Chapter 60: 58 – Tapestry Unraveling

As the recording sped by hour by hour slowly closing in on where the target was, the divination tapestry shifted about and changed rapidly as the predictions of all three-hundred and seven participants honed in on particulars or simply changed altogether due to circumstance. 

The entire ritual’s results condensed into minutes still accounted for a considerable while, and so the Emperor chose to prod the eunuch for his own amusement.

“I find it to be nearly as impressive as it is foolish, what the Snow Demons have created. A weapon with a conscience… A sadder state of being, there is not,” he said.

“Y-yes, your divinity, truly sad…,” simpered the servant, audibly struggling to hold his focus on the hand symbol that made the recording fast-forward. It was almost sad that his most trusted servants were weaker-willed than the rabid dogs deemed unworthy to wield jade talismans. “Even th-those damned to become chimera are reprieved of responsibility, while the Fool’s lackeys were either cruel or foolish enough to produce an autonomous armament with the faculties to fool itself into thinking itself… Human. Into thinking itself capable of raising arms against you. I would bet the lives of my entire bloodline on thy ability to snuff this unsightly beast’s false-mind with but a thought of your own, sire.”

“Of course, I could do that even with the Wall in the way… But this is much more entertaining,” lied the man-god. A day and a half had passed in the recording’s time, and finally it was becoming plain to see why the eunuch had been so terrified to share the news. The deaths of diviners were just expected, doubly so when peering over the Wall - even if such a large congregation was a considerable loss. But this… This was disconcerting, even to the Emperor. This was wrong.

The soul of the True Homunculus was just about distinguishable from those of similar brightness, due to the scrying ritual’s already limited detail. Yet… As minutes drew on and the recording zoomed in further, just as the divining tapestry should’ve changed to plot out her predicted path… It came apart. 

At first, it was just threads vanishing as diviners died. One in a minute, then two, then four, then six. They dropped like flies, and as they did, the Emperor made a judgment call: “Zoom out, rewind to the first death, continue replay.”

The eunuch obeyed. The recording played again, this time at a zoom level where the Homunculus was just about visible.

A pattern emerged. The eunuch called it out at the Emperor’s command.

“A-as you can see my liege… The entire tapestry of divination just came apart at the seams around Her,” he said with fear with his voice. “W-we did capture a… A deathrattle prophecy when the last diviner expired. Shall I wind forward to the message?”

“Yes,” he said. The eunuch obeyed. No visuals. Just an otherworldly voice, as was expected. The last exhalation of Albedo as breath for speech truer than any other.

“A beast born of myriad mortals united as one, armed by the detritus of thine own making - the Butcher’s Blade, the Beast of Retribution, the Undying Thing. Her teeth of defiance stand bared ‘gainst the skeins of fate. Take care that thou do not prove the old tales to be prophecy.”

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The Divine Emperor let out a genuine laugh for the first time in decades. This hadn’t been the first, or tenth, or fiftieth foreboding deathrattle prophecy he had received… But it was the first to directly reference the story of the First Heresy, an ancient Ikesian creation myth with as many variations as there were villages in those lands. 

“Oh, that’s just outstanding. What’s the second message?” he asked the eunuch. The little man stood there frozen in terror for a moment, before he shakily put the talisman away, rubbed his hands, took a deep breath, and spoke.

“...There was a reincarnation. We detected a new soul-signature within the body of the last diviner to expire, precisely seventy-seven minutes and seven seconds after death. He demanded an audience under threat of possessing every eunuch one by one until he was granted it or until the court ran out of eunuchs.” 

“O-ho? Well what are you waiting for, bring him in!” the man-god beckoning his servant once more. He couldn’t even bring himself to be angry, even the most banale of entertainment couldn’t be allowed to be tainted. Every bit of amusement had to be treasured, so he had learned over the long centuries. As the eunuch shuffled away, the Emperor began cutting his aether wave conversations short. Pleasantries ended, orders given, new calls delayed with perfunctory, reflexive replies.

Minutes later, the eunuch returned the supposed reincarnate, rivulets of blood still trailing from between his mandibles and his eyes, flanked by two of the palace guards, both imposing figures in artefact armor wielding the heirloom-swords of long dynasties.  His pure-white robes were now soiled red, contrasting the white and pink of the Mantis Seer’s lotus-coloured chitin. The body was the same, the face that of a promising young diviner that He had spoken with in person perhaps once or twice, but behind the eyes… Behind the eyes was someone else. They stared up at the Emperor with haughty indignity, a knowing smugness unbecoming of any living thing in this world short of perhaps a resurrected Old God.

He gestured for his guards and the eunuch to be away, then with another gesture and a phrase conjured an impenetrable barrier of grey Fog that surrounded him and the now-kneeling Mantis Seer. 

“You followed the ritual from within Hedan’s Wall, and it allowed you to pass. Do you know what that means?” questioned the man-god.

The Seer’s head tilted up, and with a gurgling, yet utterly serene voice he spoke: “That my loyalty is in question, yes. Know that I hold no loyalty to the nation or land of Ikesia, that the Wall merely had no reason to stop me, for I have no ill will towards that land or its people. You must wish to know how I adhered to a new body, how I traversed the Sea, how I maintained my form without a Pneuma to sustain me, yes?”

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