<THE True Human Emperor>
|Shall the generation and preservation continue?|
Noah looked at the waiting prompt for a long moment, and gave his answer simply.
"Continue it. For now."
HUUM!
The Tide’s ledger settled back into its quiet keeping, unprecedented and unopened, one more sealed door he would walk through when he chose to, and across the foamy dark between Dimensions, his nine clones drew together above the scattered violet motes of a dead Woe Culture.
And Noah thought about many things.
About the things that could not be perceived, and about his own power. How many more things like the Woe Culture were out there, hanging in unseen layers above unsuspecting skies? And what would happen if he met one that was too powerful for the current him? Because the only reason he had dominated the Woe Culture, even though its attributes were higher than his, was Provenance Essence. But what if the attributes were not a single digit higher? What if they were significantly higher?
He had to get a better grasp of his new power!
Much of what he now carried had been regained from what he cast out. His nine old Causes had returned as nine Teloi, reborn in his organs as aims instead of origins. His oldest Appendages had returned rebuilt from their preserved backbones. Even Mana had returned, remade as his blood. Piece by piece, the old ocean was being answered by things that were wholly his!
But the best way forward, the continued elevation of his power, ran through the thing that made a First Lifeform unique. What he generated. Provenance Essence! Three singularities of it now swirled within him, and they were the reason his power was immense at all.
And if they were the core of his power at this moment... then he had to think about how to better utilize this Generated Resource. So far, every Art he had made used a semblance of its power, but moreso through his blood. Perhaps he needed to try designing something focused around Provenance Essence itself!
While he was thinking all of this... his gaze suddenly changed.
His clones sensed something approaching!
And it approached rapidly, tearing through the foamy dark at a pace that made distance meaningless, and by the time he had sensed it, it was already there!
A throne-saddle, riding the black.
A single chained Steed beneath it, flanks heaving.
And upon it, rot ticking along the fissures of his frame, obsidian mark faint upon his brow, sat Jarl Skallagrim!
HUUM!
The Cursed Descendant’s eyes shone brightly as they swept across the nine titanic clones, and his voice came out through the dark with madness and wonder held in the same breath.
"I...thought I sensed something. A war, ringing through the crossing-dark. So I turned my little steed toward the ringing, and..." His shining eyes fixed on the clone at the center. "It is... you, right?"
"..."
"The same face. Even if your existence does not give off waves of authority anymore. Even if you read as nothing at all." A slow, crooked smile spread. "I am... immensely happy to have found you once more, you whose name I never learned. Is the other part of you, thay woman, within THE Ymnaros Dimension? That is the only one close by..."
...!
Noah’s eyes burned luminously as his nine clones lined up across the dark, crowns of blood turning!
A Cursed Descendant of THE Sleepless Fiend!
The lucid madman who had bound Hvitrmarr across a thousand years of patience, standing at speaking distance, PERCEIVING him!
"Did my existence...make you so desperate that you left your Dimension?"
The Jarl’s smile flickered.
"I have been obtaining information from Hvitrmarr," Noah continued, his voice level. "She says all of you are tied down there for a chance of salvation. That leaving is the one thing a Cursed Descendants and Steeds do not do."
"...She said that, did she?"
"So what are you now? A Descendant of Those Who Remain who is damned, with no salvation at all? What exactly were you hoping to find by coming here?"
He was asking, and beneath the asking, he was working! Because this being should not have been able to see him. His battle with the Woe Culture had rung out across the dark, fine.
But Skallagrim was looking AT him. Perceiving him directly, and that could only mean one thing about the being on that throne!
Jarl Skallagrim frowned, and the madness and the lucidity moved across his face together, neither one winning.
"Salvation."
He said the word the way other beings said the names of their dead.
"I have... very little time. Less than the little I had when you saw me last. So I took salvation into my own hands, yes. I left."
"And now, now things are changing. Our great Father is now interested in you. The silence of my whole life, broken, over you."
"Why... could you not have remained within THE Krazhor-Nul? We could have all had our salvation there... just like you cured Hvitrmarr, I could have had my salvation there. There would be no interest from Father... there would be none of this. Why... why...?!"
Noah pressed, prying at the seam. "Did you not lose any chance of salvation when you left your home Dimension? What has changed now?"
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