Chapter 4163: It Walked Away! II

The words landed like bombs made from crystallized impossibility.

Faces throughout the amphitheater went through rapid cycles of disbelief, anger, and calculation.

Elysia’s gaze could have frozen concepts. "Really? The corpse of the Early Creature just stood up and walked away?"

Schrodinger nodded with the particular enthusiasm of someone sharing fascinating gossip.

"Yes! Just like that. You know, I think you mentioned The Dead earlier? This corpse may have simply realized that it was one of The Dead and began to act like it. Identity crisis resolution, really."

His expression grew theatrical in its seriousness.

"Frankly, it terrified me. Here I was, going about my day, contemplating whether I existed or not, typical for me, when suddenly this thing that shouldn’t move starts moving. Walking even! With purpose! Do you know how disturbing it is to see something that dead showing more life than most living things?"

Beside Elysia, her brother’s rake began buzzing with power that made space nervous.

She stopped him with a simple gesture, though her voice carried ice when she spoke.

"Did you not even try to stop this corpse that simply walked away?"

Schrodinger blinked as if the question was genuinely surprising, then laughed...not mockingly but with what seemed like genuine amusement at the absurdity.

"Are you serious? You expect me, a mere Paradox, barely worth noticing according to most...to raise my hands to stop a breathing, walking Early Creature?" His eyes widened with exaggerated shock!

"My, how powerful are Fold Dwellers nowadays! I didn’t know you all considered Early Creatures as nothing. Do you perhaps juggle them for entertainment? Use them as training dummies for your children?"

He shook his head with dramatic sadness.

"No, my dear Fold Dweller. I did not attempt to stop the corpse of an Early Creature that began to move around freely. I value my existence, paradoxical as it may be. So no, I actually do not have a corpse to return to you. As sad and unfortunate as that may be."

An immense silence settled over the amphitheater like a blanket woven from disbelief and barely contained violence.

The tension was so thick it had almost achieved consciousness when...

"BAHAHAHAHA!"

Beast Shepherdess Miki’s laughter shattered the moment like a brick through a window.

She stroked Fluffy’s massive head, the terrifying beast that undoubtedly exceeded one quadrillion in complexity growling in what might have been amusement.

"That fucker is clearly lying and playing around!" she declared with cheerful certainty.

"My Fluffy here has a very good nose...best in nearby existence, actually. He could smell an Early Creature’s corpse from two Folds away. Want me to send him sniffing around the lands of the Living Paradoxes? I’m sure he’d find something interesting."

HUUM!

Her eyes sharpened despite her bright smile, transforming her from cheerful pet owner to predator in an instant.

The moment she finished speaking, Schrodinger’s easygoing smile simply... stopped.

Not faded or disappeared...it just ceased to exist as if it had never been. When he spoke, his voice carried a different quality entirely.

"Any Living Existences that step into the lands of the Living Paradoxes without authorization, from now on, cannot have their lives guaranteed."

Each word was precise, calculated, stripped of all his previous theatrical flair.

"The corpse is missing, and there is nothing for us to give. That is my truth."

The weight that settled after these words was different from before.

This wasn’t tension...this was the moment before inevitable violence, the breath before the storm.

Miki’s smile widened rather than diminished.

Other Living Existences began to shift, authorities flaring as they prepared for whatever would come next. The amphitheater balanced on the edge of catastrophe.

Then, from above, Elysia’s voice descended with unexpected calm.

"Okay. The corpse of the Early Creature is missing, and that is that."

...!

The anticlimax...was so jarring that several beings actually stumbled.

Elysia continued with the same peaceful certainty.

"It seems that you all were lucky, as that corpse is a terrifying calamity. If it were actually still in your hands, I would be fearful for you." Her gaze found Schrodinger, and her smile was winter given form. "It’s a good thing that it has gone away."

The subtext was clear to everyone present...she knew exactly what game was being played and had chosen not to call it out directly. Yet.

Schrodinger simply looked back at her and smiled, the expression neither confirming nor denying anything.

She nodded as if moving on from a settled matter and addressed the assembly.

"The Veil will continue to thin. More Dead Existences will emerge with increasing frequency. Existence being what it is, it just so happens that Living Paradoxes are extremely effective against The Dead."

She paused, letting that sink in. The beings who many considered the problem were also, apparently, part of the solution.

"The help of Living Paradoxes will be required. They need to be spread across different Folds as anchor points. And alongside this, to bolster their numbers and fill defensive gaps, all other Living Existences will need to enter the lands of Living Paradoxes."

WAA!

The implications were heavy.

She was suggesting not just cooperation but integration on a scale that hadn’t been attempted since before the Coalition formed.

Her gaze found Noah then, and her smile shifted into something almost warm.

"We will also need forces to come into the Wandering Territories. Every single existence will have to work together if this catastrophe is to be prevented."

She let that settle before delivering the final weight.

"Because if The Dead appear en masse and cover existence across the Folds, all that the Folds will become are regions filled with The Dead. Even after they are killed, within a day or less, they will reappear right where they died. The same ones. Again and again. Until killing them becomes meaningless and existing becomes impossible."

Her eyes swept across every section, touching each faction with equal weight.

"Unity will be needed for what is to come. I wonder... is that even possible for all of you?"

The question hung in the air like a challenge wrapped in doubt. Could beings who had spent eons defining themselves by their differences suddenly work together?

Could Living Paradoxes be trusted in the territories of others? Could anyone trust anyone when the stakes were existence itself?

Noah felt Sigrid shift slightly on his knee, her Order authority humming with possibility.

Around them, his assembled forces remained ready but calm, waiting for his lead.

The amphitheater held its breath, waiting to see who would speak first, who would accept or reject this unprecedented call for cooperation.

Because unity among beings who had made division into art form wasn’t just difficult...it was the kind of impossible that even Paradoxes found challenging.

Yet the alternative was worse. The Dead didn’t care about factional differences. They would devour Paradoxes and Origins with equal hunger, consume Order and Quantum with the same inevitable certainty.

Unity or oblivion.

The choice was elegant in its simplicity and terrible in its implications!

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