Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse-Chapter 5001: Research V
Alexander could still feel that phantom pain.
Constantly it thundered across his existence. Millions upon millions of years of agony had been compressed into what had objectively been only hours, but subjective experience did not care about objective time. He had lived through eons of torment. He had experienced every possible expression of suffering that Beowulf’s expertise in Existential Nociceptors could produce.
And truly, he wanted to die.
That was how bad it was.
He wanted to die.
But he was not alone. Inside that fractured Enneagram on his chest, his family was still there. The souls he had promised to protect. The existences that depended on him to remain coherent enough to house them. If he collapsed, they collapsed with him.
So he endured.
Thinking of the Enneagram reminded him of what he had done.
THE Living Law.
The companion who had helped him gain the strength he possessed. The being who had stood beside him through countless conflicts and countless victories and countless moments when Alexander had thought himself alone only to remember that he never truly was.
He had crushed THE Living Law with his own hands.
Alexander could still feel the sensation of doing it. The way his fingers had closed around that construct of silver-white authority. The way THE Living Law had not resisted, had simply accepted what was about to happen with relief. The way the Enneagram had cracked down the middle as its primary occupant was deliberately destroyed by the one who should have protected it.
He did not blame THE Living Law!
He knew how painful that torture was. Nobody could withstand it indefinitely. Beowulf had methodologies that went beyond simple pain, techniques that found the breaking points of any existence and exploited them with precision that bordered on artistry.
THE Living Law had been about to break.
And if THE Living Law had broken, if that partner had revealed everything about Noah’s location after Alexander had endured millions of years of agony to keep that information secret, it would all have been for naught.
So Alexander had destroyed his companion before that could happen.
He had made sure his sacrifice meant something.
"..."
He tried to get out of his thoughts.
He tried to look around him as he realized his body was almost pieced back together. The cellular fragments that Beowulf had separated him into were rejoining. The gaps between pieces were filling with coherent existence once more. He was becoming whole again in the physical sense, even if his other wounds would take far longer to heal.
He found himself in the center of a lush green-gold field.
It extended outward in all directions, an endless expanse of grass that rose to his knees in gentle waves. The blades caught light in ways that made them shimmer between verdant green and brilliant gold, creating patterns that shifted as wind he could not feel moved across the field.
Above, a blue sky filled with gold clouds stretched toward horizons that seemed impossibly distant. The clouds drifted with peaceful slowness, their golden edges catching light from a sun that existed somewhere beyond perception. Everything about this place spoke of tranquility and recovery and the kind of safety that Alexander had not felt since before Beowulf’s chains had first wrapped around his existence.
He reached down toward the green-gold grass rising up around his legs.
And he could not help but fall.
His knees hit the soft earth. His hands pressed into the grass. His body folded forward as something he had been holding back finally demanded release.
Drops fell on the grass in front of him.
Drops? It wasn’t raining right now...
He touched his eyes to find tears coming out.
His expression hardened immediately.
He stopped them right away.
He did not cry. Men did not cry. He had endured millions of years of torture without breaking. He had destroyed his own partner to protect information that mattered. He had faced a Primordial Architect at THE Second Scale and refused to give up a single piece of what was asked of him.
He would not cry now!
Not when crying would mean admitting that what had happened had affected him in ways that went beyond physical damage.
Moments afterward, he felt something flicker behind him.
There, the figure of Osmont appeared.
Alexander turned to look at him with a complex expression. He could feel his entire existence being mended with a sequential weaving of Infinity, blue-gold light flowing through the spaces between his cellular fragments and binding them back together with authority that exceeded anything normal healing could accomplish.
When THE Primordial Armor had split him into countless pieces, Beowulf had also inadvertently split the mark of Horus that had been branded onto his existence. Alexander could thank that armored torturer for that small mercy, and Noah had done the rest.
He did not know what to say to this being.
When he looked at Osmont right now, even he seemed to be lost in thought. There was something different about him. Something that Alexander could not quite identify. The blazing radiance that had always surrounded him seemed dimmer now, less externally impressive, and yet somehow more profound.
So Alexander said simply what needed to be said.
"Thank you."
...!
The few words seemed to wake Osmont up.
Noah looked toward him and shook his head before saying thank you himself.
The two then looked at each other silently.
There was a lot to say.
And yet nothing to say at all.
They both knew what the other wanted to communicate.
But...
Words would have been inadequate anyway.
So Noah sighed as he looked at Alexander with eyes that held depths they had not held before.
"Every now and then, Existence will hurt us a great deal."
His voice was quiet but carried weight that pressed against the green-gold field around them.
"Whether we expect it or not will not matter. The pain comes regardless of preparation. The suffering finds us regardless of readiness."
He paused.
"But after that pain, there tends to be something for you on the other side. I do not know what lies for you on the other side. I hate the way things are. I hate that adversity seems to be the only fuel that drives advancement. I hate that we have to suffer to grow."
His eyes met Alexander’s directly.
"But the least I can do is get you toward that other side. Or at least steer you toward that positive thing waiting beyond the pain you have endured."
...!
The moment after he said this, Alexander’s eyes opened wide.
He saw a contemplative look bloom on Osmont’s face. Noah raised his hand with a breath, and the moment he did...
The blue sky with gold clouds became filled with endless blue.
It reminded Alexander of an unfathomable sea, a vast expanse of Infinity that stretched across the entire sky and pressed against the boundaries of this space. The blue was deep and endless!
Noah motioned downward.
This vast sea began to crash down toward them, but as it descended, it changed. The blue transformed into multicolored radiance as its weavings distinctly burned with the authority of Existence itself. Existence in its purest form, the very authority that THE Creature wielded as his native expression!
The vast sea formed into a pinpoint above Alexander.
And then it began to flood into him.
Into his existence. Into his broken Enneagram. Into every damaged aspect of what he was and what he had been before Beowulf’s torture had shattered him.
Boundless waves of Infinite Existence felt like warm multicolored flames meant to cleanse and wash away all the pain. They flowed through his foundations and filled the cracks and mended what had been unmendable!
Alexander took it all in somberly.
He felt like a tiny boat in the middle of a vast storm, buffeted by forces that exceeded his comprehension by magnitudes he could not calculate. But he held. He remained coherent. He accepted what was being given without allowing it to sweep him away entirely.
The one controlling that storm into his existence had a careful look on his face. As if he was trying something new, and yet also knew what he was doing. As if he were simultaneously an experimenter and an expert, learning and mastering at the same time. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎
With such a gaze watching over him, Alexander closed his eyes.
He remembered everything.
The fear he felt when Beowulf’s chains first wrapped around his existence. The hatred he felt when those armored fingers began their work on his Existential Nociceptors. Every single piece of emotion toward Beowulf that he had experienced across those millions of subjective years.
He repeated it again and again.
He could not forget that pain.
And because he could not forget it, because he refused to let that suffering become meaningless, something began to happen within him.
As he felt his Enneagram heal rapidly and become filled with boundless multicolored light of Existence, the nine end sockets on that construct began to spin. They moved like forges and engines, generating heat and purpose and transformation.
They formed countless small multicolored gems!
