Ohr Ein Sof

Ohr Ein Sof was more than just an attack in a case like this—it was a bridging of points.

And I used it to drag Malkuth kicking and screaming up the Tree of Life.

In the light of Ohr Ein Sof, all things came apart, regardless of their nature. That was because, at its most basic level, it wasn’t a destructive technique—instead, it revealed the truth and sometimes that truth wasn’t something people could survive learning. In Ohr Ein Sof, in the realms above, everything feel away. There was no flesh to conceal you, no material things to distract you, no natural law or permanence or anything else. There was no time, no space, no distance. You couldn’t lie in that light, not even to yourself; couldn’t hide or deny or deceive.

What you saw was you. Who you truly were, what you truly were, behind everything. As you rose through the Tree of Life, things simplified on a level that could be—that was—frightening. Even just a step above Malkuth was Yes—the Foundation, the connection between one thing and another, between an idea and an act. Image what that was like for a person, being reduced to the foundations of who you were, somewhere between the concepts above and the realities below. And then you continue to rise higher, seemingly shedding more and more of who and what you were, reduced to what most people would think of as a soul as early as Netzach and Hod, at least were the Aura was concerned. Above that, one could argue if you existed as a being in your own right, as something distinct and separate from everything else.

That was how you survived Ohr Ein Sof and it was far more difficult than it seemed. The question was, when there was nothing left but you…was that enough? The words ‘I Am’ were simple and easily spoken when you could think and talk, when the vibrations of air could generate sound and electrical impulses help form conscious ideas, when boundaries were made real in Malkuth, but what separates one entity from another above that? The mind? Perhaps that could sustain you for a time, but what about when you reach above the mind in the heights of the Sephirot? What of when you transcend them entirely in the Light? The Light was something that was, perhaps, infinite and all-encompassing. It existed in all things, in all states of things, divided and separated by the emanations of the Sephirot. If you remove all those, what separated one thing from another?

You. You did—and absolutely nothing else. Not your body, not your mind, not your memories or feelings or emotions, not your hopes or your dreams or desires, but just you. Who you were when, paradoxically, everything you were was gone.

But that perspective was, in and of itself, limited. Keter was ‘that which laid above the mind’ and things that existed within the state of Keter or even above it…needless to say, they were hard to conceptualize. In that state, we were less people than ideas, except even that gave too much weight to us. We were the moments before an idea, the instant before something clicked and seemingly meaningless and unconnected thoughts came together into something grand. The moment of inspiration, the moment of conceptualization, the first moments of existence. If the world had sprung forth with a bang, Keter was the silence that preceded it. Something impossible to truly nail down but undeniably existent; the beginning. Not where something was perceived as beginning, like the first word on a page or even the first idea of the story, but what came before that.

And instead of an idea, it was a person. Though calling it a idea and a person may not have been incorrect, on this level.

This was the prison I’d sentenced Malkuth to—the prison of Being and Almost Being, to the moments you lived before you were. Where there was nothing but who you were about to be, except perhaps one other thing. The ‘soul’, beyond all labels or expectations.

And this was the state I’d brought us to now.

Everything we were on the surface fell away, our physical forms dissolved and what remained—who we really were when all else was stripped away—flowed up the channels of the Sephirot. I felt it as we rose, each level stripping away more of who we were, peeling back the lies that hid the truth. Though the attack may have struck Gilgamesh, that body was nothing but Malkuth’s puppet now, and it did nothing to hide him. Ohr Ein Sof peeled away the flesh and bared the soul, tracing the connection back to its source. For a moment, I could sense him in a way that was hard to describe, because ‘sense’ implied observation, the ability to distinguish the world outside from yourself, or at least distinguish different parts of yourself. I couldn’t do that here, because most of it just didn’t apply. I couldn’t think and so I couldn’t form thoughts into ideas and words.

But I was. And I knew I was. After all—and especially now—I was Metatron. I was Keter, the Crown and that which remains. And here, I had the advantage.

In many ways, this was nothing but a change in our battlefield—an exceedingly literal escalation. Just as Malkuth warped the laws of physics to shape the terms of our battle, I’d now removed us from those laws entirely to turn things to my advantage. Our power and control of the world didn’t matter here, only we did, who we were. We didn’t pit those things against each other, didn’t come into conflict, because the mere idea of a fight on this level was laughable. Even thinking mean thoughts in each other’s general directions was impossible, because we had no location, direction, or thoughts to do such things with.

Instead, we fought by existing. By continuing to exist, above and beyond the grasp of everything that implied we could or should exist. What could you hold onto when you had and were nothing and what would you let slip through your grasp? I had the advantage, by my very nature—my power, my Semblance, they all drew from this. In many ways, the Gamer’s Body and Mind were tied back to this state and thus all of my power. More than that, I had Metatron on my side, both the skill and the name. I knew who I was.

Malkuth, I assumed, just had a lot of experience from being locked up here all this time. But even then, that wasn’t entirely an advantage, because it was that much harder to cling to physical things and that was a major danger in Ohr Ein Sof. Perhaps you managed to cling to your mind—but do you still have a body to attach it to? What if your body remains, but not yourself? What if nothing remains? I had a similar issue because, if anything, this was my natural state, but I was better equipped to deal with it. And while in many ways, Malkuth felt as solid as the world itself and as steady as it’s turnings, I could feel things on the edges beginning to fray.

Then the moment passed. Ideas initialized and renewed, pieces coming together and taking shape—inspiration became idea became action. We were again.

And I found myself somewhere besides Jericho Falls.

“So,” Malkuth said, voice coming from behind me but sounding different, indistinct. Everything that had been in the voice before was gone. “It appears you won after all, Keter. How…annoying.”

I turned around slowly and looked at him. He didn’t look like Gilgamesh anymore; he was back in the form that I’d originally seen him in, a black hole with a person-shaped event horizon, and stood looking at me quietly. The world around us was a vague and indistinct plain, as if he couldn’t be bothered to give it any definition, with nothing but the two of us within it.

“You don’t sound too upset,” I asked, looking around as I tried to figure out where we were.

“Oh, I’m furious,” He replied, but his tone was dull. “It pisses me off that you managed to get this far, that I’m going to have to do this the hard way. You lost Keter and I watched you die—it just doesn’t seem fair that I still have to fucking deal with you and your shit.”

“Wait, are you talking about fairness?” I asked, looking at him, down, and back up. “Is that a thing you’re doing right now?”

He ignored me.

“You should have lost,” He continued. “But you did this and here we are again.”

He gestured and I looked around, considering his words.

We were still somewhere in-between, I realized. Using Ohr Ein Sof, I’d dragged up to the top of the Tree of Life, but that was only half of the technique—the rise that was followed by a descent. But he’d stopped it at the border between Malkuth and Yesod, which was why nothing seemed quite finished or real.

No, perhaps ‘stop’ wasn’t the right word. I could still feel the power of Ohr Ein Sof building, feel it gathering to destroy him—but he’d paused it just before the end, apparently to get a last word in.

Seriously, what an asshole. You lost, you worthless piece of shit—just up and die already so you can go back to your fucking box.