Eva could see the hands of Eos when she looked at any populated world, in the faint, constant haze of small unannounced gladnesses moving through the populace like motes in a sunbeam.

She did not speak of it to anyone. She had been close enough to Eos for long enough to recognize when a thing was meant to be unspoken.

Telmus, who reached the fifth layer of his Origin some three trillion years into the first age, long after most observers had given up expecting it, because Telmus had not seemed in any hurry, came to understand this joy from the other side.

His Origin was Victorious Ascension, and the fifth layer of this Origin, when it finally bloomed in him, gave him the sight of what holds people up when they should not be held up.

He saw, in every world of the new Tree, the small invisible buttresses that Eos was placing under the lives of beings who would otherwise have collapsed under their grief. He never told anyone what he saw, either. He simply added himself, quietly, to the buttressing, taking on a slow share of the work of holding ordinary people up, so that Eos could spend more of his own attention on the next move.

This was the task that the Primordials took unto themselves, and they did not need to follow any instructions because they could feel the hold of Telos inside them.

The worlds blooming on the Origin Tree were endless, and so the Primordials were faced with an eternity of endless wonder. Such a gift could only be repaid by taking care of the creations of the creator.

The first age was one of rapid enlightenment as millions of Primordials were being born every few billion years, and no matter which world they were born into, they all tried to find the ten thousand Origin Realm, the birthplace of Eos, and the seat of Origin, where his bloodline Avatars could be found.

There were even rumors that in the Origin Land, it was possible to find one of the creator’s Incarnations, his last Incarnation and the only connection with the realm of the lower dimension.

That was right, at this time, the revelation that there was a tenth dimension became known to all Primordials, but at this time, it was deemed impossible for anyone to reach.

Primordials could get stronger by reaching higher layers of their Origin, but from the birth of the Origin Tree to the end of the first age, no Primordial had exceeded the fifth layer of their Origin.

There was a theory that if a Primordial could reach the tenth layer of their Origin, then they could be a Proto-tenth-dimensional entity, but that theory was something that had to be substantiated many Cosmic Eras into the future because at this time, it was unknown if that could ever happen.

It was an age where there were countless changes and countless wonders. Various systems of power bloomed like stars in the sky, with some power systems so alien that they could not be seen as the path of dimensions any longer, but they all followed the pathway of Eos, and one way or another, they were looking for Telos... searching for their purpose.

In these vast and endless worlds, Vraegar did something none of the others did, which was that he carried the small white-haired child, the last Incarnation, Rowan, to a place he had built quietly for him in the depths of the first Origin Realm.

He did not tell Eos he had built it. He had known, from the moment he had carried the child out of End, that the child was wrong in a way he could not yet name, and that telling Eos was not the right move yet.

So he had instead built, with his own claws and his own slow, patient time, a small chamber in the deepest stratum of the oldest Origin Realm, a chamber sealed from external observation, lined in materials that would not transmit signal, anchored to a fragment of the substrate that even tenth-dimensional sight could only see if it was already looking.

It was a shame that he did not understand the full reach of a tenth-dimensional power, and if Vraegar had not been unconsciously protected by Eos, who made sure his sight did not touch the dragon, hence protecting Vraegar from the eyes of the Painter, then he would never have succeeded in building this place.

However, it was the effort that counted the most, and his creation had been able to hide from the eyes of the tenth-dimensional hegemons.

He had placed Rowan there and told him that this was a place for him to recover. Rowan had agreed pleasantly that he needed to recover, and without any hesitation, Vraegar had shut the chamber and then, once a long while, had visited.

Rowan always seemed to be pleased to see him and always thanked him for visiting. There was something missing in this greeting, but the dragon was used to beings whose minds were so complex that it defied common sense and always made sure he was watching.

Vraegar never told the others what he was doing, and across the first age, Vraegar was the only child of Eos who did not visibly age in his Telos; he was the only one who failed to grow further, and his power did not deepen across the billions of Cosmic Eras that passed.

The other Primordials assumed he was finally resting, after his long captivity at the window of End. They were wrong. He was holding a piece of the board that no one else knew was on the board, and holding it cost him.

However, Vraegar was used to sacrifice. Did he not promise his father that he would stand where others had fallen?

®

Most of the strongest Luminious had been absorbed into Enoch’s body before his fall.

However, the Eternal Tower was the home to the remnants of the Luminious, but unlike the previous Existence, where they could easily access it any way they liked, that privilege had been revoked by Eos, and the Luminious could only watch the new Existence with envy, knowing they could not touch it.

Their only source of sustenance was Lumina because it did not decay the way Origin and End decayed.

The Painter, in the first age of the long move, finally turned his focus to these old servants, and he began remaking them.