The waters of the black sea stirred.
A slow humming echoed through the Paradoxical Prison- a tune without lody, drifting on no wind. The surface broke as a figure erged, slick with shadow and humming louder, as if expecting an audience.
"I know you can’t answer as you feed the Inevitability, Little Bobby," Thauron whispered, voice amused, chin lifting as water slid from his shoulders. "But one has to always be careful when things seem too good to be true... did they really leave this prison all alone? Without a Warden? A prison full of Primarchs and Masters of Existence who absolutely hate Foldless Ones?"
His voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. His presence alone rippled through the coils of paradox.
Thauron rose fully from the obsidian tides, tall and robed in frayed dark silk laced with ruinous markings. The tentacles of the Inevitability slithered lazily behind him, dripping with corruption, as if they too listened to the tune.
He laughed.
Low, disbelieving. Almost impressed.
"I’m not dead," he said softly, eyes scanning the hollow sky where the Warden’s presence should have pressed down like weight. "This prison was truly left empty."
His hand raised, glowing with a flickering light drawn from the True Source of Finality. The power surged in quiet pulses across his skin.
"So here we are, Little Bobby," he said, turning slowly as he took in the thousands of black coffins floating in endless chains. "A place filled with als, locked in boxes."
He chuckled again.
"One has to eat slowly, of course. But what can one achieve if they swallow everything in this prison? If they pair it with the secret that caused two Foldless Ones to rush out in such haste... can I actually make sothing of myself, Little Bobby?"
His eyes glead.
They didn’t shine like stars. They burned like the fading embers of ancient furnaces that had long since turned to ash.
He turned his gaze downward.
"First, I would have to find other Living Existences."
He clicked his tongue, his grin widening.
"But that alone is difficult. All these folds nearby are ruled by Living Paradoxes. Not many Living Origins just floating around. Nor Living Spirits. Nor Living Elentals."
His feet lifted, body gliding lazily into the air. The Inevitability rose beside him like a faithful shadow.
"Difficult, Little Bobby. The path ahead is difficult," he said, voice quiet. "But sothing difficult is sothing worth having. I will start with the prison first."
The laughter of the Inevitability screeched behind him. A howl of hunger.
—
Far from the Paradoxical Prison, far from the dark coils of Thauron and his muttering, another movent stirred.
In the Nullvein Gravewake Folds, beyond the border that tethered the Paradoxical Prison.
It was the Veiled Sunfolds.
Nestled beneath shadow, under the endless dusk of the Nullvein’s curvature, the Veiled Sunfolds burned with a quiet, unnatural golden light.
And there, hidden in the crook of lightless space, the cross-shaped Living Origin Labyrinth opened once more.
The Labyrinth pulsed with structured runes of the Origin. Its halls branched endlessly, carved not from stone but from the threads of reality- crossing space, mory, and ti.
Near the entrance, Master Hannibal arrived once again. His face cloaked. His eyes narrow.
Trailing behind him, veiled in suppressing Existential Dinsional Lattices, were forces from the Mannafolds and from the Chronosect of the Threadbound Folds. They moved like whispers, like regrets sliding along the edge of thought. They slipped inside. Undetected.
The few Masters of Existence that had co to surround this place did not sense anything wrong occurring!
Within the Labyrinth itself.
Inside the folds of the Labyrinth’s deepest chambers, far beyond where ordinary explorers could reach, two Living Origin Descendants stood in quiet debate.
The male was tall and thoughtful, his skin faintly etched with the burn of pure weaving.
His companion, the female, tilted her head curiously as her eyes narrowed at the slowly dimming illusory screen showing Noah’s defeat of the Imitation Mutated Inevitability.
Beside them, a fairy-like creature floated with wings of Origin light as it was the Guider.
"These Fold Dwellers," the woman said, her voice rich and curious. "They co from regions watched over by Living Paradoxes, yes?"
The male sighed.
"Yes," he said, affirming it again.
She gestured toward the fading image.
"And yet, before even starting the path of Origin properly, they defeated an Inevitability?"
He remained quiet.
She smiled then. Sothing bright and hungry.
"I want to know more."
The man shook his head.
"Dealing with Living Paradoxes is never an easy affair," he said. "And lately... the Core Origin Descendants from the Origin Folds have warned that sothing is shifting. The Paradoxes are growing restless. Sothing’s changed."
She waved a hand, dismissing.
"Warnings are warnings. Will you really ignore this? A Fold Dweller, not even a Master of Existence, barely initiated, defeating an Inevitability? Don’t you want to investigate?"
He did not answer at first.
She leaned forward, coaxing.
He closed his eyes.
"I will extend my weavings through the region they entered," he said finally. "I will see what Paradoxical presence watches over their folds. Then I will decide."
She clapped her hands.
"Do it, do it!"
He brought his hand out.
The fairy-like creature drifted downward, its glow intensifying. It settled in his palm.
He closed his fingers around it. He inhaled.
And his existence rippled.
Complex weavings stretched from him like ghost-light, disappearing into the unseen fabrics that stretched across Folds.
Silence.
Then, a breath later, his eyes snapped open. A frown etched across his face.
"What is it?" she asked.
His voice was quiet.
"I...do not sense a present influence of a Living Paradox," he said.
She blinked.
"You an the Folds these Fold Dwellers co from...aren’t being watched?"
Such a thing would be ridiculous, right?
He nodded slowly.
"Not by a Paradox. Not now."
The fairy pulsed once, as if confused.
"That," the woman whispered, her voice touched with wonder, "is interesting."
Her smile widened.
"Shall we see why a Fold of Paradoxes is empty?"
A daring idea. One that this ti...was not denied!
A Fold devoid of the piercing eyes of its owner.
A Prison devoid of the piercing eyes of its owner!
It may have been montarily. It may have been coincidentally.
But surely, nothing too grand would co out of this, right?
Right?!
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