Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse novel Chapter 5857

Chapter 5857: Existential Epitropos III

Noah focused Noetic Infinity upon the wreckage THE Curator had abandoned!

Three distinct remnants lay exposed to his sight.

The first was the severed reins. They still hung from the shattered chains at the floor of the Descent, thin cold filaments of azure script snapped off short like fishing line cut at the watter! He had felt their rupture during the ascent. Now, at Order III, their severed trajectory became entirely readable!

The second was THE Caretaker herself. Her quiet vessel now rested securely within his Dream, and her ancient memories lay preserved within its folds, orderly as aged parchment in an unsealed drawer. Epochs of records were cataloged there, including the precise events of one fateful night!

The third was the administrative seat itself. Its operational archive had opened to him once before. Now, under the authority of his expanded Order, it unfolded down to the binding! 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Naturally, he examined all three simultaneously!

The severed reins traced a clear path through the void!

They surged out of the Descent, crested past the Heart, cleared the Evergrave, and crossed the entire channel of THE Long Night spanning his jurisdiction before piercing the frontier! They drove directly into the neighboring territory!

|Read from the severed reins: they ran from this seat to another.|

|The other seat lies in the region bordering your charge, and holds the vast majority of jurisdiction for THE Keepers of Existence and beyond.|

|Its holder: THE Curator of THE Unwritten Contingency.|

...!

So THE Curator was an installed Epitropos.

The scavenger occupied its own throne in the adjacent quadrant! The Long Night had swept it into the ranks after an unjust demise three Ages before the First Sundering, and in due time, the cold architecture had granted it a seat!

And the entity had schemed for more!

|An Epitropos grows by the flow it tends.|

|One region, one flow. Two regions, two flows.|

|THE Curator of THE Unwritten Contingency sought to expand its power by holding a second seat.|

...!

Noah sat motionless upon the cracked throne!

The entire scheme reduced to simple appetite! An overseer with one assigned quadrant peering over the boundary fence at the neighboring plot, driven to seize both.

Next, the memory of that betrayal surfaced from THE Caretaker’s core!

He perceived the event directly through her sight! Her quiet hall, cold and still, with lanterns burning low along the stone walls. Her recorded scriptures turning in the air. The kept dead resting peacefully in their endless alcoves. Her steward, tall and gaunt, standing vigil beside the massive portal with her keys, just as he had stood across uncounted Ages!

Then the heavy portal swung inward!

Initially, curiosity dominated her thoughts. She recognized the presence on the threshold: a fellow Epitropos from the bordering sector. A neighboring peer, seated under the same Existential mandate. She assumed the visit concerned regional governance!

Instead, the intruder arrived with cold chains!

BOOM!

|Read from THE Caretaker’s memory: the night she was taken.|

|Her steward opened the door. His price was her throne.|

|THE Curator could not pull her seat out of her. He worried that to remove the seat of a living Epitropos would end her, and that ending would be felt by those who set the Epitropoi in their places.|

|So it bound her, and drained her, and ran its reins through her chains.|

|It tended her region by proxy. Two flows. One of them stolen.|

...!

Noah watched her fall! He watched her Shard slip from numb fingers as the links snapped shut, tumbling across the slick ice into the blinding glow of the Heart!

And Ages later, a pale, elongated hand reached into the radiance to claim the prize!

|The Shard of IT of THE Caretaker was taken from the Heart by THE Curator.|

|With it, THE Curator wrote THE Unwritten Contingency into the flow of her region.|

|Its purpose: insurance. If anyone threatened the stolen seat, the region would be erased, and nothing would be left to take.|

...!

|A law of the seats:|

|Within a region that is not its own, an Epitropos may act only through the flow of THE Long Night, never by its own hand.|

...!