When was it enough?
When did soone dream and dream for far too long, dream for too much? At what point did ambition beco hubris, and aspiration beco destruction waiting to happen?
At this mont in ti, Noah was being told that he was dreaming dangerously. That his dreams would get him scorched, and everyone else around him. That at this point he had more than enough and he could choose to simply sit back.
To say these things to him, THE Beholder did not know him as much as he thought he did.
Noah was a sensible person, not overly attached to things. He had simple aspirations and actually didn’t have any grand dreams. He wasn’t the protagonist of so cosmic epic who declared he would conquer existence and make all bow before his magnificence. He wasn’t driven by hunger for power or obsession with transcendence.
Anyone else put in his position with the power he held through Infinity might begin with grand aspirations of wanting to be so unquestionably dominating force across all of existence. Of declaring they would be unparalleled under the heavens, that all would kneel before their might!
But since the mont he began throwing endless fireballs, his aim had always been simpler. To protect himself. To understand this mystery that was Mana and Infinity. To uncover the secrets of this strange power that had entered his life.
Everything that had occurred since then was a consequence of him fighting for his life and the lives of those he began taking care of.
Even the most recent battle with Beowulf that led to Grimvault. It began with the weavings of Alexander, with him going to help soone who had suffered for millions of subjective years. He was helping another. And this was a unique causality that led to the progression of glorious events culminating in him becoming a Hadean Lifeform who had begun to make terrifying changes.
His connection to Ubergulden Adelheid...was not sothing he sought. In fighting against Unity, Causality unfolded to the point that now, things were where they were.
Noah’s eyes shone with profundity as he connected all the things that happened recently.
Points of causality where one thing led to another. Alexander’s torture leading to Noah’s intervention. Grimvault’s attack triggering THE Crucible of Observable Rebirth. THE Silurian Light providing the catalyst for complete Hadean evolution. Each event flowing into the next like rivers feeding an ocean, none of them planned but all of them building toward sothing he couldn’t have predicted.
After he thought about all of this, he replied to THE Beholder.
"I am not anyone grand or imnse."
His voice carried conviction that pressed against the platform of crimson gold flas beneath them.
"I don’t have any special lineage or connection. I don’t have a big secret origin where my drunk of a father or Mother turn out to be so unfathomable lifeforms to explain my power. I was and am Bounded. Limited by the nature of existence itself. It isn’t that I’m dreaming big and dreaming dangerously."
He turned to face THE Beholder directly.
"My dreams are actually the simplest. Safety. Prosperity. Happiness. My dreams are those of waking up to seas of infinite Mana all around and a plot of land in front of . My dream is literally that simple."
The rain of THE Pluvial Epoch continued falling around them, multicolored brilliance painting everything in hues that had no nas.
"But for the sake of protecting my dream, I have to be strong. For the sake of protecting my dream, I have to do sothing that others cannot do. Not because I believe myself to be so grand thing or so unstoppable force. Simply because I need to do what others cannot do in order to attain the power that others do not have. To attain power to be capable of protecting myself and that simple dream."
His eyes blazed brighter.
"Being told to give up on my dream is essentially being told to put my head and the heads of all those I care about on an executioner’s platform and wait for the blade to co down. I cannot stop dreaming because the mont I do, I’m basically giving up and leaving everything to fate or chance, if you believe in that."
He gestured toward the swirling realms around them.
"Because existence has been existing and will continue to do so long after us. With or without our dreams, Existence turns. So I choose to dream while I’m still here to dream at all."
...!
THE Beholder was silent for a long mont.
When he spoke, his voice carried the asured consideration of soone who had spent eons analyzing the weavings of existence.
"I do not dismiss your words lightly. The framing of simple dreams requiring grand power to protect them is logically coherent. I understand the causality you describe..."
"But the path you describe, the necessity of exceeding others to protect what you hold dear, this path has no end point. Today you beca what you are to protect your dream. Tomorrow you will need to exceed what you are. The threats you face will scale with the power you acquire, because the power you acquire will draw greater threats."
His form flickered with ancient light.
"Your dreams... the thods required to protect them grow increasingly complex. Increasingly dangerous. You are not rely defending a plot of land and seas of Mana anymore. You are now defending a potential Observable Existence, and involvent in conflicts that span the entirety of existence."
THE Beholder faced Noah.
"The gap between your stated dream and your current reality has already grown vast. How much further will it grow before the dream you’re protecting no longer resembles the dream you started with? At what point does protecting the dream beco more consuming than the dream itself?"
His voice softened slightly.
"There has to be another path. A way to achieve safety without painting a target on everything you love. Others have found contentnt within their scope. Others have found happiness without challenging the foundations of how existence was engineered."
He spread his hands.
"The ideals and dreams can be viable. But the end result of this trajectory is destruction. Not because your dreams are wrong, but because the thods required to protect them will eventually attract forces that no amount of preparation can overco."
...!
Noah’s face beca unfathomably heavy.
He looked around at THE Infiniverse, at the three thousand realms swirling with infinite expansion, at the seas of Observable Force and Quintessence Infiniforce flooding territories that grew grander by the mont. All of this had erged from his simple desire to protect himself and those he cared about.
"I can still continue my dream while knowing of the dangers that are coming."
His words pressed against the platform beneath them.
"I simply need to not go in blindly. If I know there’s a danger coming and I do nothing, then yes, I would be at fault as my Civilization and all those that depend on perish."
He turned to face THE Beholder with eyes that shone like singularities.
"You are not the first one who has warned regarding THE Gilded Ones. I have already begun preparing for contingencies and possibilities. Your words today only made my preparations need to finish earlier."
"I will continue dreaming regardless. Not ignoring the danger that is coming, but very much preparing for it. You can watch my dream if you wish. Or you can run from as quickly and as far as you need to."
He began walking across the platform as he spoke.
"I like getting knowledge from different sources. I don’t think of myself so grand that I don’t need any others, or that I cannot benefit from others. Much of who I am today is because of the collective efforts of many others. The knowledge I gained from them. To the point that even if I have surpassed them in power, I make sure to pay back tens of tis more what they gave ."
He gestured toward the realms where his companions awaited transformation.
"An example is the many whose very nature I’m changing right now. There are so beings you do not know. Khor. Tor. Origin. Ul’moreth. Ains. And many others who acted as friend or teacher at one point in the past days. What they taught helped forge who I am right now, even though I have exceeded them trendously. It doesn’t an I have nothing else to learn from them. And I am taking them to the sa place that I am standing at right now."
He stopped and looked at THE Beholder directly.
"I thank you for the knowledge you gave . You can choose to fully throw your weight behind and share whatever else you may have. You can watch my dream as I prove you wrong. Or if all of this seems too much based on what you know, if you have that fear of those Gilded Lifeforms who before you would close your eyes and convince yourself you did not see them, or they were a mirage, or dreams..."
His voice carried no judgnt, only statent of fact.
"You are also more than okay to leave. But my dream goes on. Life...goes on."
Noah’s existence blazed with blue and gold light.
"My dream is quintessential. My dream is infinite."
BOOM!
He took a step and disappeared from THE Beholder’s presence, leaving only the echo of his words and the weight of his conviction pressing against everything nearby.
THE Beholder floated calmly above the platform of crimson gold flas.
He looked once more at THE Infiniverse stretching before him, at the three thousand realms swirling with expansion that defied what should be possible, at the rain of THE Pluvial Epoch painting everything in colors that spoke of power beyond asurent. He had warned. He had cautioned.
And he had been heard but not heeded.
His voice erged softly, words flowing in rhythms
"Dreams, they say, are wings for the flightless,
Hopes woven from threads the drears cannot see.
One dreams of simple things, safety and rest,
While building towers that scrape eternity.
Another speaks of dangers vast and certain,
Of patterns carved in stone by ancient hands.
One says the fla is worth the burning,
The other counts the ashes in the sands.
Who speaks true when both hold pieces?
The drear blind to what his dreaming costs,
Or the watcher blind to what his warning freezes,
The futures found against the futures lost.
Perhaps the answer lies not in the choosing,
But in the space between the dream and fear.
Where winning looks so much like losing,
And what seems far away is already here.
Dream on, then, dream on
Perhaps the dream you water will have grown
Into the strangest flower of all the earths.
We shall see. We shall see.
What the dreaming and the warning both shall be..."
THE Beholder fell silent, his ancient form flickering as he contemplated whether to stay or go, whether to watch or flee, whether to believe in dreams or trust in patterns that had never been broken.
The rain continued falling.
The realms continued swirling.
And sowhere within THE Infiniverse, a drear continued dreaming!
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