Chapter 5013: Echoes I

Her eyes burned with the intensity of someone reciting words they had spent eons studying.

"This is what shall come to pass, for it has already passed, and it shall pass again. The wheel turns. The river flows. The question echoes."

Her voice reached crescendo.

"He shall be the answer, or he shall be nothing. Or he shall be the question that ends all answers."

...!

She had uttered the Echoes Noah had heard some time ago.

Well, not really all that long ago in objective terms, but so much had happened since then. Since his trip from eons ago from THE Prima Indifferentia. Since he had first heard those words and wondered what they meant for his future.

He could not help but smile devilishly as recognition flickered across his features.

"Now, where did you hear that?"

Naldine’s expression remained cold as she waved her own hand in response.

Waves of her power at THE Second Scale erupted from her form, authority that made the raging rivers of Infinity around Noah seem slightly less by comparison. Her grand Civilization covered her existence with a white bubble of light blazing with intensity that spoke of eons of refinement and cultivation.

And that white bubble began to pull a single, silent river of Infinity to swirl around it.

Just one. Not the dozens raging around Noah. Not the ecstatic torrents that responded to his every thought. Just a single river, tugged toward her Civilization with methodology that spoke of careful study.

"I have heard this Echo and more."

Her voice emerged with weight pressing against everything within THE Primordial Archive.

"And I am here to ensure you do not fall to THE Gamaidjan. Because for some fucking reason, you shall be the answer, or you shall be nothing. You shall be both salvation and damnation, as under your weight, the doors of the Scales shall open or the doors of the Scales shall shatter."

Her singularity-dotted eyes blazed.

"For some fucking insane reason, the fate of Observable Existence may rest on whether you maintain your sanity while wielding authority that has driven beings far older than you into madness."

She stepped forward, her white bubble of Civilization and its single river of Infinity pressing against Noah’s raging torrents.

"Help me help you, and there will not be issues. Defy me..."

Her smile was cold and beautiful.

"Well, I have changed plenty of Echoes of Causes myself. I would be itching to give a try to one of the biggest ones."

BOOM!

Her visage was glorious and imposing, and she did not lose out at all to Noah’s brilliance. Two forces pressed against each other within THE Primordial Archive, rivers of Uncountable Infinity meeting a single river pulled by methodology refined across eons.

Noah remained calm as his eyes shone with something new.

Curiosity.

"One of the biggest ones?"

His voice carried genuine interest that had nothing to do with the confrontation pressing against him.

"You know of other Echoes like that from THE First Cause?"

He was curious.

Now, he was really curious.

---

When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, what happens?

At this moment in time, there was an extremely old existence that had seen a great deal, asserting something with tremendous confidence born from eons of observation and study. On the other side stood a relatively young existence who was also asserting something with tremendous confidence, the basis of his certainty being one of astounding origin that the old existence could not fully comprehend.

Both believed they were absolutely right.

But both were wise enough to also doubt that there could be a chance they were wrong.

Naldine looked at the entity she had been searching for across Observable Existence, the Guider of Infinity who had scattered his authority so freely that tracking him had become almost trivial once she knew what to look for. At this moment, she chose to extend a careful sliver of the benefit of the doubt.

Her body stopped buzzing with the light of Infinity, the single river she had tugged toward her Civilization dispersing back into the ambient weavings of THE Primordial Archive. The confrontational pressure that had been building between them eased slightly, though neither relaxed their awareness of the other.

"What exactly do you think the Echoes of THE First Cause are?"

Noah took this question calmly. The rivers of Uncountable Infinity still swirled around his form, but they too had calmed from raging torrents to something more measured.

"Weavings of probabilities and possibilities that emerged a number of years ago."

His answer was simple, direct, and based on what he had understood from his limited exposure to such phenomena.

Naldine listened to this before she gazed at his face closely.

"The Echoes of THE First Cause are existence’s self-defense mechanisms."

Her voice carried weight accumulated across eons of study.

"You are right about probabilities. THE First Cause is the emergence of Observable Existence, and at its emergence, it looked ahead to all the Infinite variations of what it could be. Pay attention to that word. Infinite. The variations were Infinite, and from those Infinite variations emerged patterns, possibilities, probabilities that pressed themselves into the fabric of what would come to be."

She paused, letting her words settle.

"The Echoes of THE First Cause tell what could be. No matter how grand your belief in yourself is, the Echoes that may involve you are a small part of the greater whole. But small parts can be significant. A single crack can shatter a foundation. A single choice can redirect a river."

Her singularity-dotted eyes focused on him with intensity.

"The Echoes traverse to those capable of hearing them. There is no specific purpose for this traversal, really. We do not hear them so that we can move in particular directions. But if you do hear them and choose to move, that is your own choice. Because after all, they are all probabilities. Anyone making a move based on an Echo would simply want to steer toward one particular probability compared to others."

She tilted her head slightly.

"Do you want to know of the Oldest Echo I have heard?"

...!

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