Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 4495: You Sacrilegius Savage! IV

Noah felt his existence tremble at the cellular level. The burning was absolute in such a manner that the freezing that came with it was absolute. It was a dichotomy of agony that tore at his sanity like claws.

He wanted to buckle and fall as his entire existence wanted to cry out. Even his eyes felt like they were moving of their own volition to release liquid!

When was the last time I cried?

...!

Behind him, he sensed them approaching. Riya and Khor and Titano among many others. They were rushing towards him with auras flaring in solemnity, seeing his figure trembling in the aftermath as they did not sense any damage transmitted to The Infinite Bulwark.

For it was not a damage of Complexity and Purity!

He raised a trembling hand that shook like an earthquake. Even that small movement sent fresh waves of torture through trillions of protesting quintessential cells and nerves.

”Stay back,” he barely voiced out. Even his authority burned as it was an arduous effort to talk or use authority to talk!

The command was silent but heavy with authority. He truly could not speak loudly because the pain was too great.

|UNSURPASSABLE EFFORT DETECTED|

|Your existence withstands constant burning and freezing to its core weavings.|

|A few seconds of this pain is sufficient to drive an existence to seek collapse merely to end the sensation.|

|The effort is immeasurable. Perpetual Harvest burns alongside you. Cheating Architect burns alongside you.|

|The unbelievable effort is being instantly turned to harvest.|

|+10 Sextillion Complexity and Purity gained from an unsurpassable effort to bear that which others cannot bear.|

|+20 Sextillion Complexity and Purity gained.|

|+30 Sextillion Complexity and Purity gained.|

...!

The prompts flashed before his vision, but even they felt like they were melting and distorting.

Noah’s eyes trembled as he forced them to focus on the blurred figures of his people.

He raised his head with effort that cost him dearly. He saw them looking at him with eyes that buzzed as if they could feel his pain by proxy.

He saw Aethon, the Elemental Titan, looking at his forces with pained eyes and staring at the melted bodies that had been used as vessels by THE Living Elemental.

He saw the distant battles where the Emotives continued their relentless suicidal assault. Emotion was too volatile and too absolute, they would not stop.

Noah swallowed the scream building in his throat.

”We do not sacrifice,” Noah said, his voice a solemn steady drumbeat cutting through the chaos. ”And the leader will always be the shield to protect. I have protected. Now... the rest of you need to move forward.”

He looked at Khor and at Riya with eyes that burned. Fucking literally at that.

”Stop the legions of Emotives. Secure the Legions of Law. Complete the mission.”

...!

They hesitated for a fraction of a moment. They looked at his trembling figure and at the flames licking his skin like hungry predators.

But he had given the order and it was absolute.

Khor’s face twisted in a snarl of lividity and grief. She turned with violent motion, her hunger flaring like a weapon, and charged toward the distant legions with murderous intent. The others followed her lead, their grief transformed into fury that demanded release.

Noah remained standing alone.

He fought the overwhelming urge to fall and make the pain stop. Every second was a lifetime of agony compressed into a single eternal moment.

This was a wrath of THE!

|+35 Sextillion Complexity and Purity...|

And then, even more weavings hit him like a second attack.

|WARNING: THE IMMOLATION IS SPREADING|

|Target: All connected instances of your existence. All of your bodies.|

...!

He had expected it but the reality was still terrible.

Across the isolated domains of his Abode of The Early Creature, his other bodies reacted instantly to the spreading contagion.

He separated himself from Riya with brutal efficiency, from Elyndra with desperate speed, from Adelaide and Barbatos and Athena and all others he had been peacefully spending time with. He isolated his clones and wrapped them in barriers of Primus Mana as the crimson-gold flames erupted over them like a plague.

He was burning everywhere simultaneously.

The pain was so total and so all-consuming that for the first time in his existence, Noah felt the seductive pull of the void calling to him. Just let go. Just collapse. Just make it stop.

...!

No, was his clear and quintessential answer.

He looked around with vision swimming in and out of focus. He needed relief, even a second of respite, even a microsecond free from this torture.

His gaze landed on Ozymandias standing in the distance.

His other self. The manifestation of Hunger given form.

Ozymandias stood watching the battle unfold, and gloriously he was not burning. He was separate enough and distinct enough in his Way of Hunger to be immune to the direct contagion of the brand. But...

”I give,” Noah gasped, his voice a whisper of agony barely audible, ”My Everything of Pain.”

...!

He had given his Fear to be consumed. He had given his Doubt to be devoured.

Now the burning and freezing pain was so excruciating that he wanted to give it away immediately, to be rid of it at any cost.

A blinding orb of gray light shot from his chest like a bullet. It was heavy and pulsing with the concentrated scream of his nerves given physical form.

When he looked at it with trembling eyes, he saw clearly. The orb was also marked with the curse, crimson-gold flames licking across its surface.

But in the distance, Ozymandias opened his jaws wide without hesitation. He bit down with hunger that knew no limits.

GULP!

The Everything disappeared into the void of his consumption.

Ozymandias burst into crimson-gold flames instantly.

For a single blessed instant, Noah felt relief. It was a sensation so intense and so euphoric that he felt like he was suffocating on air itself. He could breathe. He could think clearly.

But a second later...

|THE IMMOLATION PERSISTS|

|The Brand is a cursed weaving of existence emanating from an entity at a Higher Scale of Existence, through principles current not grasped. It demands to be felt regardless of whether an existence is capable of feeling pain or sensation. It is an authority exceeding your current scale of existence.|

...!

Oh!

The relief vanished like smoke. The burning returned with vengeance, finding new conceptual nerve endings he didn’t know he possessed. It was worse than before. It was deeper and more fundamental.

|...+100 Sextillion Complexity and Purity gained from an unsurpassable effort!|

The prompts seemed to be giving him good news, but even they seemed hesitant.

Noah floated there in the air, a statue of trembling will refusing to break.

In the far distance, Ozymandias, now burning with the same crimson-gold flames, faced a Living Emotive of 300 Sextillion Complexity who had charged forward with suicidal aggression.

The Emotive struck with desperate fury, his hand seeking to infuse emotional collapse onto Ozymandias and break his will.

His hand connected with Ozymandias’s burning shoulder.

SSSSSSS!

The contagion spread on contact like wildfire through dry grass.

The Living Emotive screamed with a sound that transcended language. It was a sound of such raw unadulterated horror that it silenced that entire sector of the battlefield and made even the other Emotives pause in recognition.

One second. That was all it took. That was the period of time that this Emotive felt the terror of the flames.

The Emotive clawed at his own chest with frantic desperation, ripping into his own heart and collapsing his existence just to make it stop. As he dissolved into ash and scattered on the wind, his face wore an expression of pure blissful relief.

...!

A being of 300 Sextillion Complexity could not last a single second under the Brand.

Noah had been enduring it for more than a minute that felt like centuries.

|I... am sorry, Master.|

RUIN/EDEN’s voice trembled in his mind with unusual emotion. It sounded wet as she continued to do her job!

|I am sorry...+100 Sextillion Complexity and Purity gained from an unsurpassable effort.|

Noah looked down at his hands with vision blurring. They were shaking like leaves in a hurricane.

His Complexity had crossed 1,000 Sextillion.

One Septillion.

There was a condition for the shift from Sextillion to Septillion, some threshold that needed to be met. He couldn’t remember what it was. The pain was too loud and drowned out everything else.

He shook his head with effort that cost him dearly. He focused on the only thing that mattered in this moment.

He would not collapse. He would not fade. But it was so unbearable!

He continued to burn.

And with each passing second, his Existence and his Civilization grew stronger from his suffering, harvesting from his impossible endurance what others could not bear for even a moment.

The flames did not diminish and the pain did not lessen.

But Noah stood.

And that, in itself, was a victory that THE Living Elemental had not anticipated.

That, in itself...would pave the way for something unfathomable.