Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse novel Chapter 3774

Chapter 3774: Stench! I

Farther away, draped in a halo of fraying timelines, stood cluster of beings.

A lone Primarch, save for the single other Primarch at his side.

Their Null Forms shimmered faintly with the geometry of severed threads- timelines clipped and archived.

They bore the mark of the Chronosect of Threadbound Folds.

Keepers of time.

Recorders of causality.

Masters of impossible consequence.

The leader- a towering being of stern countenance, did not speak immediately.

He gazed not only at Noah.

But at another.

Farther off.

Thauron.

The Null Monarch.

The silent Entity who watched from his perch, half-lidded, smiling faintly.

The Chronosect Primarch’s voice was low, reverent.

“I remember records,” he said, “of a 1,000-Inch Null Form Monarch.”

The air around him quivered.

“That being was said to have survived the Foldless Judgment….”

He turned his heavy gaze back to Noah.

“And if that entity is entangled with this Stranger…”

The words did not need to be spoken.

The implications were too vast.

The other Chronosect Primarch, standing by his side, said nothing.

But their eyes, ancient and glimmering with the wisdom of collapsed time, betrayed a rare emotion.

Concern.

And then.

Farther still.

A distant mountain veiled in roaring streams of unstable mana.

A place few dared tread, for unstable mana in its rawest form was lethal to others even at their heights.

There, five Primarchs sat.

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Clad in robes of shifting prismatic light.

Their Null Forms seemed less like solid constructs and more like rivers of mana given mind and purpose.

The Mannafolds.

Entities who had long since abandoned traditional matter and flesh, becoming pure conduits of existence’s energy.

The leader- a woman with a Null Form like a blazing comet, her body shimmering with currents of flowing aether- gazed down at Noah.

Her many eyes closed briefly, and she felt it.

A resonance.

Not through flesh.

Not through spirit.

Through mana.

Through the raw currents of creation and destruction that wove through the Folds.

She opened her eyes.

Bright.

Unfathomably deep.

“He may have an existential physiology similar to us,” she said softly, voice threading with power.

The other four Primarchs shifted.

“No,” another said. “He is not yet like us, otherwise, we would have seen him.”

…!

They all gazed at the distant figure of Noah, still motionless under the endless crush of folded time.

“Should we move to recruit him?” another asked, voice brimming with curious hunger.

The leader of the Mannafolds here nodded, a single motion of powerful will.

“Yes.”

Her gaze sharpened.

She could feel it, barely- the layers of mana folded into Noah’s being, the impossible complexity of his existence.

Her Null Form shimmered brighter- a lighthouse in the storm.

“We will offer him sanctuary in our Mannafolds. And see if the Stranger who can withstand epochs of time wishes to become more.”

The five of them, folded in impossible mana, continued to watch.

But now, their patience was edged with intention!

Beings of such conplexity were abundant as the Nullvein Gravewake Folds and the Fold Dwellers within…were intricate and innumerable!

In these very same Nullvein Gravewake Folds.

A weaving of space where paradox ruled.

A realm where collapse was not an event, but a constant.

Here, drifting endlessly through the layers of folded existence, the Null Cradle of Fold-Breaking Ascension moved.

Not drifting as a ship would on a sea, no.

It twisted.

It sheared through the Folds like a blade dipped in impossibility, its very existence defying locality.

One moment, a shape- a spiral of collapsed frequencies.

The next, a monolithic fortress of blackened absolutes, fracturing and repairing itself in the span of a thought.

The Cradle did not obey time.

It did not obey space.

It did not obey.

It was a monument.

A trial.

A paradox.

No Living Thing or Dead Thing, no Fold Dweller or rogue frequency was able to enter it just because they wished to!

No known power could casually violate the weaving.

And yet…at this moment.

Something stirred beyond the veil of paradox.

At first, a ripple.

Subtle.

A shiver that even the Gravewake Folds, eternally collapsing and refolding, seemed to fear.

Then…motion.

A distortion, like a smudge on the fabric of all laws.

It slithered.

Folded.

Shifted in impossible geometries.

And from that distortion…

BOOM!

A shape.

Vast.

Indescribable.

A silhouette that seemed to be a thousand jagged limbs, folded into a single writhing mass.

And…the silhouette sniffed as if it was drawn here by something. And it continued to follow this smell!

It did not move across space.

It devoured the distance between itself and the Null Cradle.

Closer.

Closer.

Until it was upon the Cradle’s shimmering boundary.

It loomed.

And then…

It reached out.

An appendage, slick and black-gold, ejected from its jaws.

It touched the barrier.

And the barrier…resisted.

Paradox met something that refused collapse.

Law met antithesis.

For a moment, for the briefest shudder of reality- the barrier flared, a ripple of finality radiating outward!

But then…

BZZT!

The appendage clenched.

Not violently.

Not with brute force.

No.

With precision.

With inevitability…and Collapse.

Cracks formed.

Hairline fissures of undone paradox, slithering outward like veins of oblivion.

The Cradle’s barrier buckled.

And then broke.

No explosion.

No thunderous sound.

Just…a rupture.

Silent.

Complete.

The being slipped through the breach it made, the wound sealing slowly, sluggishly, behind it.