Living with adversity was not so bad after all.
Achilles moved through the crystalline channels of The Existential Lattice with his transford body, thoughts drifting toward recent events. Lamashtu had invaded his Observable Existence and demanded submission. He had been chained with one body to serve as bait for monstrosities beyond his previous capabilities. He had died over a hundred tis at the claws of an Absolute Mutated Corrupted Terror before finally consuming it entirely.
All of that adversity had only made him much stronger.
His Inner Dominion had expanded and grown at rates that would have required weeks or months. The territories within him pulsed with foundations fortified by consud Absolutes and Fundantal Depths, authority integrating into realms that continued developing even now.
He sensed his Father and the other Adrastia Emperor Kings acclimating within his Realm of Assimilation, their existences protected from the chaos spreading across Observable Existence while they adjusted to the strange nature of dwelling inside soone else’s being.
All in all, his progress could be considered astonishing.
The biggest finding was the Half-Ford Heart of a Primordial Architect. At this mont, the heart he had ford from its consumption allowed his body to change astonishingly, his size continuing to rise as his base form seed titanic. Still humanoid in configuration, but his hair now shone with purple-gold luster that cascaded down his back like molten tal given form. His eyes were vibrantly purple-gold clusters of undifferentiation and differentiation swirling together, the colors of his Lineage amplified beyond anything he had possessed before.
His skin shone with its fair glow as archaic crimson tattoos of undifferentiation perated across his flesh. They curved along his arms in patterns resembling ancient scripts that predated language itself, spreading across his shoulders and down his back in configurations that seed to shift when observed directly.
The markings pulsed faintly with his heartbeat, crimson light tracing pathways of power that connected every aspect of his transford existence.
He looked grand and felt grand.
He could effectively call himself a Primordial Architect now, his capabilities becoming ever so clearer as the perception of an Architect was terrifying. He could see the underlying structure of differentiation and undifferentiation in all things, weaknesses revealing themselves without effort, opportunities crystallizing from observations that would have ant nothing to his previous self.
So terrifying that...
HUUM!
He felt faint vibrations traveling across The Existential Lattice, the sensation indicating extrely powerful beings coming into contact sowhere in the far, far distance. This couldn’t be THE Prisoner, right?
He couldn’t say for sure. The vibrations held authority approaching what he had sensed from Lamashtu, but sothing about the quality felt different.
For now, he turned his perception in the opposite direction and began heading there.
His goal was to find as many more ecstatic things similar to the Half-Ford Heart of a Primordial Architect as possible. But in addition to this, plans had been crystallizing through his consciousness ever since he first arrived within The Existential Lattice.
Plans that would ensure Lamashtu’s destruction.
First, he would continue placing the Fundantal Masters of THE Prisoner under his control. Ban was already his, spores of Assimilation woven so deeply through that creature’s existence that he responded to Achilles’s will without question. Rose had access to all the Fundantal Masters assigned to oversee the natives spreading Corrupted Growths across Observable Existence. Each one she encountered alone would receive the sa treatnt, their autonomy dissolved and replaced with loyalty that served his purposes.
Second, he would isolate as many of Lamashtu’s Absolutes as possible. The Existential Lattice was vast, and harvesting operations required spreading forces thin to maximize collection efficiency. Absolutes working alone or in small groups beca vulnerable to ambush from soone who could perceive their weaknesses through Architect’s Perception and strike with Undifferentiation that ignored conventional defenses.
Third, he would gain more power by Assimilating these Absolutes and any findings from The Existential Lattice worth consuming. Every Absolute he devoured would trigger Lamashtu’s awareness that one of his forces had fallen, but the chanism only provided approximate location. By the ti THE Prisoner arrived to investigate, Achilles would be gone, stronger than before, hunting the next isolated target.
Fourth, he would map The Existential Lattice itself. His prompts had indicated that less than one percent comprehension existed from his forced integration. If he could raise that percentage high enough, the entire cancerous construct beca viable for Defined Assimilation. Consuming sothing that spanned Observable Existence would provide advancent beyond anything he could currently imagine! Well, maybe.
Fifth, he would wait for the perfect mont to strike at Lamashtu directly. Not when THE Prisoner was at full strength surrounded by his forces, but when circumstances had weakened him, when his Absolutes had been depleted, when the advantages that had seed insurmountable at their first eting had been systematically dismantled through patience and ruthless efficiency.
That was if he didnt return to Second Scale.
If that happened, all plans were fucked and had to be reevaluate!
Achilles smiled as his purple-gold eyes scanned the crystalline channels ahead. He moved and scanned.
And he continued to do so...and continued intil...
Vibrations.
Achilles sensed sothing in one direction and followed it, his transford body moving through crystalline channels with speed his previous self could never have achieved.
The vibrations he tracked held a different quality than the distant battle he had chosen to avoid. These felt more contained, more personal, the aftermath of conflict rather than its ongoing execution.
He arrived in a region showing devastation had blood here recently. Crystalline structures lay shattered across the cavernous space, purple obsidian fragnts scattered like broken bones from so massive creature. Gouges in the biological walls spoke of attacks carrying authority that exceeded anything Fundantal Depth entities could produce.
And on the shattered ground below, the corpses of two corrupted Absolutes sprawled hopelessly.
The only thing remaining was a floating Grimoire that had a face.
It hovered in the center of the devastation, ancient pages fluttering despite the absence of wind, leather binding cracked and worn. Its face was embedded in the cover itself, features ford from the material as if they had always been part of its construction. The face was heaving and breathing heavily, exhaustion evident in expressions that should not have been possible for a book to display.
The mont Achilles appeared, the Grimoire’s eyes snapped toward him.
"Fuck!"
The curse erupted from a mouth that moved despite being made of leather and binding.
"Hey, don’t try to eat ! Do you understand anything I’m saying? Do not try to eat !"
Its pages fluttered more rapidly, panic evident in every aspect of its strange existence.
"I do not taste like anything, okay! I’ve had enough of this shit!"
...!
Achilles looked over this creature in astonishnt, his purple-gold eyes processing what his Architect’s Perception was revealing about its nature.
This Grimoire with a face was surrounded by weavings of letters and words that seed to make up the surrounding existence itself. So of the letters shifted into symbols he almost recognized before transforming into sothing else entirely.
And uniquely enough, it had decimated two Absolutes on its own.
Whatever this Grimoire was, it possessed authority that could destroy beings at the Absolute level despite appearing to be nothing more than an animated book.
His Architect’s Perception provided information that made his eyes narrow with recognition.
Those weavings surrounding this strange creature held echoes of sothing that comprised one of the Four Aspects of the Oldest Paradox of Existence.
THE First Tongue!
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