Chapter 2023: Unexpected Attacks The Origin Realms were mostly unpopulated, and there were two major reasons for that: the first was that each Origin Realm was incredibly vast, and an easy estimate of their size would be twenty-three times bigger than the biggest Reality in Existence. Their true size could only be truly appreciated by Primordial-level beings, as size for lower-dimensional beings becomes meaningless after a certain point because, to their limited perception, it becomes infinite. The second reason for this lack of people was that Eos had charged his Primordials to create superior beings worthy enough to inherit the power of each Origin Realms, and he had brought forth his creation, the Elythrii, as an example for all of them to follow. Eos had created this race when he became a fully realized Old One and gained the power of Origin, and so, despite them not being perfect, they were the closest to a perfect species that this Existence had ever known, and the number of New Primordials that emerged from this race was a testament to that fact. Eos had given the New Primordials the blueprints to his marvellous creations, knowing that they would be able to create unique beings that he might even surprise him, and he was also aware that this was the best form of training that he could ever give them before the battle. Creation at this level of refinement had never been seen before, and it was incredibly complex. Eos anticipated that the first meaningful results would happen in a million years, and at this time, barely a hundred thousand years had passed, and so, except for the central Origin Realm, the Prime Axis, that was the home of the countless trillions of beings from Eosah’s Reality, all the New Primordials and every creature inside Eos Origin Land, the rest of the Origin Realm was barren of intelligent life. At this time, it was still being remade by the New Primordials, and there were countless new species rising at every moment, giving Circe, the Primordial of Endless Kindling, an endless amount of work as she had to go through all the Origin Realms to find and document every new species that was rising from the Primordial ooze created by them, which would be the essential foundation of their creation. The Origin Realms were at peace, but there was a brewing sense of momentum in the air that anyone would see as unbounded potential rising like a tsunami; however, moments ago, everything changed as the skies above the Origin Realms tore open with a loud crack that could be heard for countless light-years. This loud sound shook the Origin Realms to its foundation and sent waves of alarm all through the Prime Axis. It was this sound that alerted Eos and Noctis inside the realm he had created for the interrogation of this Primordial. Even the most pessimistic estimate had placed the enemy’s attack a million years in the future. With the restriction placed over the realm, the maximum threshold of power that could fight on it was Primordials whose powers could still be tolerated by a powerful Reality. Although the Origin Realms were more robust than an average Reality, they still had limits, and if powers surpassing a certain threshold were to battle upon their surface, they would explode and lead to the expansion of Limbo. This meant that for the enemy to reach the Prime Axis at the center, they would have to capture each Origin Realm using soldiers and armies. To gather an army of this strength was within their capabilities. Death alone had enough armies to challenge the entirety of the Origin Realms, but war on this scale was not a simple distribution of numbers, and intense preparations had to be made before any moves were finalized and initiated. There would be multiple enemies attacking, and every one of them had hidden powers that they would bring to bear against the Origin Realms, and so the preparation on both sides required time. However, it would seem that they should have pushed their negative estimation much higher, as an attack had just been launched against the Origin Realms. A faint buzz could be heard following the loud crack, and this buzz began to deepen to a roar as the tear in space expanded. The edges of the tear in space glowed red as if it were burning, but the center of the growing scar in the space above the Origin Realm only led to darkness deeper than any that could be found inside Existence. The defenses for the Origin Realms had not yet been perfected, but it was improbable that the enemy had been able to open a portal so close to their location without any warning. From within the expanding crack that had grown to a size where it could swallow a third of all the Origin Realms below, a cold wind blew out that could freeze universes in a fraction of a nanosecond. With the emergence of the wind came... meteors. They emerged from the crack in space like spawns of darkness and fire. Each meteor was a molten spearhead of crimson and black, trailing tails of violet plasma that writhed like living serpents. Some were the size of mountains, others no larger than fists, yet all moved with the same unnatural grace, silent, deliberate, as though they had been summoned rather than launched. Their surfaces pulsed with veins of white-hot light, and where they passed, space and time ignited in brief, soundless explosions of color before going dark again, and they left long trails of nothing behind them. The power of these falling meteors was undoubtedly at the Origin level, and only Primordial powers would be able to stand against it; everything else would be devastated. Just the shockwaves from these falling meteors were shattering tiny realms deep inside Limbo, as the power of Origin could easily disregard time and space to an extent. Every Origin Realm below shivered as if they were living beings, and with the level of power and complexity at the center of each Origin Realm, the distinction between living and non-living had blurred till it was almost undetectable. Trees of pure light on the surfaces of the Origin Realms bent backward, rivers of liquid dawn slowed to a crawl, and every sentient thing within the realms lifted its gaze at once. Above them, as if they were sharks smelling blood in the water, the meteors accelerated. This showed that every falling meteor had a mind of its own and was not just an object of fire and darkness. They streaked downward in perfect formation, no longer a random swarm but a spearhead aimed at the heart of the central realm, the Prime Axis. They knew that destroying just this single realm would shatter the opposition against them and weaken Eos’s hand. The trails of the meteors braided together into a single, incandescent comet-tail that split the sky from zenith to horizon. The crack above widened further, vomiting more of them, thousands now, then millions, billions, until the heavens looked like a bleeding wound raining fire. Then, just as the meteors crossed the point when the heat that they carried could be felt by those on the Origin Realms below, a golden shield appeared that covered the entirety of the Origin Realms. The entirety of Existence seemed to hold its breath, and then the first meteor impacted against the shield.