Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 3781: Sin I

The Middle Wheel Platform had become a theater of ruin.

Golden beams and fractured time streaked the bruised skies, the gathered Fold Dwellers standing like pillars against the weight of collapse.

Each bore a Complexity and Purity Quotient above 900,000. Each moved not as men and women, but as inevitabilities clad in the flesh of ancient Wheels. Their weavings were dense, their True Sources radiant with unspent catastrophe.

My fingers moved lightly across the patterns of my existence, no grand gestures, no wasted effort. Even as I watched, the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th Lattices of Paradox spun into being, layers of contradiction and defiance wrapping tighter around the Living True Source nestled in my soul.

I wove more as currently, all parts of me could exceed 9 Existential Dimensional Lattices!

My Paracausal Lineage, ever steady, layered lattice upon lattice.

Genesis. Infinity. Singed. Soul. Quantum. Manadynamics. Each one pressed further toward their limits. Slow. Incremental.

The higher I climbed, the slower the gains.

No new Resistances added to the framework. No sudden leap. Only the slow, methodical accrual of complexity and purity.

As it should be.

Progress- real progress, was slow.

Even though my entire Fable was a middle finger to the pace of progression that was common sense to all.

Beyond me, the battlefield shifted. And my gaze moved with it.

The Fold Dwellers acted.

A man from the Mannafolds- towering, silver-skinned, his body inscribed with flowing currents of ancient tides, moved first. The authority of the Mannastream True Source pulsed around him, vast and silent.

With a slow, graceful gesture, he raised his hand, and the sky itself seemed to liquefy. A deluge of celestial water, tinged with starlight, cascaded down, the weight of a hundred drowned infinities crashing toward the Living Collapse.

From the Chronosect, a Time Elderking stepped forward. His form was lean, wrapped in robes stitched from frozen moments. With a single motion, he cast his hand forward, and time fractured. The seconds shattered, twisting around the Living Collapse like a thousand blades of broken inevitability, each fragment a slice from a different history.

And from the Veiled Sunfolds, Caedryn raised his hand.

No flourish.

No spectacle.

Only the quiet blooming of a single point of light.

A thread of Destiny, golden, immutable, unfurled toward the Living Collapse, thinner than hair, sharper than thought. A cut not of blade or force, but of destiny severed at the root.

The three attacks converged- water from beyond existence, time sliced from dead futures, and the severing of fate itself. And these were just from three as simultaneously, other Primarchs also attacked.

The Living Collapse stood still.

It did not dodge.

It did not defend.

It allowed the attacks to fall.

The celestial waters crashed against it, steam and starlight rising in impotent fury. The fractured time wrapped and shredded, but found no purchase. And the severing threads of Destiny- the sharpest, most inevitable strike- brushed against its obsidian-gold form…

…and unraveled harmlessly.

Barely a mark.

Not even a whisper of resistance broken.

I leaned back slightly, a slow breath sliding between parted lips.

Their strength was not in question.

Their futility was.

The Living Collapse tilted its head, as if mildly inconvenienced. The same way one might glance at a breeze before walking through it.

On a distant precipice, Thauron watched- cold and silent.

Beside him, Bob.

I blinked once.

“Oh. Right.” The words left me dry and unimpressed.

Bob.

I almost forgot.

But he stood there still, oblivious to how close to annihilation he teetered.

It mattered little.

If he lived, he may still be useful.

If not- then irrelevant.

As my thoughts turned, I gave a silent command, and across the broken skies, my Irradions- dead things stitched from my own True Sources- responded.

Their Lattices, scattered but not destroyed, stirred subtly.

A test.

I allowed thin tendrils of the Lineage to reach from them, threads of authority snaking outward, subtle, searching.

Toward the Fold Dwellers that were increasing.

Toward their power.

Their True Sources.

If there was anything to learn, anything to seize, I would have it.

One did not survive by mercy.

One survived by taking.

As I worked, a thought whispered through my mind- a simple query to the Weaver of Existence.

‘Can we quantify how sturdy that thing is before it falls? A health bar maybe?”

…!

A pause.

A pulse of agreement.

And then, above the heads of the combatants, above the Living Collapse, above the Fold Dwellers… the weavings of my existence shifted.

Small numbers.

Visible only to me.

Floating unobtrusively, each framed in a soft, crimson halo- a subtle callback to something from my memories.

A measurement not of life or vitality, but of Existential Health Stability.

Existential Health Stability- something simply in nature, and based on ones complexity and purity as it kept track of how much one had of their being before they collapsed.

A single reading, as massive rectangular crimson bars appeared above those I looked at!

| Living Collapse — 949,000 / 999,999 |

| Althera of the Eclipsed Sun— 945,000 / 945,000 |

| Caedryn of the Sun Beyond Dawn — 987,000 / 987,000 |

| Xethryn of the Tide Unwoven — 965,000 / 965,000 |

| Eldric Veyrn of the Withered Threads — 970,000 / 970,000 |

The Fold Dwellers burned brightly.

Unscathed.

For now.

But the Living Collapse?

Injured.

Slightly.

I watched the numbers, coldly.

Clinically.

They were still distant from me.

I had breached 300,000, yes. But these were not numbers that could be reached by mere effort.

They were epochs ahead.

Generations of progress compressed into beings.

I was not impressed.

Nor discouraged.

Only informed.

I watched as the Fold Dwellers pressed forward again, attacks gathering, the battle teetering on the edge of calamity.

And I wove and continued to increase my Existential Dimensional Lattices.

Silent. Patient. Ready.

Because I would endure.

And all who stood in my way- whether monsters or heroes, would eventually become irrelevant.

Just look at Bob if you were looking for an example.

The Fold Dwellers continued to move with purpose, a lattice of shining inevitability, the skies above the Middle Wheel Platform still scorched from their gathered might.

But inevitability was not always certainty.

The Living Collapse did not stand still this time and take their attacks.

It retaliated.

It moved, slow at first.

Fluid.

The way a blade rises in a patient hand before the strike.

And then…

The air around it warped.

Not bent.

Not twisted.

It collapsed.

The fabric of the Middle Wheel Platform, the crushed remains of paradox and folded time, trembled.

The Living Collapse raised both arms, jagged limbs of black-gold, runed with the broken memories of devoured True Sources, and the ground itself began to quiver.

No flash of power.

No roar.

Only a dreadful stillness.

A breathless pause.

And then…

An attack.

HUUUM!

The skies of the Middle Wheel Platform darkened not with clouds, but with the bleed of undone Existences. From the Living Collapse’s form, tendrils unfurled- long, skeletal appendages of shimmering void snapped outward.

The world shook.

An authority surged.

It was not merely power.

It was an inevitability that made death look merciful.

It was called…

| Cataclysm of Living Collapse |

The tendrils of collapse lashed out in every direction- reaching not just for bodies, but for weavings, for the Lattices that underpinned the beings who dared to stand on this Platform.

HUUM!

A single heartbeat later, devastation bloomed.

The closest Fold Dwellers- those who stood too near- vanished.

Not torn.

Not broken.

Unmade.

Their Lattices, their sources, their very stories were yanked from existence and devoured into the Living Collapse’s body, joining the storm of swirling authority that surrounded it.

Monads?

Gone.

No echoes.

No remains.

The weaker Primarchs fared no better- their Existential Health Stability dropping instantly to zero, the crimson bars above their heads blinking out like extinguished stars.

Even the strong wavered.

Althera of the Eclipsed Sun- 947,000 to 706,000 Existential Health Stability.

Caedryn of the Sun Beyond Dawn- 987,000 to 751,000.

Xethryn of the Tide Unwoven- 965,000 to 715,000.

Eldric Veyrn of the Withered Threads- 970,000 to 722,000.

Over 25% of their stability ripped away in a single breath.

A single attack.

The sky itself broke- cracks splintering across the bruised dome above the Platform, the Cradle of Folded Time sadly and finally fracturing under the weight of collapse.

BOOM!

I sat calmly amid the dying Epochs, weaving another Lattice even as the Cradle tore apart around me.

The walls ruptured, and two forms were hurled through, crashing down near me in a maelstrom of broken time and shattered existence.

Kalysta.

And Althera.

“…”

As if their destiny pushed them here.

Kalysta’s golden robes were torn, her starlight crown dimmed but unbroken. She rose to her feet, her eyes bright with a hard-won familiarity.

“Stranger!” she called, her voice cutting through the chaos, her gaze locking onto me.

Beside her, Althera straightened, calm as ever, her silver hair flowing like a river untouched by storm. Her sharp, ancient gaze swept over the ruins of the Cradle- and landed on me.

A frown touched her lips.

“Kalysta,” she said, soft and clear, “who is your…Stranger?”

Kalysta, bruised but not broken, smiled faintly.

“This is Osmont,” she replied. “The Stranger who opened the Cradle of Folded Time. The one I invited to the Veiled Sunfolds.”

Althera’s brows lifted, a rare show of surprise. She studied me more closely now- not as one looks at an ally, but as one measures an anomaly.

I offered no greeting.

No smile.

No pretense.

She and I were not friends nor enemies.

She, like many others here, were variables.

Obstacles, possibly.

But as I weighed them, the air thickened- not from the ruin of the Cradle, not from the battered Fold Dwellers struggling to regain formation.

But from something far more pointed.

The Living Collapse had gone still.

Its black-gold form turned.

Slowly.

I followed its gaze.

It no longer looked at the Fold Dwellers.

It no longer regarded Thauron in the distance.

Its swirling mass of stolen Lattices slowed.

A slow, deliberate pivot.

Toward me.

There was no veil between us as it it could now see me clearly.

It moved with the inevitability of a falling star, the weight of its existence crushing the trembling air between us.

And then…

A single word from it.

“You.”

…!

I breathed out.

No shift in expression.

No panic.

But behind the mask of calm calculation, the Lattices of Light over my skin thrummed.

The cat had found the mouse.

Or so it believed.

Kalysta stiffened beside me.

Althera, too, shifted- a step closer to Kalysta, instinctively protective.

But I ignored them both.

The Living Collapse had seen me.

Acknowledged me.

It was not the Fold Dwellers who mattered now.

It was not Thauron.

It was not the dying Cradle.

It was me.

The Sin it had come to erase.

And I gazed back at it coldly.

Because if it moved against me now…

I would need to decide- not how to fight.

But how to survive.

You.

This single word fell from the Living Collapse’s mouth like a stone cast into a still pond- simple, quiet, yet carrying a weight that bent the very fabric of the air.

Kalysta had stiffened beside me, her body taut, her golden visage crackling faintly even though it had already been stripped down to the bones of raw existence. Althera shifted subtly, stepping slightly in front of her- the folds of her gleaming robes shimmering as the last remnants of the broken Cradle of Folded Time trembled around us.

The Living Collapse stared.

It did not move immediately.

It simply stared.

And then…

BOOM!

It did.

The air shattered.

No build-up. No posturing. One moment it was standing, the next it was upon us.

A rush of black-gold collapse- faster than thought, more inevitable than breath.

It did not simply attack.

It descended.

The Middle Wheel Platform quivered under the pressure. Space itself warped, the bruised skies above tearing wider as something far worse than simple force was unleashed.

Black-gold Lattices unfurled- tens of thousands- a deluge of structured annihilation, not mere beams, but entire architectures of collapse layered and nested within themselves. A recursive storm of unmaking.

The attack blanketed the world in an instant.

There was no escape.

No evasion.

It was as if the havens themselves had declared me undone.

The Lattices fell, and the air screamed as they shattered everything in their path.

Kalysta’s eyes widened- gold meeting gold- her mouth opening in a silent scream, her hand reaching toward me even though she knew, instinctively, there was no stopping what came.

Althera moved.

Fast.

Desperately.

She pivoted, her golden robes flaring, her True Source of Kismet erupting outward in brilliant, rippling weaves of light and predestination. With a cry- not of fear, but of grim necessity, she seized Kalysta, yanking her bodily into the curve of her arm.

“Hold!”

Althera’s voice rang out, clear, commanding, even as the collapsing Lattices bore down.

In the heartbeat before impact, she wrapped her existence around Kalysta, her hands flaring with blinding sigils of fate and shielded consequence. A dome of raw Kismet coalesced around them- a thin, gleaming barrier woven from the tightest strands of destined protection she could muster.

The black-gold Lattices hit.

BOOM!

Existence exploded.

The Cradle of Folded Time, already cracked and bleeding, gave way entirely- the folding epochs of temporal wheels screaming as they unraveled in a blast of lightless collapse.

Kalysta and Althera were hurled backward, the force smashing them away like leaves caught in a storm.

Althera managed to hold the shield. Barely.

Kalysta clung to her, eyes wide, teeth bared in a soundless cry as they were flung across the shattered remnants of the platform.

And me?

I sat still.

A single figure, cross-legged amidst the hurricane of destruction.

30 Irradions- 30 Primarch level summons exceeding 300,000 PQ and CQ bloomed from my body to meet the storm above.

But they were crushed the moment they rose.

Resistance…was futile.

The world did not shatter when it came for me.

It simply ceased.

One breath I was seated, arms folded, Lattices humming quietly under my skin. The next- there was only nothingness.

The Living Collapse moved.

No grand flourish.

No blinding light.

Just inevitability, wrapped in the simple, terrifying certainty of annihilation.

Its attack was not something to dodge.

It was not something to block.

It struck not my body, nor my defenses, but at the weavings of my very existence- the unseen, delicate latticework from which all that I was had been spun.

A touch.

Existence ripped.

My Lattices- Complexity, Purity, every Truth I had forged and woven- collapsed inward, like a structure with its foundation ripped away.

My True Sources shattered.

My Resistances splintered.

My Existential Health Stability, that was rather high compared to my actual PQ and CQ relative to others…

| 0 / 500,000 |

Annihilation.

Not death.

Not silence.

Oblivion.

In a single shot too!

Me, one shotted!

The Fold Dwellers gasped or they would have, if their minds could properly comprehend what they were seeing.

The Stranger, I, Noah Osmont, ceased to exist.

“No…”

In the distance, a protected Kalysta bellowed out angrily as Althera held her back from the point of impact.

Dead, huh? And yet my Fable flowed.

I…should have been dead, and yet I could still see everything, and was gloriously cognizant.

For a moment, there was only stillness.

For a moment, even the Living Collapse tilted its head, its void eyes narrowing, sensing the finality of its blow.

And then.

HUUUM!

A flicker.

A thread.

Not of life.

Of defiance.

Of inevitability. Of Paradox.

Of magisterial, Living Paradox.

The air hummed, a low, subtle pulse like a dying star drawing in its last breath.

From the collapse of my being, from the scattered ashes of my existence, threads stirred.

One.

Then two.

Then countless- weaving, knitting, binding.

The tether- the anchor lashed deep into the foundations of existence itself thrummed, and the weaving began.

Slow at first.

Then faster, threads wrapping, spiraling, fusing.

The Lattices returned- slowly, then in a flood- spinning back into place, each thread burning brighter than before, forged anew by the act of death and rebirth.

Not all things had returned the same.

The True Source of Paradox blazed, its Lattices swelling, expanding- 15, 20, 30 Existential Dimensional Lattice blooming into being like stars in the dark.

Death followed- the True Source of Death surging with quiet, unrelenting force, as its Lattices wove themselves deeper and stronger, a dozen and more, each one humming with cessation.

Life pulsed next- not frail, not timid, but roaring- a fountain of raw, brutal vitality, flooding the weavings with rebirth and potential.

Quintessence, Infinity, Cheats, Protagonist, and others surged in tandem, their Lattices flaring outward, layer after layer, as if death had not weakened them, but emboldened them.

A dozen more Lattices for each at least.

Some more.

My Existential Health Stability…

| 550,000 / 550,000 |

Full. Increased

Whole.

I sat, cross-legged once more, as if I had never moved, though the weavings of my being still shimmered with the aftershock of what had been and what had almost been lost.

Across the battered platform, the Fold Dwellers stared.

Kalysta, Althera, Caedryn, the Mannafold Titans, the Chronosect Time Elderkings- they all stared, frozen.

Even the Living Collapse, for the first time, stepped back.

A breath.

A bellow followed from its jaws.

“SIN!”

WAA!

The word rumbled across the Middle Wheel Platform like the fall of mountains.

It echoed.

It resounded.

It was not accusation.

It was declaration.

I lifted my gaze, calm, unflinching, meeting the void stare of the Living Collapse.

Emotionless.

Unperturbed.

A strand of dark hair drifted across my vision, and I brushed it aside without hurry, as if brushing away an errant leaf.

Inside, my mind spun.

Cataloging.

Calculating.

The anchor had held.

The rebirth had strengthened me.

The cost, negligible. For now.

The possibilities?

Limitless.

I could feel it- the thread of being more than mere existence, more than mere life or death.

The Living True Sources within me throbbed, whispering of greater things yet to come, should I survive long enough to grasp them.

Across the sundered battlefield, the Fold Dwellers whispered among themselves- in fear, in awe, in hunger.

The battlefield was a graveyard of power and ruin.

The Middle Wheel Platform, once a stage for folded inevitabilities, now lay shattered beneath the weight of things no longer meant to exist side by side.

And yet, amidst it all, I sat.

Alive.

Unbroken.

Unfazed.

The echoes of my revival had not yet faded when the first reactions rippled across the battlefield.

On a distant ledge, Thauron stood unmoving, the pressure of his full weavings naked to the bruised sky. Beside him, Bob shifted, or rather, twitched, his tentacled form stiff with disbelief.

Thauron’s black eyes narrowed, the ancient sigils inscribed across his body pulsing faintly. His lips parted in a faint chuckle, though there was no mirth in it.

“No way,” he murmured, low, almost inaudible beneath the hum of collapse. His gaze never left me.

Then he turned slightly, his voice a shade louder, a note of reluctant acknowledgment threading through the usual mockery.

“Is he truly a Key more than even you imagined, Little Bobby?”

Bob said nothing.

Perhaps he could not.

His focus was locked on me, not in hatred, not even in fear, but in something far older.

Desperation.

Thauron, without waiting for an answer, unfurled his weavings, Finality burning bright around him, and stepped forward. No hesitation. No grand pronouncements. He moved.

Toward the Living Collapse.

Again.

The first to act.

The first to test the new balance of power.

I watched him idly- one of the core variables, useful for now, and I turned my attention elsewhere.

Across the field, the Fold Dwellers were gathering.

Kalysta staggered slightly, but Althera’s firm hand guided her away from the broken remnants of the Cradle. They moved quickly, silently, across the broken ground toward the remaining Solstice Veils.

As they approached, Althera’s voice, low and clipped, carried to my sharpened senses.

“Kalysta has formed an entanglement with that being,” she said, nodding once in my direction. “Is he part of the destiny involving her?”

The leader of the Solstice Veils, Caedryn, remained silent for a moment. His gold hair shifted like a banner in the broken wind.

When he spoke, it was with the authority of certainty.

“We will only be sure if his weavings are not permanently collapsed,” he said. His gaze cut toward the Living Collapse, then back to me. “Let’s prevent that.”

Simple words.

Clear.

Protect me- not out of loyalty, not out of some misguided sense of honor- but because I was a piece on their board now.

A valuable one.

How very glorious.

I folded my hands calmly and continued to observe.

The Mannafolds gathered next- great celestial beings, their forms vast and gleaming, towering above the sundered field. Xethryn of the Tide Unwoven raised one vast hand, the light of collapsed currents dancing around his form.

He spoke, voice rumbling like the shifting of cosmic seas.

“Throw everything we have against it,” he said, not a suggestion. A command. “The Anomaly that resurrects must return with us to the Mannafolds.”

I tilted my head slightly.

No refusal.

No bargaining.

Simply possession.

As though I were a prize to be claimed.

It amused me.

Even more so when the Chronosect of the Threadbound Folds echoed the sentiment.

Eldric Veyrn of the Withered Threads, his robes trailing broken strands of time, lifted his hand in solemn command.

“He is a target of the Living Collapse,” he said, voice devoid of passion. “But he is also an Anomaly. He must be taken back. Studied. Contained if necessary.”

The gathered Primarchs- Mannafold, Chronosect, Veiled Sunfolds, all moved in concert, not to flee, not to guard one another- but to form a shield around me.

Their True Sources unfurled- Destiny, Time, Mannastream, and more- weaving barriers, fortresses of luminous inevitability.

I sat at their center, unmoving, untouched, the eye of a gathering storm.

They moved to protect me.

They moved to preserve me.

And I?

I had done nothing but exist.

No pleas.

No declarations.

Only the quiet, inevitable weight of survival.

A single brush with death.

A single revival.

And the tides had shifted.

The Fold Dwellers bled and fought- not to conquer the Living Collapse- but to guard the anomaly that had dared to survive it.

Me.

The thought was almost amusing.

Almost.

I let the Lattices over my skin hum quietly, the weavings of Paradox, Death, Life, and Infinity swirling stronger than ever.

No words were needed.

No plans spoken.

Because now…

Now the Living Collapse was not merely facing the Fold Dwellers.

It was facing inevitability of many with renewed purpose.

And inevitability, I understood.

Perfectly.

Revival left me calm.

Clear.

No bravado. No grandstanding.

The moment my weavings reconstituted, I moved.

No wasted motion.

No wasted thought.

Thirty Irradions bloomed once more from collapsed rifts around me, monstrous echoes of death and end, each one layered now- not merely with the Lattices of Summoning, Animus, or Necromancy, but woven carefully, deliberately, with the intricate threads of the Weaver of Existence.

Subtle.

Precise.

Each Irradion, an extension of my will, moved not to win.

Not to conquer.

Only to gather data.

Victory was not the goal.

Understanding was.

I observed as they spread across the broken expanse of the Middle Wheel Platform, weaving themselves into the crumbling threads of battle.

The Living Collapse turned its void eyes toward them, no surprise in its gaze, no sudden aggression, and moved.

It responded not with panic, but with cold, methodical dismantling. A step forward, a lash of collapse, a sweep of black-gold tendrils- annihilation dealt with the same ease one might swat away errant ash.

But that was fine.

That was expected.

I watched.

What abilities did it cycle through?

What triggered the shift between its devastating collapse waves and its quieter, more surgical obliterations?

How did it react to being stalled- however briefly?

I studied, Irradions dying by the dozens, and in death they gave me what I wanted.

Clarity.

And while they died, I turned my gaze elsewhere.

The battlefield was full of Fold Dwellers now- Solstice Veils of the Veiled Sunfolds, Titans of the Mannafolds, Elderkings of the Chronosect- each moving against the Living Collapse, weaving their power into reality in ways grand and terrible.

But where once I might have seen only strength and weakness, now…

Now I saw more.

Clearer.

Sharper.

Between life and death, some unseen veil had been torn from me- and what lay behind it was understanding.

Motivation. Emotion. Intent.

They hung around the Fold Dwellers like banners, visible to me in a way no mere senses could perceive.

I moved my gaze first to Thauron.

The Null Monarch.

He moved with finality, weaving Finality.

But beneath the grim, cold power, I saw it- flickering, sharp, bright as a dagger in the dark.

Desire.

Thauron was not fighting for honor, nor duty, nor vengeance.

No.

He was looking for something.

The Foldless Ones.

The Living Paradoxes who had once sealed him. Bound him. Shackled him.

And he sought not merely to find them.

He sought to become them.

Ascend beyond what he was now.

The thought flickered, clear and precise in his weavings, hidden to others but laid bare before my sharpened mind.

Ambition. Pure. Singular.

I smiled faintly, though it did not reach my eyes.

A useful thing, ambition.

Then…Bob.

I spared him a glance.

And shook my head.

Pitiful.

His motivations were noble, tragically so.

To fix the mistakes he made.

To bring back his daughter.

A single, stubborn thread of regret wound around him like a noose. It made him strong in desperation, but weak in will.

Noble.

But not enough.

He would break before the end.

I looked away without further thought.

Kalysta and the Solstice Veils next.

Kalysta- her golden crown dim but still gleaming- fought with desperation sharpened into determination. The Solstice Veils around her moved with the calm assurance of destiny woven into bone and blood.

Destiny.

Fortune.

Kismet.

Their motivations were simple, clear, and most importantly…

Predictable.

They moved because fate told them to.

They fought because destiny demanded it.

Puppets of their own weaving- beautiful, gilded, but still puppets.

Such beings were the easiest to manipulate.

Offer them a prophecy.

A glimpse of inevitable triumph.

A whispered thread of fated victory.

And they would follow.

I filed the thought away.

Useful.

Then…I paused.

A blink.

A slow, measured breath.

I turned my gaze inward.

To myself.

To my own existence.

The sharpness, the clarity, the unflinching way I catalogued and measured and discarded…

It was somewhat different.

I was somewhat different.

More…Tyrannical.

Not in the petty sense.

Not in the vulgar, brutish way of kings and conquerors.

No, it was deeper.

Fundamental.

A slow, inevitable drift toward dominion not merely over others, but over existence itself.

I moved my gaze toward the True Source that pulsed at the heart of my being.

Tyranny.

Living.

Breathing.

I frowned, not in surprise, but in acknowledgment.

The True Source of Tyranny, now Living, must have seeded itself into my weavings more thoroughly than I realized.

It did not answer my unspoken question.

It did not have to.

Another answered.

| Quintessence has observed. |

| The evolution of your Existence has not stopped since the first Living True Source was born. It continues even now. Growth is inevitable. Change is inevitable. This… is only the beginning. |

I breathed out slowly.

No denial.

No rejection.

I was becoming.

What, exactly, I would become- that was yet unwritten.

But the path was clear.

I turned my gaze back outward as I stopped reflecting on myself.

Toward the Chronosect.

Toward the Mannafolds.

These two groups, on the surface different- but beneath?

They sought the same thing.

To take.

To possess.

To seize what could not be earned.

I dismissed them for now.

And returned my attention- thoughtfully, carefully, to the Veiled Sunfolds.

To Kalysta.

To the Solstice Veils.

Their motivations, their desires, their futures were easier to entangle.

Easier to bind.

If I chose.

And so, as the battle raged, as the Irradions fell and the Living Collapse moved, I planned for the possible futures that would unfold from here.

Weaving my path forward.

Because among the Fold Dwellers, among all the pieces now arrayed on this ruined board, there were few I might use.

Fewer still I might need.

And only one I would become.

I folded my hands in my lap, the Lattices over my skin thrumming, and forged even more with tremendous patience as I prepared for the finale.

Because patience, like power, was a weapon.

And I had no need to rush!

The fable will continue in: Sin II & III