Noah Vance stood in a place that shouldn't exist.
It was neither space nor time, neither dream nor reality. A void that was both everything and nothing, a contradiction in itself.
And before him stood two beings.
No, not beings. Concepts. Fundamental laws of existence given form.
The first burned like the embodiment of absolute authority, his presence alone bending reality to his will. The other was the absence of all things, a figure that did not exist yet still stood there—a void so pure it was more real than existence itself.
And Noah…?
He sighed.
"So, let me get this straight." His voice neither echoed nor faded—because there was nothing here to carry sound.
"You two are locked in a paradox, an endless loop with no resolution. And you need me to solve it?"
Neither god moved. They did not blink, did not breathe. They simply existed.
Noah exhaled sharply. "Right. Fine. Let's get this over with."
He turned to the burning figure. The God of Permission.
"You are the reason anything exists at all. Without you, nothing can happen. Nothing can be born, nothing can grow, nothing can change."
Then, he faced the void. The God of Nothingness.
"And you are the reason things end. Without you, existence itself would be eternal, unchanging, stagnant. Without you, the very concept of 'nothing' would cease to exist."
Noah's arms crossed, his gaze cold.
"The problem is obvious. If the God of Nothingness erases the God of Permission, then nothing new will ever be created. Everything that exists now will be the last, forever."
He tilted his head slightly.
"But if the God of Permission denies the God of Nothingness his power, then nothing will ever be erased. Everything will keep existing, even when it shouldn't. Even if it wants to end."
Silence.
Noah's thoughts sharpened. His voice turned into steel.
"This isn't just a paradox. This is the fundamental contradiction of reality itself. Creation and destruction. The right to begin and the right to end. Neither of you can overpower the other without breaking the system entirely. The very act of one of you 'winning' would mean the collapse of all logic, all laws, all existence."
He took a step forward.
"And yet… here you are. Asking me to judge which of you is superior?"
For the first time, something shifted.
A feeling rippled through the void—not sound, not movement, but something far deeper. The absence of silence.
Then, the void spoke.
"Correct."
A second voice followed—a voice that was not heard, but obeyed.
"And that is exactly why we have chosen you, Noah Vance. The only being who can think at our level of absolute truth."
Noah didn't even blink.
"Yeah. I figured."
He met their unreadable gazes with something far worse than fear. Indifference.
"And now what?" His voice was calm, almost bored. "You want me to decide which of you should win?"
For the first time, the nothingness trembled. The light flickered. Reality itself held its breath.
And then, in perfect unison, the two gods spoke.
"Yes."
Noah exhaled slowly, his eyes sharp.
"So, let me get this straight." His voice remained calm, but beneath it was something colder. A razor-sharp certainty.
"You want an answer. A judgment. A resolution." His gaze flickered between the two gods. "But without collapsing the entire omniverse. Without reducing all of existence into pure chaos."
The light did not waver. The void did not stir.
And yet, something far more profound happened.
Reality itself listened.
"And if I had to guess…" Noah continued, hands in his pockets, voice steady, "you've never shown yourselves to anyone before. Never revealed your presence. Not even once. Right?"
A silence so absolute followed that it could never have been broken.
Then, they answered.
A voice that was not sound but a shift in fundamental truth.
"Correct."
And another, layered over it—an authority so absolute that even causality bowed.
"The concept of feeling, of creation, of destruction—these things do not apply to us."
There was no emotion in their words. No intent. Only the raw weight of law itself.
"What you call 'God' is not us. We are beyond such things."
Noah's expression remained blank. But inside, his thoughts were turning—sharpening.
"Of course you are," he muttered.
They continued.
"The gods you know—the rulers of fire, water, light, void—are merely aspects of reality, bound to the structure of their universes."
"Even the Almighty, the one who governs the omniverse, is bound by the system he oversees."
"We are not."
Noah understood.
This wasn't power. This wasn't divinity. This was something worse.
They weren't rulers. They weren't beings. They weren't even forces of nature.
They were axioms.
Unquestionable, unavoidable, unshakable.
"Thought so," Noah muttered. His voice was flat.
Because now he saw it.
This wasn't just a paradox.
This was the fundamental flaw in existence itself.
Noah exhaled slowly, his gaze steady but unreadable. "Then before I begin… let me ask you something."
He leaned forward slightly, his voice calm yet firm. "Why now?"
His words hung in the void between them.
"You exist beyond time itself, beyond beginnings and ends. So why, after an eternity of never questioning this paradox… are you asking now?"
For a moment, there was silence. Then, the God of Permission spoke.
"Because I allowed it to happen."
His voice was absolute, carrying the weight of infinite realities.
"I allowed Nothingness to become aware of my presence. I allowed him to feel this question. And so, I allowed myself to feel it too."
Noah's brows furrowed slightly. "Then again… why?"
A long pause.
Then, a whisper—so quiet, so utterly foreign to the nature of gods, that it sent a chill through the void itself.
"Maybe I… even I was… what existence calls it… 'bored.'"
Noah's breath hitched. Just for a second.
He narrowed his eyes, watching them carefully.
Then, the God of Nothingness spoke, his voice like a hollow abyss swallowing all light.
"Maybe I did not keep myself hidden because I, too, was bored. Maybe…" His voice deepened, something ancient and unfathomable slipping into his tone. "Maybe the reason Permission was able to create even in my presence… was because I did not want to be alone."
The void itself seemed to shudder.
Noah's spine went rigid. A cold, instinctual dread spread through his veins. His fingers twitched, as if his very existence wanted to recoil from this moment, from these words that should not exist.
The silence stretched between them, vast and endless. There was no sound, no breath, no movement—only the weight of their words pressing down on existence itself.
Noah steadied himself, inhaling slowly. His mind was sharp, but for the first time in his life, he felt something he had never experienced before.
Not fear.
Not awe.
Something worse.
A creeping realization. A thought that made his very being tremble.
If these two, who exist beyond gods, beyond omniverses, beyond anything even remotely comprehensible—if they had started to feel, to question, to seek something…
Then what happens when they want?
What happens when they decide that what they have… is not enough?
And worse—
What if that moment… had already begun?
Noah let out a slow breath, steadying himself. His heartbeat was normal—calm, controlled. But that wasn't the problem.
The problem was what he now knew.
The problem was the truth that had just settled in his mind, heavy and suffocating like a storm cloud that had always been there—he had just never looked up to see it.
The God of Nothingness had never kept himself from consuming all things.
The God of Permission had never stopped creation from endlessly unfolding.
Not because they couldn't.
But because, deep down, they had never wanted to be alone.
A chill ran down Noah's spine again, but he crushed it before it could take hold. Fear was meaningless here. Hesitation was worthless.
Instead, he exhaled slowly, his voice even.
"Then let's begin."
He took a step forward—not physically, because there was no 'ground' here. But conceptually, he moved.
The moment stretched, the fabric of all things trembling as the presence of two impossible beings fixed upon him.
He met their gaze—not eyes, not anything remotely human, but presence itself.
And then, with a voice that should not have mattered in this place yet somehow shook the very core of existence, he spoke.
"I… THE MORTAL WHO JUDGES A PARADOX."
At that moment, the entirety of reality itself reacted.
The omniverse shuddered.
Something shifted.
And for the first time since the birth of all things—
Even Nothingness and Permission themselves… paused.
The weight of those words crashed down upon existence itself.
For the first time in eternity, the fundamental laws of all things—beings beyond gods, beyond meaning—hesitated.
The void did not stir, yet its presence dimmed.
The light did not flicker, yet it wavered.
It was subtle. So faint that even the most omniscient of deities would have missed it.
But Noah saw.
And he understood.
They weren't omnipotent. Not truly.
Because if they were, they wouldn't have asked.
If they were, they wouldn't have needed him.
Noah exhaled slowly, his fingers curling slightly. He had been right to be afraid.
Not of them.
Not of their power.
But of what they were becoming.
These two weren't just fundamental forces anymore.
They weren't just absolute laws given form.
They had hesitated.
They had questioned.
They had wanted.
And that meant, somewhere in the vast infinity of their existence—
They had changed.
The realization sank deep into his bones, colder than the void itself.
Change meant uncertainty.
Change meant flaws.
Change meant desire.
And if something beyond all reality could begin to want—
Then what stops them from taking?
His jaw clenched. This was bad.
He wasn't just judging a paradox anymore.
He wasn't just standing between creation and destruction.
He was standing before the first cracks in absolute law itself.
And if those cracks widened—if these beings continued to change, continued to seek meaning beyond what they were—
Then it wouldn't just be this omniverse at risk.
It would be everything.
Every world.
Every law.
Every past, present, and future.
Noah's fingers twitched, but his expression remained blank. He couldn't let them see.
He took another breath. Measured. Cold.
And then, for the first time since stepping into this impossible place—
He smiled.
"Well then," he said, voice steady. "Shall we begin?"
And with that, the trial of existence itself truly started.