Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 4984: THE Beholder II

Two beings of tremendous authority clashing in ways that would reshape the regions around them.

THE Creature, who was old by the standards of complex life but young by THE Beholder’s measure. Horus, that Primordial Architect whose eyes had branded countless beings with crimson insignias of servitude. Their conflict would determine much about the current age, would establish hierarchies and eliminate possibilities and matter tremendously to everyone invested in the outcomes of such things.

THE Beholder turned his gaze away from that fight and did nothing.

He was only an observer. If he stared for too long, beings like Horus at THE Second Scale of Existence might sense his attention. And with how simple-minded such creatures were despite their power, they would want to know everything regarding him.

They would pursue answers and demand explanations and attempt to incorporate his existence into their frameworks of understanding. They would ruin his life of doing absolutely nothing, which was the only life he had ever wanted or needed.

Some of those that had inherited aspects of his weavings understood this truth. THE Mnemonic Leviathan, that vast repository of knowledge that hoarded information without acting upon it. THE Baboon of Wisdom, that ancient being who had gathered understanding across eons while carefully avoiding the application of that understanding toward any particular goal.

They held the same nature as him in diluted form, observers who encompassed tremendous knowledge and did nothing with it because doing nothing was its own form of existence.

He wondered what they were up to nowadays.

Probably nothing, if they had maintained their natures properly.

As he thought this, THE Beholder’s singular awareness turned toward a region of THE Wastes where an Undivided One and three Formless Terrors were about to engage in conflict. The Undivided One was massive, its form writhing with authority that would have impressed beings who cared about such things.

The Formless Terrors were ancient by the standards of complex life, their churning masses dense with absorbed corruption and Infinities from THE Prima Indifferentia.

THE Beholder’s gaze was disappointed as it settled upon them.

It was like watching lesser life forms do things with their weavings that were disappointing when they could be doing so much more. The Undivided One postured and threatened. The Formless Terrors hungered and prepared to consume. Neither understood what they truly were in the existential sense, what accidents of differentiation their existences represented, what brief flickers of complexity they embodied in the vast darkness of existence’s true duration.

His gaze was about to pass by them, to continue its drift toward other observations more worthy of his attention, when something unexpected occurred.

HUUM!

Existence flickered around the region.

From the corrupted Infinities permeating the area, from the blue-gold light that had spread across so much of Observable Existence in recent times, there was the emergence of a figure that made THE Beholder’s singular awareness sharpen with interest for the first time in quite a while.

A single man surrounded by Infinities.

And a dog.

THE Beholder observed the newcomer with the patient attention he had cultivated across billions of years of practice. The man was not particularly large by the standards of beings who valued size.

His form was humanoid in configuration, wrapped in blue-gold flames and orbited by Absolute Seals that spoke of tremendous authority. But what drew THE Beholder’s interest was not the man’s physical presence.

It was what burned within him.

Infinities. True Infinities, not the pale imitations that most beings called infinite when they really meant very large. These were expressions extending in sequences without termination, genuine endless progressions that echoed the nature of that age of nothingness when potential had no boundary. And mixed with those Infinities, weavings of Paradox that spoke of impossibilities made manifest, contradictions given form and function.

THE Beholder’s awareness processed what he observed with the detached analysis that characterized his nature.

This should be one of those that held the Keys of Civilization. THE First Tongue, if the linguistic architecture of his Infinities was any indication. And Paradox as well, though the paradoxical weavings seemed borrowed or shared rather than natively claimed.

Interesting.

But what exactly did this thing want to do here?

A pair of Formless Terrors and an Undivided One had turned their attention toward the newcomer, their hunger and hostility redirecting from each other toward this new arrival who had interrupted their conflict. The man was not weak, certainly. His Infinities and his Absolute Depth made him formidable by the standards of complex life. But against an Undivided One and three Formless Terrors simultaneously, even formidable might prove insufficient.

THE Beholder prepared to observe what would likely be an educational demonstration of how complex life handled overwhelming odds.

Perhaps he would fight and fall and provide THE Beholder with data about how Infinity was at this time.

And then existence flickered again.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

Terrifying eruptions of Absolute Depth began flaring one after another behind the newcomer.

THE Beholder’s singular awareness, which had remained calm across billions of years of observation, actually sharpened with genuine surprise as dozens of Absolute monstrosities began appearing in the space surrounding the Infinity-bearer. They were massive things, titans of coiled tentacles and crystalline plates and writhing aggression. Some appeared fortified like living fortresses. Others appeared predatory like nightmares given form. Still others glowed with gentle light that spoke of preservation rather than destruction.

The dog that had arrived with the newcomer circled happily among the emerging Absolutes, apparently unbothered by the tremendous authorities manifesting around it.

The Undivided One and the Formless Terrors paused in their redirected aggression, their primitive awareness recognizing that the situation had changed dramatically.

The newcomer looked toward them with coldness that held no fear, no concern, no uncertainty about what would happen next.

What was this now?

THE Beholder observed with interest that approached genuine engagement, his singular awareness processing the implications of what he witnessed. Very rarely did he get a chance to observe Infinity in action, to watch how beings wielding that authority actually applied it toward goals and conflicts and demonstrations of power.

Infinity was one of the things that had held glimmers of itself present in that age of nothingness, one of the few concepts that connected the current age to what had come before.

Part of the reason he had moved to begin observing recent events was because of the spread of Infinities across Observable Existence. It truly made him nostalgic. Almost as if things were returning back to that age of wonder countless eons ago, when even Primordial Architects were not a thing, when complexity had not yet emerged to complicate the beautiful simplicity of pure potential.

And now he was watching someone who held Infinity demonstrate what that authority could accomplish when paired with the ambition that complex life seemed unable to abandon.

Dozens of Absolutes with Infinity burning in their foundations, all of them apparently serving this single Infinity-bearer who had emerged from corrupted proto-matter with a dog at his side.

THE Beholder settled his awareness more fully upon the scene.

For the first time in quite a while, he found himself genuinely curious about what would happen next. Not curious enough to intervene, certainly. Not curious enough to abandon his nature as pure observer. But curious enough to watch with attention he had not granted to complex life in eons.

The Undivided One roared challenge toward the newcomer.

The Formless Terrors surged forward with hunger that had consumed countless beings across their existence.

And the Infinity-bearer simply smiled with expression that held something THE Beholder recognized from his observations of complex life across the ages.

Anticipation.