Noah opened the small panel floating quietly before his eyes.
The glyph on his forehead pulsed gently, a beacon of gold that humd like a second heartbeat. As he studied the familiar lines, a small breath slipped from his chest.
[Noah Osmont] (Early Creature – 81 Drops of Blood)
|Early Living Existential Glyph: Protagonist (Basic) 1x|
|Complexity Quotient (CQ): 1,680,000 (2,370,000) SU|
|Purity Quotient (PQ): 1,860,000 (2,580,000) SU|
|Approximate Collective Complexity and Purity: 3,900,000 (Inclusive of CQ, PQ, Glyphs)|
True Sources With Towers of Origin Constructed: 135
|Total Existential Dinsional Lattices: 164,583,094 |
|Collective Total Resistance: 1001%|
He tapped his fingers against his knee thoughtfully. The numbers didn’t lie.
To forge his Glyph, he had drained 1 million CQ and PQ, half his total power, and wrapped forehead with 50 million Lattices just to keep it from collapsing. And now?
His Lattices had returned. His CQ and PQ had surged. Not only had he recovered, but he had grown. By consuming the roasted flesh of the Crownscale Glimr- carefully, patiently- in addition to the terrifying power that the Early Living Existential Glyph itself brought...he had recouped his losses and then so. The glyph had not weakened him, it had elevated him!
Even more staggering was the number of his Towers of Origin. One hundred thirty-five. Each a spire of conceptual resonance, a monunt carved from the True Source it embodied. His wheel- his glorious Atlas...spun with completeness, its many Spokes shining with unquestionable glory.
He exhaled slowly, the warmth in his lungs spreading like a slow tide. This growth wasn’t just power. It was perspective.
Existence remained perilous.
The Foldless Ones still prowled. The chronicles of the Early Creatures, of the naless Creature that many whispered of in hushed awe, of the Folds that once knew glory...there was so much he had yet to unravel.
So much that could kill him.
So much for him to kill!
But this mont? This rising? It gave him room to breathe.
He thought of hardship, of the chaos of Existence.
Of pain, and power, and the currents that swept beings from one end of the abyss to another.
All of this was change as when it ca to him, he had undergone a trendous amount of changes.
And what he learned throughout all of it...
"The only way to make sense of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."
Plunge into the change. Move with it. Dance with it!
Noah let the words settle. He didn’t fight the tide anymore. He was becoming the current!
A heavy, quintessential, unstoppable current!
---
In the Nullvein Gravewake Folds, the silence was far from still.
The folds rippled like breathing parchnt, lightless and bottomless.
At their center stood Altheon, his body resplendent and towering, radiating an authority that bent ti and existence itself. His six white-gold wings beat in slow rhythm, the halos above his head spinning soundlessly.
Yet even he, for all his might, could not grasp where she had gone.
The girl with the scent of a Living Origin. Taken from beneath his gaze like a mote of dust whisked away by sunlight.
It was impossible.
And yet.
He clenched his jaw, frustration simring beneath his celestial skin.
If she was still in these folds, and she had to be, then whatever had taken her had done so not with overwhelming power, but with an artful slight of hand.
He, a Living Origin, had fallen for a slight of hand of soone whose complexity was incomparably weaker!
Living Paradoxes?
No.
If they were here, they wouldn’t hide. They would burn the Folds apart to announce their return.
Then what?
The air trembled.
HUUM.
Reality shuddered as folds cracked and parted- eight streaks of iridescent light cascading downward like falling stars.
Altheon looked up, his wings folding slightly in a gesture of respect.
Because he was looking at the grandeur of...Living Origins!
The first to land shimred with an otherworldly intensity- its form that of a great turtle. Its shell glead with layered runes of white and gold. Nine heads craned with solemn wisdom, each bearing six halos. Its movents were glacial. asured.
"Vorellion," Altheon said softly.
The Ancient Living Turtle of Twelve Epochs dipped its many heads, acknowledging the gathered power.
The others arrived in asured strides and flares. Shaynara, Altheon’s companion from the Labyrinth, stepped forward, her starlit hair flowing behind her.
Beside her ca others- so in humanoid form, so clad in scales, others simply radiant ideas clothed in temporary shells.
Altheon didn’t waste ti. He relayed what had occurred. The flash of golden light. The presence of corrupted Living Origin Authority. The disappearance.
And more quietly, what he had sensed with the wild activity of Existential Authority that made all weavings of the Folds even now vibrate with activity!
Vorellion’s nine heads stilled, each one turning ever so slightly toward the silent folds.
He spoke, his voice erging not from any single mouth, but from all of them at once- a harmonious resonance.
"Spread out. Take your stations. Search every Wheel of Existence. Living. Dead. Dying. Forgotten. Unwritten. Discover how a Paradox such as the one we saw had erged."
The wind grew heavy.
"Trace the steps. Understand the Source. And if Living Paradoxes are present, do not engage if you cannot endure. Call for aid. But know this..."
His heads rose, eyes like dimming stars.
"They will co. The fact they have not yet is... concerning."
The gathered Living Origins nodded. So disappeared in streaks of light. Others in silent inversions. A few in spirals of conceptual collapse.
Soon, only Shaynara remained beside Altheon.
She studied him. The tension in his shoulders. The tightly drawn wings. The shift in his gaze.
"What is it?" she asked.
Altheon did not answer imdiately.
He stared into the dark, into the place where the girl had vanished.
In that mont, he rembered what he had felt.
Living Temporal Authority.
Living Spiritual Authority.
Living Paradoxical Authority.
Together.
Bound not in struggle but in harmony.
He closed his eyes. He would understand this himself before speaking it aloud. The implications were too vast. Too unmoored.
"It’s nothing," he lied, and turned away.
...!
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