"Are you sure you want to answer now?" Nomephins lazily raised his eyes.
Liriel and the Decayer nodded at the same time.
Nomephins yawned. "...Then go."
As his words fell, Nomephins's mane suddenly grew long and dense, like countless fine tentacles wrapping tightly around them.
Though they were surrounded, neither of them felt restrained. Instead, it was as if they had entered another dimension, with drifting strands of thread all around them.
"Walk forward." Nomephins's voice reached their ears.
Liriel and the Decayer exchanged a glance. No longer hesitating, they stepped forward through the countless strands.
At first, the threads were grayish white. Gradually, they turned golden. After another dozen or so steps, the golden threads condensed into a brilliant sphere of light.
Though they faced the glare, they could still make out the faint outline of buildings within that radiant orb.
If nothing unexpected happened, that was the exit.
The great figure Nomephins had mentioned was presumably there as well.
Drawing a deep breath, neither paused as they stepped forward.
The world around them abruptly turned upside down, and the oppressive sensation of being wrapped in threads faded away completely.
They arrived in a... boundless, bizarre space.
There was no day or night here, no mountains or terrain. The entire space floated amid hazy quantum tides.
Everything within sight followed predetermined laws of motion—at times breaking apart into fine stardust motes and vanishing into the void; at other times reconstructing and condensing out of nothingness, with mountains, vegetation, and the outlines of buildings taking shape in an instant, endlessly born and extinguished without certainty.
All things remained trapped in an endless cycle of quantum dissociation and instantaneous reconstruction.
It was as though every inch of air held the authority to create worlds.
"This is... the evolution and creation of