Chapter 4995: Sensation II
Chapter 4995: Sensation II
Endless blue had bloomed in front of him with radiance that defied description.
The color was so blinding that many beings had to instinctively turn their gazes away. THE Infiniverse shielded her jeweled eyes. RUINATION’s illusory form flickered with interference she could not control. The Primus Inevitabilities closest to Noah found their visual receptors overwhelmed by input that exceeded their capacity to process.
Even Alexander, broken and barely conscious, flinched away from light that seemed to bypass physical perception entirely and strike directly at awareness itself.
From all around, infinite rivers of blue began converging.
They came from the corrupted proto-matter surrounding them, where Noah’s Seals had saturated existence with his authority. They came from THE Infiniverse herself, whose very being was an expression of his Infinite nature. They came from the Primus Inevitabilities, whose Bounded Countable Infinity responded to their master’s command without their control.
They came from beyond this region entirely.
Rivers of blue that should not have been able to reach this place, that should have been contained by the crimson ring of fire Beowulf had established, poured in from directions that had nothing to do with physical space. They flowed along geodesic paths that transcended normal geometry, following connections that existed because Infinity itself was connected across all of Observable Existence.
Every Seal Noah had ever placed became a source.
Every being carrying or surrounded or influenced by Infinity became a tributary. Unique waves of infinity carrying the weavings of THE Primordial Paradox flowed in. Unique waves of infinity carrying the weavings of THE Living Paradox flowed in. Weavings from things Noah was not even perceiving...any Undivided One, any Formeless Terror, any Primordial Architect who currently was influenced by infinity in any way. Any weavings surrounding THE Creature, Horus...anywhere infinity shone!
Every point of Infinity across existence that was connected to his Claim began flowing toward this single moment, this single command, this single expression of will from a finite being who had finally stopped trying to contain what could not be contained.
Infinitely fast, the rivers converged.
They did not flow into Noah.
They did not pass through his existence.
They simply gathered before him, directed by his will, shaped by his intent, unified by the simple fact that he had the authority to command them and had finally learned how to use that authority properly.
The blue became a wave.
The wave became an impact.
BOOM!
It smashed onto the palm of THE Primordial Armor with force that should not have been possible from anything at THE First Scale of Existence.
And the massive hand of the Primordial Architect was actually smashed backward.
The fingers that had been reaching toward Noah and everyone he cared about jerked away from their trajectory. The palm that should have crushed everything it touched recoiled as if struck by something it had not anticipated. The arm connected to that hand bent at angles suggesting genuine physical response to force it had not expected to feel.
Beowulf’s visor oriented toward his own hand.
The platinum plates shifted with something that communicated confusion through their arrangement. THE Primordial Armor looked at the appendage that had just been struck, examining it as if checking for damage, as if verifying that what had just happened had actually happened.
Then the visor oriented toward Noah.
"..."
Then back to the hand.
Nothing should have been capable of touching him. He had demonstrated this with absolute clarity!
And yet something had touched him anyway.
Noah himself looked at his own hand with similar confusion.
The limb that had directed that impossible wave was trembling slightly. His fingers tingled with sensation that had no name, residue of endless force that had passed through his command without passing through his being.
He looked at THE Primordial Armor.
The blinding brilliance of Infinity he had conjured had already faded, leaving only the corrupted Wastes and the crimson ring of fire and the two of them staring at each other across a gap that had just become more complicated than either of them had anticipated.
A heavy silence bloomed all around.
The kind of silence that followed events no one present fully understood. The kind of silence that preceded fundamental reassessment of everything that had been assumed. The kind of silence that existed between moments when reality itself was catching up to what had just occurred!
Noah Osmont had just struck a Primordial Architect at THE Second Scale of Existence!
There was so much that he wanted to understand right away.
There was so much he wanted to feel, to examine, to break down into components he could analyze and replicate! The sensation of channeling Infinity without containing it, the experience of directing an endless sea through finite will, the implications of what he had just accomplished against something that should have been untouchable.
But he had to move rapidly!
So he went by instinct at this moment, trusting the new understanding that had bloomed within him rather than trying to force it into frameworks that might not apply anymore. Did he even still have THE Civilizational Instinctus? Did those old authorities still function now that his relationship with Infinity had fundamentally changed?
He shook his head at this and focused on that same glorious sensation of channeling Infinity.
He flashed the palm of his hand behind him.
HUUUUM!
The moment he did this, infinite instantaneous emergence of boundless blue waves of light formed a conical shape that defied conventional perception. One could not truly see their origin, as it seemed like they were coming from all around simultaneously, converging from every direction at once. But they began a few inches from Noah’s palm, crystallizing into coherent form at the point where his will gave them direction.
This endless conical radiance of blue barreled out with terrifying force toward the ring that THE Primordial Architect had established around them.
The force could not be properly placed on any certain Depth!
One could say it was at THE Surface Depth, and they would be correct.
One could say it was at THE Absolute Depth, and they would also be correct.
One could say it transcended Depth entirely, existing at scales that the classification system had never been designed to measure, and they would be most correct of all.
BOOM!
This force was so boundlessly heavy that it struck the ring Beowulf had made infinitely in the span of an instant. Not once. Not a thousand times. Infinitely. Each impact arriving simultaneously with all other impacts, sequential countable progression compressed into singular expression that hit the crimson barrier with the accumulated weight of endless strikes delivered in no time at all.
BOOM!
The ring shattered gloriously!
Fragments of crimson undifferentiation scattered across THE Wastes as the beam of blue light continued extending outward, carving a path through the corruption that had served as Beowulf’s prison. The barrier that nothing at THE First Scale should have been able to breach simply ceased to exist under the weight of what Noah had directed against it.
He did not stop to ascertain or understand how he was doing what he was doing.
His finite thoughts simply moved even faster than before, processing options and executing decisions with speed that felt natural despite being unprecedented. He tapped his fingers in a gesture that should have meant nothing but somehow meant everything, and strings of blue wrapped around Skoll, around Alexander, around THE Infiniverse, around RUINATION, around every Primus Inevitability that had accompanied him here.
Their bodies instantly became pulled by endless Infinity.
They disappeared into the horizon, following the magnificent beam of blue that stretched out into the distance, carried along its trajectory by force that moved them faster than conventional travel could have achieved. One moment they were beside Noah. The next moment they were simply gone, transported away from danger through methods that his old understanding could not have produced.
...!
In what seemed to be the span of an instant, it was only Noah and THE Primordial Architect looking at each other!
Noah’s chest rose and fell with breathing that came not from exertion or tiredness, but simply from the surreal sensation of it all. Everything that had just happened, everything that was still happening, everything that his finite mind was processing while his infinite authority waited for further direction. The combination created a state he had never experienced before!
He looked at THE Primordial Architect who was looking back at him.
Beowulf’s visor communicated something that transcended confusion now. There was genuine amazement in the arrangement of platinum plates!
And then THE Primordial Armor began to laugh!