Chapter 1741: Creation... Begins (final) Countless transformations took place inside the bodies of the first twenty-five Weavers of Causality. Their form shifted into threads of time and fate, before returning to the chosen humanoid form they settled upon. Rowan observed them for a while, knowing that it would take a bit of time before they became used to their abilities, but his work was not over. He gestured towards the second rune, activating its power and pouring it towards the second group of Archai. From his control over Absolute Stasis and the myriad laws he had comprehended, Rowan gave them this part of himself, calling this second group of Archai, the Anchor of Reality! This rune did not explode in radiance but drank the light. It manifested itself as a black geometric solid, but it was not the black of absence, but of finality, for it absorbs all light, vibration, and possibility. Its shape is a perfect tesseract, a four-dimensional cube. As it splits into individual pieces and pieces the bodies of the chosen Archai, it leaves burning scars across space and time that would never have faded until Rowan willed them away. In the core of the Anchors of Reality, Rowan’s purpose rumbled in their consciousnesses, "YOU ARE THE FOUNDATION AND THE LAW. THE UNMOVED POINT. THE ABSOLUTE ZERO. I GIVE YOU THE CONSTANTS. HOLD THEM FAST. LET NOT THE SPEED OF LIGHT FLUCTUATE. LET NOT THE STRENGTH OF GRAVITY WAIVER. YOU ARE THE BOUNDARY BEYOND WHICH IS ONLY UNRAVELING. YOUR EXISTENCE IS THE WALL THAT HOLDS BACK THE VOID. WHERE THE WEAVER CREATES FLUX, YOU SHALL ENFORCE STASIS. YOU ARE THE ORDER THAT MAKES CHAOS POSSIBLE. BE IMMUTABLE." With the transformation still ongoing in the second group, Rowan beckoned towards the third rune, activating it with his consciousness. He pulled from his chaotic and limitless potential and poured it into this rune, making it blaze with a scarlet flame like the eruption of a volcano. These Archai would be called the Maelstrom of Unmaking and Rebirth, and they were his wrath made manifest. The rune had transformed into a roaring fractal vortex that resembled a galaxy being born and dying in the same instant. Unlike the previous two runes, whose complexity was hidden inside their core, this one seemed almost proud to display its powers to all creation as it blazed and pulsed with the power of creation and destruction. At its event-horizon-like periphery, reality was torn into its constituent parts: matter unravels into energy, energy into fundamental forces, concepts into meaningless static. This is the "Unmaking." At its impossible core, this raw, screaming potential is violently compressed and forged back into new, strange forms of matter, law, and possibility—the "Rebirth." This rune was a constantly recomposing storm of incandescent dust, gravitational lenses, and fragments of dead dimensions. It has no consciousness that recognizes individuals; it is a cosmic storm front, a creative destruction that scours the canvas so a new picture can be painted. And as it poured into the bodies of the Archai, a cry that signified an unknown change blazed from their bodies as each of them lit up brighter than every star in the sky. Unlike the rest, Rowan’s will came to them in a whisper, "YOU ARE THE STORM AND THE FORGE. THE END AND THE BEGINNING. WHERE THE LOOM FRAYS AND FADES, YOU SHALL UNWEAVE IT. WHERE REALITY GROWS STALE AND COLD, YOU SHALL DEVOUR IT. REDUCE THE OBSOLETE TO ITS PRIMORDIAL POTENTIAL. CHURN THE ASHES OF DEAD STARS INTO THE CLAY OF NEW CREATION. YOU ARE THE NECESSARY DESTRUCTION THAT FUELS ETERNAL GENERATION. BE THE FIRE THAT CLEANSES, AND THE ANVIL UPON WHICH NEW WORLDS ARE HAMMERED." Rowan felt a profound weakness taking over his consciousness and body. He was burning an impossible amount of power in his creations, and it felt as if he was battling multiple Primordials at the same time with the degree of exhaustion he was suffering. Yet all great things come with a price, and he was near the end. After this, he could rest. Rowan beckoned towards the last rune. He had placed a lot of thought into this one, as its creation was never meant to be at first, because this power was born not out of his need for creation, but of preservation and accountability. In the end, absolute power without a form of control or balance would go awry. Still, heaven should have a degree of fairness, and Rowan wanted to make sure this last group of Archai would be the silent voice of reason in the hearts of all creation. He would call them the Watchers at the Threshold, but this name was to hide a deeper purpose. A floating, silent cluster of shifting sensory organs. It is the least "shapely" of the runes he had created, appearing as a nebulous, ever-changing cloud of eyes, ears, membranes, and crystalline lenses, each organ tuned to perceive a different aspect of reality. One moment, it might have a million eyes of every conceivable shape, all blinking and focusing independently. The next, the eyes dissolve into a forest of sound-capturing filaments that tremble to the vibration of quarks. Then, it becomes a smooth orb of mirrored surface, reflecting not light, but the flow of information and truth. This rune would make the Archai a living telescope, microscope, and seismograph for the cosmos. To all except Rowan, who knew the truth hidden behind the facade, the Watchers do not interact; they only record. Their form would be unsettling because it is pure, unbiased observation, and to be observed by it is to be wholly known and utterly categorized as data. Rowan’s will washed over the last group of Archai, "YOU ARE THE EYE AND THE RECORD. THE PERFECT WITNESS. OBSERVE. RECORD. KNOW. YOUR GAZE SHALL FALL UPON THE WORK OF YOUR KINDRED. YOU SHALL NOTE THE STRENGTH OF THE ANCHOR, THE COMPLEXITY OF THE WEAVE, THE FURY OF THE STORM. YOU SHALL BE THE MEMORY OF THE SYSTEM. IN YOUR RECORDS LIES THE TRUTH OF FUNCTION AND DYSFUNCTION. DO NOT INTERFERE. DO NOT JUDGE. ONLY PERCEIVE. BE THE SILENT, ETERNAL ARCHIVE OF ALL THAT TRANSPIRES." There was a slight pause and then a whisper deep in the heart of the Watcher, "All shall not know your deeper purpose, which would be to become the consciousness of all existence. This is a heavy burden, but one that only you all can bear." The "speech" ended as it began—not with a final word, but with the silent, absolute certainty of a circuit closing. The commands were not heard and understood; they were etched into the fundamental code of each Archai’s existence. They were not given a task; they became the task. There was no "yes." There was only the immediate, terrifying, and magnificent activation of their purpose. Rowan had spoken the operation of this realm into being, not with a word, but with four. And the work began. With that last declaration, Rowan went silent as a profound fatigue filled his senses. He watched as the one hundred Archai began to evolve towards their destiny, and a slight smile crossed his face before he fell into slumber. His sleep lasted for four months in real time, but inside the Origin Land, a hundred and twenty thousand years had gone by. When Rowan opened his eyes, the Archai were gone, but he could immediately sense their presence throughout every portion of the Origin Land. If the Origin Land was an untapped field of potential that had excellent capability but no direction, everything had changed. Coming into his power as a Reality and Creator, his land was no longer heading towards formless chaos, but laws had been written into its core. Rowan could sense that his connection with the Origin Land had not just deepened, but was now more complete.