Godclads-Chapter 12Book 34: Master of Hounds (II)

Master of Hounds is a peculiar heaven, one that is built around the concept of perception. Perception, typically employed by seers to maintain a logistical or informational advantage for their cadre—or even to fortify a vault—had now been reimagined. Highflame sought something unique, an assassination Heaven that was both broad in scope and specialized enough to neutralize any threat with minimal risk to itself.

Thus, something special was created. Drawing on the domains and cultures offered by Highflame and the No-Dragons, a special beast was constructed—bound by the ancient mythologies of old. It was the Hound of Calamity, born in the yesteryear of Sang myth. Its singular capability was to hunt, serving a higher divine who fired arrows from within the sun and marked targets for its faithful hunting dog. Wherever these arrows struck, the hound would arrive, tearing into any threat—whether in a land consumed by flame, drowned by constant downpours, or lying in the depths of the fathomless sea.

In this, the hound was a boundless entity, learning to mirror any environment with its own flesh.

Meanwhile, the perception aspect of this heaven represented a recent innovation, a new application based on our modern understanding of the senses. Though it was represented by an oculus, its true nature lay in its signals, sounds, and the full spectrum of sensory inputs. If you could perceive it in any fashion, it would be able to intercept your later perceptions—hijacking and locking onto your senses. This mechanism will then replace the sun-fired arrows as a more subtle means to induce the Hound’s approach.

If I must say so myself, this is a triumph of a design—a subtle yet nearly uncounterable system with few paradoxes. Since everyone must interface with the world through their senses, it is nearly impossible to face this threat without compromising your own. One might even suspect that this Heaven was commissioned specifically to eliminate someone like Shotin Kazahara. After all, when contending with an adversary so all-encompassing, a broad and intricate approach is not just ideal—it is essential.

-Agnos Iutch Kamari, Chief Thaumaturgist Behind Master of Hounds

34-12

Master of Hounds (II)

—[Avo, The Hidden Flame]—

“And… here we go,” Chambers chuckled.

An orb of gold slithered between realms. An orb ferrying a premature infant. It accelerated along branches of magenta, passing from one domain of gold down into baseline reality. None could say where the branches of correspondence appeared, but what is known is that love’s reach was boundless, and so from Vator to this specially chosen beloved, the journey didn’t last long at all.

Guiding this orb was a flame—a fire formed of minds and power. Avo kept the Sang Unborn clutched tight to his Soulscape; he would not see one of his new bridges lost during transit. The small males were fragile, and they couldn’t be risked.

“Carefully,” Vator breathed, worried that his own creations might be affected, indifferent to the fates of the newborn. In a strange way, he was behaving quite like a father would; there was more Uthred in him than the former Authority assumed.

Still, Avo had to take additional measures to ensure his newest project wouldn’t be extracted from him. As such, he also infused in them failsafe miracles in the Unborn. He charged the fetus's matter to detonate the moment it left his awareness, and used Ignorance to shroud its existence. More measures would be applied in a moment, but he needed to fully sheathe himself first.

As he arrived within the Beloved’s body, he began creating a new organ. At its core, the Beloveds were based on ghouls, and so they possessed few organs, their blood doing most of the work for them. This left ample space for newfound expression.

Avo began rearranging their biology, forming a dome-shaped cocoon in the absence of their hearts. Inside, he created a foam-like layer meant to protect against concussive damage. Externally, he fashioned an endo-structure of latticed bones to hold the entire inner sack in place and lined each of the bones with reflective panels so that Draus could pull the Unborn across if there was a chance to save them. Finally, he shrouded the exterior with a second shell—a dense ceramite that would require concentrated fire to shatter.

“Are you sure that’s enough?” Chambers asked. “That might handle a fléchette or two but if anything heavier hits… Well, what if we make the Beloved a bit—”

“No!” Vator cried. “No more suggestions from you, ruiner. The Beloved are perfect, and I will not see you deform them in any fashion.”

“Hey, half-strand, I’m thinkin’ about the pre-juvs here.”

“Oh,” Vator said, blinking in surprise. “Why? We have an ample supply.”

Chambers just stared, his Bonds furling around the Greatling momentarily. “You know, Draus was telling me how your mom was kind of a sow—but there are a lot of different kinds of sows, you know. What you just said right now makes me have a guess what type she was.”

Now Vator frowned. “Well, that was a needless insult, I simply stated a fact.”

“You said ‘we have reserves’ when I’m talking about babies.”

“Yes. Infants your friend is risking and using as a temporal bridge. Don’t pretend I’m truly amoral here.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“I like Avo and he’s a baby eater anyway. You’re a person, and I might be able to kick your ass.”

“Ah. I suppose you can’t take the gutter out of the FATELESS.”

“Maybe not, but I’m going to breast another one of your Beloveds if—”

“TOUCH THEM AND I WILL GIVE EVERYONE YOU LOVE SEXUAL DYSFUNCTION.”

“I’m the Godclad of Love, fucker. Give ‘em whatever you want, but I’m the sole master of they who bust—here, have a firsthand experience.”

Vator tried to reply, but then he shuddered and spasmed. His eyes rolled, but he rapidly began modifying his own biology to dampen the effects. “Why… isn’t it…”

“I told you. I am the sole master. And busting is more than just a thing of the balls. I know because girls can do it too.”

Avo sighed. “Chambers. Please. I’m connected to both of you. Focus.”

“Right. Sorry consang.”

The Lovebringer released its miracle, and Avo created limbs of Soulfire to stop Vator from collapsing outright. Absurdly, the Bond between them grew stronger. “You—I will not forgive this! Do you understand me, Aedon Chambers.”

“Sure. Come find me when you want to bust again—”

“Chambers,” Avo growled.

“Fine, fine.”

The Hidden Flame grunted. This was good for morale. And it also offered his templates useful information.

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As for the Beloved… This was merely a test run, and he was eager to proceed. With the Sang Unborn implanted, the babe let out a pitiful mew, and a golden radiance spread over the Beloved as Avo poured his consciousness into a new body.

At once, his systems loaded and his cog-feet flickered on. He felt his hands and relished at the impossible strength of a Regular body merged with the endurance and awakened blood of a ghoul. Avo was an Overheaven now, but if he and his brothers were this powerful during the war…

They still wouldn’t have won.

He knew that now. More than ever before. The Low Masters had no industry. No method of true logistics. But he would be a problem. The Beloved would have strained the Guilds to contain. That would have been something. And something was much, much more than dying meaninglessly before the blinding blossom of a Guilder’s fusion burner.

His Beloved sheath was hiding behind an overturned aerobic in the sky above. In their hands was a Sang Hiver-rifle—something they used to put a few parasites through the skull of an unsuspecting Sanctian scouting detachment. Other Beloveds were in the area as well, hiding in the rubble, sniping at any who dared to make another push into this piece of fallen Noloth.

The City Eternal might have never loved the Beloved, but there was still heritage here, and the enemy of Avo’s enemy was no ally at all. He wouldn’t cede them the past, and neither would he share a future with them.

This was not the dream.

This was not the dream because human weakness, of human hearts, and human minds failing a task beyond human means.

He didn’t blame. He didn’t rage. He understood. But that didn’t mean he condoned. That didn’t mean the world was simply going to be this way now.

Screaming drones drifted through the air above, only to be cut low by whips of lashing lightning cast from the tips of distant ziggurats. Traumas impacted fast-moving vessels, shattering them outright in pulses of fracturing memory.

Within the Substance, the realm of the mind was so close to matter that it no longer mattered if they were apart or not. With the area mostly cleared, he had his Beloved release a gust of Mimefog and make a dash for higher ground. A pocket of obfuscation spread, and suddenly he was moving, rushing to climb the remains of a battlement while distant gauss weapons fired. Zipping rounds splashed through the street and sent rubble darting across the environments. Guilder BVR weapons. They likely knew someone was moving thanks to their sensory suite, but his speed and the fog made him a hard target; his additional bio-armor settled the matter of shrapnel.

He reached the top, and using his awareness over the patterns, Avo felt something else brush against his ontology—some Chronoframes were operating in the area—approaching across time at speeds hyper-sonic speeds and trans-temporal vectors.

As they drew near, he prepared to meet their bombardment. However, the Woundmother spoke inside him, “No, Master, allow me.”

Where once the Woundmother had been purely an entity of matter and blood, it was now blessed with something more. Time itself had become matter for it, and what were Chronoframes but time-treated materials? A field of Sanguinity erupted from the beloved—a shroud of red and gold misting out, spreading wide for kilometers. A hellstorm of munitions greeted Avo’s sudden miracle, but it did little—rounds were liquefied, beams were refracted, and more esoteric weapons were torn from this realm up into a vacant space within Avo’s temporal dimension.

The Sang Unborn pulsed within the chest of the Beloved, serving as the greatest catalyst of all: An instrument to direct time itself.

As Chronoframes on their bombing run approached, they jolted across time from past to present and prepared to deliver their sterilizing payloads. Yet they were seized along the way when they crossed through a film of red; tendrils of blood coiled out from the spreading Sanguinity and tunneled into their pilots. Rather than rending these chrono-constructs asunder, Avo seized them—his veins granting him access into the mind of the pilot—and their very consciousnesses burst aflame.

At once, four more templates cascaded into Avo’s Soulscape. Accompanying them were their frames: golden bodies constructed from time and biomechanical matter. It seemed that Sanctians—so deeply attuned to the nature of time—came with their augmentations intact. How fascinating.

As they dropped, Akusandae circled their forms, slithering through the Chronoframes. “Hmm. How the adversary has changed as well.”

“Adversary?” Avo asked.

“Cells. From the Builder War. Were agents designed to hunt us. To remove dragons. But they forgot their purpose. As forgot ours. As the rest of our people forgot we ever were.”

Avo realized then just how much was lost. The Sanctians were descendants of the Voiders? Or were they from a rival faction of Neo-Creationist? He cast a thought at the dragon, but Akusande could offer nothing in return.

“Too far away,” Akusande lamented. “That past is too far away.”

Back in the real, the Woundmother cawed with laughter, and the skies split asunder with crimson thunder. “The way is clear. I have served you well, master. Be gloried by my greatness.”

“You have served more than well,” Avo replied. “Now, I just need one more thing from you.”

“Oh, and what is it?” she asked.

“Make lightning of this Beloved’s body. Prepare to transmute more of the others as well. Going to plant them inside a Deep One. Want to be quick.” At once, crimson electricity coursed across the Beloved’s body. At the same time, Avo began infusing more of the male Sang infants into their bodies, creating time anchors all across the Substance. These Beloved were infused with template updates from Zein and Naeko, marking them as Bridgebearers.

This would give him another way to access to the Substance—a means beyond any other power in existence.

Within the very core of the abnormality, Avo called upon the EGI governing modules embedded in each Deep One. He shifted titans of entropy, twisting their nightmarish forms and guiding their Ruptures through the Substance. The colossal Fallen Heavens shifted ever-so-slightly, yet for beings as immense as the Deep Ones, slight was a term of relativity.

A few hundred kilometers of the Substance was gored open, split cleanly as if an axe blow hewn deep into someone’s abdomen.

It came apart in a burst of ethereal gossamer and surging Soulfire, but between the cracks was decay beyond description, for how could one fully describe a dying pattern? What was the shape of unreality?

But where most minds would shatter before the sight of such horror, Avo watched, and Avo knew the empty. When the Ruptures finally finished spreading, he took a moment to chart a path for his many Beloved vessels.

He marked waypoints in reality for the Woundmother to follow, and using mem-data derived from Chambers’ Lovenet, he created something loosely approximating a DeepNav of the space within the Substance. The Nether’s conveniences would return—but through him, by his power, and on his terms.

[How very totalitarian of you,] Abrel muttered, half-mockingly.

“Of course,” Avo said without any shame. “Only my tyranny is honest. As is my offering. Will not lie about this.”

[Yeah,] the Instrument sighed, watching Beloved after Beloved zip into the air as bolts of lightning—only to twist and right their movement vectors as their bolts adjusting angles mid-movement. [Hey. Avo.]

“Hm.”

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[If my father’s still alive…]

“You ask too little. Your cadre will be returned in time. Should I seize the Ladder. No point for them not to learn. Everyone should.”

Instead of gratefulness or admiration, Abrel was only tired. [You really think we couldn’t do it, huh?]

“Achieve utopia?”

[Yeah.]

“Maybe one of you. For a time. But you are animals. You are frail. And you did what you could against the indifference of what is. You were not designed for perfection. You were designed to breed. You think this a failure. I think your arrival at this point an absurdity beyond measure.”

[We were supposed to be better. To be worthy.]

“And the minds never expected to outlive their former universe. We are all fools in the end.”

Finally, he finished constructing a route for his Scale-bound Beloved, and off they went, riding a crackling whip of redness, the lightning a thread and the sheath a needle diving into the Ruptures. Avo adjusted his position and speed at a rate that would paste even the most augmented golem-pilot. Such were the requirements when descending into the worst existential collapse Idheim has ever seen.

A half-city beyond, even more Rendsinks were being deployed as layered demiplanes and quarantines parted the remnants of the city from further contamination. With time—or a single choice made by Avo—it wouldn’t be enough.

Soon—-

Avo jolted. A blast of trauma shook his entire being. Every single template flickered out and back into existence while the Soulfire composing Avo sputtered.

COG-CAP - 44%

The Hidden Flame shivered. There was emptiness in his mind, there were pieces missing from his memory. What just happened? He was doing something in the Substance, he was trying to—

WARNING: HEAVEN OF MIND DETECT—

ERROR: [THAUMATURGIC ANOMALY DETECTED]

What was this?

“Avo, the fuck’s going on?” Chambers said. The Lovebringer was still reaching out too—

“Chambers? Why are you connected to Vator? Why are you joined to the—the…” Avo trailed off. Both Vator and Chambers looked at each other. “I told you to?”

“Yeah,” Chambers replied. “Yeah, you did.”

A warmind of the Forgotten has just been used, Ignorance said. We were intercepted. Someone hit one of our vessels with a distortion. Lost it. Should have gone off. Countermeasure should have worked. Didn’t see an explosion. Draus doesn’t remember losing track of the Beloved either.

The Sang Unborn is lost—has been stolen.

There’s someone else in these Ruptures. They’ve been waiting for us.