Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse novel Chapter 5682

Chapter 5682: Men And Sovereigns! II

"And what about Provenance itself?" Noah asked, genuinely curious now. "What identity does the arbiter of the Vasiliou carry?"

Aurelius smiled for the first time, and it was not a warm expression. It was the smile of a man being asked to show a weapon he was proud of.

"Every Provenance Lifeform ripens into an identity, sooner or later. My daughter’s ripened toward you, across all time, which is why I did not kill you instantly for doing all this. Because I know most that our Provenances...do not lie." The steam rolled between them.

"And mine ripened on a wall."

The golden waters around him began to hum!

"I am THE Provenance of THE Unfallen Vanguard," Aurelius declared, and the pressure in the cavern thickened until the surface of the spring flattened beneath it!

"It is a simple identity. It is the truth that the line I stand in front of does not break while I am standing. Not a shield as a shield is a thing that takes the blow. I am the truth that the blow accomplishes nothing. Eleven times, powers came for this Elseworld across the Ages. Eleven times, I was the last thing standing between them and everything behind me. Eleven times, I did not fall. My Provenance is the accumulated weight of every stand, and it grows heavier each time, and there are beings in this continuum who turn around when they learn who is holding a wall, because arguing with an identity that has never once failed is arguing with existence itself."

HUUM!

The declaration settled, and Noah gave it the honest respect it deserved!

A grand identity, forged the hard way, worn by a man who had bled for every gram of its weight!

He was rather starting to like his father-in-law.

"Which is why my offer is real," Aurelius added, sinking back into the lava. "Holding a fort is not a favor I am doing you. It is the single thing in existence I am best at."

"I understand now." Noah said pleasantly. "What about The Atlas Elseworlds?"

Aurelius scooped a handful of golden lava and let it pour through his fingers.

"Atlas engineered the concept of Elsedimensions itself, and the ones he built personally are a different order of thing than ours. Ours are blind spots. His are locked rooms. No Immense One has ever entered one as it is not for lack of trying. The doors do not refuse them the way our boundary refused nothing today. The doors simply do not exist for them. An architect can stand on the exact coordinates of an Atlas Elseworld and perceive empty dark. He built with their blindness as a material."

...!

Wow!

This Atlas seemed grander and grander as one had to wonder how he was ever killed!

"Inside, they are said to be workshops. Testing grounds. Some say gardens. Our Lineage has sent expeditions across nine of his known Elseworlds over the Ages. We recovered tools from the outer chambers. Lesser inventions. Enough to know the deep rooms exist. We never opened one."

The Patriarch’s eyes hardened.

"We are not the only ones searching. Every Lineage with ambition scours them. But worse than the Lineages are the leashed. Some Provenance Lifeforms serve Immense Ones. Willingly, some, bought with patronage. Unwillingly, others, bent by agreements older than their own births."

"An Immense One that cannot enter an Atlas Elseworld can still send a sovereign inside on its behalf. When you walk his halls, you will meet others of our kind, and you will have no way of knowing whose hands truly move them. Some will be searchers like you. Some will be gloves worn by beings who could not fit through the door. Treat every Provenance Lifeform you meet inside an Atlas Elseworld as a question you have not answered yet."

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Noah’s smile widened by a fraction. Gloves worn by beings who could not fit through the door. He was already looking forward to shaking a few of those hands.

"Last question, then," he said. "I was asked this myself not long ago as I wonder...How does a Provenance Lifeform die?"

"Badly, and rarely, and almost always to the same three causes." Aurelius counted them off with grim efficiency.

"Overwhelming convergence, which is what took Atlas. Enough Immense Ones agreeing to spend themselves at once. The second is the slow way. A sovereign who stops generating, who lets their identity go stale, thins across the Ages until existence stops making room for them. We call it Fading. Those below us are what fading leaves behind."

He gestured at the pristine golden skeletons resting in the depths of the spring. "The strongest of my line chose to fade here, in these waters, so that what remained of their generation would feed the ones who came after."

"And the third cause is...ourselves."

"A sovereign at war with its own truth. It is rare. I have seen it once, and I will not describe it in these waters."

"I raised that girl from the time she could fit in one of my hands. I taught her to stand before she could float, and I taught her to argue before she could weave, and I have watched every Age of her existence bend toward a stubbornness she absolutely did not get from her mother. She is the light of my existence."

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