I Can Assimilate Everything

While a Chancellor traveled to meet with his father, a meeting that would reshape understanding of what death meant in the Adrastia lineage, Achilles had positioned one of his Constellation Dream Bodies in the depths of the Sea of Thalassara.

The adjustment period was fascinating, experiencing reality through multiple perspectives simultaneously.

His main massive body, existing in narrative space while observing the entire Star Seas, provided one kind of awareness…vast, comprehensive, but somehow distant.

The Constellation Dream Bodies offered something more immediate, more personal, even if they were technically just projections of his consciousness dreaming themselves into specific locations.

At this moment, this particular body sat in the expansive radiant blue sea, surrounded by waters that had never known terrestrial shores.

The environment defied conventional understanding of what "underwater" meant.

There was no pressure here despite the depth, no darkness despite the distance from any sun.

Instead, luminescent currents painted everything in shades of blue and silver, while above them…visible through waters clear as air, stars wheeled in patterns that told stories in languages older than words.

Rose had her head on his thighs, her water form maintaining just enough solidity for the gesture to work.

They seemed to be resting, though beings of their power had no real need for rest. It was more about the choice to be still together, to exist in a moment without the constant pressure of cosmic responsibility.

He looked down at her gorgeous watery form, marveling at the transformation.

The woman made of stellar water bore little resemblance to the dying patient he had saved mere weeks ago.

Her form rippled with internal tides that followed rhythms only she understood, her hair flowing like liquid starlight that never quite decided which direction gravity should pull it.

"You know," Achilles said, his fingers playing through her liquid hair in ways that should have been impossible, "only weeks ago, our biggest worries were how much money we could make to ensure we could pay rent on our apartment. Maybe save enough to buy some basic protection against Evolutius Beasts."

Rose's form shimmered with what might have been laughter. "I was worried about whether I'd live to see another sunrise with you. You were worried about everything except yourself."

"But now..." Achilles shook his head at the magnitude of change.

Rose turned to look up at him, her emerald eyes…still somehow perfectly her despite being suspended in living water, carrying warmth that transcended her transformed state.

"We've all gone through tremendous change, with the person most responsible being none other than you."

Achilles shook his head at this. "I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. And now you have a lineage so unique that I've been wondering whether the Adrastia Emperor King Lineage or your Primordial Genome Empress is grander."

Rose smiled, the expression visible through her translucent features as Achilles continued stroking her head, his fingers creating small ripples that caught the sea's luminescence.

"Even if it was grander than yours, you didn't really give me all that long before unlocking your second and even more ridiculous lineage. Then proceeding to combine both of them."

She paused, her voice growing softer. "Now you've achieved a level of power that even I cannot fully wrap my head around."

She quieted after these words, eventually raising her hands toward something distant, as if trying to grasp something in a place she couldn't quite see or reach.

"With so many things having changed," she asked, her voice carrying genuine curiosity rather than concern, "what do you plan to do now?"

What did he plan to do now?

The question carried more weight than it seemed.

With all the power he had accumulated, he was certain that if he continued steadily, he would overcome the Nar'Thyss…they didn't have the assimilation potential he possessed.

The woman Outsider who had betrayed the First Adrastia Emperor King, the Founders of the Infinite Radiance Sovereignty and Void Dominion Empire…even if they stood at the peak of the Null Scale of Existence, he could reach that level soon enough.

But past them, every single one existed in the Null Scale of Existence.

Not even Pre-Civilizational Existence at the Zero Scale. There were grander things out there than even the Nar'Thyss, hierarchies of power that transcended current understanding.

Where did the Nar'Thyss come from? Were there other Star Seas? Other scales of existence beyond what they knew?

There was so much he didn't know.

"What I want to do now," he said, smiling as he looked at Rose, "is to simply live."

His hand moved to rest on her belly, where her water form had maintained a subtle suggestion of solidity. Both of them smiled at the gesture, understanding passing between them that needed no words.

"I've got you, I've got Arya, and now..."

Rose looked up at him with eyes that sparkled like emerald stars. "Your second one should be coming out soon." Her smile took on a knowing quality. "And he is bound to be even wilder than your daughter."

The pronoun buzzed in the water between them…he. A son. Another impossible child to add to their impossible family.

Achilles felt something in his chest that had nothing to do with his cosmic power or narrative authority. It was simpler than that, more fundamental…the feeling of a man who had everything he had never dared to dream of wanting.

"A son," he repeated, tasting the word.

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, surrounded by the Sea of Thalassara's gentle currents.

Above them, through the clear waters, stars continued their eternal dance. Around them, the sea itself pulsed with life that existed in forms beyond conventional biology.

Achilles understood. All the power in existence meant nothing compared to this…sitting with the woman he loved, talking about their children, existing in a moment that was theirs alone.

"We'll protect this," he said, not a question but a statement of fact.

"Whatever comes…Nar'Thyss, cosmic conspiracies, scales of existence we haven't even discovered yet, none of it touches this."

Rose turned in his lap, her water form flowing into a sitting position where she could face him properly. "Promise me something," she said, her tone serious despite the gentle setting.

"Anything."

"When you reshape reality, when you rewrite the narratives of existence itself…remember to write us happy endings. Not just grand ones or dramatic ones, but happy ones."

Achilles pulled her closer, his forehead touching hers in a gesture that somehow worked despite their different states of matter.

"Every ending," he promised. "Every possible future I can see or create…you and our children are happy in all of them."

The Sea of Thalassara seemed to pulse in agreement, its waters carrying their words outward in ripples that would eventually touch every shore of their expanding domain!