His words caused Glossikos to open her eyes wide.
Her wooden features shifted with shock that she couldn’t quite conceal. Contributions to the Mouseion were not casual things. They were acts of trendous significance, requiring items of genuine worth and the establishnt of fate-bindings that would determine who could claim them across ti.
She seed to want to say many things.
Questions pressed against her expression. Concerns flickered in her ancient eyes!
But at this ti, THE Primordial Paradox stepped up.
He put his hand on her shoulder.
She trembled.
The weight of an Absolute’s touch, even a gentle one, was not sothing that a Fundantal Depth being could easily bear. His authority pressed against her existence simply through contact, reminding her of the vast gulf that separated their levels of power.
He looked at her with his gaze of majesty.
"Go ahead and make the preparations for us, why don’t you?"
His voice was not unkind, but it carried finality that brooked no argunt.
"When everything is ready, let us know."
...!
His regal and imposing air made it abundantly clear that this was not sothing up for discussion.
His gaze and his hand seed to make Glossikos unable to deny anything from him. She was a Polemarch, one of the highest-ranked beings in THE Agora, and yet before THE Primordial Paradox, she was nothing more than an entity receiving orders.
She only nodded like a cautious rabbit.
Then she floated deeper past the pools, heading toward the Mouseion to prepare whatever protocols were necessary for a contribution of this magnitude.
THE Primordial Paradox sighed as she departed.
The sound was heavy with exhaustion he had been concealing. With Glossikos gone, so of the imperious mask slipped, revealing the tiredness that lurked beneath.
He stretched with movents that seed almost mortal, as if he were a tired old man.
Then he began to walk over toward the Pool of Lethe.
The sa pool that Noah had entered during his future visit. The waters that could wash away the accumulated weight of existence!
THE Primordial Paradox entered the pool with the ease of soone who had done this countless tis before. His obsidian form sank into the churning waters, steam rising around him as he leaned back in a position of grand relaxation. His arms spread across the pool’s edge. His obsidian crown continued to spin slowly above his head even as the rest of him subrged.
He looked like an emperor taking his leisure after a long campaign.
Noah raised his brows and followed.
When he entered the sa pool in the future, he hadn’t realized that he had actually done it before. He hadn’t known that his first visit to these waters had been in the company of THE Primordial Paradox himself, eons before his birth.
The temporal loops continued to compound.
As he sank into the churning waters of the pool, feeling the familiar sensation of the Pool of Lethe working against his foundations, THE Primordial Paradox waved his hands.
WAA!
Sothing erged from within his obsidian form.
A dodecahedron.
It pulsed with a terrifying air of power, its twelve pentagonal faces each burning with different aspects of Paradox that shouldn’t have been able to coexist. Unfathomable waves of authority radiated from it, pressing against Noah’s perception with weight that made his Seals tremble.
THE Primordial Paradox threw it toward Noah as if it were nothing.
As if he hadn’t just manifested a piece of his own existence and tossed it across a bathing pool!
"This is the most critical part of ."
His voice was calm despite the magnitude of what he had just done.
"The part that is not infected by that thing."
He sank deeper into the waters, steam curling around his obsidian features.
"I shall still make it appear as though I am creating other contingencies. I shall give parts of myself to my disciples. One even to Erwin."
His eyes held ancient knowing.
"He will undoubtedly find all of them and consu them to grasp my Claim. That is inevitable. That is what he has designed his thodology to accomplish."
He nodded toward the dodecahedron in Noah’s hands.
"But that, right there, can lay dormant for as long as it needs to. Until you can reclaim it in the future."
His voice grew harder.
"Erwin will effectively usurp my Claim to Paradox. But that is going to be a temporary thing."
BOOM!
The words landed with weight that made the Pool of Lethe’s waters still.
"The mont that I am back, I will need to discipline my old disciple..."
His obsidian eyes burned!
"And also address this weapon that he used. This thodology that even he should not fully understand."
...!
The words of THE Primordial Paradox were terrifying in their implications.
He wasn’t accepting his collapse as an ending!
He was treating it as an inconvenience. A temporary setback that would be rectified once Noah retrieved what was being entrusted to him. THE Living Paradox, who had held the Claim for eons, who had reshaped Observable Existence through THE Fallout, who stood among THE Four as one of the most powerful beings in all of reality...
Was going to be disciplined by his forr master.
Noah grasped the dodecahedron.
He felt its Imnsity and weight pressing against his foundations. This was not just a piece of THE Primordial Paradox. This was the core of him. The essence that defined what Paradox truly ant before Erwin had corrupted it with whatever thodology he had employed.
|Artifact Analysis|
|Object classification: Existential Core Fragnt|
|Designation: The Antinomia Prismatica|
|The Paradox of Self-Contained Totality|
|This dodecahedron contains the uninfected essence of THE Primordial Paradox|
|Each of its twelve faces represents a fundantal aspect of Paradox that existed before corruption|
|Face One: The Paradox of Beginning and Ending|
|Face Two: The Paradox of Self and Other|
|Face Three: The Paradox of Truth and Falsity|
|Face Four: The Paradox of Motion and Stillness|
|Face Five: The Paradox of Whole and Part|
|Face Six: The Paradox of Cause and Effect|
|Face Seven: The Paradox of Being and Becoming|
|Face Eight: The Paradox of Knowledge and Ignorance|
|Face Nine: The Paradox of Freedom and Necessity|
|Face Ten: The Paradox of Finite and Infinite|
|Face Eleven: The Paradox of Unity and Multiplicity|
|Face Twelve: The Paradox of Existence and Non-Existence|
|Together, these twelve aspects form the complete foundation of what Paradox was ant to be|
|This is THE Primordial Paradox in his truest form|
|Compressed and preserved against the infection that claid the rest of his existence|
|Historical significance: If this object is retrieved and activated, it could theoretically restore THE Primordial Paradox...|
|THE Living Paradox would no longer be the sole holder of the Paradox Claim. How...would that work?|
...!
It was a surreal thing to hold.
The weight of an Absolute’s core existence resting in his palms.
Noah began to wrap it in waves of Undifferentiated Fate. He added Philologies, linguistic structures that would preserve and conceal. He wove Archai of The First Tongue even!
Layer after layer of protection, even if it wasn’t needed but...he was basically branding his signature!
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