Chapter 3986: The Blade of a Shore! II

War.

War never changes.

Across the infinite expanse of existence, from the smallest conflicts between neighboring worlds to the cosmic struggles that determined the fate of entire Omniverses, the fundamental nature of war remained constant!

It was bloody. It was brutal. It was the crucible in which civilizations were tested and found either worthy of continuation or destined for the ash heap of forgotten history.

There were many different types of wars, with results that painted reality in shades of crimson and despair.

Death and decimation followed in war’s wake like faithful hounds, devouring everything that dared to stand in their path!

Some peace-loving souls would claim that there were no clear winners in such conflicts, that victory was an illusion maintained by those who counted corpses instead of measuring the cost to the soul.

But those naive idealists understood nothing of the true nature of power! Those peaceful hippies knew nothing.

War was bloody, yes. War was heavy with consequences that echoed across eons, certainly.

But it absolutely held victors...beings who stood atop countless corpses with the authority to defecate upon the remains of their enemies and choose to write history according to their will because they had won.

They had survived. They had conquered.

Those were the true victors, the ones who shaped reality according to their vision because they possessed the strength to impose their interpretation of events upon existence itself!

The ones who won wars most often rewrote history to their favor, transforming desperate struggles into glorious campaigns, brutal necessities into noble sacrifices, systematic extermination into righteous cleansing.

History belonged to the victorious, and the victorious could make it say whatever they deemed appropriate for their legacy.

So there were wars between conscious beings who understood concepts like mercy, honor, and strategic withdrawal.

And then...there were wars with Dead Existences.

They... had very different ideas about what victory entailed, concepts that challenged every assumption about conflict and resolution!

For them, victory was not conquest...it was consumption. It was digestion. It was not the imposition of will upon the defeated. It was the complete erasure of the very concept of defeat through the systematic elimination of everything capable of experiencing it!

When Dead Existences waged war, they sought to ensure that the very notion of opposition ceased to exist...

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The War for the tear in the Temporal Folds and the Dead Existences that had emerged from realms of ending was unfolding on a scale that challenged comprehension itself.

Each point of contact between Life and Death produced results that rippled outward through dimensions, effects that occurred by the thousands simultaneously across a battlefield measured in light-years.

To truly understand the magnitude of what was transpiring, one had to narrow their focus to single points of conflict and work outward toward the grander scope of war.

The mind...even one enhanced by transcendent power, could not process the totality of such violence without being driven to madness by its sheer immensity!

This was what Noah was doing now as he observed the eerie and unfathomably silent Dead Existences rush outward from their breach in reality.

His enhanced perception focused on select points of impact, using them as windows through which to comprehend the broader patterns of systematic annihilation that unfolded around him.

Even as he concentrated on these tactical observations, his Refined Early Living Existential Glyph of Loot pulsed with steady rhythm, silently drawing golden bubbles of potential toward his position.

The spheres of compressed opportunity flowed from multiple sources...both the Living Existences who fought with desperate courage and the Dead Existences whose very destruction created new forms of valuable essence.

War, for all its horror, remained the most efficient generator of loot that existence had ever devised for him!

Among those he chose to observe, Noah began with the Living Origins who formed the backbone of Duke Gwendolyn’s forces.

His gaze settled upon an Honored Living Origin whose appearance spoke to authority given form and purpose. She wore pristine white robes that seemed to drink in the chaotic energies around her and transform them into patterns of perfect purpose, while nine white halos rotated around her head.

She appeared before a Dead Existence that resembled an apathetic skeletal orangutan, its massive frame radiating the kind of indifference that came from experiencing eons of unending torment!

The Living Origin shone with glory that made the temporal rivers flow faster. Behind her, a massive Tower of Origin flashed into existence.

But this was no simple tower like those forged by Originus Venerant entities!

This structure blazed with complexity that expressed countless intricate branches formed across its primary trunk, each one representing a different aspect of Origin that had been explored and mastered.

Explored. Mastered.

This was the mark of one who had achieved the Branching Ascendancy Realm, the vast stage that existed beyond Originus Venerant where beings learned to forge towers that incorporated multiple truths while maintaining their central focus.

Multiple truths...with a central focus!

The Branching Ascendancy Realm was itself divided into three distinct stages, each marking different levels of mastery and understanding.

The first stage, known as Initial Branching, occurred when a being successfully forged their first three branching towers from their central concept...if their main weaving was Origin, they might create branches for Origin of Fire, Origin of Light, and Origin of Time, each maintaining the fundamental nature of Origin while expressing it through different applications.

This was where Prime Living Existences stood most of the time. Initial Branching!

The second stage, Mature Branching, required the formation of nine complete branches, creating what was called...a Full Conceptual Tree!

This was where most Honored Living Existences found themselves, having achieved enough branches to gain resistances in multiple areas while forging their own unique interpretations of their central truth.

The third and most rarified stage was Perfect Branching, achieved when a being successfully created 27-81 branches...a Complete Branching Tower that could then be transformed through transcendent effort into something even greater- a Fold Garden.

A pocket dimension where their understanding of their central concept could be given physical form and used to nurture growth that transcended everything else.

The Branching Ascendancy Realm! Initial Branching, Mature Branching, Complete Branching!

The Honored Living Origin before him clearly possessed a Mature Branching Tower, her mastery evident in the way 9 branches spread from her central trunk in patterns that resembled a glorious Tree of Existence!

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