The bark is meat, the sap is gall,
To watch the golden empires fall.
A rib of iron, a lung of vine,
To turn the water into wine.
The weaver wakes within the rot,
To claim the life that was forgot.
For in the stitching of the vein,
The only god is primal pain.
The silence that followed the explosion of the Peer's needle-ship was not peaceful. It was a miserable neighing sound of a dying reality. The Heavenly Tribulation had passed, leaving New Oakhaven as a miserable state of blackened iron and meat paste.
Daxian lay at the bottom of the deep pit, his bones shattered and his flesh and blood reduced to dust. His skull was partially exploded, and one of his eyeballs had popped out, resting against the cold, silver-stained mud of the plaza. He was unhindered by life, a corpse among corpses in a blood river that refused to stop flowing.
"Dax..." Vane's voice was a miserable neighing rasp.
The Lord of the Forge crawled toward the edge of the crater, his own bones fractured in many places, his skin opened and flesh split until he looked like a flayed animal. He gritted his teeth, a smile of disdain flickering on his lips as he saw the massacre around him.
"Don't you... dare... perish..." Vane wheezed, coughing out a breath of turbid air.
Beside him, Silas was intensely struggling. The Grand Chronicler's indigo form was cracked and bleeding, his gaze so blood red that it seemed to burn the very air. He reached out with a trembling hand, trying to "Sync" with Daxian's fading signal.
"There's nothing left!" Silas wailed, his skull nearly fractured from the mental feedback. "His ambition... it's the only thing still vibrating! His flesh is reduced to dust, but his 'Noise' is wreaking havoc on the local registry!"
Deep within the mud and shattered bones, Daxian was in a dream of fierce slaughter.
He didn't see the silver sky. He saw the Root-Directory. He saw the World-Tree—not as a ship or a building, but as a hungry organism. The Tree was intensely struggling to survive the enormous shock of the Peers' logic-bomb. It needed a "Core." It needed "Marrow."
Daxian's expressionless and scattered consciousness reached out.
"Death is just a 'Formatting-Error' for those who are afraid of the dark. But for the Weaver, death is a 'Resource.' If my body is meat paste, I will use the meat. If my bones are reduced to dust, I will use the dust. I will not perish until the 'Math' itself is dead."
The World-Tree's roots, black and slick with the blood river, began to slither into the pit. They didn't grow around Daxian; they pierced into his skin and flesh. The thorns smashed down ruthlessly into his open wounds, peeling the skin ruthlessly to find the neural-connections beneath.
Daxian's bones jutted out of the body, snapping as the wood forced its way into his marrow. He laughed malevolently in the dark of his own mind, a smile of disdain for the physics that tried to hold him.
[PROTOCOL: NECROTIC-RESURRECTION.]
Outside, the plaza began to vibrate with an enormous force.
The meat paste and shattered bones of the thousands of fallen Un-Woven began to swirl. The blood river didn't flow away; it was sucked into the deep pit with an enormous piercing sound.
"WHAT IS HE DOING?" Kael screamed from the shadows of the Forge, his own skin opened from the earlier blast.
Kael watched in a dumbstruck expression as the crater became a chaotic battle situation of biological matter. The corpses of the lunatics were being smashed apart, their flesh and blood reduced to dust and drawn into the center.
Daxian rose.
He didn't stand up like a man. He charged forward out of the pit as a Sovereign of Rot.
His right side was no longer human. A massive, towering structure of black iron-wood and pulsing red sinew had burst from his shoulder. His skull was partially exploded, but the gap was now filled with a glowing, violet crystal of "Pure-Noise." His eyeballs had popped out, but in their place were twin pits of blood red fire that saw the "Profundity" of every soul in the city.
Daxian laughed madly, a smile malevolent carved into his new, wooden face.
"I... am... the Calamity!" Daxian roared, the sound an enormous shock that sent a wave of turbid air across the city, shattering the remaining glass-windows in a fierce slaughter.
The Peers in the Eighth Architecture didn't wait.
They saw the Necrotic Resurrection. They saw the "Error" become a Sovereign.
From the silver clouds, three more needle-ships descended, moving with lightning speed. They didn't send a negotiator. They sent The First Principle—a "Law-Architect" made of Absolute-Logic, his form a towering pillar of white fire and geometric wings.
"DAXIAN," the Principle spoke, the voice an enormous piercing that caused Daxian's new wooden bones to fracture. "YOU HAVE TURNED THE 'ARCHIVE' INTO A GRAVEYARD. YOU HAVE BECOME A LUNATIC TAKING RISKS WITH THE VERY FABRIC OF EXISTENCE. YOU MUST PERISH."
"I have already perished!" Daxian screamed, coughing out blood that was now thick and black like tar.
He charged forward, his new meat-and-wood arm smashing down ruthlessly on the lead needle-ship. The enormous force of the blow smashed apart the silver-light shields, peeling the skin ruthlessly off the ship's hull until the "Absolute Logic" was exposed.
Daxian wreaked havoc.
He slammed mercilessly into the ships, his bones jutting out and piercing the marble-like hulls. He was unhindered by the silver beams that bombarded his chest. Every time a beam tore his flesh split, he simply racked his brains to draw more meat paste from the city below to heal the wound.
"VANE! THE HARVEST!" Daxian roared, his gaze blood red.
Vane stood up, his unrivaled spirit reignited. He grabbed a massive iron pylon and charged forward into the chaotic battle situation. He smashed down ruthlessly on a group of Logic-Drones that were trying to stabilize the sky.
"YOU HEARD THE BOSS!" Vane screamed, his bones fractured but his grip iron. "IF IT BREATHES, SLAUGHTER IT! IF IT'S MATH, SMASH IT!"
Vane smashed apart a drone, the enormous force sending silver shrapnel through the air, piercing into skin and flesh of the nearby Un-Woven. He laughed malevolently, his smile of disdain aimed at the First Principle.
The slaughter between the two sides reached the climax.
The blood river in the plaza was now a whirlpool of flesh and blood. Daxian and the First Principle were locked in a leisurely aerial battle that was anything but leisurely. It was a massacre of concepts.
The Principle smashed down ruthlessly with a sword of "Pure-Definition."
Daxian took the hit full in the face. His skull exploded again, the violet crystal shattering, flesh and blood reduced to dust. He crashed heavily into the ground, forming a new deep pit.
"Miserable," the Principle said, his white-fire wings unhindered by the soot.
Daxian lay in the meat paste, his eyeballs popped out, his bones fractured in many places. He looked like a miserable state of defeat.
But as the Principle descended to deliver the final massacre, Daxian curled up his lips and laughed malevolently.
"You... forgot... the Soot," Daxian whispered, coughing out a breath of turbid air.
Daxian didn't use the World-Tree. He used the "Errors."
He reached out to every resident of New Oakhaven—every Kael, every Elio, every cracked Aurelian. He didn't ask for their "Permission." He asked for their "Spite."
A billion "Small-Mistakes" suddenly flooded the First Principle's "Absolute Logic."
The white-fire wings began to crack and bleed. The geometric armor began to peel ruthlessly, revealing the hollow vacuum beneath. The Principle's skull nearly fractured from the sheer weight of "Human-Inconsistency."
"WHAT... IS... THIS?" the Principle shrieked, his voice a miserable neighing.
"This is the Right to be Broken!" Daxian roared, charging forward from the pit with enormous force.
He grabbed the Principle's head with his meat-hand. He smashed mercilessly into the fire, his own bones jutting out to anchor the kill.
"PERISH!" Daxian screamed.
The enormous shock of the Principle's explosion sent a blood river of silver-and-red data across the super-void. The needle-ships smashed apart, their flesh and blood reduced to dust as they fell back into the Abyss.
Daxian stood on the edge of the crater, his unrivaled spirit flickering. He was filled with injuries. His skull was exploded, his skin opened, his bones fractured. He was a miserable state of a god, but he was the only god left.
He looked at the surviving residents, who were staring at him with dumbstruck expressions of horror and awe.
"Fix... the... pipes," Daxian whispered, coughing out blood.
He crashed heavily into the mud, his blood red eyes finally closing as the silence settling slowly over the massacre.
The First Principle is dead. The Eighth Architecture is bleeding. I have turned my 'Fact' into a 'Calamity' that even the Peers cannot solve. But I am no longer a man. I am the Rot itself. And the Rot... the Rot never stops growing.
Daxian's bones fractured one last time as he sank into the meat paste of the World-Tree's roots.
The War of the Error was just beginning.