章 53: Chapter 32.East
Knowing the war was fast approaching a point that would require almost all of my focus, I drew all the will I could spare to the goblin brood construct in Glrt's force. I was determined to at least glimpse the hidden realm before the war started. Drawing so much will into so tiny a space had many interesting effects. I'd known there would be effects, I'd noticed them when I tried to see the cause of lightning but I'd been too focused to actually figure out what they were. This time, I could actually notice them.
The first change I noticed was the uneven increase in processing power. The more will I gathered the more each unit could process, leading to an exponential increase in processing power. A side-effect of this was the slowing of the passage of time. To the point that understanding speech became too frustrating and I was forced to watch the bursts of intent to understand any communication. Waiting for each individual burst became a long ordeal, such that occasionally checking for changes was much more efficient.
As yet more of my will gathered, I felt like there was a limit to how much will could be gathered in one place at one time. A feeling of resistance appeared, trying to force me to stop. As I still couldn't see anything in the brood construct that wasn't intentionally done by me, I refused to let the force stop me. I was doing damage to my own will, but damage could be repaired. I needed answers, and those were not always comfortable to find.
The results of my unwillingness to abandon answers were extremely painful. Forcing more will into the space put all of the will within the brood construct into a state of agony. Burning was the closest sensation to will-based agony, but it still fell short. Fire eventually destroyed the sensors, the sensors also had a limited range of heat they could understand. There was a maximum. Will had no maximum level of pain, nor did it stop feeling after a certain time.
Will-based agony was never fun, but I'd become used to it. As more will poured into the brood construct, my assurance started to waver. The pain was increasing, but my ability to see wasn't. I was trying to concentrate my will down to the smallest possible unit, but apart from the pain and the increased processing power that allowed me to understand the pain in excruciating detail, I wasn't gaining anything. The increased ability to experience time merely meant that every second of agony stretched into dozens, then hundreds, and then thousands. Still, I couldn't see anything more.
I felt at one moment that I felt a fluttering at the outer edges of the brood construct, but that wasn't what I wanted so I ignored it. A moment after, a spawn force was sighted and I had to relax my attention. Frustration ripped through me as I concentrated more of my will on my will-core. Being in a constant state of agony wasn't ideal, but the processing power would undoubtedly come in handy against the Sun.
As the concentrated will spread into the rest of the army, every thought hurt. Every observation sent a spike of agony back to my will-core. Damaged will was not fun to work with, especially while I was sending the undamaged will to a battlefield or concentrating it in my will-core. I wasn't enthusiastic about the pain of concentrating will on my will-core, but I'd rather be over-prepared than under.
As long as I had enough will to cover the entire battlefield, adding more wouldn't be beneficial. Increasing the density at my will-core would allow more processing, which would make the will on the battlefield much more agile and versatile. The pain was an acceptable cost for the ability to thwart the Sun with greater effectiveness.
Without the ability to focus properly, I returned my attention to Glrt's force. That too in the nick of time. I rushed to stop Glrt's massive circuit, taking the backlash myself as it wasn't her fault. The sudden spike of pain harmonized with the already damaged will, causing me to almost miss one of the Sun's circuits. I'd concentrated my will for exactly that reason, to be able to deal with the unexpected.
As detrimental as it was to me, it wouldn't be fair to force Glrt to experience the backlash of a circuit she didn't know she shouldn't be casting. That she'd decided to test a new circuit was probably the reason she hadn't made an even larger mistake, so any form of punishment was unwarranted. She didn't know that the force had stumbled on an extinct species. Apparently not extinct, but so close that no Conclave records mentioned them for eight hundred years. A species inherently tied to Abyss, and not through a mere demon-summoning circuit. A species that may allow me a glimpse into the nature of Abyss as thorough as the one it had gained of me. Seeing anything of Abyss was difficult, with all the demons clouding it, but I was sure it wasn't sitting around waiting for something to happen.
My avatar approached the ten gnolls that gnashed their teeth and snapped at it. Like all circuitry, it seemed they'd degraded as a species. That all of them leaked so little mana was another indication, though there could be other explanations for that. Regardless of everything else, their feral reaction was far from a reaction I'd expect from the controlled overlords that cannibal records claimed them to be. They were reacting more like wounded hounds, not even hellhounds. "Does the name Abyss mean anything to you?" a lack of control may cloud my ability to see into Abyss through them, or it could mean a more clear connection. I didn't know enough about Abyss to know the exact qualities of its true nature. There were too many demons contained within to see the true self that was Abyss. From the last time we'd interacted with each other, observation seemed to be the key. Watching Abyss without leaking any form of intent it could use was extremely difficult.
At the name the gnolls instantly stilled, caution inundating them. The smallest gnoll approached, nose twitching and tail as still as death. It may be the smallest, but from the withered appearance it could have been the largest once. It was almost like the creature was wearing a skin suit designed for a creature twice its size. "What's it know v'Abyss?" she was trying for a snarl, but what came out was much closer to a whimper. I usually solved the problems of age in those I interacted with, but time was a deadly foe for those who didn't know how to create themselves a new body. An ancient creature may have learned resistance, but I could grant immunity. Perhaps that was my best way into their favor, the dying often didn't want to be.
"I know that you're demons, and demons are pets of Abyss." The hackles on her shoulders raised as a feral snarl ripped through her snout. Apparently she didn't like being called a pet. I'd thought that pet was a conservative title for them. Nightmares were so much more controlled and obedient than pets it was nearly an inaccurate description. Semi-autonomous limbs would be more accurate. I wasn't completely sure that demons were identical to nightmares, they were very good at escaping my observation, but from everything I'd learned it shouldn't be far from the truth. "I've read many stories of your kind taking control of hordes of monsters and eviscerating cities. I've read stories of the monsters that you were summoned into as well, monsters that were hunted out of cannibal territory by your previous bodies." Not entirely true. I knew no more than that they were called werewolves, and that cannibals feared them. I assumed that the demons bred stillborns and inhabited the dead child at the convenience of the demon, but cannibal research had been far from able to adequately prove that conjecture. It sounded right to me, though. The amount of reliance I was being forced to have on conjecture in regard to demons was extremely irritating, however.
The gnoll relaxed, but there was still a good portion of hostility behind her eyes. "S'old story." She sighed. Her tail flicked, and the others approached cautiously. Valuing wisdom over strength wasn't something I'd have assumed of gnolls. Demons definitely didn't agree with that valuation, though they also tended to move adjacent to other demons as the extent of their ability for cooperation. Finding ten demons together and isolated was almost impossible. They may group so closely in a charybdis lair, but only because there were so many summoned by the charybdis that they were forced to coexist. They definitely wouldn't group up in reaction to an enemy. If they didn't flee, they'd spread out to get as close to attacking the enemy on their own as possible. Demons weren't cooperative, not even with each other. "We'nt demons no m're. Not them dogs neitherways. Gnolls is gnolls, y'see. What's it want?"
"To save your species. I've explored more of this world than you could probably imagine. You're the first of your species I've ever met, despite records calling you a plague." That was utter truth. They didn't become plagues the same way most other plague type monsters did, but they were classified as plague type. The worst of plague type because they gathered plague types into even larger hordes. Not that these would be gathering anything, they were basically helpless.
Despite the creatures being without circuitry, unless they'd found a way to stop leaking, they would undoubtedly be valuable. No species had been useless yet, even the bugs that existed without circuitry were very valuable as experimental subjects. Being of a species so warped by the presence of demons would undoubtedly allow me to learn more about Abyss, as well as circuits of a system deemed universally taboo. Demons had left their scars on the collective memories of humanity, and those scars ran deep. Almost as deep as whatever cause was behind the hatred of golem-craft, but that seemed even older. Old enough that the hatred and fear was starting to erode, while the fear of demons was still comparatively fresh. I could possess or replace creatures, but demons had undoubtedly refined the practice beyond what I did.
She chuckled, weary incredulity ruling her will. "Nah. We's dead 'ready. Pups ne'er breathe." The weariness won out. Without circuitry, I wasn't good at guessing age. From the weariness and respect from the other gnolls, she should be old. Quite old. It was easy to see that she was withered, but that could have been due to a battle or backlash of a failed attempt at circuitry. Weariness was a testament to experience. Either way, hope should be fairly easy for me to offer. If nothing else, I could definitely ensure a continued life.
"You'll never know until you try. I am confident I can solve your breeding problem quite quickly, but even if I can't I am sure I can extend your lives. I can extend them long enough to find a solution, if there is a solution to be found. If it can't, I can offer you an infinite amount of time to come to that conclusion. I have solved bigger problems than offspring being born dead, as well as other issues that caused offspring to be born dead. Bleed on it and we'll see if your species really has no hope." I built a worship rune over my palm. The old female didn't budge, but several others rushed forward to spill blood on the rune. Each one glared at the old female as they passed, accusing her of being too pessimistic. To accept the contract with so little persuasion, they were probably every bit as pessimistic. Merely choosing to shunt off their responsibility on someone else.
There was no rejection, which was a good sign for them but a bad sign for any perspective I could have gained into Abyss from them. They were right about having left the state of being demons behind. Either that or Abyss was abandoning them as they bled on my rune. Either way, the purpose of being able to look into Abyss was a failure. The connection was long gone, along with any insights it may have held. The circuitry was probably still there, though. Hidden or degraded, but there. Secondhand information was still information.
The old female was the last to approach, but she did overcome her weariness and pessimism. Her eyes opened wide when she added her blood to the rune, her will flooding with recognition and hatred before shifting into almost total surprise. As I felt nothing it was probably just her being instinctively resistant before being surprised that she was resistant before being surprised that she was surprised. She was old, so she was probably more closely tied to the memories hidden in the lost wills of demons. True worship hadn't been achieved before I came, the state of the gods proved that quite soundly. Worship was very misunderstood before I'd allowed the world to see what a genuine level of worship could achieve. True worship being a surprise to a creature born of demons warping their hosts was hardly surprising. Her reaction was closer to what I'd expected from all of them, even if it was entirely based on an instinctual response. Regardless, I activated the rune and converted ten more worshippers and immediately started pumping them full of mana. None of them had will-cores, so there were no issues with starting my experimentation immediately.
Their circuits weren't degraded, that wasn't the right word. They were corroded, but that was also wrong…they were being overwritten. There were holes in the circles, holes that revealed an entirely different set of circuits. Two sets of different circuits warred for dominance within them, every addition of mana allowing one to corrode the other while the next fed the weaker set. A balance had been reached in each of them, a balance that would have stayed the same regardless of how much mana was added to the system. I wasn't merely adding mana. My will could easily tip the scale, allowing one set to win over the other. I allowed five to get one set while the other five gained the other. An even easier process than fixing their circuitry. As they advanced in class it wasn't hard to understand what had happened.
The first set became more human before returning to a more bestial state reminiscent of how they'd looked as gnolls. They were significantly lighter, both in stature and in color. Their fur went from pure black to skin to thicker fur of grays or browns, one even went white. Their circuits were fairly typical of cats and ursas, though they rode the line between them. Their raised heels, long claws, ears on top of their heads, and dense fur were all very typical. They had the longest snouts, though. The most vicious bite, even if cats had longer teeth and ursas had stronger jaws. Maybe it was because werewolves could do something while gripping something in their mouths while the other two merely ripped out whatever they'd bitten.
The other five went the other direction, ignoring the human phase the werewolves experienced entirely. Their fur darkened to lose whatever color could have risen as their eyes glowed crimson and their claws absorbed the last digit of their fingers, becoming absolutely massive for their size. The bone spread like an exoskeleton all the way up to their elbows and knees. They also grew larger, their formerly dense hair not filling in the additional flesh. Their patchy coat failing to hide the grayish flesh that contrasted starkly with their black veins as their spine grew until each disk pierced the flesh of their back to reveal a horn. Their ears also followed the goblin trend, curling and hardening into horns. Theirs became significantly larger, however, reaching under their eyes before curling outwards to present a spike perpendicular to the direction of their nose.
Their bodies looked powerful, but that was all façade. All of their circuitry was based around the will and increasing their abilities with circuitry. An utterly lethal threat to anything lacking circuitry, but anything in its class could rip it to pieces easily. If it could reach the gnoll. Despite their weak bodies, they were far from harmless.
They were all the will-erosion of a bicorn, but focused onto a single target instead of spread in an area. Focused to such an extent that they gained an intense level of control over it. Control that allowed them to reverse the erosion into regeneration or intensify it to such an extent that they could shred nightmares with ease. Much less deadly to a city, but far more deadly to a chicken.
With the advancement of both types, it was easy to understand why they were having trouble breeding. There were two sets of hidden circuitry, and they couldn't choose like wasps could. Instead, the offspring died as it tried to become both a gnoll and a werewolf. Adults could survive the constant ebb and flow of both sets constantly at war, but offspring were vulnerable to every kind of damage. There was also a possibility that a gnoll mother would unconsciously kill a werewolf baby, but that was entirely conjecture.
Curious, I decided to advance both species to their peak. It was becoming my default answer to finding new species, now that everything had to be maximally powerful to be effective in the south. Hopefully the war could end soon and I could go back to learning everything possible from every transformation.
The werewolves were again unremarkable, being the line between cats and ursas. They enabled their agility like ursas, but had reaction speeds as fast as cats. Even their claws were the average between the two, being thicker than cat claws but longer and sharper than ursas'.
Gnolls defied my expectations. They shifted the original set of circuits into their will and built new circuits in their bodies, advancing both as inherent circuitry. Truly the legacy of demon-possessed werewolves. Their physiques were more brawny than ursas while their will circuitry prohibited them from forming a core, but allowed multiple circuits to exist in a single will. Circuits that were all able to advance to the eighth class without issues. Werewolves may have started out as mere golems for the demons, but gnolls were far from mere golems.
The gnolls had truly removed the nature of their original bodies. They'd grown horns and wings, despite the werewolves lacking those features. Their bone armor and the spiked spines were also unique to gnolls. Their fur became spines, a dense mane surrounding the bone spikes going from between their ears to the tip of their muscled tail. Spines that could be hurled at an enemy. Hidden within each spine was a drop of will-corroding poison, making them even more deadly. The spines may not have the defensive properties of werewolf fur, but their flesh was reinforced in response. Ending up less durable, but far more deadly.
Beyond that, they'd abandoned the heritage of werewolves, leaving the wolves out of their advancement entirely. Werewolves gained a frigid cloud around their paws, liquid air dripping from their claws. Their saliva was also liquid air, turning their bite into a frigidly poisonous weapon. They even had a bite that reflected the use of keeping a grip on the enemy, allowing their frigid saliva to work. A reflection of the advancement of wolves. So much weaker in comparison to wolves that it was nearly insulting to mention both at the same time, but there was the reflection of their similarity there.
Wolves advanced in a similar way to hounds, but in the opposite element. Frostwolves had a shorter range to their breath weapon than hellhounds, but the principles were very similar. They were perfectly capable of advancing past class three, however. They also had their wills affected by class four, but they could manage it where cerberi would tear themselves apart. Frostwolves created subservient wills as the largest indication of their change. Subservient wills that took the form of frigid chains they could control. A very different kind of subservient will from nightmares but closer to the additional heads of a cerberus. The chains were even anchored in the flesh of the wolf's shoulders. There would probably be an argument about whether heads or chains were better if wolves and hounds were forced to coexist, but that hadn't happened yet. It was also a pointless argument, as with most other things it was a question of how it was used rather that which was inherently better. Both were perfectly viable types of advancement.
As they advanced in class, they created more chains and the chains became colder. At class six all twelve of their chains were dripping liquid air, they were so cold. The similarities to hound progression remained, however. Though in opposite. The wolves incorporated air instead of earth, their chains creating frigid rain instead of a storm of fire. At class eight they too abandoned running in favor of incorporating into their chosen element and unleashing their intrinsic nature upon their foes. The solid air at their core and constituting their twenty chains made barghests every bit as deadly as cerberi. They were also so inherently deadly to the other that I doubted I'd ever get them to coexist. Neither were particularly good for my forces, either way. They were far too destructive. Both worked very well in my forces as they matured, but barghests and cerberi would need to constantly keep themselves in check lest they do more damage to allies than enemies.
Barghests had been purged from gnoll physiques, however. Their blood wasn't even colder than the surrounding air, though it wasn't warmer either. Truly a completely different lineage owned by Abyss instead of any other creature. It had only been a matter of time until the two warring lineages had turned gnolls infertile.
As they advanced into the eighth class, however, the old female proved that the faith-based will could indeed gain a core as she skipped the zealot phase and entered priesthood. The cause had been the brood construct that had been formed between them. The first pup had rolled free, fur black as night and red eyes glowing. This one didn't have conflicting physiques. I'd found the werewolves in the north so I didn't need more of them. These ten gnolls were the only gnolls I'd managed to find, I wasn't going to waste their offspring to produce more werewolves.
I was ready for the gnolls to join Glrt's force, but the old female was determined to be useful in the most violent way possible. She'd been vicious in her youth, but age forced her into the role of sage. A role she had hated with every fiber of her being, but she'd carried too many dead pups to allow the responsibility to pass her by. Her eyes were far from clouded, and she could see the complacency outside of those immediately around Glrt. She wasn't about to let herself become yet another complacent follower, even if she hadn't been boiling with the need to feel blood on her claws again. Her body was also revitalized, the shift from aching and old to the vast vitality of a class eight creature in its prime leading her to be almost jumping in place with excess energy.
As soon as the pyramid appeared over the force, the gnolls entered the south. Without a sizeable number of gnolls, battles weren't where they were needed. Perhaps the next generation would enter the battlefield, but the original gnolls were sent to wreak havoc in spawn cities. They weren't subtle, like elves, so they died fairly often. They made sure they'd created a good number of demons belonging to me before they fell, though. Every time they came back they returned with more demons at their heels than their previous assault. They'd originally wanted to subtly spread demons among the spawn, but the Sun had been an enemy of demons for a long time.
It had made sure to incorporate the unicorn effect into the light it produced. It was mostly useless for the worshippers, but it was the counter devised millennia ago by the spawn to counter demons. They'd only managed to apply the circuit to radiant shards, but the Sun wasn't limited by the same issues as the spawn. The entirety of spawn territory felt like swimming through acid for demons, as the light constantly ate away at them. Acid that only got more corrosive as they approached closer to the Sun. Shadows were their only respite. As a result, the demons had to live in the shadows cast by their gnolls to be even slightly effective before I had to reclaim them for healing. Some managed to kill a few spawn by hiding in the shadows of buildings and waiting for spawn that were too hurried to keep their superstitious fear of shadows intact, but inhabiting the shadows of gnolls or elves was much more effective.
The question of the gnolls being answered, I turned my attention to the goblin brood construct. This last batch of goblins had failed. I hadn't failed to nurture a brood of goblins since I'd come up with the idea of brood constructs. My experience had allowed me to realize they hadn't activated their nutrient circuits before they starved to death, but the brood was lacking all inherent circuitry.
Even when I added the circuitry of goblins and advanced them, they never became hobgoblins let alone ogres. I hadn't noticed what I'd done, but I'd interfered with the hidden circuitry. It may have been entirely accidental, but it was still an achievement that gave me endless of satisfaction. I'd proven beyond a doubt that there was hidden circuitry as well as proving that I was capable of interacting with it.
Since quantity wasn't the answer, I turned to quality. When I advanced to class seven I investigated their bodies in direct comparison to the next brood of goblins, which had advanced as normal goblins did, from the moment I activated the brood construct to produce them.
The increase into class seven was exactly what I needed. I could see deeper, more detailed, than before. It wasn't a measure of quantity, but quality. The increasing levels of focus allowed me to witness an entire world hidden in every fiber of the goblins' bodies. I could see what was missing, and it wasn't circuitry but will. Yet another subtle form of will that wasn't quite will, but neither was it faith.
Faith was will tainted with the will of another, this will was the opposite…empty. No self existed in the will at all, or even tried to. Such impossibly tiny shreds of will that proper will couldn't even notice them. They wrapped around the core of the smallest units, making the smallest of changes possible. When mana was first introduced to the system, the tiny shards of will formed the shape of the circuitry to be born. They were parts of every growth-type circuit, a hidden moderating factor behind every change, stabilizing the system so it could exist while in an unstable state.
Investigating other species yielded the same results, impossibly tiny shards of will in the smallest units of body each creature had. Shards that escaped the fate of being consumed by will because it lacked anything to differentiate itself from mana. It was also older than the will itself, being more inherently tied to the creature than the will was. The shards attached from the first moment the cum, which I was now able to see were miniscule creatures swimming within the construct, was activated, where the will waited until the creature could be recognized by a set of eyes watching before it was generated.
I would have thought the will was generated by a shard of the empty will if I couldn't see the moment the will was drawn from the mana ocean, but no matter how attentively I watched the process of a new creature being created those shards never manifested. A moment that I could watch for eons and still gain perspective. The secrets hidden in the interactions of the miniscule swimmers and the tiny eggs, which it had taken me days to realize were the same type of thing as the comparatively giant white balls orcs held, were innumerable. The least of which being the ability to create orc and wasp brood constructs. I didn't really need to in the case of wasps, queens and princesses were basically brood constructs on their own, but orcs had presented a problem. A problem of not having any of the miniscule cum bugs, but instead complete eggs. I'd probably need to incorporate water into the brood construct to give it the required area for the eggs to grow, but that was a small problem now that I knew exactly how the process worked.
I'd thought I understood how to create will, but that moment put my efforts to shame. The delicacy of the operation was astounding. More surprising was that when I watched from the side of the mana ocean I realized that it was a different set of empty will that created the will of every creature. The empty will also existed within the mana ocean. Perhaps there was even more empty will in the mana ocean than the material world.
Now being able to see the creation of will in living creatures, I knew for certain that my own will was not created. I knew I'd been assembled from shattered will, but now I knew that I was assembled from the fragments of shattered will belonging to a creature. Will could be altered and shaped in many ways, but will itself was a constant state of being. I wasn't faith, nor empty. My pieces had belonged to a living creature, at one point. Perhaps I'd even had a core. It had taken over a year, but I'd finally answered the question of why I knew some things without needing to learn; they were the pieces that maintained cohesion after the fusion process that happened in my bone body. Shards of knowledge from the dead of eons past. A past so far gone that the rules of the world had been different. A time before the Sun had been stationary, before the earth was flat, before water was limited to oceans, before the sky rejected anything, and before "humans" had meant multiple species.
Class seven had opened up an entirely new world for me to explore. A world that was finally able to answer fundamental questions. A world where everything was small and beyond subtle. A world that would open the doors for me to alter the fundamental fabric of creatures and will itself.
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