Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse novel Chapter 5897

Chapter 5897: Let It Snow! I

Noah chose his road with care.

THE Long Night.

He had swallowed a sliver of it, and that small taste had shown him what it was: a Narrative, the first and loudest of this Cycle, laid over every Existence like snow. And Narratives, he had decided, were fuel. The question was how much of this one he could eat, and what it would cost him.

He thought about his seat.

|Your Epitropos seat has been fully devoured and remade by your Shinjitsu.|

|It is your own now. It no longer answers to the flow.|

|As an Epitropos whose seat is his own, you may act freely against another Epitropos.|

And there was another Epitropos very close by.

THE Curator of THE Unwritten Contingency. THE Faceless Immense One. Its domain sat around THE Keepers of Existence, and the Long Night’s snow stopped politely at the Keepers’ borders because of some deal it had made with them.

Noah wanted to know what that deal was.

He stepped into a new window.

|Quantum Dream 4 begins.|

|Starting conditions: your Dream as it is now. Assimilation Rate: 1%. THE First Unveiling.|

|Goal: what unfolds if you eat more of THE Narrative of THE Long Night.|

|Hour 1: You turn your Epitropos seat inward and follow the flow of THE Long Night beneath THE Keepers of Existence.|

|The way opens for you. It opens for very few.|

The glass darkened around him!

His dream-self went down through the flow of the Long Night, through cold and dark and falling snow, and came out underneath the Keepers’ Legacy into a place that looked like the bottom of existence turned upside down.

It was the Curator’s own Undersnow.

Far overhead, the underside of the Keepers’ Legacy hung like a ceiling, and from it, roots dangled down into the dark, thousands of them, pale and thick and twisiting, the roots of every lifeform that lived above. The snow here fell upward, slow grey flakes drifting from the frozen floor toward that ceiling of roots, and the air was so cold it felt solid.

And everywhere among the roots, the Hollow Night lifeforms were feeding.

They were tall and thin and blank-faced, but these ones were heavier. They gave off waves of something like Immensity, false and hollow and hungry. Some of them hung from the dangeling roots and chewed.

Others stood around great figures chained in the snow, Immense Ones from the Keepers’ Legacy with their eyes half closed, and drew slow pale streams of power out of them like sap from a cut tree.

Noah looked closer at the roots.

Each one ended in a small sleeping shape, a Root Bearer from above, curled up and dreaming. The Hollow Night lifeforms were biting down on the Roots themselves, eating them one slow mouthful at a time.

|These are Hollow Night Immense Ones.|

|They are eating the Roots of Root Bearers and harvesting the Immensity of Immense Lifeforms belonging to THE Keepers of Existence.|

|With every Root they eat, their Immensity grows more real.|

|This is the pact.|

|THE Long Night holds back from THE Keepers of Existence. In return, THE Keepers of Existence give THE Curator their lesser members, quietly, a few at a time.|

|THE Curator is using them to raise his own forces.|

|His purpose: to one day take more Epitropos seats.|

...!

Noah’s dream-self stood very still in the upward snow.

It was vile. It was quiet and vile. The Keepers sat in their eternal spring above with plum blossoms falling, and underneath them, their weakest were being eaten alive to buy that spring.

Then the dark at the center of the Undersnow moved!

|THE Curator of THE Unwritten Contingency.|

|THE Faceless Immense One.|

|In his own domain, THE Curator holds Ancient Immensity.|

|THE Long Night guards his domain. Very few can enter it unless he allows them.|

|THE Keepers of Existence were allowed.|

|You were not. You entered anyway.|

|He holds the Shard of IT that once belonged to THE Caretaker.|

The Curator rose from the snow.

He was tall, wrapped in long grey robes that dragged through the upward snow, and where his face should have been there was only a smooth, blank surface like a fresh sheet of paper. In one long hand, he held a small bright stone. When he turned his blank face toward the place where Noah stood hidden, Noah felt it look straight at him.

Noah let the dream try the simplest road first.

|Branch A: You strike THE Curator directly.|

|Minute 1: You strike. Your blow lands.|

|Minute 2: In his own domain, he holds truly powerful Ancient Immensity. THE Long Night also answers him fully here. The snow itself turns on you.|

|Minute 3: He writes a single line with the Shard of IT as he erupts with all his power.|

|Your Shinjitsu is grand as you surprisingly survive against such a terrifying force, bjt eventually, you succumb. You have died.|

|Branch A has collapsed.|

And he knew something that ate Narratives!