Beyond could be managed.

As Realitus thought, he noticed Conceptilum very clumsily attempting to create Creators and Destroyers, presumably to recruit into the army. The created entities were very deformed and disorderly alomic anathemas to Realitus—nothing at all like the Creators and Destroyers Paradoxus and Logixel often admitedly crafted very well. Realitus felt the need to speak up to his leader. Realitus told Conceptilum that his entities looked absolutely horrendous and that they deserved on-the-spot erasure. Before Realitus was about to show how entity creation was to be properly done, Conceptilum suddenly snapped. He destroyed his creations and erased many nearby monocosms. Realitus was surprised. His father throwing a tantrum out of nowhere was a very jarring scene to bestow upon. Realitus grew anxious about the omniverses within the monocosms, but felt quite relieved when he realized that they were Imaginatim’s pitiful creations and not his works of perfection. Conceptilum broke down and blubbered about how “nobody appreciated him” and how he wanted “it all to end” for no apparent reason. The omnipotent^3 entity furiously began to destroy even more monocosms. Realitus, not once thinking about any implications of what Conceptilum had just said, decided to arrange some of Imaginatim’s creations so that they would be in Conceptilum’s way in order for them to be destroyed. Realitus found this very amusing and chuckled to himself. Unfortunately, Conceptilum seemed to take Realitus’ amusement the wrong way and was quick to threaten to take away Realitus’s position in the Council. This shut Realitus up. Conceptilum seemed to calm down and then gently ordered Realitus to manipulate some more entities onto their side. Realitus complied with his leader’s demands and set to work expanding his following. Perhaps, Paradoxus and Logixel would be brought back into the Council later when Conceptilum was more willing to listen to him.

Unthil found himself embedded within a strange realm of nothing but pure incoherent bunkum and balderdash. The verses surrounding him were very vibrant and possessed exotic structures that no stable verse within Beyond could reasonably hold. Many of the verses that did look familiar greatly resembled that of Imaginatim’s monocosms and omniverses. Quickly, he came to the conclusion that somehow he was resurrected into Imaginatim and now he was, in a sense, bound to her. He didn’t know how this could have happened—had Imaginatim found and tampered with his devices after Realitus had sent her away? If so, what in Beyond did Imaginatim actually do to his devices in order for Unthil to have been revived into her? Unthil wondered if he now had access to Imaginatim’s memories from within but quickly shot down any of his ideas of checking her memories since Imaginatim was bound to have either forgotten what happened or severely changed her own memories to the point that it would be practically impossible to figure out what was the original event from any given memory. Unthil now wondered how he could possibly explain what happened to him to his brothers. As he did, Unthil suddenly received a vision of the possessed Conceptilum destroying many of Beyond’s monocosms. Realitus was present too and he seemed to be arranging his sister’s creations in a way that allowed for the false leader to destroy them. Brilliant. Kotoblade is already starting to destroy monocosms in their home bubble, Realitus was not only still being profoundly self-centred but apparently was so dumb that he could not recognize that his father was possessed, and there was nothing he or Conceptilum could do to ensure Beyond’s stability. It sure was great that his first act as the new acting leader of the SuperGods was to die immediately after he became leader and then get trapped in the mind of the most confusing SuperGod in existence. Beyond’s stability surely won’t last now. Unthil figured it was probably hopeless to attempt to communicate with his brothers and began to explore Imaginatim’s mind-realm. Of course, nothing in it made sense at all to him and it was essentially entering a wholly different plane of existence from his familiar Beyond bubble. The place was filled to the brim with “pets” and “imaginary friends”—few of which even vaguely resembled any god, mortal, or even the few surviving creatures of the Transcendent ecosystem. One odd thing Unthil noticed was the persistent presence of what seemed to be Elder’s fire wherever he traveled. On further inspection, the fire seemed fully unable to hurt Unthil much unlike the fires that could, in reality, completely assimilate SuperGods and destroy small Beyond bubbles. Unthil tried his best to investigate the fires but he soon sensed the nearby presence of Realitus. Considering that the younger SuperGod was presumably very distant from the whereabouts of Imaginatim and her brothers, Realitus’ presence was quite odd. Sure enough, the younger SuperGod did show up to greet Unthil. However, unlike the Realitus Unthil knew all too well, the younger SuperGod was very polite to Unthil and very courteously asked if the SuperGod was lost and in need of assistance. Unthil, realizing that this was just Imaginatim’s perception of her brother and was clearly very curious as to how Imaginatim perceived the rest of the Council, did not respond as he was too mystified to communicate. Realitus jovially offered to guide Unthil back to his home—“Beyond” and then noted that Imaginatim would love to have a new pet. Unthil, still profoundly confused about what was even going on, took imaginary Realitus’s offer to guide him to “Beyond” and followed him so he could meet Imaginatim, curious as to what would even happen. It would probably be great to know how the imaginary Council ran things here.