Chapter 477
The first proposal: he decided to act, to intervene directly in a scenario that was supposed to unfold on its own without intervention from any party.
However, there was the risk that Ilux was not yet ready to transform into the Void, that forcing the transformation prematurely would result in something even he could not predict despite all the experience he possessed.
The second proposal: he would do nothing.
He would let everything pass along its own course.
He would release the control he had held so tightly and allow the narrative to determine its direction without interference from the Great Author.
However, with the note that he would direct several supporters in the scenario of arc one, episode eleven's conclusion, to move in ways that support the smooth progression of the scenario.
To suppress the potential emergence of uncontrollable probabilities.
To ensure that even without direct intervention, the scenario would still have a chance to reach its objective, even if the path might not be as ideal as he had imagined.
And the third proposal, the most complex of them all.
The heaviest to choose, as it involved something he had never done before.
He would recall Aldraya, who was still on duty.
Who was still carrying out the two instructions he had given before they parted.
Who was still in a place so distant, with a mission yet unfinished.
He would call her back.
And after that, together—with two minds connected through the unbroken RWIA network, with Resolve, Will, Intent, and Ambition working in a harmony never before achieved—Aldraya and Theo would discuss the situation before deciding what action to take.
Before determining which path they would choose among the three proposals hanging in the air with a weight he had never felt before.
"It seems there's a possibility I won't follow any of those three proposals."
The silence that enveloped the space where Theo stood, between lengthening shadows and the darkness creeping in from every available gap, turned out not to belong to him alone.
The RWIA network stretching beneath consciousness, which had always served as a channel for Aldraya's strange questions and the instructions he gave in return, was now filled with a different kind of silence.
A silence not born from the absence of sound, but from the decision not to use the sound that was available.
Aldraya, who from a place far away continued to carry out the two instructions he had given before they parted, who despite her body being separated by a distance immeasurable by ordinary units remained connected to Theo through the thin threads of Resolve, Will, Intent, and Ambition, listened to every murmur that emerged from Theo's consciousness.
Every question he formulated about the three proposals before him.
Every calculation of risk, impact, and benefit he processed at a speed attainable only by a being who had spent billions of years understanding how probability worked.
And in that listening, Aldraya did something she rarely did in moments like this.
Something she might never have done if the situation were not this important.
Something that made the silence between them feel deeper than usual.
She remained silent.
Allowing her super-advanced mind, which never stopped thinking even as her face remained as expressionless as uncracked porcelain, to contemplate the best proposal Theo could take in addressing the main problem before them.
The problem that had become the center of all the chaos in recent days.
The problem named Ilux Rediona and his transformation, hindered by the thin thread still connecting him to his parents.
Ten minutes passed in a way that felt strange for two beings accustomed to perceiving time differently from ordinary creatures.
Ten minutes without a single vibration traveling from one side to the other.
Ten minutes in which the RWIA network, usually never silent, became an empty space filled only by two consciousnesses thinking with an intensity no instrument could measure.
Ten minutes in which, on one side, Theo stood in Ilux's increasingly dark room, his body unmoving and his eyes fixed on the ticking wall clock, indifferent to the burden carried by the being beneath it.
And on the other side, Aldraya remained in an unknown place.
With a body that perhaps also did not move.
With eyes that might have been fixed on something she would never tell Theo.
With her super-advanced mind continuously cycling through every possibility, every probability, every scenario that could arise from each choice available to them.
Ten minutes that felt like time had stopped.
Ten minutes that felt like time passed too quickly.
Ten minutes that ultimately produced nothing they could grasp.
Not a single answer convincing enough to serve as a foundation.
Not a single conclusion that could lighten the weight in Theo's chest.
But precisely when those ten minutes passed, when the clock's hand moved to a position that made Theo realize time would never wait for him to be ready, something he had never planned escaped his lips in a way he could not restrain.
He spoke.
Not in the firm, commanding voice he usually used when giving instructions to Aldraya.
Nor in the calm, flat tone he used when recording small details in his yellow notebook.
But in a voice that came from the deepest place, where all doubt and uncertainty were usually buried so they would never interfere with the narrative he had determined.
And the words that left his lips, traveling through the RWIA network to Aldraya who continued listening from afar, were something even he himself had never expected to say.
That there was a possibility.
A possibility he had never included in the three proposals he himself formulated.
A possibility he had never considered when calculating risks, impacts, and benefits.
A possibility that he would follow none of them.
That he would choose an entirely different path.
A path he had never thought of before.
A path that might bring consequences greater than anything he had ever calculated.
Yet might also be the only path that would prevent him from losing something he had never realized was so precious until he stood on the brink of losing it.
"If all three carry risks, wouldn't it make more sense to combine them? To make use of each proposal's strengths to cover their weaknesses. At least from my perspective, the result would be far more stable than choosing only one option. Especially compared to rejecting all of them at once."
To be continued…