Chương 19: The God Of Nothing

Butter's smile lingered for a moment after Katherine's question faded away, then softened just enough. The Talons hadn't deployed the suppression field immediately. They had fought her first, tested her, measured her. Only afterward had they decided that magic needed to go. That wasn't standard escalation. Her fingers tightened slightly around the gummy worm. They must have seen something - a fragment, a glimpse, something from the Red State.

The thought sent a chill through her stomach as a memory surfaced, uninvited. It seeped upward from somewhere deep and unwanted. That day. The day she had surrendered. Even now, it didn't feel real. It felt like recalling a dream, one of those nightmares where you watch yourself commit terrible acts from behind your own eyes, unable to wake and unable to stop. The galaxy had been unraveling around her.

Stars dimmed, worlds folded inward, entire civilizations disappeared between moments, and none of it mattered to what she had become. The Red State had consumed everything except a single impulse. More. More destruction. More suffering. More reasons to keep moving. She remembered drifting through the void, searching endlessly for life, for something to hurt. Then she smelled him. Butter froze. The reaction irritated her immediately. Scent should have been impossible out here.

There was no atmosphere, no air, nothing through which smell could travel, yet it reached her anyway. Bergamot. Gunpowder. The faint trace of expensive tobacco smoked decades ago and somehow still lingering in the fabric. The scent settled over the void with quiet certainty, as though reality had simply decided distance no longer mattered. Butter slowly turned her head. A sigh escaped her lips. That unsettled her more than she cared to admit. She hadn't sensed his presence. Something cold coiled inside her chest.

She could feel galaxies resting. Civilizations breathed half a universe away, and she heard every one. She perceived the shadows cast by planets that no longer existed. Yet he had appeared without the slightest warning. It was as though he occupied a category her senses had never been designed to perceive, a gap in reality so profound that its very absence became impossible to ignore. Then she saw him. Lucien. Far above her, motionless and watching. The sight alone made something inside her recoil.

He floated in open space with the effortless composure of a man waiting for a delayed appointment. His suit was dark burgundy, tailored so precisely it seemed less manufactured than personally approved by reality itself. Black shoes reflected distant starlight like polished obsidian. A thin striped tie rested perfectly against a snow-white shirt whose fabric probably cost more than planetary economies. A tortoise-shaped brooch gleamed softly from his lapel.

The metal was unfamiliar, rarer than gold or platinum, the sort of material collectors would topple empires to obtain. Everything about him radiated impossible expense. The quiet certainty of someone who could purchase civilizations, forget he owned them, and never notice the expenditure. His blond hair drifted gently despite the complete absence of wind, and his eyes were cold blue, calm, and utterly certain. Butter remembered scowling.

Remembered her body twitching with a microscopic movement, an instinctive preparation to either attack or flee. She never figured out which. Lucien noticed. Of course he noticed. Floating beside him was a pearlescent white drone roughly the size of a basketball. Its smooth chassis shimmered with shifting iridescence, while intricate fractal patterns flowed across its surface like living mathematics etched into polished ceramic.

A single blue lens occupied its center, glowing softly as it hovered at Lucien's shoulder with perfect stillness. It made no sound, emitted no visible propulsion, and somehow managed to feel just as expensive as everything else about him. Neither master nor machine acknowledged the other's presence. The drone simply drifted beside him, as though it had always belonged there. Lucien's gaze lowered slightly, the way a professor might acknowledge a student raising a hand, and then he spoke.

His voice crossed the vacuum without distortion, as though the universe had briefly agreed that the rules surrounding sound were optional.

"That's quite peculiar." His eyes remained fixed on hers.

"You observed a possibility and selected motion." A brief pause followed.

"What conclusion led you to believe that was a productive decision?" Butter snarled. The stars around her dimmed, and the void itself began to shift. The blue lens of the drone rotated toward her. Lucien simply waited. The darkness around Butter thickened. Shadows stretched where no light source existed, and entire worlds disappeared beneath expanding curtains of black. Perdendosi. It was one of the few techniques that still unsettled her. Even in her normal state, she hated using it.

The shadows of planets stretched impossibly long, then began to move. Darkness beneath continents rose like living mouths. Oceans disappeared first, followed by mountains and then the worlds themselves, swallowed by their own shadows. Their victims remained aware throughout the process, scattered across infinity and dragged endlessly through an ocean of separation where distance no longer held meaning. There was no death, no release, only eternal disassembly. In the Red State, shadows were no longer necessary.

The void itself became one. Space darkened. The black between galaxies deepened. Emptiness opened, and the universe tried to eat him. Entire regions of existence folded inward as Perdendosi spread through the vacuum, a technique capable of consuming gods, worlds, concepts, and anything else unfortunate enough to exist. Lucien merely watched. A faint hum came from a small device pinned beneath his tie, pale blue lights pulsing across its surface.

Beside him, the pearlescent drone hovered silently, its singular blue lens fixed on the approaching darkness. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. The attack reached him. Passed over him. Continued beyond him. Nothing happened. The void consumed stars, galaxies, and entire structures of reality, yet around Lucien remained a small, perfectly ordinary absence, as though the attack had quietly concluded that he existed outside its authority.

The device beneath his tie emitted a soft chime. He raised one wrist and tapped the face of his watch. A series of microscopic glyphs flickered beneath the crystal before disappearing. The gesture felt oddly mundane, as though he were cataloguing a museum exhibit rather than standing at the center of an attack capable of erasing dieties. Only then did his attention return to Butter. The drone's blue lens brightened slightly.

"Spectacular." His gaze drifted toward the collapsing darkness.

"Your technique appears to define all things as objects capable of displacement." A brief pause followed.

"An elegant premise." Those cold blue eyes returned to her.

"It simply contains no provision for me." The Red State roared. Entire star systems exploded as Butter lunged. Reality cracked. An infinite weight pressed against her. The calamity of his presence alone caused vast expanses of galaxies to buckle beneath the strain. It wasn't physical. It was contextual, the crushing sensation of encountering something impossibly greater than yourself. Butter staggered through space. Lucien spoke. His voice crossed the vacuum as though space itself had forgotten its obligation.

"For what purpose did you just attempt to move?" The words settled over her. They carried neither menace nor anger, only curiosity.

"Why would you even consider the option of attacking, or fleeing?" His expression never changed.

"Do you not think you're already seized in my grasp?" Something beneath the Red State finally stirred. Buried beneath oceans of madness, she remembered forcing words through clenched teeth. The voice that emerged barely sounded like her own. Hoarse. Agitated. Yet disturbingly articulate. Her dark eyes fixed upon him.

"If your intellect is truly so vast, then release me." The galaxy trembled around her. Entire star systems were already unraveling beneath the pressure of her existence.

"Do you possess might because you are genuinely superior... or merely because you remain uncontested?" Her lip curled.

"You bind my hands. You shackle my power. Then you stand above me and think yourself strong." Space distorted around her as the Red State strained against itself.

"That is not supremacy, Lucien Sinclair. That is convenience." For the first time, genuine hostility entered her voice.

"You limit me, then lecture me from a position you manufactured yourself." Her gaze never left those cold blue eyes.

"You are the god of nothing." The darkness surrounding her churned.

"Restore me to the totality of my power." His gaze lingered on her.

"Then we shall discover whether your confidence is wisdom... or merely the absence of challenge." The corners of her mouth twitched upward into something that wasn't quite a smile.

"Prove your strength to me." Her pupils widened further.

"Or remain silent." Lucien regarded her for a second. Then he casually waved a hand. Everything changed. The limits vanished. Every restraint placed upon the prosthetic evaporated. Every seal, every governor, every safeguard disappeared at once. The power hit her like a tidal wave. Butter remembered nearly screaming. It wasn't pain. It was scale. The sudden realization of what she had been carrying all this time, what had been hidden, what had been deliberately kept asleep. Reality seemed to shrink.

Galaxies felt fragile. She could scoop universes into her hand like sand without effort, something she might crush accidentally. The sensation was overwhelming. Butter's form flickered. For an instant she existed across multiple layers of reality at once. She saw herself as a flat shape stretched across endless two-dimensional planes. She saw higher-dimensional geometries folding through her body like impossible origami.

Time ceased to behave like a river and revealed itself as a vast structure extending in every direction, every moment of her life visible simultaneously. Past. Present. Future. All of them existed together. Galaxies became patterns. Universes became equations. Entire timelines branched and intertwined like roots beneath the soil of existence. She could see causal chains stretching backward into forgotten beginnings and forward into futures that had never happened. Space lost its meaning. Distance lost its meaning.

Even identity began to blur at the edges. For a heartbeat, Butter perceived reality from perspectives her mind had never been built to contain. She saw existence layered atop itself in countless dimensions, every version equally real, every possibility occupying its own place within an incomprehensibly vast structure. Then her consciousness snapped back toward something resembling normal perception. The experience lasted less than a second. It felt longer than eternity.

"You have the power now." Lucien's tone remained perfectly calm.

"Run or attack." The stars reflected in his blue eyes.

"Choose." Butter's body trembled. Muscles strained. Veins stood out beneath her skin. Every instinct screamed alongside every fragment of pride and rage she still possessed. Lucien tilted his head.

"I tell you again, Elizabeth Paris, attack me if you will." Her true name. Her full name. Silence settled over the universe. Butter chose. She collapsed into existence elsewhere, appearing within an alternate universe of her own making, a place accessible only to her. Anything else attempting to enter would collapse into incomprehensible jargon, stripped apart by rules that existed nowhere else. She relaxed. The pressure was gone. The weight of Lucien's presence unraveled. The stars here were hers.

The laws were hers. Every particle, every dimension, every possibility answered to her alone. The silence felt wonderful. Then she laughed. A genuine laugh. A hand touched her shoulder. Butter sprang back so fast the space she occupied emptied before thought could catch up. Entire constellations shattered beneath the violence of her reaction. Lucien stood behind her.

"Did you not think I could reach you in an instant?" Something had changed. Silver-rimmed glasses now rested on his face, catching reflections from realities that shouldn't have existed. Butter was certain he hadn't been wearing them a moment ago. For a moment neither spoke. Then Butter laughed. The sound carried no amusement.

"Reach me? What an unfortunate decision." The stars dimmed.

"Lucien, you misunderstand your circumstances." She spread her arms. Entire galaxies rotated at her whim. Dimensions folded around one another like pages within a book. Across the horizon, entire universes unfolded like blossoms opening beneath sunlight.

"This realm exists beyond the reach of all but its creator." Her gaze locked onto his.

"You stand within the center of my authority." The space around her darkened.

"You cannot harm me here." The words carried the weight of law itself.

"Indeed, I suspect this place shall become your grave. Do not fret. Your demise shall be swift." Lucien regarded her quietly. Then he flicked his wrist. Something unfolded into existence. Metal expanded from impossible angles. Components assembled themselves from nowhere. Mechanisms clicked together with surgical precision. A shotgun appeared in his hand. Its frame was impossibly advanced, forged from dark alloys threaded with faint blue circuitry and geometries that seemed to shift whenever observed directly.

A low hum emerged from the weapon, carrying the sound of frayed destinies unraveling at the edges of creation. Butter flinched. The movement happened before she could stop it. Lucien tilted his head. Behind the silver-rimmed glasses, his expression remained unchanged.

"I thought you had just informed me that you could not be harmed here." The weapon hummed softly between them.

"Why then, I ask, did you flinch just now?" Silence settled across the universe. Butter stared at the shotgun. Then at him. And despite herself, she knew the answer. Lucien knew it too. The question had never been asked because he required clarification. It had been asked because he had already observed the result. He adjusted his silver-rimmed glasses, with complete sincerity, he raised the shotgun slightly.

"Let us conduct a simple experiment." The stars reflected in the lenses.

"You unleash your strongest attack." The weapon's hum deepened.

"I shall unleash mine." The stars drifted overhead.

"One of us will survive. One of us will die." His expression never changed.

"I am willing to accept those odds." The shotgun remained perfectly steady in his hand.

"Are you?" The weapon hummed softly. Butter remembered staring at him. Remembered hatred burning through every nerve. Remembered wanting nothing more than to tear him apart. And knowing. Knowing with absolute certainty that she couldn't, because Lucien sounded exactly like a man who had already calculated the outcome and found it acceptable. The realization broke something inside her. Her body sagged. The last thread of resistance snapped.

The lights within her prosthetic flickered red twice, violet once, then settled into blue. Her consciousness slipped away. The last thing she remembered was Lucien moving. He neither walked nor teleported. He simply appeared beside her in fragments of drifting pixels, as though reality had briefly forgotten where he belonged. Then strong arms caught her before she fell. And carried her away. The memory dissolved.

Butter blinked, and the chamber returned: rows of sleeping pods, Katherine, the lingering scent of smoke and melted metal, and a half-eaten gummy worm in her hand. Slowly, she exhaled. If the Talons had seen even a fraction of that memory, then deploying the suppression field suddenly made a lot more sense. She just hoped they hadn't seen anything else. Butter exhaled slowly. The Red State was behind her. Mostly. At least, that was what she told herself.

These days she operated at roughly fifty percent of her full capacity. It wasn't a limitation imposed by weakness, nor by the prosthetic. It was simply the highest level she could sustain while remaining herself. Any further and the line began to blur. Thought became impulse. Restraint became inconvenience. Innocent lives became collateral damage. She had learned that lesson the hard way. Fifty percent was manageable. Let her choose. Let her live with the things she'd done.

The remaining half existed behind a door she rarely allowed herself to touch, a vast reservoir of power that carried the constant risk of awakening something she had spent years trying to bury. Still, she'd come a long way. There had been a time when merely surviving the Red State for a few seconds felt impossible. Now she could stand at its edge, stare into the abyss of her own madness, and walk away again. Most days, anyway. For now, fifty percent would have to do.