Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse novel Chapter 4059

Chapter 4059: Everything has its uses! II

Before she could respond, five distant roars echoed through the twisted passages. The sound of Inevitabilities hunting, their cries carrying paradoxes that made them simultaneously near and far, approaching and retreating.

Schrodinger didn’t even glance in their direction, his focus remaining entirely on Diviticus.

“Eons ago, in the Earliest Folds, even Early Creatures…living ones, not animated corpses, could not enter the Loom. Living Existences tried and were turned away or transformed beyond recognition. Fold Dwellers who attempted it simply ceased, edited out of possibility.”

He began walking again, forcing Diviticus and the others to follow as the roars grew closer.

“Now you have obtained a corpse. Not even a complete one, but fragments held together by your will and paradox. Do you think this grants you the power of a genuine Early Creature? Do you believe you can walk across the Folds unfettered? That nothing can kill you now?”

His voice carried no mockery, only the patient tone of someone explaining why fire burns to a child who had just been mesmerized by pretty flames!

“Do not be drunk on power, O Diviticus. That intoxication has killed more beings than all the wars in existence combined.”

BOOM!

Five Inevitabilities burst from the twisted space ahead, their forms writhing masses of tentacles that existed in states that predated the separation between is and isn’t. Several Dukes immediately prepared to engage them, paradoxical energies beginning to manifest.

But Schrodinger raised one hand, a simple gesture that carried absolute command. Everyone stopped.

He floated forward alone, approaching the Inevitabilities with the confidence of someone greeting old friends.

Diviticus clenched her fists, her expression ashen. She was being lectured, corrected, put in her place…and in front of everyone!

The humiliation burned worse than any attack could have.

Yet what happened next made that humiliation transform into something else entirely.

The Inevitabilities’ tentacles, which had been writhing with hunger and paradox, suddenly stilled. They moved toward Schrodinger not with aggression, and instead with something that looked impossibly like recognition. Then, even more impossibly, friendliness!

Schrodinger reached out and stroked the tentacles as one might pet a beloved dog. The gesture was so casual, so natural, that it took several moments for the observers to process what they were seeing.

This was just the tip of the power Schrodinger possessed…or so they thought!

As he continued stroking the paradoxical appendages, Schrodinger turned back toward Diviticus.

“Let me tell you something about power. Actually, let me show you. No story this time.” His smile contained layers that contradicted themselves. “Go ahead. Use your newfound strength that you draw from that Little Corpse, and attack me.”

The challenge buzzed the air like a paradox waiting to resolve.

Diviticus felt her confidence evaporate. She looked toward Duke Elagabalus and the others, seeking support or perhaps hoping someone would intervene. But when her gaze met theirs, they turned away with the synchronized precision of those who wanted no part in what was about to happen.

She sighed, frustration mixing with apprehension, and turned back to face Schrodinger.

Her body began to seethe with terrifying obsidian waves mixed with white radiance…the paradoxical power of death given motion, authority that could unmake existence itself.

She gathered this power, feeling it course through her with intensity that made her feel truly invincible. This was the might of an Early Creature, even if borrowed from a corpse. Surely this would-

BZZT!

At that moment.

Schrodinger turned around and pulled out a leaf.

A small, white leaf that looked like it might have fallen from any tree in any garden in any world.

The moment it appeared, Diviticus felt her entire existence constrict.

The power that had been surging through her didn’t just diminish.

It vanished completely, as if it had never existed. Her body, suddenly bereft of the authority that had been supporting it, became impossibly heavy.

She fell to the obsidian-crimson floor with a sound like a sack of mundane matter hitting stone. No grace, no power, just gravity asserting itself on something that had forgotten it was subject to such basic forces!

…!

Schrodinger sighed, the sound containing genuine disappointment rather than mockery.

He put the leaf away…just tucked it into his tattered robes as if it were a handkerchief, and floated down to help her up.

His hands were gentle as he raised her from the floor, steadying her as strength slowly returned to her limbs.

“Just because you’ve gained power,” he said, his voice kind despite the lesson’s harshness, “doesn’t mean you can do everything. Even a tiny leaf like that can bring down what traces of an Early Creature’s power you’ve bound yourself to.”

He continued supporting her as feeling returned to her extremities.

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