Chapter 5040: Conviction! II
Chapter 5040: Conviction! II
While Naldine and Osmont crossed THE Interstices.
In the Lands of the Dead.
The Living had their spotlight while the dead shone in the endless shadow behind them. This was the natural order of existence, the balance that most never perceived because they were too focused on the brightness of life to notice the vast darkness stretching infinitely beyond it.
THE Dead Order knew this more than others.
She had not been given her spotlight to shine for eons, remaining behind the scenes while lesser beings claimed glory that should have been hers. Her weavings had been collapsed, her authority diminished, her very existence reduced to something that required rescue rather than inspiring fear. But now, her time was coming. THE Creature had restored her, elevated her, granted her power that finally matched the grandeur she had always deserved.
She wanted pain and vengeance against all those who went against her.
But frustratingly enough, the most recent one was the one THE Creature had forbidden her from pursuing. Apparently now called THE Youngest rather than the nothing he had been when she first encountered him. Osmont!
Him and Sigrid, these defilers of Order who had nearly collapsed the last shred of her weavings, were the ones THE Creature told her to forget about entirely.
If she wanted vengeance, she could decide the fate of THE Living Paradox who had collapsed her first eons ago.
But that felt like a consolation prize. A leftover offered to quiet a child’s tantrum rather than genuine acknowledgment of the wrongs done to her.
She shook her head in frustration as she looked around at her current surroundings.
She stood atop an intricate obsidian temple positioned at the peak of a massive white mountain, hazy white clouds drifting past its edges like ghosts too timid to approach. This was her domain, the Lands of the Dead that she had claimed and cultivated across eons of careful work.
And inside this temple, she was not alone.
An entity entirely humanoid in nature sat on a mat near the temple’s edge, sipping tea as if visiting someone’s home for casual conversation rather than intruding upon a domain she had no right to occupy.
Dark blue hair cascaded down her shoulders in waves that seemed to absorb what little light existed within the temple. Ancient eyes held depths. Her beauty was calm and undeniable.
She stared out across the expanse of obsidian and white all around them while multicolored rivers and rain surged outside the temple’s boundaries. Some streams of that multicolored rain flowed directly across the temple floor, the Pluvial Epoch of Existential Infinity touching even this realm of death with its transformative authority.
Part of this rain was his power. THE Creature’s power.
THE Dead Order focused on the woman who had not said a single word to her since appearing here uninvited. Since she was here, it meant THE Creature had allowed her to be here. But...the silence had stretched past tolerance into outright insult, this stranger treating her like furniture rather than the master of this domain.
She finally brought herself to ask with irritation bleeding through her tone.
"Who might you be? You come into my domain and you do not even bother to speak to me."
...!
The entity opposite her looked over with expression suggesting the question barely warranted acknowledgment. She shook her head slowly, as if deciding whether responding was even worth the effort, before her voice emerged with calm that bordered on dismissive.
"The Lands of the Dead are not something you had built the fence and hung the gate yourself. It is a quaint delusion, the arrogance of a child claiming the sea because he has managed to wet his feet."
She sipped her tea before continuing.
"I was breathing when the first Undivided One was a mere whisper in the dark, long before the threads of your little weaving were even conceived. I have stood before entities whose claims to the Lands of the Dead are written in foundations older than your entire lineage, beings who have forgotten more of ending than you will ever learn."
Her ancient eyes fixed on THE Dead Order with something approaching pity.
"To me, you are a flickering candle of emotions and death. You have no domain here, little one. You have only a temporary reprieve from the silence."
...!
THE Dead Order looked over incredulously at the words that had just been spoken to her.
What the fuck?
What the FUCK?!
Who was this bitch that THE Creature brought over to think she could talk to her like this?! She had been healed and elevated by THE Creature himself, her power now standing at Absolute of THE First Scale!
She was untouchable! If Osmont stood before her again, maybe if he groveled sufficiently, she might spare him the full measure of her vengeance.
But this bitch?!
THE Dead Order rose up as her full chest heaved up and down, rage building within her foundations as she prepared to demonstrate exactly why she was not someone to be dismissed so casually. Her authority began gathering around her, death and weavings of Order responding to her fury as she was about to erupt when...
SAA!
Another aura entered the temple.
A calm and scholarly visage appeared at the temple’s entrance, a figure she recognized. Anaximander arrived drenched in the multicolored rain, droplets of Quintessence Infiniforce and Infinity sliding off his form as he stepped inside. His eyes moved first to THE Dead Order with her rage-twisted expression, then to the entity calmly sipping tea whose ancient eyes actually lit up with warmth when he arrived.
Anaximander looked at the enraged face of THE Dead Order and blinked with an expression suggesting genuine surprise.
"Were you just about to go against one of the more powerful Second Scale Primordial Architects in Observable Existence? You have stronger conviction than I do, O Dead Order!"
...!
THE Dead Order paled as her figure almost stumbled backward.
THE Second Scale? Primordial Architect? That woman?
The rage drained from her foundations faster than it had gathered.
...!
She had no words as she watched that entity nod toward Anaximander with a genuine smile, familiarity passing between them as if they were old acquaintances reuniting after long separation.
"It has been a while, Jokul."
The Primordial Architect then turned her head to glance at THE Dead Order before speaking with calm that made every word cut deeper than intended insult could have.
"I do not know why THE Creature attached himself to something as vain as this during his rebirth. She is a creature of vanity and jealous whims, propping up a hollow existence with the fragile scaffolding of her own emotions."
She sipped her tea again.
"She possesses neither the depth nor the clarity to ever reach THE Second Scale. Such petty passions are but smoke. They will carry her nowhere in the vastness of existence."
A slight shrug.
"But who am I to judge? Where is the big guy? Is he still fighting Horus?"
...!
THE Dead Order actually stumbled backward this time, rage and humiliation warring within her as she stared at this supposed Primordial Architect who had just dissected her entire existence. What the fuck was her problem?!
At her words, Anaximander smiled.
"Nice to see you too, Tairiyya. Try to be nicer."
He moved to sit near her, accepting tea she poured without being asked.
"And THE Creature is wrapping things up. What do you think of the Miniature Cause of rain outside? The one who induced it alongside THE Creature is also a friend of mine."
...!
Anaximander and Tairiyya spoke casually about matters spanning Scales and eons, their conversation flowing as if they had not just dismissed someone standing right before them.
They forgot or ignored THE Dead Order completely, her presence in her own domain rendered irrelevant by beings whose existence operated on levels she could not touch.
She stood there, hollow and humiliated, wondering if anything she achieved would ever matter to those who truly held power in Observable Existence.