Chapter 5039: Conviction! I
Chapter 5039: Conviction! I
Naldine had observed Primordial Architects across eons of coexistence at THE Second Scale, and she had learned to read them within moments of meeting.
Some projected power through displays meant to intimidate. They blazed with their Civilizations at every opportunity, announced their presence through pressure that crushed everything nearby, demanded acknowledgment through force that left no room for alternative responses.
These were the weak ones. They required external validation because internal certainty eluded them. Beowulf fell into this category despite his accomplishments. Horus as well. Their need to be seen as powerful revealed the hollow spaces within their foundations where true conviction should have resided.
Others operated through silence and observation, moving through existence without announcing themselves, accomplishing objectives before anyone realized they had arrived.
These possessed greater strength than the loud ones, but their quietness often stemmed from fear rather than confidence. They avoided confrontation because uncertainty plagued them. They gathered information obsessively because they doubted their ability to adapt without preparation.
THE Arboreal Warden Yggvaros demonstrated this quality, powerful beyond question yet forever waiting, forever watching, forever hesitating before the decisive moments that might define his legacy.
The truly strong existed in neither category.
They did not need to project because projection implied audience. They did not need to hide because hiding implied threat. They simply were what they were, their existence radiating conviction so fundamental that doubt could find no purchase within their foundations.
THE Creature embodied this quality more completely than any being Naldine had encountered. That entity did not announce his power or conceal it. He simply existed, and existence bent around him because his certainty about what he was exceeded reality’s certainty about what it was.
The strongest psychological quality an existence could possess was not power. It was not intelligence. It was not even wisdom accumulated across eons of careful observation.
It was conviction about one’s own existence.
The absolute, unshakeable certainty that you were exactly what you believed yourself to be. That your path was correct not because evidence supported it but because you walked it. That your Civilization represented truth not because others agreed but because you had built it from foundations that could not be questioned.
This conviction served as THE Civilizational Anchor that THE Proterozoic Scale demanded. Without it, Infinity’s whispers found cracks to exploit. Without it, THE Gamaidjan convinced its victims that they were something other than what they had believed. The truly strong never fell to such corruption because corruption required uncertainty to begin its work, and they possessed none.
When Naldine looked at Osmont, she saw this conviction leaking from his existence like light escaping a star too bright for its shell.
He did not merely possess confidence. He radiated it with intensity that pressed against everything nearby, declaring his certainty about what he was and what he would become without requiring words to announce it.
Every action he took emerged from foundations so assured of their own nature that doubt seemed like a foreign concept his consciousness. But...he also seemed to have doubt sometimes as it was odd. Paradoxical really.
She was almost envious.
Almost.
Her own conviction had been forged across eons of careful cultivation, tested against countless challenges that had shattered lesser certainties, refined until it could withstand pressures that crushed Primordial Architects less prepared than herself. She had earned her confidence.
Osmont seemed to have simply been born with it as he was too young.
Or perhaps his journey through existence had compressed eons of testing into years that somehow produced equivalent results. Either way, he possessed the quality in abundance that most Second Scale beings spent lifetimes attempting to develop, and he wielded it without apparent awareness of how rare it was.
But Naldine also knew that strength could become weakness through simple excess.
Conviction that never bent would eventually shatter when faced with truths it could not incorporate. Certainty that never questioned would miss dangers that uncertainty would have caught. Those playing with Infinity required flexibility alongside their foundations, the ability to adapt when endless potential revealed aspects of existence their confidence had not anticipated.
Osmont’s conviction was immense.
She simply hoped it was not so rigid that it would break rather than bend when Infinity finally showed him something his certainty could not accept.
---
Across THE Interstices.
As she was thinking all of this, Naldine looked toward Osmont and noticed he seemed to have a particularly content expression right now.
They had moved from Alfheimr into the gray expanse of endless weavings, that liminal space where boundaries blurred and travel between configurations became possible. The multicolored rain of the Pluvial Epoch of Existential Infinity passed around them in rivers that painted the gray with borrowed brilliance, his Miniature Cause still reshaping Observable Existence even as they traveled through it.
She asked with genuine curiosity coloring her tone.
"What made you so happy?"
Osmont’s smile carried satisfaction that seemed entirely inappropriate given everything that was happening.
"I have just forged my first Infinity Armament. If I make enough of them paired with the rest of my power, maybe I can begin thrashing a Proterozoic Scale Being."
His eyes gleamed as he continued.
"Unless you want to let me study the bones in your arm a little. Who knows, maybe I can begin forming Proterozoic Bones or Organs even before attaining THE Proterozoic Scale."
...!
There was that endless confidence and conviction again, as if his words would no doubt become reality soon enough.
Naldine wanted to shake her head, but ultimately she found herself responding with something other than dismissal.
"You are filled with unknowns, so who knows. Maybe you are right."
She paused, letting her next words carry the full measure of her accumulated experience.
"But do not underestimate any Proterozoic Scale Being. Even someone like Beowulf is impossible for you to defeat right now, and he is one among many of the weaker ones."
Her singularity-dotted eyes fixed on him with intensity that most beings would have found uncomfortable.
"You do not know much and have not heard much about Primordial Architects and how many there are, yes? Often times, existence rarely rewards the clamorous. There are those who believe that to be heard is to be powerful. They shout their intentions to the rafters, rattling their Civilizations to mask the hollow thrum of their own fear. Those are beings like Beowulf."
She gestured at the multicolored rain surrounding them.
"They are like a summer storm, all thunder and sudden flashes of light, yet they spend their fury in a single frantic moment, leaving nothing behind but damp existence and silence. Such loudness and volume is not strength."
Her voice lowered as she continued.
"The truly dangerous do not broadcast their malice. They cultivate it in stillness. While the fool boasts, the most terrifying enemies are those who have mastered the patience of years. They are silent, analyzing the very threads of your life, finding the single strand that, if pulled, causes your entire Civilization to unravel."
Naldine let those words settle before delivering the point she truly wanted him to understand.
"By the time you feel their touch upon your throat, the trap was sprung eons ago. Fear the shadow that does not move, for it is calculating exactly how to break you before you even know you are at war. Those are the Primordial Architects and Singular Cognizances for you to worry about. The ones you will not know the names of before they try to destroy you."
She spoke at length and in detail because she truly wanted him to learn and grow, wanted him to develop some caution that might keep him alive long enough to reach the potential she saw within his foundations. Everything she said came from eons of watching brilliant beings die because they underestimated enemies they never saw coming!
And yet even after she said all that, he gazed at her with the same conviction and a smile as he asked his next question.
"Might you happen to know of these silent schemers and planners that are supposed to not even be known? Maybe I can also scheme against them."
"..."
Naldine took a moment as she sighed internally. This one truly was something else entirely.
"To scheme against such forces is to attempt to outrun your own shadow."
She considered how much to reveal, how much warning would actually penetrate that impenetrable confidence.
"When it comes to if I know of these silent architects... I do. I know some. But others are really silent, and even I do not know them."
Her expression grew more serious than it had been throughout their journey together.
"You must be cautious of the names Sammael and Ishara. Nasty and cautious beings. But if you seek the true horizon of your undoing, you must look to the two who have moved beyond mere planning. They are the ones who will succeed in collapsing everything you hold dear if you are not careful, for they have already achieved the impossible."
She held up one finger.
"First, fear Eqono, THE Bright. He does not walk alone. He has bound the wills of multiple Primordial Architects to his cause, turning Architects into his own personal instruments. It is whispered that he possesses multiple Proterozoic Organs and Bones, foundations forged beyond what most at our Scale have accomplished."
A second finger rose.
"Second, and perhaps most terrifying, is Cyndane. She does not bother with a choir of followers. She has formed an alliance with the Singular Cognizances themselves, entities that predate differentiation. She carries THE Proterozoic Sight, an eye that sees not what is, but the inevitability of what must cease to be."
Naldine let her hand fall as she delivered the final truth.
"And these are just the ones I have gathered information about. The ones even I do not know about are the really scary ones for you. It is why I really am trying my best here. I know you actually face an impossible wall."
...!
After saying such words, she looked at him closely again.
Would he pause? Show some concern, any hint of fear crossing those features that seemed immune to such emotions? She had just described beings who could end everything he cared about, forces that had already achieved what most considered impossible, enemies who would not announce themselves before striking.
She watched.
And she saw him smile again with that same conviction, as if what he heard changed nothing whatsoever about his approach or his confidence.
"..."
Naldine found that she could say nothing more to scare him.
His conviction was unbreakable, it seemed. Either that quality would carry him to heights even she could not imagine, or it would shatter against truths that refused to bend regardless of how certain he was about his own nature.
She genuinely did not know which outcome awaited him.
...!