Kill Six Billion Demons IV: King of Swords (part fourteen)

Sunrise on Rayuba. Do both suns rise and set at the same time? Kinda seems like they do. Gog-Agog starts up the morning broadcast, announcing the final day of the tournament. Interestingly, she starts it with the words "Good morning, Rayuba!" which indicates that the broadcast is only covering this one planet and not being relayed out into the multiverse. My confusion about which worlds do and don't have radio technology and whether mass media extends throughout whole empires is not going to end anytime soon. Anyway, the final match is going to be between some angel whose name Gog can't remember, and the Celestial Empire. Gog isn't salty about this, you're salty about this.

Granted, as with any apparent display of emotion from Gog-Agog, it's impossible to tell if there's anything genuine in there or if it's just layered performances designed to manipulate Solomon, Team Killy, the other Black Kings, and the general populace in various ways.

Meanwhile, Killy and Cio groggily wake up. The guest accommodations at Solomon's palace aren't what you might hope, but they are exactly what you'd expect given the circumstances.

Those bars must be made of something more impressive than it looks. Also the walls. And the ceiling and floor. And the space between them.

Turns out that they haven't actually woken up yet, though. Killy is just having a very boring dream about being asleep in the same cell that she's actually asleep in. It gets a little bit more engaging, though no less irritating, when Incubus appears in it. Asking her what she plans to do next, and goading her into not just laying back and accepting this bullshit. He even offers to bring back Succubus if she needs an extra boost again, which Killy (thankfully) shuts down before he can even finish his sentence.

Killy isn't lacking for power, she tells him. Whatever kind of extra magic Solomon has reinforcing the prison, it's not going to stand up to what she can dish out with the Masterkey. Solomon knew that just as well as she does when he put her in here. But, she and him also both know that Killy can't just abandon White Chain, Nyave, Zaid, and also I guess maybe Princess on a good day. And, the two of them also both know that her bigger forehead-boomstick just isn't enough to make up for Solomon's ki-rata, army of vatras, and millennia of demiurge-on-demiurge combat experience. Even if she fused with Cio again *and* took Incubus up on his shmuck bait offer again, it wouldn't be enough. She's seen what Solomon can do in combat, and she knows that no version of herself has ever been able to match it.

This was probably at least part of the reason Solomon did that showboat 1ve battle last night. To demonstrate to Killy and Co that they're better off working with him than against him.

Maybe the key to victory isn't actually just being the best and most proactive at applying violence. Incubus tells her that that's stupid, OBVIOUSLY being the best at and quickest to resort to killing is the only way to get ahead in life. But then, it turns out that projecting yourself into Killy's head incurs the risk of you running into someone else. Someone who Incubus is not exactly prepared to spar either verbally or in any other sense.

I think this is the first time anyone besides Killy has been able to see him. Well, "see" him. His intertemporal Masterkey projection can interact with Incubus' interdimensional dream projection, when both of them are in the same person's dreamscape.

...come to think of it, this is also the first time that Incubus has unambiguously dreamwalked from across dimensional barriers. In all previous instances, it was either explicit or ambiguous that Killy was in Throne or the surrounding void desert, where Incubus spends most of his time. I very much doubt that he's in the Rayuban dimension right now. Does this mean he can appear in the dreams of anyone, anywhere, whenever he wants? Or is he only able to longdistance call Killy because she'd already established a strong link with him?

I want to say it's the latter, since otherwise it seems like Incubus should be in a much stronger position against the other Black Kings right now. But then, I also feel like the author has been gradually caring less and less about what each character is capable of and what that should mean for the world around them, so maybe I'm just putting too much thought into this.

In any case though, the next few panels include an amusing exchange. Incubus panics at the sight of Zoss and babbles about how he can't be here, he's dead. Which prompts Zoss to just say "that hasn't stopped me yet." Lol.

Killy ignores the whining prick and asks Zoss how she can save White Chain. To which Zoss gives her the obvious reply.

This isn't Killy's battle to win or lose, and White Chain's isn't her life to risk or protect. What she's asking his advice on is how to take her friend's agency away, and he's not going to condone that much less encourage it. The Übermensch is, after all, neither slave nor master.

It was the final lesson that Zoss himself had to learn, he explains, and by the time he learned it, it was too late to undo his mistakes. He had tried to create an order that would preserve and enrich multiversal civilization, but the harder he pushed the faster it all spun toward ruin. What he hadn't realized was that all the strength in the world is just going to be wasted if it's all held by one person. If only he had empowered others to do their best instead of just trusting in him, this might have all been averted. So, his final act was to give his power to someone else, and now he's advising Killy to do the same thing in another sense. The king of swords must cast aside his blade. Let White Chain fight her battle. Support her, advise her, but don't control her. Do the same elsewhere, wherever possible, with anyone who seems to be trying to reverse the decay.

...

I wonder if there's a way to actually divide up the Masterkey. If I've been understanding this correctly, the other Keys of Kings are just relay nodes that each catch one of the 777,777 voices that have already resonated through the Masterkey. Would it be possible to cut out the middleman and just have 777,777 primary resonators, and ideally design them so that they CAN'T be pooled together like the Black Kings did with their relays?

Granted, this still allows for a (relatively) small group of tyrants to hold disproportionate, unearned power. But it would make the problem much more manageable. Not to mention that if one person can only ever use a maximum of one Key at a time, then I don't think these neo-demurgi would necessarily be stronger than the various other sorts of magicians and spirits that roam the multiverse.

It's a thought, certainly. And it seems like a logical goal to pursue, from the angle that Zoss seems to be taking. It may or may not be physically possible, though.

...

Killy wakes up. Or is woken up, rather. Cio has awoken her, telling her that she was shifting around and mumbling in her sleep an awful lot and that she was starting to get worried. Shortly later, some guards arrive to give the prisoners some more presentable clothing and escort them back to the Ring of Power; the Emperor has apparently commanded their presence there for the coming duel. Hmm. Wonder what Solomon is trying to bait her into doing?

Also, Rayuban high fashion looks like absolute shit. Seriously I'd take the goddamned hat lady's fashion sense over whatever the fuck these dresses are supposed to be:

Cio asks her if she has any ideas. Killy just relays Zoss' advice. White Chain chose this fight, and Killy no longer thinks she has anything to gain from fighting it instead of her. Either have faith in White Chain, or just write her off for dead. It's no one else's place to have "ideas" right now.

Meanwhile, some shirtless Rayuban musclebois are patching White Chain's avatar up as best they can. They even sculpted a new patch of chest plating and are nailing and fusing it into place to replace the part that Killy vaporized.

It's not going to get this synth back to 100%, but it should get it at least reasonably close.

Can White Chain really not just get a new synth given the circumstances? Solomon should certainly be able to provide one. It doesn't *seem* like it's that hard for an angel to bond with a new avatar, considering that Juggernaut Stars multi-sleeving trick is a thing that exists. Does it really take more than a day? Maybe it does, idk. In any case, Solomon is in perfect health and condition, and the attendants helping him onto the arena are purely ceremonial.

The opponents face each other. The outfits are a little disappointingly earthly, I must say.

Really, just plain old gis?​

The two exchange some purely ceremonial pleasantries. Up in whatever part of the audience seating Killy and Cio are being kept at spearpoint, Cio asks Killy if she has any idea what White Chain's plan is. Killy replies that she doesn't think White Chain is planning to win this duel at all.

Granted, I'm not sure what the stakes actually are for White Chain. The lines between an angelic avatar and its spirit body have gotten frustratingly blurry in this volume, so it's hard to say what Solomon's attacks can do to her. Would he have to deliberately chase her into the void to land a "killing" blow, or will a strong/metaphysical enough attack be enough to damage her spirit form as well as her synth? Will it take her a few hours until she can find a new avatar to come back into the story, or will it take a few centuries as she regenerates in the void? I feel like I've read enough of this comic by now that I *should* understand these rules, but I don't. This is a problem.

...

Before you start to type: I really, really don't care if the author explained it all on Twitter or some shit.

...

As the battle begins, White Chain recites a custom version of the Concordant battle mantra. Last time she fought, as Lamassu pointed out a few scenes ago, she forgot to say it at all. This time though, her adjustments to the wording suggests that she's actually THINKING about what she's saying this time, rather than just reciting it out of rote, easily-missable habit.

If you know you're fighting for a just cause, then you should have nothing to beg forgiveness for. If it later turns out you were in the wrong, you can apologize then.

And really, even then, are the gods of the multiplicity really entities you should be looking up to for moral guidance? Are any of their opinions really worth much, when it comes to whether a given act of violence is or isn't justified? We don't know how accurate the myths and stories told about them actually are, but if they have even so much as a kernel of truth to them then the answer is a definitive "no."

I guess this is confirmation that White Chain is planning to lose, also. You don't charge into battle and shout a variation of "WITNESS MEEEEEE!!!" if you plan on coming home again afterward.

White Chain closes the distance and unloads on the Black King with a flurry of Empty-Palms attacks. Solomon blacks them and retaliates using...Empty-Palms.

I mean. We were told that Killy can only safely learn and use this martial art because of the Key toughening her body. Solomon David has one of those too. So. Naturally.

We also already know of his affinity for utterly transparent humblebragging, so that part isn't especially surprising either.

Up in the gallery, Cio picks up an idiot ball that she found rolling along the aisle, and it compels her to try to leap down into the pit and help White Chain. Somehow. Fortunately, Killy pulls her back and points out that there's nothing she can do to help. Just like there was nothing she could do to help the last time she leaped into the arena and thought she was helping. Interfering in the match means the person you helped is disqualified, so it obviously doesn't help their chances of victory. At any time, any contestant can also choose to flee the arena and yield, so it's not like she's saving her life at the cost of a possible win either; White Chain can already do that herself whenever she wants to. Killy could also already do that herself whenever she wanted to, during the battle royale. It was sheer tunnel-vision and investment fallacy that caused her to forget that fact and NOT just withdraw as soon as it became clear she couldn't make it. Blinded by the spectacle.

As Killy tries to get Cio to see sense here like she herself has finally done, 420 Lamassu Whose Head Is An Ophan looms up behind them and counsels likewise. I guess Solomon isn't having them kept as far from general audiences as it seemed, for some reason. Or else Lamassu is also a prisoner and they have a box to themselves; that would make more sense. A startled Cio irritably asks if all angels just come up and join conversations from behind instead of *ever* just saying hello.

I thought this might be an interesting cultural quirk for angels, or at least for Concordant Knights. But then I looked back at some earlier scenes, and oh well.

I guess it's just a bad habit that White Chain and Lamassu share, then.

Lamassu apologizes (and to be fair, unlike White Chain, this guy has been meditating out in the void for centuries and only talking to other disembodied angels, so he has more excuse to have forgotten his manners) and introduces himself. His lame fake dumb name is 10 Vigilant Gaze Purges The Horizon. Eh, fine, whatever, I'll call him that. Anyway, he tells them that he's known White Chain for about as long as it's possible to know someone for, and what he's seen over the millennia - and what he's seeing now - makes him confident in whatever she's doing.

For the first time ever, White Chain is acting on her own initiative, without any pretences or external justifications, but at the same time she hasn't "fallen" exactly. Vigilant Gaze thinks that he may be learning from White Chain's example, here; the teacher becoming the student.

It's just too bad that White Chain had to fight pretty much the entire rest of their kind in order to get to this point.

Speaking of the fallen, down in the pit White Chain starts using the "Leisure Kicks" fighting style that we first saw being used by that one gay crime angel. At the time, White Chain looked down on this style, declaring it uncouth and unfit for angelkind. Now, she's using it herself.

And so is Solomon David.

It's pretty clear at this point that Solomon has mastered every martial art worth learning. In his thousands of years of life, whenever he hasn't been too busy with statecraft and preening around the capital looking artfully humble and approachable, he's been practicing fist arts. True, that's probably also what angels do, but I suspect he has some extra learning tricks employing his Key, as well as just having already learned Ki-Rata which makes everything else much easier by comparison.

However he came to be this way, it's clear that you're just not beating Solomon David in a duel. Whatever weapons you bring to the fight, he already has better ones.

...well. Possibly. If there's any one kind of attack that might be able to give him pause, it would be Meti's conceptual cutting power. He might not know how to contend with that. But then, he also might.

...

On one hand, I can see why the author chose Shlomo ben David to be this character's namesake. In addition to the story about the worm that built his temple and the demon that made him regret it, Shlomo's name in Judaism (as well as Christianity and Islam, to varying extents) is synonymous with the concept of The Good King.

On the other hand, Shlomo's claims to fame mostly centre on him not being a warrior king, unlike his predecessors. I guess that could be part of the intended subversion - Solomon is the corrupted realization of an ideal that was never actually attainable in the first place - but it somehow feels less fitting than the other ways in which he plays that role. Making the martial aspect such a defining part of his thing doesn't click with me the way the rest of it does.

I guess it could be that the second part of his name is supposed to be a reference to the biblical Shlomo's father David, rather than just being a reference to Shlomo's surname ("Shlomo ben David" is literally just "Solomon, son of David"). David was very much a warrior king.

Hard to say what the author was thinking.

...

As Solomon overpowers White Chain, the latter asks him if he ever so much as considered the possibility that he might actually lose one of these tournaments, or if it was only ever just a fig leaf of accountability over his unaccountable regime. In response, Solomon - presumably speaking quietly, so that only White Chain can hear - says what might be the first honest, genuine thing he's said so far.

...or maybe not. Unfortunately, he follows it up immediately with this:

Was he almost admitting it for a second, there? If so, it was only a brief moment of self-awareness before letting himself be pulled back under the ocean of his own bullshit. Or maybe it was just another bit of empty rhetoric that almost sounded like it meant something, without the context of the second half.

White Chain is, much like myself, unimpressed by where that little speech ultimately went.

I'm not entirely sure if she's right, though. We have yet to see Solomon David in a situation where he actually has to choose between his performance and anything else really important to him. If he were to actually somehow lose one of these duels, then we would see, and White Chain could turn out to be right or wrong based on Solomon's reactions.

She's probably right, but until then (or an analogous situation of some kind. Like, say, if Yisun showed up and offered him a choice between his kingdom and his original murdered family back or something) we can't say for sure.

This seems like a suitably dramatic stopping point. I think there will just be one more post for this volume before I do the final analysis.