I Can Assimilate Everything-Chapter 675: A Ritual!

THE Watcher observed as he always did, his singular awareness stretched across Observable Existence with perception that had crystallized during the age of nothingness.

He watched Lamashtu stand amidst the ruins of battle, blue light flickering in the corners of obsidian eyes that burned with authority reclaimed. THE Second Scale. THE Proterozoic Scale!

The Invader had returned to heights that made Absolutes seem like insects.

Minutes passed after the breakthrough.

Then Lamashtu waved his hands.

The bodies of the Absolutes who had survived the battle against the Gamaidjan-infected creature became rigid instantly. Their expressions transformed from exhausted relief to horror as obsidian light from their Master bathed over them with force that brooked no resistance. Their eyes glazed over, consciousness stripped away by authority they had sworn themselves to serve. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

They no longer had will of their own.

THE Watcher’s singular awareness sharpened with concern he had not felt in eons.

Lamashtu waved his hands again, gathering all his followers in a circle around him. The Absolutes moved without volition, their bodies puppeted by strings of obsidian authority that connected them to their Master. They arranged themselves in precise formation, spacing equal between each frozen figure.

Lamashtu stood at the center with expression cold as the void between stars.

"Give your Hearts of Civilization."

His voice pressed against reality itself.

"Give your will and everything you have so I can truly ascend."

...!

The Absolutes plunged their hands into their own chests.

The motion was synchronous and violent, fingers tearing through obsidian garments and flesh alike without hesitation. They reached deeper, past muscle and bone, past foundations that had taken eons to cultivate. They grasped something within themselves that should never be touched by external will.

They pulled out their Hearts of Civilization as rivers of crimson blood erupted and began to paint thr ground below.

The organs shone brilliantly in their bloody hands, each one pulsing with authority that represented everything these beings had built across their vast existences. Some burned with controlled destruction. Others flickered with paradoxical light. Still others radiated elements that THE Watcher could not immediately classify.

They offered them to Lamashtu at the center of the circle.

Their arms extended toward their Master with offerings they had not chosen to give. Blood dripped from chest wounds that would never heal properly. Eyes remained glazed with absence where consciousness should have resided. They were hollow now, shells that existed only to serve this single purpose.

Obsidian flames rose in a ring around the formation.

The fire did not behave as fire should. It climbed upward in patterns that seemed ritualistic, ancient configurations that predated the current age of existence. The heat that radiated outward carried something beyond temperature, something that made THE Watcher’s awareness recoil instinctively.

This was taboo.

This was forbidden!

This was something that should not be done by any being who wished to remain within the bounds of Observable Existence.

Lamashtu closed his eyes at the center of the burning circle.

"Existence alone is not enough."

His voice emerged with cadence that felt rehearsed, words that had been spoken before in rituals across different realities.

"Outside Existence, there is endless that is Unobservable. Beyond what can be perceived, beyond what can be comprehended, beyond what can be touched by beings of differentiated complexity. The Unobservable holds children that Observable Existence has never known, forces that predate even the age of nothingness from which Singular Cognizances emerged."

The obsidian flames climbed higher.

"I dedicate all of this to that which lies beyond. I call upon the Unobservable to send forth any of its children who would accept my offerings. I wish to pay my respects. I wish to give what I have gathered. I wish to form connection with that which should not be connected to."

His voice rose with fervor that bordered on religious ecstasy.

"Please."

The Hearts of Civilization burst into flames.

"Please."

They began to spin around Lamashtu in orbit that accelerated with each passing moment.

"Please."

A pillar of obsidian fire erupted upward from the center of the ritual, shooting toward heights that seemed to pierce through dimensions rather than simply rising through space. The Existential Lattice around the ritual site pulsed in response, streams of cancerous growth contributing their corrupted authority to whatever Lamashtu was attempting.

All around the burning circle, Corrupted Growths began gathering.

They flowed from every direction, geometric wrongness converging upon the ritual with hunger that seemed almost eager. They added themselves to the spinning flames, their corruption mixing with the Hearts of Civilization and the authority of THE Second Scale in combinations that should not exist.

THE Watcher observed all of this with awareness that had remained calm across billions of years of existence.

For the first time since gaining cognizance in that age of boundless potential, he felt something approaching caution.

Lamashtu was not simply harvesting Observable Existence. He was not merely reclaiming power that had been stripped from him during his imprisonment!

He was reaching beyond the boundaries of what should be reached, calling upon forces that existed in spaces where observation itself could not follow.

He was calling out heavy words towards that which wss Unobservable as...whst even was he calling out to? What comprised children of Unobservable? And whatever they were...

If the Unobservable answered his call...

If something from beyond perception actually responded to this ritual...

The landscape of Observable Existence would change in ways that even THE Watcher could not predict. His nature as observer would become meaningless if the things being observed ceased to follow patterns that could be observed.

He had to act.

For the first time in eons beyond counting, THE Watcher made a choice that went against everything he was.

He turned his awareness toward two beings in the First Sea of Tian who represented the best chance of stopping what Lamashtu had begun.

And he had spoken to them!

And at this moment. In the current time.

THE Watcher stood before Achilles and Rose as beside it, a massive illusory screen that had displayed exactly what it had seen continued to show Lamashtu proceeding with the ritual.

And THE Observable said gravely...

"That ritual must be stopped."