"Ages passed. The company of Provenance Lifeforms prospered, and grew, and became a lineage, and the lineage spread its light across the early dark. But existence does not let the sovereign prosper unwatched. There came a day when that lineage crossed another company of Provenance Lifeforms, and this second company was not alone. Behind them stood the aura of one of Those Who Remain, an architect who had taken them as its own, and lent them the edge of its immensity."
"It was not a contest as much as it was an extermination. The lineage that had once shown mercy to a dying stranger was driven to the edge of unmaking, cornered, their light guttering, an entire bloodline of sovereign existences about to be scattered into the dark with an Immense One's weight pressing down to make certain none survived."
Descartes stopped walking.
"And then another aura rose."
