Chapter 4164: Unity! I

Countless Living Existences across the Concordat Amphitheater exchanged glances that spoke volumes.

Some were actually laughing...quiet, bitter sounds that suggested Existence had finally revealed its ultimate joke!

The idea that they, who had spent eons defining themselves through opposition to Living Paradoxes, would now enter those lands freely, would allow those same Paradoxes into their most sacred spaces...

Such a thing could only be impossibility dressed in farmer’s clothing.

Yet above them, the Fold Dwellers continued with the patient certainty of those who had seen this resistance before, had planned for it, had brought solutions wrapped in verdant possibility.

Elysia waved her hand with grace, and from her palm emerged something that made reality itself lean in for a closer look.

A seed materialized...not large, barely the size of a child’s fist, but it pulsed with verdant light that suggested forests waiting to be born, harvests that hadn’t yet been imagined.

"I know how Living Existences are," she began, her voice carrying across the amphitheater with the clarity of truth being stated rather than argued.

"The unfathomable hatred that has been sown between Paradoxes and everyone else didn’t grow overnight. It was cultivated, tended, harvested and replanted across eons until it became as fundamental as gravity."

Her gaze swept across the assembly, touching each faction with equal weight. When her eyes found Noah, he met them with a smile of genuine fascination.

"But we came prepared," Elysia continued, lifting the seed higher so all could see its verdant radiance.

"In my hand, I hold the Seed of Unity- not a weapon, not a trap, but a gift from the Sanctuary of The First Farmer."

The name alone carried weight that made several ancient beings shift with something approaching reverence.

"This seed will bloom into the Tree of Unity. All who send their authority into it will receive a Living Mark of Unity...a mark displayed above you for all to see, impossible to hide or counterfeit."

She paused, ensuring everyone understood the significance before continuing.

"If anyone bearing such a mark attacks another who carries it, their identity will instantly be displayed by the Tree of Unity itself. No anonymity, no denial, no claiming it was misunderstanding. But more than exposure..."

Her smile grew sharp as winter wind.

"They will be imposed with the Curse of Disunity. This curse delivers an attack equivalent to all the combined authorities of every entity bearing a Living Mark of Unity within the Tree of Unity. Not sequentially...simultaneously."

...!

The implications crashed through the amphitheater like waves against cliffs.

She was proposing mutually assured destruction on a scale that transcended individual power!

"Effectively," she said, her tone becoming almost gentle, "if everyone here obtains a Mark of Unity, you will be absolutely safe in any Fold. Attack someone, and you face the collective strength of all. Betray the unity, and unity itself becomes your executioner."

She released the seed, letting it float to the center of the amphitheater where it hovered, pulsing with patient possibility.

"This terrifying seed is but one gift from the Sanctuary of The First Farmer. One of many prepared for dealing with this catastrophe."

Beside Noah, Khor smiled with the particular satisfaction of someone watching existence surprise her after eons of predictability.

"It seems the Fold Dwellers are the most efficient and helpful lot now," she mused, her ancient voice carrying amusement.

"How times have changed. Once they hid from power, now they organize it."

Noah listened while his attention remained fixed on the wondrous seed. His mind was already dissecting its structure, wondering if something similar could be produced in his Early Veiled Shore.

The complexity of it...not just the binding but the automatic retaliation, the public revelation, the collective enforcement...

Around him, Living Existences huddled in urgent discussion. Who would be first to trust? Who would risk their authority on the word of Fold Dwellers, no matter how powerful?

The seed floated there, beautiful and terrible, waiting for someone to make the first move toward unprecedented cooperation.

Noah patted Sigrid’s thigh gently...a signal between them that he was about to act.

He began to rise from his throne, genuinely interested in anything connected to The First Farmer’s legacy. The Seed of Unity called to him not as trap but as opportunity.

But just as he started to stand, as Elysia and others turned their attention toward him, a voice rang out with theatrical timing.

"How fantastical that the Fold Dwellers thought of every possible solution to this!"

Schrodinger’s words dripped with something that wasn’t quite sarcasm but adjacent to it. He remained seated on the ground in his beggar’s position, smiling up at the floating seed.

"Even though us Living Paradoxes have been unfairly persecuted and hunted and decimated over the years, even as our numbers keep dwindling from everyone else’s righteous violence, we will be the first to take steps toward unity."

He rose then, his ragged appearance somehow gaining dignity through motion.

"The Living Paradoxes will gladly send our authorities into this so-called Seed of Unity."

The amphitheater went silent with shock.

Schrodinger, who had just spent the entire meeting being deliberately obtuse, who clearly had hidden agendas within hidden agendas...was volunteering to go first?

He raised his hand, and golden-obsidian light erupted from his form.

The paradoxical energy spiraled upward, containing within it the authority of existence that both was and wasn’t, that existed in the spaces between certainty.

The Fold Dwellers watched with expressions carved from winter stone as Schrodinger’s authority reached the seed first.

The verdant sphere pulsed with brilliant acknowledgment, then shot a beam of green light down to bathe his figure.

When the light faded, Schrodinger stood before them all with his devilish expression intact, his beggar’s appearance unchanged except for one addition...above his head, glowing with undeniable reality, floated a mark of three leaves arranged in perfect symmetry.

The Living Mark of Unity.

The first to bear it was the one least trusted, most suspected, absolutely certain to have ulterior motives that probably had ulterior motives of their own.

After Schrodinger’s demonstration, Living Paradoxes began rising in synchrony.

Duke Diviticus sent her white-black authority upward. Goliath’s massive form contributed power that made space reconsider its structure. One by one, every Paradox present added their authority to the growing seed.

The seed pulsed and expanded with each contribution, releasing feedback beams of green light that marked each Paradox with the three-pronged leaf.

The sight of thousands upon thousands of Paradoxes bearing Unity marks was surreal enough to make several observers question if they were dreaming!

In the somber atmosphere that followed, the next to move weren’t the Origins or Laws as might be expected, but the Living Emotives.

Duke Melancholic Sovereign Drai stood slowly, waves of depression rolling off him like fog from a cursed lake.

When he spoke, his voice carried such profound sadness that several beings actively stepped back.

"Since we’ll all die eventually anyway," he said with the certainty of someone who had seen every ending, "there’s no harm in being united in death. At least this way, our dissolution might mean something..."

His murky obsidian authority rose like smoke from a funeral pyre.

Behind him, other Dukes of Emotive and Royal and Honored Living Emotives followed suit, their various emotional authorities creating a rainbow of feeling that spiraled toward the seed!

Beast Shepherdess Miki laughed brightly as she and Fluffy added their authority, the massive spirit beast’s contribution making the seed visibly expand.

"Come on, everyone!"

Living Spirits followed their representative.

Then Living Origins, with Origin Ama Gias contributing authority that made the seed shine white-gold. Living Laws added their structured power, Living Concepts their idealized force, Living Dimensions their spatial authority.

One by one, every single Living Existence in the amphitheater sent their authority toward the Seed of Unity.

With such terrifying influx of power, the seed swelled beyond its original size.

It grew brighter with each contribution until looking at it directly became difficult. Then, with a sound like reality remembering how to breathe, it began to sprout!

HUUM!

A tree emerged...not gradually but with the patient inevitability of something that had always existed and was just now choosing to be visible.

Verdant gold bark twisted upward, branches spreading outward, leaves unfurling with fractal complexity that hurt to follow.

The Tree of Unity grew massive, piercing through the metaphorical ceiling of the Kleos Concordat Amphitheater, stretching across the Transcendent Temporal Folds themselves.

Its roots, Noah realized with fascination, probably extended into dimensions that didn’t have names yet.

Noah’s eyes blazed with interest as he carefully isolated a strand of his authority...specifically the Living Origin Authority that swirled within his complex existence.

He had others, powers that defied classification, but for this purpose, he would contribute only what would be recognized.

Seeing him move, Sigrid drew out her own authority of Origin. Ruination added her ending-touched power. Moiraine contributed paradox that somehow harmonized with what was already there. Each of Noah’s forces sent their authority upward in controlled streams.

Moments later, verdant light bathed them all. Above each of their heads, the three-pronged leaf materialized...the Living Mark of Unity binding them to this unprecedented agreement.

Prompts cascaded before Noah’s vision.

|You have received the Living Mark of Unity|

|This mark binds you to collective defense agreement|

|Benefits: Free passage through all marked territories|

|Protection: Attacking you triggers Curse of Disunity on aggressor|

|Collective Strike: Aggressor faces combined might of all marked beings|

|Combined authority level: Exceeds measurable parameters|

|Warning: Your own attacks on marked beings will trigger retaliation|

|Additional benefit: Tree of Unity serves as communication network|

|Additional benefit: Can sense general location of other marked beings|

|Note: Mark cannot be hidden, counterfeited, or removed while Tree stands|

Noah studied these prompts with careful attention before raising his gaze to meet the Fold Dwellers who had orchestrated this.

They had arrived with solutions already prepared, contingencies already considered, unity already forged into agricultural form.

The legacy of the First Farmer was astoundingly grand indeed!

Not just in power but in foresight...understanding that the greatest harvest required the most careful planting, that unity couldn’t be forced but could be incentivized through mutual benefit and mutual threat!

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