I Can Assimilate Everything

Chapter 683: Mansa! II

The Great Mansa Zulu.

Such a terrifying being floated above him as Achilles found himself doing his best not to despair.

An entity that was called forth who felt thousands of times grander than THE Prisoner. Not even thousands of times more powerful in the conventional sense. It seemed like they were not even on the same level of comparison!

Fuck!

Lamashtu had been on THE Second Scale, had reclaimed authority that made Absolutes seem like insects. This being made Lamashtu seem like an insect in turn.

And yet Achilles knew that he still had himself and his family to defend.

He could not give up here, even in the worst case scenario. Rose was waiting for him in the First Sea of Tian. His Father and the other Adrastia Emperor Kings dwelled within his Inner Dominion. Everything he had built, everyone he loved, all of it depended on him surviving whatever came next.

He began to open his mouth.

He was going to weave a story as to why he had summoned this being, some explanation that might satisfy whatever curiosity had brought this entity from the Unobservable. Perhaps he could claim ignorance. Perhaps he could redirect attention toward Lamashtu’s corpse. Perhaps he could find words that would convince this apocalyptic presence to simply leave.

His Inner Dominion trembled.

The sensation was unlike anything he had experienced before. It felt like death coming to him and all his bodies simultaneously. Every aspect of his existence screamed with instinct that made his half-formed words die in his throat. If he said that lie, if he tried to deceive this being, everything he had worked for would be done right here and now.

He looked around at the corpses of the Absolutes that THE Prisoner had sacrificed. Their empty eyes still held questions that would never be answered. He looked at the corpse of Lamashtu that he was in the midpoint of Assimilating, that broken form slowly integrating into his weakened existence.

Honesty then.

"I was not the one who summoned you here."

His voice emerged weak and ragged from his decrepit body.

"The corpse in front of me was an outsider of this Observable Existence. Of my Observable Existence. He was seeking to enslave all of us, and I had no idea what his ritual would produce or what he was calling as I moved to stop him."

He forced himself to meet those pupilless obsidian eyes.

"I thought I had managed to do so. But I was wrong."

A pause.

"I...did not call you."

...!

BOOM!

It was a reply that was fairly honest.

The Great Mansa Zulu looked toward Achilles with expression that held nothing resembling emotion. Those nine obsidian-white crowns continued their slow orbit above that perfect obsidian head. The infinite brilliance behind this entity pulsed with patience that suggested time held no meaning for beings of this magnitude.

Then Mansa Zulu nodded.

"In a few possible futures, you had just died many times."

The words landed with weight that made the surrounding Existential Lattice shudder.

"You chose honesty and have lived in one of the few parallel futures."

Achilles felt cold wash through his weakened existence. A few possible futures!

His instinct had saved him from deaths he would never witness.

"Okay."

Mansa Zulu continued with voice that pressed against reality itself.

"And even if you believe you did not call me here, there are no accidents in existence. I am here because I was always supposed to be here. You are alive and that thing below you is dead because it was always supposed to be dead."

Those pupilless eyes seemed to look through Achilles rather than at him.

"All that I said can be true and false. Since I have been called here, in this stunted, somewhat demeaning Observable Existence that we enjoyed the weavings of countless cycles ago and left to be, your prayers will be answered."

A pause that felt weighted with significance Achilles could not comprehend.

"So rejoice."

...!

His prayers would be answered?

What exactly did this ridiculous being mean by such a sentence? Achilles had not prayed for anything! He had not asked for intervention from forces beyond his understanding. He had simply tried to stop Lamashtu before the ritual could complete!

He did not wish to wait for clarification.

He raised his head as best as he could with a body that felt like it would collapse at any moment and asked the question that demanded asking.

"What...do you mean that my prayers will be answered?"

The figure of Mansa Zulu descended from the heights where infinite obsidian brilliance still pulsed behind them. They floated down through the ritual space with movement that seemed almost gentle despite the apocalyptic authority radiating from their form. They came to rest a distance from Achilles that should have been comfortable but felt suffocating.

Achilles felt his entire existence shaking as if it would collapse just from being near this entity!

His foundations trembled. His Inner Dominion quaked. Even the partial Assimilation of Lamashtu’s corpse stuttered and slowed as his weakened existence struggled to maintain cohesion against the pressure of proximity to something that should not be perceived by beings of his Scale!

Mansa Zulu studied him with those pupilless obsidian eyes.

"A Bounded Lifeform like you, being this weak, actually has enough of a will to gaze upon me."

The words held something that might have been curiosity in a being capable of such emotion.

"Is it simply due to your ignorance?"

A pause.

"But I am in a good mood. Yes, your prayers will be answered."

The nine crowns above Mansa Zulu’s head spun slightly faster.

"The intent of the one who began the Unobservable ritual, the one you managed to kill even though you should not have been able to, was to gain power through that which was Unobservable by offering this existence."

Those obsidian eyes narrowed slightly.

"Of course, this Observable Existence was never his to offer. It was always ours to begin with. I was born from the light of the Cause of this stunted Observable Existence. As a failed Observable Existence, none of us had any reason to stay after its emergence. We knew that nothing would come of it."

Mansa Zulu’s voice carried weight that made the corpses of Absolutes around them disintegrate simply from the pressure of sound.

"I am pleasantly surprised to be called here again."

The entity raised one obsidian hand toward Achilles.

"Your prayer shall be answered. I shall deem you THE Vilicus of this Observable Existence. And even though it is failed, I shall create a channel between it and An Observable Existence that is actually successful and much more advanced."

The words crashed against Achilles’s consciousness with implications he could barely process.

"Information will flow. Civilizations will flow. I will consider this an experiment to see what can become of a failed Observable Existence."

Those pupilless eyes held something that might have been anticipation.

"That is why you should rejoice."

BOOM!

Mansa Zulu said such terrifying words!