Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 3850: Early III

Across the Nullvein Gravewake Folds.

In the Hollow Concord of Nullity.

Where the remnants of calamity clung like dust to faded weavings of existence.

A depraved soul was moving.

Silently.

Relentlessly.

Usurping the weavings of the last Mawbearers that Aetheron had left scattered and half-finished.

Discarded pieces. Incomplete beings. Flawed Thrones.

The soul devoured them all.

With cold precision and ruthless patience, the soul moved through them, consuming what others had failed to understand.

But then...

BOOM!

The soul paused.

And within it... something bloomed.

It pulsed once, like a tiny heartbeat in the void. Then again, louder. Clearer.

A spark. A shimmer.

A Living Seed of Existence.

It took root within this soul- this contradictory, incomplete, ever-becoming soul.

The seed was drawn to it.

Because it was a soul that had no stable form. No fixed identity. A soul filled with paradoxes.

A soul, unaligned... and yet perfectly positioned.

The soul of the one who devoured meaning and wore nothing.

The soul... of the Great Usurper!

A Living Seed of Existence bloomed within the depths of the Great Usurper as he did not need to ask why. Even before the Seed could fully root, he knew from whence it came. From which entanglement. From which aura. From which being.

The Great Usurper felt it keenly, the buzzing Hymns echoing in every hidden corner of the Nullvein Gravewake Folds.

Somberly, his eyes opened.

Eyes that did not belong to one form alone.

The Eyes of Melodrass... already long since controlled.

The Eyes of the 7th Mawbearer.

The 6th.

The 5th.

The 4th.

The 3rd.

Primarchical Dead Things- each greater than the last, hollowed from within, now empty shells cradling the weave of a soul too twisted for boundaries.

And now, all were called as one voice moved them.

”Combination.”

He said it lightly. Almost kindly.

And yet the Dead Things trembled.

Their weavings of existence, already subsumed, flowed toward each other like great rivers of ash drawn toward a sun, collapsing and melding.

Authority bent. Concepts merged. What rose from it was no longer fragments stitched in mockery. The Great Usurper... was making a sprint.

A surge.

An ascension.

Straight into Originus Venerant.

A path built not on clarity, but on contradiction. Not harmony, but usurpation. Made possible only by the sudden catalysis of purity and complexity- a Festival he had not asked for, but received all the same.

---

Elsewhere in the Folds.

”Haha... what the fuck is this?!”

Thauron roared into the Foldlight, his laughter mad and wild, echoing through spatial layers like thunder through existential storms.

His dark wings of conceptual decay and finality flared outward, drawing in shimmering threads of complexity that seemed to float from everywhere.

From nowhere.

He drank them in with abandon.

A feast he had not expected, but welcomed.

Before him, the Living Origin Altheon stood in perfect contrast.

Somber. Quiet.

His brow furrowed as his own latticework spread in all directions, trying to trace the threads of whatever had caused this...blooming.

A sudden influx of catalytic reaction across the Folds. A sharp, immediate rise in complexity and purity- so great it fractured all preset weavings of existence!

But no answer came to his seeking.

He could not trace it.

Could not root it.

And so, in silence, he whispered...

”Just what is going on with these Folds?”

There was no answer.

Only more silence.

And beneath that silence... a change still spreading.

—

Further still.

Not far from where Thauron’s laughter faded, nor Altheon’s silence weighed heavy.

In the dark, warped boundaries of the Paradoxical Prison.

Something was stirring.

A wriggling Inevitability, malformed and insatiable, was tearing through the hardened husks of time-forgotten prisoners. Eating everything in its path. Devouring thought. Ripping apart bound scripts of Entropy and Order.

It should have been mindless.

It should have been unstoppable.

But buried deep within its corrupted weave...there was another will. Bound. Crushed. Suppressed. Something fueling it due to its...Obsession!

Purpose too stubborn to dissolve.

Bob.

Little Bobby!

HUUM!

A blinding flash of complexity pulsed from within the Inevitability’s depths.

The light... was none other than Bob as inside of him, a Seed bloomed.

And with that light...

His eyes opened.

Eyes that should have forever remained closed.

Eyes that burned with fury and clarity.

Eyes...that garnered an even grander obsession!

Many things bloomed and unfolded with the inception of the Festival of Existence.

It spread like a great wave beyond comprehension, touching the distant corners of the Folds, but it was not equal in its blessing. No, the Festival moved like a tide pulled by gravity, and its strongest pull was towards the center. Towards the source. Towards him.

Towards the one whose existence birthed it.

Those closest to Noah- those within the radiant storm of his Early Creature’s aura, received the greatest gifts. Those who could see the massive Towers of Origin with their own eyes and hear the Mythic Living True Signatures singing ancient Hymns found their Lattices multiplying. Their complexities expanding. Their purity clarifying.

But two above all others received more than that.

He was touching them directly, his hands upon their heads.

Ruination and the Infiniverse Body.

To be touched by the source of such a Festival- to be saturated in the endless authority of an Early Creature....was to be broken and remade again and again.

And of particular interest now... was Ruination.

Her form, radiant and crimson gold, shimmered like the first flares of a blooming sun.

Her hair flowed like rivers of molten crimson, her skin burned with gilded bronze and golden sigils that hummed faintly, matching the rhythm of the Hymns that danced around them.

Her gaze, ever fierce, was locked onto her master as if seeking permission. Seeking direction. Seeking... something.

Within her.

A Living Seed of Existence had already bloomed.

She could feel it- warm, dense, alive- nestled within her weavings like a glowing core.

Her complexity had reached an unfathomable threshold. Her purity surged with every second. And yet her heart... it ached.

She stared at Noah’s calm, unreadable face, his palm still resting lightly upon her head as he gave her everything. As he gave everyone everything. And she told herself, with bitter longing....this time.

This time... she would truly be of use to him.

He deserved more than what she could give. He deserved to be followed through overpowered flames and ash and into death itself. He deserved... results.

She closed her eyes. Her thoughts sharpened into a blade.

Her voice, when it came, was a whisper. Soft. Intimate.

”Ruin.”

She chose her path. Her nature. Her title.

The First Breaking had already come long ago- which was within a span of a few days, but still.

Now... she sought the Second.

A deep, shuddering silence passed through her being as the truth of her concept was accepted.

She was Ruination.

And so, she ruined herself.

...!