Chapter 33.West

Baphomet may have been slow, but it needed to be dealt with at some point. The south was looking good, so I figured now was as good a time as any. I intensified the use of the name, feeling the bond grow stronger as Baphomet stopped wasting energy feeling around, as if barely being able to smell the connection. I wasn't sure if my efforts to conceptualize pulling on the name had any effect, but it seemed to grow closer more quickly. As it grew closer, I needed to set up a field of battle, though it was a much more simple prospect in the mana ocean than the material world.

I wasn't about to let it come in contact with my faith maelstrom. That was the first precaution. Worshippers were fragile, them being eaten before I got the chance to eat Baphomet was counterproductive. Separation from my whole would also allow a failed battle to leave me wounded but alive. Perhaps I'd feed it to Sekhmet and Atlas if I couldn't eat it properly. I sent a significant quantity of my will outside of my core, far short of Baphomet, but far enough away that I'd be able to react well before a catastrophic loss. It was still a vast distance to cover between Baphomet and myself.

Such a distance that my situation had changed by the time we actually made contact. By the time my will reached Baphomet, the south wasn't looking as good. I had already been committed at this point, long committed. I concentrated even more will in my core, damaging myself at a rate I'd be doing permanent damage to myself if eating Baphomet didn't prove as useful as I hoped it would.

As my will met Baphomet's faith, I found myself both disappointed and ecstatic. Eating any of Raginor's radiant shards was harder than eating Baphomet. Much harder. Every gain taken from a radiant shard was a battle, a war of wills between order and chaos. Baphomet was old, it was tired, and it was weak. It could barely manage any thoughts at all, let alone the raging storm of thought that had radiated from Cacophony. It was too easy to consume. While being so vast and nourishing that even the anticlimax wasn't enough to quell the high of victory.

I may have been disappointed, but I wasn't complaining. Old, tired, and weak, but it was still a megalith. So much faith, information, and history was contained in such a fragile vessel. The history alone was a vast store of information, equal in value if not exceeding the entirety of the Conclave's records and Sekhmet's memories combined. The Conclave heavily edited their records and Sekhmet's memories were so chaotic it was next to impossible to see the difference between what was believed and what was true.

Baphomet had been a cannibal god, one god in one pantheon that controlled only one culture that was itself a small portion of what had been the entirety of the cannibal race. At the time, a time so long ago it matched the oldest of Conclave records. Though it told the story of history in a very different way. The Conclave may have been the only cannibal culture that survived until I was created, but cannibals had once had hundreds of cultures. Each with their own god, gods, or lack of gods. The Conclave had been a backwater village of extremists, at the time. Recognized as the original cannibal civilization, the records alone proved that fact, but seen as outdated in a time when bringing gods to life had been done on purpose. The Conclave had erased records of the other cannibal civilizations in a fit of pique, as far as I could tell, but Baphomet showed a whole different perspective on the existence of gods.

Baphomet had been a funny tale, one that none believed as real, by the original worshippers. A story so old and inaccurate that it was only primitive morons that could believe Baphomet an actual entity that existed. At the time, gods had all been seen as overblown myths, existing only in records of where humans themselves had come from.

At the time, cannibals and spawn had been capable of coexisting. Cannibals saw spawn as emotional and unpredictable while spawn saw cannibals as cold and distant, but racial trends weren't enough that they genuinely disbelieved that "human" applied to both species. Yet. When the spawn started to genuinely worship the sun and gain the benefits of a young and eager to please god, the cannibals noticed. They more than noticed, they understood the mechanisms behind the creation of gods. Seeing the benefits, they created their own.

Their understanding of the mechanisms behind the creation allowed for more stable gods that had a greater sense of identity, but their understanding also made them less genuine in their worship. Cannibal gods were more defined, so much so that Baphomet still had a singular sense of identity that held together its strands of faith, but weaker. The spawn saw the creation of cannibal gods as blasphemy, only driven more deeply by the fact that many of the benefits cannibals could get from their gods were more defined than the ones spawn could get from the sun. The holy war that ensued as the cannibals tried to explain that gods were created while spawn refused to admit divine creation as anything but blasphemy had never really ended. It would soon, though. One way or another.

Baphomet had been one of the earliest gods to die, their culture trying to exist in balance between spawn and cannibals. They were instead crushed between two factions destined to never reconcile. Dying so early had allowed it to maintain its memory, preserving the original being. It had died before the cannibals needed to change their worship methods to keep up. Passing worship north had allowed defined gods to be given the same treatment as the sun, though their original identity and history were erased in the process. They had managed to survive, though. Baphomet was less than a shadow of its former self, now. It could have bounced back more readily than a chaotic god that had been abandoned for as long, but it had a different fate.

It had preserved knowledge, defined knowledge. Knowledge of history that the Conclave would prefer was forgotten. Knowledge that was destined to be mine. To allow me to access the truth of godhood as well as names. The Conclave may have had better libraries than any other civilization, but their purposeful retention of knowledge showed what they saw as worth retention. Baphomet revealed what they didn't want to record, whether that was because the entirety of the war was fought while the Conclave fled north or later generations didn't think records of the Conclave's mediocrity were necessary didn't really matter. Either way, I had access to those records now.

History was valuable, but the present was what really concerned me. It was impossibly lucky that Baphomet just so happened to be the particular kind of god that recorded knowledge accurately while also having the knowledge I wanted; the purpose of names. It was at the core of how the old cannibals had created gods in the first place; belief. Belief was the core of faith. When a creature of will believed something strong enough, their intent to believe could coalesce into faith, a much more likely occurrence if the intent to believe was released by multiple people about the same thing. Or close enough to the same thing. The more desperately they felt they needed to believe, the more likely faith would be created.

When that core of belief was given a name, that allowed the faith generated by multiple people to congregate much more easily. It also congregated beliefs that wouldn't otherwise congregate, introducing the chaos of pollution that resulted in Cacophony instead of Baphomet. A name was a focal point, a defining feature that held beliefs together as long as they followed the principles behind the name.

The opposite could also happen, as it had with Cacophony. There had probably been a name in the beginning, some sun god chosen from the dust of history. After it had formed a god, the sun itself was what was worshipped. Being so tied to the function, even without a name it became a focal point for congregation. A congregation that was able to exceed every other congregation to become the strongest megalith among the gods. Merely trying to take the name while knowing nothing of what it meant was why it was so difficult for Baphomet to find me. I could have done the same with the sun's original name and it probably never would have been able to track me down.

The Conclave may have forgotten, but Baphomet's creators had remembered that the sun was built by humans. Originally a mechanical device, one doomed to eventually fall apart as all devices were. Purposefully mythologized to make it immortal, to create a machine that would never fail. Faith interacted with mana, being a subset of will. A creature of faith could survive far longer than any device humans created, so they'd spread belief. A fallen wheel of the chariot of Helios, broken off in a war against the boundless shadow of the unknown ether. They'd explained that the sun operated on belief, and if there were too few prayers it would go dark. Enough prayers may even be able to bring back the full chariot, perhaps even allowing Helios to return. Mythology that had been forgotten by the spawn, but had still been subsumed into the mass that Raginor now controlled.

Belief that was false when it was spread but became true because creatures of will believed it. It was the reason the sun rotated, even though it didn't need to. The darkness was to remind the spawn what losing their belief would mean, the blackened side of the wheel corrupted by the forces of shadow. Forces that lived still, requiring prayers to keep it at bay. An entire species manipulated to powering a device. They'd even built in a defense against one of their gods becoming like me, as being powered by faith meant being inherently polluted by the multitude of variance between specific beliefs. Perhaps Helios had been a megalith once, but it definitely wasn't anymore. Devoured by his own wheel. A self arising from the chaos that was the direct belief in the sun was next to impossible, only possible if something like a shard of cohesive will got consumed within the chaos and allowed a single piece or several to become both self-aware and provide the knowledge of how to consume the chaos.

Not even the creators of Baphomet had remembered how humans realized they were creatures with will, or even how to interact with mana at all. How could they have known that a creature of faith would maintain and eventually subsume the machine? By applying the principle and a little extrapolation, my supposition was; practice. The sun wasn't the only object that operated in that way. The earth and sky followed very similar principles, though they avoided the chaos by having no defining features. At their core, they were very specific in how they operated. As if by rules set up by people who wanted them to operate that way. Perhaps the legacy of an even older civilization.

The names carried their purpose. Their nature. I felt a spike of regret as I consumed the name of Baphomet, but understanding what a name meant wouldn't allow me to take one that belonged to another. I had the knowledge necessary to create another Baphomet, but it would corrupt me if I assumed the name myself. More corrosive than any set of empty will. It would become what defined me, not the other way around. Not as much as a creature of faith, but still a very detrimental move.

It wasn't all a loss, though. Baphomet had been a very nutritious meal. Enough for me to advance to class nine in comfort. An advance that was very beneficial for my efforts in the south. With my advancement complete, I had the mental resources to continue my exploration of the core nature of gods and how cannibals had invented them. Baphomet's name may not suit me, but knowledge was always a valuable addition to my will.

Such as the knowledge I gained when Glrt became my first pope. While that was indeed interesting, Angie's reaction was every bit as valuable. More, even. She was utterly unwilling to be surpassed. The feeling that she had been, and that her self-obsession was at the core of why, gave her the final push. It could have been a push to become a pope, if she'd incorporated the entirety of herself into a self, but she took a different route. She shoved everything she thought was holding her back into her class four body and ripped it away from her will.

Both Angies were stunned at the extremely vicious maneuver. Being stunned didn't stop her core, though. Voluntarily breaking herself in half had had a massive effect on her conception of what it meant to be a worshipper. She'd succeeded in closing the gap between her core and mine. Better than she thought she would, in fact. Better than she'd though possible. Her goal had been to match Glrt, but instead she'd launched herself like a projectile directly at my will-core as a new shard dropped all the way to proponent. It was only due to damage that it didn't immediately become a priest, but the immediate effect was dropping to proponent.

Having Glrt already become a pope, I wasn't surprised as the will-core in Angie's avatar dissolved, but I was surprised when it met her will-core. Not only had her will-core fused into mine, but her will also fused. I'd thought the second and third heads of cerberi were as intimate as nightmare-type creatures could become, but I was wrong. Angie was connected to me so intimately it was difficult to see where she started.

Most interestingly, she blended just as much into the faith maelstrom. I could have shredded my own faith and converted it into will if I really wanted to, detrimental to my overall growth and inefficient as it may have been, but with Angie as an angel I wouldn't need to. She was a bridge between my will and the faith maelstrom. She'd probably be converted into a creature of faith if I drew too much faith through her, but I didn't think that would be a problem I'd need to deal with. Glrt having brought faith into as close an orbit as possible, Angie's addition fused the faith maelstrom into my will. I was now completely connected to all of my parts. I still preferred using my own will to enact my own will, but now my faith was equally malleable. Priests, cardinals, popes, and angels were the filtration mechanism that ensured I'd never face a threat to my self from my own faith.

Becoming an angel had changed a lot more of Angie than I'd thought it would. Even her core circuit was different, being a fuzzy thing that no amount of mana could give definition to. Whatever it was, it was a powerful circuit. Angie almost doubled her processing power despite losing access to two class six will-core circuits.

Such a change was immediately showcased, as Angie immediately started building herself another avatar. On her own. An act that had her class four body foaming at the mouth, but Angie had left that part of herself behind. I'd thought she'd need time to recover after a process that broke her will, but it turned out to be entirely unnecessary. She claimed to be better than ever, despite the pain, and I knew she was telling the whole truth. Not only had she gained perspective and knowledge like she'd always had them, she had surpassed Glrt in her worship of me. She'd maintained her lead. She regarded becoming the first angel a much greater honor than the first pope.

She wasn't wrong. By becoming an angel, Angie had given me the ability to see the differences between her and Atlas' angels. Her fuzzy circuit could be a ritual circuit, a ritual circuit that couldn't manifest properly because I didn't have a name, which would make them similar. The entirety of the fusing process was a difference, though. The colossi will-cores rolled across Atlas' faith-core, they hadn't become part of him as Angie was now part of me. Angie's self may still be distinct, but she was a self within the whole that was me. Atlas and his angels were still distinct entities, despite how unfathomably dependent they were on him. Each one too different from the other to truly give benefits to the core of the other.

Angie's growth proved that having the same nature were more than merely beneficial for me. She had already finished her eleventh avatar. She was getting very competent very quickly. Perhaps being on the battlefield would allow her to grow even faster. I sent all twelve of her bodies to the front lines with the purpose of maximum familiarization with her new state. A purpose she took to like she was born for it.

With Angie active in the south, I turned my attention to the other megaliths. How many would have stores of knowledge as vast as Baphomet? Eating them would be a waste, though. Raginor would be enough for me to reach class ten, and that was my maximum. Even if he wasn't, I was growing without needing to consume others. Raginor was the only real threat. Making them submit would be better in every way.

Between Atlas, Sekhmet, Baphomet, and the few dragons I'd conquered, I had the names of many gods. I activated only ten shrines at a time, and I started with the weakest gods. Their reactions were all identical to what Atlas' had been; excitement. Beyond willingness, they were desperate to accept my deal. Sekhmet had been perfectly vital, but the vast majority of the rest had been floating in the mana ocean incapable of interfacing with anything else. They probably would have been willing to worship a mortal, let alone something like me. My first attempt being so successful, I started on more while the first batch were still filling their worship runes.

Their methods of becoming one were varied, however. Some had a few angels they wanted to keep while devouring the majority. Some even developed new faith creatures within themselves that became proper angels, instead of the colossi and their incomplete angel status. Zeus was the strongest of those that chose that developmental path, though his zephyr were more akin to barghest chains than cerberi heads. He also had a few titan angels, but the zephyrs were far more numerous and valuable to him. He also seemed very disconnected to his purpose, as I wasn't sure what living air spirits had to do with being a god of rulers or how it ended up mixed in with Isis, among others.

Most of them split into multiple gods, accepting names that had been mixed into the worship of a city or splitting into different names that had held very similar purposes. Illumination wasn't the only domain of a god's that had subsumed more than one named deity. The most radical example was the god of death, which became Osiris, Anubis, Hel, Valhalla, Hades, and Tartarus. Those were only the largest ones, as well. Valhalla alone allowed dozens of gods to differentiate themselves from its mass. What had been one god became hundreds by the time each of them split and those splits finished splitting.

One, Janus, decided to develop two selves but maintain a singular name. It was the only god that made that choice. Subordinate selves were one thing, but having two equal parts of a singular entity was very confusing. Which was exactly what Janus wanted, for some reason it couldn't explain based on its name. Janus was the only one that missed the chaotic state of lacking a self entirely, apart from the gods like Ometecuhtli or Set. Unlike the gods of chaos, however, Janus chose to maintain a state of chaos after developing a self instead of merely missing it or mimicking it on purpose while being a singular entity.

With how interconnected the gods and their names were, I was surprised that I never activated shrines to two names in one megalith. I was less surprised at the lack of a response from other names. Names connected with the identities of larger megaliths. Gods being consumed by megaliths was far from impossible.

Baphomet had taught me what I needed to know to understand Abyss and megaliths like him. They weren't powered by belief. Not even belief in something malicious, like Ares or Ometecuhtli. Abyss was powered by fear. The first demons would have been the fears most common, but the strongest fear was the unknown. The Abyss from which fear slithered, crawled, or scurried. Similar to fear, hate had created another megalith; Hell. Hate wasn't a function of belief, but one of need. Of want. The strongest easily being the desire for vengeance, for the punishment of the hated. A creature of will dissolving would produce the strongest will-like contortions of intent, the knowledge of their inevitable doom leading to unfathomable levels of desperation. Hell may be mostly powered by the dying while Abyss leeched most from the living, but both were incomparable to mere gods.

Both Hell and Abyss were strong and singular enough to filter their sources through innumerable nightmares. Some gods had tried similar tactics, Tartarus being the most successful, but they fell short. Hell and Abyss functioned almost perfectly as separate levels of reality, full of completely sentient creatures that lived out their lives for centuries between forays into the material world. Worlds within the mana ocean.

Perhaps I'd create other material worlds when I was done with the one I was already well on the way to conquering. Abyss and Hell were likely candidates, having everything they needed already set up. They'd gotten even better since Abyss learned how to develop a true self from me and taught Hell to do the same.

I left those types of megaliths alone. I wasn't sure why, but I was sure it was the right choice. I turned my attention to the other kind of megaliths that would consume gods; Water, Sky, and Earth. Megaliths designed long before humans had considered giving life to old stories. Megaliths so old they'd been comparable to their current form when Baphomet was young, maintaining the entirety of a world.

My shrine to Water misfired. It seemed like I'd assumed the wrong name. Thinking again, I tried Ocean. That got a response. Multiple responses, actually. Nine hundred and sixty four threads. Each as willing as the other to form the worship rune. The cost of each alone was only twice that of Sekhmet, but there were almost a thousand. Truly, humans were the least impressive part of the world. Proven even more when multiple gods were shot from the flowing mass that was Ocean towards me.

I was glad to see dozens of gods ejected from Ocean's depths, perfectly intact, but less enthused by the fact that none of the actual shards of Ocean came closer to me. Or seemed to react at all, in all honesty. Had worship finally failed me? Was there a creature so primal that it was incapable of worship?

Ocean had become perfectly transparent, whatever secrets were responsible. I'd find them, rooting out secrets was one of my strongest talents. I did, after a fashion.

Ocean was as much empty will as faith. Far more. Expecting more than transparency from empty will was pointless. As was the fear I'd felt toward the largest of megaliths. They couldn't care less about me, or any other sentient entity. Even doing damage to their megalithic bodies wouldn't really matter to them. A self was required for worship, and Ocean had no need of a self. My request for transparency was granted, but that was the best I could hope for. I could develop a self and send it into the megalith, much like the consumed gods, but it would be a weak and ineffective self in comparison to the megalith as a whole.

I activated shrines to Sky and Earth at the same time, with similar results. They were far more empty will than faith. Monstrous in size, but perfectly harmless. Even the gods that had been consumed by the similarity in their purposes were unharmed. More than unharmed, they were perfectly preserved. Even better than Baphomet, they were still clear and aware. If anything, they'd been purifiers within the empty will constructs, absorbing all the faith that could have made monstrous megaliths a foe I couldn't have contended with. Raginor was young and weak in comparison to any of the three, but he was a perfect example of what could have happened if the natural megaliths hadn't absorbed gods to take all the faith.