Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 4709: Muspelheim I

The eyes of THE Infiniverse gleamed with interminable glory!

"When every single claim of the Oldest Paradox lies with Master, what exactly is THE Secretive Eon going to do? Collapse the concepts of The First Tongue, Existence, Paradox, and Chaos themselves?" She laughed, a sound without warmth.

"Let her believe she’ll collapse him. Let her work towards that goal. Every Absolute she helps remove is one less obstacle and one more aspect of power for Master to claim."

...!

BOOM!

Ruination nodded slowly, processing.

"That’s a compelling argument for why we should work with her. But we still don’t understand her power."

"No, we don’t."

"She has no claim over the Oldest Paradox of Existence. No connection to it whatsoever. And yet THE Primordial Chaos and THE Living Temporal couldn’t sense her in Ginnungagap." Ruination’s tone remained flat, factual. "She was standing right there, and they had no idea. Master had no idea. That’s not even abnormal. That’s something else entirely."

THE Infiniverse stopped pacing.

"What’s your point?"

"My point is that we’re making a lot of plans based on the assumption that we understand how this will play out. We don’t. We don’t know what gives her that power. We don’t know if she has an Axiom, or multiple Axioms, or something we’ve never encountered. We’re betting Master’s existence on incomplete information."

THE Infiniverse was quiet for a moment.

"You are right."

THE Infiniverse then let out a calm breath. "We’ll have a lot of time and chances with her to learn more. Master can’t directly analyze her with The First Tongue without revealing his intentions, but we can put her as the target in Creative Mode and see what we discover. And once Master uses the Fragments of THE Moirai Threads again, we can analyze her power in there without repercussions."

She straightened, her expression hardening into cold pragmatism.

"As we learn more about how she plans to take down THE Primordial Chaos, we adjust accordingly. For now, we leave that side to Master and focus on preparing forces for Muspelheim."

She began listing assets with the efficiency of a general preparing for war.

"Ra’Zan has attained THE. He’ll be critical alongside Khor, Sigrid, The First Farmer. The others are..." She paused. "Getting there. Slowly. Tor and Anaximander and THE Living Origin can’t be teleported since they’re currently out."

Her gaze sharpened.

"Master’s body that he gave you control over. Focus the teachings on Protos. Being fused with Master as his armor, his Depth has already been raised to THE Surface. Let’s push his weight and immensity higher."

She continued without pause.

"The Way of Hunger has lagged compared to Mana. Focus its Weavings on Primus Inevitabilities. If we’re entering a realm with THE Fundamental and potentially THE Absolute entities, we need an army of THE Primus Inevitabilities. Numbers that actually matter at those scales."

BOOM!

Her eyes shone with cold light.

Ruination nodded.

"Understood. I’ll begin immediately."

Then something shifted in her holographic form, her eyes spinning faster as new data flooded through the connection.

"And oh." A note of something that might have been anticipation entered her tone. "We’re making full entrance into Muspelheim right now. I’ll have much more information on its layout soon."

She paused.

"Assuming, of course, that the information doesn’t include ’there are seventeen Fundamental Depth entities waiting at the entrance to collapse anyone who enters.’"

THE Infiniverse stared at her silently. Was her sister making fucking jokes?

---

Far from THE Infiniverse.

Across Observable Existence.

In the wake of THE Fallout, there were many constraints and restrictions that came with overall existence.

Communication not being possible and teleportation not being possible was simply one of the few things that had changed. The fabric of reality had been fundamentally altered, and what was once easy had become impossible for most entities across Observable Existence.

But in existence, there was one thing that was always an exception.

Absolutes were always an exception.

---

Sand.

What made sand so special that it was used to fortify domains and military fortifications across countless civilizations throughout history? Why did soldiers stack sandbags in defensive lines during wars? Why did something as simple, as mundane, as overlooked as sand hold such profound qualities?

The answer was deceptively simple.

Sand stopped bullets.

Not through hardness. Not through density. Not through any of the conventional properties one might expect from a defensive material. Sand stopped bullets by rapidly absorbing and dissipating kinetic energy through friction, grain dilation, and energy conversion into heat and sound. It acted like a fluid that resisted sudden displacement, effectively slowing and stopping high-speed projectiles better than solid steel at high velocities.

What happened when a bullet struck sand?

The force spread out among countless grains, which rubbed and vibrated and shifted against each other, converting the bullet’s destructive power into less harmful forms. The kinetic energy didn’t disappear. It transformed. It dissipated. It spread across millions of tiny interactions until what had been a lethal projectile became nothing more than a warm piece of metal buried harmlessly in granular matter.

When hit, sand grains dilated and expanded, spreading impact pressure in all directions and resisting continuous penetration. The immense friction between grains created significant drag, rapidly slowing anything that tried to force its way through. At high speeds, sand didn’t have time to move out of the way, forcing it to act like a dense, solid-like fluid that couldn’t be easily displaced.

This was why you could slowly push your finger into sand with no resistance, but a bullet traveling at supersonic speeds hit sand like it was hitting a wall.

The extreme friction and force could break projectiles into pieces, further reducing penetration. And perhaps most remarkably of all, sand was self-healing. Disturb it, and it settled back into place. Blast a hole through it, and the surrounding grains flowed in to fill the gap. It didn’t crack. It didn’t shatter. It simply absorbed and reformed and waited for the next impact.

So mundane. So overlooked. So profoundly effective.

What if one took such seemingly simple yet unique qualities of sand and utilized authority at THE Civilizational level in a manner others could not even fathom? What if someone understood that the power to dissipate, to absorb, to spread force across countless points of contact, to reform after every assault, was not weakness but one of the most terrifying defensive capabilities in all of existence?

What if someone built their entire Way around these principles?