Chapter 482 The Extremes (1/2)

CHAPTER 482

THE EXTREMES

Lino stared at the void beyond the sky, currently ablaze with the molten rocks trailing across like the falling stars. Only One and he remained floating high up, others having withdrawn down to the ground.

It was a spectacular sight, as much as it was destructive. The rocks were like an army, ineffable in their make, fearless, cruising the cold, freezing void, yet unwilling to let it extinguish them. Altogether, he and One counted roughly two hundred of them that were on the direct course to crash into Noterra, taking into account the planet's orbit. Though many may see it as a catastrophe, a world-ending one, Lino didn't. It was easy to deal with inanimate objects for one simple reason -- they were straightforward.

The rock wouldn't curve at the very last second, circumvent him and gain speed as it barreled toward the earth. It wouldn't fake its intent in hopes it might cheat him. It would run its course, whatever may come at the end of it.

Lino glanced at One from the corner of his eye; the man seemed as apathetic as ever, though now it made sense -- he was no man. Lino had begun suspecting something was athwart with the enigmatic 'One of the Great Descent' long before he met Dangwe, but that meeting confirmed his suspicions to a certain extent. Ashtar's Archaic Record grounded it further.

If the Writs were not the first to descend, why were there only Seven of them? They were entirely unnecessary for everything the legends give them claims for; as far as Lino could realize, anything can become a Writ. Perchance, somewhere on Noterra, conscious or not, there was a Writ of Wit. Writ of Fire. Of Emotion. This notion stirred even more fervently when he learned that Ataxia wasn't always the Writ of Chaos.

Writs, as far as he understood them thus far, are simply penultimate realizations of a concept -- similar to the Spirits, yet different. Whereas Spirits were marked with self-realized existence and didn't necessitate a very specific set of circumstances, Writs did. Even more, Writs were a complete bundle -- whereas Spirits were not. There were hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions of Spirits of Fire. However, there can only ever be a single Writ of Fire.

Most of it was still a jumbled mess and a conjecture, but One's admittance caused a surge of pride in Lino's soul. He'd connected all the dots on his own, taken from the bits and chunks that hardly seemed connected -- knowledge worth over five decades of living and learning. Another conjecture that he was trying to see through built upon what he already determined -- not just Writs, but everything else was not limited in number.

This applied to everything -- from something as simple as the diversity of plants in the forest to the potential amount of intelligent lifeforms across the cosmos. It was not some arbitrary number that limited them, but very specific circumstances. It is impossible, for instance, for some flowers to grow in the forest -- not because there were already enough flowers there, but perhaps because the seed was never planted, or the flower simply can't grow without a continuous stream of sunlight to feed it.

However, that might not necessarily be true. Some things, perhaps, were sealed by a number -- for instance, Writs. He wasn't certain, but he suspected there can only be one Writ per element or, rather, per concept. He could be completely wrong, of course, but some sense of logic in him dictated that there can only be one.

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Ataxia, as was usually the case, remained mum on the issue, not denying or confirming any of Lino's doubts. He also doubted he could pry much from One; he was a strange Writ, an anomaly of sorts when compared to the rest. One wasn't a human per se, that is the person wasn't a Bearer of a Writ -- he was an agglomeration of initial mankind, their hearts' fires to survive. In a way, One was a Bearer of himself. Rubbing his temples in frustration, Lino slowly realized that chipping away at the mysteries was far from being as fun as he'd expected.

He knew so much, perhaps more than any other Bearer of the entire Era, yet so little. The entire story was muddled with too many fogs and mists, too many interpretations, pretenses, too many diverging paths. Perhaps, in a vacuum, these all may make sense to a certain degree. However, as a part of a whole, they didn't. Though he knew Ataxia didn't create Primes, merely 'corrupted' Archangels, that didn't actually answer the question of how. Why was it that in some cases he'd heard it being referred to 'Angels having Fallen'? Also, why was it that Asmodei's story, from when he first met the remnant of the Archangel, now seemed a feeble fabrication? No, some elements of it echoed what Lino knew to be the truth -- yet most was false. Asmodei claimed to be the first Archangel -- an Overseer. He also claimed that the descent of the Writs marked the inception of the Universe. Yet, it clearly didn't. He also claimed Gaia created Noterra, yet she clearly didn't.

What did all of it mean? Why the lies? The smoking mirrors thrown around whenever the first few thousand years of the squabbles were mentioned? He didn't know. Which caused him to sigh audibly.

”Don't think too much about it.” he heard a voice chiming in from the side, glancing. One seemed to be smiling, yet not at the same time. ”You'll know when it is time.”

”... I have to think,” Lino replied. ”It seems oddly unnatural not to think. Also, I don't believe in waiting for the perfect time, Alladin. I believe in creating it.”