The labyrinth unfolded endlessly before Lui. Each step felt heavier than the last, as though the air itself sought to pull him back. Fragments of worlds drifted past him—shards of realities that shimmered like broken glass, glowing with lives that never existed. In the distance, echoes of laughter, whispers of war, and the weeping of dying stars blended into a cacophony that clawed at his mind.
Yet Lui pressed on.
The guardian's voice still resonated faintly: "To navigate infinity, you must carry infinity within."
He did not yet understand those words fully, but something inside him stirred—an instinct, a resonance deep within his existence, a fragment of the First Silence.
As he walked, the air trembled.
Then, suddenly, everything stopped.
The fragments froze mid-motion, and the sound of the multiverse fell silent. The void itself seemed to hold its breath. Lui turned, every nerve alive with tension.
And there, beyond the collapsing lights of infinity, a figure emerged.
Not the guardian. Not any being he could comprehend. This was something far older, far beyond the architecture of existence. A presence that carried the essence of pre-creation itself.
The figure was silence given form—a stillness so complete that Lui felt his own thoughts slowing, his heartbeat stuttering. It was not darkness, nor light, but something purer than both—a state beyond definition. Its form was indistinct, shifting between a void of infinite depth and a dragon-shaped silhouette wreathed in cosmic radiance.
When it spoke, there were no vibrations, no sound. Only truth, pressed into the fabric of Lui's being:
"I am not a god."
Lui staggered, his breath catching. The words were soft, yet they reverberated through every layer of reality he had walked.
The voice continued, calm, eternal, absolute:
"I am The First Silence Before All Concepts. I am not worship, not divinity, not an object of faith. I am the stillness from which all things rise. Before time spoke, before existence dreamed, before thought could name itself—I was."
The being moved closer, though movement seemed meaningless here. Space bent, and suddenly it loomed before Lui, its presence folding every dimension around him.
"You…" Lui whispered, his voice shaking. "You created everything?"
The figure regarded him with eyes that were not eyes, yet burned with the light of countless realities.
"I did not create because of will, nor desire. I did not think to make beauty, nor purpose. From my stillness came the first motion, and from that motion—boundless existence. Worlds, layers, laws, chaos—they spilled forth because silence was broken."
Lui felt his knees weaken under the weight of those words. He had read, seen, and imagined gods in stories—beings who willed creation into being, who shaped reality with intention. But this… this was different. It was beyond intention. A truth so vast it shredded all mortal understanding.
"But…" Lui's voice was barely audible. "If you are not a god… then what are you now?"
The being's form rippled, like an ocean without end.
"What I have always been. Silence. The beginning without beginning. The absence before all presence. Do not seek to bind me to the word 'god.' To call me so is to diminish me into the language of creation."
Lui swallowed hard. "Then… why speak to me? Why appear now?"
For the first time, the stillness around him cracked—like a single drop of water disturbing a glassy lake.
"Because you walk where none should walk. Because the labyrinth is not the trial—it is the threshold. You cannot cross it by endurance alone. You must know what you follow."
The void pulsed with a strange rhythm. Images unfolded before Lui—glimpses of infinite births, spirals of galaxies forming and collapsing, universes flickering in and out of being like breaths in a storm. He saw flames that burned concepts instead of matter, seas that drowned possibilities instead of lives, and beings that could erase their own existence at will.
And then he saw himself—tiny, fragile, yet holding something within him: a spark, faint but undeniable, resonating with the same silence that now spoke to him.
"You…" Lui whispered again. "You gave me this?"
"It was not gift nor blessing," the voice said. "It was inevitability. To perceive what lies beyond the boundless, you must carry a fragment of that which existed before all."
Lui clenched his fists, feeling his heart pound against his ribs. His fear began to twist into something else—resolve, a flame that refused to be smothered by the infinite.
The First Silence moved once more, though no motion occurred.
"You seek understanding. Then understand this: Creation is not my glory. It is my consequence."
The weight of those words struck Lui like thunder. His breath trembled. His thoughts scattered. He understood now why this being refused the title of god—it was beyond will, beyond worship, beyond anything language could cage.
And then, the final words fell like an eternal decree:
"Go. Walk the labyrinth. Prove that your spark can endure what silence could not. If you fail, you will not die. You will cease to have ever been."
The figure dissolved, melting back into the infinite hush, leaving Lui alone once more at the heart of a still cosmos.
But he was not the same.
His steps no longer trembled.
He now knew what path he walked—and whose silence lingered behind every motion of the Boundless
---