Beacon from Beyond (Book 1 Complete)

Perumah created the reinforced casing of roots around the core aspect of her body and soul, then left Dei to watch over her. It would take a lot to crack the shield, and she was sure Dei would not let anything happen to her, much less repeated and concentrated attacks on her directly.

Her Identity slipped away, pried free from her soul using the Heart affinity as the amalgamation of her emotions meshed together to create an avatar with which to navigate the minds of the monsters.

A familiar sight greeted her, one of flat desert sand and dunes in the distance. She felt a kind of superposition over what was perceived versus what was real, and could sense… nodes in the air, the minds of insects that stabilized the view around them.

She knew that there should be more, something to indicate the life maintaining this space, but The Mother went out of her way to alter or suppress any indicator. She didn't want cacti or wandering animals that represented the insects.

She wanted bare desert.

Something about this space was sentimental to The Mother, and if she had to hand-carve it into the subconsciousness of all life, she would. Instead of natural desert wildlife, The Mother turned the mental avatars of the insects into grains of sand to match everything else.

Directly in front of her, Perumah saw not The Mother's gargantuan worm-like body, but the bipedal figure they'd seen once in her memories, before she ever usurped the position of the original Mother.

Her right arm ended in a long blade, and her left a bundle of spinning blades closely resembling a blender.

The skin held that same beige, reptilian spikish texture she'd come to associate with Lunar Spawn, while her head's face had been wiped clean.

The Mother briefly grew a mouth in her confrontation with Dei to release a scream of pure loathing, but there was no indication of the feature any longer; despite that, Perumah felt the waves of hate emanating from her as a palpable force.

Perumah saw her figure, and realized the functionality of maintaining a humanoid form. Without the mountain of force her main body could exert, she had to be dexterous and tactical. Two legs was enough to reposition without tripping over each other, two arms enough to hold weapons without getting in each others ways, and a size similar to the enemy that made it a battle not of power, but strategy.

There was a reason for the common shape sapients took, and The Mother took advantage of this as well.

Perumah felt the expressionless scowl of The Mother lock onto her. "Traitorous child. Traitorous, arrogant, dead child."

The Mother needed no explanation for Perumah's goal or why they were trying to kill her, she immediately launched forward and swung her blade.

Perumah met her halfway, growing a shield of roots in her left hand to block the inevitable blow from the spinning bladed limb.

Though she'd never fought with a blade in hand before, Perumah was intimately familiar with sword forms. She had, after all, stolen centuries of memories from her victims, oftentimes focusing on how they killed each other to better learn the craft of doing such herself.

A clang resounded when their blades locked in guard, interrupted only by the screech of Perumah redirecting the whirring cuts of The Mother's other weapon on her shield with an overhead reach, propping it against her right arm as she started to move.

Rather than pull away and swing again, she kept to The Mother's right, pressing her entire weight forward. She twisted her form from one to another, trying to get past The Mother's guard, but her enemy closed the openings before she could ever take advantage of them.

Perumah found no chance to parry The Mother's blade out of the way, their weapons scratching against each other harmlessly for several seconds, shifting positions while seemingly nothing happened at all.

The Mother couldn't bring her left arm fully to bear without giving Perumah and opening or cutting herself in the process, and Perumah refused to retr-

The world flickered, and Perumah was flung backwards in a moment of panic. She briefly thought The Mother somehow managed to manifest a modicum of mental force and shift the world around them, but found such an outcome far from the truth.

The nodes were dying.

Large sections of the desert flickered, changed shape, then disappeared, other space rushing in to fill the gap as Dei killed everything in the Physical world

To Perumah, this was a mild inconvenience because her body simply used itself as an anchor to shift her Identity out of the way.

For The Mother? She should have been deleted… but she was more skilled in mental shaping of the world than she was with simple sword combat. Even if their manifestations represented an underlying implicit battle, there was weight in both.

The Mother reappeared, creating her own body once more from scratch and releasing a scowl.

"Destructive and-"

She disappeared again with another erasure, appearing now with a slight scratch on her shoulder.

"And-"

Repeat.

"ENOUGH!"

The world shifted chaotically, The Mother grabbing at the nodes to do something, which Perumah would not allow.

She lunged forward, connecting with Dei's mind and vision, combining it with a scan of the world to see which of the pillars holding up the Realm of Mind would go next.

She swung left, The Mother dodged right, and a node perished- cleaving off The Mother's arm for a second.

Perumah pushed the advantage, snaking forward and striking out violently every few seconds, dividing The Mother's attention.

As Perumah worked, she watched twice as intensely. This was a mental battle, and disrupting the avatar was clearly not working- even if it did something, as otherwise The Mother would not have bothered to manifest one in the first place.

Perumah watched her manipulate then drain the life from many of the nodes, crushing the minds of her troops moments before Dei killed them explicitly to heal herself, and Perumah had a thought.

'She has none of her power right now, she's just a regular parasite so… can I do that as well?'

The argument was, of course, that The Mother had more of a right to The Dream than Perumah, but she didn't think that was true. The Mother just knew where to look more easily, as if only she could utilize it, there would not be a Dream affinity, would there?

Not only this… but The Dream, back on Earth, carried memories from before the current Mother was born. It must not have been created by the one Perumah battled now, but her predecessor.

If this version of The Mother held any right to The Dream, Perumah did as well, because they were both simple monsters. The Mother didn't have her divine power or whatever, just her incredibly skilled manipulation of the subconscious world.

Grabbing at one of the pillars-

It died.

She sighed, first reaching towards Dei's mind. Though she would not absorb him as she wanted to do to the bugs, she focused on his behavior and implored his psyche to not kill any of the bugs she was taking advantage of.

It wasn't a command, just a slight suggestion, and she felt it easily stick. If Dei knew or if she'd asked him, he would've agreed anyway, but he wouldn't really know what to do if she went to him directly. His subconscious self could watch Perumah's battle with The Mother through Perumah's eyes, and guide Dei in a certain direction.

The Mother gathered the power of potentially billions of bugs, but Perumah wanted only one. She wanted only to understand the process.

While fending off The Mother and dodging the collapsing spaces, she tried absorbing a creature, but it put up something of an… argument.

'I do not owe you anything.'

That simple thought was enough to resist Perumah, and it gave her pause. 'Then how does The Mother do it? Do the bugs owe her something?'

Watching her opponents process more, she saw that the insects weren't just surrendering their lives to her, they were doing it of their own volition. When one of them sensed it was about to die, it would push as much of its mind as it could towards The Mother.

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It was here that she found her hint, because the minds wanted to help her. She wasn't forcing them into the battle, and she wasn't killing them with her interference. Over the generations, likely through selective breeding, they'd learned to surrender their all to The Mother with each death, and to become reliant on her guidance.

One small issue, one gap Perumah saw though? It wasn't specific to The Mother herself. The bugs were simply too stupid to process they worshipped the ego of a Goddess, so they did not know her, nor did they know her name. They knew her by… feel.

If Perumah could position herself as something similar to The Mother, she could… maybe not usurp The Mother's position, but confuse the bugs.

Not only this, but she saw a kind of hard limit on The Mother's power- that's why she wasn't crushing Perumah with the weight of a planet right now. Without a body to anchor herself, the bugs were not strong enough to remain a stable base for existence.

They were plentiful though, and each one held a fragment of The Mother. For as long as there were insects, she would be there. She would exist.

'I'm chasing a ghost,' Perumah realized, drawing away from The Mother's avatar. 'She doesn't care about this body. The battle is just for show. She's… what is she doing? What is the end goal here? For me to slip up?'

Her eyes narrowed, 'I'm missing something.'

She doubled her efforts into finding a solution, but one was not forthcoming. 'How am I supposed to get the bugs to recognize me?' she thought, when an idiotic realization dawned on her, and she went to check Dei's soul- specifically his presence.

Back when he was still just a helpless kid hiding away, he'd started the practice of growing his Presence to use as a backup to maintain spells, a patch to cover his soul strain.

One of his favorite things to add- right after his family and affinities- were bugs, insects. Mostly beatles, but Dei wasn't incredibly picky, and he was infused with a frankly terrifying level of familiarity with bugs. A long time ago, he'd told a portion of his brain to keep meditating on all the little different concepts, and sort of forgot about it. She said sort of, because he was aware of it, he just paid it no mind.

The result was that he had a frankly massive presence, and much of it was spent declaring himself a friend of the insects.

It was here that she once more implored his psyche to help her a bit- to let her borrow some of his presence.

Wreathed in a fog of familiarity, she found tendrils of mental power hesitate, slowly reaching out to Perumah as well, though not helping her as they had The Mother.

The Mother was filled with blind fury, attacking her with renewed vigor as the scene around them warped slightly, the worm Goddess pulling too deeply of their power- causing a few of the minds to… not necessarily collapse, but for their conscious selves to partially merge with the world below.

Grass and trees grew from the hidden anchors in the sand, as this was how the insects saw reality. The Mother grimaced and tried shoving the minds out, but Perumah saw an opportunity, stepping in and fighting The Mother for control.

Grand as her existence was, Perumah found her usurpation of the tiny minds to come suspiciously easily, and she dove deeper into each- for once, she left her avatar behind, spreading out her existence into the four or five minds The Mother couldn't control, seeing a rather curious sight.

Without the bugs fighting against her, she noticed how each was connected directly to another, which might sound obvious with how the Mind Realm worked, but it was different to how she pictured.

True, there was a gateway into the land of The Mother, but it was not alone. She felt something grand wrap around her, but she dove deeper into the bugs, slipping away as she investigated where she was.

Stuttering memories and confusing sounds filled her senses. She kept her existence small, but slowly felt out the space, only spreading out between four or five minds at a time. She found that The Mother, too, struggled to locate her, as the insects recognized Perumah as one of their own. Perumah also felt the worm Goddess' slowly rising panic, and knew she wasn't supposed to be here, wherever it was.

It felt untamed, and old, but also very limited. One bugs mind would only ever connect to one or two others, not the grand web The Mother sat in.

It was like… a second Dream, but far more primitive or…

'No, wait… this IS The Dream! This is the link between the subconscious of all thinking beings, it's the Realm of The Mother that is different!

'That's why the nodes aren't truly touching in the Realm of Mind, because it's not The Dream. They connect to The Mother, who connects to them all individually, but there is also a shared connection between each- something that The Mother cannot intrude upon, or cannot impose herself into.'

Each bug worked to exist as a small synapse, a piece of The Mother. She was too weak to maintain herself, but with the combined effort of all the bugs, she could spread her weight out.

So what if Perumah just… made them throw her off.

Using her Bulb affinity, she connected with some of the plants in the memories, and gently guided them, cultivating them into something more prominent and powerful.

The more abundant they were, the more easily each bug would listen to her commands, as they were representations of Perumah herself.

A combination of Heart and Bulb came together, and perumah found herself releasing a mental plague on the insects. Each bulb, imbued with concepts of her, would spread to another once this particular insect's mind was saturated.

She danced around the space, throwing the fragments of herself everywhere she went, dodging The Mother whenever she could. It was clear that fighting her face-to-face did nothing, so she would instead disrupt it all. If each insect was a neuron to The Mother's mind, all Perumah needed to do was induce an aneurysm.

* * *

When she'd ventured for several hours, rushing around the space and spreading herself where she could, she finally went back to The Mother and resumed their battle- not because she thought it would do anything, but to distract her from what Perumah was doing.

The worm Goddess ran away this time. Perumah realized that she needed an avatar to think, or to direct her will, and she had no intentions of playing with Perumah any longer.

The Mother's inability to infect the minds of the insects directly was strange to Perumah, but thinking about it? Perumah was likely only able to do that because she had an affinity.

The Mother couldn't use Earth Primordial magic, she couldn't use spells like Perumah did. Her magic, of the Moon Primordial, must've focused on manipulating the space in her own realm.

That's why The Mother always fought within her mind, because she could not cast or exist in any meaningful capacity when in the Physical World, and the brains of these insects almost exclusively existed there.

Celestial Parasites were close to affinities, but not the same. They were a path to follow, and The Mother's held nothing in line with usurping the true minds of creatures.

Perumah found herself as something of a general in a war. She held a tighter control of the minds she came into contact with, but The Mother held a larger force.

The Mother had an entire Realm to draw upon for power, but Perumah was a different existence entirely.

Separation had cut The Mother in two, and Perumah could tell this was likely an act of spite. The Mother's body held immense power and no clue how to use it, while her ego held all the skill to cut Perumah apart without any of the strength to do so.

She was crippled and relying on bugs whose minds innately rejected her brand of magic.

Perumah tried re-entering her body once more, and was surprised to find it closed off to her. The Mother pushed the gateway to herself away, shifting it around. Though Perumah still drew power from it and used it to anchor herself, she couldn't return until The Mother was dead- at least at first.

This was The Mother's original goal, to trap Perumah in her reality and slowly exhaust her. Even if she could not bring the hammer of God down on Perumah's head, Perumah could not escape either. The Mother wanted to find her, kill her Identity, and likely steal her body- a dangerous prospect.

As the fight wore on, The Mother seethed with hate. Perumah slowly gained more control over the Mental Realm, reshaping it so that The Mother's avatar was always spatially aligned with Dei's physical location, letting Perumah force her into spaces where she would need to choose between getting cut down by Perumah's blade, or temporarily erased as the minds holding her up were crushed by Dei's fists.

The Mother was filled with such strong loathing throughout the process of Perumah hollowing her out that Perumah actually realized something- the emotion was likely the forefront of her magic, similar to how some affinities left echoes on a personality.

True, Zyz'Ti's affinity was the only one that intentionally spiked a particular emotion to get a behavior, but that didn't mean the other paths held no influence over someone's mind.

There was no Hate affinity, but there was Rage. The Mother wasn't as angry as she was spiteful, so Perumah could only assume that the roles in the Moon Primordial's domain were somewhat reversed- where hatred was more important than anger.

It actually made her… relieved.

If that was true, it meant she would eventually experience love, the emotion, even if it was changed by the Moon Primordial. Dei had pointed out as much, but this only further cemented it.

'I WILL be complete.'

* * *

It took barely six hours before Perumah had cornered the consciousness of The Mother, and she felt The Mother was gearing up for a final attack- one that would kill everything under her control and collapse the rest of her web to strike at Perumah. The Mother had already released the control she had over the gateway to Perumah's body in the hopes that she would leave, but she had no interest in going until the job was done.

Not like she'd let The Mother launch her attack; with a simple exertion, Perumah pulled her web away, cutting off communication with The Mother, and existing on a different plane entirely.

Quarantining the particular bugs The Mother still had control of, Perumah pointed Dei at the remaining nests, letting him go to their physical locations and squash them by the thousands.

She watched in aloof disinterest as The Mother's power slowly drained, and her final stand became little more than a foolish struggle. The Mother couldn't do anything to Dei, and Perumah was keeping her distance until the worm Goddess was weak enough to finish off.

When she was down to fourteen bugs, Perumah finally asked Dei to let her take the rest, and did something she considered funny.

The Mother was still dangerous. Even mostly gutted with fourteen bugs, she could probably release a mind plague on Perumah, so Perumah didn't even squash her in the realm of Mind. she found the fourteen bugs in the real world, and killed them herself.

Without a chance to even get last words off, Perumah silenced The Mother's ego, and was left with a web of subconsciousness across all the bugs she didn't know how to use.