“Proto-Titan,” I say, trying the word out on my tongue. “That’s what Rin called the baby one.”
“The system is saying you could become a Titan,” Sierra says. She sounds partway between horrified and intrigued. I don’t know which one I should be feeling.
I frown. The new class is incredibly sparse on details. It doesn’t tell me any stat bonuses, nor does it explain any skills. It’s at level ten already, too—by the time I got my primary class that high, I had at least a dozen different skills.
The new class does make me feel different. Hints of the same devastating power that I wielded for mere moments course through me, and I can feel the power bubbling within me. I need to actively hold it in to keep it from escaping, and I briefly realize that my success means I might be able to properly cloak now.
“Just don’t kill us,” Adrian says. His voice is still scratchy.
“Not planning on it,” I reply. “Though there is something in here that I might need to kill.”
Blood Sense is powerful enough for me to detect anything in this nullspace, and—nullspace? How do I know that word?
Nullspace: unlike an anomalous fragment, nullspaces can only be formed under a small set of specific circumstances. They possess many of the same properties, but are almost uniformly lethal to anything that remains within. The two most common methods to create a nullspace are total reality annihilation in a highly p-active containment and Titan emergence.
Another lecture remembered from the life of one of the people torn apart to create me. I should find out who those people were someday.
Not now, though. Amalgam-provided knowledge fills in the gaps in my understanding. We’re in a space that’s been purposefully created by an intelligent being—probably myself, using Equalize against a being one step down from being a full Titan. We should not be alive, but we are, and that’s because of me once again.
My Proto-Titan class has been keeping us from being blown to pieces this entire time. That in itself is enough to justify having it, though I don’t like the idea of having the voice of base instinct floating around my head more. It’s quiet now, but there’s no guarantee that it’ll remain that way for long.
“I sense the one you said was incoming,” Sierra says. “I detect nothing but hostile magic outside. I’m quite impressed that he’s alive, actually.”
One thousand feet and closing. As he gets closer, my ability to sense him grows clearer. In this space, my vision is far sharper than it has any right to be, so I can actually make him out through the bloody, demonic darkness.
Earlier, I was surprised that we were even alive; Sierra and I had spent quite a bit of time scoping out this area to secure it and be ready for Adrian’s eventual reawakening, which we managed through a lengthy process of her taking on his injuries with her Blue Mage class and redistributing them to me. I regenerated fast enough to no-sell most of it, but we had to go slowly.
Now that I’ve discovered the truth of my class, however, the area around me feels like a second skin. Maybe it’s the fact that the constant bark of the voice that arose when I became a Titan has calmed down and integrated with my thoughts, or maybe it’s just that my power has finally come active, but everything flows smoothly in here.
Activating Appraise is no more difficult than breathing.
Hidden Objective: Two of a Kind
You have located the only other surviving experiment from your batch. Kill it.
Reward: Trait - Endling
Name: ???
Age: 0
Race: ???
Class: Adaptor
Level: 77
Last Used Skill: Adapt (Tourmaline) - lvl 107
??? never chose a name, but it was once referred to as RI1; Resistance Infusion 1.
That name is familiar. I search my memories, and I remember.
Wailing. A high, keening screech.
The tube that the screaming is coming from is labeled as containing RI1. There’s actually a bit of Common text explaining the full name—Resistance Infusion 1, apparently—but it doesn’t reveal anything further.
A simpler time, from when the only conflict I had to resolve was figuring out how to escape a broken laboratory. From a time when simple Stealth was enough to enable my attacks, from when my teeth were enough to kill the enemies in my way.
I’ve heard this being before, though its body was hidden within a tub of acid. This humanoid being that is as human as I am—which is to say, not at all, but it wears a human’s body comfortably—is the oldest surviving acquaintance I have.
I worry for a second that I might be growing soft; I worry that sentimentality is overwhelming me now just as it has with Sierra.
Nope. Not a problem. I search every crevice of my being for any sign of sympathy, but the desire to fulfill my objective and eliminate anything in my path overwhelms it.
Seven hundred feet.
RI1 is moving fast, and I can’t actually tell what it’s using. It paddles its way through the darkness as if the demonic corruption is water. My nullspace doesn’t leave it alone—in fact, even as I watch, a pulse of power tears through RI1. I sense the shift as it happens. I feel as if I can modify it in any way I choose if I just reach out. That must be my new secondary class working, though I can’t tell what skill I have active.
I flex the nullspace like it’s a Shapeshifted muscle, and I deconstruct the approaching experiment. There’s no better word for it—I disassemble his body cell by cell, molecule by molecule, tearing every bond that holds him together.
My fellow experiment dissolves like wet tissue paper.
And somehow, RI1 survives. My kill count remains at 999. I grow no closer to completing my objective.
I’ve killed someone like this before. I remember holding my Carnelian Domain for over ten minutes, killing the reforming form of Alexus Rylar over and over and over until he was truly dead.
And so I continue manipulating the nullspace, familiarizing myself with its mechanics. Unlike the rest of my arsenal, which flow forth from me when I order it, the nullspace integrates so naturally into my perception of myself that it’s hard to identify where I should even start. How do you ask a limb to tell you how to use it to kill something permanently?
For now, I try using it the same way I instinctively use my domain—divine and demonic and blood and now Titan magic all swirling together into a lethal storm.
I kill RI1 again and again and again, but he refuses to stay dead.
Magic flashes across his body, and it comes together once more, individual cells reassembling themselves and reforming bonds that just won’t stay broken.
RI1 isn’t getting any closer thanks to the constant assault, but I can see that its Adapt skill is doing exactly what it promises to do. The progress is slow—of course it is, against a domain this potent—but my senses are fine-tuned enough to catch the fact that it’s regenerating faster. Each deconstruction takes microseconds longer than the last.
I am, however, starting to get the hang of this. The nullspace bends to my whims now (because it is a part of me).
That voice… is definitely mine. It’s more obvious this time than it was before, but in here, a blurry line forms between different parts of myself; the amalgam must be considered as a separate entity from the instincts I’ve built in my brief time alive. It’s no secret that the rules are different here.
“I can still sense him,” Sierra says, a note of worry in her voice. “But at this range, with that much power blocking us, I can’t do anything about it.”
“Yeah, working on it,” I tell her. “You got anything that can take us out of here?”
“Out of an expanded domain? Yes. Out of this? No.”
“Alright,” I say. “Guess it’s on me.”
“On you?” Adrian asks. “The hells…”
“She has a nullspace, Adrian,” Sierra says. “You know, the thing that Titans carry around inside them? Keep up.”
“I should’ve stayed knocked out,” Adrian replies, dragging himself to his feet. He wields a mundane sword now. Nearly useless in this space, but I appreciate the gesture.
I really cannot be bothered to deal with this situation right now. My special skills are all inactive, and the one power I have access to isn’t enough. If I had a hundred different types of magic to try on this guy, I’m sure I’d find enough power to kill RI1 before it could Adapt to whatever I’ve got going, but right now is not the time. I need time to rest; time away from the endless cycle of monster after assasin after Titan.
“Hey!” I shout, using the nullspace to make myself heard by the other experiment. “RI1! The fuck do you want?”
“You,” he replies, quiet. I can hear everything in this space, I realize. “You. I need you to die.”
Its control of Common is not nearly as strong as mine, I realize. It can’t have spent much time around humans.
Except its level is high. Extremely high, if I consider that it likely does not have a Devour skill like I do to boost speed. RI1 has definitely spent much more time killing than talking. It definitely has a similar objective to mine, if it wants to kill me that badly.
Something clicks in my mind alongside the realization that I can deny my enemy what it wants, something intrinsic to the nullspace.
I have a way out.
“I’d say I’m sorry to disappoint,” I say, “But I’m really not.”
I’m sure RI1 is going to find a way out of here. It’s had the tenacity to chase me from the Crowned Islands all the way to Whitestar Kingdom and the space beyond; the amount of bullshit required for that to work is sufficiently high that there’s probably way out of this nullspace in it, too. The fact that my power isn’t enough to kill it as it is right now is evidence enough for me.
But if precedent is anything to go off of, it’ll take a while.
“Sierra, Adrian,” I say, spreading my hands. “Hold on.”
Sierra’s hand is surprisingly soft for the amount of violence she’s endured in the last few days. Adrian’s is rough and callused, befitting a swordsman of his caliber.
“Goodbye, RI1,” I say.
It screams in outrage, the sound cutting in and out as I tear him apart one last time. RI1 reaches a dissolving arm out, trying to reach me, and I twist nullspace just so.
The transition is silent. One moment, we float on an artifical platform, held safely by my newfound extradimensional space. The next, all three of us touch down on slick, brittle glass.
We’re back in the Wastelands.
“Holy shit, Evelyn, turn it down,” Adrian groans. “You—you’re gonna kill me if you can’t—“
Oh. That sensation of holding my power back that came so easily in the nullspace is gone. Out here, I have no cloak, and the sheer force of my presence has redoubled thanks to the introduction of my secondary class.
It is thankfully significantly easier to cloak my Proto-Titan class than it is to do the same with Divine Demon. I can’t tell why; maybe because it’s less tainted of a class than my primary one, which has run my soul through a wringer.
It’s impossible to cloak it all the way. It still doesn’t come naturally to me.
We aren’t alone here, I quickly realize.
The three of us stand on one of the few intact pieces of a wasteland. Our surroundings are unrecognizable. It looks as if a dozen natural disasters have struck the land at once. Which, given the raw strength of the Titan I summoned here, isn’t that far from the truth.
Sersui’s not here anymore, thank the gods. I can sense its presence in an entirely different way from how I did before; earlier, I measured the distance with the Titan Caller, which is likely defunct after summoning a single Titan. Now, though, Sersui’s position is burnt into my mind as if I’ve cast a Locate on it.
And it’s not alone.
Forty-nine different signatures embed themselves in my mind, each of them at a vastly different point in the world. This planet is so much larger than I’ve realized; though I intellectually understand the size of it, it’s only now that I grasp its true scale. Tens of thousands of miles across the globe. Nearly a hundred thousand. The pinpoints are scattered to the winds, creating a loose framework that marks the world.
There are two of them within ten miles of me. One of them is actively fading away, its tether to my mind already severed.
Those signatures are Titans.
Not just Titans, I amend. My new class must be showing me where the Proto-Titans are too, because that faded signature is Inome’s.
It takes me a second to recontextualize where we are, given the way Sersui has utterly laid waste to the land around us.
The three of us are atop the corpse of the baby Titan.
Looking at it from a birds-eye view, I can see the vague, darkened shimmer that ensconces the shatteredglass beneath our feet.
“Sersui is still active,” Sierra says. “Adrian’s feeling the effects, still. I will prepare transportation for us. This is not a safe area.”
The ground is shaking around us, but not directly where I stand. My very presence fights off Sersui’s. I am claiming this area as mine, and the strange new class the System offers me is assisting.
I close my eyes, pulling on the points of contact. I’m unfamiliar with this form of magic, but letting my instincts guide me has worked so far.
“Be ready,” I say. “I’ll try to handle this. Either way, the Wastelands are likely not the best place to be right now.”
Not that there’ll be much of this place left once the Titan of the Shifting Sands is done with it.
A connection between us appears, and I pull on it. It barely budges, as if I’m trying to tug a battleship across ice with my bare hands.
That only makes sense. Though the System claims that I’m only one step down from a Titan, my actual power level is nowhere near that level. Even communication will be a challenge at this stage.
There is, however, one advantage I possess.
I called Sersui. The rampage it must be going on right now—that is a direct result of the Titan Caller that the dwellers gifted me.
With the last dregs of the magic within, I amplify my own form of communication, trying to mimic the pieces I remember of Inome’s final moments.
“What’re you doing?” Adrian groans, holding his head in his hands. “Are you—“
“I’m trying to speak,” I reply. “Be quiet.”
Be quiet. That’s the same thing the true Titan said when Inome begged for help in its dying moments.
I killed you, I think, looking at the ashen rainbows strewn across the broken waste. I may not have dealt the final blow, but I killed you.
A Category 5. As a Category 1. Utterly impossible.
And now I’m trying to command something that made that being seem like a child in terms of power.
“You—you seek to talk to a Titan?” Sierra asks, grasping my goal immediately. “That is impossible. It has never been done. Not by anyone still living.”
I shrug. It’s not like I haven’t attempted (and succeeded at) impossible tasks before. This is just… a few orders of magnitude worse.
There is a method to my madness, as there always is. I piece together a few crucial pieces of information.
The Titan Caller did not summon Scintilla, who was awake and emergent. It summoned a Titan quicker than the Titans naturally cycle, which means Sersui was likely dormant before. Sersui desired silence when Inome begged for help.
Only the magic of the Titan Caller is causing Sersui to continue rampaging, and that’s an item I’ve already subverted.
Even with the assistance of the last fragments of the dweller’s item, reaching across the connection is nigh impossible. I’m still too weak to create one of my own.
But there is still a magical channel open, and I can connect my mana to its.
Sleep, I tell the Titan.
The signature reacts, shifting suddenly. I feel the air shift palpably, the freshly-returned moisture draining in an instant.
One falls for another’s rise. Amusing. Our brethren are sure to witness you, Carnelian.
Impossibly, Sersui stops.
Slumber is in order. Until our paths cross again.
The connection cuts, and Sersui’s signature sinks into the ground.
Around us, the world stops shaking.
“Well then,” I say out loud, “I think I just talked a Titan down.”
“Proto-Titan,” I say, trying the word out on my tongue. “That’s what Rin called the baby one.”
“The system is saying you could become a Titan,” Sierra says. She sounds partway between horrified and intrigued. I don’t know which one I should be feeling.
I frown. The new class is incredibly sparse on details. It doesn’t tell me any stat bonuses, nor does it explain any skills. It’s at level ten already, too—by the time I got my primary class that high, I had at least a dozen different skills.
The new class does make me feel different. Hints of the same devastating power that I wielded for mere moments course through me, and I can feel the power bubbling within me. I need to actively hold it in to keep it from escaping, and I briefly realize that my success means I might be able to properly cloak now.
“Just don’t kill us,” Adrian says. His voice is still scratchy.
“Not planning on it,” I reply. “Though there is something in here that I might need to kill.”
Blood Sense is powerful enough for me to detect anything in this nullspace, and—nullspace? How do I know that word?
Nullspace: unlike an anomalous fragment, nullspaces can only be formed under a small set of specific circumstances. They possess many of the same properties, but are almost uniformly lethal to anything that remains within. The two most common methods to create a nullspace are total reality annihilation in a highly p-active containment and Titan emergence.
Another lecture remembered from the life of one of the people torn apart to create me. I should find out who those people were someday.
Not now, though. Amalgam-provided knowledge fills in the gaps in my understanding. We’re in a space that’s been purposefully created by an intelligent being—probably myself, using Equalize against a being one step down from being a full Titan. We should not be alive, but we are, and that’s because of me once again.
My Proto-Titan class has been keeping us from being blown to pieces this entire time. That in itself is enough to justify having it, though I don’t like the idea of having the voice of base instinct floating around my head more. It’s quiet now, but there’s no guarantee that it’ll remain that way for long.
“I sense the one you said was incoming,” Sierra says. “I detect nothing but hostile magic outside. I’m quite impressed that he’s alive, actually.”
One thousand feet and closing. As he gets closer, my ability to sense him grows clearer. In this space, my vision is far sharper than it has any right to be, so I can actually make him out through the bloody, demonic darkness.
Earlier, I was surprised that we were even alive; Sierra and I had spent quite a bit of time scoping out this area to secure it and be ready for Adrian’s eventual reawakening, which we managed through a lengthy process of her taking on his injuries with her Blue Mage class and redistributing them to me. I regenerated fast enough to no-sell most of it, but we had to go slowly.
Now that I’ve discovered the truth of my class, however, the area around me feels like a second skin. Maybe it’s the fact that the constant bark of the voice that arose when I became a Titan has calmed down and integrated with my thoughts, or maybe it’s just that my power has finally come active, but everything flows smoothly in here.
Activating Appraise is no more difficult than breathing.
Hidden Objective: Two of a Kind
You have located the only other surviving experiment from your batch. Kill it.
Reward: Trait - Endling
Name: ???
Age: 0
Race: ???
Class: Adaptor
Level: 77
Last Used Skill: Adapt (Tourmaline) - lvl 107
??? never chose a name, but it was once referred to as RI1; Resistance Infusion 1.
That name is familiar. I search my memories, and I remember.
Wailing. A high, keening screech.
The tube that the screaming is coming from is labeled as containing RI1. There’s actually a bit of Common text explaining the full name—Resistance Infusion 1, apparently—but it doesn’t reveal anything further.
A simpler time, from when the only conflict I had to resolve was figuring out how to escape a broken laboratory. From a time when simple Stealth was enough to enable my attacks, from when my teeth were enough to kill the enemies in my way.
I’ve heard this being before, though its body was hidden within a tub of acid. This humanoid being that is as human as I am—which is to say, not at all, but it wears a human’s body comfortably—is the oldest surviving acquaintance I have.
I worry for a second that I might be growing soft; I worry that sentimentality is overwhelming me now just as it has with Sierra.
Nope. Not a problem. I search every crevice of my being for any sign of sympathy, but the desire to fulfill my objective and eliminate anything in my path overwhelms it.
Seven hundred feet.
RI1 is moving fast, and I can’t actually tell what it’s using. It paddles its way through the darkness as if the demonic corruption is water. My nullspace doesn’t leave it alone—in fact, even as I watch, a pulse of power tears through RI1. I sense the shift as it happens. I feel as if I can modify it in any way I choose if I just reach out. That must be my new secondary class working, though I can’t tell what skill I have active.
I flex the nullspace like it’s a Shapeshifted muscle, and I deconstruct the approaching experiment. There’s no better word for it—I disassemble his body cell by cell, molecule by molecule, tearing every bond that holds him together.
My fellow experiment dissolves like wet tissue paper.
And somehow, RI1 survives. My kill count remains at 999. I grow no closer to completing my objective.
I’ve killed someone like this before. I remember holding my Carnelian Domain for over ten minutes, killing the reforming form of Alexus Rylar over and over and over until he was truly dead.
And so I continue manipulating the nullspace, familiarizing myself with its mechanics. Unlike the rest of my arsenal, which flow forth from me when I order it, the nullspace integrates so naturally into my perception of myself that it’s hard to identify where I should even start. How do you ask a limb to tell you how to use it to kill something permanently?
For now, I try using it the same way I instinctively use my domain—divine and demonic and blood and now Titan magic all swirling together into a lethal storm.
I kill RI1 again and again and again, but he refuses to stay dead.
Magic flashes across his body, and it comes together once more, individual cells reassembling themselves and reforming bonds that just won’t stay broken.
RI1 isn’t getting any closer thanks to the constant assault, but I can see that its Adapt skill is doing exactly what it promises to do. The progress is slow—of course it is, against a domain this potent—but my senses are fine-tuned enough to catch the fact that it’s regenerating faster. Each deconstruction takes microseconds longer than the last.
I am, however, starting to get the hang of this. The nullspace bends to my whims now (because it is a part of me).
That voice… is definitely mine. It’s more obvious this time than it was before, but in here, a blurry line forms between different parts of myself; the amalgam must be considered as a separate entity from the instincts I’ve built in my brief time alive. It’s no secret that the rules are different here.
“I can still sense him,” Sierra says, a note of worry in her voice. “But at this range, with that much power blocking us, I can’t do anything about it.”
“Yeah, working on it,” I tell her. “You got anything that can take us out of here?”
“Out of an expanded domain? Yes. Out of this? No.”
“Alright,” I say. “Guess it’s on me.”
“On you?” Adrian asks. “The hells…”
“She has a nullspace, Adrian,” Sierra says. “You know, the thing that Titans carry around inside them? Keep up.”
“I should’ve stayed knocked out,” Adrian replies, dragging himself to his feet. He wields a mundane sword now. Nearly useless in this space, but I appreciate the gesture.
I really cannot be bothered to deal with this situation right now. My special skills are all inactive, and the one power I have access to isn’t enough. If I had a hundred different types of magic to try on this guy, I’m sure I’d find enough power to kill RI1 before it could Adapt to whatever I’ve got going, but right now is not the time. I need time to rest; time away from the endless cycle of monster after assasin after Titan.
“Hey!” I shout, using the nullspace to make myself heard by the other experiment. “RI1! The fuck do you want?”
“You,” he replies, quiet. I can hear everything in this space, I realize. “You. I need you to die.”
Its control of Common is not nearly as strong as mine, I realize. It can’t have spent much time around humans.
Except its level is high. Extremely high, if I consider that it likely does not have a Devour skill like I do to boost speed. RI1 has definitely spent much more time killing than talking. It definitely has a similar objective to mine, if it wants to kill me that badly.
Something clicks in my mind alongside the realization that I can deny my enemy what it wants, something intrinsic to the nullspace.
I have a way out.
“I’d say I’m sorry to disappoint,” I say, “But I’m really not.”
I’m sure RI1 is going to find a way out of here. It’s had the tenacity to chase me from the Crowned Islands all the way to Whitestar Kingdom and the space beyond; the amount of bullshit required for that to work is sufficiently high that there’s probably way out of this nullspace in it, too. The fact that my power isn’t enough to kill it as it is right now is evidence enough for me.
But if precedent is anything to go off of, it’ll take a while.
“Sierra, Adrian,” I say, spreading my hands. “Hold on.”
Sierra’s hand is surprisingly soft for the amount of violence she’s endured in the last few days. Adrian’s is rough and callused, befitting a swordsman of his caliber.
“Goodbye, RI1,” I say.
It screams in outrage, the sound cutting in and out as I tear him apart one last time. RI1 reaches a dissolving arm out, trying to reach me, and I twist nullspace just so.
The transition is silent. One moment, we float on an artifical platform, held safely by my newfound extradimensional space. The next, all three of us touch down on slick, brittle glass.
We’re back in the Wastelands.
“Holy shit, Evelyn, turn it down,” Adrian groans. “You—you’re gonna kill me if you can’t—“
Oh. That sensation of holding my power back that came so easily in the nullspace is gone. Out here, I have no cloak, and the sheer force of my presence has redoubled thanks to the introduction of my secondary class.
It is thankfully significantly easier to cloak my Proto-Titan class than it is to do the same with Divine Demon. I can’t tell why; maybe because it’s less tainted of a class than my primary one, which has run my soul through a wringer.
It’s impossible to cloak it all the way. It still doesn’t come naturally to me.
We aren’t alone here, I quickly realize.
The three of us stand on one of the few intact pieces of a wasteland. Our surroundings are unrecognizable. It looks as if a dozen natural disasters have struck the land at once. Which, given the raw strength of the Titan I summoned here, isn’t that far from the truth.
Sersui’s not here anymore, thank the gods. I can sense its presence in an entirely different way from how I did before; earlier, I measured the distance with the Titan Caller, which is likely defunct after summoning a single Titan. Now, though, Sersui’s position is burnt into my mind as if I’ve cast a Locate on it.
And it’s not alone.
Forty-nine different signatures embed themselves in my mind, each of them at a vastly different point in the world. This planet is so much larger than I’ve realized; though I intellectually understand the size of it, it’s only now that I grasp its true scale. Tens of thousands of miles across the globe. Nearly a hundred thousand. The pinpoints are scattered to the winds, creating a loose framework that marks the world.
There are two of them within ten miles of me. One of them is actively fading away, its tether to my mind already severed.
Those signatures are Titans.
Not just Titans, I amend. My new class must be showing me where the Proto-Titans are too, because that faded signature is Inome’s.
It takes me a second to recontextualize where we are, given the way Sersui has utterly laid waste to the land around us.
The three of us are atop the corpse of the baby Titan.
Looking at it from a birds-eye view, I can see the vague, darkened shimmer that ensconces the shatteredglass beneath our feet.
“Sersui is still active,” Sierra says. “Adrian’s feeling the effects, still. I will prepare transportation for us. This is not a safe area.”
The ground is shaking around us, but not directly where I stand. My very presence fights off Sersui’s. I am claiming this area as mine, and the strange new class the System offers me is assisting.
I close my eyes, pulling on the points of contact. I’m unfamiliar with this form of magic, but letting my instincts guide me has worked so far.
“Be ready,” I say. “I’ll try to handle this. Either way, the Wastelands are likely not the best place to be right now.”
Not that there’ll be much of this place left once the Titan of the Shifting Sands is done with it.
A connection between us appears, and I pull on it. It barely budges, as if I’m trying to tug a battleship across ice with my bare hands.
That only makes sense. Though the System claims that I’m only one step down from a Titan, my actual power level is nowhere near that level. Even communication will be a challenge at this stage.
There is, however, one advantage I possess.
I called Sersui. The rampage it must be going on right now—that is a direct result of the Titan Caller that the dwellers gifted me.
With the last dregs of the magic within, I amplify my own form of communication, trying to mimic the pieces I remember of Inome’s final moments.
“What’re you doing?” Adrian groans, holding his head in his hands. “Are you—“
“I’m trying to speak,” I reply. “Be quiet.”
Be quiet. That’s the same thing the true Titan said when Inome begged for help in its dying moments.
I killed you, I think, looking at the ashen rainbows strewn across the broken waste. I may not have dealt the final blow, but I killed you.
A Category 5. As a Category 1. Utterly impossible.
And now I’m trying to command something that made that being seem like a child in terms of power.
“You—you seek to talk to a Titan?” Sierra asks, grasping my goal immediately. “That is impossible. It has never been done. Not by anyone still living.”
I shrug. It’s not like I haven’t attempted (and succeeded at) impossible tasks before. This is just… a few orders of magnitude worse.
There is a method to my madness, as there always is. I piece together a few crucial pieces of information.
The Titan Caller did not summon Scintilla, who was awake and emergent. It summoned a Titan quicker than the Titans naturally cycle, which means Sersui was likely dormant before. Sersui desired silence when Inome begged for help.
Only the magic of the Titan Caller is causing Sersui to continue rampaging, and that’s an item I’ve already subverted.
Even with the assistance of the last fragments of the dweller’s item, reaching across the connection is nigh impossible. I’m still too weak to create one of my own.
But there is still a magical channel open, and I can connect my mana to its.
Sleep, I tell the Titan.
The signature reacts, shifting suddenly. I feel the air shift palpably, the freshly-returned moisture draining in an instant.
One falls for another’s rise. Amusing. Our brethren are sure to witness you, Carnelian.
Impossibly, Sersui stops.
Slumber is in order. Until our paths cross again.
The connection cuts, and Sersui’s signature sinks into the ground.
Around us, the world stops shaking.
“Well then,” I say out loud, “I think I just talked a Titan down.”
