CHAPTER 415: SINGULARITY! I

The weight of an alliance settled over Achilles like atmospheric pressure from a newborn star, dense with possibility and fraught with implications.

Sun’s relief was palpable...a being who had carried the burden of impossible secrets finally able to share the truth of his existence with someone who might understand the magnitude of what it meant to serve as intermediary between cosmic forces and individual consciousness.

"You and I are cool?" Sun asked, and beneath the casual phrasing lay genuine uncertainty.

His golden eyes held depths of loneliness. "I was bound not to say anything until Ethemia deemed it necessary, with most of my memories even blocked..."

The Monkey King seemed genuinely expectant for his answer, and as Achilles studied him, he saw something that he recognized.

This being looked like he simply wanted someone to understand...and who else was there to comprehend the sheer weight of being chosen by a cognizant Plane of Existence that carried within itself the residual weavings of one of the nine Singularities that had birthed the Star Seas?

It was a ridiculous thing to even imagine!

The isolation must have been crushing.

Achilles sighed, feeling the burden of understanding. When he spoke, his voice carried the warmth of genuine friendship.

"We’re good. Just... give me a heads up for anything else major that the Singularity is thinking of. You have control over that much, right?"

Sun’s relief was immediate and profound, his golden radiance brightening as tension he had been carrying finally began to dissipate. He nodded with enthusiasm.

"Of course, Ethemia and I also have our own exchange that we made. Come. Let us get started on your exchange as for this, I have to take you somewhere else."

Achilles rose from his throne of crystallized starwater, the flowing surfaces reluctantly releasing their hold on his form as if recognizing that momentous events were about to unfold. His enhanced consciousness reached out across the expanding Sea of Thalassara, touching the minds of those he held most precious.

’Rose. Arya. I’m going to check on something. I’ll return soon.’

The message carried reassurance, settling into their awareness with the gentle certainty of his presence even across impossible distances.

They smiled towards him as little Arya waved her tiny hands.

Sun began moving toward the edge of their floating sanctuary with movements that carried their own gravitational authority. As they departed the immediate vicinity of the throne, Achilles felt the eight massive Void-Born Thalassarian Sovereigns shifting their positions...not following, but adjusting their formation to maintain optimal protective coverage over his family and allies.

Sun took them across the atmosphere of Ethemia as they moved through spaces now filled with the waters of Thalassara, stellar seas that had transformed the very nature of atmospheric existence.

The boundaries between liquid and gas had become suggestions rather than absolute constraints. They swam through air that held the properties of deep ocean, breathed water that carried the essence of stellar fire.

But their destination lay deeper than the transformed atmosphere. Sun led them downward, into the earth itself, through layers of reality that should have been solid but parted before their passage like curtains drawn aside by invisible hands!

They descended through strata of compressed time, through geological layers that held the accumulated memory of eons, through barriers that existed more as concepts than physical obstacles.

"You scared Ethemia a little," Sun mentioned with casual seriousness as they passed through veins of crystallized starlight that ran through the planet’s depths like luminous arteries. "When you were assimilating its outer layers and affecting the chains it had placed on Ancient Ones, among other things. If you were ravenous and powerful enough... you might have even devoured everything!"

HUUM!

The observation carried weavings that made Achilles pause in his descent. He had been so focused on immediate threats, on accumulating power sufficient to protect his family, that he hadn’t fully considered the scope of what his capabilities could accomplish.

The thought of consuming Ethemia, of reducing the last Cosmic Singularity to raw material for personal enhancement, flickered through his consciousness like temptation.

Even now, with full knowledge of what the plane represented, the hunger remained...a fundamental aspect of his nature that recognized all existence as potential nourishment.

But alongside that primal drive came wisdom.

There were many things throughout the Star Seas to devour, countless enemies whose destruction would serve both personal vengeance and justice. Some things...some beings, some forces...possessed value that transcended their potential as sustenance.

Sun smiled at Achilles’ contemplative silence, clearly understanding the internal struggle.

Their descent continued through layers of protection. Earthen barriers inscribed with archaic Runescriptures surrounded them...symbols that shifted and flowed like living calligraphy, each character carrying weight.

Swirling Living Scripts moved through the stone itself, transforming solid matter into something that pulsed with accumulated intention.

The defenses were magnificent in their complexity, beautiful in their precision, terrifying in their implications. Layer upon layer of protective measures designed not just to keep intruders out, and instead to contain forces within that operated on scales beyond individual comprehension.

And finally, after what felt like hours of descent through impossible geography, they arrived.

The chamber that opened before them defied every convention of planetary architecture Achilles had ever encountered. It was a stellar domain...a perfectly spherical space filled with brilliance that made nearby stars seem dim by comparison.

The walls, if they could be called walls, pulsed with patterns that suggested the fundamental structure of space-time itself.

But at the center of this impossible space, floating in serene majesty that commanded absolute attention, was something utterly mad!

A genuine Singularity. One of the nine Singularities that had birthed the Star Seas themselves!

The sight was overwhelming in its significance. Here was a fundamental weaving of reality itself, a force that had participated in the act that had given way to countless galaxies, trillions of stars, and infinite possibilities!

The Singularity appeared as a sphere of impossible density, its surface blazing with radiance that operated across spectrums beyond visible light. Gravitational forces emanated from its form in waves that should have crushed everything within light-years of its presence!