The silence was loud.

Noah didn't know what kind of face he was making upon hearing the revelation, but it must have been a funny one, for Evadam took out a camera and snapped a picture of him.

He let him do it. He didn't care.

At that moment, his mind was still echoing again and again with the words Evadam had just uttered.

'A part of Earth… from the past?' he thought, his mind still hazy with questions.

He looked at Evadam again, his expression holding an obvious note of incomprehension. "What do you mean by that?" he asked.

"What else?" Evadam shrugged. "Do I need to spell it out for you to understand?"

"That would be much appreciated, actually," Noah retorted dryly.

Evadam stared him down for a second, his brown eyes clearly judging him, before sighing. Then…

"Let me tell you a story, then," he said, making Noah groan in exasperation.

"I've heard enough stories with all the questions you threw at me in that white room. So no, thank you, ancestor," he said, shaking his head vehemently. "Just spill the beans. I'm a busy man. I've got things to do."

"You simply do not want to know, then." Evadam shrugged again, unfazed.

Noah's lips twitched. "You do know I can use my points and ask you directly, right? You'll have no choice but to answer."

"True," Evadam nodded, acknowledging the truth in Noah's words. "But it's within my right to choose how I answer."

He smirked, his strange face somehow attractive despite its peculiarity. "And I can decide to answer you by telling a story or… wait."

His smirk widened.

"Maybe you'd prefer a riddle? You seem like the smart type, Third Abomination. You want to try one? I'll give you one of my best."

Noah fixed his white gaze on him for a long moment before sighing and brushing a diagonal motion through the air with his hand, exasperated. "Fine. Go on, tell me your story."

He relented. He truly had no will to argue with a progenitor. Still, he decided to make the best of it. Sitting comfortably in his massage chair, he asked for a bucket of popcorn, a few sodas, and a pair of robotic massagers to soothe his shoulders.

Evadam complied. With a click of his metallic-sounding fingers, everything Noah requested appeared around him.

Once everything was ready, Noah nodded with his chin toward him, signaling him to begin his séance of yapping.

What a sight.

Noah was not yet aware, or maybe he was and simply didn't care, but no one in the universe would act like this in front of a progenitor.

They were, after all, the very beginning of a race. The beginning of an entire existence. The beginning of civilizations.

Their status in the universe was unique, revered, and untouchable, making them among the few beings unafraid of abominations. Some even found them… cute.

And yet here Noah was, in front of one of them, acting as though he owned the place.

It was a strange, almost absurd sight.

Evadam, however, wasn't surprised. He didn't care much about what happened outside the universe, but he had heard rumors. A new faction had risen.

That wasn't something any random strong being could accomplish. No, you needed something else…something unique, at the level of those called the First Born, or even an Abomination.

So who was that being?

Evadam observed Noah lazily, though his gaze seemed to pierce deeper and deeper.

The man before him didn't belong to any race he had ever seen in his endless existence. And only the Records knew how much he had witnessed.

That could only mean one thing…this Third Abomination was the leader of that faction.

So Noah was both a progenitor and an abomination.

Two distinct statuses fused into one being.

That… that was something worth worrying about.

For others, that is. Evadam couldn't give a goddamn fuck about it.

Regaining his focus, Evadam parted his lips and began his soi-disant story.

"In the beginning of the universe…"

Noah immediately rolled his eyes at the cliché opening, but Evadam pretended not to notice and went on.

"…when resources were abundant, when the air was clean from the foulness of the living, and when mana existed in its purest form… multiple beings began to emerge."

Evadam paused, and as he did, the screens around him flickered, the words leaving his mouth manifesting as luminous imagery. Noah saw many young-looking beings, though their faces were hazy — all except one.

Around them, in that strange chamber, a soft, melodramatic tune began to play in the background.

Noah, and even Virgo, couldn't stop themselves from being drawn into the sudden atmosphere.

'This guy is definitely the beginning of humanity.' Noah thought dryly, finding in Evadam one of humanity's most enduring traits…

…the love for melodrama.

Evadam continued.

"These people were the first born of the universe, and later they would come to be known as the Progenitors, as they expanded and created their own races."

"Amidst this group of distinguished beings —who, at that time, were still close to one another and even liked each other — there was one among them…"

Here, the screen flickered, revealing Evadam himself, but somehow younger.

Not in appearance, no. His body looked the same. But in the depths of those brown eyes, there was a glimmer of childish curiosity and love, something entirely absent from the Evadam standing before Noah now.

"…there was one among them who possessed a deep sense of curiosity and adventure that the others lacked."

"When the rest were preoccupied with building solid foundations for their power…some dreaming of becoming the tree that would hold the universe together, others the blinding golden light of justice, some the beasts of the end, and others… the Devourers they would one day become."

Evadam chuckled, shaking his head softly. "Funny how they all turned out in the end." His amusement faded, replaced by a faint, pained smile. "…Well, who am I to talk," he added under his breath, before smiling again, this time with quiet melancholy.

Noah and Virgo remained silent. Noah was almost tempted to tell Evadam to call back Aurelia and Asaemon, but he held his tongue.

So he let him continue. And continue he did.

"Driven by his curiosity, he began to wander across the vastness of the universe. At that time, it was truly a wonder…a universe overflowing with resources and phenomena you would never find now."

"Through countless worlds, realms, and dimensions he traveled, collecting every kind of resource imaginable, learning, observing, creating… until one day, he stumbled upon something he never thought could exist in a universe made entirely of mana."

Evadam paused, and behind him, the screen flickered again, showing a vast, endless black void.

The same void Noah and the others had passed through before being dragged here.

"A place with no mana," Evadam said, his tone lowering. "Can you guess my shock at that moment?"

Noah nodded slightly, admitting that such a discovery would've been extraordinary for any being born in a world saturated with mana.

"But the most fascinating thing," Evadam continued, his voice lifting with excitement, "was that within that place, within that void without mana, there existed a solar system. A complete one. Entirely different from the systems above, from the worlds woven in mana."

His tone became animated, his gestures alive with memory and wonder.

"I was thrilled. So I began to study the stars one by one. The sun. The moons. The planets. It was incredible, how each one was different, how they all had their own rhythm, their own story. And then, I found a world I particularly liked."

A blue planet appeared behind him.

"To me, this planet was a wonder," he said, his voice softening as his gaze lingered on it. "It had the perfect conditions for life to emerge without interference. And the timing was perfect, for I had just begun to think about creating my own faction back then."

He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in before continuing.

"And that's what I did. I took that planet, I named it Earth, and from the clay of its deserts, I shaped my first creations — those who would populate the whole world. My greatest achievement."

He smiled, his voice almost tender.

"Adam and Eve."

"And with them… humans were born."

—End of Chapter 357—

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