The Painter had encountered, perhaps ten times across all forty-three previous Existences, a moment in which a cultivator at the table had managed a small move the Painter had not anticipated.
It was rare the first few times, and the last time it had been surprised was thirty of the forty-three Existences ago.
The Painter had absorbed those moments, refined the moves into flavors, and used them in subsequent Existences to enrich the meal.
However, none of those moves had been a move on the Tower. None of those moves had been made during a feast where it was feeding the audience.
The game was never fair. For any of the participants to even beat the Painter at the board and threaten its Eternal Tower was impossible... it could stretch out the game for countless eternities, and they would always be playing according to its rules.
This was not even including all the countless traps and lies that it had seeded in the board to throw even the most diligent of the truth. This game had always been made for the amusement of the audience and was never a method for the participants to win.
For this reason alone, the Painter had not stated anywhere in its game that the opponent could not attack its holdings.
The substrate of Existence meant that there could only ever be one tenth dimensional being... one Telos, and only this being would be able to battle the Painter in this grand game.
Even Eos could not escape this trap, but unlike every Existences that had nurtured a tenth dimensional being, Eos was different in the sense that he was able to create an avenue for others to get stronger even beyond their talents.
Power at this level became increasingly more centralized as everything would flow into the dominion of a single being; however, Eos had an annoying trait of creating paths in places that should not even exist.
The Painter understood, in the moment of looking, that Eos had used the entire second age as cover for his actions.
In fact, it happened long before that time, and Eos began his preparation when he saw the hand of the Painter for the first time.
Before then, Eos had believed that his greatest enemy would be Enoch, but seeing the Painter, Eos knew that the fight would no longer be as simple... if it ever was in the first place.
There was one trait that had aided Eos in his battles from the time he was a mortal, and that was foresight and planning.
He made it a habit to theorize about the abilities of the higher dimensions even before he reached that dimensional level.
From the moment he saw the Painter and understood that this being must be at the tenth dimension or even higher, Eos began to plan ahead for the sort of abilities that this being might possess.
The more he thought about it, and the ridiculous length of time that this being must have lived, Eos nearly gave up; every single path ahead led to defeat... There was not a single one that came out ahead.
Until one day, the idea came to him like a flood. He had always been the one standing in front of everyone, and he could continue to do the same, but instead of being the one with the sword... he was going to be bait.
A small chuckle escaped the Painter, and the audience in its face leaned further forward.
This was new, and it interested them. Eos felt that if the Painter was being killed, it’s only emotion and thought would be about curiosity and pleasure.
"You have been busy," the Painter said, slowly, returning Eos’s word with a precision that did not yet have a strategy beneath it.
"I have been bearing the weight of your presence," Eos said. "Bearing something like that is busy work."
The Painter did not respond, and Eos sat deeper and looked towards the countless audience inside the Painter’s face.
"You have served the audience well," he said. "I did not want to interrupt. The audience deserved their meal, and you deserved to serve it, and I deserved to bear it. We have all done what we are for. Now it is my turn to do what I am for, in addition to what I have been doing, which I will continue to do."
"Will you continue to bear it?" the Painter chuckled. "You would attack me while I ravage your creation?"
"Yes," Eos said. "I will continue to bear, and I will also begin my attack, for nowhere in the rules of the game was I prevented from doing this."
®
In the seventeenth Origin Realm, where Eva had wept, and her tears had grown, Eva felt a massive shockwave that only those at the fifth layer of Origin could feel.
At their level, it was possible to peer outside the Origin Tree and see the Grand Void, and although it was a very rare sight, looking deep into the Grand Void could reward you with a glimpse of the Eternal Tower.
In all the years since the creation of the Origin Tree, Eva had only glimpsed the Eternal Tower once.
She knew that this was the place that Eos had entered, where he fought alone, and this knowledge saddened and terrified her at the same time.
Even if she wanted to join him in this fight, she could not even cross the Grand Void in front of them, which was the least criterion to reach the Eternal Tower.
However, the shockwave that she felt was different, and Eva hurried outside the Origin Tree, and she was stunned at what she was seeing.
The Grand Void was glowing like trillions of tiny stars had been born inside it, and she realized in that instant that she was looking at the substrate of the Tenth Dimension, and the only reason she was seeing this was that in the distance she could clearly see the Eternal Tower, and a series of shockwaves were erupting from it.
It was these shockwaves that were stirring the substrate of the tenth dimension, like a meteor tossed into a calm pond, allowing her to see the substrate underneath all things.
The Tower was shifting.