Achilles felt like he was having a really hazy dream.
It was a state he couldn’t fully describe. His consciousness was extrely foggy and he could barely see, with his existence feeling so impossibly heavy that he could barely move himself.
Every thought ca through layers of resistance, every attempt at awareness eting walls of interference that made simple cognition feel like wading through solidified tar.
He found himself floating in an endless gray sea that stretched toward infinite horizons without feature or landmark. Countless images and scenes of his life from past to present played out on illusory screens surrounding his drifting form, mories flickering like fragnts of dreams that refused to fully coalesce.
He saw himself in that hospital bed in a Colony City where everything had begun, where he was born, when his mother and father held him.
He saw Rose’s face when she first looked at him with sothing beyond simple affection.
He saw his daughter Arya floating above graves of defeated enemies, asking questions about combat with childish enthusiasm that made his heart ache.
He saw his father’s resurrection, the mont when impossible had beco reality through sheer force of will and violation of principles.
He instinctively knew what had happened to bring him to this state. He knew he’d Assimilated when he absolutely should not have been able to, when every warning his existence possessed had scread against the action.
He’d done it anyway because the alternative was watching THE Endless Dream collapse and losing his only aningful alliance against forces that wanted him erased from reality.
He’d violated the very asurents of protection that his existence maintained.
He inherently understood what could potentially happen when Existence Corruption Value exceeded 50%, which was exactly why he’d taken precautions before making that desperate choice.
He’d sent every single body of his away from his Sanctuaries, ensuring that whatever catastrophe unfolded wouldn’t touch Rose or his family or anyone he actually cared about protecting.
His body that remained imprisoned with the combined forces of Life and Necrocracy was left exactly where it had been, and at this mont he had no idea what that body or any of his other Constellation Dream Bodies were doing.
Which was a very big issue.
Even in this state of helplessness, even with consciousness so heavy and fog-filled that basic awareness required trendous effort, he was still trying to spur himself to wake up. He needed to gain control over whatever was happening around him right now, needed to understand what his corrupted existence was doing while his will remained trapped in this gray limbo.
But...
Crimson blaring prompts blood before his perception with warnings that made his already heavy existence feel even more burdened.
|CRITICAL CORRUPTION ALERT|
|The excessive percentage of Existence Corruption Value at 85% has erged due to too much heterogeneity in Assimilated weavings accumulated within compressed tifra.|
|The weavings of your existence have not made everything homogeneous yet. Life, Death, Dreams, and Alchemy remain in active conflict within your fundantal structure rather than harmonizing into unified whole.|
|The result is your Existence becoming a Malford Abomination- a form of life most closely resembling the chaotic entities that existed during the earliest tis of Observable Existence before Civilizations imposed order upon reality. It has no will, only instinct, as will assimilate everything around it.|
|Current Estimation: 7 days must pass for the heterogeneous factors to beco homogenous and for your Existence to fall back below 50% Existence Corruption Value.|
|Until that threshold is crossed, conscious control over your physical manifestations will remain compromised.|
...!
Achilles stared at these prompts with sothing between disbelief and outrage building in his foggy consciousness.
He had to remain in this Malford Abomination form for seven days?!
Seven days where his body would rampage without conscious direction, devouring everything within reach while his actual will remained trapped in this gray prison. Seven days where THE entities hunting him could coordinate responses, where his enemies could track the obvious threat his corrupted form represented, where everything he’d built could be systematically dismantled while he watched helplessly from inside his own existence.
In that period of ti, far too many things could happen.
At this ti, among the many scenes of his life playing out on illusory screens all around him, one particular image caught his attention with sharp clarity that cut through the fog.
He saw THE Sovereign Catalyst with a face of rage and annoyance throwing attacks toward a Malford Abomination, toward his corrupted body rampaging through the Sacred Holy Land of Alchemy. The collapsed leader’s liquid-tal form blazed with THE Civilizational Authority as he hurled transmutation after transmutation at the creature that had consud his ally’s manifestation.
And then the Abomination’s eyes shone with sudden coldness as its grotesque faces turned away from THE Sovereign Catalyst entirely as if it had gotten tired of being attacked.
It turned toward Rose and THE Endless Dream.
...!
His corrupted body was actually targeting the people he was trying to protect, drawn toward their concentrated authorities like predator scenting wounded prey. Whatever instincts drove the Malford Abomination recognized them as sources of power worth consuming, and it was moving to devour them with the sa senseless hunger it had shown toward everything else.
Achilles’s eyes flashed with cold fury as the question burned through his heavy consciousness- could he really not do anything?
He watched as in the next mont THE Endless Dream wrapped Rose in golden sands of concentrated Dream authority and pulled her away at speeds he could barely track even through this observational connection.
The collapsed leader moved with desperate urgency, recognizing that the Abomination represented genuine threat to both of them.
But THE Sovereign Catalyst also continued pursuing them relentlessly, apparently deciding that eliminating THE Endless Dream while she was distracted by the corrupted creature took priority over dealing with the Abomination itself.
And behind him, that grotesque mass of conflicting authorities followed with hunger that would not be denied!
Rose was being chased by a THE entity and his own corrupted body simultaneously.
Achilles looked at such a scene with eyes that blazed through the fog of his trapped consciousness, and sothing fundantal shifted in his perception of the situation.
"Fuck that."
His voice echoed out in this heavy state, carrying defiance that made the gray sea around him ripple with disturbance.
He couldn’t do anything for the next seven days? There was too much heterogeneity in his existence? He couldn’t Assimilate because his own weavings needed ti to harmonize?!
Achilles denied such a limitation with every fiber of his being.
His existence was telling him what he could and couldn’t do? His own fundantal nature was imposing restrictions on his capability? Since when did he accept limitations imposed by anything, even himself?
He had Assimilated things that should have been impossible to consu. He had violated principles that governed how beings advanced through Scales of Existence. He had touched THE Civilizational Authority and survived contact that should have instantly collapsed his comparatively insignificant existence.
And now his own corrupted state was telling him to wait patiently for seven days while everything he valued faced destruction?
"Assimilate this heterogeneity itself!"
His voice roared through the gray sea with force that made the illusory screens flicker and distort.
"Assimilate the very corruption of my Existence!"
The endless gray began to tremble as sothing within his fundantal weavings recognized the command and tried to respond despite every limitation saying such action was impossible.
"Assimilate this Malford Abomination into my Existence!"
HUUM!
His existence told him he couldn’t Assimilate anymore? For a whole seven days? What authority did his own nature have to decide that for him?!
He was the one who determined what his capabilities could accomplish. He was the one who had pioneered the Way of Assimilation and established it as legitimate Civilization. He was the one who had consud authorities that should have been beyond his reach and integrated them into his being through sheer force of will!
If heterogeneity was the problem, he would Assimilate the heterogeneity.
If corruption was limiting him, he would Assimilate the corruption.
If his own Malford Abomination state was preventing conscious control, he would Assimilate that too until nothing remained except his unified will.
His eyes flashed with defiance that transcended the fog trying to suppress his awareness, and he bellowed out with absolute affirmation that accepted no denial.
"I said, Assimilate it all!"
BOOM!
The foggy consciousness that had been suppressing him rumbled with catastrophic force and then collapsed inward instantly. The gray sea that had seed infinite monts before folded in on itself like paper being crumpled, and the illusory screens showing scenes from his life shattered into fragnts that poured toward the center of his awareness.
An unfathomable change began to occur within his fundantal existence.
The heterogeneous authorities that had been fighting each other...Life and Death and Dreams and Alchemy, suddenly found themselves being consud by sothing that transcended their individual natures. The corruption that had transford him into Malford Abomination was itself being Assimilated, integrated into his being as just another form of authority to be claid and controlled.
He was Assimilating his own corrupted state.
He was consuming the very limitation that his existence had tried to impose upon him.
And reality itself seed to hold its breath as sothing unprecedented unfolded within the weavings of a being who refused to accept any boundary as absolute!
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