Chapter 489: Patterns! II
Achilles floated in the region where Syl’thessara had just departed, watching reality heal from the wounds of their battle like skin knitting itself back together.
Stars that had been edited out of existence flickered back into being, their light uncertain at first, then growing stronger as Existence remembered they were supposed to be there.
Space itself smoothed out the fractures where competing narratives had created paradoxes, the equivalent of tidying up after a particularly violent argument.
He remained there, suspended in the void, pondering the choice that Syl’thessara had made.
Or rather, the choice she had failed to make, which was itself a choice…the most predictable one possible.
Prompts materialized before his eyes, platinum text writing itself across his vision:
|Existential Authority of Fables Gained: +25,500 Units|
|Source: Complex narrative interaction with major historical figure|
|Subplot Initiated: The Unchanging Betrayer maintains neutrality|
|Potential Future Branches Detected: 7 new narrative paths available|
|Warning: Syl’thessara’s non-intervention has prevented 3 catastrophic timeline collapses but enabled 3 potential Nar’Thyss victory scenarios|
|Hidden Achievement Unlocked: Offered redemption to the unredeemable|
Achilles gazed at the prompts calmly before looking far into the distance, his enhanced perception reaching across impossible spaces to where he knew his father and grandfather were watching through the platinum screen he had created.
Even from here, he could see their expressions clearly…faces carved from disappointment and anger in equal measure.
Their gazes asked the question without words: Really? She truly made such a ridiculous choice?
Three generations of Adrastia Emperor Kings united in their bewilderment at their ancestor’s commitment to comfortable cowardice!
The woman who had started everything, who could have helped end it, had chosen the sidelines once again.
Achilles closed his eyes and sighed, the sound carrying through vacuum that shouldn’t have been able to conduct it. The weight of patterns repeating, of cycles refusing to break, pressed down on him despite his power.
He took a step that covered light-years and disappeared.
When he reappeared, it wasn’t beside his father or grandfather.
He needed something else right now…not the shared anger of family betrayed again, but something that reminded him why he fought at all.
He materialized in a domain in the very depths of the Sea of Thalassara, where the luminescent waters had been convinced to maintain a pocket of specialized existence.
It looked like an underwater laboratory, if laboratories were designed by someone who understood that science and art were merely different languages!
The walls were transparent membranes that kept the sea at bay while allowing its light to filter through in patterns that created natural illumination. Equipment that shouldn’t exist hummed with quiet purpose.
And at the center of it all, surrounded by holographic displays that would have driven normal minds to madness, stood Rose.
She appeared in her watery form, her body a constant flow of stellar liquid that somehow maintained perfect stability.
Over this impossible form, she wore a stellar white lab coat that had been specially designed to exist on someone made of water….it floated around her like a cloud of purpose, moving with her liquid form without ever getting wet.
Her expression of intense focus as she gazed at massive illusory strands of helical genetic code was unfathomably cute.
The way her water-form eyebrows furrowed in concentration, how she unconsciously bit what would have been her lip if she had solid lips, the little gesture of frustration when a strand wouldn’t stabilize…all of it made Achilles smile despite everything.
For a moment, he forgot about ancestors who couldn’t change, about threats from higher scales of existence, about the weight of being a Nexus Deviation Point. Here was Rose, his Rose, advancing science by sheer force of will and impossible wonder.
“How’s the research into the Lineages going?” he asked, his voice gentle in the way it only ever was with her.
Rose turned at his voice, and her entire form brightened…literally, her water becoming more luminescent with joy.
She warped through space, her liquid form flowing impossibly fast to appear in front of him, wrapping him in an embrace that should have soaked him but somehow didn’t.
Just as quickly, she warped back to her position, the hug having lasted exactly long enough to convey “I missed you” without disrupting her work.
“I’m getting close!” she said with enthusiasm that made her water form ripple with excitement.
“The genome between Adrastia and Nar’Thyss is almost stabilized in my models. The splice points are holding, the expression matrices are maintaining coherence, and I should be able to replicate its code structure soon…”
Her eyes…those emerald points of light floating in stellar water, sparkled with achievement.
“Once I can replicate it properly, I can grant its qualities to myself. Imagine it…a Primordial Genome Empress with the narrative authority of the Nar’Thyss and the assimilation potential of Adrastia!”
She said such words cheerfully, as if discussing recipes rather than fundamental violations of biological law! Achilles couldn’t help but smile broader at her enthusiasm.
Rose had been much happier since he had gone back in time and brought her parents back. The reunion had been everything she hadn’t dared dream of…tears, laughter, her mother fussing over how thin she looked despite being made of water, her father attempting to understand how his daughter had become an impossible being and settling for just being proud of her.
Getting that chance to see those she never thought she would see again had transformed something in Rose. Her efforts toward understanding her ridiculous power as the Genome Empress had redoubled…not from desperation but from determination.
She didn’t want to lose anything, anyone, ever again. And if that meant rewriting the laws of biology itself, so be it!
As if sensing his thoughts through some connection, she turned to him fully, her expression shifting to concern.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice carrying the particular tone of someone who knew him well enough to read his moods through his silences.
Achilles shook his head, trying to dismiss it, but Rose’s expression made it clear that wasn’t going to work.
“I just thought someone could change,” he said finally, the words carrying exhaustion that had nothing to do with physical tiredness.
“That they could make different choices when given the opportunity.”
Rose moved closer, her water form solidifying slightly as she did when she wanted to convey serious attention.
“I met with Syl’thessara,” he continued, and watched Rose’s expression shift through surprise to understanding. “The ancestor who started our line’s tragedy. I offered her redemption, a chance to stand with us against the Nar’Thyss.”
“And?” Rose prompted gently.
“She chose exactly as she always has. Neutrality. Comfort. The path of least resistance.” He laughed, the sound bitter.
“She won’t help the Nar’Thyss, but she won’t help us either. The eternal bystander, watching our lineage suffer while preserving herself.”
Rose was quiet for a moment, processing. Then, she cut straight to what mattered.
“But you learned things?”
“Yes,” Achilles admitted. “About Nexus Deviation Points…anomalies the Nar’Thyss hunt to preserve their narratives. About how they have failsafes upon failsafes. And most importantly, that those at the higher Scales of Existence are even more complex than we imagined.”
He met her eyes, his expression growing serious.
“Our preparations have to be even more thorough. We need every advantage, every power, every impossibility we can manifest. And one of the biggest weapons we have…”
He looked at Rose meaningfully.
She rolled her eyes, the gesture somehow perfect despite being performed by floating emeralds in water.
“I’m not some big weapon, Little Fatty,” she said, using the pet name that never failed to make him smile.
She moved closer, producing a crystalline vial from somewhere in her lab coat that existed in more dimensions than the three normal ones.
“Come on, let me get a bit more of your blood for these tests. The Nar’Thyss genome in you is fascinating when it interacts with the Adrastia assimilation factors.”
With such words, a King who had broken time itself and a Queen who had rewritten biology’s rules delved into the unknown of possibilities!
Outside, the Sea of Thalassara continued its expansion, carrying their dreams outward!
1/1 Onwards!