Chapter 5280: Dust I
Chapter 5280: Dust I
Internally, everything about Noah had changed.
The nine Prime Causes burned through the Osmontian Infinite Bones. THE Osmontian Organ of Existence produced twin rivers of Observable and Unobservable Force simultaneously. Osmontian Absolute Infinity ran through foundations that had been rebuilt from the ground up by THE Infinite Cause’s emergence.
The being standing in the wreckage of the shattered Shelter of THE Loom was not the being who had arrived there.
None of it showed on the Primus Apeiron’s exterior. The multicolored Persevere flames rose and fell in their one-second rhythm. The scales caught the light the same way they had before.
The crystalline blue eyes held their cold calculation without broadcasting what the calculation was running on for his true form! His True Body!
Taylor looked at him anyway.
Her rapid eyes moved across his figure and then moved again and then stopped, holding on something her ability was receiving that her expression couldn’t fully organize around. She shook her head slowly.
"You fucking monster," she whispered. "Existence is over here buzzing with unreliable information about you that I can’t even focus on that other monster over there."
Noah shook his head.
"You’re going to want to focus on that monster over there."
Yes.
They were going to need to focus, because Sir William Arthur had turned fully toward the Gilded Legion, and Sir William Arthur demanded to be watched!
---
He stood Gigaparsecs from the Legion’s forward position and was nonetheless present , his existence pressing through the distance with the flat authority of something that didn’t require proximity to make its attention felt.
The obsidian stellar suit sat without adjustment on his frame. His dark hair remained precisely where it was. His hand rested against the sheath at his side with the casual readiness of someone who had done this many times.
His eyes moved across the Legion’s assembled formations with the unhurried assessment of a thorough man completing a thorough review, and when they found the cluster positioned behind the bodies of Taylor and Adrastia, the assessment paused.
He spoke.
"Existence is not a resource to be exploited simply because one possesses the capability to do so."
HUUM!
His voice carried across the locked Observable Existence.
"The capacity to act does not constitute a mandate to act. A being who can lift a mountain is not therefore obligated to drop it on ants, and a being who can traverse the architecture of time is not therefore justified in doing so to pursue outcomes that temporal mechanics have already rendered impossible."
He let that establish itself before continuing.
"The closed loop of temporal travel is not a theory. It is an observed and documented feature of how existence functions. The past cannot be changed. What occurred has occurred, and the record of its occurrence is woven into the fabric of existence at a depth that no force presently documented can revise. A being who travels backward into time and finds themselves present in a moment they previously were not present in has always been present in that moment. They are discovering their presence, not creating it."
His eyes remained on the cluster.
"However. A being who travels into the past with the specific intent to forcibly alter outcomes, who brings sufficient power to bear that they begin to pressure the set record rather than simply inhabit it, introduces instabilities into the fabric of existence that compound outward from the point of pressure. Existence does not accommodate revision. When revision is forced upon it, existence begins to unravel from the site of the forcing." He paused.
"The unraveling of existence is not something I regard with equanimity. The beings responsible for initiating it carry a verdict, and the verdict is death." He straightened slightly. "Are there any questions?"
BOOM!
The cluster behind Taylor and Adrastia went rigid.
The surrounding Gilded Ones turned toward the cluster with the collective attention of a formation discovering a problem in its own ranks, the astonishment moving through the assembled Ira and Superbius and the Silurian Ragnars in a visible wave that Mbaku tracked from his position with the expression of a commander absorbing unexpected information about his own forces.
Sororis Prima Elizabeth’s expression had gone heavy.
She was the leader. Leaders led.
"If any Gilded Ones within this formation have violated temporal protocols, they will be identified and remanded to our own disciplinary processes for—"
"My apologies if I was unclear." Sir William Arthur’s voice cut through hers without elevation or urgency. "My verdict applies specifically to the beings who violated time. As for those who choose to stand between me and the delivery of that verdict, the death of their Source is equally guaranteed. I should note that this is not a debate, nor a negotiation, nor a discussion of any kind."
He reached up with one hand and straightened his tie with two fingers. "I shall get started."
HUUM!
Sororis Prima Elizabeth moved both hands outward and the power came at this time as she roared!
Billowing seas of Prime Cause authority and Existential Radiation surged around the full Legion formation, the compound expression of a Fourth Scale Gilded One erupting with glory!
The sea of power covered the assembled force in a visible golden pressure that pressed outward against the lockdown Sir William Arthur had established.
And at this time, a woman rose from in front of Adrastia and Taylor.
Her body went from contained to blazing in the span of a breath, Fourth Scale power erupting from her foundations with the intensity of something that had been held at suppressed levels during transit and had now stopped suppressing!
She rose above the formation’s front line, her existence burning at the tier that made the Silurian Ragnars beneath her look like a different category of being entirely.
"THE Osmontian needs to die regardless of cost! That violater needs to die regardless!" Her voice carried tremendous hatred of someone who had crossed time itself in service of a decision and was not revisiting it. "A Relictus appearing before us will not change that! IT! WILL! NOT! CHANGE!"
BOOM!
Behind her, three more.
Three other Fourth Scale entities rose from the formation’s body, the beings who had traversed through time alongside Vireth, each one burning at the tier that had made their presence the Legion’s actual offensive capability rather than decoration.
Observable Force fell under their collective influence across the lockdown zone, the ambient substance of the space responding to multiple simultaneous Fourth Scale expressions with the reluctant compliance of matter being commanded.
Then Vireth called out!
"Absolute Superbius Series: GILDED PEACOCK!"
HUUM!