Chapter 792: The Eternals’ Assembly
A few minutes before the First Progenitor was wrongfully accused, in a completely different part of the Cosmos, the Planet at the End of Existence, Elo Katra, was, for the first time in years, simultaneously hosting all of its owners.
At the planet’s north pole stood a dome hall structure. The building contained only a single chamber: a hall with a domed ceiling that reflected the view of the Cosmos and all existing Multiverses.
Beneath that dome was a round table with twelve evenly spaced chairs arranged around it.
At this moment, ten of those chairs were occupied.
Starting from the 1 o’clock position, the first figure was a woman with white hair, her head resting on the table as she slept.
She was one of Elo Katra’s owners and its creator, the First-Ranked Eternal who governed over Creation.
On the Cosmic Stage, most existences who wished to speak of her without invoking her true name, so as to avoid triggering the ’Unspeakable Name’ effect and alerting her of their existence, referred to her as ’Indifferent Creation’.
It was a title born from her complete lack of concern for anything she didn’t personally consider her business. If it neither interested her nor threatened the peace of the Cosmos, then she simply didn’t care.
A fitting title.
This ’Indifference’ often extended even to her fellow Eternals. The lower-ranked Third Generation Eternals were all somewhat afraid of her and considered the Second Generations ranked 4th through 7th impressive for their ability to interact with someone like her without reservations.
At the 2 o’clock position, lounging sideways on his throne with his back against one armrest and his legs draped over the other, sat a handsome, youthful-looking man with slicked-back black hair.
He wore a fitted black t-shirt, black jeans, and white sneakers. In his hands was a tablet displaying a game, the screen showing a colourful board with player pieces on various properties, digital money stacks, and virtual dice.
This man, the Eternal of Space and Reality, Ranus, was currently playing Monopoly with five random mortals from five different universes while waiting for the meeting to begin.
He was, undisputedly, the most ’unserious’ among the Eternals, yet he was also someone no one, not even the Eternal of Creation, could afford to take lightly.
It wasn’t just because of his immense power or the fact that he was one of the First Defenders who fought against the Cosmic Force of Chaos itself, but because, no matter how he acted, Ranus always delivered results.
Despite his Concept of ’Reality’ being the most vulnerable to bugs and inconsistencies, he consistently reported the fewest documented errors during meetings like these.
The seat at the 3 o’clock position was empty, as it had been for billions of years.
At 4 o’clock sat a grey-haired, middle-aged-looking man with dull grey eyes, vertically slit like a serpent’s. In contrast to Ranus’ informal appearance, he, Akasha, the Eternal of Wisdom and Knowledge, was dressed formally, with a black suit, a starched white shirt, and a brown tie.
In his hands was a simple book, its contents writing themselves in real time as he turned each page.
Many regarded this man as a Control Freak, the type who refused to tolerate events he couldn’t manipulate to his advantage. To the other Eternals who worked alongside him, it was clear that this trait stemmed from paranoia born of knowing too much.
Because of how much he understood, he feared even more what he didn’t, knowing better than anyone that his title, ’Omniscient Eternal’, was anything but the truth.
The throne at the 5 o’clock position was vacant, its owner yet to arrive.
At the 6 o’clock position sat a handsome young man with blonde hair and brown eyes, dressed in an unbuttoned black collared shirt beneath a white double-breasted jacket and simple trousers.
Centred within his brown irises were square-shaped white pupils, a little visual signature of his status as the Eternal of Light and Life. His name, Dulio.
This man with an angelic appearance was, quite literally, an angel. But in contrast to that gentle exterior was the way he handled matters involving cosmic-level violations of ’Life’ and all Sub-Concepts and Universal Laws derived from it, like Evolution, Biology, Morphogenesis, and more.
Equally significant was his Concept of Light, the very principle responsible for the radiation that gave rise to perception and formed the basis of what it meant for existences to ’see’.
At the 7 o’clock position sat a brown-haired man with a buzz cut, dressed semi-formally, with a plain white shirt and black blazer paired with simple black trousers and shoes.
His facial features were rigid, the kind that would immediately lead most to assume he was some sort of military figure, and his eyes did little to soften that impression.
Instead of circular irises, each of his eyes contained a Möbius loop, a band with only one side and one edge. Within those irises were fractals, endlessly branching inward, symbolising the countless possibilities of cause and effect, and the infinite permutations that could arise from a single action.
’Do not look into the eyes of the Governor of Causality, lest you regret every decision you’ve ever made.’
It was a well-known saying on the Cosmic Stage, for a single glance into his eyes could make one relive every mistake they’d ever made, and see every life that had been changed because of it, in the blink of an eye.
Even as he sat here, Roland, the Eternal of Causality and Laws, was currently seeing through the eyes of one of his Avatars in the Sixth Multiverse, pursuing a group of Multiversal criminals, violators of causality.
Causality, a.k.a the ’son of a bitch law’, was considered complicated by many. In fact, those who broke it sometimes didn’t even understand how their actions had done so.
But to Roland, it couldn’t be more straightforward:
—The thread of cause must not outweigh, nor be outweighed by, the thread of effect.—
As for this particular group of fugitives, they had travelled back in time and altered the past, preventing a specific event from ever occurring.
That alone wasn’t a direct violation of Causality. They had used legal time-travel methods, powered by various Aspects of Time.
But Roland didn’t care whether their method was lawful; he cared only about the cosmic fairness of cause and effect.
Every time-altering action is judged based on the net effect it introduces into the Cosmos.
On one side of the scale are those who suffer or are harmed by the event not occurring.
On the other side: those who benefit from the event not happening.
These are the two sides of the scale in such cases.
Roland evaluates both not just by their numbers, but by their existential significance, the magnitude, and their dimensional impact.
To account for natural fluctuations in cause and effect, there is a buffer zone or margin of tolerance. If the imbalance stays within this range, then Roland remains passive. But if the deviation exceeds that margin, then the Causality Enforcers are deployed to pursue the offender.
Let’s say the margin is a ±10% deviation between the two sides of the causality scale. If the number of affected existences falls within that 10% range, the alteration is considered causally acceptable.
For example, if 1,000 beings benefit and 920 are harmed, the difference of 80 lies within tolerance.
But if 1,000 benefit and 750 are harmed, the difference of 250 is beyond the acceptable threshold, and just like that, you’ve become a Defaulter of Causality!
As stated earlier, this scale isn’t purely numerical. It also takes into account the Existence Realms and Causality Indexes of those affected, as well as the duration and spread of the resulting consequences.
Moving on from that, Roland also governed another crucial Concept, one that, in some respects, was more important than Causality.
The Concept of ’Laws’.
Those who understood its significance called it the ’Cosmic Translator’. It was the translation mechanism between higher-order cosmic truths (Concepts) and lower-order universal frameworks (Universal Laws).
It had been said time and again that Universal Laws are derived from Concepts.
The Concept of Laws was responsible for this. It compressed, defined and bounded the raw powers of Concepts, which, in their native state, were too abstract to function on the multiversal scale, and formed what became Universal Laws, which were not only repeatable, manipulable, and measurable but also comprehensible.
Once formed, these Laws propagate throughout all universes, in accordance with the scale of their originating Concept.
Roland’s existence held that much importance to the Cosmos, at least, to the Origin and Numbered Multiverses within it.
His Aggressor Counterpart, Sraosha, handled matters on the Dark Multiverse side.
Seated at the 8 o’clock position was Herek, the Eternal of Reincarnation and Destiny.
If Dulio and his twin sister, Julio, were the Eternals in charge of Life and Death, then Herek was the one responsible for what happened in between.
Reincarnation was the mechanism by which souls were recycled after Death and granted new Life. Herek served as the General Overseer of Reincarnation Paths across every universe, and also shared the role of General Overseer of Underworlds, Afterlives, and similar domains, alongside the twin Eternals.
Originally, Reincarnation fell under Julio’s domain, but the Second Generation Eternals—Akasha, Julio, Dulio, and Roland—already had far too much on their plates.
As a result, the Candidate Selection process was reopened, a Third Generation was chosen, and the Conceptual Authority over Reincarnation was formally passed on to Herek.
They also assigned him the Concept of Destiny, because why not entrust the one responsible for recycling souls into new lives with power over destinies too?
Next to Herek sat Chomen, more commonly known as the ’Elemental Eternal’. The Concept of Elements, along with its various Sub-Concepts, fell under his jurisdiction.
All fundamental natural elements (earth, fire, wind, water, lightning, etc.) and complex elemental derivatives, where abstracts like Time, Space, Decay, Emotion, or Sound were crystallised into elemental forms of structured magic or energy.
At its core, the Chaotic Concept of Elements is volatile, unpredictable, and multi-expressionist.
In its default unregulated state, casting a spell or invoking an element yields random or inconsistent outputs.
A fire spell may produce ice.
A lightning invocation may trigger gravitational collapse.
An attempt to channel Time may accidentally birth a tsunami.
Chomen’s was to stabilise this chaos, making it such that Intent led to reliable output.
Thanks to him, fire magic produced fire, not ice. Time-elemental spells invoked time-based effects, not oceanic disasters.
He had the delicate task of keeping the elements flexible and expressive, allowing for variation and artistry in elemental manipulation while still maintaining functional control.
In contrast, within the Ordered Concept of Elements, even in the absence of a manager, intent always produced the right output.
By default, the elements there were rigid, mechanical, and self-enforcing.
Fire always burned in a single, predetermined pattern.
Wind flowed in fixed, unchanging currents.
When you invoked Time, it advanced in a single, straightforward, irreversible direction.
In this case, the element controls you, unless you master its inflexible pattern.
The Aggressor who governed it softened that structure just enough to allow for conscious manipulation, making it more flexible and fluid.
Although they both governed the same Concepts, the difference in the Cosmic Force from which they originated gave rise to subtle distinctions in their roles and responsibilities.
