The area beca filled with Imnsity and tension as two sides looked at each other.
Power pressed down over everything in the realm of Alfheimr, the crystalline trees bending under the weight of concentrated authority, the rivers of liquid radiance slowing their flow as if even they recognized the significance of this mont.
Elental’s fury was palpable, a heat that made the air around him shimr.
Emotive’s smile never wavered, but her eyes held sothing calculating beneath the manic surface.
And Noah stood between them and his people, an illusory presence that sohow carried more weight than the physical reality around it.
The confrontation hung suspended in ti.
Two sides asuring each other.
Two powers determining whether this mont would escalate into sothing worse.
And then, slowly, with the reluctance of beings who understood now was not the ti, THE Living Elental and THE Living Emotive began to withdraw.
Not because they feared the fight.
Not because they feared!
While such a confrontation unfolded in Alfheimr, while illusory Noah faced down Absolutes with nothing but authority and accumulated weight, another body moved across entirely different territory.
—
Far from the crystalline forests.
Across The Wastes of THE Fallout.
Noah’s physical body floated through corrupted space alongside Ains and a happy Skoll who bounded through the twisted reality as if it were nothing more than an interesting playground.
The Wastes stretched out around them in all directions, a landscape of collapsed concepts and shattered foundations. Where other regions of Observable Existence held so form of structure, so remnant of what they had been before THE Fallout, this place was pure devastation given form.
Reality twisted in on itself.
Concepts that had no business existing together rged and separated in patterns that defied comprehension.
The very fabric of Existence had been torn apart here, and what remained was sothing that should not have been able to exist at all.
And yet life persisted.
Of a sort.
Noah navigated through the corrupted Weavings with the ease. His connection to Undifferentiated Fate guided his path, threads of possibility weaving through the chaos to show him where he needed to go.
They arrived near a region of the Wastes that held nothing but twisting corrupted existence.
No landmarks.
No structures.
Nothing that could be used as a reference point.
Just endless corruption folding back on itself in patterns that would have driven lesser minds to madness.
And yet Noah knew this was the place.
He called out calmly, his voice moving across the corrupted space with authority that cut through the ambient chaos.
"Big guy, how did you let sothing else erge that does what you do, but countless tis deadlier?"
...!
The words hung in the twisted air, a question directed at sothing that should not have been able to hear them.
They had arrived where the Weavings of Undifferentiated Fate told him Eckert was.
THE Great Usurper!
With Undifferentiated Fate, Noah was able to gain information he had no business knowing, especially if he had a few pieces of information already as Eckert gave him.
So he knew thst currently, Eckert had rged with a Fragnt of THE Axiom of Primordial Paradox and beco sothing that existed outside normal classification. The being who had learned to spread his existence through idle contact, to take over the Weavings of others without them even realizing what was happening.
To understand THE Entity a bit better, to find so pathway that might lead to a potential solution against a threat that had claid multiple Absolutes, one of the approaches Noah had identified was consulting with an entity he knew who could do what THE Entity did.
But at a much smaller scale.
The chanisms were different, the scale was incomparable, but the fundantal principle of replacing what was there with sothing else held common ground.
If anyone in Observable Existence might have insight into how such a process worked, how it might be countered, how one might protect against an infection that could claim even Absolutes without them realizing until it was too late, it would be THE Great Usurper.
The corrupted space around them stirred.
Sothing was responding to Noah’s call.
Sothing that had been idle, spreading slowly through The Wastes!
Skoll’s ears perked up, his form tensing as he sensed sothing approaching that registered as neither friend nor foe, but sothing else entirely.
In front of him, Noah perceived existence silently converging and forming into a humanoid visage.
The corrupted space of The Wastes twisted and folded, reality reshaping itself to accommodate sothing that existed in ways that defied normal perception. Particles of scattered existence drew together like iron filings responding to a magnet, coalescing into a shape that grew more defined with each passing mont.
Eckert.
THE Great Usurper.
When one thought of such a title, they might imagine an ancient being weathered by eons of existence. Sothing gnarled and powerful, holding the weight of countless devoured lives in every aspect of its form.
But what materialized in front of Noah was the image of a young man in his twenties.
The visage was colorless, an illusory humanoid shape with no pigntation beyond shades of gray and white. His features were handso in a casual way, relaxed and unburdened. His smile was easy, genuine, the expression of soone greeting an old friend rather than one of the most dangerous beings in Observable Existence.
It was deceptive.
Because Noah knew this being had devoured the existences and mories of countless others. Every smile, every casual gesture, every aspect of that youthful appearance was built upon the consud foundations of beings who no longer existed.
The young man’s form stabilized completely, his colorless eyes finding Noah’s with recognition and sothing like relief.
And then he did sothing unexpected.
Eckert moved forward with easy confidence, his hand coming up in a gesture of familiarity rather than the formal greetings.
He...dapped Noah up!
Noah raised his brows but went along with it. His hand t Eckert’s in a clasp!
"Man."
Eckert’s voice ca out with exhaustion.
"I’ve been going nuts trying to figure out the extent of change across Observable Existence."
He shook his head.
"What’s this about soone doing what I can do at a crazy scale?"
...!
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