Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 4843: THE Primordial Paradox I

Many beings believed in fate and destiny.

Many beings cling to it with desperate fervor. They believe that the Weavings of Existence have already determined what will occur, that every moment has been preordained since before THE Infinite Unfurling gave shape to reality. They find comfort in this notion. If one’s destiny is set, then failure is not truly failure. Success is not truly earned. Everything simply is what it was always meant to be.

The significant majority hold this belief.

The significant majority are wrong.

Those who have witnessed eons say that even with immense Weavings of fate and destiny, nothing is ever truly fated or destined. They have watched beings defy prophecies that seemed absolute. They have seen futures that were "certain" unravel because someone chose differently than the Weavings predicted. They have observed the most intricate weavings of destiny torn apart by a single decision made in a single moment.

Because all that there is, in the end, is choices.

Choices stir everything across Existence.

A being who believes in destiny surrenders their agency to comfortable inevitability. A being who understands choice recognizes that every moment is a crossroads, every breath a decision, every action a thread that rewrites what comes next.

Destiny is the story the powerful tell the powerless to keep them passive. Fate is the lie the fearful tell themselves to avoid responsibility for their own existence.

But choice is truth.

And those who wield choice with full understanding of its weight become the ones who write destiny for others.

---

Noah remained floating in the cold air of Helheim as he looked at the imposing Absolute entity on the ship.

Many thoughts were running across his mind. Questions about temporal mechanics. Concerns about paradoxes. Calculations regarding what his presence here might mean.

But he didn’t give them much space.

He simply voiced out what he was thinking.

"Are you sure that you have the right person?"

His voice carried across the frozen riverbank with authority that refused to be diminished by the presence of an Absolute.

"Do you even know who I am?"

Yes.

He did not know THE Primordial Paradox.

And THE Primordial Paradox, who existed within these Weavings, should not have known anything about him. This was the first time that Noah was arriving here. The first moment of contact between two beings separated by eons of history.

The past was the past.

What Noah already knew had occurred would not change. This was something he had discovered when he first returned from Ginnungagap, when temporal manipulation had shown him its fundamental rules.

So regardless of what happened here, THE Primordial Paradox would still be overcome by THE Living Paradox. His Claim would still be stolen. The betrayal that had reshaped THE Four would still occur exactly as it had always occurred.

Noah would not be able to change this.

This was the closed temporal loop.

Him traveling to the past did not change the past and would not change history because his actions were already, and had always been, part of that past. He simply did not know it yet.

When he awakened Mana more than three years ago, he didn’t know that his existence had already traversed eons backward before that point in time. And before he met THE Mnemonic Leviathan, he didn’t know that his temporal traversal would be taking him to THE Primordial Paradox.

This was the issue with time and its manipulation.

It was very messy.

THE Primordial Paradox smiled on the deck of his impossible ship, the expression carrying warmth that seemed at odds with the frozen realm around them. He shook his head slowly, his obsidian crown rotating with measured grace above his brow.

"No, I do not know who you are."

His voice was precise, each word enunciated with the careful diction of someone for whom language was a craft to be respected.

"Or rather, I did not know who you are until I met you just now."

He studied Noah with eyes that held the weight of eons.

"From observing you at this moment, I can perceive that the one who may paradoxically be capable of assisting me is, quite uniquely, someone I did not even know existed."

He paused, letting that sink in.

"Because at this point in time, The First Tongue has not been claimed. And yet, here you are. The Claimer of The First Tongue."

His smile deepened.

"From the authority that you do not trouble yourself to conceal, I can discern your distinction to be that of THE Genesis Monarch."

The obsidian entity folded his hands behind his back with the bearing of someone accustomed to commanding attention simply by existing.

"I must confess, I am rather surprised. I had anticipated that perhaps THE Creature might be the one capable of rendering assistance. Or even THE Primordial Chaos, though he and I have our disagreements."

His eyes held something that might have been amusement.

"I most certainly did not expect someone such as yourself."

...!

As he said all of this, Noah looked at this being emanating waves of Absolute authority into the frozen skies of Helheim.

He should already be infected by THE Entity.

Even though it should not be the same Entity that Noah knew at this moment in time, whatever its origin was, the infection that THE Primordial Paradox had described to THE Weavers in that memory had already begun. Something had anchored itself onto his authority and Claim. Something was slowly eating away at him.

And yet he stood here with the dignity of someone who had accepted his fate while refusing to surrender to it.

Noah floated down from the frozen air.

His feet touched the deck of the ship, and the moment they did, he felt something extraordinary beneath him. The surface was solid. Fuckin sturdy! It didn’t just resist pressure. It rejected the very concept of being damaged.

|Ship Analysis Complete|

|Structural composition identified: The backbone of this vessel is forged from Helheim itself|

|Not materials from Helheim. Helheim itself. A fragment of the Primordial Realm compressed into nautical form with Absolute Depth|

|Classification: Indestructible Object|

|Defensive capability: Can withstand the full might of an Absolute without structural compromise|

|Vessel designation discovered through First Tongue: Naglfar|

|Historical context: Naglfar is recorded in ancient Weavings as the ship that sails between endings, carrying those who have business with finality itself|

...!