Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse novel Chapter 5431

Chapter 5431: Gu! I

THE Hall of Swords admitted very few without ceremony, and THE Mirthful Antiquity walked in as though she owned a quiet share of it.

THE Queen Regnant allowed her through, the gateway parting for the slender woman with the wild easy smile, and she crossed the ancient hall past the shrouded personages and the confined Swords, the golden-dark light of the place sliding over her, and she stopped before the throne of woven blades and bowed. It was a graceful bow, fond rather than formal, the bow of someone who had earned the right to a little informality across a very long time.

"Sis Regnant," she said warmly. "Forgive the intrusion. THE Originals received your information, and I also heard the most interesting whispers, two Primordial Intents emerging under your regions in close succession, and I was simply too curious to stay home. I came to see the marvels for myself." Her vibrant eyes swept the tense hall, the kneeling, the grim, the lingering residue of a being recently erased, and her smile dimmed into something gentler.

"But I did not expect to walk into this. The air in here could curdle Primordial Essence. Is everything all right, Sis?"

THE Queen Regnant regarded her, and the writhing mask of her head softened in a way it had not for anyone else who had stood in this hall today.

Because she trusted this one. She had watched THE Mirthful Antiquity grow across the ages, had known her when she was young and strange and far too clever, had seen her rise to become one of the important personages of the Source Lands, an Original of the deep lineages. There were few beings in all of existence THE Queen Regnant would have spoken plainly to in this moment. This was one of them.

"No," THE Queen Regnant said, and the sweetness of her voice carried the weight of the day beneath it. "It is not all right. There was a traitor among those gathered here. A Follower of THE Sealed One, knelt among my own Swords, wearing my trust like a stolen cloak." The tendrils around her aperture pulled tight.

"I found one already and collapsed him. But there is a second, still hidden somewhere in this room, and until that one is found, no being here is permitted to leave. Not one. I am sorry you walked into it. I am sorrier still for what it means."

...!

THE Mirthful Antiquity went somber and heavy at the words, the smile fading entirely from her fair face. She looked around the hall once more, slow, taking in the suspicion and the fear and the grief of beings who had just learned one among them was rotten, and she let a long breath out.

"I do not wish to intrude on the Swords’ own business," she said carefully. "This is your house, Sis, and your hunt. But." She paused, delicate.

"Can I help? You know the uniqueness of some of my methods. You have seen what I carry. If there is a hidden thing in this room, I may be able to find it faster than a hunt would, and spare everyone the long ugly suspicion of one another."

...!

THE Queen Regnant was silent a moment, considering.

"This little one," THE Mirthful Antiquity said, lifting it casually for them to see, "is a Gu Archaeognatha. A very rare creature, and a very rude one. It has a gift I have always found useful. It perceives things that are, and things that are not. Truth and its absence, loyalty and its counterfeit, laid bare to its eyes regardless of how well a being hides." She turned her wrist, and the wings trembled.

"It can do other things, far less polite. It can enter the Source of an existence and feed there, parasitically, and draw a being’s power out through the wound. Their Intent. Their Pantheon. The whole architecture of them, lifted clean out to be transplanted into another vessel. But that is not today’s purpose, and you need not look so alarmed, all of you."

"Today I will only ask it to look," she went on. "It is not truly ideal for this, you understand. Set it to sort millions of Source Lifeforms and it would labor for an Age. But a few dozen beings in a single room? That is nothing. I will simply set its directive to divide you. Those who are completely loyal to THE Queen Regnant, and those who are not." Her vibrant eyes glittered. "And with that, Sis, the one who still kneels to THE Sealed One will have nowhere left to hide."

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