Chapter 4048: Losses! II

Even the Dukes, beings who stood at pinnacles of their respective hierarchies…turned ashen.

Their bodies shook with the simple struggle to maintain coherence against pressure that suggested they might be less real than what pressed against them!

Only Duke Whisker remained still, though the effort required was visible in how his stellar eyes blazed brighter, how his tiny form seemed to grow denser to resist dissolution.

Duke Gwendolyn’s paradoxical body buzzed and trembled, caught between states as if unable to decide whether existing was worth the effort required.

The beggar-looking Schrodinger had maintained his smile through everything…through threats, through confrontation, through games of power and position.

But when he had wanted to tell a story and been interrupted, denied his simple pleasure of narrative, the atmosphere transformed completely!

He alone, facing a dozen Dukes of Origins, caused all nearby Existence to tremble. Everyone felt stifled, compressed, made aware of their own insignificance.

Duke Whisker, with effort that made space crack around him, floated forward to position himself before the other Origins. His voice emerged with grim calmness that acknowledged the precipice they balanced upon.

“We should have time for another story before we leave.”

The statement wasn’t a suggestion.

Schrodinger held his cold gaze for several more seconds, letting them marinate in the understanding of what they had almost provoked.

Then, as suddenly as it had arrived, the pressure vanished. His harmless beggar appearance returned, complete with gentle smile, as if the Existential Trembling had been nothing more than shared hallucination.

“Well then,” he said pleasantly, “let me tell you about Loss.”

He settled into the air as if it were a comfortable chair, his posture suggesting he had all the time that had ever existed.

“I was moving across the Earliest Folds…this was before I understood what I would become, when I was still discovering what paradox meant. I was chasing something magnificent: a shattered fragment of an Early Veiled Shore.”

His eyes grew distant with memory that might have been real or might have been constructed for effect.

“Imagine it…a piece of those sacred spaces, broken off and drifting through the Folds like a boat without anchor. The potential contained within even a fragment… it could have elevated me beyond measure. So I chased it with dedication that bordered on madness.”

He paused, ensuring his audience was properly captured. He blinked on Duke Whisker, Valen, and Gwendolyn as he continued!

“During this chase, I encountered an Inevitability. But this one didn’t attack. It seemed… curious about what I was doing. It floated alongside me, making sounds that might have been questions in languages that hadn’t been invented yet.”

Schrodinger’s expression grew rueful.

“But I was at a pivotal moment. The fragment was within reach…almost. Just a little more effort, a little more focus, and it would be mine. So I dismissed this curious Inevitability. Ignored it completely. Why did I care for some paradoxical observer when transcendence was within grasp?”

He shook his head at his younger self’s foolishness.

“I chased for a day and a night. Through spaces that existed sideways to reality. Through moments that happened before and after simultaneously. And then… I lost sight of it. The fragment simply vanished, as if it had never existed at all.”

The silence that followed carried weight.

“As I floated there in my failure, wondering how I had lost something I had been so close to claiming, I heard a voice. It buzzed through all existence, making reality itself tremble with recognition.”

Schrodinger’s voice shifted, taking on waves that suggested something vast speaking through constrained form:

“‘I, THE Living Concept, tried to embody an Inevitability to meet worthy creatures of the Folds. To see who might recognize thought itself wearing paradox as costume. And you actually ignored me, chasing something that was never meant to be yours.'”

He returned to his normal voice, though the weight of the memory remained.

“‘What a loss,’ THE Living Concept had said that day. ‘What a loss!'”

…!

Schrodinger looked at each of the Living Origins, his gaze lingering on Duke Gwendolyn with particular weight.

“So you see, I know something about heavy losses. About something slipping right past your fingers while you chase what seemed more important.” His smile contained sympathy that might have been genuine.

“It is okay. We all have our stories of what escaped us while we weren’t paying attention to what mattered.”

“…”

The silence that followed was immense.

No one dared speak, each processing the implications of the story…that Schrodinger had once been noticed by THE Living Concept, that he had missed such an opportunity through narrow focus, that losses could be teachers if one survived them!

Finally, Schrodinger nodded with the air of someone ending a satisfactory visit.

“Alright, you all get going now. We shall see each other soon enough at the Kleos Concordat.”

The dismissal was gentle but absolute.

Duke Gwendolyn, Whisker, and the others began moving toward the white-gold portal with the careful movements of people backing away from something dangerous.

Duke Valen remained a moment longer, his blind eyes seeing things others couldn’t. He shook his head with a smile that contained layers of meaning, a gesture toward Schrodinger that might have been acknowledgment, warning, or simple amusement.

Then he too disappeared.

The encirclement of Living Paradoxes remained perfectly still, hundreds of impossible beings maintaining positions with patience that transcended time. Only after the last Origin had vanished did movement return, and then only slightly.

Diviticus approached Schrodinger with uncharacteristic hesitation, her usual confidence cracked by what she had witnessed.

“Sir,” she said carefully, “when will we put the Corpse into use?”

Schrodinger didn’t even glance at her, his gaze fixed on something beyond normal perception. “Everything is in due time. Everything.”

Everything.

The repetition of ‘Everything’ seemed to trigger something in him.

He raised his hand, studying its callouses with the intensity of someone reading fate in skin patterns. His mind drifted to memories older than most civilizations…to the first of his Everything that he had given away.

The memory made him smile with genuine warmth that transformed his beggar’s face into something almost paternal.

“Everything,” he repeated once more, but this time the word contained multitudes.

…!

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