Chapter 5311: Sword I

He looked gloriously titanic, and he let himself enjoy it!

He had spent his existence climbing from nothing toward something, and this was a moment where the something had become considerably more than it had been a day ago, and a being who couldn’t enjoy that was a being who had forgotten why they were climbing in the first place.

One must never forget!

He floated at his reduced scale now, no longer a gigaparsec titan but carrying the weight of one regardless, the obsidian gold of THE Aura of THE Source Barbarian running across his body in continuous expression.

His path remained good. He could finalize his First Infinite Scale soon. When he did, he could choose a name for it. Or he could choose not to. He would see how he felt when he arrived.

|Arms Race conclusion protocol: The Source Lifeforms called forth by Prime Exelissomai as Biotic Pressure will now be dismissed. Their participation in the Evolutionary Arms Race is complete. They have received their share of the result and will be returned to their prior positions.|

Noah looked at THE Creature and Calypso.

Obsidian light was already beginning to wrap around both of them, the Prime Exelissomai recalling its Biotic Pressures now that the process had concluded. And as the light moved over them, his perception found what sat inside both of those ancient bodies.

THE Primordial Source.

It ran through THE Creature and through Calypso at the foundational level, the direct unmediated presence that made them what they were, and Noah’s eyes flashed with something he didn’t bother to suppress.

Hunger.

He would have THE Primordial Source in his hands eventually! He had Pure Primordial Essence right now, flooding through him at over a million times an emerging Source Lifeform’s volume, melding into his Infinity in a process that felt grander with every second it continued. That was the precursor.

The actual Source was the destination, and looking at it inside two beings who carried it natively only sharpened the appetite he had developed for reaching it.

But that was later.

He took a step and appeared before the two of them.

"We all benefited," he said. "But thank you for the challenge."

Calypso nodded, the ancient Relictus acknowledging the words with the economy of a being who had answered the call of a Prime Letter, received what it came for, and saw no reason to add anything to the transaction.

THE Creature looked at him.

"Don’t underestimate THE Gilded Ones." His voice carried the somber weight it always carried.

"In existence there are Infinite Lifeforms and Source Lifeforms. There are Bounded Lifeforms, Gilded Lifeforms, Primeval Lifeforms. THE Gilded Ones were not always in the position they hold now, and yet they have climbed to a place where they fight against Infinite Lifeforms and Source Lifeforms directly."

He held Noah’s eyes.

"Existence is vast and filled with boundless terrors. Be careful."

HUUM!

The obsidian brilliance closed over him, and THE Creature was gone.

Noah stood with the words for a moment.

He took them seriously. THE Creature did not waste warnings, and a being who had existed across the eons THE Creature had existed across did not describe something as a boundless terror casually.

THE Gilded Ones had nuked an entire Observable Existence as a routine administrative solution. He had already seen what they were willing to do. THE Creature was telling him he had not yet seen the full scale of what they were capable of, and that was worth knowing!

He breathed in and turned toward the vastness of THE Infiniverse.

He had not been the only one to change.

THE Infiniverse had been bathed in Pure Primordial Essence alongside him, her share flooding into her substrate and her nine Prime Cause regions and her seas of Observable and Unobservable Force.

And the change moving through her was more gradual than his because she was countless gigaparsecs vast and a change at that scale took time to complete. She radiated an ancient air now, the quality of a domain that had existed for far longer than it actually had, the Pure Primordial Essence aging her presence into something that felt foundational.

She was frightening. Apart from him, THE Infiniverse was genuinely frightening in power, an autonomous cognizant Observable Existence carrying nine Prime Causes and seas of dual Force and now Pure Primordial Essence woven through all of it.

And then there was his mother.

Amelia Osmont. The Origin of THE Infinite Cause. Her power had been rising tremendously since the emergence, the Cause that had originated from her turning back to elevate its source. If she ever decided to throw her hands against anyone...

Oh boy!

He filed that thought with a faint internal amusement and finally remembered the woman he had brought here.

His body reduced in size as he descended to the golden sands of THE Early Veiled Shore, coming down near where Taylor sat next to the grave she had dug for herself hours ago when the Environmental Pressure first began.

She had not, in the end, needed it.

She looked up at him and shook her head slowly.

"You are a ridiculous existence," she said.

Noah looked at her.

"The promise of safety for you and Adrastia was fulfilled," he said. "But you haven’t been returned to your Observable Existence yet..."

Taylor waved a hand dismissively before he finished.

"Promises altered from the other side are our weight to bear, not yours." She brushed sand off her legs. "Achilles Adrastia already has a main body back in his home Observable Existence. And mine, well. Both of us got taken to a home base of Source Lifeforms by Sir William. The Cornwall Observable Existence. I’m guessing it’s a base of THE Swords of Existence, and we’re there to undergo trials to become Attendants of Existence." She shrugged.

"I made that choice myself. So that promise is null and void. This sliver of my existence here, I can disperse it, or I can call forth my other self to take it over and expand this vessel into a main body. She can connect to the people of my Observable Existence easily enough." A pause, and something sharpened behind her rapid eyes.

"She’s a troublemaker, so I usually keep her down. But these Gilded Ones freely nuked an entire Observable Existence. I want to make trouble for them! I’m still defiant on that."

...!

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