Chapter 5282: Dust III

Noah watched Sir William Arthur walk back from where Vireth and the other time-travelers had been.

One move. A single draw from an obsidian sheath, one letter of THE Primordial Tongue, and the crescent of liquid THE Primordial Source had done the rest!

Four Fourth Scale Gilded Ones, hundreds of Devonian Paleozoic Scale entities, the full pride expression of an assembled Legion’s collective Superbius authority, all of it had received one answer.

He let the full weight of what he’d witnessed settle into his assessment of what Sir William Arthur was!

He turned his eyes to what remained of the Legion.

They weren’t dead. He wasn’t sure whether that was mercy or something else entirely. The cuts covered every visible surface of every being who had contributed authority to the peacock expression, thousands of precise obsidian marks!

They were records. THE Primordial Source had passed through their existences and left its passage written on their foundations, and what the passage had written was degradation.

The prompts bloomed as he sought information.

|Legion status: critical existential degradation active across all entities who contributed authority to the collapsed Superbius formation.|

|The crescent expression of THE Primordial Source has introduced THE Source Rejection Condition into the foundations of affected entities. THE Source Rejection Condition functions as follows: the foundational substrate of existence recognizes these beings as having participated in a collective action that drew THE Primordial Source’s direct correction. The substrate is now actively withdrawing its support for their continued coherence.|

|Symptoms: cuts across all surfaces of existence that do not seal, progressive loss of Cause connection as THE First Cause withdraws recognition from affected foundations, continuous involuntary expulsion of cultivated force through open wounds, destabilization of Scale standing, degradation of Ego architecture. The condition worsens with time and accelerates with any attempt to use cultivated capabilities.|

|Prognosis: without direct intervention from a being with THE Primordial Source access, affected entities will continue degrading until their foundational coherence collapses entirely. Current trajectory places full collapse between several hours and several days depending on individual foundational strength.|

|Note: The time-traversing entities have been removed from existence entirely. The Rejection Condition applies only to those who participated in the formation while remaining within their original temporal context.|

|Observable Existence lockdown: lifted. Sir William Arthur has rescinded the entry and exit restriction. Transit through Observable Existence is now unrestricted.|

Taylor was already moving.

She had Adrastia by the arm and was pulling him away from the nearest cluster of degrading Gilded Ones!

As she pulled, she looked sideways toward the distant figure of Sir William Arthur and raised her voice.

"Thank you for not killing those of us who weren’t involved, big guy!" She kept moving while she said it, not breaking her stride. "We will absolutely get out of your way!"

She disappeared into the space between the Legion’s scattered formations with Adrastia in tow.

Noah watched them go and returned his attention to the broader scene, cataloguing the Legion’s current state, the degrading Sororis Prima and Devonian and Silurian entities dispersed across Observable Existence in various stages of the Rejection Condition, Sororis Prima Elizabeth cutting and bleeding and still upright with pride!

As he looked at all of this...

WUU!

He frowned.

He looked up.

Space shattered above the Observable Existence, the dimensional fabric splitting along lines that hadn’t been stressed before, and through the splits came an entity that Noah’s perception registered before his eyes resolved the details.

Superbius.

Liquid swirling rivers of it, the Ego not merely expressed but composed into the entity’s physical substance, the pride of the Superbius designation compressed into a body that was ten times the mass of even a Devonian Ragnar, the titanic frame descending through the shattered space with the cold unhurried attention of something that had arrived to assess.

To assess!

The entity’s expression held no rage, no urgency. Just the cold evaluative attention of something that had sent a Legion ahead of itself and had come personally to review the results.

Noah focused everything available on the entity.

|???|

Not a partial reading. Just nothing. Pure question marks where information should exist, the substrate around this entity refusing to yield even a name!

Terrifyingly powerful!

The entity’s gaze moved across the degraded Legion, across the torn Observable Existence where Sir William Arthur’s crescent had carved its permanent record, across the crimson-gold staining the space around the fallen, and then the gaze found Sir William Arthur.

"We never would have expected to see a genuine Source Lifeform here." The entity’s voice was massive and flat.

"We began paying attention after our people started dying here, and now for a Gilded Legion to be struck down with your appearance in this region." It looked at the degraded formations.

"We have taken too many losses, haven’t we? It seems there is an infestation occurring, and we now have to clear it out."

BOOM!

Sir William Arthur looked up at the entity.

His expression, which had carried the precise neutrality of professional focus through the entire engagement, shifted by a fraction as it became cold.

"You wouldn’t," he said.

The entity smiled.

It was a brutal smile that had nothing warm in it.

"Oh, but it is already done. The order has been given. I was sent to confirm, and I have confirmed." It looked down at Sir William Arthur with the patient attention of something that had all the time available to it that it needed.

"We shall meet again soon. After the dust has settled."

After the dust has settled.

After the dust has settled!

Noah’s expression went heavy the moment the words finished!

He gave his order to THE Infiniverse immediately, the command moving through their connection before his conscious processing had fully completed its assessment of what the words implied!

Because his instincts had already completed the assessment and his instincts had been right for long enough that he’d learned to move on them without waiting for confirmation!

Across the space, Sir William Arthur’s frown deepened. He turned from the entity and tapped his hand outward toward the positions Taylor and Adrastia and the other anomalies occupied, and the anomalies went still as the tap reached them!

Then... the space above cracked.

HOONG!

Massive silver-gold pillars of metallic light descended through the cracks in the Observable Existence’s upper dimensional fabric, each one the size of a Primordial Realm, the space shattering along their entry paths in ways that wouldn’t reseal because the pillars weren’t moving through the space but replacing it, the silver-gold light occupying the coordinates of the dimensional fabric rather than traveling through them!

They were menacing in the way that things designed to be final were menacing!

Noah’s senses screamed as he gazed at this!

The prompts arrived with the flat urgency of information that needed to be processed immediately.

|Incoming deployment: Ealdor-class Existential Acedia Ordnance. Multiple warheads confirmed.|

|Classification: Taboo capability reverse-engineered from THE First Cause, combined with the Ego of Acedia. Classified by Gilded engineering councils as a weapon of last resort. Deployment against Observable Existences or large-scale regions is sanctioned only at the highest levels of THE Magna Sorora authority.|

|Effect upon detonation: The targeted region undergoes Causal Stilling. THE First Cause’s expression is inverted and weaponized as it removes all progression from the affected space. Every form of advancement, cultivation, growth, healing, and development ceases within the Stilled region permanently. The Causal Stilling does not disperse. It persists until actively reversed by a being with direct access to THE First Cause’s authority.|

|Secondary effect: Existential Acedia Dredge conversion. All lifeforms within the detonation radius are transformed by the Causal Stilling into Existential Acedia Dredges. Dredge state characteristics: complete loss of independent cognizance, existence locked into a single imperative of seeking and infecting other lifeforms, bodies continuing to operate without cultivation or growth or healing, wounds present but non-fatal, movements driven by the Acedia Ego’s imperative rather than any surviving will. Dredges respond exclusively to the signature of Gilded Ones bearing Acedia Ego.|

|Tertiary effect: Existential Acedia Infection. Dredges carry the Causal Stilling in their physical substance. Any lifeform that comes into contact with a Dredge’s bodily output, or sustains injury from a Dredge, receives the Infection directly into their foundational substrate. The Infection binds irreversibly into the recipient’s existence within moments of contact. Once bound, the Infection progresses toward full Dredge conversion regardless of the recipient’s foundational strength. Fourth Scale entities exposed to the Infection without immediate Source-level intervention will convert. Third Scale entities convert within seconds of binding.|

|Current trajectory: Multiple warheads are approaching detonation range for this Observable Existence. Estimated time to detonation: Instantaneous.|

...!

He had to move!

He had to move right now, and he was already moving, the order to THE Infiniverse already sent!

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