Eos knew the moment he reached the tenth-dimensional level that he was now immortal in a way that the Primordials and the Luminious could never understand.

At the moment, he could no longer be killed, even if he wanted to, and that was both a blessing and a curse. He did not say anything after that revelation from the Painter, as he continued to listen to it.

This was information that he needed for his clash with the Painter, and as a tenth-dimensional being whose core was the Will of Truth, it was impossible for anyone to lie to him, not even the Painter.

"Our purposes are load-bearing in the geometry of the dimension itself," the Painter said, its voice was low, and emerged from its form like a whisper, "If you were to be deleted, the new Existence you have made would lose its center... its Telos."

Eos was not surprised that the Painter knew of Telos; the nature of the tenth dimension meant that Eos had always had Telos when he reached this level, and so the Painter was able to know the power that he had claimed.

However, the power of the Painter was shaded, and Eos could not see it. That was the reason he kept calling the Painter an it, because it was impossible for him to even know if it was male or female, or had long exceeded such feeble mortal concept. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"Theoretically, if I deleted you, then your Origin Tree would wander for a long time before it found another place in the Grand Void to root itself, and you would be reborn again, and I would be forced to do it over again. This is tedious, or I allow this Existence to drift into the usual slow decay using other... methods. On the other hand, if you use that sword of yours to delete me, then I would be back a thousand times quicker than you would think, but I will always return."

Eos grimaced, "So neither of us dies."

"Neither of us dies. The game, therefore, is not for death." The Painter adjusted a piece on the board absently with one shrouded finger. Somewhere in the Grand Void outside the Tower, a small speck of drifting dust shifted. "The game is for suppression."

"Suppression."

"Walling in. Reduction of reach. You have spread, you see, your Origin Tree has extended into space that was mine, very comprehensively, very offensively, and I cannot dislodge you by force. I have established this to my satisfaction across forty-three previous games. Force, above a certain dimension, does not unmake purpose. What I can do is shrink and contain you. Reduce the territory of your Telos until you are a preserved kernel in a locked room. Alive, yes, intact, yes, but mute. The dimension continues. I continue. You continue. You simply do not reach anymore."

Eos recalled touching the eternal tower and hearing the voices of the damned, telling him to go back and run. Of course, he could run, but that was like drinking poison to cure thirst. The Painter still remained, and nothing that he built would be safe, and even though he would be able to run and resist the influence of the Painter, his children would not be able to, and except he destroyed his Origin Tree, then he would have to face the corruption of the Painter forever.

He was never going to run, and he had entered this tower with the full knowledge that he would rather die than run, and killing the Painter was what he was here to do.

Discovering that they could no longer die did not stop what he was here to do.

Eos pushed himself forward, and he said,

"And I can do the same to you... Mute you until you are a preserved kernel in a small room?"

There was a long pause, and Eos’ eyes remained on the shrouded form of the Painter until it spoke.

"In theory," the Painter said, and Eos noted these words. "The rules are, in that sense, symmetric. Yes. You could suppress me. Wall me into this Tower. Reduce me to a small preserved thing watching from a window. If your play were sufficiently good."

"Has it been done?"

"Never."

Eos looked at the board, understanding what the Painter were truly saying. It had faced everyone else, and they had all lost.

"Forty-three times."

"Forty-three times," the Painter agreed pleasantly.

"And of the forty-three..."

"All suppressed," the Painter said. "Each to their own small room. Each preserved. Each mute. The tenth dimension does not permit their deletion any more than it permits mine, so they remain. They are still here, in fact, in their rooms. I visit them sometimes. Conversation at our level is difficult to come by; one makes use of what one can."

Eos kept his face even.

"Where?"

"Oh, not here," the Painter said. "Not in this Tower. Elsewhere. Other rooms. I will not tell you where. It would be poor form."

Forty-three suppressed tenth-dimensional entities, alive, walled, each the Telos of an Existence that had been unmade around them. The thought was not one Eos had been ready for, and he set it aside carefully, in the underneath of his awareness, to be taken up again when he could afford it.

"And how do we play?" he said.

"Ah," the Painter said, and now there was an edge of delight in its voice, like the edge of a craftsman coming to the part of the job it enjoyed best. "Now. This is the good part. Attend."

It moved a finger, a small gesture in the air above the board, and on the board, in the Grand Void, in the substrate between the Tree and the Tower, a seam opened.

It was not a wound in reality; it was subtler and worse. A seam in the compressed strata of End, running from the outskirts of the Grand Void toward the base of the Origin Tree.

From the seam, a frequency began to leak that was a low, constant, almost-heard sound that had been absent since Eos crushed the core of End inside Enoch, and was now, at the Painter’s casual gesture, being resumed.

It was as if all the efforts and sacrifices that Eos had made to kill Enoch had been unraveled as the Painter just created another evil as foul as Enoch with a simple gesture.

On the Origin Tree, the newest worlds shivered as they felt the birth of an evil that could bring nothing but suffering and death to them.