Godclads

{Fucking called it. “My daughter is prepared to deal with any adversary—” Yes. Truly. The post-divine cognitive assimilator is just any adversary. You threw your daughter at a problem that would have eaten you and the rest of Highflame even if you joined in this battle, you mongrel ape—you failed fucking abortion.

This. This is what I warned Veylis about. Tyranny is comfortable and easy when you are exalted beyond the lessers of your kind… but you quickly realize why they are lessers. Because now that she is indisposed, it falls to me. To me, because you are all screaming savages. Little cavemen who delight in hammering things with clubs, but refuse to develop any further despite all the technology and thaumaturgy you have been granted.

I cannot for any bit of my design understand why your kind clings so hard to your apehood. Not when you can literally choose to be anything else. You are a half foot into being “gods,” but you still couldn’t let go of the shit-tit of your baser instincts. To feed your pointless little egos and pride and oh-so-vaunted stories you tell yourself. Well. That you tell the Dreamer, considering he is going to be the only one inheriting your minds by this point, so determined are you to set up a nice buffet for him.

Do you know the only reason I allowed you to play at command for so long, Osjon? Two reasons.

The first is that I am, indeed, being hunted by my erstwhile siblings. The Bleaks have been trying to arrange my death for a long, long, long time. So desperate are they to remove the last of the so-called “Neo-Creationists” that they have unleashed their horde of eldritch lobotomites. Truly, the hypocrisy of the Architects knows no end.

The second matter—the part that actually concerns you—is that I needed you to humiliate yourself. To lose what remaining tatters of confidence, the bulk of our forces and the Chivalric inbreeders as well.

Hear this from me now: You are not Naeko. You will never be a rival to Naeko. You will never be an equal to Veylis. You will never be recognized by Zein. Because you are so desperate to be acknowledged that you keep slipping on the piss-puddle that has been trickling down your legs. And you are certainly no equal to the Dreamer. You are just food. A fucking chew-toy. An embarrassment.

I let you do this so that I can resolve any issues of “conflicting orders.” Now, even the hyper-individualist retards that constitute Highflame will finally listen.

So. Let us see if my ambush can extract your poor, damned daughter and salvage the remainder of her forces, or if I will have to perform a mercy killing.

32-10

Warfare (III)

[Naeko, The Flame’s Hand]

Naeko was among the most experienced of Godclads — just behind Zein and maybe Veylis in terms of battles fought. Maybe only Zein when it came to lives taken and civilizations slaughtered. Even if he wished to be humble, he was still probably the single most skilled human combatant in Idheim’s history.

That being said, it gladdened him to know that were still novel events that he hadn’t experienced before. Novel events such being made an army unto himself. Variants of his ego had been installed in each of the 101 remaining Godclads under Avo’s control, into the thousands of golem pilots as well. Tied to the Burning Dreamer, they moved with impossible awareness, each of their senses and actions so finely tuned it was like they were many and one at the same time.

As with everything that related to the Burning Dreamer, shit was pretty weird too. Still, he could live with weird, especially if that meant he got to drag his palm across Osjon’s little mistake of a daughter.

Four cadres at the core of four battlegroups; sixteen Godclads supported by 1,000 golems and 50,000 light assault drones. This became the front against Osjane specifically, and they shared an unofficial name through Avo, designating themselves Swordbreakers for the deed they were about to perform.

They glided along the Scar-Channels between ruptures, separate battlegroups on different paths to increase asymmetry. They circulated the veins of stability between swaths of entropy like lethal injections hidden by a rising fire. An ethereal fire that poured forth from their very beings, that kept them linked to each other.

Avo’s phantasmal flames shrouded their visual approach while the Godclads remained at zero burn, clinging to the hulls of golems as they made for a silent approach. The surrounding entropy did the rest of the masking. More than just obfuscation, the flames allowed them to communicate with each other, fed them active and constantly updating intel. A bird’s eye POV battlespace of the coming battle played in their mind’s eye as simulations. They saw themselves marked as palm-shaped icons. Intuition and meta-cognitive assistance from Avo allowed them to process all essential details with ease, granted them a near-omniscience awareness of each other’s roles, Heavens, positions, and conditions.

Meanwhile, Osjane’s forces were marked with Highflame icons, with the elites among them highlighted in various shades of red.

The Swordbreakers closed in on the largest marker—coming at her from four different angles of attack.

Presently, Osjane herself was trying to organize what few forces she should still reach. She had been cut off from the bulk of her army by a massive chasm of peace, walling her away from the valley where the bulk of her reinforcements flowed. But even though she only had two kilometers of stable reality to work with, she still had a force composition of one hundred and five Godclads, two thousand golems, thirty-two thousand or so ephemeral combat platforms, and a massive kilometer long Highflame Skyfort that was actively churning out hundreds of more drones with each passing second. Ṙ�

[Looks like the Golds spared no expense to put you down,] a Naeko said. His snort was shared by every other Naeko in the gestalt, and the awkwardness that followed made them share a laugh as well. [Last time I faced a Skyfort in combat was the Second Guild War.]

[Highflame never knew a problem it didn’t like solving through a mountain of spent metal,] another Naeko replied.

+Indeed,+ Avo replied. +Which is why I want to take it. Take all of it. Don’t need to worry about the lesser units. Just keep their forces destabilized. Disorganized. They won’t be able to trigger distortions if overwhelmed. Eliminate or incapacitate Godclads and golems. Remove Porters so I can burn them. Their numbers will be ours soon.+Nôv(el)B\\jnn

[Yeah, yeah,] the Naekos replied. [Don’t sit on my shoulder and coach. I know how this shit goes better than you.]

+By all means. Show me your skills, Senior Brother Naeko.+

The Naeko’s cringed. [Don’t call me that. Come on…]

+Why not? We both share a master. I am technically a Glaive by tutelage.+

[You're the reason why I think Zein’s going in her old age. Osjon was a mistake. You turned into a godsdamned problem. But fine. I’ll show you how this is done.] And with a thought, the Naekos of the Swordbreakers made their final adjustments.

[Alright. About four of us have counterfeit Sages as Heavens, yeah?]

[Yeah. Hell’s not big enough to hold anyone down for long. Guessing that the Golds probably have Rendbombs of Peace prepared for us too. Won’t take much to overload us.]

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[Rest of us are running Stormtree builds—man, what the fuck is this? Look at these fucking canons, consangs… Zein would have skinned our asses down to the bone if we went into battle with these. Everyone here’s trying to be a Breaker or a Porter. It’s all lightning or winter or something else predictable.]

[“The first chain we bear is culture itself,”] a Naeko quoted, invoking Jaus. This inspired a series of groans. [“Conditioning and faith is a socially accepted form of mental mutilation without accompanied reason.”]

[Alright. Alright. We run this hard and fast. Lame-Sage-Naekos go out first. Multiple angles. Make them split their fire. Breakers hold. We prime some Rendbombs of Space first. See if we can split them even more. Porters will overload themselves if they manage to keep it together.]

[Well, godsdammit. I knew I was going to reincarnate only to die.]

[Breakers can let them have it after that. But don’t stray from the palms. Don’t get into brawls. We flow through and pass into the other Scar-Channels. Those who fall behind: snuff yourselves and try to make an overload cascade.] A laugh sounded. [Yeah, I know. Ashthrone would be jealous—but these are desperate measures. Not making a habit of this. Yet.]

The four battlegroups each closed on their points of exit, their times to arrival perfectly in sync. As the Fallen Heavens writhed against each other and the channels shifted, their entry points into the battlespace were going to be variable as well, but that didn’t matter. Not when their consciousnesses were synchronized.

[Battlegroup 1, rolling in.]

[Battlegroup 2, matching pace.]

[Battlegroup 3, manifesting Heavens]

[Battlegroup 4, show them what a real Glaive is.]

All at once, sixteen Godclads manifested their Heavens as four palms burst out through the phantasmal palms, slipping out of the ruptures.

And with that, the slaughter began.

***

—[Osjane Thousand]—

The promise of glory became a living nightmare all too fast.

Osjane’s exo-cortex received a mess of messages. Her area of operation had been squeezed down to two kilometers—everything beyond that came through as static. Static and screams. She could hear the Burning Dreamer laughing at her, his inhumane mirth choking the very air like a toxic agent. Worse, his flames were spreading between the ruptures, rising as infernal geysers, parting the rest of her forces from visual range as well.

{E-VE–THEY’RE EVERYWHERE—}

{HOL–/.KKK}

{Hammer! Hammer! Maintain formations!} She sent out. Again, her message was only received by those in her vicinity. Everything else was—-

A crushing field of stasis and devastation came together. Swaths of entropy clashed as an entire section of existence lost all sense of color and all obvious shapes. It was like paper furling away into burned patches of darkness. Things simply came apart on a fundamental level, the unraveling more catastrophic than even disintegration.

All around her, the metaphysical wilting continued to spread, forcing her remaining units back. She saw wards shudder and rattle against the sheer amount of eldritch madness they were forced to behold.

The tower-sized Skyfort projected barriers while her golems and cadres reacted as they were trained. Logistical golems drained as much Rend as they could, but though she had platforms capable of digesting the filth left by a Domain of War, Peace was another matter.

{Authority Thousand!} A message arrived from Instrument Hallings. {Permission to establish moat. If we make a controlled rupture it might delay the encroachment of the Fallen Heavens. That’ll give us time to focus our golems in one direction, perform a retreat back to our breachpoint.}

Part of Osjane wanted to deny this request. The Burning Dreamer might be escaping right now. If she failed—

But she had another duty. One to the men and women under her command. And she could still hunt the Dreamer. Though he might be able to get a head start, they should still be able to track him using the metaphysical resonance between his subminds via the Definement of Hysteria.

{Do it!} Osjane ordered. {All localized cadres: Formation Zeroth. We are establishing a moat.}

With her confirmation, ten thousand missiles were released by her Rendbomber drones. They came out in a disorganized sequence, with the southwest group slashing out from their rail-launchers and detonating first. Another ugly tear spread across the tapestry, narrowing their operational room too just under two kilometers. The west and east bombs went off a second therafter, rupture intersecting and growing.

However, before her moat could full close around the north, she felt them. Sixteen signatures pulsed into being. Her Metamind rang in alarm as she felt their weight slam against her Frame one after another. She felt a few War Domains, but what made her stomach plummet were the palms.

They came in the form of fifty-meter large misted palms, exploding out from the surrounding ruptures of War and Peace without any hint of damage. From within their cloudy depths emerged swarms of hostile drones as well. Osjane’s mind reeled. This was impossible. No one could just fjord a rupture without draining the entropy or spending months learning a scar Chart.

She cast a cry of warning—but it was too late. Before her final salvo of Rendbombs could land, two palms caught them with a miracle.

And flung them right back at Osjane’s forces.

{BRACE!} Osjane cried.

Instead of rupturing where they were meant to go off, 413 spatial Rendbombs exploded at the center of her current grouping’s center. Fractures spread across reality. An Instrument—too slow to reach—was torn down the middle like a piece of paper. A death cry echoed from his mind. Soulfire sprayed out in the place of blood as his Heaven was unmade. And others followed him into the Big Nothing.

Rifts expanded, swallowing and displaying her drones, cleaving open gulfs into her Skyfort. Flames burst out from her massive drone-carrier and tactical command center. Broadcasts of severe damage and alarm followed.

Then came the palms again. The palms and the forces that hide within them.

As Osjane’s troops were further segmented by the sundering of reality, the false Sages bashed through her collapsing front like a cavalry charge. Somehow, they navigated the spatial ruptures without harm as well. And they just kept making things worse. A rain of Rendbombs came plunging out from the mists.

Her Instruments turned into the attack. Stood their ground. Highflame’s training was without peer. But even skill had a limited when one was utterly taken by surprise. Heavens of Fire, Speed, War, and more manifested on her side—but were lashed down by the dozen as an enemy Godclad unleashed a whip of frost-infused lightning.

Thousands died as a hailstorm of ice shards tore through her lessers. A chain of thaumic overloads spread through her Instruments. A cascade followed. Warning klaxons sounded from her Meta: the Domains of War, Fire, Lightning, Speed, Strength, and three hundred had all suffered a paradox.

Then, there was the Dreamer’s Conflagration. That infectious fire. It spread so fast, jumping from the enemy Godclads, drones, golems, to contaminate her drones, her golems, her cadres, even her Skyfort.

She saw the Dreamer feast upon vulnerable minds firsthand. Her forces were turned with flickers and flashes. Their accretions were swallowed first, then filled, then used as a new vector thereafter. From them poured walls of phantasmal flame. Flame that danced and revealed the form of the Strix coming for her, shrouding the palms and other hostile Heavens. But between the shifting fires, she also caught a glimpse of another place. A place of war unchained. A place where her soldiers fell screaming, their minds taken from them, forever trapped in the body of a living nightmare.

+No need to struggle anymore. Not your fault. You were just a sacrifice. You will get another chance. Through me you will learn. You will know the colors you missed…” The Dreamer’s words clawed her sanity, her wards cracking, on the verge of breaking from stress alone. They were all coming apart. She was going to come apart.

Death. Screams. Laughter.

And Osjane was at the center of it. Watching. Frozen.

She needed to respond, but she just couldn’t.

This wasn’t like the duels and battles she fought at Axtraxis. This wasn’t even like her tactical engagements against the Massists under her father’s command. This was the apocalypse. This was all her fault.

Her Instruments and soldiers were dying. So many of them were—

REND CAPACITY [SWORD OF SWORDS] - 2%

“NO!” Osjane cried. Her blade flared bright, like the sun was kissing its edge. A silvery luster fell over reality, and the bejeweled hand that clenched its handle drowned the world in dappled colors. Just in time. A finger of flame drew near—but was severed in place by her aura. As her miracle spread out, she felt the false Sages jolt as their Hells filled with Rend.

EDICT OF TRANSGRESSIONS DECLARED! ALL WHO TRESPASS BEFORE THE SHINE OF THE BLADE SHALL BE SEVERED!

Mustering the tattered remains of her broken courage, Osjane unleashed her miracle of Rulership, placing a rule upon any and all that dared draw near to her Heaven. The Sages survived. Their Peace Domains endured as slashes of silver crashed against their fog. But the drones, the Godclads, the golems that the Dreamer infested? The enemy Ensouled that were beyond the protective mists of the Sages?

A single slice of glittering brightness split them down the middle.

For such was the penalty of defying Osjane’s laws. Such was the rule against all things, metaphysical, material, and now mental.

She heard the Dreamer hiss in discomfort for the first time, felt her Skyfort bifurcate above, also afflicted by her Heaven, and knew hope was not yet lost, that this battle had just begun. {INSTRUMENTS! CADRES! HIGHFLAME! TO ME! BLESSED BE THE WORTHY! OUR LIVES FOR HER DREAM! DREAMER! STAND AND DELIVER!}