Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse

Chapter 3768 Fold Dwellers I

Absolute Fictional Transcendence had quieted.

Its brilliance dimmed after constant, heavy usage.

But even in its weakened state, the world around me remained vivid. In such stillness, variations of Fables could unfurl freely, vivid, grand, and sharp with perspective.

I shifted, feeling the dark weavings of collapse against my flesh come and go, replaced with the press of denser, heavier weavings on the Middle Wheel Platform. The weight was a familiar companion now, almost forgotten.

Yes. A pressure of the Null Cradle of Fold-Breaking Ascension still made its descent all around on everyone, and yet for me, it was so effortless that it could be forgotten. As if such a thing imposed no restrictions.

Yet I did not forget the stakes.

I was not simply relying on the protective decrees of the Null Cradle, the ruling that no Existences could strike at one another here. I never relied solely on laws written by another hand. No, I relied first and foremost on my own Weavings of Existence.

Should the being Bob had brought, Thauron, the Null Monarch, prove to be a more monstrous reality than even the grandest whispers of danger, I could sever this body.

I could unravel it.

It would cost me.

The Null Cradle would be lost to me.

But the body? It was only one.

And death, despite the endless musings on its finality, did not seem one of the real possibilities unfolding today.

I let the thought drift and pass, my focus settling on what mattered.

Before me, amidst the swirling press of paradox and authority, a gleaming shard floated.

A fragment of possibility.

I stepped forward and grasped it.

The weight of it pulsed in my palm, resonant.

And before my gaze, the system responded.

| You have obtained: 1/144 Fragments of the True Source Sigil of Temporal Abyss. |

| True Source Type: Time-Aligned | | Likely Resistance: Paradoxical/Temporal |

The Sigil gleamed darkly, a coil of deep violet interwoven with stark black runes, pulsing with the slow, inevitable rhythm of inevitability deferred. Not simply Time. A darker, more dreadful shade of it, a time that swallowed itself.

Temporal Abyss.

A suitable path for the likes of me.

Behind me, Kalysta hovered, cautious, her Null Form a ribbon of tight light and tightly woven caution. She said nothing.

But she watched.

Others, the many Resplendent Monads, the scattered Primarchs, they watched too.

And most?

Most stepped away towards the other vast regions and mountains of the Middle Wheel Platform.

Their instincts sang what their conscious minds dared not voice.

Some entities were dangers you could not understand, only avoid.

The sound of slow, inevitable movement echoed out from behind.

A shadow darker than collapse bloomed as from behind…

Thauron arrived.

The Null Monarch's 1,000-inch form loomed behind him, a throne of domination and obliteration that somehow moved with impossible grace, gliding.

And then…

The towering entity knelt.

Not in deference.

In ease.

As if the very Platform and the Weavings of Existence themselves bent to accommodate his choice.

With a massive clawed hand, impossibly gentle, he plucked a Sigil Fragment of his own.

As he did, his voice rolled outward.

Soft.

Low.

Deliberate.

"Stranger," Thauron said, the name an acknowledgment of something else entirely, "you spoke of Fables."

His hand turned, letting the Sigil Fragment dance across his massive palm.

"You seem to like them. Yes?"

I glanced toward him, my fingers tightening slightly on the Fragment of Temporal Abyss, feeling its heavy resonance thrumming along my nerves.

He continued, almost idly, almost conversationally.

"Would you like to hear about a particularly unique Fable?"

He tilted his head, Null Form towering behind him.

"A Fable of a Prisoner."

…!

My gaze sharpened immediately.

Interest flickered behind my calm facade, though my face remained as it was, carved from certainty and stillness.

A Fable of a Prisoner?

Curiosity stirred, but it was not the reckless curiosity of lesser beings.

It was a controlled fire.

A flame honed to a razor's edge.

I moved, following the faint pull of my Fragment toward the next one. Tyranny laced my steps, not of weight, but of purpose. Every motion a decree.

"I find," I said, voice calm but absolute, "that here on the Middle Wheel Platform of this unique Null Cradle, we have nothing but time."

I glanced at Thauron as he moved beside me, impossibly fluid for his size, his Null Form gliding behind him without sound or resistance.

"A Fable," I continued, "is a good way to pass it."

…!

A low, rolling chuckle echoed from the Null Monarch.

He moved with me, or I with him, the two of us pulling along the untraceable weavings of Sigils.

Where others strained to find even one fragment, we moved like wolves among sleeping sheep, sensing the faintest threads of resonance in the platform's crumbling weave.

Kalysta, watching from behind, remained frozen.

Around us, others shifted even farther away.

The Primarchs.

The Monads.

They knew.

Some things were better viewed from a distance, or not at all.

I, however, did not slow.

Neither did Thauron.

Two paradoxical currents of inevitability.

He spoke again, voice rumbling, rich with heavy undertones of history and sorrow and something deeper, resignation.

"Good," he said simply. "Because it is not a Fable easily told."

He smiled, a hollow, ancient smile that belonged to a being who had seen too many endings.

And yet carried them still.

He continued to move, the two of us collecting Sigil Fragments without strain or effort, weaving through the Middle Wheel Platform with a casualness that belied the crushing pressure all around us.

As we moved, Thauron began.

The faintest hints of something larger, something more profound than the petty scurrying of entities around us, began to unfurl.

The Folds around us seemed to still, as if even they wished to hear the telling.

The Fable of a Prisoner.

And I listened.

Because stories, after all, were not merely pasts retold.

They were futures waiting to be claimed.

And I?

I was very, very good at claiming things.

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