Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse novel Chapter 4997

Chapter 4997: Research I

Noah felt like he was stumbling through boundless Paradox.

Golden weavings wrapped around his existence as he moved through space that was not space, traveling across distances that should have required eons to traverse. The Paradox carried him with contradictory logic that permitted what should have been impossible, moving him somewhere while simultaneously keeping him nowhere, existing in transit while never truly being in transit at all.

Then the golden gave way to blue.

Paradox transformed into Infinity the further he went, the weavings shifting from borrowed authority to native authority as his own endless nature reasserted itself. He was no longer riding contradiction. He was riding sequence, progression, the simple forward momentum of something that extended without termination.

And when the Infinity finally released him, when he emerged from that endless glimmer of blue into coherent space once more, Noah found himself unfathomable distances away from where THE Primordial Architect had been.

THE Wastes were gone.

The crimson ring of fire was gone.

Beowulf and his dozens of massive bodies were gone.

Noah stood now in a place that defied description.

THE Wandering Territories.

That was how far an instant of Infinity had taken him.

Multicolored weavings flowed all around his position like rivers of liquid light moving through substanceless void. Reality here existed in layers that overlapped without truly touching, planes of existence stacked upon each other.

Colors that had no names pulsed through the environment, bleeding into each other and separating again.

Impossibilities drifted past him like debris carried on invisible currents. Fragments of space folded in on themselves, creating pocket dimensions that existed for moments before collapsing back into the chaotic flow. Light bent around objects that were not there, casting shadows from sources that could not be identified.

Everything seemed to exist at multiple scales simultaneously.

The Wandering Territories were where lost things gathered, where broken pieces of existence accumulated, where the boundaries between what was and what was not became suggestions rather than laws.

And Noah stood at the center of it all, looking not at the chaos around him but at himself.

His blue-gold robes were no longer so showy.

The blazing radiance that had characterized his appearance since his advancement into Absolute had dimmed to something softer, something less externally impressive. His existence did not seem as heavy and grand as before, did not press against reality with the weight of what he carried in the way that had defined him for so long.

To an outside observer, he might have seemed diminished.

But what he could do now was ridiculously marvelous.

A finite being that was unleashed. He had basically stopped standing in his own way, no longer limiting Infinity with his finite nature. He had only arrived here, only achieved this impossible transit across Observable Existence in a single instant, because he had finally been truthful with himself about his own fears.

He was without Fear and Doubt.

And yet he still had fear.

How paradoxical.

Noah looked at his hands that had pulled genuine Paradox from the endless sea.

Could he... do the same for Chaos and Existence?

The genuine Aspects of those weavings, the authorities that beings like THE Primordial Chaos and THE Creature wielded as native expressions of their nature, could he direct those as well?

He had many questions.

But there was the matter of the voice that had led him to admit his own finite nature.

Noah breathed out slowly.

When he wanted to ground himself in this new state of his existence, when he sought an anchor that would keep his finite identity coherent amid the infinite forces he now conducted rather than contained, he found his...

DUM!

His heartbeat.

He found his heartbeat helped him greatly. It was the last thing he had heard before admitting his finite nature, that heavy rhythm that had reminded him of his mother and his son and his women and everything that made him who he was. And it was the first thing he had heard after his admission, the simple mundane beat of a mortal heart.

His heartbeat was the anchor.

His heartbeat was what kept Noah Osmont coherent while wielding authorities that should have scattered his consciousness across infinite perspectives.

He focused on that rhythm while speaking aloud.

"Thank you for the words that forced me to admit something about myself."

His voice carried across the chaotic flows of the Wandering Territories, pressing against the multicolored weavings with weight that belonged to THE First Tongue.

"Who... are you?"

The voice that had rung out with frustration during his confrontation with Beowulf. The voice that had called him maddening to watch. The voice that had asked why he kept channeling an endless sea through a straw before departing with disgust.

Was it another Primordial Architect? Something at THE Second Scale?

Or something even more unique?

Noah waited for response.

Nothing replied to him.

The Wandering Territories continued their chaotic flow around his position, multicolored weavings drifting past without acknowledgment of his question. Lost things tumbled through void that was not void.

Silence.

Noah kept his hand on his chest, feeling that finite heartbeat beneath his palm. He was getting ready to search infinitely, to extend his awareness across the endless sea he now conducted rather than contained, to find whoever had spoken to him during that critical moment.

And then...

"What...do you understand about Infinity?"

The voice boomed across existence with depth and majesty that exceeded anything Noah had heard before.

"I’m just someone who was finally able to admit that I am not the ocean."

"I’m the one who tells the ocean where to flow."

"What do you know about Infinity?"

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