Book 8 – Chapter 58 – The New Goddess

Wrath had once told me about protofeather weapons.

At their level, they were rarely used as actual weapons and more as platforms to abuse the occult.

Which made some amount of sense now that I understood how much concepts were linked to the occult, in tandem with willpower and thought, and how mass-conscious ideas affected concepts in general.

The concept of a weapon and would synergize with occult spells of the destructive nature. Or so the theory goes according to some schools of occultist. Hexis would know right down to which lineage figured that out first before the others.

The point is, those weapons were more than simple weapons – they were basically legendary artifacts with power and gravity to them, steeped in history and wrapped by occult concepts over time, while also being layered with fractals within. They’ve been weapons for so long that they possess a pull of their own by now.

Hence, each protofeather had a single set that formed the core of its identity. Even Avalis’s stolen chain had barely been used to its true potential, all because it had spent centuries without an owner to charge and empower it when Avalis had yanked it out of the coffin.

Fun trivia.

Anyhow, speaking of those mythical weapons, one such thing wielded by a copy of the greatest protofeather to have ever lived – gathering power and focus from said copy’s personal attention for centuries – was now flying directly at me like a spear, aimed right at my chest, destruction radiating around it.

And the only reason I wasn’t quite as panicked as I should be is that, at least, it had the courtesy of having the hilt side aimed my way.

That wouldn’t stop it from turning me into tiny pieces just from sheer pressure. So I admit, there might have been a tiny bit of panic.

Far below me, the vault winked out, too small to spot, as I was fired out into the sea beyond by Conviction’s hand.

The only thing from the vault that I could still recognize at this point was his blade, still following behind and rapidly gaining on me.

A shadow of power trailed behind it like a sonic boom, shattering through the water, destroying any program that had the misfortune of being nearby. And that thing was slowly gaining on me.

Then things went south, because if I could spot a protofeather’s weapon coming my way, so could everyone else out here.

In an instant, I had passed beyond the unpopulated, deserted regions of the sea and collided with the nebulous cloud where prior streams existed, now filled with programs of all kinds fleeing one way or another. Either running from Relinquished further out there or from the larger predators taking advantage of the chaos.

They changed their direction real quick once they sensed the boom coming at them from the distance.

My soul avatar slammed into fleeing programs and other scattered panic out here, a claw of some kind accidentally hooking onto me and dragging me off course.

This was not a good thing. While my own trajectory was being moved around in the massive cloud of fleeing programs, the sword sent after me had not changed trajectories at all. And behind it that shockwave of power remained, eradicating everything around behind it in a cone.

The blade would pass above me at this rate, and then I’d very much be inside that cone of destruction.

I burst into action, summoning occult ghosts in a small army, hacking and slashing away at the surrounding programs, trying to claw my way free and get back onto the center trajectory where the blade would pass. If Conviction had thrown this my way hilt first, he’d intended for me to catch it.

The problem was the sea’s current. All the programs were fleeing in one general direction, and the digital sea was responding to that movement, the water here equally flowing as the thousands of entities generated a gravity of their own – something a single mind couldn’t easily overcome.

I could still focus hard and fight against the current, gaining ground. But it wasn’t enough. That blade would cut through like a javelin right above me, and then I’d be buried way under the ice with no pick.

Options were limited and counting down.

Some part of me was trying to mathematically extricate myself from this situation, moving through the current with my arms and legs.

But that wasn’t how the digital sea worked. It was all concepts out here. The occult touched on everything.

So instead of trying to force my position into the blade’s path, I banked on the other end – that Conviction had thrown it at me because he was relinquishing it to me. That meant something in this world. There was a gamble to be done, and I went with it by instinct.

I held a hand out and called to it. Demanded it to curve and return to its master. A pulse of occult surged from me as I delved deeper into the lessons I’d learned from Aztu on thinking in terms of concepts.

That blade was now mine. I was its owner. It had been given to me for a purpose, and that concept should now be buried deep within the blade.

Spinning wildly in the cloud of escaping programs, carried left, right, and up as more things passed over me, occasionally slapping me with a claw, fin, or hand, I focused on the occult.

I kept my hand out. Hoping.

The blade… swerved, turning my direction. The occult shadow behind it ripping apart just about every program as if it had been caught on the wrong end of an airspeeder at full power. It completed the arc, aimed right at me, a singular line of blue rapidly approaching.

The world cleared out fast as the rest of the programs all around me noticed that thing was coming their way, and they did not want to be anywhere nearby. A wide circle was opened up around me, as the swarm of programs fled away.

The blade homed in on me without error and a moment later, it slammed into my hand. I had to focus hard on keeping my digital self intact, with my soul still connected. The power and disruption of this blade rippled around me, eradicating all the programs in a sphere.

This thing was powerful, just about as tall as I was, and held like a rapier would be from a hand larger than my own. Filled with multiple interlocking occult fractals within that I couldn’t even begin to guess at, and all empowered by Conviction’s own willpower, layered over centuries.

I had no idea how one even began to do that kind of occult weaving, although I strongly suspected Hexis would have rolled in his grave to see and study this.

It wasn’t alive. Not sentient or sapient. It was more like a ghost. Something charged over time by being. And I could tell out here in the digital sea, where everything was touched by the occult, that a weapon like this was even more powerful than it could be in reality.

I took a moment to settle the hilt of this weapon in my hand, to feel its weight. The concept of it being mine now.

Programs all around were funneling into the empty space that had opened, no longer seeing the incoming danger anywhere. Returning to their prior panic.

I swung the blade before me. The attack reverberated through the sea like a pressure wave, outright eradicating everything ahead. The few things large enough to survive quickly turned and swam away as fast as they could.

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More programs fled from behind me, and I focused on the blade again, recalling the sphere of occult power that had surged when my hand first wrapped around the hilt. It pulsed out in a sphere as I intended, ripping apart the programs that had been passing by the free space.