Read Novel Full Chapter 5350: Should You Choose To Accept!
Chapter 5350: Should You Choose To Accept!
<THE Source Lands>
While one of his bodies endured tremendous adversity in THE Undefined Gaps, unable to take even a single step beneath the imposed weight of two Observable Existences, the body in THE Hallowed Demesne reined itself in.
Noah pulled his aura and his power tight against himself, careful not to reveal the full scope of what was happening throughout his existence. The completion of THE Genesis Scale, the budding integration of THE Primordial Source, the impossible reaction trying to make a finite authority infinite, the body straining in the Gaps under the weight of THE Infiniverse and Chernobyl, all of it churned beneath the surface, and none of it was anyone else’s business.
He stood in the farm with the composed stillness of a man who had merely passed a test, and let the rest stay hidden.
Seo-yeon hovered near him, her eyes shining with concern, looking between him and Dame Seraphine.
"This is a joyous occasion," Dame Seraphine said, her tone returning to the lighter register she had carried before the spar. "You do not need to look so grim about it. You passed. You are cleared. We should be pleased." She studied the two of them.
"Now, we have to settle how to designate you, and your little, what do you call this one? Have you adopted this little monster?"
She pointed at Seo-yeon.
The girl looked up at Noah, blinking with her big wide eyes, the picture of innocence despite having thrown a Fourth Scale Relictus miles across the grasslands less than an hour ago. Noah smiled lightly and patted her head.
"I’ll be taking care of her," he said simply. "Now that I’m supposedly cleared, what can I actually do? What’s open to me?"
He wanted to understand the adversities the Swords of Existence could open up for him. Manageable ones, ideally. Not something insane while his power was still consolidating across half a dozen fronts, but real challenges with real rewards, the kind that fed his climb rather than threatening to end it.
Dame Seraphine called Sir William over, and as she did, her armor flowed back over her body, the obsidian-gold plating reassembling from where it had drifted during the spar. She smiled.
"The Swords of Existence are a force of tremendous power and reach," she said. "We stretch across countless Observable Existences, following the guidance and the banner of THE Primordial Source itself. We are Source Lifeforms, all of us, and anyone who has obtained THE Primordial Source can be considered among us, which now includes you. But the Swords are a specific kind of Source Lifeform. We are the ones who protect the others, and who protect THE Primordial Source itself. We are the protectors. That is the whole of what we are, beneath all the ceremony."
She gestured outward, toward the distant mountain of obsidian-gold structures.
"Across THE Source Lands, there are many Esteemed and Noble Source Lifeforms working under Her Majesty, THE Queen Regnant. They hold tremendous access to THE Primordial Source, enough to obtain information and knowledge that most of us cannot even fathom, weavings of existence drawn from across the vastness. That information is sifted, understood, categorized, by Swords of Existence working closely with many others. Missions are formed based on what that knowledge reveals, and those missions can span countless Observable Existences, or take place within THE Source Lands themselves." Her eyes settled on him with genuine interest.
"For you specifically, I already had some potential missions in mind. Ones involving Terminal Observable Existences. Because I very much wish to see for myself what you, and this little girl here, actually did in Chernobyl. I will-"
...!
She stopped.
Noah frowned. He had been thinking, while she spoke, that this was precisely the direction most beneficial to him. The more Terminal Observable Existences he altered to his own Cause, the more power he accumulated, and rapidly, because each resuscitation added the weight of another domain to THE Infinite Cause.
He was already moving a body to wade through THE Undefined Gaps and search for other Terminal Observable Existences on his own. But the Swords of Existence were an organization holding tremendous power and tremendous information, and information was the thing that turned a slow search into a directed one. If they had the locations, if they had the maps, they could make everything infinitely easier.
So he had thought.
So why, at this exact moment, had the expression of the woman about to hand him precisely what he wanted changed so completely?
The carefreeness drained out of Dame Seraphine. The light tone, the teasing about the little monster, all of it gone. She straightened, and what replaced the warmth was something stoic and graceful and entirely serious, the bearing of a being receiving instruction from somewhere above her own considerable standing.
"An Order has been passed down from above," she said. "Your mission has been designated. You are to go to THE Arkethys Observable Existence."
BOOM!
The moment the words left her, Noah’s eyes sharpened, and he caught Sir William’s reaction at the edge of his perception.
His composed features broke into shock, plain and unmistakable, before he reasserted his dignity and smoothed it away. But Noah had seen it!
Noah’s shining eyes moved back to Dame Seraphine.
He wondered what being from above had given this Order, that it could redirect a Fifth Scale being’s plans so completely and so instantly. And he wondered why the name Arkethys made even Sir William’s composure crack.
Dame Seraphine continued, her face serious, her voice carrying the cadence of someone relaying instructions she was repeating rather than choosing.
"I will lead the party. I will form it around you, and we will set off to THE Arkethys Observable Existence together." She let the gravity settle.
"It is an Anomalous Observable Existence, and a perilous one. It contains both Infinite Lifeforms and Source Lifeforms, living side by side. Hundreds of thousands of beings from both sides died there one million years ago, before the survivors formed a treaty. They died... over a resource that both sides wanted badly enough to spend that many lives on."
Noah listened, every word filing into place.
"The resource is called Eridarch Ore," she said. "It holds both pure stable Infinity and Primordial Source, bound together in a single crystalline lattice, which should be impossible and is nonetheless real. For an Infinite Lifeform, it accelerates their grasp of Infinity and opens THE Primordial Source to their study. For a Source Lifeform, the reverse. It allows beings of either kind to smoothly form their Akashic Civilizational Intent and step into the Fourth Scale of Existence."
...!
"And it has shown effectiveness in cultivating an Intent toward at least one higher rarity, and in increasing the rate of progression enough to make way for more Fifth Scale entities. It is, in plain terms, the best progression resource either side has ever found for our current Scales, and they found it together, and that is why so many of them died."
She paused.
"Recently, instabilities have begun to occur. Specifically in the regions under the control of the Source Lifeforms. The regions show deterioration. A sense of terminal collapse beginning to set in. All of Arkethys is dangerous enough already that even Third Scale beings can perish from the environmental pressures alone, the bound Infinity and Source detonating when disturbed. But the more the Ore is mined, the more dangerous and unstable the entire Observable Existence becomes, and now something has tipped, and the Source Lifeforms’ regions are starting to fail."
Her obsidian eyes held his.
"The mission, should you choose to accept it, is to explore Arkethys and find out more about these unfolding instabilities. Why they are occurring more heavily on the Source Lifeforms’ side. And, if you can, to resolve it."
...!