The paradox hound, sensing the power of my creed, concluded that it would not be able to defeat me with the limited power it held over its authority—and so, it withdrew.
It began rewriting the laws of the universe to create as much distance from me as possible. The farther it went, the more power it could exert over the universe, the more laws it could manipulate to extend the gap between us. Once it gained enough distance, it would traverse into another universe, reshaping the laws between the two universes in the process.
Then, I would have no chance of ever catching it. And if that were to happen, it would return stronger than before—more dominant, more prepared, knowing what to expect. It would adapt.
And so, I pursued it. But then—something strange happened.
The void, which I had always used to propel myself forward by pulling and discharging in the opposite direction of my ascent, resisted. It began resisting—just slightly—but that was all the hound needed to make its escape successful.
I did not know—was this part of the hound's power? The ability to make even the void itself resist me? Had it discovered how I moved through the void? I did not know.
Or perhaps... I did.
The hound had the ability to adapt, much like the System itself—how it analyzed my anomaly, sent different beings with varying authority levels to test me, and then acted upon the results. Perhaps, just like the System, the hound had deciphered the nature of my movement through the void.
I did not know.
But then—something happened.
Something that made me certain the hound had figured it out, that it was the one responsible for making the void resist me—to slow me down, to hinder my pursuit.
Just before it was about to leave the range of my creed—just before it could teleport between universes—it looked back. A final glance. A reassessment, as if ensuring that when it returned, it would come back stronger.
Then, it phased in and out of a black hole ahead of it, bypassing it entirely—as if it didn't exist.
And just as it was about to vanish beyond my reach—it happened.
The singularity it had just ignored began pulling on it. It latched onto the very essence of the hound—a being of concept and authority—and refused to let go.
The hound, baffled by this phenomenon, hesitated. It hadn't foreseen this. It hadn't sensed any danger from the black hole before. The anomaly that had already been irregular enough—was this yet another one? Another distortion beyond even the System's grasp?
One anomaly had been enough to threaten beings of conceptual authority, but this? This was catastrophic.
But the hound didn't have time to ponder. Every passing moment counted. Bit by bit, it was being drawn into this new anomaly, and speculation would bring no benefit to its escape.
It attempted to sever the part of its authority already submerged within the black hole—to detach itself before it was too late. But it had waited a fraction too long. The singularity had already consumed half of its power, and to separate now would only accelerate its inevitable downfall.
Now, deprived of half its strength, it no longer had the power to shift universes. Adding to that, it was now within the range of my Creed—the very power it had once driven to the brink of destruction.
It had nowhere to run.
All paths were cut off, severed by the very anomaly it had once sought to annihilate.
And so, the hound gave up.
It abandoned the idea of escape.
Little by little, the rest of it was absorbed.
I was already moving toward the singularity that had consumed the hound. I commanded my creed to reinforce the singularity, to prevent it from breaking apart under the strain of the hound's power. A normal black hole would have crumbled in an instant upon contact with a being of such authority—an entity capable of rewriting the laws of reality.
But this black hole... was different.
The difference was—I had shared a portion of my creed with it.
The power I had obtained from devouring black holes all this time—another way to utilize my creed.
I called it Creed Sharing.
Had the black hole collapsed before fully absorbing the hound, I would have lost that part of my creed's power forever. Recovering it would mean spending more time assimilating more singularities—to gain the lost insight again.
It had been a gamble.
A gamble I won.
Yet, I still did not fully grasp the potential of this new application of my creed. Could I share it with something other than black holes? Perhaps stars? Celestial bodies?
I did not know.
Nor did I care to find out—not now.
Even this single instance of Creed Sharing was already a heavy burden on my creed. I had no desire to push it any further.
With the resistance from the void now gone, I moved faster. I reached the singularity that had absorbed the hound. Cracks had already begun forming along its surface, spreading through its core—the strain of holding both my creed and resisting the hound's fragments was becoming too much.
I applied all of my creed's force to delay the inevitable collapse.
But it was not enough.
And so, I expanded my event horizon, drawing the cracking singularity into myself. It assimilated seamlessly.
With it, I gained insight—a sliver of my Creed's knowledge—along with the burst of energy and mass contained within it.
Then came the fragments of the hound.
All of them.
And so, I took them in—placing them within my secondary core.
But the moment it entered my core, I felt something… strange.
Not fear.
Not disbelief, like I had when I first absorbed the Reaper.
No.
It was something else. Something entirely different.
It was—joy.
Joy unlike any I had felt before, even when wielding my creed.
No. This was different.
I felt joy because... it felt as if I had completed something.
A piece of the secondary core—a part of something greater.
And what I gained from it was not merely power.
Nor was it just joy.
It was—Insight.
Insight, much like what I gained from assimilating black holes.
But this was different.
It was not insight into the Singularity Creed—the power I primarily wielded.
It was insight into something else.
Another creed.
Something I now had the authority to use.
It was—The World Creed.
This creed was entirely different. Opposed to my own.
And now—I finally understood the level at which the hound had been playing.
This creed did not merely rewrite laws. That was merely the extent of what the hound could do with it.
No—this creed was the very foundation of the Multiverse itself.
It was what fueled the universe, what ensured its structure, its symmetry—what kept it from falling apart.
If I had to summarize it in a single sentence—
The World Creed itself was the Universe.
Realizing this filled me with an inexplicable joy.
But it was short-lived.
The Universe was not so kind as to let me wield this power freely.
Even though I had taken this power from the System—it was still not mine.
Like the Nova Reaper. Like the Paradox Hound.
The extent to which I could wield this creed depended on what the System allowed.
I only had enough fuel to use The World Creed for a limited amount of time. And once that fuel ran out, I would no longer be able to wield it at a level high enough to even make it perceptible.
To make matters worse, I had no way of replenishing it—not like the System, which could distribute its authority among countless beings. I was merely borrowing this power, a fleeting glimpse into something far greater.
And among all these problems, the biggest was not just replenishing The World Creed.
It was what would come after using it.
P.S. Author's Note: This one drained me. Took me a whole week to write—hope you enjoy it!