THE Sealed One did not rise from the throne of corpses. It simply turned its attention to the eight True Lifeforms who remained bound in the crimson coils, the gory ruin of the ninth still settling into the heap below, and it asked them a question.
"Where is it?"
It.
The word came with no antecedent that Noah could grasp, no explanation of what the it was, and yet every bound True Lifeform on that mountain understood it perfectly. He could feel that they understood, through the borrowed perspective. Whatever it was, it mattered more than their lives, and they had all known the question was coming, and they had all already decided their answer.
The answer was silence.
They gave THE Sealed One nothing. Bound, doomed, watching one of their own crushed into parts mid-defiance, they held their silence with the same conviction the woman had carried, and THE Sealed One received their silence with that same gleeful patience, and killed them for it!
