Chapter 163: book 4 chapter 9

Eryl let out a soft sigh as she leaned back against the world tree, a sleeping Hecatolite curled up in her lap after being healed; Watching the moons lazily make their way across the sky as she let the serene silence wash over her.

Despite the previous day, Eryl found this to be rather… relaxing. Here, high above the elven city where no one knew where she was, disconnected from her system she was truly alone to just think. No one to distract her, no world ending threats, just her.

Absent-mindedly she ran a hand though Hecatolite’s hair as she thought about… everything.

It was odd really, and she should probably be concerned about it, but it was as if something inside of her had… changed. As if for the very first time in her long life she could truly think for herself. Everything felt so clear now.

Hecatolite is… well, Thought. It truly was the perfect explanation for all of the oddities surrounding the young woman; how had she not seen it before? Even when presented with irrefutable evidence from Overseer, which now made much more sense as being part of Hecatolite than a separate system, Eryl had simply refused to believe it? 

Not only that, but every time Hecatolite had done something otherwise unexplainable, like patching a soul with fragments from another, she had either just outright ignored it or cooked up some half-baked explanation in her own mind to justify it.

But now, looking back on it, everything she does from reforming her soul after what should have been fatal damage, to erasing an entire divine realm from existence, could be explained by what she is.

Hecatolite is the primordial of Thought. She almost laughed at the admission before catching herself. Looking down to be sure she hadn’t disturbed the sleeping woman in her lap. She couldn’t help but smile as she saw her own hand tangled in Hecatolite’s snow white hair; only now realizing she had been petting her while lost in thought.

Hecatolite had been sleeping for just over an hour at this point and Eryl, not for the first time, considered flying them both back to the inn they were staying at before deciding against it. She didn’t want to make the descent from the tree while carrying Hecatolite, nor did she want to risk her waking up mid-flight and panicking; though she doubted a fall from this height would hurt her. 

What she still didn’t understand is why Hecatolite was here, in her world? Well, more like why she had stayed. Eryl had a pretty good guess as to why Hecatolite had been on that harvester world, after all she had studied universal history before she was trusted with her own world.

She couldn't help but find it a little funny now. That unexplained gap in universal history where all records have been “lost”, that was always brushed past. Now, with her new clarity, it was likely removed from the archives along with any records of Hecatolite. She had always assumed that some sort of great conflict took place, given the drastic decrease in habitable worlds recorded before and after the “lost era”, though like everyone else, she had just kind of… ignored it. 

It was just a fact of the universe, there was the formation of the primes, the creation of the first world followed by the era of discovery, where millions of worlds were built; the time where the primes tested the limits of their ability to create worlds and the first “natural souls” were discovered. The “prime confrontation” where Darkness shattered Light for the first time followed closely by the remaining three Primordials formed the Primordial court, then there was the “reformation of the Light” where the court tried to compensate for the missing prime before he reformed. Then there was several smaller eras bundled together under the title of “age prosperity” where countless races were formed in the ever expanding universe; but from that was birthed the “lost era”, that led to stagnation where the universe was left to slowly recover from whatever happened during the lost era which leads to now. The era of the system, where instead of expansion, the entirety of creation is focused on studying and cataloging the world around us.

Given her new knowledge however, it’s highly likely that Hecatolite was either involved, or given her unstable nature, the cause of that gap in history leading to her imprisonment on the harvester world. Though Eryl couldn’t even guess on how they managed to trap her, given Hecatolite’s ability to produce aether on her own. That is, of course, assuming that Hecatolite had been trapped there at all. She furrowed as she plucked a stray leaf from Hecatolite’s hair before continuing to run her fingers through it.  

Had Hecatolite just gotten lucky with Valor’s overcharged summoning? Or had she chosen to come here? It was obvious given the system’s reaction to her that the primes did not want her roaming the universe, and given her blatant animosity to them it’s safe to assume she had escaped some form of imprisonment, but why now of all times. 

Sol3Terra is, from what Eryl knew, the most popular harvester world on this side of the galaxy given its overpopulation. Surely there had to have been other opportunities for her to escape, so why now? Why here? 

With a sigh she leaned back, her head knocking against the thick bark of the tree as she closed her own eyes, it felt as if she just had more questions now even after learning the truth about Hecatolite. And it wasn’t as if the loose Primordial was her only concern. There was her now overpowered sister and family members to consider, and the clearly volatile situation with the divine of this world, not to mention the fact her entire world was on the brink of utter chaos…

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Taking a deep breath, Eryl allowed herself to focus on the here and now. The night breeze that carried the faintest of chills, the soft rustling of the leaves around them, the warmth radiating from her lap where Hecatolite’s head was resting; the softness of the other woman’s hair as it wrapped around her hand.

I need to focus on one thing at a time. she thought. Hecatolite being in this world is my top concern, but it's a concern that I currently can’t do anything about. I have no idea why she is here, what she is doing, or how she is affecting this world…. she paused again, realizing that she was just running herself in circles with questions she couldn’t possibly answer herself. 

She had no way of knowing why an unknown Primordial was on her world and if Hecatolite being here was a cause or effect of the state of the world as a whole. unless….

She looked down to where her thumb was now brushing down the ridge of the other woman slightly pointed ear, the action causing Hecatolite’s entire body to shudder as her tail unfurled behind her, quivering a bit as it stretched out to its full length before curling back in on itself.

Eryl pulled her hand back slightly. Why had she been… petting Hecatolite’s head again? 

Well obviously, she couldn’t just leave a primordial to sleep on the rough bark of a tree, even if it was the World Tree… that wasn’t really it though. Eryl felt… comfortable around Hecatolite. She always had, despite the young woman often annoying her; Hecatolite just had a way of making things feel… better. 

So even with all the problems in her world rushing through her mind she still couldn’t help but relax a little knowing that Hecatolite was here, and not causing trouble somewhere else. She smirked at the thought as her hand drifted back down to Hecatolite’s hair. 

Without that pressure pushing her away from Hecatolite, Eryl now noticed a… odd attraction to the other woman. Not odd in the fact that they were both women or anything of the sort; Odd as in Eryl simply had never felt… well attraction like this before. Lust wasn’t something one needed as an Admin of a world, nor was love, in fact, most emotions were simply… irrelevant to her actual job. Was… was that what that pressure was? A suppression put into place on Admins? 

The thought would have sounded insane a few months ago, yet her own system had tried to self-destruct just because Hecatolite was here, so she guessed anything was possible. Not only that, but Eryl had no delusions about her own soul; she knew she was created, not born, meaning she is the byproduct of the system itself. The very same system that seems to have been made with an express intent to suppress and contain Hecatolite given she was protocol 001. 

So, in all likelihood Eryl’s own soul had attempted to reject Hecatolite, or at least the very idea of her. But did that mean Eryl’s own soul had been altered when she learned what Hecatolite was? Given she no longer felt the pressure in her mind that had to be it, but how much had changed? Was Hecatolite attempting to make her attracted to her? Or was Eryl simply drawn to her because she was a Primordial and it was her duty to follow and serve them?

I suppose they could be… my own feelings? I have always enjoyed spending time with Hecatolite, even back when she was in her “void”. Eryl’s brow creased, and this doesn’t feel like any form of mind control, nor do I think it would be possible for her to alter my soul in any way without me noticing either. Soul altercations are always painful, no matter what, even Himari wasn’t spared; meaning there was  no way for that to be the case as Eryl was positive she would have noticed having her soul torn open.

So that means that snapping feeling was… what? It hadn’t hurt, if anything it was… liberating. It was the only word she knew to describe the sudden rush of emotions she had felt, the freedom to think on her own to… Be myself. It was a concept she knew of but never explored, sure every Admin had a “personality” based on the world they were to oversee, but that wasn’t really themselves. Just what Mother thought would best suit the world for what it would become; of course, they grew more from there but was that really them? Or just what they were created to do?

She rolled her eyes. She was getting distracted again with introspection. She needed to… Needed to do what? With the other woman still passed out she lacked the means to figure anything out regarding Hecatolite right this moment. She couldn’t contact the divine realms, so she couldn’t help with the turmoil there. Valor? He was in the divine realms doing only Mother knew what; without her system and proof of his wrong doings she couldn’t really do anything against him… Eryl was… stuck. Sitting here in a tree, with a sleeping primordial in her lap and there wasn’t a damn thing in the world she could do about it.

Suddenly it felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders as she let out a very weak laugh. “I… I can’t do anything.” the admission… hurt. It hurts to say that she, the Admin of this word was powerless to change the course this world had been set on. She failed one of her primary objectives, protecting this world; she failed to train the Heros, failed to keep them all alive, failed to guide the divine, failed to…

It was a strange mixture of deep sadness and happy relief at her realization; the bittersweet feeling of knowing there was nothing she could do yet the liberation in the finality of it in this moment forcing her to smile as tears began streaking her cheeks. “I guess…” she looked wistfully down at Hecatolite in her lap, “all I can do is wait.” She closed her eyes and for the first time in Eryl’s entire existence she dreamed.

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