Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse novel Chapter 5288

Chapter 5288: Through Adversity! III

Noah looked at the suit and the blade with eyes that were unfathomably bright.

Sir William Arthur’s attention returned to him.

"Those are your preliminary tools," he said. "An armament and a blade, the latter containing THE Exelissomai Source Fragment which will teach you Exelissomai, since you already possess Persevere. An official Sword of Existence can potentially gain access to other letters of THE Primordial Tongue and eventually, after boundless adversity, even THE Primordial Source itself."

He looked at the suit and blade with the composed assessment of someone reviewing instruments they have provided many times. "When you adorn these officially, they function as your entry credentials into a Source Land designated for testing. Demonstrate Fourth Scale equivalent power and you should be adequate for the trial. Pass the trial and you become an official Sword of Existence."

His expression held its composed neutrality throughout.

"It may present itself as a grand opportunity," he said.

"It is not experienced as one. It is a thankless position, and many beings will seek to kill you specifically because of what you will represent, since you will also kill countless. Among the many paths existence offers, this is among the hardest. Adversity falls on us more than on others. It is a unique and tricky thing." He straightened for the last time.

"But a man must stand upright. A man must do his duty."

He looked at the Stilled space around them one final time.

"I will remain in touch as your sponsor. When you are ready, THE Gilded Ones who did this will be yours to rectify and correct the choices of, however you find best fit." He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, it was like he was reciting a motto!

"Existence unfolds and eons conclude, leaving civilizations that become monuments, then crumble to memory, and are long forgotten when that breath comes again. In all these eons, THE Primordial Source reigns supreme."

HUUM!

He shook his head once.

He stood in the Stilled lower Observable Existence with the obsidian stellar suit unblemished and the sheath at his side carrying its composed readiness.

Then he was gone.

Noah looked at the space where Sir William Arthur had been standing, then at the suit and the blade before him.

He reached out and stored both in his existence with a single motion, the obsidian suit and the blue-obsidian sheathed blade of THE Sovereign Reckoning disappearing into his storage with the ease of objects finding their designated positions.

His entire existence was burning with the impatience of a being who wanted to close his hand around that hilt and find out whether the sheath would open for him, but patience was a capability he had developed across eons of adversity and he applied it now.

There were things to see first.

He took a step and disappeared.

---

Jotunheim received him in its permanent frost.

The Causal Stilling had taken the cold of the realm and made it absolute, the frost no longer a condition of the environment but a permanent fact of it, the capacity for thawing removed from it entirely. The silver-gold luminescence ran through the frost’s surface in slow pulses, the Acedia Infection having saturated even the geological substrate of the Primordial Realm.

"Are you in there? Eckert. Do you still have hold of your existence?"