Chapter 5245: THE Source Lands! IV
Chapter 5245: THE Source Lands! IV
Noah looked at the notification.
He looked at the eel as it receded into the dark and chaotic waters.
He did not curse. He made a note that the Fourth Scale welcome party was a good sign about how dangerous this place would be, and left the eel as a problem to solve after he understood where he was, and turned away from the churning dark waters to examine the beach they had landed on.
The beach was rough and dark, jagged rock breaking through the coarse sand at irregular intervals, the landscape stretching away from the water’s edge into terrain that he could barely perceive the outlines of. This was the most significant thing: he could not see far.
Not because the darkness was absolute, though it was darker here than any darkness he had previously encountered, but because his perception, which had been capable of ranging across countless gigaparsecs in Observable Existence, currently extended approximately a mile before meeting a hard limit that did not feel like obstruction but like the edge of what the environment permitted.
One mile.
The obsidian rivers flowing through the surrounding terrain began resonating against his Source, and information started arriving.
|Arrival confirmed. Welcome to THE Source Lands.|
...!
|State of existence: All external components have been stripped at THE Advent Wall. Your physical body, your Hadean Physiology, your Civilizations, your Absolute Egos, your Hadean Pillar of Infinity, and all Ways of Existence are null and void in this place. What remains is your Source, the irreducible core of what you are, alongside the following components which have survived stripping intact: your Infinity, your Observable Force, and your links to THE Bellum Cause, THE Cognitio Cause, and THE Infinite Cause. THE Infinite Tongue is present, as it operates at the Source level rather than the cultivation level.|
|In THE Source Lands, the only meaningful currency is the Source itself. Civilizations do not function here. Engineered architecture does not function here. What each existence is at its irreducible core is what it has to work with, amplified to an extreme degree by the nature of this place.|
|All existences here experience base emotions, hungers, and biological drives at extreme intensity. Anger. Pride. Arrogance. Lust. Fear. Pain. These are not cultivated expressions but raw Source states, and in this place they press against consciousness with a force that even the most disciplined minds struggle to manage. This is not a flaw in the environment. It is a feature of the stripping, when accumulation is removed, what it was suppressing becomes louder.|
|Hunger is the critical condition. Every Source in THE Source Lands burns constantly against the ambient elements, which continuously sap it. A Source that is not replenished will eventually exhaust itself and collapse. The primary replenishment mechanism is consumption, consuming other Sources restores one’s own. This can be other lifeforms or resources on these lands. This produces the fundamental condition of THE Source Lands: every existence here is either hunting or being hunted. There are no neutral parties. There is no rest.|
|If Hunger reaches a critical threshold, the Source begins consuming itself. Below 10% Satiety, self-consumption accelerates exponentially. At zero, the existence ends.|
|Demarcation System of Sources:|
|First Demarcation- Seidr Source: A Source that barely coheres under the pressure of THE Source Lands’ environment. These existences are the majority present here. They are capable of sustaining themselves only by consuming multiple weaker Sources rapidly, as their own reserves exhaust quickly. Most First Demarcation Sources collapse within the first cycle of this place’s equivalent of a day.|
|Second Demarcation- Galdr Source: A Source of sufficient strength and coherence to interact actively with the environment of THE Source Lands rather than simply surviving it. Second Demarcation Sources can direct the obsidian rivers, resist ambient elemental sapping to a meaningful degree, and engage with other Sources from a position of genuine strength rather than desperation. They are rare. Most Gilded Ones who survive the crossing arrive at First Demarcation.|
|Third Demarcation — Einherjar Source: A Source capable of commanding aspects of THE Source Lands itself, bending the ambient elements to its will and consuming First and Second Demarcation Sources at will. These exist, but they are encountered rather than common. They hold territories. They have been here long enough that the question of where they came from in time no longer has a clean answer.|
|Note: THE Source Lands exist outside of time as Observable Existence defines it. Those present may be from eons past, eons future, or any point within that span, all occupying the same space simultaneously. The concept of a timeline does not apply here.|
|Your Source Demarcation: Second. Galdr Source. Your Infinity is sufficient in its density and expression to produce a Galdr Source directly upon arrival. Your Source is currently elevating to match the Demarcation your Infinity established.|
|Progression: If a Source rises high enough through combat, consumption, and confrontation with the ambient elements of this place, access to THE Primordial Tongue becomes possible. Those who achieve this gain the letters of the oldest language. THE Primordial Source itself lies beyond even this. It is not attained. It is either carried from birth or approached through adversity so extreme that most existences collapse long before proximity becomes relevant.|
|This place is simultaneously the most dangerous and the most accelerating environment for Source development in existence.|
|Welcome.|
BOOM!
Noah blinked.
His Infinity rearranged itself around his Source with the specific efficiency of a system reconfiguring to new operational parameters, the multicolored currents cycling through him in patterns adapted to this place rather than the patterns that had served him in Observable Existence. He felt the difference immediately. The sensory fullness was extraordinary- the sand under his feet, the cold of the air, the smell of the dark water behind them, all of it arriving at an intensity that his cultivated existence had been filtering for so long that he had forgotten the unfiltered version existed.
He also felt hungry.
Not the cultivated awareness of needing to replenish reserves. Actual hunger, the raw biological version that he had last felt when he was a young man eating whatever the apocalypse left available. It pressed against his concentration with the insistence of a condition that had been waiting a very long time to be acknowledged.
A status panel bloomed at the edge of his perception.
|Source Status — Noah Osmont|
|Designations: THE Genesis Monarch / THE Youngest / THE Primus Apeiron / THE Infinite Speaker / THE Osmontian|
|Source: Emergent — Elevating / Galdr Source|
|Infinity: Nearu Absolute /Galdr|
|Observable Force: Galdr|
|Cause Links Active: THE Bellum Cause / THE Cognitio Cause / THE Infinite Cause|
|THE Infinite Tongue: Active at Source level|
|Satiety: 27%|
|Warning: Your Infinity expression at this Demarcation produces Source sapping at an accelerated rate relative to most Second Demarcation existences. Your Source requires significantly greater replenishment volume than others at equivalent standing. Consumption must commence soon. At 10% Satiety, self-consumption begins.|
Noah looked at the 27% and looked at the warning and looked at the dark landscape stretching beyond the mile his perception could reach.
He pulled Adelheid upright from the jagged sand.
She was catching her breath, her golden Source expression cycling through the visible emotions this place amplified straight to the surface- residual fear from the crossing, the disorientation of having her Ubergulden identity stripped back to its raw core, the specific vulnerability of a being who had spent eons constructing an exterior discovering that the exterior was not present anymore.
He checked her status without asking. Her Source was First Demarcation, stable but thin, her Satiety already higher than his at 70%.
He looked behind them at the obsidian waters.
He looked at the distant crimson eyes of the Source Eel still watching from the border of the void it had created.
He looked at the dark landscape ahead where anything from eons past or eons future might be waiting in the mile beyond his perception.
Twenty-seven percent Hunger and falling, in a place where the only replenishment was consuming something else’s Source or resources, in a space without time where a Fourth Scale creature had been the welcome party.
He had arrived at a truly glorious place!