Kill Six Billion Demons

(Update will come tomorrow and this will move to the blog section, along with part 2!)

 – Aesma and the Three Masters –
(And The Lessons She Never Learned from Them)

There came a time when YISUN and their disciple, Aesma, came to be in YISUN’s speaking house, which was often host to the drunken brawls of the many gods as they engaged in heated, and often bloody debate. The previous night had been no different, and the bronze walls still smoked and glowed with the fury and violence of their words. YISUN, as master of the house, reclined as the servants of that place set about undoing the devastation of the night with tired and practiced ease.
Aesma was small in stature, of raw black skin, many teeth, a large mouth, and a bright red tongue. She nurtured an evil and burning passion for dominion over all things, and thus an ugly hunger constantly ruled her otherwise pretty face. YISUN was extremely fond of her, as it was with all ugly children.
“Master of Masters, King of Kings, Empress of Empresses,” said Aesma greedily, “Who is the most powerful of your servants?”
For this had been the topic of the night before, and none in attendance had been fit to answer it, for each of them loudly proclaimed themselves king over the other. YISUN had declined to make a judgment, as was the manner, so Aesma was surprised when YISUN shook from their reverie.
“Plainly, it is a difficult question,” said YISUN, pondering, “but I would have to say my three Masters of space-time, aesthetic, and ethics.”
“Why they!” said Aesma, fuming.
“They have been my disciples for at least 30 kalpas, they have studied well my teachings, and each is the holder of an absolute and insurmountable truth, “spoke YISUN, gravely, “If you are so discontent you may find them on the road and challenge them if you wish.”
Without a word Aesma rudely snatched up Pedam’s walking stick, which could hop thirty leagues at a time, and Akaroth’s feather cloak, which could ride winds both interstellar and terrestrial, and bashing aside servants in her mad scramble, she leapt to the edge of that house and rode the void to the road of the Ruling King.

– Aesma and the Master of Space-time –

Almost immediately Aesma found the estate of the Master of space-time, a lunar domain of immense proportions. It was incredibly hard to miss the Master, as he was a man thirty stories tall, with skin speckled as a night sky, and in his tangled hair, among his shaggy brow, and scattered in his great knotted beard were a multitude of burning stars. He had served for uncounted centuries as chief architect of the gods after attaining his mastery, and even now was building a mighty dark tower greater than any mountain, and the clangs of his immense silver chisel shivered Aesma’s bones as she approached. But she had little regard for his mighty stature as a furious mischief was in her.
“Ho there! A Godling! Young Aesma is it?” boomed the Master of space-time, and as he turned his sweat drops scattered the earth like mighty boulders.
“I have heard you are the strongest of YISUN’s disciples,” said Aesma viciously, “How can that be true?”
“From whom?” spoke the Master, furrowing his brow.
“From YISUN!” danced Aesma, frustrated.
“Ho!” rumbled the master, and stroked his mustaches. “I suppose it is true then. I have long studied the scope and stretch of YISUN’s work, and through immense effort I have attained knowledge of the shape of all things. Down to the exact nano-angstrom!”
Aesma was disbelieving, but the Master showed her each Planck length of each mountain on his estate. And still she was disbelieving, and he showed her the exact number of grains of dust in the universe, and the number of carbon atoms in her body, and the potential shape and shadow of every animal that breathed, swam, flew, or flashed through quantum states.
But still she was not content, so the Master set down his mighty chisel with a crack and gestured to the wide plain and bade Aesma look, and showed her the way to look. He bade her bring forth her illuminated consciousness, and she did, and the master was humorously surprised, for it was a small, evil thing, a nasty red coal, and he wondered why she was so favored as YISUN’s disciple. But then he brought forth his own mind and it was as a great celestial blaze, and as he cast it on the landscape before him, Aesma saw it warp and shift, the hills like water that flowed from form to form. The sky cracked and ignited and was replaced by fire and light, and darkness swallowed and disgorged the land like a great bulbous blossom. Aesma realized then that the Master had perfect knowledge not only of the precise shape of things, but also all the shapes they would ever have and be.

“I have attained mastery of the ultimate and insurmountable truth of Form. Thus, through my mighty studies I know the exact measure of YISUN’s work, the way it is, and the way it always will be. So my knowledge is all encompassing, and perfection is my breath,” said the Master. “Even small things such as yourself, young Aesma,” he said with a jovial wink.
“What are you building?” said Aesma, with dark intent, as a furious scheme was bubbling to the top of her evil mind.
“My Panopticon,” said the Master of Space-time proudly, and clapped the stone of his construction with a sound that shook the dust from the seven corners of the multiverse, “the ultimate observatory. Though my knowledge is limitless, my sight is regretfully less so. With this I will contemplate all things at once, and I will truly be the highest in the land. I will have no need for mundane struggles once I can contemplate all of infinity!”
“That’s stupid!” said Aesma, and kicked the dark construction, stubbing her delicate toes. Her yelp of pain set the master to chuckling mightily as this poor vicious girl, but then Aesma shot him a ferocious glance and asked a stupid question.
“If you know the shape of everything, what is the shape of the universe!” said she.
The Master scoffed humorously at this precocious question. “Well clearly, I know it from the inside!” he said.
“How can you know the shape of anything if you only look at it from the inside!” snapped Aesma, evilly, and the Master gave a great booming laugh that shook stars from his beard, and as they crashed to the dust in great fiery trails, Aesma had to scamper to dodge them.
“Can a man bend his eyes to look at his own face? What an odd question!” said the Master, “It has no outside shape, little one, and thus it is and will always be so.”
“I’ll take a look and tell you, worm!” spat Aesma, and she tore off her clothes wildly.
“What are you doing?” rumbled the Master, bemusedly, but before he could finish, Aesma had planted her feet and took a great hot breath. Her skin puckered and her chest swelled and her small wicked form grew outwards suddenly to fifteen stories tall. The sudden change disoriented her, and she fell over, denting a mountain. The master chuckled at her idiocy as she huffed and puffed and stumbled about, and went to turn back to his work, but then there was another great breath and Aesma swelled monstrously, to twice the Master’s height.
“Ho! Stop this foolishness!” said the Master, amazed at this idiot girl, but before he could say another word, she took another mighty breath and swelled to ten times the Master’s height. The mountains shuddered and the Master’s great unfinished tower shivered as though struck. Now true worry gripped the Master, and he shouted for Aesma to stop, but her monstrous, straining face grew further away as she grew to a hundred times the Master’s height, and then a thousand, and on the fifth breath the land itself was rent up, and the mountains buckled and warped, and the great stones of the Panopticon were ripped from their foundations in the terrible gale of Aesma’s inhalations. The Master was dumbstruck, for though his illuminated mind was much larger and fiercer than Aesma, he had not glimpsed this destruction. And still Aesma grew a million times, a hundred billion times larger than the Master, and the stars bent and space-time itself warped with her great weight. Finally, it gave way, and Aesma tumbled through and outside creation. The great clap as she ripped through woke the archons on their flensing tree, and the worms that shivered in Hansa’s corpse outside reality, and the plum garden of YISUN’s speaking house was so shaken it bore very little fruit that year.
Had Aesma looked then, she would have glimpsed the entirety of existence and non-existence in its totality, and in viewing it she would have discovered the secret name of God, and avoided her maiming by asking YISUN this question some time later. But at that moment, her hubris and pride at her besting of the Master were the only things on her cramped and evil mind, so she gave it but a glance, and discovered that it was somewhat wheel-shaped.
It was extremely cold outside of existence, and Aesma was quite naked, moreover holding so much air in a form so large was quite painful, so she abruptly and quite mindlessly let it go, and plummeted back through the crack in existence and back to the feet of the Master of Space-time, who was thrown around like a leaf in the great storm of her exhalation.

“Plainly you are not the strongest of YISUN’s disciples!” cackled Aesma, and danced naked and stuck her great red tongue out at the broken and defeated master. “Tell me, as you promised!” implored the Master of space-time, hot tears thundering to the earth like mighty comets, “What is the shape of the universe?”
“It is somewhat wheel-shaped,” said Aesma, which was a completely wrong answer.