Chapter 2: An Exception to All Things
Fear was as alien to the Mother Goddess of Depravity as the birth of the Fourth Pillar of Termination. Why should The Indestructible feel it? Her being was inextricable from Reality itself; to fear would be to doubt her own eternal nature.
But then—
The Original Creator awoke.
It was not a gentle stirring. No, it was one of cataclysmic proportions. One moment She was whole, the Sovereign of the Physical World, a Pillar of Reality, a Great Old One holding the Moon, Mother, and Chaos Primogenitor within Herself. The Brood Hive, Her Sefirah, was Her womb, the source from which all life was birthed. It was Her power. It was Her.
The next moment, She was rent apart. The Law of Convergence—His own inescapable law—became a violent, tearing force.
This was no clever Theft, like that of the Lord of Mysteries. This was an amputation. A vivisection on a level beyond the physical, a severing of what made Her Her. As the First Child, the being most born of Him, She was the first to be torn. The Brood Hive—Her Brood Hive—was ripped from Her being, along with the Uniquenesses and Characteristics of the Mother and Moon pathways.
She was forced to watch from the crimson moon as the pathways that were rightfully Hers were walked upon by lesser beings. She watched as Her Brood Hive festered on that distant rock, a beating womb severed from its body, a heart torn from a chest and left to pulse alone in the dirt.
And beneath it all, under the simmering wrath and the relentless, gnawing hunger to reclaim what was Hers, festered a colder, more primordial emotion.
Fear.
Not of the insects on Earth. Not of the other Outer Deities jostling in the void.
But of the Source of All Things.
The Original Creator.
It was a reminder, carved into the core of Her being. A reminder to Her, and surely to all of Them; Pillars, Great Old Ones, the entire magnificent and terrible hierarchy of the cosmos. They existed because He had split. And what had been split could, by His very nature, be forced back together.
To be made whole again was to cease to be Her. It was dissolution. It was being unmade, screaming, back into the chaotic totality of the Oldest One. The loss of the Brood Hive was a wound, deep and aching.
The existence of the Original Creator was the abyss that opened beneath it.
The ultimate trauma was not the loss, but the knowledge. The cold, absolute knowledge that the very force that had birthed Her was also the one of the forces in all existence that could truly, irrevocably, unmake Her.
….
[ OUTER DEITY 'MOTHER GODDESS OF DEPRAVITY' TRAUMA RECOLLECTION COMPLETED. ]
…
-Seth Ambrose-
"So even a Pillar knows fear." In Seth's eyes, the eerie crimson light of the moon suddenly seemed less impressive. However, he didn't let his thoughts spiral further, instead turning inward to invoke his authorities.
He began with Conquest. But rather than using it against the consciousness in his belly, he directed it at his own Body of Heart and Mind, briefly lowering the protections of Isekai Survivor.
This was his theory: if he could Conquer his own mind, could he compartmentalize the corrupting knowledge, place it, along with his entire consciousness, under his complete command? Could he let it lie dormant in a corner, summoned only by his explicit, conscious will?
The answer was…
"Weird." He was being corrupted, but not as intensely as before, when his thoughts had subconsciously tugged at the dangerous knowledge.
The closest analogy was a tap. He could open it, letting the knowledge flow freely, or close it. But just like a real tap, a few stubborn droplets always fell after it was shut. For Seth, those droplets were the mere fact of knowing the information in the back of his mind, a passive awareness that caused a low-level, constant corruption.
That passive corruption would have been a problem before. Not anymore. His Authority over Corruption ensured it; neither the knowledge nor the environment could affect him now.
As for his slightly protruding belly, Seth handled it with Exploitation of Life. A rather interesting authority, if he said so himself.
Its main purpose was to use life as fuel, to exploit the cycle of Life and Death, turning the end of one existence into the raw material for a new one. Death was not an end, but a harvest.
Using Exploitation of Life, Seth drained the vitality and Spirituality of the Thing in his belly to nourish himself, finally breaking the grotesque cycle of pregnancy and death.
A pleased smile curled his lips as he stretched his arms. "Theory tested, results satisfactory. Guess I'll end this round."
"Before you do that, I have a couple of questions, fellow countryman." A gentle voice spoke from in front of him. A figure had appeared without a sound.
The dark-haired young man's body flinched back in surprise, but his mind remained calm as it took in the stranger.
It was a young adult, his age hard to pin, somewhere between mid-twenties and mid-thirties. He had brown hair and eyes, with an unremarkable face. He wore a top hat, a gentleman's suit beneath a black trench coat, dark leather gloves, and held a star-encrusted cane in his right hand.
Looking at the figure before him, a sense of unreality washed over Seth. The feeling was more than when he saw Lumian or when he suffered corruption. This was a protagonist from a story standing before him. It hammered home, more than anything else, that this was his new reality.
After a brief silence, the Suicidal Hunter placed a hand on his chest and gave a slight bow. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Fool. Seth Ambrose, at your service."
A knowing smile touched Klein's lips. "And you as well, Seth." The Fool began to speak again, but Seth didn't let him.
"Please kill me, Mr. Fool!"
….
-Klein Moretti (The Fool)-
The Lord of Mysteries was momentarily taken aback by the earnest, ninety-degree bow and the sincere plea for death.
Klein observed him calmly. His spiritual intuition confirmed it was the young man's genuine request, not some corruption twisting his thoughts.
So, instead of refusing, The Fool asked gently, "Can you tell me why?" His intuition whispered that this request was tied to why Seth bore the Symbolism of Nurturer of the Chaos Primogenitor, something exclusive to the Mother Goddess of Depravity.
Seth straightened and met his gaze directly. "My cheat ability. I randomly gain a copy of the Authorities, Symbolisms, Abilities, or Skills of whoever kills me, but only the first time they do it. After that, I return to 24 hours before my death."
Klein fell into a thoughtful silence at the confession, offered without deceit. Countless possibilities and implications flashed through his mind, the power's potential uses, its origin, its cost. After a moment, he asked, "Are you able to change the past?"
Familiar faces surfaced in his memory: Captain Dunn, Kenley, Old Neil, Old Kohler, Daisy and Freya's mother. A world-weary sigh escaped him. Even with all his power as the Lord of Mysteries, he remained incapable of altering History.
Seth shook his head. Just as Klein thought as expected, the young man paused, a thoughtful look crossing his face. "It might… no, it is possible," he said after a moment. "Though not through killing myself repeatedly to turn back the clock. I have no History or Time in this world to return to, so I'd just reappear here at this fixed point. However—"
"—The Chaos Primogenitor?" The Lord of Mysteries interjected, easily deducing Seth's suicidal line of thought.
He wanted to use the drawback of the Primogenitor's symbolism, the fact that invoking it twice within 2,160 years would cause the Nascent Original Creator to be born. Then, his 'cheat' would activate. While he should normally return 24 hours prior, dying to the Nascent Creator—the Exception to All Things—might alter his re-entry point entirely.
The Original Creator represented ultimate chaos, beginning and end, the unknowable and undiscussable. He was the 'Exception', the 'Inconceivable', the 'Incomprehensible'. All things that shouldn't happen might happen when encountering Him.
Therefore, it was entirely possible that Seth could appear at any point before or after this moment in the River of Time, should he die to the Nascent Creator of the Next Universe.
"You would also gain the Symbolisms of the Original Creator," The Lord of Mysteries noted, not missing the immense benefit such a death would bring.
Seth didn't deny it, nodding in agreement. "I probably wouldn't have realized it myself until the situation reached that point."
Klein Moretti quietly studied the young man. He stood at a crossroads. Klein could Seal him, ensuring he never died and regressed, preventing him from eventually becoming a being akin to the Original Creator, a potential threat to humanity. Or, conversely, he could pave the way for him, allowing Seth to perhaps one day stand as humanity's final bulwark against the Outer Deities.
The Lord of Mysteries let out a soft chuckle at his own thoughts. Despite the first option, there was really only one answer to give to the young man who had laid his circumstances bare so honestly.
"I will kill you." The Fool felt strange uttering such a violent declaration, words usually reserved for threats. Stranger still was Seth's reaction.
A look of pure ecstasy crossed his face. He once again adopted a prayer-like gesture, a hand to his chest with a slight bow. "Praise be to Mr. Fool!"
Klein shook his head, feeling a mix of exasperation and amusement. He wasn't embarrassed; he'd long grown a thick skin from the adoration of his followers.
"Do you know what happens to the timelines after you die?" Klein asked, though he suspected the answer. "Do they vanish, or branch out?" Despite being the King of Space-Time and sensing no other versions of himself or branching timelines, Seth was an anomaly. He might operate under different rules.
The young man was perhaps the only 'true' Transmigrator, originating from a universe beyond this one. That was the preliminary, most plausible conclusion the Lord of Mysteries had drawn. After all, from the memories of the Celestial Worthy, there was no other version of Earth out in the cosmos.
"I don't know," Seth admitted, uncertainty plain on his face. "Maybe wherever I am becomes the main timeline, and the others vanish?" He glanced cautiously at Klein as he spoke.
Klein understood his worry and smiled kindly. "Perhaps that's for the best." He looked out at the World of Ruins bathed in bloody moonlight.
After a moment, he turned his gaze back to Seth and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Let's go."
"Where?" asked the young man who Nurtured the Chaos Primogenitor, visibly confused.
The Lord of Mysteries' lips curled into an amused smile. "Down the River of Time, of course."
"Huh?"
+++
A/N: Mr. Fool is secretly wondering if killing yourself is the new trend for the youngsters. Also, I just realised after looking over the wiki, Klein was only Half-Lord of Mysteries at this point still, so I'll limit how far time-travel can occur, since, a Half-LotM can still pull it off as the Sefirah Castle possessing all symbolisms of LotM to carry him.