Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 4185: Maybe! III

Maybe!

Khor seemed to be having fun while saying this word at this point.

Noah breathed out, the motion feeling strangely significant in the suspended time.

"Okay," he said, his voice a rumble of defiance against the oppressive weight of her pessimism.

"So, three potential solutions." He ticked them off in his mind, the logic cold and clear now.

"The fourth being... to become an existence with the power of THE Creature and THE Living Existences...to simply step into the Level 1 Scale of Existence myself."

The statement was absurd in its audacity, yet he delivered it with the flat certainty of someone discussing a viable career path.

Khor hummed, a small, musical sound that seemed to pull at the fabric of their isolation.

A smile bloomed on her face, bright and mischievous. "Yep," she chirped, popping the ’p’ with finality. "Also a possibility. Veeery simple to do, Outsider."

The agreement, the sheer nonchalance of her tone, made the impossibility of his statement even more pronounced.

Noah shook his head as he continued. "Okay," he conceded. "Those are the solutions. And in my hands, I have... The First Hunger," he glanced at her, "THE Living Order," a nod to an absent Sigrid, "an Early Veiled Shore, the Infinite Early Osmontian Shore, and myself..."

He paused, the weight of his own assets feeling both immense and insufficient.

"I should be able to make something out of that. After planning all the possibilities, we can only move to start doing things. So for now, let us simply move to do what is in front of us."

There was no other choice. One could not ponder existential doom forever. Eventually, one had to stand up and face it, or be consumed by it!

His other body, the one currently standing in the Transcendent Temporal Folds, was already being herded along with the forces of Origin Ama Gias, Beast Shepherdess Miki, Goliath, and the others.

They were bound for the Wandering Territories, to confront The Dead alongside the Fold Dwellers. Through that body, he would explore the solution of The First Farmer.

As for this side...

He turned his full attention to Khor, who had resumed her playful leg-swinging, her tiny feet kicking at conceptual dust motes. "What is your current level of power considered to be?" he asked, the question direct and analytical.

"I can sense all the others, quantify them, place them on a scale my existence understands. But you..."

At these words, Khor laughed, a delightful, tinkling sound that seemed to make the surrounding Collapse shimmer.

"Hmm, don’t you hold my Symbolic Heart of Hunger?" she asked, her abyssal eyes sparkling. "My power is actually very closely related to that. As I was breaking the seal, you didn’t hear anything, did you? None of those prompts that ring out and are displayed before you told you anything..."

She leaned forward, a conspiratorial glint in her eyes. "Because my power... I nurture it silently. I’ve been doing so ever since I saw Early Creatures flaunting their complexities in obscene numerical values. They are fun and interesting, but my power, my hunger... I contain it."

Noah’s eyes shone with a sharp, inquisitive light. "What do you mean?"

Khor hummed, a low, resonant note. "Early Creatures contained their power and focused it into Glyphs...authorities they could use unceasingly. It is a glorious methodology, I have to give them credit for that. You are even enjoying the terrifying effects of Glyphs from the Principle of Perpetual Harvest. It is an extremely effective and efficient use of power."

She paused, her gaze sweeping over him as if looking for something. "But... you don’t see me with thousands of Glyphs, do you?"

Her eyes, ancient and terrible, turned sharp and dangerous.

She floated up from her seated position, stretching her small frame with a languid grace that spoke of power held in perfect reserve.

"No," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper that was somehow louder than a shout. "My power is not contained in glyphs, Outsider. Mine is contained... in my heart." Her hand, delicate and pale, pressed against her chest.

"My Heart of Hunger."

HUUM!

As she spoke the words, the atmosphere in their bubble of frozen time shifted!

Nothing changed visually...there was no explosion of light, no surge of tangible energy.

And yet, her small figure suddenly seemed to possess a weight, a density that made the surrounding Collapse feel fragile. It was as if she had simply chosen to be more real, and reality had no choice but to agree!

The slight power she now let leak from her felt like it could decimate any Duke Noah had ever known.

She looked at him, a knowing smile playing on her lips. "Outsider, when you continued to forge your Heart of an Early Creature, what did you recently unlock? In your recent trip to the Earliest Folds, what did Lysander utilize to immobilize you and not even allow your existence to exert any authority?"

Noah didn’t have to think. The memory was branded into his very being. "Haki," he said, the word tasting of remembered helplessness and the promise of future dominance.

"From my heart, I unlocked the Haki of The Early Creature, Osmont."

...!

At its base, it was a tool of amplification and reduction, a way to impose his will on the battlefield.

But he knew, with a certainty that transcended logic, that he had only scratched the surface of what it could be.

His eyes sharpened with sudden, dawning comprehension. "You place all your complexity and purity into your Heart? Your Haki?"

Khor smiled and shook her head, a gesture that was both yes and no. "I put my Everything into what I am. Into Hunger. And I express it through my Haki. With it, I can do incredible things."

She floated closer, her presence a delightful paradox of immense power and childlike form.

"When you begin to dabble into Everythings, Principles, and Haki, and understand their manipulation more and more alongside your Glyphs... you will really grow wings and fly, Outsider. But come on, let me show you in practice."

Her expression turned eager. "You said there was a Dead Early Creature running rampant?"

The casualness with which she spoke of facing such a threat was a testament to the chasm of power that still separated them. Noah nodded, his mind already calculating, strategizing.

"Yeah. And she may just be the first of many Early Creatures. That Schrodinger is targeting something in the Transcendent Origin Folds as for it, he’ll likely cause more tears, though with how many Dead Existences are crossing through even now, even that may not be necessary..."

Khor nodded. "Mmm, okay. As long as you don’t put me up against something obscene, I should be able to take care of it. Mind you, Outsider, I am still a weak little thing compared to my past self. But let us see..."

Noah looked at her, at the dark, abyssal eyes that showed absolutely no worry, and prepared to bring her to the decimated Concordia.

As she began to dispel their isolated field, his mind churned.

The placement of one’s complexity, one’s purity, one’s very Everything... into their Heart.

Into their Haki. It was an interesting concept. A dangerous one!

If he were to do something similar, to focus his entire, multifaceted existence into a singular expression of his will... just how uniquely terrifying could his own Haki become?

As the thought took root, the bubble of stopped time dissolved, and the chaotic beauty of the collapsed Nullvein Gravewake Folds rushed back in.

With a final, shared glance of understanding, Noah and Khor vanished!

They left behind only the echo of their presence and the lingering weavings of Collapse.

Soon enough, the investigating Living Laws would arrive to find an entire Fold missing, and they would be left to ask a single, unanswerable question.

What the hell happened here?!