Chapter 2 — Fractured Resurgence
Nyxus woke because something was eating his sleeve.
He opened one eye.
A goat stared back at him.
Part of his black hoodie was already inside its mouth.
Nyxus looked at the goat.
The goat continued chewing.
"That's mine."
The goat disagreed through continued action.
Nyxus pulled his arm away.
The fabric stretched.
The goat pulled harder.
For several seconds, neither of them surrendered.
Nyxus had survived erasure, dimensional displacement and at least one person whose face he could no longer remember correctly.
He was not losing to livestock.
The sleeve tore.
The goat stumbled backward with its prize.
Nyxus stared at the missing section.
The goat chewed triumphantly.
"You're very confident for something shaped like dinner."
The goat did not appear concerned.
Nyxus slowly sat up.
He was beneath a large tree beside an unfamiliar dirt road. Open farmland extended in every direction, divided by low stone walls and narrow irrigation trenches. In the distance, wooden rooftops clustered beneath a pale morning sky.
Nothing was collapsing.
Nothing was being deleted.
There were no golden commands suspended above him.
Already, the location was exceeding expectations.
Nyxus inspected himself.
Two arms.
Two legs.
One shadow.
Most of his memories remained violently unhelpful, but that had apparently become normal.
He remembered a corridor.
A fight.
A man named Zerith.
A moon that had existed until something decided it hadn't.
Then a portal had opened beneath him.
After that—
Grass.
Tree.
Goat.
Nyxus looked toward the animal.
The goat had begun eating a second piece of his sleeve.
"Apparently the universe still hates me."
A white butterfly drifted down from the branches.
It circled him once before landing on the back of his hand.
Nyxus stopped moving.
Its legs were almost weightless.
Yet he felt them.
It had touched him without vanishing.
Without being corrected.
Without the world deciding the interaction had never occurred.
Nyxus watched its wings slowly open and close.
"At least one of you understands boundaries."
The goat headbutted his shoulder.
Nyxus looked at it.
"Two of you. One less successfully."
Footsteps approached along the road.
The butterfly lifted from his hand.
Nyxus watched it go until a voice interrupted him.
"Are you alive?"
Nyxus turned.
A man stood several paces away carrying an unreasonable amount of firewood.
He wore simple work clothes, heavy boots and a faded blue cord around one wrist. His hands were rough from labor. A plain metal ring circled one finger.
He looked strong in the ordinary way.
Not strong enough to break worlds.
Strong enough to spend every morning carrying pieces of one.
Nyxus considered the question.
"Define alive."
The stranger frowned.
"Breathing."
Nyxus checked.
"Then probably."
"You took a concerning amount of time to answer that."
"I was checking."
The man lowered the firewood.
"I'm Torin."
"Access Denied."
Torin waited.
Nyxus waited back.
"That's your name?" Torin finally asked.
"It's the one I have."
"It sounds more like a warning."
"Both can be true."
Torin studied him more carefully.
Silver fragments flickered briefly around Nyxus's shoulders.
They resembled pieces of luminous code attempting to assemble themselves, realizing they lacked permission, and disappearing again.
Torin's expression tightened.
"I've never seen Binary Energy behave like that."
"Neither has it."
"Is it dangerous?"
Nyxus looked down at himself.
"Probably."
Torin stared.
Nyxus added, "I haven't exploded yet."
"That does not make me feel better."
"It wasn't intended to."
Torin offered him a hand.
Nyxus looked at it.
"It helps with standing," Torin explained.
"I know what a hand is."
"Good. You seemed uncertain about breathing."
Nyxus looked at him again.
Then he accepted the hand.
Torin pulled him upright.
"Where am I?" Nyxus asked.
"Outside Sorahora."
Nyxus looked toward the distant rooftops.
"That is a village?"
"Yes."
"I was hoping for a continent."
"It is also on one."
"Good. That saves time."
The goat wandered between them.
Torin examined Nyxus's destroyed sleeve.
"Is that your goat?"
"No."
The goat leaned against Nyxus's leg.
Torin looked unconvinced.
Nyxus said, "It has made several unauthorized claims."
Torin lifted the firewood again.
"You should come into the village. Someone can look at your injuries."
"I'm not injured."
"You were unconscious beside a road."
"I was resting aggressively."
Torin opened his mouth.
Then closed it again.
Nyxus respected the decision.
Torin began walking toward Sorahora.
After several steps, he glanced back.
Nyxus had not moved.
"You coming?"
"No."
Torin looked at the empty road, the unfamiliar stranger and the goat currently attempting to eat that stranger's pocket.
"You have somewhere else to be?"
Nyxus considered it.
"No."
"Then why aren't you coming?"
"People ask more questions indoors."
"That is unfortunately true."
Torin set down his wood again and reached into a cloth bag tied at his side.
He removed a small fruit bun.
Nyxus's attention changed immediately.
Torin noticed.
"My wife made these."
He offered it.
Nyxus accepted with the solemnity of someone receiving a sacred object.
He took one bite.
Then another.
Torin waited.
Nyxus looked toward Sorahora.
"I have reconsidered."
"About coming with me?"
"About this world."
Torin smiled.
"That good?"
"It may be the first competent thing I've encountered since arriving."
The goat bleated.
Nyxus glanced down.
"Second. The goat has demonstrated commitment."
They started toward the village.
The goat followed.
Neither of them acknowledged this.
After several minutes, Torin looked toward the strange fragments still blinking around Nyxus.
"How did you get here?"
"A portal."
"From where?"
"Somewhere that may no longer exist."
Torin looked at him.
Nyxus continued eating.
Torin decided there were several possible meanings behind that answer.
None of them appeared pleasant.
"You should be careful with that energy," he said. "This region belongs to the Chaotic Faction."
Nyxus looked sideways at him.
"The faction devoted to Chaos is called the Chaotic Faction?"
"Yes."
"Subtle."
"They're led by Karma."
"Who?"
Torin stopped walking.
Nyxus took another bite.
"You don't know Karma?"
"No."
"The God of Chaos."
"That explains it."
"Explains what?"
"Why everyone is expected to know his name."
Torin lowered his voice.
"Karma's influence reaches most of the neighboring worlds. His son controls this area."
"Also a god?"
"Kaosu."
"That wasn't an answer."
"With divine blood, the distinction usually stops mattering."
Nyxus considered that.
"Is he less tedious than his father sounds?"
"No."
"That is unfortunate."
Torin resumed walking.
"The Continuity Corps opposes them where it can. But Sorahora is small. Worlds like ours don't receive much attention unless something has already gone wrong."
Nyxus noticed a worn metal emblem hanging from Torin's belt.
A circular insignia had been carved into its face.
"You're Corps?"
Torin shook his head.
"Not yet."
"You carry their symbol."
"I'm applying."
"While carrying firewood?"
Torin looked at the bundle in his arms.
"They haven't accepted me yet."
"Have you tried bringing them wood?"
"That isn't how recruitment works."
"You don't know. They haven't accepted you."
Torin stared at him.
Nyxus continued eating as though the argument had been settled.
"What division?" Nyxus asked.
"The Continuity Corps first. If I become good enough, eventually the Corrective Tribunal."
"What do they correct?"
"Things ordinary divisions can't."
"So your plan is to begin as a farmer and end by arresting gods."
"When you say it that way, it sounds unreasonable."
"It was already unreasonable."
Torin smiled slightly.
"Probably."
Nyxus studied him.
"You don't look like a warrior."
"I'm not one."
"Then why?"
Torin glanced toward Sorahora.
Smoke drifted from morning chimneys. People moved between the houses. Somewhere beyond the fields, a bell marked the beginning of the workday.
"My family lives there," Torin said. "So do people I've known my entire life. When trouble reaches places like Sorahora, powerful people usually arrive afterward."
"To help?"
"To count what was lost."
Nyxus looked at him again.
That answer had been considerably less optimistic than he expected.
Torin continued.
"Someone should already be there."
"You think that someone is you?"
"I'd like it to be."
"You cannot protect an entire world with good intentions."
"No."
"You won't get far with dreams and good intentions."
"Probably not."
Torin adjusted the firewood.
"Then I'll walk until one of them runs out."
Nyxus stared at him.
"That sounded rehearsed."
"It wasn't."
"That makes it worse."
Torin laughed.
Nyxus finished the fruit bun.
His expression became immediately less satisfied with existence.
Torin noticed.
"There are more at my house."
Nyxus looked toward the village.
"You should have led with that."
"My daughter will probably ask you questions."
Nyxus stopped.
Torin kept walking.
"She asks everyone questions."
Nyxus turned back toward the tree.
Torin laughed again.
The explosion reached them before either could say anything else.
Sound struck first.
A deep concussion rolled across the farmland, shaking dust from the road and sending birds tearing out of the trees.
Then smoke climbed above Sorahora.
Not cooking smoke.
Black smoke.
The village bell began ringing.
Once.
Twice.
Then rapidly, without rhythm.
Torin dropped the firewood.
The cloth bag fell with it.
"My family."
He ran.
Nyxus watched him disappear down the road.
The goat watched too.
A second explosion flashed between the rooftops.
Nyxus looked at the remaining fruit bun lying beside the abandoned wood.
He picked it up.
"This is not my problem."
The goat bleated.
"You are not qualified to disagree."
The white butterfly from the tree drifted past him.
It moved toward Sorahora.
Nyxus watched it.
Then he looked down the road Torin had taken.
He sighed.
"I dislike this world again."
Nyxus followed.
Not because he cared.
That would have been irresponsible.
Torin simply knew where the fruit buns came from.
And allowing the bread man to die before providing directions seemed inefficient.
The butterfly traveled in the same direction.
Nyxus accepted this as supporting evidence.
Sorahora was not burning correctly.
That was the first thing Nyxus noticed.
There had been no invading army.
No bombardment.
No visible source for the destruction.
Instead, ordinary things had begun failing in the worst possible order.
A wagon axle snapped.
The detached wheel struck a market stall.
The stall collapsed against a brazier.
Burning coals spilled beneath a grain cart.
The frightened horse kicked through the door of the bakery.
A hanging lamp fell into a ruptured sack of flour.
The resulting explosion tore the roof from the building.
Across the street, a well chain broke while three villagers were lowering a bucket. The handle spun loose, struck a man in the jaw and sent him stumbling beneath a collapsing awning.
A healthy support beam split without warning.
A shutter tore free in wind too weak to move it.
A woman running toward her child placed one foot on the only loose stone in the road.
Nothing occurring was impossible.
That made it worse.
Every small disaster had always been permitted to happen.
Something had merely persuaded all of them to happen now.
Chaos did not descend upon Sorahora.
Sorahora began betraying itself.
Torin ran against the fleeing crowd.
"Move!"
People stumbled past him with blood running from their noses and ears.
Others weren't moving at all.
The pressure grew stronger near the central plaza.
It wasn't weight.
Weight would have been simple.
This entered the body and persuaded each part to make a different mistake.
Heartbeats lost their rhythm.
Lungs forgot when to expand.
Muscles tightened against themselves.
Vision arrived a fraction too late.
Fear became nausea.
Nausea became panic.
Panic caused more accidents.
At the center of it all stood Kaosu.
He wore no armor.
Armor was an admission that something else might be allowed to hurt you.
Red energy uncoiled from his body in thin, restless threads. It crawled across the plaza, climbed shattered buildings and disappeared inside anyone unfortunate enough to touch it.
Wherever the threads passed, probability worsened.
Kaosu stood upon the ruined fountain with the relaxed posture of someone observing weather.
Around him, Sorahora knelt.
Not willingly.
The village elder had collapsed near the fountain.
Several others lay unconscious beside him.
A few remained awake only because the pain would not allow them the mercy of fainting.
Kaosu looked down at them.
"I hadn't told anyone to kneel yet."
Nobody answered.
One man tried.
His lungs failed halfway through the first word.
Kaosu smiled.
Then Torin reached the plaza.
He saw his wife beside the well.
She was shielding their daughter with her body.
Both were alive.
Barely.
Torin attempted to reach them.
Kaosu's aura touched him.
His knees failed.
The consequence should have been immediate.
Torin should have fallen.
He didn't.
One foot struck the ground hard enough to crack the stone, catching his weight before his body could finish collapsing.
Torin dragged in a breath.
His lungs objected.
Something inside him objected to their objection.
Not yet.
Torin took another step.
The pressure doubled.
His vision dimmed.
His heartbeat stuttered.
His body began assembling a long list of reasons why standing was no longer possible.
Torin gave all of them the same answer.
Later.
Across the plaza, Kaosu turned.
He had felt something resist.
Not power.
Resistance would have been understandable.
This was closer to a consequence arriving and discovering its appointment had been moved.
Kaosu looked directly at Torin.
Then someone entered the plaza behind him, eating a fruit bun.
Kaosu stared.
Nyxus walked through the red aura without slowing.
A thread of chaotic energy touched his shoulder.
Silver-blue fragments flickered beneath it.
The thread twisted away.
Another attempted to coil around his ankle.
The stone beneath his foot cracked instead.
A roof tile fell toward his head.
Reality appeared to reconsider halfway down.
The tile struck the goat.
The goat became offended.
Nyxus looked back.
"You followed me?"
The goat charged past him and began eating a fallen banner.
Nyxus nodded.
"Reasonable."
Kaosu watched this happen.
Everyone else in Sorahora had collapsed.
The stranger in the torn black hoodie was discussing property law with livestock.
"You," Kaosu said.
Nyxus looked behind himself.
"There is nobody behind you."
Nyxus turned back.
"Then probably me."
"Kneel."
Nyxus examined the ground.
"It's dirty."
Kaosu's expression shifted.
"My aura has dropped every living thing in this village."
Nyxus looked around.
Several people were unconscious.
One man was vomiting into the remains of a flowerpot.
The goat continued eating the banner.
"They may be tired."
"They are dying."
"That would also explain the posture."
Red lightning crawled along Kaosu's arms.
"Do you know who I am?"
"No."
"I am Kaosu. Son of Karma. Heir to divine Chaos. Lord of Calamity."
Nyxus stared.
"That was several answers to one question."
Kaosu's aura expanded.
Windows shattered around the plaza.
A chimney collapsed through someone's roof.
Nyxus looked at the destruction.
"Was that necessary?"
"No."
"Good. I was worried there was a plan."
Kaosu stepped down from the fountain.
The stone beneath his foot fractured before he touched it.
"What are you?"
"Access Denied."
"That isn't an answer."
"It usually is."
"Are you human?"
Nyxus considered the question seriously.
"Probably not."
"You don't know?"
"I've had an unusual morning."
Kaosu stopped several paces away.
Chaotic Energy churned around him, dense enough to stain the sky red.
Nyxus took another bite.
Kaosu's eye twitched.
"What energy is surrounding you?"
"Mine."
"You have no idea what Chaotic Energy is, do you?"
"No."
"I am Chaos."
"You said you were Kaosu."
Kaosu stared at him.
Nyxus pointed with the fruit bun.
"You should choose one. Introductions become difficult otherwise."
Kaosu's hand closed.
The air around it compressed.
Nyxus looked down at the bun.
Then toward the burning bakery.
"Did you make these?"
Kaosu blinked.
"What?"
"The food."
"Do I look like a chef?"
Nyxus examined him.
Then he looked at the burning bakery again.
"Not a successful one."
For several seconds, Kaosu did not speak.
Nyxus looked past him.
"Is that my goat?"
Kaosu's face tightened.
"Are you mocking me?"
"No. It really is a goat."
The goat tore the Chaotic Faction emblem from the fallen banner and began chewing it.
Nyxus watched.
"It may be mocking you."
Kaosu raised one hand.
Red energy condensed around his knuckles.
"Run!" Torin shouted.
Nyxus looked toward him.
Torin was still standing.
Poorly.
But standing.
Sapphire light had begun gathering around his hands.
The energy was faint and uneven. It did not roar or distort the world. It emerged in thin, uncertain strands, flickering like something that had never been taught what shape it should take.
It was barely an aura.
Yet wherever it touched, Kaosu's pressure weakened.
A woman behind Torin managed to breathe.
The elder's heart returned to rhythm.
Torin's daughter opened her eyes.
Kaosu lowered his hand.
His attention shifted completely.
"What are you doing?"
Torin forced his back straight.
"Standing."
"You were told to kneel."
"I heard you."
Kaosu walked toward him.
"You believe that light makes you powerful?"
"No."
Kaosu stopped.
"What?"
Torin swallowed blood.
"I said no."
"You aren't a soldier."
"No."
"You have no technique."
"No."
"You cannot defeat me."
Torin looked at his wife.
Then his daughter.
Then the villagers lying behind him.
"I know."
Kaosu's expression twisted.
"Then why are you still standing?"
Torin faced him.
"Because they're behind me."
The answer reached every corner of the plaza.
There was no grand declaration behind it.
No certainty of victory.
Torin did not stand because he believed he could win.
He stood because winning had become the second most important thing there.
Kaosu looked past him at the villagers.
Then toward the elder struggling to breathe.
Red energy gathered in his fist.
"If they're the reason you're standing—"
He smiled.
"Let's remove the reason."
Kaosu attacked the elder.
Torin moved.
He had no combat training.
No speed worthy of the moment.
No realistic chance of crossing the distance in time.
His body did it anyway.
Torin placed himself between them.
Kaosu's fist struck his chest.
The impact detonated.
Stone erupted across the plaza.
The ruined fountain split down the center.
A shockwave tore through the surrounding buildings, ripped doors from their hinges and flattened the nearest trees.
Torin's ribs broke.
His sternum fractured.
One lung collapsed.
The damage occurred exactly as it should have.
The consequences did not.
Pain approached.
Torin made it wait.
Shock followed.
Torin made that wait too.
His muscles attempted to release.
Later.
His legs attempted to collapse.
Later.
His body had accumulated a debt it could never afford to pay.
Torin remained standing.
Kaosu's fist was still pressed against his chest.
Neither of them moved.
Kaosu stared at him.
Torin looked over his shoulder.
The elder was alive.
Torin faced Kaosu again.
"You missed."
Kaosu's eyes narrowed.
"I hit you."
"That was the idea."
Sapphire energy pulsed from Torin's body.
For one heartbeat, the red threads covering the plaza stopped spreading.
For one heartbeat, accidents became merely possible again.
Kaosu saw something inside the light.
The plaza disappeared.
There was grass beneath his feet.
Warm sunlight.
No burning homes.
No blood.
A child ran through a meadow.
The boy had Kaosu's face.
But there was no red energy crawling beneath his skin.
No divine pressure crushing everything around him.
No Karma.
No Chaotic Faction.
No one kneeling.
Someone beyond the meadow called his name.
Not Lord Kaosu.
Not Son of Karma.
Just Kaosu.
The child turned.
He was smiling.
He was free.
And, somehow, impossibly—
He was happy.
The vision vanished.
Kaosu staggered backward.
The emotion that crossed his face was not confusion.
It was recognition.
That made it unbearable.
"What did you do?"
Torin could barely hear him.
"I stood up."
"You showed me something."
"I don't know what you saw."
"Liar."
"I'm usually bad at that."
Kaosu struck him again.
Torin's jaw broke.
A third punch folded his shoulder.
A fourth ruptured something deep inside his abdomen.
Torin remained between Kaosu and the villagers.
Kaosu attacked again.
And again.
Each impact drove Torin farther into the stone.
Each one added another consequence to the growing line inside him.
Pain waited.
Shock waited.
Unconsciousness waited.
Death stood somewhere at the end of the line, increasingly irritated by the delay.
Kaosu seized Torin by the throat.
"You are nothing."
Torin's feet barely touched the ground.
"I know."
"You are standing before a god."
"Yes."
"What do you think you are?"
Torin looked past him.
His daughter was breathing.
His wife was holding her.
The elder had begun crawling away.
Torin looked back at Kaosu.
"In the way."
Kaosu slammed him into the ground.
The plaza cratered.
Torin disappeared beneath broken stone.
Silence followed.
Then a hand emerged from the rubble.
Kaosu stared.
Torin dragged himself upward.
One arm no longer worked.
One eye had swollen shut.
Blood ran from his mouth and disappeared into the cracks beneath him.
He planted his hand.
His arm shook.
He pushed.
Kaosu watched him rise again.
Not fully.
Not gracefully.
Enough.
A man did not need to be a mountain to stand between a storm and his home.
He only needed to be there when the storm arrived.
Kaosu's expression broke.
He struck Torin with both hands.
Torin crashed through the remains of the fountain.
Sapphire light scattered across the plaza.
For a moment, it seemed to vanish.
Then Torin moved again.
Barely.
His fingers closed against the stone.
Kaosu walked toward him.
"Stay down."
Torin tried to lift himself.
"You cannot protect them."
Torin's arm buckled.
"They're breathing."
"So?"
Torin raised his head.
"So it matters."
Kaosu lifted his fist.
Across the plaza, Nyxus watched him.
He had seen power before.
Power was common.
Power destroyed things and then invented elaborate explanations for why destruction had been inevitable.
Torin had none.
No divinity.
No great technique.
No assurance that his sacrifice would accomplish anything beyond delaying the next punch.
Yet he had treated one frightened village as enough reason to oppose a god.
Nyxus looked at the remaining fruit bun in his hand.
The bread man had been right about one thing.
Someone should already be there.
Kaosu drew back his fist.
Behind him, paper crinkled.
Nyxus carefully wrapped the unfinished bun.
He placed it on the remains of a market cart.
The white butterfly lifted from his shoulder.
For the first time since waking beneath the tree, Nyxus was no longer watching it.
He was watching Kaosu.
And then—
He stopped chewing.