Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 3820: Moiraine I

Oryzarakh’s wings flexed once as the obsidian-gold halo behind his head dimmed slightly.

With an absent flick of his towering hand, the obsidian stone- now altered, humming with tightly coiled paradoxical authority- was returned to Ozymandias.

”Crush it,” the Foldless One said, his voice slicing through the suffocating silence. ”You will be sent forth with all the authority required to be a Warden. And I will be watching.”

The stone hovered in Noah’s palm, colder than the void between collapsed wheels. He gazed down at it, the obsidian pulsing with grandiose existence.

He said nothing.

But deep within, he reflected.

The weavings of the Living True Source of the Protagonist... were terrifying.

No, they did not control this Foldless One. That much was evident. Oryzarakh was a being of judgment and supremacy, beyond the reach of puppet strings. And yet...Noah’s gaze narrowed.

Somehow, the weavings had still drawn him in. Entangled him. Aligned the probabilities and causal threads in such a way that a Foldless One appeared before him, not in hostility, but to hand him a path paved in broken chains.

It was subtle. It was glorious!

This was no mere Source. It was a guiding force on a board so vast, its pieces spanned across the Folds.

The weavings pulled kings and pawns alike into positions that revolved around him, forced attention to bloom wherever he stepped. Forced conflict and more.

But it wasn’t always favorable.

Because if he couldn’t handle that attention...

If he couldn’t become the center of those entanglements...

He would die!

Noah turned the stone slightly, its surface catching the dim gray hues of the dead Wheel around him.

There would simply be another failure.

But what was failure?

A lesson, he thought.

A crack in your understanding that lets new wisdom pour in.

In the sea of his mind, Noah remembered broken attempts from his actual life and the lives he lived with Imitated Everything.

Strategies that ended in collapse.

Manipulations that backfired. Roads that led only to ruin and death from Masters of Existence!

All these failures were engraved into his existence not as shame, but as scripture. Each failure had tempered him, taught him. Made him more precise.

Made him more terrifying. More quintessential!

And that was why now...

He feared nothing.

WUU!

His eyes rose to meet Oryzarakh’s gaze.

No words passed between them.

Only silence.

Then, Noah-Ozymandias, closed his hand around the obsidian stone.

CRACK.

The sound was soft.

A tremor that passed through the foldspace itself, as if a sleeping idea had been forced awake.

Black light burst outward in chains- hundreds, then thousands...as a massive illusory coffin surged into being.

It rose like a titan, a coffin wrought of onyx Authority and folded Paradox. Its size dwarfed even Omniverses!

Chains clanked and coiled along its sides, inscribed with unknowable runes that shimmered like screams.

But one rune shone above all.

A singular, burning sigil of Paradox.

It flew from the coffin, embedding itself onto his left hand. His skin sizzled for a moment, but he did not flinch.

Not even a blink.

The coffin cracked open briefly, as if to inhale as it swallowed him.

And then it closed!

Disappearing entirely.

Taking him with it.

Leaving only the Foldless One behind.

HUUM!

Oryzarakh stood still for a moment, his wings tucked inward. He gazed at the spot where Ozymandias had just vanished, the aftershock of the Paradox still humming through the folds.

His voice, now low and contemplative, filled the silence.

”Why... was I not able to sense his birth?”

His golden eyes narrowed, the massive halos behind his head spinning in slow, thoughtful orbits.

He ruled this region.

These Nullvein Gravewake Folds were under his gaze.

And yet, he had not seen this one rise.

Noah Osmont.

A name born in obscurity, now branded into the very weavings of Paradox of this region as already, there was a Wonder broken because of him.

He tilted his head slightly.

Should he tell the others?

Should he hide him?

The questions lingered like weightless stars before being consumed by stillness.

Oryzarakh vanished.

Not with light or with fanfare.

Just absence.

And in the depths of that absence, a murmur echoed silently.

”Between the son of a whore... and this dead Young Paradox...who will become an Originus Venerant first?”

WAA!

The answer was not given.

But it was coming!

—

Endless chains hung across a sky that had no stars. Not because stars did not exist here, but because there was no night. No day either. Only the endless, unchanging hue of obsidian light that radiated from the sea below.

A sea made of water and coffins.

Incandescent, obsidian coffins!

They drifted. They thrashed against one another like forgotten memories jostling in a broken mind.

Some were bound tightly by blackened chains that slithered like serpents through the vast sea, others hung suspended above, attached to countless floating bridges of shackles and ancient bindings.

Noah’s weavings looked around as he arrived in...

The Paradoxical Prison!

Where the weavings of death, rebirth, and isolation were twisted under the authority of paradox.

And above thd cursed obsidian sea, a throne- no, nine thrones- fused into a single leviathan structure that sat atop the waters like the spine of some horrid beast.

From this throne-sculpture, all chains radiated. They snaked out in every direction, weaving through every level of the prison like veins.

Above the chains extending across the skies and forming halls, and those descending in the endless sea...there was a radiant island.

An island Noah his felt his True Sources of Loot and Greed pull him towards!

On it, crystals burned with the glint of unimaginable Purity and the density of absurd Complexity. Fruit that shimmered with temporal hues, gems that seemed to pulse with the essence of unknown True Sources, scrolls and trinkets that glimmered not just with light but with paradox itself.

They radiated allure of glorious loot.

He stood at the edge of the island, having appeared in a ripple of black light above the sea. His wings of abyssal tentacles curled tightly behind his back as his obsidian skin shimmered in the flickering reflections of the burning gems.

And there, already waiting...

Was a being whose presence dispelled all doubt that this Prison had a true Warden.

Someone radiating an extremely potent allure of Paradox!

Living, breathing Paradox!

Her skin shimmered like polished white gold, her hair a flowing waterfall of radiant light.

Nine Wheels turned silently within her eyes, each one spinning with its own truths, lies, and histories.

She sat lazily atop the island of loot, one leg crossed over the other, her hand supporting her chin as she peered at him.

”Being sent to a prison like this to elevate your Complexity... are Oryzarakh and the others truly so desperate?”

Her voice was not scornful.

It was curious.

And beautiful in its resonance.

The moment the words left her lips, the skies above the sea of coffins pulsed. The prison reacted. Another presence- no, another Foldless One, descended!

It was none other than Oryzarakh.

Its pressure was immediate. Overwhelming. It tried to enter. To intervene and say something.

But before a single intent could even be expressed...

The golden-white Foldless One’s expression soured.

”Fuck off with telling me what I can or cannot say.”

Oryzarakh: ”...”

She did not raise her voice.

She did not need to.

Her words silenced the very chains. The sky above snapped and folded into silence as her right hand lifted lazily, as if flicking away an insect.

The oppressive presence vanished.

”You can watch from the sidelines like the rest,” she said coldly. ”But if I see any of you trying to exert influence in my prison again, I will unmake your entry.”

Oryzarakh: ”...”

Her tone was final.

Her power... absolute.

Noah’s eyes met hers.

Unflinching.

Her gaze, was an ocean of secrets and burdens. Power swirled around her, but not for display. Not for ego!

For purpose. For control.

She stood and looked at him closely as if she had not just admonished another Foldless One.

Her robe shifted like ripples of Paradox itself, shaped from a fabric not found in any known Wheel.

She smiled.

”Come on then, little Paradox,” she said, beckoning with two fingers as she rose from the island.

Her voice carried across the obsidian sea, across the chains, into every pulsing coffin that floated and watched.

”I will introduce you to everything.”

And so, the Warden met the Warden.

And the Prison began to stir silently!