The more he gave, the more he received, and the receiving dwarfed the giving by a factor that should not have been allowed. It was unfathomably ridiculous as an ability!

It broke the basic math that every other being in existence lived by, the rule that giving costs the giver, and it broke it in the most generous possible direction!

He wanted to give!

And now he wanted to give freely, extravagantly, because giving freely was, apparently, the single most selfish thing he could do!

He thought for a moment, then waved his hand and retrieved the Source Armament that Sir William had given him.

He held it a while. He remembered the being who had handed it to him, the Gentleman Knight who had sponsored him and vouched for him and spent his last breath teaching, who had been shredded apart by THE Riven in the dark of THE Maw and turned to a river of light.

The blade was a good blade.

So he turned and handed the terrifying weapon to Seo-yeon.

"Another present," he told her. "This one was given to me by someone good. I think you’ll like it."

...!

Seo-yeon unsheathed it at once, with the dangerous unthinking enthusiasm of a child handed something far too sharp, and a terrifying aura spilled out of the blade and out of her, and she laughed, bright and chaotic, and began to swing it!

The swings were not playful in their effects, whatever the joy behind them. Each one was terrifying enough to shred apart the weak first-tier Intents of a Fourth Scale being, great crescents of obsidian-blue brilliance carving through the air of the Early Veiled Shore, and several of them came down toward the plots of Infinite Sacred Herbs, threatening to ravage the careful rows.

And Amelia moved.

Noah’s mother smiled, and exerted her power, and THE Infinite Cause bloomed around her body, because she was the Origin of THE Infinite Cause, the backbone now of far too many things across his holdings!

Her figure manifested at terrifying speed across every place where Seo-yeon’s crescents of Infinity and Primordial Source would have landed and torn up the herbs, and she caught the devastating arcs in her hands, one after another, dispersing them harmlessly before they could ruin a single plot.

She looked, to Noah’s quiet amazement, delighted. Genuinely joyful at the chance to play with the child, and she cheered Seo-yeon on as she caught the deadly swings.

"Come on," Amelia called, laughing, flickering to intercept another crescent. "Is that all? Swing it a little faster! Let me see if we fed you enough!"

BOOM!

"Yes, Grandma! Be careful!"

Seo-yeon was overjoyed at being allowed to play, a horrific aura erupting off her small frame, and she and Amelia flickered across the skies of the Early Veiled Shore, the child swinging a blade and the grandmother catching every stroke, one chasing the other through the herb-realms in a game that would have leveled and collapsed many!

Noah watched it with a smile.

And at that moment, he felt his Intent erupt.

An Egoic Intent was a unique thing, and he was only beginning to glimpse what that meant, and what he glimpsed now was horrific.

|THE Tide That Owes Nothing has triggered alongside the Ninth Foundation: THE Sovereign Existence. Your Intent is exerting itself, because your identity demands that the conditions of your capabilities be met. You have given a Source Armament away. Therefore your Intent demands that the boon of your Second Foundation be fulfilled, and your Ninth Foundation lends its power to ensure existence complies.|

|Your Egoic Intent of THE Quintessential Osmontian has exerted itself, and pulled. From across THE Undefined Gaps. From THE Source Lands. From THE Infinite Carcosa. From Observable Existences beyond count, and from myriad other domains of existence you have no knowledge of and have never set foot in. Your Intent has reached into all of them at once, and pulled.|

...!

The effects were terrifying. Noah looked up, and at the highest point of THE Infiniverse, things began to appear, each one carrying an aura of immensity that pressed against the whole domain, materials wrenched out of the far corners of existence by the demand of his Intent, gathered to build him a blade because he had given one away.

|Materials pulled and converging:|

|THE Tear of a Drowned Carcosa. A shard of crystallized Infinity recovered from a corner of THE Infinite Carcosa where the boundless sea of Infinity once went so mad it folded in on itself and drowned an entire region. The madness compressed into a single weeping shard of pure Infinity, sharper than the concept of an edge.|

|THE Marrow of a Nameless True Lifeform. A sliver of bone pulled from a domain you have no knowledge of, the remains of one of the eldest beings of a forgotten Age, an entity grand enough that even its marrow remembers being foundational. It carries the weight of a being that helped lay laws now older than memory.|

|THE Stilled Heart-Source of a Source Land Beast. A core of pure Primordial Source torn from the heart of a colossal beast that died defending some forgotten reach of THE Source Lands, its Source stilled at the instant of its loyal death and never spent, holding the unbroken devotion of a creature that died at its post.|

|Additional fragments are converging from domains beyond identification.|

Noah watched them gather above him, the weeping Infinity shard and the foundational marrow and the loyal stilled Source and the unnamed others, and his eyes shone as they converged, drawn together by his Intent, melding and forging in the high air of THE Infiniverse into a single blade that burned with both Infinity and THE Primordial Source.

The blade took shape, and it was beautiful and strange.

Its energy split along the length of it, the glowing cerulean force separating to leave a hollow loop above the hilt before joining back together at a fine piercing tip, a split-blade that was whole at its point and open at its base.

And the hilt carried the standout feature, a prominent dark stylized nine-pointed star forming the crossguard, the nine points echoing the nine Prime Causes and the nine Foundations both, leading down to a simple dark-blue wrapped handle made for a human hand.

It descended toward him, and the moment it was fully formed its aura blared out across THE Infiniverse with terrifying immensity, and Noah felt it clearly. It exceeded the aura of a Primordial Intent. A weapon, forged in a moment from things pulled across creation, pressing heavier than the fifth and near-mythical rarity of Intent.

|You have given away a Source Armament. Therefore you have gained:|

|Designation: THE Loyal Reach. Recognized as a Quasi-True Armament, a tier above a Source Armament, a tier below a true weapon of a True Lifeform. It is Quasi only because its substance was gathered rather than grown, and because its history and record have only just begun this very moment.|

|It holds its own inherent Primordial Intent, designated THE Devotion of the Given, an Intent born from the loyal stilled Source at its core and the principle of your Second Foundation, that what is given returns grander. By the weight of its own Primordial Intent, THE Loyal Reach can cut apart the Intent of another being, even a Primordial Intent, severing the record an enemy imposes on existence.|

|It holds the ideal to one day form a true Intent and become a true Armament, though this is extraordinarily difficult, almost impossible, given that its history began moments ago and a true Intent requires a record built across an Age.|

|Note: Depending on the foundation of the being struck, and despite the immense grandeur of THE Mesozoic Scale, it is possible that THE Loyal Reach could injure or leave a wound upon even a Fifth Scale existence. A weapon that cuts Intent does not care how grand the being wielding the Intent has become.|

|Slightly more important note: Any product of THE Tide That Owes Nothing will not be capable of being utilized again to trigger THE Tide That Owes Nothing.|

...!

Oh.

OH!

What his Intent was capable of. What his Osmontian Source Infinity was capable of!

He had given away a single blade, and his identity had reached across the whole of existence and demanded a grander one be built to replace it, a Quasi-True Armament that could wound the Mesozoic Scale, forged from the marrow of the foundational dead and the loyalty of a fallen beast and the crystallized madness of a drowned infinite sea!

It was all too grand, and Noah felt every bit of it as he reached up and closed his hand around the dark-blue handle, the nine-pointed star settling against his grip, and THE Loyal Reach cried out across the whole of THE Infiniverse, announcing itself to a domain that had just watched its master give one thing away and receive a wonder in return!