Cornwall Observable Existence had not always belonged to the beings who currently called it home.

Before the Source Lifeforms came, before the obsidian stone and the training fields and the castles that had stood for eons beyond the memory of any Bounded Lifeform still living, Cornwall belonged to the Infinite Lifeforms who had claimed it during an Age and held it with the brutality of those who keep things not because they value them but because they refuse to relinquish anything they have touched.

They were unruly, their authority over Cornwall’s foundational fabric expressed through continuous conflict with each other rather than any coherent stewardship of the reality they occupied. Cornwall suffered accordingly.

Its Causes expressed themselves in bursts rather than sustained flows. Three of its original Primordial Realms collapsed entirely under the accumulated pressure of Infinite Lifeforms using them as battlegrounds.

Then the Source Lifeform arrived.

History recorded no prolonged campaign and no extended siege. What the archives contained instead was a single notation spanning eleven words.

The Source Lifeform came. The Infinite Lifeforms left or were removed.

Cornwall had an immense history.

All of it, every age and every conflict and every scar written into its foundational fabric, had been pointing toward becoming what it currently was.

A place where greatness was made!

---

The massive draconic eel turned the moment they arrived.

It moved with the cold deliberateness of something that had been aware of their presence before they materialized, three pairs of obsidian wings folding slightly as its attention shifted from the training field below to the three beings who had appeared at the edge of its domain.

Its crimson eyes moved across Achilles and Taylor with the flat assessment of something that had seen many arrivals at this place and had formed opinions about what arrivals generally amounted to.

It turned to Sir William.

"You bring more and more dredges to this place."

Its voice was massive!

"Not everyone is meant for greatness, you know. How many more will you sponsor who end up dying or failing, O William the Great?"

...!

The last three words carried the texture of mockery that stopped just short.

Sir William frowned.

He motioned toward the draconic eel.

"You are the Guardian of the Stone of Cornwall. Mind your manners, grant them access, and whether they succeed or not is up to them."

BOOM!

His immensity pressed outward from those words with authority. The Guardian of the Stone harrumphed, its crimson eyes moving back to Achilles and Taylor with cold evaluation.

Moments later, a manifestation bloomed above the Guardian’s head.

A massive obsidian stone appeared in the air with the sudden solidity of something that had always existed somewhere and had simply been called to this particular location. It was enormous, its surface carrying the ancient smoothness of something worn by contact with forces that ordinary matter did not encounter, and on its face a small point of light opened like a doorway, edges crisp and luminous against the obsidian dark surrounding it.

Achilles felt the pull immediately.

His existence drew toward that point of light with a hunger that came from somewhere deeper than his Civilization of Assimilation, something foundational responding to whatever lay on the other side of that doorway.

Taylor smiled beside him.

"Good luck, Adrastia. Existence is telling me that boundless opportunity lies all around."

Sir William’s voice came in behind hers with the weight of someone delivering the only instruction that actually counted.

"Persevere. If you do, you will come out the other side as an Attendant."

BOOM!

Immense darkness arrived.

The pull became absolute, his existence drawn into the obsidian stone with speed that made resistance a concept without practical application, the doorway of light consuming his field of perception until light and dark both disappeared and there was only the transition between where he had been and where he was going.

The change was nearly instantaneous.

He found himself inside a maze-like pathway that extended in multiple directions from where he stood, branching corridors spreading outward with the organized complexity of something designed rather than grown.

The floor beneath him was obsidian stone, ancient and smooth and carrying that same quality of having been worn by contact with forces beyond ordinary reckoning.

There were no walls.

The pathways existed as raised obsidian stone platforms, corridors without barriers on either side, the edges dropping away into a darkness below that communicated depth without revealing it.

The maze extended across this space with its branches and junctions and dead ends all fully visible from any given point because nothing obstructed the view.

Which meant he could see everything that occupied the other sections of the maze from where he stood.

Titanic obsidian bulls.

They stood at various positions throughout the space. Their forms were dense with a power that pressed against his awareness with the quality of something adjacent to THE Primordial Source without being THE Primordial Source itself, close to that foundational authority without carrying it completely.

Every crimson eye in the maze turned to him simultaneously.

Information crystallized before his awareness.

|Welcome to THE Trial of the Immovable Stone.|

|Classification: Entry Assessment for Attendants of Existence.|

|Mechanics: The entities before you are Fledgling Source Lifeforms, nascent beings filled with slivers of Pure Primordial Essence who have not yet fully awakened to their nature. They function as guardians of this trial.|

|Your existence is anchored to the obsidian stone beneath you. You cannot leave the stone’s surface through flight or any form of aerial transit. If you are pushed from the stone’s surface, your existence will be ground down by the Primordial Essence saturating the darkness below until you are returned to the trial’s starting position.|

|The goal: traverse the maze and reach the exit on the far side while the Fledgling Source Lifeforms attempt to remove you from the stone.|

|Note: Conventional Civilizational techniques will be partially suppressed within this trial. The Primordial Essence permeating this space disrupts standard authority expressions. Ingenuity and foundational capability will determine outcomes more than accumulated power.|

|Persevere.|

...!

Achilles’s eyes opened wide as he processed the final line of the prompts.

The bulls roared!

OOOOH!

The sound filled the maze with the resonance of something that had been built to produce exactly that effect, each roar carrying fragments of Primordial Essence that pressed against his foundations!

They Bulls began charging!