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King Arion's thoughts raced as he stood before the overwhelming presence of Kaipo Kasumi. The sheer magnitude of power radiating from the man was unlike anything he had ever encountered, even in his most detailed visions.
"Knowing how strong he is in person is different than any experience my Perfect Intuition could have warned me of," Arion thought, his mind struggling to process the reality before him.
Snapping back to the moment, Arion attempted to speak with measured composure. "I guess we cross paths earlier than I expected—"
Before the words could fully leave his lips, Kaipo's hand was already resting on his shoulder. The contact seemed gentle, almost casual—but the mere force of Kaipo's touch sent Arion crashing into the ground with devastating impact. Despite the tremendous force, the golden-white expanse beneath them remained completely undamaged, as if it existed beyond the concept of destruction.
Arion coughed up blood, the metallic taste filling his mouth as pain radiated through his body. His aura flared to life around him, a desperate attempt to heal the internal wounds caused by such a simple gesture from Kaipo.
Rising unsteadily to his feet, Arion began to charge an attack, energy gathering around him as he prepared to retaliate. But at impossible speed, Kaipo was beside him again—this time with his index and middle fingers pressed together, pointing upward and resting delicately against the side of his chin, while his other fingers remained curled in a thoughtful pose.
With a single, quietly spoken word, Kaipo said: "Silence..."
King Arion froze completely in place, his body refusing to obey his commands. Even his charged attack dissipated harmlessly into the air.
Kaipo began to speak, his voice carrying the weight of cosmic understanding. "Archanos—he is something else. He never mentioned he had a clone of himself, but still he warned me to keep the Essence Manifest paper as he believed it would play a bigger role in the future, though Fate hadn't revealed exactly how yet at that time. Who knew that paper would lead you to me all along. Fate is crazy, isn't it?"
Arion struggled against the invisible bonds holding him, his mind racing but his body completely immobilized. Eventually, he managed to force out words: "What did you do to me? How?"
Kaipo ignored the question entirely, instead asking one of his own: "Why do you want Essence Manifest?"
King Arion hesitated, the truth feeling heavy on his tongue. Finally, he answered: "The Judge... and his council... they will wait until The Second Coming of Eclipse Xero and erase everything but the Land of Spade."
Kaipo's expression didn't change, but there was a subtle shift in his aura—disappointment, perhaps. "So is that why you are terrorizing the very people you should be allying with? Seraphina didn't make you the King to do what you have been doing. She put you in power for a reason, and you betrayed it."
"They don't understand though," Arion protested, frustration bleeding into his voice. "The truths revealed to me by my Perfect Intuition—"
Kaipo cut him off with a gesture, and when he spoke, his words carried the authority of someone who had witnessed the birth and death of universes:
"It doesn't matter how perfect your intuition is or how clearly you can see into the future—Fate will always remain unpredictable and changing. You see, Arion, that's the fundamental flaw in your understanding. You believe that seeing the future means controlling it, but Fate doesn't work that way. It's like trying to hold water in your hands—the tighter you grip, the more it slips through your fingers.
Your Perfect Intuition shows you a future. Every choice, every heartbeat, every breath creates ripples that shift the tapestry of what's to come. Archanos understood this better than anyone. His Fate power wasn't a blessing—it was a burden. He saw countless possibilities, endless threads of what could be, but he knew that the moment he acted on that knowledge, he changed the very future he had seen.
That's why you will fail, Arion. You're chasing shadows of tomorrow while ignoring the reality of today. When you saw Lila's power, you thought you understood how to claim it, so you captured her and failed to absorb her power. When your 'Perfect Intuition' helped you find those Essence Manifest papers, you believed they guaranteed your victory. But Fate laughed at your certainty. It showed you exactly what you wanted to see, knowing that your actions would lead you somewhere completely different.
The truly wise don't try to outsmart Fate—they learn to dance with it. They understand that prophecy is not a map to follow, but a warning of what might happen if you're not careful. Even I, standing here now, don't know if this conversation was meant to happen or if we're writing a completely new chapter in the story."
The philosophical weight of Kaipo's words pressed down on Arion like the gravity of a collapsing star. But his stubborn conviction refused to waver.
"But I saw it," Arion insisted, his voice strained against the paralysis. "I knew Lila would have Essence Manifest within her, and when I captured her, it was in her. So how do you explain that? Because there IS truth to what I see. Everything I foresaw was perfect up until after the Great Awakening. That's when things got spotty, but I still was able to get here through those papers, and I still know how I can capture Lila and gain the power. This is how I will destroy the Judge and his Council along with the pesky Eclipse Sovereignty."
Kaipo's response came with the flowing cadence of poetry, each word carefully chosen:
"You're proving my point perfectly, Arion. Yes, you saw that Lila would possess Essence Manifest, and yes, she did. But did your Perfect Intuition tell you why she had it? Did it show you that she was meant to be a guardian, not a victim? Did it reveal that the power within her was never meant to be stolen, but used willingly alongside those deemed worthy to receive it as well by the High Mages?
You're seeing the destinations without understanding the journey. Your intuition shows you snapshots—frozen moments in time—but it's blind to the threads that connect them. You saw yourself gaining power, but you didn't see that the power you seek will reject you because your heart is corrupted by fear and desperation.
The Great Awakening I created changed things because that's when the true nature of fate began to assert itself. Before then, you were seeing the surface ripples, but now the deeper currents are moving. Your visions became 'spotty' because fate is actively working against your interpretation of it.
You say you know how to capture Lila and gain her power, but do you know what that power will cost you? Do you see what you'll become in the process? Your Perfect Intuition shows you holding the strength to fight the Judge, but it doesn't show you becoming the very thing you claim to fight against.
That's the cruel irony of trying to force fate's hand, Arion. The power you seek to save everyone might be the very thing that destroys them. Your intuition sees the Judge's threat, but it's blind to the fact that in your desperation to stop him, you're walking the same path he did."
Arion's response was sharp with irritation: "Whatever. And how do you know so much since Fate is 'unpredictable'?"
For the first time, Kaipo's expression shifted—not with anger, but with the profound sadness of someone who had carried the weight of infinite knowledge. When he spoke, his voice held the gravity of cosmic truth:
"When I gained the Pure Heart, I gained access to all possible realities and futures. I was omniscient and omnipotent. I knew about the Judge's threat and the Eclipse Sovereignty. But I still decided to seal myself without any power but Essence Manifest alongside Novachro, Damasin, and Novelius. There was nothing I could do but to bestow the ability for the High Mages to select people to give 25% of an Essence Manifest to. 25% was the physical possible limit for them to be able to pull off such a feat.
In all the futures I witnessed, the Judge won. Every single timeline, every possible variation—they all led to the same devastating conclusion. But that's where humanity's most amazing ability came into play: the ability to defy fate and what was set in stone to make a better future for themselves.
You see, Arion, true omniscience taught me something your Perfect Intuition never could. Knowledge of the future is both a gift and a curse. When you know every possible outcome, you realize that the act of knowing changes nothing—but the act of choosing changes everything. I saw the paths where heroes would rise, where unexpected alliances would form, where people would make choices that defied every logical prediction.
But if you continue to butt your head into the way and go against the 5 universes instead of working with them, then the future you saw will most definitely come true. Your interference isn't preventing the catastrophe—it's ensuring it happens exactly as foretold.
The difference between us, Arion, is that I learned to trust in the unpredictability of the human spirit. You're still trying to force fate to bend to your will, when the real power lies in stepping back and letting others choose their own destiny. That's why I gave up omnipotence—because sometimes the greatest act of power is knowing when not to use it."
The endless white expanse around them seemed to pulse with the weight of Kaipo's words, as if reality itself was listening to the discourse between two beings who had glimpsed the threads of fate. The silence that followed was heavy with implications that would echo across universes.
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