Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 3816: Release the Protagonist! I

Noah stood at the center of the Infiniverse Crucible, the weight of existence bending around him as the scorched winds of ruined continuity whispered his name.

Gloriously!

He was motionless, yet everything around him trembled, as if the very fabric of existence knew its master had grown.

His crimson-gold robes fluttered without breeze, etched in the runes of dozens of True Sources, each symbol a legacy carved from countless lifetimes now condensed into one.

The Imitation Everything was that profound.

But at the end of the day...it was still Imitation as it held shocking implications.

Noah thought grandly.

The stillness he held was the eye of a catastrophic storm, a calm not born of peace but from dominion. And around him, the Crucible- a place meant to refine, was now struggling to contain the one who had ordered its design!

Only because he wanted to test his new power of a Primarch approaching the peak- and yet he held a total collective Resistance that neared that of an Originus Venerant entity.

He wanted to see.

And so...

HUUM!

He tapped the void beneath him once. A hum answered.

From the abyss of his will, Lattices of the True Source of Genesis bloomed like newborn suns, fractals of embryonic light that tore through the sky with the wrath of creation itself.

The Primarchs and Resplendent Monads, even those reborn just moments before from the grace of Continuity, all shattered in body and soul under the weight of Genesis.

Only the Infiniverse Body survived, barely holding form as cracks webbed across her light-drenched figure. Her gaze was locked on Noah, awe warring with a hunger to catch up.

And yet Noah did not stop!

The second tap came without pause. The Crucible inverted itself as the True Source of Khaos erupted. It wasn’t madness; it was entropy incarnate. Rules twisted. Concepts folded into contradictory reflections. Time slowed while causality laughed.

Causality itself...laughed!

Those who returned from Continuity’s rebirth just now were torn apart by unexplainable laws. Existence protested, and Noah remained unmoved.

The Infiniverse Body stumbled backward mid-flight, her own latticework dimming as her existence backed by many of the same True Sources Noah had tasted the edge of unmaking!

While he had forged all his Lattices already, she was still catching up with the complexity he would soon pass to her.

But for now...

Then the third tap fell, and all stopped.

The True Source of Sloth exhaled its poison. Apathy became a weapon. Lattices formed in turbidity, stretching into the Crucible like slumbering giants. Their influence was subtle, suffocating. Motion slowed, resistance grew still, and even thoughts seemed to freeze.

The Infiniverse Body, for the first time...died.

WAA!

Her glorious frame simply ceased to respond, crumbling to stillness before the lotus of Continuity claimed her existence anew.

When she returned, her eyes were wide, her chest heaving. She understood now. Her Master was sprinting ahead, and she barely crawled. She had to take control and rush ahead just like him!

And yet it was not over. Each cycle of death and rebirth brought them all closer. The Crucible bloomed with the screams of evolving existences, even as the one who cultivated them remained still.

They all sought to reach him. To catch him. To understand what it meant to hold such power with calm restraint. Ruination’s blazing body returned once more, battered and furious. She stood tall, but her every movement whispered frustration. She had been his partner, his weapon. But now she saw him as something different. Something unreachable. An anchor tethered to impossible heights! Tyrannical heights!

Within this storm of resurgence and death, Noah turned his gaze inward to think.

He had seen too many lifetimes now.

Experienced too many paths. And the one truth he held tighter than all others was that those who felt pride at a milestone were the ones who stopped. And those who stopped? They died. Maybe not in body. But in growth. In ambition. In existence.

His hunger for infinity was beyond measure. It wasn’t ambition. It was principle. He did not crave an infinity of existence and paths for the sake of control. He chased power because to not do so would be a betrayal of what he was becoming!

Stagnation was the only sin he could not forgive. And thus, he pressed forward.

Even now, as he floated within a place tailor-made to elevate his people, he calculated the margins of his own acceleration.

The Living Origin Labyrinth. That peculiar domain of chests and Inevitabilities. It had gifted him additional Origin Resistance and allowed him to push past blockages that would have halted others for centuries.

He recalled the pulsating cube of breakthrough. The battle against hunger.

He remembered how the Story of the Creature had taught him not just about overcoming Inevitability, but about the cost of resisting one’s nature. And he had resisted. Then fed it. Then watched it explode.

The Infiniverse Crucible, by contrast, was a forge without limit. Here, he could kill all of his companions, and Continuity would raise them stronger. Here, his authority surged every second as his Lattices stacked upward in a sea of burning calculation. And between these two boons, he was now what others would consider exceptionally powerful.

But he did not consider himself so.

”Merely a Primarch.”

HUUM!

His voice dripped of dignity and unfathomable majesty.

He had not yet unleashed every tool. He had left one reserved. Not out of fear. But caution.

The True Source of the Protagonist.

He had always wondered what it would do when freed. What it would seek. What fables it might entangle him with.

He had restrained it because fables, once released, rarely obeyed their authors. But now...he was no longer cautious of detours.

He had stepped out of his native Wheel of Existence only days ago. Now, he was nearing the peak of Primarchy- only short of Originus Venerant by a veil he could did not know.

He had reached this height in a short period of time. Without shouting. Without coronation. Without...too many entanglements. Now, perhaps... it was time to allow the tale to begin.

His internal gaze passed through Aether, through Origin, through Quantum and many others. Past them all until he saw it- a glowing, golden knot of blinding radiance.

The True Source of the Protagonist!

It pulsed quietly. As if watching him.

Noah’s lips did not move. But his Existence called out.

”It is time. Spread your weavings freely.”

BZZT!

A pause.

Then...light.

A golden flare erupted through the Crucible.

A single prompt appeared before his gaze, gilded in script that felt older than existence.

|Ah. I thought you’d never ask.|

HUUM!

The Living True Source of the Protagonist spoke.

And with those words, existence began to listen!