Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 4158: Who Do You Represent? II

Legacy!

The word carried weight that exceeded its simple syllables, encompassing all that beings hoped to leave behind when existence finally forgot to include them in its calculations.

Some legacies were grand...monuments to achievement that stood as testimony long after their creators had dissolved into constituent particles.

Others were modest...a recipe passed down, a story remembered, a kindness that rippled forward through generations who never knew its source.

Consider the father who spent decades accumulating wealth, building an empire of gold and influence, only to leave his million-dollar legacy to a son whose primary talent was transforming assets into regrets.

The old man spun in his grave...metaphorically, since graves were more suggestion than requirement at certain levels of existence, watching his life’s work become someone else’s cautionary tale about the importance of teaching values alongside vault combinations.

Or the Martial Saint who carved his techniques into reality itself, ensuring his fighting style would endure beyond his bones.

He selected a grand young master as heir, someone whose talent seemed to promise the art would reach new heights.

Instead, that young master managed to offend a wandering protagonist on his third day of inheritance, and watched everything...techniques, treasures, even the memorial tablet, get absorbed by someone whose primary qualification was being in the right place at the right time!

The Martial Saint didn’t just spin in his grave; he achieved rotational velocity that could have powered small Omniverses!

There were legacies of art that inspired ages, legacies of wisdom that guided the lost, legacies of cruelty that poisoned wells of possibility for eons uncounted.

Each one a bet on the future, a hope that something of the creator would persist beyond their capacity to protect it.

The legacy of Fold Dwellers was unique among all these variations of immortality-through-influence.

Across history that predated history, one particular Fold Dweller had risen to heights that made even Early Creatures speak his name with careful respect...when they dared speak it at all.

The First Farmer.

The creature who hadn’t just cultivated power but had cultivated the very concepts that power was built from.

He planted Principles like others planted seeds, tended them through ages that watched Wheels bloom and wither, harvested them when reality itself had forgotten they were crops rather than fundamental constructs.

He was known by some...though this remained unconfirmed, whispered in spaces where whispers themselves were theoretical, as the Farmer of Everythings!

The title was too grand for most to accept, too impossible for even impossibility to fully embrace.

The stories couldn’t agree whether he had earned it or whether it had been imposed by those who needed a name for something that transcended naming.

His true legacy wasn’t just power but sanctuary.

The truly powerful Living Existences knew of The First Farmer and the unfathomable refuge he had carved from the Wandering Territories...a place where Fold Dwellers could exist free from persecution by Early Creatures and Living Existences, where being ”merely” yourself was enough, where power was cultivated rather than stolen.

Yet simultaneously, paradoxically, there were countless Fold Dwellers scattered across every Fold who knew nothing of this legacy!

They lived and died believing themselves the bottom of existence’s hierarchy, never knowing that one of their own had once made hierarchies themselves reconsider their structure.

It was unique in its absence, powerful in its hidden nature, a legacy that protected by not being known.

At this moment, as nine figures in farmer’s clothing stood above an amphitheater filled with existence’s self-proclaimed elite, that legacy was about to become significantly less hidden.

”Now those are half-decent Existences...”

Khor’s voice echoed beside Noah and Sigrid, her tone carrying the satisfaction of someone whose standards had finally been met, if only partially.

She looked toward the Fold Dwellers with interest that transcended her usual dismissive observation.

All eyes remained fixed on these impossible arrivals, the silence stretching until it threatened to snap under its own tension.

Then, shockingly, from among the Living Quantums, a voice cracked through the quiet like lightning through clear sky.

”Old Emperor Yuan... you were alive?!”

The shout came from one of the Dukes of Living Quantums, his form actually trembling with shock.

He stared at one of the Living Existences standing beside the Fold Dwellers...someone from their own Folds who had disappeared eons ago, presumed dead in his search for The Loom.

But he was here? With Fold Dwellers from that place?

Old Emperor Yuan simply looked toward the Living Quantums and offered them a warm smile that somehow managed to answer nothing while acknowledging everything.

Then, without a word of explanation, he turned his attention back to the Fold Dwellers in front of him, his positioning making it clear that he and the other Living Existences among them were following, not leading.

Noah’s attention focused on the twins who seemed to be the nexus of this group’s tremendous power.

The woman stepped forward slightly, and when she spoke, her voice carried the kind of cold authority that made winter seem warm by comparison.

”I am Elysia Firmhand of the Blue Fields,” she said, each word precise as a blade between ribs. ”We, the Fold Dwellers from the Wandering Territories, have arrived here because the actions of Living Existences have once more endangered all others.”

Her eyes, that impossible white-blue of pre-dawn sky, swept across the amphitheater with judgment that had already been rendered.

”You have loosened The Veil between The Living and The Dead much earlier than anticipated. The destruction and loss of life to come will be tremendously higher than it should have been. Again...again.”

HUUM!

The last word carried weight that suggested this wasn’t the first time, wouldn’t be the last, was perhaps simply the nature of things when power forgot responsibility!

Her gaze grew even colder, if such a thing were possible, as she continued with words that cut through pretense like a scythe through wheat.

”In existence, there are always troublemakers. Reality is tough and unfair enough for the weak without you making it worse through your conflicts, your wars over distinctions that matter only to you, your endless need to prove superiority that doesn’t exist.”

She paused, letting each accusation land with its full weight.

”Can you not live up to the grand statures of your ancestors? At least once? At least in this matter where failure means the unmaking of countless innocents who never asked to be collateral damage in your elaborate games?”

WAA!