---
I don't know why I let her walk beside me.
She was annoying. Always asking things. Always watching.
Yet I didn't ask her to stay back. Not this time.
We stood at the edge of a gate carved into obsidian air—Iron Hollow, entrance to the Vantor Assembly, where all active Executions within this Prime Loom came to posture, pretend, and occasionally plan.
She blinked at the massive structure ahead of us. It looked like a cathedral designed by a god who hated symmetry. Floating anvils. Spiral staircases that went nowhere. Bells that rang with no sound.
She whispered, "What is this place?"
"The Vantor Assembly. Every Execution in the Prime Loom shows up when it's called. To brag. Or to sulk."
She turned. "What's a Prime Loom?"
That made me smile.
"The collection of multiverses we're in. Layered realities held together by threads of causality and destiny.
In other words.
"It's where the big shots meet. All the Executions—every sanctioned reality clearer, timeline cleaner, paradox whisperer. From our Prime Loom, at least."
Every Loom is self-contained. Infinite in itself."
She nodded slowly. "So... like a really intense spiderweb?"
"That's... not the worst way to put it, actually."
Then she dropped the bomb.
> "But... if no one can go out of their Prime Loom or even see outside of it, then how do you all know there are multiple Prime Looms?"
I stopped walking.
It was the kind of silence the stars respected.
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
Tried again. "Well… theories… system whispers…"
Even I didn't believe it.
She tilted her head like a cat who just watched a god trip over his own robe.
> "So you're saying no one's ever seen beyond this Loom, and we just… decided there were infinite more?"
"…Yeah."
Her stare was almost smug.
I coughed and looked away. "Shut up."
I scratched the back of my head and muttered, "The archives say it, and the archives have never been wrong."
"But someone had to write those archives, right?" she pressed.
I pretended I didn't hear that. I was very good at pretending. Ignorance was half of immortality.
She giggled. Giggled. In front of Iron Hollow.
This was sacred ground. Important people were watching. Maybe even Korrin, the Execution who replaced Death herself after the Spiral Collapse. And she was out here… giggling.
"You know," she said, "you're not really what I expected from the scary guy with the soul-crushing weapon and a murder list longer than the heat death of reality."
"I'm a mystery."
"You're a cosmic softie."
I chose not to vaporize her.
As we approached the gate, the guards bowed. They didn't bow to her.
Only to me.
But she didn't notice. She was too busy staring at the walls pulsing with living runes and sigils that wrote themselves then wept before fading.
She whispered, "How long have you been in this job?"
I answered without thinking.
> "A little over two hundred thousand years."
She stopped. Blinked.
"Then why do they treat you like the new guy?"
That one stung.
"I am the new guy," I muttered.
She opened her mouth.
"No, don't say it," I added. "Don't you dare say it."
"…So you're telling me, for 200,000 years, you've been the intern?"
I sighed.
And walked into the Assembly with the confidence of someone who might commit a minor divine war just to get a little respect.
---
We arrived at the Hall. Or maybe it arrived around us. Iron Hollow didn't care about conventional entrances. It shifted and spun in ways that made geometry feel personally attacked. At its heart, the Vantor Assembly stood like an ancient courtroom carved out of obsidian thought. Above, platforms hovered—balconies for the high-rankers, the ancient ones, the executors of executors.
And on the highest one…
He appeared.
The Grand Celestial.
Not a name. A title. No one knew what he looked like beneath the glow. He radiated presence—not power, not aura. Presence. Like the universe decided it owed him attention. Every breath in the Hollow stilled.
My knees didn't buckle, but only because I'd already braced for it. The weight of his arrival pressed down like a judgment forged from gravity and expectation.
I leaned closer to her, eyes locked on the radiant figure standing above us.
"They call it The Order," I muttered. "It's not strength. Not magic. Not even will. It's... presence."
She blinked, confused.
"Order bends reality to the will of the one who holds it. It's how kings are born without crowns. How gods are feared without lifting a finger."
I gestured at the Grand Celestial.
"Anyone beneath him feels it—like gravity's been tripled just for you. Like your soul's being reminded it doesn't belong in the same room."
She gasped beside me. I could hear her lungs struggling, her spine faltering. Her body trembled like paper near a collapsing star.
And I… well, I wasn't strong enough to block him.
But I was clever enough.
I reached into the fold of my shadow and whispered:
"Null."
My rarest skill. One I'd only used once in the last 70,000 years.
Null cancels presence.
Not power.
Not force.
Presence. The pressure of being noticed. The weight of being seen.
A field shimmered around us, invisible to most. The unbearable weight pressing on her dropped to something manageable—barely a burden now. I couldn't stop it completely. I wasn't arrogant enough to think I could match the Grand Celestial.
But I could reduce it. Even if it meant taking more of it onto myself.
I stood straight. My bones ached. My vision flickered. My left arm went numb for a second.
But she was fine.
And when people turned to look at me, they didn't see some noble protector.
They saw arrogance.
A challenger.
A rookie Execution wielding Null in the presence of the Grand Celestial.
I met his gaze. Or at least the burning spot where his face should've been. He didn't move. He didn't react. But the entire Assembly seemed to breathe deeper. Like they were waiting for him to smite me into dust.
---