Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 4494: You Sacrilegius Savage! III

The atmosphere within the Injunction Sanctuary of Law had changed fundamentally and irrevocably. It was no longer just a battlefield where armies clashed and strategies unfolded.

It was a site of judgment where the very concept of defiance was being tested against absolute authority.

Noah stood alone amidst the swirling vortex of molten mana and shattered ice. His form, once a pillar of unshakeable stability radiating tyrannical confidence, was pulsing.

Ambessa had advised him to another anger THE Living Paradox. That this whole time that entity was simply playing.

He faced THE Living Paradox, and the entity had merely toyed with him like a cat playing with a mouse.

Now he had enraged THE Living Elemental, and the entity had decided to burn him out of existence entirely.

The encroachment upon the Elemental Civilization’s foundation was a triumph of unparalleled magnitude. The harvest was flooding into his Architect’s Bulwarks with torrential force, elevating his Civilization to heights previously unimaginable and opening pathways to power that should have taken eons to discover.

But every action had an equal and opposite reaction.

And the reaction of a Primordial Sovereign was absolute.

Noah watched the bodies of the possessed Elementals disintegrate before his eyes. Their forms unraveled like cheap fabric torn by hurricane winds, unable to contain the sheer density of the authority pouring through them from across impossible distances.

Through their melting eyes, an utterly terrifying gaze fixed upon him with laser focus. It was a look of pure unadulterated hatred, the kind of hatred reserved for a thief who had desecrated a holy site and spat upon the altar.

Oppression descended like a physical thing.

It was not physical weight pressing down on his shoulders, but a conceptual decree written into the fabric of reality itself. Every atom of Noah’s existence screamed in protest, demanding he kneel and prostrate himself before the brilliance of The Elemental Sovereign.

But his Primus Mana burned in defiance!

It flared blue-gold, a defiant star against the encroaching red sun of foreign authority.

He looked down at that terrifying power, his gaze cracking under the strain but holding firm. He met the gaze without flinching.

The response was immediate and volcanic.

”You Sacrilegious Fucking Savage!”

BOOM!

The roar vaporized the remaining snow in an instant. The glittering rivers of accumulated frost turned to steam that rose in billowing clouds. The space above the disintegrating Elementals split wide open, a jagged wound in reality that bled blinding crimson-gold light like arterial spray.

”You think yourself safe due to this suppression of existence?” the regal voice boomed, echoing from every particle of the surrounding air and making the stones themselves vibrate with fury. ”You think yourself defiant enough to encroach upon my brilliance without consequence?! Then have a taste of my brilliance directly!”

Existence suppressed THE entities from THE Loom from exerting their influence outside of it! It did! But still...

Even as existence itself trembled and pressed down on the intrusion, trying desperately to force the Primordial entity back into its designated box, THE Living Elemental paid the cost willingly. It burned its own essence like fuel to force the attack through the barriers.

A beam of crimson-gold fire shot out from the rift.

It was not fire in any conventional sense. It was Immolation given purpose and direction, the concept of burning distilled into a weapon.

”Brother!”

Titano’s voice was a desperate roar that shook the battlefield. The giant stepped forward with earth-shaking strides, his massive form interposing itself between Noah and the descending judgment.

Millions of Primus Inevitabilities flared with brilliant light, throwing themselves into the path of the beam with devotion.

Khor moved with inhuman speed, her small form blazing with hunger. Riya’s eyes shone with light as she calculated probabilities.

Alexander’s silver-white authority erupted like a shield as he bellowed, a unique authority of THE Living Law erupting from his body as he surged forward!

They all rushed forward with single-minded purpose.

Protos wrapped his tentacles around Noah with crushing force, forming a living cocoon of loyalty and sacrifice.

They would die for him without hesitation. They would burn so he did not have to face this alone!

Noah looked at them and saw the fear in their eyes mixing with absolute willingness to end their own stories to prolong his.

He shook his head slowly.

”In my Civilization,” Noah’s voice boomed, straining against the pain already radiating from the approaching light, ”there shall be no sacrifice. In my Civilization, I am the sword and the shield. I am the first and the last line of defense.”

...!

He stepped forward with deliberate purpose.

Forcefully, the Civilizational Armor of Protos peeled away from his body, obeying the absolute command of its master even as its spirit screamed in protest and desperation. Noah’s humanoid form emerged from the protective cocoon, vulnerable and defiant and utterly exposed.

He took a single step forward, moving far ahead of his protectors, placing himself directly in the path of the descending beam with arms spread wide.

He looked at the unfathomable authority approaching him and felt the heat before it even made contact with his skin.

BOOM!

The impact was silent and absolute, a contradiction that hurt the mind to perceive. A blinding crimson-gold brilliance swallowed everything in its path. Steam hissed and boiled. Reality itself warped under the concentrated assault.

At the center of the inferno, Noah stood.

He was burning.

His skin blistered and reformed in microseconds, only to blister again in an endless cycle of destruction and regeneration. His cells screamed with voices that had no sound. His very concept of self was being subjected to a temperature that defied the laws of physics and rewrote thermodynamics with each passing moment.

He stared into the light with eyes that refused to close, and through the flames he saw eyes. The eyes of THE Living Elemental burning with hatred across impossible distances.

”I saw you,” Noah whispered through gritted teeth, his voice a rasp of Primus Mana and defiance mixing into something terrible. ”I saw you and Emotive bargaining about THE Loom like merchants haggling over spoiled goods. I saw the price you paid for entry. I saw you grovel before Emotive just to pacify her anger and secure your position.”

His eyes blazed with a tyrannical fire that matched the flames consuming his flesh.

”I have seen you for what you truly are beneath all the grandeur and authority. You flickering pathetic fire. Know that I am coming for you and your Civilization. The foundation you have built for eons... the foundation you have elevated inside of THE Loom... I will fucking take it all. Piece by piece. Brick by brick until there is nothing left.”

...!

A howl of rage erupted from the light, a sound of pure majestic fury that could have shattered lesser realities. But existence clamped down with brutal efficiency, silencing the Primordial entity and severing the connection like cutting a string.

But the damage was done.

Noah stood alone in the crater of glass that his feet had created, his body wreathed in a terrifying crimson flame that did not flicker or waver. It melted the reality around him in expanding circles.

It was not Complexity and Purity damage in any conventional sense. It was Pain.

It was a constant shooting tingling agony that permeated every nerve and every atom and every weave of his existence. It was the sensation of being dipped in the heart of a star, forever, with no hope of relief or escape.

He trembled like a leaf in a storm. His knees buckled under the weight, but he did not fall.

Prompts bloomed before his melting vision like flowers of information.

|THE IMMOLATION OF THE SACRILEGIOUS SAVAGE|

|Analysis: Your Civilizational Resistance mitigates the attack. Your Principles mitigate the attack. But the attack is not damage. It is a Brand.|

|To harm you takes an unfathomable amount of effort under Perpetual Harvest. Under the suppression of The Primordial Civilization of Existence, the Authority of THE Living Elemental is expressed by a fraction of a percent.|

|To bypass this fundamental limitation, the entity has unleashed an attack that carries no Complexity or Purity damage.|

|It is an attack on your capacity to endure.|

|Effect: Constant, inexpressible burning. A pain so intense that after mere seconds, one would wish to end their own existence just to escape.|

|Duration: Indefinite. Until you collapse your own existence voluntarily.|

|Warning: Contagious. Any existence that contacts you or attempts to siphon the pain will be marked with the same Brand.|

...!

Oh!