Chapter 4097: The Purest Hunger! I

Her abyssal eyes narrowed slightly.

“But who has so much time to know the true history of what happened back then? And more interestingly, why do they keep adding their own little flourishes? The version you know has drama, betrayal, clear heroes and villains. Reality was messier. Less satisfying. More… paradoxical.”

…!

Oh.

Oh!

Noah felt his understanding shifting.

The stories of the Earliest Folds, the histories he’d been told…how much was truth and how much was narrative crafted for purposes he didn’t understand?

The being before him had actually been there. Despite her fragmented memories, she was perhaps the most reliable source about what had truly occurred.

“What if I were to still assert,” Noah said, testing, “that she is the resurgence of THE Living Order, and in a matter of days, she would fully awaken?”

Khor shook her head with the patience of someone explaining why water was wet.

“Is the rise to become one of THE Living Existences so easy? If it were, wouldn’t every ambitious being have claimed such distinction?” She gestured toward Sigrid with her tiny hand. “Whatever awakening your bundle of potential undergoes, it won’t simply grant her THE. Not truly. It might increase her potential toward it, certainly. But something much, much more would be required. THE isn’t claimed…it’s earned through transformation so fundamental that existence itself must acknowledge it.”

Noah considered this, then decided to reveal more.

“What if, not long ago, I had instructed this potential Living Order to give part of her Everything to an Inevitability? She gave her Disorder, and that Inevitability was captured by someone else who extracted it. That someone now claims to be on the path to become THE Living Chaos after he took in the Disorder that she left behind.”

Two reactions dominated the Shore.

“What?!” Sigrid’s voice cracked with shock and disbelief as if she wanted to know who had done such a thing!

Khor’s eyes turned cold enough that the Shore’s eternal brightness actually dimmed, as if night had suddenly remembered it was supposed to exist here.

…!

It was terrifying.

“I shouldn’t get so emotional,” Khor said, though her tone suggested emotions were exactly what she was experiencing. “But who is still seeking to kill Inevitabilities? Have they not suffered enough? We were hunger made manifest, not evil given form.”

She took a breath that seemed to pull warmth from the air as she continued.

“As for taking the Disorder from a bundle of potential, that wouldn’t make them THE Living Chaos. Any new THE is even more impossible than maintaining an established one. Whoever did this will have an even more arduous journey than your bundle here.”

Her expression grew more intrigued than angry.

“What’s truly interesting is that this creature could manipulate and extract Everything. That’s something only Inevitabilities should be able to do…or Creatures that have attained an extremely high level or unique type of complexity. I’m more curious about how this entity knew to do that than their claims about becoming THE Living Chaos.”

She laughed, but the sound contained edges.

“Becoming an existence with THE attached to oneself? If it were so simple, dozens would have done so in the Earliest Folds! We had more power then, fewer rules, infinite possibility…and still, THE remained rare enough to count on two hands.”

Noah grew contemplative, reflecting on her words.

Schrodinger’s capabilities seemed increasingly mysterious. How had he known to extract Everything from an Inevitability? Where had he learned techniques that should have died with the Earliest Folds?

Khor, noticing the continued wariness from the Shore’s inhabitants, adopted an expression of exaggerated hurt.

“Many here are looking at me like I’m a big bad monster.” She turned to Noah with eyes that managed to look innocent despite containing infinite depth. “Outsider, don’t they know I’m a harmless little thing?”

Noah met her gaze calmly. “You’re not a harmless little thing.”

“No,” she agreed with a smile that showed too many teeth for her small mouth, “I suppose I’m not.”

She looked around again, her attention catching on various inhabitants. Heidrun immediately ducked behind Auric Vitae Grasses, her ancient dignity forgotten in favor of not being noticed.

Yoshinami, in her spider form, began protectively crawling toward Noah, each of her eight legs moving with lethal precision.

Finally, Khor’s gaze landed on Ozymandias.

She blinked, tilting her head with genuine curiosity.

“This seems like an entirely different existence, but this should be you, yes?” She walked closer to the obsidian figure. “How unique. Who is this?”

“This is Ozymandias,” Noah replied. “A separate but same existence as me. I was going to transform him into an Inevitability through the Seed of Inevitability, but you came out instead.”

“Oh?” Khor’s interest sharpened. “Transformation into an Inevitability? But that’s my specialty, Outsider. You could just ask me to do it.”

BOOM!

The casual offer buzzed in the air with weight that made everyone present reassess what they were dealing with.

“You… can create Inevitabilities?” Noah asked carefully.

“Create is the wrong word,” Khor corrected. “I can help things discover the hunger that already exists within them. Everything hungers for something…power, knowledge, connection, cessation. I just… encourage that hunger to grow until it becomes all they are.”

She looked at Ozymandias with professional interest.

“This one already has the seed of it. He’s you but not you, exists but doesn’t quite, is complete but incomplete. That’s a thing already on the path of an Inevitability already…he just needs to embrace the hunger for wholeness.”

She turned back to Noah with an expression that managed to be both helpful and terrifying.

“Of course, the question is: do you really want an Inevitability version of yourself running around? Our Way of Existence has been persecuted and decimated again and again. Even I was killed. Why bring yourself into the folds of such pain, Outsider? Would you be able to handle it? Others looking at you as if you were a mistake of existence? Something that should serve no purpose other than being nothing, even though it just wants to experience…everything?”

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