The Second Meeting in Mephauric (Part 2)
With that, we headed back toward the interior of the camp.
Of course, not forgetting to first dispose of the bodies of the traitorous American soldiers who had been dispatched.
"Even if something becomes absolutely certain, it's just that one thing you yourself consider the most important—no more, no less. It doesn't mean everything else automatically follows suit."
"Exactly, Minister. So how should we handle these bodies now? If we say they were all executed as traitors like originally planned, people won't buy it easily. Even if they half-believe it, the deep distrust will fester, turning them into the same paranoid mob as the civilians out there, slaughtering each other on mere suspicion. On the other hand, claiming they went missing or died in an enemy raid would force us to ramp up defenses even more, pushing us straight into hardcore militarism."
"Right. That's why we need to make it seem like it never happened at all. Not to the point of lying that there were no traitors among the Americans from the start, but as long as we don't botch the cleanup after the incident blows up. Simulate a few mock training exercises where we fight internal traitors—make it look natural—then reveal the traitors' existence later. That's way cleaner."
Enamel didn't hesitate for a second.
She opened portals to the immaterial realm, lifted the bodies, crushed them, and erased them completely.
ZIIIIING
"Powers like this are truly dangerous. But wield them right, and the masses will worship you for it. Humans have this instinct to revere the overwhelmingly mighty."
"But you don't seem to, Minister."
"Thanks for the genuine compliment, not sarcasm. In my position, who needs pity anyway? Let's go."
"Yes."
Thus, the New Year's event wrapped up grandly for everyone in Mephauric camp—everyone except the three of us, who spent it quietly.
Though the fact that even this had become ritualized was its own trap.
Inside the Mephauric office.
Mephauric Office Interior
After the New Year's event, the Third World War battlefield welcomed me back as always.
Strange Zombie elimination was the original goal.
But the hippie terrorists scattered across space, seizing territories everywhere, remained a threat.
Though not priority targets—not urgent enough to handle immediately.
BEEP-BOOP
"They rarely need my direct help. But that's because everyone's motives and backstories are respected. Still, debates won't solve this. Leaving them be without major intervention avoids worsening the war while we focus on Strange Zombies... but this passivity seems to draw even less enemy attention. Fine. Time to gauge local opinion. Are they content with the peaceful rations here, or do they crave ending the war with our power?"
Padding stories or appealing to them just lets people use it as a shield for chaos.
And I know my presence alone terrifies people, making fights even bloodier.
Why? Because I needed to handle the backend flawlessly, even operating solo.
No matter my superintelligence— unbound by human flesh—I couldn't introduce myself as "everywhere and nowhere" to the masses.
Swish.
"Get ready, everyone. I've been too quiet. You thought staying safe here was enough since I've been around? No. I manifest anywhere my consciousness wills."
BEEP-BEEP-BOOP
I separated my consciousness from my human clone.
Reconstructing solely as a creator of immaterial realms, I entered the immaterial plane.
ZIIIIING
I appeared before the Strange Zombies instantly.
They couldn't see me, of course.
I existed as a conceptual self, creator of countless immaterial realms, conversing with them thus.
"Looking for me? The void's too quiet, huh. Here's a gift."
Flash!
Countless immaterial realm—countless immaterial realms tore open within theirs.
Beams of every color surged toward them.
"GYAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-CRASH
"Too heavy? Nah, no time for pain. Feel the infinite impact from infinite mass."
"Ugh... wh-what the... suddenly why..."
"Need a reason? You transcend motives—strangeletizing the whole universe. We both know you won't listen to stories."
"Damn it... KRAAAAAH!!!!"
SHWOOOSH
One lunged at me—my vacuum collapse aura shredded its entire body, erasing it.
"Don't move another inch. If you want a few more seconds."
"Guh... how in this chaotic dimension..."
"Falsehoods replace truths just fine."
I triggered quantum tunneling, plummeting their bodies' energies to extremes, breaking them down.
"Hah?!"
"This... impossible!!!"
I unleashed merciless barrages.
Pretending to summon photon blasts via telefract, I severed their outer layers with gluon chains of strange matter turned superheated plasma.
Condensing the mass-energy equivalence into photon blasts, I fired them point-blank.
Or inverted spacetime, reconfiguring atoms around their spawn points to trap them, triggering chemical reactions to shatter molecular chains into quintillions of fragments—then flash-freezing to prevent recombination, killing them.
"Your brains are offline already. Fools who oppose me can only imagine superiors and fantasize outcomes. Won't work that way. Manifest your delusions—see if you can."
You feared that very imagination.
I blinked.
Gamma-ray bursts spawned endlessly, vortexing the immaterial realm—ripping into the material plane.
QUAKEEEEEE-RUMBLE
"Ughhh..."
WHOOOOSH
"Standing still to humor you feels insulting. Come at me again. If you crave knowing my power that badly."
Strange Zombies fired ray guns, nail guns, laser launchers, cryo emitters—even hydrofluoric acid water-jet rounds.
I countered with one vacuum collapse: a quasar-grade black hole sucked them all.
Multiplied it into a trillion, reflected back flawlessly.
Darkness devouring light, space warping irregularly.
Around me, impossibles existed; unerasables vanished.
More precisely: from now, they isolated and erased at my whim.
"...We cannot comprehend you, Great Prophet. Why erase us?"
"Erase? You're already dead. Hollow data clumps deluding sentience. Begging pity now changes nothing—you courted this. You know: 'avoiding erasure' justifies you, yet you clueless on when, how, where it'll strike—or how to block it. So you control everything, no exceptions. You know no process, just crude guesses hoping one hits."
My black afterimage rippled majestically.
No mere shadow.
It was the shredded worldlines of the already-dead.
Traces of Strange Zombies' lost existence.
Their long past? Now gripped in my fist.
"We are not dead! We 'evolved'!
You cling to human frameworks!
Your logic... incomprehensible!"
"Logic? You can't have it.
The moment strange matter infected you formlessly,
Your selves vanished."
Strange Zombies warped space, closing in.
No need to dodge.
Cosmic perils writhed around me like living things.
Black holes birthed and died; gamma bursts streaked like rays.
Quasars glared red-eyed; stellar flares mocked physics, scourging them.
"...What... is this...!?"
"You're just ants defying me."
A supernova erupted beside me, mercilessly sweeping them.
Now they realized.
Their 'evolution'? Mere self-replication.
The foe they faced? No human, AI, or life as they knew.
I extended a hand, isolating one Strange Zombie.
It screamed into the void, identity crumbling.
"...What is this? I... who am... I?"
"R-Reverse it! We are the whole! Individuals impossible!"
No reason to humor nonsense.
I telefracted this immaterial realm into their bodies, collapsing their 'collective thought algorithm.'
Instantly, they fragmented into individuals.
Each crumbled, unable to bear 'I'—erasing.
Always unified in hive mind, unbound by position, self-collapse turned them to mental refuse.
"Ah... no... we must be one... we..."
But it was over.
I strode slowly, black afterimage trailing.
Where I passed, torn Minkowski worldlines vanished traceless.
Cosmic hazards writhed loyally, sweeping remnants.
They couldn't see my human clone—only my voice boomed.
Rebellion futile against the invisible, unpredictable; they'd conjured phantoms before, imposed physics on others, yet subconsciously knew impossibility.
Success? Zero.
Only in death did Strange Zombies awaken.
Understanding me? Impossible.
Facing me? More so.
Even appearing before me? Beyond their common sense.
It mirrored the clumsy flailing of mortals they despised.
I looked to universe's end.
Their death-recorded worldlines swirled as black afterimage, nuked into oblivion—erasing all traces.
"Understand my words now? Comforting. As if I'd ignore your arrogance thinking you could win. Its root? Ivan Reofle Petrovsky, your puppet, wielding void illusions. In nothingness, any imprint becomes 'all.' Hope or despair. But obsessing it, abandoning deeper thought for false genius? Mortal folly. Be grateful I spelled it out."
Such fatal voids? Irresponsibles call it 'skill.'
They assume errors rare, discontinuous.
But matter is particle-wave; they failed predicting their own concepts.