After Screwllum released the fragments of information he had intercepted in the Simulated Universe, they came vividly to life, the footage captured during monitoring playing out before the assembled geniuses.
Then, abruptly, the instant Xipe the Harmony descended, piercing laughter erupted, tearing through the boundaries of the geniuses' reason.
In a corner of the battlefield, in a desolate stretch well suited to watching the show, Aha's balls and playing cards huddled together as they clapped beside Jiang Yu, doubled over with laughter.
The sudden wild laughter tore through the cold battlefield and the stars of the cosmos, crossing the limits of the information model to whirl through the geniuses' heads like ten thousand simultaneous howls. Even their innately brilliant brains, blessed by Nous, could not maintain their reason at that moment, their thoughts and awareness gradually slowing amid the laughter...
On Iledishina, the birthplace and grave of the Aeon of Propagation, the war of gods had begun. Xipe came beside Aha and heard the Aeon who had brought Akivili along call out in delight:
"Oh, Mother of the Swarm of Stars!" Aha began lavishing praise. Observed at such "close range," their words made the geniuses uncomfortable. "As long as what you want to do is fun enough-even a relay race! Things change in an instant. One moment we were still in talks, and the next, Taiyi had become you. What a pity... my old friend! But they make you look better."
In the geniuses' ears, Aha's voice became wild laughter and maddened ravings. They could not understand the language of a god and could only pick out a tiny bit of comprehensible information from between the words, stuffing it into minds growing ever more muddled and witless amid the laughter.
Aha seemed to be hinting at something, but no one