Chapter 4210: The Architects of Survival! IV

The inhabitants of the Shore, who had been watching the distant battle through a score of Malphas’s obsidian crows that had manifested and projected scenes of what was happening as if it were entertainment, looked on in a mixture of awe and wonder.

The Shore itself hummed, the sands shifting to cradle the immense weight of the corpse, the Sacred Waters pulling back from the shore as if in deference!

Noah’s main body, which had been waiting, rose from his seat of contemplation. The bloody purple flames of his Haki were not expressed on this body, his expression a mask of cold, satisfied calculation.

He walked towards the corpse, his bare feet sinking into the warm sand. He placed a hand on its obsidian, tribal-clad leg. The skin was cool, the power within it now dormant, a sleeping volcano of potential.

He had been made desperate. And in his desperation, he would not only survive; he would profite on a scale that would make the concept of greed itself feel inadequate!

Oh!

—

Power.

There was Raw Power, True Power, and then those who even hid any power!

Those who hide their true power...what drives this peculiar form of restraint?

Is it wisdom, strategy, or simply the exhaustion that comes from knowing that revealing one’s full capability invariably attracts those who must test themselves against it?

There are many cautionary tales across the Folds that detail exactly this issue!

One is of celestial young master, born with not merely a golden spoon but an entire dining set of crystallized fortune. Every resource of his sect lay at his fingertips...pills that could elevate consciousness, techniques that had been refined across millennia, teachers who had forgotten more about cultivation than most would ever learn.

He stood tall and proud, as was his birthright, his power evident in every gesture.

Then came the insult that his privilege had not prepared him for: his fiancée, arranged since before either could form memories, chose another.

Not even another young master from a rival sect, which would have at least maintained the proper order of things. No...she chose a newly arrived mortal brat who had joined the sect mere weeks ago.

Furious beyond the capacity of words to express, the young master examined this upstart. Same realm of cultivation. Same apparent level. The challenge was issued immediately...honor and dignity demanded satisfaction!

The sect gathered to witness what should have been a brief reminder of why hierarchies existed.

The fight began predictably. The young master’s techniques were flawless, each movement a testament to years of the finest instruction. The mortal brat seemed to barely keep up, dodging rather than confronting, surviving rather than competing.

Then came the laugh from this mortal brat.

"This... isn’t even my final form!"

BOOM!

The words that preceded the revelation of every hidden protagonist, every disguised master, every being who understood that true power was best kept sheathed until absolutely necessary.

The mortal brat’s actual cultivation erupted forth...not the same realm, not even close. An entire realm above, perhaps two, power that had been so perfectly hidden that even elder-level perception had been fooled.

The young master lost everything that day...his fiancée, his reputation, his understanding of how the world worked.

But perhaps most devastatingly, he lost his assumption that visible power was real power.

In the Earliest Folds, when existence still permitted visits to the imprisoned, THE Living Concept approached the cage that held THE Living Paradox.

Concept was filled with ideas...literally, as ideas were constantly being born, evaluated, and either integrated or discarded within its form.

"I’m making a ranking," THE Living Concept announced with the enthusiasm of someone who had discovered spreadsheets for the first time.

"A ranking of the power of all those in the Folds. You stand near the top, naturally. I simply came to get your opinion...who among us do you think is the most powerful?"

THE Living Paradox laughed. Not the bitter laugh of imprisonment or the cruel laugh of superiority, but the genuine amusement of someone hearing a child explain how they were definitely the tallest person in the world because they could reach the cookie jar.

"How could you all not see it?" Paradox’s voice carried through the bars that were more concept than material.

"You believe us to be the most powerful? None of you have even seen THE Creature’s true power."

The statement hung in the air like a revelation wearing camouflage.

"What all of you have witnessed is but a fraction...a fingernail’s worth of capability from a being that has hands, arms, a body, dimensions you haven’t realized exist. And you actually believe yourselves to be powerful? Haha!"

THE Living Concept’s form flickered with uncertainty, ideas being rapidly revised.

"No," THE Living Paradox continued, "if you want to discuss true power, you would be best served to go discuss with THE Creature, you buffoon of a concept. Ask it to show you what it actually is. Though I suspect it won’t, because beings that need to display their full power are beings that have something to prove. THE Creature has nothing to prove to anyone."

...!

Those who hide their true power often live the longest.

Not from cowardice but from understanding a fundamental truth: revealed power becomes a target, a challenge, a thing that must be tested.

Hidden power remains potential, and potential is always more terrifying than actualization because imagination fills the gaps with worst-case scenarios.

THE Creature, by this logic, was the strongest not just because of what it could do, but because no one...not THE Living Existences, not the Early Creatures, perhaps not even THE Creature itself...knew the full extent of what it was capable of.

The celestial young master learned this lesson through humiliation. THE Living Concept learned it through revelation. Most never learn it at all, spending their existence displaying every ounce of power they possess like peacocks who don’t realize the tiger has no need for bright feathers.

In the end, the philosophy of hidden power is simple: Why show your full hand when the game might not require it? Why reveal your maximum when your minimum suffices?

Why exhaust yourself proving what you are when you could simply be it?

After all, THE Creature had supposedly released countless Everythings while apparently using only a fraction of its capability. If that was what it could do while holding back...

Well, perhaps some things are hidden because revealing them would break not just the observer, but observation itself.

Naturally, THE Creature was the strongest. And naturally, no one would ever know by how much!

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