God of Information [Bit]

Excruciating pain.

A pain unlike anything he had ever known, as though every fiber of his soul and body were being forcibly stripped away and ground into powder, crashed over his entire consciousness.

"Fuck, why does this hurt so much?!"

He blurted it out instinctively, yet his voice did not travel through any familiar medium. He abruptly opened his "eyes," only to fall into utter bewilderment.

There was no up, down, left, or right, and no physical matter. Everything before him was composed, in the literal sense, of countless colors. They were not still pigments, but surged like undercurrents in the deep sea, intertwining, colliding, annihilating one another, then being reborn the next instant. Dazzling nebulae and bottomless black vortices were neighbors here; silent roars and tranquil whispers were parts of the same melody. He stood in the center of this strange ocean.

He wanted to look at his hands, to confirm his own existence. Yet the moment that thought arose, he discovered in shock that his perspective was utterly different from what it had been when he was human.

He had no fixed point of view.

His perception was omnidirectional, even transcending dimensions. He could simultaneously "see" before him, behind him, above him, below him, and even... inside and outside. He could see that he was a form twisted together from countless faintly glowing streams of data and conceptual symbols. Those streams flowed like blood vessels, carrying energy and sustaining his nonexistent "existence." He could clearly "read" every fundamental information stream that made up this strange body, as though examining open-source code.

It was precisely because of this "self-observation" that the soul-rending pain miraculously eased somewhat. It was as though a chaotic system, once inspected by an administrator, had begun to stabilize. At last, he had a moment to catch his breath and calmly assess his situation.

At that moment, a memory that did not belong to his personal experiences, yet fit his current state perfectly, slowly rose like a bubble from the deep sea and merged into his consciousness.

He quickly received the answer.

He had died, then come back to life. Or rather, he had transformed. He had become some kind of... god. A newly born deity who held dominion over [Information] and [Data]. And the place where he now stood had gone by many names in the records of countless civilizations—the "High Heavens," the "Great Ocean," the "Realm of Emotion," and its most well-known, most infamous name—the Warp.

"Fuck... Warhammer 40K?!"

For a moment, the God of Information did not know whether to laugh or cry.

On one hand, he had become a god. So long as he was not erased by some horrifying external entity, the God of Information had, in theory, attained immortality and power beyond the reach of most Imperium heroes—even Adeptus Astartes.

But on the other hand... there were far too many threats here! The Warp! This was the backyard of the Chaos Gods! Vashtorr, that mechanical fiend, was probably very interested in his dominion over [Information and Data], wasn't he? To Vashtorr, he was obviously a steaming slab of meat.

The God of Information's first thought was: Could he go home?

His home—that azure planet, that safe zone whose military strength was negligible even within the Solar System. With his current nature, going back would be like an endgame player in god-tier gear returning to a beginner kindergarten. He could throw his weight around however he pleased. Why stay in Warhammer's dark, bloody shithole and suffer?

The moment that thought arose, an information torrent far greater and more surging than the memories before instantly coursed through his consciousness.

Countless webpages, forum posts, video streams, social media updates, encrypted military communications, dark web transaction records, real-time data from Internet of Things devices... From 4K high-definition entertainment videos to dull logistics spreadsheets on a server deep inside some military base, everything on Earth's internet, public or otherwise, opened its doors to him in that instant.

The God of Information immediately understood. His current dominion had completely connected him to Earth on the other side through its "internet." It could be said that every information terminal on Earth, military or civilian, whether it had an isolated local network or no physical network connection at all, was now entirely under his control.

If he could return, this story would instantly become one of invincibility. Unfortunately, he could not.

"So this is... the power of a god?" The God of Information let out a soundless gasp.

At the same time, he clearly realized that he had lost any possibility of returning. The reason was simple. First, that corner of the material universe lacked the Warp, the "soil" required for his existence. Second, and more crucially, Earth's "infosphere" was far too small to bear his current divine body. He was like a blue whale, while Earth was merely a tiny puddle. Forcing his way in would only result in his being stranded and destroyed. At the very least, the total volume of information generated by a galactic-scale civilization would barely be sufficient to serve as his "harbor."

Thus, the God of Information sank into the grief of being unable to return home.

Perhaps a few seconds passed, perhaps tens of thousands of years. After all, time flowed without any pattern in the Warp. Who could say for sure?

Only after that sorrow vanished completely, as though deleted data, did he pull himself together. Emotion could not solve problems, after all. After careful thought, he realized that his current circumstances were likely extremely dangerous. He was in the Warp, a place packed with hidden monsters where everyone was a villain. At any moment, some powerful being passing by might kick him to death like a stray dog by the roadside.

His current power was clearly not that great. The pain within him and that faint, lingering weakness could not be faked.

For one thing, after analyzing and taking control of all Earth's information, he had carefully calculated that the process had actually consumed 0.2 seconds of Earth time in the material universe.

0.2 seconds! For a god, that was absurdly slow!

How could a demigod have so little power left? Had Tzeentch stolen his kidneys?

Regardless, his fundamental dominion was [Information] and [Data]. An instinctive craving told him that, just as the Tyranid needed to consume biomass, he needed to acquire more and greater quantities of information and data in order to become stronger and better protect himself from danger.

However, he was fundamentally different from the Tyranid, who devoured everything. When he took information and data, his default method was "copy," not "cut." Of course, if he wanted to, cutting was not impossible either.

"Now that I've been reborn, shouldn't I give myself a new name?" The God of Information pondered for a while. "I came from Earth. Though I probably won't be able to go back in the future, it's still best to draw inspiration from Earth... I'll call myself [Bit]!"