Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 3876: Existence is Unfair V

The golden waters of Paradox held their breath.

Thousands upon thousands of Foldless Ones hovered above and around them, gazes fixed like Omniverses that had forgotten how to blink. Each pair of eyes was sharpened by hunger. By awe. By the pull of something they did not understand, but desperately wanted.

The Honored Ones moved first.

From behind the still figure of the Honored Living Golden Paradox, others began to drift forward- immense beings, draped in flames of authority and halos forged from unspeakable truths.

Their presence alone pressed against the very fabric of this fold, and still... they came.

They were unfathomably powerful.

In this immediate region, only Noah and Aetheron were the only Originus Venerant entities!

All others were in their own glorious stages of power that exceeded 100,000,000 PQ and CQ!

There were Living Paradoxes here, Prime Living Paradoxes, and Honored Living Paradoxes!

All gazing. The Honored Ones coming!

But as they neared the dome of paradox where he remained, Noah began to laugh.

”Haha...Haha!”

A heavy, booming laughter!

It wasn’t a sound born of joy.

It wasn’t mad.

It wasn’t meek.

It was deep and whole, even with most of him gone.

The laugh echoed softly, and yet it rang clear through the hush of the Foldless Ones, through the golden seas, through the lingering sparks of blood and betrayal. It was the sound of something beyond defiance.

Noah’s fractured chest rose slightly with each breath as his head tilted toward the skyspace, his eyes crinkling at the edges with something close to wonder. Or perhaps rage wrapped in silence.

”You’re all correct,” he said.

His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried across quintessentially. The golden sea listened. The hungry eyes leaned closer.

”Existence,” he whispered, ”is unfair.”

The words floated magisterially.

He turned slowly, the remains of his body unmoving save for his head, now angled to stare straight through the crowd of Living Paradoxes, especially Diviticus.

”But existence doesn’t discriminate in its unfairness,” he murmured. ”It may be unfair to me today... but it can be just as unfair to you tomorrow.”

The silence afterward was sharp enough to cut halos in half.

He didn’t need to shout. He didn’t need to curse. His words weighed more than power.

Diviticus, unshaken, lifted a hand and waved it once, her expression amused, tinged with pity. ”A shame it had to play out this way,” she said, tone laced with cruel elegance. ”But you were never going to be the center of anything. Not in the eyes of the Paradoxes. You are no chosen who was going to be groomed into a pinnacle figure. Such a thing would hava taken too long. You’re no messiah. You’re a...well. A well filled with waters of possibilities, and we’ll drink deep.”

HUUM!

Her gaze flicked toward the Honored Living Golden Paradox and the others now drifting forward, eventually coming to land on Moiraine.

”You see it now, don’t you?” she said, her white flames undulating across Aetheron’s shoulders. ”The future doesn’t lie in nurturing one child. It lies in many. Let him go. And with his blood, we’ll grow into the glory we’ve long deserved.”

...!

Noah met her stare with an unblinking calm.

”Even if you and all of your fellow Honored Ones devour every drop of my existence,” he said, voice low and razor-thin, ”you won’t reach half of what I would have become.”

His words did not rage.

But they rang out gloriously.

Diviticus scoffed calmly, her head tilting. ”Now you’re just speaking nonsense. Your pain has made you poetic.”

She shook her head. ”Let’s not drag this out. You’ve seen what we’re capable of. You can’t move. You can’t speak much longer. And with Living Paradoxical Authority sealed across the Goldfolds... you are powerless.”

She smiled then. It wasn’t kind.

”So why not offer yourself to others with dignity?” she asked. ”For your kind. For their salvation. That’s something, isn’t it? To die... with dignity?”

The words lingered.

Noah repeated them slowly. ”With dignity...”

He nodded.

Beside him, Moiraine’s form trembled.

Flaming golden paradoxes of cold rage carved trails down her face, burning into the sea of paradox beneath her.

They did not know that he truly was not simply a Paradox that does not produce Inevitabilities!

She had said she would protect him.

She had believed she could.

And now...

Now she could only kneel beside what was left of him as the dome flickered under pressure. As the Honored Ones advanced. As all the Foldless Ones around them began to drift closer, slow and silent like an eclipse in motion.

Noah tilted his head once more, his cold gaze falling across them. The Honored Living Golden Paradox. The six that had surrounded Diviticus. The multitudes beyond them. All of their shapes burned into the void behind his eyes.

”I will remember this,” he said. ”Every single one of you. I will remember.”

Moiraine’s voice boomed calmly as she rose up beside him, ”This is not the way. You don’t understand what you’re doing!”

WAA!

But her words were swallowed by silence.

No one answered her.

No one stopped.

They had already made their choice.

And so had he.

At the end of the day, it all came down to choices.

Those damn choices!

Noah’s final words carried not as a plea, but as a curse wrapped in understanding.

”Today... Existence was unfair to me. But I hope... you remember this moment well when it is your turn. When existence becomes unfair for you.”

HUUM!

And then...

A soft chime.

Living Paradoxical Authority was not usable under the domain the Honored Living Golden Paradox released.

But he never had just that!

The Glyph on his forehead flared.

Not gold. Not white. Not crimson.

Silver.

A silver glow, faint at first, then blooming like a rising moon beneath the sea.

Living Dimensional Authority.

It shimmered across the dome, across the golden sea, slipping through the silence like a fucking ghost.

The Honored Ones halted mid-flight.

Diviticus’s brows furrowed.

”This...”

But it was too late.

The area around Noah and Moiraine began to fracture with purpose. A soft collapse of folded dimensions, layer by layer, peeling back like paper burning in reverse.

The golden sea rippled once, and then...

POP!

They were gone.

No eruption. No explosion.

Just a breath, and then absence.

Before the tens of thousands of Foldless Ones could even begin to react, there was nothing left where the Young Paradox had stood.

Only a lingering echo of silver, still humming like a lullaby.

And the flicker of choices.

Of causality.

Of consequence.

And there would be...Consequences!