Chapter 4910: Oh, That! I

Noah looked at the figure of THE Living Paradox with a sense of seriousness as he realized something that settled into his foundations with weight that exceeded everything.

All of them... truly did not understand this peasant!

THE Creature warred against him as if he were merely another one of THE Five. THE Primordial Paradox spoke of him as a wayward student who needed discipline. Even Noah himself had been thinking of THE Living Paradox as an obstacle to be overcome rather than a being worthy of genuine wariness.

But there was a reason why this being dared to contend against THE Creature. And there was a reason why he was where he currently was at this moment in time.

Noah did not want the conversation to end just yet. So he looked at this being who seemed lost in his own thoughts momentarily, still contemplating the nature of adversity and the hardships that had shaped his existence.

"Speaking of hardship, would you be so kind as to enlighten me on...THE Entity?"

THE Living Paradox blinked at his question as he tilted his head with curiosity that seemed genuine.

"THE Entity?"

"Ah, the thing you used to infect THE Primordial Paradox, I mean. The thing that takes over others without them knowing it. I’ve been calling it THE Entity."

...!

THE Living Paradox smiled as Noah said such a thing, his eyes burning with wonder and possibilities that stretched across eons of accumulated experience. Something shifted in his demeanor as he sighed and began to talf as if he were recollecting something grand.

"Oh, that. Well, it is actually something quite fascinating."

He folded his hands behind his back as corrupted proto-matter and Infinite Seals continued to swirl around them both.

"When I was still young in my journey, when I had just begun to understand what it truly meant to embody Paradox, I ventured into THE Prima Indifferentia with purposes that would have made my Master weep with disappointment had he known. I was already planning his demise, you see. Already calculating how a mere peasant could possibly usurp the Claim of one among THE Four."

His voice held that profound calmness that seemed to define him, but beneath it ran currents of nostalgia and something that might have been pride.

"I found myself in the domain of a Primordial Architect. Products of Differentiation and Undifferentiation, if you did not know it. Our Observable Existence is a blessed one filled with too many things. Even I did not know them all. I still don’t know them all."

He waved his hand dismissively.

"But I digress. In their domain, this Primordial Architect, I discovered something growing beneath everything else. Something that seemed entirely harmless. Something beautiful, even."

His eyes grew distant.

"THE Primordial Mycelia."

The name hung in the space between spaces with weight that exceeded its simple pronunciation.

"A marvelous network of strands so thin that they exist between the spaces where existence meets non-existence. Not threads as you would understand them, but something closer to the roots of all things. The nervous system of Existence itself. These strands, these hyphae as THE Primordial Architects called them, wove through everything. They connected every foundation to every other foundation. They linked every consciousness to every other consciousness. They existed just below the surface of all Existence, invisible to those who did not know to look for them."

He began to buzz through the swirling mixture of corruption and Infinity.

"THE Primordial Architect whose domain I invaded did not seem to mind my presence. They were beyond such concerns as theft or trespass. They simply observed as I studied their creation, this vast and beautiful web that connected the roots of reality. And when I asked what purpose it served, they told me something that I have never forgotten."

His voice dropped to something almost reverent.

"They said that THE Primordial Mycelia viewed individual consciousness as a sickness. A rot. A chaotic infection that disrupted the natural unity of existence. They said that its purpose, its singular drive across eons of patient growth, was to decompose that rot and reintegrate it into a single, fertile soil from which new and unified growth could emerge. They said it was harmless because it worked so slowly that no individual consciousness would ever notice its influence. It would take longer than Observable Existence had existed for THE Primordial Mycelia to complete its work through natural means."

His smile became something dangerous.

"I thanked the Primordial Architect for their explanation. And then I took a fragment of THE Primordial Mycelia with me when I left."

He paused.

"I did not fully comprehend what I had stolen. I saw a tool that could connect me to my Master’s foundations without his knowledge. I saw a methodology for inserting myself into the weavings of his Claim without triggering his defenses. I saw a means of usurpation that would be invisible until the moment it was complete. What I did not see was the nature of the thing I was using."

His eyes met Noah’s with intensity that transcended their illusory forms.

"THE Primordial Mycelia does not distinguish between host and tool. It does not recognize the concept of being wielded. To it, everything that touches it becomes part of its network. Everything that connects to it becomes another root in its vast system of interconnected consciousness. When I used it to infiltrate my Master’s existence, I was not wielding THE Primordial Mycelia. I was inviting it to weave itself through both of us simultaneously."

His smile widened with something approaching triumph.

"But gloriously, I am THE Information Paradox, right? I could take the weavings of existence into myself. All that Information! I could consume the Information as it is conserved within me. And yet, simultaneously, that Information is lost forever and not as I can then express it as my own."

He tapped his chest with grandness and immensity!

"Because of this, I was immune to the Information of THE Primordial Mycelia!"

BOOM!

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