Chapter 292: Chapter 291 – Death

"Alright, I think this is it..."

Sophia mumbled inwardly. She continued to excitedly watch her person. 

She had been watching this person for nearly 130 years. 

The girl's name was Sophia, just like hers, and she had become a demigod!

Sophia watched as this child grew to become a class 6, forming a soul the normal way. Truly, Dream's way of doing things seemed so infinitely convoluted compared to this simple process. 

But the results couldn't compare. While Dream was capable of rivaling even gods as a class 5, this child of hers who had only just become a demigod was nowhere near that. 

Blessed by the concept of Light, Sophia was capable of calling upon the fastest speeds in the universe. Through this power, she rose to become a small hegemon. 

But she wasn't an angel. No, she was a demon. A demon who used the concept of Light. 

It wasn't paradoxical. Light wasn't aligned either way. Light was simply Light, so demons could tap into it. 

And Sophia had garnered much information from this particular child. 

This child grew and grew, a slow and tedious process compared to what she was used to, but growth nonetheless. Watching this child as she learned magic, learned combat, faced her first hardships in battle, lost friends and loved ones...

Sophia watched everything, feeling every emotion and sensation from behind the scenes. She never spoke much, and her child wasn't aware of her existence. 

But Sophia was aware of everything. 

Reverse engineering the universe. 

It was such an infinitely complex process, but through this child, she had made significant progress. 

This child had gone to many battlefields, but after becoming a demigod at the age of 80, she had resided on a single planet. 

It was a battlefield between demons and angels, a planet whose express purpose was to facilitate this eternal war. 

She had been there ever since arriving, and she had killed so many people. 

And through her endless exposure to the people of this planet, Sophia was able to find a good nexus for her reverse engineering. 

In her minds, there was an endlessly vast map of the universe. And in one tiny section of it, there was an even tinier web of golden thread. 

This golden thread branched out from this eternal battlefield. The thread was information, a recreation of all that existed at a single point in Time. 

Gathering more information, sifting through all instants of Time, plotting out the cause and effect of even the most inconsequential particles. Sophia never stopped processing. 

And for one particular instant in time, she had successfully recreated the entire planet where this battlefield resided. 

From there, she was reverse-engineering the portals that send troops, tracing them back to their home worlds through the movement of mana and aether. She was reconstructing the chaotic void, the bending and warping of space. Not even the light particles were left out. 

She was left with a still image, a single simulated universe that was constantly expanding through her work. She was recreating the souls of all the soldiers who fell, recreating their skills, their memories, their thoughts, their feelings. through every action and reaction, she garnered more and more information. 

But much of it was incomplete. She had learned more about the concepts after much study and observation. Watching her child grow for 150 years was extremely valuable data, allowing her to see the transformation in the states of this child's soul. She could see all the memories and the development of all her skills. 

She even got to witness the blessing of the concepts. She got to directly experience her child comprehending the concepts, gaining their profound and infinite knowledge. 

But there was just so much information. 

Sophia had been following this single child for 130 years, watching. But even after so long, she didn't seem any closer to reconstructing the universe. There were so many laws that determined a single outcome of cause and effect. If she didn't know even the tiniest detail, then that bit of information would be incorrect. 

In fact, much of her reconstruction was gray, indicating that it could be wrong. She often tried to reconcile her mistakes by shifting through time and plotting outcomes, but even then, some things just didn't add up. 

She needed more data. She needed more conceptual knowledge. 

She now knew that she could directly acquire conceptual knowledge through other vessels, like her child. Sophia now knew more about the concept of Light, and could accurately trace back light even to its host star. This was the conceptual knowledge she wanted from Dream, but she couldn't go back to him. 

He still wasn't finished...

But that was okay, because Sophia had found another way. 

She observed Nill, that odd entity that could be the vessel which carried a concept yet be the medium by which she could directly control a god core. He was both a barrier and a connection, saving her from losing her self yet affording her the full powers of the god core of information. 

She wanted to create another one of those entities, another vessel. But instead of generating one like Nill, she wanted to use the people of the universe. She wanted them to grow, like her current child, and attain conceptual knowledge that she could use. 

And she could push them along, giving them far greater talent than normal. It was how her current child was able to reliably get to her current power level. 

But she had a problem. She needed to split herself, or generate more selves, in order to acquire more vessels. For that, she used Nill as a template. 

She could generate entities that were pure information, connecting them to the god core of information through Nill. Then, she could send all these entities out. Since she was in control of the god core, anything connected to it would be a part of her. 

She was basically generating other existences that were both herself yet a separate person. All the information they would acquire through their host would be relayed in full back to her, since she was them anyway. 

She thought it was a genius idea. All she had to do was figure out how to modify Nill's existence, which she had been doing for many years now. 

Of course, it was only a matter of Time. 

When her current child was around 150 years old, she cracked it. 

Sophia existed in some kind of eternal void, devoid of any and all information. She only acquired information through other people that she attached herself to.

For a long time, her only source of information was this current child. But now, after figuring out how to generate more existences...

In her virtual hand was a single entity, another existence that was her yet independent. 

"Time to multiply."

Sophia smiled inwardly, and suddenly, that entity split in two, doubling. 

Two turned to four, then eight, then sixteen...

Entities were generated, and they in turn generated more entities. They doubled and doubled, growing exponentially. 

Billion, trillion, quadrillion...

When she felt like she had enough, approximately 20 quadrillion entities, she looked back toward her child. 

A battlefield with enemies and allies going and coming. Millions transferred to and from this planet every day. 

"What better way to spread than through other people? Like a virus, I'll expand..."

Sophia watched as her child shot out a beam of light. Within that light though was now an entity. 

It collided with an enemy, the entity attaching itself to the new person. Sophia suddenly felt the entity attach to that person's existence, and she acquired another person. 

But that foot soldier could only wait to die. Said footsoldier realized they couldn't fight Sophia's child, so they ran, shouting toward the hundreds and thousands of people beside them. 

"Help me!"

The sound waves travelled out, and within each wave were millions of entities. 

They all attached to the millions of other soldiers who had been even slightly touched by that sound. 

Suddenly, Sophia had millions more people, all of their experiences, memories, and information streaming into her. 

They popped up like tv channels, Sophia aware of each and every one. 

And form there, it only continued to grow. 

Millions to billions, then to trillions. When magic was used to communicate with other planets, Sophia's entities were attached, transferring to the recipient. 

From one planet to the next, her entities endlessly grew. They attached themselves to every child, every soldier, every adult. No matter how weak or powerful, she attached to them all. 

The information she received increased infinitely. Every person had countless bits of information that comprised their existence, and Sophia read through it all. 

Her entities spread across galaxies, being carried to even the highest primary worlds. She even attached to all of Luna's generals, all of Iris' demonic armies. 

When she came this far though, Sophia couldn't help but be surprised when she was spoken to. 

.........

Luna looked at one of her generals who stood before her. With how deep she was into the concept of Life, the change couldn't escape her gaze. 

She saw that entity attached itself to the informational existence of her general. Her general, a demigod, noticed nothing. 

She smiled a bit. She could tell who it was. 

"Hello Sophia."

........

"Luna."

Sophia nodded through her entity, acknowledging Luna. 

Nothing else was said. Luna's intent by speaking to Sophia's entity wasn't to simply say hi. 

It was to let her know that people with higher concepts could see her entities. 

She needed to be careful. 

Sophia took this knowledge and continued to expand. 

She spread across the entire universe within mere moments. For the time being, she avoided all gods and their closest retainers. She wouldn't expose herself. 

From the demigods to the newborn children being birthed throughout the universe, she was attached to them all. Through the concept of information, a thing that constituted existence itself, she could realize everything. 

The newborns were the best to be attached to, though. Through them, she could experience true growth. Only with the children did she have the clearest vision. For those with more power, like demigods, she couldn't see into their concepts. It was much harder to process their existence since part of their existence was conceptual. 

With that child of hers who she had grown with until she was a demigod, there was no such difficulty. She could see everything, attain all conceptual knowledge she garnered. It was because she had grown with her, experienced everything from beginning to present. 

And she intended to do the same with many more. 

After spreading throughout the universe, Sophia halted. She wasn't attached to every person and thing. She limited herself to those original 20 quadrillion entities, and there were much more in the whole universe. 

But she did make sure that nearly every newborn child had an entity with it. Those entities bonded with their informational existences, becoming one with the child. That way, Sophia would be a true part of them. 

When they grew to become powerful, learning magic, developing their soul, evolving their existence. She would experience it all. 

Her ability to reverse engineer the universe was just multiplied by countless times. 20 quadrillion existences, through every instant in time...

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Truly, Time was infinitely complex. But even with all this, was it enough to help Dream?

................

..........

He had been in that same spire for so long, never once moving from his withering throne. 

170 years since Sophia left. 

170 years was a long time. Melody could easily live that long, but she was a much different person than back then. 

When she had come to visit, to brag about becoming a demigod. When she had gave her thanks for all the advice long ago. 

When she brought our parents. It had been so long, and they wanted to see...

What was I, a terminally ill patient? I didn't need those looks of worry!

Dream shook his head inwardly, recalling all those events. 

His body was basically glued to that chair, unable to be controlled at all. He wouldn't be surprised if he had become one with that chair. It had been so long, after all. 

But that was of secondary concern. 

He had gotten closer to Death. 

But not in the way one might immediately think. 

It was when he first saw Death. The Reaper, the god of death, darkness incarnate, nonexistence. 

What did it mean to become Death itself? It was a paradox. You couldn't be Death, which was nonexistence, and yet still be someone. To become nothing was to disappear. That meant becoming the god of death was... well, a death sentence. You were willingly walking into oblivion, removing your existence from the universe. 

It was this paradox though that Dream loved so much. It rather perfectly entailed his dilemma. He was finding that foundation, the thing that went beyond even nonexistence. Since there was nothing, then there had to be something that allowed nothing to exist. 

It was because of this that Dream was eager to get closer to Death. Why? Because it actually came to him as... something. 

It first appeared in the spire he sat in. He had noticed its conceptual existence. It had come in the shape of a black fog, a window to the endless void of nothing. 

But then it took on shape. It became a fox that looked just like Iris when she was younger. That flaming ball of anger and passion, one whose name now heralded absolute doom. 

Then, it changed into an ice golem. Probably one of Luna's. She was capable of wiping out something by freezing them, making it outright disappear. She was now incapable of doing this, being in the concept of Life and all, but it had still spelled certain doom for any unlucky souls that got in her way.

Then, it changed to a demon. It was one of the many demons Dream had wiped out. Those demons that had reaped so many lives, killing people that he had been trying to protect. 

Death came to him in many forms, all of them being from his associations with Death. Anything that represented Death in his life had appeared before him, inching closer, threatening him with the reality of nonexistence. 

He couldn't talk to it. Whatever that thing was, it didn't even seem to acknowledge him. It just kept inching closer. 

The only things Luna and Alice sensed was the growing aura of Death emanating from his existence. They couldn't see those figures that approached him within his spire. 

At some point, Death got really close. It seemed to multiply, surrounding him and holding hundreds of scythes up to his body. It threatened to take away everything, reduce him to nothing. 

It was going to swallow him whole.

It had no wants or desires. 

It had no ego. 

It had no reservations. 

It didn't even acknowledge his existence. 

It was both something and nothing. 

A concept of oblivion taken form, a paradox that presented itself to him. 

A paradox to solve. 

Unravel the mystery, or die trying. 

Dream didn't avoid Death, even though he could. He let it get uncomfortably close. So close that he could practically feel himself slipping into oblivion. 

Images of the reality of nothing came to him. He began to feel nothing, only to occasionally wake up. Like he was on the verge of going to sleep, only to jerk away from the exhaustion. 

The paradox began to inject itself into him. It began to overtake him. 

Or did it come from within him?

Presented with Death, were these images his way of imagining nothing?

One couldn't know nothingness. One couldn't know nonexistence, for nonexistence didn't exist. It wasn't information to grasp, or a concept to understand. 

So when you were presented with true nothing... Even Dream's mind had filled in that blank, masking it with something he could understand. Putting a veil over it. 

Perhaps... it was a way of protecting himself. 

To subject yourself to nonexistence was to die, no? 

But if a part of you became nonexistence...

Was the paradox to know nothing?

In that case...

For the first time in so long, Dream lifted his head. Death, Nothing, stood before him. It seemed to encapsulate his existence, just waiting for him to fall in. Waiting for him to become Nothing, just like it. 

And... he didn't resist it. He allowed himself to slip, almost as if to sleep. He let himself be subject to oblivion. 

And his body froze.

He no longer emanated the aura of Death. He didn't emanate Life. Nor Creation or Annihilation. 

Those concepts that had been obliterating his body ceased. He became... deathly still, deathly quiet. 

And as if that were the trigger, an enormous eyeball manifested within the spire. 

At the same instant, Luna and Alice appeared. They faced that eyeball, and sensed Dream. 

From him, came Nothing. 

Alice shivered, and Luna burst out with the power of Life. All of it flooded toward Dream, attempting to revive him, even as she faced the eyeball. 

"He is Nothing"

It spoke, almost as if through the concepts. 

And as if acknowledging his words, Luna's power of Life did... well, nothing. Her power didn't affect him in the slightest, yet there was no death that she could latch onto and reverse. It was as if Dream just didn't exist. 

But they could still see him, sitting on that chair in his eternally frozen state. His half withered body, that old school suit... 

Was it really there? Or were they just hallucinating something that had now ceased to exist?

Luna knew that the eyeball wasn't at fault. And unlike Alice, she wasn't devastated. 

Not yet anyway. 

Instead, the fact that this eyeball was here proved that a step had been taken. 

She stepped forward. She was no longer bursting with power, instead remaining eerily calm. 

"You have no place here."

"Not even you truly understand this moment in Time. You know Nothing of what that Paradox is. You know nothing of the Totality and its existential plane, the one that no longer holds that thing."

With every word the eyeball spoke, waves of information flooded Luna and Alice's minds. 

In that moment, they understood that that eyeball was. They could see its unfathomably long lifespan, its birth during the creation of the cosmos. 

In short, it was telling them that they were way in over their heads. That compared to it, they were less than inconsequential. 

They were nothing, in front of it that was everything. 

Luna tried to keep her calm in front of it.

"Order."

"You despair, Luna, for your destined end lies at the height of Life and Creation. You despair, for you cannot fight I who is above all. Those who are infinitely lesser cannot even fathom those above."

"Then go ahead and kill Dream."

Suddenly, Luna found herself smiling. Her perfectly blue eyes bore into the eyeball. 

"Kill him. You have no need for your angelic armies. Kill him here and now, you who stands above all. 

"..."

It didn't respond, and Luna smiled even wider. 

"I knew it. That which is even beyond Order and Chaos. Looks like you're not above all, eyeball."

"You know not what you speak of."

"Maybe not."

Luna didn't deny it, but she still smiled. 

"But I do know that you can't kill him. That something so lesser than you is achieving something you can't. Did you do it? Did you kill the Archons?"

"Kill the Archons..."

Luna could've sworn it snickered. 

"That which has never existed has no need to be killed."

 

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