Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 4294: What is The Way? IV

The Way of Existence.

The Way of Life!

Some say the good life is one guided by reason and moral principles, achieved through the pursuit of knowledge and self-improvement.

Others say one must conquer challenges by using reason to control reactions and align with purpose, to accept what cannot be changed and find joy in the present moment!

Accept what cannot be changed.

Still others say the Way to live... was the love of fate.

To love everything that happens in your life, including the pain and adversity, as a necessary part of the whole.

But to truly find one’s Way of Life, one’s Way of Existence... one had to develop a framework for how you understand the world, then make life choices based on this framework, and then be open to new information and insights!

Well, some say that this was how one could find their Way and perfect it... who knows whether they were right or wrong!

In the Earliest Folds.

That same brilliant Fold Dweller who talked about whether mathematics were discovered or invented found himself staring at the distant skies of his world.

The night was a perfect, profound black, a canvas of absolute nothingness that made the stars burn with a fierce, almost desperate, light.

They were scattered across the void like spilled diamonds on black velvet, distant and cold and beautiful, each one a promise of a world he could only reach out to, but never, ever grasp.

A sigh escaped him, a small cloud of mist in the cool night air. His thoughts were a quiet, insistent hum against the great silence of the cosmos.

”Are we alone?” he whispered to the uncaring stars. ”In all this vastness, this glorious, terrifying, and beautiful expanse of existence... am I truly just a solitary voice shouting into an empty hall? It cannot be. The numbers, the probabilities... they all scream that there must be others. There should be countless things out there. Other minds to wonder, other eyes to see, other hands to reach out and try to touch the face of this grand, silent mystery.”

He spoke with conviction, a scientist’s faith in the elegant, undeniable logic of a universe teeming with possibility!

But as always, like the hundreds of nights before, the night sky retained its calmness.

Nothing changed. The stars did not answer.

He turned, the familiar weight of his own, small existence settling back upon his shoulders, and began to walk back towards the warm, familiar light of his Planetarium.

But the moment he turned around, he jumped back, his heart a frantic, terrified drum in his chest.

Behind him... were three hooded women. He could not see their faces. They were shrouded in a darkness so profound, so absolute, that even when he blinked and squinted, he could not pierce the veil.

They held an air that made him feel stifled, uncomfortable, as if the very laws of physics had taken a step back in their presence.

But he was a brilliant mind, and fear was just another variable to be analyzed. He asked them calmly, his voice a steady, scientific inquiry in the face of the impossible, ”Who are you? And what are you doing here?”

Their reply was a thing of impossible, terrible beauty. They spoke in perfect unison, three distinct voices... one high and melodic, one low and resonant, one a dry, academic whisper... all saying the exact same words at the exact same time!

The sound was like honey to the ears, a sweet, seductive melody that promised answers to questions he hadn’t even thought to ask.

”We are... THE Weavers.”

...!

THE Weavers!

The brilliant Fold Dweller heard this and blinked. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, he reached into his pocket and took out his phone. He backed away from the women, his thumb already dialing.

”Okay,” he said, his voice calm, but with a new, sharp edge of practicality. ”Just hold on for a second. I am calling for security.”

...!

Yet as he held the phone to his ear, he realized it was dead. Not just powered down, but utterly, conceptually inert.

And even more dreadful, when he looked around, he could not find the familiar trees that had been just near him.

This entire area, his comfortable, predictable patch of the world, was now isolated and dark, with only the vast, silent night sky visible.

A creeping, irrational fear, a feeling he despised, began to rise within him.

”What is this?” he asked, his voice now a little less steady. ”Who are you?”

Only now did the three women speak again, their synchronized voices a gentle, almost chiding, question. ”Every night you reach out to the stars. Why do you not simply take a step and see them with your own two eyes?”

The brilliant Fold Dweller, now on the back foot but still a scientist at his core, felt a surge of annoyance.

”Number one,” he began, his voice a sharp, lecturing tone, ”it is impossible to simply ’take a step’ and reach the stars. The distances are astronomical. The nearest one is light-years away. And even if I could, number two, do you have any idea what happens to a human body in the vacuum of space? The lack of atmospheric pressure would cause the nitrogen in my blood to form bubbles, a condition known as ebullism. My lungs would rupture. The moisture on my tongue and in my eyes would boil away. I would be flash-frozen and irradiated simultaneously. It would be a very unpleasant, and very final, death.”

...!

THE Weavers calmly listened to his detailed, scientific, and utterly correct analysis.

They shook their heads, a slow, synchronized gesture that was more unsettling than any threat. ”Have you ever tried to simply take a step to appear in outer space?” they asked, their voices a gentle, persistent prod.

”Have you ever tested whether you could survive in outer space? How do you know you cannot, if you don’t try?”

...!

At such questions, the Fold Dweller felt a new wave of annoyance. ”What do you mean, how do I know if I don’t try? I know exactly what will happen. Science tells me what will happen. The way the world works, the way that nature works, tells me what would happen.”

...!

The Way.

The moment he said this, THE Weavers spoke, their unison voice now holding a new, profound weight.

”All of that... is simply what others decided what nature is. You are different. Your Way of Existence is special, unique compared to others. What is known as a fact of reality may not be a fact for you. You could bend it and change it. You could take a step and truly appear all the way in outer space with that single step. You could decide that nature is wrong. That when you are out there in outer space, you could simply survive and breathe what you decide to breathe. That your heart will keep on beating, that your lungs will keep on working. You could simply decide that that was your Way. Your nature. Why don’t you... give it a try?”

...!

Why doesn’t he give it a try? The brilliant Fold Dweller was utterly tired of these women, these charlatans who seemed to be trying to act like witches or magicians from a forgotten, unenlightened age.

Science was the only truth. Logic was the only path.

So, just to make them go away, to prove the absurdity of their claims, he sighed, a sound of profound, weary condescension.

”Okay,” he said. ”Here I go. Taking a step. And I will appear in outer space before... oh, the Virgo Star Cluster, how about that?”

With a final, exasperated look at the three hooded figures, the brilliant Fold Dweller took a single step forward.

And...

WAP!

He disappeared in front of the three hooded women!

They looked at each other, and in the deep, impenetrable veils below their faces, they smiled subtly. In eerie synchronicity, they spoke, their voices a quiet, terrible, and absolute verdict.

”Now...one of the core weapons against THE Creature has been put in play...”

...!