Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse-Chapter 5076: Does Age Make You Sadistic?

Noah focused on Naldine briefly as he felt a discordant tune every time she played the strings of that radiant instrument forged from her own body.

With each note, he observed an invisible flutter of hundreds of sound-based Embodiments and Apophasis blooming naturally around her form. These were not constructs she was deliberately creating.

They were byproducts, secondary effects that emerged from her playing without conscious direction. The alterations to surrounding existence that Absolutes at THE First Scale had to focus intensely to achieve were merely residual phenomena for those at THE Second Scale.

What they could accomplish when they actually tried was obscene.

And with their access to Infinity, what they could alter existence to become defied comprehension. Not to mention the weapons that each of the three enemies before them held. Each weapon was a completed Axiom or half completed Axiom, relics that should have bloomed from THE First Cause itself.

By all means, everything here was stacked against him, but...

Noah was ready to face it all.

He floated forward, golden flames of Observable force burning around his form as he moved past Naldine and THE Primordial Paradox. His small figure approached the three monstrous entities arrayed before them. He addressed Naldine without looking back.

"I will take on the big guy. You and Paradox here can worry about the tiny, lesser things behind him."

HUUM!

His words boomed across the destroyed battlefield with confidence!

Grimvault smiled brutally beneath that wolf skull helm, those pale fires in empty eye sockets flickering with amusement that seemed almost appreciative. Behind him, Vahrkosis and Sammarthiel frowned coldly at being designated as tiny and lesser things.

The serpentine mass’s forty-seven arms tightened their grips on weapons and artifacts. The elegant figure’s wings of swords spread wider.

Naldine looked at Noah calmly as her fingers continued dancing across the strings of her Vihuela.

A heavy melody of power emerged from the instrument, notes that pressed against reality with force that made the air itself thicken.

"He is too powerful for you."

Her voice emerged as she continued producing.

"A Calymmian Proterozoic Scale being. You cannot stand against him. I will face him."

Noah gazed forth coldly and tyrannically at the three enemies before them.

His eyes held none of the concern Naldine’s warning should have provoked. He observed Grimvault’s massive form, that blackened silver armor fused with flesh, that wolf skull helm blazing with pale fire, that greatsword drinking light from everything within range. He observed all of it and found himself unimpressed by what observation revealed!

This was merely a Bounded Lifeform like him!

"Nah, I got him."

His voice emerged with certainty that refused to acknowledge the gap between their Scales.

"I know...all about Grimvault here."

As he spoke those words, golden bubbles of light continued flowing from Grimvault’s armored form toward Noah’s position. THE Hadean Existential Singularities drifted through the space separating them with lazy purpose that belied their significance, each bubble containing concentrated essence of another being’s existence. They had been flowing since Noah designated Grimvault as his third target, and they continued flowing now with volume that increased as the distance between them decreased.

The bubbles disappeared into his body upon contact.

|Hadean Existential Singularity Absorbed.|

|Source: Grimvault, THE Primordial Silence.|

|Category: Background Origin.|

|Content: Subject stems from a region of THE Wyld, a vast domain accessible through Prima Indifferentia that only Primordial Architects have access to. THE Wyld exists as a closed ecosystem of Proterozoic Scale cultivation, containing eons of Primordial Architect development, alliances, conflicts, and Civilizational evolution. Entry requires acknowledgment from existing inhabitants.|

|Additional Content: The section of THE Wyld that Grimvault stems from operates under hierarchy established by THE Deliverance, an entity of unknown classification whose authority is absolute within that region. Disobedience against THE Deliverance is not punished. Disobedience is unmade.|

...!

|Hadean Existential Singularity Absorbed.|

|Source: Grimvault, THE Primordial Silence.|

|Category: THE Deliverance - Entity Profile.|

|Content: THE Deliverance is not a Primordial Architect. THE Deliverance is not a Singular Cognizance. Classification remains unknown even to those who serve it. Entity predates most inhabitants of THE Wyld and may predate THE Wyld itself. Entity does not speak. Entity does not appear. Entity communicates through directives that manifest within the awareness of those it addresses, commands that feel like memories of actions already taken rather than instructions for future behavior.|

|Additional Content: Primordial Architects who receive directives from THE Deliverance describe the experience as having already obeyed before understanding what obedience required. Resistance is theoretically possible.|

...!

|Hadean Existential Singularity Absorbed.|

|Source: Grimvault, THE Primordial Silence.|

|Category: Psychological Profile - The Cleansing.|

|Content: Subject was tasked by THE Deliverance with cleansing Primordial Architects who held mindsets incompatible with the controlled region of THE Wyld’s current direction. Target list included Naldine THE Visionary, Aryana THE Harmonious, and fourteen others who advocated for useless expansions beyond THE Wyld’s borders and alliance with entities outside Primordial Architects.|

|Execution Details: Subject isolated targets individually over span of three hundred years. Subject tortured each target extensively before collapse, applying Chaos Tongue abilities to stretch moments of agony into spans that exceeded what even Proterozoic existences were designed to endure. Subject consumed Proterozoic Bones and Organs of each victim after torture concluded, integrating their power into his own foundations.|

|Victim Count: Twelve of sixteen targets successfully cleansed. Aryana THE Harmonious was seventh. Her torture spanned forty-seven objective years. Her screams were silenced through removal of her throat before consumption of her vocal Proterozoic Organ.|

|Remaining Targets: Naldine THE Visionary escaped THE Wyld before cleansing could commence. Three others remain unaccounted for.|

...!

|Hadean Existential Singularity Absorbed.|

|Source: Grimvault, THE Primordial Silence.|

|Category: Current Motivation.|

|Content: Subject desires to consume Infinity-enhanced Proterozoic material. Subject believes integration of such material will elevate him beyond Calymmian Tier. Saving Beowulf is a minor matter.|

|Subject views this confrontation as harvest rather than combat.|

...!

Noah digested all the new information as it flooded into his awareness.

THE Wyld. THE Deliverance. A closed ecosystem of Primordial Architects operating under authority that unmade disobedience without transition. Grimvault had tortured and consumed twelve of his own kind on orders that permitted quick elimination but did not require it!

He had chosen cruelty when efficiency would have sufficed. He had stretched moments into spans of agony for no purpose beyond personal satisfaction just like Beowulf.

And he had done it to someone Naldine cared about.

Noah floated ever closer toward Grimvault, his small form approaching that massive armored entity. The golden flames of Observable force burning around him intensified with each meter of distance closed, his presence pressing against Grimvault’s authority with defiance that should not have been possible from someone at THE First Scale.

"Why are so many of you Primordial Architects sadistic and cruel?"

His voice emerged with genuine curiosity wrapped in condemnation.

"Does living for too long naturally make you like so?"

He paused, his eyes meeting the pale fires burning in Grimvault’s empty sockets.

"You did not have to torture poor Aryana like that, Grimvault. Especially when THE Deliverance just ordered you to do a quick cleansing of opposition Primordial Architects."

...!

BOOM!

His words landed across the destroyed battlefield with impact.

Grimvault looked over to Noah heavily, those pale fires in his wolf skull helm freezing entirely for an instant that seemed to stretch toward infinity. The brutal amusement that had colored his expression since arriving vanished, replaced by something that might have been shock if beings at his Scale were still capable of being shocked.

Naldine’s eyes became sharp as she observed the same thing.

Her fingers paused on the strings of her Vihuela, the melody she had been producing faltering for the first time since she began playing. Her singularity-dotted gaze fixed upon Noah with intensity that demanded explanation.

Both of their eyes asked the same question.

How the hell did he know about the things he just spoke of?