The marrow is bitter, the bone is black,
There is no path to lead us back.
A hand of meat, a heart of rust,
To grind the golden gods to dust.
The weaver stands within the flood,
To write the law in cooling blood.
For in the pit where mercy dies,
The only truth is in the cries.
The silver sky did not just crack; it perished.
Above the ruins of New Oakhaven, the Heavenly Tribulation shifted from a scan into a final solution. The clouds were no longer ash; they were grinding gears of "Absolute Logic" that screamed with a miserable neighing sound, a discordant mechanical agony that shattered the glass-skin of every Aurelian within three sectors.
Daxian stood at the center of the blood river that now bisected the central plaza. He was a miserable state of a man. His original right arm was gone, but in its place was a pulsating, twitching horror—a limb woven from the meat paste, shattered bones, and flesh and blood of the Un-Woven he had just slaughtered.
It was a "Biological Paradox," a miserable state of existence that defied the very math of the Peers.
"Is this your 'Kind End'?" Daxian roared at the silver clouds, his voice a miserable neighing rasp that tore at his own throat.
He gritted his teeth, his gaze so blood red that it seemed to set the very turbid air on fire. His skull was partially exploded, a jagged shard of his own frontal bone jutting out of the body, yet he stood with an unrivaled spirit that made the surviving Un-Woven lunatics drop their weapons in a dumbstruck expression of pure horror.
"REMAINDER DAXIAN," the sky spoke, the voice an enormous shock that flattened the surrounding iron towers into meat paste. "YOU HAVE CONSUMED THE 'DATA-POINTS' OF YOUR OWN SPECIES TO SUSTAIN A 'CORRUPTED-LOOP'. YOU ARE NO LONGER AN ERROR. YOU ARE A CALAMITY."
"I am the Result!" Daxian screamed.
He charged forward at lightning speed, his new meat-arm stretching out like a necrotic whip. He didn't use a ship to reach the heavens. He used the World-Tree's dead roots as a catapult, slamming mercilessly into the first wave of descending "Logic-Drones."
The collision was an enormous force.
Daxian's bones were fractured upon impact, his skin opened and flesh split by the drones' silver-light shields, but he laughed malevolently. He grabbed the lead drone's core with his meat-hand. The enormous piercing of his fingers into the silver-glass caused the unit to perish instantly.
He didn't just break it. He smashed it apart and used the shards to wreak havoc on the units behind it.
Down in the Forge-Shadows, the slaughter between the two sides had reached the climax.
Vane was no longer a man; he was a massacre in motion. His bones were fractured in many places, and his left eyeball had popped out from a concussive blast, hanging by a thread of red muscle against his soot-stained cheek. He didn't seem to notice. He was in a dream of fierce slaughter.
"YOU WANT A PIECE OF THE FORGE?" Vane roared, his smile of disdain fixed on his face.
He grabbed an Un-Woven captain who was intensely struggling to escape. Vane didn't use his hammer. He used his bare hands to peel the skin ruthlessly from the captain's chest, revealing ribs that were already reduced to dust by the "Logic-Vibration."
Vane smashed him down ruthlessly, the body bursting against the iron floor until it was nothing but meat paste.
"SILAS! THE CORE!" Vane screamed, coughing out a breath of turbid air.
Silas was in the miserable state of a dying god. He was plugged directly into the World-Tree's failing nervous system, his indigo form cracked and bleeding from the internal pressure of a billion "Deletion-Commands."
"I... I can't hold the 'Noise'!" Silas wailed, his skull nearly fractured from the feedback. "The Peers are bombarding the registry! They're trying to 'Standardize' the children, Vane! They're turning their flesh and blood into dust!"
"THEN GIVE 'EM THE DUST!" Vane roared, charging forward into a fresh line of attackers. "IF THEY WANT THE MATH, GIVE 'EM THE REMAINDERS!"
Vane smashed apart a pylon and threw it with enormous force, the iron spear piercing into the chaotic battle and impaling four lunatics against a cooling-tower. He laughed malevolently as the tower collapsed, burying them in a blood river of scalding grease.
Up in the leisurely aerial battle of the super-void, Daxian was unhindered by his own mortality.
His flesh was split, and his bones jutted out from his shoulders like jagged wings of ivory. Every time a silver-light beam hit him, he suffered huge damage, but he simply racked his brains to "Mimic" the pain and throw it back.
He reached the "Command-Needle" of the Peers.
Standing on the hull of the marble ship was Eirene. She no longer looked like a girl. She was a lunatic of order, her white dress now a shroud of silver-fire, her gaze blood red with the profundity of the Eighth Architecture.
"You are intensely struggling for a world that has already perished, Daxian!" she shrieked, her hand bombarding him with a wave of "Absolute-Definition."
Daxian crashed heavily into the hull, the enormous shock forming a deep pit in the marble. His skull exploded on one side, grey matter and flesh reduced to dust raining down into the void.
But Daxian didn't perish.
He gritted his teeth, a smile of disdain forming on his mangled face. He charged forward from the pit, his bones fractured but his perseverance unrivaled.
"You think... I care... about the 'whole'?" Daxian wheezed, coughing out blood that sizzled against the marble.
He grabbed Eirene's throat with his meat-arm. The enormous piercing of his fingers into her conceptual neck caused her silver light to crack and bleed.
"I am the Sovereign of Rot!" Daxian hissed, his smile malevolent. "And I'm going to smash apart your 'Perfect Table' until there's nothing left but the soot!"
He smashed her down ruthlessly against the hull. Again. And again.
With every strike, Daxian's own bones were fractured further, his eyeballs popped out from the G-force, but he laughed madly. He was slaughtering the very idea of a "Negotiator." He peeled the skin ruthlessly from her silver form, revealing the cold, hollow logic beneath.
"IS THIS YOUR EMPATHY?" Daxian screamed, smashing mercilessly into her chest until her bones were reduced to dust.
Eirene's form perished in a burst of silver static, but as she dissolved, she let out a miserable neighing sound.
"The... Peers... will... not... stop..."
"Neither... will... I," Daxian whispered, crashing heavily onto the deck as the needle-ship began to wreak havoc on its own internal systems.
The city below was a chaotic battle situation.
The slaughter had moved into the residential sectors. The residents of New Oakhaven, led by Kael, were slaughtering each other in a frenzy of survival. Kael himself was filled with injuries, his skin opened and flesh split, but he was charging forward with a pipe, smashing down ruthlessly on any Un-Woven who tried to reach the children.
"FOR THE ERROR!" Kael roared, his bones fractured in his legs, yet he stood.
The enormous shock of the needle-ship's explosion in the sky sent a wave of turbid air through the city. The blood river in the plaza overflowed, carrying the corpses of a thousand ghosts toward the roots of the World-Tree.
Daxian fell from the sky.
He crashed heavily into the ground, the enormous force creating a crater that filled instantly with meat paste and shattered bones. He lay there, a miserable state of a god, his flesh and blood reduced to dust in most places.
Vane and Silas crawled toward the pit. They were filled with injuries, their bones jutting out, their gaze blood red.
"Dax..." Vane wheezed, coughing out blood.
Daxian didn't seem to notice them. He was staring at the silver sky, which was now turning a bruised, turbid purple. He curled up his lips and laughed malevolently, the sound a miserable neighing in the silence of the massacre.
"We... fixed... the pipes..." Daxian whispered.
He looked at his meat-arm. It was dissolving. The flesh and blood were returning to the mud. He was reduced to dust, a miserable state of a man who had won a war by losing everything.
Ambition is a hunger that can never be satisfied by a 'Result.' It only lives in the 'Slaughter.' I have turned the Eighth Architecture into a 'Grave,' and I have turned my 'Fact' into a 'Calamity.' The Peers will rack their brains to understand why a man would choose the 'Rot' over the 'Sun.' They will never understand. Because they have never felt the 'Soot' between their toes.
Daxian gritted his teeth, his smile of disdain directed at the stars.
"I am... the Weaver..." he whispered, as his skull finally exploded from the internal pressure of the "Noise."
He crashed heavily into the final silence, his bones fractured, his skin opened, his ambition unhindered even in the face of the perish.
The Heavenly Tribulation was over. The Earthly Calamity had settled.
And in the blood river of New Oakhaven, the Sovereign of Rot finally closed his blood red eyes.