CH582

In both his current universe and his last, Ben had heard space described in a few similar ways. An endless expanse, a deep void, eternity itself, but all of those were wrong. When the monster opened a hole in the universe itself, Ben got front-row seats to the true meaning of forever in the form of the primordial chaos searing itself into his mind as he bore witness to something nothing born of a universe should. That mad realm of constantly shifting rules in a plane between realities where any idea of physics was nothing more than a temporary suggestion.

A mortal bearing witness to true chaos itself.

It was both beautiful and horrifying as the sight ensnared him, trapping him more than any magic in the past could have as that same chaos seeped into him in return, leaving its fingerprints on his thoughts and tainting his existence while everything that he was began to be pulled in.

It was like it was singing to him a song of potential. Of opportunity to grow beyond the realm of gods or to fall lower than the meekest ants. To get the sort of power that would let him make the current fight and even the war for the fate of the planet look like nothing so long as he was clever enough, and if there was one thing he was, it was clever. Hadn’t he pulled himself up from nothing through planning and hard work? It felt like as long as he could figure out the depths of its nature then he’d be able to find paths to power that could leave the divine at his feet.

<-BEN!> Myriad screamed again as all of his other attempts failed, this one finally snapping his apostle from his stupor and making him see what was happening.

The two of them were on a collision course with that hole through reality and as the one acting as their eyes, he needed to stop Thera from taking that final dive.

“THERA, UP!” He screamed with both his voice and mind, his disorientation making him put far too much of his thoughts into it as golden blood began to pour down Thera’s nose, but she did as he yelled despite the strain his mind had put on her, letting the two narrowly avoid being trapped outside of reality itself as it began to close.

What the fuck just happened?

He didn’t have time to process any of that, even as his brain begged him to. They only had two goals, getting away and figuring out how to apply the knowledge that had enraged the beast to begin with.

Even as his minds kept trying to slip back to the scene he’d witnessed he kept forcing them back on track, not caring that he now had nearly a thousand more than he had only the day prior as he looked at what happened and what it might imply.

Focus! Stay on topic and think here! The first bit of damage we pulled off came from using a frozen gas, it pretty obviously looks like it couldn’t handle the rapid expansion as it melted. How do I use that?

The first idea to pop into his head was to just keep doing what had already worked once, and while he was willing to accept it if nothing better popped up, he wanted more options. Faster options. Even if that was the most damage they’d been able to do until that point, the monster they were facing was on a different scale. Who was to say how many times they’d have to attack that way to finally bring it down?

That led him to looking at alternatives as his mind drifted to something that would equal the sort of rapid expansion he wanted. An explosion.

One of Ben’s greatest struggles in that universe was the fact that so many reactions seemed to be so much less energetic compared to those of his home reality, to the point that he’d long since given up on his past goal of making anything akin to gunpowder and was more than happy to use different configurations of magic as a substitute for any time he needed such a thing. Materials would still burn well enough, even a few of the elements he’d already made would combust once exposed to air, but he wanted something more. Something that would go boom.

At first glance, that seemed to once again point back to the two options he’d been avoiding, both anti and foreign matter, with both of them acting plenty explosive to get the job done.

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But while both could have been perfect in the right conditions, neither would work for what they faced. Making antimatter might have given the reaction he craved, but it would be doing so in the air directly in front of them. Sure, he could have attempted to do the same thing he had during the first wave, encasing it in such a way that no stray atoms would be able to touch it, but that was something he’d only been willing to do with his subconscious fully at the wheel. His conscious mind thought better of such a mad, risky, and overall suicidal idea.

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