CHAPTER 563

EDIFICE OF DESTRUCTION (I)

The void around Noterra remained as ever still; the shine of the sun blanketed one side, while the other sprung out into the vast emptiness occasionally interrupted by the faint glimmers of the distant stars and galaxies. A figure suddenly appeared in its midst; a throng of a sound suffocated immediately as he stepped out of the tunnel-like apparition behind him.

The familiar sensation hit him against his chest, the eerie feeling of having to stifle his breath and coat himself in the sheen of energy. Even at his level, he realized that it was impossible for his body to endure the tears and burns of the empty void. Glancing around, he eventually dragged his eyes downward onto a massive planet; from so far up above, besides the unified everything, all details escaped him. The mountains were at best differently-colored dents, rivers virtually invisible, and even the Empyrion itself just a sensation rather than something that could be seen.

He took a deep breath and spun around, extending his arm outward; right after, above his open palm, a single shudder of crimson-black light appeared like a bolt, tiny, seemingly insignificant when contrasted to everything around it. Yet, its mere appearance caused the space around it to displace outwardly, like a sphere, creating an insulating nothingness within – no matter, no energy, no particles. Even Lino couldn’t quite understand that concept, the idea of absolute nothingness, as everywhere else, no matter where one looked, there was something, no matter how tiny or minute it may be.

Yet, there, within that small patch, nothing but the flicker existed. Lino let go of it and watched it float out of his palm, spinning round itself in the process. It changed shapes rapidly, from the onset, rounding out all those Lino was familiar with, and those that he couldn’t have even fathomed on his own. Bit by bit, it also began expanding, alongside the surrounding patch of nothingness, seemingly swallowing away at the reality itself with each movement.

Lino himself backed up slightly, tremors in his heart diluting the curiosity he felt; no matter how strong he had gotten, he was still a tiny speck – a nothingness. The Edifice was what he originally thought Ataxia to be; it was not a creature, not really – not an individual of his or her own conscience, drives and interests. It was a realization of something much greater, a compendium of Natural Laws. The notions of the 'Creator' and 'Destroyer' were rather misleading, he'd learned; rather than creating, they were shaping, augmenting, metamorphosing, distorting. For as old as they were, that from which they came was even older.

He had quizzed the Edifice curiously about that origin, but even it fell short of an answer; it was undoubtable, however, that the two of them did create everything that is feasible in the universes – the matter, the range of energies, particles, laws, and, naturally, all the celestial bodies one might encounter. In the extended tree of it all, they even created him.

Space rippled as a strange phenomenon suddenly unfolded before Lino's eyes; the tiny Edifice sprung into a bursting continuum of expansion, looping upward into a tail-like curve before suddenly stopping, at the first glance cut up. Yet, beyond that line, Lino could still spot the remnants of the expansion as they influenced the spacetime. Eventually, far up, thousands of kilometers, the contour burst out back into reality once again, this time as thick as the planet itself, looming like an eternal shadow. It wrung and spun, forming loops, rings, patterns, asymmetric lines, all manner of shapes and sizes. Rather, there was no uniform shape that Lino could assign to it; perhaps a tree-like structure would be the most appropriate, yet hardly descriptive enough.

Within minutes, Noterra’s surroundings were jammed with in-and-out phantoms, forming a shield-like formation that burst out into a tall canopy further up above, and then some more. Calculations ceased to be possible, Lino realized, standing in the midst of the formation, jagged and rugged and flattened and smooth shapes pulsating around him, floating serenely in the open.

An unfathomable sensation overcame him as his stern expression softened, his black eyes bursting out with cone-shaped beams of light for a moment, his body flung into a stasis that he could not escape. Arms spread far open in conjunction with his legs, his back bent backward into a spinal curve, his voice stuck inside his throat.

Bounding space and time, and all limitations he believed to be unbreakable, he saw it – the core, the heart, the very center of the ‘creature’ that must have spanned at the very least the entire galaxy in size. It nestled not too far away from Noterra, up above it, like a tiny crown of energy forever resting, forming an ethereal throne. Inwardly, indeed, it seemed like a tree, with a single, obelisk-like jaunt billowing upward, exploding on the sides into branch-like protrusions that opened the ripples in spacetime, slowly swelling new universes into existence.

Even the Edifices, however, could not bend the time of uniformity; perhaps in the small pockets of space, to a certain extent, but not on a large scale. It meant that those universes were just born, and it would take a long, long, long time before they grew. Yet, what stunned Lino perhaps more so than anything else was the sheer number of them – millions. And that was only of those he could see with his eyes.

He stood amidst the nothing, realizing his body was just a projection into a much higher dimension that he had no access to. Noterra, down below, seemed nothing like a planet he knew it as; it was merely a flattened plane of two colors and some lines stretched through – as was most of the universe surrounding it, he realized.

Veering his gaze back over onto the obelisk-like structure, he saw someone walked out of its black walls – it was a human, or at least a projection of one. A child, Lino quickly realized, somewhere around ten-year-old, sporting a pair of entirely black eyes with no whites in sight, and a chilling, blood-like crimson hair. The child walked slowly, sauntering up to him and stopping, looking up and meeting his eyes.

“Thank you.” Though the feeling of gratitude was expressed, Lino could hardly feel it as he couldn’t reconcile the choir-like chanting voice of the bellowing depths with the child-like appearance. “For resurrecting me.”

“… no problem?” Lino uttered back, shrinking slightly beneath that gaze.

“You don’t need to fear me,” the child said, its voice still, however, putting the sentiments into question. “By your human understanding, we are family.”

“… where… am I?” Lino braved himself enough to ask, glancing around once again. However, save for the obelisk-like protrusion and the branches, there was nothing else.

“Call it what you will,” the child replied. “It is what it is. I am still consolidating the energy and expanding; the unnerving part, however, is over. Your home is now safe so long as I stand.”

“… how long will that be?” Lino asked.

“I cannot know,” the child shook its head. “It will depend entirely on you and those you choose to follow you.”

“… huh? Wait? I’m the one choosing Agents?” Lino exclaimed in surprise.

“Of course,” the Edifice nodded. “It matters little to me, as I trust you.”

“… you do realize that I’ll make you make all my friends Agents, right?”

“Think before you do, however,” the Edifice warned suddenly, surprising him. “Right now, you may be free to do whatever it is you want to do. However, soon enough, that freedom will end. Being an Agent means being a part of the war that never ends – day after day, eon after eon. Right now, the Creator has hundreds of Agents spread across the Universes, all of them fighting – some of them with clones numbering in hundreds as well, with all those clones fighting. Neither he nor I can battle directly; as neither he nor I can indefinitely and frequently make new Agents. Those Agents that you’ve killed have set him back millions of years, as that is how long it takes to create one. You, and his own Prime Agent, are exceptions, as you were bound with me from the start; others, however, will have to undergo the same principle as everyone else – training, fighting, killing, and more training.”

“…”

“It is hardly a life of joy, Lyonel; during our last cycle, I can’t tell you how many Agents eventually decided to take their own lives. It is not something you quit either – as a bond is formed, instinctually pumping psychological pressure to follow my ‘command’. I am the same; I cannot unbind an Agent, nor can I harm one, and I always have to do all in my power to make them stronger.”

“… more war, huh?” Lino sighed, shaking his head lightly. “Eh, I suppose it could have been worse. How long do you think I have before I need to get out there?”

“You’re still young,” the Edifice replied. “So to you, it's a long time – millions of years, in fact. Don't worry too much yet and just live; outlive the regrets, and relish in the simple life. Even grow attached to it. Time is rather uncanny, that way; it can wane all loves and desires, and there's little any one of us can do to change it."

“… you know,” Lino growled lowly. “Your foreboding speech implied it would be a hellish life from the get-go. Millions of years?! What the fuck am I supposed to do for millions of years?!”

“Most other humans seem to enjoy making children,” the Edifice said. “Perhaps you could go back to it?”

“… ah, so it’s indeed possible,” Lino lamented. “That even sex can get boring…”