**Chapter 2— The Realm Beyond Cause**
Altair's dominion had grown beyond counting. Thalamos, the multiverse he had carved from nothing, was already infinite in structure — a cathedral of branching universes that sang in fractal harmony. Yet even infinity, he discovered, had rules. And rules, to Altair, were invitations.
The more he studied the five-dimensional lattice of existence, the more he noticed something peculiar: *every* universe, every timeline, every echo of possibility was chained by a hidden rhythm — **causality.** Even gods bowed to it. Cause preceded effect. Birth led to death. Even miracles had to obey sequence. It was the quiet skeleton beneath all worlds, and Altair, who now moved as both concept and being, began to see it as the final wall left unbroken.
He decided to tear it down.
It began as an experiment — a single fold in the deepest layer of Thalamos. He reached into the fifth-dimensional fabric with his bare hands and twisted it backward, looping it around its own origin. The result was something reality itself could not name: a space *outside* of before and after. Inside it, time had no arrow, only presence. Events did not unfold; they simply *were.*
Altair called this place the **Eclipsera** — *the Realm Beyond Cause.*
Eclipsera was not part of any timeline, nor could any timeline reach it. It was a sovereign field detached from the logic of the multiverse, a sanctuary that no effect could trace back to a cause. Within its borders, the notion of sequence collapsed into simultaneity. A seed and a tree could coexist without contradiction; a question could precede its answer; destruction could come before creation.
But Eclipsera was not empty. Altair filled it with dimensions — not three, not five, but *countless.* Each dimension held infinite branches of time, each timeline dividing infinitely again. To a mortal mind, it would appear as an ocean of translucent spheres floating through darkness, each one spiraling with galaxies of alternate histories. Yet Altair perceived them differently: as melodies of possibility, interwoven and resonating to his will.
In this realm, **he was not bound to observe** — he was *the observation itself.* He could pause the birth of stars, rewind the death of gods, or write a new physical law with a single word. Gravity bent in reverence when he stepped; entropy slowed in confusion when he breathed.
His consciousness expanded to fill Eclipsera. Every breath he took there distorted what remained of causality in Thalamos. In the lower multiverses, time began to ripple and crack — events replaying, collapsing, or reversing without logic. Scholars in distant worlds spoke of a "Great Curling," a cosmic warping where physics forgot its own consistency. Stars bent their orbits, equations broke apart, and some realities simply *looped*, unable to distinguish yesterday from tomorrow.
Altair did not intend chaos — it was merely a side effect of his existence. His presence alone bent law. His thoughts were heavy enough to deform the axioms of reality.
Inside Eclipsera, he sat upon a plain of glass suspended in void. Around him, every layer of dimension shimmered like folded silk. His hollow shell — that remnant of human form — stood motionless nearby, an empty statue preserving the memory of what he once was. But his true self, his conceptual core, pulsed through the realm as living authority. He could feel every quantum breath of his creation, from the smallest timeline seed to the largest metaverse storm.
Altair began to experiment once more, though not out of hunger, but out of curiosity — the same quiet wonder that had guided him since he first found the black stone. He reached into one of the higher-dimensional planes and wrote a new law:
> *"In this dimension, motion shall occur before intent."*
Instantly, motion itself reversed hierarchy. Objects moved, and their purpose followed — rivers flowed before rain fell, stars flared before fuel existed, people walked paths they hadn't chosen yet. It was bizarre, elegant, and oddly poetic.
Then, in another dimension, he declared:
> *"There shall be no distinction between cause and effect — only correlation."*
The moment he spoke, reality blurred. Chains of logic dissolved. Everything became one simultaneous truth — every possibility coexisting, every paradox breathing comfortably beside its opposite. It was the silence beyond comprehension — perfect, unbroken, infinite.
Altair felt something stir in that silence: a faint echo, like his own name being spoken backward. It was as if the universe, or what remained of it, was *noticing* him.
He smiled. "So, you see me now."
The echo trembled, forming no words, only tension.
In that instant, Altair understood the weight of his existence. By standing outside causality, he had become a singular contradiction: an entity that *existed* without ever having been *caused to exist.* That very impossibility rippled upward through Thalamos, bending every rule that once governed it.
Physics warped first — constants began to fluctuate at random. Causality bowed next, unable to account for the presence of something uncaused. Even logic itself began to fold, as if the idea of "consistency" no longer held meaning.
Everywhere, from the smallest universe to the grandest realm, the presence of Altair was felt as an unrelenting pressure. Machines that tried to measure his energy broke before their readings began. Sentient beings who perceived even the shadow of his aura went mad — their minds tearing under the weight of paradox.
The multiverse groaned, like glass under strain.
But within Eclipsera, there was calm.
Altair sat in meditation, eyes closed, his consciousness touching the edges of everything he had made. The Realm Beyond Cause shimmered in serene balance — a space untouched by entropy, unspoiled by time. And for the first time since finding the stone, Altair felt something he could not name. Not fear. Not regret. Perhaps something deeper: the recognition that he had gone as far as existence could allow — and then further still.
He opened his eyes, which now glowed with the reflected light of infinite dimensions.
"I am the axis," he said softly. "The cause that precedes cause."
Around him, the laws of all universes bent in silent acknowledgment.
And thus, Altair — once a boy bound by physics — became the paradox that sustained everything.
His very being was the bend in reality's spine.
— *