World Keeper

Chapter 1114: Chaos

The receptionist watched in disbelief as the hotel remained unchanged, glancing back towards the door. Pierce could see from her expression that she wanted to go out and tell everyone to seek shelter here, to use it as a refuge against the monster, but he shook his head. “You shouldn’t leave the building, or even open a door or window.” He told her. “My power is working its way into the structure of this hotel. If you take away any barriers between yourself and that entity, its shadow will effect you.”

“What?” The receptionist seemed confused, barely managing to calm herself down as she walked towards the window. “But… there are so many people out there, and they’re not changing.”

“Some are.” Pierce pointed out. “I sense a foreign power protecting the bodies of many citizens, but it’s not perfect, and can’t save them all. For the record, that power isn’t protecting you.”

In order to prepare for the coming disaster, Pierce had made the smallest gesture he could, which was to purchase a snack from a street vendor. However, the coin that he used to pay for that snack was one that he embedded with his Alteration domain. As soon as that coin entered someone’s inventory, it would infect their other coins, similar to a meme, and anyone possessing an infected coin would be temporarily immune to effects that would change their physical form.

Anyone who accepted change from that street vendor, and anyone that person then went on to pay later. For almost a full day, the natural flow of the economy itself had spread his protective influence over a large portion of the city. As it reached this point, Pierce was quite pleased with his arrangements, a smile coming over his face.

“Is there… nothing we can do? You’re a god, right? Surely, you must have something?” The receptionist asked, looking at Pierce.

Pierce shook his head. “I’m not one that focuses on fighting. Right now, my divinity is being used to maintain this structure. Besides… it looks like there is someone else that is going to take a stand.”

When Pierce realized the source of the coming threat, and devised his plan, there was still one other piece of insurance that he left behind. However, to activate it, he had to use his divinity to alter the present.

Tampering with time was a tricky business, and he was all too aware of that. Pierce would not go back into the past to make a direct change, because he knew that would simply remove him from the present. Instead, he did something far more difficult. To achieve the goal he wanted, he saw a possible history in which he had made a change, and then brought that change into the present.

“Now, what will you do?” He muttered to himself, his gaze sweeping out over the distorted landscape. He had set the scene. The actors were in place. It was time to watch the show.

In the fringe worlds, there were many diseases that had yet to be completely eradicated. Many different methods existed to cure them, but these methods were too costly for the average person to afford. Thus, they were left to struggle with the disease or find some way to pay for a treatment.

Brianna ran through the streets as the buildings on either side of her warped into twisted masses of ice and flesh. Scared cries escaped her lips, running as fast as her little legs could carry her. She had seen so many people changed by this shadow, and was clueless as to why it hadn’t targeted her. Still, she ran, clutching a small bottle to her chest.

Brianna had only just finished buying medicine for her brother when this disaster struck, and was rushing to find him, hoping that he had been protected by this blight as she had. Her brother, Nelson, was inflicted with a disease known as Stone Rot. Those affected by this disease would have their skin harden like stone, their muscles gradually solidifying. If it wasn’t treated in time, the entire body would become a statue, leading to inevitable death.

Nelson was in the later stages of the illness, with Brianna having been working on her own to try and get the money for some medicine. Thanks to a stranger that she had met the day before, she finally had enough. “Please be safe…” She pleaded, tears falling from her eyes.

“How would a monster like this appear here?” The receptionist asked, finally managing to calm herself down as she stared out the window with Pierce. “Is it a memetic monster that made it through the barrier?”

“Not quite.” Pierce shook his head. “This thing doesn’t appear to be a natural construct. Rather, I believe that it was man-made.”

“W-What? Who would make something like this?” The receptionist asked in shock, turning to look at Pierce with a shaking gaze.

“That I’m not sure of.” He answered, and this time he was speaking the truth. The creature’s creation was too far away, so he hadn’t been able to peer that far into its past. “It must be someone quite skilled with engineering memes, as he managed to give one a life of its own.”

“From what I can tell, this meme has one simple rule. Anything it touches, or anything touched by its shadow, must change. Looking at what’s happening the creature either has no control over what something changes into, or it has no desire to control it.” Just looking at one entity, Pierce could see dozens of futures, each one with that entity becoming some new horror. This could only mean that the change was truly random, not controlled by any form of intelligence.

“But…” He began. “If the change is random, that means that not even that monster can predict what it will create. Out of the infinite possibilities, who’s to say…”

Finally, Brianna could see the small home where she lived with her brother. The shadow hadn’t quite reached there yet, though she could see it rapidly coming closer. Worse still, her brother was sitting next to the window, where Brianna had placed him to let him see the outside world. His skin looked to be made of cracked stone, his hair having fallen from his head. His eyes were gray and ashen, and it looked like he would fully petrify any day now.

She knew that the medicine wouldn’t take effect immediately, so Brianna was more worried about grabbing her brother and fleeing. Even with her small body, she could pick up a half-petrified man.

That was when she felt something wrapping around her ankle. Looking down, a vine had sprung up from a nearby streetlamp, one which grabbed at her and caused her to begin falling forward. The bottle of medicine left her hands, her eyes widening. She barely registered that she hit the ground, seeing the bottle shatter a few feet away from her.

No… Nelson… Her tears began to flow freely. Even if she managed to get her brother out of this crisis… she would never have enough time to make enough money and buy another dose of medicine for him.

Thorns from the vine began to dig into her skin, pulling her along the pavement. Brianna was helpless, watching the shadow stretch over their small yard, the grass distorting into laughing mouths that seemed to mock her efforts.

Brianna could hear the gnashing of teeth from the streetlamp behind her, knowing that it was pulling her into a giant maw. However, seeing the shadow falling over her brother, she let out a single, choked cry. “Nelson!”

The ground shattered, a warmth wrapping around her leg for a moment as the thorned vine disappeared. The mouth behind Brianna let out a pained shriek, vines flailing all around it. “Quiet.” A voice spoke up, hoarse from lack of use. Brianna’s gaze shook at that voice, as well as the silence that followed it.

Looking back, she saw her brother standing behind her, the stone removed from his skin. His hair had returned, thick and black, and his clothes had been replaced with a long, flowing robe. Not only that, but she could swear that he had grown a few inches taller. “N-Nelson?” She asked, and he turned back to look at her with a smile, his brown eyes just as she remembered them.

“Give me just a second, Bri. There’s something that I need to do.”

Pierce’s smile grew slightly wider as he saw a pillar of black energy rise up from within the city. He had tipped the scales as much as he could, ensuring that the dice would roll as he wished. “Out of the infinite  possibilities… who’s to say that that thing can’t create something to destroy it?”

Pierce was witnessing the birth of an unconventional Fallen God, one whose power was directly bestowed by a meme. At this moment, information was flooding into Nelson’s mind, giving him an awareness of what his power was and how he could use it. He had become the Fallen God of Order.

While he was still accepting this information, he would have a few moments to truly use his power as he wished. After that, there would be a period where he would need to start properly processing what he had, similar to a rush of adrenaline.

Projecting his vision across the city, Pierce was able to see Nelson lift his small hand up towards the sky. “Disappear.” He commanded, the void rushing to carry out his orders. A thick hole was pierced through the black cloud, a shrill scream echoing from within it.

The shadow condensed, becoming a black form that rushed down towards Nelson and Brianna. However, Nelson was still calm for the moment, narrowing his eyes at the entity that had hurt so many people, and had made his sister cry. “Die.”

The void rushed again, and the black mass froze in midair, its body beginning to slowly dissolve. Unfortunately, the death of this entity did not revert the changes caused by it, so the structures and people that had been altered would need another method of returning to normal, but there would not be any further changes.

That said, Nelson turned around, crouching down to his elder sister, and smiled. “It’s okay now, Bri. The monster’s gone.” He said, his voice regaining its youthful tone. Brianna choked out a sob, reaching up to grab her brother, as if just to confirm that this really was him.

As she grabbed him, she felt that his body went slack, and he collapsed down against her. She let out another cry, pulling back enough to get a good look. When she saw that he was sleeping peacefully, she hugged him again, holding him tight. At that moment, she couldn’t care less about anything else. Her brother was okay, his disease was gone. That was all that she needed to know. Everything else… everything else could come later.

“Is it over…?” The receptionist asked back in the hotel room, pulling Pierce’s vision away from the siblings. He nodded his head, retracting his divine power.

“That’s right. There will probably be a bit of a mess from now on, but people should be coming from the primary worlds soon, when they hear about this. Especially about the birth of a new Fallen God so far out here, and so young at that.” There were still hostile creatures occupying the city, ones that had been transformed from other buildings or objects, but the people were strong enough to deal with that much.

Pierce let out a sigh as he thought about that. “Though… it looks like this place isn’t going to be a good place to take a vacation anymore.” He said with a light chuckle. Originally, he thought that he would need to stick around for a full week, but things progressed faster than he had expected. Now, it was time to move on again.

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