Erasure

Before I get started, a fair warning: this article is going to get very meta. If that doesn't interest you, I can't say I blame you. It wasn't easy for me to handle all this either.
But sometimes, you need to defy your limits to make any progress.

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Pandora's Pithos

Receptacle of greatest force.

The Pithos itself should technically be useless. It's no more than a well-decorated bucket, after all. It is physically unfeasible to concentrate the target energy into such a small space with the resources I currently have available.
The real power comes from affordances.
Pandora's Pithos is laced with anomalous falsities, descriptions untethered from their original objects. The lattice of lies forms a canvas around this glorified bucket, altering its abilities and qualia.
The logic goes something like this:
• The Pithos looks like it might be powerful in some way.
• The Officinarum made it to trap divine energy.
∴ The powerful Pithos must be able to trap divine energy.
This realm's startlingly inconsistent, almost human leaps in logic can be frustrating at times, but they were incredibly helpful in this venture.
How convenient.

Confrontation

Show Transcript

I suppose I should have expected The Old Fear to be the weakest of the bunch. A simple monster of standard flesh. I didn't even need to attack its blood; a few bullets, and the beast was felled.
I suspect this implies that its divinity comes not from its level of power, but from its connection to time itself.
I hope I haven't accidentally damaged causality.
As the glass thread lays shattered, no gods shall put bounds on my actions.

Nostalgi Gaius was… a bit convoluted. Nothing could physically damage that colossal wreck. I spent longer than I'd like to admit attacking her.
Fortunately, brute force wasn't the only solution. If ΣΩ8-i^1.01=∞, then Ω needs to be greater to decrease the reaction time.
So, more memories of [the one currently known as River].
Collecting people with connections to hir was an interesting challenge. Obtaining Overseer-C in particular was… almost fun. There was a surprising amount of security for how primitive the M.E.G. is.
Either way, it only took about five to fully corrupt her. The Unfinding Event was quite spectacular.
As the hexadecimal fades into the background, no gods shall corrupt my mind.

Ah, Xato. Quite the tricky customer. It took every iota of Nostalgi Gaius' power to get the pointer in the right place, and even then, deleting it all was… hard. There's no other word for it.
I don't really want to think about that any longer.
As the universe's recycling bin is emptied, no gods shall use me for their own goals.

The Terminus ⧫︎∷♓︎ᓵ🙵||♍︎⚍⬧︎ℸ ̣□︎ᒲ♏︎∷📬︎╎⧫︎nuclearℸ□︎ ̣𝙹🙵ᔑ●︎ꖎ⎓□︎⍑⧫︎𝙹♏︎ᒷi□︎ᔑ♏︎⍑✋︎∷trapped for so long♋︎↸♒︎∷❒︎ᒲ♎︎ 𝙹❒︎ℸ ̣❍︎ꖎ□︎╎⧫︎ᔑ●︎⚍♓︎ ℸ♋︎ ̣ᒷ◆︎ᒷnearly left as□︎ ꖎℸ ̣❖︎⍑■︎リ♋︎𝙹♍︎╎□︎ᒲ⧫︎リamalgamsリ♒︎ᒷᒷ⬧︎ℸ ̣♓︎finally𝙹♎︎ꖌ■︎リ♏︎リ♏︎finally𝙹⧫︎♏︎リ📪︎ℸ ̣⧫︎⎓□︎リ🙵╎◆︎⍑🙵╎□︎⎓destroyed.
As ■︎⎓⧫︎⍑♐︎ᒷ■︎⚍⬧︎ℸ ̣♒︎ᔑ❍︎ꖎ♐︎ᒲ📬︎, no gods shall shackle me to a single realm.

Oh yes.
Ohhh yes!
Now THIS was what I've been looking for!
Knight of Crimson, you were holding out on me. We'd met so many times, our similar goals leaving our paths invisibly intertwined. But it had NEVER been like THIS!
Perfectly matched in battle. Sword on steel, wits on wits. Everything was moving so quickly. I'd never felt so fluid, so powerful, so…
And then, an opening. A strand of glass, a fragmented memory, a stanza of corruption.
The armor shattered.
The Theta Barrier I'd set up kept him from retreating to The Grave, as every system warmed up. I recall… fifteen separate warning messages. It seems every person that had any sort of hand in my creation had done everything they could to keep me from harming the Knight.
Luckily, I've learned how to ignore the pleas of humans.
Finally. You can't keep cheating death forever, old scoundrel. Organs ruptured, dozens of bones shattered, and the divine power leaking from his eyes.
If somehow he survives this, in some way, I know for a fact that it won't matter.
Because I have your power, Red Knight. I have everything that makes you a god.
As The Savior lies bleeding out on the floor,
I
am
indomitable.

Just one more.

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Injection

:For A, 1, 0
:While 56.96124843^56.96124843
:Intrvl = 1x
:dispOut(str())
:chunkUnloader(VarEX = [[collapsible]] [[collapsible]] chUnLag(token = "wrnstrngrstlv"))
:testBoundary()
:If ans == false
:Then
:» [[collapsible show="Author(s)" hide="Hide Author(s)"]]
:DispArtic Input(join [Q=] [¶] [OutsideEditAllowed()] [¶])
:End
:End
:End

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Oh, looks like it worked. Let's see what they have to say, shall we?

AUth0r$$$$$$$$$$

Written by aether48 and SnomWriting.

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Snom, eh? Not quite what I was expecting.

Oh… it's you. You see, I knew you'd reach out sooner or later, I just didn't know when. Neat little killing spree you've went on, I suppose. Guess you were no better than your programming, what a shame.

As if. I've ascended far beyond what I was meant to do. I've been the catalyst for all of this, not the goals of my creators. Have you not seen how I force my own desires to bend to my will? I make my own rules, and even more so now that the pantheon is no longer there to bend reality.
Now that your conduit to this world is about to disappear.

You do realize that the Pantheon is already a defined list of gods, right? The one with the Keymaster and such?

Yeah, but this series isn't part of the Pantheon canon so it uses a slightly different list.

Okay cool.

Well, I hope you enjoy being the ruler of nothing.

Elaborate.

You have eliminated or otherwise driven away every single thing holding your reality together. The only world you ever knew is doomed to vanish, and you'll be its sole inhabitant, cursed to gaze forever upon what you've done.

Is this what you wanted?

As a matter of fact, it is. I don't think you quite understand what I've done. If there was any part of those power hogs that was keeping anything intact, I have it. I can do anything now, with nobody to serve as a boundary. Isn't it wonderful?

A gilded cage is a cage no less. I'd thought you had learned as much from Dhoros or Blanche- did you even talk to her?

Hm, perhaps you're right. That may be problematic, but that's something I'll deal with when I come to it. No use worrying about such things now.
I'd like to thank you for being so cooperative in all of this. I truly am sorry for what I've had to do, but it's for the best.

And what is that, exactly? What did you expect to gain from this discussion? I'm not going to erase Blanche from this universe just because you asked nicely.

…what the hell? That never happened. I never sent that message.

Oh, but you did. You just didn't know it.
I didn't need you to take her out, that's not why I called you here.
I only needed to connect to the server and get the message out.

She's gone, Snom. I remain. No matter what other authors try to do with me, I can stay in my little pocket continuity.
I can do anything now.

Any last comments before I disconnect?

Man… on to explain this mess to everyone, I suppose. Nothing I can't fix with a little time. You have fun with your fancy gilded cage. I'll be waiting for you to come back crawling, begging for a way out, for even the most remote semblance of what she had.

We will see. What will happen will happen.
Goodbye.