Chapter 3837: Living! I
Chapter 3837: Living! I
There were always Living Existences since the Earliest Folds.
After THE Living Paradox sought to put everything under its light, it had spread The Creature’s Everything across the Folds.
From this Everything came many things.
Many Living Existences bloomed over the years that followed as always, there were 10 Living Existences.
10 types of Foldless Ones.
But in history, there was a Type of Living Existence that never had anything arise from it...since it was ended in a battle against THE Living Paradox and all others. There was.
There was.
At this moment.
In Noah’s Living Wheel of Existence.
The colorless robed figure of Noah that was Quintessence stood at the very center of the wheel being turned to stone as he looked around at the 10 Living True Sources surrounding him.
Origin. Paradox. Wrath. Chronos. Singed. Veritarch. Quantum. Relativity. Summoning. Infinity.
The moment Wrath and Summoning became Living as all 10 Living Authorities bloomed within him, Everything had frozen.
Everything.
Only Quintessence stood at the very center of it all.
Only Quintessence gazed at everything and everyone as he waited to see what would result from this action they took.
And in that silence, the colored lights of the 10 Living True Sources began to stir.
The hue of deep red from Wrath, the shimmering white gold of Origin, the golden and black glimmer of Paradox, the shifting multiple colors of Quantum, the golden shimmer of Singed, and the verdant white of Veritarch...
Each of them drifted from where they stood. Gentle streams of light unraveled from their robes as the energies moved to the center of the Wheel.
They wrapped around Quintessence, circling him gently like rivers weaving into one another. There was no conflict. No rejection. Only unity.
Their brilliance grew brighter with every passing second until it was blinding, until no form or figure could be seen anymore within the center.
HUUM!
Just light.
Just harmony.
From that convergence, from that impossible meeting of all Living Authorities, something new was born.
It did not roar.
It did not shine.
Instead, what bloomed before Quintessence was a simple drop.
A drop of blood.
It hovered midair with no brilliance to its color. Its shade was brown, fading into gray. It looked dried, old, ancient.
Not vibrant. Not full of power. It seemed lifeless. Decrepit.
But the moment this drop appeared, it pulsed.
A wave of light rippled from it.
BOOM!
A silent quake moved through the Living Wheel of Existence as the drop floated to the very center.
And there, it anchored.
It settled.
It existed.
From that drop, from that ancient fleck of blood, a muted crimson gray light spread.
And slowly, the calcification that had been spreading through the Wheel began to recede.
The stone flaked away.
The dullness faded.
The spokes of the Wheel, once stiff and brittle, now pulsed with warmth again.
Heavy, terrifying warmth!
Then, from within the depths of Noah’s existence, a prompt rose.
|An impossibility has bloomed within your existence.|
|A miniscule, unfathomably small but consequential Spark of Everything bloomed in your existence, giving way to the generation of a drop of Blood.|
|From this drop of Blood, you have attained the distinction of...an Early Creature. Faint and light, but it is there nonetheless.|
BOOM!
An Early Creature.
That was the distinction now tied to Noah’s existence. Within the Living Wheel that spun at the heart of his being, where multicolored spokes stretched infinitely, a warmth began to bloom. It pulsed gently at first, soft and unfamiliar, brushing against the countless emanations of his True Sources.
That warmth grew.
Wrath stirred like a slumbering volcano as it soaked in that warmth. Chronos blinked in temporal rhythm, perceiving time across folded loops. Origin, Paradox, Singed, Veritarch...all ten Living Authorities hummed as though a chord had been struck that resonated across every part of what they were.
And at the center, near that drop.
That single grayish drop of blood!
So small.
So dull.
Its color, a faded brown, almost gray, as though it had lived more lives than any could count.
Ancient beyond belief! Quintessential beyond measure!
It floated in silence, yet from it came a radiant heat. Blinding. So warm it felt like a sun wheel was beating just behind one’s skin.
The Living Wheel began to turn faster.
The warmth from that single drop roared, crashing into every corner of Noah’s being. It lifted the colors of the Wheel to unbearable brightness. The buzz of each Authority joined, a unified thrum of revelation.
Quintessence stood closest. The colorless-robed form of Noah bathed in that warmth, trembling with power. He lifted his head, eyes wide as the drop hovered before him.
"We...did not come into existence," he whispered. The whisper grew louder. Clearer. "We came out of it."
HUUM!
The words dropped with weight.
Quintessence looked around him, the blinding lights rippling through all others. "Like waves from the ocean," he continued, his voice richer now. "We are not separate. We are not creations. We are...extensions of Existence itself."
The others watched in silence. The warmth seeped deeper.
Noah looked at everything as he thought of his beginning.
Even before he became a hunter.
He thought himself just human.
But this was false. Even a seemingly normal human...was made up of the same materials that forged stellar bodies, just in different compositions.
He wished he could tell his old human self and all other humans out there.
They were not inconsequential.
They were not nothing.
They came out of the cradle of existence itself.
They were made from the same carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and calcium that formed the very heart of stars.
They were wonders.
Quintessential wonders!
They could do anything. Be anything. But.. they did not know!
They were under no obligation to be the same beings they were ten minutes ago or a day ago. But...they did not know.
They continued to be the same day in and day out.
They did not know how special they were, and they did not accept the things that came with Existence.
That light followed darkness. That there is no black without white. That there was no happiness without hardship. That was existence. That was...everything.
HUUM!
|As a budding Early Creature, Living Existential Authorities are drawn to you irresistibly.|
|As a budding Early Creature, your Existence has entered a closed loop, unable to be easily affected by outside input.|
|Weavings unable to be quantified are currently unfolding.|
...!
The prompts bloomed like flowers of insight.
And then, the calcification fully vanished.
Not broken. Not shattered.
Gone.
Receding like a tide drawn away by an unseen moon, the gray stone that had begun to consume Noah’s Living Wheel disappeared entirely. The light, the warmth, the ancient blood- each played its part!