Luna stayed close to him—close enough that the fabric of her sleeve brushed his. She always lingered at his side, pulled there by something instinctive and unbreakable. Aevor didn't push her away. He never did. His hand briefly brushed her hair, calm, steady, gentle in a way that existed only for her.
Then the air wavered.
A ripple, thin as a cracked smile, cut open the quiet around them. A girl stepped through—an Aeon, wrapped in far too much confidence and not nearly enough sense. She planted her feet like she expected the world to recognize her importance.
"There you are," she said with a sharp, bratty lilt. "I've been trying to get your attention forever. You're really hard to track down, you kn—"
Aevor didn't look at her at first.
He looked past her—like she wasn't worth the effort of being an object in his focus.
Only when she kept talking, and talking, and talking, did he move his eyes toward her. Not his head. Not his body. Just his eyes, sliding in her direction with the slow disdain of someone forced to acknowledge a buzzing insect.
The warmth he'd held for Luna vanished as effortlessly as a breath leaving the lungs.
He stared at the Aeon-girl the way a blade stares at a throat—
cold, calculating, certain of the outcome before the target knows a danger exists.
The girl didn't notice.
Of course she didn't.
"So anyway," she continued, flipping her hair with a smug tilt, "you're going to listen to me now, because what I'm about to tell you is—"
Aevor finally spoke.
"You talk too much."
Not angry.
Not annoyed.
Just factual. Like a doctor diagnosing a fatal condition.
Her face twisted with offense. "Excuse me? Who do you think you ar—"
He moved.
One moment he was beside Luna.
The next he was beside the Aeon-girl.
No transition. No blur. No indication.
Just a quiet rewrite of where he existed, as if the universe were forced to correct itself around his decision.
He leaned in slightly—not close enough to be intimate, but close enough that she finally felt the weight of him. That crushing, suffocating certainty that she was irrelevant in every sense except the one he chose for her.
His voice dropped to a chilling softness.
"You shouldn't have spoken while I was speaking to her."
Her mouth opened—whether to argue or apologize didn't matter.
Because she never got the chance.
Aevor's body twisted.
A clean, ruthless turning strike tore through the space between them, faster than even instinct could rise to meet. No warning, no telegraphing, no restraint. Just a single, decisive act of removal.
Her head detonated.
Not splattered.
Not sliced.
Removed—as if the universe obeyed him more than it obeyed her right to exist.
The rest of her form collapsed a moment later, folding into nothing with the embarrassed quiet of a mistake being erased.
Aevor lowered his leg calmly, balanced, silent, untouched by consequence. He didn't watch her disappear. He didn't need to. He had never considered her presence meaningful enough to warrant attention.
Instead, he turned back to Luna.
He was already at her side again—like he had never left—his expression softening the instant his eyes met hers.
Luna's breath trembled, her fingers curling into his sleeve.
Aevor brushed his hand along her cheek, voice gentle enough to contradict every trace of violence lingering in the air.
"She got in the way," he said simply.
And for him, that explained everything.
Aevor let the silence settle for a few moments after the Aeon's remains dissolved into nothing. He didn't look back where the girl had disappeared — her relevance had evaporated long before her head did. His only concern was the girl at his side.
Luna watched him with eyes still wide from the sudden shift between gentleness and violence. But she wasn't afraid. Shocked, yes. Overwhelmed, maybe. But never afraid of him. Her breath steadied as her fingers slid toward the edge of his coat again, brushing it like she always did when she wanted his attention without saying a word.
Aevor noticed instantly.
He looked down at her, and the cold edge that had been carving through reality a moment ago softened into that strange quiet warmth he reserved only for her.
"You wanted to know more," he said.
Luna nodded once, small and focused. "About the Apexe… right?"
"Yes."
He placed a hand lightly on the top of her head — not patting, not comforting, just anchoring her. Marking that she was the only one who would hear this from him.
"Listen closely."
Her breath caught. She always listened closely.
Aevor's gaze drifted forward as he began to speak, but Luna could feel that every word was meant for her alone.
"You remember the world of Eryndal, don't you?" he asked.
Luna frowned softly, recalling. "The one layered in infinite strata? With each layer stacked on a pattern that repeats upward forever?"
"Good." Aevor slid his thumb gently behind her ear, brushing aside a loose strand of hair. "Eryndal is structured the same way most cosmologies are. A tower made of rules. Every floor follows the same design — some floors are higher, some lower, but the blueprint never changes."
Luna nodded. "Everything stronger is just a different version of the same thing."
"Exactly."
His voice lowered, growing quieter and colder, as if he were speaking from a vantage point the rest of existence would never reach.
"But the Apexe… don't stand on that tower. They don't rise above the floors. They are not the highest floor, not the roof, not the sky beyond the roof."
His fingers traced lightly along the side of her head, almost possessively.
"They are standing somewhere else entirely."
Luna shivered. Not from fear — from understanding. It was the feeling of a thought reaching a place it didn't know existed.
Aevor continued, voice deepening into that absolute calm he carried when he spoke about truths nothing else had the right to touch.
"Think of every world you've seen. Every pantheon. Every omniverse. Every structure built on the idea that power grows by climbing. All of them are using a shared language."
He looked at her fully now, eyes steady, sharp, unwavering.
"The Apexe don't use that language."
Luna's lips parted slightly. "Then what are they using?"
"A system no one else can perceive."
He brushed a thumb across her cheekbone, tracing the delicate curve as if teaching her through touch as much as through words.
"A concept of being that doesn't connect to anything below it. You can't rise into it. You can't evolve into it. You can't ascend into it by climbing."
His voice dropped to a nearly whispered certainty.
"You are either born into that field… or you will never reach it."
Luna swallowed hard. The idea resonated inside her like it was rearranging the shape of her thoughts.
Aevor wasn't finished.
He tilted her chin up with two fingers so she kept her eyes on him.
"What creatures call 'transcendence' is still following the blueprint of the tower. Even the highest ones—those who rewrite laws, surpass endless realms, loop through realities—they all play inside a system that can, in principle, be described."
Luna blinked. "…But Apexe can't be described?"
Aevor smiled faintly, a thin blade of amusement cutting through his expression. "They can be described. But not through comparison. Never through comparison. They are not 'higher' or 'beyond' or 'above' the world. Their entire nature is built on a different foundation."
Her heartbeat quickened. She wasn't entirely sure why. Something about the way he said "different foundation" made it feel… absolute. Irreversible. Like even the definition of existence bent when he spoke of it.
Aevor let her take it in for a few breaths before continuing.
"Even their baseline is foreign to what you know. For example…" His hand lowered from her face, sliding down gently to rest against the side of her neck, fingers warm against her pulse. "…speed."
Luna's brows raised slightly. "Speed?"
"Yes. The very simplest thing."
His tone flattened — not bored, but dismissive of how small the idea was in contrast.
"Everything you've ever seen — gods, deities, primordial beings, creatures who move through infinite distances in no time, beings who outrun concepts — all of them are still moving within the same frame. The same rule set. Their speed still means something because it's measured against that frame."
Luna's breath hitched. She could feel the shift in his voice — the way he was about to cut the universe open with a single explanation.
"Apexe don't move through the frame," he said.
"They move outside the idea of a frame."
His hand left her neck and gestured lightly outward.
"They do not travel faster than something. They do not exceed limits. They do not bypass rules. Movement for them is not an action — it is a decision."
Luna shivered again. "A decision…?"
"Yes."
He stepped closer, and she felt the heat of him, the certainty of him.
"If an Apexe decides to be at the start of time, they are. If they decide to be at the end of time, they are. If they decide to be both at once, they are. If someone attacks them, their reaction comes before the attacker even conceived the idea of striking."
He leaned in, eyes reflecting no sympathy for anything that wasn't her.
"They don't outrun causality. They never were inside it."
Luna's hand tightened around his sleeve, overwhelmed not by fear but by the sheer scope of what he was describing.
Aevor continued, voice low, hypnotic.
"Even sand — grains beneath an Apexe's feet — carries that baseline. If a grain wished to appear at the edge of existence, it wouldn't need movement. It would simply be where it decided to be. Every particle, every thought, every fragment operates on a principle that makes speed meaningless."
Luna whispered, "So nothing can catch them…"
Aevor's smile sharpened. "Nothing can even begin the attempt."
She swallowed, chest rising and falling as the truth settled into her bones.
"So all Apexe… they aren't just strong."
"No."
Aevor brushed his fingers through her hair, slow and deliberate.
"They are built from a system that is not compatible with anything lesser. You cannot compare them to worlds like Eryndal. Not because they're higher — but because they are not part of the same category of existence."
His voice deepened.
"The difference isn't distance. It's nature."
Luna's breath trembled. "And you're one of them."
Aevor looked down at her with a softness that could silence storms.
"I am the reason the concept even has a name."
Luna's heart nearly stopped at that.
Aevor stepped closer, palm resting gently against the back of her head.
"And you," he murmured, eyes narrowing with a warmth he reserved for no one else, "are walking directly beside me."
The world around them pulsed — as if it recognized the truth of his words long before the rest of existence could catch up.
Luna's voice was barely above a whisper.
"…Aevor."
"Yes?"
"Tell me more."
Aevor's eyes softened, and his fingers brushed a slow circle on her cheek.
"We have time," he said quietly.
And then he began to explain — the kind of truths only an Apexe could speak, and only Luna was allowed to hear.
The air around Aevor felt different when he continued speaking — not heavier, not lighter, but sharpened. As if reality itself wanted to hear the next words, terrified of misunderstanding something it was never built to comprehend.
Luna stood close enough that her shoulder brushed against his arm. She was quiet, attentive, her gaze locked entirely on him. It wasn't worship; it wasn't fear. It was the awareness that she was standing at the edge of truths no being in creation was ever meant to hear and still remain sane.
Aevor lowered his hand from her hair and let it rest at the small of her back. Not pulling her in — but reminding her she was the only reason he was speaking gently.
"You asked what makes an Apexe… what they are," he said. "There's more."
Luna nodded once, lips parted in anticipation. "Tell me."
Aevor's expression flattened into something colder, deeper — the expression of someone who was remembering the shape of a concept no one else could see.
"Intelligence," he began, "is a word for creatures who have to figure things out."
Luna blinked. "Figure things out… as in learning, solving, adapting?"
Aevor nodded slowly. "Analysis. Logic. Intuition. Even the highest minds in creation — those who see patterns across infinite realms, those who calculate futures, rewrite causality with thought — all of them rely on mechanisms. Processes."
He looked down at her, eyes half-lidded, the faintest curl lifting the corner of his mouth.
"Apexe don't think in processes."
Luna swallowed. "Then how do they think?"
"By existing."
Luna froze. Not from fear — from realizing she didn't actually understand the sentence.
Aevor explained.
"You see the world, and then your mind interprets it. You see a problem, and then you work toward a solution. You see a pattern, and then you unravel its logic."
His voice deepened.
"Apexe do not interpret. They do not calculate. They do not unravel."
He lifted his fingers and gently tapped her forehead.
"They are the solution. They are the underlying pattern. Their thoughts don't follow a sequence — they simply occur, fully realized, the moment an idea touches them."
Luna's breath trembled. "So… they don't think like minds at all."
"Exactly."
Aevor's hand dropped back to her waist, warm against her skin.
"A mind has structure. A mind has methods. But an Apexe's awareness isn't built on the same principles as consciousness. Their understanding doesn't grow. It doesn't change. It simply is, already complete, already perfect, already holding everything it ever will."
He paused, then added quietly:
"There is no form of intelligence — instinctual, cosmic, algorithmic, divine — that compares. Not because Apexe know more. But because they do not participate in the idea of knowing."
Luna's knees almost weakened beneath her.
He continued.
"And this… is their baseline."
A shudder passed through her. The baseline. Meaning the simplest, weakest, most unimpressive of them.
Aevor's thumb brushed the inside of her wrist, grounding her before she drifted too far into the enormity of the idea.
"There's something else," he said. "You asked earlier about range."
Luna nodded shakily. "Yes… I want to understand."
Aevor's eyes narrowed with the calm precision of someone describing something that made the universe itself irrelevant.
"Imagine a universe," he said. "Now imagine that universe spawning infinite branches. Infinite Eryndals, infinite cosmologies, infinite variants stacked endlessly."
He gestured faintly with his fingers.
"Most powerful beings can influence their surroundings — their universe, or a cluster of universes, or even an entire structure of worlds."
"That's… already incomprehensible to most beings," Luna whispered.
Aevor nodded. "But it's still bound by location. Even if their reach is vast, it has a shape. A border. A direction."
He stepped slightly behind her, speaking near her ear — not intimately, but with intent.
"Apexe do not reach outward."
Luna's breath hitched. "Then how do they act?"
"They act everywhere simultaneously."
Her entire body went still.
Aevor kept going.
"If an Apexe decides something should be erased, the effect is not projected outward from them. It simply manifests — across world structures, across possibilities, across hypothetical constructs, across events that could happen, might happen, or were never meant to happen."
His hand slid slowly along her shoulder blade.
"They don't send their power anywhere. Their power is already present wherever 'anywhere' could ever be."
A tremor ran through Luna's spine.
"And that," he said, "is again just baseline."
Baseline. The word felt too small for the concept.
Luna looked at him, voice trembling—not in fear, but awe:
"Aevor… if that's baseline, then what about strength? The actual physical… destructive power?"
Aevor gave a small exhale, the closest he ever came to a scoff.
"Strength?"
"Y-yes…"
His eyes hardened into something brutal, unyielding, absolute.
"Luna… a single Apexe — a weak one — could crush world-structures like Eryndal with their fingers."
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
"Not the continents," Aevor clarified calmly.
"Not the realms."
"Not the universes."
"Not the infinite layers of universes."
He leaned close enough that she felt his breath on her cheek as he spoke the final truth:
"The entire system. The entire architecture. All the stacked infinities. An Apexe could lift it. Tear it. Break it. Mold it. Without exerting effort."
Luna's vision blurred for a moment. Her pulse was racing so fast she could barely hear anything except his voice.
Aevor touched her face again, drawing her back.
"Do you understand?" he asked softly.
"I… I think so," she whispered. "You're saying they don't scale upward. They aren't 'stronger' than those worlds. They simply… aren't comparable."
Aevor smiled faintly.
"Good girl."
Heat flashed across her cheeks before she could stop it.
Aevor continued:
"An Apexe's 'physical' power is a lie — because their body is a formality. If they strike something, they are not applying force. They are imposing outcome. The universe doesn't shatter because of their impact; it shatters because it obeys the decision that it should."
Luna shivered.
"And their stamina?"
Aevor's voice deepened.
"They do not tire. They do not sustain. They do not maintain. An Apexe's existence is not powered by energy, by will, or by any internal reservoir."
He tilted her chin up again.
"Nothing depletes. Nothing runs out. Nothing diminishes. Every action costs them nothing."
Luna exhaled shakily. "Because they aren't using power… they're using their nature."
Aevor gave a slow nod.
"And nature cannot be exhausted."
Silence fell — but it wasn't empty. It was charged, thick, electric. Luna stared at him as if she were seeing him through new eyes, as if his presence carried a weight she had never fully noticed before.
She whispered:
"So this… this is the world of beings like you."
Aevor stepped forward, placing his hand on her cheek with a soft firmness.
"This is what it means," he said quietly, "to stand beside me."
Luna didn't look away.
She couldn't.
And for the first time, she realized:
Aevor wasn't explaining what Apexes were.
He was warning her — gently — of the scale she now existed within.
Aevor's voice softened, not out of pity, but out of a strange protectiveness that only Luna ever drew from him.
"Luna… you need to understand something," he said, his thumb brushing the back of her hand with deliberate calm. "When people talk about greatness, transcendence, supremacy… they always think it's about climbing out of a cage, or rising above whatever sits under them."
His eyes drifted across the horizon of Eonbark — a place where even the concept of 'distance' wavered, as if unsure how to behave in his presence.
"But the beings I'm talking about? The Apexes?"
Aevor shook his head slowly. "They don't escape limits. They were never inside any to begin with."
Luna's breath tightened, a mix of awe and dread.
She listened — because when Aevor spoke like this, he was revealing truths nothing else would ever explain.
He went on:
"Most existences — even vast ones — are shaped by something outside themselves. Their nature is a product of the rules they were born under, or the structures they broke, or the levels they climbed." He tilted his chin slightly. "Every god, world, dimension, and hierarchy you've ever heard of… they all trace back to something that defines them."
Then he lifted his gaze to hers — sharp, piercing, almost unbearably direct.
"But Apexes aren't reactions. They're not the answer to anything. They don't rely on contrast or comparison. Their identity isn't formed by being 'not this' or 'greater than that.'"
He leaned closer, voice quieter but infinitely more dangerous.
"They author themselves."
Luna felt a shiver — not of fear, but of recognition.
This wasn't arrogance.
This was truth spoken by someone who stood inside it.
Aevor let go of her hand and slowly spread his fingers as though displaying something unseen.
"When an Apex exists," he said, "it's not because they surpassed the finite. It's not because they broke through layers. It's because nothing outside them ever had the authority to define what they are in the first place."
His tone deepened, now edged with a cold clarity.
"That's what separates them from every other form of transcendence. Others grow by negating limits. Apexes don't grow at all. They are exactly what they are because nothing else gets a say."
Luna swallowed. "So… their nature isn't shaped by anything external."
"Exactly."
Aevor smiled, faint and surgical.
"And that's where their true danger lies."
He lifted his hand and snapped a finger casually.
A ripple tore through the ground — not a shockwave, not force — but definition rearranging itself, as if reality reconsidered how solid it was allowed to be.
"Apexes aren't a result of opposition or hierarchy," he said. "They're not defined by being outside limitations. They simply exist in a way where limitation can't attach to them. Not even conceptually."
His eyes gleamed, a shadow of ruthlessness surfacing beneath the calm.
"Take beings who think they're transcendent — Aeons, cosmic intelligences, whatever title they cling to. They still rely on contrast. They still think in terms of what they surpass. They're bound by the very idea that something can be 'less' or 'greater.'"
He tilted his head with a soft, mocking chuckle.
"That already disqualifies them. They're dependent on comparison. Their identity hangs on what they stand above."
He stepped closer to Luna again, his voice dipping low.
"But an Apexe?"
He shook his head.
"They don't stand above.
They stand alone."
Luna felt her pulse quicken.
Aevor continued:
"And that's why they're dangerous. Not because of strength — though yes, even the barest Apexe could lift or shatter a universe stacked with infinite Eryndals without noticing. Not because of speed — though their baseline perception already makes everything you've ever seen look frozen."
His expression hardened.
"It's because no rule, no logic, no mode of existence can pin down what they are. They don't inherit their identity. They don't borrow it. They don't rise to it."
He tapped his chest once, softly.
"They originate it."
Luna stared at him — not fearful, but deeply, achingly aware.
Aevor's voice gentled again.
"That's the scale you're standing near now. And the reason I'm telling you all this…"
He reached up and touched her cheek with the back of his fingers.
"…is because I don't want you thinking any of these lesser transcendent things are remotely comparable."
He lowered his hand.
"But unfortunately—"
A presence flared behind them.
A small, arrogant spark of being.
The kind that didn't know it was walking into a slaughter.
Aevor's jaw tensed.
Luna saw the shift — the warmth draining, replaced by a cold, sharpened silence.