Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse novel Chapter 5416

Chapter 5416: Dora Shath’yar!

THE Queen Regnant was, by any measure, astonishing.

She had crushed Batiatus without flinching. She had chosen these beings across ages. Batiatus had stood at her throne, among the ones she trusted most in all of existence. And the instant he was confirmed for what he was, she had ended him out of being like a man flicking a dead insect off a table!

Whatever she had felt for him before, and she had surely felt something, none of it bought him a single breath of mercy once the truth was known.

Noah respected it, because it was close to how he moved himself. Loyalty was everything, right up until it became betrayal, and then it was nothing at all.

"Trust is everything," THE Queen Regnant said, her voice settling back toward sweetness, though the cold ran underneath it now. "When there is no trust, everything becomes impossible. The Swords of Existence are a network held together by nothing else. We are scattered across Observable Existences beyond counting, and we hold because we trust, and the moment that trust has a hole in it, the whole of us is in danger."

Her tentacles shifted. "And there is another. Another Follower of THE Sealed One stands among my ranks, here, now. It could be any of you. Just as it was Batiatus, who knelt to me for ages, who I would have named among my dearest. The rest of you deserve my apologies for what comes next. You have them, sincerely. But the follower will be collapsed before me, the way the first one was. So until they are ascertained, nobody leaves this domain. No one."

HUUM!

The reaction rippled through the gathering.

Dame Seraphine’s face was hard with shock, and beneath the shock sat anger. The other Swords wore variations of the same. The grand personages around the throne, the horned and the taloned and the serpentine, offered no protest at the confinement. If anything they did the opposite, drawing themselves up into absolute loyalty, as if to say, test me, search me, do what you must!

There was no resentment in it, only the desperate readiness of the loyal to be cleared.

Noah read each of them as they stood there and sensed nothing off. Nothing at all. Every one of them felt exactly as they should, the loyal and the grand and the furious alike, no seam anywhere to mark the thing they hunted. Which was its own grim piece of information. The second follower was good. Better than Batiatus, who had at least hesitated over his Source Heart. This one had given theirs instantly, had passed the very test that exposed the first, had stood through the crushing of their fellow without a flicker. A being willing to hand over the core of their existence to protect their cover was a being committed, and THE Queen Regnant, for all her power, was going to have a genuinely hard time finding them.

Her Pantheon faded fully, THE Drowned Choir of Ten Thousand Throats receding back into her, the hall becoming only a hall again.

And above Noah, unseen by every being present, THE Estuary Eye pulsed.

It had not stopped once through any of it. Through the crushing, through the prophecy, through the cold decree, the lemniscate pupil had kept turning, kept drinking, the dense existence of the hall and the residue of the Queen’s overwhelming power bleeding up into it in a silent constant stream. The estuary did not care for prophecies or traitors. It only drew, and drew, and drew!

In the next moment, THE Queen Regnant waved her tentacles and called a name into the hall.

"Dora Shath’yar."

HUUM!

"My Daughters," THE Queen Regnant said.

"Raised personally, with my own tentacles, across ages. These nine are the youngest of them. They comprise the Legion of Dora Shath’yar."

"I have already given them their instructions. They will escort you to THE Effluvium Sanctum. There, another will join you, the one I spoke of, to help hone your Intent toward the sharpness you will need. For now, you leave, and no one else does."

"I know Seraphine should not be the follower. But I have to be fair, and fairness means she stays here under suspicion with the rest until I am certain. You will lose her from your party for now. My Daughters will take her place, and they are more capable than they appear."

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