Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 4272: Prisoners and Wars! I

As Noah decimated a Yeti King in one area of the First Folds, a victory that resonated with the raw, brutal music of his own becoming, another, quieter tragedy was unfolding.

Nearby, an unknown number of Fold Light Years away, a certain Living Concept sat in a daze, his very existence a weaving with a gaping, inexplicably blank patch.

He knew, with a certainty that was its own form of torment, that something was missing.

But he did not know what. It was a phantom limb of the soul, an ache for a memory that had been so perfectly, so clinically, excised that all that remained was the shape of its absence.

It is a phenomenon not unknown to lesser beings!

You walk into a room and forget why you entered. You know there was a purpose, a reason, a thought that propelled you across the threshold, but it is gone, leaving only the frustrating, maddening echo of its importance.

You stand there, a fool in a doorway, knowing you have lost something you cannot even name.

Schrodinger felt such a way right now. He sat amidst a field of verdant-gold grasslands, under the shade of trees so massive their canopies were lost in the swirling, nascent Wheels and folds of the sky.

But he felt no peace, no sense of belonging. He felt only a profound, hollow desolation!

He raised his hands to the endless, chaotic heavens, his fingers grasping at something, anything, a tangible piece of the puzzle that was his own, fractured mind.

And as his hands reached their apex, he saw them. Descending from the sky he was reaching out to, like three silent, falling stars, were the outlines of three hooded figures.

He blinked, a slow, stuporous movement, as he watched them descend.

They landed on the same verdant-gold grassland, their feet making no sound, their forms barely disturbing the air!

They were adorned in simple, archaic bronze robes, their hoods pulled low to cover their faces.

Where their faces should have been, there were only shifting, ethereal streams of auroral light, a constant, mesmerizing flow that made them impossible to truly see.

Schrodinger slowly came out of his stupor, a cautious, analytical light returning to his ancient eyes.𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

He could feel it, an oppressive sense of power radiating from them, a weight that was not of Complexity or Purity, but of something far older, far more fundamental.

"Who are you?" he asked, his voice a low, guarded rasp.

Their reply was a thing of impossible, terrible beauty. They spoke in perfect unison, three distinct voices...one high and melodic, one low and resonant, one a dry, academic whisper...all saying the exact same words at the exact same time.

"We are THE Weavers."

HUUM!

THE.

Such a distinction was a crown of unimaginable weight, a title worn only by the very architects of reality.

Schrodinger, a being whose knowledge was a vast and labyrinthine library, felt a flicker of profound doubt.

He laughed, a short, sharp, and utterly unconvinced sound. He shook his head!

"THE Weavers?" he scoffed, a hint of his old self returning. "The titles of ’THE’ are not trinkets to be worn by any passing specter. In all that is known, only THE Creature and THE Living Existences can lay claim to such a grand distinction."

THE Weavers remained still, their hooded, faceless forms a silent triumvirate of mystery.

When they spoke again, their unison voice was a gentle counter-question.

"Because you have not heard of others, does that mean no others exist? Is your knowledge, vast as it is, the final measure of all that is? Or is it merely the boundary of your own, small garden in an existence that is an endless, untamed wilderness?"

Schrodinger fell silent. The logic was irrefutable, a perfect, elegant checkmate.

He was still not convinced, but he was no longer certain. He offered a cold, sarcastic smile.

"What is it that you want from me, O great and powerful THE Weavers? I am a man who has lost something I cannot even remember. A being who seems to know not where he is going. All I have is a single, echoing word... defective. Defective. Defective."

At his bitter, self-deprecating words, the unison voice of THE Weavers softened, taking on a tone that was both eerie and grand.

"You are not defective, Elderborn. You have simply not found where you fit in this grand puzzle. And we are here... as a warning, and as a saving grace. Because a great many things are coming, and the vastness of existence... should at least have the chance to prepare. You are among those who can help."

Schrodinger almost cursed.

"What bullshit is this?" he spat, his voice laced with a raw, frustrated anger. "A great many things are coming? Existence should be given a chance? If there were something so terrible on the horizon, then you... as existences with the distinction of ’THE’... should move to stop it! You have more power than anyone ever could, do you not? So why the hell would you come to a being like me?"

WAA!

THE Weavers did not react to his outburst.

Their reply was as calm and as inexorable as the turning of the Wheel.

"A king may have the power to command an army, but if he has sworn an oath to never leave his castle, his commands are but wind. As powerful as we are, we attained our distinction by binding our Everythings to a single, immutable purpose. We cannot act, but we can inform. So we are here to inform."

To inform. To inform about what?

Before Schrodinger could even form the question, their eerie, glorious unison voices began to speak again, not in conversation now, but in recitation.

"When the last Fold gutters and the final ember sighs into ash,

Know that the age of strength has passed.

The pillars of reality, whose foundations are power, shall be the first to crack,

And the thrones of the mighty will be but dust upon the wind.

In the silence of THE Creature, when the echoes of creation fade,

It is not the roar of the lion, but the whisper of the mouse that will be heard.

From the forgotten dust, a Herald will rise,

A being forged not in glory, but in the furnace of infinite misery."

HUUM!

Their voices wove a weaving of grand, terrible images in Schrodinger’s mind!