The sky didn't just break; it perished.
Black lightning, thick as the trunk of the World-Tree, slammed into the central plaza with an enormous shock. This was no longer a scan or a probe; it was a Heavenly Tribulation designed to turn the "Error" into meat paste. The air was filled with a breath of turbid air, thick with the scent of ozone and the metallic tang of vaporized blood.
Daxian stood in the center of the deep pit created by the blast. He was in a miserable state. His right arm was a cauterized stump, his skin was opened and flesh split across his chest, and his bones were fractured in many places.
"Is this the best the Eighth can do?" Daxian wheezed, coughing out blood that stained his white, tattered shirt. He gritted his teeth, his gaze so blood red that the Un-Woven warriors surrounding the pit felt a chill from the depths of his heart.
"Kill him!" the Remnant shrieked from above, her voice a miserable neighing of static. "He is a lunatic taking risks! Break his ambition!"
Three Un-Woven lunatics charged forward at lightning speed. They didn't use swords; they used their own fractured bones as daggers, their skin peeled ruthlessly to allow the silver-black energy of the void to pump directly into their muscles.
Daxian didn't retreat. He curled up his lips and laughed madly.
The first attacker smashed down ruthlessly, his fist carrying an enormous force. Daxian took the hit full in the chest. His bones were shattered and his flesh and blood were reduced to dust where the blow landed, but he didn't fall. Instead, he leaned into the pain, his remaining hand reaching out with a smile of disdain.
He grabbed the attacker's head. Enormous piercing fingers of nebula-energy sank into the man's temples.
POP.
The attacker's skull exploded. Eyeballs popped out and flew into the mud as the body was smashed apart by the raw "Noise" pouring out of Daxian's soul. The other two attackers didn't hesitate; they slammed mercilessly into Daxian's sides.
Daxian crashed heavily into the ground, his bones fracturing with a sound like dry winter branches snapping. One shard of his own rib jutted out of the body, piercing through his coat. He lay there for a second, emotionless and expressionless, as if he were in a dream.
"Look at the 'Architect'," one lunatic mocked, raising a bone-blade. "Just another corpse for the slaughter."
Daxian's eyes snapped open. They weren't leaden anymore. They were blood red.
He didn't stand up. He exploded.
A wave of violet-black energy wreaked havoc in a ten-meter radius. The two attackers were unhindered for only a millisecond before their skin was opened and their flesh split by the sheer pressure. Daxian rose from the dirt, his unrivaled spirit flaring like a dying sun.
"I told you," Daxian hissed, his voice a miserable neighing rasp. "I am the Law."
He charged forward, his movements a blur of lightning speed. He slammed mercilessly into the next group of Un-Woven, creating a chaotic battle situation. It was a massacre. He wasn't fighting for land or power; he was slaughtering each other's very concepts of survival.
On the ramp of the Sun-Eater, Vane was a lunatic possessed.
He didn't have his Sovereign-light, but he had perseverance. He racked his brains to find the most brutal way to kill. He smashed down ruthlessly with his hammer, turning a line of attackers into a blood river.
"COME ON!" Vane roared, his bones fractured in his left arm, but he didn't seem to notice. "YOU WANT TO PERISH? I'LL HELP YOU!"
He saw a group of Un-Woven trying to reach the World-Tree's biological core. Vane charged forward, his enormous punch catching a captain in the jaw. The captain's skull exploded, teeth flying like shrapnel, as Vane smashed him apart against the hull.
Vane was unhindered by the enormous force of the bone-spears hitting his armor. He laughed malevolently, his smile of disdain fixed on his face as he peeled the skin ruthlessly off an attacker with his bare hands.
"IS THIS THE CLIMAX?" Vane screamed at the silver sky. "BECAUSE I'M JUST GETTING WARMED UP!"
The slaughter between the two sides had reached the climax.
The plaza was no longer stone; it was meat paste and shattered bones. Silas was in the navigation room, intensely struggling to keep the ship's "Noise" from drowning them all. He could hear the miserable neighing sounds of the dying through the floorboards.
"Dax... stop..." Silas whispered, his indigo form cracked and bleeding from the mental strain. "You're turning the city into a profundity of the corpse..."
Daxian didn't hear him.
He was locked in a leisurely aerial battle—not with a ship, but with the Remnant herself. She descended like a fallen star, her white eyes blood red, her hands glowing with the profundity of the Eighth Architecture.
"You are a lunatic, Daxian!" she shrieked, her hand bombarding his chest with a sphere of silver logic.
Daxian coughed out blood, his bones jutting out even further. He smashed apart the sphere with his nebula-stump, the enormous shock sending him spiraling back into the deep pit.
He crashed heavily, his skull nearly fractured. He lay in the blood river, his eyeballs popped out of alignment, his flesh and blood reduced to dust.
"Perish," the Remnant said, landing on the edge of the pit.
Daxian looked up at her. He didn't see his mother. He didn't see a negotiator. He saw a target.
He laughed malevolently, a smile of disdain stretching his torn lips.
"If I perish," Daxian whispered, the turbid air rattling in his lungs, "I'm taking the math with me."
He reached out with his one hand and grabbed the Terminal-Command inside his own chest. He didn't use it to weave. He used it to break.
He smashed down ruthlessly on his own internal "Logic-Core."
The resulting enormous force didn't expand outward. It imploded.
The slaughter stopped for a heartbeat. The miserable neighing sounds ceased.
Daxian's body began to crack and bleed as he forced the flesh and blood of the fallen in the pit to "Sync" with his own injuries. It was a miserable state of necromancy. He was literally building a new arm out of the meat paste and shattered bones of the Un-Woven he had just killed.
"This is my ambition!" Daxian roared, his voice an enormous piercing scream.
A new arm—a nightmare of red muscle, black iron, and silver bone—burst from his shoulder. It wasn't "perfect." It was a miserable state of biological horror.
The Remnant backed away, a dumbstruck expression on her face. For the first time, her madness made her feel a chill from the depths of her heart.
"You... you are a lunatic..." she whispered.
Daxian charged forward.
He didn't use a technique. He slammed mercilessly into her, his new "Meat-Arm" gripping her throat. He wreaked havoc on her silver-light armor, peeling the skin ruthlessly from her conceptual form.
"I am the Error," Daxian hissed, his gaze blood red.
He smashed her apart against the Prime-Stone, the enormous shock creating a deep pit that swallowed them both. In the dark, the sound of bones being fractured and flesh split continued for a long, agonizing minute.
When Daxian emerged, he was filled with injuries. His skull was partially exploded, his eyeballs popped out, and his flesh was reduced to dust in places where the silver light had touched him.
He looked at the surviving Un-Woven. He laughed malevolently, his unrivaled spirit standing tall amidst the corpses.
"Who's next?" Daxian asked, coughing out a breath of turbid air.
The slaughter was over. The massacre was complete. The plaza was a blood river, and the Weaver stood at the center, a miserable state of a king on a throne of meat paste.
He didn't seem to notice the fierce slaughter still going on in the distance. He was in a dream of blood.
Ambition isn't about reaching the top. It's about being the last thing standing in the pit when the world stops screaming. If I have to turn the universe into a graveyard to keep my 'Fact' alive, then let the 'Peers' watch the graves. Because a grave is the only 'Fact' they can't delete.
Daxian gritted his teeth, his smile of disdain fixed toward the silver sky.
"Fix... the pipes," he whispered, before crashing heavily into the mud.