Chapter 4043: Force and Mercy! I

Schrodinger observed with the patience of someone who had witnessed the birth and death of paradoxes themselves as one Duke of Living Origins after another emerged from the white-gold portal beside Duke Gwendolyn.

His smile grew with each arrival, and he looked upon their faces individually, studying them with the intensity of someone greeting long-lost friends...if those friends happened to be beings he might destroy with a thought.

His gaze was eerie in its calmness, each glance containing layers of paradoxical power that made reality uncertain about whether it should allow him to exist.

When the last Duke had emerged and they stood arrayed before the encirclement of Paradoxes with their faces heavy, the Paradoxes and Origins looked at each other!

Nobody spoke!

Duke Whisker had a chilly expression as he looked around the encirclement, eventually coming to stop his gaze on the entity that looked like a beggar...Schrodinger.

As if many knew who the seat of power here truly was.

In this tense face off, it felt stifling for even Dukes to voice out anything.

And yet, in such an environment, a begger stepped forward as behind him, many paradoxes pulsed!

Schrodinger floated forward calmly as if he were taking a stroll as he...began to speak.

"When I was a boy..." His voice carried waves of terrific power.

He floated upward slightly, his tattered robes billowing despite the absence of wind. "A tiny little paradox that barely knew anything about existence or my place within it, I found myself running from some of the first Mutated Inevitabilities that had ever risen."

He moved as he spoke, drifting through the air with movements that seemed random yet purposeful.

"I was tired. Worn to the very edge of dissolution. My paradoxical nature was unraveling from the strain of maintaining coherence while fleeing." He raised one hand casually, and every Paradox behind him froze in perfect stillness, understanding the gesture as absolute command to remain motionless while he alone moved forward!

"In my desperation, I came across a garden. Not just any garden, but the garden of a particularly terrifying Fold Dweller. Now, you might wonder...how could a Fold Dweller be terrifying to a Living Paradox?" He chuckled, the sound containing contradictions. "This one was different. His garden existed in ways that made even paradox feel like nothing..."

HUUM!

Schrodinger drifted closer to Duke Gwendolyn and the others, his approach casual, unthreatening...a simple beggar floating through space. Yet each inch he drew nearer made the Living Origins tense further, his carefree demeanor somehow more menacing than any display of power.

"I looked toward this Fold Dweller with desperation that transcended pride. I asked...begged really, whether I could enter his garden for protection against the Mutated Inevitabilities." He paused, letting the image settle. "The Fold Dweller considered me for a moment that lasted eternity and no time at all. Then he nodded."

His voice grew warmer, as if recalling a fond memory.

"I entered the periphery of his garden, and I was actually safe. Shockingly, miraculously, the Inevitabilities could not pass through into that space. They raged at the borders, they threw themselves against barriers they couldn’t perceive, but they could not enter. It was... marvelous."

Schrodinger’s expression shifted, growing more complex.

"Seconds later...and I mean this literally, mere seconds, ten Living Existences came from another direction. They too were being chased by Mutated Inevitabilities, their forms showing the strain of extended flight." He gestured expansively. "The moment they saw the garden, saw my figure and the Fold Dweller within it, they were ecstatic. Without pause, without thought, without asking, they rushed in for protection."

He stopped directly in front of the entrance to the Doorway and Duke Gwendolyn’s portal, positioning himself alone before all these Living Origins!

"Once again, the Inevitabilities could not enter. These Living Existences...Origin, Temporal, even a young Concept among them...breathed such deep sighs of relief. They looked toward the Fold Dweller to thank him for his sanctuary, for his protection, for saving their existences."

Schrodinger’s smile grew sharp.

"Yet in the next moment, the Fold Dweller took a common farming tool...nothing special, just a hoe he used for tending his plants, and swatted down." He made a casual gesture, as if brushing away dust.

"The weavings of existence of those Living Existences were decimated instantly. All of them. Dead before they could process what was happening."

...!

The silence that followed was absolute. Even the white rays of Order streaming from the Doorway seemed to dim slightly.

"The Fold Dweller looked at all of this as calmly as if he hadn’t done anything more significant than pulling weeds. And I, out of an overabundance of curiosity that even then defined my nature, asked him- Why? Why did you kill those Living Existences and not me?"

Schrodinger’s eyes...those windows into paradox, fixed on Duke Gwendolyn with intensity that made her paradoxical body shiver despite its nature.

"The Fold Dweller turned to me with eyes that had seen the birth of concepts themselves. He said, ’This is my home. You asked for permission to enter. You are a guest.’ He gestured to the corpses that were already being absorbed by his garden’s soil. ’Those who entered afterward were merely intruders. It matters not who they are or what they are...all those intruding in my home have to die.’"

The beggar-like figure completed his circuit, now floating directly before the entrance to the Doorway, his position both casual and absolutely deliberate.

"A simple distinction. Guest or intruder. Permission or presumption. The difference between salvation and annihilation."

He looked at Duke Gwendolyn and the others, his gaze lingering on each face with the weight of evaluation. When his eyes found Duke Valen among them, his smile grew genuinely warm.

"All Living Existences will soon be meeting in the Kleos Concordat. The Living Paradoxes have no problems at all inviting other Living Existences as guests into our Paradoxical Folds." His voice carried reasonable hospitality. "But you all did not come here as guests. You did not even ask for permission."

The temperature...if such a thing existed in the Transcendent Paradoxical Folds, seemed to drop.

"You are here, currently, as intruders." He tilted his head with curiosity that contained threat. "What shall be done? Should we follow the guidance of that Fold Dweller and his treatment of guests versus intruders?"

...!

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