Ah… ah… my stage. My stage is nearly complete. I can feel it in my bones, in my very being. My chest burns with a warmth, a tremor that ripples up from the very bedrock of reality. They have awakened. From their long slumber within cold, hollow cocoons, the Yellow Men have finally stirred from their darkness. My performance, my work, my magnum opus—will it finally be acknowledged? Ah, hahaha, no… no words can fully capture this sensation. Even if I were to try, it would be a fusion of relief, ecstasy, zeal, and the purest, most exquisite erotic thrill… and even that would not be enough, not in the slightest. It is a champagne effervescence bubbling through my very veins.
I feel their cold gazes upon me once more, upon my work. And it is no longer that vacant, dull stare. It is different now. I believe the emptiness behind those masks has now been filled… filled with curiosity, with a newfound hunger. I do not know for certain, but I must press on, no matter the cost. Ah, ahahaha, I knew this was a mad gambit from the very beginning, and to think I would go this far, Oldred… but I believe you will truly change everything this time…
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In the perpetual silence of her domain, Madela sat. Her nonexistent eyes were fixed upon her own hand. A thin, black fissure, like a crack in ancient porcelain, appeared on its back. She watched it spread slowly, accompanied by a nearly inaudible grinding sound, before a similar crack manifested on her pale neck. It was not painful. It was a new sensation. A consequence.
Madela: "....."
She rose, exiting the Room of History "9,772,099," and closed the door with a final "CLICK." Before her, the solid wooden floor opened, forming a staircase that descended into absolute darkness. Madela began to walk down. With every step she took, a new stair formed beneath her, continuing her endless journey to the foundation of the world.
She removed a candle from the plate on her head, melted its base, and affixed it to the stair railing, creating a single point of light in the nothingness. A new candle instantly grew back in its place. She repeated this action every few steps, leaving a trail of light in her wake.
Madela: "Every end is a new beginning. So it is with the principles of Genesis and Death… of my Mother and my sisters..."
She spoke to the darkness, to herself.
Madela: "Every decay and rebirth of a principle in each new branch of reality is merely a repetition. Heh… boring, you say? Perhaps… perhaps I am bored. Perhaps I have grown weary of watching my Mother and my sisters die and be reborn a million times over while I just sit here, writing from beginning to end, again, and again, and again…"
Madela: "To free me from my status as Warden… that would mean shattering my own principle. To do that, I would have to destroy Destiny itself… and finally, I noticed you, Oldred. Perhaps I could kill myself by violating my own law." She glanced at her hand, which now bore several more fissures.
Madela: "But it would be pointless. The possibilities are endless, and I would simply be reborn in one of them. I am born from the history of every world, and I would never try to intervene in fate because I would know I could never succeed. But Oldred… he is different. A figure who possessed no possibilities at all. He is a hole in the system. A singularity. Heh, I have severed the finality and fate of a mortal who had no chains to be freed from, and now I believe he can break Destiny."
At last, she reached the very bottom floor—at least for now. With a slender finger, she used the ink dripping from her nail to write a number on a door that had just formed from the void: "9,772,100".
Madela entered the room, walking into the profound darkness.
Madela: "How foolish of me. But at least it will be worth it. Bringing someone from an old world and sending them to a new one not only releases them from Finality, but it also ensures the concept of the old world's History will never truly die. And Oldred has also bound himself to me until we are nearly one. He is not just free from the chains of fate, but the fate of this new world is now bound to him. And so… the fate of this new world will be profoundly unstable. Unpredictable, even to me. A broken destiny… for Oldred to shatter for all time."
She stood in the center of the darkness, looking at the only thing in the room. An entity in the form of a small girl, with a severed head and a strange flower growing from her neck. Yue… no, not *her* Mother. This was the Yue of a new branch of reality. She was still growing, her form half-finished, fragile and translucent like a young sapling.
Madela: "Destiny is a prison, and I am the head warden here… as well as its eternal inmate. Oldred, you are the fissure in the fortress I am trying to tear down from the inside. Your presence has given me the first and only chance to break that rule… forever."