Chapter 4340: CHEAT I While a Tyrant began to fully and truly utilize Perpetual Harvest on one side of The Veil, his image...had already begun to spread on the other side of The Veil! An unknown number of Gigaparsecs into The Dead Side of The Veil. The Pillar of Order’s Repose stretched upward like a finger of pure white light pressed against the throat of existence itself. It was massive. Multiple Folds could have been stacked within its circumference and still not reached halfway around its base! Its height disappeared into dimensions that eyes were not meant to perceive, ascending through layers of reality until it became less a physical structure and more a fundamental truth of this region’s existence. Around this impossible monument, hundreds of thousands of Prime Dead Early Creatures floated in perfect meditation, their forms arranged in concentric circles that pulsed with the rhythm of a heart that had forgotten how to beat. Each one sat cross-legged in the void, their consciousness turned inward, contemplating mysteries that would have shattered lesser minds like glass against stone. For this was known throughout The Dead Side as a sacred ground, a place where THE Dead Order was known to occasionally reside when the weight of existence demanded her direct attention. All seemed calm, peaceful in the way that death is peaceful...final, absolute, unchanging. Then three figures shattered that peace. Three Prime Dead Early Creatures, each one radiating power that measured approximately three quintillion in Complexity and Purity, tore through the void with the desperate urgency of those bearing news that could not wait. Their forms blazed with authority that would have crushed Folds into quantum foam, yet they moved with the frantic energy of frightened children racing to tell their parents of some terrible thing they had witnessed. They reached the periphery of the Pillar of Order’s Repose, that invisible boundary where space began to follow different rules, where the very concept of existence bent knee to something greater. And then they simply... disappeared. Inside. One moment they existed in the void outside, the next they stood upon beaches of pure white sand that sparkled with grains that were not sand at all, but crystallized moments of Order given physical form. White trees grew here, their bark the color of fresh bone, their leaves rustling with sounds that might have been whispers or might have been the echo of whispers spoken at the dawn of existence. The air carried the scent of absolute certainty, of things being exactly as they should be, forever and always! But it was not the trees or the beach that commanded attention. All around them, pressing in from every direction without actually moving, the aura of terrifying Prime Dead Early Creatures could be felt. Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, each one a monument to power. They did not look at the newcomers...their gazes were fixed with absolute reverence toward the center of this impossible place. There, barely visible through layers of light that seemed to fold in on themselves, a figure could be discerned. Not seen, not observed, but... discerned, in the way one might discern the presence of a mountain through fog. The three panicked messengers had barely materialized when they found themselves face to face with Forgemaster Vulcan. His expression...carved from features that looked like they had been designed by someone trying to capture the concept of craftsmanship in flesh, twisted into a frown of severe displeasure. His massive hands, each finger a tool that had forged wonders beyond imagination, moved in sharp, urgent gestures, trying to communicate without words that they needed to control themselves, to show proper respect in this place of places. Yet before he could properly admonish them, before he could remind them of the protocols that governed behavior in the presence of greatness... A voice spoke. "Are these the children bringing in more news regarding THE Living Order, Vulcan?" The voice was calm, wizened, carrying the weight of ages compressed into vocal form. There was something in it that made one want to fall to their knees not from fear, but from the simple recognition that here was wisdom so profound that standing before it felt presumptuous! ...! Vulcan’s entire demeanor shifted instantly. His frown melted into an expression of profound respect mixed with apology as he turned toward the center of this place, bowing his head slightly as he responded. "Yes, Ma’am, though I don’t know why they would be rushing with such lack of proper decorum..." The voice came again, and this time there was the faintest hint of amusement coloring its ancient tones. "They are likely this frantic because I sensed the Order of a segment of those under you be collapsed. And they... were the ones who brought the news of THE Living Order, were they not? So..." The voice paused, and in that pause was the weight of infinite patience. "What happened, Children?" ...! The lead messenger among the three, trembling despite power that could unmake folds, bowed deeply. "O Order, Commander Tatiana was able to send us final transmission before we lost all contact with her consciousness!" His form flickered, and suddenly images materialized in the air before them...projections of memory given visible form. The first image showed The Infiniverse in all its terrible glory, that knot of paradoxes where space and time had given up trying to make sense. The second displayed the Region of Collapse, that spreading cancer where existence itself was being slowly digested by entropy. And the third... The third showed a man wreathed in crimson-gold radiance, his gaze filled with tyranny! "Commander Tatiana reported that THE Living Order was being held by this entity," the messenger continued, his voice gaining strength as he delivered the crucial intelligence. "An entity who registers as a Living Early Creature! An Elder Early Creature who stands beyond normal classification!" ...! Forgemaster Vulcan, who had been maintaining his respectful posture, suddenly blinked. Once. Twice. His ancient face, weathered by eons of existence and death and existence again, transformed through a cascade of expressions...incredulity, shock, and then something that might have been recognition mixed with impossibility! The wizened voice rang out again, and this time the amusement was unmistakable. "Vulcan, dear Creature, you look as though you’ve seen a ghost. Which, given our current state of being, would be quite the accomplishment. Do you know something extra about our mysterious Living Elder?" Vulcan’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. When he finally found his voice, it carried the weight of someone trying to reconcile impossible contradictions. "Yes, Ma’am. That is..." He paused, staring at the image as if willing it to make sense. "That is an Elderborn I worked with countless epochs ago. In Aethelgard. Elderborn Osmont. He was... we collaborated during the construction of the Fundamental Armaments, before the Great Sundering. But he disappeared during a scuffle with the forces of THE Living Concept, and we all assumed..." ...! His voice trailed off as his face showed a mixture of somberness and wonder that transformed his ancient features into something almost youthful in its confusion. "I cannot fathom how he is currently where he is, or how he is Living. All Living Early Creatures are contained within THE Loom. The rest of us are here, in the embrace of necessary death. The weavings of it don’t... they simply don’t balance. How can one be neither fully dead nor trapped in THE Loom? How..." Around them, in the white sands, other beings began to fully wake from whatever meditations or works had occupied them. Hundreds of them, each one radiating the same level of power as Vulcan if not greater... They all gazed upon the image of Elderborn Osmont with expressions that ranged from curiosity to calculation, each one inscribing his visage into their existence! The grand voice in the surroundings laughed. "Yes, Existence can be like that, can’t it? Always full of surprises, always finding new ways to confound our carefully constructed certainties. Even I, who have seen the birth and death of concepts themselves, still find myself occasionally... entertained by its creativity." The voice paused, and when it continued, it carried a weight of command that made even the air stand at attention. "Now... listen, my Creatures of Order." ...! Every Early Creature present turned toward the center of this white sandy place with movements so synchronized they might have been choreographed by existence itself. And there, where before there had been only impressions and possibilities, an image began to solidify. She wore a dress of such pure white that it made everything else seem gray by comparison. Her hair was dark...not black, but the kind of darkness that existed before light was invented to define it! Her features were unfathomably ancient yet heartbreakingly beautiful, carrying the kind of beauty that transcended physical form and entered the realm of conceptual perfection. When she smiled, it was with lips that had spoken the first words of Order into being, that had kissed existence itself and taught it how to organize! She was antiquity given form, wisdom incarnated, the mother and destroyer of all things structured and sequenced! She...was THE Dead Order! Oh!