But wait I'm goated?
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Gorsa dreamt of a sun, it's body was small, on the end of it's life. Yet around it a megastructure seemed to greedily continue to drain it's energy. In a sense that star and the Matrioshka Brain that surrouded it were the nexus of his current reality.
He took a sharp breath.
The machine was gargantuan in size, trumping anything Gorsa had ever known and possibly will ever know, yet it's exterior seemed damaged, worn out by time and the cold it almost looked... lonely.
All alone in the infinite expanse of space, surrounded by nothing but asteroids while hugging a star in hope to feel it's heat. Another, more important element remained, a supernatural one at that.
The structure capability to think was so powerful that it's mind resonated through space maybe it was because he was here through a dream, maybe it was simply because of the mental power of the structure but Gorsa heard a question, so desperate and yearning for an answer that he couldn't help but wish to give it what it was searching for.
What is life?
The realisation that his Aspect was at work made his eyes shook before he woke up in fright.
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'I'm really starting to hate this place.' Gorsa grumbled while typing away at the office, typing away before suddenly, the objects he had placed on his desk were gone.
At this a vein buldged on the side of his head as he clenched his fists... before simply resuming his work, all while taking note of what had changed on it.
Each day in the simulation repeated itself, at least that's what Gorsa thought at first. The truth was that the objective for each day changed. Among all this he had to understand a pattern since everyone seemed to be deathly silent
He ran a hand through his black hair, once again taking notice of his own milky white skin. Suddenly changing skin color wasn't the hardest thing to cope with, his change in height and musculature had to be, yet he still adapted to them perk of the attribute [Common Sense] and his own innate talent.
Still, being in a stranger's body often meant he would bump his head on surfaces when leaning forward or toss an object when reaching for it. The one saving grace when such things happened was that no one seemed to care or know for that matter.
The people here weren't real even in the most basic sense of it.
Gorsa tried communicating with them but never received as much as a look, even when he stood right in front of them, their eyes permanently glazed, not because they were entranced but because they weren't meant to think in the first place.
He tried killing, but the death of one of them was seen as something that had to be corrected, you couldn't substract from the simulation, you could only add. His notes never disappeared when he made them. Nor did anything he put on his cubicle or left in random spots in his house. That is before a correction happens, then every effort he would have done would just go to waste, reset by the Matrioshka Brain taking care of the simulation.
Said Brain was dying. It was obvious from his dream that it either didn't produce enough energy to sustain itself anymore or was running on it's reserves by now.
The main reason he believed that to be true was because of the corrections and the simulation itself. A machine this powerful would have abilities bordering on omniscience, detecting any abnormalities the moment they happened.
It should also be able to simulate life in it's fullest form, making it indistinguishable from reality, yet it didn't.
It made routine checks each hour, wich amounted to an incredibly long among of time for a machine of such power. That was why Gorsa firmly believed that the Matrioshka Brain could either be controlled or at least escaped. He could live without a body as a Soul or rather, he was doing so right now.
Data was in no way a body that could fully or even partially house a Soul. So maybe he'd survive outside?
Shivering at the thought of letting his naked soul in the cold of space, Gorsa quickly put an end to such thought. Instead he focused on what he was doing right now.
Building an atomic bomb.
A perk of being in such a simulated world was that anything he asked for could be given to him, as long as it wasn't considered "harmful" a category wich didn't seem to involve source materials. It had taken a few trials and errors but finally as the deliveryman got his last stock of uranium-235 and plutonium-239 he finally smiled in satisfaction.
Truth be told, building an atomic bomb wasn't hard, finding the materials and escaping the watch or the government were much harder, two things he didn't have to worry about here!
This promised to be glorious.
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Frankly, the bomb alone would do nothing. An explosion no matter how big was just data in the end. What really interested Gorsa was the consequences of it on the simulation.
If each simulation was run by a node, then the one he was in surely possesed a lot less processing power than the entire structure.
What Gorso hoped to do was not just feel that it had happened but see the correction happen in real-time. That was because [Common Sense] worked best through the sense he relied on the most, wich in his case was sight.
He wanted to see how the node restructured data and it's existence itself so that he could replace it.
While the node was physical, what ran the simulation was a program, in other words data just like himself. He would have never done so but there was no other way to escape the simulation other than fundamentally change his form.
Sitting at the top of a skyscrapers Gorsa idly counted the minutes, in as few as ten another correction would take place, seeing as he didn't do his job in the last hour. This wouldn't matter of course when half the City will have been razed to the ground.
'Well, will be in the process of being razed to the ground.'
Obviously if he did anything but let the explosion happen at the last second, he would go blind, his brain would liquefy and he would possibly fall from the building from the shock wave.
There was only so much distance you could cover while having 10 minutes to move. He really tried to move fast after planting the bomb at the base of the building he worked out.
Even then to get to his car, drive off the parking lot and take a good position to see the correction happen had taken quite some time, the next skyscraper after this one was also ten kilometers away so there was that.
"Well I just need to get the timing right." As he said that he checked, 45 seconds left on the clock.
—40.
Safety first, he checked the comically large detonation button he had connected to the C4 within the bomb's core.
—35.
Gorsa prayed to not lose his eyes. Or outright die for that matter.
—30.
A click and... nothing.
Now back in the office Gorsa tiredly rubbed his eyes, of course the atomic bomb wouldn't work. His rudimentary knowledge of it's construction was nowhere close to how an actual one worked probably.
Though there was still an option.
With practiced ease, Gorsa finished his work for the hour and possibly the next through all the suggestions he added within ten minutes, that would give him a little time.
Taking the keys of his car he drove off once again, although this time he was nowhere near respecting the speed limit, speeding through the City at high speed until he reached it's edge.
Even then it had taken almost two hours with traffic, leaving him with only five or so to make his next call.
What he was doing now was a gamble. It depended on wether the program generated the things he asked for within the confines of the delivery company and their hangars or did so when it reached him and opened the boxes.
"Hello yes? This is Gorsa, I'd like to ask for another delivery."
Adding his name had no meaning, nor did being polite do anything, from the moment he formulated the number on his phone he could ask anything. As long as he started with—
"I am missing one of my delivery, I was wondering if you could check if you are still in possession of it."
So anything else wasn't a necessity, yet Gorsa couldn't help but treat them gently because of what he was about to ask.
"Yes, I seem to be missing fourty-five kilos of anti-matter, I was wondering if you could check."
Looking at his watch, barely ten seconds were left before another correction would take place, sending him to his house. Yet all Gorsa could hope was that he had even less time.
"Oh yes, it's right the—"
There was no sound for the explosion was much faster than it. In Gorsa eyes it almost happened in slow motion, a perfect sphere was moving so slow yet impossibly faster than anything else, devouring the center of the City within milliseconds.
The World seemed to shatter under the weight of the explosion, better yet, it was lagging. As if the simulation had a hard time processing everything that was happening, figures started blurring and moving at a different framerate than Gorsa altogether, only he remained unaffected as he looked at the blazing sun.
Through that alone, Gorsa had already gained something because of [Common Sense] mainly how to accelerate and slow himself as data.
Within 5 seconds the blast radius reached the 30 kilometers, still growing as it destroyed more building and killed more individuals. After 5 other tense seconds, it was almost upon him before it abruptly stopped.
As he had expected, the correction this time was nothing but instaneous, everything had changed too much. And within that long time where the program worked to repair the damage Gorsa had caused. He glimpsed it, while overclocking his own person to think faster.
The node, or the program whichever fitted it best, it was complex and almost impossible to decipher for him being made up of more binary numbers than nanoseconds that had passed since his arrival here. But as he continued looking at it, understanding of it's function and components slowly reached his mind.
'I understand it now.'
His arm turned illusory, or rather, it spread through the World, merging or corrupting it, depending on the way you looked at it. Gorsa didn't lose himself as he never had a human form to begin with here, he simply assumed one because of familiarity with such a form.
What he did feel was like he was straining himself, feeling everything that was happening around him at the same time was slowly chipping away at his mind, yet in the face of such adversity Gorsa simply dissolved his whole body.
After a few instant the world shifted, everything returning to normal as if the cataclysmic event of before had never occurred. But now every hour, a correction would happen, for a simple reason.
One piece of data would be eternally missing from the simulation
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Sunny looked down with an emotionless face, his hair ruffled and caked with blood and his malnourished body only gravely hurt , in front of him the Moutain King was getting torn, piece by piece by hungry shadows.
Recounting his Nightmare, he couldn't help but wonder about how much Gorsa really knew. Sunny wasn't stupid enough to believe that the knowledge about easy poisons to make, Snow moutains survival as well as sacrifice he had provided were a coincidence.
'For Spell's sake if you know the future shouldn't you have helped us win the lottery?!'
The only reason all this could have happened was if Gorsa innate attribute had to do with viewing the future, or some ability that could turn him into some kind of oracle.
Sunny honestly had no idea if Innate Attribute were active before the First Nightmare, but he could only believe so because of all that happened in his life, as well as Gorsa's predictions.
'Well, better to ask that guy when I see him.'
Because of the belief that Gorsa could peer in the future, Sunny's mind was much more at ease. Surely by this point he would have completed his Nightmare too.
Right?
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'Spell be damned, what with this Innate Ability...'
Sunny grumbled slightly, summoning his runes once again
Aspect: [Shadow Inheritor].
Aspect Rank: Divine.
Aspect Description: [The rightful heir of death directly chosen as the next in line to rule the shadows. You exist as the sole inheritor of a dead god yet, taking his place, alone, on the throne of solace, you yearn for companionship.]
Innate Ability: [Shadow Bond].
Ability Description: [Find a worthy partner and let them know your True Name. Once they recite it out loud, you will form a link between your Soul and Theirs, allowing both of you to share a multitude of things.]
'Yeah right, and I might as well prostrate myself at their feet.'
Sharing his divine powers? Even if said person was Gorsa he'd rather dig up his own mother's grave. Some things just weren't meant to be shared. And while his crafty friend might not have received an appraisal as 'glorious' as him, Sunny would never for a second believe that he didn't pull something phenomenal.
The crafty teen just seemed to know things he had no right to sometimes.
At least his Aspect Ability seemed useful. Looking at it's shimmering runes again, he couldn't help but snicker.
Aspect Abilities: [Divine Shadows].
Aspect Ability Description: [Your shadow is an invaluable helper it's powers expanding as the Divinity within you grows.]
While it's description didn't directly allude to it's abilities but it did sound powerful...
'Gah! I'll figure it out later.'
For now a priority would be to check on his friend, or it would have been if it wasn't for the beautiful woman sitting right in front of him.
Truth be told Sunny had rarely if ever seen someone as beautiful as her, even on TV, yet something about her screamed to him that he should be cautious. A grin spread on her lips before she finally asked.
"Are you awake now?"
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Yes, yes. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it at first but after much thought I think Gorsa influence on Sunny would be significant enough for the Shadow God to bestow him with more than his simple status as a divine shadow. I could give a detailed explanation but we'll just explore that in later chapters.