Chapter 4072: The Weight of Endless Service! I

Kelgar’s head tilted with mechanical precision, the movement carrying the weight of eons spent in repetition.

When he shook his head, dust that had accumulated for untold ages drifted from his form like memories being shed.

The aura that would make weak Honored Living Existences pale erupted out!

An aura that would cause someone like Altheon to sink to his knees and tremble!

No Prime Living Existences could stand this being.

Even for an Honored Living Existence…they had to be powerful ones!

“No,” his voice emerged like grinding stone, each word carved from centuries of isolation. “You are not my master.”

HUUM!

The declaration buzzed in the crystalline air, the surrounding crystals humming with vibratios as if they recognized the truth in his words. His blank eyes, which had seemed empty moments before, now contained depths of despair that transcended simple emotion.

“How could you be my master?” Kelgar continued, his grip on the tattered blade tightening with the first real movement he had made in perhaps millennia.

“You are so weak. I can feel your existence…newly formed, barely crystallized, still learning what it means to be. My master was ancient when ancientness was young. She was…Ah!”

He took a step forward, and the ground beneath him cracked from the simple fact that it had forgotten how to support movement after so long without it.

“I have been locked here, not allowed to live, not permitted to die. Trapped in this moment between breaths for so long that I’ve forgotten what breathing meant.” His voice grew harder, more desperate. “Why would this change now? Why would today be different from the million days before it?”

…!

Noah observed this remnant of loyalty with eyes that saw beyond the surface tragedy.

This was dedication that had curdled into despair, service that had become its own prison. He stepped forward, the Goad resting casually in his hand like a walking stick rather than a weapon.

“Do you know where you are?” Noah asked, his voice carrying the particular gentleness reserved for those too broken to accept kindness. “Do you remember what this place is? Who your master was? What happened to leave you here?”

He paused, letting the questions settle into the space between them before continuing.

“I am not your master, this is true. But I am here now, and I can release you from this state. Sometimes that’s all that matters…not who has the right, but who has the ability and the will to act.”

Kelgar’s expression…what little could be read on features that had forgotten how to emote, shifted through something that might have been hope before settling back into resignation.

“Maybe if you were stronger.” The words emerged with the certainty of someone who had tested every possibility and found them all wanting.

“But it doesn’t matter. Who I was doesn’t matter. I remember now, once more, that everything is gone. Everyone is gone. The Shore I protected, the master I served, the purpose I held…all dust, all nothing.”

His grip on the blade shifted, and for the first time since they had entered, he showed real animation.

“I only wish… I was gone alongside everyone else.”

…!

What happened next defied the sluggish pace of his previous movements.

Kelgar moved with speed that suggested all his stillness had been choice rather than inability. Early Existential Authority erupted from his form…not the refined power of those who had cultivated it, but raw force that had been compressed by time into something denser than it should be.

Around him, Kleos Glyphs began forming with terrifying rapidity. Not one or two…hundreds, each one bearing the same symbol, the same concept made manifest: Vicissitude.

Change. Alteration. The fundamental instability of all things. The idea that nothing remained the same, that all states were temporary, that even permanence was just change moving too slowly to perceive.

The Infiniverse tensed, ready to exert her Principle. Ruination’s dress of ruptured existence rippled with anticipation of endings to deliver.

Sigrid’s Order began organizing attack patterns that would systematically dismantle this threat. Moiraine’s cultivation base hummed with power ready to be released.

And yet…

“Let me,” Noah said simply, and that simple statement carried enough weight that they all stepped back.

He moved forward with the casual confidence of someone approaching a dance partner rather than an opponent.

The first step he took was recognized by his Glyphs as effort…movement with purpose, action with intent. The three Early Living Existential Seed Glyphs pulsed in response, and his simple step became something more.

|Effort Detected: Combat Initiation|

|Principle of Perpetual Harvest Amplifying Action|

|Simple Step → Spatial Compression Step|

|Distance Negation Achieved|

He crossed the space between them in a movement that didn’t traverse distance so much as convince distance it didn’t exist.

Kelgar’s blade met the Goad with a clash that sent crystalline notes ringing through the cavern!

BOOM!

The impact should have shattered the simple stick, but the Goad had its own nature…it existed to educate, and some lessons required surviving the student’s resistance.

“This battle could go differently,” Noah said as their weapons locked, his voice conversational despite the forces involved. “I could help you live again, truly live. Or die, truly die. Whichever you prefer. The choice itself is what matters.”

Kelgar’s response came through action rather than words. The hundreds of Vicissitude Glyphs pulsed in unison, and suddenly Noah wasn’t fighting one opponent but dozens of versions…Kelgar as he was, as he had been, as he might be, all existing simultaneously.

The Goad whirled in Noah’s hands, each movement recognized as effort by his Principles.

When it struck the first Vicissitude Glyph, something extraordinary happened!

|Goad Contact with Hostile Glyph Detected|

|Analyzing Concept: Vicissitude|

|Definition: The quality of being changeable, mutable, subject to variation|

|Counter-Education Initiated|

|Existential Truth Being Established:|

|Change requires continuity to be meaningful|

|Without stable reference, change becomes nothing|

|Applying Lesson: Enforced Stability|

HUUM!

The Glyph didn’t just shatter.

It was fucking educated out of existence, taught that its own idea contained the seeds of its negation. Where change was absolute, nothing could change because there was nothing stable enough to change from!

But Kelgar had hundreds more, and each one represented a different aspect of change. Some made the air around them fluid. Others caused time to stutter. Still others suggested that victory and defeat were just perspectives that could be altered.

“I do not wish for your help,” Kelgar said through all his versions simultaneously, creating a chorus of despair. “I do not wish to live or die differently. I simply wish to cease…to stop being this thing that continues despite having no reason to continue. Cessation…Cessation! Cessation!!!”

HUUM!

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