Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 4008: The Difference of Everything!

In the time before time was measured, when existence still questioned whether it should continue existing, there lived an Early Creature whose ambition exceeded its understanding.

This creature, whose name has been deliberately erased from all records, watched THE Creature with the kind of devotion that bordered on obsession.

THE Creature moved through the Earliest Folds with purpose that defied comprehension, each action reshaping Existence in ways that wouldn’t be understood for eons. And at a certain period, invariably, THE Living Concept came and stayed at its side…the manifestation of thought itself given form and consciousness.

The Early Creature studied these interactions with desperate intensity. It saw how THE Creature would pose questions that THE Living Concept would transform into realities. It witnessed conversations that birthed entire categories of existence.

And in its limited understanding, it believed that proximity to THE Living Concept was one of the keys to THE Creature’s transcendent nature.

At a certain time, THE Creature disappeared.

And the Early Creature…thought its chance had come!

So it began to follow.

At first, THE Living Concept ignored the Early Creature’s presence, treating it with the same indifference it showed to the countless other beings that populated the Earliest Folds. But as days became years, and years stretched toward epochs, the persistence grew impossible to overlook.

“You are not like your predecessor,” THE Living Concept finally said, its voice carrying the weight of absolute truth. “You should not try to be like him.”

The Early Creature’s response blazed with the particular arrogance of youth convinced of its own destiny. “But I can become like him! If I understand what you teach, if I learn what you know…”

“Knowledge without foundation is merely sophisticated ignorance,” THE Living Concept interrupted. “You chase shadows while ignoring the light that casts them.”

But the Early Creature would not be deterred. It continued its pursuit with the single-minded determination that marked its kind, following THE Living Concept through domains where thought became substance, through regions where ideas went to die and be reborn.

Then came the day when Inevitabilities found it.

They emerged from the spaces between certainty, those paradoxical entities that existed because they shouldn’t, that thrived on the contradiction of their own nature.

The Early Creature found itself surrounded, its considerable power…power that could reshape entire Folds…suddenly, terrifyingly insufficient.

“Help me!” it pleaded to THE Living Concept, who observed from a position just beyond the ring of Inevitabilities. “I have followed you faithfully! I have learned your teachings!”

THE Living Concept’s response carried neither cruelty nor compassion, merely the weight of truth acknowledged. “I did warn you. Sometimes, one will never measure up to be like someone else. You should have been trying to forge your own existence, not attempting to replicate another’s.”

Defiance blazed through the Early Creature’s form as Inevitabilities pressed closer, their paradoxical presence beginning to unravel its carefully maintained existence.

“I will give you my Everything to be saved! Everything I am, everything I could become…take it all!”

THE Living Concept regarded it with the particular attention reserved for moments that would echo through eternity. When it spoke, each word fell like judgment rendered in the court of existence itself.

“Your Everything and THE Creature’s Everything are incomparable. The difference is so vast, so fundamentally insignificant, that even now it does not motivate me to take it.” THE Living Concept paused, allowing the weight of this truth to settle. “I could find an ant…a simple, momentary creature barely aware of its own existence…and its Everything might be larger than yours.”

HUUM!

The Early Creature’s defiance crumbled into confusion, then horror, as understanding began to dawn.

“Across Existence,” THE Living Concept continued, its voice carrying the finality of lessons that would never be repeated, “every creature has their Everything. Their worth. Their fundamental value in the grand equation of what is and what might be. But the worth of some…their Everything…is unfathomably more prized than others.”

The Inevitabilities closed in, their paradoxical nature beginning to dissolve the Early Creature’s form into component possibilities.

“And more often than not,” THE Living Concept concluded, already turning away from the scene, “very few can accurately gauge worth. You spent eternity trying to become something you could never be, when you might have become something unprecedented. The tragedy is not in your ending, but in your never truly beginning.”

The lesson echoed through the Earliest Folds.

Worth…cannot be claimed or demanded. It simply is, or isn’t, and the ability to recognize it remains one of existence’s rarest gifts.

—

In the Transcendent Paradoxical Folds.

The Doorway to the Loom stretched before them in all its paradoxical glory, each step forward somehow also being a step in directions that had no names.

They had been traversing for what felt like hours but could have been moments or centuries…time held little meaning in spaces where Paradox itself had carved the pathways!

Noah’s enhanced perception took in their current location with careful assessment. They stood at the edge of a region that challenged every assumption about what landscape could be. A mountain of pure red black flame rose before them, its surface not merely burning but existing in a state of perpetual conflagration that seemed to feed on space itself.

The flames didn’t produce smoke…they produced concepts that dissolved before they could be understood.

At the mountain’s peak, visible through the dancing conflagration and the storms that raged around it, a single flower bloomed. Its petals caught light that shouldn’t exist, reflecting colors that had no names, existing in defiance of every force that sought to destroy it.

And those forces were considerable. Storms of pure Paradox raged around the peak, each gust carrying contradictions sharp enough to shred an Honored Living Existence into component possibilities!

The very air seemed to war with itself, being and not-being in rapid succession that created visible tears in reality that sealed themselves only to tear again.

They had paused here after their encounter with the multiplying Inevitability, the one that Titano had so enthusiastically crushed into submission before gifting to Noah. The aftermath of that exchange had left the atmosphere charged with unspoken questions.

Altheon and Thessaly regarded Noah with expressions that mixed wariness with calculation.

Whatever he had given to Titano and Sigrid had transformed them in ways they could not fathom!

The glass woks that Titano had consumed…both their contents and the sacred waters they contained, had elevated the simple giant’s already terrifying physical might to levels that made Honored beings wary.

But it was Sigrid’s transformation that truly commanded attention. Her aura blazed with the intensity of a Prime Living Existence approaching breakthrough, her Tower of Origin reconstructing itself with each passing moment. The very air around her hummed with nascent authority, as if reality itself was preparing to acknowledge her ascension to Honored status.

What could possibly cause such dramatic advancement? What treasures did this mysterious figure possess that could reforge a Tower of Origin to such a terrifying extent?

Titano’s massive form vibrated with barely contained energy as he gazed up at the flower atop the burning mountain. His expression…that mixture of childlike enthusiasm and simple determination that marked all his actions, brightened with sudden purpose.

He beat his chest with enough force to create thunderclaps in the paradoxical atmosphere, the sound somehow both deafening and silent.

“Brother!” he exclaimed, his deep voice carrying the particular cadence of someone who had never quite mastered the language they spoke. “Titano get that little flower for you!”

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