The more he gave, the more he received, and the receiving dwarfed the giving by a factor that should not have been allowed. It was unfathomably ridiculous as an ability!
It broke the basic math that every other being in existence lived by, the rule that giving costs the giver, and it broke it in the most generous possible direction!
He wanted to give!
And now he wanted to give freely, extravagantly, because giving freely was, apparently, the single most selfish thing he could do!
He thought for a moment, then waved his hand and retrieved the Source Armament that Sir William had given him.
He held it a while. He remembered the being who had handed it to him, the Gentleman Knight who had sponsored him and vouched for him and spent his last breath teaching, who had been shredded apart by THE Riven in the dark of THE Maw and turned to a river of light.
The blade was a good blade.
So he turned and handed the terrifying weapon to Seo-yeon.
"Another present," he told her. "This one was given to me by someone good. I think youโll like it."
...!
Seo-yeon unsheathed it at once, with the dangerous unthinking enthusiasm of a child handed something far too sharp, and a terrifying aura spilled out of the blade and out of her, and she laughed, bright and chaotic, and began to swing it!
The swings were not playful in their effects, whatever the joy behind them. Each one was terrifying enough to shred apart the weak first-tier Intents of a Fourth Scale being, great crescents of obsidian-blue brilliance carving through the air of the Early Veiled Shore, and several of them came down toward the plots of Infinite Sacred Herbs, threatening to ravage the careful rows.
And Amelia moved.
Noahโs mother smiled, and exerted her power, and THE Infinite Cause bloomed around her body, because she was the Origin of THE Infinite Cause, the backbone now of far too many things across his holdings!
Her figure manifested at terrifying speed across every place where Seo-yeonโs crescents of Infinity and Primordial Source would have landed and torn up the herbs, and she caught the devastating arcs in her hands, one after another, dispersing them harmlessly before they could ruin a single plot.
She looked, to Noahโs quiet amazement, delighted. Genuinely joyful at the chance to play with the child, and she cheered Seo-yeon on as she caught the deadly swings.
"Come on," Amelia called, laughing, flickering to intercept another crescent. "Is that all? Swing it a little faster! Let me see if we fed you enough!"
BOOM!
"Yes, Grandma! Be careful!"
Seo-yeon was overjoyed at being allowed to play, a horrific aura erupting off her small frame, and she and Amelia flickered across the skies of the Early Veiled Shore, the child swinging a blade and the grandmother catching every stroke, one chasing the other through the herb-realms in a game that would have leveled and collapsed many!
Noah watched it with a smile.
And at that moment, he felt his Intent erupt.
An Egoic Intent was a unique thing, and he was only beginning to glimpse what that meant, and what he glimpsed now was horrific.
|THE Tide That Owes Nothing has triggered alongside the Ninth Foundation: THE Sovereign Existence. Your Intent is exerting itself, because your identity demands that the conditions of your capabilities be met. You have given a Source Armament away. Therefore your Intent demands that the boon of your Second Foundation be fulfilled, and your Ninth Foundation lends its power to ensure existence complies.|

|THE Tear of a Drowned Carcosa. A shard of crystallized Infinity recovered from a corner of THE Infinite Carcosa where the boundless sea of Infinity once went so mad it folded in on itself and drowned an entire region. The madness compressed into a single weeping shard of pure Infinity, sharper than the concept of an edge.|
|THE Marrow of a Nameless True Lifeform. A sliver of bone pulled from a domain you have no knowledge of, the remains of one of the eldest beings of a forgotten Age, an entity grand enough that even its marrow remembers being foundational. It carries the weight of a being that helped lay laws now older than memory.|
|THE Stilled Heart-Source of a Source Land Beast. A core of pure Primordial Source torn from the heart of a colossal beast that died defending some forgotten reach of THE Source Lands, its Source stilled at the instant of its loyal death and never spent, holding the unbroken devotion of a creature that died at its post.|
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