It still wouldn't be enough? Bob's eyes sharpened as the Wheel beneath him shifted. He floated amid the chaotic flow of the Folds, watching as Thauron extended a hand. The Crucible's vision twisted in on itself, compressed into a single obsidian bead that drifted toward him. "Let me teach you something that helped me reach where I am now, Little Bobby," Thauron said, voice calm and eerie. "Whenever I faced an enemy of great power, I played the game of setting their level even higher. If my foe was a Nascent Source-Bearer Complexity, I'd tell myself... I needed to be a Harmonized Sourcebound Icon before even thinking of a fight." …! Thauron's voice dipped lower, yet somehow grew heavier, resonating through the very strands of the Nullvein Gravewake Folds. "There was once a group," he murmured, golden eyes reflecting abyssal depths, "of Living Things who believed themselves untouchable. Nine of them. All Primarchs. Each one a marvel of Complexity and Purity. They called themselves the 'Nine Radiant Judges of Eclipsion.'" Bob blinked. He'd scarcely heard of such beings. "They hunted me," Thauron said, almost fondly. "Declared me dangerous. Unstable. An anomaly to be unspooled. And maybe I was. But I was also… patient." The air twisted, reality recoiling from memory. "I didn't act when I could take down one. Nor when I could best three. I waited until I had truly grasped the True Source of Finality. A concept they couldn't even comprehend, much less wield." A silence pulsed outward. The Folds bent around Thauron's form, as if existence itself was listening. "I became something else. Not grander in form, but inevitable. My Complexity wove through collapsed timelines and paradoxes, it ended them. My Purity didn't cleanse. It annihilated." He stepped forward, not toward Bob, but into recollection. "When I moved, they were within the Pale Star Tribunal Graves. A sanctified convergence point said to be immune to corruption." Thauron smiled, cold and certain. "They were right. It couldn't be corrupted… but it could be unmade." He lifted his hand, as though holding something unseen. "With Finality, I didn't strike their bodies, I struck the very idea of their gathering. I unraveled the condition that allowed them to stand together." "And like that, eight fell." Bob narrowed his eyes. "Eight?" "One lived," Thauron whispered. "I let him remember. I wanted someone to speak of what happens when the Final Thread tightens. That's why my name still echoes in some corners of the Folds even though I am a little fish, Little Bobby." WAA! Then Thauron's gaze turned sharp, cutting into Bob. "So when we chase the Living Thing bound to you… remember this: Don't strike until it is Final. Until the outcome is inevitable. Victory, and nothing else. That is the lesson." The obsidian bead pulsed in his hand, the Sorrowglass Fabled Gauntlet echoing with promised ruin as Thauron blazed with radiant complexity. A glint of something ancient flickered in Thauron's gaze. He turned, long coat trailing through the breeze of unraveling paradox. "You did well killing everyone in that Gauntlet. Whether they dreamed or clawed for their families like you… it didn't matter, did it?" His tone was cruel, almost amused. "But even the victor of the Sorrowglass Gauntlet is crawling on broken existence if he hasn't refined beyond a mere Monad." HUUM! Bob clenched his fists. Thauron continued. "You'll take the Sorrowglass Panaceas. Let them anchor your form. Let them flood your True Source until you become a Primarch. But to walk beside me? To be more than my shadow? You must at the very least become a Marked One of the Folds." …! A… Marked One? Thauron raised a hand. "For that, I'll take you to a place even the echoes of wee little Primarchs whisper about. One of the Folds' Wonders. A place born of collapse and contradiction, visible only to those whose existence already dances on the knife's edge." His voice thundered with purpose. "The Null Cradle of Fold-Breaking Ascension." Bob's body pulsed, surrounded by swirling True Source Sorrowglass Panaceas. "There," Thauron continued, "the rules of Source Weavings shatter. Your expressions? Stripped. You'll rely only on compressed resonance. You'll face the Calcified Paradoxical Wheels and the Pillars of Concordance. Trial after trial, until what's left isn't ash, but diamond." He stepped closer, shadow cloaking him like prophecy. "Many seek it. But the Null Cradle doesn't reveal itself to seekers. Only to the paradoxically worthy." Bob asked, voice cautious, "Then how will you find it to bring us there?" WAA! Thauron grinned. "Because I'm not a seeker, Little Bobby." He spread his arms wide. "I am the paradox that summons wonders. I don't chase them, I arrive." BOOM! With a flick of his wrist, the Folds parted slightly, just enough to reveal a fracture: obsidian paths spiraling into infinite dark, lit only by impossible Wheels spinning in silence. "Come. Let's see what your existence is truly made of." The obsidian paths shimmered like cracks in a god's mirror. Bob followed in silence, each step ringing not on stone, but through paradox. His breath stayed steady. His heart, heavy. This… this was all for her. For his light. For Liora. For his daughter. Her name brought a sting behind his eyes. His steps faltered as memory overtook him. A quiet garden. Hair like sunlight. A laugh like windchimes. An Omniversal Butterfly resting on her hand. "Daddy," she'd asked, eyes wide, "what do Omniverses dream about? What does their light want?" …! A ridiculous question. But he'd smiled. "I don't know, baby," he had whispered. "But I'll find out. For you." He had promised her. He had promised her many, many things. Now, only stone and unraveling weavings remained. Bob's gaze hardened as he thought about his target. He didn't hate Noah. If anything, he admired him. A being who shouldn't exist, yet did. A paradox that kept walking. In another reality, they could've been friends. But admiration wouldn't bring her back. He reached into his being, fingers brushing the crystalline remnants, the Sorrowglass Panaceas. Glimmering fragments of sorrow and forgotten dreams, of life and fables. He took a deep breath. Then devoured them. Hundreds. No pain followed. Only clarity. His Purity surged. His Complexity roared. It spiraled upward, not like a star dying—but being reborn. Parts of him dulled by grief reforged anew. He clutched his chest, breathing in the sorrow. "I'll find a way, my daughter," he whispered. "Even through endless death and collapsing paradoxes." HUUM! Ahead, Thauron looked back, eyes catching the shimmer of new resonance in Bob. "Good," he murmured with a twisted smile."Let your sorrow fuel your ascension. The Null Cradle listens to those who've lost the most." Together, they walked deeper into paradox, chasing impossible salvation. --- Across the Nullvein Gravewake Folds… The Null Cradle of Fold-Breaking Ascension shimmered like a dream dipped in contradiction. A terrain of pressure and silence, where impossible weavings coexisted in violation of all logic. Within the Outer Wheel, towering monoliths of Calcified Wheels and Concordance Pillars had loomed before- timeless, mocking. And yet… they had been moved. By him. Noah. He stood near the final slot, palm pressed to a Paradoxical Wheel resonating with perfect harmony. The ground trembled beneath, the obsidian platform humming from the unnatural equilibrium of his Complexity and Purity. Behind him, Living and Dead Things lingered. Reverent. Awestruck. "He lifted three at once," someone whispered. Caelnor of the Destifolds shook his head. "Impossible… his Null Form is too small. His Purity shouldn't....and yet...!" He stopped. He'd seen it. Everyone had. They followed him now… because their logic broke before his will. Noah exhaled slowly. Twenty glowing Marks of the Folds descended upon him, his weavings transforming. A prompt hovered before him, written into reality. | All Trials of the Outer Wheel Completed. You have gained a unique distinction as a Marked One. Ascension to the Middle Wheel Unlocked.| HUUM!