Godclads-Chapter 17Book 34: Master of Hounds (VII)

Last time on The Lust Guard.

“Now, you should know, Dowager Kui, that though you can empty a man, though you can drive his spirit to near madness over and over again, our refractory periods and our spirits always rise to the occasion once more, from flaccid to hard.”

“It makes no difference, Throb Hardington. It’s too late now. The Orgasmatron has been installed into the Fallen Heaven of Love. The entire city will know bliss eternal and the cursed clade of the Sang will be saved…”

“Don’t you see, Madame Wu? What you’re doing—it won’t bring back your son. It won’t fix your people…”

“Lies!”

“No. Search your feelings. You know… you know…”

“Throb? What are you doing? No! Stay back! You’re bleeding! The Dragon-Curse!”

“Means nothing to me if I lose your soul. Don’t you see, Dowager Kui… I don’t want to lose you most of all.”

“O-oh… Oh… But—”

“I can’t give you what the dragons took. But maybe I can… fill your heart… another way. Just please step away from the Fallen Heaven’s core.”

“No. I’m so close… I can’t…”

“Yes, you can. I’m here. And I’d rather bleed than let you go another day without feeling love.”

“Oh, oh my. But Throb…”

“Don’t. No more words. Sometimes, love is all you need.”

-Scene from THE LUST GUARD Starring Dannis Steelhard and Moist Fertility

34-17

Master of Hounds (VII)

—[Aedon Chambers, The Lovebringer]—

Sometimes love was all you needed to chain a half-strand in place.

“I gotta admit,” Chambers called out with a nervous laugh. “I never expected to inflict a spot of bondage on you, Avo. Even if you are a pathborn.”

Two separate streams of fire tore asunder. One was gold, trailing flakes of ash, the other an ethereal brightness that spasmed with countless bodies, templates struggling to reconstitute themselves. The last sequence binding the Ashbringer to the Hidden Flame snapped like a rusted chain, memories shattering into grain-sized mist. Magenta light enveloped both and formed a barricade between them. Chambers infused dose after dose of love into both Avos, keeping them incapacitated as best as he could.

Loud moans—and a roaring series of slurs—greeted Chambers. Both user and Heaven laughed.

“It appears that love cannot please all,” the Lovebringer commented. Its tendrils tickled Avo, writhing deeper to pat the Famine of Peace on the Heaven. Despite the immensity of pleasure rushing through him, the former Low Master simply roared with outrage, though his shuddering body and rolling eyes betrayed his flagging strength.

“Yeah, but it can sure help us fuck the ones we need to. Isn’t that right, Assbringer? Heh?”

The Pathborn didn’t respond to Chambers. Mainly because it was too busy making animalistic yowling noises. Chambers had to admit, it felt good getting one over on Avo—both Avos. The rotlick might have been the best thing that happened to Aedon Chambers, but the start of their relationship was… well, being used as an involuntary infiltrator wasn’t very nova.

You could love your consang and hold a grudge at the same time.

Pulsing thoughts rippled out from the Pathbringer. Chambers injected more love into him. Evil-Avo started crackling and popping like he was shitting out firecrackers. Things were all kinds of wild. But Chambers wasn’t going to risk shit. There was too much at stake to let himself get burned.

+Need… talk…” the Ashbringer tried to say.

“No can do,” Chambers shot back. “I know what you can do with that fang-filled mouth of yours. I’m not listening. You keep your ghost words and that bullshit rhetoric to yourself. I’ve been Jaus’d enough for a day.” And he really had been. The mind was a fragile thing, and if Chambers learned anything through his long ordeal, it was that his mind might be hard, but it wasn’t that cunning.

“Be kind to yourself, Aedon,” the Lovebringer said softly.

“I… I’m trying, but there’s no point in lying to ourselves. Avo can make us smart, but he’ll have to change who we are to get rid of some of these flaws.” Chambers shrugged. “Frankly, I’d like to do it myself, you know. See how much better a motherfucker like me can get. Hey, real-Avo? You okay?”

A glance at the Hidden Flame answered that question. Despite the love-surgery being a success and the Ashbringer’s removal, patches of fading gray crept through the Hidden Flame’s form. Sections of Avo’s being were turning gray, fading to dying embers, and swaying ash thereafter. It was like some kind of infection was sweeping through Avo.

Chambers’ heart plunged. “Shit. Fuck. Avo? Talk to me, consang.”

He withdrew his Bonds from Avo, and the Hidden Flame let out a gasp. “Focus… focus on Pathborn. Contain… Left something inside me. Mem-con… Trying to contain.”

+Can’t…+ the Ashbringer said. And it was then that Chambers noticed they were turning gray as well, fully collapsing into nothing but a crumbling ball of ash. +Designed… designed this to null us. Specifically us. Nothing else. Can’t stop this…+

“Bullshit,” Chambers snapped. He let off the orgasming for evil-Avo and drew them closer. As Chambers did that, he also primed a Thoughtwave Detonation to go off in case asshole-vo tried anything. “You tell me how to get that shit out of him right now or I’ll—”

+Glad I got to see you again, Aedon. The real version of you.+ The Pathborn’s words took Chambers by surprise. For a beat, the Lovebringer froze, its many tendril-like limbs cupping a ball of dying flame. More and more of the Ashbringer was decaying. +Spent myself. Found the perfect thing… Perfect act of entropy. Counter to Conceptualization. Counter to mind. Filled with Rend.+

And then, Chambers felt it.

WARNING: REND SPIKE DETECTED

>DOMAIN (CONCEPTUALIZATION)

ESTIMATED REND - 88.88% > 91.13%

“Shit! Fuck! Shit!” Chambers shook the Ashbringer. “Alright. You—”

+Goodbye, Chambers,+ the Ashbringer said. +I hope she changes her mind. Hope she keeps you. You’ve done more than enough to earn it. More than worthy.+

“I don’t give a shit about that, I need—” Chambers let out a growl and hit the Ashbringer with another surge of love. The Pathborn lost control of itself again, and suddenly, a thought-disrupting projection tore out from its form and splashed against Chambers. “Mother—did you just try to finish yourself off?”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

The Ashbringer was incoherent again. Meanwhile, the ash just continued to spread. Chambers saw flashes of the Soulscape within Avo—the Mind Fortress he created from so many memories was sinking into its foundations. Templates fled inward and Rend—sweet mother of all fucks—so much Rend was bleeding out from Avo, like he was some kind of entropic star.

“Ah, shit, fuck shit. Avo! Tell me—tell me what to do?”

The Hidden Flame was slow to reply. But Chambers was finished with hesitating. He reached into Avo and began to siphon the sickness. Entropy flowed along Chamber’s veins, and only then did the Lovebringer respond.

“Aedon, wait, what about our mind? Won’t this affect us as well?”

Chambers froze. His Bonds quivered. But no spread of grayness or ash climbed up his ontology. Only Rend passed from Avo into him.

But that was bad enough.

REND CAPACITY [LOVEBRINGER] - 77%>83%

“Nonono! Shitshitshit!” Chambers whirled as his Bonds lashed everwhere. “Right. You gave us these… Amni-tech things. Lets us connect with each other and share our Rend. Small Soulscapes for us too… I can… I can… Can’t use Draus or the others. They need clean cyclers for their fight so… so…” His Bonds shot out, reaching through multiple bodies in an instant. They snaked through Vator, through the Sang, the Paladins, and everyone else Chambers could touch via the Lovenet. At the same time, he contacted Cas and Marlowe—because some of this was going to require active thinking and talking, and with all the entropy pouring out of Avo—oh, Jaus, this would overload a Sixth Sphere in a second—he needed someone to help him instead of him doing everything.

“Chambers?” Cas said, sounding surprised. +What’s—+

+Cas! Consang! No time! I need you to find me as many thaumic reactors as possible. I’m going to need to share some Rend with you too! I’m already reaching into a few, but I need big Rendsinks. Big. I’ll explain later, but I need your help now! Get the Council of Fuck to help you too! Reach out to Calvino! Refusal! Fucking anyone! Anyone who has a sink!+

Cas wasn’t the first to respond. +Alright. We hear you, Chambers. I’ll get on the net—do you just need Rendsinks? Any kind of Rendsinks?+ Marlowe’s voice helped Chambers center himself a bit, but a pulse of entropy tore through Avo, and Chambers flinched back as a good section of the Hidden Flame’s body dissolved.

“Ah! Fuck! Fuck! Yeah! Any Rendsink! Any!”

+Alright! Let me—oh, fuck me, I picked the wrong day to quit nova!+ Cala laughed. +I made contact with some Fallwalkers earlier. Some deserters too. They might have some golems.+

“Marlowe, I could fucking kiss you right now!”

+Might take you up on that later. Cas too—+

Cas let out a surprised grunt. +Ah, hey—no—no need for that—Calvino is getting some Guild support right now, but they’re stretched to capacity.+

“Doing fucking what?” Chambers realized the answer a moment later when he remembered there were several massive fucking gashes running across reality’s surface thanks to the Deep Ones. Deep Ones that were currently being fought over. “Agghhh! Okay! Okay!”

His Bonds coiled within Vator. “Hey, Vator! I need a favor.”

+No. Whatever you desire, I want no part of it!+ Vator replied, swatting at Chambers’ Bonds. +Release me, you… you gutter-born—+

“It’s for Avo, half-strand. I need to dump some Rend before he pops.+

+What?+

Chambers pulled Vator into the space right next to him and the Instrument just stared at the decay form of the Hidden Flame. “I… Very well. But what—is that another part of him? Did you pull him in half?”

The Lovebringer moved the Ashbringer a bit further away and sighed. “No. Look. This—just suck some of the Rend, okay?+

TRANSFERRING REND

REND CAPACITY [LOVEBRINGER] - 88%>92%>94%

VENT! VENT! VENT!

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Chambers and his Heaven chanted at the same time.

“Chambers,” Avo groaned. “Let me go… Help the others—”

“No! I can do this. I just need to reach… I just gotta find more people! You kept doing everything—everything for us. Time for me to do something for you.”

“He’s right,” the Ashbringer pushed through Chambers lust-blasting. “Let go! Can live! Live!”

Despite the dread he felt, Chambers only grinned. “Nah. Draus is right: you got backups of me. Of everyone. We’re all expendable. And I think I’m going to stay hard with you until I can’t. Then, I’m going to draw in all that Rend, pass out through Draus, and see if I can give the Infacer a hug?”

A moment followed. Vator’s eyes widened slightly.

Chambers could hear hundreds of minds chattering at him—through him.

A finally, there was a laugh. From Avo. “Look,” he said. “Look. He has chosen. Look at what becomes of us? Behold what an ape might yet become, Infacer. Behold and despair.”

Updated from freewёbnoνel.com.

From a still stable section of Avo’s mind, a thoughtcast zipped out in an emanation of synaptic energy and temporal manipulation. At the same time, Chambers reached—and reached—and reached…

Elsewhere, a patch of reality cracked as someone accelerated from the distant past crashed hard against the entropy-riven present.

***

—-[Frederick Three-Eye]---

In the skies over New Vultun, brilliant threads slashed through the air. No one could say where they came from or what they did. These limbs rooted in some, passed through others, and was stopped by obstacles of matter or metaphysics. They combed through every section of the city, piercing passing golems, burrowing into techno-thaumic reactors across megablocks, and speared toward the distance, where the pylons marking the borders of the city stood tall.

From them poured a divine sickness, stolen from one enfeebled God of Conceptualization by another divine born of love.

Yet, even as moment of true love unfolded, another approached, ignorant to all that was happening.

Frederick Three-Eye readied herself as she felt the twisting of time peel her shifting ontology. Her previous self vanished into the waves of time at the same moment she manifested her Heaven.

The Master of Hounds emerged upon tides of cascading gold. The future was coming to greet her as the present, and if there was one thing she learned from all these years operating under Zein, it was to be ready. Thousandhand was a psycho-sow, and every hot-drop she conducted was a near suicide mission.

But that was fine, because Frederick was good at the not-dying. That was the thing that practically defined her since her childhood. Just not dying when she was supposed to.

A massive orb formed from the Domain of Perception materialized in the air. It combusted with waves of force and fire, its exterior a layer of shifting runes and symbols from the old seraphic script. The iris of the great eye was composed of a plethora of interconnected arcs. Each of them were bound to a realm from old lore—elements, environments, situations. From the center of the eye fell a pitch back droplet.

A single tear marred the golden currents of chronomacy, and a hound as black and featureless as an ink-blot on white paper splashed against reality, bound to Frederick’s will.

With a blink, Frederic could change the hound’s configuration, allowing it to travel anywhere that she saw, and tear into any rival Heaven with impunity. And with how rough the waves were getting, she got the feeling she was going to need ever single Domain she had to make it out alive.

“If I get out of this alive, I’m going to tell Zein to fuck herself.”

+That is all?+ Defiance asked, curious rather than taunting.

“Yeah. For now. I can’t exactly kill her. Yet.”

+But you will if given the opportunity?+

“Depends on the opportunity. And depends on the situation. I’m not one to let a little revenge get in the way of benefit. And frankly… I’m curious about what fresh hell she’s dropping me into.”

+Well, we might find out at any—+

Just then, Frederick felt herself plunge. The walls of chronology thinned, and it was like her ontology was suddenly too heavy to remain buoyant. She punched clean through the gold, crashing through the twisting wires that composed the tapestry, and found herself spiralling into a new realm of pure nothingness.

Coldness gripped her being. The coldness of the void. And then there was a blinding whiteness. And then—

Something crashed against Frederick. A blast so powerful it would have hollowed a good chunk of a mundane planet’s crust. But Frederick just stared, blinking at the light, because the present was a miserable place to behold, and so long as she could see, she could be, and—

Something slammed against her Hound of Calamity. It hit the other section of her Heaven so hard it ceased to be. Frederick blinked again and cast out another hound—just in time for a wound to open an inch away from her Heaven—just in time for a shard of glass to pass nearby, bundled in layers of magenta.

Several things happened at once.

A gun emerged from the wound—only to sink back in as a temporal projectile lanced out from the passing reflection. At the same time, Frederick blinked and tempered a Hound created from damage and decay, casting them after the fading wound. Finally, a thoughtcast glanced over her Heaven, and a garbled message flooded her outer consciousness.

+Three-Eye? This —+

Another wound appeared and blasted the thoughtcast with a distortion. The glass shard was suddenly pulled into the glowing Bonds tied over it as two spikes sailed out to greet it.

Frederick blinked. And started spawning entire litters of dogs from her eye.

+Who… are we fighting?+

“I don’t fucking know. Hounds! Sic ‘em. Sic ‘em all.”