Chapter 5534: Trials! I
Chapter 5534: Trials! I
<THE Creature>
Upon a white platform on the back of a Steed, in the dark between all Dimensions, Existence itself watched a Human, and marveled in silence.
THE Creature’s obsidian flames burned low and even as his gaze rested on THE Youngest. On the crowned figure seated at the head of a grand lifeform, speaking easily with his companions. On the being who had, in the span of one Dimension, undergone tremendous change.
The Youngest had pulled far ahead. At this moment, seated on that Steed, he should be...a bit more powerful than him.
"..."
THE Creature looked down at his own hands.
Obsidian fingers, threaded now with white-gold from the Primeval tail at his back. Hands that had carried eras. Hands that had never once, in all the long bearing, felt like they were holding less than they should.
And yet.
What was this, sitting in him now? This sense of falling behind? Of being...slow? He turned the feeling over carefully, because it was unfamiliar. He had never been one who felt weaker. He had never felt inadequate! He had not known such emotions even existed within him, and he would have said, if asked, that they did not, for he had made a practice across his existence of giving away many of his Everythings and regenerating them afterward, his Everything of Fear, his Everything of Longing, given and regrown, given and regrown...just to see if he could.
He had treated his own depths like a demonstration.
And here was a depth he had never demonstrated, arriving unasked. Was this what the Youngest felt on all those climbs?
"The Jarls will hunt me now."
Noah’s voice moved easily through the dark, unhurried, addressed to all of them.
"I’m currently a target of the Cursed Descendants of THE Krazhor-Nul Dimension." He shrugged slightly.
"It’s not anything crazy. I should be able to continue moving without problems. I’ll be following my own path regardless, and I know all of you have your own plans."
His gaze passed across them.
"THE Sealed One is an enemy to take down in time. Others will fall in line after. But before any of that...what do you all wish to do?"
The question hung in the frothing dark.
And THE Creature reflected.
He looked at the feeling in his hands, this new weight called falling-behind, and he looked at the road that had put it there. The Youngest had not pulled ahead by waiting. He had pulled ahead by rushing in, and doing it rapidly at that!
If he wanted to truly follow his path...he had to rush in without anything holding him back.
The decision settled into him completely, and without ceremony.
"I will have to go," THE Creature spoke up, his flat voice carrying across the platform, "and seek the power I need to truly begin my path of a Great Ruler."
The conversation stilled.
"It is a path I must walk alone. For now...this should be my goodbye." His obsidian gaze was level. "I thank you because the power gained from THE Krazhor-Nul Dimension will be of big help."
And as he said it, he looked at his tail.
THE Blank Caudal of the Unwritten Primeval swayed slowly behind him, white-haired and patient, threading its light through his flames.
He looked up at The Youngest and Anaximander.
The two of them stared at him silently. No protest. No negotiation as after a moment, they simply nodded.
And THE Creature...showed a rare smile.
It moved across his features unfamiliar and unhurried, and when he spoke, his grand voice had the cadence of utter glory.
"I used to believe Existence was a weight that things carried. That every being staggered beneath the fact of itself, and the strongest were merely the ones who staggered least." His flames burned low.
"I was wrong. I have watched all of you, and I was wrong. Existence is not the weight. Existence is the carrying. It is not the stone, it is the back that bends and does not break, it is the hand that lifts what it did not drop"
His gaze passed slowly across all of them. "What is borne, and who bears it, and how they rise beneath it. That is all Existence has ever been. And a Ruler of Existence...must simply be the one who carries the largest share, the longest, for the most."
"..."
The dark between Dimensions held very still around the words.
Then THE Creature closed his eyes.
He turned his attention inward and backward, into the deep architecture of his own existence, to the presence that sat folded there, inherited and his, the seated colossus of worn gray stone. He regarded it for a long moment, this Paradox he had disliked and carried anyway, and he addressed it directly for the first time.
"I am ready to go all in." His voice was quiet. "Let the trials of existence begin."
And within him, and behind him, and somehow also very far away...
HUUM!
The statue opened its eyes.
Two points of light kindled in the faceless gray stone, ancient past all framing, and an ancient voice boomed out, not loud, but vast, a voice that seemed to arrive from the direction time came from.
"THE FIRST TRIAL...IS TO BATHE IN THE BLOOD OF A THOUSAND TRUE LIFEFORMS THAT HAVE SIGNIFICANTLY HARMED EXISTENCE."
...!
A thousand True Lifeforms! Harvested not at random, but judged, each one weighed and found guilty of harming Existence itself, and their blood the bath!
THE Creature did not hesitate.
He gave a simple nod and opened his eyes, and began to float up off the back of Hvitrmarr as waves of schorcing flames billowed around him!
At the platform’s edge, he paused, and looked at Anaximander.
"My friend. I will try not to call you for help again too quickly. But if I do...forgive me."
And Anaximander smiled, tousled and plain amid the naked strings of the dark.
"Whenever you need me, call." The scholar’s eyes were warm. "Distance is a superstition, and so is ’too quickly.’ Existence can be very miserable alone, and we can make the conditions ourselves not to be miserable."
"..."
With these words held, THE Creature turned last to Noah.
And his eyes flashed with a competitive light!
"Youngest. I am curious how far your human road will stretch. I am waiting to see which of us will become a Great Ruler." The rare smile returned, one degree sharper.
"We may be back together before you know it, soon. As...I will see if I can possibly pull ahead of you by then."
...!
THE Youngest smiled calmly at this, and nodded.
THE Creature gave one last nod to Ryaenara.
The Mirthful Antiquity nodded back, uncharacteristically wordless, her vibrant eyes holding him a moment longer than a nod required.
And then he fully floated away from Hvitrmarr.
He did not ask for a road. He did not ask for a door! He moved out into the frothing dark between all Dimensions as if he already knew exactly where he wanted to go, and did not need anybody to take him there, because he did not. His Pantheon had no shape. His Pantheon became its surroundings.
Existence was his Pantheon.
And even out here, between all membranes and beneath all frameworks...was existence.
His obsidian flames spread into the dark, and the dark received them, and at this moment, wholly and without reservation, THE Creature went all in to everything that existence entailed!