But none of this mattered, showing Tyr the defining principles of the theory of evolution was not the point. The point was the fact that the dao was responsible for everything. Cold and uncaring as to beggar belief, it shaped and slaughtered untold masses, its children ending ancient civilizations on infinite worlds, all on less than a whim. There was no criminal, no mass murder, no genocide. That couldn't be, because the dao was above it.

To be formless and amoral, it was a sword that anyone could wield should they the strength to lift it. Abstract...

It was dao, and dao defined the laws of everything so absolutely that it was above something as flawed as human sensibilities. A mine-shaft collapses and kills a miner, was it the mountain's fault? No, it was the man who built the shaft, but ultimately there was nothing anyone could say or do to lay blame on anything else. Everything was imperfect, and those imperfections were only exacerbated through attempts to remove them. Yet they were responsible for life, the man in the mine shaft wouldn't exist at all without it. Duality. And so on and so forth, it went, and would continue forever until the cycle collapsed on itself and it began again.

Tyr had thought himself a god – and he wasn't technically wrong... He could see it, all things came from something and before the dao a 'god' was no more significant than the smallest particle ever devised. Thinking that he was immutable, eternal. He was – really and truly a part of that kind of being. But eternity was an ant compared to this thing that rules everything. There was no word for it. Even he would have an end, when time ceased to be. One day, perhaps from his prism of a quintillion years that was less than a nanosecond to the intelligence above – everything as he knew it would no longer exist.

The lessons were many. A consideration of insignificance, mostly, but he saw the fire and it saw him. The fire of suns and at the core of the earth, watching him intently even as he watched the seeds planted by its children throughout the universe. Nothing was finished, this was that eternal labor known as the 'ordering', that which the earthly gods feared. And while the dao was blameless, given that it couldn't think, that was not true of the gods defined by the cycle.

These 'gods', for lack of a better word, the first among them to start it all, primordial titans that grew in scope and personality as their own creations began to develop base and primordial instinct. They learned, slowly but surely, and became thinking beings. And their thoughts were beyond any relatable concept of horror. One would expect their making and breaking simply to be, but it wasn't. They hated, both sides of the cosmos hated everything, even themselves. They couldn't stand it, existence – cast to deny imperfection and that is what had driven them to madness, but they weren't so intelligent as to know why. Neither was Tyr.

There was only rage and pain. No love for their creations, and a hunger to devour all in an attempt to complete the grand work that kept them bound forever. So they'd made more, cosmic custodians that were far more relatable to the modern concept of an actual deity. Risen up from the masses of flawed creations and given more form than the rest.

The twelve. Twelve true, whole energy constructs capable of... Not thought, not yet. But they would get there, once again via their own flaws. These were imperfect too, they had to be. Imperfection begat more of its ilk, it could do nothing different.

The Truth. Ryu, Mimir, Arkon , and the nameless one of who's name none have ever spoken. They who define, and make things real – law and order. Stillness.

The Shapers. Odyn, Tyr, Samael, Valkyrja. Those who sit between law and chaos to make with it a thing that might be real. The architects who govern the cycle.

The Dreamers. Moth, Yog, Taaloth, Banuag. Those who paint and weave possibility – the realm of chaos and change incarnate. Everything was their domain, the great inventors, through the prism of unceasing madness.

Three houses with four faces each, before these had even been their names – they were nothing more than objectives given form. One to make, one to shape, and one to dream. Those who imagined what 'clay' was, those who made it real, and the hands that shaped it into the amphora, a form of purpose that it could be used.

They were cast from the same mold as living things, and the first ones, those made of dao, could not make more things of dao. Unfortunately for the primordial entities governing the universe, these flawed creations of theirs weren't so easily erased, purged of their impurity. Though they were in vast numbers erased by their creators – there were too many.

Tyr in particular. Him. Tyr. The shard of that being he was, godslayer, the very concept of nothing, of endless quiet, had taken his mothers and fathers by their throats and ripped them apart. A murderer not only on the earthly scale, but also the cosmic. Born to bring and end, and so he had, cleaving down these titans so as to set the structure by which the modern universe was built.

And they, in turn, created more. Leading to another great struggle, and the high ones were the victors yet again, because they had Tyr. The most insignificant and yet most powerful of them all in that context, devouring what did not need to exist. An unthinking monstrosity of a maw prowling the universe in search of anything imperfect, and as the Tyr today had learned... All things were.

A virus that spanned the universe, the cancer that broke the backs of fundamental law. Utilizing the powers given to them to turn back the tide and devour their makers as their makers had attempted to do with them. Breaking from the first ordering and splitting the single cosmos into so many little pieces, the planes. All infinitely large, but distinctly separated for the first time.

The plot had apparently lost the point it was trying to make as Tyr's perspective changed yet again. Just as a figure bedecked in golden armor, six wings at his back, taking flight to shatter the uneven circle with a finality.

Generating barriers between two major planes and claiming one as his own. The high one, the highest of high and the first, though Tyr knew not his name or what this god must have represented. Balance by the looks of it, but he could only guess at it. A god of order who had created chaos by his own hand, seeing its necessity, the first to do so. The first to think and know. Representing that duality though he, or it, had no command over the dao as his broken forebears had.

Prime gods, twelve left and the many that would come later, again borne of their own flaws. A great betrayal that was no such thing, more mistakes that wormed their way into the makeup of reality. The cycle unceasing, but 'God' as it were... Was dead.

“It's a lot... Isn't it?” Tyr found himself in a simple room, it was so underwhelming that it shocked his system after what he'd seen. Stone walls of a humble living area, warmed by a similarly humble hearth set in the center of the floor. It's roof sloped up and opened to the sky in order to allow the smoke egress, an ancient style before chimneys had been invented. Northern in make, with thick timbers and furs all around, a bed of straw and a kettle boiling gentle above the cherried coals about the hearthfire.

He turned to face the voice, meeting the familiar eyes of Varinn, seated at a sturdy wooden table with a drinking horn in hand. The man looked just the same as Tyr remembered, not a day older, and he was lounging in a chair with his feet up on the table. More relaxed than his stick-up-the-ass master tended to be, what with his crossed legs and sage quips. The most valuable component of the person Tyr was today, he'd never forget that old man and his constant nagging. Thomas, by another name, another mask.

“I didn't really understand what the point of all that was when I saw it either, still don't. Though everyone probably sees something different. Thing about cosmic forces is they have no form visible to us, so they show you what your mind is capable of seeing, the greatest educators ever wrought but not very concise in their way of things. They know no time, and therefore have no compunction toward efficiency, these... Awakenings. Take a seat, I'm sure it wore you down a bit, eh?”

“I feel fine.” Tyr lied, he was extremely drained – not to mention beyond confused, wishing for nothing more than a decade long nap. Or an eternal one, truthfully. He wasn't the man with the wings, but he'd been there to watch him – as had the others. They were all pieces of something, the nephilim, and Tyr had not liked the thing he resonated most with. It was so obvious, the white wolf with a maw full of flames and jagged teeth. World ender and sun eater, the one with wings of chains that lay in the depths of the bottomless pit. The personification of the universal law that nothing lasted forever, inevitability. “Are you actually here, or is this another game?”

“I am somewhere else.” Varinn gave him a thin smile. “I was called here, and I came, but it is me. We are speaking to one another, but this place does not exist. It's an illusion, of sorts, a reflection, though as real as anything you've ever touched. Part of the great lie as all things are. Outside of time, they say. You too are somewhere else, this is a reflection of your greatest wish, the terminus of your awakening, and the humble nature of it astounds me more than you know. To want for home and quiet is sacred, though, it is not a bad thing.”

“I see.” Tyr replied.

“Do you?” Varinn asked skeptically.

“The concept of an illusionary space or pocket dimension doesn't strain the mind.” Tyr frowned hard at the old man. “I'm not an idiot anymore, I've learned and grown. I just don't get what the point of that was, I don't feel any stronger – and I don't see how this can help me. Darius promised me that this would give me everything I've ever wanted – to bring a conclusion to my task.”

“Well it's a wonder that you recognize that most of this is your fault.” Varinn laughed. “Granted, as a child I'm sure you had no idea what you were doing, tearing the aspect of another primus apart and feeding on the remains. They are pillars, you know? One falls, the house starts to lean, and your younger brother is not yet old enough to correct the balance. I have a feeling even if he were, his aspect would not be one that could in any case. It's something that would've happened one day, Cortus is simply trying his best to delay the inevitable. Thinking some solution can be found, naturally. All men are arrogant, thinking they have the wheel only to find out they'd been driven off a cliff before they'd even been born.”

Makes sense... Tyr grimaced. It... No, it didn't.

“So you agree with what he's doing?” Tyr raised an eyebrow, opting to focus on a question that could be answered. Varinn was, or so he claimed, an old man that had lost his family to a war that never needed to happen, Tyr wouldn't have expected him to empathize with a pre-meditated genocide. Another one, Jartor had committed the same foul act, just to a lesser extent. When it wasn't humans as the victims, people tended to look the other way, washing the grimness of the deed from history.

Varinn waved his hand, sighing in exasperation. “You learned nothing, then. There is no right or wrong before the dao. You accept what power you can, you do what you want. The universe doesn't care either way, it doesn't care about you – or the primus' – least of all Hastur. Become a mass murderer, the universe won't come and stop you. It is for men to correct the mistakes of their own. Or whatever other race, that's just what we in particular were made for. Correction, to rule and enforce, to slay gods and demons and be better for it. All actions of all men, even primus', are motivated entirely by selfishness and the dao doesn't care about that either. There is no such thing as true altruism, being a good or bad man, remember?”

“I remember.” Tyr nodded, feeling his level of exhaustion rise sharply. Everyone was a sinner, essentially, nobody was pure or blessed or destined. There was no path of destiny, chosen ones, heroes or villains. Just men or otherwise, all with choices. And those choices were always stemming from sin, no matter how pure they might appear at first glance. “Just tell me what to do. Finish the job and make me that weapon of correction.”

“There is no right and wrong before the dao, I said that. You are smarter than this.”

“You know what I mean, master.”

“Alright. For my disciple? Anything.” Varinn inclined his head curtly, his silver eyebrows twitching in either amusement or annoyance, most likely the latter based on his frequent comments in the past regarding Tyr's intelligence. “Ponder a bit on what you've seen. There is no answer to this, because there was never any question, but I promise you that if you ponder the concept of the dao you will find what you're looking for. You'll have a dream, and if it's anything like mine – it'll be violent. Two things to remember, pieces of advice. We are both, you and I, of the old blood. The north blood they call it, and despite the easy claim that we are all nim, this isn't completely true – we are not and will never be uniform. Our kind adapt and evolve to fit our environment in ways that I could not describe, the old ways are in you and it will be wild, violent, and bloody. Simply let it happen, that's my first piece of advice. My second is that while you should do that, do not give in to the urges pressing down on you. Your stubbornness and fire comes from your father, but the thunder and ice in your veins comes from your mother. It won't seem important now – but it will be. They were more different than you yet know, and it's been tearing you apart since the day of your birth – something not meant to be.”

“...That doesn't make much sense.”

“To be honest I'm repeating the words of my master. I don't think it's supposed to.” Varinn laughed. “I'll tell you this then. Do not pursue the path of the dao, carve one for yourself. You denied the gods, but you can't deny the dao. However, unlike those celestial beings, the latter will never force you on your path. Take from the universe what you need, break it over your back and make it submit, and you will have everything you'll ever need. Chasing power is a mistake, running towards strength is the path of the weak, live for yourself and those around you and never pursue the external actively. If you do this, all answers will come. I'll see you soon, boy.”

And just like that, Tyr was gone. Left alone on the peak of a quiet mountain, the still statues all around him little more than lifeless rock, the rampant energies within fled from the place. Alone, he thought, until he spotted the goblin shaman some distance away, staring at him with sad eyes.

“What now?” Tyr asked the shaman, truly unaware of what he was supposed to do, and largely unconcerned with pondering on creation. He'd been given a great gift, one that very few had ever glimpsed, and yet the person that he was didn't care in the slightest. Darius had told him that this would accelerate his awakening a great deal, but he felt no different than before. If he'd already been 'close', how convoluted was that ridiculous process to begin with?

Abaddon was insistent that he not visit an Ark, and Tyr trusted him for what it was worth. That visiting the Ark would be the greatest mistake of his life, and he no longer wished to pursue the same path as his father or those before him. This life was Tyr's, and he was going to do with it as he pleased, avoiding the obvious and pulling every shred of meat from every spare rib of anything that sought to bar his way.

“That depends.” The goblin bobbed his head up and down again. Maybe for their kind it was a shrug, it was an odd movement that Tyr had trouble getting used to. “What would you like to do?”

“Eat something and sleep for a few days.” Tyr replied, and there was only sincerity in his voice.

“We can do that.” The goblin gave him a very human smile, leading him down the mountain just as the light of dawn crested the horizon. Setting everything into light, including the edge of the world. Wherever he was, it didn't look like the Hjemland he knew. “What did you see?”

Tyr scratched the back of his head, still disturbed by the experience. He thought that maybe it'd be literal, and if not, there'd be a point. Like the old tales where a man arrives to a rock struck through with a blade, he pulls the weapon free in a test of worthiness and becomes a hero. But the things he'd been shown seemed entirely predicated on the fact that nothing mattered at all. Him being the least meaningful, maybe? Tyr was a god, 'everyone' was a god in some sense. Their own god. But he was perhaps closer than most others. He didn't think, nor say this in arrogance, only because it was true.

Tyr wasn't the son of a god, a product of heritage and a bloodline, he was – compared to the other selves he'd met – the only 'Tyr'. A real piece of one, the only one that remained. That was a problem, something about that seemed incredibly wrong.

He didn't want to be this thing, not in the slightest. Being a god wasn't a gift, it was the most horrifying curse conjured by the will of a bloody universe. Without pity or remorse, it gave these entities power and then chained them beyond any slave. The idea being that humans could toy with the concept of free will and had any influence over their destinies, it was a truth, but somehow a lie at the same time... Because it all existed in a reality that was made construct, and therefore no true reality at all.

But Tyr, and those like him, were bound toward an end they could not change. He knew that, and he'd seen it, supposing it was just a repetition of his experiences thus far. If he was the god of anything, it was failure and impotence, and that irked him. Not so unlike that god of nothing he'd seen in his visions, because that was all his legacy seemed bound to amount to. Nothing.

Like everything else, you will fail and there is nothing you can do to stop it – because you exist. Everything exists to fail, whether that be in a clear task or eventual death.

Tyr himself was not above this law. But if it could solve his problems... It was an ill fate, godhood, ascension – but he'd do that for them. The bits and shreds of learned behavior made themselves home inside of him, changed him, and he had begun to love with great ferocity. Obsessive and warped, but it was love nonetheless.

“I'm not really sure.” Tyr answered finally. “Stars flying around and some dude drinking water from a muddy puddle. A cat with a flower on its head looking a bit bamboozled, stuff like that.”

“You're not supposed to know. If you did, that would be horrifying, and even in a hundred thousand cycles it wouldn't make any more sense than it does right now.” The goblin said. “It's all part of the puzzle, but you'll piece it together and become your truth. Based on your aura, you saw the cycle of creation. The history of the primordial universe. This is quite odd, I do not know why the dao would show you this of all things, being that there are few ways you could shape that through a biological prism. My experience was far different.”

“Oh?” Tyr raised an eyebrow at that. “What did you see?”

“Just the earth.” The shaman's head bobbed. “I watched over the cycle of growth for many centuries in the elemental space, and from it I learned of the eternal struggle. Very different from your own experience, but step back far enough and perhaps it isn't. All things have significance, even the sand beneath out feet.” Gregory winked at Tyr, hobbling down the mountain pass as the latter followed.

The struggle. Tyr nodded, deep in thought. There was a point to it after all, he just had to figure out how to use it.

“Gregory?”

“Yes?”

“Are you a god?”

“I am Gregory. As you are Tyr. It is good enough just to be, remember?”