Book 6. Chapter 45: Playing games
Go take a nice scenic detour, visit Wrath’s people for a small break. What’s the worst that could happen?
Well, I was now face to face with the goddess that destroyed the entire world.
“My wayward little pest." Relinquished said, watching me through the broken walls of the mite terminal. "I’ve been expecting you to crawl into my sight again. I find that our meeting is long overdue. It is a rare feat that one of my sister’s pet Deathless defeats one of my children in singular combat. And to defeat two others has never happened. Not since five hundred years prior. Do you know why that is?”
Nope. No, not doing any of this. I’m out. Instead of answering, I instantly dove out of the soul fractal etched within the mite terminal, back into Journey’s soul fractal, and from there back into my body.
My eyes flashed open, the orange HUD of my armor my first sight. Drakonis was further down the cavern, head turning my direction. “Everything work out?” He asked.
“Do tell.” Relinquished whispered a moment after. “Did everything… work out, little Deathless?” She laughed. A light malicious laugh of someone who had caught their favorite insect.
I was still in the terminal. Still watching the massive hand carry the entire thing with her as she flowed deeper into her domain. And at the same time, I was in the physical world, in the safety of my body. Drakonis was already standing up and walking over, eyebrows frowning as he noticed something was off. The world swam around me as I felt my physical body stand up, tumble down and crawl forward. While my body in the digital sea collapsed against the sediment under me, a dust cloud flowing upwards out of the way.
In the occult sight, I knew what she’d done. The fractal of Unity. It had linked the concept of my digital avatar to my very soul. It was me, and I was it. I don’t know how she’d done it, how she’d managed to get a matching fractal anywhere near my soul, but it had latched over my throat like an iron chain without my notice.
Controlling two different bodies was on a different difficulty compared to the quantum versions of myself. During those times, each Keith equally had a mind linked to that body. There was always exactly the same amount of soul and minds in control of the same amount of bodies, equilibrium.