WHEEL SMASHING LORD 4-111 to 4-112
Chapter: 4
“The master of masters – the king’s essence is in inaction. He must be perfectly still. Otherwise he ceases to become a man and becomes a force above human will, and none shall see a better day for it.”
-Annals of the Yellow City
You got a nack for awe inspiring scope and gob smacking details but I forget you can do pages that are close and intimate and delicate.
Maya out there at the apocalypse cooking the last pot of soup
“Um… I was very drunk.”
Is Allison implying she’s responsible for Nukoku’s rebirth?
I wondered that to, but I suspect that Allison was attempting to convey that she doesn’t know what happened, on account of being immensely inebriated.
Come to think of it, Allison’s success with Princess (Vladok) was also when she was All the sheets to the wind. Maybe she’s a drunken master, but with demons?
Yeah, this is where I get confused a little. It’s been quite some time, so I’m not sure what the “I was drunk” line refers to. I don’t think Alison was drunk when she excised her prosthetics using Cio’s mask fragment, nor was she drunk when she shooed away nukoku. Maybe she was?
She was waking up from her night on the town with white chain when she shooed away nukoku, if she wasn’t still drunk she was definitely seriously hungover.
Right, right! Thank you!
Ahh. Right. And Nukoku, or the chrysallis of Nukoku, retrieved the shard of Cio’s mask that Allison wore, perhaps becoming whole at that moment.
Ah! I am enlightened.
Our inebriated heroine gave a devil a mask…without giving it a name. Given that masking a devil is a hazardous endeavor, most are unlikely to enter into the ritual without a name in mind, much less while drunk. Therefore it makes sense this is a thing most folks haven’t tried before, and that we get a new kind of devil out of it!
I’m rather surprised that nobody has pointed this out. The history repeats itself, for “I was very drunk” is literally what brought Princess to being. The thing is, she is somehow still continuation of Vladok, even though usually devils’ personalities are bound to the particular mask, not the particular flame. But Allison’s combination of the master key and serious intoxication overcame this quite easily.
So, here we go again. Hangover Allison is all we need to start a process of turning Pale into Ivory.
I, personally, laughed oit loud.
Allison was most definitely either drunk, or very hung over when she first met Nukoku, and the shard of Cio’s mask returned to her in pale devil form, post Demiurge-Girls Night. I’m assuming that’s what she means here
Ah, I love replying to the wrong comment….
“Time to make Noodles”
-Maya, probably
If there is a moral obligation to use power for good, but all uses of power have only ever done harm…
The correct use of power is to destroy it.
What was made can be unmade.
Throw the Key into the fire Alison! Destroy it!
Maybe open all the gates first tho.
Allison looks so eerily beautiful in that first page, I have no words. I eagerly await to see what end this woman will bring about as the wielder of name and key of keys, the one and only Kill Six Billion Demons.
Her eyes were once blue, and her hair blonde. Time and torment have worn both away to a pale hue. The key of the wheel lord sits upon her brow like a third eye to replace what was lost, and yet the sight she sees is so grandly bitter that to turn away seems preferable to most. She does not, for there is nothing left to see below a black horizon.
How much more is she willing to sacrifice? How much of herself is left to mutilate for some greater cause?
The world knows strength like a dog knows its master, an instinct older than speech. Strength’s no virtue; it’s just a form of clarity, clean as a blade. The strong, they don’t wait around to see who can reason better or whose story is sadder. They don’t need to. They move like an act of God, and the rest of us scatter in their wake.
I see Alison’s point, but I’d imagine many have said the same before and think that attempting to destroy and remake the wheel would require a great many acts of brutality, violence, and cruelty. That seems more like helping to turn the wheel along. Maybe I’m just horribly misunderstanding what the wheel represents both because I’m not the best at this sort of thing and it’s been a while, but it seems to me that it represents suffering. Like we will all inevitably be crushed by the turning of the wheel in death and we can respond to that by throwing other people under it to buy ourselves more time, possibly in the vain hope of piling up enough bodies under it that we can stop and control it. Or, we can respond to that by helping others along and hopefully making all our journeys easier and maybe even finding some joy in them through the company of one another. It’s not a one or the other only thing; there a number of caveats like sometimes it’s all you can do just to keep going yourself and sometimes maybe the course of action that’s best for everyone around you is that the one individual who keeps throwing other people under the wheel takes their turn. But I don’t know any of this; I’m a kid up past my bed time, not the guy who has spent years drawing extremely detailed art about his persoectivds on life.
This wheel floats amidst nothingness. There is no under. It represents the mistakes we all make that are repeated endlessly. The only possible hope is to find some new mistakes, and even that is a vanishing rarity.
Cyclussy. Heh.
The force of peacefulness is the lack thereof…
or is it vice versa…
Lost, found, the journey, or it’s destination.
What we remember of it, and what we forget,
What we dreamed, what we imagined.
They say the greatest treasure is the friends we made along the way
How nice it would be to come to terms with one’s self.
Gather your party before final battle in the camp…
Checked.
We only need mandatory final love confession and sex scene for Allisson as MC with Nukoku to be sure this is endgame like in most RPG type of games.
The world respects nothing
Nukoku makes a good point. One that I have been waiting to hear be brought up – and one that I am rather impatient to see the conclusion of.
Alice has been winging it, certain that she will end the cycle of violence that, as far as we know, is the immutable nature of existence. Or rather, it is endlessly mutable so as to be a constant. Whenever you attempt to control the cycle, it escapes between your fingers by taking on new form, and grinds you down beneath it.
And she intends to do it by…
…What?
We don’t know. Neither does she – as she clearly stated she has no plan, and is moved solely by her own sense of self-righteousness. The idea that she wants to help people that somehow makes her different to everyone else.
So far this makes her indistinguishable from her brethren Demiurges. Most of them wanted power for power’s sake – not at first. Even the most selfish ones, like Incubus. All were ground down to brutal versions of themselves by the same cycle. Alice only has the advantage of not having centuries or millennia to see her efforts come to naught.
And that is the pin of the needle upon which all is precariously balanced.
Abaddon has been writing this for so long – and he has not disappointed us so far. But this is the doubtlessly the greatest challenge that he himself has put forth in the narrative – the great question that must be answered. Can she do it? If so how, and by which means if not the means that she purports to reject? The answer can’t possibly be the old cliché of ‘get rid of magic and now everyone is mediocre’, can it? I dearly hope not. That solves nothing of the underlying violent nature of existence, and merely changes the texture of said violence. It would be the easiest solution, the biggest cop-out, the least satisfying payoff.
I trust Abaddon. Many times did I feel like the narrative was going to stumble and lose my interest. Always, did it find its stride just before it did. But this is big. I hope it sticks the landing.
It’s far easier to ask good questions than to provide good answers. Many stories struggle to reach a satisfying conclusion as a result. The best they can usually accomplish is to give a glimpse of the shape of an answer, something to keep us thinking in the right direction.
Is Maya still alive? Because I’m getting some major Zoss vibes from her appearing shenanigans and mysterious knowledge. Considering Incubus knows she survived near decapitation it’d be very strange for him to leave her in one piece after winning a second fight….
That and her hair hasn’t grown since she and Allison got it cut.
She’s very corporeal for a ghost. Remember when she kicked Allison in the face?
What is death to a god who can cleave space and time with a thought? It is too simple a concept to apply to one who has worn and lost a key of kings, survived, and grown beyond. Was Allison not cut in twain by the sword that cuts all, yet she lives because she chose such? Life, death, flame imperishable. It is a strange universe and none can say they know every one of it’s stories.
boy a lot of this feels startlingly relevant especially now hahahahahaha
I think they’re going to beat him with noodles. Like, invite him to sit down to the first good meal he’s enjoyed in a millennia and get him on their side that way.
Isn’t that what Jagganoth is trying to do? Maybe Allison is planning to surrender.
Jagganoth seeks the destruction of the wheel, an end to suffering through the silencing of all sighs. Allison, is seems, has not decided what conclusion she would seek. She does not want Jagganoth’s silence, nor does she wish to see Zoss turn back the wheel again. Thus far, in countless cycles (777,776?) none have found another way. Allison’s task is very large; To imagine what none other has imagined in untold aeons.
Considering Jagganoth’s speech and Gog’s grains of sands, I think the number would possibly exceed, but be no less than, 5,999,999,999
I miss old cio 🙁 I don’t like nukoku’s weird anime cyclops face
haha, her name is Nu-coke-u
Maya always has her priorities straight. Food first! 😀
Has Maya always been monotheistic?
I’m no expert in ethics, but I believe following beautiful women is generally a good idea.
Very high rate of success, keep it up
Her being named new coke implies that eventually they’ll bring cio classic back
Or maybe she’ll be replaced by energy drinks.
Now…
Time for noodle soup to fortify the soul and mind for the trials ahead.