The sky is a mirror that's starting to crack,
To show us the shadows that never come back.
A lung full of silver, a throat full of dust,
To pay for the iron that's turned into rust.
The weaver is kneeling, the weaver is low,
To watch the last seeds of the bitterness grow.
For in the correction of muscle and bone,
The only true harvest is what we have known.
The air in New Oakhaven had changed. It was no longer a breath of turbid air; it was a Logic-Plague.
The Peers had realized that smashed apart ships and shattered bones were only fueling the Weaver's "Noise." So, they had sent a Final Solution that didn't use an enormous force. They had sent the Silence. It was a microscopic, silver mist that drifted through the streets with lightning speed, settling on everything like a fine, clinical frost.
Wherever the mist touched, the flesh and blood were reduced to dust without a sound. A man would reach for a wrench, and his fingers would simply... perish. No scream. No blood river. Just a miserable state of non-existence.
Daxian sat on the edge of the Sun-Eater's ramp, his body filled with injuries, his skin opened and flesh split. His right side was a miserable state of black-wood and meat paste, the bones jutting out of the body to anchor the necrotic growth. His skull was partially exploded, and he looked at the city with blood red eyes that saw the "Standardization" creeping through the shadows.
"They aren't fighting us, Vane," Daxian whispered, coughing out blood that turned to silver powder before it hit the mud. "They're 'Optimizing' the oxygen. They're turning the very act of breathing into a massacre."
"I can... feel it, Dax," Vane grunted.
The Lord of the Forge was a miserable state of a man. His brass skin was peeled ruthlessly by the mist, revealing a massacre of raw nerves and fractured bones. He gritted his teeth, a laugh malevolent escaping his throat as he watched his own forearm crack and bleed silver light.
"My forge... it's going cold," Vane rasped, his gaze so blood red it was difficult to stare at it directly. "The fire doesn't want to burn. The math says 'Heat' is an 'Inefficiency'."
The Fighting Scene: The War Against the Air
The slaughter reached the climax when the mist reached the lower clinics.
Kael was standing over Elio, his bones fractured, his skin opened. He saw the silver frost creeping across his son's bandages. He didn't have a needle-ship to fight. He had the air.
"STAY BACK!" Kael roared, smashing down ruthlessly with a heavy, soot-stained blanket.
He was intensely struggling to keep the "Cleanliness" away from his boy. He racked his brains, grabbing a bucket of dirty, used engine-oil and flinging it into the air. The oil hit the silver mist and created a chaotic battle situation. The "Absolute Logic" of the mist tried to "Format" the oil, but the grease was too thick, too "Noisy," too broken.
"VANE! THE GREASE!" Kael screamed, coughing out a breath of turbid air.
Up on the ship, Vane heard the cry. He charged forward across the deck, his bones jutting out, his eyeballs popped out from the internal pressure of the "Noise." He didn't grab his hammer. He grabbed the Sovereign-Vats of the Sun-Eater's biological waste.
"YOU WANT... TO... CLEAN... US?" Vane roared, laughing malevolently.
He slammed mercilessly into the release-valves. An enormous shock sent a tidal wave of meat paste, cooling-grease, and flesh and blood into the city's ventilation system. It was an enormous force of "Soot."
The silver mist shrieked—a high-pitched, miserable neighing sound that shattered the remaining glass in the plaza. The "Absolute Logic" was being bombarded by "Filth." The Logic-Plague couldn't calculate the "Function" of a blood river mixed with industrial sludge.
Daxian rose from the ramp, his unrivaled spirit flaring. He was a lunatic taking risks, his skull exploded, his flesh and blood reduced to dust.
He charged forward into the silver mist, his meat-arm smashing apart the "Perfect-Air." He was unhindered by the silver frost that tried to peel his skin ruthlessly. He laughed madly, a smile of disdain for the Peers who thought "Purity" was a weapon.
"I... AM... THE... STAIN!" Daxian roared, his voice an enormous piercing of the silence.
He slammed mercilessly into the central "Emitter-Node" that the Peers had hidden in the clouds. It was a sphere of pure, silver light that was wreaking havoc on the city's reality. Daxian grabbed it with his meat-hand, his bones fracturing as the "Absolute Logic" tried to format his marrow.
"PERISH!" the Node spoke, an enormous force of silver light smashing apart Daxian's wooden ribs.
Daxian crashed heavily into the ground, the impact forming a deep pit of meat paste. His eyeballs popped out, his skin was opened, his flesh reduced to dust. He lay there, a miserable state of a god, but he gritted his teeth and laughed malevolently.
He reached into the blood river of the sludge Vane had released. He smeared the meat paste and the soot across the silver sphere.
"Math... can't... solve... grit," Daxian whispered, coughing out blood.
The sphere cracked and bled violet light. The "Absolute Logic" was smashed apart by the "Human-Inconsistency" of the filth. The enormous shock of its destruction sent a wave of turbid air across the Abyss, turning the silver sky back into a bruised, broken purple.
The massacre was over. The Logic-Plague had been slaughtered by the Soot.
Daxian stood in the deep pit, his body filled with injuries, his bones jutting out, his skull exploded. He looked at the residents of New Oakhaven. They were covered in grease. They were covered in mud. They were covered in the flesh and blood of their own survival.
They looked like lunatics. They looked like errors.
They looked alive.
Kael walked up to the edge of the pit, holding Elio. The boy was covered in black oil, but his feet were no longer silver. He was flesh and blood.
"We're... filthy, Architect," Kael said, a smile of disdain for the clean sky on his face.
"Filth... is... the... only... Permanence," Daxian wheezed, crashing heavily into the mud.
Vane and Silas crawled toward him. They were miserable states of survival, their bones fractured, their gaze blood red.
"Dax... you... reduced the Peers to dust," Vane whispered, coughing out blood.
Daxian looked at his nebula-hand. It was human again. It was covered in soot.
The Sovereignty of the Soot is the only 'Law' that survives. I have slaughtered the light, and I have turned the dark into a home. The Peers will rack their brains to understand why we choose to be 'Ugly.' They will never know. Because a 'Fact' is a 'Stain' that no 'Eraser' can touch.
Daxian gritted his teeth, his blood red eyes closing as the silence settling slowly over the Republic of the Broken.
"Fix... the... pipes," he whispered, as the World-Tree began to grow once more, its roots thick with the Soot of the Unrivaled Spirit.