Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 4183: Maybe! I

In his swirling storm of thoughts, processing the weight of cessation, Noah turned his gaze to Khor with a question that cut through layers of mystery.

”At your highest, as The First Hunger... were you at the same stage as THE Living Existences? Did you exceed Pre-Civilizational Scale of Existence?”

The question landed with weight that made even the collapsed space around them seem to lean in for the answer.

Khor smiled at it...not her usual predatory grin but something more complex, tinged with irony and loss.

She looked around at the collapse above them, at the space between Folds where normal reality had given up trying to exist, and her smile deepened.

”What do you think, Outsider?”

Noah considered this, his mind sorting through fragments of stories, myths that might be history, histories that might be myth.

”The name Khor is mentioned in some stories of the Earliest Folds. Whether true or not, they speak of THE Living Dimensional looking toward you with caution. They suggest you may not have been... liked by other Living Existences.”

Khor’s smile grew wider.

”Man, really, who is spreading all these stories? But tell me, Outsider...if I were at the same Scale of Existence as them, would THE Living Paradox have been able to collapse my weavings of existence?”

WAA!

The question created silence so complete that even the concept of sound took a respectful step back. Noah shook his head slowly, working through the logic with methodical precision.

”THE Living Order was collapsed by Paradox. I’ve collapsed countless existences myself when I was in this supposed Null Scale, and now in Zero Scale. On the same Scale, others can collapse others. That’s simply how power dynamics work.”

”Maybe,” Khor said, her smile shifting to something mournful. ”But on this, Outsider, I... do not know.”

She raised her hand toward the collapse surrounding them, fingers spreading as if trying to grasp something just beyond reach...a memory, perhaps, or an understanding that had been edited out of her existence.

”I don’t remember. Maybe I was at their level. Maybe I wasn’t. But what I am now... is just like you, Outsider.”

She stood there, hand extended toward nothing and everything, and spoke words that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than memory:

”The Hunger eats and eats and eats,

Never satisfied, never complete,

Each morsel consumed becomes need for more,

Each feast finished opens hunger’s door.

It devours stars and swallows space,

Consumes the time that time misplaced,

Yet with each bite, the void grows wider,

The appetite becomes its only guide here.

Until its hunger caused collapse

The snake that swallowed its own maps,

The mouth that ate the very ground

On which its endless feast was found.

But even collapsed, even ended,

The hunger lived, just... amended,

Smaller now, but still it yearned,

For lessons that could not be learned.

It rises, lives, but living’s brief,

A momentary strange relief,

For everything must have its end

Even hunger cannot transcend.

As the first, it should have seen

The Hunger that should not have been,

Yet was, yet is, yet will not stay,

For even hunger fades away.”

...!

What the hell?

The words buzzed in the air like smoke from a fire that had burned before fire was invented!

Khor’s smile grew softer, more genuine.

”That was something a Young Inevitability told for me eons ago. When I heard these words, I laughed and stroked that Young Inevitability for its mischievous nature.” Her expression grew thoughtful.

”I wonder... if it was really a Young Inevitability now.”

WAA!

”Sometimes, THE Creature loved to take on different forms. Maybe it was trying to warn me then? Haha...”

...!

Her words caused an immense silence to descend as Noah thought about many things.

Noah reflected on the poem, its layers of meaning suggesting histories that had been carefully erased.

The hunger that consumed itself, that survived its own ending only to face ending again...it painted a picture of cyclical destruction and rebirth that transcended simple death.

He shook his head with sudden conviction, pieces clicking together in his mind with the certainty of someone solving a puzzle they hadn’t known they were working on.

”You had to have been on the same scale as THE Living Paradox and others. After all, they came to collapse you specifically, and yet... here you stand.” His voice grew stronger with each word. ”I brought you back!”

HUUM!

The sound resonated through the domain as Noah rose to his feet, his eyes blazing with profound glory. Power and lividity warred in his expression as understanding crystallized into determination.

”If I can reverse the actions of THE Living Paradox with my actions and my tools, then in existence, nothing is impossible.”

His voice rose, not in volume but in intensity, each word burning with conviction that could have ignited reality itself!

”Even surviving what they all hide from. If THE Living Paradox’s collapse could be undone by someone at Zero Scale, then their assumptions about what can and cannot be survived are fundamentally flawed!”

HUUM!

”They locked themselves in THE Loom because they believed survival outside was impossible. But beliefs aren’t facts. Impossibility isn’t absolute. If I could bring back something THE Living Paradox personally collapsed, then their understanding of permanence, of finality, of what can and cannot be done...it’s all fucking suspect.”

Khor looked toward him with a smile that contained equal parts admiration and pity.

She sighed, the sound carrying weight of ages that had been forgotten and remembered and forgotten again.

”On this, Outsider... I actually cannot comment with certainty.” She met his burning gaze with ancient eyes that had seen too much and remembered too little.

”Maybe you can survive what’s coming. Maybe not. The nature of what approaches might be different from simple collapse...it might be cessation on a level that makes collapse look like a pause between breaths.”

She paused, seeming to wrestle with how to explain something that language hadn’t developed words for.

”But you’re right about one thing...if you could undo what THE Living Paradox did, then the accepted limitations might just be... accepted. Not absolute. Maybe you may just have you way, Outsider. Maybe...”

...!