Sworded Affair

Chapter 93: Thelema

"That doesn't make sense," Elizabeth was the one to interrupt this time. "You're saying the System didn't exist until 1346? Even the Empire's own records list users dating back as far as the Norman conquest of England, centuries before then, and there were unconfirmed rumours going back far further still."

"Linear time, causality, these are all human concepts; inventions of mortal minds to satisfy their perceptions, in an attempt to make sense of the world." Saint scoffed. "They are by definition imperfect, incomplete, and break down entirely as each concept approaches divinity. The System was born in 1346, beginning my apotheosis. This was not a sudden process, but one that took a few centuries, most of which I spent asleep within my sanctum near Cambridge, 'digesting' all the knowledge I absorbed from the fallen. As expected, the entire world reeled after Diluvian; every institution, sect and coven hollowed out in an instant, reduced to only a handful of old Masters, the crippled and infirm, and students too young to be allowed on the battlefield.

Even with all the anger turned my way, there was just no appetite to start another war of vengeance, and with so many dead, the pressing issue of overpopulation was also put to rest. Thus, the greatest magical conflict since the fall of Rome ended with a whimper, as the survivors on all sides retreated to lick their wounds and consolidate their own power. Without the numbers to hold newly claimed territory, or indeed for any duties beyond the bare minimum, the borders of the magical traditions regressed to more or less what they had been before the war started. All this, I slept through, protected by my home's defenses as well as Overmind, who was impressed enough by the nascent System to station her fragments as an additional deterrent. By the time I awoke again, it was already 1603, and by then, very few still remembered firsthand what I had done.

Soon after that, Paradox returned from her own fact-finding mission, empty-handed and very annoyed. She'd finally managed to break through the barrier clouding everyone's vision, enough to realise that a sufficiently powerful God being born could both alter the Cycle and ruin everyone's precognition; a built-in defense to prevent interference in their rise. My actions in 1346 consumed enough of humanity's potential to greatly prolong the mana drought, the consequence of which rippled back through visions to the precognitives of 1313. This in turn prompted the panic that started the war, and led me down the path of creating the System that would spur my actions in 1346.

A closed time loop of the most annoying variant, one which meant that Paradox was already angry at me, even before she returned to England and found most of the Empire she knew in ruins. The two of us fought, a battle that ended with my death; except it didn't really matter by then. I'd already finished categorising all the magic I now represented, the System was fully operational, and all my death meant was that I lost my body of flesh and blood, and integrated with my creation completely. A god who existed outside the flow of time, born through magic, war and betrayal, created entirely by their own artifice in a cosmic accident: a God of Chaos.

As such, the System also followed me throughout time, to every one of my ancestors before me and every descendant to come after, ensuring that so long as magic existed, so too would there be a distinct subset of society who gained their powers through strange floating boxes."

[Oversoul ended.]

Saint slumped in her cat bed, blinking in confusion all of a sudden as her paws sought out a rubber fish that no longer existed, before growling as she lay her head down to sleep.

[Saint - Level 8 Druid of War]

"What the fuck." Noah eventually replied, speaking for everyone around the table.

---

Gripping her spear with both hands, Astrid carefully followed the beam of light descending from the heavens. As it neared the ground, she channeled her will into the weapon, exhaling slowly as her Domain took effect. A single beam with enough energy to last a full day, transmuted directly from light to electricity and skipping the middleman of a solar panel, capable of lingering until consumed without the need for bulky and volatile batteries. A hundred thousand sparks dispersed, seeking out phones, cars and appliances of every sort; all the remnants of modern technology that had survived in Kiruna. This was a distinct minority of what had existed before, but they were in far better shape than most surviving communities.

The remote area and frequent snow in northern Laplund meant a societal focus on redundancy; instead of relying on the likes of Amazon to quickly replace important, everyday items, most people kept spares in reserve. This meant old electronics and appliances, stored away and crucially unpowered when the apocalypse struck, bringing down the power grid and everything connected to it at that moment. Her early morning ritual done for the day, Astrid departed from the town square, the gathered crowd parting like a wave before her.

"Völva."

Many whispered respectfully, evoking the old name of magic, ones which had declined since the arrival of Christianity; no longer an organised faith in any form but still alive in folklore.

"This isn't quite what I thought I'd be doing, when I first received my magic," Astrid quipped, as she arrived back home after just a few minutes of walking.

[People rarely think about infrastructure, until it stops working: then you get riots.]

Her official residence was still a house further afield, but she'd accepted an apartment at the heart of the city, at the insistence of the mayor. Given that her magic now represented the sole, large scale source of electricity available on demand, the local authority was understandably eager to keep her close by. It saved her a longer daily commute, so Astrid didn't mind. Leaving her spear by the door, Astrid headed inside to prepare some breakfast.

[Once you've eaten, you'll want to head to the Empire outpost. Bookings for teleportation open again at noon, and there are slots to England available, now that Emma's finished her trials.]