Gathering clues that had been scattered over vast distances and across different time periods was challenging, especially when those clues had been distorted or even destroyed, but the Adjudicator was meant for such dull and tedious work because he knew that the satisfaction of finally seeing everything come together into a cohesive whole was worth the trouble. However, there was something about these sets of clues that he had been gathering that made no sense as there did not seem to be any connection between them, and if not for the Light of his Will that showed him that every piece here was connected, he would not even see what the overall picture meant. The Adjudicator had his hands on many separate cases across all of existence, and it was a surprise to him when two separate cases that should have no connection with each other slowly came together as more clues were gathered. Inside his vast mental space were a series of connections that spanned a short time period of a million years, and yet still had a connection to the past stretching deep into the Primordial Era. His Will brushed across the landscape of clues, softly touching them and rearranging them in different manners, trying to piece out the entire truth. The new detail submitted by the Archon should have made no sense being connected to the clue that he had gathered on a different case, but it did and now he had no reason to call them two cases, but one. Inside his Mental Space, there were billions of stars, each of these stars was the many cases that the Adjudicator was pursuing, and among them, there were two especially bright stars. The title of the first star was called Eve, Daughter of Old Light, and the title of the second star was The World Stele and Thenos, the Chimaera. It was these two separate cases that had surprisingly come together into one massive case, and the Adjudicator was going to get to its roots. Inside his Mental Space, prompted by his Will, the two stars merged and the Adjudicator began to rearrange the sequence of events so an overall picture that should reveal the truth could be created. Pushing the connection to the past aside, the Adjudicator brought up recent events forward, his Will prompting him that the truth was closer to the present than the past. He fished for one of the clues from Eve’s case and reviewed it once more. Details of the case washed over his consciousness. -A million years ago news came to the Adjudicator that there were odd stirrings inside the Domain of Ruin. A detail that most would miss, but he had logged it despite not paying much attention to this matter as there were many influences that wanted to plunder those cursed domains, and he had been occupied with many great matters, especially with the conflicts in the Abyssal Plane which had slowed down to the minimum in almost a hundred Minor Eras, because this was not a good thing, the last time something like this had happened, the Great Abyss had opened its gates and almost five percent of reality was lost. Most immortals would not remember this, but Reality was much bigger in the past, like an unstoppable encroaching plague, the Great Abyss needed to grow, and reality was its favorite meal. The Celestials were the protectors of reality, and although the Adjudicator had long realized in the past that the true reason they were doing this was not overly noble, he was simply a cog in an incomprehensible vast machinery, he was here to make sure everything went as planned. Experience more tales on freewebnovel To ensure that he was able to perform his duties to the fullest extent, he was fed every information about every single hot spot Reality and beyond, only then could he find the connection that lay underneath the surface and cleanse out the rot with divine light from the root. Returning his attention to the stirrings inside the Domain of Ruin, he sent his Will to draw forth more details about this stirring and began to trace the pattern as more information came to him about further disturbance inside that place. At first, there was one, then a thousand, then millions of similar stirrings, and then billions. The next obvious question to ask was what were these stirrings? The answer to that question lay in what was the Domain of Ruin. Although there were many answers to this question, the simplest answer was that it was a gigantic graveyard filled with the dead of both the Celestials and the Abyssals. The dead of the Celestials were sacred, able to be returned to the bosom of Primordial Light where their souls would be reborn, and so it did not matter if they died in the service of Primordial Light, they would always return when he wills it. However, it was not always that this would be the case, as certain powers could corrupt the pure souls of Celestials. Inside this Domain of Ruin were the remains of those who had become corrupted by the cold hands of the Abyss, forever shunned from Primordial Light, and in less than a million years, under the nose of the Celestial, half of every fallen, both Celestials and Abyssals were missing! The face of the Adjudicator became pale, and his eyes flashed with light. It would seem that ignoring the case of Eve for so long was a mistake, and if not for the connection that had been made between the World Stele and this fallen Celestial Creator, he would not have known how deeply the rot had invaded. ® He was sitting here in a hidden space above Aerovah, but his other selves were in a billion dimensions and trillions of worlds because, for the Adjudicator, there were no places that were outside of his reach, even in the lower realms, and every other Primordial domain. Placing Eve to the side, the Adjudicator called up the case of the World Stele. The destruction of the Frozen Road and the disappearance of Doom Star drew his attention, and for the last several months he had begun to piece together eerily connected and seemingly random clues, leaving him greatly disturbed, the latest connection linking Eve to this Singularity, another more disturbing pattern. He was there when Doom Star was destroyed and he had watched the Frozen Road being created, he knew it was made from the tears of the Sirens, and for many minor eras as he traveled this road, he had tasted the salt of her tears and he knew all the flavor contained within. The hatred, madness, rage… all of which carried such great intensity that he never failed to sample its taste, and because they were directed towards the enemy of the Celestials, the Adjudicator only found it amusing. Unlike most, he knew of Thenos, he knew of the Singularity—World Stele, and its absurd ability that allowed lesser immortals to create permanent dimensions for themselves that could be rooted in the Nothingness. Unlike most in the Primordial Domains who saw this development as a good thing because of their greed, harvesting these lower dimensions was a source of great wealth and endless benefits, he saw this as a malignant form of cancer that had weakened an entire Era. The Primordials gave lesser immortals the chance to climb higher dimensional ladders to test them and cull the weak from the strong. A truly powerful higher dimensional immortal should have Aetherium strong enough that they should be able to root themselves in the Nothingness by their powers alone, and if they could not, they had no reason to create a dimension for themselves and carve out a piece of reality for their own. Fighting against the Nothingness was the true test of immortality and since the World Stele had given these immortals a shortcut, weakness had proliferated, and it came as a shock to the Adjudicator that certain Primordial Domains began to allow their weaker bloodline members to become World Bearers, heightening the uneasiness that the Adjudicator had over this Singularity and its hold over reality. For countless eons, the Adjudicator had quietly watched as the World Stele discretely gathered fallen dimensions and ferried them into Doom Star, and although he had submitted reports to the higher-ups about this issue, it was judged that the possibility that this could be of any threat to the Celestials were almost nonexistent and it was ignored. Even the Adjudicator could not find any reason why this would be a threat, and he believed that this must be a price that the Singularity would have to pay to bear the load of so many dimensions. What was happening now had shown him how wrong he was, because his assumption about the threat that the World Stele could hold was formed on an incomplete assessment of its abilities. Nowhere in the record of this Singularity was there any speculation that it could break apart Primordial Essence.