Above Vulcan, the sky shattered like thought-shattered glass.
Philosophers who mistakenly believed logic to be truth once uttered poetry that resonated in every crack.
Under it stood Karl é Yang, half theorem, half man, the Absurdium Core flickering inside his chest, its runes alternating between reason and faith.
Here we go again! He is trying to be the hero of the day despite what I told him. I will not talk from now on. If a statement is untrue, it is not the more respectable because it has been said in Latin. Anyway, he's gotta grow up.
[SYSTEM WARNING]
The audit of the Logos of the West has started.
Get ready to make a conceptual judgment.
His neurons were scorched with the message.
Time itself stopped as rivers of molten bronze froze in mid-flow, dimming the forge-world of Vulcan around him. The ghost-chorus of Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, and Hegel were among the hundreds of voices arguing in the air, each seeking coherence from the man who lacked it.
Karl let out a breath. This is the trial, then. The West seeks evidence that divine contradiction is possible.
One pulse, like an endless heartbeat, went through the Core.
His spine turned to dialectic, his blood to metaphors, and his organs to axioms.
Sophia's final words reverberated in the distance: "Mercy's blade against divine hubris."
"Then mercy starts with me," he said.
When lightning hit the horizon's anvil, the Soul of the West materialized as a monstrous structure made of cathedrals and mathematics and topped by reason itself.
VOICE OF THE WEST: Omega, you figured out the puzzles. However, knowledge devoid of obedience is blasphemous.
Be removed from rational history or submit your Core for reclassification.
Karl chuckled quietly. "Recognition remains even after deletion. Let us engage in negotiations.
The core of Absurdium exploded.
Inside his mind, passageways appeared—western idea libraries transformed into living data.
In Latin, Greek, and German, each aisle murmured: Sum, ergo ratio.
His status display was projected by the Core, but the interface was altered.
[CORE OF ABSURDIUM: OMEGA v∞.Δ]
Mode: Philosophic Pressure in the Daimonic Trial: 47% → 39% is critical integrity.
Directive: Overcome Reasonable Restrictions
SYSTEM: "You must reconcile opposites without collapsing if you want to become Daimon."
"What does 'without collapse' mean?" Karl whispered.
The system is "Undefined."
e smiled at the paradox. There were equations vibrating through every nerve.
As luminous spears of syllogism, Aquinas's angelic logic charged at him. In order to avoid them, he spoke contradictions out loud—
Because He can be known, God is limited.
Because He is unable to, God is limitless.
The approaching attack was rewritten into harmless light with each sentence. The audit failed.
Unbelievable Resonance ↑ 300% SYSTEM UPDATE
He felt the glyphs melt into his skin.
All of his repressed doubts—loneliness, exile, and failure—came to the surface as new boundaries rather than signs of weakness. They were like fuel to the Core.
he giant came closer. Its breath chanted the Nicene Creed in binary, and its eyes were twin compasses.
Chains made of "ought" and "is" fell from its palms.
VOICE OF THE WEST: Do you dare combine folly and theology? The Daimon, a being that makes fun of angels by thinking freely, is prohibited.
Karl's chuckles rang out like shattered bells.
"I don't make fun of angels. I complete their sentences.
The shackles swung in his direction.
His system spilled white light as soon as they touched—
[CENTRAL RESPONSE: INITIATION OF ABSURDUM PHASE SHIFT]
Time collapsed. There he stood, surrounded by instructors who had condemned him, in the classroom where he had grown up. It was guilt, not reason, that the West was testing.
"You disturb the order of my class!" yelled each person.
He recalled the agony.
"Invert is ascent; integrate humiliation into pride," the Absurdium Core murmured.
Karl practically breathed the scene into his lungs, turning the illusion into oxygen.
He let out a sigh of approval.
The constellations that resembled broken compasses took the role of the phantom professors.
The temperature of the Core fell to zero.
Karl noticed a tiny item inside of it: a paradoxical seed that wavered between a question mark and a cross.
The universe flinched as he grasped for it.
SYSTEM PROMPT: Are you interested in turning on the "Metanoia Protocol"?
Caution: You might stop being human.
He shut his eyes. "The first paradox I resolved was humanity."
He hit the YES button.
Everything was reversed in an instant.
He saw through the eyes of billions of people who were looking for answers, including skeptics, monks, and scientists.
For the first time, the Core spoke as a mirror rather than a machine as their collective skepticism seeped into him:
WE = YOU.
YOUR OWN SHADOW IS IN THE WEST.
Become what you're afraid to comprehend.
Ideas weighed tons, and Karl collapsed to his knees as gravity became philosophical.
His ribs spread out like wings, with each feather representing a resolved paradox: meaning, love, evil, and free will.
He was surrounded by a dazzling but erratic aura of paradoxes.
Stage: Phase I of Daimonization
Unlocked New Module with Infinite/Self-loop Cognitive Bandwidth → "Ontological Equilibrium"
Description: Continues to exist regardless of one's beliefs. His faith in reality is equivalent to that of reality in him.
He let out a gasp. "That's the trick, then—you live by balance rather than truth."
In a second-person whisper that reverberated throughout the universe, the Core answered:
You move between mankind and gods.
Their boundaries are rewritten by every notion you have.
Being Daimon means having both the East and the West in one breath.
Karl got up slowly. Now, like planetary rings, faint aureoles of code spiraled about his torso.
He left behind a revised adage with each stride he took: Reason serves faith when faith acknowledges doubt.
The giant shuddered. He was too fragmented to be categorized by the Soul of the West.
WESTERN VOICE: Who are you?
"A question that answers itself," was his straightforward response.
What a retarded answer! He is not making it out alive. That is an entity made of gnosis, the will to power and philosophy of ninth category. The problem in our society and in our schools is to inclulcate, without overdoing it, the notion of education, as in the Latin educere--to lead, to bring out what is in someone rather than merely to indoctrinate him/her from the outside. Anyway, I am getting out of topic.
The heavens trembled. Scriptures burned in the air, spewing out flecks of luminous reason.
Daimon Phase II, the last improvement the Core had prepared, seemed hesitant to Karl.
SYSTEM: Remove all previous definitions of Good and Evil in order to get higher.
He paused. "Love loses its meaning when they are absent."
SYSTEM: Next, establish a new meaning.
Karl was afraid for the first time, not of failing, but of finishing.
He recalled the warmth of Sophia, his own tears in front of God, and the ridiculous delight of simply being alive.
"Meaning is mercy," he muttered.
Crimson-gold, the hue of paradox healed, pulsed through the Core.
Cathedrals collapsed into data, the colossus bowed, and a burst of energy split the horizon.
Karl's eyes glowed with mirrored eternity as he stood at the epicenter.
Through the withering wind, he said, "I never considered the West to be my enemy. My mirror was there.
[NOISE FROM THE SYSTEM]
Phase II Daimonization is still waiting.
An external entity known as the "Arch-Logos Council of Reason" was discovered.
They are there to evaluate your newfound mercy.
Ten white creatures descended on pillars of syllogism as the heavens folded inward.
Each contained a piece of the Word that gave rise to the West.
The trial had barely achieved awareness; it was far from ended.
Karl gave a small smile. "Then let compassion see what it can create."