Chapter 679: THE Primordial Cause! I |
THE Watcher’s platinum singularity pulsed with light that seemed to strain against itself.
"I will carve from my existence two Singularities containing my memories of THE Primordial Cause."
The golden lotus petals contracted tightly around the center as something began to emerge from within.
"The failed Cause that was not able to allow for even a single Primordial Architect to form in this stunted Observable Existence. I have watched this memory countless times across my eons of observation, hoping to understand why our reality produced so little when others produced so much."
Two orbs of concentrated platinum light separated from THE Watcher’s form.
The process seemed painful. The main singularity dimmed noticeably as these fragments broke away, its brilliance diminishing. The golden lotus petals flickered erratically, their rotation stuttering as THE Watcher gave up pieces of itself.
"I sacrificed much to produce two of them."
The voice emerged weaker than before.
"To increase the chances of success and have both of you integrate the experience. One may fail where the other succeeds. Or both may succeed in different ways. The more who grasp this Pulse, the greater your chances against what Lamashtu is becoming."
Achilles looked at Rose.
She looked back at him.
Her flaming green eyes held determination beneath the uncertainty, that fierce nature he loved refusing to back down even when facing something beyond their capability entirely!
Oh!
He felt the same resolve burning in his own chest, his Heart of a Primordial Architect burning brightly!
They reached out simultaneously.
"Assimilate!"
Their voices merged as multicolored brilliance erupted from their forms, consuming the platinum Singularities with hunger.
|Assimilation Initiated: Memory Singularity of THE Primordial Cause.|
|Warning: Contents predate current age of existence. Integration may cause perceptual displacement.|
|Proceeding.|
...!
Achilles found his consciousness drawn into an unfathomable place.
He was no longer in the First Sea of Tian. He was no longer floating beside Rose with THE Watcher observing them. He was somewhere else entirely, somewhere that existed before the concepts of somewhere and elsewhere had learned to differentiate.
Endless potential stretched around him in every direction.
It looked blue and obsidian, swirling currents of possibility that had not yet decided what they wanted to become. The colors shifted and merged and separated endlessly. Endlessly!
Is that Infinity?
The question formed in his consciousness as he observed the endless blue-obsidian expanse. This must be what beings at THE Second Scale began to perceive and utilize, what drove some of them mad with THE Gamaidjan when they touched it too deeply.
But his gaze was pulled away from the endless potential.
Something was coalescing in one region of this primordial space. Particles of blue-gold light began gathering from the surrounding infinity, each one carrying fragments of what would later be called differentiation and undifferentiation. They were not matter as he understood it. They were concepts given luminescence, ideas made tangible before ideas existed as phenomena.
Particles of differentiation shone with structured gold radiance, each one containing the seed of separation, of boundaries, of the distinction between one thing and another.
Particles of undifferentiation burned with formless blue brilliance, each one holding the essence of unity, of dissolution, of the state before complexity learned to emerge.
They swirled toward each other with attraction that felt almost gravitational.
And Achilles felt hope.
Not his hope. The hope of a Cause that was trying to birth something magnificent. The emotion pressed against his consciousness with force that made his existence shudder. This was what hope felt like from the inside. This was the joy of potential on the verge of becoming actual!
The blue and gold particles began merging.
Where they touched, white-gold brilliance erupted. The union of differentiation and undifferentiation produced something new, something that carried the essence of both while being neither. Primordial matter. The building blocks from which Architects should emerge.
Achilles felt anticipation flooding through him.
The Cause was working. The particles were combining in configurations that resonated with purpose, with meaning, with the intent to induce life that could bridge the gap between order and chaos. He felt his chest tighten with excitement that was not his own.
More particles gathered.
The white-gold brilliance expanded into formations that almost resembled structure. Almost resembled the beginnings of consciousness. Almost resembled the first stirrings of beings who would one day shape Observable Existence with authority born from their fundamental nature.
Then Achilles felt something wrong.
A gap in the configuration. An absence where something should have been present. The particles of differentiation and undifferentiation continued their dance, but they were dancing around an empty space that should have been filled.
Something was missing.
He felt confusion that was not his own. The Cause did not understand why an ingredient had not arrived. It continued trying to merge what it had, pushing the blue and gold particles together with increasing desperation, hoping that sheer force could compensate for what was absent.
Achilles felt desperation flooding through him.
The emotion was heavy in his chest, constricting his breathing even though he had no breath in this place of memory. The Cause was straining against its own incompleteness, refusing to accept that it could not accomplish what it was meant to accomplish.
The white-gold formations began destabilizing.
Without Chaos to balance the interplay of differentiation and undifferentiation, the merged particles started pulling apart. The structures that had almost resembled consciousness collapsed into fragments that scattered back toward the infinite blue-obsidian expanse.
Achilles felt grief.
It crashed through him with weight that made his existence want to crumble. This was...oh, it was not disappointment or frustration!
This was the sorrow of a Cause that had failed to birth the children it was designed to create. The loss of potential that would never be realized. The death of possibility before possibility had learned to live.
The remaining particles tried one more time.
Blue-gold light swirled together with desperation that felt almost conscious. The Cause threw everything it had into this final attempt, gathering every particle of differentiation and undifferentiation within reach and forcing them together with will that transcended simple physics.
Achilles felt hope again.
Fragile and desperate but present. The Cause refused to surrender. It believed that this time would be different, that this configuration would succeed where others had failed, that sheer determination could overcome fundamental absence.
The white-gold brilliance blazed brighter than before.
For one perfect moment, something that resembled a Primordial Architect began to form at the center of the merging particles. A shape that held the potential for consciousness. A structure that could have housed awareness spanning eons. A being that could have shaped Observable Existence with authority born from the union of fundamental forces.
Then it came apart.
BOOM!
The silent explosion scattered blue and gold particles across infinity. The white-gold brilliance fragmented into pieces too small to retain coherence, dispersing into the endless expanse where they would eventually contribute to a stunted Observable Existence that would never know what it had lost.
Achilles felt true despair.
It was heavier than anything he had experienced in his entire existence. The finality of failure without possibility of retry. The knowledge that this Cause had exhausted itself in its attempts and could never try again. The understanding that an entire Observable Existence would be lesser because of this moment.
The memory seared into his mind with intensity that made his consciousness shudder.
Every detail of that failed Cause. Every configuration of the blue and gold particles before they came apart. Every nuance of what Primordial meant when expressed through the union of differentiation and undifferentiation.
He felt it even moreso because he...was now a Primordial Architect! And he felt like countless brothers and sisters would never be born now.
And alongside it, he felt something else integrating into his existence.
Memories of words. Ancient syllables that tried to emulate a semblance of what that Cause meant when spoken aloud. The sounds were not language as he understood it, but something older, something that predated the concept of communication itself.
Memories of hand movements. Somatic gestures that traced patterns in reality, configurations that resonated with the fundamental forces THE Primordial Cause had tried to harness. His fingers twitched involuntarily as these movements wrote themselves into his muscle memory.
|Integration Complete: Memory of THE Primordial Cause.|
|Integration Complete: Methodology of THE Primordial Severance.|
|Assessment: Partial comprehension achieved. Full utilization requires practical application.|
|Attempting this Pulse without sufficient power may result in existential backlash.|
This should be the methodology of the Pulse.
THE Primordial Severance!