Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 5007: Do Not Idolize I

In the outer fringes of Alfheimr.

Space fluctuated with distortions pressing against the boundaries of this Primordial Realm, reality bending and folding as something approached from directions that normal perception could not track.

The fluctuations intensified for a moment, building toward a crescendo of spatial displacement, and then three unique figures appeared where nothing had existed moments before.

Fresh arrivals from THE Interstices!

The first was an Undivided One in humanoid form, his skin shining obsidian with depths suggesting countless eyes watching from beneath that dark surface. He stood tall and proud, adorned in a clear blue robe that contrasted sharply with his darkness, and his features held an expressiveness unusual for beings of his classification.

Where most Undivided Ones presented faces of hunger and alien intent, this one smiled with genuine enthusiasm, his radiant eyes filled with expectations.

The second was a Formless Terror whose entire body consisted of illusory crimson tentacles, but they had been arranged and compressed into a humanoid shape held together with discipline.

Both were unique among their kinds, geniuses of their own stature whose power would have put common Absolutes to shame.

Floating behind them was a woman also adorned in blue robes, but the air surrounding her carried weight of an entirely different magnitude.

She held the aura of a Primordial Architect, that intersection of differentiation and undifferentiation pressing against reality with authority accumulated since THE First Cause itself. Her presence alone made the outer fringes of Alfheimr seem to contract slightly.

Her eyes were pure white, holding no iris or pupil in any conventional sense, but within that whiteness floated blue dots resembling singularities, points of compressed authority orbiting slowly through her gaze.

Radiant white hair cascaded down her back in waves holding their own faint luminescence. She was strikingly beautiful, and really, ridiculously so!

A Primordial Architect, an Undivided One, and a Formless Terror walked into Alfheimr.

This was not the start of a bad joke but an actual reality, three beings of vastly different classifications traveling together with purpose that had brought them across Observable Existence in search of something specific.

The blue robes they shared marked them as affiliated, as belonging to something greater than their individual natures.

The Formless Terror turned toward the Primordial Architect.

"Naldine, what do your senses tell you?"

His voice emerged from somewhere within that mass of illusory appendages.

"Is the Infinity-bearer in this Primordial Realm? We have been searching to no avail for a while now, and I confess my patience grows thin despite my best efforts to maintain it."

The Primordial Architect, Naldine, looked ahead with gaze piercing through layers of reality that her companions could not perceive.

The outer fringes of Alfheimr stretched before them in configurations of light and energy unique to this realm, forests of crystallized potential rising toward skies holding colors that had not fully differentiated into specific hues. Traces of authority lingered everywhere, remnants of beings who had passed through this space across eons of accumulated history.

And among those traces, faint but unmistakable, glimmers of Infinity pulsed with blue-gold light.

But they were old. Residual. The echoes of presence rather than presence itself.

Naldine shook her head with a motion carrying finality.

"He should not be here. He was here, but no more."

Her voice emerged cold and precise.

"Otherwise the pull of Infinity here would be much greater than what I perceive. What remains is merely what he left behind, traces of passage rather than indication of current location."

As she spoke, she raised one hand before her with deliberate slowness. On her palm, glimmers of Infinite Absolute Seals shimmered brightly.

She had been collecting these fragments throughout their journey, gathering pieces of the Infinity-bearer’s scattered influence like a hunter gathering tracks left by prey they had not yet glimpsed.

The eyes of the Undivided One, Arthur, shone brilliantly. His obsidian features shifted with expression holding something approaching reverence.

"The adversity that breaks all others shall forge him. The hardship that ends all paths shall begin his. The Scales demand what the Scales demand, and he shall pay in currencies that have not yet been minted."

His words emerged with cadence of recitation.

"Three times shall he face the mirror of undoing. Three times shall he choose between becoming and unbecoming. Three times shall the answer be the same, and three times shall the answer be different."

The crystallized trees seemed to lean away from his voice, as if even the environment of Alfheimr recognized the significance of what he spoke.

"In the end, which is also the beginning, the Infinite shall stand before the Undefined. And only one shall remain to tell the tale that no one shall hear."

Arthur paused, his obsidian features shifting into a smile holding genuine amusement.

"This is an Echo of First Cause."

...!

The words he had uttered were heavy! But Arthur laughed after speaking them, the sound emerging bright and vibrant from his humanoid form.

"Haha! Do you think the Undefined that will stand before the Infinite is me? The Great Arthur!"

He spread his arms wide, blue robes billowing with the motion despite the absence of wind.

"We have been musing about this Echo since we first heard it, and I still do not know what much of it means. But I am more and more curious about the Infinity-bearer with each passing moment. If he can just show me how he utilizes Infinity and makes it do all the things he is making it do, all the wonders he accomplishes that we can only observe from afar..."

His eyes actually held a fervent light. He revered Infinity far too much, and that reverence colored everything he said about the one currently conducting it across Observable Existence.

Naldine’s gaze turned toward him with coldness pressing against his enthusiasm like ice against flame.

"Do not idolize him too much."

Her voice cut through his fervor with precision.

"In the grand scheme of existence, I consider him a fool due to his actions. Why spread Infinity across Observable Existence just because he has it? What purpose does such generosity serve when the recipients of that generosity become competitors for resources that should remain concentrated?"

...!