Chương 546: BECMI Chapter 545 – A Conversation Long Overdue

"A three-thousand year war is impressive. May I ask what caused it?" Aelryinth inquired neutrally.

"The most honest explanation is that I did, when I allowed some technology and people from a noble nation to survive, and later brought in Avatars of the Good Aruan gods here. They took the Eternal Path, earned their Divinity, and kept growing in power in the hereafter and on the world until the Immortals became aware of it… and then the Immortals betrayed the planet by unleashing the Carnifex on it, trying to uproot the worship of the Divine.

"The rest of the planet was killed off by the Carnifex and devoured by them or their minions. We decided not to die, and have been fighting to take the planet back." He was silent, contemplating that.

"And this did not happen in your original timeline." I took a deep breath.

"No. Back there, the Immortals made extinct who they wished to kill, and the world continued on under their inept over-watch. More to the point, Sama and Briggs over there led a whole team of Masters, eh, pre-Eternal apex Classers, into the Carnifex prison and made damn sure they would never get out to be used like they were here."

"And, I trust, a lot of those Immortals paid for their callousness with their lives, finding out they were not so Immortal after all?" he asked grimly.

"Lunia and Haki were not at all amused with what they did. Over half the Immortals with interests in this planet are now dead, usually along with their home planes, while many of the rest have faced other judgments of ruinous power. Of course, that has only made the rest angry and spoiling for revenge, looking for any way to kill the gods." He stirred slightly.

"They actually brought in Leng?" Ael asked in a flat, emotionless voice. Bringing in Leng wasn't just death and carnage. It was about enslaved and devoured souls, too!

"The first three Immortals who reached out to the Far Realm here for help are dead. The things which were diverted from Nown and unleashed into the realms of their fellows took the Immortals many centuries to get rid of. Starspawn eons old were battling Immortals all over the Astral Plane and throughout dozens of pocket planes.

"No, the Carnifex called in Leng as one of their trumps to clear the planet and earn their freedom from it, the Immortals merely didn't stop it. All of the Eternals on the planet have, in turn, been committed to keeping Leng contained here while the mortal forces of the Brightmoor Empire battled the other forces the Carnifex unleashed, and it was they who took back the world.

"No Divine manifestations, only unstinting Clerical help and advice, while the gods absolutely prevented the Immortals from actively intervening."

"And they tried." Not a question.

"Oh, how they tried!" I confirmed icily.

"Sabotaging or destroying production facilities, assassination attempts, stirring up rebellions, trying to set up anarchic religions, terrorizing civilians, spreading plagues, influencing the weather and harvests, trying to call down meteors, earthquakes, floods, natural disasters…

"Never once acting in support of us, or against our foes. They never get away with it, most of the time the damage can be minimized, but they've paid every time they acted directly against mortals… and nobody on Nown believes in them anymore but the mad and irredeemably corrupt. Very tellingly, a new Immortal hasn't Ascended from the people of Nown since the Crimson Cataclysm three thousand years ago. They all prefer to be Eternals now."

"Rebellion in support of Free Will is one thing. Betrayal of your own to this degree… I trust you do not think this is your fault?" He hesitated a moment.

"Or mine?" he added with steely conviction, since if I was as fault, he certainly was… and by extension, Mithar for sending us both here!

"No. I brought the gods in under the Immortals' own rules. The Avatars made it to Eternity under the restrictions of the Immortal system. The Immortals chose to betray mortals here, not I, even if they would call it a mandatory choice for survival. Given their unwillingness to be held to account for their conduct, it is unsurprising, but I have never done anything but given my best to the world. I certainly did not kill off over ninety percent of all living things outside the seas, and ravage the seas, too."

He was silent for a long minute, thinking on that.

"Not that much different from Terra-Luna, then, but our fight didn't last that long. These Carnifex must have been pure murder."

"Overmagi, at Thirty-Six. No morals except for their own. No restrictions, no empathy. Wanting only to kill everything and leave this world and start devouring other worlds as was their right.

"They were atomic cockroaches with a magical arsenal that just went on and on, and the capability of turning infants to Eighteens in but a year with vat-growing, once they got their resources in place.

"They never stopped with the terror, the raids, the desecration, bringing in monsters, inviting in hostile realms to rampage for free, trying to bring back all of their own who fell, running rather than fighting, sequestering themselves to rebuild with magical speed, returning to the fight when least wanted and least expected… Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"It has been a long three thousand years. Twenty-five hundred to kill the last of the Carnifex. Five hundred more holding off Leng and securing the Pyramids trying to ring it against their forces, over and over again.

"We have some time-accelerated realms. Without their extra manpower and production facilities, this would have been impossible without another five hundred years of effort, and another thousand Eternals to hold the lines." Ael inhaled deeply, exhaled.

"That sounds incredibly depressing, and valiantly noble beyond the scope of my experience."

"It IS a lot of Karma," I nodded slowly, and matched the grim laugh that forced its way out from his lips at the remark.

"Shall we exchange Staves?" he asked, releasing Mortus Dius to stand alone. Dread proudly stood when I released it, and moved confidently over to Ael's hands as I grasped Mortus Dius again, for the first time. Foundational memories flared to life again, matching what was shown here by Mortus Dius in the past, every kill Aeryinth had ever made, the mnecromonics built into his familiar Staff blazing proudly to life once more.

I accepted those foundations once more, and looked upon what he had done after severing me free, the things he had killed since that searing nexus point: the death of that Death Titan Demi-lich who had Cursed him to Be Gone. He had definitely been busy. Demonic incursions, creatures of Mythos, creatures of the Warp, hordes of Hell, undead, Gargovians, kaiju, twice running into Incursions by Leng, alien races with what looked like technoverses, and on and on… Oh, and Mortus Dius had Eternal Upgrades!

So Ael had somehow managed to ply Eternal skills at some point, although he seemed to have lost it after that, judging by the power of his later kills… The combat upgrades to his Staff were extremely novel, and there were energies moving through it I did not recognize, fascinating to behold. I opened my eyes, and glanced over at him. He had his hands on Dread, his forehead was resting against it... and he was weeping luminescent golden tears.

Ah, because he hadn't been here to help me with any of that, and he was seeing the scope of what was lost, and had to be reclaimed. There was So Much Damn Killing. Almost five thousand years of my life, four on this Shore, a thousand wandering through a past I could not change on the Far Shore. It was the death of a world here, and winning it back in apocalyptic battle, one year at a time.

There was a reason I was at Sixty-Eight, despite all of the Karma I'd spent on Investing in my own Realm and creations over the centuries. He had a lot more than me to see, and he watched it all. In the Markspace, I could see the colors roiling within the crystalline view of his mind, emotions mixing with analysis as he digested it all. He was watching how I was Casting and killing, what magic I was using, the how and the why and what of it.

The splash of magic washing across reality around me there, just how much area was affected, different areas, different times, fighting things over and over and over again in the same areas with no progress to show for it, more of them always showing up, everywhere, and coming in for more. Yeah, looking back at it, it had really sucked, and if I wasn't Eternal with a longer time horizon, it could have been very overwhelming and depressing. It hadn't.

I'd kept killing them, harvesting my Karma, feeding the Land, and watching the resistance to them slowly, slowly toughen, harden, and then hold. Hold against everything they could throw. And then, ever so slowly, start to really push back! So much killing.

'Immortal pageantry', I was sure they were entertained, right up until it started happening to them. THEN the pageantry became something more. Fuck them, and the Immortality they rode in on!

At last Aelryinth raised his head and released Dread, which slowly and respectfully backed away from him. Ael was a Master of Staves and my Prime. Naturally Dread was now a bit overwhelmed instead of overbearing when confronted with him!

"You have a whole slew of Artificing Buffs to Mortus I am not familiar with," I informed him.

"I believe I have a couple such effects you may find to be of interest, too."

"Those would be from Zeks." Ael promptly flipped a couple books out of storage and passed them over to me.

"Item Magic and the Lost Light series of Runes. I believe the latter should be of direct interest to Heaven itself. I don't think they are among the repertoire of things the Aruans had available to us in their realms." I didn't hide my interest.

"They all have Avatars connected to the Markspace." I pointed them out to him, at quiet places and muted presences none below a Master could pick out as anything important. The sudden revelation that the gods were indeed living among us, and most of the Masters had them as teachers at one time or another, was often a huge surprise to those who thought the gods were remaining so carefully distant from us.

"Then read The Lost Light first. If Nown has Infusions that we can add to the mix, I can split the small Fount that I have and get one started for your people. It may be late, but it would be wonderful to have the Order of the Lost Light expand to this world, I think." I had already notified them, and a Reading Eye, basically a long-term Wizard Eye with strictly personal and short-range sight for perusing books or looking in two directions at the same time, popped up so they could inspect what I was looking at.

I also popped out a tome on some of the more advanced and specialized methods of Enchanting Artifice in this universe, which he accepted, but he simply Cast a Scholar's Grasp and digested the whole thing within seconds.

"Huh," he said thoughtfully. I had put that book together myself, so it was both hideously complex and incredibly in-depth. Basically none but an Eternal could actually comprehend it, but if they could, it just summed up so much damn stuff they had learned earlier on. I could see he had an Intellect north of 65, so it was not an issue for him.

"How evenly does this stuff move into Eternal-grade?" he asked with a frown. I had a knowledge of the Power of Ten System that was likely only a little below his, given he was a Fifteen when I'd been cut off him.