The words landed like bombs made from crystallized impossibility.
Faces throughout the amphitheater went through rapid cycles of disbelief, anger, and calculation.
Elysia’s gaze could have frozen concepts. "Really? The corpse of the Early Creature just stood up and walked away?"
Schrodinger nodded with the particular enthusiasm of someone sharing fascinating gossip.
"Yes! Just like that. You know, I think you mentioned The Dead earlier? This corpse may have simply realized that it was one of The Dead and began to act like it. Identity crisis resolution, really."
His expression grew theatrical in its seriousness.
"Frankly, it terrified me. Here I was, going about my day, contemplating whether I existed or not, typical for me, when suddenly this thing that shouldn’t move starts moving. Walking even! With purpose! Do you know how disturbing it is to see something that dead showing more life than most living things?"
Beside Elysia, her brother’s rake began buzzing with power that made space nervous.
She stopped him with a simple gesture, though her voice carried ice when she spoke.
"Did you not even try to stop this corpse that simply walked away?"
Schrodinger blinked as if the question was genuinely surprising, then laughed...not mockingly but with what seemed like genuine amusement at the absurdity.
"Are you serious? You expect me, a mere Paradox, barely worth noticing according to most...to raise my hands to stop a breathing, walking Early Creature?" His eyes widened with exaggerated shock!
"My, how powerful are Fold Dwellers nowadays! I didn’t know you all considered Early Creatures as nothing. Do you perhaps juggle them for entertainment? Use them as training dummies for your children?"
He shook his head with dramatic sadness.
"No, my dear Fold Dweller. I did not attempt to stop the corpse of an Early Creature that began to move around freely. I value my existence, paradoxical as it may be. So no, I actually do not have a corpse to return to you. As sad and unfortunate as that may be."
An immense silence settled over the amphitheater like a blanket woven from disbelief and barely contained violence.
The tension was so thick it had almost achieved consciousness when...
"BAHAHAHAHA!"
Beast Shepherdess Miki’s laughter shattered the moment like a brick through a window.
She stroked Fluffy’s massive head, the terrifying beast that undoubtedly exceeded one quadrillion in complexity growling in what might have been amusement.
"That fucker is clearly lying and playing around!" she declared with cheerful certainty.
"My Fluffy here has a very good nose...best in nearby existence, actually. He could smell an Early Creature’s corpse from two Folds away. Want me to send him sniffing around the lands of the Living Paradoxes? I’m sure he’d find something interesting."
HUUM!
Her eyes sharpened despite her bright smile, transforming her from cheerful pet owner to predator in an instant.
The moment she finished speaking, Schrodinger’s easygoing smile simply... stopped.
Not faded or disappeared...it just ceased to exist as if it had never been. When he spoke, his voice carried a different quality entirely.
"Any Living Existences that step into the lands of the Living Paradoxes without authorization, from now on, cannot have their lives guaranteed."
Each word was precise, calculated, stripped of all his previous theatrical flair.
"The corpse is missing, and there is nothing for us to give. That is my truth."
The weight that settled after these words was different from before.
This wasn’t tension...this was the moment before inevitable violence, the breath before the storm.
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