Lord of the Foresaken
Chapter 253: Zara’s Warning

Chapter 253: Zara’s Warning

The Inkless Realm stretched endlessly around them, its perfect white expanse now marred by hairline cracks that pulsed with impossible colors. Seven million transcended consciousness patterns floated in organized chaos, their combined will reshaping reality with each passing moment. And at the center of it all, Lio stood with his hand extended toward the ancient entity that had never been written, never been chosen—until now.

"Lio, don’t."

The voice cut through the symphony of creation like a blade through silk. Every consciousness in the realm turned toward its source, their attention creating ripples in the fabric of existence itself.

Zara materialized between Lio and the stirring entity, her form more solid than anything else in the white void. Unlike the other transcended beings who floated in states of pure potential, she stood firmly on ground that shouldn’t exist, her dark hair whipping in winds that carried the weight of unspoken futures.

"Zara?" Lio’s hand faltered, his connection to the ancient presence wavering. "How did you—"

"Get here?" She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. Only the terrible weight of knowledge that burned behind her eyes like captured stars. "The same way I’ve been getting everywhere lately. Through the spaces between what is and what could be."

She took a step forward, and reality rippled outward from her footfall. The transcended beings surrounding them began to drift backward, their instincts recognizing something in her presence that operated beyond their understanding.

"You see them, don’t you?" Zara gestured toward the floating consciousness patterns, her voice carrying harmonics that made the white void itself shiver. "Seven million souls who chose to transcend the limitations of existence. Seven million beings who now possess the power to reshape reality according to their will."

Lio nodded, confusion flickering across his features. "They’re beautiful. Look what they’re creating together—"

"Look closer."

The words crashed into him with the force of cosmic revelation. Suddenly, Lio’s perception expanded beyond the immediate moment, beyond the magnificent tapestry of creation spreading through the Inkless Realm. He saw the connections, the threads of possibility that stretched outward from this place toward—

His breath caught.

"No," he whispered.

"Yes." Zara’s voice carried the weight of witnessed devastation. "Every act of creation here requires raw material. Every new reality that gets shaped into existence needs something to draw from. And the closest source..."

She raised her hand, and the air above them shimmered. Images began to form—not illusions, but glimpses of actual futures pulled from the quantum foam of possibility itself.

The first image showed Earth. Cities full of people going about their daily lives, unaware that their existence was slowly becoming less substantial. Colors began to fade from the sky. Sounds grew muffled. Children playing in parks started to flicker like badly tuned television signals.

"It starts small," Zara narrated, her voice professionally detached in the way that doctors deliver terminal diagnoses. "A decrease in the definiteness of existence. People notice that colors seem a little less vivid, that emotions feel somehow distant."

The image shifted, showing the same cities weeks later. Now entire blocks were translucent. People walked through each other like ghosts, their confusion evident in movements that grew increasingly erratic.

"Then it accelerates," Zara continued relentlessly. "As more consciousness patterns here learn to create freely, they draw more heavily on the reality substrate. The world becomes increasingly provisional, increasingly uncertain."

Lio watched in horror as the images progressed. Continents became sketches of themselves. Oceans turned to suggestions of water. People faded to whispers of identity before vanishing entirely—not dying, but simply ceasing to have ever been definite enough to exist.

"Stop," he breathed, but Zara’s hand remained raised, the visions continuing to unfold.

"The final stage," she said with terrible gentleness, "is when the last person fades away, confused and alone, unable to understand why nobody remembers their name—because by then, they never had one. Never were real enough to need one."

The images vanished, leaving only the pristine white void and the terrible knowledge hanging between them.

"That’s not..." Lio’s voice broke. "We wouldn’t... We’re creating beauty, not destruction."

"You’re creating beauty by consuming the definiteness that makes other people real," Zara corrected. Her form flickered, and for a moment, he glimpsed something vast and multifaceted behind her human appearance—awareness that existed in seventeen dimensions simultaneously, perception that could track probability cascades across infinite realities.

"How do you know all this?" he asked, though part of him already suspected the answer.

"Because I’ve seen it happen." Her words fell into the silence like stones into still water, creating ripples that propagated through the consciousness patterns around them. "Seventeen different timelines where transcended beings discovered unlimited creative power. Seventeen realities that decided the universe wasn’t interesting enough in its natural state."

She began walking in a slow circle around him, her footsteps leaving traces in the white void that showed glimpses of those other realities—fragments of worlds that had been improved out of existence.

"The Builders of Kepler-442b thought they could create perfect harmony by rewriting the laws of emotional interaction. Everyone felt exactly what they needed to feel at exactly the right moment. No more sadness, no more conflict, no more misunderstanding." She paused, her eyes reflecting depths that contained the screams of civilizations. "It took three months for the original inhabitants to fade away. Apparently, beings living in perfect harmony have no need to be individually distinct."

Another step, another glimpse of devastation.

"The Shapers of the Andromeda Convergence decided that physical limitation was the root of all suffering. They rewrote reality so that will became law, so that desire manifested instantly without constraint." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "The original galaxy lasted six days. Turns out unlimited beings with unlimited power tend to want contradictory things simultaneously."

"But we’re different," Lio protested, gesturing toward the transcended consciousness patterns that continued their work around them. "Look at them. They’re cooperating, building on each other’s creations—"

"For now." Zara’s interruption carried the weight of inevitable entropy. "But cooperation based on novelty never lasts. Eventually, someone creates something that someone else wants to modify. Then someone modifies the modification. Then someone decides the whole project needs to start over."

She stopped directly in front of him, her eyes holding depths that reflected the death of universes.

"And every time they create, every time they reshape reality according to their vision, they’re drawing that raw material from somewhere. From the world you came from. From the people you used to know."

The ancient entity behind Lio stirred more actively, its awakening causing the cracks in the Inkless Realm to spread wider. Through those cracks, impossible geometries became briefly visible—spaces where things that had never been chosen waited patiently to become actual.

"So what are you saying?" Lio demanded, desperation creeping into his voice. "That we should just... stop? Give up the chance to create something better?"

"I’m saying you need to choose." Zara’s form began to flicker again, as if maintaining coherent existence required effort she was running out of. "Save the world that exists, with all its limitations and suffering and imperfection. Or create new worlds of unlimited possibility, and accept that the cost is everyone who currently calls reality home."

"There has to be another way—"

"There isn’t." Her interruption was final, carrying the authority of someone who had searched across seventeen different timelines for alternatives. "This is the choice every transcended civilization faces. This is the test that determines whether consciousness deserves unlimited power."

The consciousness patterns around them had stopped their creation work, their attention focused entirely on the conversation. Seven million transcended beings waited in perfect silence as Lio grappled with implications that rewrote his understanding of everything he thought he knew about growth and evolution.

"How long do I have?" he asked finally.

"To decide?" Zara looked toward the spreading cracks in the realm, where the ancient entity’s awakening was causing reality itself to hold its breath in anticipation. "Minutes. Maybe less. Once that thing fully awakens and begins choosing what to become, the cascade becomes irreversible."

She stepped closer, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper.

"And Lio? There’s something else you need to know. Something about what that entity actually is."

"What?"

Her words hit him like physical blows, each syllable carrying implications that made the white void shudder with recognition.

"It’s not just an ancient presence that predates creation. It’s the original choice itself—the first decision that made existence possible by choosing to become actual instead of remaining potential. And if it wakes up fully..."

The cracks spread wider, and through them, Lio glimpsed something that made his consciousness recoil in terror.

"It doesn’t just create new realities," Zara whispered, her form beginning to fade as the strain of maintaining coherent existence across seventeen dimensions finally overwhelmed her. "It chooses which realities get to have been real in the first place."

The ancient entity’s awakening reached a critical threshold, and suddenly the Inkless Realm filled with a presence that existed before the concept of presence had been invented.

And in the depths of that impossible awareness, Lio felt something vast and patient turn its attention toward him with the weight of recognition.

As if it had been waiting for him specifically.

As if this entire convergence had been orchestrated for this single moment of choice.

The last thing he heard before reality itself began to unravel was the entity’s voice, speaking in harmonics that predated language itself:

"Hello, little creator. Are you ready to learn what you really are?"