Ti passed.
And with the passage of ti, ca decisions.
In that period, Achilles had traversed across the weavings of ti.
Temporal distance was just another form of space to be walked when you understood quantum principles well enough, when you’d beco One With Existence!
He’d pulled the ancestral partners of the Adrastia Emperor Kings forward- the beings who had borne the next generation with each Emperor King, who had contributed their own unique lineages to the bloodline that culminated in him.
So were not entirely human, their genetics carrying traces of stellar entities. Others were more conventional but no less important for having provided the bridge between generations.
There was even one who had been a servant in the Royal House that the Fourth Adrastia Emperor King ruled over...a woman of modest origin who had sohow caught the attention of royalty and beco the mother of the Fifth.
After all of this was done, after the ancestral partners had been relocated and the full lineage stood assembled in defiance of chronology itself, Achilles had addressed the remaining minor matters that required attention before their grand exodus.
He’d already silently spread trillions of particles of the Void across the entirety of the Sea of Thalassara...microscopic seeds of negation scattered through every cubic ter of the radiant waters, positioned with precision that would allow him to accomplish the relocation when the mont arrived.
He didn’t bother with the Founders.
The old brothers of the First Adrastia Emperor King who had betrayed him remained untouched, lost in their own weavings of existence, completely unaware of what was currently happening in regions they no longer monitored.
If he wanted to at this ti, Achilles could crush them with the sa equivalency of power as crushing ants. The effort would be trivial, the expenditure aningless, the satisfaction minimal.
And yet, after bringing his father back to the current era, after pulling all the Adrastia Emperor Kings forward...
He felt nothing but apathy when he considered those old betrayers.
It was a viewpoint that had been amplified by his entrance into the next Scale of Existence, a perspective shift that ca from standing so far above forr enemies that their continued existence seed irrelevant.
And pragmatically, their deaths would leave behind traces of their existence that could draw the gazes of more powerful Nar’Thyss.
Better to let them be and continue to toil as playthings for forces larger than themselves...living out whatever remained of their existences in ignorance of how thoroughly they’d been surpassed.
At this mont, Achilles floated while staring at the vast expanse of the Sea of Thalassara stretching before him.
And at this ti.
Space fluctuated beside him.
Rose appeared. Her erald eyes blazed with particularly bright light as she addressed him.
"Little Fatty," she said. "Everything is ready."
Her expression shifted slightly, curiosity evident in the way her gaze tracked his features.
"What ca of the soap opera between your Ancestor and The Betrayer?"
...!
Achilles’s expression beca stern.
"I had believed the First Adrastia Emperor King and the Second might ridiculously do sothing like forgive and forget," he said, each word carrying judgnt about how foolish such rcy would have been.
"That they might look at Syl’thessara, who betrayed them, who made choices that cascaded into millennia of suffering for our entire lineage...and decide that love or maternal bonds were sufficient justification to absolve everything."
He paused, and his next words carried genuine approval.
"But before they could even have the chance to propose such idiocy, Syl’thessara herself made it infinitely easier. During their discussions, she stated how she could not possibly live with herself looking at them every single day...that their presence would only remind her of all that she had done, that facing them would be psychological torture she couldn’t endure."
His purple-gold eyes blazed with cold satisfaction.
"She sought nothing else other than isolation to live with her own choices. So even before the First brought up the idea of her being forgiven and coming with us...even before he could articulate whatever romantic reconciliation he’d been considering, she put a stop to that possibility entirely."
Achilles smiled.
"This is one of the only choices she has made which I respect. Her choice to stay the fuck away. Her recognition that so bridges cannot be rebuilt regardless of regret or love or whatever other emotional justifications people use to excuse the inexcusable."
He nodded with finality. "I will comnd her for this single decision...her wisdom to remove herself from our presence rather than forcing us to endure hers."
Rose smiled at his words before she spoke.
"I relocated the nests of the Hive Queen into the Sea of Thalassara," Rose said, shifting topics with the ease.
"She has beco a good friend and research buddy to over these past days. The genetic experints we’ve conducted together, the theoretical work about evolution and adaptation...it’s been genuinely valuable collaboration."
Her erald eyes held his purple-gold gaze.
"I would like to bring her along."
Achilles nodded without hesitation. He had no issues with including the Hive Queen in their exodus, no attachnt whatsoever to her presence one way or another beyond recognizing that Rose valued the relationship.
"Done," he said simply.
At this mont, he closed his eyes, consciousness expanding to observe distant corners of the radiant stellar sea.
His perception tracked through impossible distances to find the collection of Adrastia Emperor Kings gathered in what had beco their assembly point...all generations now reunited.
The First and Second had returned from their confrontation with Syl’thessara.
Both of them seed to hold heavy emotions and regrets visible in their bearing despite attempts to maintain composure.
Achilles genuinely believed leaving behind the betrayer was a much better route than bringing her along and pretending everything was forgiven.
"Forgiveness is easier after death," he said quietly, "When soone is gone, when their absence creates space for mory to soften edges and ti to blur sharpest grievances, then perhaps forgiveness becos possible. Perhaps even appropriate."
His purple-gold eyes opened, blazing with cold certainty.
Rose nodded slowly, finding no flaw in his logic even if others might consider it harsh. So bridges burned so completely that rebuilding them would require more than anyone should be expected to give.
Achilles’s eyes flashed with cold light as his consciousness fully engaged with the task ahead.
In the next mont, a radiant sea of darkness erupted all around him...not the absence of light but its opposite, illumination that sohow existed as shadow, brilliance that manifested as void.
The grandeur and terrible beauty of the Void began to perate and spread throughout the radiant blue sea before him.
His existence buzzed with imnsity and power!
He wasn’t just using the Void anymore or commanding it through external manipulation...he had fully and truly beco One With Existence, One With the Void!
He was the Void. And the Void was him.
The distinction had ceased to matter.
Achilles extended his will outward, and trillions of particles he’d seeded throughout the Sea of Thalassara activated simultaneously.
The microscopic seeds of negation suddenly blood into full manifestation, spreading darkness through every cubic ter of stellar waters with coordination.
The Void covered the vast Seas of Thalassara like a second ocean layered over the first...darkness and light occupying the sa space simultaneously.
The radiant blue waters that had shone with inherited authority found themselves wrapped in shadow that didn’t diminish their brilliance but sohow coexisted with it.
And the Plane of Ethemia beca similarly covered. The Void perated through its structure, integrated into its essence, prepared it for displacent that would relocate it.
Achilles’s power surged to heights that made his previous peak outputs seem like preliminary exercises.
His reserves emptied dramatically as he poured everything into this single coordinated effort.
Moving an entire stellar sea. Relocating a plane of existence. Displacing countless Billions of lives across distances that would take light millennia to cross!
All of it happening simultaneously through application of authority that treated space itself as negotiable.
A mont later...
WAP!
The sound was heavy and silent!
The Resplendent Sea of Thalassara...all its impossible waters extending into the void of space, all its stellar radiance and inherited authority, every living thing sheltered within its depths...disappeared in a flash of darkness.
The space where the Sea had existed monts before now contained only emptiness.
—
Sowhere in the farthest depths of the Void, in isolation so perfect that nothing else existed for distances...
The Sea of Thalassara blood into existence again.
Brilliantly blue, but surrounded by an imnse circular obsidian veil that camouflaged it...entirely!
It was a place within The Void of utmost peace...and it would be a place of utter glory and advancent soon enough!
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