Collide Gamer

John looked around. He was in a washed-out version of the world. When he sat up, he did so in spirit only. His corpse still lay on the floor, a pathetic excuse of a man that had wanted everything and was now about to lose it all.

For all the loathing he had for himself, he could not help but raise his gaze to the supreme deity before him.

Gaia stood between Rave and Aclysia. The two women had no idea she was there. The hurt on their face mixed with a hatred of their own. Slowly, they turned to Tiamat, so slowly that the motion barely progressed at all. Time was stretched at the behest of the only entity that could claim omnipotence or at least a proximity to it so that it made no difference from a human perspective.

“You are asking me if I am satisfied with that?” John let out a dry laugh. “Why did you let them die?” The question had been on his lips from the moment he had found their corpses. “Why did you let my parents die?!” All of that rage inside him poured out, washed over his lips and aimed at the last of the three beings he hated. Izha had done it, Tiamat had been the reason, but Gaia had been the one who permitted it. “Why didn’t you protect them?!”

“You know why,” Gaia answered, her voice so laden with sorrow that it stunned John.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected the answer, it was that he had hoped for something else. A reveal that she was a vile demiurge who had hidden her malicious intent or perhaps all of this had been some sort of test. Instead, he got exactly what was in line with everything he knew about the supreme deity.

“I… am rarely attached enough to anyone to allow them to yell at me personally,” Gaia said. “I wanted to warn you about this… but I didn’t. Rather, I did and then undid it. I yearned to save you from this. In the end, you know who I am. I’m not your personal guardian.”

All of that righteous rage that he had been summoning left him. It left him like puss flowing from a festering wound that was finally getting cleaned. It stung and itched in his soul. It wasn’t a pretty process. He had to go through many mental hardships in his time. Of all of them, this one was the most difficult.

“You’re the embodiment of the order of the world,” John spoke, his voice low and tired. “I wished you played favourite for me.”

“I have given you more than all others.”

“I know…” John inhaled deeply. His spiritual lungs drew in the air. The world around them continued to crawl on. “Yet, you let my parents die. You let Izha skirt your rules, because you knew it would lead to an outcome you approved of.”

“The choice is yours.”

“Yeah… the ‘choice’,” he mocked her. “The choice between letting Izha win or be right.”

“It is still your choice,” Gaia insisted. “That is all I can offer you – choices. If I enforced good on all, then I would simply create a different garden. It would be beautiful and harmonious, all would be happy, but it would be a beauty in amber. A crystal clear world, in which all is clean and nothing ever truly changes.” She closed her green eyes. “Sorrow is-“

“-the consequence of attachment and attachment comes with the choices we make,” John finished the sentence for her. “I know…” He fell silent for a moment. “I know that you are right… and yet I don’t know if I can ever truly forgive you for this.” Gaia did not move. “But… I want to.”

The supreme deity’s eyes opened again. She looked at him with surprise. The expression, more than her form, reminded John that Gaia was human. Whether she was a dreamer that dreamt of humanity in her image, a god of gods that was truly human, or something else entirely in her origin, she truly was just one of them. One individual with the willpower to live by her vision and principles, to take the long view… even if this hurt them in the long run.

“I understand you, I think,” John muttered. “You don’t want to save the world, you want the world to just… be. There’s humility in that. You plucked the Lorylim out of the world because that was the only way for humanity to truly prosper. You caged Tiamat in with them because permanently removing a goddess would have gone against your vision. You let Izha be driven mad, because that was the parts in play. You cursed the Lorylim with bad luck as recompense for his deeds, allowing us the road to victory. You did everything within reason, while allowing us our freedom, even if you hated what sins we committed… I suppose you really are God, in that sense.”

John looked at the timer, ticking down at the edge of his vision. The window that was the reason that none of this was making him panic, nor was it unexpected.

“And yet still, knowing all of that, I hate your inaction. And yet, hating you, I… do not wish to blame you.” John once more looked at his ‘corpse’. “If I live through this… you’re invited to the wedding.”

“…Thank you,” Gaia whispered.

He blinked and she was gone. Seconds ticked by normally again. Ten of them remained. A countdown, during which he was pulled back into his body. He saw his women fight with the ferocity of a scorned harem. ‘Gorgeous idiots,’ he chastised them mentally. They had known perfectly well he had this Passive. The countdown was down to 3. ‘My vengeance will have to be a life well-lived.’

John inhaled intensely. Out of the stasis, he immediately jumped up. He did not announce himself to any of his women. They were either wise enough not to check on him or too distracted continuing their devastating fight against the Dragon of Chaos. Either way, John was served by not being noticed.

As Gaia’s fortune had it, the thing that he was looking for was nearby.

John ran over to Izha’s remains. “Made your choice?” the skinny, infected man asked with a bloodless smirk.

John picked him up and then began to run. To eliminate Izha would have been the vengeance John’s parents and so many others deserved. Even now the impulse to enact that just gnawed at him. With his lifelines exhausted, he held that hatred tight inside his chest, allowing it to exist but not control any more than it already had. Lorelei had been right from the start.

“You will have your victory,” John spoke with grim acceptance. When he was as close as he thought he could get without being noticed, he shouted, “PIN HER DOWN!”

Tiamat snapped around. She saw John approach. There was confusion there, overpowered by annoyance. It grew more powerful when she saw what he carried. Mother Chaos’ emotions twisted reality around her.

The gathered individuals, strained as many of them were already, went on one final push. All at once, the gathered individuals, harem or not, brought together their might. Molten jade, lightning, light, ice and metal all intertwined, shaped by Lyndell’s rune magic into a layered structure that collapsed on Tiamat from above. It nailed her to the floor for just a few seconds. Even this effort was barely enough for John to get close enough that he could throw Izha’s remains at the Dragon of Chaos.

Lorylim matter grafted onto Lorylim matter on impact. “All will be one!” Tiamat laughed. “What do you think this will-“

The pale face of the nihilistic monster spread into an inhuman grin. “You and I will be none,” Izha whispered. A telepathic force of such absolute might that it turned visible poured into Tiamat through the conduit of his human flesh. It streamed down from the walls, manifested as a veil of greyish green, and transformed the surface of Tiamat’s skin into scarred, human skin.

“What are you-?!”

“I hate you.” Izha caressed the side of Tiamat’s head. “I always hated you. You broke me. You broke EVERYTHING! I HATE YOU! I WIN! I WILL WIN!”

A shiver went through the entire tower. The same telepathic might that was pouring into Izha was now turning outwards. He was like a sun made of crawling maggots that scattered and faded into the air. After a few metres, the visual phenomenon was hidden to John’s eyes. All he could hear was the scream of Tiamat’s rage. For more chapters visıt 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡⚫𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢⚫𝘯𝘦𝘵

From the beginning of this chain of events, Izha had been experimenting with his powers. The awakening of the mundanes after the plane crash. The creation of agents throughout the war. The powers granted to Vinh and her army. The empowering of Sigmund – all of them were developments of the same skill. The Innate Ability of a person, especially a Latebloomer, developed according to their wishes and personality. Izha had wanted to drag the entire world into the Abyss with him.

“STOP! ALL MUST BE ONE! YOU’RE CURSING THEM ALL! “

“THAT’S THE POINT!” Izha laughed as he funnelled more and more of the might of the Lorylim out of Tiamat and into every single person whose potential was unawakened.

This was the one and only way to kill the Lorylim permanently. Tiamat’s mind was entirely contained in this one avatar. She who had dominance over the hivemind had been grafted onto by the human broken into being her foremost ally. Only while she was one and physical could he use his conduit to use her as a conduit in turn, pulling every single shred of mana out of the long-dead species. All of the power without any of the corruption.

The Lorylim would be starved from the inside out.

Tiamat stopped in her thrashing. For a second, it looked like she had given up. Then, the worst of all things happened. The crawl of skin over her scales stopped. The intensity of the sun of maggots diminished. “You – are – my – tool,” the goddess of chaos hissed.

What had been halted began to reverse. John’s eyes widened as Tiamat proved herself more than just madness – she was determined madness. In a battle of willpower, she was winning against the telepath.

“I am chaos! I am the mother that devours for the good of all!” Now it was her turn to laugh again. “Your power will be mine, Izha! Truly, finally, together, one mind above all!”

“…Are we fucked, tiger?” Rave asked.

“…We might be,” John admitted. He had gambled on this option, because he hadn’t seen a path where even everyone else who was outside joining them would have been enough to overcome what Tiamat had made herself. If Tiamat truly absorbed Izha, that was all but certain.

“This is goodbye.” Lyndell stepped forwards.

John turned to her. His stomach knotted up, watching the gothic woman pass him. ‘Is this the only option?’ he asked himself. The answer that he came to was, with all the cards he held: ‘Yes.’ Only Lyndell could force herself into the hivemind again, to aid Izha. The effort would destroy her along with the others. All of the Lorylim would be gone.

“May I ask one thing?” the forlorn woman requested.

“Anything,” John answered, regret swinging in his voice. He liked Lyndell. He more than liked her. It felt unfair that these times would take her from him as well, before they had any chance to become more.

“Can I… hold your hand?” There was a hint of wetness in her eyes.

John clenched his teeth and nodded. He extended his arm to her and she took it. ‘What a short and sorry life,’ he thought. Their fingers intertwined, as they walked together towards Lyndell’s final destiny. Tiamat was locked in her concentration, too locked to notice their approach. John was of half a mind to try to just blast Izha and Tiamat with all that they got, but that was more guaranteed to lead to Tiamat winning this battle in the purely mental realm of the hivemind.

This really was the only choice.

“Layla?!” Momo shouted.

Eyes snapping upwards, the Gamer caught the stalker drop from the hole in the ceiling. It had been a moderate drop for the proverbial and actual gods in the room, all of which were too baffled to catch the brunette before she landed on Tiamat’s neck. Despite what must have been a concussing impact, the crazy woman crawled over the back of the Dragon of Chaos. Stray chaotic energy singed her skin.

“Get away from there!” John told Layla.

“After I stab your enemies to death!” she screamed back hysterically. There was joy in her tone and sorrow. She unsheathed a grey dagger.

Lyndell immediately tensed up. “DO NOT STAB IZHA! STAB TIAMAT! NOW!” The forlorn entity screamed.

Layla hesitated, then looked at John for guidance “DO WHAT SHE SAYS!” the Gamer echoed. He had no idea what exactly was going on, but if it made the primordial Lorylim raise her voice, then there had to be hope yet.

“Whatever you want!” the stalker declared and rammed the knife into Tiamat’s scales.

The weapon sunk into the flesh of the Dragon of Chaos. “No… no, no, no, no, no!” Tiamat screamed.

Hurrying over, John pulled the brunette off the goddess of chaos. Despite her heavy injuries, the stalker squeaked with joy when he held her. Izha’s influence redoubled. Tiamat was now beset within the hivemind by two factions. Her body began to rot away. The Cyclostone all around them began to turn into regular rock.

Which meant it would no longer have supernatural load bearing power.

“RETREAT!” John ordered.

He handed a heavily disappointed stalker over to Rave and was himself picked up by Beatrice. Not his preferred way to make an exit, but when the second Tower of Babel was about to crash down on them, he was willing to suffer the indignity of getting hauled around by his maid. Nathalia blasted open a corridor for them. Everyone ran.

John tried to just leave the Illusion Barrier. No such luck, Tiamat was holding onto her Sanctum until her very last moment. Either that or Izha was trying to get them killed. Either option was equally likely. From his position in Beatrice’s arms, John could keep looking back at the struggle of the hivemind.

Tiamat freed herself from the immobilizing construct. She clawed Izha’s remains off her face. She screamed something at the corpse. What he had done could no longer be undone. What the knife was doing enacted its own poison. To John’s horror, he saw Tiamat shed the human skin. A new form was born in that instant, a thing that looked like it had not finished developing inside its egg. It crawled out of the skin and the metal skeleton, cackling.

“YOU CANNOT KILL CHAOS!” she screamed. “YOU CANNOT BE RID OF ME! NEVER!”

That was the last the goddess said before Gaia manifested. By now, she was just a green dot in the distance, barely visible to John even with his ability to focus his vision. The supreme deity raised her hands. To Izha, she brought oblivion, eliminating him completely in an instant. Tiamat disappeared a moment later as well, although her frame did not leave a momentary void where it used to be.

Nathalia burst open the final wall in front of them, just as the tower collapsed for good behind them. A mountain was collapsing in on itself, with all of the volume and all of the kinetic force that had to have.

Still, the group made it to the ground. Magic erected a shelter that shielded them from the falling and splintering rocks. The seat of Tiamat’s power collapsed in on itself, all of the might it had stored and, John hoped, all of the might of the dead species still beyond the veil with it. He wasn’t sure what had happened to Tiamat at the end there. What he knew was that they had won.

The war against the Lorylim was over.