Whether they were as simple as this butterfly or as grand as a Fold Dweller or a Living Existence or an Early Creature.
At such a thought, Noah smiled.
In the next moment, his body vibrated with authority. His form began to change, to shimmer, to dissolve and reform.
And gradually, he transformed into the same shape as the blue, snowy butterfly.
RUIN/EDEN blinked, her holographic form flickering for a fraction of a second. She looked at her Master, at the perfect, crystalline replica of the Azure Frostwing he had become, and she smiled.
A genuine, almost fond, expression. She then turned back to the complex, swirling data streams of her work.
Noah, in his new, delicate form, flew towards the other butterfly. He landed on the same glacial flower and began to do as it did, to drink the essence of the cold, to experience the world not as a Tyrant, not as The Early Creature, Osmont, but as a simple, beautiful, and utterly focused creature of the frost.
The original butterfly turned its vibrant, multifaceted eyes towards him, and in its gaze, there was a profound, almost comical, sense of bewilderment.
A look that clearly said... Bro, you are a being of Quadrillions of power. Why the hell are you playing around over here right now?
...!
Off to the side, Ozymandias breathed in the snowy environment, devouring everything that came near him.
This part of him took a single step and disappeared, off to further experience...The Way of Hunger.
But in such a manner, Noah began.
He had transformed into another creature for the purpose of understanding and living their Way of Existence.
It may be called imitation, as he didn’t completely and truly become a butterfly, but it was a start.
This was how he was spending his time in the Earliest Folds, a moment of profound and utter peace for him.
How exactly were other people faring as the hours passed?
—
An unknown number of hours later.
Aethelgard.
In the aftermath, there was a profound, terrible silence!
The war for Aethelgard had ended with the quiet, dignified retreat of a force that had tested the walls of a fortress and found them...glorious!
The tens of thousands of Justiciars, their pristine white armor now scarred and broken, had withdrawn, their disciplined silent departure a stark, chilling contrast to the chaotic and vibrant life of the First Folds.
They left behind a scene of breathtaking, terrible carnage.
The Rampart of Aethelgard, once a seamless, golden bastion of impossible beauty, was now a fractured, broken thing in one section!
A massive section of the wall had been torn asunder, a gaping, league-wide wound in the city’s defenses.
It was here that the fiercest fighting had taken place, a focal point where the full, overwhelming might of the Justiciar legion had been brought to bear.
And it was here, floating silently before the broken walls, that a new figure had appeared.
He was a king cast in the mold of countless grand Early Creatures!
Gilgamesh, The First Leader!
His form was a perfect, terrible masterpiece of primordial wonder, his golden hair a cascade of starlight, his eyes the color of a dying sun.
He wore a simple, elegant white chiton, yet his very presence was a crown, a declaration of absolute, unyielding dominion!
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