Infinite Mana in the Apocalypse - Chapter 3879

The shoreline was quiet, but not for too long as a low hum began.

The Early Veiled Shore shimmered with a newborn tension. The air was impossibly crisp, layered with the weavings of possibility.

Across from him, the form of Moiraine stabilized. Her fractured essence mended rapidly as golden weavings sewed together bone and sinew, muscle and flame. She stood now, no longer a being of damage, but of majesty restored.

The restoration of her lower body didn’t shake her.

What did... was her surroundings.

And even more than that, the words that proceeded to flash right before her eyes!

|You have arrived in the Early Veiled Shore of a consecrated Early Creature.|

|Your Complexity and Purity are rising rapidly.|

...!

Her eyes widened.

But not with confusion. Not even with awe.

Recognition.

Early Creature. Early Veiled Shore!

The words boomed and collapsed many things she thought of!

Early! Creature!

This meant...! This meant...!

Oh!

Now it made sense.

It all made sense!

His aura. His blood. That intoxicating pull beneath his skin.

The ability to wield more than one Living Existential Authority.

He wasn’t a Paradox made to defy tradition.

He was a creature that could control Paradox!

Moiraine looked up at him slowly.

And in her eyes, something changed.

Noah watched this processs play out in motion.

He had always known that eyes were the first liars and the last truth-tellers. Through them, people concealed, and yet they always revealed. A glance carried possibility. A stare carried motive. Eyes never stayed the same over time.

And now, her eyes were different.

Before, they looked at him with purpose. Not compassion. Not control. Just purpose. She saw him as something valuable. As a possibility for the Loom, for eventually attaining her goal of standing before THE Living Paradox.

But now...

Now he saw fear.

Reverence.

Truly. In someone far more powerful than him, he saw reverence and fear!

A foreignness that distanced her from him more than space ever could.

He didn’t want that.

He didn’t need worship.

He needed understanding.

Yet still, she walked forward.

Moiraine’s steps were slow as she dropped to one knee. Her head bowed.

The air did not shift.

She did.

"I greet Sir Early Creature for the first time truly. I-"

"Stop."

Noah’s voice was level and clear.

She froze instantly.

His hand lifted lightly in the air.

"You don’t need to kneel."

Behind him, the others turned at the shift in tone.

Amelia Osmont and Adelaide.

Henry, gazing towards his father with wide eyes.

Further back- Ruination, shimmering with ruinous glory. The Infiniverse, silent and elegant. Liora, cradling a forged glass bucket she had finished forging!

All watched.

Noah looked back down at Moiraine.

"Get up," he said, more softly this time. "You don’t need to change how you speak. Talk to me as you did before you knew anything."

He told her.

And yet...

Moiraine remained where she was.

Unmoved.

The golden light around her flickered once more.

Her voice came quiet, but sure.

"You don’t understand. Early Creatures haven’t been seen in existence for countless eras. Not one."

She raised her face slightly.

"In the Earliest Folds, it was from your kind, born of the Blood of the Creature, that many types of Living Existences came into bloom. To be here before you... is an honor I cannot desecrate."

Her eyes grew solemn.

"And for you to have held me. To have spared me. To have chosen to bind me..."

She lowered her gaze again.

"For what the Living Paradoxes did to your other body..."

The flames behind her surged as her tone tightened.

"I will get retribution with all my existence on your behalf. They made a mistake I warned them of. One they cannot comprehend. And if they knew... if they understood even a fraction of what you were...ah!"

She thought of all that could have been!

An Early Creature had actually come to their Folds!

To the Living Paradoxes!

And they actually made an enemy out of him!

What a colossal fuck up that was.

The golden flames crackled around her shoulders.

Then, she lowered herself further.

Her knees pressed into the soft glow of the shore. Her voice was calm now with no tremble, no hesitation.

"Sir Early Creature. As in the Earliest Folds, I stand as a Living Existence under your disposal. Tell me to act, and I will act. Tell me to kill, and I will kill. Tell me to die...and I will die."

Her eyes lifted once more.

And they were different now.

Not the eyes of Moiraine- the stoic, powerful, enigmatic Paradox of the Foldless Ones.

These eyes of a being with deep reverence and fear of the identity of an Early Creature and what they represented.

Noah stared at them in silence.

He didn’t feel triumph.

He felt loss.

He sighed- long and heavy, letting the breath pull through his chest.

And even more he could reply...

HUUM!

The Early Sacred Waters of the Budding Shore trembled.

They pulsed with layered resonance.

|A Wave of Early Living Marine Lifeforms have risen to rectify the population.|

...!

A moment later, from the heart of the glow, forms emerged.

Early Living Marine Lifeforms!

Eleven.

The first ten- glorious and translucent, carried the Basic Early Living Existential Glyph of Water etched into their flesh. Their scales shimmered with aquatic luster, their bodies sleek and precise.

But the eleventh...

It emerged last, floating without ripples, its gaze level.

Its body was serpentine eel, endless, like a ribbon of liquid diamond. Upon its head burned the Refined Early Living Existential Glyph of Water, far more intricate than the others. Six additional Basic Glyphs pulsed along its body.

|Name: Virellith, the Abyssal Spring Monarch.|

|Type: Early Living Marine Lifeform.|

|Authority Type: Living Water.|

|Refined Early Living Existential Glyph: Water (1).|

|Basic Glyphs: Water (6).|

|Tower of Origin: Living Water Tower of Origin.|

"ROAAAR!"

Its heavy bellow echoed.

Their intent was clear.

Correct the population.

Kill.

Noah stared at them.

A minute ago, the appearance of a single one would have forced retreat. A few minutes more, and they’d have devastated everything here.

But now?

He watched the sky ripple above them as the Sea trembled.

He closed his eyes briefly and thought of Loss.

Loss had its place in existence.

It opened the door.

It tore the ceiling.

It created space.

Sometimes, he thought, loss was the only way to build again. Not as you were before. But as something entirely new.

From broken Towers.

From stolen blood.

He had gained something- Moiraine.

And now...

He looked at the undulating waves beyond, where more Lifeforms stirred.

He didn’t flinch.

He didn’t even look again.

Instead, he turned, walking toward the others as he spoke calmly to the Paradox still kneeling.

"Take care of the marine lifeforms that will keep coming."Correct content is on freew.ebno(v)el.(c)om.

He didn’t look back.

"Kill them."

WU!

"But keep their bodies intact."

The instant the command left his lips....

BOOM.

The aura of a terrifying Foldless One erupted in resonance.

It rose like a spear of inevitability.

The incoming Marine Lifeforms paused in their advance as their Existence felt fear!