The light of the Royal Living Origin wrapped around them like liquid starlight, compressing space and distance into aningless concepts as it carried Noah and his escort through layers of Aeternitas Concordia that most beings would never witness.
When the radiance finally released them, Noah found himself standing in a place filled with glory...a garden!
The garden stretched before him in terraced levels that seed to exist in multiple dinsions simultaneously. Crystalline pathways wound between beds of vegetation that pulsed with inner light, each plant more impossible than the last.
Here, roses blood with petals made from compressed temporal energy, their thorns capable of cutting through causality itself. There, trees rose with bark of crystallized law, their branches heavy with fruit that defied comprehension.
The fruits were Wheels of Existence.
Each wheel hung from its branch like a ripe apple, yet contained within its spinning form entire realities. He could see civilizations rising and falling within each fruit, billions of lives playing out their destinies in accelerated ti, only to begin again when the wheel completed its rotation!
The sight was simultaneously beautiful and horrifying...entire existences reduced to decorative produce in soone’s garden.
Above it all, a massive golden do crowned the space, its surface inscribed with patterns of runes.
This was clearly the apex of so vast structure in Concordia’s heart, a place where only the most powerful could tread without invitation. The do itself seed alive, breathing with a rhythm that made the garden’s impossibilities feel natural by comparison.
Yet Noah’s fascination with the surroundings was quickly displaced by what his senses detected within this miraculous space.
The auras that pressed against his consciousness were unmistakable...Duke-level entities, multiple ones, their presence making the very air dense with accumulated authority.
The Royal Living Origin who had escorted him here suddenly bowed with profound respect, as did all the Honored Living Existences who had accompanied them. Without a word of explanation or farewell, they simply vanished, leaving Noah alone with beings whose power could reshape existence itself.
Four Dukes. He counted them with the careful precision of soone observing potential threats and allies.
Duke Gwendolyn stood nearest, her stellar dark hair catching light that seed to originate from within rather than from any external source. Beside her stood a figure that made Noah do a subtle double-take...a man in pristine white robes who leaned slightly on an ornate cane, his eyes... impossibly, incomprehensibly blind.
Milky white orbs gazed at nothing and everything simultaneously. How could a Duke, a being whose perception should transcend every limitation, be blind?
Further into the garden, surrounded by flas that danced between red and gold like Origin authority given pyroclastic form, stood a woman whose presence commanded attention through sheer intensity.
Her desert garb seed out of place in this garden of impossibilities, yet sohow perfect for her bearing...layers of flowing fabric that shifted between states of matter with each movent. Her skin glead with an inner radiance that suggested she didn’t rely wield Origin, but had beco it!
And lastly...
Noah had to look twice to confirm what his senses were telling him.
Floating at eye level, no more than a few inches in total size, was...a mouse.
Its fur was lustrous white that seed to contain constellations within each strand, and its eyes....those stellar white orbs held the weight of eons, the kind of gaze that suggested this being had witnessed the rise and fall of entire Folds!
When the mouse spoke, its voice erged with bass tones that belonged to sothing mountain-sized rather than palm-sized. aning its voice was fucking heavy!
"Duke Gwendolyn has filled us in on the... things she deed we should know." The mouse’s tiny hands clasped behind its back in a gesture that would have been comical if not for the overwhelming authority radiating from its diminutive form.
"What I want to ascertain first, before anything else, is this... do you wish the Living Origins any harm?"
The question buzzed in the garden. Noah felt the weight of four Duke-level consciousnesses focused entirely upon him, their combined attention making reality itself hold its breath.
Purple text materialized above each of their heads as his distinction as the Weaver of Existence identified them.
Duke Gwendolyn he knew as thr others were foreign!
|Duke Valen - The Blind Oracle|:: He who traded sight for true vision.
|Duke Pyralis - The Desert Phoenix|:: She who burns away impurity with Origin’s fla.
|Duke Whisker - The Primordial Sage|:: He who rembers existence.
Noah’s lips curved into a smile as he t each of their gazes in turn, his voice carrying the kind of calm that ca from either supre confidence or supre ignorance.
"Does it only matter for the Living Origins?" He let the question hang for a mont before continuing. "What if I wished to harm other Living Existences?"
Duke Whisker’s tiny features arranged themselves into what might have been amusent. "Realistically and honestly, the main determinant is your intent toward Living Origins. The politics between different types of Living Existences are... complex. But Origins are special. We are, after all, beginnings incarnate."
Noah nodded slowly, as if considering his words carefully. "I have no intention to harm Living Origins, though..." He paused, letting them lean into his hesitation. "There was one Living Origin who crossed . I’m still deciding whether I will kill them or not."
...!
The tension in the garden shifted, becoming sharper, more focused. Duke Whisker’s whiskers twitched with what might have been curiosity.
"What type of Living Origin are they?"
"Pri."
The mouse’s expression relaxed visibly. "Ah, that would be nothing major then. Pris die all the ti in the grand sche of things." He turned to the other Dukes, his stellar eyes gleaming with certainty. "He’s telling the truth. He does not wish Living Origins any harm...at least, not as a general principle."
The atmosphere in the garden shifted palpably. Duke Gwendolyn’s shoulders relaxed minutely, while Duke Pyralis’s flas dimd from aggressive brilliance to rely impressive radiance.
Duke Whisker floated forward slightly, his tiny form sohow managing to project gravitas. "Allow to make proper introductions, since we’re apparently going to be having a civilized discussion rather than an existential confrontation. I am Duke Whisker, sotis called the Primordial Sage, though I find titles tedious after the first few eons."
He gestured to each Duke in turn. "Duke Valen here traded his physical sight for the ability to see truth itself. Duke Pyralis burns with the pure essence of Origin from the Desert of First Thoughts. And Duke Gwendolyn you’ve already had the pleasure of eting."
Gwendolyn stepped forward, her expression all business now that the imdiate question of Noah’s threat level had been addressed. "Very well, let’s get down to business then... the Living Paradoxes."
The na fell into the garden’s atmosphere like a stone into still water, creating ripples of tension that each Duke felt.
"They stole the corpse of an Early Creature," Duke Pyralis said, her voice carrying the heat of barely contained anger. "The audacity of such an action transcends everything. That corpse was being studied, preserved, protected for good reason."
"And they likely did sothing desecrated with it," Duke Whisker added, his tiny form radiating disgust. "The appearance of Dead Existences is almost certainly linked to whatever unholy ritual they perford. The timing is too convenient, the thodology too specific."
...!
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