44. The New Man

There never was a moment from the first instance of awareness where the boy who would be king denied his differences from the norm that composed humans in body, mind, and soul came into existence.

From his first instant of awareness in the womb of his biological mother to his birth and following growth, these aspects setting apart from the village and traveling merchants were a constant, an ever-growing constant in the form of an expanding ravine leading to the abyss of the end of time.

It was an irrevocable facet of his reality.

His mind was different, knowledge of concepts, designs, and theories impossible to fathom, for even the wisest of elders were by the thousands within his mind, from the humble yet marvelous techniques to improve the yield of crops to strategies of war and politics.

But any of these palled at the knowledge relating to the rules of reality, how the Sun rose, how its rays generated heat granters of bountiful harvest and drought, to the very foundation of matter and his place in the universe. Mathematics, geology, biology, astronomy, engineering, and that was only a brief surface-level list of a vast, if immensely incomplete, compendium where the more was known, the more one realized how little was known.

Then came the understanding that breaking and bending these same rules in the way talented hands would mold clay to fit the artisan view of what must be. But there was so much more than changing the world with his will. Sensing emotion, reading thought, seeing what was to be before it was to be. And, like reality, this magic was equally vast.

All of it, the boy understood. Detached memories of people he knew on and yet not firing through his brain, handily gifting knowledge, experience, and philosophy of thousands of flavor, value, and range but never more. They were his, yet not separated from his existence but an integral part of who, what, and how he was.

Then came his body. The boy did not possess strength far beyond mortals, nor was he impervious to physical harm or possessed an allure capable of enchanting men and women alike at a mere glance.

No, his body didn't stand for its appearance or capabilities beyond that of a perfectly calibrated metabolism; he considered himself adequate in either, but it wasn't anything anyone could defeat if luck and effort were poured in. No, what was different was his body's elusiveness to the concept of death itself.

Injuries would heal no matter their depth, and the blood spilled. Diseases and ailments would suffer the consequences of being in his presence and wither away; a similar fate was for parasites. He had done extensive testing.

And this was proven yet again as the cold bronze blade of a long knife was mercilessly buried in his chest, spearing his heart, tearing the delicate organ of life from the auricle to the aorta, leading to death most swiftly. Or so it should have come from this traitorous strike, but it was absent, inexistent, as he emotionlessly gazed back toward the one to have stabbed, his uncle.

The boy that would be king's brown eyes of depth incomprehensible to his audience stared into the soul of his only remaining blood-related family whose wrathful and satisfied expression on a vile visage grew uglier. It was striking in its sheer unpleasantness, a hideous face able to be used as a stable data source for a thesis on this subject for centuries to come.

It turned to confusion as no scream or reaction was drawn from the boy that would be king, then anger at this show of defiance, realization, and despair arrived hand in hand as the older man felt a strong, youthful hand grasp his thin arm. Then the stabbed boy, slowly pushing the blade deeper as he took one step forward, then two, then three until they were face to face.

His visage was unflinching, as unending as the blood pouring from the would-be fatal wound. He felt the pain but perceived it for what it was: a packet of information telling of damage brought to his flesh. It was a mere stimulus, not enough to warrant any reaction. Others seemed so engaged at the smallest of injuries—another puzzle.

"Why?" The boy asked this simple question with a curious tilt of his head, followed by two others as he advanced, the blade tearing through the fabric at the back of his tattered shirt on the other side, "What is the purpose of such an action, uncle? Where did your machinations lead you to believe that killing my father would end?"

To put emphasis, the boy lifted a skull of pure white taken from the leather pouch around his waist, the skull of a man that had been killed in one strike of a hoe to the back of the head from the shape of the damage.

This wasn't any skull the boy had brought, and the boy's uncle was aware of who the owner once was: his blood, his brother. A skull the boy had taken care of cleaning and preserving.

"Ab-abomination!" The older man screamed desperately, trying to escape the iron grip of the boy, unable to comprehend how he couldn't run away or why his nephew was alive.

"I do not understand. Could you explain it to me?" The boy stated cooly, his eyes glinting with calm interest as he heard the mental wail of anguish from his uncle. He listened attentively yet couldn't comprehend. A common occurrence among his scarce interactions with the villagers, it was frustrating.

Psychology didn't answer why one would act in such ways. It explained the possibilities, but that hardly could be taken as a sensible answer as to why one would act in such a way as the present scenario. Why would his biological uncle murder his biological father? What was the purpose of such an action? What was the goal? What did this man believe would have happened? And why did it displease him?

He understood humans' unbound potential for greatness, and yet, why must they act in such ways? He couldn't understand why one would go against the fundamental principles of logic and rationality, the basis of survival, the foundation of community, and individual self-preservation.

It was inadequate. It was unnecessary. It was hazardous. It was unworthy. Yet it was what made humans beautiful, these imperfections he couldn't reach, feel, and experience to their fullest. However, it didn't mean these aspects weren't problematic.

And so the boy reached a conclusion; with a disinterested gaze, he made his judgment. A heart stopped as another regenerated from its poor state while he calmly walked away. The blood on his body was fresh. His steps were unperturbed by the whimpering and cowering crowd as he put the skull back in his leather pouch and advanced toward the horizon, where the mountains swallowed the Sun.

His expression shifted to shock for the briefest of instants as a tall, muscular man of dark complexion appeared before him.

The man had groomed wavy black hair, as was his well-trimmed beard, both adorned in ornaments of bones and gold harmonized to his elegant yet simple clothing left open around his chest to show a symbol darker than any starless night, light itself seemingly upon contact.

It depicted a snake curling two times on itself, forming two circles connected beginning and ending by the legless reptile biting its tail.

The symbol of infinity, the Ouroboros, the boy recognized, one that until now he only knew as theoretically possible but impossible to put into practice. The latter part was visibly erroneous. It was a symbol of many meanings emanating a dark presence stirring a thousand threads within his soul to learn and explore the meaning of such a concept.

He was a man which the boy couldn't read the mind of, to his surprise, a man which he instinctively understood he shouldn't be hostile to, with the only option if a fight were to break out was to escape. Within his vision, any of his attacks would end in eternal darkness and a devouring shadow. His golden light would be unable to fight off the abyss. Any future was impossible to read; as such, the boy deemed it wiser to avoid conflict when victory wasn't assured.

While wariness was necessary, this was a man who didn't desire harm toward his person, that much the boy could tell even if he never foresaw his coming. He found this man disturbingly familiar, but further recollection proved unrewarding. It was confusing.

What could be reasoned, however, was that this was a man in possession and able to give possible answers to his many questions. Ally or enemy, establishing diplomacy became of utmost importance.

"Who are you?" He neutrally inquired, fearlessly approaching the man.

"I'm known by more names and titles than I care to remember, young one, but if it's a singular word you desire… You can call me Oll, and you, what is your name?" Oll asked mirthfully, with an alien tone, for the boy to be addressed.

As for a name… A name was many things, from a simple denominator to the essence of oneself, a True Name, an intrinsic part of him he instinctively understood. It was the core of his existence, and any who learned of it knew how to use it; they would subdue him to their every whim.

For the mundane, it was of little importance, however. But the question didn't seem mundane, and the name asked was walking the thin line between the two.

Regardless, he answered by coming up with a suitable name. One he couldn't realize the irony of.

"Enkidu."

•••••

"Ah… His journey finally began." I hummed through the mouth of my second Avatar, elation flowing in my system at what it entailed for the future of the Milky Way. All on the shoulder of a human teenager. It wasn't my only option for freedom, while my prison would eventually shatter. I had waited enough, and the Flask of Sealing destruction would have been temporary.

Fucking frog bitch.

'If only this rising curve were omnipresent.' All the joy vanished with that thought. If I were to put it mildly, the war wasn't going well. Oh, we weren't losing per se, but we weren't winning either. At this instant, my first Avatar, Danxama, was succeeding in assisting a Maiden World under the name of Ulthwè to Warp away by fending off undesired Aeldari with the assistance of my little bats.

But these types of battles were few and far between. The Aeldari Empire was larger and positively stronger than the Infinite Empire of the Necron without the Star Gods, as well as far older and more developed.

My Avatars and those of my siblings and niece with exceptional individuals like little Majun were resources we had in scarce quantities. We couldn't risk losing them, particularly my Avatars, as my rings were part of their components. Losing them would be… disastrous. And the Dark Muses knew these weaknesses -somehow knowing about the rings used as conductors in my Avatars, likely Tzeentch- and exploited them.

The recent addition of the Krork in the Ark of Life ranks alleviated this, but that was hardly enough. It was harsh, but if they didn't suffice with the Necron, they wouldn't grant us instant victory against their past exterminator. The bulk of Krork weren't that fundamentally physically stronger than Ork. Well, they were to a substantial degree, but their intelligence and thought process was what truly differed.

But weapons able to consume star systems weren't a prized possession of our foe, and they weren't shy about using them… Little needed to be explained on how it ended, no matter how clever the Ork or Krork was.

These tools of mass destruction could negate our advantages if they deemed a fight unwinnable. An Avatar could flip the rhythm of a battle, turning a tragic defeat into a flamboyant victory in a heartbeat. Yet one or three synthetic supermassive black holes would destroy the battle and its surroundings forever, and little but retreating could fight it off.

In addition to that, there was the problem of mobility. The Golden Gates were physical portals tied to natural and artificial supports, be it in the Warp or Realspace; the latter was evidently favored but rapidly changing for the former for the following reasons.

Their locations could be hidden from psychic and material means. Our foe might be arrogant, suicidal, petulant children unworthy of their legacies, but incompetent idiots ignoring the threat we represented they weren't. And like the first time they tracked my diplomatic fleet, they were finding my gates in physical space, and we weren't numerous and strong enough to maintain them when an all-out assault happened.

All the while, they held sway over the majority of Labyrinthine Dimension. The comprehensive understanding and influences we had over it aided, but at best, it was a diversion when it came down to it since they weren't lacking in that department either.

With that in mind, the Golden Gates in the Warp was a less worse alternative. For all the horror they represented, Daemons were far easier to cull and ward off unless one of the Psychic Tumors focused on the gates; then, I would order its self-destruction protocol. However, other problems were tied to using the Warp, such as the relation between entry and exit points to the physical world. At the end of the day, it remained the optimal solution.

The dimension of the C'tan had briefly been considered, but there were too many unknown variables and dangers involved. If the Silent King had been there, maybe more time would have been invested in that, possibly since Trazyn and Orilan spoke of a method to control their past enslavers to be in his, but the cunning royal automaton had fled the galaxy. I held great doubt on what 'control' meant here; using one as a battery wasn't the same as bending its mind.

It wasn't a fatality but a great annoyance.

To say the least, our chances of succeeding in this crusade were in the negative, not that it was surprising or out of our expectations. Defeating and dismantling the Aeldari Empire had never been our goal.

It was an impossible feat with our current state, as immensely displeasing as it was to admit.

We were fighting to increase our number of followers and mortal allies to protect them from the Fall; it was an ark I was building, like the one from one of the religions I vaguely remembered with the flood. I didn't lie; its purpose was to shelter its inhabitants, but I never told the full truth. It was a shield from the rest of existence until the sanitation of the galaxy reached completion.

The problem was that the Dark Muses started to understand this strategy of ours, to gather species into our fold, that is. As such, they decided to target those staggeringly more than before. It wasn't a harvest anymore. It was an extermination. But these heinous actions weren't exclusively reserved for the 'Mon'Keighs.' How much I despised the socio-cultural implications of this word.

Any Aeldari diverging from their ideology were hunted down to be 'healed,' the need for a body secondary. It was the beginning of a genocide of dissidents percentage of their population, simultaneously increasing our number but also reducing our growth potential in the long run.

It was really aggravating. But that would not be for eternity… When I free myself, the fate of the culprits won't be pleasant. I will open their eyes to the true meaning of agony. I wasn't as merciful as Isha nor as reasonable as Kurnous.

But alas, I must wait, and until then, we must prepare.

*

My P@treon if you are interested.

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