I Can Assimilate Everything

The decision crystallized in Achilles's mind with the clarity of stellar formation- sudden, inevitable, and blazing with purpose!

"She is vastly more powerful than my current self," he said, his voice carrying the cold calculation of someone measuring themselves against a superior opponent.

"Tier 9 against my generous Tier 6. In conventional understanding, she could unmake me without too much trouble."

He paused, his purple-gold eyes blazing with something that transcended mere confidence.

"But I want to see just how all the different aspects of my existence come together if I were to fight against someone of a higher tier. The Regulations I've assimilated, the Existential Authority of Fables, the dual lineages now active within me…how do they synthesize when pressed against genuine threat?"

His lips curved in a smile that held no warmth.

"And since she is who she is, the Mother of our Lineage, however twisted that relationship has become…she won't seek to kill me. Not immediately. Her nature, her role in the Nar'Thyss's games, even whatever fragments of maternal instinct might remain... they'll stay her hand long enough for me to learn what I need to learn."

HUUM!

Thalsian and Adras exchanged glances, generations of strategic thinking passing between them in that single look.

The grandfather's expression held concern mixed with approval…the look of someone watching their descendant choose necessary danger.

"I want to see," Thalsian voiced, his deep rumble carrying paternal authority that transcended his agreement with the plan.

Achilles nodded, already moving to accommodate the request.

"We can keep your existence a secret a bit longer," he said, addressing both of them. "Let her, let them all, continue believing the story they've written for us. Everything I see will be displayed back here."

With a wave of his hand, he caused an eruption of massive platinum light that coalesced into a screen hovering in the Sea of Thalassara. The construct was pure narrative given visual form, a window into whatever his Constellation Dream Body would perceive.

"Watch," he said simply. "And be ready if need be."

…!

Without further ceremony, the light of the Regulation of Quantum wrapped around him like a lover's embrace. Space folded, twisted, acknowledged that distance was just another opinion it held, and one that Achilles disagreed with.

He took a single step that covered light-years, disappearing from the Sea of Thalassara to appear exactly where he needed to be.

---

Syl'thessara floated serenely across space with the languid grace of someone who had forgotten what urgency felt like.

Her movements were poetry written in three dimensions, each gesture a stanza of sorrow given form.

Her eyes, those repositories of captured constellations, remained calm as she followed a scent only she could understand.

It was faint…so faint that anyone else would have missed it entirely. But this was the scent of her lineage, her own flesh and blood passed down through generations of tragedy.

The genetic signature of Adrastia called to her across the void, a whisper of connection she could never fully sever no matter how the Nar'Thyss had tried.

The trail was leading her toward something, though what that something might be remained…

Her entire demeanor shifted in an instant. From languid sorrow to sharp attention, her gaze snapping toward a particular direction in space where nothing had been a moment before. Her body tensed with the alertness of someone who had survived millennia by never ignoring their instincts.

There.

Space rippled with authority that shouldn't exist in these barren Star Seas. Reality parted like curtains before royalty, and through that gap stepped…no, materialized, a figure that made her consciousness stutter.

Achilles's Constellation Dream Body pulsed with unique stellar power that transcended normal classification!

His entire being appeared to be crafted from condensed starlight, each movement leaving trails of luminescence that wrote themselves into space before fading.

He looked young, devastatingly young by the standards of beings who measured age in cosmic epochs, but appearance meant nothing when power announced itself so boldly.

Syl'thessara felt something she couldn't explain, a resonance that she had only experienced when observing powerful Nar'Thyss!

But that was impossible. This was Star Sea Alpha-9, the carefully stunted playground where nothing of true power was allowed to develop!

Her voice emerged stern, carrying the authority of someone used to being obeyed without question.

"Who are you?" The words cut through vacuum with perfect clarity.

"I already said I would look into the Nexus Deviation Point and determine if it's even in these Star Seas. Do you all have nothing better to do? These Star Seas are so weak that nothing which could threaten the Nar'Thyss will arise from here! Look in the other Star Seas and stop wasting my time!"

BOOM!

The casual revelation of information hit Achilles like a gift wrapped in dismissal.

His eyes blazed as he sorted through implications she hadn't meant to reveal. Nexus Deviation Point...

Other Star Seas…plural, confirming his information that theirs was just one of many under Nar'Thyss influence.

The information was abundant, each casual word a piece of the puzzle he'd been assembling. He looked at the entity before him…beautiful in ways that transcended physical description, tragic in ways that defined the word, powerful in ways that made space itself defer to her presence.

When he spoke, his voice carried waves that suggested multiple meanings layered into simple words.

"I wonder," he said, each syllable placed with deliberate precision. "Should I call you Grandmother, or Ancestor, or Betrayer, or Outsider? You have so many titles that it's hard to keep track."

He paused, watching her expression shift through confusion toward something approaching recognition.

"Were you not just looking for me, my Great Ancestor?"

…!

The silence that followed was absolute.

Syl'thessara's eyes, those beautiful, terrible, ancient eyes…widened as impossible understanding began to dawn. This wasn't a Nar'Thyss checking on her progress. This was something else entirely. Someone else entirely.

"Impossible," she breathed, the word carrying the weight of someone whose worldview was cracking. "You can't be..."

Achilles smiled, the expression visible even through his stellar form!