Chapter 3824: Paradoxical I
Chapter 3824: Paradoxical I
The Cache still shimmered before Noah, its white-gold light pulsing faintly. He had not even opened it yet when Moiraine’s gaze landed on him like a wonder threaded with amusement and wisdom.
"You devour quite...differently," she said, golden eyes gleaming.
"But when it does come to devouring... I said I would tell you another piece of the Story of the Earliest Folds, didn’t I?"
Noah glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "What stops you from telling me the full story now?"
Moiraine gave a small laugh, the kind of sound you’d expect from a being who knew things she shouldn’t and would not share easily.
"Superstition," she said. "For as long as the story has been passed down, it has never been told in its entirety all at once. Each new listener hears it in parts. Nobody knows why. Whether this quirk was seeded by the weavings of Existence itself or shaped by those who lived through it... no one can say."
She twirled her finger through the air, trailing tiny strands of golden light. "But that’s how it is. The Story of the Earliest Folds lives only in the minds of the few who remember, and the Records of those who still hold active weavings. It is not recorded down in a book or anything else."
Noah’s gaze sharpened. "The last part I heard was how the Living Paradox had taken control over the Creature’s Everything... and covered all with Paradox."
Moiraine’s eyes gleamed like dawnlight reflecting off Existence. "Ah... that part. Yes, that’s when things began to unravel."
She didn’t wait for permission. Her voice, smooth and rich with memory, wrapped around the Paradoxical Prison like a veil of myth.
---
"The Creature had given its Everything to the Living Paradox. Blood. Thought. Imagination. Even Silence. All of it became the Code of Existence for the generations to come.
Through that offering, life began to bloom, and he... became an Originator.
But what is an Originator to one who no longer feels?
The Creature wandered across the folds for what would later be called a million years. It did not sleep. It did not hunger. It merely walked, and watched. And in the folds of its steps, life bloomed.
Lineages sparked from the scattered Code of its sacrifice- glorious, wild, new.
And yet the Creature felt... nothing.
Its eyes were veiled in darkness, unable to hear the Living Origin or the Living Concept.
Its purpose and actions were cloudy.
The two who once pulsed within him were now silent. It watched Wheels of Existence be born, grow, wither, and break, and never once did it feel joy.
Because...The tree that gives all its fruit to others finds itself hollow when winter comes.
The Creature had given everything, and now stood with nothing.
Until one day, on the millionth year, it heard laughter.
It was the Living Paradox.
It laughed with triumph. With madness. With hunger.
"I’ve done it," it said. "I’ve cornered the Living Order, the Living Dimensional, and the Living Quantum! Once I consume them, the rest will fall into place. Including the Living Concept and the Living Origin... all will align beneath Paradox!"
The Creature blinked.
Cornered?
The Paradox did not wait for questions. It seized the Creature and pulled him through the Folds, bringing him to a space not meant to exist- a fractured fold of collapsing weavings and violent intent.
There, the battle was already underway.
A titanic obsidian light wrestled against three forces: one of blinding white, one of glimmering silver, and one shifting through every color known and unknown.
The Living Order. The Living Dimensional. The Living Quantum.
Their combined might still faltered under the assault of the Living Paradox, who wielded not only the Creature’s Everything, but the authority of the Living Concept and Origin, now shrouded beneath it.
And with one final burst, the Living Order faltered.
The Creature watched with mute horror as immense obsidian jaws opened and enveloped the white brilliance of Order. Devoured. Gone.
The Living Paradox roared, "Another one down! Let them all come! I will eat them all!"
The Living Paradox began digesting the Living Order with euphoria, at its absolute height of glory and victory.
But then...
More lights suddenly arrived.
The Living Elemental. The Living Emotive. The Living Spirit. The Living Temporal. The Living Law.
They did not speak. They did not hesitate. They moved while the Living Paradox was burning with euphoria!
They attacked.
All at once.
Colors of every spectrum converged on the obsidian maw of the Living Paradox as it was shocked and quickly acted, but it was surrounded with far, far too much.
It felt the unbearable threat to its weavings.
In fury, the Paradox burned through the Creature’s Everything. It even crushed what it had just devoured, breaking down Order and using it as fuel.
It released a light so violent, so devastating, that it injured all who struck.
"You fools! I will strip every single one of you of your identities and leave you with absolutely nothing!"
Maddened, the Living Paradox roared as everyone was heavily wounded at this moment.
And yet, in this chaos, the silent Living Origin and Living Concept stirred.
Still buried beneath Paradox, they finally moved.
And they attacked.
From within.
Because the fortress that does not guard its heart will fall to the traitor it shelters.
The Paradox, too confident, too sure, did not guard what was once its own foundation. And so, it crumbled.
The attack from within destabilized it. The others struck again, unrelenting. The Living Paradox was cast down, its brilliance dimming. From the precipice of victory... to utter ruin.
When the glutton drinks too deep, when they devour too much, they can forget to breathe...and drown on glory.
So too had the Paradox drowned in its victories.
The survivors acted quickly.
They took what remained of Paradox and locked it deep, deep within the folds. They could not destroy it. So they buried it.
The Creature, free of the Paradox’s shadow, finally heard the Origin and Concept again. He turned to them, confused, only to find silence again.
No celebrations.
Only sorrow.
The Creature asked why.
And the Living Origin replied with heaviness.
"Because on this day, in this war... the Living Order no longer breathes."
...!
Order...was gone.
Gone!
And the Folds would never be the same.
Where there is no Order, Chaos does not merely rise. It laughs, it grows, and it lingers.
From that day on, the Folds began to change again as chaos...would only ever increase!"
HUUUM!
Moiraine fell quiet.
"..."
The silence of the Prison pressed in once more.
Noah’s gaze was unreadable.
She looked at him and gave a rueful smile. "There are always many lessons to practice from the Story of the Earliest Folds. While devouring, be cognizant of what is around you. And overconfidence...has killed more great beings or toppled them into ruin than the stellar sands in the Folds."
Noah nodded slowly as he looked at the Cache he hasld yet to open, his voice quiet. "And Order... is gone."
There were more than 10 initially!
Living Order...was destroyed!
"Gone," Moiraine confirmed. "There is no balance. No harmony. Only ever increasing disorder. And those who learn to swim in it... are the only ones who survive."
Noah’s eyes shimmered faintly, his hand resting on the unopened Cache as his Existence buzzed.
There was no Order.
There was no good.
There was no evil.
Only action. Only decision. Only power.
Only... purpose!