Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 4160: The Dead Do Not Stay Dead! I

What did they represent?

Noah gazed upon the masses of beings arrayed before him with the calm of someone who had already won a game that others didn’t know they were playing.

He remained lounged on his throne with deliberate casualness, one knee raised in a position that suggested both relaxation and readiness.

Sigrid sat on his other knee, her presence there making the throne less furniture and more statement!

Around them, their assembled companions formed a tableau that defied conventional categorization. Erikson stood like a guard, if guards wore beach attire and carried slippers that could humiliate existence itself.

The Emperor Penguin’s prideful form shone with gold and black lights, while Titano’s massive presence loomed with simple certainty!

Moiraine pulsed with paradox, Ruination, The Infiniverse...each member of their group radiated different authorities- some blazing with Living Origin light, others carrying signatures that defied classification.

They were unique in their disorder, unruly in their unity!

Noah himself gave off no particular aura, which was perhaps the most unsettling thing of all.

In a gathering where power announced itself through presence, his absence of emanation suggested either weakness or strength so profound it didn’t need advertisement.

Toward the question of representation, Noah’s gaze found Elysia Firmhand of the Blue Fields.

He could be considered sympathetic toward those under the umbrella of the First Farmer...after all, he had walked the path of harvest, had made effort matter in ways that transcended normal causality.

The First Farmer was someone he met in the Earliest Folds as he obtained much from him!

But these beings following his legacy were also overbearing in their righteousness, certain in their superiority, dismissive in their assessment.

Overbearing.

He...could also be overbearing.

”Representation is a unique thing, isn’t it?” Noah began, ”I stand here as me, and yet that’s not allowed. I have to be grouped under an umbrella, categorized, filed away in your understanding. I have to represent something beyond myself. I cannot simply be... me.”

HUUM!

He paused, letting the absurdity of the requirement settle.

”So if I must have a categorization, if existence demands I represent something larger than individual will...” His eyes blazed with tyrannical amusement. ”Then I, The Osmontian, represent Order.”

HUUM!

Order.

The word rang through the amphitheater with the clarity of a bell that had been waiting eons to be struck.

Eyes throughout the gathering shone with sudden interest, reassessment, recalculation.

THE Living Order had been declared dead, dissolved, ended a long time ago.

Yet here was someone claiming to represent Order!

Elysia’s eyes narrowed to slits that could have cut concepts. When she spoke, her voice carried the tone of someone testing the ice before committing their full weight.

”For years, the stories of the Earliest Folds have been passed around...truth tangled with fiction until even those who lived them can’t always separate them. But throughout all versions, all tellings, history agrees on one point: THE Living Order perished. Collapsed. Ceased.”

She paused, her gaze moving between Noah and Sigrid with weight that could have crushed normal matter.

”Are you telling us we have the grand honor to witness the inheritors of THE Living Order itself?”

Noah’s smile deepened with satisfaction.

He nodded lightly, the gesture carrying the casualness of someone acknowledging the weather was nice.

”Precisely.”

...!

No elaboration. No justification. No proof offered or demanded.

Just that single word dropped into the silence like a stone into still water, creating ripples that would spread until they became waves.

The assembled powers waited for more...for explanation, for demonstration, for anything that would let them categorize this claim as truth or delusion.

But nothing came. Noah simply sat there, Sigrid on his knee, their combined presence making argument seem suddenly unnecessary.

Elysia Firmhand studied them for a long moment, her expression cycling through assessments that would have taken normal minds years to complete.

Then, surprisingly, she smiled...an expression that transformed her cold features into something almost warm.

”Very well. So it shall be.”

The acceptance was simple, complete, and somehow more threatening than challenge would have been.

She turned from them, her gaze sweeping across the Concordat Amphitheater with renewed purpose.

With a gesture that suggested reality was merely a canvas waiting for her brush, she waved her hand.

The air before her shimmered, twisted, then resolved into a massive illusory screen that showed another region of the Temporal Folds entirely.

The image that materialized made several beings pulse involuntarily.

A massive obsidian skeletal form was emerging from a cloud of darkness that shouldn’t exist...a Dead Existence of terrible proportion, followed by countless smaller versions whose heads were raised high, jaws gaping as they began devouring the very substance of existence around them.

Life didn’t just end where they touched; it ceased to have ever been, creating expanding zones of absolute negation!

Noah’s eyes sharpened with recognition that sent cold calculation through his mind.

These were Dead Existences he knew...beings that had been killed over a day ago by him and other Living Existences during that catastrophic battle!

The Primordial Death that had required multiple Dukes to stand against, the creature he had decimated with Yoshinami’s power.

They were back!

On the screen Elysia had conjured, response came swift and decisive.

A massive illusory hoe materialized above the Dead Existences. It descended with the weight of inevitability!

BOOM!

The impact transcended mere physical collision. The Primordial Death...that being which had required coordinated Duke-level assault to be held back, was cut into decimated broken bones in a single sweep.

Not killed or destroyed.

He was...harvested. The remnants of bone twisted and compressed, transforming into obsidian seeds that contained the essence of what had been.

A massive hand manifested from above, fingers the size of buildings moving with delicate precision as they plucked these seeds...all that remained of the Dead Existences, their threat transformed into potential.

The display of power was staggering!

Elysia’s gaze moved across all the Living Existences present, her expression carrying the weight of someone about to deliver truths that comfort had long hidden.

”Those were the Dead Existences you all killed a day ago,” she said, each word precise as a scalpel cut. ”That reality I just showed was me taking care of them again not too long ago.”

She paused, letting the implications sink in.

”Let that be the first lesson for all those here on why this is such an issue. The Dead... do not stay dead.”

...!