The first sensation was not pain. Pain was a biological signal, a warning fire lit by damaged nerves, and for the first nanosecond of his arrival, Gezantophil did not yet have a nervous system to light it.
The first sensation was pressure.
It was the feeling of an ocean trying to force itself inside a thimble. It was the crushing, suffocating weight of sudden, absolute limitation. For an eternity—a unit of time he usually ignored—he had been a consciousness that spanned light-years, a thought that existed everywhere at once.
Now, he was being folded, compressed, and hammered into a vessel that stood less than two meters tall. He felt his infinite dimensions snapping shut like steel trapdoors, locking him into a single point in space.
"Too tight", his mind screamed, the reflex of a deity instinctively pushing against the boundaries of the flesh. This cage is too small.
Do not push his logic countered, cold and precise. Pushing snaps the law of probability. Submit to the flesh.
He forced himself to submit. He accepted the indignity of having "edges." He accepted the humiliation of having a "location." He allowed the universe to dictate where he ended and where the rest of the world began.
Then, the biology kicked in.
Gravity slammed into him like a physical blow, a heavy, invisible hand pressing down on his shoulders. It was a relentless, downward drag that felt offensive to a being used to floating in the void.
His lungs, wet and new, inflated with a ragged, tearing gasp, sucking in air that tasted of sulfur, ancient mold, and human fear. His heart—a crude, fleshy pump no larger than a fist—kicked against his ribs with a rhythm that sounded like a war drum beating inside his skull. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
It was deafening. It was relentless. How did mortals think with this constant biological noise inside them? It was like trying to compose a symphony while sitting inside a running engine.
He opened his eyes.
The visual data was blurry, low-resolution, and painfully narrow. He tried to look behind him and realized he couldn't. His field of view was a pathetic cone of light in a world of darkness. He had to physically turn his head, straining neck muscles that felt stiff and cold. Disgusting. he thought, blinking away the rheum of birth.
I am blind to 180 degrees of my own environment. I am vulnerable from the rear. This is not a body; it is a coffin with windows.
He blinked again, tears streaming down cheeks he hadn't possessed a moment ago. The tears were a reflex; his new eyes were stinging from the acrid smoke filling the room. He wiped them away with a hand that felt alien—five fingers, pale skin, blue veins pulsing just beneath the surface.
He focused. The blur sharpened into shapes.
He was standing in the center of a circle drawn in chalk. The lines were glowing with a faint, sickly red light—a containment ward designed to hold a Infernal Entity. He could see the metaphysical structure of the spell; it was sloppy, riddled with loopholes and leaks.
To Gezantophil, the ward looked like a fence made of rotting cobwebs. He could step through it without noticing, but the intent behind it was cute. It was like an ant drawing a line in the sand to stop a tsunami.
Around the circle stood twelve figures. They were draped in crimson robes that had seen better days, the velvet worn thin at the elbows, the hems stained with the grey mud of the underground.
They were chanting, or at least they had been. Now, the chanting had died in their throats, strangled by a sudden, choking silence.
The room was a basement. Concrete walls that sweated moisture, water stains blooming like dark flowers on the ceiling, a single naked bulb fighting a losing war against the shadows cast by flickering black candles. It smelled of wet earth and bad choices.
But Linear Gezantophil did not look at the humans first. He felt a heat on his back, a radiation that prickled the fine hairs on his neck. He turned to look at the rift behind him.
The fabric of space was still torn open, a jagged, vertical wound in the air leading to the Abyss. He could feel the chaotic entropy radiating from it, a wind that smelled of burning ozone and sulfur. And he could feel the entity that had been halfway through the door when he shoved it aside to steal its entry vector.
It was a Demon—a monstrosity of cooling magma, jagged bone spurs, and hate. It was currently clinging to the other side of the dimensional tear, its massive, clawed hands gripping the edges of reality, peering through the closing gap.
The demon's yellow, reptilian eyes met Linear's human ones.
The demon saw the flesh. It saw the naked, pale skin. It saw the wet, dark hair plastered to the skull. It saw a human male, frail and soft.
But then, it looked deeper. It looked into the pupils.
It didn't see a soul. It saw the Pilot. It saw the infinite, crushing weight of the consciousness wearing the skin suit.
The demon froze. The primal instinct of the Abyss—a survival mechanism honed over millennia of eating lesser souls and fleeing from greater ones—screamed one word that echoed in the beast's primitive brain: PREDATOR.
The creature made a sound that no throat should be capable of—a high-pitched whimper of absolute, existential dread. It didn't attack nor It did roar. It scrambled backward into the darkness of its own hell, tripping over its massive tail, clawing at the obsidian ground to put as much distance as possible between itself and the thing standing in the basement.
Smart boy, Linear thought, watching the beast retreat. Run back to the fire. It's safer there.
The rift sealed with a soft, final pop. The tear in reality stitched itself shut, leaving only the smell of ozone and the heavy silence of the room.
Silence descended on the basement. It was heavy, thick, and suffocating. It was the kind of silence that precedes an execution.
Linear turned back to the cultists. He looked at them. They looked at him.
He waited for the attack. He waited for the confusion. He checked his internal status, his mind racing through calculations faster than any supercomputer.
Probability of Local Reality Collapse is near zero. It's Stable.
My current Current Physical Status is a normal human, my Muscle density is very high but my Reflexes are Uncalibrated.
My Current Divine Authority is Sealed, Locked behind the Probability Barrier. My information is really limited. I'm not omniscient nor omnipotent anymore.
He was naked. He was shivering slightly from the damp chill of the basement. If one of these fanatics decided to pull a gun and shoot him, the bullet would pierce his skin. He would bleed. He might even die. Dying five minutes after descending would be a humiliating end to his vacation, a cosmic joke that would echo for eternity.
He needed to assert dominance. Immediately. He needed to weaponize their expectations.
The cultist at the head of the circle—a man with a slightly cleaner robe and a heavy medallion of rusted iron hanging around his neck—was trembling. His hands shook violently. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and fixated on Linear's unblemished skin.
"No horns..." the leader whispered. His voice cracked, dry and terrified. "No scales. No stench of rot. The air... it does not smell of sulfur anymore."
Linear stiffened, his muscles tensing for a fight. Here it comes. They realize the summon failed. They realize I am just a man who hijacked their ritual.
"A perfect vessel..." the leader breathed, the fear in his voice turning into something else—a manic, desperate reverence. He dropped to his knees. The sound of his kneecaps hitting the concrete was wet and heavy. "The texts were true. The Forbidden Scrolls did not lie. The final evolution of the Abyss is not a beast... it is Perfection."
The other eleven cultists collapsed like dominoes. Foreheads slammed against the dirty floor. A ripple of crimson fabric bowed before his nakedness.
"A Primordial!" another acolyte shrieked into the dust, his voice muffled by the concrete. "We have succeeded! We have summoned a Primordial One! He has shed the shell of the beast! He has transcended the form!"
Linear blinked. His human brain, still calibrating the strange chemical signals of surprise, processed the logic instantly.
Ah. In this universe, the hierarchy is circular. The lowest demons are beasts. The middle demons are monstrosities. The highest demons... loop back to looking human. To them, the lack of monstrous features is the ultimate proof of power.
They didn't see a weak human. They saw a monster so powerful it no longer needed claws to kill. They saw an entity that had grown beyond the need for armor.
It was a delicious misunderstanding. And functionally, it was the only thing keeping him alive.
"My Lord," the leader stammered, not daring to lift his eyes from Linear's bare feet. "Forgive our meager offering. We expected a... a Duke of Heat. We did not dream... we did not dare hope for a Prince of the Abyss. We are unworthy to gaze upon your skin."
Linear rolled his neck. The cervical vertebrae popped—crack, crack, crack. The sound echoed like gunshots in the quiet room.
Physical sensation was distinct, sharp, and limited. He flexed his fingers, watching the tendons move under the skin. He felt the air move against his body. He felt the blood moving in his veins, a warm, rhythmic tide.
He needed to speak. He needed to solidify this narrative before their fear turned into curiosity. What would a Primordial Demon say? Something archaic? Something threatening?
No. A Primordial would be above threats. A Primordial would be bored. A Primordial would view them as insects.
Linear stepped over the chalk lines. The "barrier" sizzled against his ankle—a static shock, like touching a doorknob in winter. It was pathetic. He ignored it, stepping out of the circle as if walking through mist.
He stopped in front of the prostrate leader. He looked down at the back of the man's balding head, seeing the sweat beading on his neck.
"The air is stale," Linear said.
His voice surprised him. It wasn't the voice of a god. It was raspy, unused, vibrating in a throat that had never spoken a word. It sounded human, but the absolute lack of inflection, the complete absence of human warmth, made it sound cold. It sounded like a dead thing speaking.
The leader flinched as if struck. "Apologies, Great One! The ventilation is... we are underground to avoid the Eyes of the Church! The Inspectors are everywhere! We live in the shadows to serve you!"
"Clothes," Linear stated. He did not ask. He did not demand. He simply stated a requirement of reality.
"Yes! At once!" The leader scrambled up, keeping his head bowed low so his chin touched his chest, and frantically gestured to a terrified acolyte in the corner. "The ceremonial garb! Now, you idiot! Do not keep the Great One waiting!"
The acolyte tripped over his own robe, scrabbling at a duffel bag in the shadows with shaking hands. He produced a folded pile of fabric—a black suit, crisp and modern, likely intended for the cult leader's post-ritual dinner or a funeral.
Linear took the clothes. The fabric felt rough against his sensitive fingertips. Wool. Cheap wool. The fibers irritated his new skin. He dressed slowly. He pulled on the trousers. He buttoned the shirt. He tied the shoes. Every movement was watched by twelve pairs of eyes that were terrified to look but too awestruck to look away. They watched him dress as if witnessing a sacrament.
When he buttoned the jacket, he felt the the universe hum around him.
He had the authority of a God and the durability of a barista. He was walking a tightrope over a pit of vipers, armed only with a bluff and a suit that didn't quite fit in the shoulders.
"Who," Linear asked, smoothing the lapel of the jacket, "is the current keeper of this... flock?"
"I am, Great One," the leader squeaked, bowing again. "I am High Priest Malakor. We are the Order of the Severed Tongue. We have waited three generations for this night."
"Malakor," Linear tested the name. It tasted like ash. "You have done... adequately."
Malakor let out a sob of relief, tears streaming into his beard. "Thank you, my Lord. Thank you. Your praise is worth a thousand deaths."
"But," Linear added, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop five degrees solely from the shift in his tone. He let a fraction of his intent—just a drop of the ocean—leak into his voice. "My descent has... taxed the local causality. I require information to anchor myself."
"Anything, my Lord. The library is yours. The vault is yours. Our lives are yours. Command us."
"Good," Linear said. He looked around the dismal basement. He looked at the water stains. He looked at the flickering bulb. This was his starting point. The Creator of All Things, standing in a basement in New Jersey—or wherever this damp hell was—asking for a snack.
"Start by telling me the date," Linear said, turning to face the stairs. "And then... bring me something to eat. This vessel has a metabolism, and I find it... demanding."