A faint chi echoed through the chamber as the choice was made.
He chose it because he trusted his True Sources, and he watched as this entire cube disappeared into his chest and began unfurling into...a Garden.
Glorious in nature.
Vibrant in stature.
He already knew it would not be sothing Basic.
After all, he was the holder of the Living True Source of Quintessence and Protagonist, how could anything he held be basic?!
HUUM!
|You have obtained the Unique Living Origin Garden Archetype – Runic Battle Mage.|
...!
Noah’s breath pulsed- not in shock, but in quiet satisfaction.
Then it began.
A soft warmth unfolded in his chest, blooming outward like a flower of light. A single bud, crimson-gold and humming with layered power, took root at the very center of his Existence, right above his Living Wheel.
It wasn’t just taphorical.
He could see it.
Inside his existence, where his True Sources coiled and spun, a new structure now wove between the gaps- foreign, yet familiar. A Runic Garden of Origin.
One with a Unique Archetype!
At its core was the central bud, brilliant and pulsing like the first spark of Origin.
From it, hundreds of illusory vines reached outward, each shimring with ghostly light. At regular intervals along these vines were plus-shaped runic points, nodes of potential, waiting. A silent invitation to mold the unknown with Points.
It resembled a vast skill tree written in the script of existence itself.
A prompt appeared again.
|A Unique Runic Garden of Origin has blood within your Being and is awaiting Resistance Archetype Point distribution.|
Noah took in a long, asured breath, feeling the threads of crimson-gold Lattices brushing against his mind like eager suggestions.
There were many possible areas to add points to.
But before he could act, before he could explore this unfathomable new construct, he felt the pull on the tether at his wrist.
He turned.
Sigrid was standing unnaturally still.
Her gaze wasn’t focused on the surroundings or even her own chest that was now shining. It was far-off, distant.
Her fingers twitched. Her lips parted.
Noah narrowed his eyes. "What is it?"
She blinked.
And then, sothing shifted.
"I... rembered sothing," she said slowly. Her voice was quieter now, distant but focused. "Sothing... about Origin. But it doesn’t make sense. It was like a story. A story I never heard before but sohow... I know it."
A cold light traveled down Noah’s eyes as he asked, "What story?"
Sigrid turned to him, eyes now sharp with a clarity that hadn’t been there a second ago.
And she began to speak as if she were possessed.
"In the Earliest Folds of Existence, before Threads had form and Ti had purpose, there was a Creature.
It had no na.
It had no path.
It simply... wandered.
Through the fog of Unwritten Existences, it moved with patient steps and a quiet curiosity.
But it was aimless and with no purpose as it began to feel a vast sense of emptiness. An emptiness that only grew.
A loneliness as vast as the folds of existence.
One day, the Creature ca upon sothing it had never seen before: a small glowing orb that pulsed with rhythmic, living light.
It was warm.
Comforting.
It radiated purpose.
The Creature gazed at it for a long while, then asked gently.
’What are you?’
And the orb answered.
"I am the mory of structure. The will to begin. I am the Living Origin."
The Creature tilted its head, watching the light, its mind already churning. ’And what does one do... with a beginning?’
"You cultivate it," the Origin replied. "You plant it within yourself and allow it to grow. You beco more."
The Creature sat.
Listened.
Its gaze was unblinking, not with reverence, but with thought.
And then, as if sensing the potential weight of a decision, a second presence began to manifest.
Another orb.
It did not arrive, it unwrote the space it entered as if it were inevitable.
It was another orb.
It was cold.
Endless.
Uncertain.
It was...the Living Paradox.
The Creature watched it form, its body was shifting contradiction, its edges too sharp, its core too deep.
The Living Paradox said nothing at first.
Then, it spoke in tones that seed to co from everywhere and nowhere.
’Why do you seek a beginning?’
The Creature took its ti, then answered softly. ’Because even unshaped clay may wish to know the shape it could hold.’
The Paradox sneered. ’The Living Origin will offer you roots, but also limits. If you take instead, you will beco sothing without limits. Sothing that contradicts being. Sothing that defies sense.’
The Living Origin pulsed, silent and steady.
The Creature stood, calm in the face of both extres.
It looked at the Living Paradox and said, ’There is power in the undefined. But not all that is undefined must be embraced. I seek to understand. And to understand, I must first begin.’
"..."
The Paradox’s form was unbearably cold as in the next mont, it unraveled and vanished with a sound like a scream swallowed by ti.
And in the silence left behind, the Living Origin hovered closer.
The Creature extended its hand.
And for the first ti in that ancient, directionless era...
A Garden blood. An Origin was grasped.
A single root took hold.
It was a beginning, but it had its limits.
And the Creature, naless and quiet, survived the Earliest Folds of Existence.
Not because it was powerful.
But because it chose to begin."
...!
HUUUM!
Sigrid’s final words floated into silence.
The tale of the naless Creature and the Living Origin echoed no longer, and yet... its weight lingered. Heavy. Reverberating like an unstruck gong inside every fold of the chamber.
She blinked slowly, as though waking from a dream. Her eyes cleared, her breath caught.
And only then did she realize.
Everyone was staring at her.
Not just Noah.
Every Primarch in the square.
Even Masters Shen and Hannibal stood silent.
Their eyes... unsettled.
Like they’d just glimpsed behind the veil of Existence and seen sothing that wasn’t ant to be seen.
Sothing no entity was supposed to hear.
Not here.
Not now.
Sigrid’s voice faltered into the air, the earlier joy at reclaiming her voice fading under the growing weight of realization.
She slowly stepped back, slipping behind Noah’s figure like a child seeking shelter from an unseen storm.
"Was the story... that scary?" she asked quietly, as if afraid her voice alone might cause another disturbance.
Noah didn’t answer imdiately.
His expression was calm, almost gentle.
But his mind was burning.
What the fuck was that?
The Earliest Fold of Existence?
A Creature that chose the Living Origin?
A Living Paradox that... challenged that choice?
Her story hadn’t been innocent.
It hadn’t been taphor.
It seed more like a mory.
A story of sothing that had happened, and was passed down. Not invented, but a true Record!
He could feel it in his Existence.
It wasn’t fiction.
It was history from a ti before history.
"...It was fine," Noah said softly, voice as calm as glass. "Just... unexpected."
Sigrid’s shoulders eased slightly, still tucked behind him.
But Noah remained still, his gaze slowly sweeping the room.
The Primarchs had gone rigid.
Their gardens still shimred, still pulsing faintly with Living Origin energy, but none were cultivating.
None were distributing their Resistance Archetype Points.
They had all frozen after the tale.
Even Master Hannibal had stopped. The cube he’d chosen was fusing to his chest, but the light in his eyes was unfathomably bright. His gaze? Cold. Calculating. But unreadable.
And Master Shen...
He had tilted his head slightly, as if listening to music only he could hear.
Noah turned inward again, reaching toward the roots now pulsing within his chest.
The Runic Battle Mage Archetype, its garden still blooming, still waiting.
Still untouched.
And yet, his thoughts weren’t on skill branches or runes.
They were on the story.
The Living Origin. The Living Paradox.
What if these weren’t just types of power?
What if they weren’t just Authority classifications?
What if they were...Entities? And not in the sense of Foldless Ones being Living Paradoxes.
What if they were States of Being? Or the oldest concepts of Existence?
Noah’s eyes slowly narrowed.
He didn’t know the full answer.
Not yet.
But a part of him whispered, calm and absolute, that the path forward now required more than just survival.
It required understanding.
And understanding ant unraveling what the Living Origin really was...before the Living Paradox found them first.
Whether that Living Paradox would be the Foldless Ones, or sothing even more Unfathomable!
The chamber remained unnervingly silent.
But beneath that silence, in the trembling gardens of every soul here...
The seeds of dread had already taken root.
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