Chapter 5113: Custodes! I
Chapter 5113: Custodes! I
The voice of Anaximander echoed through his mind as Noah turned silent.
He was moving with THE Creature within THE Wyld right now. Among all those who had reached out to offer assistance, THE Creature was notably not among them.
Noah knew the being’s philosophy. Adversity only made one stronger. Pain was the forge that shaped greatness. THE Creature wouldn’t volunteer himself because doing so would undermine the very principles he had built his existence around. He believed Noah needed to face this challenge.
But Noah also knew that if he asked, this being who had burned away his own Primordial Architect classification would come.
But did he truly need to do so?
This was not THE Fable of THE Creature. This wasn’t someone else’s story where Noah played a supporting role, benefiting from another’s power while his own remained stagnant.
This was his life. His weavings. His story.
And he would do everything he could to depend on himself and the weavings of his existence.
At this moment in time, there were several things he wanted to do. The first relied on himself, yes, but also drew from a place he was already pulling significant power from. A being whose Observable Force flooded into him constantly.
He wouldn’t ask for help from her either.
But with his Hadean weavings, he was about to do many crazy things that would pull even more from her reserves. He wanted to talk with her before then. To give her a heads up, and to also make sure that in addition to THE Deliverance, he wouldn’t add Gilded Lifeforms as his enemies right now. So he would reach out towards her.
Toward the one who was supposedly so far from him.
Toward Ubergulden Adelheid.
"Ruination," he said. "Set up the line of communication between me and Ubergulden Adelheid. Wherever she may be."
...!
|Understood, Master.|
Ruination’s voice emerged, already working on his request.
|Communication with Ubergulden Adelheid presents unique challenges due to the nature of your connection and the distances involved. However, your Hadean transformation has expanded the capabilities available through your bond.|
|Initiating communication protocol.|
|The seas of Observable Force connecting you to Ubergulden Adelheid serve as the primary conduit. Information can travel along the same pathways that authority travels. Your Quintessence Infiniforce resides within Ubergulden Adelheid heavily.|
|Establishing resonance between your Hadean existence and the Observable Force conduit. Establishing resonance between your Quintessence Infiniforce within Ubergulden Adelheid and your primary reserves.|
|Communication channel established.|
|You may now speak directly to Ubergulden Adelheid through this connection. Your words will reach her regardless of physical distance. Her responses will return through the same pathways.|
|Speak, and she will hear.|
...!
Noah took a breath that his Hadean lungs didn’t technically require.
Then he reached out through the connection!
---
<Unknown Region of Existence>
She loved the triumph of the weak.
There was something beautiful about it, something that stirred feelings Ubergulden Adelheid had never been able to fully explain to others of her kind. When something small and fragile rose against something vast and terrible, when it struggled and bled and somehow emerged victorious despite every factor working against it, she felt something close to hope.
But such triumphs were always short-lived.
They never produced long-lasting results. The weak could win a battle, could celebrate their moment of glory, could believe they had changed the fundamental nature of their circumstances. Then reality would reassert itself, and everything they had fought for would crumble back into the dust it had always been destined to become.
She was currently standing inside a vast room that defied normal spatial comprehension.
The walls seemed to breathe with golden light, surfaces that weren’t quite solid shifting through configurations of architecture built from principles most civilizations couldn’t perceive.
Constellations drifted across the ceiling in patterns that held meaning only to those engineered to read them as they depicted the emergence of...Causes.
The floor beneath her feet felt like standing on crystallized purpose, every step resonating with power refined across spans that predated THE First Cause.
This was a glimpse of what truly advanced Civilizations looked like when they had access to resources that Bounded could never touch.
This was how THE Gilded lived.
Throughout the room, figures stood at various positions with postures of attentive service. Their skin shone with golden coloring that declared their nature without need for introduction, each one radiating authority that would have made someone like Grimvault feel like absolutely nothing.
The aura these servants held felt hundreds of times grander than what that Calymmian Tier Primordial Architect could muster at his peak.
Yet their faces held only respect when they looked toward her.
THE Gesinde. The lowest classification of Gilded Lifeforms, those who served at the pleasure of unique and grander Gilded. Even the weakest among them could have crushed basic Primordial Architects with casual effort, could have unmade Civilizations that Bounded considered unbreakable.
They were servants only in relation to beings like herself, and that relationship gave a glimpse to hierarchies that most of Observable Existence couldn’t comprehend.
Ubergulden Adelheid was seated on a floating golden lotus, its petals radiating warmth that nourished her existence simply through contact. Before her floated a golden aquarium filled with waters that shifted between blue and luminescent gold, containing a landscape of coral formations and underwater valleys that stretched for what appeared to be mere feet but actually encompassed light years of compressed space.
She was watching a group of goldfish.
These weren’t ordinary creatures. Each one burned with power at the Fundamental Depth of THE First Scale, their small forms containing authority that would have made them legendary figures in most regions of Observable Existence. The concentration of existence and Observable Force was so potent here that even simple lifeforms naturally attained the peak of THE First Scale through mere proximity to Gilded environments.
The water around them swirled with blue-gold blood, their scales torn and fins shredded from recent combat. But they were celebrating, swimming in patterns that declared triumph despite their injuries. They had just defended their territory against a threat that should have been impossible for them to overcome.
A golden crab floated listlessly ahead of them, its massive form drifting with the current.
It had been at THE Absolute Depth of THE First Scale. It had threatened their home, had invaded their small corner of this aquarium with intent to consume everything they had built. And they had fought back. They had coordinated, had sacrificed, had pushed themselves past limitations that should have been absolute.
They had won!
Ubergulden Adelheid watched them celebrate with eyes that held something close to sorrow.
Because what the goldfish couldn’t see was what existed on the other side of this aquarium. Beyond the coral formations and underwater valleys, past the territories they considered their entire world, thousands of those crabs clustered in configurations that of organized society rather than mindless predation. They had just sensed one of their own be killed.
They were already sending a party.
These goldfish that had triumphed against their oppressor, that were currently swimming in patterns of joy and relief, would all find themselves dead soon enough. The weak had won a battle. The weak would lose the war. As they always did. As they always would.
The weak never won. Not truly.
They only delayed their deaths.