'I RULE SUPREME ONCE MORE!' Daniel thought, confusing himself for a moment as he shifted between his human persona and The Mother he piloted.

They were in the Realm of Dreams, the collective unconscious. In the Physical world, The Mother was only a God. In the Realm of Dreams? She was the maker of reality itself. She could not be beat.

And Daniel now wielded that power for himself.

True, the being before him somehow managed to drag its true body into his realm, but all it had accomplished was to doom itself further. It brought itself into the one place he could not be defeated.

It was a stark-white, featureless humanoid with rainbow auroras dancing on its skin, but Daniel knew it was no God. He could feel it, smell it.

And what would a lowly mortal do to her?

'HIM. I AM DANIEL.'

Leaving the unruly thoughts behind, Daniel watched as Dei didn't even bother to move out of the way, making him want to grin.

'Already paralyzed with fear?'

The blossoming mouth of The Mother snapped to a shut, crushing the puny Visitor into nothing, absorbing his strength to-

Daniel blew apart his manifestation, scattering it to the winds before reforming a distance away, floating atop a wave of sand.

The body of The Mother convulsed slightly, and he felt something that'd been entirely foreign to him ever since his integration to his new body.

Pain.

His manifestation coughed… and an ocean of green blood spilled out, melting the sand of the desert below with its acidity.

He tried to undo it, to heal himself by erasing the wound. It was, after all, simply imagined. He was only hurt in the Realm of Dreams.

Yet… he found himself unable to. More than his manifestation, more than his soul aching, Daniel felt horror overtake him as he realized it wasn't simply imagined. He could feel it. His physical body, the one sitting at the core of the planet, unraveled itself slightly from its curled position.

And started leaking blood from his mouth.

The insides of his jaw was scoured of flesh and teeth, every part that touched Dei simply gone.

His joyous, scattered thoughts disappeared. This was no normal enemy Daniel fought, but a threat. There would be no showboating, no bragging or arrogance. Only intent to kill.

Daniel collapsed this entire section of The Dream, crushing Dei in a sphere of broken reality. It shifted the entire mindscape, but was one of the most powerful attacks Daniel found within the memories of The Mother, breaking minds easily.

Yet as he eased his control over the section, he found that it did not revert to pull everything back into place… it continued to collapse.

Fearful he'd set off some sort of chain reaction, Daniel immediately exerted his will over The Dream, pulling the world out from its compression, but screamed in agony as he felt the pieces of his mind he'd pushed out to control the world start to get shredded, making him pull it back.

The world fractured, and Daniel watched the phenomena move quickly, relative to real time at least. To his endless mind though, it was slow enough that he easily dodged the strike that warped the very fabric of The Dream itself.

Yet he found that the attack did not simply fade away. The Dream cracked to reveal pure blackness behind it, that piece of The Dream removed forevermore.

Daniel flew back in alarm, but another strike was flung outwards not at Daniel, but a seemingly random direction.

Another crack resounded, destabilizing The Dream further, tearing down the natural failsafes the original owner of his current body had put in place.

'I…'

A fourth, then fifth gash expanded outwards, and Daniel finally noticed that the source of it, Dei, was not just destroying the world around him, but changing. Windows to a blue sky opened inside him, twisting around the already shifting colors.

'I… do not know what to do!'

The sixth attack on the dream was far larger, striking out at Daniel like a thunderbolt, tearing a chunk from his side and forcing him to once more remember the nature of the attacks when his physical body was cut as well.

He fled.

Diving back into the ground, he returned his manifestation to his body, searching the library of his new mind for an answer while the monster simply grew.

The decay accelerated, The Dream attempting to account for empty space by simply filling it in with the surrounding, only to be pulled in faster than before. Daniel half watched from his main body while he flew through his memories.

Dei's body continued to alter itself, bloating into some kind of pocket reality where he could see the broken shards of The Dream, yet knew they were out of his control.

The Dream fought back, as it was programmed to do, by empowering itself further on the minds of the living. For but a moment, everything in the planet stopped thinking as it lashed out at Dei- but Daniel was horrified when nothing happened, it simply passed through the one trying to collapse it all.

He didn't know it, but the reason such an attack failed is because The Dream had no soul, emotions, or intent, which were required for dealing damage to The Embodiment that was once Dei.

The Dream altered its parameters, shifting its power into the individual minds to hide portions of itself and draw away from the one consuming it, only to be dragged right back out into the mouth of the ever growing beast.

Daniel wanted to scream when nothing of note appeared in the memories, so he turned his sight outwards, to the surface of his physical body.

Near The Mother at the core of the planet was a hidden underground city, Agartha. It was the official city of The Champion, and his one true place of worship. They were also tasked with keeping an eye on his body, as The Champion long suspected that the seals of her power were removed.

Several alarms had gone off with Daniel's first twitch, and he knew he'd have to deal with The Champion soon no matter what happened, but that was secondary. The Dream came first because without it… he would be blind, cut off from the world.

Finding their socialite representative, he quickly explained himself.

"Lucas!" he said, making the man pause at putting his armor on. "I have little time. I am Daniel, controller of The Mother, and I need The Champion's help! I have angered the Visitor, Dei, and he is devouring everything! The Realm of Dreams is collapsing, it will soon be no more! Please, bring my message to The Champion, I will parlay, I will beg, ANYTHING!" He screamed at the poor mortal, making the man grunt in pain despite having trained his entire life to receive the words of Gods directly.

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"Enough." Daniel heard a voice in his head, a link to the one in the sky shooting through Luke and into Daniel's mind, before cutting Luke out as the middle man. He would simply not survive a conversation between two Gods.

"Champion! I beg of you, help me! The world at large is in danger!"

"Allow me into your mind."

Daniel hesitated for hardly a second, before opening himself up fully. The Champion would want to kill The Mother, true, but he wouldn't be able to control both his body and a second Primordial Child. He would need Daniel's help if they were to work together and repel this new invader.

Daniel presented everything about Dei he knew in an orderly manner, but The Champion dug deeper than even that, discovering exactly who he was and his position as acting mind of The Mother.

"To think I let such an infection fester beneath my very city…" the dragon said in disgust.

His tone made Daniel instantly close his mind off, and The Champion didn't fight him from doing so. "I will not kill you… yet. Nor will I help you. The Visitor you have challenged has proven to be otherwise reasonable, and does not threaten the Physical world. More than that, perhaps it would be best to have that grand parasite you call a realm removed from my planet."

"No no no… you don't get it! He is building power! What will you do when he turns his gaze to the Physical realm? Will you still be able to stop him once he's consumed everything?! Once he's absorbed a God?!"

"Do not liken me to yourself, worm" The Champion sneered, "The only reason you still live is our shared ancestors and the modicum of mercy granted to you by the Dragons as a whole. Do not forget, you were born a parasite, and will die as one."

"I. AM. NOT. THE. MOTHER!" Daniel screamed, even as the body itself naturally raged against The Champion's words, wanting to lash out for saying such. Daniel knew he would not survive The Champion's ire, not in his current state, even if The Mother had once been unstoppable.

That time had passed when The Primordial did.

After all, what was a parasite without a host?

He tore his mental link to the opposing Primordial Child apart before the dragon could respond, and dove elsewhere. By now, people on the other side of the planet were being violently woken up as their dreams seemed to shatter, becoming disconnected from the grand tapestry, never to require the need of sleep again.

The Dream was set up at the peak of her power… she had no way to bring them back into the fold now. She would need to connect with her sister minds to salvage what she could.

DANIEL.

He reached out, into the overmind, begging for assistance from other Mothers with a packet containing everything he knew on the new threat, only to get utterly panicked responses in turn.

"A Void Incursion" one of the more ancient minds informed him, "If you had focused your intent at its conception, it would have perished, yet you did not. At its current stage, it is unstoppable with your resources. You will die. We thank you for the new information on how it interacts with The Dream. Goodbye."

The surrounding minds shut the connection down forcibly, eternally severing his link to the others so as not to share in his fate.

Sitting in the heart of the planet, he raged. Attempting to lash out at those sitting in Agartha to crush their minds, he found them already protected by The Champion. Smiling cruelly, he instead went to kill every person Dei had ever known.

Only to find that he'd already removed them all from The Dream intentionally. They were some of the first targets in his ever expanding radius.

Ever the nationalist, he did the last thing he could and attempted to launch genocidal attacks on every opposing country, but the damage was too extensive. It'd already reached critical levels, and he could control it no longer as everything was sucked away into the horrific vortex that'd once been Dei.

'The Dream is… unsalvageable' Daniel wept, committing himself to one more act of attempted survival.

With hesitant reluctance, he cut himself from The Dream, becoming imprisoned in nothing but darkness,

Nothing to act as his eyes.

Nobody to talk to.

An eternity of loneliness… if he would survive.

* * *

POV: The Embodiment

On the surface of the planet, The Embodiment once known as Dei continued to break apart the Realm of Dreams, consuming it and learning of its nature as it went.

As it became a part of him and it gleaned the surface of its knowledge, it found that it was a rather horrific construct.

Life, apparently, was not necessarily meant to dream. It did not naturally need to do so. The Realm of Dreams was a construct created by The Mother to act as her eyes by providing a parasitic link to each and every life on the planet. It was not easy for the mind to withstand, so one had to fall asleep to rest their mental muscles eventually. Without The Realm of Dreams, nobody would be required to sleep, though they might still choose to do so if they were particularly mentally exhausted.

Dreams in general though? No more. They were what the construct gave back to the mind to trick it into believing The Dream was beneficial.

There was much information here, in The Dream, but The Embodiment was unsure if it would ever get the chance to search it all. It had to finish the job and kill Daniel before its power ran out, but it now found that Daniel's mind was nowhere to be found in his own realm.

No matter, he would not escape. Consuming the last piece of The Dream, The Embodiment took a deep breath in the new void it'd created, a space between the Physical and Mental realm, now with nothing.

Gently easing itself back into the Physical realm, it was careful to not cause any damage to the fabric. Though it'd won in its small confrontation with The Mother… it had no illusions of defeating a true God in its realm. If Daniel had piloted The Mother properly, he could have forced The Embodiment back, but the man had not done such things. His initial attacks had hurt significantly, but when The Embodiment bluffed by simply not reacting, Daniel panicked.

Now, The Embodiment had absorbed the mental power of an entire planet. It could rival Daniel's incredible mind enough that the man would not be able to kill it.

Still, it would not hedge its bets on resisting The Champion, so it was careful to not absorb any physical material.

When it started moving downwards through the planet peacefully, it felt a suspicious presence it hadn't sensed before, approving of its actions and relaxing.

That didn't mean it was harmless though. Every aquatic life that glanced at its building-sized representation of mental energy that composed its body, died instantly. The Embodiment was dragging opposing laws of reality somewhere they should not be, and it was antithetical to all life, the weaker of which was incapable of processing what it saw.

It did not tarry, traveling as fast as, or faster than, the speed of sound as it passed through solid rock, its vision unhindered, until it eventually settled on the still form releasing gentle rumbles through the entire planet with its slight quivering, the damage even that might have caused significantly lessened by the remaining physical framework of a grand cage surrounding the body of The Mother. Though the Primordial Child could escape if necessary

The Embodiment knew, by the nature of The Dream, that Daniel was completely blind to anything but vibrations right now, and it released none. The man could not even see him, nor would it open a dialog. It would simply kill the man by attacking the very concept of Daniel.

As much as it would love to kill The Mother as a whole, The Embodiment knew its time was drawing to an end and slaying the Primordial Child, a divine being with a powerful intent, would take a long time. Not unreasonably so, but perhaps days or weeks, not the minutes it currently still had. It would return The Mother to its dormant state, before it'd ever gained a new Identity.

Reaching out with one of its many dream-manifest tendrils, it focused every ounce of its power to assimilate into a single task: Separating Daniel's mind and soul from the slot where it resided in The Mother.

Like a viper, The Embodiment snapped forward, taking hold of an insignificantly small portion of its enemy, pulling with all its might… and getting surprisingly little resistance.

Daniel and The Mother were already clashing, having never fully integrated with one another, and Daniel alone was not enough to even remotely contend with The Embodiment's existence.

As The Mother stilled, once more catatonic, Daniel simply thrashed in its grip.

Though it was tempted to integrate Daniel into its body, it feared what that may do. The spell holding its form together would soon wear off, and it was unsure of where The Dream would go once it did. Would the remnants of The Dream be returned to the world, and Daniel with it? Better to simply let him dissipate into the Void.

When he softened his grip on the soul, though, a voice spoke into his mind. "Hold, assimilator. Devour the soul into yourself, absorb its potential, and allow me to help you grow into your power." The Champion told him within the span of less than a heartbeat.

Curious, The Embodiment found itself matching its thinking speed to The Champion's, though it would not quite yet devour the soul.

"What do you propose?" it asked.

"You've started the process of killing a Primordial Child in opposition to me. I wish to help you finish it. Not only this, but The Dream you hold within yourself is one gateway to Knowledge of the Leviathan"

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