Lowly Ascent

The Abbess strategically backed away from Nihil, breaking through the window behind her.

"Slow down!" Her words were like laws that bound Nihil's body in place.

Yet, he was not bound by a shell, he was his own soul, and his control of himself was beyond what anyone else could know.

"Do you think the Path of Voice can constrict me?! Your words are your weapon, but what happens if I don't care for your words?! Such a powerful but weak Path!"

The Path of Voice was simple, it worked through words. Words were strong, but they were also weak, ineffective when facing someone who wouldn't listen to them.

But this was why the 3rd and final rank of this path was truly special, because even if the opponent didn't listen, the user's voice came from themselves, their understanding of the word.

To someone at this level, life can be death, up can be down, and weakness can be strength. 

It was dangerously similar to concepts, which was why Doom chose it for his world.

Concepts used laws to be concepts, and as Concepts they controlled how the universe saw them. Like how the first Death made death permanent, while the second Death chose to make death a spectrum, with many ends being available, true death being only one.

The Path of Voice was the same in this matter, going from understanding words to understanding how people view words to the final transformation, using personal definitions for words.

At that point, it didn't matter if the opponent didn't listen, because they were also fighting an unreasonable person.

However, such power was restricted, as those who walked the Path had to meditate for years on a single word to make their true definition of it. Some only had one word, others had multiple. Very few people harnessed enough words to make a full sentence, and no one had ever unleashed one.

The Abbess's second mouth opened, and with it, she spoke the one word she meditated on for years, making it into her own.

"Knowledge!"

Nihil, who was chasing the Abbess, felt his mind explode with information beyond what even he could comprehend in a short span of time.

"What is this?!"

Recipes, graphs, schematics, and useless information blew into his mind like fiery winds, burning everything. The knowledge flooding into his mind collided with already organized information, and from the clash, chaos ensued as information was lost and gained.

'Shit shit shit!' Nihil paused to enter his mindscape, inside, he found his world collapsing on itself.

"L-Lord! You've returned! What is all this!" Leon flew to Nihil's side, exhausted.

He knew of the changes within Nihil the very second Cain was turned into the new form, for the mindscape was affected as well.

What before was a realm of blood silently waiting to devour its prey, the world was now upon an eclipse. The world of blood left the scene and what replaced it was dark inky waters leaving nothing of interest in the land. In the sky, darkness encased the world with red lights flying about in terror.

Finally, at the horizon, there was a dark white dot churning like the entrance to a world beyond, to a place above the current one. 

Even though Nihil's mindscape was sturdy and calm, the attack of knowledge from the Abbess was dangerous, because even though Nihil had a powerful soul, he never had to actively defend it. The Abbess's attack was targeted at his mind, and thus his soul could also be damaged.

"Leon, take me to where I keep all my stored memories and information. That is the center point of all this."

"Of course, my Lord." Leon saw Nihil as Cain, Nihil was Cain, it was simply an advancement that changed his very being, there was no need for revolt from the mist ghosts. It wasn't like they could.

Very quickly, Nihil was brought to the area of his mind which contained all his knowledge. There, he found tornados of foreign knowledge clashing with his own.

One of the mist ghosts came forward to report. "Sir, we've been trying to defend but we are still losing in the process. Though so far we haven't let anything important go, and if the situation needs it, we've been sacrificing ourselves." 

'Oh... it's this one.' Nihil remembered who the ghost was, it was the City Lord whose daughter had imprisoned Cain off a baseless prophecy that ended up coming true from her actions.

'At least he isn't incompetent now. Working for a better cause.' Nihil didn't say anything to the City Lord and went over to the storms of knowledge.

'The Abbess chose the wrong definition. This is knowledge that consumes, leading to downfall....poor thing doesn't know that my very being is meant to devour everything, no amount of knowledge is enough for me!'

Raising his hand, the whole mindscape trembled and acted as its master wished.

The world expanded, and a vast plane of black filled the space between the storms and Nihil's knowledge. The ground stretched as miles of an inky landscape isolated the storms from all else.

"This should be good, they can't harm anything here and I can always shift through the knowledge at my leisure. A great gift from the Abbess, a very curious thing." He turned to Leon, "If the tornados begin to weaken, give them some energy, I doubt the Abbess gave enough energy for the attack to last even a year, we will need to expend that ourselves to keep it here."

"Of course. Your will is mine. I shall act out your command with diligence." Leon bowed respectfully.

"Good, this is why you're my favorite." Nihil dispersed from the Mindscape.

...

Back in reality, Nihil opened his ethereal eyes to find a vast pressure raining down on him.

"Hmm, it's strong, but it's far from strong enough." He only needed to look up to find the culprit.

Flying above him in the night sky, the Abbess's face was pale as horror gripped her body.

"H-How are you back so fast? Not only that, why is your soul so thick!"

Nihil looked at the soul energy around him, the thick essence was protecting him from the pressure coming from the Abbess, a little more time and she would've broken through and destroyed his soul body.

Nihil laughed. "I completely counter you! To think you augmented yourself with soul pressure, you must have a higher density of soul than most! Unfortunately, I have a soul thousands of times stronger than your own! Even this hastily prepared soul body is stronger than you!"

Exerting a little force, Nihil's soul broke through the Abbess's pressure and he zoomed to grab her by the neck.

"Y-You!" The Abbess was scared, "Oh God! Help me!"

A flash of light pierced through the sky and fell upon the Abbess. In an instant, a pressure so strong sent even Nihil flying back as buildings collapsed from the mere existence of its soul.

Nihil had succeeded in his plan, "So this is the descent of a God! Oh, how I would love to devour you whole!"

The descent was noticed by the whole world, a blinding light coming down into the world. Every organization learned of it within the hour. The descent marked the end of days and the battle of gods.

Still floating above Nihil, the Abbess's body became leathery like a book. Multiple eyes opened from the bindings. It was obvious she was no more, and that the Book of Infatuation planned a full descent, its celestial soul had already joined the body.

"DIE!"

Like a storm, the rolling out of a boundless soul crushed the very Earth. Nihil, a half-god, could do nothing. He would have to wait for the heroes of the world, because he wasn't a god either, only close to reaching that height.

All the while, the figure of an old woman came closer to a book, and when the book fully formed it started to grow in size, its pressure becoming stronger.

'This is nothing, it is like a child before Doom's presence! This will be easy!' He reassured himself.