Chapter 596: Error
"What do you think the element of Darkness represents?" Odeseus’s cold voice rang out, steady and sharp.
He paused only for a moment, his abyssal eyes locking onto Alex’s gaze before he continued, "And I don’t mean the textbook description. Tell me what Darkness is to you."
Alex took a moment to think before answering. "Darkness, to me, is one of the core aspects of reality, a tree with many branches. It encompasses domains such as death, shadow, and the void, while lesser aspects, including decay, fear, and corruption, also fall under it.
"But in my understanding, while Darkness is very versatile, in its purest nature it is a force of absence, strongest when used to destroy or erase things from reality," Alex said carefully.
"You are not wrong, but your understanding is too narrow."
Odeseus leaned forward, his fingers interlaced, hands resting together in a pose that carried both calm and weight. "The famous phrase, you must have heard it in one form or another,"
"Darkness is the canvas upon which reality is painted, or sometimes it is said, Darkness is the stage of reality, and everything is an actor upon it."
"This statement implies that Darkness is the domain that underlies everything, a force of pure potentiality, providing the ground for all things to manifest."
"One would then believe that Darkness is nothing and everything at the same time, and one would be correct."
"But would it be right to think that Darkness could become everything, like Fire, Ice, Gravity, and all other elements and aspects in known creation?" Odeseus paused for a moment, letting Alex reach his own answer.
"No. This statement is completely wrong. The canvas doesn’t become the painting. The stage doesn’t become the actors, and similarly, Darkness cannot transform into anything."
He said slowly, as if emphasizing the point. "It only permits reality to be expressed."
Odeseus’s eyes narrowed slightly, the weight of his words hanging heavy. "But if Darkness is the canvas, the base of everything, then could it erase the things expressed upon it?
"It sure can, but tell me, is erasure the limit of Darkness?" He tilted his head, his voice pressing sharper. "Think. Think hard, and you tell me."
Alex was left at a loss for words. He had heard that exact phrase, ’Darkness is the canvas upon which reality is painted,’ within Erebus’s memories, spoken by his mother.
He, too, had once concluded that if Darkness was the base, then it should be able to become everything. Yet his own experience and understanding led him to believe otherwise, that Darkness was not meant to create, but to destroy.
Darkness held the greatest destructive power, for it did not merely break things apart, it erased them at a fundamental level. True erasure required unfathomable strength, yet even short of that, Darkness broke things down faster than any other force.
One could argue that the element of Destruction held the upper hand in raw annihilation, but Alex wholeheartedly believed that Darkness, if not greater, could at least rival it.
He turned over Odeseus’s words in his mind, and the quick answer that came was simple. Yes, erasure should be Darkness’s only nature, since erasure meant returning to the base, the most natural form, a blank canvas.
But after a few seconds of deeper contemplation, Alex realized this wasn’t the complete truth. There had to be more to Darkness’s nature than erasure alone.
And he didn’t mean its versatility, even though the domains under Darkness encompassed many elements.
The Void, for example, carried the properties of concealment, erasure, and space.
Death, another domain, also revolved around erasure but touched the domain of Life as well, its core still rooted in ending.
Similarly, domains such as Decay, Corruption, Oblivion, and even Silence and Fear, each bore the essence of erasure at their heart.
Even domains without erasure as their core, like Shadow, reflected Darkness’s nature. A shadow in its essence was nothing but an imprint of an object, a record of reality, and Darkness, as the base of reality, was the same.
Yet Darkness reached beyond these examples. Everything within reality, in the end, returned to the base. Meaning everything was meant to return to Darkness.
All of this only reinforced why the phrase, ’Darkness is the canvas upon which reality is painted,’ was not a poetic exaggeration but an undeniable truth.
The second property of Darkness, besides erasure, was its ability to allow reality to exist. Now, the question that came to Alex’s mind was, could Darkness allow changes to the things that already existed upon it?
One couldn’t recreate what was already expressed upon the canvas, since, as Odeseus had said, the canvas could never become the painting.
But since Darkness carried the property to erase what rested upon it, then shouldn’t there be nothing stopping it from changing what already existed as well?
Maybe Alex was wrong, and Darkness’s only true nature was to maintain and erase. Yet something in him stirred, an instinct that whispered he was close to the truth.
After several minutes of silent contemplation, Alex finally lifted his head, meeting Odeseus’s abyssal gaze with steady confidence. "Darkness could allow changes to what already exists."
"You were quicker to reach this conclusion than I had thought you would," Odeseus said, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "You are more talented than I expected."
He leaned forward, his voice carrying a sharp edge. "As your reward, I will explain one of its applications. It has many names, Contradiction, Error, a Glitch."
Odeseus gave Alex a moment to absorb the information. "It works by introducing the unknown into the known, the unstable into the stable laws."
"For example, gravity normally pulls with a set acceleration. But if you seed Error into it, the law no longer follows fixed rules. In the affected area, objects might stretch, lag, or fall inconsistently, like glitches in reality."
"Add Error to a blade. Before, it would cut cleanly, but now the blade forgets where its edge lies, and so its cuts stretch longer or shorter than intended."
His smile widened slightly, the faintest trace of amusement slipping into his otherwise cold tone. "The possibilities are endless. The strength of Error lies in choice. You can scatter it like a cloud and let the world bend in wild, unstable ways."
"Or you can seed it precisely, altering a single property with surgical intent. Stretch time here, blur an edge there, or twist one constant while leaving the rest untouched."
Odeseus’s voice lowered, each word deliberate. "An Error doesn’t destroy the law itself. Gravity still exists, and similarly, A blade still cuts."
"But the Error interrupts how they are expressed. That is why it is called an Error, a glitch in reality, a wrong note in a song that otherwise continues to play.
"Darkness as erasure is final, an end." He paused, almost savoring the word before continuing, "But Darkness as Error is playful. It mutters, it stutters. It does not end reality, rather it makes reality trip over its own steps."
Alex suddenly felt his throat turn dry. He swallowed hard, the enormity of the revelation dawning on him.
The words rattled in his skull like loose stones, refusing to settle. The Darkness wasn’t only erasure, as he had believed. It could misstep the laws themselves, make the world stagger on its own foundations.
The thought clawed at him, impossible yet undeniable.
Alex’s lips parted, but no words came out. His mind flooded with scenarios of errors, fire turning cold, sound folding in on itself, a thousand other minor and major impossibilities.
Just imagining the ability to wield such a broken force made his stomach twist. And yet, beneath the dread and shock, something else stirred.
A quiet, dangerous spark of wonder.
He forced a shaky breath, finally managing a whisper. "That’s not just power. That’s... cheating the world itself."
"Yes, it is," Odeseus said, his cold voice steady. His abyssal eyes seemed to cut through Alex as he followed, "So, do you still think Zarach has any advantage over you?"
Alex could only shake his head silently. It would have been a lie to claim Zarach held no advantage at all. Even if Alex uncovered his secrets, that might still remain the case.
But fear? No. He was not afraid of Zarach, because if he were, he would never have staked his life on a single duel against him.
That did not mean Alex underestimated him. He understood all too well that Zarach was not only stronger but also more dangerous, and that was exactly why he had accepted the challenge.
He knew the bet left him no choice. His only option was to grow stronger, since failure would mean not just defeat, but the loss of a rare chance to advance, to seize growth no other path could offer.
And if he could not overcome an obstacle like Zarach, a man with nearly the same experiences and opportunities as him, then what chance did he have when the final challenge came?
The challenge waiting in the Ancient World, Demon King Ahrimon.
But now, after learning how far his abilities could stretch, how utterly broken they might become, the uncertainty that was present before was gone.
What consumed him instead was something sharper. A hunger. A gnawing curiosity to explore this new field of power, to grasp its mysteries as quickly as possible, so he could wield them for himself.