Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 3737: Days of Quintessence I

The Folds were unlike anything else.

Not merely a domain to pass through, but a place that demanded reverence and fear.

The sheer weavings of the Nullvein Gravewake Folds required something beyond ordinary Source Units for any entity to maintain its existence within them.

That threshold?

One hundred.

The bare minimum for a being to be classified as a Nascent Source-Bearer. The base line for becoming a True Source Entity, or at least, possessing the level of Complexity necessary to mirror one.

Without it, the moment you stepped into the Folds, you would find your existence unraveled. Caught in an endless collapse of paradoxes, death, rebirth, and destruction all at once.

This was why most beings clung to the shelter of a Wheel of Existence.

But those who had transcended Sources, those who had become True Sources themselves, could break free from that tether- daring to explore the Gravewake Folds unshackled.

Even then…

”It seems that even Harmonized Sourcebound Icons could easily die in the Folds,” Noah murmured.

He drifted through collapsed layers of existence- each strand broken, disorderly, and chaotic. There was no pattern. No law. Only paradox and silence. A place where Dead Things flourished.

Perhaps thatʼs why entities from the Hollow Concord of Nullity were not worried about traversing this place. They traversed the Folds with ease while creeping toward the native Wheel of Existence Noah once called home.

The Folds favored them. And also...they favored him!

A faint blue and gold glow shimmered around Noahʼs body as a prompt appeared the moment he stepped in the Folds.

|Your Lineage carries a unique scent of collapse and death amidst its overabundance of life. You may traverse the Folds while expressing your Weavings of Existence at an unknown enhanced rate.|

…!

He had the same immunity the Dead Things did.

Because a part of him, Ozymandias, was a paradox, a Dead Thing in form and truth.

So he walked freely.

And yet freedom didnʼt mean safety.

Every step came with risk. Sometimes, he would near a region and feel the sudden clamor of alarm bells in his mind. An instinctive pull, a warning that his existence could be unraveled or face a terrifying ordeal if he took just one step farther.

He heeded those warnings, veering away, uninterested in entanglements or disturbances as he mapped out the space around the anchored Infiniverse.

All around him, folds of collapsed obsidian existence. No signs of life. Not a whisper of motion.

And through it all, he never once called on a single True Source. Not even his Living Wheel of Existence.

He relied only on his Lineage.

A Lineage that shimmered blue and gold, radiating enough power that it alone allowed him to move through the Gravewake Folds.

And still…

With the True Source of the Protagonist withdrawn, hidden from Existence to avoid stirring unnecessary entanglements, he encountered nothing. No Dead Wheels. No Living ones.

Just… silence.

Deathly, paradoxical silence.

He passed through a zone where the weavings had collapsed so violently that stepping through instantly teleported him an unfathomable distance away. It took an entire hour, moving at blinding speed, to circle back to where the Infiniverse rested.

In one region, he saw layered clouds folding into each other, stretching for light-years. In another, slabs of solid obsidian formed land masses that spanned even farther.

Those slabs required phasing oneʼs True Source through them just to cross. But that effort bled oneʼs Weavings of Existence dry. If an entity lacked enough power to sustain the phasing, their body would congeal mid-crossing, and be crushed by the sheer pressure and stone surrounding them.

This was how dangerous the Gravewake Folds were.

Even Harmonized Sourcebound Icons could die by terrain alone.

And in another region, he saw liquified weavings of obsidian sludge that slithered like oily water, stretching endlessly.

The sludge was alive, in a way. It sought entry into the body. Through pores, through breath, through broken will. It desired to fill any beingʼs Weavings of Existence with collapse.

If a True Source didnʼt have a high enough Complexity and Purity Quotient… it would die. Suffocated by paradox incarnate.

These were the Nullvein Gravewake Folds.

A place of collapsed truths.

Where death could happen at any time, anywhere!

And Noah walked through it for a full day.

One day.

It might seem like nothing to others.

But to Noah, it was weeks. Months.

A full day since the Infiniverse Wheel of Existence had undergone its Last Breaking.

---

BOOM!

In the Infiniverse Crucible.

”Huff… huff… huff…”

An Emperor Penguin panted, golden flames of the True Source of the Singed burning wildly around him.

Out of all the True Sources he couldʼve claimed as a Paracausal Infinitum Veinbearer, Pride hadnʼt yet ascended to that tier with the other Seven Sins.

Heʼd asked his Master about this.

And his Master had told him- choose freely. If he truly wanted Pride, he could change it later when it became a True Source.

So he listened.

He chose the Singed. A temporary True Source, but glorious nonetheless.

And...

BOOM!

The Singed flames ruptured as Noah appeared, his fingers aglow with pulsing blue and gold.

Not a True Source.

Just his Lineage.

And that alone tore through the Singedʼs meaning like paper in a storm.

The Singed only held less than 10,000 Source Units. Barely Harmonized Sourcebound Icon tier.

Against Noahʼs Resplendent Monad-level Lineage?

BOOM!

Blue-gold tyranny descended.

The Emperor Penguin barely had time to scream.

”Wait, Mas—!”

BOOM!

Noahʼs hand, akin to a titanʼs wrath, smashed down and obliterated every strand of the Emperor Penguinʼs Weavings of Existence.

Then silence.

Noah turned his gaze across the battlefield, where a hundred of his bodies stood, crowned with incandescent blue-gold halos, cloaked in clouds of regal tyranny.

”Ahhh!”

A new scream echoed from the highest point of the Crucible as booming impacts echoed all around.

From a lotus petal blooming green with Continuity, the Emperor Penguin was reborn, remade even more complex than before. His eyes wide with terror, scanning the field to make sure none of Noahʼs bodies were near.

And then, he ran!

The Crucible surged with Weavings of True Sources, so many that others could hardly fathom the sight.

And among all of Noahʼs one hundred bodies?

Not a single one had died.

The opportunity once given to the Infiniverse and Ruination at the start? It had never returned!

Because now, when Noah focused solely on his Lineageʼs Complexity and Purity…

Even the Infiniverse couldnʼt undo him.

The truth was in the name.

True Origin Osmontian Paracausal Lineage.

The Origin Prime Osmontian Infinitum!