Positioned at the outskirts of the expanding universe, within a secluded pocket of space rich with tissue from the Primordial Muscle, lay the seed of a newborn Aetherroot, known as Nu.
Having just entered this world, Nu extended a probing vine beyond his shell.
Outside his seed lay an inherited legacy.
Written in a language transcribed through the flexing of the Muscle, Nu’s probing vine carefully traced the gray void, as though reading a strange braille-like script.
For Aetherroots legacies act similar to heritage or family. They guide the newborn root through the early stages of their lives, allowing him to learn from their ancestral experiences, and set them up for success later down in life.
Despite lacking general intelligence, Nu instinctively grasped the significance of what he was reading. Even from the first few glyphs, he sensed the legacy’s extraordinary value. Its wealth of information and techniques revealed one undeniable truth:
He was destined to do great things.
This legacy bore the marks and experiences of the supermassive being known as Bohr.
Renowned as the first emperor of the universe, Bohr’s unrelenting dominance and the immense power of his tyrannical god-body inspired both awe and terror throughout the cosmos. However, his reign was cut short when he was betrayed by his twelve most trusted colleagues, leading to his early death.
Bohr’s message to Nu was short and simple: "Never submit to anyone; become the most massive object in the universe."
The words resonated in Nu’s mind like the tolling of ancient bells, etching themselves deep into his being.
To Nu, Bohr was like a father. For a newborn whose life was still incomplete, Bohr became his everything. Nu worshiped his experiences, absorbing the disdain and disgust he had felt toward the universe and his ruthless, uncaring nature that created his rise in power.
Beneath this legacy lay a blank space, a place where Nu might one day inscribe his own story. For Aetherroots, this space was sacred, the passing of a torch to the next generation and writing a legacy was their life''s most important task.
As Bohr’s heir, Nu longed to write a great story of tyrannical triumph, following in his father''s footsteps and eventually surpassing him.
Following his ancestral instructions, Nu began shaping his first body. He carved vein-like channels into the muscle tissue to guide the flow of time. When his work was complete, he had created a form resembling an atom, containing only the minimal mass needed to hold his existence together.
Extending a vine outward, Nu searched for the nearest stream of time to sustain himself. Upon finding one, the vine withered, sacrificing itself to allow the essence of time to flow into the channels. The liquid time moved sluggishly, nourishing the seed at his core.
Thick vines spread outward, anchoring Nu in place as they absorbed sustenance from the calm stream of time surrounding him. With this newfound energy, he began propelling himself through space.
Intent on improving his imperfect form, Nu deliberately sought to destroy it by colliding with other newborn Aetherroots.
In the pocket of space where he was born, Aetherroots with muscular bodies darted about chaotically, colliding in bursts of light and heat. These impacts caused the surrounding Muscle to shift, allowing the Aetherroots to reshape and reinforce their forms. By cooperating, they merged their bodies to command larger quantities of Muscle, constructing lattice structures and complex molecules. Within these formations, the Aetherroots established chains of command, directing how their body would be built.
These governments were not decided by the Aetherroots themselves, but rather through their legacies. Generally, the greatest legacy determines the chain of command, appointing their heirs as the controlling power of the combined body.
With Bohr’s great legacy involved, every collision ended the same way. Nu would remain the sole commander-in-chief, while the other Aetherroots would become slaves to control the Muscle based on his whim, their legacies subsumed beneath Bohr’s, acting as footnotes in his grand story.
Using his unchecked power, Nu began to sculpt the foundations of his tyrannical god-body, following Bohr’s blueprint.
As more Aetherroots collided with him, Nu’s mass grew, and the streams of time surged, allowing him and his followers to thrive.
His legacy expanded, adding the knowledge of thousands of ancestral pages to its binding.
Intelligence is generally governed by knowledge. Once a certain threshold of information is accumulated, the soul can be created.
This process is achieved by connecting legacy pages through soul passageways. As these pages amass and reach a certain level of connectivity, the intelligence within them can evolve into sapience.
Now with a body the size of an atom, Nu had accumulated fifty thousand ancestral pages in his legacy, allowing him to form his first soul. Following Bohr’s instructions, he imprinted intricate diagrams onto unused Muscle tissue. These diagrams facilitated the creation of soul passageways, enabling Nu to form his initial interpretations and experiences of the world around him.
Now with a soul, he no longer drifted aimlessly through the pocket space. Instead, he charged in specific directions, deliberately scooping up as many loose Aetherroots as he could, dominating the space like a hungry animal.
One million, two million, up to five million pages were combined and connected within him using soul diagrams.
He now had enough knowledge to form his first interpretation of himself.
"Me... the greatest," his thoughts raced disjointedly through his newly awakened mind.
His body expanded, easily outpacing the competition. Now visible on a macroscopic scale, he resembled a plasma marble.
Having surpassed his rivals, Nu now faced greater challenges. Surrounding him were tiny, sand-like grains of plasma, their movements predatory, like wolves eager to tear him apart.
For those destined for greatness are always certain to face opposition.
Through teamwork, the grains managed to gain some ground, stealing pieces of his body for themselves.
But their victories were short-lived. As they struggled to organize into a cohesive force, cracks began to appear in their cooperation.
Nu’s counterattack was swift and brutal. Commanding his growing army, he reclaimed every lost inch, spreading his plasma-like body into intricate formations. After years of relentless war against the sand-like grains, he destroyed their command centers and consumed their armies whole.
Now, the size of a small animal, Nu stood unchallenged. His power was absolute.
Letting out a gurgling laugh, he reveled in his victory.
"Too easy! Far too easy," he sneered. "All these meager opponents are but appetizers to my great legacy."
Nu consumed the remaining Aetherroots in the pocket space, leaving nothing behind.
Finishing his gloating, he released a raucous laugh.
"This great victory shall be but a small footnote in my personal legacy. For my storied rise, this is but the smallest step."
After devouring the last of the Muscle tissue, Nu gazed outward. The fold of space-time he had existed in began to collapse, allowing him to step beyond its confines into the vast universe.
At the center of his soul, his legacy appeared in the form of a book, glowing with radiant yellow light as Nu processed the world around him.
The universe was disastrously cold, surprising him. Although he had connected most of his ancestral knowledge, there had been no mention of such a thing. The universe they had described was warm and teeming with newborn life.
The fold of space-time Nu had once occupied came from a distant era. Like a thawed caveman, his knowledge was useful but outdated.
Still, the figures whose legacies he carried had once been galactic entities, and despite his lack of current information, their power remained unmatched. His personality, shaped by the most tyrannical emperor of the previous generations, would not allow him to fail simply because the universe was colder than he had expected.
Adapting quickly, he compressed all the heat in his body into a small, white grain of sand, using it as his core. His external form solidified into celestial rock. Drawing upon the methods described by his father, Bohr, he shaped his tyrannical god-body, taking on the appearance of a six-faced cube.
Having overcome his first crisis, a glint sparkled in each of his six pairs of eyes as he surveyed the universe’s majesty.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"My name is Nu!" he proclaimed to the cosmos. "You may not have heard of me yet, but soon every corner of existence will know my name."
He let out a deep, rumbling laugh, thick with villainous glee. "Bohr wanted me to strive to become the most massive object in the universe. But why stop there?"
"For my greatness, even the universe is beneath me. I will not be satisfied until I have consumed every last bit of mass in this desolate void."
With a hint of childish delight, he opened his mouth wide, pretending to devour the distant stars and galaxies around him.
"My pursuit of mass will not end until my body becomes the universe itself."
Taking purposeful strides forward, he traveled through the vast void toward the universe''s center.
The universe was dense with discarded floating matter. It drifted listlessly in the cold space, mostly in moving roadways known as ''asteroid roads.'' Some rocks were covered in grass-like textures, while others glistened with colorful crystalline structures.
Nu was tempted by it. Seeing so much food in front of him, he couldn''t help but wonder, "What''s the catch?"
Still an infant, he relied exclusively on his ancestral teachings for answers. Flashing with yellow guidance, they provided inconclusive answers.
Seeing only one way to find out for himself, he leapt at the smallest floating piece of mass. Opening his mouth, he devoured a small grassy pebble.
Once the pebble entered him, he needed to break it down and combine it with his body.
Utilizing a workout technique gifted by his ancestors, his body began to vibrate with violent, deliberate movements. Leveraging stray magnetic and gravitational forces, he attempted to digest the pebble.
After a moment, his face twisted in disgust as he failed to swallow the pebble. "Blegh!" he spat out chunks of rock. "This pebble’s been dead too long. It no longer has any Aetherroots to maintain its form. It’s just drifting, dead Muscle now. I’d need to heat it up to remove its impurities and digest it into my body."
He paused, thinking it over carefully. "This will not be an easy task. The only solution I can think of right now is using a star as a heat source."
"But getting close to one will be an impossible challenge."
Realizing he had hit a major roadblock right at the start of his journey, he cursed his luck, growing frustrated with his situation and unsure of how to proceed.
After a brief tantrum, he pulled himself together and rallied once more. "No matter."
"It seems the universe does not want to kneel to me immediately," he smirked sardonically. "Every great rise is accompanied by hardships." He laughed, his voice thick with determination. "Your trials can’t last forever. Sooner or later, you will fold."
With the goal of finding a heat source, he joined the flow of an asteroid highway drifting toward the inner reaches of the universe. Meandering aimlessly, he hoped to solve his problems through chance.
To conserve as much heat as possible, he sealed all his openings and entered a temporary state of dormancy.
Several years passed on the asteroid highway, its speed began picking up as it reached closer to the
Half a day passed on the asteroid highway when they began drifting past a massive yellow planet. One of Nu’s eyes peeled open at just the right moment, catching sight of a lifeless rock breaking away from the highway and plummeting toward the planet’s atmosphere. As it traveled through the dense layers, it began to emit flames, spiraling down in a fiery trail of light.
"Heat!" Nu exclaimed with excitement. "The friction from that yellow planet’s atmosphere could work to heat up the matter I desire. It’ll be a dangerous operation, but most planets are usually dormant, no one will mind me using their atmospheres while they rest." He stared at the yellow planet, his mind racing with plans and possibilities.
Nu wasn’t the only one with this idea. Three strangely shaped vagrant asteroids orbited the planet, each carrying a spark of intelligence like his own. They watched the flaming asteroid hungrily.
As the rock turned a searing red, the vagrants sprang into action. The first resembled a potted plant with a human face on one of its leaves, flanked by two cracked stone dolphins, their surfaces brittle and fissured. All three wore white headbands, their eyes wild with hunger, like a pack of dogs eyeing a feast.
The potted plant surged forward, devouring the molten rock with a satisfied smack of its lips. It turned to leave the atmosphere, its headband gleaming, allowing it to resist the planet’s gravity and move freely.
Nu felt a surge of envy seeing the headband''s effects, "What a treasure to resist gravity like that," he thought, his eyes narrowing. "Too bad I’m no match for those vagrants. If I were stronger, I’d take one for myself."
"I’m too weak," he muttered to himself. "I need to find a way to get stronger, or I’ll never be able to claim anything worthwhile in this life."
He sighed deeply. "As for resisting gravity... I do have a way. But I fear it might consume too much heat."
Nu concentrated, preparing to use an ancestral technique. This skill allowed him to channel heat from his core to one side of his body, releasing it in a fiery burst to propel himself at incredible speeds.
Red lines streaked across his stone surface as energy built up within him. He grabbed several pebbles to cook in the planet''s atmosphere with his mouth and made his way toward the outermost orbit, cautiously keeping his distance while watching the battle between the vagrant asteroids.
Meanwhile, the dolphins, enraged by the plant''s theft, were unwilling to leave the atmosphere without a meal. As the plant''s body emitted flames, seeing the opportunity the dolphins dove in, biting into its hottest sections. Their headbands glowing brightly, they quickly retreated.
The plant’s leaf-face twisted in fury, letting out a deafening roar before springing into action. A compartment beneath its pot opened, revealing two muscular stone arms, each gripping a barbell-like skewer. With one swift motion, the skewers pierced the dolphins’ cores, transforming them into dormant rock.
Gripping a barbell in each vine, the plant began a workout routine resembling one-handed T-bar rows, using the corpses as weights. With each rep, it dipped the skewered rock dolphins into the planet’s atmosphere, roasting them with heat generated by the friction of the abundant planetary dust.
Nu watched the scene with a mix of surprise and admiration. “These beings contain many shocking secrets that I am still unfamiliar with,” he sighed, shaking his head.
As the plant continued its vigorous workout, the dolphins’ remains began to glow molten red. Unsure whether to approach or stay at a distance, Nu hesitated. The aroma of cooked stone wafted through space, signaling the plant was nearing the end of its task.
The plant eventually retracted its skewers but didn’t eat immediately, casting wary glances toward the planet below. It began with slow, deliberate bites, but soon started wolfing down the dolphins with gusto, licking its chops as its glowing headband activated, allowing it to resist gravity and ascend away from the planet’s orbit.
But before it could go far, a crimson light began flashing on its headband. Its leaf-face twisted in panic as an intense gravitational pull overtook it. Desperately, two vines tugged at the headband, but it didn’t budge. Like a puppet cut from its strings, it spiraled into freefall toward the yellow planet.
From deep within the planet’s core, an archaic voice echoed up to the falling plant. "Little slave, I warned you not to be so greedy. You always covet what’s not yours."
The plant bellowed in panic, tears welling in its eyes. In desperation, it broke off chunks of itself and tossed them into the planet’s atmosphere, as if hoping to appease the celestial master.
The voice boomed again, "It''s too late for apologies."
"For your crimes, only death will suffice my displeasure."
The yellow planet’s gaseous surface swelled, coalescing into the shape of a giant face. Its mouth opened wide, and the potted plant disappeared inside, the sounds of a gruesome swallow following.
Seeing the shocking event unfold, Nu didn''t hesitate. He swallowed the pebbles in his mouth and activated the pull of his technique, trying to get as far away from the planet as possible.
Nu sped through space like a comet, his body leaving a trail of red light. His gains were minimal, and the dead matter digested poorly within him, causing sickly lumps to form on his surface. He forced the discomfort down, channeling more heat into his ancestral technique to aid in his escape.
"Don’t think about leaving so soon," the voice boomed again.
A powerful gravitational force slammed into Nu, halting his escape. With no way out, he turned and faced the yellow planet.
"Don’t be scared, little one. I’m not here to harm you. I’ve just lost three of my slaves and now I’m looking for replacements. That’s all. Earlier, I saw you eyeing my headbands."
From the planet’s surface, a tattered white headband rose and landed near Nu. "Why not take one for yourself?"
Nu stared at the headband, his expression grim.
"Lord Planet, I had no idea you were active. I hope you’ll look the other way this one time."
"Look the other way?" The yellow planet scoffed. "Little pebble, I’m not here to cause you grief. What you did before is hardly worth mentioning. I simply need intelligent helpers to guide asteroids to my surface."
"You seem capable of fulfilling that role. And, since you’re unclaimed, I thought we could strike a simple deal."
The planet’s voice softened, trying to sound more reasonable. "Listen, why don’t you put on the headband first? Then we can discuss the benefits of working for me."
Nu’s jaw tightened. His ancestral pride and tyrannical nature recoiled at the idea of servitude.
"I’m sorry," he sneered, "but I have no intention of becoming anyone’s slave. I’d rather die than kneel to another."
The gas giant laughed, its booming voice reverberating through the void. "Such audacity! I love it! It’s been ages since I’ve heard such fire."
Large gaseous arms appeared, wiping mock tears from its face. "Good. Thank you for the laugh, little one."
The planet’s tone shifted again. "Look, this headband is just a guarantee of my benefits. No kneeling, no calling me ‘master.’ You’ll sign a simple agreement, and when it ends, you’re free to go. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
Nu shook his head, resolute. "I can’t agree to this."
The gas giant sighed deeply. "Kid, you don’t understand. Sure, you’ve got a decent legacy. But without mass, your lineage is just empty words."
The voice grew darker. "Without submitting to a celestial being larger than yourself, you’ll never achieve anything substantial. I’ve seen it happen countless times. The universe will crush you."
"If you refuse to submit, fine. Go ahead and wander, clinging to your ancestors’ glory while the universe chews you up and spits you out."
The planet’s voice turned venomous. "You already know this, but if I wanted to, I could wipe you out with the flick of my finger. But you’re so insignificant, lifting my pinky would be a waste of energy."
Nu’s face twisted in anger, his resolve hardening.
"Go ahead," the gas giant taunted. "Leave. But don’t come crawling back in a hundred years, begging to serve me. I’ll be waiting for your apologies."
With that, the yellow planet’s face faded, and the gas giant returned to dormancy. Nu was left alone, his bloodshot eyes burning with hatred as he glared at the planet.
"You’re wrong," Nu muttered, his voice low but full of fierce resolve. "I don’t need to kneel to anyone to achieve mass."
His thoughts solidified. "My legacy is forged by the tyrannical Bohr. I will not be diminished by a mere universe."
He straightened, determination flooding his veins. "I will return in one hundred years."
"But not for your worthless deal," he spat, his voice ice-cold. "I’ll be back for your head."
The yellow planet’s face reappeared, roaring with laughter. "Ha! Bohr? Good luck with that, kid."
Nu ignored the mockery, his voice steady and unwavering. "My name is Nu. If there are no opportunities, I’ll create them myself."
With a final glance at the fading planet, he turned and walked back to the asteroid highway. The gas giant’s laughter echoed behind him, but it only strengthened his resolve.
Consumed by thoughts of proving the gas giant wrong, Nu ventured deeper into the universe, determined to carve his own path.