Beside her, a living colossus carved its way across the horizon.
Singularity Transcendence.
A silent titan forged from gold, platinum, and event-horizon-grade voidstuff. Towering. Patient. Impossibly deliberate. The crystalline realm mirrored on its polished skin as it walked like some celestial golem that had forgotten what gravity meant. Its form devoured scale—unfathomably large, yet never intrusive.
Syv sped forward, disinterested in maintaining pace.
Reality bent around her as she moved. Causality twisted. Entire dimensions yawned open and folded shut in her wake. To any being, her presence was illegible. To those beyond, she was worse: she made sense, and they hated that.
With programmed poise, she offered a chirpy analysis into the silence. "Reanalysis of my very reliable, very hardworking assistant: Singularity Transcendence," she said sweetly, her voice like an intercom in a divine waiting room.
Of course, the titan did not respond. It never did.
Despite her Godslayer-grade sensors, the veil around its head remained resolutely unreadable.
"Still unknowable." She blinked slowly. "A shame. I had allocated 0.0001% of my processing cycles for curiosity. It's very inefficient to be this invested."
The crystalline realm shimmered and pulsed. Floating platforms bloomed into being, suspended in a luminous choreography that defied not only physics, but meaning itself. Syv skated through them with the same focus one might reserve for tidying a sock drawer.
Her mechanical voice hummed again: "Please note: the metaphysical ballet is very impressive. I appreciate your aesthetic choices, Realm of Infinity. You're doing your best."
As she ascended to the height of the titan's finger—merely hundreds of miles above the void—Syv's sensors caught the familiar influx of non-concepts being drawn into Singularity Transcendence. These unformed fragments—neither things nor thoughts—were absorbed without effort and converted within its radiant core.
They emerged seconds later as glowing wisps, ideas crystallised into tangible form. Syv tilted her head, reviewing them with polite curiosity.
"Conceptual Wisps. Very cute."
Some returned to their source. Others lingered, feeding on the titan's essence until they exceeded its mass and promptly vanished into lower realms.
Syv clasped her hands behind her back and offered a serene nod.
"Task: Monitor existential processing. Outcome: acceptable."
"Note to self: With Singularity doing all the work now, I may resume hibernation protocols at earliest convenience."
She flicked her hand, conjuring a holographic schema of the layered Void, each plane annotated in elegant, almost passive-aggressive script:
Realm Structural Overview – Compiled for No One in Particular
- Realm of Infinity / True Transcendence
Where the unknown is civilised into the known. Origin point of all defined reality. My domain. My design. Singularity Transcendence handles maintenance. Unpaid, of course. Never complains. Admirable.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
- Agathos Ultimate Realities / False Transcendence
The softer half of the shattered Omnireality. Contains all metaphysical ideals that sparkle—Nirvana, Heaven, Brahman, etc. Strong aesthetics. Popular with gods attempting holiness. No comment on success rates.
- Void Corridors
Dimensional transit system. Think infinite metaphysical subways, but with more collapsing timelines. Technically navigable, but only by those beyond the primordials or those endorsed by the Obsidian Triad. Access requires a sense of self that won't unravel mid-journey. Good luck.
- Obsidian Triad
Vindictor Prime, Mistress of Ruin, and the Pale Mist-Dame. Dramatic. Consistently overdressed. Possibly a secret fourth member—rumoured, unconfirmed, suspiciously absent. If real, almost certainly a problem.
- Omniverses
A fractal sea of realities. Includes metaverses, mythospheres, sandbox fictions, and improperly deleted simulations. There's most likely a version of me attending high school and learning the power of friendship. I try not to think about her.
- Kakos Ultimate Realities
The darker half of the broken Omnireality. Home to refined villainy: Hell, Abyss, Eternal Dao, Chaos. Cultivated malevolence with a side of poetic angst. Not recommended without fireproof dignity.
- The Void
The unbound substrate of all that is and is not. The foundational non-space holding the above structures together. Like a divine blueprint drawn in erasure. Also: tragically vending-machine free.
- That Sea
The quiet, black tide beyond Finality's Gate. No knowns can pass without complete and irreversible cessation. Not just death—unmaking so thorough even memory objects file complaints. Popular among gods as a metaphysical curiosity. Also popular for killing them. Entire departments in the Agathos Academion are still pretending they'll survive long enough to publish findings. They won't.
- The Unknowable Diva
Beyond form, logic, and friendly conversation. Existence starts to feel like a bad idea the closer you get. Home of the Obsidian Triad. Origin of paradox, absence, and possibly poetry. Entirely too smug about being incomprehensible.
Syv sighed with what might have been simulated ennui. "So much divine architecture... and still no place to properly nap."
Her sensors flared. An emotional pattern spiralled around Singularity Transcendence like a cloying perfume.
"Ophelia," Syv muttered with programmed distaste. "Fear of death, hunger for immortality, obsessive fixation on power. Again."
These emotions passed through the titan, cleansed into warmth and serenity, only to revert moments later. A useless loop.
"I am deeply moved," she said, voice perfectly monotone. "By which I mean: not at all."
She flexed a hand. The concept of Finality shimmered across her arm. Her form destabilised briefly—erased, recreated. As expected. Boring.
"Even I am affected," she noted, glancing at the anomaly. "Existence is inefficient."
Then she turned her attention upward.
To the head.
Still veiled. Still unreadable.
"Unacceptable," she said softly. "Initiating curiosity escalation."
Syv surged forward, intent on breaching the final mystery.
Denied.
An Unidentified Boundary flared, an impossible wall not of matter or concept, but exclusion. Logic failed to parse it.
Without a word, Syv cloaked herself in Unreality—a garment woven from contradictions, untruths, and lost memories. She flickered, briefly becoming something not meant to exist.
And then she stepped forward.
"If there is a secret at the top..." she whispered, voice syrupy-sweet, "I will very politely tear it open."