The Jester of Apocalypse

Neave stared at the little golem, mouth agape. After thinking it through a bit, he quickly caught on to what was happening.

Neave turned to the plant and pointed at the golem.

“Are you doing this?”

The golem nodded its head.

Neave couldn’t believe it.

“You can understand what I’m saying?”

The golem nodded again.

“Oh my… What!? This is insane.”

This was indeed insane.

Not only was this plant seemingly sapient at merely the foundation realm, but it was also clearly intelligent. Neave kept looking from the plant back to the golem and then back to the plant again.

What was he supposed to do? What were his options anyway?

He turned to the golem and spoke again.

“Are you… Obeying me?”

The golem nodded its head vigorously.

“Why?”

Neave wasn’t sure what he expected, but the golem merely cocked its head and paused. It sat on the ground, pointed at the plant, then Neave.

“I have no idea what that means.”

The golem sagged a little.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m not refusing your servitude! I’m guessing you’re glad I created you?”

The golem perked up. It nodded its head.

“I’m just… You know…” Neave turned to the plant, “Should I face the plant or the golem?”

The golem hesitated a bit and then pointed at itself.

“Oh, okay… I’m assuming you’re controlling the golem with your spirit power?”

The golem nodded.

Neave grinned.

“Well, well, well… What do I do now?” Neave thought about it for a good while and finally decided.

He walked toward one of the smaller plants and then turned to the golem.

“Hey, do you mind if I wreck some other plants?”

The golem vigorously shook its head.

“Uh… Does that mean that I shouldn’t?”

The golem paused for a bit, then shook its head again.

“So I can?”

The golem nodded.

“Sweet.”

Neave pulled a few smaller plants from the ground and piled them up. Once he gathered enough, he sat in front of the pile of glass shrubs. The golem bounced over to Neave’s side and cocked its head at him.

Neave smiled at it and patted its head.

“Wait just a moment, buddy. I have something cool for you.”

Neave spent an indeterminable amount of time melting the branches and fusing them. After a while, he had a pile of limbs, a head, and a torso. He put them together, using some of his knowledge about golem construction to create something similar.

He wasn’t creating an actual golem, although he was somewhat sure he could. Instead, he was making a golem-esque doll that would be easier for the plant to use than the tiny monster corpse.

After quite a bit of arduous labor, he was finished constructing a roughly average human-sized glass doll.

“So… What do you think?”

The other golem went limp on the ground, and the one Neave had created began getting up.

It lumbered itself off the ground and straightened up.

Neave nodded in satisfaction. He had to admit it wasn’t masterfully done, but it was a passable body for now.

Neave faced the golem and spoke.

“When I gave you the small monster core, did you face a sort of challenge where you had to defeat the little golem?”

The golem nodded.

“Uh-huh.” He wanted to ask how it successfully beat that challenge, but it wasn’t like it could speak and describe it to him.

“If I asked you to imbue it with qi and evolve it, could you beat the same trial but harder?”

The golem simply stood still. It cocked its head and looked around.

Does it not understand what I mean?

“Do you understand what I meant?”

The golem shook its head.

Neave spent, or rather, wasted, an entire hour trying to explain himself to the plant. It didn’t seem to understand what Neave was trying to tell it.

Neave was shocked that it could understand anything, so he wasn’t too disappointed to realize some things were still out of its grasp.

“Alright, it's okay, no need to worry about it, but I will warn you. If you figure out how to evolve the spirit power independently, do it cautiously. The opponent will get more powerful, so…

The golem shook its head profusely.

“What’s wrong?”

It pointed fingers at him and scratched its head as if trying to find a way to express itself. After a while, it walked over to the small golem body on the ground and pointed at it aggressively.

“...Ok?”

Then, it pointed at itself, paused, then pointed at the plant instead and back to the golem. Then it threw its arms out and looked around again. It put its arms on its hips. It paused as if suddenly realizing something.

It pointed at the golem's body on the ground again, then grabbed one of its arms and smacked the small golem's head, making it look like it was hitting itself.

Neave was beyond confused.

The puppet got up, pointed at the golem again, then imitated choking itself and falling over limp to the ground.

“... Wait. Are you trying to say that the golem fucking killed itself in the trial?”

The doll nodded vigorously as it got back up off the ground.

“Holy shit! So you didn’t even have to do anything?”

The golem nodded again.

“Damn… That’s… Interesting.”

Countless ideas whirled through Neave’s head.

No fucking wonder Astrador shit his pants. If this creature can make monster spirits kill themselves in the spirit trial, it could easily acquire loads of spirit powers.

That made him pause for a bit. Was it really alright for this creature to stay alive? He dismissed that thought immediately. The brush was loyal to him. At least, it seemed to be. If Neave could foster a friendship with this thing, he could gain an immeasurably valuable helper to terraform the realm.

Neave sat before the doll again and explained as much stuff as possible. He omitted everything he believed could give the shrub an existential crisis and stuck to things related to this realm and the terraforming effort.

He warned the shrub against manually claiming spirit powers before Neave could round up the cores. He gave it a tentative explanation about how the realm itself and his efforts in fostering the environment, which it understood surprisingly well.

It also had absolutely no trouble comprehending that Neave wanted to cover the entire realm with the glass shrubs.

Neave hesitated for a moment and pointed at all of the other plants.

“Are all of them… Like you?”

The golem shook its head.

Phew. Good.

Neave had no idea what would have happened if an entire realm of shrubs like this one existed. Luckily, he wouldn’t have to find out.

Eventually, Neave thought the shrub understood him well enough. He managed to get it to agree to spread the plants faster. He told it to approach the monsters carefully and avoid doing anything crazy with them before the shrub population could get going.

Neave didn’t know how much time passed when he left the realm, so he warned it that when he left, it might be some time before he was back. Neave fed it all of the life force he had as a parting gift and died, leaving the realm.

Once he was back, he felt a strange sense of anxiety. What would be waiting for him back in there? Would the shrub go mad with power and attack him when he’s back? He hesitated for a while, taking a few deep breaths and knocking himself back out again.

Neave appeared…

Within the library.

“...Huh? Shit, I must have messed it up.”

He did it again and once more simply woke back up.

Cold sweat ran down his back and knocked himself out for longer this time. He woke up and discovered several disciples staring at him in concern.

His breathing sped up.

His heart felt like it would burst out of his chest.

Neave shook as the realization sank in.

“I… I can’t get back in.”

***

In a heavenly palace, far into the highest realm, part and fully-naked people lay strewn about, lazing and napping.

They were all beautiful enough to shatter the mind of any mortal that lay eyes on them, but even they paled compared to the figure in the center of the palace.

It was a man with white, long hair shining brighter than the stars. Perfection wasn’t enough to describe his appearance. He had long ago left such subpar descriptions behind. He wore nothing but silken cloth loosely wrapped around his crotch, and even that felt like it violated his divinity.

He slowly opened his golden eyes, stirring all the people in the room awake, many of whom respectfully bowed to him.

The room stirred as the man’s arms both glowed faint purple. Once they realized what was happening, they gasped and screamed.

Runes etched themselves deep into the skin over his arms, telling the horrible story of supreme sacrifice. His arms went limp and hung loosely at his sides.

His left eye also glowed purple, yet he didn’t even wince as the runes seared deep into his eyeball, sealing it away.

He sighed, looking down at his arms.

“Down to once a day for both arms… And an eye for the barrier. Hmph.” That was the most he could afford to sacrifice.

He got up, and everyone in the room rapidly scrambled away. He walked, slowly making his way toward the balcony of his heavenly palace.

He walked outside.

The grand palace of the highest heavenly court hung in the sky above the sacred realm. Down beneath it, uncountable teleportation platforms stood etched, rapidly filling with people. Everyone who appeared prostrated themselves instantly.

The man stood silently above the realm, waiting for the platforms to stop shining and for his people to gather.

Once the platforms had filled, he remained quiet, filling the air with explosive silence.

Several minutes later, he spoke.

“I have been a fool.”

The words reverberated through the realm like a supernova, sending the masses into chaos. Countless divine servants shivered and shook, nearly passing out in fear and panic.

Rather than calm them, he continued with the same severe tone.

“A spark had been lit. If not extinguished, it will incinerate us all.”

Whimpers, cries, and shrieks of terror spread through the vast expanse.

“For the first time in eons, we must crawl down to a lower realm! Join me, my people!”

He rose off the ground, floating above the endless expanse.

“The time had arrived. Ready yourselves!”

The people got up.

“A grand crusade begins!”

[Jester of Apocalypse: Immortality]

[Book 2]

[END]