At this ti as he looked at everything, Adelheid’s voice arrived in Noah’s mind.
’What you are perceiving are THE Terminus Citadels. You are looking at eight of them from this angle, though there are more beyond the imdiate periter.’
Her ntal voice carried the quality of her physical voice elevated into pure precision, each word arriving with deliberateness.
’This entire region was constructed during the Fourth Age. Ancient Gilded Ones, among the most powerful our civilization has produced across its history, identified nine locations within THE Braneworld Observable Existence where the specific conditions of dinsional density and existential substrate permitted the concentration of Pri Cause light from THE First Cause into a stable persistent presence.’
’They did not create the Pri Cause expressions here. They pulled them. They gathered the ambient resonance of each Pri Cause from across THE Braneworld and directed it into these nine Sites, compressing the ambient into concentrated, and then they built around the concentration rather than within it.’
...!
The procession moved toward the tallest structure at the Site’s approximate center.
Around it, thousands of Ira Gilded Ones circulated in slow orbital formations at varying heights.
Other Gilded Ones moved within the citadels’ lower platforms, their forms visible through the obsidian-gold surfaces in silhouette, conducting whatever function brought them to a Site built around the most unwelco Pri Cause in the arrangent of existence.
Evangelina’s party moved through the circling Ira formations with the specific ease of beings whose status produced automatic clearance, the Ira parting before them.
’THE Terminus Citadels are what this Site is called in formal Gilded designation. What they contain, and what they were built to serve as the vessel for, is THE Mortis Cause. The eighth Pri Cause. The foundational truth that existence concludes.’
Adelheid walked beside Noah at a distance appropriate to the Custos arrangent, her gaze forward and her posture carrying the quality of soone engaged in a private communication that the observer could sense but not access.
She moved through the obsidian-gold light with natural ease.
’Understand what this ans. Every death that has ever occurred, every Civilization that has ever fallen, every relationship that has ever concluded, every mont of finality across the full span of existence draws its experiential legitimacy from this Cause. THE Mortis Cause does not cause death. Death draws its authority from THE Mortis Cause. The distinction matters. The Cause is prior to the phenonon. The phenonon derives from the Cause.’
The tallest structure rose before them now with the specific verticality of sothing designed to be perceived from far away and to be more impressive upon arrival than it had been at distance, which was a significant claim given how impressive it had been at distance.
’The Pulses it permits are among the most feared in the docunted history of the Gilded. THE Mortis Whisper implants the absolute certainty of impending death into the target’s consciousness at a foundational level, not as a belief to be argued with but as a truth their existence begins to act on before their conscious mind has finished processing the delivery.’
’Their existence begins to unravel in anticipation of a conclusion that may never actually arrive. THE Mortis Touch introduces ending into whatever is physically contacted, causing the touched substance to begin concluding regardless of its prior durability or resistance. And then there is THE Mortis Sovereignty.’
She paused.
’THE Mortis Sovereignty is a terminal expression that makes the caster the temporary embodint of ending itself. Everything within their presence that is capable of concluding begins to conclude simultaneously. Individual cells. Civilizations. The structural foundations of the region the caster occupies. All of them receive the signal that their continuation has reached its designated terminus. All of them honor the signal because the signal cos from the Cause rather than from a being, and the Cause cannot be argued with by anything that draws its authority from the Cause’s foundational truth, which is everything in existence.’
They were close enough now that the individual architectural details of the tallest structure were visible, its surface carrying elaborate dinsional geotries etched into the obsidian that Noah’s Pillow Talk registered as functional rather than decorative, the geotries serving as the structural architecture of the Mortis Cause concentration rather than as ornantation.
’No Gilded designation draws from THE Mortis Cause as its primary amplification. This was a deliberate choice embedded in the earliest engineering thodologies, the recognition that anchoring any population’s identity in the truth of ending produced...psychological conditions that were difficult to grasp. No Gilded One likes to be told all things end and all things die, even them. So what exists instead is THE Mortis Sorora.’
The na arrived with the specific weight of sothing significant being nad.
’A secretive cadre within THE Magna Sorora itself, Sisters who have been authorized to cultivate direct connections to THE Mortis Cause for the purpose of administering the executions the Sisterhood occasionally requires. Their existence is not publicly acknowledged.’
Noah kept his expression neutral as he listened.
’THE Mortis Cause is the only Pri Cause whose experiential truth cannot be permanently resisted. Every other Cause can be countered by a sufficiently powerful opposing Cause. THE Mortis Cause asserts that ending cos for everything, and this assertion has never been falsified across the full history of existence. The beings who have touched this Cause most deeply wield the one truth that no cultivation, no engineering, no Ego, and no Primordial Source has ever ultimately overridden.’
The entrance of the tallest structure was ahead, Evangelina and her delegation already moving through it, the Ira guards at the flanks maintaining their positions.
’We have arrived.’
Her ntal voice carried the slightest adjustnt in its register.
’Do your best to behave. If you are feeling impulsive about anything, wait. You...can have so later.’
...!
Noah stepped through the entrance of THE Terminus Citadel and felt THE Mortis Cause’s concentrated presence wash over his existence.
It was everywhere.
Not rely in the walls or in the specific structures designed to concentrate it. In the air itself. In the space between the air and the surfaces. In the dinsional geotry of the rooms they passed through, where the obsidian-gold light pulsed in its slow respiratory rhythm and carried with each pulse a small delivery of the Mortis truth into whatever existed in proximity to it.
He thought about Dreamstones.
Surely a Site built specifically to concentrate a Pri Cause contained sothing analogous to the Dreamstones in THE Sanctum Velanthra, so physical crystallization of the Cause’s presence that permitted direct contact and comprehension in the manner the Bellum and Cognitio stones had provided.
And then he looked at the air around him and felt the threads of Mortis Cause light moving through the space with the ambient persistence of a Cause that had been saturating this location for longer than most of his reference points for duration extended, and a different thought arrived.
The Sanctum Velanthra had required a Dreamstone because the Cause concentration there was not sufficient to produce comprehension through ambient exposure alone.
This place was not THE Sanctum Velanthra as if it was so potent and pervasive all around...could he grasp this terrifying Cause that seed to be very much in line with Apocalypses and Endings?
User Comments
0 comments from readers