Chapter 449: The Pen And The Sword

It had not been long since I began to touch the powers of Laws, but I knew that Laws do not bend or compromise, no matter how much I wanted them to. A Law is a truth, absolute and unchanging. The Law of Sharpness was the truth that edges cut; that was what it was, and what it would always be.

And so it was a good thing that I was not trying to change the Law. I was trying to change the form of its container.

The blade was not the Law, but a vessel. The Law of Sharpness lived inside it, but the metal itself was just metal, and from all I knew about metal, it could be shaped, so that meant that this sword could be changed.

I just had to stop fighting the Law and start working with it... but how do I do that?

∞

I could feel the wind blow across my skin, and smell the overwhelming scent of blood in the air, but underneath it all was the smell of lightning and the power of the heavens themselves that surrounded all things... even inside of me.

I buried myself deeper into my consciousness, and the serpent screamed in the distance, filled with rage and uncertainty; it had watched me die and laughed at my corpse. I heard the blade of blood carving through another mountain, but I did not move... I could not move; I was already too deep in my own mind.

I reached for the Law of Sharpness to understand it, since I sucked at commanding it, but maybe I did not need to control this power if I did not understand it first.

What are you?

I am the edge that cuts.

What else?

I am the line that divides.

What else?

I am the truth that separates.

This final line hit me like a brick in the face, and I opened my eyes.

The Law of Sharpness was about separation. Drawing lines across all things and taking something whole and making it distinct... And what was an Inscription but a line drawn in the air? A separation between what was and what could be?

The blade was not resisting me because I wanted it to be a pen. It was resisting me because I had not asked it the right question.

This was the truth that I understood from this Law, and I made it my own.

Can you draw lines?

The resistance faltered; it was as if this Law had not considered being used in this manner, even when it thought that its ultimate function could only be expressed through blades.

Can you separate the possible from the impossible?

The resistance cracked, as I pushed deeper into the core of its purpose, showing it a path that a blade could not necessarily hold.

Can you write the laws of reality into being?

This was my final argument, and the resistance shattered. This metal had believed it could only express its purpose as a blade, but I had promised I would show it a new path.

The blade began to change.

In that moment Eldritch Perception vibrated, and my sight drew me to the hall where I had healed for a while, and to a man made of stone by a fire, who looked in my direction and gave a soft gasp of surprise before the vision vanished.

∞

My eyes fell on the transforming blade, seeing beyond the physical changes to the deeper fundamental transformation going on inside. I felt the Law of Sharpness shift inside the metal, not changing its nature but expanding its understanding. The edge that cut became the line that divided... The line that divided became the mark that declared.

The blade grew. It stretched in my hand, the metal flowing like water as it reshaped itself according to my will. The hilt became a grip, long and smooth. The blade became a nib, tapered and precise. The guard became a collar, holding the point in place.

It was a pen.

Well, in my present form, it was a pen the size of an oak tree, glowing with the light of the Law of Sharpness, humming with power that made the air itself vibrate.

I stared at it, and I laughed.

Have I told you how much I loved magic?

∞

The laughter was not entirely sane. I knew that. But I was fighting a god, and I had just been killed a moment before; I think I have the privilege of going insane a bit, not even counting the fact that in the midst of it all, I had just done something that should have been impossible. I had convinced a Law to change its form, and made a weapon into something more.

And as if the world agreed that I had done something momentous, the Unattuned Law Shard, the one I had gained when Adamantium Titan reached 150, began to vibrate in my soul.

It had been sitting there, all this while, and I had no time to think about what I could do with it, and now it seemed as if its purpose had been found.

The Shard, drawn by my understanding of this Law, merged with my Inscription.

I felt it happen, and I shuddered in surprise. It was like a key turning in a lock. The Law of Sharpness, the Unattuned Law Shard, and my mastery of Inscription all came together in a single moment, and something broke, or rather, it was opened, and the seal on my soul cracked.

I gasped as power flooded through me, a power that was denied to me for so long that it nearly made me weep... This was Anima. My Anima. The power of my crystallized soul, the strength that the seal had locked away.

It was not all of it. The seal was still there, still holding most of my power in check. But there was a gap now, a crack, and through that crack, I could feel the vast ocean of my true strength.

[Inscription: 99 → 119 → 120 (Arcanist → Sovereign)]

[Inscription has reached the threshold. Evolution available.]

[Inscription: Master Engraver → Grandmaster Engraver]

∞

The world froze, and my mind went blank, and for a moment it was as if a million people were screaming into my ears, pouring knowledge I could not possibly know into my mind.

[Eldritch Perception: 39 → 44 (Acolyte)]

If I could, I would be screaming, but I was held in place as the core of my soul was being fed knowledge that would take me thousands of years to grasp. A part of my mind where that hole resided—Eldritch Perception, the skill that was born out of the void—was aware that I was perceiving a part of how the System worked.

And then it was over, and in that instant came the realization that I understood Inscriptions now. Not just the symbols and the rules, but the language. It was the language of reality itself, the code that the universe was written in. Every Inscription I had ever learned, every symbol I had ever carved, was just a word in a language that had existed since before the gods, and maybe even before Terra existed.

And now, I could speak it more fluently than I had any right to.

The sword-turned-pen in my hand hummed with power, and I raised it against the blade that was descending upon me.

"Let’s try this again," I said.