Achilles moved through the crystalline channels of The Existential Lattice with his Jotunn form, his stellar obsidian wings carrying him deeper into regions that pulsed with corrupted authority.
The biological walls around him humd with wrongness that should have been disorienting, but his transford existence processed the corruption with familiarity born from his partial Claim to Chaos.
Purple obsidian brilliance illuminated pathways that stretched in directions defying conventional paths, each channel leading toward resources that THE Prisoner considered valuable enough to enslave an entire Observable Existence to obtain.
As he traversed these corrupted depths, he gauged his Inner Dominion.
The territories within him had grown trendously.
The Blind Depths and Apatheia and the Realms of Chaos and Assimilation pulsed with foundations that exceeded anything he had possessed before entering this place. But the true difference ca from what he had consud since his imprisonnt began.
One Absolute.
That three-headed creature had died one hundred and twenty-three tis trying to kill him, and each death had cost it pieces of its existence that now resided within his Inner Dominion. The integration of genuine Absolute Depth into his foundations had transford what he was capable of ridiculously.
And after that Absolute, multiple Fundantal Depth Mutated Corrupted Creatures had already gone to his bound body. Each one had been Assimilated with efficiency that grew easier as his power expanded.
When he assessed his strength now compared to before THE Prisoner had chained him and THE Resplendent Paradox into The Existential Lattice, he felt like it was tens of tis grander.
Tens of tis.
In what might have been less than an hour, he had achieved advancent that should have required eons of dedicated cultivation. The adversity Lamashtu had intended as punishnt was becoming exactly what THE Prisoner had mockingly promised.
A path to glory.
Just not the kind of glory Lamashtu had intended for himself.
Despite this growth, Achilles still felt troubled as he continued his traversal. He was still sorting through the mories of the Fundantal Depth Master who had been in charge of Rose’s group, that creature nad Ban whom he had placed under his control.
The mories were difficult to access even with his dominion over Ban’s existence. He had to move through Ban’s consciousness like a passing thought, extracting fragnts rather than complete pictures.
What he found was worriso.
Fundantal Depth entities like Ban and the Absolutes serving Lamashtu seed to have been involved in a massive war. The scale of conflict suggested in those fragnted mories exceeded anything Achilles had imagined possible.
Armies numbering in quantities that made conventional asurent aningless. Battles spanning regions that dwarfed Tian and Shattered Folds entirely.
And beings like Ban seed more like disposable cannon fodder than aningful participants.
The Fundantal Depth entities even more so, really. There seed to be theoretically millions of them being used as soldiers in whatever that war was, their existences thrown against enemies with casual disregard for their survival. Ban was simply among the many soldiers, one grain of sand on a beach stretching beyond perception.
The scale alone made things terrifying to think about.
Those at THE First Scale of Existence did not even seem like the deciders of how that war would turn out. Absolutes were commanding soldiers. Fundantal Depths were expendable resources.
Why...would such an advanced landscape of Civilizations be at war?
What could beings who had transcended the limits of conventional advancent possibly fight over? What resources or territories or ideologies could matter enough to justify conflict on scales that consud Absolutes like kindling?
And the losers of that war. Why would they be imprisoned rather than destroyed? Soone had constructed that multicolored web emanating the Civilization of Existence, binding thousands of Fundantal Depths and hundreds of Absolutes in suspension that had lasted for spans of ti Achilles could not estimate.
Lamashtu, THE Prisoner, had his power at THE Second Scale stripped. He had been reduced from heights that made Absolutes seem like insects to sothing lesser, sothing that still exceeded anything this Observable Existence had produced but was clearly diminished from what he had once been.
What could possibly strip power from soone at THE Second Scale?
What authority could imprison beings of such magnitude and reduce them to shadows of their forr selves?
"..."
Achilles had no answer.
Even though he had learned much from Ban’s fragnted mories, he felt like he had even more questions than before. Each piece of information revealed depths of complexity that made his current understanding seem childishly incomplete.
He continued his traversal through The Existential Lattice, his stellar obsidian wings carrying him toward resources he intended to claim.
Whatever war had produced these imprisoned beings, whatever forces had stripped Lamashtu of his Second Scale power, whatever landscape of Civilizations existed beyond his Observable Existence, he would learn more.
And he would grow strong enough that such questions would one day have answers he could obtain directly rather than through fragnts stolen from controlled servants.
He shook his head.
Achilles continued forward through the crystalline channels for a bit longer when he sensed sothing that made his movent pause.
Vibrations.
They echoed through the biological walls around him with rhythm of violence rather than the passive pulsing of The Existential Lattice. Sothing was fighting in the distance, authority clashing against authority with force that sent tremors through the corrupted structure.
He followed these vibrations. The purple obsidian brilliance of the walls intensified, corruption responding to whatever conflict was unfolding ahead.
And then he hid behind tbr opening of a vast open space within The Existential Lattice and observed what awaited him.
The auras of two Absolutes pressed against each other with weight that made the surrounding crystalline structures crack and reform continuously!
One was an Absolute under THE Prisoner, obsidian garnts and broken chains marking him as one of Lamashtu’s forces. His burning eyes blazed with hunger.
The other was a massive bipedal Mutated Corrupted Terror, its form towering with wrongness that defied natural anatomy. Limbs bent at angles suggesting eternal agony, and its existence radiated suffering that perated the space around it.
...!
Two Absolutes were fighting.
And the reason why beca imdiately clear when Achilles perceived what floated in the distance beyond their clashing forms.
A vibrant white-gold object pulsed with light that made everything else in this corrupted space seem dim by comparison. It was half of a heart, shining with brilliance that spoke of origins predating the current age of existence. The organ was incomplete, torn or separated from its other half at so point in the distant past, but what remained emanated such terrifyingly potent and sweet sll that Achilles felt his foundations respond with hunger he could not suppress.
He salivated.
The scent reached sothing primal within his Assimilation. This was sothing precious. Sothing rare!
|The Existential Lattice has fed you information regarding the object before you.|
|The Half-Ford Heart of a Primordial Architect has been discovered.|
BOOM!
The two Absolutes continued their battle with intensity that spoke of understanding exactly what they were fighting over. Neither was willing to retreat. Neither was willing to let the other claim this prize.
Achilles looked at them with eyes that held calculation beneath the hunger.
He no longer needed to be touching sothing to Assimilate it. His range had expanded trendously, authority reaching across miles rather than re proximity.
So toward this object that these two were fighting over, this Half-Ford Heart of a Primordial Architect...
Achilles did not hide the hunger and pettiness in his heart.
They were fighting over it like dogs over a bone. They were so focused on each other that they had not even noticed his presence observing from the crystalline channel. They believed this prize would go to whichever of them erged victorious from their clash of Absolute authorities.
He targeted the object with perception that locked onto its vibrant white-gold brilliance.
And he yelled internally with everything his expanded foundations could muster.
|Assimilate!|
HUUM!
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