Hal caught Sariel looking at him and he looked right back at her with a mild smile having successfully guessed what she was thinking because that was exactly what he was thinking too...
She and the Primevals who had hunted for him had been right... Partially.
A lot has happened so far and had taken precedence that caused Hal to barely spare the comprehension of an Ordinance any thought but that did not mean that Hal completely ignored the topic.
He knew now that the reason had been incapable of comprehending an Ordinance before entering this monument was because of the piece of Order stashed inside him.
With the piece of Order inside him, Hal received an affinity to all Ordinances and while he could theoretically have his pick of any one of them, affinity to the six Abstract Ordinances would always contradict one another as Hal was still a victim of the edict stopping all but Order itself from comprehending more than one abstract Ordinance.
"Stop looking at me like that... They already got that connection out of me" Hal told Sariel before he crossed his legs on their hall ground and got himself into a state of complete serenity
"Oh, I gave up on any thoughts of using you long ago. Ever since your soul went missing, I hardly put any thought into using you.
Besides, I am within the monument, as inside of it as I can be. The monument will work just as well as you would... Probably even better" Sariel said and Hal shook his head with a chuckle.
"What's so funny?" Sariel asked with an even more perpetual frown while Melinda watched the exchange.
"It's funny that you haven't realized by now that it is all pointless.
To break free of the influence of Order or Chaos or more likely the two, you will need to destroy your very foundation... You will practically have to recreate yourself.
Break yourself down and rebuild completely free of them.
This is however impossible because everything imbues Chaos and Order. Like it or hate it, those two created everything.
They are principles of creation.
I have seen their memories, I have seen where all the things stem from and I have seen just how vast and powerful both concepts are...
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtYou Primevals were created flawed... You were created to always be stuck in a council and to never have what it takes to even attempt to surpass them both.
The best any of you can do is pick a side." Hal said as he signaled to Melinda to come closer to him.
As Melinda walked closer, Sariel was very much more invested in Hal's words, and it prompted her to ask,
"So what are you saying?" Even as she said it, she hated herself for having to ask questions from this minuscule youngster who was nothing compared to her (her true form) in power.
"Well, the only hope of escape- complete escape from both Chaos and Order is to latch on to a third option... A third concept to rival those two old bastards" Hal said before directing his words to Melinda,
"I'm going to need you to stab me now"
"What?" Melinda was surprised and more than a little taken aback,
"I need you to stab me. Enough for it to be fatal... I need to go somewhere I haven't been to -consciously- in quite a while.
I would do it myself but I highly doubt I will be able to multitask effectively to keep myself as alive as I need to be for what I'm planning"
"I can't stab you!" Melinda said and leaned away from Hal to wrinkle her nose at him in disgust fur even asking.
Hal sighed,
"I'll be fine... I think. Look, there is no one else present that I trust and it might not look like it but we are quickly running out of time before 'those two' come for us"
The two Hal was referring to were obviously the monk and Primordial Will who had so far not yet come for Hal because they were being occupied by the weird version of time-passing that occurred within the Monument of Ordinances.ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novelenglish.net . ꜰirᴇ
Melinda summoned her Cosmic Armament, and to ascertain that it truly pierced Hal's skin, she coated it in the flames of her Ordinance (which Hal nodded and admitted was a good addition) and thrust it into his chest.
Melinda watched as Hal arched his back briefly as he stifled a painful groan before his arms flopped by his side and his royal blue eyes turned lifeless.
Melinda's sword fell from her hand and dispersed almost as soon as it touched the ground and Melinda took staggering steps backward and away from Hal's body.
She gulped as the insanity of what she had just done set into her mind even more than before.
It did not matter that Hal had been the one to ask to be stabbed as she knew that if this was truly the end and the way he died, it would be her fault.
And there was still so much he had not told her...
Hal felt the flames rushing into his body, through the sword, rending his soul from his body.
Maybe it had something to do with his ego but he kept hold of a feeling that if he had not wanted this, he would not have been so easily 'killed'.
The sword going through his chest ad been a passage to get his soul to cross over to somewhere it could freely ponder on knowledge far beyond Hal's limited mortal understanding.
'This is really crazy' he thought as he created a harness through the connection he had to every single woman in his harem, a majority of whom were already comprehending their Ordinances at the moment.
As his body was dead for all intent and purposes at the moment, Hal needed a much more solid attachment to the realm of the living.
It was not an attachment that would last for long but it would last long enough for what Hal had planned.
What Hal was doing was especially as he was using knowledge he had gotten from scouring the memories of the two Primordial forces of creation.
Hal's soul left the Cosmic realm and was instantly at the bridge between the Cosmic realm and the Nether realm...
Floating aimlessly at the bridge that was chuck full of rocks and debris and overall disorganized as it supposedly led to the Nether realm, Hal let every knowledge he ever gleaned from the memories of both Order and Chaos flow to the forefront.
As a soul, he did not really have a brain or any organs for that matter but he did have imprints that referred not only to the signs he could leave behind while traversing any living world in his soul form but also referred to everything he had ever known or learned at the point of his 'death'.
'The Dead never forget'
What his brain had not been able to comprehend, his soul could reveal in... Completely free of all mortal limitations.
Spreading his arms, Hal began and the evidence of what he was building could barely be noted in the phenomenon that was forming behind him.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmFrom the moment he arrived, Hal knew he was not alone and so he was not surprised when Primordial Will and the Monk made their appearances at the bridge.
Primordial Will sighed,
"Hal, what you're planning..."
"... Is insane" The Monk completed with a deep frown.
Even as the two spoke though, they could not move closer to Hal because there was a force around him that stopped any possible approach.
A force that announced the same thing Hal announced mere seconds later with a chuckle,
"Planning? It's already done..."
Even as he spoke, Hal put finishing touches to the foundations of his concept...
Making use of the knowledge he had received from the memories of both Order and Choas and selecting only their best parts, Hal turned the manipulation and influence of both Order and Chaos against them with this creation of his.
The Primevals had been partially correct but it did not matter how close they were in their attempts at pulling away from the influence of both Order and Chaos, they could never have succeeded with their Supreme Dao.
The Dao that none of them had been trusted to possess, the Dao that Chaos decided to use as its path to even greatest power to surpass Order was the last link... The last piece of the puzzle.
Hal had barely just finished speaking when a storm of power swept the entirety of the bridge... Rolling in a mighty mass and feeling like it would extend infinitely and never have an end.
A concept to swallow and surpass Order and Chaos in potential alone... A Concept whose birth already had its influence touching all Three realms.
Both the Monk and Primordial Will saw the Nether realm bow to the power and birth of a new concept of creation...
Both Avatars watched the Mortal Realm tremble to the mere infancy of the new Concept and watched the Cosmic ream acknowledge the birth...
They watched that storm of power that just received acknowledgment from all three realms envelop Hal's soul and embrace him as its lord and owner while acknowledging that they were one and never to be separated.
Swallowed by the powerful storm of the new concept still in its infancy, Hal's soul was no longer seen by either the Monk or Primordial Will but his voice, thick with the authority of his Sovereign Dao which made this all possible, was heard clearly coming out of that concept...
"Say Hello to Infinity!"