Inside a Luminarch Cache of the Cosmos.
A construct designed to let one live an entire lifetime within a parallel cosmos contained entirely within the Luminarch Cache of the Cosmos itself.
While inside, one could experience years, centuries, or millennia. And yet in Reality? Only hours, days, or weeks would pass.
And during that false lifetime, an individual could attain terrifying levels of power. Unless they died or exceeded the limits of the Luminarch Cache, their time inside would continue.
Once it ended, they would return to their true existence, all the while retaining ten percent of the tremendous power they had gained.
A simple enough treasure for something only found in the higher levels of the Infinite Cosmic Tower, where Cosmic Entities and Cosmic Filament Beings roamed freely.
At this moment, Alexander was within one such Cache, living the life of a Cerulean Golem Druid.
On a peaceful island floating amid a deep cerulean sea, the land around him shimmered with glowing blue rocks and plant life. The sea itself stretched like an endless sky of azure.
In this quiet realm, there was no Claire. No one from his real life. He felt a flicker of loneliness only ever so briefly.
But with his Enneagram, he understood this world was temporary. The memories of countless lifetimes- those absorbed from the beings he had killed, flowed into his mind and they turned his thoughts cold and precise.
He focused on the Enneagram and began drawing on Covenants of Nature and Taos, rapidly transforming his existence in this parallel cosmos.
Seconds became minutes. Minutes became hours.
By the end of a single day, his body remained seated, unmoving. Yet on his chest, a Supermassive Empyreal Galaxy was already forming, pulsing with light.
A light of power and heavy brilliance!
The island’s creatures instinctively avoided the area as they felt that something immense was building there.
A week passed.
Alexander had stayed so motionless, his Golem Druid form became overgrown- coated with vines and local vegetation.
Yet now, within his Origin, billions of Supermassive Empyreal Galaxies had been formed. And then, soon after, a Supermassive Empyreal Universe emerged.
All of this, and he didn’t even have access to the Tea of the Omniversal Oak of Existence, which normally accelerated his progression!
He was simply drawing from the energy of nature, the local authorities, and his environment.
Because of that, life around the island began to surge. Fish, birds, and plant life evolved rapidly, their bodies soaking up waves of concentrated power.
Some areas were saturated with Covenants of Nature, others with the raw Authority of Lesser and Grand Taos.
In just a week, his simulated body had reached the same level of power as his real body in the outside world.
One week.
After that, he shifted focus, seeking to understand and assimilate the Primordial Cosmic Tao and linking his Covenants of Nature to other Taos birthed from Nature.
He nurtured his forming universe, preparing to saturate it with galaxies- enough to trigger the eruption of his second universe, and many more to follow.
This was his plan.
And he followed it flawlessly- leveraging every aspect of the Enneagram, especially its Clones and the Temporal Enneagram Space to further accelerate his growth.
Days passed. Then weeks.
Alexander entered a meditative state he had only seen in the strongest beings he’d fought. A state where time meant nothing.
For such beings, a year could pass, and to them, it felt like a day.
His consciousness settled into this rhythm. Months began to slip by as he sat, unmoving.
Simply understanding and assimilating!
Six months later.
HUUM!
The skies above the blue island split apart!
White-gold rivers of radiance cascaded down as they were announcing the complete understanding of the Primordial Cosmic Tao.
And right after began the assimilation!
At this point, his Origin contained thousands of Universes. The influx of authority from this Tao sent waves across his being, and the birth of new universes began to accelerate exponentially.
By the end of the next month, he went from thousands to hundreds of thousands of Supermassive Empyreal Universes.
This was truly exponential!
His understanding of Taos increased as assimilation became faster. The process had taken six months to begin- but now, in just three more months, he was nearing complete assimilation of this terrifying Tao.
Everything on the island had evolved.
Even the once-ordinary blue-gold fish swimming the shallow waters now held galaxies within their Origins.
That was the influence of Alexander’s presence- his sheer gravitational pull of power and authority.
And now, he was on the cusp of completely assimilating the Primordial Cosmic Tao.
But then…
CRACK!
Alexander opened his eyes.
Far above, in the skies of this false cosmos, space itself was beginning to fracture like a mirror cracking under pressure.
The Luminarch Cache of the Cosmos was reaching its limit.
He’d drained the very structure of this artificial realm as his accomplishment of the full assimilation of a Cosmic Tao was too much!
He was about to surge forward again, but the Cache couldn’t hold it.
HUUUM!
Even as everything shattered, his eyes stayed cold. He continued assimilating.
His universes multiplied second by second.
And then, at the exact moment he completed the Primordial Cosmic Tao assimilation…
BOOM!
The world around him exploded and shattered into pieces.
A wave of authority surged through the void and swept Alexander away.
—
Elsewhere.
Inside a certain Grand Library. An Archive overseen by Arthur, the White Ascender.
The old man sat quietly.
Only a day had passed since Alexander had entered the Luminarch Cache. Everything seemed normal as he expected to wait several more days or even weeks.
And then…-!
HUUM!
Space above the Grand Library cracked wide open.
Rivers of white-gold authority poured down from the sky as at the same time, the lifeless figure of Alexander that was still and drained of existence sat up and opened his eyes.
He rose slowly, his body glowing with terrifying weavings of power!
From his chest, the single Supermassive Empyreal Universe he had previously formed buzzed.
And then, in the blink of an eye…thousands of Universes bloomed.
The Tea of the Omniversal Oak of Existence he had been given? It began to burn away at an alarming rate as after a single day, one Luminarch Cache of the Cosmos was shattered!