Chapter 1764: A New Primordial He was not a sight or a sound. He was a knowing, a fundamental truth asserting itself into the fabric of the arena. The scent of loam, of blooming flowers after a rain, of the iron tang of blood, and the sweet perfume of nectar flooded every sense, real and psychic. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂 The fractal dust of the beach beneath his impossible bulk sprouted. Tiny, impossible forests grew and died in the space of a heartbeat on every grain of galactic sand. The air itself grew thick, heavy with the promise and threat of generation. A form coalesced in the center of the arena, above the wound. It was not a body but a concept given temporary shape—a vast, swirling nexus of root, vine, muscle, petal, and claw—an alien fusion of tree and flesh. He was the first cell dividing, the predator stalking, the great tree falling to make room for saplings, the endless, desperate, glorious struggle to be. He was life, in all its beautiful, savage, unstoppable urgency. Primordial Life had taken its seat. To the lower life forms, he could barely view his majesty; he resembled a colossal tree that had no beginning or end, greater than the Arena, yet still able to float above it... his form drove the unwise to madness who sought to look upon the face of a Primordial. The collective breath of the audience was a hurricane sigh. Beings of flesh and chlorophyll shuddered in recognition. Those of stone and fire felt a distant, alien echo of their own animated state. The Celestial Hosts swelled with light, their harmonies gaining a new, fierce vibrancy. The Quietude of the Demon Lords seemed to absorb the energy, the life-force, making the silence around them even deeper and more profound by contrast, as in their own way, they fought the influence of a living Primordial floating above their heads. Lyra felt a sob catch in her throat. To infiltrate this Arena, they had taken the form of an Eldar; however, even though this form had no roots, she was still affected by the Aura of Primordial Life. A distant part of herself was shaken in horror as she felt that this Primordial was the essence of her people, and she was of the Eldar. This was the force they served. It was overwhelming, terrifying, and magnificent. In this moment, when common sense seemed to be fleeing her body and soul, she understood why Vraegar had been evasive. To understand the power of the Primordial and call themselves his children was not an easy feat. It was to claim that this raw, amoral, magnificent force, as a "creator," was like a single leaf claiming a hurricane as its parent. They were not worthy, and this knowledge of her failings made her ashamed. Inside her heart, Lyra began to hurriedly dismantle the cloak of the Eldar she and the Elythrii were wearing.... In the presence of Primordial Life, this was like seeking death, and if she still had on the form of an Eldar, it would not take long before she begins worshipping Primordial Life as their creator. Before the impact of Life’s arrival could fade, the second Primordial manifested. The swirling, chaotic potential of the arena’s wound... stilled. Not into silence, but into clarity. The shifting geometries froze into perfect, crystalline lattices. The light stopped its wild dance and became a steady, illuminating beam. It was as if the entire cosmos took a sharp, sudden breath and remembered itself. Vraegar shivered. His massive draconic eyes were filled with fear and yearning. He could sense the presence arriving; after all, he had lived inside his body for a while as one of his Specters. A cool, blue light emanated from a new point in the arena, and with it came a sensation of profound order. It was the feeling of a forgotten name suddenly recalled, of a history lesson that made sense of the present, of the absolute certainty of a mathematical proof. It was the archive, the record, the unerring chronicle of all that was. Its form was a constantly shifting, infinite lattice of interconnected threads—some were timelines, some were stories, some were genetic codes, some were the chains of cause and effect. It was a living library where every book was written in the language of existence itself. It was memory, not as a passive record, but as an active, defining force. The past was not gone; it was here, it was now, and it dictated the shape of what was to come. Primordial Memory had arrived, and for a while, the heavens above turned to the color of gold, signifying the hidden and endless greed of this Primordial for treasure. Vraegar let out a shuddering breath, a plume of frost that seemed insignificant next to this display. "The Keeper of the Ledger, the Holder of Treasure, Primordial Memory," he whispered, and there was a tone in his voice Lyra had never heard before: yearning. This was one of his patrons, the source of his drive to preserve, record, and consume. Memory valued the past above all. The end of all things would be the erasure of its entire purpose, yet the nature of the Primordial was perverted by the endless hunger of his main body, who did not see value in the title it held, and only saw Memory as a means to an end. If Rowan were here, he would realize why Primordial Memory appears to be the weakest Primordial here. It was because he was fighting his nature; the duality of his existence was weakening him on a level that only a ninth-dimensional being would understand. Fury shifted uncomfortably as he looked away from the shifting form of Primordial Memory. He had barely glanced at him, yet his head nearly exploded. "Ugh. Always gives me a headache. All that looking backward. How can you create anything new if you’re always worried about how it fits with the old? Still, I can feel his hunger; it is fucking unnatural." By the side, the white haired man chuckled, "You have no idea." Fuey had no time to understand what this stranger meant when the third arrival was announced not by a scent or a light, but by a scream. A silent, psychic scream that tore through the minds of every being present. It was the scream of the first murder, the scream of betrayal, the scream of rage and pain and infinite, bottomless want. The warm, fecund air of Life and the cool, ordered light of Memory were suddenly violated by a chilling, invasive presence. The arena’s wound seemed to grow darker, the chaotic energies within it twisting into agonized shapes. Shadows deepened, not as an absence of light, but as a positive, malicious force. This form was a vortex of broken promises, festering hatred, and exquisite temptation. It was the serpent’s whisper, the knife in the dark, the addiction that promised bliss and delivered torment. It was not evil in a simplistic sense; it was the necessary counterpoint to cooperation, the engine of conflict that drove evolution and ambition. It was the flaw in the diamond, the crack in the foundation, the lie that sometimes revealed a truth too terrible to face. All the demons in the Great Abyss began to scream. A wail that was so horrifying it was impossible to be placed into context. Primordial Demon had come. Not a devil from some hell, but the Primordial source of all negative impulse, all selfish desire, all the dark drives that made life interesting, tragic, and unpredictable. The audience recoiled as one. The Demon Lords stirred before raising up their swords in adoration, their silent hunger finding a kindred, though far more chaotic, spirit. In the Great Abyss, their Primordial was king, and after his victory in the Arena, Primordial Demon would lead them to sweep through all of Reality until everything worshipped under his black banner. The lights of the Celestials flickered, their harmony acquiring a defensive, militant edge, and they shrank into themselves. Fury, observing all these changes across the Primordial forces, grinned, a flash of his old self reappearing. "Now there’s a familiar mess. Chaos, entropy, selfishness... keep things from getting too boring, don’t they?" "It is the canker in the rose," Vraegar replied coldly, his eyes looking around, profoundly unsettled. "The flaw that dooms otherwise perfect works, but it would not matter at the end." "Perfect works are boring," Fury shot back. "It’s the flaws that make them unique. Even I am not blind to the conflict within Primordial Memory, does this not make it more interesting?" By the side, the white-haired man looked at Fury with a certain interest. It was rare for an immortal to be able to discern the nature of a Primordial. The fourth arrival was so subtle that at first, Lyra thought nothing had happened. The Elythrii had mostly purged themselves of the cloak of the Eldar, and their true form was slowly being revealed, drawing the look of surprise from those around them. However, Lyra was not focused on what those around her would think when she noticed the change. The frozen lattices of Memory began to... dream. The fierce struggle of Life developed narratives, fantasies, and hopes. The dark whispers of Demon found shape in nightmares and forbidden fantasies. The air began to shimmer with un-things. Castles made of cloud that dissolved into schools of singing fish. Emotions crystallized into fragile, glass sculptures that wept real tears. The scent of nostalgia for places that never existed filled the void. It was creation, but not from nothing. It was creation from potential. It was the "what if." It was the artist’s vision, the child’s imaginary friend, the scientist’s hypothesis, the madman’s revelation. It was the boundless, terrifying, glorious power of thought unmoored from reality. And its form... was a profound shock to Reality, yet it still appeared as it had always existed. Where the other Primordials had manifested as vast, imposing concepts, this one appeared as a figure—a woman or the idea of one. She was tall and graceful, her form seemingly woven from starlight and shadow, from half-remembered dreams and forgotten melodies. Her hair flowed like a river of silver ink, and her eyes... her eyes were deep and held entire universes of possibility within them. She was beautiful and terrifying because she was utterly unpredictable. She was Primordial Imagination. A ripple of shock, genuine and profound, passed through the other Primordials. This was not supposed to be in the script! Life’s swirling forms stilled for a microsecond. Memory’s lattice flickered, as if searching its infinite records for a file that did not exist. Demon’s whispers hushed, intrigued, and wary. She was new. She was unexpected. She took her "seat," a space in the Arena that warped around her, becoming a shifting web of might-bes and never-weres. She did not look at the others. Her gaze was fixed on the arena below, and a faint, curious smile was on her lips, as if already composing a dozen different stories for how this might end. The crowd was bewildered. This was not in the old stories. This was not a force accounted for in any cosmology. A new Primordial? It was like a new law of physics suddenly announcing itself.