Hello again.
The machine of writing's starting to lose a bit of steam, so I may be delaying updates of chapters even further than the every other day schedule so far..
One thing I will hold myself to is that most chapter uploads will have a 2-3 day gap in between chapters at the moment, and I will hopefully not go any slower than 1 update a week, with the exception of some short-term break (no more than 1-2 week[s]) as I enjoy updating the story.
Now, we get into the meat of the chapter.
Instead of what I had originally planned; the war between Jehact and Eternal, I decided to write a origin story of the Eternal's discovery of many worlds…
THE ETERNOS PLANES.
...It is time to put back on the facade.
= LONG, LONG, LONG AGO. BEFORE THE ETERNAL FLED FROM THEIR DYING UNIVERSE... =
= THE DAY ETERNOS WAS BORN. =
It was a calm, quiet, and cold night. Of course, it is always cold and quiet. And dark. Oh so dark.
A station, masked by the starless universe glowed dimly, thermal radiation being the only light emitted. It was a behemoth of a star station, a hundred kilometers across, nothing but pitch black surrounding said station. The mark all across the station was of truth and rationality.
Because Science never stops.
This cycle, a ageless being walks apathetically across the halls of the behemoth station, his body frail, his facial expression relaxed, and his eyes wrapped with synthetic cloth, translucent purple tendrils being his eyes instead.
His name, forgotten to history. He was born on the station, with the knowledge that he would be the catalyst for the greatest Eternal experiment in all history, the very fate of all Humanity rested upon the experiments involving him and the wondrous element Eternium.
If what happens today goes wrong, he will die on the station, too, and the fate of the Human will be sealed.
Upon entering a room labeled "ETERNIUM 417-B CHAMBER", a dozen scientists gaze upon the living test subject. The wisest and tallest of the crowd greets the young experiment. "Welcome back, f-1-2-4, or should I say Lambda?" the facial expression of the wise scientist is welcoming, like he is seeing an old friend yet again.
The ageless etheric, f124 responds in a joking tone. "I am quite welcomed, huh? I thought being the future of all Humanity wouldn't help me much socially..." The experiment thinks for a moment, and then gets right to business. "Overseer Telo, what shalt we do this cycle?"
Telo, whose name is based off of Telomere, stands even more upright than he previously was pulls a lever to his right, then gesturing f124 to a seat in the back of the room, shrouded in darkness by the mysterious lack of lighting. "Today we are going to attempt to puncture the barrier between our reality and another using the Eternium we have mustered over the last few quintillion years or so. Success will have one of [X] outcomes." Telo takes a deep breath before continuing.
"Alpha: The reality is breached, and is composed of antimatter. We gain a source of energy for the next few octillion years, and hopefully find a more suitable reality to exploit."
"Beta: The reality is breached, and is composed of baryonic matter, with stellar bodies much alike the ones which may have existed during the Age of Stars."
"Gamma: The reality is breached, and is composed of Strange or Stable matter, and becomes a vector for quantum energy generation or quantum energy removal; quantum cooling."
"And finally, Delta: The reality is breached, and is composed entirely of Eternium or something on the Periodic Table of Eternium-based Elements, the results being utterly unknown." Telo finishes.
f124 takes in the information for a few moments, and then moves over to the seat without another word. The seat appears to be much more than what it was at a glance. There are empty transparent pipes and electrical wires all across the sides of the seat, and the back cushion of the seat has glowing purple circles, which would likely line up with his spine. The top of the seat has what looks like a mask that will assemble itself around f124's face, although the specific purpose is unknown.
f124 speaks up in confusion. "Overseer, I don't see the reality breaching mechanism. Is this seat used to view the other reality?"
Telo explains what f124 does not understand. "This will transport a portion of your consciousness to another reality, where if it defies consciousness as we know it, you should survive with only some major brain injury, instead of catastrophic synapse failure. Of course, we expect that this will turn out well, as it always does."
f124 seems sated by this, and takes his seat. "I am ready, Overseer. Start at will."
Telo gestures one of the other scientists to starting the sequence, and the one beckoned does as nonverbally instructed. Pressing some buttons on a touch screen, the process begins.
First, a glowing yellow gas flows from a tank previously unseen in the room through the transparent pipes, feeding into the seat's machinery. Purple electricity begins to visibly arc through the insulation of the wires, overcome by the phantom forces of said electricity.
Soon, f124's mind begins to flow from him, some of his being flowing behind his spine and into the machine, as the mask begins to lower and assemble around his face to fit like a glove. All f124 sees is darkness for the next moment, although his perception of time is utterly lost and while it was likely no more than a few seconds, he felt as if hours passed inside the dark mask.
Then, f124 feels his mind wracked with immeasurable pain, as he feels something pump into him through his back, despite there being no injectors. He feels his individual nerves scream in agony as he silently screams out, but his face unable to move.
As abruptly as the pain started, it ceased. f124 opens his eyes, and witnesses his dark vision slowly swirling around him, sparkles of yellow slowly fading in. When he comes back to, he is surrounded by darkness with distant yellow sparkes glowing in the great nothingness, and he is free from his seat, free from his pain.
Is this the afterlife? It's too peaceful.
An hour passes within his own little pocket of nothingness, as he feels desperation to escape flow through his veins. He was told that death was simply an end, but this was worse than death.
He is alone, and aware of his fate.
He claws to try to find a way out, anything to help him salvage himself from this hell, as he swipes a hand in the path of the yellow star. The stars all blink out at the same time, and he is left in pitch black.
As he seems to embrace his eternal fate, he feels a mist surround him, as reality seems to cave in to his fate. Once he blinks, what he sees turns from a dark purple mist to a bright and infinite yellow reality, nebula-like expanses of gaseous vapors becoming pillars of infinity.
As he extends his right hand to the sight, he witnesses the gasses shift with his motions, and realization hits him like an asteroid; he was the absolute master of this place. His own place to play the god he never could be.
What feels like a eon passes within, as he shapes the reality to his every whim. Silent and still statues of nebula of him, to forever stand in his vision. Yes, This is the ideal afterlife. A eon of being nothing more than an experiment ended by death, his ultimate reward for his hard work.
He is powerful, he is wise, and he will guide himself to desire. Even as his vision fades out, he smiles at the eternity that he will have all to himself…
He wakes up in the same seat, the dreaded mask still on him. It was just a dream, nothing more. It is certain, just another delusion of his.
As the mask unveils his face, the others jump back in shock, something is wrong; something is different. Telo speaks up. "Lambda… Your eyes, your Tendrils… They're yellow." This brings f124 into a shock, as he musters his tendrils to his own perception, they are right. Where there should be a translucent purple, there is a powerful and solid yellow, a reminder of his supposed dream.
f124 speaks up, his voice booming and limitless. "I guess that it was a success, huh?" and Telo is the only one to respond, with a sharp nod. Telo musters the will to speak again. "Lambda, I think you've just done what you were born for; you might have just been the vessel to save all Humanity."
f124 gets up from his seat, feeling his raw power course through him, his might untold, potential unseen, his voice only grows more powerful every instant he continues to exist. "I'm tired. Can I go rest? I feel exhausted from this." and Telo only responds with a nod, activating the door, allowing the now Eternal to slumber, for Eternos has been born.
THIS WAS THE STORY OF THE BIRTH OF ETERNOS, HIS SECOND. THIS IS YET ONLY HIS UTTER BEGINNING, AND HE WILL PAVE THE PATH TO ABSOLUTION, BUT THAT WILL BE ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER STORY.
AND FATE SHIFTS, FOR THE FIRST TIME.
Whew. That was fun. 1.5K words of fun. The original story of this chapter as stated above was to cover the war between the Jehact and the Eternal, but I have decided to re-write a significant part of the Eternal, making a being more powerful than anything a living being has ever seen, as I took some (more) inspiration from the Stellaris Workshop mod "Twinks Playable Fallen Empires", and more specifically the expansion mod "The Eternal Knowledge"
Oh, by the way… Missile launch detect- Oh, wait. I mean…
By the way, I updated the Intermission ever so slightly to follow this new origin story, so you should probably re-read some part of it, specifically the introduction to the concept of Voidholders.
WHAT IS TO COME:
Iota awakens, and his etheric potential is unveiled.