Chapter 4509: Tatakae! I

Noah’s eyes were unusually bright as they took in everything that he was observing in The Infinite Unfurling.

After watching the casual collapse of entities that were considered Pre-THE Existence, beings with Decillions of Complexity and Purity who had spent eons building their Ways, his entire existence felt a sense of urgency and need.

It was like being a small insect witnessing the movements of giants, and understanding with sudden clarity that he desperately needed to be among those giants if not exceed them completely in what would be considered a short period of time.

Not to mention that he now stood at the threshold of answers regarding surviving THE Loom, regarding The Fallout, regarding the fundamental questions that had driven him forward.

So as they crossed Gigaparsecs in a matter of seconds, moving through folded space with the ease that only a THE existence could manage, Noah spoke with carefully measured words.

"Can you tell me more about THE Creature?"

Noah asked such a thing calmly, without mentioning that in the future, to save Khor, Tor would fight against THE Creature and subsequently face collapse due to this confrontation. That Tor’s Way and THE Civilizational Authority of Hunger would be inherited by Khor after his fall...though he inherently knew that Tor already put the clues together since he appeared here! He knew, but he didn’t know the full picture.

Noah did not know how things would unfold if he said something that would alter the future in unpredictable ways, and what the consequences of the wrong words might cascade into. He had to be careful in this delicate temporal situation.

His words caused Tor to look at him with those abyssal eyes before the entity smiled with calm recollection.

"Ah, THE Creature," Tor said with something like respect mixed with wariness. "Now that is an entity worth speaking about."

He gestured at the passing landscape as they flew.

"I have come across them a few times over the eons, though never in direct confrontation. And I have heard countless stories from the memories of creatures that I devoured, entities who witnessed THE Creature’s actions or heard tales passed down through their own consumed victims."

His expression became more serious.

"THE Creature is... different from other THE existences. Where most of us claimed our Sovereignty over specific domains and built our authority within those boundaries, THE Creature took a path that many considered insane, and did not even have the ability to take."

Tor’s eyes gleamed with the light of remembered glory.

"There was a memory I extracted from the memories of a Pre-THE existence I consumed some time ago. This entity had witnessed something that scarred their existence so deeply that the memory remained vivid even after death."

He paused for effect.

"There was once a THE existence who had achieved THE Surface Depth of Absolute Sovereignty over the concept of Conquest. Not just existence victory or territorial expansion, but the fundamental idea of imposing one’s will over another. This entity had spent uncountable eons building their claim, devouring countless other Ways that fell under their domain."

Noah listened with rapt attention.

"This THE Conquest Sovereignty had allied with a dozen Pre-THE existences, each one comparable to or exceeding those lightning and glacial entities I just ate up. Together, they sought to expand their influence across a cluster of forming domains in the Infinite Unfurling, to claim new territory and resources."

Tor’s smile became darker.

"And they encountered THE Creature in their path. The Conquest Sovereignty, confident in their Surface Depth authority and their allied forces, demanded that THE Creature submit or be destroyed. They gave THE Creature a choice: bend the knee or face annihilation."

The air around them seemed to grow heavier as Tor continued.

"THE Creature’s response was to simply begin walking forward and ignore. No declarations, no threats, no gathering of power. Just... walking. And as THE Creature walked, the Conquest Sovereignty and all dozen Pre-THE existences attacked with everything they had accumulated."

Tor’s eyes spun with remembered violence.

"The battle lasted for a second, and for eons where THE Creature faced overwhelming numbers and supposed strategic superiority. And do you know what happened, Outsider?"

Noah shook his head silently.

"THE Creature brutalized all of them so thoroughly, so completely, that the very concept of Conquest was eradicated from existence," Tor said with quiet intensity. "Not just defeated. Not just consumed. Fucking Eradicated. The Absolute Sovereignty that the Conquest entity had claimed was erased so utterly that nobody even remembers what that concept fully entailed anymore. The Way of Conquest itself may never exist again."

He let that sink in.

He! Let! That! Sink! In!

"The dozen Pre-THE existences? Also consumed, their Ways incorporated into THE Creature’s ever-expanding domain. The entity whose memories I consumed had watched from a safe distance and fled immediately after, but the terror of what they witnessed never left them."

Noah felt his existence buzzing at such a story.

Tor continued as he seemed to enjoy this topic a great deal.

"Here’s another record I know of... this one from more recent times relatively speaking. There was a coalition of THE existences, three of them who had achieved varying Depths of Surface Sovereignty. They had decided that THE Creature was becoming too dangerous, that their expanding claim over existence needed to be curtailed before it grew beyond containment."

...!

More THE entities that Noah never knew existed.

Because even in the stories of THE Earliest Folds, none were mentioned apart from those he knew!

But just because fabricated history did not mention them...did that mean they did not exist?

His smile was grim.

"These three THE existences ambushed THE Creature in a prepared battlefield, a region of The Infinite Unfurling that they had spent millennia preparing with traps. They attacked in perfect coordination, their Sovereignties complementing each other."

Tor shook his head slowly.

"THE Creature killed the first one within moments by simply touching them. Reached out, made contact, and the entity collapsed as if their entire existence had been deemed unnecessary by reality itself. The second one lasted longer, managing to wound THE Creature before being torn apart and devoured. The third one fled and survived, but from what I understand, they collapsed their own existence shortly after out of sheer terror as they felt like they were being followed."

...!

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