Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse novel Chapter 3775

Chapter 3775: Stench! II

The Middle Wheel Platform.

A world suspended in fractured eternity, layered by epochs, folded paradoxes, and the solemn breath of collapsed Wheels of Existence.

Still.

Silent.

Primarchs and Resplendent Monads dotted the mountains and broken lands, their gazes largely fixed in one direction.

Toward a figure.

Toward the one seated at the very heart of the Cradle of Folded Time.

Noah Osmont.

The Stranger.

He remained unmoving.

As endless epochs of folded time crashed against him, waves that would have unraveled even the strongest of them within hours.

For hours now, Noah’s form, wrapped in the quiet dominion of Lattices and True Sources refined beyond what most could imagine, had not wavered.

Most watched with growing awe.

And some with a kind of reverent caution- as if witnessing a force of nature that had not yet decided whether it would shape them or shatter them.

Thauron was among those watching.

Seated upon the jagged heights of a distant mountain, his massive Null Form- 1,000 inches of collapsed monument- radiated a slow, patient dominion.

His hidden eyes were half-lidded, amused, almost approving.

But then…

A flicker.

A frown.

Thauron shifted slightly.

His colossal head tilted.

His unseen eyes turned- not toward Noah, but toward the distant horizon, beyond the veils of paradox and collapse that marked the Outer Wheel Platform.

He spoke, voice calm but edged with an ancient sharpness.

“Little Bobby.”

His words rumbled out, carrying across the broken mountains.

Down below, Bob, who had been methodically collecting Sigil Fragments, stiffened.

His grotesque, elegant tentacles flexed in a rare display of unease.

He turned upward, toward Thauron.

The Null Monarch’s voice came again, softer, but no less commanding.

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“Come back. Now.”

Bob frowned but obeyed.

He pulled away from the Sigils he had been gathering, lifting his massive form back up the mountainous slope with fluid grace.

And then,

BOOM!

A shattering noise.

It rolled across the Folded lands like a groan from a wounded world.

Heads turned.

Eyes widened.

The Middle Wheel Platform buzzed, a low, almost imperceptible hum of unease threading through the paradox-laden air.

From the direction of the Outer Wheel Platform, they could see…

A rupture.

A tear.

A presence!

Something moved through the air- no, it didn’t move so much as it shifted the world around it, folding distance and sense as it came.

A humanoid figure.

Obsidian gold, with a humanoid appearance that glimmered faintly with the ruined echoes of shattered True Sources, warping like dying glyphs across its twisted frame.

Only the vague, nauseating suggestion of a humanoid shape. And it shifted constantly as it consisted of the faces of the entities who were in the Outer Wheel Platform!

Thauron and Bob recognized those faces from the Outer Wheel Platform.

Worn by an unknown being that currently looked at everyone here through different faces.

A walking antithesis.

Those who saw it felt it instantly- a gnawing, hollow unease that dug beneath the skin and whispered of unmaking.

It radiated nothing.

It also radiated brilliant life. Full of glorious life.

It had crossed from the Outer Wheel Platform.

And now…

Now it had come here.

The creature stood- vibrant and vile.

Living Collapse wrapped in a body of obsidian black and gleaming gold, its form distorted by an unsettling vibrancy, as if it pulsed with a life that should not exist.

It tilted its void-crowned head, empty of eyes but brimming with awareness, and its jagged mouth curved into something resembling a smile.

“Finally,” it spoke, voice a guttural vibration that rippled through the air, “the smell leads here.”

WAA!

It moved.

It didn’t step- it glided, collapsing and expanding the space around it as if even distance was a law it refused to obey.

The nearest Monad didn’t even flinch at first- he was a silver beacon of might, his Null Form ablaze with the glimmer of the True Source of Metal. He was confident, composed- the authority of his Source thick and oppressive.

The creature turned, regarding him as one might a fleeting curiosity.

And then it cut.

It did not raise a weapon.

Its arm simply moved.

A singular, casual, horizontal motion- like a butcher lazily cleaving through soft meat.

The Monad’s silver radiance barely had time to shine.

His existence was split in half at the waist.

No resistance.

No defense.

The complexity and purity that made up his very being snuffed out in an instant.

And in the next breath, a silver brilliance washed across the black-gold body of the creature, the stolen remnants of the True Source of Metal folding into its already-warped frame. Its exoskeleton shimmered, now not only collapsing black and gold among other lesser colors, but threaded with veins of molten silver.

All those who saw it recoiled, shock radiating like a tide.

This was the Null Cradle of Fold-Breaking Ascension.

No harm should have been possible here.

And yet…!

They had just watched a Monad die.

The air grew taut, heavy.

Primarchs floated into place around the creature, surrounding it from a safe distance, Null Forms shimmering with restrained power. Their voices came cold and sharp.

“What are you?”

“How did you kill?!”

“Why did you kill!?”

Booming shouts from those with terrific power.

The creature didn’t answer immediately.

It turned its head slightly, void gaze settling onto each of them in turn. It looked amused, delighted even, as if savoring the tension in the air.

On a distant mountain, Thauron stood.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

His colossal 1,000-inch Null Form rising like a monument of finality against the broken skies of the Middle Wheel Platform.

Bob, still at the mountain’s base, saw it- saw the Null Monarch’s demeanor shift.

There was no smugness.

No wry amusement.

Only somber calculation.

And though Bob didn’t understand what had changed, didn’t grasp the gravity of what had appeared…

He knew instinctively.

This was something serious.

Something wrong.

Something beyond their calculations!

Bob looked down.

The creature remained at the center of the Middle Wheel Platform, radiating that grotesque, living vibrancy.

Waiting.

And smiling.

A slice of collapse disguised as life.

A monstrosity disguised as sport.

Waiting for the next move.

The creature’s void-black form rippled faintly as it slowly turned in place, its fractured exoskeleton gleaming with stolen silver light.

Its voice, hollow and vast, echoed unnaturally across the Middle Wheel Platform.

“I can smell it,” it said. “That stench.”

HUUM!

The sound wasn’t loud- it didn’t need to be. It wormed its way into existence itself, a resonance that made the platform tremble slightly, subtly.

“The stench of the Living Paradoxes.”

—!

The words hit like a hammer wrapped in shadow.

A shockwave of tension spread outward.

Some Primarchs, those less knowledgeable, frowned in confusion. They glanced around at each other, whispering, uncertain.

“Living Paradoxes?” someone muttered.

“Who?”

But others, the older and more powerful Primarchs belonging to unique Fold Dwellings, the ones who had tasted the edges of forbidden truths froze.

Their Null Forms wavered.

Their faces twisted in shock

Even Thauron.

Even the Null Monarch, seated far across the platform, his massive 1,000-inch form as a monument of collapse his unseen eyes opened.

Wide!

A gleam of wary somberness flashing across his colossal frame.

In the distance, he heard the words the creature uttered as clearly as if the thing stood beside him.

The creature breathed in again, long and deep.

Savoring.

A grotesque parody of a sigh.

“There is one,” it said, its voice almost tender now, “with a particularly powerful stench.”

Its void-gaze shifted.

Slowly.

Inevitably.

It breathed in more and more as it could feel the stench having moved across this Platform a great deal!

It looked across the endless Middle Wheel Platform.

Across the fractured plains and broken mountains.

And its gaze fixed, eventually…

On a single peak.

Where Thauron stood.

The creature’s body flexed- chitin shifting and rippling in a cascade of black and gold, the newly absorbed silver sheen glinting faintly.

It smiled- a slow, jagged thing.

And then, without a sound, it began to move.

Toward the mountain.

Toward Thauron.

The Null Monarch’s form remained still- but now, there was a weight to him, a gathering, as if the entire platform was holding its breath.

Waiting.

Tension twisted the air.

The Fold Dwellers who understood what was happening dared not speak.

Those who didn’t… would learn.

One way or another!

Bob stood rigid, his massive 500-inch Null Form unusually still. His tentacles, normally shifting with restless energy, hung motionless, coiled close to his towering frame.

He turned slightly toward Thauron, voice low and tight.

“What is happening?” he asked. “What is that creature?”

A pause.

“And what is this about the stench of Living Paradoxes?”

The words left him sharper than he intended, but the weight pressing down from the approaching entity made civility seem irrelevant.

Thauron didn’t respond immediately.

He stood there, the monument of collapsed existence, immovable, inscrutable. But not indifferent.

The silence stretched between them, thick and somber.

Bob turned his gaze outward again, watching as the obsidian black creature moved across the fractured plains of the Middle Wheel Platform with no rush, no urgency- only inevitability.

It was not running.

It was claiming.

Finally, Thauron spoke.

His voice was quieter than usual, but it carried an unusual heaviness, as if he were choosing each word with care.

“Little Bobby,” he said, “even I am not sure.”

Bob frowned.

Thauron continued, still staring ahead, his vast Null Form as still as the mountain itself.

“What I do know…”

A slight pause.

“…is that I cannot gauge that thing properly.”

Bob stiffened.

Coming from Thauron- the Null Monarch, the being whose very existence weighed down entire platforms- that was not a simple admission.

It was a revelation.

And it made the air around them even heavier.

The creature’s steps closed more of the distance, each one eroding the fragile calm hanging over the Middle Wheel Platform.

Bob didn’t speak again.

There was no need.

Because whatever that thing was…

It was coming for them.

And it was too late to run!

—

WUU!

The Absolute Fictional Transcendence, that grand authority built from the tangled architectures of my Fable, returned.

It folded back into me, heavy, weighted, more… complicated than before.

My eyes remained closed as I tasted the shift.

Calm.

Tyrannical.

Yet curious.

Why did it seem like the narrative had changed so drastically while I was not telling the Fable?

An irritation.

Subtle.

Silent.

I opened my eyes.

The Cradle of Folded Time remained the same, an endless cascade of shattered Wheels and fragmented epochs spinning in solemn, chaotic rhythm.

But I did not look to the Cradle now.

No.

I looked beyond.

I could feel it.

Even before my senses confirmed it- something was wrong.

The swirling latticework over my skin hummed- hundreds of Existential Dimensional Lattices, a chorus of resistance and dominion spun in fractal harmony.

And yet, beyond the Cradle, there was noise.

Commotion.

A ripple in the expected symphony.

Something… off.

Subtly, silently, I adjusted.

Stilled.

Listened.

And in the next moment, a prompt flickered quietly into existence.

| The Living True Source of the Protagonist gazes out with interest. |

I narrowed my eyes slightly.

Silent.

Calculative.

“Did you do anything,” I asked in the privacy of thought, “to entangle us in this little disruption?”

Another prompt flickered to life.

| The Living True Source of the Protagonist is disheartened that you would even ask such a question. It has obeyed. It merely loves unknowns. It merely gazes outward because it delights in the unpredictability of the story. |

I exhaled through my nose, quiet and unimpressed.

The Protagonist was too sly for its own good sometimes.

But… even I knew.

It spoke the truth.

It had obeyed.

It always obeyed.

And yet, it was not wrong to be curious.

So was I.

My gaze sharpened as I turned my full attention outward, to the source of the commotion.

Even while the Cradle of Folded Time tried to break me.

Even as epochs of time howled around me.

I bore the weight effortlessly.

And I watched.

Tyrannical in patience.

Waiting.

Because if the narrative was truly shifting, if an unknown was daring to enter the stage, then it would do so on my terms, or not at all.

I whispered softly, not aloud, but deep within my existence, to the part of me that had been birthed for this very purpose.

“Light.”

A simple word.

A command.

The True Source of Light stirred.