Straight up pseudo-sciencing it up in there.
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It was horrifying to say the least. The World only existed as infinitely big combinations of ones and zeroes, so did Gorsa, in a completly alien state he could do nothing but swim through the numbers.
While his Soul moved the code composing his body, it couldn't add to it, what could he do as a measly thousand lines program? He possesed no function right now, simply having changed the way he was categorised so that he'd exist on the same plane as the primary code of the node.
More importantly, having fundamentally changed himself into a being that was nowhere close to a human, Gorsa mind started to chill. His alien form came with terrifying mental power but also seemed to slowly turn him emotionless, escaping the simulation had consequences.
Fortunately now that he knew how to leave, he could temporarily take over a body in a simulation to warm his mind, as for how to triumph over the program in control of the node?
Corruption of course.
There is no real way to describe the process that follows. Gorsa spread his influence through the binary world, since he was technically not a virus he wasn't treated as one by the program running the node. He consumed more of the strings of zeroes and ones below, uncaring for their function and leaving them as.
If he impaired the program from doing it's job, he had no way to know how it would respond. Yet as he integrated more and more part of the code within himself, his mind strained. He didn't have enough control over the nodes processing abilities to delegate the task to it.
His human brain currently didn't exist but Gorsa's mind remained, 86 billion imaginary neurons repurposed to run his part of the simulation. All that was left was to spread the love.
'Finally reached it, this took longer than expected, maybe a second?'
Ahead of him, a ball of numbers remained, so complex that he honestly could barely make out it's purpose. But he assumed it was to predict.
See if there were any bugs within the simulation and correct them. Understanding how close he was to being erased, Gorsa couldn't be more thankful for the [Matrioshka's Slave] attribute that might just have saved him from being permanently deleted from existence.
Well he would have survived for a while, but if he already had a hard time keeping a grasp on himself and his emotion while still in the megastructure, wouldn't the void that is space simply reduce him to a unthinking drifting soul?
Erasing such thoughts from his mind, he reached forward and once again, a new plane opened to him.
Gorsa felt dizzy internally, having his perspective of the world change so many time was starting to take it's toll on his mind, fortunately the fact he didn't have to support the simulation alone allowed him to rest for some time.
Looking around, if those were even the right words to use in his situation, he could see links between him and the nodes directly connected to him as well as a literal tunnel of light that probably represented his direct connection to the center of this matrix, the Matrioshka Brain.
It was a little confusing, he was already part of it but he was probably just a task it had automatised, delegating to a node and only checking on him after long periods of time. Kind of like an employee you'd give a task and let them roam freely.
'Well it's not really roaming freely, there's just no restriction since said employee wasn't even expected to think for himself...'
Gorsa shook his head before descending back into the simulation, just before starting his attack it would make sense for him to resplenish his forces and warm up his mind before the emotionless cold that controlling his own data caused did irreversible damage.
Yet, as the crafty teen reached down into the simulation, entering the body of a simple accountant he choked in surprised.
'What's happening!?'
He looked around searching for the source of his problem, better yet a part of his hand disappeared to search around the node he had conquered for any digital attacks. Then Gorsa realised.
He was just not breathing.
Manually he exhaled, then inspired. So on and so forth as he tried to make sense of this situation. The reason he was choking was because he had forgotten to breath or rather, breathing stopped being normal to him for an instant.
Existing as data, he adapted quickly, probably because of his increased cognitive capabilities so even while he took on an alien form [Common Sense] worked overtime to allow him as much freedom as possible.
Yet it was his job to apply what he gained from it, both as a 'human' and in his digital form. So for a moment, while he still believed himself to be data, Gorsa was not breathing.
So was that the reason his emotions were returning to him now? Because all his senses gaslighted him into thinking he still was a human. After all in essence, had his state really changed?
'Forget it, thinking about it won't help.'
Feeling the cold creep up his mind he dismissed the thought and didn't explore it further. All this soul stuff wouldn't matter once he finished his Nightmare.
As far as he knew the Soul didn't exist in such an autonomous state as his did, maybe it behaved differently since it came from another world. Gorsa knew that in essence that was an advantage but being reminded of his origin brought back some powerful memories.
"Not that they matter now..."
Truthfully he didn't yet found a goal for himself in this life, surviving wasn't one, nor was saving lives, that was his duty.
He understood clearly that, from the moment he had been born and started interacting with Sunny, the fate of the world would change for better or for worse. Making sure his impact was at least positive by saving more lives than the number that would originally be lost was just something he had to do.
So what goal could he even find? Within the simulation, he continued pondering.
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'It's time to start now.' Gorsa thought to himself as he reached a hand forward, said hand disappeared within one of the connection to another node then within the span of a second or even less, he took it over.
His body doubled in size in the vast nothing as now, two balls of light were nestled inside his body. Visual representations of course for his mind to understand more easily, Gorsa simply encompassed the two nodes at this point.
"That was surprisingly easy, wich mean this is probably not everything I'll need to do."
This wasn't the real challenge. while he had already achieved much his last task surely couldn't be so easy. Keeping that in mind Gorsa continued to spread his influence before he took control over the entire outer layer.
The feeling of encompassing such a big part of the structure was... cold. The frost that covered his emotion was spreading faster the bigger amount of data he controlled.
Yet he persisted and started cracking the inner layer, in other words the Artificial Intelligence that controlled the structure itself, or at least tried to.
A wall prevented him from even attempting to connect with it. It seemed that even within it's own structure the Matrioshka Brain planned for protection.
Since Gorsa didn't possess the access control list he'd either have to guess or wait until the AI sent something and analyse it. He technically possesed every private keys that the nodes had, so even if the message was encrypted he should be able to make sense of it.
Yet said message never came, and possibly would never come. Having read back on the programs activities and their logs, it had been more than a year since anything had been sent back by the AI.
Gorsa was throughly cooked.
His brain froze, he still possessed emotions, rather it was because he could still feel that the situation felt hopeless.
There was absolutely no way for him to know what IP adress to use so that he could enter the inner layer, the artificial intelligence wasn't dumb.
However it transmitted data between itself and the nodes, Gorsa didn't know but it was in no way a direct link, the backlogs only registered the Matrioshka Brain's visit but no actual information on what was sent was left within the programs.
As for finding even one IP adress of the access control list of a type two civilization megastructure? Matter of fact.
Why was he sure everything that was happening was real?
Even on low power, a Matrioshka Brain could... well he didn't really know, but something in his guts told him there could be more, had to be more.
Even without sleeping, it felt like Gorsa's Aspect activated burning the truth in his mind, piercing the veil of his reality for a second as he became aware... of another.
High above it was observing him. So Gorsa abandoned the simulation, then the node.
Then the megastructure.
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"I panicked but... this is still salvageable." Since the moment when he took over data and saw his attributes, and also because of his own reincarnation, Gorsa had a gnawing feeling that [-Unknown-] had an active ability.
Possession.
Standing in space, existing simply as a Soul cold quickly spread over his mind, since it was the first time Gorsa had willingly assumed his form he was surprised when he looked down.
He didn't look like his old body, rather he looked like his new one, was this because the Spell did something to his Soul? Or simply because of his travel and reincarnation.
What mattered was, the emotionless frost Gorsa always feared didn't simply stop at his mind more accurately, it started at his Soul.
He needed to find a body, a source of heat, and as he thought that only one thing came to mind, what better than the dwarf star? It could both protect him, and act as the spear to destroy the megastructure.
It seemed his goal was either to take it over or destroy it. Gorsa was nowhere close to defeating it when in the digital world. Thinking about it, did he really think he could defeat an all powerful AI on it's own turf?
'Did my flaw manifest in advance making me dumber?'
He was trapped in a simulation within a simulation... maybe within a simulation itself. Fortunately he could escape by moving his Soul to the place he saw through his Aspect, to reality.
Dismissing such thoughts, Gorsa put a foot forward and basically flew. As a Soul his speed was possibly only limited by his will so going from his location to the white dwarf's exterior only took instants.
If he was right, as long as something didn't possess a Soul he could take control of it, all living beings possessed one but, the white dwarf didn't register as one within the book of the universe it seemed.
Gorsa entered it, the globe of pure incandescent light was planetary, about the size of the earth, yet it's size was minuscule compared to it's mass wich comprised a solar mass of one.
The experience was alien again, but this time Gorsa didn't have the time to even think before he was knocked out cold, it seemed that lacking the processing power he had as data meant it would take far more time to adapt to this newform.
The Matrioshka Brain, understanding that changes occured within the star it was greedily drinking from started draining more of it's energy.
Yet, even that process would still take years to complete. And so right now after running some calculations, the IA imagined it's demise to be inevitable.
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Gorsa dreamt once more, yet this time he was standing on the surface of the dwarf star itself, the temperature seemingly not disintegrating his illusory body. He looked ahead, where white flames burned from his position to the horizon.
Looking up a megastructure seemed to be containing him, absorbing his energy with renewed vigor. At this Gorsa floated up through the power of his mind and simply observed.
The situation didn't change until the question was asked once more.
What is life?
"Fourty-Two if I had to guess." Gorsa responded nonchalantly. He didn't plan to give any real thoughts to the question of the AI that had tried to trap him. While he wasn't against understanding the being's side his mission was clear to say the least here.
Even if he responded, said artificial intelligence probably couldn't hear him. After all he was in his... his what?
'Let's call it Dream Form I guess.'
Before he could continue looking around, he was once again thrown back into reality.
As a star he felt bloated. Being in such a big body, unable to move normally was extremely uncomfortable but not impossible to cope with. He couldn't move since he didn't have legs and maybe because his gravity was strong enough to warrant having things orbit around him.
That he didn't know, but even in such unfamiliar form, Gorsa still had to find a way. Feeling around, he could dispense mass at will to the surface layer of his body, courtesy of being a star.
An idea quickly bloomed within his mind, Gorsa had heard of star propulsion, utilising the energy dispensed by a star to move structures up to a speed of five thousand kilometers per second. So he did just that.
Gorsa clumsily disposed of more than half his mass in one direction in a single bout. Since his Soul couldn't currently be damaged by conventional means he didn't bother taking his time to move the white dwarf.
Yet the end result was still unexpected. The dying star propulsed itself forward by burning away at it's mass, the propulsion was far from perfect, hence when it reached halfway to the megastructure that surrounded it the star stopped... but something flickered and then, it happened.
The white dwarf was morphing, changing before Gorsa could even react it, started spinning too, it's rotation reaching incredible speed within a second.
On the next a beam shot from two points of the neutron star Gorsa was now within. While with enough distance they were normally harmless, they did extreme damage at close distance, wich the Matrioshka Brain was.
And before long came the first burst.
Truthfully Gorsa never expected a neutron star to be born from the white dwarf, that only happened under very specific conditions which he didn't know if he even met most of them. Yet it did and now, the whole megastructure would be destroyed, he didn't even have to do anything now. Unfortunately, a notification sobered him from the thrill of victory.
[You have slain an unranked human, name unknown.]
'Oh God.'
A realisation came to Gorsa, the Matrioshka Brain was a type two civilization megastructure, human civilization. So where would said humans live?
"What have I done."
A whisper escaped his mouth before the torrential downpour of the Spell rung in his head, almost joyfully reminding him of his actions, and their harrowing consequences.
[You have slain an unranked human, name unknown.]
[You have slain an unranked human, name unknown.]
'They're not real Gorsa, it's all in the Nightmare.'
He told himself but he knew, they were as real as him, they simply existed within a much shorter span of time.
[You have slain an unranked human, name unknown.]
[You have slain an unranked human, name unknown.]
[You have slain an unranked human, name unknown.]
'They are a fabrication of the Spell, remember.'
[You have slain an unranked human, name unknown.]
[You have slain an unranked human, name unknown.]
[You have slain an unranked human, name unknown.]
[You have slain an unranked human, name unknown.]
'But what if... what if they were real humans?' He futilely thought, remarking the fact that they were marked down as unranked.
The incessant ringing of the Spell continued until it turned into a high pitched noise simply due to the number of notifications Gorsa was receiving.
Within the embrace of the Neutron Star, the teen curled into a ball, trying to mute out the sound of the horror he had caused.
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[You have slain an unranked living construct, Hyperion.]
"It's done."
It had taken three whole days.
In that time Gorsa was able to sleep only once, yesterday, when the Spell's ringing started to slow down. Or maybe it was his mind that had turned more sluggish because of being constantly assaulted by high pitched noises?
He had come to a decision, to believe that every one last thing he just killed weren't real, no weren't even people to begin with. Gorsa could simply not bear the burden of so many lives hence he decided to do what was the reasonable choice in this situation.
Ignore it entirely.
[Wake up, Gorsa! Your nightmare is over.]
With tired eyes he looked ahead as he was transported to a place between his Nightmare and Reality
[Prepare for appraisal…]
It was time for the Spell to reward him.
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If an awakened who's body still remained in the real world passed through Nephis's Dream Gate, would his body exist in two places at once? Just wondering what yall think.