The Primordial Record novel Chapter 1952

Chapter 1952: Breaking The Cradle (3)

CRADLE OF ENOCH

No one knew how it began, not even the Beast of Inevitability, who guided the last bastion of creation with eyes that do not shut in sleep, was able to tell how it started, but the Watchers, Archais created by Eos to record all truths in Existence, they were in the right place at the right time to see how it all began.

Even as they traveled through limbo, the Watchers left multiple shades in their hundreds to learn everything they could about the Cradle. This place was undoubtedly one of the most important locations in all of Existence, and the mysteries it contained were all crucial to all life.

One of the first things the Watchers had noticed about the Cradle was that it was pristine. The Realities here all had personalities, and one of their hallmarks was innocence. It was as if the true state of Existence had been hidden from them, and they never had to see that they were the last island of innocence in a sea of blood.

There were barely any immortals in all of these Realities, and the quest for power was highly discouraged as the Watchers saw that there were barely any supernatural elements allowed inside these Realities, and the few that found immortality were supreme geniuses or the ones that fought against fate and the heavens to carry their destinies.

No Watcher here could soundly state that this was a bad thing for the inhabitants of the Cradle. On one hand, most of the lifeforms here were denied the chance to see all that Existence had to offer and know what it was like to be able to hold the sun in their palm, but on the other hand...

The Cradle was the last place where a child can chase fireflies without knowing the fireflies are made of dying stars, where lovers can promise forever and almost mean it, where death is still a door and not a mouth.

Despite their astonishment and internal debate about the Cradle, one figure drew their attention above all, its guard.

This was the first time for the Watchers and Eos to see this Beast, and its shape that was hidden from the sight of all was revealed to them. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

And in plain words, the Beast was a massive turtle.

It is vast beyond vastness, almost a tenth of the size of the Cradle, and if Eos had not seen the form of the first Reality Hundun, the Beast would be the largest living organism he had ever seen.

Its shell was a continent of black jade etched with every law that Eos could recognize and some that he could not. It had eyes like twin galaxies, which were surprisingly filled with warmth.

From its shell rises a tail that was a serpent longer than the rivers of time; it had scales of living night with fangs dripping with the venom that the Watchers knew could end them nearly instantaneously.

They watched the Beast closely and found that it does not sleep; instead, it circles the inner surface of the Cradle eternally, turtle legs paddling through the void as if it were water, serpent tail tasting the air for the scent of corruption.

It was meant to be enough. It was not.

The turtle was a near-perfect guardian, and it would have stopped even the Primordials from reaching the Cradle without putting up a good fight, or if necessary, it could tow the entire Cradle somewhere else. Eos could recognize some of the runes on its shell, and he knew that they represented supreme speed and adaptability, but it could not see the cancer inside the thing it was guarding, and that was its glaring flaw.

The Watchers had been counting the number of Realities inside the Cradle of Enoch, and this task should have been near instantaneous, but Realities were ninth-dimensional entities, and this made it quite difficult to assign a number to them, because a single Reality could appear in a trillion forms at the same time, yet exist as a massive singular entity.

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