Chapter 294: 1 Trillion Rebirths

Chapter 294: Chapter 294: 1 Trillion Rebirths

"A wall?" Orion repeated, his fingers tightening around the pommel of his broadsword as his brows drew together. "Father, you just claimed the Origin Law and ascended to the fifteenth dimension. The entire Gigaverse is an extension of your will now. What kind of barrier could possibly block your awareness?"

?"Not a barrier of force or energy," Neo replied, his gaze remaining fixed on the unfathomable depths beneath the translucent crystal floor. "If it were made of dimensional matter or protective arrays, my consciousness would have dissolved it on contact. What lies beneath the lowest tip of the First Root is the boundary where the very concept of existence comes to a halt."

?Silas stepped forward, the golden runic arrays around his wrists spinning faster until they blurred into solid rings of light. "Wait a moment. Even the void between the Grand Realities has spatial coordinates and temporal potential. Even absolute nonexistence is still a defined state within omniversal mathematics, acting as the zero value in the grand equation. Are you saying that whatever sits beneath the trench is not even zero?"

?"Zero still requires a number line to exist, Silas," Moon said softly, her serene eyes widening slightly as she followed the direction of Neo’s thoughts. She walked to Neo’s side, her silver robes trailing over the glowing crystal like moonlight over water. "The Unbroken Absolute was the totality of all numbers, all laws, and all dreams before they were divided. If there is a space beneath the cradle where the Absolute slept, then it must be completely devoid of definition."

?"A place with no rules, no history, and no canvas," Noir murmured, her dark eyes narrowing as she rested a hand over her chest. "When I held back the lateral tides during your ascension, I felt a strange, hollow draft rising from the bottom of the chasm. At the time, I assumed it was merely the dying breath of the Consciousness. Now I realize it was the cold of an unscripted abyss."

?Zestia spun her crimson spear in a sharp circle and planted its butt firmly against the floor, a fearless grin spreading across her face. "Good. I was starting to worry that after we turned the big tree into our backyard, we would run out of things to conquer. If something down there poked the Unbroken Absolute awake aeons ago, then we should go down there and see what it looks like."

?"Can we come too, Father?" Elara asked eagerly, bouncing on her heels beside Lyra. "I want to see what lives past the end of the math!"

?Neo turned from the railing and looked at his family, his expression softening with deep affection. He reached out and gently ruffled Elara’s hair before meeting the eyes of his three wives and his older children.

?"Not yet, little star," Neo said warmly. "Right now, all of your immortal foundations, including those of your mothers, are anchored to the Origin Law and the fifteen-dimensional structure of the Tree of Eternal Origin. Stepping beyond the First Root means stepping outside the jurisdiction of the Origin Law itself. Without a bridge to sustain your concepts, the sheer absence of reality down there would erase your forms like chalk washed away by rain."

?Zestia frowned slightly, crossing her armored arms over her chest. "And what about you? You may stand at the fifteenth dimension, Neo, but your core is still bound to the Origin Law you just forged."

?"Which is why I must go alone first to test the waters," Neo explained, the shifting tunnel of mirrors within his golden eyes gleaming with quiet resolve. "My furnace was built to refine chaos into order, and later, nonexistence into reality. If there is a higher truth waiting beneath the First Root, I will comprehend it, build an anchor in the deep, and open a path where none of you will be harmed."

?Noir stepped forward and pressed her palm against Neo’s cheek, her touch warm and steady. "Be careful, my love. We waited a very long time to watch you claim the crown of the Gigaverse. Do not keep us waiting too long at the top of the tree."

?"Remember that time flows differently when you step off the canvas," Moon added with a gentle smile, leaning in to kiss his other cheek. "Though knowing you, you will return before the mist on these waterfalls even settles."

?"If anything down there tries to bite you," Zestia said, smirking as she tapped her spear against his shoulder guard, "shout loud enough to shake the trunk. I will tear a hole through the floor myself."

?Neo chuckled softly, enveloping Zestia, Noir, and Moon in a brief embrace before nodding to Orion, Silas, Lyra, and Elara. "Guard the canopy while I am gone. Watch over the newly awakened Grand Realities and let them grow in peace."

?"We will not fail you, Father," Orion promised, bowing his head with his hand over his heart.

?Turning back toward the center of the balcony, Neo did not bother walking toward a stairway or opening a spatial portal. Instead, he simply took a single step forward and allowed his body to phase straight through the solid crystal floor.

?In an instant, the warm, fragrant mist of the central chamber vanished behind him, replaced by the deafening roar of creation energy rushing through the interior of the Tree of Eternal Origin.

?Neo plummeted downward like a falling star of golden and rainbow light. All around him, millions of colossal crystal arteries pulsed with liquid genesis, carrying the lifeblood of the Gigaverse upward toward the infinite canopy of Grand Realities. As he descended deeper into the subterranean chasm, the vibrant light of the upper trunk gradually dimmed, giving way to the ancient, solemn glow of the primary roots.

?He passed the eleventh-dimensional strata in the blink of an eye, where entire multiversal clusters looked like tiny, shimmering bubbles trapped within amber. He dove past the twelfth and thirteenth-dimensional nexuses, where the geometric frameworks of time, causality, and fate were woven together like massive tapestries of silver wire. Deeper still, he crossed the fourteenth point, the silent monument of the Unbroken Absolute, where all opposing concepts merged into a singular, harmonious hum.

?Finally, after descending across a conceptual distance that no mortal mind could ever calculate, Neo arrived at the absolute bottom of the trench.

?Directly before him hung the lowest tip of the First Root. It was a tapering spire of pure, diamond-like origin crystal that ended in a sharp point, dangling above an expanse that defied every instinct in Neo’s fifteen-dimensional body.

?There was no floor beneath the root. There was no darkness, because darkness was a shadow cast by light, and light had never been invented here. There was no cold, because temperature required the motion of particles or energy. There was not even a vacuum, for a vacuum still possessed the property of empty space waiting to be filled.

?It was simply the Blank Domain.

?Looking down into it felt like staring at an unimagined thought. It was a state of pure, untouched nothingness that existed prior to the very idea of potential.

?Neo hovered beside the tip of the First Root, his golden robes fluttering in the last lingering currents of the Origin Law. Even from a few paces away, he could feel the outer edges of his fifteen-dimensional aura beginning to fray. The tiny rainbow stars orbiting his shoulders flickered and vanished the moment they drifted a millimeter past the root’s tip, not destroyed by an attack, but simply unmade because the space below did not recognize the rule that allowed stars to exist.

?"Fascinating," Neo whispered, his voice dying on his lips the instant the sound waves traveled downward, erased before they could echo.

?He reached out with a single hand, extending his fingers past the boundary of the First Root and into the Blank Domain.

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