Paragon, a being of youthful form clad in immaculate white and gold, sat upon a throne of ironwood that had grown from the seed of a dying star. Before him, creation spiralled in a silent, breathtaking panorama. Galaxies whorled like fingerprints; nebulae bloomed in silent explosions of colour. But his gaze was fixed on the single page resting on the obsidian lectern.

 

He read aloud, his voice the soft chime of crystal.

“And though the fire fell like rain, and the stones of his home became the dust of his ancestors, Albert the carpenter lived. He drew breath from the ash-choked air, a miracle woven not by divine hand, but by the stubborn, unscripted knot of chance.”

 

A smile touched Paragon’s lips. It was a good paragraph. Honest. He contemplated adding a metaphor, but before he could decide, the seamless light of his chamber shattered.

 

The great doors exploded inward, not with sound, but with a pressure that warped reality itself. Two figures filled the doorway. Ogun, a mountain of militant divinity clad in armour forged from the cores of neutron stars, his face a helmet of grim authority. Beside him flowed Oya, her form draped in cascading silks of cerulean and deepest ocean, and her hair a swirling vortex of living water.

 

Paragon’s stylus froze. “This is an intrusion.”

 

Ogun strode forward, each step a tectonic event, his gauntleted hand extended. The book on the lectern twitched and flew into his grasp. “You overreach, Paragon,” Ogun’s voice boomed.

 

“Overreach?” Paragon rose, his youthful form suddenly radiating a light that made the very fabric of the temple vibrate. “You have no right!”

 

“We have every right by Law,” Oya interjected, her voice a softer counterpoint. “Stories of the lower realms, of their specific pains and joys, their individual paths… they are forbidden. You know this.”

 

Paragon’s light flickered with frustration. “I could fight you for it,” Paragon said, the hum in the room rising to a whine.

 

Oya’s watery gaze held his. “You could. And you would lose. Not to us, but to the Law that binds even this Citadel. The Law that even Agba upholds. Their free will is not yours to script. Just as HE gave us freewill of our own.”

 

“Fine,” Paragon whispered, the word a dying star. He looked out at the sprawling cosmos. “And if I write… other tales? Brutal and savage epics of winds and seas? Sagas of abstract wars? Songs of the void before the First Song?”

 

“Yes, your Highness,” she said. “Those are permitted."

 

Without another word, Ogun turned. Oya offered a slight, unreadable nod. Cradled in a barrier of Ogun’s stern, metallic energy and Oya’s fluid, containing power, the book of Albert’s life was carried from the temple. The doors resealed, leaving Paragon alone with the silent, infinite spectacle of creation.

 

* * *

 

The protected book was borne through corridors of solidified time and archways of singing light to the heart of the Citadel: the Library of Contents. Here, Agba waited. He was to Ogun and Oya as a redwood is to saplings, an elder of such immense scale and quiet power that the very light bent around his form in a perpetual, respectful halo. He took the book from their mystical barrier. His fingers, each the size of Ogun’s forearm, handled the modest volume with unexpected gentleness.

 

He opened it. His eyes, deep as collapsed galaxies, scanned the pages — the birth of Albert, the smell of sawdust, the love for a wife taken by fever, the horror of the siege, the miracle in the ruins. A smile, ancient and warm, touched Agba’s lips.

 

“He writes another,” Agba’s voice was the gentle rumble of universal expansion.

 

“He does, Host,” Ogun confirmed, his tone still bristling.

 

“He is so young,” Agba murmured, closing the book with a soft thump. “And his raw power is immense. To weave fate with such… empathy. A dangerous talent.” He held the book aloft. “But the lower lifeforms have their own will. Their paths are their own to choose, to stumble upon, to carve in blood and hope. It is the First Law.”

 

With his other hand, Agba gestured. A portal irised open in the midst of the library — not a window, but a tear into the raw, chaotic potential of unbeing. Without ceremony, he tossed Paragon’s book into it. There was no fire, no sound in their realm, but a concussive wave of un-writing slammed outwards. Ogun’s armour rang like a gong; Oya’s watery attire rippled violently. The story of Albert, fundamentally unmade.

 

Agba waved the portal closed. The silence returned, deeper now. “Continue to watch him,” he instructed.

 

As Ogun turned to leave, Oya hesitated. Her eyes scanned the impossible expanse of the library. Shelves stretched into infinity, holding books that glowed, books that wept light, books that sang in forgotten tongues. Among them, she recognized the distinct, brilliant shimmer of Paragon’s earlier works—Saga of the Solar Forge, Chaos Wars, Lament of the Last Void-Whale.

 

“Host,” she began, her voice curious. “You destroy the books of the lower realms. Yet your library… it holds many of Paragon’s tales.”

 

Agba’s immense head inclined. “It does.”

 

“Why are some destroyed, and others preserved here?”

 

Agba gestured to the towering shelves. “These stories are of us. Our personal deeds, our follies, our cosmic triumphs and tragedies. They are history. And sometimes, a rare soul among the lower forms — a poet, a mystic, a dreamer on the brink of death — their spirit, unshackled, brushes against these volumes. They catch a fragment, a refrain, and bring back a piece of truth, disguised as myth. This is allowed. This library houses knowledge, not destiny. But to write the specific, mortal story of an Albert? That is unacceptable!”

 

Back in his temple, Paragon stared at the empty lectern. The cosmos still turned outside. He picked up his stylus of solidified light. He would write a new story, he decided. A grand, celestial epic of Gods and Titans.