Chapter 4085: Losses and Gains! I

There are existences accustomed to winning…beings for whom victory is not achievement but expectation, for whom success is the baseline from which all other experiences are measured.

When such beings experience loss, the sensation transcends simple defeat.

It becomes existential crisis, a fundamental questioning of identity itself!

If you are defined by winning, what are you when you lose?

There were those existences, and then… there was Noah.

At this moment, he lay upon a vast white sea, his body carried by gentle waves that had once been cerulean but now shone with stellar radiance.

The light of Order had bombarded these waters so thoroughly, so completely, that they had forgotten their original color and adopted a new truth.

The waves moved with purpose that transcended physics, supporting him with the particular care of water that had been organized into knowing exactly how to hold someone.

He stared at a ceiling inside an isolated pocket dimension in the Abode of the Early Creature, and for perhaps the first time in his rapid ascension through impossibility, he had to admit something that sat strangely in his consciousness…

He had actually lost.

During his Dual Cultivation with THE Living Order, despite all his complexity, despite his multiple Seed Glyphs, despite being The Early Creature, Osmont..he had lost!

Not devastatingly, not humiliatingly, but definitively. Sigrid’s complexity and purity had exceeded his own, and he had learned firsthand what that distinction of [THE] truly meant when attached to a Living Existence.

Basically, he was manhandled by his girl!

The prompts floating before his vision offered consolation that transcended simple comfort.

|Extended Intimate Connection with THE Living Order (Awakening) Completed|

|Duration: Temporal Manipulation Extended – 72 Subjective Hours|

|Understanding of Order Fundamentally Enhanced|

|Existential Resonance Achieved|

|Purity Gained: +55,000,000,000|

|Complexity Gained: +25,000,000,000|

|Note: Differential gains reflect Order’s preference for purity over complexity|

|Additional Note: Being dominated by THE Living Order has its benefits|

The boons were indeed terrifying!

So even though he had lost control, had been the one guided rather than guiding, he couldn’t truly call it defeat.

The gains were unfathomable, his understanding of Order deepened beyond what solo cultivation could have achieved.

“Get up and stop making it seem like you were ravaged.”

Sigrid’s voice cut through his contemplation with the particular mix of affection and exasperation that had developed between them.

She stood nearby, tying her white hair into a ponytail with movements that were efficient yet graceful. The pure white robe she wore seemed to glow with its own light…or perhaps it was her light, Order itself radiating through simple fabric.

Noah rose from the stellar waters, droplets cascading down his bare torso like liquid starlight seeking return to the sea.

Each drop caught light that shouldn’t exist, creating momentary prisms before rejoining the vast white expanse. His lower body was adorned with pure white pants that seemed cut from the same conceptual fabric as restraint itself.

He looked at Sigrid with seriousness that transformed his usually tyrannical confidence into something heavier.

“All ten Living Existences that we’ve heard of have shown themselves to be larger than anything we could fathom.” His voice carried weight that made the white waters still their movement. “You’re awakening as the resurgence of THE Living Order, gaining power that reshapes reality just by existing. But there’s so much we don’t know. So much that remains hidden.”

He stepped closer, his gaze intense enough to make Order itself pay attention.

“Are you confident that as you keep awakening, as you attain more of THE Living Order’s power, that everything about you is remaining you?”

The question hung between them with importance.

“Because if anything feels off…if you sense something foreign trying to assert itself, tell me now. I can always take matters into my own hands.”

The implication was clear. He would rather stop her awakening, rather limit her power, than lose her to something wearing her face.

Sigrid moved toward him across the stellar white sea, her steps creating ripples that organized themselves into perfect concentric circles. She sat beside him, then shifted to lay her head on his lap, looking up at the ceiling with eyes that contained depths of contemplation.

Her arm reached upward, fingers grasping at something invisible…perhaps trying to capture certainty in a situation that offered none.

“I was just a girl who lost her entire family, my whole lineage, based on the orders of those above me.”

“I didn’t ask to become the resurgence of THE Living Order. I still don’t understand how it’s possible. But what happened, happened. Now I’m here.”

She paused, her hand still reaching toward something beyond the ceiling.

“I may not have my family anymore, but I’ve found something else. Someone else.” Her gaze shifted to meet his. “I was terrified you would be like the Living Origins…someone who only wanted to use me for what I represented. But then you brought me here. You showed me your Shore, your family, your mother who accepted me with a single word. Your people who treat me as myself rather than my title.”

Her expression softened with vulnerability that THE Living Order probably shouldn’t show.

“With all of this, my heart is at ease. Which is why even though I can feel something terrifying arising inside me…power that wants to organize everything it touches, I feel like I can handle it. Because you’re here.”

She placed her hand on her chest, closing her eyes as if listening to something within.

“I’m beginning to obtain pieces of memories from an extremely long time ago. The Earliest Folds. They’re hazy, like looking through water at stars, but they’re becoming clearer as I grow more complex, more pure. These memories… they’ll have answers. About what happened. About what’s coming.”

Her eyes opened, finding his with intensity that made the white waters around them ripple.

“Besides, you’ve bound me, haven’t you?” The question was rhetorical, acknowledging the connections between them that transcended everything.

“If I ever go crazy, if THE Living Order somehow overwrites who I am, you can simply put me under control. These bindings you have on me…emotional, physical, existential, they’re not chains. They’re anchors.”

…!

Change in chap titles

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