Novel Full Chapter 4059: Everything has its uses! II
Chapter 4059: Everything has its uses! II
Before she could respond, five distant roars echoed through the twisted passages. The sound of Inevitabilities hunting, their cries carrying paradoxes that made them simultaneously near and far, approaching and retreating.
Schrodinger didn’t even glance in their direction, his focus remaining entirely on Diviticus.
“Eons ago, in the Earliest Folds, even Early Creatures…living ones, not animated corpses, could not enter the Loom. Living Existences tried and were turned away or transformed beyond recognition. Fold Dwellers who attempted it simply ceased, edited out of possibility.”
He began walking again, forcing Diviticus and the others to follow as the roars grew closer.
“Now you have obtained a corpse. Not even a complete one, but fragments held together by your will and paradox. Do you think this grants you the power of a genuine Early Creature? Do you believe you can walk across the Folds unfettered? That nothing can kill you now?”
His voice carried no mockery, only the patient tone of someone explaining why fire burns to a child who had just been mesmerized by pretty flames!
“Do not be drunk on power, O Diviticus. That intoxication has killed more beings than all the wars in existence combined.”
BOOM!
Five Inevitabilities burst from the twisted space ahead, their forms writhing masses of tentacles that existed in states that predated the separation between is and isn’t. Several Dukes immediately prepared to engage them, paradoxical energies beginning to manifest.
But Schrodinger raised one hand, a simple gesture that carried absolute command. Everyone stopped.
He floated forward alone, approaching the Inevitabilities with the confidence of someone greeting old friends.
Diviticus clenched her fists, her expression ashen. She was being lectured, corrected, put in her place…and in front of everyone!
The humiliation burned worse than any attack could have.
Yet what happened next made that humiliation transform into something else entirely.
The Inevitabilities’ tentacles, which had been writhing with hunger and paradox, suddenly stilled. They moved toward Schrodinger not with aggression, and instead with something that looked impossibly like recognition. Then, even more impossibly, friendliness!
Schrodinger reached out and stroked the tentacles as one might pet a beloved dog. The gesture was so casual, so natural, that it took several moments for the observers to process what they were seeing.
This was just the tip of the power Schrodinger possessed…or so they thought!
As he continued stroking the paradoxical appendages, Schrodinger turned back toward Diviticus.
“Let me tell you something about power. Actually, let me show you. No story this time.” His smile contained layers that contradicted themselves. “Go ahead. Use your newfound strength that you draw from that Little Corpse, and attack me.”
The challenge buzzed the air like a paradox waiting to resolve.
Diviticus felt her confidence evaporate. She looked toward Duke Elagabalus and the others, seeking support or perhaps hoping someone would intervene. But when her gaze met theirs, they turned away with the synchronized precision of those who wanted no part in what was about to happen.
She sighed, frustration mixing with apprehension, and turned back to face Schrodinger.
Her body began to seethe with terrifying obsidian waves mixed with white radiance…the paradoxical power of death given motion, authority that could unmake existence itself.
She gathered this power, feeling it course through her with intensity that made her feel truly invincible. This was the might of an Early Creature, even if borrowed from a corpse. Surely this would-
BZZT!
At that moment.
Schrodinger turned around and pulled out a leaf.
A small, white leaf that looked like it might have fallen from any tree in any garden in any world.
The moment it appeared, Diviticus felt her entire existence constrict.
The power that had been surging through her didn’t just diminish.
It vanished completely, as if it had never existed. Her body, suddenly bereft of the authority that had been supporting it, became impossibly heavy.
She fell to the obsidian-crimson floor with a sound like a sack of mundane matter hitting stone. No grace, no power, just gravity asserting itself on something that had forgotten it was subject to such basic forces!
…!
Schrodinger sighed, the sound containing genuine disappointment rather than mockery.
He put the leaf away…just tucked it into his tattered robes as if it were a handkerchief, and floated down to help her up.
His hands were gentle as he raised her from the floor, steadying her as strength slowly returned to her limbs.
“Just because you’ve gained power,” he said, his voice kind despite the lesson’s harshness, “doesn’t mean you can do everything. Even a tiny leaf like that can bring down what traces of an Early Creature’s power you’ve bound yourself to.”
He continued supporting her as feeling returned to her extremities.
“You have to be steady. Patient. You are young…you all are. There is so much more room for growth that you cannot even imagine. Power isn’t about what you can destroy. It’s about understanding what can destroy you.”
…!
The words buzzed.
They deserved to be repeated!
Power was not about what you can destroy…it was about understanding what can destroy you!
Oh!
As authority flowed back into Diviticus’s form, she took several quick steps away from Schrodinger, fear replacing her earlier confidence.
The ease with which he had reduced her to nothing, the casual nature of her complete defeat…
Schrodinger shook his head at her retreat, then turned his attention back to the Inevitabilities.
He began waving his hands in patterns, and streams of paradoxical light emerged from his form. But these weren’t the chaotic paradoxes that defined their nature, these were structured contradictions, ordered impossibilities.
The tendrils of paradox he emitted wrapped around the Inevitabilities, and their calm demeanor shattered. They screeched as their very nature was denied. Their tentacles thrashed in confusion as existence told them they were one thing while Schrodinger’s power insisted they were another.
A golden square prison materialized around them, its walls made from crystallized contradiction!
The Inevitabilities were contained by being unable to resolve what they were supposed to be!
From the back of the group, Duke Elagabalus found his voice: “What are you doing?”
Schrodinger’s smile contained genuine amusement. “You wouldn’t understand even if I answered. To grasp even a fraction of it, you would need to listen to another one of my stories. Do you have the time?”
Duke Elagabalus’s expression soured, recognizing the trap.
Refuse, and remain ignorant. Accept, and endure another of Schrodinger’s parables that might or might not be true but would definitely make them question everything they thought they knew.
He sighed with the resignation of someone who had made this choice before. “It seems like we have all the time in Existence.”
Schrodinger laughed, the sound containing genuine pleasure at having a captive audience.
“In the Earliest Folds,” he began, settling into his storytelling posture, “there was a terrifying Existence known as The First Hunger. Not the first to hunger…that would be impossible to determine, but the first to make Hunger itself into identity, into purpose, into philosophy.”
The other Paradoxes drew closer despite themselves, pulled by the gravity of narrative.
“The First Hunger…Khor was her name, though names meant less then, encountered a group of Early Creatures who were being disciplined by THE Living Dimensional. Now, THE Living Dimensional was not known for patience. It existed in all dimensions simultaneously, which meant it could be angry with you in seventeen different ways at once.”
A few nervous chuckles emerged from the audience.
“THE Living Dimensional was demanding these Early Creatures tell it what their Everything meant. Each answer they gave…their power, their purpose, their existence itself, it deemed wrong. Not incorrect, but wrong, as if the answers offended reality itself.”
Schrodinger’s voice took on different tones as he embodied the characters.
“When Khor passed by, she laughed with genuine amusement at the scene. She asked THE Living Dimensional if she could answer the question instead.”
He shifted, his posture somehow becoming more rigid, more multiply-present.
“THE Living Dimensional did not like Khor’s appearance…beings like her made it uncomfortable, existing as they did outside its dimensional framework. But it grudgingly asked what answer she had.”
Back to Khor’s voice, lighter but containing depths, Schrodinger continued.
“She smiled and gave multiple answers. ‘Everything is what you’re willing to lose.’ Then… ‘Everything is what you can’t imagine losing.’ And… ‘Everything is the sum of what defines you, until you give it away and discover you’re still defined.'”
…!
The gathered Paradoxes listened with rapt attention despite themselves.
“Then Khor looked directly at THE Living Dimensional and asked if she should tell it what its Everything meant. THE Living Dimensional, for perhaps the first time in its existence, chose not to know something. It snorted, a sound that created three new dimensions just to contain it, and disappeared.”
Schrodinger let the story settle before continuing.
“Everything is a heavy topic, but Inevitabilities have the capability to devour Everything. To devour Meaning itself.” He gestured to the contained Inevitability. “This one here has devoured part of the Everything of the one responsible for spreading that brilliant white light. Any Everything is precious, even that which is given away. If one cuts off a limb, it doesn’t mean that limb becomes useless…it might be exactly what someone else needs.”
His smile grew mysterious.
“This Inevitability will have its uses to me. I also like to experiment every now and then.”
Diviticus and the others stared in astonishment!
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