Chapter 106
The God Who Cried
The Eldest stood still.
Not in retreat.
Not in defeat.
But in remembrance.
His hand, once poised to strike, trembled—not with rage, but with something far older, far deeper.
Regret.
The child did not attack. He simply stood—his aura a field of time-spun wonder, clothed in the tears of stars and the breath of mortals. His heartbeat pulsed across dimensions, soft and certain, echoing the Valley's rhythm.
"Why?" the Eldest finally asked.
Not as a god.
But as someone lost.
"Why choose them? Flesh-bound, fleeting, faulted—why fight for those doomed to end?"
The child's voice was soft. Clear. Like the ringing of truth in a silent room.
"Because they loved me first."
And with those words, the Eldest faltered.
He saw it then—Lauren's sacrifice. The way she anchored Errin's soul when it first wandered into the Valley, tethering possibility to memory. He saw Ka'il'a, who had once been wrath incarnate, choosing to step aside so another could mother a god. He saw Echo, who bore divinity not in power, but in pain, in perseverance, in prayer.
And he saw Errin—flawed, defiant, ever-changing, always becoming.
The Eldest looked within himself and found only silence. No anchor. No echo. No one to hold his memory when time wore thin.
"I..." His voice cracked.
The Valley shimmered, not in threat but in embrace.
Errin stepped forward—not as challenger, not even as father now—but as son.
"I have walked the edges of your silence," he said. "I have lived the questions you tried to bury. You wanted perfection, but all you made were walls. We found meaning in the cracks."
The Eldest dropped to one knee.
He wept—not with sound, but with presence. The heavens dimmed, not from sorrow, but from release. All across the far reaches of the cosmos, the old laws began to unwrite themselves—not in chaos, but in transformation.
A new thread emerged in the Tapestry of All.
Not dictated.
Chosen.
The divine child stepped forward and placed his hand upon the Eldest's head.
"You don't need to vanish," he whispered. "Just… rest."
And so the Eldest faded.
Not as death.
But as peace.
The Valley exhaled.
The stars sang.
And the child turned to his family—those who bore him, those who fought for him, those who believed in him.
"We begin anew," he said.
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Shall we move to Chapter 107 – The Tapestry Rewoven? Or would you like to linger here a moment longer in this divine calm before creation stirs again?