Chapter 195: Chapter 195

"Don’t tell me you expect me to fight Gods." Zephyr scoffed incredulously. If that was what Lytheron was building up to — if that was what The Will of Origin meant, then he might as well just wrap up their conversation now.

What could someone like him do against beings that were factually Gods? Entities with processing capabilities that infected the very threads of existence itself?

"I do, in fact, expect you to fight Gods," Lytheron deadpanned. "Even further, I expect you to purge them."

Zephyr let out a humorless chuckle, "Then you must be crazy if you think I’d sign up for that—"

"You’re an improbability." Lytheron said over Zephyr, cutting off the young man’s words. "Your very existence," he gestured to all of Zephyr, "is an improbability..."

Zephyr looked utterly lost, clearly needing more explanation.

"What do you think entities at Tier 9 fear?" Lytheron asked.

"At their level of existence, they have such incomprehensible levels of processing power that they can predict the action of every single thing within their range of influence if they wanted to," Lytheron leaned forward, trying to get his point across to Zephyr.

This sounds like Laplace’s Demon – The theory of determinism. Where if all the position and momentum of every single particle within a universe is known to an entity, down to the last atom, they can, in theory, know forcertain how the future will progress, Aegis supplied to Zephyr, making him frown even deeper at the goal Lytheron was trying to sell to him.

"At that kind of level where they can predict the outcome of the actions any potential enemy will take against them, what do you think they have to fear...?" Lytheron asked, more as a rhetorical question than as one he expected an answer to.

"Nothing, right?" he answered for Zephyr. "The outcome of every potential battle is a known certainty to them. They simply move the piece on the cosmic chess board that leads to the conclusion they desire. They are beyond the understanding of mortal minds."

Lytheron lowered his voice. "...But they are not absolute. Origin still stands above all. It

"But there are laws — Laws of cause and effect that afford these... Viruses a layer of protection. Origin cannot simply wipe them from existence because they haven’t overstepped some fundamental principle of progression. They haven’t, in principle, violated the right to gain power."

"However, their infestation of the core structure of existence is a corruption — a virus that must be purged. Since Origin cannot directly break the laws of progression to remove them, it resorts to a roundabout, natural measure... The Convergence Trials."

"The Tier 9s know of the existence of convergence trials. They know Origin is trying to heal itself by pitting them against others who have come through the same effort. But there is nothing they can do about it because of the nature of those in convergence trials — the champions themselves... Young talents like you..."

"Improbabilities..." Lytheron whispered, "the only beings Tier 9s fear."

Lytheron fixed his gaze on Zephyr. "Beings whose existence are illogical. Improbable to the point of impossibility to normal minds. The equivalents of spinning a six on a dice more than a billion times in a row, or the equivalent of landing a coin on its edge millions of times successfully."

"For a mortal mind, it is impossible. But for one that has access to every single possibility, it is an inevitability. It will happen. Because the number of tries no longer matters," Lytheron explained.

"What this means is that Tier 9s know that they will fall. At some point in the future, no matter how long. It could be thousands, millions or billions of years, but they will be purged, freeing all worlds from their influence."

He pointed at Zephyr "Improbabilities like you are vessels... or capsules, if you will, of incalculable possibilities. The ones who are so deviant from standard that the possibilities that branch from them are utterly absurd. And if used right, can present a shocking, unforeseen outcome to even these great entities."

"They know this. And so too does Origin also. In fact, it is a certainty... But there is also the fact that before this happens, one of the Tier 9s... or all of them, may actually successfully erode Origin, becoming the source of all itself. There is that possibility..."

"So it is a battle of which will come first," Lytheron held a hand out, "Would the certainty of them being purged by Origin’s capsules of improbability — people like you, and other champions who might be chosen as Scions — happen first," then he held out the other hand, "or would they be able to hold out the certainty of their doom long enough to corrode origin fully?" he raised a brow, staring at Zephyr with a smile.

"...That will depend on you

Zephyr snorted at that. "You’re good with words, Lytheron. Making this sound so noble and all. You’re still forgetting... Why do I need to be bothered by any of this?" Zephyr shook his head.

"The best course of action for me right now is to simply ignore everything you’ve just explained," he shrugged. "I could just strive to win this Convergence trial, and after emerging victorious, go on to live my life like normal."

"This purpose you’re selling is so far removed from my reality that I couldn’t be bothered in the least," Zephyr scoffed, rising to his feet. He was done here.

"Is that so?" Lytheron’s voice took on a somber tone as he sighed. "Well, that’s a shame... I truly looked forward to helping you develop your improbability, but anyway. I guess we weren’t fated," he stood up to his full three feet height.

"You can go ahead and decline the contract then. It shouldn’t be forced."

Zephyr was slightly taken aback. ’Really? That’s all?’

It wasn’t like he wanted Lytheron to convince him further, he truly had no interest in moving forward with the contract now that he knew this much. Fighting Gods was not on his agenda at all.

But Lytheron’s casual acceptance felt... frankly anticlimactic.

One would have thought with all his efforts, he’d at least do more to try and convince Zephyr to consider the Scion offer.

Zephyr nodded curtly at Lytheron, willing the Voice of The World to display the clauses for him to decline.

[Selection choice acknowledged. Champion – ZeroOne Sovereign, true-named Zephyrus Sol Ra’Elis — after the prerequisite for transparency in regards to The Will of Origin has been fulfilled by Proctor Lytheron A’Uthiel Ryx, has chosen to ’Decline’ the clauses of Proctor Lytheron A’Uthiel Ryx’s contract.]

[This instance of Proctor Lytheron A’Uthiel Ryx’s Scion Contract has now been terminated. The said Proctor now reserves the right to create a new contract to better his chances of selecting a Scion the next time.]

The Voice of The World went silent.

’This sneaky elf.’ Zephyr tsked in amused disbelief. ’No wonder he had so easily let me go.’

Lytheron stared right at Zephyr with a plain expression. If he was feeling smug, he didn’t show it.

’Well, whatever. Everyone wins,’ Zephyr turned without a word towards the doorway.

"You’ll be back, young Zephyr," Lytheron called out calmly, and with a surprising surety.

Zephyr stilled for a beat, before continuing his walk. It looked like he would not drop a response at all, until he paused again just as he was about to cross the doorway and out of the cavern, glancing back slightly.

"No, I won’t," he flashed a smile and stepped out, starting up {Silent Mirage} immediately he did.

He disappeared from view, making Lytheron squint his eyes slightly with a small smirk playing on his lips.

"That was so much information..." Zephyr muttered as he retraced his steps upward through the settlement. The previous confident smile on his face was no longer there. It had been replaced by a perpetual scowl that couldn’t leave his face.

That feeling of things being out of his control was creeping up on him again.

Lytheron’s final words rang in his head like a death knell.

Zephyr was a smart person... Logical too. He couldn’t delude himself into thinking something when all evidence glaringly pointed at another.

He knew he truly, and withabsolute certainty, was an improbability.

He didn’t know what Lytheron saw that made him also come to that decision unhesitatingly — perhaps Zephyr’s revelation of his single node awakening, and yet displaying extreme proficiency and power in spell logic and casting had been enough...

But Zephyr, who knew the true and full depth of himself, was absolutely certain that he was what Lytheron had described.

On top of his already clearly different and improbable origins, the succession of events that had also led him up to this moment — surviving Skarnids in the military camp, the black mist that enabled him to send his conscious into his mana core, an unheard of scenario even up till now, surviving that attack, surviving the collapse of a world, surviving a pseudo-lawbearer’s render, surviving a crash onto a strange planet, not being found by Exalteds who had information networks all over that planet, surviving the insane attack on Freehold...

But of all these things he had survived, the one that stood out to him, especially now that he knew of the history of everything, was The Moderator...

"A fucking God!" Zephyr hissed as he burst into a sprint, uncaring of any monster that might be walking in the tunnelways. The rightful source is noᴠelfire.net

He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs.

"I went and pissed off a God!"

That gaze he’d felt back then when he wrestled control over his mana core and won...

He’d been marked. He knew it...

And that meant he was knee-deep in what Lytheron had revealed already. Even if he didn’t want it, he was already a part of it... again.

Was this the fate of an improbability? One whose fate was already tied to serving Origin’s purpose right from the moment they were born?

Was his existence an improbability because he was born to be an improbability, or was he born to be an improbability because his existence was an improbability...?