Chapter 4809: Vast and Full of Terrors! II
Chapter 4809: Vast and Full of Terrors! II
After he said such words, he looked toward Glossikos as if he was disappointed in her choice to stand where she stood, and he disappeared with a flash of obsidian-gold light that left afterimages burned into the air!
A heavy silence settled in the destroyed Palaestra.
Noah looked toward Glossikos who turned to him with a calm gaze that seemed to be hiding many things beneath its composed surface.
He did not trust this bitch at all.
She was an Absolute who had spent eons failing to claim what he had claimed. She was a being who had shown naked greed for his Heart when he offered it to THE Weavers. She was someone whose motivations remained unclear even after everything that had occurred.
But she was a follower of The First Tongue and wanted everything about it, so until she made her allegiances clear, there were still many things he could do with her.
And at this moment...
"Hey, I need to make a visit to the lands of Existentialists in this place."
...!
He spoke such words calmly as if he didn’t even want to discuss THE Weavers or the Axiom or the implicit threat that Paradoxos had just delivered on behalf of THE Living Paradox!
He wanted to get a move on his objectives as things were moving around far too quickly, and all of it was mainly due to him and his actions across existence since arriving in THE Corrupted Vault of Ginnungagap.
But as he held the Derivative Civilization of Undifferentiated Fate under him, he now sensed many more things across Existence.
Threads of fate that he could perceive and follow.
Connections that had been invisible before but now blazed with clarity.
And the Disciple of THE Secretive Eon was one he could grab right now and complete this objective!
—
Around the same time.
In Alfheimr.
THE Primordial Chaos walked through the crystalline forests of Alfheimr with the ease of someone who owned everything and nothing simultaneously.
The glory of his form shifting constantly as THE Living Emotive floated beside him and THE Living Elemental trailed behind with the caution of someone who knew he was in dangerous company.
THE Primordial Chaos looked up at the obsidian gold pillar that still had not faded above as if it was reminding him of long forgotten memories.
Emotive blinked as she looked at him and said...
"Scary old man, what are you thinking about right now with such a brutal gaze?"
THE Primordial Chaos did not turn to her as he replied calmly.
"I was remembering an Absolute I collapsed long ago, during the Infinite Unfurling."
BOOM!
Emotive’s emotions had been cycling through boredom and mild interest, but her eyes now shone brighlty as she came closer as if she was ready to listen, and Elemental remained silent.
"His name was THE Solitary Extreme."
Chaos’s shifting features settled into something almost nostalgic.
"He was magnificent in ways that most Absolutes could only dream of being. He burned brighter than any constellation of lesser beings, fueled entirely by his own foundations, beholden to nothing and connected to none. He did not share his authority. He did not receive support from others. He simply burned, alone and magnificent, because burning alone was what THE Solitary Extreme had always done."
The crystalline trees around them seemed to lean in, as if even the realm of Alfheimr wanted to hear this tale.
"And when I came for him, THE Solitary Extreme collapsed into himself as it was not even a grand battle, and I had even gone there to give him a choice."
Chaos’s voice grew heavier with each word.
"No other Absolute felt his death approaching in time to intervene. No other power dimmed itself to come to his aid. The vast expanse of Observable Existence simply watched as I consumed something that had touched nothing beyond itself."
He paused, letting the weight of the memory settle.
"Other Absolutes I have faced over the eons, they had connections. They had threads tying their fates to beings who would cross Existence to stand beside them. They had networks of Ways that supported and elevated each other when crisis arrived. Those Absolutes were harder to collapse. Some remain uncollapsed to this day precisely because I could never catch them truly alone. Osmont, when I met him, had many that wanted to stand by his side in Ginnungagap. He was not isolated, and he moved from the grasp of Temporal and others smoothly."
His smile became something vast and knowing.
"But THE Solitary Extreme believed that isolation was strength. Because solitude felt safer."
Chaos turned to look at both Emotive and Elemental with eyes that held depths of accumulated eons.
"There is a particular pride in standing alone that many mistake for power. The pride of saying that everything one has achieved came from within, that no hand lifted them, that no thread tied their fate to another."
His voice dropped to something that resonated with the very fabric of Alfheimr itself.
"It is the pride of THE Solitary Extreme, burning bright and burning fast and burning toward an ending that no one came to prevent."
"An Absolute who burns in constellation with others may shine less brilliantly in isolation, but they burn longer, reach further, and when enemies come for them, the threads they have woven become shields that solitary brilliance can never provide. And yet THE Weaver, with all her connections, perished alone, while other Absolutes were even observing. So truly...what is The Way? Isolation, or connections?"
Elemental listened silently.
And Emotive yawned as if she had lost interest and was bored.
A moment later, she blinked and turned her head sharply as she looked toward a certain direction with eyes that suddenly blazed with genuine interest.
"No fucking way..."
...!
"Oh, I wasn’t talking about your boring ass story."
She waved her hand dismissively at Chaos while her attention remained locked on whatever she had sensed.
"I seem to have found something unbelievable over there."
...!
THE Primordial Chaos remained calm as he looked at Emotive and what she had sensed, his shifting features betraying nothing of the fact that this was something he had already observed the moment he arrived in Alfheimr.
THE Living Emotive was staring into the far distance, her attention locked onto a grand citadel filled with life and activity that blazed against the serene beauty of the Primordial Realm.
And within that citadel, THE Living Origin and THE First Hunger had just arrived.