Chapter 4182: Well! II
Chapter 4182: Well! II
The words were heavy.
And they stayed in the space between them like a death sentence.
Khor had dropped this revelation with casualness, then fallen silent as if giving him time to process the end of everything.
She waved her hand with practiced efficiency, and an obsidian field of authority materialized around them...not as a barrier but as something more fundamental.
The space they occupied simply opted out of time’s governance.
Prompts materialized in Noah’s vision, though they seemed almost mundane compared to what had just been revealed.
|The First Hunger has laid out a small domain of hunger that eats away at time itself|
|No time passes while inside this domain|
|External reality: Effectively Paused|
|Internal reality: Continuing at user discretion|
After establishing this temporal sanctuary, Khor sighed with the weight of someone who had just remembered why they’d chosen to forget.
Even though she didn’t really choose...
"Man, existence really sucks for you and everyone else here." She paused, considering. "Well, I guess that includes me too now. Whatever was triggered... is something that not even THE Living Paradox and others at that level can survive. And these are entities at an entirely different Scale of Existence ...so far beyond current understanding that they felt the need to lock themselves away in THE Loom."
The implications were heavy in their simplicity.
If beings like THE Living Paradox...entities that could collapse Early Creatures with thought, that existed as fundamental forces rather than mere beings couldn’t survive what was coming, then what chance did anyone else have? Her words painted a future with only one color: ending.
No Living Existences would survive...not the Dukes with their trillions of complexity, not the coalitions with their combined might!
Even Dead Existences, those beings that had already passed through death and emerged changed, would not survive.
There would be no resurrection, no return after a day’s rest.
Simply cessation. Complete. Final. Absolute!
Noah’s gaze grew heavy with weight that had nothing to do with gravity and everything to do with comprehension. Without ceremony, without his usual flair for dramatic positioning, he simply sat down in this domain of Collapse.
The gesture was startlingly human...a man receiving news that made standing seem pointless.
He sighed and looked with bitterness towards the horizon.
The sound carried exhaustion that transcended physical tiredness. He had always done so much, pushed every boundary, exploited every loophole reality carelessly left accessible.
He had turned unfairness into advantage, transformed disadvantage into opportunity. But this...
This wasn’t even something he had control over!
It had been unfolding since the Earliest Folds, a sequence of events set in motion before he had existed, before perhaps even the concept of existence had been properly defined.
He had no agency in this story...he was simply another paragraph in an ending that had been written eons ago.
He had constantly strived to improve, to advance, to accumulate power not from greed but from a drive that went deeper than fear...though fear no longer touched him.
It was the drive to ensure that someday, somewhere, he wouldn’t meet an end alongside his family without even understanding what had happened!
The need to at least comprehend his own ending, to face it with eyes open rather than confused ignorance.
Yet at this moment, that exact scenario seemed to be precisely what awaited. An ending without understanding, cessation without comprehension.
The cruelty wasn’t just in the inevitability but in the uncertainty. Whatever was coming had been expected for an unknown number of years...for eons, Khor had said.
It hadn’t occurred in the Earliest Folds. It hadn’t occurred now. He didn’t know if it would arrive in months, years, or centuries. The sword hung above all their heads, but no one knew when the thread would snap.
"Outsider, you have not said anything."
Khor’s voice pulled him from his spiral of thought.
Noah looked toward her, and she saw something in his eyes that made her straighten...tired tyranny!
The exhaustion of someone who had fought impossible battles and won, only to discover the war itself was rigged.
But as he continued to look at her, something shifted. The tiredness didn’t disappear...it transformed. Like metal being forged, the exhaustion burned away, leaving only unfathomable waves of tyranny.
Not the tyranny of oppression but of absolute refusal to accept predetermined endings.
When he spoke, his voice was calm, as if he hadn’t just received news of existence ending.
"When would this thing that is coming arrive?"
Khor shook her head, her expression mixing frustration with uncertainty. "I don’t really know. But the thinning of The Veil could be a sign that it’s close. The Dead emerging, the tears multiplying...these could be symptoms of whatever’s approaching."
Noah fell silent again, processing this before continuing with another question that cut to the heart of causality.
"You mentioned before that this was triggered. Who exactly triggered such a thing that propelled all these flows of events?"
Khor quieted at this question, her ancient features cycling through expressions of contemplation and uncertainty.
"Even that is not entirely clear. My suspicions would point to THE Living Paradox, but it could also be THE Living Emotive, or even THE Creature itself. I cannot be entirely sure."
THE Creature itself? Noah shook his head at such an idea.
His mind raced through all the stories of the Earliest Folds he had heard from Sigrid during quiet moments, from Moiraine when paradox made her philosophical, even from records found in impossible places.
The stories were scattered, non-linear, often contradictory. They showed glimpses of legends: Early Creatures shaping reality through will, THE Living Existences establishing fundamental forces, THE Creature existing at scales that made everything else seem like elaborate decoration.
He had even made discussing such stories into pillow talk, using intimate moments to extract understanding of the larger existence around him and its history.
From all the tales, those confirmed false and those possibly true, THE Living Emotive and THE Living Paradox consistently emerged as the most suspicious entities...beings whose natures made catastrophe not just possible but probable.
After a long moment of contemplation, Noah spoke again.
"You also mentioned the... Scale of Existence?"
Khor blinked, seeming surprised he had caught that detail while processing existential doom.
"Oh, yes. The Vakochev Scale of Civilizational Existence." She shifted into a more instructional tone, as if explaining fundamental concepts helped distract from their implications.
"It starts with Level Null Scale...that’s most common existences. Beings who don’t know mana or authority exist, who think physics is immutable law rather than polite suggestion. Those who have just begun to interact with existence on the scale of Cosmos and Existential Domains. Weak little things that think immortality means living for millennia rather than restructuring what life means."
She gestured dismissively at the collapsed space around them.
"Then there’s Level Zero Scale, also known as Pre-Civilizational Scale of Existence. This encompasses those who can freely move across Omniverses, Wheels of Existence, and Folds. Weak little things like you, me, Living Existences, Early Creatures, Inevitabilities, Living Collapses...everything you consider powerful."
Her tone suggested she found the designation personally insulting. "Some don’t even distinguish between Null and Zero Scale because, from sufficient height, the difference doesn’t matter."
Her expression grew graver.
"But above Zero Scale is Civilizational Scale...Level 1 Scale of Existence. That’s where THE Creature and THE Living Existences existed. Not the current Living Existences playing at power, but THE Living Existences. The ones who didn’t wield authority but were authority."
She met his gaze directly, ensuring he understood the full weight of what came next.
"If those at the Civilizational Scale of Existence...beings that treated concepts like toys and reality like medium for art, if they didn’t believe they could survive what was coming, then nothing in the Pre-Civilizational Scale has a chance."
Each word landed with terrible finality.
"You. Your Early Veiled Shore. All these Folds. Every being scrambling for power, every alliance being forged, every preparation being made...all of it will cease. Only THE Loom shall remain, Outsider."
The designation had never felt more appropriate.
He...was an outsider to this story, arriving after the beginning but before the ending, powerful enough to understand his powerlessness but not powerful enough to change it.
In this domain where time had been made irrelevant, Noah sat with the knowledge that existence itself might be equally irrelevant soon.
The tyranny in his eyes didn’t diminish...if anything, it grew stronger. But the bitterness in his eyes came and went in cycles as he looked out into the distance!