Chapter 77: First Question

The Eternal Serpent’s golden eyes narrowed slightly.

​Then, it spoke.

​Its voice was vast, not overwhelmingly loud, yet every word seemed to reverberate through the stars themselves.

​"Interesting."

​The serpent tilted its colossal head, the subtle movement causing entire constellations reflected upon its scales to shift.

​"A soul from a future timeline. Though calling it a future timeline is somewhat inaccurate... a temporal displacement of merely five years is but a fleeting moment. Less than the blink of an eye to one such as I."

​Its golden gaze burned deeper into Cassian’s soul.

​"Yet what intrigues me more is not your temporal anomaly. It is your existence itself."

​"Three Divine Blessings."

​"Three," the serpent repeated the word slowly, as if savoring its weight. "Do you possess any understanding of how absurd that is?"

​Without waiting for an answer, it continued smoothly:

​"A single Divine Blessing is sufficient to place immense strain upon an SSS-Grade Lord Seed. Many seeds blessed by the Domain spend entire eras adapting to such power. Yet you possess three, three Divine Blessings housed within a mere D-Grade Lord Seed."

​"What an anomaly."

​Cassian stood so deathly still that he resembled a rabbit frozen beneath the gaze of an ancient dragon.

​Every secret he possessed had been thoroughly exposed within seconds: his regression, his blessings, and his very origin. Nothing remained hidden.

​For the first time across two lives, Cassian felt completely vulnerable.

​After a long moment, he scraped together a speck of courage and spoke:

​"Are you the Eternal Will?"

​The serpent stopped speaking. Its massive, sun-like eyes focused entirely upon him.

​Then, it laughed.

​"The Eternal Will?" The pressure in the surrounding space intensified instantly. "No."

​"Mortal," the serpent’s voice turned heavy as mountains. "Do not mistake me for the Eternal Will. If a being such as yourself were to stand before the true Eternal Will... you would cease to exist."

​Cassian’s posture stiffened.

​"Not merely your body," the serpent continued, "and not merely your soul. You would be erased from existence itself, your past, your future, every memory of you, every timeline containing you, and every possibility in which you could have existed. All would be reduced to absolute nothingness."

​The stars surrounding them dimmed into shadow.

​"The presence surrounding the Eternal Will is capable of achieving through mere existence what lesser beings require total destruction to accomplish."

​Then, the crushing pressure vanished just as quickly as it had appeared, and the serpent resumed its relaxed, coiled posture.

​"I am not the Eternal Will. I am merely a fragment of its consciousness."

​Cassian slowly nodded.

​That answer somehow felt more terrifying than if it had simply claimed to be the Eternal Will itself.

A fragment, just a single fragment, and yet it already possessed such godlike authority.

​Pushing the existential dread aside, he asked, "So why was I brought here?"

​The serpent’s voice became solemn. "Because you accomplished a Divine Feat. Every Lord who accomplishes a Divine Feat is granted an audience with me, such has been the law since the birth of the Lord System."

​Its golden eyes gleamed faintly. "Those granted an audience receive a grand boon, as well as answers to three Cosmic Questions."

​Cassian blinked. ’Three questions?’

​His first instinct was to ask whether there were restrictions, whether every casual inquiry counted, or whether asking for structural clarification would consume one of his three precious opportunities.

​Fortunately, he restrained himself before speaking aloud.

​The serpent’s eyes glimmered with subtle amusement. "There is no need for concern."

​Cassian froze, it had clearly read his mind.

​"Questions seeking clarification do not count," the serpent reassured. "Only the three questions that reveal cosmic truths count."

​Cassian relaxed slightly, taking a quiet breath before another thought occurred to him. "If I ask a question... can it be about anything?"

​The serpent nodded smoothly. "Provided the answer lies within my knowledge."

"And how vast is that knowledge?"

​For the first time, something akin to ancient pride appeared within the serpent’s golden gaze.

​"I possess knowledge of the Lord’s Domain from its birth until the present moment. Every civilization, every Lord, every world, every war, every kingdom, every rise, and every fall... everything within the Lord’s Domain exists within my knowledge."

​The weight behind those words was immense, ancient, and absolute.

​Yet a moment later, the serpent added something completely unexpected.

​The gravity within its voice deepened significantly. "However..." 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

​Its golden eyes drifted away from Cassian, gazing toward the distant, abyssal darkness beyond the borders of the Lord’s Domain, toward the endless blackness that stretched beyond creation itself.

​For the first time since the conversation began, Cassian sensed a faint trace of uncertainty.

​"Anything that exists within the Endless Blackness... is beyond my knowledge."

​The serpent stared silently into the void, and for a brief, eerie moment, Cassian thought he detected genuine caution in the eyes of an entity older than galaxies themselves.

Cassian stared into the endless darkness.

​To his eyes, it was nothing more than an expanse of black, an empty void, a stretch of existence devoid of stars, life, sound, or meaning.

​Yet the longer he looked at it, the tighter his chest became.

​The more he realized that what he was seeing was not truly emptiness, it was simply something far beyond his current ability to comprehend.

​The fact that he couldn’t even perceive the threat, an entity as ancient as the Eternal Serpent was wary of filled him with an indescribable, bone-chilling sense of dread.

​After all, what was more terrifying than the unknown? It was an existence so far beyond human understanding that even the concept of perceiving it was impossible.

​Cassian’s soul trembled. He felt genuinely, utterly insignificant, the horrifying realization that there were terrors so vast that existence itself could not properly describe them.

​The Eternal Serpent slowly turned its colossal gaze away from the endless darkness, its golden eyes settling upon Cassian once more.

​The oppressive thoughts weighing upon his mind suddenly eased. A warm, soothing sensation washed through his consciousness like a gentle current sweeping away turbulent waters, driving the dread back and stabilizing his soul.

​Cassian immediately understood: the serpent had shielded his mind from going mad.

​The Eternal Serpent’s vast voice echoed throughout the cosmos:

​"You may ask your questions."

​Cassian inhaled deeply, stabilizing his mind as countless queries surfaced in rapid succession.

​Questions about the true origins of the Lord’s Domain. Questions about the horrors lurking within the Endless Blackness.

Questions regarding the mechanics of Divine Blessings, the future timeline, or the hidden truths of existence.

​The possibilities were endless.

​Yet as he stood before the ancient being, a single, burning ambition rose above all others.

​Cassian lifted his head, his sky-blue eyes reflecting the countless stars of the cosmos as he stared directly into the golden gaze of the Eternal Serpent.

​He looked at the sheer magnitude and transcendence of its existence, at a being that had witnessed the birth of civilizations, the rise of Sovereigns, and the passing of ages beyond counting.

​Then, he asked:

​"How do I surpass you?"