Chapter 5894: Kings! II

THE Narrative of Kings!

The words spread through every corner of the Legacy at once.

Far beyond that one small island, dozens of other islands floated through the domain, of every size. Some were as small as a house. Some were as large as Dimensions, and some as large as whole Observable Existences, hanging in the sky like continents.

On one of the great ones stood thousands of Provenance Lifeforms, and among them dozens burned with the auras of Immense Ones, every face lifted toward the aurora.

On another, Primeval Ones and Gilded Lifeforms crowded together by the millions, grey stone and bright gold side by side, and out of those millions, a few dozen shone with Immensity so heavy it bent the light around them.

On others, vast swarms of Gu rose into the air in every color. Infinite Lifeforms stretched endlessly upward to see. Source Lifeforms spilled light over the edges of their islands like waterfalls.

On every island, Immense Ones of every tier were looking up, the Newly Risen and the Established, the Ancient, and here and there, rare and terrible, the Unfathomable.

Every one of their faces showed the same ambition, the same fervor, the same hunger.

Then the aurora opened like a page!

A great banner of white and gold unrolled across the whole sky of the Legacy, wide enough to cover it from edge to edge, and on it was a ranking.

The first twenty spots were blank.

They blazed with golden light, so bright it was hard to look at them, but no names were written there. Twenty empty places at the very top, burning and waiting.

From the twenty-first spot down, there were names.

They went on and on, past the hundredth and further, each one blazing with its own intensity of golden light. The brightness of a name seemed to show its power, its Immensity, its weight in existence, and every single name written there shone with a glory that made anyone looking think of the Unfathomable, or of something higher still.

Back on the small island, the four players stood around their abandoned board and read.

"So many kings are already here," the Provenance Lifeform murmured. "And of course, our grand personage is..." Her smile widened. "Near the top."

...!

Below the twenty burning blanks, the names began.

|21. THE Crown Beneath All Crowns|

|22. THE Dissolved Progenitor|

|23. THE Empress of Ten Thousand Seasons|

|24. THE Silent Throne of the Unwritten|

|25. THE Shepherd of Falling Stars|

|26. THE Hand That Sets the Pieces|

|27. THE Iron Psalm of the Last Gate|

|28. THE King of Countless Expanses|

|29. THE Harvester of Gilded Ages|

The name at the twenty-sixth place blazed so brightly that the whole Legacy seemed to lean toward it. Every lifeform in the domain knew that name. It was the one who had gathered every piece of existence into this place and set each one where it belonged.

"Twenty-six," the Source Lifeform said quietly, spilling a little more light than usual.

Their eyes moved down the list, past the bright twenties and into the thirties.

There, one name was dim.

Compared to the brilliant gold all around it, it looked almost tired. It still shone, and clearly, as a thing with real power behind it, but every name below it in the thirties and forties burned brighter. By its light alone, it should have sat far lower. And yet there it was, above many beings far stronger than itself.

|30. THE Maker of Scales|

"Vakochev," the Conduit Lifeform said, and whistled. "Thirtieth. Above all those."

"Surprising," said the Source Lifeform.

The Provenance Lifeform crossed her ringed arms and studied the dim name thoughtfully.

"For kings, personal might matters," she said. "But it is not the only thing. The fates of those they steer matter. What they have accomplished matters. Vakochev’s legend was a grand one. For a time, he touched the fates of a great many, even if he was weak, and even if he is weak now."

She tilted her head. "And we do not know what other factors decide the order. There may be many."

The Conduit Lifeform had stopped listening. He blinked, and leaned forward, and pointed up.

"What the hell is that one?" he said. "I nearly missed it, it is so dim. How did it ever make it to such a position?"

...!

They followed his finger down the list.

At the fiftieth place sat a name so faint they had all skipped over it the first time. It was dimmer than the names in the seventies. It was dimmer than the names in the nineties. Next to the blazing gold around it, it barely glowed at all, like a candle someone had set down in the middle of a bonfire. It looked weak, almost laughably weak.

And yet it had made it to the fiftieth place in THE Narrative of Kings.

|50. THE Dreaming Human Origin|

...!

For a long moment, none of the four said anything.

"THE Dreaming Human Origin," the Source Lifeform repeated slowly. "I have never heard of it."

"Nor I," the Primeval One rumbled. "It is weak. Weaker than half the Immense Ones on our own islands."

"Then how is it among kings?" said the Conduit Lifeform. "Among those?"

The Provenance Lifeform looked at the dim name for a long time, and then a slow, sharp smile spread across her face.

"A king that weak," she said softly. "Even we could aim for him. If we took his Rulership, we would be much further along our own paths." Her eyes slid down the long, blazing list below the fiftieth place, all those brighter names waiting further down.

"Well. That is, if all the monsters ranked below him do not get to him first."

...!

THE Dreaming Human Origin.

Eighty names sat on that list among the first hundred places, with twenty more burning blank above them, and every one of those eighty blazed with the might of beings who had steered vast regions of existence for Ages.

How had something so weak made its way in among them? With a light that faint, sitting that high, it would be hunted by far too many who wanted to climb.

As they stared at it, the surrounding existence buzzed again!

More information fell from the golden aurora like warm light, and every lifeform in the Legacy went still to receive it.

|Existence is built on rule and direction.|

|Across the Ages, there have always been those who steer others. Those who shape the fates of countless lives. Those who reach into cause and effect and change what follows. Those who hold the power to steer whole regions of existence by their own vision.|

|Such beings are Kings.|

|In this Cycle, the grandest Kings will pave the way forward.|

|Existence will reward their brilliance.|

|Existence will also challenge their kingship.|

|In the end, only THE Magnus Kings will remain.|

|They will dictate the flow of this Cycle, and much more.|

...!

All across the Legacy of THE Hand That Sets the Pieces, on every island, Immense Ones of every tier looked up at the list with burning eyes, and began to count how many names stood between themselves and the top.

Far away, in a place made of light, the one named fiftieth had just begun to look up as an aurora of gold...began to permeate across Existence just like THE Long Night!