Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 5472: Elvarna! II

The Undefined Gaps held them in its raw black, and inside a bubble of blue brilliance, Taylor sat troubled.

Noah faced her across the small lit space, and he had already decided on the direct approach. He was about to flood her existence with his Intent and his Osmontian Source Infinity, to find whatever Directive sat on her and clear it the way he had cleared his own, when her expression transformed. The trouble broke apart, and she laughed out loud, bright and vicious.

"Adrastia came through!" Taylor said. "This is a location, from my other body. If you go there, you’ll understand everything!"

...!

She waved her hands, and a bundle of information crossed the bubble to him. He accepted it, and the prompts bloomed.

|You have received the information of a location vast distances away, seated deep within THE Infinite Carcosa. Ordinarily, the heartland of Infinite Lifeforms does not admit outsiders easily. But your existence holds boundless Infinity, Master, and to a domain built of Infinity, you read as native. With these coordinates, you have free access. You can pull yourself there directly.|

...!

Taylor had given him a destination. But a destination was not the whole story, and out of an overabundance of caution, Noah moved before explaining.

He put his hand on Taylor’s head.

His Osmontian Source Infinity flooded into her existence in a single controlled surge, connecting her body here with her body elsewhere, bridging the two across the distance, and through the bridge he began forcefully accessing her memories, reading her the way he read everything that might be compromised.

Taylor wriggled under his palm and swore at him.

"Fuck, bro! What the hell!"

He kept reading. The caution was not optional, because as he perceived her existence, he found exactly what he had suspected. Bindings, imposed at the level of her foundations, the same species of chains he had overcome in himself a while ago. Directives of THE Sealed One, pressed into her, forbidding her from speaking of him or anything related to him. She had not been exaggerating. She literally could not have told him.

And the reason why became clear as her memories opened.

Ridiculously, absurdly, Taylor, Adrastia, and a whole company of Swords of Existence and Source Lifeforms had come across a vessel of THE Sealed One in THE Strand of Broken Scales. They had been taken, all of them, sent away in chains to a location in THE Infinite Carcosa, and as the memory of the place surfaced, Noah felt the cold click of recognition.

It matched, faintly, one of the dwindling beacon-points from the dissolving Resonance, one of the possibilities where a vessel should be. One of the places he had planned to hunt blind alongside THE Creature, arriving unprepared into whatever it held.

Now he knew exactly what it held.

The place was called THE Elvarna Mining Expanse, a tremendous landscape within THE Infinite Carcosa filled with Ores containing concentrated slivers of the intent of True Lifeforms. And THE Sealed One had kidnapped thousands upon thousands of Infinite Lifeforms, Source Lifeforms, and Gilded Ones, chained them to the Expanse, and set them mining those Ores as daily offerings to the vessel seated there.

This should be just one Vessel in this domain as there were likely other Domains with other vessels stretched out across THE Infinite Carcosa.

Taylor and Adrastia, their other bodies moving as Attendants of THE Swords of Existence, had simply been unlucky enough to be scooped up with the rest into this mining domain.

And right now, at this very moment, a prison break was effectively occurring. Adrastia had somehow overcome the chaos chains binding him to the Expanse, had eaten away the chains on Taylor’s body there as well, and that freedom was the only reason her mouth had opened enough to send the location!

The only question was what he should do, and it was not truly a question.

His eyes burned with vibrant luminosity. The three hours had not fully passed, but he was not the being who had crossed fists with THE Creature at the start of them. Four Letters. Two new appendages. Two grades hardened. A True Distinction announced across existence!

He wanted to see, with his own hands, whether he would still be helpless in front of a vessel of THE Sealed One.

And of course, he never had to do any of it alone.

Noah voiced out, his message crossing the distances at once, one thread to THE Creature and one to THE Queen Regnant through her Dora Shath’yar stationed near his other body outside Ryaenara’s Dimension.

"A Vessel of THE Sealed One is in THE Elvarna Mining Expanse of THE Infinite Carcosa. I’ve sent its location. I’ll be heading down first."

...!

If THE Creature was ready, he would come along as well.

But for now.

HUUM!

Noah’s eyes flashed with vibrant luminosity, and he sent another body across boundless rivers of Infinity, pulling and tugging himself along the coordinates for the first time, toward THE Elvarna Mining Expanse, toward a small place within THE Infinite Carcosa.

The home of Infinite Lifeforms.

Rivers of Infinity ran everywhere and nowhere, and for the first time in his existence, Noah pulled himself along them.

The traversal was unlike anything he had used before. Space folded for authority, and time bent for Amser Modred, but this was neither. This was Infinity recognizing Infinity, boundless rivers of blue potential threading the dark between all things, and his existence slid along them. The coordinates Taylor had sent burned ahead of him like a lamp, and he tugged himself toward them hand over hand, faster than thought, his Osmontian Source Infinity drinking the current even as it carried him.

THE Infinite Carcosa did not admit outsiders, the same way THE Source Lands did not. But the rivers were made of Infinity, and he was made of Infinity, fused and boundless, and so the heartland’s own veins read him as blood rather than intruder.

|You are traversing the boundless rivers of Infinity that thread THE Infinite Carcosa, Master. To these currents, your existence reads as kin, and no weaving contests your passage. You are approaching the received coordinates. Prepare yourself.|

He could feel...immensity!

It sat at the end of the light like a weight on the far side of a scale, a signature he had tasted twice before and would never mistake again. In a red sky over Nova Athens. In the corrupted records of a devoured hand. The particular pressure of something ancient wearing something lesser, patient and feeding and certain of its privacy.

A vessel of THE Sealed One.

Noah’s eyes burned along the river, and he let the last of the distance collapse!

HUUM!