Interlude - Prelude to Ragnarok.

Special Lab, Stony Seas Dimension

Two days ago.

I flicked on the modified reality anchor and watched the Hume level dip to a 1.41e x 10-⁴ over the course of a minute. Reality distorted around me, strands of space and time coming slowly apart before my eyes as the truth of the world lay bare to me.

Pulling down on my dimensional sensors and characteristic function analyzers, I peered into the scope.

Nothing.

Hmm....

With a thought, I adjusted the settings, going finer this time.

1.41335e x 10-⁶.

Through the scope, I spotted something hazy now, just blurry spots, beyond description, unidentifiable.

Finer then.

10-⁹.

A level of reality so low even my existence began to flicker. I felt queasy in my stomach and my divinity felt restless being held back, just begging to be let out, to produce reality to offset the sheer dearth of it, like an ontokinetic osmosis of sorts. But I held on, adjusting the forcefield around me into a stabilizing cover like a hazmat suit.

Finer again.

At this point, the reality in this specially prepared chamber in the lab was over a million times lower than even SCP-3001.

At this level of nigh null-reality, even a normal human could survive for thousands of years even with just a single cell of their body left.

It was that weak.

The layered forcefields outside the chamber were the only thing keeping the whole thing from destroying the lab and chucking it into the void.

But it would all be worth it if I succeeded.

Finally, I could see them in the scope. Little flecks of kaleidoscopic hues, strings, strands, bubbles and impossible geometries. Eldritch functions of logic and semantics.

Before my eyes lay finally, concepts.

Real, tangible essences of concepts, ones usually hidden, encoded into reality.

But peel away enough of the wallpaper and suddenly they become very accessible. It's the principle on which magic works just brought to its logical scientific conclusion.

Till now, I had used my shard powers to brute force my way into creating conceptual machines. I call it science but it's far from it. It's a superpower.

Science is replicable by anyone who creates the same circumstances. Superpowers, not so much.

But this, here and now?

This is science. The true scientific method to glean concepts from the very folds of reality and knit them into machines. The art, no, the science of creating conceptual technology.

A breakthrough I had been working towards for years, ever since I first got my hands on the shards in Worm.

After all, of a shard can do it, so can my science!

Carefully, I extended a sliver of advanced block-form singularity entities, a metaphorical fishing hook into the primordial pond of existence.

One of them seemed to almost call out to me, humming a soft song of incision.

That one, I decided. This is the one I was looking for.

With little effort, I pulled it out and gently slotted it into the analyzer.

The screen lit up and the device whirred to action displaying the results, identifying it.

The concept of Quantum Individuation. The separation of entities from their core being.

It was a dull, dirty ultraviolet that felt of separation, severing, the power to separate entire possibilities by itself.

This was the one I needed to finish it all. The final weapon against the gods.

And it's maiden test was going to be on the twins. Nameless and his sister.

They were conceptually undying. It was impossible to kill them.

But what if you could separate their conceptual self from their unkillability?

That was the goal.

From a bag to the side, I pulled out a large injector the size of an AR-15.

The Exorcist. The same tech I had used to extract devil fruit powers from the denizens of the One Piece world.

Only now...it would serve to end the world. Possibly.

I really don't know what will happen once I consume the old gods. It really depends on how intertwined they are with their multiverse.

Eh, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I shrugged and carried on.

I removed my forcefield's influence on the gun and let it's quantum existence unravel, turning so malleable it was almost like a soap bubble.

I used a telekinetic module to hold it steady before me, turned the sensors to face it and checked it once over before I got to work.

Picking out the concept I had just began to methodically stitch the concept into it, merging the two together.

It wasn't the most professional job, given I'm fucking woozy from the lack of reality and holding my divinty in while doing it feels like balancing a house of cards in a snowstorm while I'm overdue for a piss.

But it didn't need to be perfect. It just needed to be. Because once the reality comes back to normal, the two will fall right into place with one another the same way your guts do after the doctors stuff them in randomly. Their existences would rearrange around and through each other to become perfectly intertwined without a hitch.

As I finished off with the stitch, I lay down the hook and needle, and slowly began to turn the reality back on.

The hume level slowly rose in the room as I turned the dial on the modified reality anchor, a process that was far slower than the other way around simply because I wanted to make sure the concept would mesh well with the Exorcist, instead of, I don't know, their existences pushing each other apart and blowing up like a blobfish jetted out from the bottom of the ocean. Yeah, those fish aren't all bloated and ugly in their habitat. It's just that when you rip a fish from the bottom of the sea into the air, it's internal organ fucking explode and turn it into a bulging, bloated mess.

Even a human diver's lungs collapse when they make rapid ascent.

And the same thing will happen to the Exorcist if I force it back into regular reality. Think star collapsing into a supernova but much, much worse since the explosion will affect reality itself, sending a ripple that might rearrange the very laws of reality, however slightly, and worse than that, destroy the lab.

It took me another hour and half before reality slowly returned to normal.

1 Hume.

The display on the reality anchor read.

I breathed a sigh of relief and slumped down to the floor only narrowly stopping myself from emptying my stomach onto the floor.

Note to self - make a better hazmat suit. Something that can stand reality shifts like....that.

Being a god and having all these extra senses isn't all sunshine and rainbows after all.

Changes in reality make one feel seasick. I barely got through this whole experiment without fucking up.

Like Superman and his super hearing. Extra sensitive ears mean everything, from the lightest breeze to the grinding of sand particles grates against your ears like nails on chalkboard.

It was the same with me.

Hehe.

At least the benefits of godhood more than make up for it.

I looked at the Exorcist floating in the telekinetic module.

No, this is no mere Exorcist. Its the goddamn Pope.

Yep. The weapon to deprive eldritch overgods of their godhood being named the Pope.

I laughed.

The irony is not lost on me.

I looked at the Pope. Gleaming gold and silver, a neon blue striped handle, pulsing with a conceptual feel.

It looked magical.

Reminded me of Clarke's third law.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

But all I could think was how Star would have loved it.

Ugh. Almost a year and half away from my kids.

Almost on habit I pulled out a Simple Jay's wafer and chomped down on it.

Soon, it'll be over. Once the other two finish their parts, we'll go back to the ship. Awaken my true body. Revive Offee. And be back with my little babies.

It'll all be perfect. I'll have my family back. And.....

Silently I checked the progress on Project Country Roads.

98 percent.

I smiled.

Soon. Home isn't far now.

I'm sure my parents will be happy to meet their grandchildren.

My mom will probably cave my head in with her roller pin though, when she sees how many wives I have.

I laughed.

She was always so traditional in her approach....

It's what drove us apart.

And my little brother... I'll mend broken relations. I'm willing to be the bigger man now. I just miss them. I just....I just want go back home.

I rubbed my eyes.

"Open the room." I ordered and the A.I. complied.

The walls of the special chamber retreated into the ground, forcefields shut down, and the lab appeared all around me again as the whole floor moved up, rising out of the basement.

All around me the lab spread out in all directions, a massive labyrinthine construction almost on par with the one I had on the ship.

"Bring up progress on Project Demeter." I asked.

"Yes sir." The A.I. answered bringing up a holoscreen that displayed a different part of the lab some ways from me. And in it, a series genetically engineered flesh pods.

I even recognized one of them.

Julia.

After she had betrayed me, there was no way she was escaping punishment. But with that demigod baby in her womb I couldn't well kill her.

God splooge just didn't take to artificial wombs after all. Something about creating a semi-unique existence, enforced by their own inherent power.

Not that something that stupid would ever stop me from mass producing them. If I can't clone demigods, I can just clone their mothers!

You want a womb of flesh and blood?

I will make an infinite array of flesh blob clones of Julia to get me fertile demigod breeding factory.

Hehehehhehehehe.

Never underestimate the power of science, stupid demi-baby!

Of course, I didn't just clone Julia. I also cloned Alice. And Margo. And Buttercup from The Princess Bride as a testcase. After all, she was still leftover from my tests on Project Shukra.

Why waste perfectly good biomass?

Only Julia got to keep her consciousness all through it though. Only she would have to suffer the tirture of being genetically engineered into a fleshy mass used exclusively as a breeding pod.

The rest of them, clones of Julia included, were barely sapient and had dulled sympathetic systems.

No reason the rest should suffer.

Besides, any good scientist knows that you need a control group to check the results against.

In this case, it was Buttercup.

I wanted to know if a non magician could birth a demigod.

The answer?

It's a coin flip. Even with fertility serums, it's a 50-50 chance the kid doesn't get born a demigod. Or is a stillbirth. Or gets deformed.

Well, good to know at least, right?

I wonder if I can make a genderbent version of the monster clone for better genetics in the demigods?

Hmmm...

Just then the computer pinged me.

Speak of the devil...

The monster clone had sent a file over?

I pulled it up.

Oh, the ancient magics. He gathered them all?

Nice.

Finally. Now I just need to get the traveler clone to get off his lazy ass....

I got up and pulled a folder from a drawer, tucking it under my arm.

The memetic hazard that could induce apotheosis in someone.

Project Shukra.

I have a sneaking suspicion the monster clone will be needing it soon.

With a thought a portal opened up and I walked through.

Time to make a delivery.

.

Collections Office, The Order Of The Library Of The Neitherlands.

One hour ago.

Zelda watched the green skinned woman lying on the floor, surrounded by the majority of the library's forces. Butchered down to nearly the last man.

Just one goddess, from beyond the multiverse. Just one.

Zelda shuddered to think what the rest could do if they were allowed to roam free. And now, if all sign pointed right.....a disaster was coming.

No. An apocalypse.

She was tempted, she'd be lying if she said she wasn't, to just kill the woman right then and there.

But she held true to the library's purpose.

"We are the keepers of all knowledge. Not murderers in it's service." She muttered to herself.

"Yes." A fatherly hand gripped her shirt, "But sometimes extreme measures must be taken to protect knowledge."

She turned to see the man who was a second, no, the only father she ever knew.

Her mentor. Her master. Head of the library.

Everett Rowe.

Usually, she'd disagree, but today, after what she had seen, she couldn't find it in herself to argue.

"You're not going to kill her are you? We had a deal!" A voice came from the end of the room.

Her mentor spoke before she could.

"No, Mr. Coldwater. We won't. But we will have to seal her away, so she doesn't hurt anyone else. Or herself."

"I'm not worried about her. I'm worried about what he will do, o-once he finds out...."

"Mr. Coldwater." Zelda assured him, "You have done the world, the multiverse a great service. We will never forget that. We promise. Once we deal with the coming apocalypse, we will help you find your friend, Julia and we will relocate you both to a safer world where he will never find you."

"J-just....just make sure he doesn't find out. He wil...he w-"

"Quentin, calm down." Henry said, "It's okay. You're not involved in this anymore."

"Hah!" Mayakovsky scoffed, taking a swig from his endless Vodka bottle.

"This is stupid. He is stupid. All of you are stupid!" He laughed, "You cannot fight them. Him."

"No one is invincible." Henry pointed at the woman lying on the floor in a puddle of blood.

"Not even gods. And now we know how to beat them. It's not impossible."

"You know what the difference between you an me is, Henry Fogg?"

"I can hide my alcoholism?" Henry quipped.

"No." Mayakovsky wagged his finger at Fogg, spilling liquor everywhere, much to Zelda's displeasure, "It's that I don't need to. I don't need to hide my alcoholism. I don't need to hide behind lies and delusions." He slurred in his thick russian accent, "I know this is a suicide mission. I'm only here because of the contract I signed with these book humpers. And so are you. I just don't need to lie to myself about all of that."

"I guess even the great Mayakovsky is afraid of something."

"Heh, afraid." Mayakovsky snorted in amusement, "I'm at peace with my death. The question is, Fogg, are you?"

Fogg balled his fists and swallowed his anger.

This was no time for infighting.

"There is little time. We must seal her, now. Henry, the perpetual magical battery? Mayakovsky, the Incorporate Bond?" Zelda extended a hand and Henry Fogg handed her a suitcase and Mayakovsky threw her a paper chit with the spell formula.

"I will seal her. The rest of you should go ahead before it's too late." She offered, "I will meet you at the Castle At The End On The World once I'm done."

Her mentor nodded and grabbed the hand of one of their three remaining travelers.

"We will leave one traveler behind. Take care. She is still alive. We don't know what she could still do."

"I know. I will." She nodded as she watched them disappear.

She felt like she should mutter a prayer but she knew it wouldn't help. After the slaughter of the greek pantheon, all other gods had gone silent in fear. They were alone. And hope was dim.

But she hoped against hope, futile as it may be that they would come back. That he would come back to her.

She sighed and turned to the young man by the side.

"Mr. Coldwater, if you would help me carry her to the cells..." She requested.

"Uh, oh yeah. Yes." He stumbled over himself and helped her lift the body as they made their way to the cells over the bloodstained tiles of the library.

A brutal and grim reminder, a dark thought clawed at her. A prelude for whats to come.

And all she could do was hope.

Hope that she was wrong.

_________________________

The last interlude before the final arc.

Coldwater betrays Jay.

Mayakovsky walks to his death.

And the board is set for the beginning of the end.

Ragnarok cometh!

Thanks for reading.

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