Infinite Mana in the Apocalypse - Chapter 4722

Capítulo 4722: It Is Not Enough I

Mayhem.

It was a word that held weight far beyond its simple syllables. It stood for disorder and destruction, of systems breaking down and certainties crumbling into dust. It was the promise that nothing built could last forever, that every structure would eventually fall, that every order would eventually dissolve into the formless chaos from which it emerged.

Many entities feared mayhem.

They built walls against it. They constructed hierarchies and laws and Principles designed to hold it at bay. They convinced themselves that through sufficient power, sufficient order, sufficient control, they could keep the chaos outside their domains forever.

They were wrong.

In the end, everything flowed toward chaos and entropy.

This was not nihilism. This was simply the fundamental truth of existence itself. Order required energy to maintain. Structure demanded constant effort to preserve. But chaos? Chaos was the default state. Chaos was what remained when effort ceased. Chaos was patient in a way that order could never be, because chaos did not need to do anything except wait.

And chaos always won eventually.

It was why, as much as many underestimated THE Primordial Chaos and did not speak of him in the same sentences as THE Creature and THE Living Paradox, his power was obscene and unfathomably real.

THE Creature represented existence itself, the foundational truth that things were.

THE Living Paradox represented contradiction, the impossible truth that things could be and not be simultaneously.

But THE Primordial Chaos represented the end state of all things. The destination toward which every river of existence inevitably flowed. The final answer to every question ever asked.

Entropy.

Dissolution.

The return to…formlessness.

His power did not need to be flashy. It did not need to be dramatic. It simply needed to be patient, because time itself was his ally. Every moment that passed brought all of existence one increment closer to the chaos he embodied. Every structure that formed was already in the process of falling apart. Every order that arose was already beginning to decay.

THE Primordial Chaos did not need to win battles.

He simply needed to wait for everyone else to lose.

At this time, the clearest depiction of mayhem and what chaos could do could be seen in the Wastes of THE Fallout.

Away from the heavy conflict in Muspelheim.

Away from the unmentioned and unknown and ongoing battles between THE Creature and THE Living Paradox.

In the Wastes of THE Fallout, multiple Declarations of THE Fundamental Depth entities permeated as the battle between THE First Leader, Gilgamesh, and Lumivara unfolded.

The landscape itself had been torn apart by the conflict!

What had once been regions of ash and volcanic flame now bore the scars of conceptual warfare. Craters the size of small realms marked where Declarations had clashed against Declarations. Rifts in space itself showed where the weight of Fundamental Depth had proven too heavy for reality to bear. The air shimmered with residual authority, fragments of power that had nowhere to go now that the Declarations that spawned them had been shattered.

Lumivara stood at the center of a devastated plain, her nine tails spread behind her like broken banners of war.

No.

Not nine tails.

Seven.

Two had been severed earlier in the battle, their stumps still leaking crimson gold blood that hissed where it touched the corrupted ground. Her radiant humanoid form, which had always blazed with the brilliance of captured starlight, now flickered with the uncertainty of a flame. Her fox-like features, usually so sharp and beautiful, were twisted with pain and defiance.

And across her chest, a huge gash wept crimson gold blood in steady rivers.

The Way of Unity had been carved into her flesh alongside the physical damage, and that conceptual wound rejected the union of her very cells. Her body wanted to heal. Her Principles demanded regeneration. But the Declaration that had inflicted the injury insisted that what had been separated could not be rejoined.

Around her, Declarations of her own blazed in defensive formation.

“My Light shall blind all who seek to harm me.”

“My radiance burns with the fury of Mana.”

“Within my presence, darkness cannot approach.”

Each Declaration was a masterwork of Fundamental Depth authority. Each one would have been enough to annihilate armies of lesser entities. Each one represented the culmination of eons of cultivation, of refinement, of pushing the Way of Light to heights that few had ever achieved.

Her power should have been more than enough to wipe the floor with any common THE Fundamental Depth entity.

But she did not face a common one now!

She faced Gilgamesh!

THE First Leader stood forty meters away, his form radiating authority that predated civilizations. Golden hair shone upon a face that had worn crowns when crowns still meant something. His armor of paradoxical gold and obsidian shifted between states of being, solid and ethereal simultaneously, as if unable to decide what it truly was.

Around him, crimson gold weapons floated in perfect formation.

Swords and spears and axes and halberds, each one carrying heavy and immense Declarations of its own. They orbited his form like planets around a sun, waiting to be called upon, eager to taste blood once more.

One spear in particular leaked crimson gold luminescence.

Lumivara’s blood.

The blood from the wound across her chest.

And the Declarations that surrounded Gilgamesh made her own seem like children’s prayers by comparison.

“All treasures belong to the King.”

“That which is divided shall be unified under my authority.”

“Paradox bends to my will, for I am THE First Leader.”

“Unity is inevitable within my presence.”

The Way of Unity, backed by Paradox itself, pressed against Lumivara’s defenses with weight that made the air itself groan. Where her Light pushed outward in radiant defiance, his Unity pulled inward with gravitational certainty. Where her Declarations insisted on separation and independence, his Declarations demanded convergence and submission.

His forces stood at a distance, eighteen Early Creatures with their obsidian spears and paradoxical armor.

They did not make a move.

They did not need to!

Their Leader faced Lumivara himself, and that was more than sufficient.

Gilgamesh looked at the wounded fox with eyes that held something almost like respect. Almost like pity. His expression was calm, measured, the face of a king who had seen countless enemies fall before him and would see countless more.

“It seems you are much more familiar with Mana than the others were.”

His voice carried across the devastated plain, each word weighted with ancient authority.

“The ones we captured, the ones whose heads now adorn my subordinates’ spears, they had only the faintest glimmers of that blue-gold thread. But you…” He tilted his head, studying her. “You are saturated with it. It flows through your Way like blood through veins.”

He stepped forward, and the weapons around him shifted in response.

“Are you close with Osmont? Do you remember him fondly?”

The questions were casual, conversational, as if they were not standing in the aftermath of a battle that had reshaped the landscape.

“How would he react should you perish here? Should you be collapsed entirely, your Way scattered across the Wastes like ash in the wind?”

He paused, and something that might have been genuine consideration crossed his features.

“It would be a shame to collapse you. Let us not do that. I have no issue with you personally, little fox. You are merely a means to an end.”

His hand reached out, and the blood-stained spear floated to his grasp.

“So just… call upon Osmont. Tell him you need him to come save you. As a Leader, he will come.”

His eyes met hers, and for a moment, something ancient and heavy passed between them.

“All of us Leaders… we bear this heaviness and weight. We cannot abandon those who follow us, even when wisdom demands we stay away. It is our blessing and our curse. Call him, and this can end without your collapse.”

…!

Lumivara looked at this ancient king, this being of incomprehensible power who had cornered her so thoroughly.

She looked at the blood leaking from her chest, at the stumps where two of her tails had been, at the devastation that surrounded them both.

She patted her chest.

The movement sent fresh waves of agony through her existence, but she did it anyway. Her hand came away coated in crimson gold blood, thick and luminescent and carrying the essence of her Way within it.

And she wiped that blood across her face.

Like war paint!

Like a declaration of her own!

Her eyes met Gilgamesh’s, and despite the pain, despite the exhaustion, despite the overwhelming certainty of her defeat, they blazed with defiance that refused to dim.

“Just fight, you motherfucker.”

…!