KING OF SWORDS 10-167
The lord of the vale and his thugs laughed at Intra and his preposterous proclamation. But their mirth was cruel, so they stayed to watch his futile labor.
“I will turn this rock into fire,” said Intra. The men roared with laughter.
“Fool!” they cackled. “The rock shall not become fire, no matter your wish.”
Intra ignored them, turned the rock in his well worn hand, and dug a shallow pit with it, piling the earth carefully at the sides. Then he gathered dry brush and reeds and piled them high in the pit. The sun was hot and bright overhead as he worked, and his traveling clothes were soiled with sweat as he worked. The men bade the villagers of that place gather water for them to drink as they watched Intra’s labors.
From his traveling cloth, Intra produced a sword. The thugs watching him leaned forward at this, but then quickly relaxed. It was a decrepit and battered thing, well used and pitted and chipped.
“I no longer use this to kill men,” said Intra. “But it’s very good for cooking dinner.”
Intra struck the rock against his sword, and a spark flew into the dry brush. Intra fanned it with great care, and soon a roaring fire blazed in the village square.
– The Song of Maybe
I’m so happy that she’s happy. ^_^
this art and this conclusion makes me happy in a way that I have trouble putting to words. My heart is just filled with joy. thank you.
White Chain we love you… you’ll get used to your body soon enough!
shes. friggin’ beautiful. like holy heart-eyes on saturday i’m happy
can’t wait for the “holy crap solomon lost” point to start pointing its way up like. can he REALLY just go back to leading? its. actually possible but it seems unlikely that his position won’t at least see SOME upheaval. are the worms gonna get to worming?
i do love it that gog-agog’s shown ACTUAL savvy in terms of sociology and, well, pr, it really makes her status as not-even-supposed-to-have-been-sapient even more compelling. in some sense shes a bit of a reflection of White Chain, both very human (if in gogs case. also nightmarish and all-consuming) people born of markedly non-human predetermined roles who’ve managed to surpass their prior definition.
A few thoughts:
* The whole “schitck” of YISUN is that they cut themselves into new forms. Circular never-changing existence, like the one 2 Michael wants, is miserable. Solomon David’s downfall was that he STOPPED cutting himself into new forms and got stuck in his laws. Aesma’s power was that she was too stupid to stop trying, and thus she attained Royalty without effort because she didn’t heed “no”. White Chain’s transformation is in line with the philosophy that you MUST keep changing/learning/growing to stay relevant and grow wise and that too much thinking can be a detriment to TRYING to change and thus prevent change from happening before you even start.
* (I firmly believe angels benefit from a bit of chaos, and devils from a bit of order. Thus the reason Metatron seems chaotic and insane, and Himself is locked in a box and deals with orderly contracts and such. Yin-yang.)
* Servants of the cool white flame have fleshly bodies, see Mammon, and devils of the hot black flame have them too. It’s very logical that the only reasons angels (the cold white flame) haven’t until now is the cold white flame’s slowness to change and the angels’ own beliefs that it’s not possible.
* (However, change is inevitable, even for slow-to-change things. Even stone changes over eons.)
* White Chain and Cio both have suffered from their preconceptions that they could not change and grow. Cio fears she’ll always slide back into Yab, while White Chain never thought what she’s become here was possible until she decided trying and failing was better than not trying at all. We’ve seen that both were wrong…that Cio can learn to respect boundaries/laws and be “good” and White Chain can learn to break the rules.
* Allison’s strength is that she keeps changing even when it seems stupid or hopeless–she doesn’t take “no” as an answer despite being in way above her head. Nyave explicitly points this out to White Chain earlier in this book.
* Even though White Chain is the one who seems to have “defeated” Solomon David, Allison was the catalyst for White Chain being on the scene at all. Allison’s purpose is to be a catalyst causing things to change, people to change around her.
Domini is very observant.
Neither angels nor devils could form bodies on their own, being too cold or hot, too orderly or chaotic, each too abstract to exist in the physical world. They rely on more moderate beings to give them bodies, to attenuate their extremes.
A broken angel becomes dormant and motionless. A broken devil loses its identity, becomes chaos, indistinguishable from the rest of the formless mass of wild devils. They absolutely crave the other extreme, or at least the middle point between the two. Devils literally feed off the cooler flames of humans and more rarely servants, to reduce their own heat, to ward off their natural inclination towards chaos, to maintain their own identities.
These are limitations they have accepted as facts.
This does not mean that these limitations are unbreakable.
Heck! I’m DEAD, and that doesn’t stop me from doing jack shit.
Two ideas:
NUCLEAR FUSSION gives birth to heavier elements within a nuclear reactor. A star burns itself to cinders of iron; why would an angel, with all its power, burn itself into flesh?
CONDENSATION is the process by which traditional, set-in-stone aeons age into older forms, from gas to neutron. Why not step out of that ladder, between liquid and solid? That is, to become flesh?
When a star runs low on fuel, that iron fuses into carbon. This is a an endothermic reaction, a cold flame, and the sudden switch from producing heat to sucking it in causes the star to implode, scattering its remaining hydrogen, carbon and oxygen into the cosmos.
Here, those gasses condense into dust, which clumps up into planets.
And on those planets these element might just combine to form a thing called life.
Stone and Flesh,
Fire and Storm,
it’s all just quarks,
spin vibrations in the quantum fabric
just the same few notes,
in different arrangements,
The cosmos is just music
YISUN said, “Let there be no Genisis, for beginnings are false and I am a consummate Liar.”
Abbadon has been quite clear that everyone in this story is an unreliable narrator, including himself.
“What have I become?”
“You have become wonder, White Chain. You have become something new, and that is not something the timid or the meek become.”
“Which is?”
“There is an expression, human one of their condition-that they are forever the point between the falling angel and the rising ape. It could be very simply that you will be the first to gain their wings again.”
“I am become Cute, the Happiness of Worlds.”
10 Vigilant Gaze in panel 6 is looking almost jealous? Hard to tell with a four armed angel, but he is doing some serious introspection.
Nah, that just looks like confusion over WC doing the firey angel bit.
Her… her freckles glow too.
IT’S TOO ADORABLE I CAN’T
Every blessing is a burden, and every curse a relief.
This is axiomatic.
This lyrical skull is observant too.
Smug Alison best Alison.
Are Nephilims a thing in this universe? Cuz this sounds like one
Nephilim is the plural form. The singular is nephil.
Regardless of the grammar, though, you have stolen the words out of my mouth.
Actually!
Nephil and Nephilim are the Hebrew words, but only the plural form has ever been commonly accepted into English, leading the a quirky situation where the most proper singular form is “one of the Nephilim.”
English dialectics being what they are, exception exist, which mostly serve as a way to spot fans of certain fictional settings where this situation does not exist.
Hm. The cold white flame of the angels and the hot black flame of humanity. When they were one, thus was YISUN. Food for thought.
I will miss White Chain´s old stoney look a bit but this one makes her so much more approachable and expressive.
Now the two of them have even more to learn from each other.
I think they call it “super saiyan blue”
Dear lord, the expression on White Chain’s face in the fifth panel. It is just too damn cute. Loke, wow. I was not prepared for that.
Worlds must burn in order to protect that face.
White Chain is still an angel, her physical body is not a cracking stone shell anymore but the tangible manifestation of her true form. And all it took was a stolen drop of blood from a Prince of the World and the biggest lie any living being has ever made God believe!
I’m still unsure she actually took anything from H.I.M. Solomon David at all
I’m not sure either, it’s just… seeing that her angelic form did actually touch him I’m inclined to think she did steal some material from him to lie her body into the world. I mean, her angelic form already looked black but right now her face is different and her constitution has changed as well. Anyone who wouldn’t know better could easily conclude she is his offspring.
Adorable… Magnificent… Beyond words. Every single pannel, facial expression and body language.
Yet I’m surprised no one even mentoined. In last frame, White Chain actually JOKED. That’s Aesma reference – she learned exactly one lesson in her life. Tis’ such a paradoxial comparison thst YISUN weeps with joy, while smiling in all ways possiple and impossible.
P.S. So she is still of cold white flame apparently. So at least one of really tormenting questions of the recent weeks seems to be unswered. A relief.
So who will teach WC now the pleasure arts aimed at female body?
We all know Cio has been fantasizing about this for years.
Dunno. Cio acts or is an aromantic sexual person. Allison seems to be merely in flux, learning more of herself. White Chain has always had passion and could be open to romantic love, but she might be asexual.
Id, Ego, Super-ego? Dunno, man. I just wanna have a drink.
Or combinations of the Four Loves in two relationships.
… I still want a drink, dammit!
Ring-eyes is handling this whole situation quite well.
Well, if you think about it, then it all actually makes sense!
Angels true forms in the Void can look pretty much like anything. And they were also stated to change in accordance to individual’s self-image. Thus, achieving perfectly human shape should be quite possible for an angel.
White Chain’s ability to manifest such form with no shell is much weirder, as it seems to break the established world’s rules. But since we had already met one devil who was able to enter a physical realm without necessary equipment (mask in that case), it can by reasonably assumed that some angels can do the same.
i’d love a clean version of something resembling the second panel as a phone background.
that would be amazing.
I thought Intra saying on the previous page that she’ll feed the people with the rock meant that she’ll bash in the head of the bandit king with it, thus freeing them from their yoke.
God white chains expression’s are beautiful
Poor Cio, seeing how small she is she won’t be able to butt in on two tall women conversations anymore.
She can summon little paper soldiers for that!