Chapter 168: Origin

If Walker attempted the same process he’d done on Conduction, the pain would be akin to lighting his soul on fire…again. It simply wouldn’t work. But he had more information now. To burn out the Godeater, you don’t attack your own soul, but rather, the system-built writing of the Godeater itself.

And what better way to get rid of a system than with another one? 

What was left inside of him was a partial imprint. The majority had been excised by his soul the moment he’d filled the Godeater with the Primigenials. After reading the notes in his Icon, Walker understood that calling it a parasite was accurate, but without specificity. Its coding was more like that of a viral leech than a bog-standard parasite.

It was designed to enter a mighty host, one who had reached a high stage of soul power, then latch on. A small, twisted tooth in a large gear. Once it began to drain the entity of its vitality, the host had one of two options. Kill those like them until they could enter the dormant stage, or die in what felt like an explosion of viral energy.

In both situations, the Godeater Parasite would spread across the rendition, further infecting those with enhanced souls and tearing through everything in its path. It was soul cancer, on a multiversal scale. 

What Walker had pushed out of himself wasn’t a single parasite, but dozens of them, now pressed into the service of his Icon. And he’d use their virality and greed to burn them into nothing.

With the Book of Souls staying open to the two black pages within, Walker looked over its origin again, internalizing the small coding of its creation as best as he could. He went over the pages twice, Soul Vision active and noting everything that stood out with the greatest scrutiny possible. 

As he’d expected, the origin of the Godeater Parasite held a name. Like those he’d seen within the System Designer, the Creator’s mark was apparent to anyone with access to its beginnings. The fact that the word Guide was tagged to the name was also unsurprising. With the Evolver’s lack of creativity, along with their non-understanding of souls, they’d contracted out the creation of the Godeater to somebody from the greater Omniverse. Likely, a guide gained from using the same kind of token Walker had given Ulysses. 

It was a lot of theory and supposition, but when looked at with the lens of the Evolver’s history, it made perfect sense. But that didn’t matter right now. As he memorized the code within, he found the smaller additions, the ins and outs of how the Godeater was created, and how it could be created again.

Rather than use the modified System Designer, Walker went old school. With Soul Vision still active, he found an empty portion of the fourth rendition’s soul, then formed his intent slowly and meticulously, building it upon a rock-solid foundation. 

With a breath, Walker recalled the movements Kwaya had built into the evolver-verse at its inception, and performed them to exacting detail.

Connect

To every universe within the Multiverse. Every rendition.

Spread

Far and wide. Reach every corner, every distortion point available.

Find

The Godeater system. The viral parasite bound in unique entities across the Multiverse. The afflicted.

Accept

Any organism or entity from Walker Reed, known as Dante.

Attack

Use the organism to burn it out, cancelling the opposing system. Leave any souls that remain alone. Only allow the organism or entity to attack the parasite, nothing else.

Restore

Normal functionality.

With the last movement, a dipping hand gesture, rising to the sky, Walker gathered the power of his soul and fired it into the empty spot in the rendition's universal makeup. An update reached his eyes immediately. 

Congratulations Administrator Dante!

You've created a new system!

Please name it.

…

…

The Anti-Godeater system is named!

The time for hiding was over. 

The only people who would know his true name were the council, and of those, the only one who would have reason to look deeply at the new system was Councilmember Five- and that cat was already out of the bag. The stitched man was afflicted the same as him, but no souls had filled the dark lines of his figure. His parasite was still active.

A green light appeared at the same distortion point where Walker had just placed his energy. A line, not dissimilar to a laser, fired from it, connecting the empty location of space with the center of Walker’s chest. But it was waiting on something. 

Walker called out to his Icon, and watched as eleven black hands reached forth. With a wince at how much he disliked this part, Walker covered himself in his soul and reached forth. Gripping each, he infused the Godeater with the power of his soul, before ripping it from the black pages and hurling the disgusting entity into the laser. He did the same to the other ten, then performed one final movement, activating the system. 

Like a match striking a fuse, the dark lines of his body began to burn at a furious rate as the Walker infused Anti-Godeaters destroyed their old home. 

Though he knew what it was doing, he couldn’t help screaming as the pain was excruciating. As the laser moved, the rainbow color of trapped souls began to seep out of Walker’s own, slowly dissipating into the sky. But he wouldn’t let their souls end that way. It wasn’t right to allow the power and memories of the sacrificed to end so unnobly. 

Though it wasn’t guaranteed to work, he wanted to try something.  

While the Godeater lines burned, and Walker’s mouth was held open in a fixed grimace, the green of his extended soul went to work. Once a Primigenial was filtered out of his body, it had nowhere to go, so he came up with a temporary solution. By infusing the area directly around him with his soul, he’d closed off the area, forming it into solid green walls. 

But it wouldn’t be enough for Walker to simply contain the energy of the departed. So instead, he expelled several Enhancement strand resources, spreading the distilled power of the universe across the broken pieces of the Primigenials. 

And it worked. 

At least, long enough for the Book of Souls to come closer. Like a net catching butterflies, the Book of Souls gently drifted around the area, its pages opened to two midnight-colored sheets holding his final two Godeaters.  With each new soul added, more of the icon's interior became filled before it condensed down in size, again and again. 

What was amazing was that all of this was happening without Walker needing to say a word. The bond between Primordial and Icon was now at a point that he couldn’t tell where his thoughts ended and the Icon’s began. Rather than one thought process in the back of Walker’s mind, there were now two. As more of the lines burned and more Primigenials were added to the pages of his Icon, the connection between his two minds was further empowered, fundamentally increasing the speed at which his thoughts worked. 

Two engines for one car could do that.

While the Walker side of things held the pain at bay, watching the last of the parasite burn up, the Icon side managed the souls, collecting every Primigenial that exited their second prison within Walker himself. After only a few more seconds, the parasite would be gone and only Walker would remain.

Something beat in his chest at that thought. Another second, and another beat. And another. It sped up, the tempo increasing as the parasite burned and a drum solo for the ages played in his chest. When Walker felt the very last part of the Godeater system get deleted, two things happened at once. The laser retracted quickly before firing directly at Ra’jin; and a massive pulse of green energy fired out of Walker’s body, arcing out for all in the rendition to see.

He had all of a second to watch it happen before the world went black.

Please don’t tell me I’ve blacked out again, Walker’s two minds thought at once. But there was no answer, only the absence of light.

Closing and opening his eyes multiple times, he found nothing changed. Walker was trapped. Then, a series of thoughts drifted back and forth between his two minds. An unexpected insight.

This was as it was meant to be. This was the true beginning of the third stage, which Zeus had called the esoteric or truth stage. The Godeater had held him back, and even after it had gone dormant, it was programmed to still keep him from reaching the next stage. Burning it out was the only way to get here. 

To his own Metaphysical world.

With that thought, the lights turned on. It didn’t come from a specific, bright source, but instead seemed to just be. With another thought, trees sprang up, and an old friend made an appearance.

“Hey, buddy,” Walker said with a smile as he held out an arm. The Genesis Tanager landed, looking at him with two grass-green eyes. It chirped once, tilting its head as he looked at it for the first time in a long while. 

By how he looked, his soul protector had gone through quite a lot. Many of its feathers were chewed up or missing outright. The once sharp beak had cracks in it, and one of its wings was canted, as if it had been broken and healed wrong.

He stroked the one yellow feather on the top of its head, “What have you been up to since we last saw each other?” 

The Tanager’s mouth opened and closed, then images formed in his mind of their own volition. After he’d left, the forest in his soul had become darker. As the darkness grew, something formed out of it. A great black snake. The Tanager had recognized the danger of the creature, and for years, they’d fought back and forth. However, although Walker’s little soul Guardian did deal damage to the snake, it always healed quickly, while its own injuries only seemed to grow. 

Walker stroked its yellow feather again, “You did all that for me?”

The Tanager tilted its head again without reply. 

Walker smiled, then gave a brief moment of concentration to his metaphysical world. In a blink, the Genesis Tanager was whole again. It chirped at him once before flying away to the forest, diving through the boughs and branches of the trees. 

Walker knew what the snake was…it was the parasite. The reason years and years had gone by without him succumbing to the hunger it brought on and the draining of his vitality was all due to a little bird he’d created on a whim. The Tanager had been holding it back. Weakening the Godeater to give him time. 

He smiled as another chirp echoed back at him from the forest, then turned around. 

While the Trees and the forest filled up one area of his metaphysical world, the rest was spread across a large white space like the one he’d visited when speaking to Ulysses. Staring out at the white expanse, information filtered into his mind about what he could do, and what he couldn’t. 

This was a visual representation of his soul, but not quite. Just as gilded paint gave the impression of gold, so too did the metaphysical realm hide the damage and pain of his soul. For a second, he stopped holding back the true damage of his soul and watched the world change. 

Cracks in the floor appeared, a representation of his few broken promises. The sky darkened perceptively, moments when his anger and pain had driven him to shady thoughts and actions. And the once green forest became riddled with monsters, green and yellow creatures that brought images to his mind of those rare instances where he’d held back his people for one reason or another. 

In another blink, it was all back to how it was. A white room with a decently large forest splashed in the middle of it. But it could be so much more…

With a thought, Walker’s oath splashed across the ceiling as if a skywriter had recently passed by. 

I will always strive to be better. I will always grow to build a better future for myself and those around me. And, I will always help those in need. 

I will always be better. 

He felt the oath in the sky resonate with the center of his chest. But it was off. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted, no, needed it to be.

Through his connection to the Book of Souls, he knew how to change it, but it was dangerous. His oath was stamped in cement upon his soul. To alter it now would be to invite himself to a devastating attack. He needed more Guardians.

With his Icon so well connected to the rest of him, Walker reached forth from within and produced three souls. Each was a Primigenial who’d lived a life of terror and mayhem. Fear. Murder. They didn’t deserve a second chance. With an empowered punch, Walker shattered the remnant souls, breaking them into pieces and destabilizing the terrible memories they’d held. He grabbed hold of each and molded them into his ideal guardians.

Three large squirrels looked back at him, as green as his soul. Because of his connection, Walker needed to give no instructions. They knew what to do.

While this all might be unnecessary as he was supposedly safe within the advanced speed of Continuum, Walker had decided long ago that safe was better than sorry.

Looking back up at the sky, he pushed his second mind to rewrite the oath into what best fit himself and his goals while his other mind worked on the process at which he’d do this.

With the excision of the Godeater, the Origin within him was the only reason this was at all possible. Now that the murkiness of the parasite was gone, many feelings and instincts that should have been his on reaching the Third stage were slowly becoming apparent. 

Origin, what he’d absorbed from the accelerated destruction of Primordial energy, wasn’t what he’d thought it was. It wasn’t soul steroids. No. Effectively, it was the collected soul energy of an entire universe, bound and contained within a small, infinitely growing space. By tapping into his origin, Walker was effectively expanding his Metaphysical realm. That was what he’d gifted to the citizens and Primigenials of Symphony. The ability to grow beyond the standard stages. 

And, more than that, the oath above him wasn’t strong enough to manage what was about to come. So it had to change.

Walker tapped into the Origin at the center of his soul and saw the effects on his metaphysical world. The forest behind him grew from the small trees he’d grown used to into a massive forest of ancient sentinels. The white room expanded with it. It wasn’t visible to the naked eye, but he didn’t need that. This was his soul. He knew everything that happened within it. 

Looking up at the sky, the words of his oath tried to expand, but it couldn’t. Bit by bit, the words and oaths they held began to shred themselves. 

Connecting to his other mind, Walker approved of the changes it had made. Reaching forth a hand glowing green, he rewrote the oath to better stand the tests of what was to come in his life. 

I will strive to grow- every day, in every way

I will shape a better future for myself and those beside me

I will lift up those in need, never turning away from the deserving’s call for help

And above all, I will never settle-

I will always be better.

The new oath was close enough to the old that the change wasn’t excruciating. Not to be mistaken, Walker did collapse to a knee as the words settled in, but there was no blacking out as was his usual modus operandi. As he stood upright and the metaphysical world within settled on the tiny bit of injected origin he’d given it, the words ingrained themselves in the sky, blazing forth for all to see.

But this was only the first step.

Walker looked out on the metaphysical world of his soul, and he began to build.