The frost still clung to the bones of the glacial domain, though the howls of Inevitabilities died rapidly!
Where once roared chaos and consumption, now only a roaring silence reigned. The wriggling masses, all of them, were burning. The radiant petals of Order had flared... and then all had collapsed.
Inevitabilities ate and ate until they could eat no more.
That was their nature.
Feed them infinite reserves, overwhelm their paradoxical nature, and they would collapse under the very concept they sought to embody.
They were unstable. Even the genuine ones.
True Inevitabilities, those dreadful echoes of contradiction from beyond, were the nightmare of Foldless Ones. The kind that never ceased, never reasoned. Only consumed.
But these? These were imitations. Mutated. Crafted to simulate dread, but not sustain it.
At the end of the day, they were Imitation Mutated Inevitabilities!
That alone was enough for one to ask...how did Living Existences manufacture such creatures? But that was a wonder for another time.
The critical thing now was that these were just imitations.
Against the grinding, unbending light of Order...they were nothing.
Noah floated in the thinning light, breath steady in his chest. Around him, dozens of Masters of Existence hovered cautiously in the frost-rimed distance, hundreds of Primarchs behind them, all murmuring in hushed awe.
The snow had quieted. Only the crystalline groaning of the massive trees of Yggdrasil continued to echo across the sea.
And in the center of it all stood her.
Sigrid.
Her form gleamed with an undeniable authority now- an Authority that wrapped around her like a flowing mantle spun from the threads of law itself.
Her skin radiated a cool white brilliance, her hair adrift in still wind. Her feet did not touch the frost, but the frost itself seemed to reach up toward her as if it sought to cradle her brilliance!
Noah’s gaze didn’t leave her.
There was a sense of careful wonder in his gaze.
Because as he watched the shimmering white lotuses fade into starlight, he realized, truly realized, that Sigrid might be something far beyond what even she believed herself to be.
Her entire lineage had died to fill a hole in her being. And from that hole...something ancient had bloomed.
A lost Authority.
An existential flame of balance and sovereignty. Living Order.
If she was its vessel...
If she wasn’t simply touched by it, but was it...
Then Sigrid might not just be a Living Order.
She might stand the chance to be THE Living Order. Maybe. In a far distant future!
...!
Noah’s eyes narrowed with solemn clarity.
Such a concept would be enough to drive Living Origins mad. Enough to drive entire Civilizations to betray each other.
How would the Living Paradoxes react if they knew? Hell, how would the other Living Existences react?
She gleamed like judgment itself as she opened her lips and uttered a single word.
"Order."
The sound settled.
Like snowfall upon skin.
And in the next breath, all remaining Inevitabilities and golems screeched as one.
Their bodies imploded in sheer existential terror.
Their monstrous limbs convulsed. Their many eyes cracked like glass beneath a hammer. Their jagged, writhing masses burst, turning into dazzling white stars that floated through the cold air like offerings... all of them moving toward the figure that had commanded them.
Toward Sigrid.
She didn’t reach out.
She simply received.
And in front of Noah, a prompt unfolded like a blooming petal, elegant and heavy with implication.
Even Master Neinoro couldn’t help himself.
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