Chapter 5315: Emotion II

He turned to Noah.

"Countless Lifeforms lived here. They had no part in the love, or the disapproval, or the war. They were simply present in an Observable Existence whose most powerful beings could not control their emotions, and that was sufficient to end them.

The lovers were not villains. The third was not, in its own understanding, a villain either. None of them set out to destroy an Observable Existence. They were simply beings who held great power and could not govern what they felt, and at their tier, the inability to govern what you feel is not a personal failing. It is an extinction event."

The terminal infinity burned across the dying expanse.

"This is the lesson the Swords of Existence take from Chernobyl," Sir William said.

"It is not that love is dangerous, though small minds draw that conclusion. It is not that difference must be policed, though crueler minds draw that one. The lesson is simpler and harder. Power without the governance of one’s own emotions is the single greatest threat existence contains."

"Not malice. Malice is rare and can be planned around. The thing that ends Observable Existences is ordinary feeling, love and disapproval and rage and grief, carried by beings powerful enough that their ordinary feelings reshape reality."

He looked at the dying domain around them, at the failing Causes and the torn fabric and the abundant life still burning in the obsidian gold castle that defied all of it.

"You will be tested here," he said. "Among the ruins of beings who could not govern themselves. I find it appropriate. A Sword of Existence who cannot govern their own feeling is not a Sword. It is the next Chernobyl, waiting for a reason."

He began to move toward the castle.

"Come. The trial does not begin until you understand what it is held among. Now you understand, we shall proceed"

HUUM!

"Every trial to select a new Sword of Existence is overseen by at least three current Swords," Sir William said as they moved.

He spoke without looking at Noah, his attention forward, the dying expanse of Chernobyl unrolling beneath them as they traveled toward something Noah could already feel before he could see it.

"Everything happening here is observed. How you approach what is put in front of you, how you reason through it, what you choose when the choice has no comfortable answer, all of it is being watched and weighed by beings who have walked this path themselves and have no patience for those who walk it poorly." He paused.

"I tell you this not to unsettle you. I tell you because a Sword operates under observation for the rest of their existence, accountable to THE Source and to the others who serve it, and a being who cannot function under observation has no business holding the designation. Consider it the first thing the trial measures, before the trial itself begins."

They flew on.

"The first trial is simple," Sir William continued. "Simple in the way that the most important things are simple. It will not test your power. Your power has already been assessed and found sufficient, or you would not be here. It will test something the powerful almost never develop, because their power lets them avoid developing it."

They arrived.

The region was where the storms of unstable First Cause raged strongest in all of Chernobyl. Definition and Undefinition warred against each other across the space in churning fronts, the boundaries between what existed and what did not existing nowhere consistently, terminal infinity running through all of it in obsidian gray currents that pulsed with the weight of endings.

Reality here was not torn the way it was torn elsewhere in the domain. It was actively coming apart and being held together in the same moment, the two processes locked in a contest that neither was winning.

At the center of the contest, far below, something held the whole thing together.

"Below you," Sir William said, "is one of the last remaining Infinite Lifeforms of this Observable Existence."

Noah looked down.

"She was very young when THE First Cause was destroyed. A child, by the reckoning of beings of her tier. In the catastrophe, as the First Cause began its unraveling, she did something that no one instructed her to do and that no one has been able to undo since. She latched onto it. Her infinite existence became a battery, a living anchor, holding THE Mortis Cause intact when it should have failed with all the others."

Sir William’s voice carried the somber weight he reserved for the things that genuinely moved him.

"THE Mortis Cause governs endings. By holding it intact, she has held off the ending of this entire Observable Existence. THE First Cause should have finished unraveling eons ago. The decillions who still survive in this domain, including everyone in the castle behind us, should have perished long since. They have not, because a child latched onto THE Mortis Cause and refused to let go, and has been holding the ending of an entire Observable Existence away from everyone within it ever since."

Noah was beginning to understand where this was going.

"Because she holds the endings," Sir William said, "she experiences them. Every moment. The agony of Mortis for an entire Observable Existence, channeled through a single infinite existence that was a child when it took the weight on and has been a child carrying it ever since. The pain is constant. It does not diminish. It is the suffering of every ending she holds at bay, felt all at once, every moment, for longer than most beings could imagine enduring it."

He looked down at her.

"As of yesterday, she could no longer bear it. She has begun to wail. To beg to be released from it. The endings have become too much even for a being born of Infinity, and she wants it to stop. She wants out."

The weight of it settled.

"But ending her is the problem," Sir William said. "She is the last anchor holding THE Mortis Cause together. The moment she is released, THE Mortis Cause fails. The moment THE Mortis Cause fails, THE First Cause finishes its unraveling, and every remaining decillion in this Observable Existence perishes as the final thread holding all the Causes together gives way. Her suffering is the only thing keeping countless lives in existence. Her release is the only thing that will end her suffering. Those are the two truths, and they cannot both be honored."

He turned to Noah.

"A Sword of Existence was assigned to address this. It is not their task anymore. It is yours." His eyes held Noah’s. "What will you do?"

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