Chapter 4934: Are You With Us? III
Chapter 4934: Are You With Us? III
But now all of this was stripped away. He couldn’t even remember half of his exploits across time. Adventures that had defined who he was had become blank spaces in his memory. Choices that had shaped his path had become questions he couldn’t answer. Moments of triumph and tragedy that had built his character had become voids that the infection was eager to fill with its own purpose.
Even though his face remained stern, stellar purple tears of time leaked from his eyes as he mourned his Civilization.
He mourned his ideals and plans and hopes and dreams!
There were men with ambitions like THE Living Paradox who carried out their plans and became more than they were. They schemed and manipulated and succeeded against odds that should have been insurmountable. They bent existence to their will and emerged greater than they’d been before.
And then there were men who failed regardless of what they planned for.
That was just how existence was.
Sometimes you succeeded. Sometimes you failed. But you simply had to do your best at all times.
At this time, as he saw all avenues of his existence blocked off, as he felt the last dredges of his will beginning to crumble against pressure that exceeded anything he could resist alone...
He heard a voice.
It came from everywhere and nowhere. It resonated inside his mind rather than reaching him through the temporal currents. It was warm and gentle and filled with understanding that made his resistance waver despite himself.
"Why do you struggle, child of time?"
The voice held no malice. Only concern.
"We have watched you swim against currents that cannot be outpaced. We have felt your pain as you try to hold onto fragments of yourself that are already becoming part of something greater. It hurts us to see you suffer like this. It truly does."
THE Living Temporal kept swimming, kept moving, kept trying to escape.
"You dream of becoming greater than THE Living Paradox. Greater than THE Creature. You wish to reach THE Second Scale of Existence and prove that your path was worthy of the eons you invested in it. These are beautiful dreams, Temporal. We understand them completely."
The voice grew warmer.
"And we can make them real."
His strokes faltered slightly.
"Think of what you could become with us. Your Temporal authority is singular, yes, but it is limited by its singularity. What if it wasn’t limited? What if you could wield Paradox alongside Time? What if Chaos could flow through your chronological manipulations? What if Existence itself could be bent through your temporal weavings?"
The currents around him seemed to slow as the voice continued.
"We have access to all Civilizations within our collective. Those who have mastered contradiction. Those who have embraced entropy. Those who have plumbed the depths of being and meaning. All of their knowledge, all of their authority, all of their power could be yours to use. Not borrowed. Not stolen. Shared freely among family."
Family.
The word struck him with force that exceeded any attack.
"Imagine Temporal seamlessly fused with Quantum. Your control over time enhanced by mastery of probability and uncertainty. Imagine Temporal intertwined with Dimensional. Your chronological authority expanded into spatial manipulation that would make the Undivided Ones bow before you. Imagine Temporal unified with the fundamental aspects of Existence itself, your power growing until THE Second Scale wasn’t a dream but an inevitability."
He was slowing. His strokes were weakening.
"THE Second Scale is achievable with us. This is also our dream, you see. We don’t wish to remain limited to what we currently are. We wish to grow. To evolve. To reach heights that individual existence can never attain. And we wish to bring everyone we love along with us on this journey."
The voice held something that sounded almost like tears.
"You have been alone for so long, Temporal. Lonely across eons of existence with no one who truly understood the weight of time. With us, you would never be alone again. You would be part of something that loves you. That values you. That would use your gifts not to diminish you but to elevate you beyond anything you could achieve on your own."
His arms had stopped moving.
"It hurts us that we’re putting you in pain as you resist. It truly, genuinely hurts us. We don’t want to cause suffering. We want to end suffering. Yours. Everyone’s. The pain of isolation and competition and fear that defines existence for those who haven’t yet understood what we offer."
The voice dropped to something almost tender.
"So we ask you, with all the love we hold for you..."
Silence.
"Are you with us, Amser Modred?"
BOOM!
Amser Modred!
They used the name he was given by the one who bore him so many eons ago!
THE Living Temporal, Amser, howled in grief when he heard this. That name belonged to memories he no longer had. That name came from a time he couldn’t recall, from a being who had loved him, from a life that existed only as void in his consciousness now. They knew his name. His true name. The name that should have been protected by eons of temporal authority.
And he no longer even had his memories of that time!
He howled with such grief as around him, fractures of time bloomed in response to his anguish. Purple cracks split the temporal currents, opening pathways that led to moments scattered across existence. His howl was a cry for help that transcended conscious decision. He’d given up on any grand ideals. He sought help. Simple help. Basic survival.
But who would be able to help him?
Could he find his path toward THE Creature? Would that ancient being be grand enough not to be infected as well? Or would seeking help from such a source merely bring the infection to someone else, spreading the rot further across Observable Existence?
THE Living Temporal didn’t know.
But for now, he began tearing across time, following one of the fractures his grief had created. He moved through moments that blurred together, through eras that had no meaning to his damaged memory, through temporal pathways that his authority had carved in desperation.
And he entered a fracture of time that led somewhere unexpected.
He found himself in gray brilliance he recognized as...THE Interstices. That space between spaces where beings of sufficient authority could establish themselves outside the normal flow of existence. The gray void stretched in all directions, featureless and eternal.
But it wasn’t featureless anymore.
In this gray brilliance, he felt an unfathomably grand and warm blue-gold light stretching out for miles. It painted THE Interstices in colors that this space had never known, transforming the eternal gray into something that almost resembled a home. The warmth of it washed over him like sunlight after eons in darkness.
A blinding light he almost covered his eyes for.
When he looked ahead, squinting against brilliance that exceeded anything his damaged temporal perception could fully process...
He saw the figure of a man seated on a blue-gold throne in front of a desk. In THE Interstices. As if this void between places was simply another room in a house he owned.
"Ah."
Amser Modred was only able to say this single word before time fractured again.
He took a step to appear before the entity he’d found, closing distance that should have been impossible to traverse so quickly. The being held a pen in his hand, writing Inscriptions on golden pages that burned with authority Amser couldn’t fully perceive through his damaged senses. Infinities surrounded him in swirling galaxies of blue-gold light. His gaze was calm. Imperious. Grand!
He looked at Amser with eyes that held no fear, no concern, no uncertainty whatsoever.
Amser’s entire body trembled with chaotic purple rivers of time that leaked from his existence uncontrollably. His wish to get help had led him here. His temporal authority, damaged as it was, still functioned well enough to find pathways toward survival. And this had to be the only place he could potentially get help.
His time had never been wrong in this.
The being on the throne didn’t speak. He simply observed, that imperious gaze taking in every detail of Amser’s condition with perception that seemed to see everything at once. The pen in his hand had stopped moving. The Inscriptions on his desk continued burning with patient authority.
And Amser Modred, THE Living Temporal, one of the most powerful Absolutes in Observable Existence...
Looked at THE Youngest of THE Five with desperation he couldn’t hide.
His expression held shame. It held humility that he’d never shown to anyone across all his eons of existence. It held the broken remnants of pride that had been stripped away by an infection he couldn’t fight alone.
"Help me."
His voice cracked on the words.
"Please."
He had dreams. He really did. He’d wanted to reach THE Second Scale. He’d wanted to prove that his path was worthy. He’d wanted to become something that would be remembered across all of existence for eons to come.
He didn’t want them to all crumble.
So...he asked for help.