Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 3874: Existence is Unfair III

The screams of Paradoxes painted the air in mournful gold.

Moiraine’s voice had not faded. Her fury pulsed through the Dyson Singularity like the snapping of old omniverses.

Her bellow rolled again, not as an echo and instead as a wave- untamed, raw, and resounding. The light of her authority flared in jagged arcs across the fractured folds, gilded strands of paradoxical essence trembling as her silhouette hovered above the devastation.

But her figure... was broken.

Where her lower half had once shimmered with elegance, only white-gold flames now danced, licking upward in sorrowful, radiant wisps. She floated half-torn, yet held fast to what remained of him.

Noah.

Cradled in her arms was a body that barely resembled the one that moments ago had spiraled through folds of golden infinity with her.

What remained was little more than a charred chest and his head, the rest...devoured!

His expression was frozen in a calm, calculating rage, his golden eyes open, burning like twin furnaces beneath the ruined arcs of his brows. Blood, paradox, and light dripped in tangled harmony where his lower form once began.

The air around them wept paradox.

Wept!

Then...

BOOM!

Waves of howling fury descended as dozens, then hundreds, and thousands of Living Paradoxes blinked into existence. Their forms spanned from elegant humanoids with flaming halos to beasts of swirling fog and monstrous wings. They formed a circle, vast and unbroken, around the shattered epicenter.

All of them stared forward.

The White Paradox stood among them with a gray, pale expression.

Then came the gold.

From the folds above, a radiance of complexity descended, a halo of golden mist swirling with purpose, trailing behind it an obsidian flame of equally complex authority.

One shone like the sun’s judgment. The other, like a quiet death that had always been waiting.

And they were furious.

Well, they seemed to be, anyways.

The golden one boomed out, his voice splitting the stillness like a judgment that could not be appealed.

”Why did you do this... Honored Diviticus?!”

The mist cleared.

The attacker stood revealed, a woman cloaked in light too sharp to look at directly. Honored Diviticus- her beauty blinding, her hair a curtain of starlight and snow.

Her wings, pure white, crackled with paradox. Golden blood lined her lips, which parted only slightly as her tongue ran over them, savoring something none could understand.

Her eyes were wide. Dazed.

Not in remorse.

In awe. In astonishing, fervant awe!

Around her, white paradoxical fire blazed, spiraling upward in a hurricane of complexity so refined that many of the gathered Paradoxes instinctively recoiled.

Noah, what remained of him, stared forward.

His breath steady, his rage silent.

[90% of the existence of Ozymandias has been paradoxically devoured by a type of complexity far exceeding known parameters.]

[77 Towers of Origin have been annihilated.]

[Half a Drop of the Blood of an Early Creature has been consumed.]

Each prompt etched deeper into his burning gaze.

And at this time, more Living Paradoxes came.

A white-scaled serpent slithered through the folds, its body wrapping the void, nine halos spinning above its head. A tree wreathed in golden leaves descended gently, its branches glowing with wisdom. A man cloaked in obsidian light appeared beside them, his single wing and nine spinning halos making his presence unmistakable.

Honored Living Paradoxes.

They had come in judgment of what had just occurrd.

And yet even they... paused.

The fire around Honored Diviticus was still growing.

Moiraine’s arms clutched Noah’s body closer. Her flames tried to resist the cold of what had been lost.

”You’ve gone mad,” she spoke out coldly, but her voice rose with every word. ”Do you understand what you’ve done, Diviticus?! This is the first Paradox that does not produce Inevitabilities, and you could not see past your own greed and hunger?! You, an Honored Living Paradox?!”

Her cry cracked the air. And for a breath, all stood in silence.

A golden dome encased the ruin of Noah that she protected. It would take a nanosecond for even an Honored Living Paradox to breach it.

And at this moment, the Honored Living Golden Paradox floated over.

He hovered near, his wings curled in caution, his expression unreadable.

He tilted his head as if wondering why Moiraine would enact a protective dome around herself at this moment.

So he asked.

”...Little Moiraine?”

Her eyes never left Diviticus as she replied to the Honored Living Golden Paradox coldly.

”These are your Goldfolds,” she said, voice as steady as stone. ”No other Honored Paradox may act freely here. I know this better than anyone.”

HUUM!

Tension coiled like a bowstring.

All eyes turned toward the golden one.

He sighed, shaking his head. The motion was slow, as though burdened.

Moiraine’s voice echoed again.

”Why?” Her gaze trembled. ”Why choose such a path?!”

There was no answer.

Only the buzzing of Noah’s fragmented weavings, and the steady glow of the Protagonist Glyph upon his half-devoured brow.

Then...

Diviticus floated forward.

Every movement radiated grace and violence. She stood as one born for command, her presence silencing even time.

Her voice rang out, slow and low, smooth with ice and steel.

It echoed like an undeniable law!

”Why did I do it?” she asked, looking directly at Noah with a gaze that sliced deeper than any devouring flame. ”Because it had to be done.”

”Because, paradoxically, it had to always happen.”

Her hand rose, flames dancing upon her palm. She looked at Moiraine, then back at Noah, her voice tightening with the weight of certainty.

”I did this... because we cannot entrust the future of all Living Paradoxes to a child. I did this because none of you here had the will to do what needed to be done. Even before this issue was brought up to the Royal Living Paradoxes, I did this because I had to.”

She turned to the circle of Paradoxes with no shame.

Then she moved her hand again.

Faster than thought, her fingers flicked out, and near the hulking form of Oryzarakh, the silver-haired figure of Aetheron- eyes wide, was plucked from the air like a thread from silk.

”Wait...!”

His cry was silenced as Diviticus pulled him in.

She placed her white flaming hand on his shoulder.

And waited.

And...

No sparks.

No collapse.

No Inevitability.

HUUM!

A silence.

A gasp.

Dozens of eyes widened.

Moiraine’s expression soured. Noah’s gaze narrowed.

Diviticus smiled- slow and bloodthirsty.

”Do you see it now?” she whispered.

”To obtain a power no child could carry, I needed him. And now... I have it. But I need more.”

Her gaze fell on what remained of Noah.

She didn’t blink.

”I need all of him.”

Her voice turned cold, tyrannical, amd undeniable.

”Stand aside, Moiraine. Give him to me.”

...!