u/Omipotentrohan

Black. Everything black. That’s all that Grisha Adam saw.

“My eyes. I can’t open my eyes.”

He tried to scream, but he couldn’t open his mouth. At the back of his mind, he wondered if this was what coma patients experienced. Somewhere deep in, not his mind, no, his soul, he felt a maddening yet indescribably holy voice that threatened to take over him. But not yet. It seemed to be waiting for something.

After who knows how long, Grisha was finally able to open his eyes. He was submerged in a sea that seemed to contain all colors and contradictions. Above the surface of the sea, he could recognize the vestiges of his former research site, Cherynoybl.

The currents of the chaotic ocean pushed him to the surface. In his right hand was a slate written in a language that preceded and was the ancestor of all languages, containing the pathway names, rituals, and ingredients for all 22 pathways. In his left hand was an illusory clock.

Grisha exited the Chaos Sea and walked out of Cherynoybl. He looked at the outside world through his link with the Sea of Chaos. He was omniscient. He learned that this world was his own. He had been in the Ocean of Chaos for over 3,000 years, and humanity was treated as slaves and livestock.

In a majestic voice, he said, “Let there be light,” and there was light for the first time since God Almighty died in the First Epoch. There will be no darkness, at least for the day.

An inscrutable darkness tried to cover the sun to no avail. A god’s symbolism is strongest post-apotheosis.

Grisha mutters, “Flegrea. I know the location, authorities, and goals of the other ancient gods except him. Is this the effect of concealment?”

He uses the omniscience on himself and finds that he is a dual-pathway god of the Sun and Hanged Man pathways.

After turning, he looks at his reflection in the Chaos Sea. He looks about the same, except his hair is blonde at the roots, then slowly turns to jet black at the tips. He has pure gold eyes and is wearing white and gold clergyman robes for some reason.

Without warning, the maddening and indescribably holy voice exploded in his mind, on the verge of taking him over. The illusory clock created an error in the takeover, which delayed the possession long enough for him to rip out one of his ribs, then combine it with the degeneration authority of the Hanged Man, creating a dark-haired, brooding young man.

Grisha dubbed him Sasrir. He is to be a middleman to the Chaos Sea.

Grisha stared at the illusory mottled clock. Brass eyes emerged from the Sea of All Colors and appeared behind him. He gleaned that this artifact is the Error Uniqueness. Why he had it in his possession or why he had it in the Chaos Sea, he couldn’t see. When he tried, all he could see was a vast fog that embodied the inconceivable.

Hundreds of miles from him, he sees a man running from an eight-legged wolf the size of a car, with eyes as red as the moon.

Grisha’s pupils become vertical slits, and brass eyes appear behind him again as he tries to analyze if the man deserves to die. He searches for any sign of guilt, arrogance, or contempt on the man’s face.

Meanwhile, the brass eyes feed him the man’s life story. He was livestock for this particular wolf, kept alive to be eaten at a later time.

Grisha’s eyes turn pure gold as the sun’s light gets ten times more blinding. When the light touches the body of the wolf, its flesh mutates. It writhes in pain as its flesh melts and coalesces into a flesh blob.

The man, still reeling from his near-death experience and the divine intervention, is dragged into his shadow, enters the Shadow World, and leaves. He is in front of a man with clergyman robes, gold eyes, and blond-black hair. He seems to embody holiness and degeneracy.

Grisha restrains his divine aura, smiles at the silver-haired man, reaches out his hand, and pulls.

“You are extremely lucky. The moment you were about to be eaten, a new god saw you and saved you. Do you know the odds of that?”

The silver-haired man couldn’t look him in the eye as a result of the submissiveness toward anyone remotely higher than him ingrained into him for his whole life.

Grisha continues, “You are best suited for the…”

He turns to look at the mottled slate.

“Monster pathway.”

The silver-haired man trembles still. Grisha turns back from the slate to look at him, and the grin drops from his face. He ponders for a moment, then releases his aura again. Instead of majesty, the onlooker feels comfort, like the sun on a relaxing summer’s day.

He then borrows the Visionary pathway’s charisma and says, “Fear not, my friend. Tell me your name.”

The silver-haired man, with tears streaming down his face, says, “I never got one.”

Grisha was about to say, “Well, let me give you one,” but felt that had no tact and was simply replacing one god with another, so instead he says, “Well, name yourself.”

The silver-haired man looks at the mottled slate. He is enamored by the snake eating its own tail and asks, “What is that?”

“It’s an Ouroborus.”

“Then I shall be called Ouroborus.”

Ouroborus asks Grisha, “Who are you, sir?” then winces at the “sir.”

Grisha grins and says, “I am the Resplendent and Decadent Sun who will deliver the world from darkness.”

The humanity he has left thinks that if Christ is real, then he would be smited by now. Ouroborus, on the other hand, is awestruck.

Grisha asks, “You were one of Flegrea’s, right?”

At the name of the Demonic Wolf, Ouroborus pales. After he realizes nothing happened, he calms down.

“Yes, though the Demonic Wolves have a chain of command, and he is eight levels up.”

“Have you seen his subsidiary gods?”

“I have just heard legends, sir.”

Grisha’s eyes become mechanical clockwork. They spin within them.

“The Goddess of Misfortune will die and come back to life in a fortnight.”

“One of the subsidiary gods, sir?”

“Yes. Another one of me will come.”

He turns to Ouroborus and says, “Would you work for me? I am a being who believes in equivalent change. Your contribution will be rewarded with gifts equivalent to the importance and the labor of the contribution. You are free to refuse.”

Ouroborus is stunned for a second. He doesn’t believe the god, but he decides that Grisha will be a kinder master than Flegrea.

“I live to serve you.”

Grisha’s expression sours for a second, but as quickly as it disappears, his smile returns.

“I can give you the potion of the Monster pathway. Think of it as a freebie for joining.”

“Potions? Monster?” Ouroborus thinks.

Grisha looks at the First Blasphemy Slate and, using the Chaos Sea, envisions the supplementary ingredients, kills a colorful carp, cuts off its tail, and picks one silver four-leaf clover for the main ingredient. He mixes them, then gives it to Ouroborus.

“These will give you powers like the wolves, but a different kind.”

Ouroboros looks at the potion. It looks like a cold, gray liquid that seems almost solidified.

He drinks, accepting his fate. He hears extremely weak ravings that seem to be from a sealed god. Grisha tries tracing the origins, yet again he is blocked by the impenetrable fog that blocked his analysis of the Error Uniqueness. The source of the ravings seems to be behind it.

Grisha turns to Ouroborus and asks, “How do you feel?”

Ouroboros answers timidly, “Fine, but I hear things.”

Grisha answers, “That’s normal. The potion gives you the ability to see things nobody else can see, even those supernaturals. Your intuition for danger that the potion gives should save you from looking at dangerous things, but it is not foolproof. Remember, don’t pry into the mysteries of God.”

Ouroboros nods, satisfied by the explanation and warning.

“What should I do now?”

“You may leave now. If you need help, just say, ‘The Resplendent and Decadent Sun.’ We will meet every Monday so I can teach you mysticism.”

Ouroboros bows before he is dragged into the Shadow World and exits into one of the few human settlements of this era.

Grisha looks at the spot where Ouroboros was. He then sighs, envisions a chair, and sits on it. He puts his hands on his face and would have cried, but tears did not come. He uses the Visionary authority to analyze his problem. He has been a dual-pathway god for 30 minutes, but his humanity is already greatly diminished due to the strength of the maddening voice inside him. Talking to Ouroboros strengthened it, but... he needs anchors quickly.

“How could talking to a human strengthen my humanity this much?” Grisha thinks. “Could it be personal relationships are far better anchors than believers?”

He stares into the Chaos Sea and says to himself, “I can buy myself time.”

The Chaos Sea churns. Grisha enters an ocean of grey. In it are countless islands, one for each sentient creature in the universe. Overhead, each island has a spiritual sky where a person’s spirituality comes from. Grisha enters his own mind island and makes a man of similar stature and appearance to him, except with blonde hair and blue eyes and wearing a rumpled lab coat. This was Researcher Grisha with all his human memories, a virtual persona. He gives him the powers of an Archangel of the Visionary pathway and makes him guard and heal his mind island.

The persona in front of him looks Grisha up and down and says, “You look like a Sunday school teacher.”

Grisha impassively says, “You got a lot of nerve. How would you know I won’t just smite you?”

The persona luaghs, “You need me. I am the embodiment of your humanity. If you kill me, it will be very hard for you to escape the fate of losing control.”

The persona’s lower lip trembles, and without warning, he breaks into tears.

“Why did we need to come here? We were about to get a promotion. Our wife was pregnant,” the persona wails.

The persona felt all the things Grisha couldn’t feel.

After some time, Grisha responds, “There is nothing we can do about it now. We must move forward. Do you want to join them?”

The persona shakes his head no.

Grisha continues, “Then what is the purpose of what could have been?”

The persona wipes his eyes and asks, “What do you plan on doing here?”

“I will save humanity.”

“Is that you or your godhood talking?”

“I don’t know. Every passing moment, I feel less and less…”

The persona nods. “That is the result of coming out as a dual-pathway god without a single anchor.”

Grisha nods. “I shouldn’t have existed. The Error Uniqueness prevented the Primordial One from waking up inside me completely.”

“Very well. I will help you maintain your humanity.”

Grisha nods solemnly and exits the mind world.

I might have gotten some things wrong, and others are purely headcanon; please tell me if it's good or nah.