I Became The Pope, Now What?
chapter-768

'Him again… every time.' Sylvester felt uneasy. Solis was one more cog in the wheel to be careful of. But first, getting rid of the Primordial Gods was the priority, 'With him behind him, I'll have to grow a second pair of eyes.'

"Then let's proceed," Sylvester suggested and forged a single sword out of solidified light. The Spear of Infinity, sadly, was underpowered now. "The more time we spend here, the more time they get to do us harm."

Solis agreed, "Walk behind me, my bard. The path ahead will leave us plenty marred."

It was less walking and more flying at that point. Sylvester could easily make his body weightless and move in any direction, his mobility far more advanced now. To that moment, he was still in the process of learning new things about himself. And that was what worried him—not being able to utilize his might to the fullest.

"How do you plan to defeat them?" Sylvester asked Solis, getting past the gap between the crowd of other 'gods'. "You've been planning this for eons. You must have planned ahead too."

"There is a plan, but not the means to an end. We will only know the true destination when you stand to defend," said Solis.

After flying for a long time, the two arrived at what seemed like a spiraling dark circle in that fully white space. It seemed threatening just from the looks of it, and its size no more than Sylvester's width, shoulder to shoulder.

"To make this small incision into their reality, it took them hundreds of thousands of years. Constantly living in their fears, they eventually succeeded in making this tear. I can survive their reality, for I have been preparing myself for that. But you will not, not against the suppression and change in the laws of reality. It will destroy all your vitality," Solis warned Sylvester sternly.

"What are you?" Sylvester instead questioned him. "Was everything you ever did to live this moment?"

"You will be made aware very soon." Like always, Solis dismissed his question, "For you to survive inside it, you must try to comprehend their reality as quickly as possible and become immune. The fundamental rules are simple—Nothing is impossible, everything can be created out of nothing, and you become what you perceive."

Sylvester nodded, "Can't you teach them to me right away?"

"Mere words won't suffice. I have learned it the hard way, with a heavy price," Solis replied and moved closer to the portal. His behemoth of a body adorned in white robes stood very close to the spiral. "Never forget it, Sylvester. You were born for this."

Sylvester sighed and stepped closer to him to enter at the same time, "I believe the 'why' and 'how' won't be answered?"

Solis simply gave a slight nod with his darkness-covered face, "You shall enter before me. The time difference is drastic, and it will give you enough gap that we don't collide, and you can comprehend their reality. Remember, let go of any thought of mortality or morality. In there, from everything, expect nothing but hostility."

Pat!

Solis patted on Sylvester's shoulder and pushed him into the portal.

Just as a fleeting thought, Sylvester looked back, "From you too?"

"I am everything," said Solis before jumping in as well, just a few blinks of an eye apart.

Woosh!

But such was the pull inside the portal, the twists, the stretches, and the orchestra of time and space that even those tiny moments of gap became larger than years.

…

Sylvester felt no pain, but he lost the sense of everything. He couldn't feel time, he couldn't feel space, he couldn't even feel his existence. Was he still in a plane of existence, or was he… nothing?

'There's nothing here. What am I to comprehend?' Sylvester asked himself, confused and clueless. 'Hm, Nothing is impossible? Everything can be created out of nothing, and you become what you perceive?'

Sylvester repeated Solis' words and tried to base an idea around it. According to the first, he just had to imagine himself that he wasn't formless, not timeless, not fateless. He had matter and thought.

But it was easier said than done. In theory, the Primordial Gods lived beyond space and time, beyond existence. So what kind of world was this? What kind of plane of existence was he inside?

'I don't feel solarium or any kind of energy either.' He felt alarmed, 'I won't last forever if I can't find a path out.'

A fleeting memory, that's what he felt like at the moment. Formless, mindless, just a consciousness in the vastness of space. Yet, powerful in his own right.

'Anything can be created out of nothing?' Sylvester muttered and immediately tried to create solarium around him, a particle he had absolute mastery over and had studied its structure. But still, the goal was to make it out of nothing, not produce it from his own body.

"Ah!" He felt real pain this time. His body released solarium instead of making more.

'Out of nothing? What is nothing?'

A particle? Or truly the lack of anything in the air?

His frustrations grew. How could he perceive nothingness?

'You become what you perceive?' Sylvester focused on the last rule that Solis gave him and tried to form a body for himself. However, nothing happened since he couldn't create anything.

Round and round, he circled through the laws Solis had told him and attempted to do something. Forced himself to make a body, to cast magic, or to simply imagine a world around him.

Time went by, unknown how long. Frustrations and anger surmounted, and the rage slowly started to appear. Just one clue, he hoped to receive just one.

"Once again, you have forgotten how powerful you are, Sylvester Maximilian. You were born for this."

"Hmm?" Sylvester felt he heard Solis' voice. "What do you mean? I'm nothing here! I don't exist. I have no occupying spa

—"

Right in the middle of those words, he felt something. As if new connections formed inside his mind that didn't exist before. As if he felt a flicker of something. An idea, a comprehension; not of what the world was around him, but what he was.

This realm beyond existence wasn't physical at all.

"It's metaphysical! Nothing exists here in any form but a consciousness!" Sylvester exclaimed.

Boom!

And just like that, as if a big bang took place somewhere inside his body, he felt branches form in a metaphysical sense. Everything felt like it made absolute sense, like this was the real end of life he was supposed to achieve.

A being of mere thoughts and will.

"Nothing is impossible!" Sylvester exclaimed, finally understanding the meaning. "The Primordial Gods have no body. They're mere ideas that were born from the mind of the creator."

"Everything can be created out of nothing," Sylvester repeated, and could feel his control over the lower worlds, especially all of those tiny streams of eel-like creatures traveling with universes inside them. Now looking from the outside, that stream wasn't even the only one.

Every reality had its own pipeline filled with eels that carried the alternate universes inside it. Every minor choice any sentient creature made created a new universe. Every minor cosmic miscalculation drastically changes the universes.

"T-The Demon World and my home world are a piece of the same universe, just different due to cosmic calculations!" Sylvester realized, and his questions about why the Primordial Gods didn't destroy them strengthened.

But at last, he came to the last law. "You become what you perceive."

And this was what finally gave Sylvester his vision inside the realm. Being a mere consciousness, his will was the force beyond creation, and nothing was merely the space ready to be manipulated by his will. Finally, what he perceived became his reality—if he thought of himself as a cosmic entity, he was that! If he thought of himself as a human, he'd be perceived as one! His true powers rested in his thoughts.

There was no time, space, or reality. There was nothing to see, and everything to perceive. Which he could already do, sensing something very close to him. Another mind, another thought with burning, scorching warmth.

'Is this it? Is this what it means to be Gods? To be ideas? To consider yourself supreme?'

"You were born for this." Solis's words reached Sylvester. Not as a voice, but as a mere thought, and intent, "Welcome to the godly abyss."

"Where are they?" Sylvester felt alarmed, still not having any idea of how to use all of his abilities. "How much time has passed? What am I now?"

Solis's voice answered and helped Sylvester by extending his own field of consciousness to touch on Sylvester's. "They are aware."

Pure horror!

Sylvester lost his words and almost his mind. He forgot to even curse, for his senses screamed at him to escape as quickly as possible.

'They were already around them—'They' were the body of time and space he and Solis had entered into. 'They' were the body of the highest realm.

"Time is a matter of naught, Sylvester," Solis added, seeing a hellish fight incoming, "We are now somewhere between their existence, and what was before. They are the GODS, and we are almost gods—Prepare for war!"

Sylvester fell silent, unaware of what to even do. They had already spawned inside the field of control of the Primordial Gods.

What war?

This felt one-sided.