Chapter 4016: A Stick! IV

Off to the side, Sigrid smiled and shook her head at the exchange between Noah and Titano.

Yet her amusement faded as her thoughts turned to Duke Gwendolyn and her recent actions. The betrayal of trust, the casual trading of loyalties...it left a bitter taste that wouldn’t fade.

Her contemplation was shattered by a sound that made reality itself step back in recognition.

"ROAAAAR!"

The bellow echoed through the winding halls with force that created visible distortions in the paradoxical space. But more terrifying than the volume was how that single voice immediately multiplied, becoming five distinct roars that harmonized into something that challenged sanity itself.

The aura that followed made the air thick with wrongness...five Inevitabilities, each one radiating power equivalent to an Honored Living Existence, were rushing toward their position.

Thessaly and Altheon immediately shifted into combat readiness, their accumulated authority beginning to manifest. Titano cracked his knuckles with sounds like mountains breaking, his expression brightening with anticipation.

"Brother," he said cheerfully, "I will take care of these and gift them to you as well!"

But Noah raised his hand in a stopping gesture. "No... let me try these ones."

The silence that followed was deafening. Even Sigrid turned to look at him with barely concealed concern. She opened her mouth as if to question his decision, then closed it with visible effort. He was an Early Creature...he could probably do things that defied comprehension. She had to trust that.

Titano, however, had no such restraint. He blinked his massive eyes and said with blunt honesty, "Brother, you have no muscles like Titano and your figure is scrawny. Will you be okay?"

Noah turned to face the giant with an expression of patient instruction. "Brother, sometimes those who are truly rich can look scrawny, but they could buy a weapon that makes them more powerful than anyone else. And what I will use today is a truly terrifying weapon."

As he spoke, something materialized in his hand.

A stick.

Just... a stick.

The Rearing Stick of the Early Creature, the Goad, appeared with no fanfare, no blazing light, no reality-warping presence. To everyone watching, it looked like Noah had just summoned a piece of white wood, the kind of thing one might use to poke a campfire.

Yet Noah carried it forward with the bearing of a knight carrying a legendary blade!

He stepped ahead of Titano, Sigrid, and the others, positioning himself as the vanguard against the approaching horror. The image was simultaneously glorious and absurd...a man with a stick preparing to face five Inevitabilities.

They emerged from the twisted space like nightmares given form and purpose:

|One Inevitability turned to Five Inevitabilities Detected: The Writhing Paradox of Unending Reach|

|Classification: Each entity possesses power equivalent to Honored Living Existence|

|Form: Roiling masses of tentacles that exist in multiple states simultaneously|

|Warning: Paradoxical nature allows them to be everywhere and nowhere until observed|

The creatures that approached defied rational observation. They were masses of tentacles, but the tentacles weren’t quite physical...they existed in states of possibility until the moment they chose to strike. Each one possessed thousands of writhing appendages that phased in and out of reality, their surfaces inscribed with paradoxes that blazed!

Noah moved forward with his stick raised, and the battle that followed would be carved into the memories of all who witnessed it.

The first Inevitability struck with tentacles that existed in seventeen different possible positions simultaneously. Normal defense would have been impossible...how could one block an attack that came from every direction including some that didn’t exist?

But the Goad didn’t operate according to normal principles.

PAH!

Noah’s stick swept through the air with casual precision, and somehow, impossibly, it connected with all seventeen possibilities at once. The tentacles recoiled with visible shock, their paradoxical nature momentarily forced into a single, painful reality.

|The Goad’s Authority is forcing a singular truth upon paradoxical existence|

The second and third Inevitabilities attacked in coordination, their tentacles weaving through space in patterns that created tears in causality itself. Noah’s body, despite his enhanced capabilities, simply wasn’t fast enough to dodge everything. Several tentacles struck him, their touch carrying paradoxes that should have unmade him at the conceptual level.

Should have.

|Passive Defense Activated: The Kleos Glyph of the Creature’s First Lesson shines brightly.|

|Paradoxical attacks recognized and rejected. Your existence refuses to acknowledge contradictions.|

HUUUM!

The Kleos Glyph on his forehead blazed with white-gold light, and the paradoxes simply... didn’t take.

They struck his form and dissolved, their contradictions unable to take root in someone who carried the unified authority of all ten Living Existences in the form of a single glyph!

A single...Glyph!

Noah pressed forward, his stick moving in patterns that looked almost casual but carried devastating purpose. Each strike forced understanding upon the Inevitabilities.

PAH! - "You exist because you shouldn’t, but that’s not strength, it’s confusion"

PAH! - "Your paradoxes are questions, not answers"

PAH! - "You fear definition because definition would reveal your emptiness"

...!

The fourth and fifth Inevitabilities tried to overwhelm him through sheer mass, thousands of tentacles converging from every possible angle. Noah’s defensive capabilities were tested to their limits...he took hits that sent him flying, tentacles that wrapped around his limbs, attacks that would have torn apart Prime Living Existences and injured weak Honored Ones!

But he endured because a single Kleos Glyph shone again and again. And more than endured...he educated.

His stick never stopped moving, each contact delivering truths that the Inevitabilities couldn’t reject or ignore. The battle wasn’t about physical dominance but about forcing these paradoxical beings to confront the fundamental nature of their existence.

The observers watched in shocked silence as Noah, armed with nothing but a stick, systematically broke down five Honored-level threats!

Altheon’s ancient eyes were wide with disbelief. Thessaly had actually stopped hovering, her fairy form dropping to the ground in shock. Sigrid watched with a mixture of awe and something deeper...a recognition that she was witnessing something unprecedented.

But it was Titano’s reaction that was most profound. The giant watched his scrawny brother beat cosmic horrors with a stick, and his simple mind reached a profound conclusion: being rich meant having the best tools!

The battle reached its climax as all five Inevitabilities, educated beyond their ability to maintain paradoxical existence, collapsed into quivering masses.

They didn’t die...death would have been mercy. Instead, they lay there, tentacles twitching weakly, trembling from the beating delivered by a simple stick.

Noah floated above them grandly, the Goad still held in his hand like a teacher’s pointer after a particularly effective lesson. He had given his first true combat lesson, and the Inevitabilities had been thoroughly educated.

The silence that followed was broken only by the weak whimpering of existential horrors that had just learned truths they would have preferred to remain ignorant of.

Noah looked down at them with satisfaction. The Rearing Stick had proven its worth beyond question. And this was only at one percent of its true power!

He couldn’t help but wonder...what would happen when he could access more!

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