Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse-Chapter 5122: Advancement! III
He had less than twenty-four hours before the Civilizational Holy War would begin, before his mother and son and everyone else he cared about would be pulled into isolated arenas to face Primordial Architects. The pressure of that deadline should have made him rush and should have introduced desperation into his actions.
But he had been doing something important through his Hadean Mind of Infinite Calculation.
Whenever he needed to think through a problem, whenever he encountered complexity that required extended contemplation, he could stop time for his perception alone. An instant could become infinite for his consciousness while the external world remained frozen. If he found himself stuck on any thought process or possibility, he simply paused for what felt like hours or days within that moment of perceptual infinity.
Then he resumed, having worked through whatever had given him pause with boundless solutions!
The construction continued.
Other bodies of his moved through THE Infiniverse simultaneously, carrying out preparations that couldn’t wait for his primary form to finish building. The mass transformation project that had begun before the Civilizational Holy War’s declaration now accelerated with urgency.
The first and major task was clear.
The vast majority of those closest and strongest within THE Infiniverse needed to attain Nascent Hadean classification. Not because it would guarantee their survival in the coming battles, but because it would give them a fighting chance against opponents who had spent eons cultivating power that most First Scale beings couldn’t comprehend.
One by one, they underwent transformation.
Existential Engineering flooded Observable Force and Quintessence Infiniforce into their existences. The Lattice of Foundational Constraint that defined Bounded Lifeforms shattered within them, replaced by the Lattice of Nascent Emergence that declared them something new!
Golden cracks appeared on foreheads. Dark hair developed rivers of gold. Eyes shifted toward hues that spoke of authority exceeding their previous classifications.
This...was all accomplished in the first hour.
---
Exactly twenty-three hours before The Civilizational Holy War.
Noah stood on a floating platform within a realm of THE Infiniverse that had taken the qualities of an endless training ground. The space stretched in every direction without visible boundary, its floor solid enough to support combat while its atmosphere hummed with Observable Force dense enough to accelerate recovery.
Naldine Manthon came at him with everything she had.
Her form blazed with authority that would have made her old self seem dim by comparison. She had used her Hadean Infinity of Development three times in rapid succession, each usage accelerating her progression ridiculously. Her bones no longer pulsed with merely Proterozoic light. They shone with the crystalline brilliance of full Hadean classification.
All two hundred and six of them.
All seventy-eight organs.
She had become the third most powerful being in THE Infiniverse, exceeded only by Noah himself and of course THE Infiniverse as a whole. In the span of hours, she had achieved what should have required eons of dedicated cultivation.
And yet.
Noah swatted her aside with casual ease.
BOOM!
He hadn’t exhibited any Infinity. Hadn’t channeled any Observable Force. He simply stood there with his hands clasped behind his back, his expression holding mild interest as she attacked with waves and seas of Quintessence Infiniforce that should have overwhelmed anyone at her former classification.
Her Hadean skeletal structure blazed through her skin as she struck.
He knocked her back with a gesture that seemed almost lazy.
Naldine skidded across the waters, her feet carving furrows into material that shouldn’t have yielded to anything. Frustration painted itself across her features without her permission, ancient pride warring with the reality that she couldn’t touch him no matter what she attempted.
"This doesn’t make sense," she said, her voice tight. "A Calymmian Proterozoic Scale entity would be crushed under me, and yet...You’re not even using your authority."
"I don’t need to."
His response was simple, stating fact rather than boasting!
Her singularity-dotted eyes blazed brighter as she shifted stance. If raw power wouldn’t work, perhaps something more refined would serve. Her hands began moving through motions that Noah recognized immediately, fingers curling and releasing in patterns that spoke of authority derived from THE Silurian Cause itself.
The somatic expression of THE Silurian Light.
Her voice emerged with weight that pressed against the training ground around them.
"Silurian Ember, First of Flames. I grasp the Thread. I burn the Thread. What was shall be unwritten, what stood shall stand no more."
Magma-like brilliance gathered between her palms.
"THE SILURIAN LIGHT."
The Pulse erupted toward him with force that had threatened to erase his existence not long ago.
Noah smiled.
He let it hit him.
The flames of THE Silurian Light washed over his form with heat that could have unmade Rhyacian entities through proximity alone. It pressed against his Hadean Dermis, against bones and organs that had been forged through countless cycles of destruction and rebirth caused by this very Pulse.
It felt warm.
Almost pleasant, like standing near a comfortable fire on a cold evening.
Then he breathed in.
HUUM!
The flames of THE Silurian Light flowed into his mouth, drawn by intention that exceeded what the Pulse had been designed to handle. He consumed the fire that Grimvault had used to threaten him, that Naldine now wielded. The brilliance vanished into him as if it had never existed.
He exhaled, and only faint embers emerged from his nostrils before fading entirely.
Naldine stared at him.
Her expression shifted through several emotions before settling on something between disbelief and reluctant acceptance. She shook her head slowly, white hair swaying with the motion.
"You monster."
The words held no real venom. Just acknowledgment of what she was observing.
Then her eyes flashed sharply, and something changed in her bearing.
If she couldn’t beat him in this sort of battle, there were other arenas where she might gain some measure of control. Other methods of contest where raw power mattered less than technique and will and the particular intimacies that Dual Cultivation demanded.
Her gaze filled with defiance that hadn’t been present moments before.
"Let’s switch to Cultivation." Her voice carried challenge that pressed against the space between them. "I refuse to believe you are this far away."
A Primordial Architect remained defiant despite evidence that should have crushed such defiance entirely.
But she would learn later on.
She was fighting against someone walking an entirely different Scale of Existence!
---
Noah looked at himself and what he was becoming.
His Hadean Pillar of Infinity continued filling with actualized Civilizations, each layer adding weight and definition to his existence within Infinitas Architectura. The second demarcation of his First Infinite Scale of Existence was taking shape around him, authority accumulating rapidly.
He didn’t bother trying to gauge exactly how easily he could defeat a Calymmian Proterozoic Scale entity anymore.
The exercise seemed pointless. Whenever he sparred with Naldine, who was many times more powerful than any Calymmian entity he had encountered, she couldn’t get past the defenses of his skin. Not his bones. Not his organs. Just his skin!
She attacked with everything her newly Hadean existence could muster, and his outermost layer of defense treated her efforts as irrelevant.
He would come to know in the distant future that wasn’t truly so distant exactly what his power was. There would be battles that tested him properly, enemies that forced him to reach for capabilities he hadn’t yet explored. THE Deliverance and whatever forces served that ancient being would eventually provide the pressure he needed to understand his own limits.
But as of right now, he was building toward something else entirely.
He wanted to forge himself to be so astoundingly different and exceptional that those who followed Vakochev’s Scales of Existence wouldn’t even know where to begin when it came to understanding him. Let them try to measure him against their frameworks. Let them attempt to categorize what he was becoming. They would find nothing that fit because he had chosen to exist outside their definitions!
More Civilizations actualized within his Pillar as he continued his work.
The main threshold he approached was the transition from Uncountable Infinity to Absolute Infinity. That advancement would mark his readiness to progress toward the third demarcation, toward Infinitas Causa where THE Infinite Cause itself would be fully comprehended and actualized. But such transitions couldn’t be rushed, couldn’t be forced through sheer will alone.
So while he continued building, another body of his focused on the second phase of strengthening his people.
The eighty-one who would be involved in the Civilizational Holy War needed more than Nascent Hadean classification to survive what was coming. They needed to forge their bones and organs to become fully Hadean. Naldine had demonstrated what that transformation meant in practical terms, her power increasing by orders of magnitude through aggressive application of Hadean Infinity of Development.
If his people could achieve similar results, they should be able to contend with Calymmian Proterozoic Scale entities.
They should be able to survive!
---
The Early Veiled Shore stretched beneath them in configurations of beauty that most beings would never witness.
Radiant gold sands sparkled under light that seemed to come from everywhere at once, their surfaces catching and reflecting the multicolored brilliance that saturated this region of THE Infiniverse. Endless plots of sacred herbs spread across the landscape in careful arrangements, their leaves and stems now burning with the light of Infinity that Noah’s presence had infused into everything within his internal reality.
The multicolored rain of THE Pluvial Epoch of Existential Infinity continued falling without pause.
It had caused river channels to form all across the Early Veiled Shore, waterways of liquid authority carving paths through golden sand and fertile soil. The rivers flowed with colors that shifted constantly, carrying Observable Force and Quintessence Infiniforce to territories that drank in whatever they received!
Noah floated in the skies above this paradise with dozens of his people surrounding him.
He gazed at Barbatos, whose dark gold eyes held anticipation beneath their calm surface. At Henry, his son, the young man’s blue gold hair shifting in winds that carried authority rather than mere air. At Adelaide, at Sigrid, at Riya, at Moiraine, at Titano, at THE Queen of Matter, at THE First Farmer, at Khor, at Tor, at THE Living Origin, at Ul’moreth, at Lumivara, at Skoll, at Ains, at THE Emperor Penguin, and many others whose existences had become intertwined with his own.
All of them waited for what he would say.
"We both have time and we don’t," Noah said, his voice calm and measured. "It depends on how we use what we’ve been given. Enemies far stronger than us are trying to collapse our very causality and existence. They declared war not because they fear what we are now, but because they fear what we might become."
He let that settle before continuing.
"In response, we won’t just be going for survival. We need to...dominate. We need to cause fear to spread across Observable Existence, so that nobody else could possibly think about doing something like this to us again."
...!
His words pressed against everyone present!
"To ensure that reality, at the very least, all of you need to forge your Hadean Bones and Organs. One of the quicker ways for you to do that is an infusion of boundless Infinity and Observable Force, which I can provide."
He paused, his expression remaining steady.
"But you also need pressure to induce rapid transformation. External force that pushes your existence toward evolution. For that pressure, here is... a Primordial Architect that represents what those you will face will be like."
...!
Noah waved his hand.
HUUM!
Golden light erupted from his palm as THE Hadean Desmoterion responded to his will. THE Hadean Organ of Civilization had continued to advance alongside everything else, allowing more and more things to become possible. Releasing powerful prisoners for limited durations was now a feasibility where it had once been beyond his capability.
A figure emerged from the golden light.
Beowulf materialized above the Early Veiled Shore with presence that pressed against everyone except Noah himself!
The Primordial Architect’s armored body stood massive and imposing, but something had changed since his imprisonment. His armor no longer held the colors it had displayed during their previous encounter. It now shone fully blue gold, the distinctive hue of Quintessence Infiniforce and Observable Force saturating every surface.
He had been disciplined in THE Hadean Desmoterion!
Ozymandias had worked on him in the dilated time that flowed differently within that prison, infusing him with Quintessence Infiniforce across spans that felt like years . The titanic form of Noah’s second body had transformed Beowulf into something he hadn’t been before.
A Nascent Hadean Lifeform.
|Beowulf, THE Primordial Architect of Armed Existence.|
|Classification: THE Second Scale of Vakochev’s Scales of Existence. Nascent Hadean Lifeform.|
|Skeletal Structure: 178 bones at Proterozoic classification. 28 bones at Hadean classification.|
|Organ Systems: 61 organs at Proterozoic classification. 17 organs at Hadean classification.|
|Current power output exceeds his previous parameters by a factor of approximately 127. Estimated classification now surpasses Grimvault at Calymmian Tier.|
...!
