Chapter 2017: The White Beast The Beast of Inevitability resembled a turtle with the tail of a snake. In the war against the Abomination, it had been grievously injured, and if not for the intervention of Eos, the Beast and the remaining Realities it carried would have been devoured by either the Ancient Primordials, Death, or the Abomination. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦 Limbo had become a very hostile place, and the Beast that was once a hegemon of an entire sector of Limbo found itself adrift in a conspiracy that would have devoured it whole. It was a risk bringing the Beast inside his realm, but Eos knew that if he kept it by his side, then he could reduce that risk to almost nothing. Free from the obligation of creating his Incarnation, Eos began to resuscitate the Beast from its frozen state. With a combination of Time, Space, and Memory, Eos had frozen the Beast into a gem, and he unravelled that gem with a flick of his Will to reveal the Beast. The turtle that previously had a rough and craggy appearance, like a living mountain, had molted as it healed. Now, its shell and scales were white and appeared as soft as a feather, its snake tail was red like a flame, and was curled on the shell of the turtle. Eos recalled the words Eosah had said to him when she told him of the existence of this Beast, "This is Ananke, the Beast of Inevitability. It is the embodiment of causal closure. It ensures that every effect has a cause that is itself within the system. To face it is to have every one of your actions, every thought, traced back to its origin. If it finds a source that is... external... unaccounted for... it does not attack. It simply renders your existence logically invalid. You cease to be a paradox; you become an error message, silently deleted." Looking at the sleeping form of the Beast, it was hard to imagine it was this powerful and dangerous, and Eos knew that if not for the intervention of Enoch, this Beast would be one of the most powerful pieces on the board. Its ability simply meant it could deny the existence of everything outside itself, and this was a vulnerability that Enoch had exploited. The Ancient Primordials had no ties to the Realities being protected by the Beast in the Cradle of Enoch, and if they had attacked this Beast before Enoch, then none of their attacks would be able to even scratch its shell. However, Enoch had corrupted the Realities inside the Cradle from the inside out. The power of the Beast was extremely one-sided; it could not hurt what it protected, and what it protected could hurt it. This power was extremely interesting, and in the right moment, it could serve as a very important deterrent despite its flaws. Eos may end up using this Beast to protect his Origin Realms, but its flaws were too apparent, and it could easily be used against him if a hidden hand changed a slight directive in the Beast’s objective. The power of Ananke was not the reason Eos kept the Beast; he wanted knowledge that only it would know. "Ananke, wake up," Eos whispered, and the turtle shuddered, then slowly opened its eyes. Its blue eyes that sparkled like gems looked almost confused before recognition entered them, followed by grief and pain. The tail of Ananke rose up, and a loud roar of anger and despair erupted from it. The memories of all its charges swallowed by the Abomination were still a fresh wound on the consciousness of the Beast, and although its body had healed, the wounds of the heart were not so easily salvaged. Eos was patient as he watched the Beast mourn its loss, and after a while, Ananke looked at its surroundings before looking upwards at the eyes of Eos that were like two massive prismatic stars. The Beast shook its body to silence its tail, and it bowed towards Eos, "My savior, I have slept, and I have healed from my wounds. The connection with Enoch... I can no longer sense it." Looking around in shock, the Beast checked underneath its shell and could not see any of the Realities under its care. A brief flash of panic passed through its eyes, but then it realized that it could still feel the connection it had with them, and the fear vanished. The turtle bent its head in thought for a while before it raised up its small white head and regarded Eos, "My charges... were they the source of Enoch’s rot?" Eos blinked, and a pillar of light poured from his right eye and gathered in front of the Beast, taking the shape of a man made of light that resembled Eos, and the figure of light nodded and spoke, "In the creation of Existence, Enoch killed the first Reality, Hundun, and instilled his endless hunger for change inside every fragment of his flesh. It was for this reason that the original 10,008 Origin Forces in Existence were shattered into infinitesimal pieces. Enoch had been banished from Existence, but with the present state of Existence, the walls between End and Existence had thinned to nearly nothing. Existence is now Limbo, and the whispers of Enoch can travel from the dark places into the hearts of Realities, and it can corrupt the source of change it found within." The Beast of Inevitability shuddered, memories of watching Existence slowly transforming into Limbo during the past sixty-five million Cosmic Eras flowing past its head. It had been foolish thinking that with the number of Realities under its care, it was invincible. Recall that the power of the Beast scaled up with the number of Realities under its care, and without the chink in its armor, then it was indeed possible for this Beast to have withstood the end of Existence for a short while, but not forever. Eos continued speaking, "I took the Realities from you, and I am quarantining them all. There is a great possibility to purge them of the taint of Enoch. There is much for us to do." Looking away from the Beast, Eos summoned a massive map that showed all of Limbo that had been discovered by the Archai, and he began making changes to it. The Beast watched him slightly in a daze. "I had buried my head in the sand and forgotten that there was more to life beyond the Cradle; I deserve my defeat." Ananke, the Beast of Inevitability, sighed. Eos swiped his hand to the side, "Enough of that dour talk, your survival means all hope is not lost, and there is a chance that the answer to this predicament is within your head."