Chapter 4337: KNEEL IV

|The Harvest has begun.|

|Tax is being collected from all entities who have set foot in your Domain without your consent.|

|Tatiana, The Sadistic Dreamer: 37% of current power harvested.|

|Prime Dead Early Creatures (Average): 34% of current power harvested.|

|All harvested power is being accumulated and quantified...|

...!

Noah watched, his face a mask of cold calm, as invisible, brilliant streams of green-gold light shot from Tatiana and her forces, a river of tribute flowing directly into him!

Tatiana’s visage, for the first time, showed genuine, profound shock. Behind her, the illusion of THE Creature began to fracture as it trembled violently, its form dimming as if the very energy sustaining it was being... taxed.

Noah let out a light sigh. "Activate Harvest of Intent."

...!

Another wave, another law. This one was more subtle, a psychic ripple that targeted not their power, but their will.

Tatiana and her forces were instantly struck by a wave of unfathomable, soul-crushing tiredness.

Their intent to harm, their very thoughts of violence, were now a resource being actively and forcefully reaped. Their power, already diminished, fell again. And above Tatiana, the colossal, hazy illusion of THE Creature, its entire existence a manifestation of her intent to "discipline" him... shattered.

It broke apart like a pane of glass, dissolving into motes of golden light that were then harvested by the verdant-gold field.

Noah looked at the empty space where the "Lesson" of THE Creature had been.

"It seems there are Principles..." he said, his voice a cold, pedagogical murmur, "and then there are PRINCIPLEs."

...!

It was easy to say just who among them held the lower-case, and who held the capitalized.

As he spoke, he shook his head and looked at Tatiana, who was now staring in horror at the space where her ultimate attack had been. Noah’s expression was one of almost bored finality.

"Impose Compound Interest of Opposition," he commanded, his voice growing louder, "and Principle Override: ’Nothing Is Free’."

...!

BOOM!

The verdant-gold light around Noah exploded. The massive, conceptual tree that was his Principle erupted from his back, its branches a glorious, tyrannical canopy that imposed itself upon all of reality. This was the final, terrible blow.

Tatiana and her forces had attacked him. They had tried to harm him. They had failed. And in doing so, they had been accumulating a heavy, terrible, and now-due Existential Debt.

A throne of Primordial Fireballs, a swirling, crimson-blue seat of pure, incandescent Mana, formed behind Noah. He sat back into it, a king upon his throne, and he looked down at the broken, depleted, and utterly shocked army of the Prime Dead.

His voice was a tyrannical boom, a final, absolute judgment.

"I will collect... all the Existential Debts you all owe. They are all due right now... and I want the Payment to be in the authority of your Principles!"

...!

BOOM!

It was not an attack. It was a collection. A repossession.

The illusion of THE Creature, which had been shattering, now disintegrated completely. Tatiana, her face pale and ashen, her power a flickering candle, was struck by a force she could not see, her body convulsing.

And the dozens of Prime Dead Early Creatures behind her... they were devastated. They looked like sunken skeletons, their power, their light, their very essence, sucked out of them. They were husks, their forms trembling as they now held less than 20% of their original power. The successive, rapid-fire usage of the features of the Principle of Perpetual Harvest had not just defeated them; it had bankrupted them!

Faint, beautiful, and unique lights- the very authority of their Principles, were being forcibly drawn out of their forms, a river of stolen power that flowed into the great green-gold tree behind Noah.

As this torrent of conceptual power flowed into him, a new prompt bloomed, this one tinged with a familiar, chaotic energy.

|The [Seed of the Principle of the Cheating Architect] gazes at the influx of incoming ’Debt Payments.’ It deems this harvested authority to be of acceptable quality.|

|It is taking it all for itself.|

|The Cheating Architect states that a few hours since its conception is already far too long for it to remain a mere ’Seed.’|

|Maturity of [The Cheating Architect] is accelerating...|

...!

A cold smile touched Noah’s lips. He sat upon his throne of fire, bathed in the verdant-gold light of his harvest, and looked down at the shocked, shaken, and utterly broken forms of Tatiana and her legion.

He raised a single finger.

"Kneel."

...!

And as he spoke the word, dozens of Primordial Fireballs, each one a 5-Quintillion-damage-dealing sun fold, erupted from the sea of Mana around him!

They did not strike. They simply... appeared. One above the head of Tatiana. One above the head of Valerius. One for every Prime Dead Early Creature, and one for every last, melting, and now-powerless Dead Existential Armor.

If they did not kneel, the Fireballs would fall. In their current, depleted, sunken state, all the Prime Dead Early Creatures would undoubtedly face immediate and total collapse.

Only Tatiana, perhaps, would survive.

The Early Creature, Osmont, sat on his throne of fire, and he commanded them to Kneel!

—

Harvest!

What is it really, when you strip away the agricultural metaphors and seasonal mythology?

At its core, harvest is Existence’s most fundamental transaction: effort becomes result, potential becomes actual, investment becomes return.

It’s the promise that what you sow, you shall reap, though Existence never specified the exchange rate and certainly didn’t promise fairness.

But Perpetual Harvest? That was somwthing else!

It’s not just reaping what you sow...it’s reaping what everyone sows, forever, with compound interest, while they still have to do the sowing!

In the gardens of the First Farmer, where concepts grew like vegetables and concepts required regular watering, the day had been proceeding normally.

The First Farmer tended his plots with the patience of someone who measured time in geological epochs, occasionally adjusting the soil mixture for a developing concept of Fundamental Equivalence, pruning back an overgrown Concept of Infinite Recursion that was trying to recurse itself into nonexistence.

Among his helpers...Fold Dwellers who found purpose in tending abstract concepts made manifest, one stood apart, staring at a pile of Seeds set aside from the main garden.

More specifically, at one seed that gleamed green-gold, like harvest wheat made of crystallized potential.

The First Farmer noticed this intense focus and approached, his ancient eyes narrowing as recognition dawned not of the face, but of something deeper.

"You... are an Outsider. You do not belong here."

...!

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