Chapter 4891: Storm II
Chapter 4891: Storm II
In existence, you had to walk around and move around like you knew exactly what you were doing.
The trick was to understand that more often than not, everybody else had absolutely no idea what they were doing, and they were figuring things out as they went. The Absolute who seemed impossibly confident? Probably winging it.
The ancient entity who spoke with authority accumulated across eons? Making educated guesses based on experience!
The member of THE Four who shaped Observable Existence with casual gestures? Still learning, still adapting, still uncertain about outcomes that hadn’t yet unfolded.
Some had a bit more control compared to others, but Existence was mainly chaotic.
So fake it until you make it.
Noah was releasing his signature and power while standing on the golden river of THE Mouseion as if he knew exactly what he was doing. His blue-gold flames burned with confidence that pressed against the fate-based systems surrounding him, declaring without words that he belonged here, that he had every right to claim whatever the Mouseion deemed his, that whatever descended from the stellar expanse above would be exactly what he expected.
He knew with utmost certainty that some grand fated item would be descending down for him.
And well, this wasn’t entirely faking it.
He actually did know what was coming.
He had put it there himself.
HUUM!
The space above shuddered as if it was being pulled by forces that transcended the Mouseion’s normal operations. The stellar expanse that held countless treasures deposited across eons trembled with recognition, and in the next moment, at an extremely rapid speed, something came down as if Noah was reclaiming lost property that had been waiting for him all this time.
At Planck speed, a blue-gold treasure chest appeared in front of him.
The chest didn’t drift down gently like other fated items might. It didn’t descend with the measured pace of fate acknowledging worthiness. It rushed toward Noah with urgency.
Glossikos was astonished.
Why did this item rush toward him as if a child was rushing back to their parent? Why did the Mouseion’s systems respond with such enthusiasm to this particular claim? She had witnessed countless retrievals across her existence as a leader of THE Agora, and none of them had looked like this.
When she looked at the chest clearly though, recognition struck her.
In the next moment, Glossikos was astounded as she remembered this item.
Eons ago, someone had put this item in here. They had come along with a terrifying personage that had long since been gone, a being whose presence had made even the Polemarchs of that era lower their heads in deference!
Glossikos remembered countless eons ago when she brought THE Tongue Whisperer here, when they added this very chest as a contribution to THE Mouseion’s collection.
What was this?
Why would...
Her mind buzzed with implications she couldn’t fully process.
Noah grasped the blue-gold treasure chest with Immensity that made his foundations resonate with the object’s authority. His eyes met Glossikos’s shocked gaze with calm.
"I told you, Glossikos, that I would come and get what is fated for me later on."
His voice was steady.
"That at that point, you may actually be there to witness it."
He smiled.
"Here I am, and here you are."
BOOM!
His words felt archaic and heavy, echoing with weight that came from having been spoken before and now being fulfilled. They were so astonishing, so impossible, so fundamentally reality-breaking in their implications that the Absolute who heard them did something she hadn’t done in eons.
She stumbled backward.
And then she fell on her ass in shock and incredulity.
Glossikos, one of the Strategoi who had helped shape this institution across THE Infinite Unfurling, sat on the golden river and stared up at Noah with an expression that had abandoned all composure.
When she now looked at him, the image of THE Tongue Whisperer that she had seen in this same place eons ago overlapped with the being standing before her now. The same mannerisms. The same confidence.
He had known!
Even back then, he had known he would be standing here!
Even back then, he had known she would be watching!
In the midst of her shock, golden light descended from the surroundings like ancient rivers converging on a singular point. The Mouseion’s systems recognized what had just occurred, and they responded.
The light flowed into Noah with warmth of merit accumulated across eons finally being claimed.
|Fated Retrieval Complete|
|You have retrieved an item placed in THE Mouseion of Fated Artifacts eons ago. THE Antinomia Prismatica is deemed the singular most unique item to have ever been placed in THE Mouseion across its entire history. No other contribution has carried equivalent significance or potential impact on Observable Existence.|
|For the retrieval of this item after all these eons, you have gained an unfathomable number of merit points. The contribution weight of THE Antinomia Prismatica, combined with the temporal paradox of its placement and retrieval, has generated merit that exceeds what THE Agora of Primordial Judgment typically processes.|
|This contribution is sufficient for you to challenge for the rank of Strategos, the highest rank in THE Agora of Primordial Judgment. You would join the four current Strategoi as the fifth, should you choose to pursue this elevation.|
...!
The prompts were heavy as Noah’s toga shone and fluctuated with authority that pressed outward from his existence.
But that wasn’t what held his attention.
Noah looked at the object in his hands with shining eyes, and at this moment, he became serious.
Because instantly, the surrounding atmosphere began to glimmer with an obsidian-gold light of Paradox.
His wrappings of THE First Tongue around the object contained within the chest began to unravel the moment it was revealed to Observable Existence again.
And what lay within was waking up.
In Observable Existence, there were truly a few points in time that could be considered pivotal and critical moments that informed how existence would unfold for the future to come. The birth of THE Creature. The first conversation between a peasant and THE Primordial Paradox. THE Fallout...
Somehow, at this moment, back to back, THE Genesis Monarch was involved in two pivotal moments.
The first had been his attainment of the Native Speaker designation, an achievement that no one else in Observable Existence currently held.
The second was happening now.
An ancient air of Paradox that had been thought to be gone since THE Infinite Unfurling began to bloom like a flower everybody thought dead and gone.
The authority was unmistakable to anyone who had ever encountered THE Primordial Paradox in his prime, that contradictory weight that declared things were and were not simultaneously, that truth was both absolute and relative, that existence itself was a question that could never be fully answered.
THE Antinomia Prismatica was releasing the essence it had been containing.
The piece of THE Primordial Paradox’s existence that he had separated and preserved against the day when his Claim would be usurped.
As all of this happened, within the mind of THE Genesis Monarch, there was actually only a single thought that seemed fitting at this moment.
"The Paradox shall fall before the Paradox rises."
He spoke the words aloud, his voice resonating with the weight of the Echo of First Cause.
"The father consumed by the son, the son consumed by the purpose, the purpose consumed by the question that birthed all questions."
The obsidian-gold light around them intensified.
"Three collapses for the price of one, and in the third collapse, the door shall crack."
BOOM!
He uttered these words as they only added to the ancient and terrifying air in the surroundings. The words merged with the reality unfolding before them, past and future colliding in the present moment with weight that made THE Mouseion itself tremble!
Glossikos’s emotions transformed from astonishment to horror as she felt this aura of Paradox and she knew who THE Tongue Whisperer had come with that day eons ago.
A terrifying personage.
One whose presence had made even her bow her head!
As she connected the dots, she truly could not help but be horrified by a scheme and a plan that seemed to be running across eons of time.
THE Four!
THE Four always did whatever they wished, leaving others to deal with the consequences of their actions and schemes.
And two of them seemed to have hatched a plot that spanned eons of time, using THE Mouseion itself as a storage vault for the key to resurrection!