Chapter 257 – The Sixth Record
Past the cliff face, the substrate changed.
He had read the second Source Point's cliff face from the outside—felt its grammar through Dragon Mode, held receiver posture above it, received what it contained. He had been in this terrain before. But walking into the eastern hemisphere with the source active in the deepest layer was different from walking into it as a carrier learning what the function was.
The source was more present here than anywhere in the western work.
Not louder or more insistent—more integral. The western substrate carried the source's movement as a presence below the geological layer. The eastern substrate was the record of where the source had moved first, the oldest activity compressed into the deepest rock formations. He could feel the difference through the Source Point integration: in the west the source was something in the substrate. In the east the substrate was something in the source.
