I Can Assimilate Everything-Chapter 630: Chaos Does Not Share I
While a transformation bloomed in a distant and unreachable domain, inside another domain entirely, the figure of The Groundskeeper had an ashen expression inside an obsidian gold sea.
Before him, an encased crystalline structure floated from the obsidian waters, its surface perfectly transparent despite the chaos that should have corrupted any attempt at ordered form. Within this crystalline prison lay the body of an obsidian serpent that was eating its own tail.
At this moment...
BOOM!
The obsidian eyes of this serpent opened as they pulsed with Chaos, and the instant they opened, the figure of The Groundskeeper crumpled and fell backward as if he had lost consciousness entirely. His golden crystallized form collapsed against the obsidian waters without resistance, his unfathomable Depth meaning nothing against whatever had just awakened.
And the serpent eating its own tail radiated terrifying power of an unknown Depth as it shattered the containment it had been imprisoned within. The crystalline structure that had held it for who knew how long simply ceased to exist, and the serpent’s authority wrapped around the unconscious body of The Groundskeeper before both disappeared from this obsidian gold sea.
The serpent moved unbelievably fast with a glimmer of Chaos woven through its every motion.
An unknown distance away, it appeared inside a sea filled with musings of Paradox, the waters reflecting themselves in multiple contradictory directions while storms of impossibility bloomed and resolved across the expanse.
The serpent eating its own tail looked far ahead where it saw a woman whose entire form continued to change paradoxically. Sometimes she had golden hair and a smooth curved figure, other times dark hair and a larger rotund form. She couldn’t seem to fully settle on exactly what she wanted to be, her appearance shifting through contradictions that would have driven lesser beings to madness.
The moment the serpent arrived, it controlled its emotions while speaking with voice that resonated across the paradoxical waters.
"The claim on Chaos is slipping from me. I never fully and truly had it but... it was mine. I can sense something else taking it as I cannot glimpse anything across the Seas of Tian."
Its obsidian eyes blazed with concern that bordered on desperation.
"Do you know anything about this?"
The serpent eating its tail said such words as in the far distance, THE Resplendent Paradox actually rose from her reclined position with eyes that flashed with surprise. She was silent for a moment, her contradictory features settling into something approaching stability as she considered what she had just been told.
"Maybe... you were never meant to claim Chaos."
Her voice carried weight that held neither cruelty nor comfort.
"Whatever was meant for you, you should have received by now. Maybe this is for the best."
...!
For the best?
For years this was the one thing that he had held onto. Existence was too hard to claim with the way things currently stood, and The First Tongue was impossible for anyone to fully grasp. Paradox was almost claimed by the woman before him as Chaos had been everything he had worked toward since the moments of his early existence itself.
How could it be for the best that someone else was laying claim to it right now?
The serpent eating its own tail wanted to say many things, wanted to rage against the unfairness of having what should have been his taken by forces he couldn’t even perceive. But at this moment, it could not find any words adequate to express what it felt.
It continued biting its tail as it looked out hatefully toward Existence itself.
What was one to do when their very claim was being taken by another?
---
But in that realm containing boundless Primordial Chaos.
In Apatheia.
There were two bodies, a man and a woman that were currently spinning around each other in slow rotation that seemed guided by forces beyond their conscious control. Their figures were humanoid and yet their skin was a stellar obsidian filled with boundless Chaos that pulsed beneath the surface like galaxies trapped in flesh.
The air they gave off was that of ancientness and immensity as if they were life forms that predated countless ages, beings that had existed before differentiation taught reality the difference between order and disorder.
Every single pore of their existence emanated waves of Primordial Chaos as when the man opened his eyes...
|Transformation Complete|
|You have attained the Primordial Lineage of a Jötunn Life Form.|
|You have absorbed enough Civilizational Authority of Primordial Chaos to claim this as a Derivative of your Civilization.|
HUUM!
|Error.|
|Chaos itself is too grand to be considered derivative.|
|Chaos seeks to impose itself as your one and only Civilization.|
|If you wish to take the claim to Chaos, the Civilization of Assimilation must be left behind.|
|This is not negotiable. Chaos does not share. Chaos does not coexist.| 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖
|Choose.|
BOOM!
The words flashed before Achilles, but they were truly waves of information that permeated into his existence as he arrived at this critical juncture. The weight of what was being asked settled into his consciousness with finality that refused to be ignored or postponed.
To obtain Chaos, he had to give up Assimilation.
But Assimilation was the only thing that had made any of this possible.
Assimilation was the one thing that defined his existence since the moment he became an advanced human.
It was how he had consumed THE manifestations and grown from insignificance to THE distinction. It was how he had elevated Rose and his entire lineage to power that should have taken eons to achieve. It was how he had navigated The Cavern of Existence and reached Intermediate Depth through consumption rather than conventional advancement.
Assimilation was everything.
And now he was being asked to give it up?
His eyes burned with a sense of turbidity as conflicting desires warred within his transformed existence. Chaos pulsed through his veins with seductive promise of power beyond anything he had imagined, while Assimilation anchored his identity with roots that went deeper than memory.
Without even a delay, he made a move.
His hand grasped the shoulder of Rose tightly, stellar obsidian fingers pressing against stellar obsidian skin as he drew her attention toward him!
