Him!
His identity was his power, and his power was his identity, the two collapsed into a single thing at last. THE Egoic Intent of THE Quintessential Osmontian!
And it fit, the way a key fits, because Quintessence had always been a deep part of who he was. It was bound to his na, to the irreducible truth that remained when everything else was stripped, and now as every cell and every weaving of him transford, the na and the truth and the power beca one.
|I believe congratulations are in order.|
THE Sealed One, from behind the grinding rune over his heart, sounding almost warm.
|What a wonder you are. Truly. I have been inside a great many beings, and I have congratulated none of them, because none of them ever did anything worth the breath. And no one else will know of this achievent of yours yet. Not your Source Lifeforms, not the pretty sozoic one glancing your way. Only . So allow . I will definitely congratulate you, my dear vessel, as you beco sothing else. It is a rare and lovely thing to watch up close.|
...!
Noah received the congratulations of the monster in his chest for exactly what it was worth, which was nothing, and made sure his newly forming Intent wrapped tight around his heart as it took shape, the Egoic truth of him layering over the cage, reinforcing the chains with the purest expression of his identity yet. If his Intent was him, then his Intent was the strongest wall he had, and he built it into the prison the mont he had it.
THE Sealed One continued, untroubled by his actions.
|By the way. I had not managed to get this deep into THE Source Lands before. The seals hold to many scattered places. And now here I am, in THE Hallowed Desne, among the ordered territory of so of the slightly powerful Source Lifeforms themselves, carried in the chest of a freshly minted Vessel."
WAA!
"So thank you for that. Thank you for the information, and the access, and all the lovely things you are going to give as you move among the Source Lifeforms with riding along. It is almost as though you are my little soldier, marching about and collecting it all on my behalf.|
A pause, amused.
|But never mind that. It troubles you and I would rather we talk. May I ask you sothing, in the spirit of our new closeness? What is it that a being like you actually wants? What is all of it for? Why struggle against existence at all. Why struggle against . Why do anything, in these mad endless weavings of existence that grind on whether you act or not? My dear vessel. Why?|
HUUM!
Why.
Noah raised his head and looked out across THE Hallowed Desne.
Da Seraphine stood at a distance, talking with the others, glancing his way every so often the way a person glances at a thing they cannot stop being aware of.
And beyond her, he could sense more Source Lifeforms arriving in the region, drawn in, more of them by the seconds. Because he was a spectacle now. A Primordial Intent had blood in THE Hallowed Desne, or so it appeared to every perception but his own, and a Primordial Intent drew watchers the way light drew things in the dark. They were coming to see the wonder.
He looked at all of it, and did not answer THE Sealed One yet, because the question deserved better than a reflex, and because forming his Intent had made his why unfathomably clear.
He thought about how he moved. Whether it was... fully him this whole ti.
He had goals, ideals, things he chased, but was he chasing them Quintessentially, with the whole of himself, or had he spent too much of his existence reacting?
Letting the apocalypse set the pace and answering it move by move, letting existence throw things and catching them, a being defined as much by what ca at him as by what he reached for.
There was a balance to it, he decided. Real choices of his own, real ambitions, woven through with reactions to what existence flung. A fair balance.
But there was no harm in tilting it. No harm in moving more proactively, with more ambition, in expressing his identity with quintessentially more want. If his Intent was now built on who he was, then who he was could afford to reach further.
After all.
He spoke at last, the words ant for no one but himself and the thing in his heart.
"What is it all for...." he said. "Indeed. What is it all for. For the adversity. For the brutality. For the wonders of existence, the ones that make even a day like this one worth having lived to see." He let it build.
"I can say I move for many things. To see the end of the road for what Mana is capable of, the thing I fell in love with before I was anyone. What Infinity is capable of, when a man refuses to let it drown him and makes it carry him instead. To et monsters like you, and to have the certainty, not the hope, the certainty...that I can overco you when the ti cos." His eyes were steady on the gathering Source Lifeforms.
"And to live peacefully. Free of worry. That’s the one underneath all the others. And for that, I need undeniable power, because in existence there is nothing but worry and adversity, an endless supply of both, and the only thing that buys quiet against them is power. Power is paramount. Power is everything. A man with enough of it gets to stop reacting and start living. That’s what it’s for."
BOOM!
He did not say the rest to the Sealed One. He kept the rest for himself.
His family was a vast factor, the largest, maybe, but as he had ford his Intent he had seen the truth underneath even that. Everything, in the end, was for his own selfish reasons.
He had fallen in love with Mana and skills in the dungeons of his howorld, a man enchanted by power in the dark, and ever since that mont his identity had carried an insatiable hunger for more that had never once been quenched, not by any title, not by any Scale, not by any wonder he had claid.
More loot. More power. More tyranny. More won. More...Everything.
It was unfathomably selfish!
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