Enmei's mind was not like Aspentas's or the Warden's. There was nothing physical by which to orient herself, not even a featureless expanse like Aspentas's mind had been. But Enmei's mind held coordinates all the same – could it be that he hadn't learned to develop his dreamworld yet? The feeling of wandering mentally took some getting used to, but Katsumi knew time was growing thin. Accustoming herself to the sensation was a luxury she couldn't afford.
The most pressing problem was not time, however, but the state of Enmei's mind itself. It wasn't one mind, it was thousands. The blast from the gun had literally split Enmei's consciousness into distinct sections, which Katsumi jumped between mentally, not really understanding how. Now that she was in his mind, however, it didn't seem impossible to repair. She tried tugging mentally on one of the fragments, and found that it actually moved, changing its mental position in relation to all the other shards. If that was the case, putting together Enmei's mind again was quite simple. She only had to drag it together like a puzzle.
She continued to drift through his mind, wondering at the peculiar experience. Fragmented memories, thought patterns, collections of neurons lost in their journeys. The human part of consciousness was physical, Katsumi now saw, but there was more, lurking behind the gray matter within their heads.
It all stemmed from Enmei's Amorphium cortex. Katsumi felt its presence occupying a section of his mind, separate from the rest, yet conjoined. It was almost as if there were two beings inside of him – Enmei and whatever was contained within that device. Was the cortex the root of his false memories?
But Katsumi had one too, and false memories hadn't plagued her. Katsumi probed her own Amorphium cortex out of interest, comparing the two. Hers didn't feel like a being, but rather a massive unconscious that melded with her own. She was in control, and her cortex acted as an extension of her mind.
Enmei's was different. She didn't know how to describe it, but it was as if the device had walls around it, separating the consciousness within the cortex from Enmei's own. Unlike Enmei's mind, the cortex appeared whole, unaffected by the gunshot. If Katsumi's test was to repair Enmei's mind, she doubted his cortex had anything to do with it. Still, curiosity got the better of her.
Katsumi approached the device, navigating through the broken shards of Enmei's mind, feeling the second being's proximity. Then she was before it, on the edge of its consciousness, bordering Enmei's own. She paused, then moved toward it. Something blocked her path. A new mental presence – Apollyon. The Warden had entered Enmei's mind as well, forcefully blocking her from entering the being within his Amorphium cortex.
"Candidate, are you sure you wish to proceed? You have the tools to repair his mind without interacting with the god inside him."
I want to know, Katsumi thought. If I enter his Amorphium cortex, I will be able to do more than theorize. I'll be able to experience the consciousness of a god for myself. There will be no need for equations, because I'll finally know.
"If you touch the god within him, your mind may never recover. The First Truth has more than one interpretation, Candidate. If you enter the mind of a god, your own mind will shatter like glass.
Katsumi felt anger flare inside her. It was right here – the truth of reality she had been searching for all these years, what she had spent her entire life studying to learn.
I want to know, Apollyon. I want to know the truth.
"The truth you seek cannot be told. This truth is more than the words of the Axioma can contain. It is a realization that your mind is not ready for."
My mind is ready. It has to be.
"If your mind breaks, Enmei will not be rewarded with the salvation he trusted you to bestow. Would you break the promise to your lover in order to know the truth?"
Katsumi ignored the Warden, pushing onward into the god within Enmei's device.
I must know the truth.
Katsumi's consciousness cracked – an unfathomable entity stared into her, dwarfing her mind not only in size but in sheer complexity. Katsumi's humanity was barely a speck in comparison. It stared into her – then it melded with her. Her human ignorance fell away, and for a single moment she saw her desired truth. The Amorphic Continuum, the old God, the Archwarden that had replaced Him – even the universe itself, it was all there. Enmei's false memories, not so false after all. They held the answers to everything. Centuries of memories, all forced in a single instant into her mind.
And it almost broke her. All that was left was a single realization.
Not again, Enmei. How could I have betrayed you like this again?
". . . It was not meant to be this way, Candidate. The choice you've made here . . . I should have known someone like you would never learn. Yes, this was my own oversight. You proved too ambitious even for the test I had designed."
Katsumi drifted, her mind a shattered mess amongst Enmei's own. Both of them broken. Her mind had failed to comprehend the truth, just as the Apollyon had promised.
After all, how could a mere fledgling comprehend what it was like to be a real god?
What have I done?
"But I take pity on you, just as I take pity on the being you became. You may have failed to embody the Third Truth, but blessed be the Archwarden, that Truth is the most foul lie of them all. I suppose there is no sense in embodying a false promise."
Katsumi could barely process the Warden's words, each fragment of her mind caught in its own horrible betrayal.
The Warden continued. "I will grant you entry into the Overseen. But with my mercy comes a punishment and a boon. My boon will be the gun with which Candidate Enmei proved his faith, and the reconstruction of your minds together as one. To heal your minds I must take away the truth that broke you. But as punishment, I will leave Enmei's memories to torture you still. Who knows? Maybe that in itself will be a boon."
Gradually, Katsumi felt her shattered mind extracted from the godlike presence in Enmei's head. The truth faded as well, but the memories remained, and the sense of guilt lingered.
"It is tradition for the First Stratum Warden to bestow upon each Candidate a name. I give you the name Laplace. The male Candidate will be named Reverent, and he will know this when he wakes. I have only one wish, Candidate Laplace. Now that you know of the future that led you here, I beg of you, do not repeat the past."
That was the last thing Katsumi heard the Holy Warden Apollyon say before she felt Enmei's arms around her, and they were falling, falling away from the Warden's testing ground and into another world.
*****
The Candidates fell from the broken sky like drowning bodies swept under by the ocean waves. They drifted in the calm of unconsciousness, eyes blissfully closed, trailing streams of glowing Glass particles in their wakes. Into each of their minds, the Warden of the First Stratum delivered a message.
Congratulations, Candidate. Your ascension to godhood is nigh. The Archwarden has chosen you for Apotheosis, and desires your presence in Heaven. Your pilgrimage through the Overseen will be long and arduous, but should you succeed, you will stand alongside the Archwarden as a god.
Hail Divinitas, Candidate, and may you soon find yourself in the Archwarden's arms.
For thousands of years the journey of the Candidates for Apotheosis had been one of profound solitude. Each was a rising divinity alone in a sea of mortal ignorance, their minds tortured by the truths of godhood.Candidates' paths crossed for cooperation or combat, little else.
For thousands of years, the Overseen had remained stagnant in its ways, and stable under the Archwarden's holy rule.
But on that day, two Candidates fell together from the broken sky who would upend everything the Archwarden had sacrificed so much to create.