"Entanglement..." Hou repeated the phrase.
Beorn nodded, "Other than that piece of information we have hidden all abnormalities in this sector of Worlds from the rest of the Collective. For now, at the very least."
"Good work, back to Araxis' point. I say we should focus on looking into using entanglement ourselves. If we figure out perhaps how to use Xavier's hopping to entangle someone without the use of a rift..." Hou paused thinking, "We might be able to use that to enable us to fight against the Devourer itself."
The roundtable nodded din agreement and Hou sat back down. He gestured to Zhou Tian, "It is your go now."
Zhou Tian had little to say. He reported how the False World had been growing, explaining to Hou in detail about the forces moving. The War's effects were still seen, but it had mostly returned to normality.
Without the external force of Yi Sect, there had been scuffles between the righteous sects but nothing big has occurred; perhaps due to the active presence of a quasi-god like Zhou Tian.
Then, at the roundtable it was the final person. Hou was next to speak.
He first continued like Zhou Tian talking about his world, the people, the plants, the animals. He has noticed that the physical size of the planet has begun to grow, and the population continues to increase. He wondered where the new consciousnesses come from occasionally, but did not verbalise that thought.
In a short time, he announced, he will start to send out more people and establish new villages. It would take time though, for now his people were happy and his Causality was growing steadily.
"Now!" Hou raised his voice a tad louder to indicate importance, "I have a question, what is the consciousness to you?"
***
The Devourer of Worlds continued moving. It was a creature of the Sea of Worlds and from anyone's knowledge the only one of it's kind.
It wasn't born and it didn't think it would die; all it knew is that it should consume worlds. Sometimes it would chance upon them but most of the time it had to wait.
It waited until it could sense a bleeding of Causality. Then it would follow, and consume all those Worlds it finds.
It could tell that most of those Worlds were...dying. not just the bleeding of Causality, that was the effect but not the cause. It was something else, those worlds would not, should not, last longer.
It didn't understand why. Why did it want to take in these dying worlds? What was it that made it need them, it wouldn't die without it...it didn't think so, it has always done so.
And everytime it took in a World, why did it feel so...so much? Anger, pain, sadness, happiness, it felt so many emotions it would not otherwise.
It's thinking became erratic and it felt like it could do more, inside itself those Worlds, what was left of them, began to move.
Another age later it again felt hunger. It again felt empty, it needed more causality, not for survival but something else.
Something it didn't understand itself.
Across the Sea, consciousness' coalesced and formed a new world, one was chosen and became a new God. It understood it's duty and the world began a new.
***
Xavier said goodbye the final time and hopped out of Hou's world, he would look for a new God to join the roundtable as he had before.
The Collective and Araxis would begin experimenting, occasionally asking for Xavier's help. Hou fondled the glass orb, how did it work? Entanglement?
He shook his head, 'That's not important...I still don't know what a consciousness. How can they all have different understandings?' he rubbed his temples.
He had asked the roundtable the question, but the answers just gave him more confusion. Each person had a different explanation, he didn't know why but his intuition told him it was important to found out what it was.
'The intuition stems from the consciousness, what does it want me to find out?' Hou was unsettled, he had never felt such a pull from his intuition.
Maybe it was because he was a God now, it was telling him something. He just needed to figure out what.
As he was thinking, Xavier hopped back in with an incredulous expression on his face. He held out his hand, "Come! A new world has formed, this is the perfect time!"
Hou didn't need to think, he grabbed Xavier's hand. The two of them fell through the ground and fell into the Sea of Worlds.
In an instant, they fell upwards into a new world. Hou rolled his shoulders, he was human again. This was not his world, he was subject to the World's rules. It felt strange.
Still, though, he could feel his World's Causality. It was still connected with him, in fact he could still monitor his world.
He tried and looked at William while not being in Hamartia. He was sitting down cross-legged using the Emotional Mindscape for training. Hou nodded, 'Is this entanglement? Am I entangled with Hamartia?' he put the thought away for now and focused on this new World. He couldn't stop thinking about entanglement, it was important somehow.
"So this is a new World, how do they form? I know my method isn't the usual one." Hou asked.
Xavier looked up, "I can't quite explain it, it's something to do with my powers. When I hop and am in the Sea of Worlds, it's like I can sense all Worlds. This new one has a different feeling, that's all I can say."
Hou nodded, 'a new World...maybe this can be useful' he looked around. The environment was blank.
Not in an absolute void sort of way, but in a...unfinished way. The ground was hard and rocky, there wasn't any movement.
"Is this normal?" Hou looked around, scoping for anything new.
"Fairly, I've only spotted a World this new a few times. From what I can see there are two paths a new God can choose. They can choose to start from very little and allow for everything to form as their people want; or they create a base. It seems this God chose the former."
"How do we find them?" Hou looked around, when in Hamartia he didn't need a physical body. He assumed it was the same for this newly formed god.
Before Xavier could answer, a form appeared before the two of them. It materialised without caution, "You....you are not supposed to be here."