Story by: Rhenhwa.
Virtual God's Online
Chapter 12: Needle in a Haystack
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations, and settings depicted are entirely fictional and created for storytelling purposes.
***
Phecda.
Contrary to what one might assume, it is not truly omniscient.
There is no such thing as predicting the future, because in the virtual world, the future does not exist to begin with.
Phecda functions as a high-level intelligence system, created by Neutrality alongside other Creator Deities, akin to Akasha.
However, unlike Akasha, an all-encompassing system, Phecda specializes in a single domain:
Predictive computation.
Unlike Akasha, which is an all-around system, Phecda was a system built solely for calculating future outcomes based on available data.
"Haah. That's the third."
Alcor breathed slowly, his back turned against the black flames that rose up to the sky across a grassy plain.
Though his status was not in any favorable situation, his virtual attire was already battered.
He then concluded that unless he attacked from afar, he would at least be guaranteed a semblance of victory.
"Well, I was wrong."
Alcor said, almost deflated.
Perhaps the first time it worked was because the deity was engaging others, already distracted.
"So, unless my opponents have their hands full…"
And in that case, unless they crossed him. After all, they were tied now.
Additionally, with the way things are looking, they might really be tied. Eventually, he might even have to fight the rest.
How were the odds?
Pretty bad.
Quantitatively? Yes, they far outnumbered him. However, he had quality over their quantity.
"This is tiring."
Not that he was virtually tired. However, all calculations led to him eventually facing them.
There wasn't much strategy he could come up with to counter them.
Perhaps preparing Celestial Smasher for a preemptive strike was for the best.
"Well, I have come this far; I can't give up now."
Thinking that, he took a step forward, about to leave the plains when,
".....!"
"Who's there?"
Alcor suddenly turned back, feeling a strange yet eerie gaze upon him. It made his virtual skin crawl.
For a moment or two, there was silence. As he wouldn't budge from the place, the other then said,
"Okay, okay, you've caught me."
A voice resounded from thin air.
Clearly, no one was physically there, but the voice seemed to resound there.
"Who…"
"In front."
Before Alcor could realize it, a deity was already in front of him.
Contrary to his expectations, the deity was clearly lacking in many areas.
First, messy black hair and ragged clothes gave the impression of a lazy deity.
He seemed the type who would be comfortable in a less flashy position, as it would be a hassle for him otherwise.
"Huh?"
This greatly stunned Alcor.
"You… where?"
"Mmm. I've been standing right here the whole time. You just didn't notice. Haaah… I was thinking of swiping your keys, but, well—not my department."
Despite the slouchy, near-bored tone, Alcor's instincts were already screaming.
Eyes, virtual sense, observation. Every system said things were fine, but no, the deity in front of him wasn't.
Not in a "this guy's strong" sort of way. More like… the way air surrounds you. Always present. Felt. Never truly seen.
"[Needle in a Haystack]."
"That's the concept behind my authority."
After watching Alcor stew in silence for a beat too long, the man, clearly a god, finally decided to elaborate.
"Authorities are divided into two concepts. For example, that Veridian deity you defeated, she's one of the goddesses who rules over nature and its entropy."
"Then there are those whose authority is based on ideas; we are like the representation of that idea."
It was true that authorities exist in two forms. There might be others, but these two are well known.
A creation deity that embodies creation.
They embody that famous concept; likewise, other deities that fall into this category.
They can be recognized as such.
Then there were the others. The strange ones. Those whose authority was based on a reflection of a reflection, an idea about an idea.
These were the ones who formed the Tribunal's third order.
"For reasons too boring to explain, I'm the one stuck handling your initiation into the Tribunal. Ugh. Pain in the ass."
With that, the deity muttered a sigh.
Then, with a movement both sluggish and sudden, he was already in Alcor's face again.
SWISH–!
A sharp cut sliced the air.
"What?"
Alcor's eyes widened, but fortunately, he had set up his force barrier beforehand, and it was a good thing he did.
THUD–!
A low thud reverberated from the clash.
"Oh… the moment you realized was when you set it up. Ahhhhh, jeez."
Though he said that, he pressed the longsword, gleaming with silver light and a greyish edge, against his barrier.
'…He's pushing me back…'
With that in mind, shua!
Alcor adjusted his feet against the ground, softly grazing the grass of the grassy plains.
"Hm?"
BAM–!
In a quick motion of his own, Alcor loosened the clash.
He dropped his resistance, prompting his opponent to momentarily loosen the clash.
And when that was done, accelerating with force, he appeared by the side, using his elbow to strike the deity's face.
"Ugh!"
The deity grunted, voice still bored as ever, jamming his sword into the ground to halt his slide.
Looking upwards at the sky, he rubbed the side of his jaws Alcor had hit.
"You actually hit me."
Contrary to his own words, Alcor's brow tightened, and he slowly clenched his fist.
The hit had landed. He'd felt the contact. But...
"It doesn't feel like it really connected."
His voice was quiet, skeptical. He flexed his hand again.
Slowly, he then glanced toward the deity, who was still rubbing their jaw lazily, completely unbothered.
At that, the other deity gave a loose shrug, then finally straightened with an exaggerated yawn.
"Alright. Playtime's over."
He stretched mid-yawn, slowly and unbothered, his spine arching back in a long curve.
He then hunched forward, his arms dangling, his head tilting down, his body swinging slightly like a loose hinge.
It was nothing. A lazy gesture, for sure.
Yet that gesture set off every alarm Alcor had at that moment.
[Law of Singular Discovery: "Needle in a haystack."]
A simple concept indeed.
If one were to drop a needle in a haystack, it becomes impossible to find.
Such was the case here.
But first, let's unravel it.
In Alcor's sight, the deity was obviously in range, so he dashed at him and struck him.
"...huh?"
However, his fist merely seemed to phase through him.
WRYN–!
[Every strand of hay becomes a needle… until you start to believe that every strand is a needle… and then you get tired.]
'....'
After his hands phased through, Alcor frowned, pulling back before dashing, throwing a fist again.
WRYN–!
Again. Like before. His attacks phased through; however, he didn't stop there. Instead, continuous high-speed attacks.
Reappearing, vanishing, reappearing again, shifting angles, distorting speed, over and over, again and again.
But yet—
"Nothing…"
Halting his attacks, Alcor frowned, his fists hung loosely at his sides, and his brow twitched with rising frustration, extremely irritated.
"What's the principle?"
He said it more to himself than anyone else.
No answers came naturally.
So he invoked it.
With a simple question, unseen lines of logic began to run. Using every bit of resources he had gathered from his contacts.
After deducing the bare minimum, the answers he received were... vague.
Frustratingly vague.
Still, he continued searching until it eventually clicked.
"Needle in a haystack. What's its concept?"
After remembering his first words, he asked, and then the results came to him shockingly.
"Have you figured it out already? Finally, this charade can end for me.."
The deity muttered that still lazily.
And though he said that, however, here comes the hardest part: dealing with the authorities.
Its concept was simple, really: to pinpoint a single crucial element hidden within vast chaos or complexity;
conversely, to conceal or scatter something so thoroughly that it becomes nearly impossible to find.
If the truth was a single needle, then it was buried beneath infinite hay.
To find the real one, one had to cut through everything else.
To make everything else look exactly like the concept, at least partly.
Activating the authority had rendered the deity completely untouchable.
No matter how fast Alcor moved, everything passed through like vapor. Reaching him was, by design, impossible.
That was the point of it.
However, against deities on a higher level, which wraps the very idea of his authority, brute forcing their way was one counter.
The other is having an authority that counters this concept.
Because for every authority, there existed another that mirrored or broke it.
In this space, there were many such deities.
However, sometimes,
"But then, how will you face this authority?" The deity asked, his voice smugly half-lidded, expecting silence in return.
—Logic also doesn't apply in certain scenarios, one much like this.
"So, that's the haystack," Alcor murmured.
Alcor spoke, his eyes glowing eerily white as he stared at the deity.
"And, that's the needle…"
The moment Alfor said that, it was also at this moment the deity felt it: chills.
'What the… Logic is beginning to wrap. Wait! This unraveling is…!'
"If I can't find the needle, then it's simple. Use a huge magnet to attract it."
Saying that, Alcor raised his hands, and instantly, the air began to warp, churning inwardly.
Not visually. Not sonically.. Something caught him and locked him in place.
"Oi! You can't be kidding me. You're using…!"
"Still not satisfied."
A breeze whipped through the field. Not from nature. But from someone else's intent.
From nowhere, the wind howled, and the lazy deity realized something had gone terribly, irreversibly wrong.
"W-wait. You aren't serious, right?"
Black and white particles of spiral light gathered in front of him flickering in and out of existence like a dying star.
By condensation alone, he could see the virtual space wrap around it.
And if he didn't miss it, there was a focused, eerie, and wicked smile on his face.
As though he'd waited all this time for this one single moment.
"Give me a break…"
[Celestial Smasher!]
A black line tore across the world.
Neither a beam, nor a light. An absence, pure and perfect, ripped through the field.
It cracked open the grassy plains like paper, pierced the sky, and cleaved the very shell of the simulation.
『...』
In its wake, silence. Then a void-deep gorge, a wound across the dwelling itself.
Alcor stood at the edge of it, eyes dimmed, hand lowered.
"As expected. This might really be the solution to everything."
Looking at the aftereffects of the blast, Alcor muttered to himself, satisfied.
However,
"Ho? Not bad; you're starting to realize the truth of that power."
"That thing is not an energy beam; nay, that thing is authority given form."
"The authority of the stars. Creation, destruction, and all their other principles are jammed into that ultimate ability."
"The white dust is merely the other aspect of your authority. And like you, I possess the same."
A voice from the back.
Cold, chilling.
If the deity from before had set off alarms, this one—everything he was being told was:
RUN.
Hair white as death. Streaks of shimmering blue flowing through. And when she stepped in, he trembled.
AGEHA.