Chapter 5516: Marrow!
Chapter 5516: Marrow!
Two dying Causes, coming towards them!
Noah’s expression was heavy as his mind turned through the possibilities. Why would this be happening? One possibility related to Ormarr, the Serpent had promised that they were coming. But the other...he couldn’t say for sure. Two clusters, two directions, both converging on their exact location as if the golden island had become a lodestone!
And he couldn’t even think about this in his usual terms of welcome Adversity, because this might be the type of adversity that was apocalyptic.
He was powerful. Every facet at Straif, an Intent at Ngetal, a Pantheon with absolute rulings! But he was not invincible, and the gap between those two words was where entire existences went to die. So he had to plan ahead thoroughly, and planning began with information.
He thought for a moment, and then knelt back down to his daughter’s height.
"Seo-yeon. When you think about those two dying Causes coming over...how do they make you feel?"
Seo-yeon’s small face scrunched up as she closed her eyes and reached back into the threads, her hands slowly rising to hover over her own chest as she felt them out.
"The first one..." Her voice went small. "The first one feels bad, Aba. It hurts, but it’s a mean hurt. Like it’s been hurting so long that it turned into hating. It feels heavy and cruel and, and like it wants everything else to hurt too. Like a king who is angry at everyone." She shivered!
"There are many little dying songs in that cluster, but they’re all chained to one big mean one."
Hatred and despotic emotions. A cluster of dying Causes chained to a cruel center! Noah’s eyes narrowed.
"And the second?"
"The second one is..." Seo-yeon’s brows unfurrowed, and her voice turned confused, almost wondering. "The second one hurts just as much. Maybe more! It’s so old and so tired, Aba. But it doesn’t feel mean at all. It feels like..."
She opened her eyes and looked up at her father with genuine puzzlement. "It feels like hope? It’s dying and it’s hurting and it’s rushing here so fast, and the whole time it feels...hopeful."
...!
Hope?
Why would a cursed, dying thing be surging towards them with hope?!
Noah’s brows frowned deeply as a suspicion stirred! His gaze turned briefly inward, toward the fifth Letter newly carved into his backbone, and he questioned it directly. Had PROTAGONIST done something crazy again already?
He’d had to turn off the capabilities of the Protagonist once before, when it was simply doing too much, bending circumstances, summoning conveniences, dragging narrative weight toward him like a gravity well of plot! And now that he had transcribed it into a Letter of his very Tongue...was it already so effective that cursed things were being pulled across a Dimension towards him?
He sighed.
Well. If the Letter was going to act like this, then he would at least use it properly. Information first!
His gaze rose to THE Creature and Anaximander, who were drifting over towards the golden island, one trailing white-gold through his obsidian flames, the other still rubbing his temples, and Noah utilized the Letter of THE PROTAGONIST upon them.
|THE Protagonist’s Omniscient Regard has activated. Character Sheets are being compiled for the beings within your gaze.|
|Character Sheet: THE Creature, THE Great Ruler. Designation: Existence. True Lifeform, Intent transforming to Ananke, mid-digestion. Disposition toward you: genuine friendship. Danger to you: none by will, immense by association. Motivations: To rule, to bear what must be borne, to guard his bonds, and, newly formed, to understand the inherited thing that watches. Notable thread: a deep grief regarding a brutalized other half, carried since before THE Wyld, unhealed and unspoken. Notable thread: THE Burden he carries is older than his memory of receiving it, and its previous bearer is ?????. Notable thread: potential inheritor or Descendant. Notable thread: something is aware of this Regard, and is looking back. More information on Records may be possible...|
|Character Sheet: Anaximander, THE Explorer. Designation: ?????. Scale: inapplicable. Authority: none. Threat assessment: he is exactly as dangerous as he believes he needs to be. Disposition toward you: genuine friendship, wholly without agenda. Motivations: to know. Simply, bottomlessly, to know. Notable thread: his self-declared commandments number seven, of which you have witnessed two. Notable thread: his Undefined Life Line does not merely lack definition. Something appears to have erased it. More information on Records may be possible...|
...!
Prompts of majesty and wonder bloomed.
Noah looked at the two beings drifting toward him with open wonder as the Sheets settled through his mind! Something that looked back at his Regard! Commandments numbering seven! A Life Line not undefined but erased! Every answer his new capability delivered arrived carrying three fresh questions on its back, and these were his friends, beings whose favor toward him was written in absolute terms.
Now, if he could see the weavings of his enemies just like this...
It would be knowledge. Information! And information was the key for many, many things. Battles were won before they began by those who knew their opponent’s motivations, their fears, their desires, their price.
"Osmont." THE Creature landed upon the golden sands, his changed flames settling, and his flat gaze studied Noah with something adjacent to curiosity as the tail behind him buzzed. " How....did you do that, exactly?"
Anaximander landed beside him, still wincing, and pointed at his own temple.
Noah only smiled as he shook his head!
"Just a little trick." He turned toward the throne. "But we do have to get going, as it seems we may have company soon. Let’s pack up and go."
He said these words as the vibrant gold platform buzzed beneath all of them, dream-sands humming with readiness as the forge folded itself away and the island prepared to move again! Anaximander sighed as he glanced back at the colossal pale limb of the Primeval One still floating in the storm-torn sky, the foot that had started this entire chain of events, and waved a hand at it.
"I’ll have my hands full analyzing this cerebral cortex alone. Truly, it argues with me when I read it." He grinned over at Noah. "As thanks, I think you can freely keep that limb."
...!
Anaximander said such words casually, gifting away a treasure that a Cenozoic being had bled for.
And Noah did not stand on ceremony! His Intent erupted out like a tyrannical blue sea, prismatic cerulean tides wrapping around the colossal limb as he dragged the entire thing across the sky and folded it inside THE Infiniverse, an apex corpse-piece settling into his home’s deep storage beside farms and forges and feasting halls.
His mind was already running through its uses. But for now...
For now, there was a choice to make.
They would not sit still. And they would not flee, either! He turned his gaze out across the storming dark, toward the direction of the second cluster, and decided. They would go towards the dying Cause that seemed to be filled with hope!
The hateful cluster was many Causes chained to one despotic center. But the hopeful one was rushing towards them with the feeling of hope, and hope was not the emotion of an enemy! Whatever it was, it likely wanted something from him rather than of him. If both clusters were converging on his position regardless, then the only real choice was which meeting he controlled. He would meet hope first, learn everything it knew, and face hatred afterwards with that knowledge in hand.
Information first. Always information first!
"We move," Noah declared as he rose onto the throne, Seo-yeon scooping herself onto its handle as Emotive bounced up beside him and THE Infiniverse took her place at the island’s edge!
Thereafter, THE Creature and Anaximander landed fully upon the platform, the titan’s white-gold-threaded flames folding calm as the scholar plopped down cross-legged near the throne, and the vibrant golden island of dream-sand buzzed with gathering power beneath all of them...
And shot out towards a certain direction!