Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 4227: The Way I

Would you kill one person to save five others?

Some say yes immediately...five is more than one, case closed, thanks for asking.

Others agonize, understanding that once you accept the principle of sacrificial arithmetic, you’ve opened a door that’s very hard to close.

If one for five is acceptable, what about a thousand for a million? A billion for a trillion? At what point does the number become so large that individual worth dissolves into statistics?

In the Earliest Folds, when such questions weren’t theoretical but often terrifyingly practical, THE Living Emotive posed a similar question to THE Creature.

At that particular moment, THE Creature had transformed itself into a Fold Dweller, mingling with members of an ancient primal tribe that had just discovered fire and were extremely excited about it.

THE Creature sat among them, pretending to be equally amazed by the dancing flames, when THE Living Emotive appeared as an obsidian mountain cat.

The question came casually.

”O Creature, would you collapse 10% of all Early Creatures, Inevitabilities, Living Existences, Fold Dwellers...all those in the vast Folds, would you collapse 10% of them to save the rest?”

The question was so heavy that THE Creature immediately froze the flow of time in the region.

The celebrating tribe members became statues mid-laugh, flames became paintings of fire, and existence held its breath.

THE Creature regarded Emotive with patience.

”Those who say yes,” THE Creature said, its voice carrying the weight of having considered this deeply, ”believe in the tyranny of numbers. They see existence as an equation where suffering can be minimized through calculation. Ten percent die so ninety percent live...the math is clean, the logic clear. They sleep well knowing they chose the greater good, though perhaps they dream of the faces of the ten percent.”

THE Creature paused, watching the frozen flame that would never consume its fuel while time remained stopped.

”Those who say no believe in the sanctity of individual existence. They argue that no being has the right to make that choice for another, that becoming the arbiter of who lives and who dies corrupts the very thing you’re trying to save. They would rather risk everyone than certainly condemn anyone. They sleep poorly, wondering if their principles cost lives, but they wake with their conscience intact.”

...!

”Arbiter...” Emotive repeated this word as it found it particularly to its liking!

Then, the mountain cat that was Emotive tilted its head, waiting for THE Creature’s own answer.

”Of course,” THE Creature continued with something that might have been amusement, ”if it were me, I would simply use overwhelming power to ensure that none need die for the sake of others.”

HUUM!

”The question assumes scarcity...that salvation is limited, that preservation requires sacrifice. But what if you have enough power to reject the premise entirely? What if you can save all 100% not through choosing who dies, but through changing what death means? Through being strong enough that Existence doesn’t get to force you into moral mathematics?”

BOOM!

THE Living Emotive’s form rippled with countless emotions simultaneously...surprise, delight, frustration, amusement, and something darker that had no name.

The mountain cat nodded slowly, as if a suspicion had been confirmed.

Then, without another word, Emotive simply left. One moment there, the next absent, leaving THE Creature alone with the frozen tribe and their captured flame.

The answer was, of course, a non-answer that was also the only answer that mattered.

When faced with impossible moral choices, THE Creature suggested, simply become powerful enough that the choice becomes unnecessary.

It was cheating, certainly!

But then again, who made the rule that you couldn’t cheat when existence itself was unfair?

The tribe members resumed their celebration, never knowing that their survival...and the survival of 90% or 100% of existence, had just been debated by beings that could enforce whatever conclusion they reached.

THE Living Emotive had gotten its answer, though perhaps not the one it expected. The question hadn’t been about morality at all. It had been about power...who had it, who would use it, and who was strong enough to reject the very premise of sacrifice.

In the end, THE Creature’s response revealed the ultimate truth: dilemmas are for those who lack the power to create third options.

THE Creature did not lack power.

Which meant if such a scenario was to occur, THE Creature...would have to be removed from the equation first!

—

In the Early Veiled Shore.

The feast was ending, but the atmosphere on the Radiant Shore was not one of satiated lethargy.

It was the charged, vibrant quiet of a war council after a momentous victory, the air thick with the hum of newly acquired power and the silent promise of what was to come!

The Concept of Desperation, so artfully woven into the celestial meat, had not just filled their bellies; it had ignited a fire in their souls.

Noah stood on the golden sands, a quiet anchor in this sea of power. His thoughts, however, were not on the Shore, but on the chaotic, war-torn skies of the Transcendent Origin Folds.

He had taken stock of the recent gains, the impossible victories, but his mind, ever the strategist, was already calculating the next move.

’Nysteria,’ the thought was a cold, hard diamond of opportunity.

’She and all the other Dead Existences who fell today will return. In 24 hours or less, they will reform, their hunger undiminished, their power restored. A recurring, predictable cataclysm...’

WAA!

A faint, predatory smile touched his lips. A farm. Why would he not return to harvest them again and again?!

His thoughts then drifted to another Fold, to the sterile, marbled halls of the Juridical Sanctum.

He pictured his son, Henry, leading a small, absurdly powerful contingent of Dukes against the forces of the Living Laws. A training exercise.

The thought was filled with a profound, almost paternal amusement.

But these were thoughts for other things.

Here, in this sanctuary of his own making, his focus turned inward. He closed his eyes, and he felt it.

The potent, verdant-gold glow of the Seed of the Principle of Perpetual Harvest, now 50% mature, humming within his existence like a second heart!

He had forged ten of its Glyphs, each a key to a new level of impossible growth. Now, with its power amplified, he could forge forty more!

Each one now cost 100 Trillion in Complexity and Purity. The ten he already possessed represented a staggering one Quadrillion in pure, consolidated power. So...

His eyes, still closed, seemed to blaze with a tyrannical light. The command was not spoken; it was willed. A silent, absolute decree that reality itself had no choice but to obey.

”Forge twenty Seed Glyphs of Perpetual Harvest. All at once.”

HUUM!