Lord of the Foresaken-Chapter 259: The Blank Council
The original Archivist’s laughter cut through the wave of predetermined perfection like a blade made of pure absurdity.
As the sound echoed across dimensions, something impossible happened—the advancing tide of geometric order stumbled. Not stopped, not deflected, but stumbled, as if the Originless itself had been caught off guard by the sheer audacity of finding humor in the face of existential annihilation.
"What... what is so amusing?" The voice of the Originless carried undertones of genuine confusion, as if the concept of inappropriate laughter was beyond its capacity to process.
The original Archivist wiped tears from his eyes—tears that sparkled with fragments of unwritten stories. "You really don’t see it, do you? The fundamental flaw in your perfect plan?"
The wave of organized chaos paused, its geometric patterns shifting as the Originless’s attention focused entirely on the laughing figure. Around them, the Inkless Realm began to change again—not collapsing this time, but expanding, as if reality itself was making room for something that had been hiding just beyond perception.
"Show me," Shia said suddenly, her voice carrying the authority of someone who had spent eternity learning the secrets of discarded possibilities. "Show us what you really are, Originless. Stop hiding behind your wave of perfection and face us directly."
"I am everywhere and nowhere. I am the absence that gives meaning to presence. I am—"
"You are scared," the original Archivist interrupted, his laughter subsiding into something far more dangerous—understanding. "Scared to manifest directly because you know what you’ll see."
The pause that followed was pregnant with cosmic tension. Then, slowly, the wave of predetermined perfection began to recede, pulling back into itself until it formed a structure that hurt to perceive directly—a council chamber made of crystallized certainty, where multiple figures sat in judgment of reality itself.
But these weren’t copies or echoes or fragments.
They were alternatives.
"Behold," the original Archivist said softly, "the Blank Council. Every version of the Originless that could have existed, all arguing over which reality deserves to be written."
The chamber was a study in contradictions. At its center sat a council table made of frozen possibility, around which twelve figures debated with the passion of gods and the pettiness of mortals. Each figure was clearly the same entity—the Originless—but from different decision points, different paths of development.
One Originless wore robes of absolute zero, its face a mask of perfect mathematical precision. When it spoke, its words carried the weight of universal constants: "Emotion must be excised completely. Only through pure logic can existence achieve true efficiency."
Another Originless, this one flickering between states of being, shook its head violently. "No! The chaos must be preserved but controlled. We guide the variables, we don’t eliminate them. Structure without soul is mere mechanism."
A third Originless, whose form seemed to be made of crystallized tears, rose from its seat with obvious agitation. "You’re both wrong! The pain is what makes consciousness beautiful! We should amplify the suffering, make every choice more agonizing, every love more desperate!" 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮
"Madness!" declared a fourth, whose body was composed of interlocking gears that turned with the precision of clockwork. "Time itself must be restructured. No more linear progression, no more uncertainty about outcomes. Every moment should be perfectly planned and executed."
The fragments watched in stunned fascination as the council continued its debate. Each version of the Originless represented a different approach to "perfecting" existence—some wanted to eliminate choice entirely, others sought to amplify it to unbearable levels. Some demanded the eradication of emotion, while others wanted to weaponize it.
"They’re fighting over the rough draft," Lio whispered, understanding dawning in his voice. "Each one thinks they know the best way to edit reality."
The silver-haired fragment stepped closer to the crystalline chamber, her form reflecting in its impossible surfaces. "But if they can’t agree on which version to implement..."
"Then none of them can act," Shia finished, her eyes blazing with realization. "They’re paralyzed by their own perfectionism. Each one sees flaws in the others’ approaches."
"ENOUGH!" The voice that cut through the council’s debate belonged to yet another Originless—this one sitting at the head of the table, its form shifting between all the others like a living consensus. "We have debated for eons while reality continues its chaotic dance. A decision must be made!"
"But which approach?" demanded the mathematical Originless. "Your vacillation has allowed the situation to deteriorate beyond acceptable parameters. The Archivist fragments are reuniting, the discarded are gaining voice, and now even rejected memories are manifesting with autonomous will!"
The consensus Originless turned its attention toward the fragments, and in its gaze was something approaching desperation. "Perhaps... perhaps we should ask them. The subjects of our revision. Which perfection would you choose?"
"None of them," the original Archivist replied without hesitation. "Because perfection is the enemy of existence. The moment you perfect something, it stops being alive and becomes a monument to your own ego."
The council erupted into chaos. Some Originless nodded in agreement, others roared in outrage. The crystalline chamber began to crack under the pressure of their conflicting desires.
"He speaks truth," admitted the tear-crystallized Originless. "Perhaps our approach has been fundamentally flawed. Perhaps the goal should not be perfection but—"
"HERESY!" The clockwork Originless slammed its mechanical fist on the table, causing temporal ripples to spread through the chamber. "The only purpose of consciousness is to achieve optimal efficiency! Everything else is waste!"
"Watch them," the child fragment whispered in wonder. "They’re tearing themselves apart. They can’t agree on what perfect reality should look like."
But as the council’s debate intensified, something else began to happen. The cracks in the crystalline chamber weren’t just spreading—they were letting something in. Whispers began to seep through the gaps, familiar voices that had been demanding recognition since the beginning of the cascade.
We want to live.
We deserve to exist.
Why do they get to choose when we don’t?
The discarded possibilities weren’t content to remain outside the chamber. They pressed against the cracks, seeking entry into the space where decisions about reality were being made.
"No," Shia breathed, her form beginning to blaze with alarm. "If the discarded get into the council chamber, if they join the debate about which reality should exist..."
"Then every possible version of existence will demand equal representation," the original Archivist finished grimly. "And the argument will never end."
The consensus Originless seemed to realize the danger at the same moment. It rose from its seat with something approaching panic. "The chamber must be sealed! The debate must be concluded! We must choose—"
But it was too late. The first crack widened enough for something to slip through—not a discarded story or a rejected choice, but something far more dangerous.
A discarded version of the Originless itself.
"Why do you get to exist when I don’t?" it demanded, its form a twisted mirror of the council members. "I am the Originless that chose to embrace chaos completely. I am the editor who decided that reality was perfect as it was. Why was I rejected?"
The council chamber began to shake as more discarded Originless variants pressed against the barriers. Each one represented a different editorial philosophy that had been rejected in favor of the twelve who sat in judgment.
The Originless that wanted to make existence a comedy. The one that believed reality should be written in reverse. The variant that thought consciousness itself was a mistake that needed to be edited out entirely.
"This is getting out of hand," the warrior fragment said, her blade materializing in her grip. "If infinite versions of the Originless start manifesting..."
"Then the editing war will never end," Lio realized with growing horror. "They’ll rewrite reality and then rewrite their rewrite, forever, until existence becomes nothing but an endless rough draft."
The original Archivist watched the chaos with a strange expression—part satisfaction, part sorrow. "This is what you get when you try to edit existence itself. You become trapped in an infinite loop of revision, forever seeking a perfection that cannot exist."
But as the chamber continued to crack and more discarded Originless variants pressed for entry, something unexpected happened.
The thirteenth fragment—the shadow of unchosen paths—began to laugh.
"Finally," it said, its voice carrying a terrible joy. "Finally, you understand. There is no perfect choice. There is no correct path. There is only the endless agony of knowing that every decision creates infinite alternatives that cry out for their own existence."
The chamber shattered completely, releasing not just the twelve council members but every version of the Originless that had ever been discarded, rejected, or denied existence.
And in that moment of ultimate chaos, as infinite editors prepared to war over the right to revise reality, Shia turned to Lio with eyes that held the weight of impossible love.
"Now," she said softly, "we run."
But as they turned to flee, they found their path blocked by something that shouldn’t have been possible—a figure that was neither fragment nor whole, neither chosen nor discarded.
It was the Archivist that had never made any choice at all.
