Chapter 391: The Inference
[RAGNAROK: A CHRONICLE OF THE END-TIMES FROM THE ELVEN PERSPECTIVE]
The volume was significantly denser than Sophia had projected. The Elven script
was packed tightly across the parchment, yet the linguistic style lacked the
characteristic flowery prose she had encountered earlier. It appeared the weight
of the events recorded was sufficient enough that no additional rhetorical
"Mana" was required to convey the gravity.
Sophia initialized her audit from Chapter One.
"Lostarn Calendar, Year 9103. On the Night of the Autumnal Equinox, the
equilibrium between the Five Pillars was compromised."
"The catalyst remains a subject of academic debate. Elven prophets theorize that
the God of Order attempted to annex the Authorities of the other four Pillars.
Dwarven records indicate that the God of Death initialized the hostilities. In
the official archives of the Theocracy, all blame is assigned to the God of
Space."
Sophia set the book down and rubbed her temples. She remembered that cycle.
The catalyst wasn't a localized aggression by any single deity. It was a
simultaneous realization: The Planar Core's energy was in terminal decay.
The Planar Core of the Lostarn Realm was the architectural foundation of
reality. Its exhaustion implied the gradual liquidation of the entire world.
Furthermore, the power of the Five Primary Gods was drawn, directly or
indirectly, from that Core.
The remaining energy was only sufficient to sustain one or two Godheads.
The logic was binary: total mutual liquidation, or a struggle for the remaining
resources.
They had chosen the latter.
Sophia resumed her audit.
"Ragnarok persisted for seven cycles. The Planar War between the Five Pillars
engulfed the entirety of Lostarn. The sky fractured, the oceans inverted, and
mountain ranges underwent structural collapse. According to incomplete
statistics, this Divine War resulted in the liquidation of over thirty million
sentient lives."
Thirty million.
Sophia's finger stopped on the number. Thirty million biological units. At the
time, had she ever factored that variable into her calculations?
Result: Negative.
"On the sixth day, Sophia, the Goddess of Time, and Arno, the God of Space,
engaged in a decisive encounter. Sophia attempted a 'Temporal Reversal' to roll
back the world-state to a pre-war configuration. However, Arno tore the
Time-Stream, causing Sophia's Authority to backfire. Sophia suffered critical
structural damage."
Sophia remembered that micro-second. Arno—that chaotic variable—had manually
ripped a fissure into the flow of time. Her reversal was truncated
mid-execution, and the resulting backlash nearly shattered her Godhead.
"On the seventh day, the God of Order initialized a Final Protocol. He chose to
merge his Godhead with the Planar Core, using his own existence as a stabilizer
to fix the Core's energy output. As a side effect, the Od of the remaining four
Pillars was violently siphoned. The Godheads of the four Primary Gods shattered,
and their consciousness was officially logged as 'Dissipated'."
Dissipated?
Sophia looked at the term and felt her mouth twitch. Dissipated, my foot.
At the final micro-second before her Godhead shattered, she had manually tucked
her remaining consciousness fragments into the deepest stratum of the Planar
Core. It wasn't dissipation; it was Hibernation. A passive, indeterminate
sleep-mode awaiting a reboot.
What about the other three? Arno, the God of Space. Molag, the God of Death.
Virde, the Goddess of Life.
Had they executed a similar "Backup Protocol"?
Sophia flipped to the later chapters, locating a specific passage.
"In the century following Ragnarok, Elven prophets attempted multiple sweeps to
detect residual signatures of the Five Pillars. The terminal conclusion: The God
of Order is confirmed Liquidated (Merged with Core). The status of the remaining
four is categorized as 'Indeterminate'."
Indeterminate.
This implied that the other three could potentially be localized in some corner
of the Planar Core, just as she had been. Perhaps they hadn't initialized their
"Awakening Protocol" yet. Or perhaps they were already awake and, like her, were
currently running Maximum Gou Protocols.
Sophia closed the book and leaned back. The data was critical.
If the other Old Gods were manifesting—or about to manifest—the world-logic
would become exponentially complex.
She understood Arno too well. He was a narcissist and a terminal lunatic. If he
woke up, his first action wouldn't be "Laying Low"; it would be seeking
vengeance against the Sovereign. Even if the Sovereign had zero history with
him, Arno possessed a "Logic Error" regarding territory—he viewed anyone
occupying his former domain as a target for liquidation.
Molag was an even more unpredictable variable. As the God of Death, his
resonance with a "Kingdom of the Undead" was a massive unknown. Would he view
the Evernight Empire as a perfected manifestation of his ideals, or a theft of
his Authority?
Virde was the only "Stable Variable." The Goddess of Life had always been
moderate. If she woke up, she would likely adopt an "Observation Mode."
Sophia locked the book in her desk drawer instead of returning it to the shelf.
She needed to audit this text repeatedly.
As her shift concluded, the Director stopped her at the exit. "Sophy, state the
progress of the Archive reorganization."
"Optimal. One row of shelving remains. I will finalize it tomorrow."
"Good," the silver-haired woman audited her with a sharp gaze. "Your efficiency
rating is high."
"Thank you, Director."
"Don't offer thanks. Competence is its own reward," the Director huffed. "By the
way, regarding that 'Temperature Drop' in the Archives… did you detect it
today?"
Sophia thought for a moment. "It did indeed manifest around 15:00."
"Illogical," the Director muttered. "Maintenance claims it's a ventilation
issue, but I'm sensing a 'Logic Error' there. Have you noticed any other
anomalies?"
Sophia shook her head. "Negative."
The Director waved her off, and Sophia exited the library into the twilight.
She had moved out of the Relief Station and was now localized in the staff
dormitory behind the library—a small unit with a bed, a desk, and a window. The
parameters were a marginal upgrade from the shelter.
Halfway to her quarters, she stopped.
Why do the Archives manifest a cold-status?
A specific time. A specific location. An unidentified thermal crash. And
maintenance found zero mechanical failures.
Sophia stood on the path, her processors whirring. The Ancient Archives
contained Old Era documents. Documents saturated with the residual signatures of
the Old Gods.
I am an Old God. I am localized in the Archives. Thermal crash.
Sophia's pupils contracted. Logic Audit: Is the anomaly being triggered by my
presence?
Even though her Authority was suppressed, her existence—a soul-fragment of the
Goddess of Time—sitting in a room full of Old Era divine residues… was it
triggering a "Frequency Resonance"? And was the thermal drop merely a side
effect of that resonance siphoning local heat?
Sophia accelerated her pace to her room. She closed the door, sat on the bed,
and entered a meditative state.
If her hypothesis was correct, her vocation in the Archives was a high-risk
variable. She faced a binary choice:
1. Terminate Employment: Leave the Archives and lose her primary information
source.
2. Maintain Presence: Resolve the resonance problem before the Empire
identifies the source.
Sophia thought for a long duration. Her decision: Maintain.
But she required a more sophisticated method of "Stealth." She needed to do more
than just hide her Od; she needed to manually recalibrate her soul's energy
frequency to perfectly mirror a baseline human.
It would be a slow, agonizing process. Like taking a spring that had been coiled
for eons and forcing it into a perfectly straight line.
But she possessed zero alternatives.
Outside, the Evernight Lights flickered on, casting a long shadow across her
floor. Sophia sat motionless, eyes closed. She worked until her frequency was
submerged into the background noise of the environment—becoming
indistinguishable from the random mana-particles drifting in the air.
She opened her eyes. It was past midnight.
She stood up and looked out at the silent street. Tomorrow, she would return to
the Archives.
Tomorrow at 15:00, if the temperature remained stable, the "Seal Protocol" was a
success.
But if it remained cold…
Sophia drew the curtains shut.
If the cold persists, it implies the source of the anomaly is not me.
It implies there is another variable localized in that room.