Godclads

Chapter 32-9 Warfare (II)

With all things considered equal, a lonesome duelist cannot slay an army, at least not an army worth its steel. Sometimes fools will try to deny such limitations. Heroes are often just fools that succeed.

But, ah, if you wish to be a true legend, then you must forge your own miracles. You must wed opportunity with your capabilities.

Naeko, I have trained you well all these years. There are few people in the world who can match you blow-to-blow, skill-to-skill. But, even so, as an ephemeral, you are vulnerable, mortal. A single mistake will cut you short, no matter how much effort you have put into maintaining your skill and abilities. When you obtain a Heaven, this will change. You will think yourself divine, impossible to beat.

But the same metrics apply. The other absolute divines will become your rival blades. And though one skilled Godclad can slay billions of mortals and a hundred so-called equals, a hundred and one rivals might be too much, even for a master. For the dance on the blade’s edge, one misstep will send you plunging into the abyss.

But that is just as well. It keeps you focused, refined. Understand this: the same limitations apply to your enemies. And so, if you can scatter them, if you can force one hundred foes to engage you one after another, then you can duel and kill one hundred, one thousand, one million—for as long as it takes, until you finally discover a worthy equal.

That is the sign of a victorious warrior. To set your terms, to make the world bend to your desires, instead of contending with what is.

-Zein Thousandhand

32-9

Warfare (II)

The fog that formed Naeko’s Palm billowed out from the hurricane, cascading through the turning winds in defiance of its turning vectors. The Sage rolled across the rubble, creeping as its fingers grew, elongating, unleashing a dense layer of cumulus across a full fifth of the district.

Through it all, Osjane still could not detect the exact thaumic mass of Naeko’s Heaven. The ruptures were affecting her sensory measures. Still, she could feel the weight of peace grind against her, even through the moat.

If this was a lie, it was an all too convincing one.

Orders came flooding in. Orders and terror. Her mind went empty. Her cadres were reacting as if they just received death sentences, sent to die without hope of retreat. The best among them requested proper commands, dispatching formations, but she didn’t know what to do.

She was just—

No.

A single thought cut through Osjane’s mind.

No. She needed to do this. She needed to hold her forces together.

At once, her Heaven rose — A blade clenched by a fist within her ability: a symbol of rulership, defying Naeko’s descent. She didn’t know if her purpose was to pierce the clouds, or if she was to be swatted flat, but she would stand now. Be resolute.

Her purpose was to serve. To serve her father. To serve as his gesture of flattery to the High Seraph.

To fail now would render her an iconoclast instead of a tribute. And that was unacceptable.

{All forces! Hammers! Anvil! Stay in formation. We have our orders! Stand and deliver! Those who waver will receive demerits. Those who break will face a de-souling and earn a coward’s execution. In Veylis’ name, stand and deliver! We die if we must, but we will not dishonor!+

Her commands pulsed out through the Noosphere via her exo-cortex. She infused every droplet of courage she didn’t have into her words, and at once, she felt a change come over of her forces. A series of affirmatives and confirmations entered her mind. Pride swelled in her chest thereafter—only the finest of Highflame stand in the face of a dreaded enemy like the Chief Paladin and refuse to buckle. If she had been unfortunate enough to be born of the Ori, her peers would already be feeling, leaving her to take this stand alone.

+Chief Paladin,+ Osjane said, her mind echo in defiance of the palm-shadowed sky. +If that who you are. I tell you this now without hesitation or fear: Give yourself unto our custody. It is not too late. We are willing to accommodate a legend of your esteem, of your deeds. The day need not be defined by bloodshed. And if you but a mask worn by the Dreamer—+

+I want to ask you,+ the voice—the Paladin’s voice—continued, smug and slow, +what’s the more likely possibility? That I’m actually laying the law down on your consangs outside? That the ghoul somehow freed me at the perfect time, in the perfect place? Or that he hijacked your communications lines, compromised your intelligence, and engineered a situation where all of you would come here to die against me while he went on a feeding frenzy where you weren’t looking?+

+Alternatively... this also means the rotlick knows how to make my Heaven which... it ain’t looking good for what’s to come for you either. Ain’t looking good.+

The string inside Osjane was stretched to the breaking point. She fought to keep herself steady, but her vision blurred as the implications clawed at her mind. What was more likely? And what was she to do if the Burning Dreamer also possessed a replica of the Sage of the Sundered Skies? Did she even possess the skill to contend with such an overwhelming power?

WARNING: THAUMIC OVERLOAD DETECTED

WARNING: THAUMIC OVERLOAD DETECTED

Again and again, the warnings echoed across her mind. All across eight square kilometers, divergent in altitude and area, Osjane felt the Liminal Frames of the unseen ensouled overload. Twenty fissures tore open across the surface of reality, and twenty Fallen Heavens immediately began spewing their existential sickness out into the real. Even through the quivering surface that was the spatial rupture, Osjane could see it—could feel the fractures spreading across the tapestry, war and peace clashing against each other, partitioning the entire district like pieces to a fractured plate.

The string inside Osjane snapped. Orders left her mind across the Noosphere. Orders that didn’t go out nearly fast enough. {All forces—Rend-soakers—}

Through the spatial rupture spread new fractures of war and peace colliding. Osjane swept her blade—cleaved the path of the metaphysical tear aside. Only for a few hundred others to split clean through her forces, segmenting her command and severing her from communication. In one traitorous instant, her forces were shattered in symmetry with reality.

New patches of existential instability consumed the world, as zones where violence was restricted smashed hard against regions where devastation reigned.

{All... all units...} Dead static greeted Osjane’s mind. Dead static mixed with the wailing of discordant thoughtstuff and the crackling laughter of a beast that feasted upon cognition itself. For the first time, the Burning Dreamer spoke to Osjane Thousand, and the broken pieces of reality rattled with every sibilant syllable he sent.

+Thank you for the conversation, Osjane. It was most enlightening. Now. Show me how worthy your father has made you.+

It was no use. Lines of fracture spread across the entirety of the district, reality itself buckling under the weight of the detonations.

***

—[Avo, The Hidden Flame]—

The human ego was a treacherous little thing. Most people were mutilated from birth, molded by predilections and experiences that made them easy to sway with words or actions. Osjane was no different. While she possessed a powerful Heaven and had a massive material advantage, she betrayed herself the moment she approached him with conversation.

She revealed her inexperience. She revealed her mental frailties; her hesitation. And she gave him the time he needed to update twenty-one Godclads—graft unto them crude Heavens of Peace and War before spreading them across Tallstrings. After that, he exploited his awareness of the tapestry to position them perfectly. This allowed him to create the conditions of a “Mini-Sunderwild.” A Mini-Sunderwild that was now crashing hard against the surfaces of the Substance, separating Osjane’s forces, and granting himself favorable conditions for the coming battle.

All that at a hefty cost. Twenty Godclads for twenty Fallen Heavens. But they were worth more as perpetual Rend generators than active combatants. The Golds would need to push into the entropic zones to contain his Heavens. But that was only if he allowed them to regain their bearings.

Hidden within the False-Sage’s Cloud of Obfuscation canon, the remaining hundred Godclads the still controlled spread out alongside specialized golem Knots and drone fleets to begin his blitz run. He knew from his two available Hunts—bade his 8000 golems to spread apart in support of his deployed Godclads as they all navigated narrow channels of stability via Avo’s guidance.

[Alright,] Naeko chuckled. [Let’s see how many Golds we can snuff today.] His mind was infused in every golem pilot, every single Godclad. A budding excitement filled him. It had been years since he fought someone at a force disadvantage. This would be fun. Just like old times.

They slipped through the spatial rupture first—Avo’s golems soaking pockets of Rend while pushing into the new Scar Charts he was mapping. The places where Peace and War ground against each other were lanes of abosolute stability—but they are also constantly shifting. Moving. Like underwater currents.

At present, his forces were split into 20 Battlegroups. Battlegroups one to four had one duty and one alone—the elimination or burning of Osjane and other enemy elites. Battlegroups five to fifteen were to raid and exterminate as many unbalanced and separated Highflame lances as possible. And finally, sixteen to twenty had a special task at hand: to use the cover of chaos and push behind enemy lines—into the valley from where the Warhost came. There, they would use any and all means to further the disruption toward a single goal: the retrieval of Avo’s second warmind and the Definement of Hysteria.

There were definitely still traps waiting for him, but he expected this. Welcomed it.

The Golds came here thinking they had him pinned. That they could just overwhelm him with Souls, meat, and metal; keep him caged with their disruption.

How little they learned.

He needed to bleed them. To replenish his thaums and expand his forces. He had wanted to develop his Advisor’s template after all. Soon, what belonged to Highflame would be his. And thus, his battle doctrine was set with a single cast: +Templates. Break their shapers. Destabilize. Disrupt. Tear down the defenses. Focus on critical threats. Let my flames take the unready. The meek. It’s time to show them what it means to burn.+

The Hidden Flame stopped masking his presence. If viewed from above, a web of flames spread across Tallstrings, pouring between the cracks as if molten metal gliding between islands of chaos. And as his phantasmal flames burned, he gave his victims to be a glimpse of his Soulscape, of the realm they were soon to be bound.

And they saw. And they panicked. And he tasted their despair, their discord, their terror.

This was going to be delicious.