Chapter 4731: All Things Live and Die V

Okay.

So, fighting against an entity like THE Living Spirit was not an easy task.

His power was already constrained in ways that should have made this battle decisively one-sided. From Noah’s established Thesis, he had no access to The First Tongue as his Genesis Principles were closed off from the linguistic foundations that powered them.

His regeneration of authority was locked out, unable to draw upon the ambient Mana that should have been replenishing his reserves with every passing moment. His connection to the very language of reality had been severed, leaving him fighting with reserves that depleted without refilling.

His power was also no longer Absolute as he stood only at THE Fundamental Depth now, dragged down from the Half-Step heights he had occupied before the Fragment of THE Axiom of Mayhem had done its work. He faced two Fundamental Depth Muspeli Lifeforms whose Ways burned with the authority of beings who had protected The First Tongue since before THE Fallout.

He faced Noah, whose Formless Depth defied conventional measurement and whose flames billowed with intensity that matched the eternal fires of Muspelheim itself. He faced THE Infiniverse, whose weight carried the accumulated mass of an ever-expanding realm that was even now devouring the very territory they fought upon!

And he faced multiple other THE entities from THE Infiniverse, each one adding their authority to the assault from the periphery in an unrelenting storm of Assertions and Impositions.

And yet...

More than ten seconds passed as this being actually did not fall!

10 Seconds!

Noah looked at him with an imperious gaze that seemed to ask one simple question: how fucking dare he?!

Ten seconds might have seemed like nothing to lesser beings, but in a battle between entities of this caliber, ten seconds was an eternity. They moved in femtoseconds, thought in attoseconds, and exchanged blows at speeds that would have appeared as frozen stillness to anyone observing from outside.

Ten seconds meant ten quadrillion femtoseconds of continuous combat, ten quadrillion moments where attacks landed and Declarations clashed and Ways pressed against Ways in contests of absolute authority.

And THE Living Spirit endured it all.

The reason for his unbeatable stance and stature right now was of course his Depth, even reduced as it was, and his Way of Spirit that had been refined over eons beyond counting. But more than either of those, it was the Fragment of an Axiom he wielded that kept him standing when he should have fallen long ago.

The Scythe.

It hung in his grasp like an extension of his will, its blade curved with promises of endings that transcended normal death and its handle wrapped in chains of spiritual essence that writhed with tortured awareness. The power of THE Living Spirit wrapped around it heavily, merging weapon and wielder into something that was more than either alone.

Even Lens of Civilization didn’t reveal his status sheet nor the identity of the Fragment he carried, the Axiom from which it had been taken remaining a mystery.

But the effects were clear enough.

THE Living Spirit would wave this Scythe, and any Assertions made by Khor or Ra’Zan or the others from the periphery would simply be nullified as if they had never been spoken. The jaws of hunger that should have devoured his defenses dissolved into nothing. The storms of bone and poison that should have corroded his Way scattered like mist before morning sun.

The weight of their combined authority, which should have pressed him down into submission, slid off his existence like water off stone.

THE Infiniverse, who swung her legs like imperial primordial hammers with force that could have shattered lesser realms, was pushed back with every exchange. Her weight drained with every strike she landed, the Scythe somehow siphoning the very immensity she brought to bear and turning her own power against her.

And as Noah formed a new Thesis, speaking it into existence with authority that only someone who had claimed The First Tongue could muster, it smashed onto THE Living Spirit with impact that would have smashed any normal Fundamental Depth entity. The Thesis hung around him like chains of linguistic law, his heavy Depth pressing like an unrelenting hammer that sought to crush him into submission!

But THE Living Spirit stood strong.

He made grand Declarations of his own, his countless mouths speaking words of power.

Some of those Declarations targeted the forces on the periphery, seeking to one-shot kill Sigrid or Ra’Zan or any of the others whose Depths were insufficient to withstand direct attention from someone of his caliber.

But Surtra and the other Fundamental Depth Muspeli Lifeform brought down their own terrifying immensity in response, their Ways interposing between THE Living Spirit’s Declarations and their intended targets with the practiced coordination of beings who had fought together for eons.

Surtra had held back THE Living Spirit even when he was at Half-Step Absolute Depth with her unique Way, her sandy flames somehow capable of diffusing and redirecting authority that should have overwhelmed her. She was not stronger than him, had never been stronger than him, but her Way was perfectly suited to defense and delay in ways that made raw power comparisons irrelevant.

Nothing passed past them.

And all that was left was a glorious scene with Noah and THE Infiniverse surrounding THE Living Spirit with their Depth and immensity, gradually wearing him down as one singular factor revealed itself at this moment that would become a defining feature many would come to realize in the very near future.

As THE Living Spirit took on all these attacks, all these Depths, Noah’s random Thesis constructs and THE Infiniverse throwing her weight around like a fat primordial realm seeking to crush an insect beneath her mass, he was actually waiting for something.

He was waiting for a gap in their attacks.

He was waiting for...exhaustion to hit them.

Because they were not only throwing their Depths at him with reckless abandon, but his Fragment of an Axiom was actively nullifying and even draining them of their Weight with every exchange. The Scythe was designed for exactly this purpose, to turn extended battles into wars of attrition where his opponents expended themselves against his defenses while he conserved and even grew stronger from their efforts.

It was a strategy that had worked countless times before.

It was a strategy that should have been working now.

Yet...

It didn’t seem to be doing anything?

They didn’t look any more exhausted now than they had ten seconds ago. Their attacks came with the same ferocity, the same weight, the same relentless pressure that had characterized the opening moments of this battle. In these ten seconds, they had all attacked and moved in femtoseconds, exchanging quadrillions of blows and Declarations and Assertions without any visible sign of depletion.

They had been attacking for a relatively long fucking time.

They had been asserting, imposing, and declaring their Ways again and again against his Spirit, hammering at his defenses with authority that should have been diminishing with every exchange but somehow remained constant.

As if they held an infinite backing behind them.

"Ah..."

At this point, the eyes of THE Living Spirit lit up with understanding that had been slow to come but arrived with the force of revelation.

His countless gray eyes blinked as he seemed to see something others couldn’t, his perception shifting to frequencies that revealed truths hidden from normal observation.

He thought he saw faint blue-gold lines extending from THE Youngest Claimer and onto all his people here, threads of connection that pulsed with Mana flowing in only one direction. They reached all the others, and through those lines, their Depths were being replenished endlessly.

Infinitely.

"Ah..."

THE Living Spirit felt like he finally understood what he was facing.

Every one of those behind The Oldest Paradox of Existence had something that made them unique, some quality or capability that set them apart from other entities at similar Depths. THE Creature had his connection to existence itself. THE Living Paradox had his mastery of contradiction. THE Primordial Chaos had his inevitability of entropy.

Was this the perk behind THE Youngest Claimer?

Infinity?

The ability to provide endless resources to those connected to his Way, to replenish their Depths faster than any enemy could drain them, to turn every battle of attrition into a guaranteed loss for whoever stood against him?

It would explain how he had been able to make the claim over The First Tongue, how someone of his apparent youth and relatively modest personal power had accomplished something that no entity in all of existence had ever achieved!

THE Living Spirit came to this realization with the calm acceptance of someone who had lived long enough to recognize when circumstances had shifted against him irreversibly.

When he felt his own Way that continued to deplete, when he noticed his weight and immensity not refilling because he remained locked out from The First Tongue by the established Thesis, he understood with perfect clarity that this battle was...lost.

There was no path to victory here.

No strategy that would allow him to outlast opponents who could not be outlasted.

No technique that would let him overcome enemies who simply did not run out of resources.

But he was still calm.

After all, this was just his other Half-Step Absolute Depth Spirit Body.

In Spirit Shelter of THE Loom, another remained! His true existence, or at least a more complete version of it, waited in safety beyond the reach of THE Youngest Claimer and his infinite backing. Even if this body collapsed here, even if this portion of his existence was destroyed and harvested, he would continue.

It would be a worthy collapse, he supposed, falling under one of Those Four. One of those who had laid their claims on aspects of The Oldest Paradox of Existence. There was no shame in being defeated by such an entity, no diminishment of his legend in losing to someone who represented a fundamental truth of reality itself.

It was oka-

BOOM!

In the midst of his thoughts, in the moment where acceptance had begun to settle into resignation, the Scythe in his hands was knocked to the side from the hammer legs of THE Infiniverse!

Her strike came with the force of a realm compressed into a single blow, and even his grip, which had held that weapon through countless battles across eons of existence, could not maintain its hold against such overwhelming impact.

The Scythe spun away from his grasp.

And in front of him...

BOOM!

The vibrating body of THE Youngest Claimer squeezed into the gap that THE Infiniverse’s strike had created!

One of Noah’s hands came to clamp down on his hand that had been holding the Scythe, fingers burning with blue-gold flames that seared into spiritual essence with heat that transcended normal fire.

And his other hand grasped onto his massive gray neck with grip that spoke of finality!

Noah held onto THE Living Spirit as he smiled with a devilish light. His eyes burned with immense Depth that defied categorization, with the weight of someone who had laid claim to something that belonged to the very foundations of existence.

"In existence, all things live and die, O Spirit."

His voice emerged calm and measured, almost gentle, the tone of someone explaining an obvious truth to a child who had somehow failed to understand it.

"It is time for you to die."

...!

A Legend gazed at an anomaly calmly even amidst such an unprecedented moment, those countless gray eyes meeting blazing blue-gold without fear or desperation. He had lived for eons beyond counting. He had survived THE Fallout and the chaos that came before it. He had stood at heights that most entities could not even comprehend.

And now he faced his ending at the hands of THE Youngest Claimer.

The anomaly gazed back, his mouth and nose releasing lava-like blue-gold flames with every breath, fire that was less combustion and more pure expression of authority made manifest. These flames began to dance over the grayish skin of THE Living Spirit, spreading across his form like eager servants consuming a feast that had been long denied to them.

Where the flames touched, spiritual essence began to dissolve.

Where the flames spread, the accumulated authority of eons began to break down.

Where the flames burned, a Legend began to end.

And Noah held on with grip that would not release, his smile never wavering as he brought an end to a glorious battle that had lasted ten seconds and ten quadrillion femtoseconds and would be remembered for far longer than either!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.