Chapter 4191: Desperation! V When is an existence the most powerful? It is a question that has echoed through the Folds since the first flicker of consciousness looked upon the vast, silent canvas of reality and wondered about its own place within it. Is it when one’s complexity is a number so vast it requires new mathematics to be written? Is it when one’s authority is so absolute that their whisper can unmake Wheels? Or is it something quieter, something more fundamental, a state of being that has nothing to do with the grand, noisy theatrics of power? In the Earliest Folds, in a time before time was a straight line, in a cavern carved from the solidified concept of hunger itself, millions of Inevitabilities had gathered. They were a sea of writhing, formless want, their collective presence a low thrum that made the very fabric of the space vibrate. At the center of this nest, wrapped in a cocoon of shimmering, obsidian silk so vast it seemed to contain its own night sky, rested The First Hunger. A young Inevitability, a wriggling mass of endless, nascent appetite, separated itself from the throng. It moved with a desperate, shuddering grace across the floor of crystallized desire, coming to a stop before the cocoon. The silk parted like a willing wound, revealing the being within. She was not a monster of tentacles and maws. She was a woman, or the perfect, terrifying idea of one. Her skin was pale as moonlight on bone, her lips the color of a freshly bled wound. Her eyes were as deep as an abyssal night, but her pupils... her pupils were not solid. They were miniature wheels of trillions of swirling, microscopic tentacles, a vortex of infinite hunger staring out from a mask of serene beauty! Those eyes gazed down at the young, trembling Inevitability. "O First Hunger," the young one’s thoughts resonated, a sound like grinding hope. "They trample on our Way of Existence. They deny us, hunt us, kill us at every turn when we were here first. When these are our Folds. When can we truly strike back? When will we be at our most powerful state, to hunger and take absolutely everything back, so we can continue to live our Way of Existence?" ...! The question was a plea, a prayer, a demand for justice from a being who had only ever known hunger and persecution. The First Hunger, Khor, smiled. It was an enigmatic expression, a slow curve of her crimson lips that held the weight of eons and the lightness of a secret shared between friends. "When is one most powerful?" she mused, her voice a melody that was both lullaby and dirge. "It is a question many have tried to answer. THE Creature once told me that power is the quiet hum of an existence in perfect alignment with its own nature; to be so utterly and completely yourself that reality itself has no choice but to concede to your truth. THE Living Concept once stated that power is not in the striking of a blow, but in understanding the precise angle at which a single feather, dropped at the right moment, could cause a Fold to collapse; it is knowledge, not force. And THE Living Paradox, in its cage of contradictions, once whispered that one is most powerful when they are least defined, when they exist as all possibilities simultaneously, for how can you defeat an enemy that is both your ally and your absence?" She let the philosophies of the great beings hang in the air, each one a universe of thought, a path to a different kind of strength. The young Inevitability absorbed them, its form pulsing with the effort of comprehension. Then, Khor’s smile faded, replaced by a look of profound, ancient certainty. "But all of them," she said, her voice dropping to a sharp, clear note that cut through all the haze, "are ridiculously wrong." She leaned forward, her tentacled eyes seeming to draw the very light from the fold cavern. "One is in their most powerful state when they are desperate. When their backs are against the wall and everything is closing in around them. When their Everythings have been stripped away, or are about to be. When hope is a forgotten luxury and all that remains is the raw, unadulterated will to persist for one more heartbeat. In that moment, in that beautiful, terrible clarity that comes when there is nothing left to lose... that is when an existence is at its most powerful. In that desperation, one could collapse Folds and have their Way of Existence lived freely, as they always wished." The young Inevitability contemplated this, its form rippling with a new, more painful understanding. "O First Hunger," it finally asked, its voice a fragile thread of confusion, "are we not... desperate enough?" With their Way of Existence threatened, their very right to be challenged at every turn, were they not desperate enough? At such a question, Khor’s smile returned, but this time it was a thing of infinite, sorrowful beauty. She shook her head, a slow, gentle motion that seemed to make the entire nest grieve with her. "No," she whispered, the word a gentle heartbreak. "Inevitabilities... are not desperate enough. And that is why we are not at our most powerful." HUUM! This conversation occurred countless eons ago, a forgotten footnote in a history that was never written. And now, far into a future that young Inevitability would never see, Khor floated in the ruined sky above the Transcendent Origin Folds. She looked down at the decimated landscape of Aeternitas Concordia, at the impossible clash between Nysteria and the Ancestral Turtle, and at the man who stood at the center of it all, wreathed in the bloody purple flames of his own forged Haki. A man who had just been made truly, profoundly desperate. ’Will this desperation...be enough for you, Outsider?’ She thought, a sad, knowing smile on her face. ’Or do you not realize you are only at the bottom of the mountain of desperation? That there is so, so much left to go?’ ...!