Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse novel Chapter 5983

Chapter 5983: Purified Essara!

In a short while, the buds had become two young trees, slender and no taller than Noah, one standing over each mound at the end of the last row, and each bore a single fruit. The fruit over Roxanna’s mound hung heavy and low, its rind the color of burnt gold and streaked with the thin bright trails of falling stars, and when the light struck it, he could see a kernel of red-black strings lying calm and still inside. The fruit over Lifthrasir’s mound was small and storm-grey, veined with faint white lines, and warm in his hand, with a tiny storm turning slowly inside it. Noah stood between the two trees and simply looked at them for a while, full of the plain wonder of a farmer whose field had given him something he had never planted!

|Narrative Fruits of Existence: 2.|

|Contents: a Purified Essara of Destruction, and a Purified Essara of Calamity.|

|Rarity: Rare.|

|Purified: grown, not carved. They carry no wound and no debt.|

|They can be seated, gently, by any lifeform this farm has nourished.|

He could have seated either one himself, and he felt nothing in him reach for them. Why would it? He had a seed in his chest that had been given, not carved, and these had grown on his farm for people on his farm who needed them!

He picked Lifthrasir’s fruit first and carried it to the porch, where Lygara sat on the step with her wings closed, and when she looked at the small grey fruit in his hand, her hands began to shake. "Is that hers?" she asked.

"It grew from her," Noah said, and held it out to her on his open palm. "It’s yours, if you want it."

Lygara kept her hands in her lap. "She would laugh at me," she said quietly. "For crying over a fruit. She would say I was being very slow about this."

"Then don’t be slow. She made her choices. You make yours," Noah said gently, and waited with the fruit warm in his hand.

Lygara let out a breath and took the fruit in both hands and held it against her chest, and the rind softened and opened, and the small purified storm rose out of it and settled into her without any breaking at all. Faint white lightning ran once across the backs of her hands and went still!

|Essara of Existence seated: Calamity (Purified).|

|Rarity: Rare.|

|Shackle broken: the law that destiny can only be watched, never chosen.|

|Veins: 3. Open: 1. Veins 2 and 3 open with Sap of Existence.|

|Vein 1: THE Thread That Spares.|

|Kind: Working.|

|Cost: Immensity, spent while the thread is held.|

|Effect: choose one thread of destiny. No calamity can break it while you hold it, and wherever it is spared, it grows stronger than it was.|

|Shaped by you: one who was spared by a friend at the very end.|

She read it to the last line and pressed one hand over her mouth, and Noah waited, already sure of what she would choose. "I have watched threads of destiny for longer than your existence has had a name," Lygara said at last, very softly. "I have never once been allowed to choose one."

"You’re allowed now," Noah said, and he could not keep the warmth out of his voice. "Which destiny will you choose?"

She looked past him to where Elpis sat in the doorway with her knees drawn up, watching them with her deep blue eyes, and she rose and went to her and knelt down in front of her. "I will choose...your destiny," Lygara said. "If you’ll let me."

Elpis blinked at her, her small face full of surprise. "Mine? Why?"

"Because my dear friend tried to break everything you stood behind," Lygara said, "and at the very end, she still chose to spare me. I would like to spare you. Cruelty came for you once, and I want to make sure it never comes for your destiny again." She held out one small gold hand. "Will you let me hold it?"

Elpis looked up at Noah, and he nodded, and she put her small blue-gold hand into Lygara’s. Lygara closed her eyes, and Noah felt it happen through the roots of the farm, a single bright thread of destiny, Elpis’s, lifting out of all the others and being held, and the molten white rivers across Elpis’s skin brightened very slightly and stayed brighter. "Oh," Elpis said, surprised. "That’s warm."

For the first time since the war, Lygara smiled! Watching them, Noah found that the war had left him one thing he had not counted on, and it was this.

Noah left them there together and went back for the other fruit. Henry was at the coop, mending a corner of the curved wall that had cracked, and he put his tools down the moment he saw what his father was carrying. "It grew from one of the louder enemies, I think you should have it."

Henry looked at it for a long moment without reaching for it. "You...don’t want it?" he asked.

Noah smiled at him, the smile of a man who had taken an army apart without lifting his Hoe and was now handing out the spoils. "I already have a lot, and I can always share with my son," Noah said. "Come on. This is when nepotism is working in your favor."

...!

Henry nodded and held the fruit to his chest, and Noah laid one hand flat between his son’s shoulder blades and let the warmth of his Dreams run into him. The rind opened, and the calm red-black kernel went into Henry, and every eye along his wings flew wide at once! Nothing in it fought him. It settled into him, and stayed.

|Essara of Existence seated: Destruction (Purified).|

|Rarity: Rare.|

|Shackle broken: the law that a son must stand behind his father.|

|Veins: 3. Open: 1. Veins 2 and 3 open with Sap of Existence.|

|Vein 1: THE Breaking That Stands Beside.|

|Kind: Way.|

|Cost: Immensity, for each blow it breaks.|

|Effect: any blow aimed at you or one you stand beside breaks apart, all the way down, before it lands.|

|Against beings of greater Immensity, the breaking is slower. It still breaks.|

|Shaped by you: a son who wanted to stand beside his father, not behind him.|

...!