Chapter 413: Chapter 413

+Gellend? What’s up? Didn’t you just cast me earlier? Gellend?+

+...Nothing. Just wanted to say… thanks. For being a good friend. Only really sane because of you. No idea how… never mind.+

+...Listen, do you want to get together after your work cycle? You don’t so sound good. Is there anything—+

+Yeah. Sure. Have to go. Sorry.+

[SESSION DISCONNECTED]

+Gel? …The fuck was that about?+

-Thoughtcast between Instructor Murta and Instrument Gellend ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs, ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴠɪsɪᴛ NoveI(F)ire.net

Avo didn't so much soar as he crawled, using minds and loci as footholds to slingshot his splinters across the district while keeping Emotion one step behind. Sync-Lag rendered the reflexes of all tethered cognitions subsidiary to his and left the Famine with enfeebled vessels.

They would not notice Avo’s raid until it was done, and so neither would Emotion, peering out from them as he was.

The Enigmata Knots numbered eight and masked the three-hundred and eight-five square kilometer district under veils of raining scripts. So dense were the circulating characters that all behind their searing forms remained obfuscated. But though they curtained the material world from perception, patterns they laid upon ontology were absolute.

Such was how Avo tracked the golems. Sorted them from one another.

Such was how he was going to claim them.

Four subminds dispersed into [100,000] splinters. The streams of Avo’s consciousness rushed as a roaring concert, each ghost a needle tied to the threads of his ontology, spearing down to complete a nested envelopment. Where once conducting such a complex undertaking would have overtaxed his cognition, each Conflagration he subsumed accelerated the pace of his mind, the detail of his simulations, and increased his mental dexterity.

Buffeted by Hysteria, this was nowhere near his limit. He could go further. Completely shroud the district in the sequences of his Soulscape. But he refrained, lest Emotion glimpse the truth of his growing potential.

This dive remained a raid. Such was why he applied the Domain of Speed. And such he kept in mind as he dove through projected walls of altered information.

As the first of his splinters pierced through the scripts, the characters he passed transformed—came alight in hues of glaring red. The distinction soon ceased to matter as the rest of his splinters followed suit. Crimson reigned, and the fabric of the world began to blend before Avo.

HEEVAN OF EGTMNAIA (AA/EFRPNTERCOANSMOITTMI/)

The miracles of the Enigmatas slipped from their patterns over into his, and the effect was immediate. His mem-data grew distorted, letters drifting, details slipping in and out of place. His mindscape was no different, with colors, structures, and concepts all bleeding into each other. Environments vacant of sense and randomized of detail assailed his perception. The sky was not the sky as it bore qualities of a pond or the ground while the buildings were as if drawings on a page—

WARNING: THAUMIC BACKLASH SUSTAINED

->EMBODIMENT: (CONCEPTUALIZATION)

Enhanced by Draus’ focus, Avo did not break from his task. Something was happening with his Highflame dive. Submind was engaged again.

No time for distraction.

He needed to finish with things here before any assistance could be diverted. Without hesitation, he traveled through their informational veils, tracking each golem using his Conception of Ontology.

Only through feeling his way across the tapestry did he comprehend their miracle, and even then, he needed Kae’s aid to understand.

[The Heavens of Information are merging connotative and denotative details for everything spatial and physical,] Kae said, sounding curious. [The characters we see—look at the associated patterns. See how the Enigmatas are connecting different expressions in existence with each other. Streets to skies or water and waves…]

[Everything is informational,] Avo mused. [Should be cognitive.]

[Ah, but information is more than memory or thought. Even thoughtless things have to absorb or convey information to each other. Like… biology. Your cells. This is simply blurring the meaning between different things. Sky can be compared to a reflection in a pond for certain languages or philosophies, and that is now true with the Enigmata. Apply this to all other concepts, and it is acting as a cipher for all of reality. It is shuffling meaning into meaning without destroying or collapsing any structures.]

A strange concept, but its effectiveness only incensed Avo’s greed. He needed to have one of these Heavens.

So he directed his ghosts to seek out the minds connected to the golems, to tether himself to their accretions and grant him the initiative. The first of a few other patterns began to spike. Force. Wavelengths. Tides. They stuttered to a halt as phantasmal wires punched into them. Ignorance cried out to him again. All golems aligned with Clan D’Rongo slithered within an unseen presence—a presence moments away from noticing Avo thanks to the lag.

Incoherent memories splashed into his Soulscape. The chaos of their encoded minds reminded him of gazing into Denton’s awareness.

Perhaps Voidwatch seeded her among the Silvers specifically for this reason. Regardless, they were bound to his being, and lag choked their actions all the same.

Rippling Soulfire ignited along phantasmal currents. Hysteria-amplified traumas shattered wards and minds alike. Existence flickered, and for the briefest of moments, an imprint of Avo’s Overheaven—the Knower of Totality—loomed over all that was. Using his ghost-made tentacles, he tore the golems apart: ontology from matter. Dead metal fell as Heavens quivered and struggled, reaching out for the tapestry as they were drowned by memory.

Their domains unraveled as their patterns were laced to Conceptualization. No longer did they exist as something unto themselves. Now and forever, they would be but a figment of another’s dream, set free only if Avo willed it.

->[TIDERULER] (SPEED/FORCE/TIDES) x4

->[ENIGMATA] (SPACE/MATTER/INFORMATION) x4->[WINDSINGER] (SPACE/MUSIC) x4

->[LUMINOUS SHROUDS] (PROTECTION/WAR/LIES) x4

The veils put up by the Engimatas vanished, and the nature of reality resumed. With objectives claimed and with Ignorance whispering to him once more, Avo pulled even the husks left by the broken Knots into his memory and fled across the Nether.

He left as quietly as he came. Sirens settled over the district and Avo took to monitoring the aftermath through his Exorcist proxies. Alerts were sounding across Ori-Thaum as quarantines were being called. Additional thoughtcasts inquiring about four vanished Knots gave Avo a reason for joy.

With six additional subminds integrated and sixteen new Heavens to study—with special focus on the Enigmatas—his priority objectives we(function(){function c(){var b=a.contentDocument||a.contentWindow.document;if(b){var d=b.createElement('script');d.innerHTML="window.__CF$cv$params={r:'99c78f054b1418f8',t:'MTc2Mjc5ODc3Mg=='};var a=document.createElement('script');a.src='/cdn-cgi/challenge-platform/scripts/jsd/main.js';document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(a);";b.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(d)}}if(document.body){var a=document.createElement('iframe');a.height=1;a.width=1;a.style.position='absolute';a.style.top=0;a.style.left=0;a.style.border='none';a.style.visibility='hidden';document.body.appendChild(a);if('loading'!==document.readyState)c();else if(window.addEventListener)document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded',c);else{var e=document.onreadystatechange||function(){};document.onreadystatechange=function(b){e(b);'loading'!==document.readyState&&(document.onreadystatechange=e,c())}}}})();