The roar of the Painter carried with it such power that nothing and no one in all of creation could have resisted its voice, but Eos did not kneel.
When words failed, the Painter began to apply force.
The Painter's infinite hands pulled, each carrying the weight of millions of Existences. They pulled with the weight of forty-three previous cultivators who had all knelt at this point in their respective games.
All of this was accompanied by the power of an eleventh-dimensional being who had not been required to pull on anything in its entire existence and was now pulling with everything it had.
And still yet, Eos did not kneel.
He bent, bled, and the substance of his being leaked into the substrate around him. He went to one knee, and the Painter saw the knee touch the substrate and screamed in triumph that lasted half a second, because then Eos stood again, and he stood with the hand still open, the grief still offered.
