“thinking’
“Talking”
“Attack”
Act 4 — Meeting Between Geniuses
[ Location: Genius Society Meeting Dimension ]
[ POV : Kiana Kaslana ]
I rested my forearms on the table, looking at the four legendary minds sitting before me.
“Let me ask you all a question.
How do you think the Aeons of Finality and Remembrance operate?”
Screwllum tilted his head, his mechanical eye whirring softly as he processed the query.
“Our knowledge regarding them remains incomplete.
Neither has truly been ‘born’ in our linear perception of time, yet both exist simultaneously in the present, behaving as fully active Aeons.”
‘He’s looking at it purely through historical data,’ I thought.
‘He hasn’t quite bridged the connection between Herta and the Aeons yet.’
Ruan Mei crossed her arms, her cool gaze meeting mine.
“From what I have gathered through private channels with the Garden of Recollection, Fuli shattered at some point in the distant future.
Those shattered fragments are what they call the ‘Pure Children of Anasarava.’ In theory, any one of those Pure Children possesses the potential to ascend and become Fuli.”
Stephen Lloyd squirmed in his seat, looking deeply troubled, as if holding back thoughts that might sound entirely insane.
“W-what I’ve read about Terminus…
it doesn’t make any sense at all.
Terminus travels backward through time to alter future outcomes.
That violates every fundamental law of physics in the known universe!”
He looked ready to suffer a nervous breakdown right then and there.
Herta, ever impatient, let out an annoyed huff and tapped her fingers against the table.
“Alright, fine.
That’s the theoretical baseline we already know.
Now answer the real question: how are the Aeons, my becoming Rupert III, and this whole conspiracy connected?”
I offered her a polite, knowing smile.
“Herta, the Aeons, the Slave of Destiny, you, and two other shadowy factions are all pieces of the exact same puzzle.”
Screwllum’s posture straightened instantly.
“A temporal link…
It is connected to time dilation or timeline branch divergence, am I correct?”
Ruan Mei’s brows furrowed as her analytical mind connected the dots.
“This sounds less like a sequence of random events and more like a calculated plot to turn Herta into a Lord Ravager.”
Stephen swallowed hard, his eyes wide.
“T-to make Herta into Rupert III and reignite the Third Mechanical Emperor’s War…
that would create the absolute ideal candidate for a Lord Ravager of Destruction!
But plotting at this scale and level of architectural detail…
Destruction factions don’t operate like this.
Aside from Asat Pramad, no other Lord Ravager has the strategic foresight to pull it off.
And Asat Pramad is tied to Elation he has zero interest in Erudition.
So…”
Herta finished his sentence, her voice dropping into a dangerous, icy register.
“So the culprit must be one of our own.
A member of the Genius Society.
To mold a Lord Ravager specifically designed to tear down Erudition…
someone must harbor a deeply personal hatred for Nous.
But that raises an obvious question: why manipulate someone else into becoming the weapon instead of ascending to that status oneself, or building a new force from scratch?”
She paused, staring off into the distance as the realization hit her.
She let out a long, exhausted sigh and rubbed her temples.
“My becoming Rupert III…
isn’t the primary goal.
It’s a emergency countermeasure.
A desperate by-product to stop an ancient threat from destroying Nous through its mechanical network.”
I clapped my hands softly, beaming at her.
“Bingo.
You got about sixty percent of it right.”
I scanned the four of them, my cheerful expression slowly fading into something far more serious.
“Before we proceed to the next phase of this meeting, I am going to deploy a space-time isolation field.
It will ensure no entity mortal or divine can eavesdrop on or trace the details of what we discuss next.
From the perspective of the outside universe, we will simply appear frozen in time.”
Screwllum’s mechanical eye flared with intense shock.
“A near-perfect time-dilation envelope that renders the outside realm visually static…
or, an even more outrageous explanation: absolute Time Stop.
Madam Kiana, may I inquire why such an extreme security measure is necessary?”
All playfulness drained from my face.
I looked Screwllum dead in the eye.
“Because the information I am about to disclose crosses directly into the restricted Knowledge Domain established by Member #4.
If you’d prefer to test your luck against Polka Kakamond’s scalpel, I can leave the field off.”
Ruan Mei’s expression turned grim.
“Deploy the barrier.
Then we can speak without restraint.”
Herta and Stephen nodded in swift agreement.
With their consensus given, I drew upon the Authority of Finality resting within my soul and invoked the spell.
[Suspended World]
A silent, Purple ripple expanded outward from my chest, sweeping across the dimension.
The ambient flow of space-time snapped shut.
The surrounding reality locked down into a state of absolute stasis impervious to outside observation.
“There,” I said, relaxing back into my chair.
“Now we can speak freely.
So, how would you like to proceed?
Should I lay out the full sequence of events, or would you prefer to ask targeted questions?
Either works for me.”
The four geniuses exchanged a series of silent, rapid glances, silently deciding on their strategy.
While they deliberated, I reached over, poured myself a glass of the aged vintage wine I had summoned from the [Gate of Finality], and took a slow sip.
Mm, incredible flavor.
No wonder that golden arrogant king refused to drink anything else and called modern liquor swill.
After a moment, Herta spoke up for the group.
“We want to deduce the truth ourselves through questioning rather than just being handed a narrative list.
After we ask our questions, we will present our conclusion.
If we get something wrong, you correct us.”
I blinked in genuine surprise.
“Honestly?
I thought you’d take the shortcut and demand all the answers directly.”
Screwllum inclined his head gracefully.
“Madam Kiana, we are scholars of Erudition and members of the Genius Society.
We do not seek unearned handouts when searching for fundamental truths.”
I couldn’t help but grin, thoroughly impressed by their academic pride.
“Very well.
Let the interrogation begin.”
Screwllum leaned forward.
“allow me to ask the first question.
How does the Aeon of Finality truly operate, and what is the intrinsic nature of Finality?”
My grin widened.
“Starting right with the heaviest question, I see.
Terminus whom you know as the Aeon of Finality was born at the absolute end of the cosmic leaf of this universe.
He moves backward through time, casting fragments of himself often manifesting in subtle forms, like shadow cats into different time intervals.
He uses these fragments to alter his future and, by extension, our past and present.
As the ultimate embodiment of Finality, he represents the absolute conclusion of all matter and energy in the universe.”
A heavy, profound silence hung over the table, so dense it felt as though the suspended space-time field itself was straining under the weight of the revelation.
Herta leaned in next, her eyes sharp.
“Who is the one that wants Nous dead?”
I picked up a bottle of wine, gesturing to their glasses.
“Drink first.
You’re going to need it.”
Once they had filled their glasses and taken a sip, I smiled a smile laced with deep cosmic irony.
“His own creator: Zandar One Kuwabara.”
Pfft—!
Herta nearly choked on her wine.
Stephen’s jaw dropped, Screwllum’s optical lenses whirred in sheer disbelief, and even Ruan Mei’s pristine composure collapsed into utter shock.
Ruan Mei was the first to recover her voice, her tone sharp with disbelief.
“Zandar wants to destroy Nous?
That makes no sense.
More importantly how could he possibly still be alive?
Historical consensus confirms Zandar died over nine hundred and eighty Amber Eras ago!”
I leaned back, resting my cheek on my hand.
“How do you think a man like him survives?
Let me remind you: he built Nous.”
Stephen, trembling slightly, raised a hand timidly.
“A-An Intelitron!”
All eyes snapped to the youngest member.
Gaining a sudden burst of confidence, Stephen continued rapidly.
“He transferred his consciousness into an Intelitron body!
There are other methods of immortality like creating a Body of Abundance or becoming a Memetic entity but given Zandar’s immense ego, he would never stoop to using another Aeon’s Path to survive.
The only option his pride would allow is a synthetic Intelitron construct!”
I gave Stephen an approving nod.
“Correct.
He became an Intelitron but he didn’t transfer his full consciousness in its entirety.
To ensure no single part of his mind could ever ascend and become a second Nous, he fractured his soul into nine distinct copies.”
Herta’s eyes narrowed into slits.
“What is the direct correlation between Nous’s original ascension and Zandar’s fractured consciousness?”
Screwllum answered before I could, pulling data rapidly from his internal archives.
“If my historical records are accurate…
Nous’s original logic core was modeled directly after a copy of Zandar’s own brain, minus human emotion, creating a perfectly logic-driven machine.”
Ruan Mei’s eyes widened as the horrifying truth fell into place.
“To prevent a second Nous from ever being born, he divided his mind into nine distinct fragments, each representing a different aspect of his genius.
And with a ego as monstrously arrogant as his, each of those nine fragments would naturally devise its own unique method to destroy Nous.
Now I understand why the Member #64 Dr.
Primitive call him the greatest failure among geniuses…
He seeks to destroy his own divinity.
What a tragic joke.”
Herta’s face darkened with frustration as she massaged her temples.
“So…
that’s the sequence.
To prevent one of those nine fragments from successfully erasing Nous, I am forced to merge with a Lord Ravager candidate, assume the mantle of Rupert III, and ignite the Third Mechanical Emperor’s War as a drastic defense mechanism.”
She glared at me, her voice urgent.
“Do you know where this specific Zandar fragment is currently hiding?”
I leaned forward, resting my chin in my hands, a faint smile playing on my lips.
“The place is called Amphoreus hidden deep within the last working Emperor’s Scepter, δ-me13.
It is kept entirely concealed from the cosmos by Lycurgus…
one of Zandar’s nine fragments.”
A heavy, profound silence hung over the table, so dense it felt as though the suspended space-time field itself was straining under the weight of the revelation.
Herta, Ruan Mei, Screwllum, and Stephen stared at me, their minds racing to process the cosmic secrets I had casually unspooled before them.
In their eyes, I was no longer just a new member I was a walking, talking goldmine of the universe’s most dangerous truths.
For four of the greatest intellects in the cosmos, digesting information was usually a matter of microsecond computations.
But this wasn’t just data it was a paradigm shift that rethreaded the history, present, and future of Erudition itself.
Stephen sat slouched in his chair, staring blankly at his hands as his mind spun through the mathematical impossibilities of temporal paradoxes and the sheer madness of Zandar’s legacy.
He looked thoroughly overwhelmed, like a student who had walked into a basic arithmetic class only to be handed a proof for the collapse of the universe.
Ruan Mei remained remarkably still, her fingers lightly tracing the rim of her wine glass.
Her analytical eyes, usually so cold and detached, flickered with intense, quiet calculation.
She was dissecting the biological and synthetic implications how a genius could fragment his own soul into nine distinct, self-loathing entities, and what it meant for the nature of creation itself.
Screwllum’s central optical core whirred continuously, the subtle clicking of his internal processing gears the only sound breaking the silence.
He was likely running millions of simulations based on the coordinates of Amphoreus and the schematics of the Emperor’s Scepter δ-me13, re-evaluating every historical record of the Mechanical Emperor’s Wars in light of Zandar’s lingering shadow.
And then there was Herta.
She leaned back, her arms crossed tight, glaring at the center of the table.
Her expression was a volatile mix of deep irritation, wounded pride, and electric curiosity.
The idea that her future self might be backed into a corner where becoming Rupert III was the only logical defense was an insult to her ego but the sheer scale of the puzzle was something she couldn’t resist.
I casually took another slow sip of my wine, swirling the deep crimson liquid in the glass, letting them have their time.
In a realm where time was literally frozen, we had all the time in the world.
Finally, Herta let out a long, sharp exhale, breaking the stillness.
“Zandar…
that ancient, arrogant lunatic,” she muttered, her eyes snapping back to me with a sharp, dangerous intensity.
“So he left a mess behind, hidden in a place no one can reach, and expects the universe to just deal with his mid-life crisis nine times over.”
She leaned forward, slamming her palms onto the table.
“Alright, Kiana.
You’ve given us the problem, the context, and the hidden variable.
Now what’s your angle in all of this?
Because nobody drops the secrets of the cosmos over dinner just to be nice.”