Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse novel Chapter 5947

Chapter 5947: The Way Of Choices

Every choice made in existence opens more choices behind it. A lifeform turns left instead of right, or speaks instead of staying silent, or reaches out and takes something instead of leaving it alone, and from that one small moment countless new threads spread outward, each one a possibility that did not exist a heartbeat before.

Most of those threads go nowhere, and fade, and are forgotten, but some of them run on and on across existence, crossing other threads and pulling on them, until a single choice made in one quiet corner can be felt in places its maker will never see.

And there is a rule that runs through all of those threads, older than any King and plainer than any Narrative, which is that shining things are noticed.

A great power rising, a rare treasure surfacing, a name climbing a banner, all of them catch the eyes of many, and most of the time, those many eyes can do nothing but look. The truly great shining things are too far away, or too well guarded, or simply too strong, and so they shine on untouched while everyone else watches them and wishes.

But sometimes a shining thing appears that is weak. It holds a place it does not seem to deserve, a name too high for the strength behind it, a prize too large for the hands holding it, and the moment that is noticed, everything changes. Looking turns into reaching, and the many eyes become many hands, and from every direction of existence, things begin to move toward it.

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In THE Undefined Gaps, the battle between the Third Legion of THE Shepherd of Falling Stars and the Nightmare from THE Fallow had ended, and the Legion was leaving. Of the nine great stellar lotuses that had flown into the Gaps in perfect formaton, only five still flew, and one of those five was burning along its outer petals, shedding blue fire as it went. The other four were gone, shattered into drifting fragments of starlight and grey glass, their Ancients and Established and Newly Risen scattered through the dark in pieces.

The corpses were everywhere. They hung in the Gaps in their thousands, Immense Ones who had come here to fight for a King’s Narrative, some of them broken and some of them frozen in grey glass with their own near-deaths still pinned in front of their faces, and the surviving lotuses had to pass between them as they went. No one in the retreating Legion looked at them for very long.

Behind them, THE Stillness of Every Death That Almost Happened did not follow. It hung in the dark where the battle had been, a vast quiet shape of grey glass with crimson eyes opening and closing across its surface, and it watched them go. It had not been defeated, and it had not even been badly hurt, and it simply let the Legion leave, just as it let everything leave, holding its breath and watching with a patience that was worse than any pursuit.

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