Chapter 5061: What Are You? III

The words landed with a magisterial force that pressed against Noah’s foundations.

"Even if I do nothing and I veil it as much as possible, it will be known. For such a violation, it does not matter who you are. Even if you are a unique case study among THE Bounded for your usage and resistance to Infinity that does not belong to your form of life, they will end you for your transgression."

|Warning: Existential threat detected.|

|Threat Level: Beyond current parameters.|

|Cause: Quintessence Infiniforce connection to a Gilded lifeform.|

Her golden eyes met his with intensity that cut through the clinical detachment she had been maintaining.

"Which is why I told you to remove your Quintessence Infiniforce from me. Save yourself, Osmont."

BOOM!

The words settled across the isolated sanctuary with finality that pressed against everything within range. Eon stood there with grandeur and imperious bearing that declared her nature as something fundamentally beyond what he had believed her to be. An extraordinary air shone around her form, golden light radiating outward.

She was not merely powerful.

She was different.

She was THE Gilded, and he was THE Bounded, and according to everything she had just explained, that distinction mattered more than any amount of cultivation or advancement or achievement could ever overcome.

Noah looked at her seriously as he took in all her words.

His mind processed everything as he looked back at all the prompts from Ruination. THE Bounded. THE Gilded. THE Primeval. A hierarchy of lifeforms that existed beyond the Scales of Existence he had been climbing, beyond the classifications of Primordial Architects and Singular Cognizances he had been learning, beyond anything Observable Existence had revealed to him.

He was supposed to be insignificant in this grand scope.

He was supposed to be minor.

He was supposed to be a flicker of dust in overall Existence, a being whose entire history amounted to nothing compared to the eons that had preceded his birth.

His eyes shone with a light of tyranny at being told how minuscule he was.

He knew he was young. He knew this truth intimately, had known it since the moment he began perceiving beings who had existed for eons beyond counting while he had lived for mere moments in comparison. He understood his youth. He accepted his youth.

But he was also grand.

Oh, he was grand.

The Observable force flooding into him from Eon’s existence continued burning through his foundations, and THE Hadean Organ of Civilization continued spinning to process it, and his Quintessence Infiniforce continued acting as pathways that apparently violated Designations he had never known existed.

He was THE Bounded, she said.

He was limited by Existential Engineering, she said!

He could never be like her no matter what he did, she said.

Noah stood there in his illusory form, looking at THE Secretive Eon with expression that held no fear, no despair, no acceptance of the limitations she had just described.

Only tyranny.

Only the absolute certainty that regardless of what Existence had engineered him to be, regardless of what Designations he was supposed to remain within, regardless of what they would do to him for his transgressions, he would become something that made their classifications seem small.

He knew he was young.

But he was also grand!

As his eyes shone with imperious light, Eon looked at him as if she understood everything his gaze stood for.

She shook her head calmly before turning to look out toward the edge of this small domain, where swirling weavings of Unobservable pressed against the boundaries that separated this sanctuary from the vastness beyond. Her expression shifted into something contemplative, something almost wistful in ways that did not match the supremacy she had been radiating since the moment he arrived.

"I see your defiance."

Her voice emerged softer than before.

"I was similar once. Perhaps I still am."

She paused, golden eyes fixed upon distances that existed beyond the mile-wide domain surrounding them.

"When I first became aware of what I was, of what THE Gilded meant compared to everything else in Existence, I felt as though I did not belong anywhere. THE Bounded could not understand me. Other Gilded seemed content with their positions, with the natural superiority we were born into, with accepting the hierarchy as it was designed. I was not content."

Her hands touched the golden bands upon her wrists, fingers tracing patterns that seemed older than most Existences.

"I watched THE Creature make choices of his own volition. I watched him embrace Adversity when he had no need to, experiment with forces that could have unmade him, reject everything he was supposed to be in pursuit of something he wanted to become. I watched Primordial Architects struggle and fail and succeed and fail again, each mistake shaping them into something different than what they had been before."

She turned slightly, her profile illuminated by the golden light still flowing into her form.

"I wanted that. I wanted to make my own choices and my own mistakes. I wanted to experience Existence differently than how I was supposed to experience it. The role of THE Gilded felt hollow when I had done nothing to earn it. I had been born into supremacy rather than achieving it."

Her expression shifted into something that resembled regret.

"So I sealed myself. I locked away what I was and chose to live as THE Bounded, to experience Adversity as they experienced it, to struggle as they struggled, to feel the weight of limitations I had never known before."

She released a breath that seemed to carry centuries of accumulated experience.

"And mistakes I made. So many mistakes. I convinced myself that persevering through challenges without my true nature was noble, was meaningful, was something that would make me understand Existence in ways I could not have understood otherwise. I even looked at the Adversity THE Creature and Erwin engineered and promised myself I would strip them of their distinctions as Keys of Civilizations of our Observable Existence and take them myself or give them to others."

Her golden eyes closed briefly.

"I was even foolhardy enough to allow a fungus of a Primordial Architect to take over my existence. THE Primordial Mycelia seized control of me, used me as a puppet, violated everything I was, and I did not unseal myself because of my pride. Because I told myself that unsealing would mean admitting failure, would mean my experiment had concluded in defeat."

She opened her eyes and turned to face Noah directly.

"I made mistakes. Eons worth of them. Some taught me things I could not have learned otherwise. Most simply hurt."

Her gaze held his with intensity that pressed against his awareness.

"Do not make the same mistakes as me."

The words emerged with conviction that seemed to surprise even her.

"I can afford to make mistakes. You cannot. Mistakes for me are a slap on the wrist, a minor inconvenience, a lesson that carries no permanent consequence. A single mistake for you is extinction."

She stepped closer to his illusory form, golden light radiating around her with each movement.

"You do not need what I have. You are already exceptional enough among THE Bounded. Your resistance to Infinity, your weavings, your progression, all of it marks you as unique within your Designation. Just take your Quintessence Infiniforce away and save yourself."

...!

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