Chapter 243: Selfless
4th October 2012, Middle of the Pacific Ocean
(Jasmine Sayre POV)
I was able to easily discern the weakness to this weapon, but I was distracted by seeing what made up Ego. I could see the mind behind the projection, even if it was countless light years away, I could see its thought process, and if I had to describe it, I would say that it was odd for an entity as old as Ego. It was so emotional, so illogical, and in its core, it was so lonely. And in the end, if I had to describe it in a single word, it would be…. human.
Ego felt like a human, acted like an entitled human and while it was extremely surprising, it provided me with a way to defeat my foe. I knew exactly what I had to do.
It was elegant in its simplicity. I wanted to hit myself for not putting things together as quickly as I could. I watched as the celestial in front of me was giving me a victorious smirk. He thought himself invincible since he was just an energy projection that could be reformed indefinitely. The mind, the true brain, existed thousands of lightyears away. Oh, how good will it feel when he realizes the danger that he is in, the fact that his death is nearing, that it will be inevitable.
It's a shame that I couldn’t recruit him, but I now realize that it’s impossible. Ego is many things, the last trueborn celestial, a practical living god whose body was composed of an entire planet, but he is also broken, a glitch in the system.
If I had to guess, I would say that Ego came into existence at a time when the world was out of balance, but that kept alternating. It was probably during the celestial wars. This meant, that while Ego had the power of the usual celestial, he had none of the knowledge or purpose that guided his siblings. He was just a consciousness that drifted in the darkness of space for millions of years without reason, without purpose. It drove him mad. And who wouldn’t go mad at such a torture for millions of years.
But slowly, he learned how to harness his cosmic energy to change the world around him through experimentation alone and pushed the madness as far down as he could, hoping that it wouldn’t exist. And alas, he found life. It probably took a few million years of looking – people do not realize how vast space actually is, meaning that the chance of meeting someone by accident is extremely slim – but finally, he discovered that he wasn’t alone anymore.
So, he did whatever he could to emulate the life he saw, but he wasn’t mortal, he was more, and thus his mind broke, the madness that he repressed with the disappointment he had to the race he encountered. He tried to emulate them, he didn’t want to be alone, and his cosmic energy answered. One of the most important attributes that separates a celestial from a mortal, is the way they see the universe. Their mind is just alien, on another level, and so, his own powers broke his mind to resemble that of a mortal. Traces of the madness remained, but slowly his thinking started to shift and resemble that of a mortal being.
The celestial bound his own mind and soul to a physical form completely, something that was supposed to be impossible and yet a broken mind was a powerful thing. Ego partially descended and became mortal.
The mental limitation that Ego put on himself limited what he could even achieve with his powers, and meanwhile the madness started to manifest itself, giving him a purpose to consume everything, to unite the entire universe into one being, him, so that he would never be alone again.
This was what happened when a celestial became rogue. The devastation that the being in front of me was indescribable. Ego had spent millions of years experimenting, to create the bioweapon that he put in every inhabited planet in the galaxy. How many planets, how many civilizations have been destroyed for the mad ambitions of a space god?
No wonder the man didn’t even blink at the possibility of dying. He just didn’t think that anyone or anything could defeat him. He only knew of his kin through stories of their might and their accomplishments and assumed that they had died out. He truly thought himself invincible.
This settled things. The abomination in front of me would get no mercy from me. First, I needed to deal with the weaponized cube. I needed to keep it in a safe space, so as to not activate it. Something as dangerous as anti-matter could destabilize the balance of all things. Sending it to the sun could affect the star’s mass and cause dramatic shifts in the entire star system.
It seems a pocket dimension, frozen in time, would be the most appropriate solution. I’ll deal with it later. I discretely created the runes in my palm and created a small dimension that would be enough to house the cube. For some reason, it came much easier to me than it did before the ritual.
Finally, I pretended to submit to my opponent, “Alright, you win. I will help you with your expansion, but in exchange, you will spare this planet and help me during Entropy’s inevitable attack.”
“It’s good that you now see sense, my child. You cannot oppose me. We have an agreement, Morrigan.”
God, I wanted to punch the smug smile off his face. I was tempted to do just that, but I had a plan, and I was going to stick with it. I floated towards the celestial who looked victorious, “Don’t worry, I’m going to take you home, to the core of my powers, so that we could realize my ambitions properly.”
I nodded, “One question, though.”
“Yes?”
“How do you plan to force me to do anything when your weapon is gone?”
He looked around and saw that the cosmic nullifying cube, that he had created, had disappeared in a red light. It was sleight of hand; while he reveled in his victory, I used reality magic – or at least the cosmic variation of it – to make an illusion of the cube while I opened a small portal and put the actual weapon in the pocket dimension that I just created. Pocket dimensions were really overpowered when it came to stopping weapons of mass destruction.
When I saw Ego’s wide eyes, I grinned cheekily at him, “Lesson number one: don’t watch the mouth, watch the hands.”
“Huh?”
Before he could even realize what I just said, I opened a different dimensional portal in front of me. It was the one I made during the New York invasion that contained the Tesseract enhanced nuke, that SHIELD wanted to use to blow up New York City. Fucking idiotic World Security Council.
I had frozen the blast in time, and as soon as I opened it, the blast started to go on. I barely kept the portal open for a second, and Ego was practically vaporized by the attack, as did half a mile in front of me. I knew that Ego’s projection was going to be reforming soon, and I was pressed for time for the rest of my plan.
I waved my hands and thousands of runes started to appear out of thin air. This was the first time I had ever done something like this, ever, but it was my best chance at beating the celestial in front of me. Slowly, the runes started to shrink into small links that started to connect themselves into a giant golden chain. Slowly the chain was getting stronger, tougher, indestructible.
I was nearly done when I heard the enraged cry, “MORRIGANNN…”
The infuriated celestial flew towards me, in a giant avatar of steel and stone that he probably transmuted, and yet, I wasn’t bothered. I had almost completed my spell. Seconds before he could reach me, my chain was done, and I threw it at Ego, “ENKIDU”
The chain around me came to life and went through the avatar like a hot knife through butter. It enwrapped itself around the celestial’s energy projection and finally the entire avatar chipped away and disappeared, leaving a floating Ego looking terrified at me, “What have you done?”
The chains of Enkidu, a spell that I created and named after the legendary tales of the god binding chains in the epic of Gilgamesh. It worked by absorbing the energy output from whatever it touches, storing it in an empty realm. The more a being was created out of energy, the more effective it was. The chains themselves were unbreakable, and bound the mind of its captive inside to not allow any kind of escape or teleportation.
Truthfully, the chains were mostly useless in any other situation. Outside of fighting Demon Lords and Elder Gods, they served no purpose. Celestials were too strong, too controlled, to not be able to escape, and other opponents were generally mortals, which means that there are easier ways to restrain them.
However, Ego was a broken celestial that saw the world through an energy projection. He couldn’t control the emission of cosmic energy of his projection properly, which means that currently, I had him at a bind. He couldn’t drop the projection; he had put his entire consciousness inside – another mental limitation of his – and it couldn’t escape through the properties of the chains. The celestial was effectively trapped.
My answer to his question was monotone, “I have subdued you,” he tried to break the chains which sapped whatever kinetic energy he created, “Don’t try to escape, there is no way for you to do so.”
“What are you?”
“Your Death. You are defective, Ego. You rejected your purpose of life and want only Death. You are a threat to the balance, and I have no choice but to eliminate you as a threat to reality itself. The remaining question is, what to do with you?”
He looked frightened, terrified, he looked so…human. Again, the similarities were very disturbing. I could see the madness in his eyes, now that he wasn’t trying to hide it anymore.
I continued, “I could keep you in a timeless loop, but it was proven to me recently that they could be overcome. I could imprison you, but in the end, my lifetime is barely more than a moment for someone like you. No, you cannot remain in this mortal coil, for you present a risk to life itself. It is my responsibility to eliminate the threat you pose completely.”
He looked a little smug at my speech, “You can’t kill me. My body, my soul, is light years away, further away than you can travel. How long do you plan to keep me in chains? I can see the drain on your light, Morrigan. It will not be long before I am freed.”
He was right, and I racked my brain for an answer until I finally found one, “Yes, your body and soul might be far away, but your mind is trapped with you.”
I remembered the fact that Ego kidnapped a member of psychic species to get him to fall asleep. He was vulnerable to psychic attacks, but he had formidable mental protections.
Unsurprisingly, Ego chuckled, “You think you could get into my mind while you’re using these chains?”
“No, not alone.”
I opened another portal and retrieved a familiar yellow gem. It was the mind stone, and it was floating in my palm. Immediately, the arrogant smile on the celestial’s head disappeared, “The mind stone? Please, I won’t attack anyone anymore. I will do whatever you like. I’ll even be your slave.”
I raised the stone in the air, and it floated near my temple and glowed. I gave Ego a sad look, “If only I could believe you, Ego. You were such a disappointment. I hope that you will find peace in Death.”
Before he could protest, I put both my hands on the head of the celestial and channeled the mind stone’s power. I shredded the entirety of whatever made Ego, Ego. In the end, there was nothing left but a corpse, a planet that was dead in spirit and yet still alive.
I watched as the energy projection started to fade away. It might have been a trick of the light, but I could feel him smile at the end of the torment that was his life. And thus spelled the end of Ego, the living planet, a broken celestial that was more human than myself.
Alright, this is it, we're finally caught up to the current events of the story. This means that there will be no more mass uploads. I generally post four chapters a week, on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursdays and Fridays. I tend to be consistent (I have been for more than a year now) but I will let you know if I miss an upload day.
On the other hand, if you want to support me, check out my Patreon. I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 15 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.
Chapter 243: Selfless
4th October 2012, Middle of the Pacific Ocean
(Jasmine Sayre POV)
I was able to easily discern the weakness to this weapon, but I was distracted by seeing what made up Ego. I could see the mind behind the projection, even if it was countless light years away, I could see its thought process, and if I had to describe it, I would say that it was odd for an entity as old as Ego. It was so emotional, so illogical, and in its core, it was so lonely. And in the end, if I had to describe it in a single word, it would be…. human.
Ego felt like a human, acted like an entitled human and while it was extremely surprising, it provided me with a way to defeat my foe. I knew exactly what I had to do.
It was elegant in its simplicity. I wanted to hit myself for not putting things together as quickly as I could. I watched as the celestial in front of me was giving me a victorious smirk. He thought himself invincible since he was just an energy projection that could be reformed indefinitely. The mind, the true brain, existed thousands of lightyears away. Oh, how good will it feel when he realizes the danger that he is in, the fact that his death is nearing, that it will be inevitable.
It's a shame that I couldn’t recruit him, but I now realize that it’s impossible. Ego is many things, the last trueborn celestial, a practical living god whose body was composed of an entire planet, but he is also broken, a glitch in the system.
If I had to guess, I would say that Ego came into existence at a time when the world was out of balance, but that kept alternating. It was probably during the celestial wars. This meant, that while Ego had the power of the usual celestial, he had none of the knowledge or purpose that guided his siblings. He was just a consciousness that drifted in the darkness of space for millions of years without reason, without purpose. It drove him mad. And who wouldn’t go mad at such a torture for millions of years.
But slowly, he learned how to harness his cosmic energy to change the world around him through experimentation alone and pushed the madness as far down as he could, hoping that it wouldn’t exist. And alas, he found life. It probably took a few million years of looking – people do not realize how vast space actually is, meaning that the chance of meeting someone by accident is extremely slim – but finally, he discovered that he wasn’t alone anymore.
So, he did whatever he could to emulate the life he saw, but he wasn’t mortal, he was more, and thus his mind broke, the madness that he repressed with the disappointment he had to the race he encountered. He tried to emulate them, he didn’t want to be alone, and his cosmic energy answered. One of the most important attributes that separates a celestial from a mortal, is the way they see the universe. Their mind is just alien, on another level, and so, his own powers broke his mind to resemble that of a mortal. Traces of the madness remained, but slowly his thinking started to shift and resemble that of a mortal being.
The celestial bound his own mind and soul to a physical form completely, something that was supposed to be impossible and yet a broken mind was a powerful thing. Ego partially descended and became mortal.
The mental limitation that Ego put on himself limited what he could even achieve with his powers, and meanwhile the madness started to manifest itself, giving him a purpose to consume everything, to unite the entire universe into one being, him, so that he would never be alone again.
This was what happened when a celestial became rogue. The devastation that the being in front of me was indescribable. Ego had spent millions of years experimenting, to create the bioweapon that he put in every inhabited planet in the galaxy. How many planets, how many civilizations have been destroyed for the mad ambitions of a space god?
No wonder the man didn’t even blink at the possibility of dying. He just didn’t think that anyone or anything could defeat him. He only knew of his kin through stories of their might and their accomplishments and assumed that they had died out. He truly thought himself invincible.
This settled things. The abomination in front of me would get no mercy from me. First, I needed to deal with the weaponized cube. I needed to keep it in a safe space, so as to not activate it. Something as dangerous as anti-matter could destabilize the balance of all things. Sending it to the sun could affect the star’s mass and cause dramatic shifts in the entire star system.
It seems a pocket dimension, frozen in time, would be the most appropriate solution. I’ll deal with it later. I discretely created the runes in my palm and created a small dimension that would be enough to house the cube. For some reason, it came much easier to me than it did before the ritual.
Finally, I pretended to submit to my opponent, “Alright, you win. I will help you with your expansion, but in exchange, you will spare this planet and help me during Entropy’s inevitable attack.”
“It’s good that you now see sense, my child. You cannot oppose me. We have an agreement, Morrigan.”
God, I wanted to punch the smug smile off his face. I was tempted to do just that, but I had a plan, and I was going to stick with it. I floated towards the celestial who looked victorious, “Don’t worry, I’m going to take you home, to the core of my powers, so that we could realize my ambitions properly.”
I nodded, “One question, though.”
“Yes?”
“How do you plan to force me to do anything when your weapon is gone?”
He looked around and saw that the cosmic nullifying cube, that he had created, had disappeared in a red light. It was sleight of hand; while he reveled in his victory, I used reality magic – or at least the cosmic variation of it – to make an illusion of the cube while I opened a small portal and put the actual weapon in the pocket dimension that I just created. Pocket dimensions were really overpowered when it came to stopping weapons of mass destruction.
When I saw Ego’s wide eyes, I grinned cheekily at him, “Lesson number one: don’t watch the mouth, watch the hands.”
“Huh?”
Before he could even realize what I just said, I opened a different dimensional portal in front of me. It was the one I made during the New York invasion that contained the Tesseract enhanced nuke, that SHIELD wanted to use to blow up New York City. Fucking idiotic World Security Council.
I had frozen the blast in time, and as soon as I opened it, the blast started to go on. I barely kept the portal open for a second, and Ego was practically vaporized by the attack, as did half a mile in front of me. I knew that Ego’s projection was going to be reforming soon, and I was pressed for time for the rest of my plan.
I waved my hands and thousands of runes started to appear out of thin air. This was the first time I had ever done something like this, ever, but it was my best chance at beating the celestial in front of me. Slowly, the runes started to shrink into small links that started to connect themselves into a giant golden chain. Slowly the chain was getting stronger, tougher, indestructible.
I was nearly done when I heard the enraged cry, “MORRIGANNN…”
The infuriated celestial flew towards me, in a giant avatar of steel and stone that he probably transmuted, and yet, I wasn’t bothered. I had almost completed my spell. Seconds before he could reach me, my chain was done, and I threw it at Ego, “ENKIDU”
The chain around me came to life and went through the avatar like a hot knife through butter. It enwrapped itself around the celestial’s energy projection and finally the entire avatar chipped away and disappeared, leaving a floating Ego looking terrified at me, “What have you done?”
The chains of Enkidu, a spell that I created and named after the legendary tales of the god binding chains in the epic of Gilgamesh. It worked by absorbing the energy output from whatever it touches, storing it in an empty realm. The more a being was created out of energy, the more effective it was. The chains themselves were unbreakable, and bound the mind of its captive inside to not allow any kind of escape or teleportation.
Truthfully, the chains were mostly useless in any other situation. Outside of fighting Demon Lords and Elder Gods, they served no purpose. Celestials were too strong, too controlled, to not be able to escape, and other opponents were generally mortals, which means that there are easier ways to restrain them.
However, Ego was a broken celestial that saw the world through an energy projection. He couldn’t control the emission of cosmic energy of his projection properly, which means that currently, I had him at a bind. He couldn’t drop the projection; he had put his entire consciousness inside – another mental limitation of his – and it couldn’t escape through the properties of the chains. The celestial was effectively trapped.
My answer to his question was monotone, “I have subdued you,” he tried to break the chains which sapped whatever kinetic energy he created, “Don’t try to escape, there is no way for you to do so.”
“What are you?”
“Your Death. You are defective, Ego. You rejected your purpose of life and want only Death. You are a threat to the balance, and I have no choice but to eliminate you as a threat to reality itself. The remaining question is, what to do with you?”
He looked frightened, terrified, he looked so…human. Again, the similarities were very disturbing. I could see the madness in his eyes, now that he wasn’t trying to hide it anymore.
I continued, “I could keep you in a timeless loop, but it was proven to me recently that they could be overcome. I could imprison you, but in the end, my lifetime is barely more than a moment for someone like you. No, you cannot remain in this mortal coil, for you present a risk to life itself. It is my responsibility to eliminate the threat you pose completely.”
He looked a little smug at my speech, “You can’t kill me. My body, my soul, is light years away, further away than you can travel. How long do you plan to keep me in chains? I can see the drain on your light, Morrigan. It will not be long before I am freed.”
He was right, and I racked my brain for an answer until I finally found one, “Yes, your body and soul might be far away, but your mind is trapped with you.”
I remembered the fact that Ego kidnapped a member of psychic species to get him to fall asleep. He was vulnerable to psychic attacks, but he had formidable mental protections.
Unsurprisingly, Ego chuckled, “You think you could get into my mind while you’re using these chains?”
“No, not alone.”
I opened another portal and retrieved a familiar yellow gem. It was the mind stone, and it was floating in my palm. Immediately, the arrogant smile on the celestial’s head disappeared, “The mind stone? Please, I won’t attack anyone anymore. I will do whatever you like. I’ll even be your slave.”
I raised the stone in the air, and it floated near my temple and glowed. I gave Ego a sad look, “If only I could believe you, Ego. You were such a disappointment. I hope that you will find peace in Death.”
Before he could protest, I put both my hands on the head of the celestial and channeled the mind stone’s power. I shredded the entirety of whatever made Ego, Ego. In the end, there was nothing left but a corpse, a planet that was dead in spirit and yet still alive.
I watched as the energy projection started to fade away. It might have been a trick of the light, but I could feel him smile at the end of the torment that was his life. And thus spelled the end of Ego, the living planet, a broken celestial that was more human than myself.
Alright, this is it, we're finally caught up to the current events of the story. This means that there will be no more mass uploads. I generally post four chapters a week, on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursdays and Fridays. I tend to be consistent (I have been for more than a year now) but I will let you know if I miss an upload day.
On the other hand, if you want to support me, check out my Patreon. I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 15 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.
