Hesitantly standing up, he looked around to all the other stunned Lunar Spawn, what few were still alive.

He'd already known that he would be entering calamitous memories, that was just the nature of traveling through the layers. Each stop would be something significant to a God. Still, he should've been better prepared for appearing in the dead center of such an event.

Rubbing his temples, he asked Perumah "Did you get anything from his memories?"

She didn't respond.

Glancing over, he gasped seeing her shadowy form brimming with chaos, the shifting aurora pushing at the edges of her skin as she thrashed in place.

"Perumah!"

Appearing over her form, he knelt down, connecting with her, only to see…

'She did this intentionally.'

Chaos hadn't infected her, she'd let it in. Hardly a drop of the storm, but it was simply too much. She couldn't handle it, and it was damaging more than just her Identity- her main soul was collapsing. Gritting his teeth, he opened his soul to the storm. It was the only way to vent it from her.

She didn't let him.

The chaos tried to surge into him, but she clamped down on it, dragging it back into herself.

"Perumah, you'll die!" he shouted at her, "You CAN'T handle this alone!"

Still, she stubbornly tried to subjugate the chaos. She wasn't trying to absorb it any longer, just put it to sleep.

'Perhaps I can help with that?'

His will surged into her, encasing the shifting light, compressing it, denying it the desire to run rampant. As if his action gave her an idea, Perumah suddenly started directing him in a much more specific way, guiding him into corralling the chaos into streams that circulated around her body as he compressed the aurora further.

Starting in her brain, she corralled the chaos to form a structure directly beneath her frontal lobe-

'She's forming a false nervous system,' he realized.

Now on the same page, he let her guide him into shaping the pathways that branched out from it, stretching downwards across her body. As her focus in shaping the chaos moved, the scattered energy started to coalesce faster with each passing second. By the time she was halfway done, the false nervous system was building itself.

He felt her mind relax, simply allowing the chaos to bring itself under control. The false cerebellum pulsed slowly, moving the chaos with every movement, building the system it needed. When it was complete, Dei watched it continue to pulse, going back over his and Perumah's work, fixing imperfections they'd missed, strengthening the walls around the channels. Correcting itself.

"Howd you know that would work?" he asked, feeling exhaustion set in.

"We're in The Mother's Realm," she responded, "It works off her understanding. She has countless memories of examples of a false nervous system. I needed her to subconsciously categorize me as a chaos born, then The Mother's mind would work to correct what it perceived as a mistake on its part."

'She tricked the world into believing she was a chaos born. Chaos born? Oh yea, she said Vy'Vex told her that's what the people with false nervous systems are called.'

"Smart, and dangerous. Why wouldn't you let me help you?" he asked, looking over her new form. The shadows were a bit more solid than before, but the main difference was a glaring system situated within her, perpetually emanating light. It was the only thing in her body that was solid.

"Dei. Later. I'm tired," she responded, then rolled onto her side. He assumed she was trying to sleep, so he just sighed. 'I guess we're waiting out another event. I kinda wanna follow that figure to see where he's going.'

Communicating with Wild Chains, it started to levitate and he took off towards the sky.

"Mind if I chase the guy from a distance?" he asked Perumah.

"Mmm," she hummed in agreement, still slumped down.

He still barely saw the colorful aurora from a distance, and decided to keep it like that. If he saw the figure himself, he'd turn tail and run. Too many beings in The Mother's soul were conscious for him to do otherwise.

Right as he attempted to follow though, a golden figure appeared before him.

"HOLD!" the armored woman shouted, and Wild Chains' entire body scrunched as it tried desperately to halt all of its momentum, coming to a complete stop like a screeching car.

Hovering there, Dei took a moment to observe the woman, seeing that she was in the same golden armor as Vy'Vex was, though she looked to be doing… much worse. She was pale with white hair and looked gaunt, but that didn't seem to slow her in her oversized armor.

"Turn around wanderer, there is only death where you go, for everyone."

"Another member of the Golden Order? Are you a seal as well?"

The woman looked surprised for a second, before narrowing her eyes and quickly scanning him, Wild Chains, then Perumah, looking relieved when she saw Perumah's prone form that hadn't even bothered glancing up.

"Indeed I am. I see you met with Vy'Vex? It says you parted on good terms as well. That is wonderful. You must know by now, then, that we do not guard haphazardly. Leave."

"I thought it would be… like, crazy impossible to find another Celestial Parasite. How'd we just stumble on one?"

"You didn't. That man is… rather strong, but for other reasons. Nonetheless, you cannot pass."

"Is he real? Or a memory? What's his name?"

She shook her head, "One in the same with him. Every memory of him becomes its own copy. You are not allowed to know his name."

Dei paled, "You mean, now that I have encountered him, he is within my mind as well?"

"That is correct. Do not worry though, it isn't all bad. He wishes to pass anyway, so he will not manifest himself through you unless you bother the memory. Another reason to not know his name, as it will give the copy within you a more solid identity. Not good. He doesn't like it when people make him exist."

"Well… any tips for dealing with the new hazard in my own mind?"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The woman shrugged, "Don't use soul magic to glance over that particular memory? If you think about that moment nothing will happen, just don't go sticking your head where it doesn't belong."

Dei wanted to pull his hair out. This trip into The Mother's soul was both safer and more dangerous than anything he could've imagined, and the God in question wasn't even actively trying to kill him! He was never visiting The Mother's Realm again.

He could do nothing but sigh, "Alright, thanks for the help. I guess… I'm out of here?"

"Make it so," she said with her arms crossed, and he started to turn away, but paused.

"Wait actually, could you tell me about the Golden Order? I have a spell that gets stronger the more I know about cosmic mysteries."

"No. Go away."

'This one's a bit ruder than Vy'Vex.'

"Alright, well can you at least tell me how many more stops until the center of The Mother's soul? And are there any more calamities that might kill me?"

"Will you go away if I do?"

"Sure, yea."

"If you enter the next layer within one week, you're pretty much there, though you will come out buried so be ready to dig. No, there are no more calamities, but I imagine you'll struggle to find her birthplace if you don't know where to look. Just as a hint, head towards the southern tip of the continent but skirt around the edges. There's a few hazards that run through the middle of the continent that can catch the unprepared, so go east first until you get to the ocean, then follow that south. The first nest will be underground but you can tell when you're getting closer to the queen based on how many gunkers there are. Her egg will be in the thirty seventh row down from the queen's head, behind the flap with a nick on the tip of it. Got all that?"

He didn't really need directions considering he already had a compass pointing to The Mother's birthplace, but it was still good to get an outside source. "Yes, but what's a gunker?"

"The worm things she gives birth to."

"Lunar Spawn?" he asked.

She sneered at the very idea, "I'm simply a copy of the original Ty'Vi, but I still have some pride. I'll return to dust before I ever acknowledge the bitch's chosen name for her people. Just so you know, call her a gunker in the real world and she'll go berserk." The thought seemed to bring a smile to Ty'Vi's face.

"And I take it you don't mind that you will soon die, as I'm going to kill The Mother when I get there?"

She seemed amused, "I want you to do exactly that, though I'll be fine. I sensed the gate to the other versions of myself close, true, but even if this copy dies, I can still flee through the cracks to one of the other copies and be assimilated into the whole once more. It will take a bit longer, but I don't mind that."

"Err, okay, I guess I'll leave you be. I'll remain in this layer for a bit longer to let my companion rest, then we'll be on our way. I won't try and seek out that… person… while I'm here."

She shrugged, "Doesn't matter to me. I'm one of the few figures in this realm capable of killing trespassers. Push your luck and all you'll get is erased."

He grimaced, but nodded "Thanks for the map and… teaching me a slur, I guess?" then turned his ride around, leaving the woman to her post.

* * *

POV: Perumah a few minutes before

They arrived at the next layer, crushed under an insurmountable pressure she had no hope of resisting. Her body began to scatter, but that was fine. It was a mere representation, and she was not actually harmed by the process.

More pressingly, her attempts to scan the beings of the area were being disrupted. With her form crushed, she was unable to properly see anything, so she decided to look through Dei's eyes right as he looked towards the sky at a most unimaginable scene.

Unimaginable as in, she could not process it. Dei might've had some experience with the incomprehensible, but she didn't, so she saw no colors or mysterious shapes. All she saw was the dark figure with two purple eyes that seemed to bore into her soul, despite them not even glancing in hers or Dei's direction.

'I need to scan that figure,' her thoughts screamed. It had secrets. It had something that she could build herself up with. And it was clearly the grandest of all. Perumah, didn't see the fearful chaos around him as Dei had, so she simply believed she was looking upon the Primordial.

'If I can build myself a body in his image, not even Zyz'Ti will be able to corrupt me.'

Directing her scan in a needle-like pulse, she attempted to fire it through the storm. Despite its concentrated nature, it was still torn apart without effort by the aura emanating from the man. Still, she did not give up, straining herself, focusing, and firing again, only for the same result.

Growling, she put her entire body, her entire soul into launching the most potent needle of a scan she could, finally watching it pierce his skin, revealing a glorious and terrifying sight.

Despite his appearance, there was no way the man was human. He had a pseudo nervous system more robust than any she'd ever seen, and the organ in his brain was more than a cerebellum- the entire structure of his brain was rewritten in an incomprehensible way.

The false cerebellum wrapped around the main mass of his brain, leaving little to no cushioning for if he was ever hit in the head- not like she could imagine him taking damage.

The pathways themselves replaced almost all his flesh and blood. There was a barely distinguished set of organs, but they were utterly infested with the pathways of his false nervous system. Looking closer, she realized that everything other than the false system was almost vestigial, barely functioning past what was required to put up a smoke screen.

Looking at him, a second realization dawned on her. 'He doesn't just HAVE the false system. He is the predecessor to all the rest. He has the FIRST false system, and all the others are a weak mockery of his.'

It was the only thing that made sense. His system was the most evolved out of any she'd seen, and they were closer to the beginning of time than ever before, likely near the start of civilization.

"Many have sought to research me, but never a blade of grass," an amused voice spoke into her mind, and she stilled.

"To be made in my image? That is what you desire? Let me help you along."

A finger twitched, and hardly a trillionth of the power residing within the man flew towards Perumah. She could've rejected it, let it slide off her, but the man was right. She needed his power, and this was her only chance.

So she opened her soul.

* * *

Dei blew out a mouthful of air, "Well, that's certainly a lot more dangerous than I thought the situation was, and I genuinely believed we were about to die. I wonder why he responded so… well to you?"

"I believe he was amused by my existence, and wanted to see what would happen if he imbued me with his chaos."

They'd both shared what they saw from their particular perspectives, Dei learning about the man's inhuman nature and Perumah learning about the fear the chaos around him emitted.

"I just don't get it…" Dei mumbled, "Where does he fit in to the Primordial war? He's clearly not the Earth Primordial, but he has its power? He can control chaos, it fears him, but he's biologically composed of the stuff. I'd think he was a…" he was going to say 'parasite' but thought better at the last moment, "...hanger on to the Earth Primordial, just as the Moon Primordial made a bunch of, but that wouldn't really make sense. He's got too much control over the chaos directly, and Ty'Vi said he wasn't a Celestial Parasite anyway. Vy'Vex never even mentioned him, so what's up with that?"

"If I had to guess? A biological weapon created by the Earth Primordial that went out of control, but honestly, I don't think we'll ever know for sure. Looking into him is too dangerous, so I vote we stop talking or thinking about him in general, then never mention this again."

"Agreed."

* * *

Entering the next layer in complete darkness and horrifically little wiggle room, Dei was glad for Ty'Vi's heads up that they would enter it buried. Tapping into his spirit half, Dei easily phased up through the ground and into the open air, Wild Chains doing the exact same thing as it was merely an extension of his soul.

He thought he'd need to dig Perumah up, but he found her shadowy-filled-with-chaos form directly behind him, and gave her a questioning look.

"I'm just an echo projected through my link to you," she clarified, "I can't get too far away from you, but at the same time I won't actually die if my form is killed, as I hold a much weaker connection with this self than you do in that body. If I'm stuck, I can just de-manifest then re-manifest wherever you are."

Shrugging he looked around and saw… yet more desert.

EXCEPT! This one was full of life typical to what he'd expect, with tropical plants, cacti, various animals, and insects all around him. Life!

Past that, he could vaguely see greenery in the distance, so he held hope that there'd be more than just endless sand.

Orienting himself eastward, he set out in search of the ocean.

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