Chapter 5142: Existence is Conflict! I

Noah felt the boundlessly surging Infinity within him as he considered Ubergulden Adelheid’s words.

Custodes and its meaning was dancing in his mind as this was a role he was meant to play.

His eyes flashed sharply.

"Okay. Tell me clearly, what is the actual standing of a Custodes? I want a proper picture of the role before I commit further to walking it."

He shifted slightly on the wave of Infiniforce beside her, his posture casual but his attention sharp.

"I’ve played many roles across my existence. I’ve been a hunter, a survivor, a leader, a tyrant, a builder. I’ve grown across all of them, and the growing has taught me one specific thing about myself. There are roles I can play, and there are roles I cannot. Being an attendant is one of the ones I cannot. Being a slave, even a respected slave, even a slave with a fancy title and decorated robes, is one of the ones I cannot. So how do you actually look at the Custodes? Not the formal description. Your view of them. The view from the inside."

Ubergulden Adelheid shook her head as he finished.

"You misunderstand the standing entirely."

"The Custodes are not attendants. They are not servants in any meaningful sense of the word. They are esteemed in our society to a degree that surprises every many who first hear the word and assumes the obvious connotations. A Custos is the counterpart of their bonded Gilded One. Counterpart, not subordinate. The standing in our circles places them alongside the Royal they protect, not beneath. When a Royal Gilded enters a chamber, the Custos enters at their side, not behind them. When the Royal speaks, the Custos may speak as well, and the speech of the Custos is heeded as carrying the weight of the bond."

Her hands moved gently as she spoke.

"Custodes are also rare. Only certain Gilded Ones have one bonded to them. The bond is mainly reserved for The Magna Sorora and for the high-standing Royals of the major houses. A casual Gilded One does not have a Custos and would be considered presumptuous for attempting to acquire one. The role is not handed out. The role is engineered, ritualized, and kept scarce by design. So the Custodes, taken collectively, are a small population of beings whose proximity to the highest tiers of our people grants them a status that exceeds almost every other category of being within the Braneworld."

She paused, and the next part of her answer carried a different texture.

"And more often than not, the bond between a Custos and a Sister of THE Magna Sorora becomes deeper than family. Many fall in love with each other. The bond, by its very nature, encourages that depth. The two share existences across eons or millennia. They sleep in the same chambers. They walk through the same dangers. They learn each other’s weavings to a degree that no spouse, no sibling, no parent ever achieves. Some bonds remain strictly carnal, mutual companionship without romantic depth, and others remain strictly companionable without carnal involvement. Some bonds become both. Very few of the bonds are apathetic. The engineering of the bond pulls toward intimacy in some form, and across the eons, the intimacy nearly always finds its expression."

Noah’s eyes shone brightly at the words.

"Oh."

The single syllable carried more interest than he’d intended to show.

Ubergulden Adelheid looked at him up and down with a patient evaluation.

She shook her head and continued.

"That, however, is not the most important aspect of the role."

Her voice settled into a graver register.

"The aesthetics of the bond, the intimacy, the standing in our chambers, all of that is downstream of the actual purpose for which the Custodes were created. The biggest thing about a Custos, the foundational reason the role exists at all, is strength. A Custos determines whether their bonded Sister of THE Magna Sorora or their bonded Royal Gilded survives. Because the enemies we face are terrifying. The enemies are why the role exists. Not the politics. Not the ceremonies. The enemies."

Noah’s brow furrowed slightly as he caught up with the implication.

"Enemies?"

He tilted his head. While he didn’t expect existential peace...

"What, exactly, would be enemies of Gilded Ones? You sit at the peak of how most existences measure themselves. What walks around at your level threatening enough to require a Custos for every Royal that matters?"

Ubergulden Adelheid’s expression became grave.

She did not hurry the answer.

"Existence is, fundamentally, about the fight for power. Existence is Conflict."

HUUM!

"Every classification of being, from the smallest mortal to the grandest Civilization, fights for power in whatever form is available to them. Bounded Lifeforms fight for cultivation resources. Primordial Architects fight for their Civilizations and territories. Singular Cognizances fight for what drives their existences. And Gilded Ones, we fight for power the most. We have the most to gain. We have the most refined frameworks for converting power into more power. And our appetites match our capacities."

Her gold eyes held his without softening.

"Apart from Infinity, which we and you both pursue, all of us desperately seek THE Primordial Source. Every Gilded One. Every house. Every faction. The Primordial Source is the deepest well of power that exists, the substrate beneath substrates, the well from which even Infinity is theorized to draw. To touch it is to access something that places the toucher beyond every measurement that exists. We have known about it for as long as we have known about ourselves. We have organized our entire civilizations around the pursuit of it. And yet across all the eons of our existence, only a vanishingly small number of beings have ever actually touched it. We are not among that number. We are still climbing toward it. Still reaching. Still hoping the next breakthrough will be the one that opens the door."

She drew a slow breath.

"But THE Primordial Source does not seek us. It does not extend itself toward those who pursue it. The few who have touched it have done so through methods nobody else has been able to replicate. And those few, those rare beings who have actually grasped THE Primordial Source, act as if they have stumbled upon a treasure that nobody else should ever have. They guard it ferociously. They monitor existence for any sign that another being is approaching the threshold. And when they detect such an approach, they appear, and they destroy."

WAA!

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