I continued looking at the diagram as I pinged my Thor Aspect to refocus processing power on this diagram. I didn’t reintegrate us, but I watched as I allowed my Thor aspect to take control of the display and start flickering through it. My intelligence was off the scale and I could probably go through the display just as quickly but right now I needed processing power so I let Thor do his thing.

As Thor started pulling data, I watched as the diagram in my vision started filling my mind and flicking as the Point of View shifted and changed rapidly. As it did so I knew that I would only need to access this screen when I needed to update my information. As Thor was pulling data one of the nodes in a red region went dark, as did every node in that branch of the diagram. Luckily that region was on the other side sphere, but it drove home that the information I was collecting could change and that I’d need to update it as I could.

Thor accessed help menus, requested definitions, and even pulled diagram keys to explain the various colors and coding on each of the displays. Next, he brought the display back to the node I’d started at and requested information on it. The node represented a Cosmos. The Cosmic Identifier for that node indicated that it was the 6th Cosmos in the same Branch as the Cosmos I’d originally started in. Instead of moving away from the Center, Thor moved back toward the center. Node 5 had become translucent. Node 4 was green. Node 3 was also translucent. Node 2 had a soft purple glow to it. Node 1 also glowed a soft green. The line going towards the center from Node 1 went to another node that was green and then followed by more green nodes back to the center.

Thor pulled up a help screen to explain the coloring. Green represented a healthy Cosmos. Yellow indicated a Cosmos with more than 20% of its Universes showing issues. Orange indicated more than 50% of the universes within a node had an issue, Red indicated 80%, and Black indicated complete failure. Any Universes that were purple were code locked and couldn’t be entered without special approval. Thor reviewed that data then went back to Cosmos 6 and mentally tapped it. Another diagram of nodes popped into existence except there didn’t seem to be as many as there were in the next level out. The coloring scheme was the same though.

I watched as Thor checked a couple of universes, pulled out of that Cosmos, went to the next down the list, and checked Universes within it. He did this for each Cosmos that was farther out from the Center than Node 6. For the next hour, I patiently watched. The last thing he did was check the key for the layered diagram.

Once he came to a pause I asked, “So Thor, what did you figure out?”

“Simple explanation first. We will need to come up with terms again because everything we thought to be true, well, it is true to an extent, but we haven’t even scratched the surface as far as I can tell. “

“How so?”

“First, I’m going to refer to the Cosmos we’re currently tied to as Node 6 and the other Cosmos in this diagram as nodes, as that’s how they’re represented here. Next, I figured out that the manifestation that disappeared was in a Universe that had gone black in Node 16 along the branch your node 6 is on. There are branches that go off of each of those nodes, a lot more than you’d thought but the universe that went black with your manifestation in it was on the main branch if there are main branches in this diagram. A lot was hidden because your point of view blocked them. As I had every Cosmic Identifier already documented it was a simple matter to check which Cosmos, or Node, had the Universe where that manifestation disappeared and check on that Universe. A majority of Universes within that Cosmos have gone black, but they did so before your manifestation entered, and they were the manifestations that originally bounced back. This phenomenon happens in just about every cosmos I looked at. At least one universe within that Cosmos has gone dark.”

“Okay, so something is destroying the Universes that are coming into existence at the edge of this sphere of nodes, what do we call the bubble all these nodes are in?” I asked.

“Let’s just refer to it as the Realm for now. Remember that layered diagram that you saw, the one with layers like a cake? That diagram defined the layer our cosmos is in as Realms. That diagram also listed the layer above it as the Heavens and the layer below it as the hells.” Thor said.

“Did you try to access those layers?”

“Yes, and the answer to if I could look into them is no. I didn’t get an error or a denial, I just couldn’t access them.”

“Okay, what about the other manifestations? How many of the Universes present within this realm did I manifest into?” I asked.

“Keep in mind that I did a very quick check. It seems that you manifested into every node in this realm. Any that immediately bounced were either black or grey. I did check to see what was different about the grey nodes and the difference is that the grey nodes represent Universes that are going through their rebirth phase while Black universes are those that have collapsed in on themselves either through artificial or natural means. The Cosmos containing the nanites you’ve created, those four nodes are all black.”

“So, when I access the search function and scroll through universes in the Place Between Places I am searching for one of these nodes?”

“From what I gathered this diagram is just a way to visualize how the Realm is set up. The space between spaces would be the space between the nodes which means you are free floating in the Realm between each Cosmos.” Thor said.

“What are we missing?” I asked.

“Ptah and David come to mind, as do the Aspects, they do not easily fit the model we have discovered,” Thor said.

“Did you find the location of that bubble of nothing that our Place of Power is stashed in from Node 2?” I asked.

“I wasn’t looking for it, though I do not believe it was a bubble in the sense that you’re thinking. Interestingly enough I think who, or whatever moved the Place of Power placed it inside a speck of nothing either in the Chaos of Cosmos number 3 or took it completely outside of the Cosmos and placed it in the Primal Chaos of the realm in a spec of Nothing. Remember Nothing has no value. Theoretically, we can place almost nothing or anything into it, If we know how. It would make more sense to believe that spec of nothing is in that Primal Chaos. Perhaps it’s even in this region of the Realm we are in. I’m pretty sure where we are floating right now is the area between all the nodes in the diagram and as we’ve seen this region is full of pieces and parts of everything. Nothing would be but a spec in here.” Thor mused.

“So, we are a deviation, of a deviation?” I asked.

“It would seem so”

“And the lack of Gods, angels Demon’s and the like?”

“My guess, which is technically your guess, of course, is that the farther away from the center the Cosmic Branches, or nodes, are the less direct contact with the divines...”

I finished that thought, “And as the rules for becoming divine exist and probably existed in the original Cosmos Divines could and did rise from the beings that resided within the Cosmos.” I pondered for a moment then spoke my thought aloud, “Maybe when a branch is formed the divines chose not to duplicate or interact with it?”

“That would make sense,” Thor answered.

“So far we have a lot of conjecture and theories, none of which we can prove. My next question is a really simple one. With the revelations we’ve discovered, everything that has happened so far can be explained in the current system. If the Gods and Devils are outside of the Cosmos in another realm that makes sense. It also makes sense that we haven’t seen much in the way of spirits or the spirit realm because maybe we just never needed to have access to it. My question is who the hell are the Aspects and why didn’t the Gods step in to stop their bullshit. Not the Gods in the Cosmos, we know they’re just humans that made their way up for the most part. I would think they’d be trying to garner more divinity for themselves.”

“Unless no matter what the Aspects do to the people and their souls here the divines still get their souls,” Thor said.

“You’re right, they could be trapped here for a very long time but to anyone outside the realm, it might not be that long.”

What kind of power level do you think we’ll be going against?” Thor asked

“As my soul is at a rank of Absolute 99.99% I would guess that there is a higher rank than absolute for those outside of this Realm,” I said.

“So, what’s your next step?” Thor asked.

“Our next step is to see what type of Cosmos is at the center of this Realm. We need to crossover at the center of this diagram to see what we’ll find there.

“Are you sure that’s wise?”

“While you were reviewing the diagram and the nodes I was letting my feeling go and trying to feel for what is not an easily deduced fact. Something that comes to mind is that the setup we keep running into is familiar. Either there’s an Earth or a fantasy world that follows certain rules. Why? From the cake layer diagram, we see that there are more realms out there. We also see that other Realms might have other rules. Did you try to access any of those other Realms?”

“There was no point. When I looked at one of the nodes that wasn’t attached anywhere near us, the realm identifier came up and I was able to find it in the Cosmic Identifier. None of the manifestations you created contained that realm identifier. So, the other Realms on this layer of the cake were not visited.” Thor said.

“Where are eternity and the similar cities within the realm in the diagram we looked at?” I asked.

Thor returned his attention to the diagram and issued a few commands. I watched as small stars appeared on the diagram scattered throughout the realm. Eternity was labeled as near our orange area on the node map.

“Where are we?”

A blue dot flared near node 6 a little way out from it,” Thor I’m going to take a look outside really quick, be right back.” I brought myself back to full consciousness then willed myself out of my Place of Power within my Soul Space and found myself floating in the swirls of the ‘Realm.’ My Soul Space was adjacent to my location. I willed my vision to change so that I could see the Realm in the same format as the diagram I’d been viewing in my mindspace. My vision shifted and swirled, and I found myself near the node that was Cosmos 6. It was about the size of Saturn as compared to me. Hundreds if not thousands of lines left Node 6 and went to other nodes. The Realm was filled with lines of energy between nodes. Those lines of energy also moved along and wrapped around the transit tubes that were also present in my vision.

I focused my consciousness into my mindspace and looked at Thor as I asked, “I Thought by your description that the number of nodes was manageable?”

“Whatever gave you that idea? There was no way I could have gone through every single node that you manifested into. Instead, I took a core random sample and checked that small percentage.”

“This Realm is huge,” I said as Thor’s eyes glazed over and he brought both of us up to machine speed.

“You have incoming, I’ve sped us up to Machine speed in here. Looks like Mah found you, and he found his sword or has a duplicate?” Thor said.

I popped out of my mindspace, took over my body, and turned to look at a streak that was flying towards me leaving swirls in the gaseous medium that surrounded us. When Mah reach 100 feet I received a warning.

Temporal Tampering detected in your immediate location, would you like to Counter, Yes or No?

I chose “Yes”, Mah was still 100 feet away when he swung his Primal Blade of Destruction with all his might. He’d expected me to be in front of him. “I knew it!” I called, “You time-traveling cheating son of a bitch!” I watched as his face went red and he took what had just happened into account

“I do not need tricks to kill you,” he said as he once again rushed toward me

Not wanting him to do me serious harm to me with that blade, I willed all time-related abilities to be locked down. I erected a no-scrying zone to lock down any extra sensory perception he might have had. Next, I accelerated my physical body to light speed as I willed my Chaos Blade into my hand and flickered to a position directly behind him. I appeared to teleport. When I returned to physical form my Chaos Blade appeared through his heart in his chest. I leaned forward as the Chaos Blade did its work and whispered into his ear, “I do”

I watched as the being that was Mah, became riddled with streaks of chaos that spread throughout his form, solidified, and expanded before he exploded into butterflies leaving The Blade of Primal Destruction floating before me.

You have Destroyed the Primary Projection of Mah, God of Destruction…

Primary Projection? I cut off the prompt, closed it, and willed to know where the soul space of Mah was. A small orb of while glowed before me and as I focused on it I saw the energy building as Mah tried to build another projection.

“No Mah, you do not get a third chance. You had your first and second. It is time for you to move on. BTW asshole, I have no idea what this is going to do, but it should be fun!” The Soul tried to shoot off and away utilizing time jumps, which were automatically blocked. Next, he tried to run which I easily kept pace with. As he’d started to bolt, I’d telekinetically grabbed the Blade of Primal Destruction and brought it to my left hand then swung it with the flat of the blade against the left side of the soul space that was trying to flee. As the Blade of Primal Destruction was swung I also swung the flat side of my chaos blade occupied against the right side of that space so that the soul space would be squeezed between both blades as I willed the destruction of Mah through both blades. While souls were immune to physical attacks I felt both blades come to rest on resistance as the Primal Destruction and Chaos of the blades against it went to work, then everything froze as prompts filled my vision.

An Aspect of Destruction has been attacked by Primal Destruction in conjunction with Pure Chaos.

Calculating.

Requested termination of Mah as Aspect of Destruction noted

Calculating

Normal resistance to Chaos is overridden due to destruction intent from the energies of Primal Destruction and Chaos.

Calculating

Karmic Luck of beings Intent factored in

Calculating

Query, is it the attacker’s wish to take on the mantle of the Aspect of Destruction

I quickly thought “No”

Answer received. Termination of Mah as Aspect of Destruction granted.

Resistance to Chaos Revoked.

Mah has been afflicted by Primal Destruction and Chaos; effects are as follows based on the intent of attack to utterly destroy Mah.

ERROR

Blade of Primal Destruction is shelved until the new Aspect of Destruction is named.

Chaos Blade now carries the abilities of Primal Destruction upon the wielder’s command.

While the prompts were flooding my vision a few things happened. One, there was a popping sound as Mah’s soul was destroyed. Two, the explosion that happened with me at ground zero shot me further away from node 6 than my short chase to attack Mah had taken me. Three, the Blade of Primal Destruction disappeared. It wasn’t destroyed. One moment it was there, the next it was gone.

The damage I took was minimal, for me, but it did take a chunk out of my health and my nanites had to replace all of my clothes…again. By the time I’d slowed myself down, I realized I was well passed the edge of the visible nodes on the outskirts of the Realm. I hadn’t thought there was an edge, I thought the nodes just came out and the Realm ended. I guess I was mistaken.

As I’d been flung towards the outskirts of the Realm, I’d passed through the physical representations of the nodes for various Cosmos, but they’d had no effect on me when I touched them. That meant that while my vision was showing me a physical representation of this realm and the cosmos within it, I had to willfully interact with the spheres to enter them. What I could see was just another interface, good to know.

The last thing I noticed as I slowed down was a ribbon of energy that was following me from the initial explosion site. It was the energy that had spilled from Mah’s soul space and followed me at almost the same speed as I’d been shot off like a mortar. I watched as an incredible amount of energy and experience funneled into me. Far more than he should have had and far more than someone at the maximum level of an average Cosmos would have.

I stowed my chaos blade and followed the path I’d just taken back towards node 6. Distance here meant nothing but if Node 6 was the size of Saturn I’d been knocked so far away that I hadn’t been able to see it except as a faint point of light in the distance only after I’d magnified my vision as well as I was able to.

As I flew back, I checked the amount of experience and divinity points I’d absorbed and converted to experience. Mah had been level-locked, which I was very thankful for. My levels were only getting more experience and destroying him had given me a huge chunk. So huge that my level had increased by more than 100%. Mah would have had to be more powerful than me. When all that energy finished flowing into me, my level increased by 265%. I’d jumped from just over level 105 million to level 279,201,353. Well, I might be at the bottom of whatever tier was above an Absolute Soul rank, but right now I wasn’t feeling weak at all.