The Great Core's Paradox

I hissed impatiently, observing the ongoing struggle from behind a protective line of stones. The blasphemers had done the impossible; they had slowed the faithful’s advance. Another brave Coreless forged ahead, building a path of high stones on the floor to overcome the null-water until the horrible liquid’s touch became too much. He pulled back, lungs heaving agonized breaths, and one of his fellows replaced him.

The damage the null-water had done to his flesh would eventually heal, but something about it made the restorative effects of the [Little Guardian’s Focus]es slow down to a crawl - and, even worse, the Great Core’s faithful had many times more mana within their flesh than they had once possessed.

The null-water was dangerous to them; not in the same immediately fatal way that it was to me, but enough to cause problems.

My disciples, especially, couldn’t dare get too close.

“I really want to get my hands on whoever had the bright idea to carve a mine through an area so infested with null-water,” the Unrepentant One grumbled, his fingers flexing sharply in [agitation]. “I just want to have a simple conversation.”

“It’ll be fine,” the-female-who-was-not-Needle jabbered something back, seeming significantly less bothered. I could feel the faith radiating off of her, the certitude that even null-water could only delay the Great Core’s victory.

And it was true. Even as I watched, the Great Core’s Coreless advanced step by step, laboriously building their way through a flood of null-water that would have instantly destroyed any but the Coreless. Once again, I was overcome with emotion at the sight; at the confirmation of the Great Core’s inevitable victory in all things. Any other Core would have been stymied, the bad-things they created unable to continue.

But that fate was for Lesser Cores. The Greatest of Cores would always continue on. And so, as I held watch and hissed in quiet approval, the null-water was slowly defeated. The faithful worked in teams, the vast majority obtaining stones from the surrounding tunnel walls, while a chosen few would brave the null-water to place them. When the touch of the null-water became too much, those who placed the stones would fall back to heal, replaced by the first in the line of those who had been gathering stone.

Occasionally, one faithful or another slipped on the stones that formed the null-water crossing, dipping more heavily into the null-water with a [horrified] scream - but, each time, they protected their [Little Guardian’s Totem], their link to eventual recovery, and survived.