Chapter 4038: Oh, Order! I

The thought of the Stick touching her, of being forced to confront truths about herself that she preferred to keep buried, made her entire being recoil. She did not want that. She absolutely, categorically, fundamentally did not want that!

So she found herself in a very difficult position...loyalty to her Duke warring with self-preservation that transcended simple survival.

At this moment, Noah was leading the group with confidence, waving his stick with the air of someone taking a pleasant walk rather than traversing one of the most dangerous Doorways in existence.

After they had traveled for what felt like hours through passages that folded back on themselves, they finally heard it.

ROAAAAAR!

The bellow of an Inevitability echoed through the twisted space, and almost immediately, that single voice multiplied into five as the creature’s paradoxical nature asserted itself.

Titano’s massive form vibrated with excitement, his simple face lighting up with anticipation of another gift for his Brother.

Sigrid’s hand moved, her newly elevated power eager for expression as she sought to impose...Order!

But Noah raised his hand in a stopping gesture.

"Hold on," he said with calm certainty. "I want to test something."

Titano and Sigrid exchanged glances...or rather, Sigrid glanced at Titano while the giant simply blinked in confusion.

They both remembered what had happened the last time Noah had wanted to test something. He had used his stick to thoroughly educate an Inevitability about its own nature, beating existential horror into submission with what appeared to be ordinary wood.

Would he do the same thing now?

Noah proceeded ahead, but this time, he did something different. The Goad floated behind him, spinning slowly in the air with lazy majesty. He made no move to grasp it, no preparation for combat.

When the Inevitabilities surged out from the obsidian crimson flaming archways...five bodies that were one being that were five beings, they roared with malice that could unmake lesser minds.

Their tentacled forms writhed with paradoxes that hurt to perceive, their many eyes blazing with the hunger that defined their nature.

They looked at Noah and the others, and their charge began with inevitable certainty.

But then...

As they looked closer at Noah, their many eyes showed something unprecedented: confusion.

They slowed, their writhing becoming less aggressive, more... curious. Gradually, impossibly, they showed calmness!

Their eyes, those windows into paradox itself...began to smile.

Not metaphorically, but literally, the organs that served as eyes reformed into expressions of recognition and joy.

They neared Noah with their hulking masses, tentacles that existed in multiple states simultaneously reaching toward him with something that looked terrifyingly like affection.

And Noah...fearless, doubtless Noah, walked toward the writhing masses filled with paradoxical weavings of existence and lights of Inevitability, raised his hand, and...

Patted them.

Like someone petting a particularly large dog.

The gesture was so casual, so natural, that for a moment, nobody could process what they were seeing. Noah’s hand moved along tentacles that should have unmade him at the conceptual level, stroking surfaces that existed in states that predated the separation between is and isn’t.

The Inevitabilities responded with what could only be described as purring...if purring could be done by beings that challenged the nature of sound itself.

Behind him, the reactions were varied and extreme.

Altheon backed away in pure horror, his already traumatized mind unable to process this impossibility!

His feet stumbled over themselves as he tried to increase distance from this scene that challenged everything he thought he knew about existence.

Thessaly stumbled backward in shock that made her forget to fly, her fairy form actually hitting the flaming ground as her wings forgot their purpose!

Her tiny mouth opened and closed without sound, no words adequate for what she was witnessing.

Sigrid and Titano looked toward Noah with eyes and mouths opened wide enough to challenge physical possibility. Their jaws almost smashed all the way down to the floor!

Titano, despite his simple nature, understood that something unprecedented was happening. "Brother... Brother is petting the Inevitability?!"

Sigrid couldn’t even respond. The woman who had shattered her realm and rebuilt it, who had returned as THE Living Order, stood frozen by the simple impossibility of what she was seeing.

This wss an Inevitability. A horrifying, Paradoxical Inevitability. So why...

Noah continued petting the Inevitabilities as if this was the most natural thing in existence. One of the creature’s tentacles wrapped around his wrist...not aggressively, but with the same affection a cat might show when wanting more attention.

"Good," he said to them, his voice carrying the tone one might use with pets that had performed well. "Very good. Are you hungry?"

The Inevitabilities’ response was immediate...all five bodies that were one nodded simultaneously, their paradoxical nature allowing them to express unified agreement while maintaining separation.

They could sense it. He had given his Everything of Fear and his Everything of Doubt to their kin. He was marked, fundamentally, as one who understood the exchange. One who didn’t fight their nature but worked with it.

To them, he wasn’t food. He was... friend might be too strong a word, but he was acknowledged. Accepted. Perhaps even respected.

Noah turned toward Sigrid and Titano, his hand still resting on the writhing mass of paradox that should have been trying to devour him. The casualness of the gesture made it even more surreal.

"There are many ways to deal with an Inevitability," he said, his voice carrying the tone of a teacher revealing fundamental truth. "If you understand its nature, you can get past it without fighting. An Inevitability seeks to devour Everything. When you come across one, simply give it... a small part of your Everything. A quality you do not want."

The silence that followed was absolute. Even the Inevitabilities seemed to pause their writhing to listen.

Sigrid and the others stood frozen in various states of shock. The concept was so simple, yet so profound that it challenged everything they thought they knew about these existential horrors!

Noah beckoned Sigrid over with a gesture that carried more weight than simple invitation. She moved forward without hesitation, her sterling eyes meeting his with trust.

"Do you trust me?" he asked, though the question seemed almost rhetorical.

She nodded without delay, without even the microsecond of consideration that doubt would have required.

"Then for even more power," Noah continued, his voice carrying certainty that could reshape reality, "you can choose to give part of your Everything. I have given away the Everything of my Fear and liberated my existence further. You can do the same."

He paused, ensuring she understood the magnitude of what he was suggesting.

"Freely give your Everything of Fear."

Sigrid’s expression shifted through understanding to resolution. She opened her mouth to speak the words that would transform her existence...

Then her eyes blazed with sudden, brilliant realization.

"No."

HUUM!

The word rang through the twisted corridor with more force than any shout could have achieved.

"No, I will not give Everything of my Fear." Her voice carried conviction that transcended simple decision. "Instead... I will give Everything of my Disorder."

BOOM!

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