Chapter 4537: The Illusion of Choice II

Schrodinger kept an extremely cold gaze fixed on his originator as THE Living Paradox smiled and threw his hands around to indicate the radiant paradoxical sea surrounding them.

"There actually is no grand reason or existential purpose for you being here," he said with casual honesty. "Just something else that I thought would be entertaining to observe. Which is to basically give you a choice. Me directly waking up in your body would get me suppressed rather quickly by THE Creature’s awareness. There is no fun in that predictable outcome."

He leaned forward with conspiratorial energy.

"As of this moment, I effectively have full control of your existence. I can do whatever I wish with it without your consent or input. So I thought, would it not be fun to give you the illusion of choice? To tell you, hey, I will give you back control of your body and autonomy, and I will even dangle the powerful motivation of saving your Leonore Rureaux and every single lifeform in Observable Existence."

BOOM!

The words were terrifying and immensely heavy to hear. Schrodinger could not help but open his eyes unfathomably wide with shock at the implications.

He spoke with urgency entering his voice for the first time.

"What do you mean saving every single lifeform in Observable Existence?" he asked with genuine confusion. "How does that even connect to anything you have said?"

THE Living Paradox smiled with satisfaction at having captured his attention so completely.

"THE Loom has a purpose that you would never even begin to understand in your current state," he said with measured revelation. "Its eruption and systematic swallowing of every single thing outside of its boundaries is only a byproduct of its true function. A side effect that I could effectively correct at any time if I chose to do so."

He shrugged with indifference.

"Yes, allowing all those deaths would increase the harvest that I would reap from the collapse of so much existence. But I am already powerful enough that the collapse of all lifeforms in Observable Existence would not truly tip the scales in my favor or give me any significant advantage. It was simply a byproduct of THE Loom’s operation, and I do not care much for individual existences, so I let it proceed as designed."

His smile became predatory.

"But I thought it would be entertaining if I gave you this choice right now. That you, as the Herald that you were so gloriously told you would be by THE Weavers..." He laughed at the memory. "That you, the supposedly glorious Schrodinger, could effectively and truly save all the countless lifeforms outside of THE Loom from inevitable death. You could truly become the Herald you believed you were."

He paused for emphasis.

"And the only thing that you have to do...is ensure the complete collapse of this Osmont. That is it. Just Osmont. Simple objective, massive reward."

HUUM!

The words were unfathomably grand in their implications. THE Living Paradox smiled and looked directly at Schrodinger as he finished articulating them.

Schrodinger seemed frozen as he processed the information. He did not understand why those two things would even be correlated or connected in any meaningful way.

THE Living Paradox continued speaking as if reading his confusion.

"You know, I am pretty confident that this Osmont is undoubtedly leading when it comes to forging a viable Civilization outside of THE Loom," he said with analytical assessment. "The Collapsed Civilizations and those other fuckin losers in the Wandering Territories are not anywhere close to his level of development."

He gestured casually.

"Him and his Civilization surviving until THE Loom erupts would actually grant me a decent harvest from the collapse of a properly developed Civilization. He does not really need to die at this moment. Nor do I actually need to put you in charge of accomplishing such a thing. I just thought it would be fun to see how it plays out."

His eyes gleamed with entertainment.

"If I told you that saving everyone was genuinely possible through this path, whether you could achieve it with your own bare hands through direct force, or you simply talk to Osmont and tell him all this information and say, hey man, if you just voluntarily die and collapse your Civilization, you will actually save every single lifeform in Observable Existence from certain death."

He spread his hands.

"That is why you are here at this moment. That is what I wanted to tell you. You can be the herald that THE Weavers always promised you would become, just not in the way you imagined."

The words were extremely heavy and unfathomable in their weight. Schrodinger found himself shaking his head soon after while processing the absurdity.

"I do not have the power to force Osmont to do anything," he said with realistic assessment. "And it is impossible for him to simply end his existence from me telling him some words about saving others. He would never believe such a claim without proof."

THE Living Paradox smiled at such a logical line of thought as he nodded with approval.

"Yeah, you are probably correct about that," he acknowledged easily. "But hey, did you forget that you were my vessel? I found the Everything of Chaos, the Everything of Disorder that you obtained from The Living Order, from Sigrid herself. It exists as merely a seed in your possession."

His expression became calculating.

"In your hands, you would not have been able to achieve anything meaningful with it. But your grand aspirations made me curious about the possibilities, and I could help you achieve what you were imagining. In a short period of time, I could likely elevate you to the Pre-THE Existence status, as close to the level of The Civilizational Scale of Existence as you can possibly achieve at this moment."

He paused to let that sink in.

"Such power would be more than enough for you to take care of Osmont directly. But, of course, I am not doing this for nothing. I will actually be experimenting with your existence as a side project. Since you currently have the Way of Paradox deeply entrenched within your existence from being my fragment, I will be distorting and mutating you while forcefully squeezing in the Way of Chaos alongside it."

His smile became slightly cruel.

"If you can withstand the process, great, then all of this can play out as I described. If you cannot withstand it, your existence will actually fracture and shatter completely, and I will find something else to play with instead. No significant loss for me either way."

He tilted his head with mock consideration.

"I would ask you now whether you are ready to get started with this process, but... haha, in all honesty, you do not really have a choice in the matter. Remember what I explained earlier? Existence is filled with illusions of choices. So I will not even wait for you to have the back and forth with yourself of, oh, could I do this, should I do this, could I refuse..."

His smile widened.

"I have already made that choice for you to just make it easier on yourself. But hey, I will still ask just for the sake of maintaining the illusion. Are you ready?"

The glorious and chilling smile on THE Living Paradox’s face was genuinely unsettling in its certainty. Schrodinger looked at him with an extremely heavy expression carrying immense complexity.

He thought about Leonore. About all the lifeforms that would die. About the impossible choice that was not actually a choice at all.

And he simply nodded with acceptance of the inevitable.

THE Living Paradox’s smile grew even wider.

"Excellent," he said with satisfaction. "Let us begin the fun, shall we? Hmm, what would SHE say at a place like this? Ah, yes. C’est la vie, my dear Schrodinger. C’est la vie!"

HUUM!

And the paradoxical sea began to churn with terrifying intensity.

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