NOVGO.NET Chapter 4334: KNEEL I
Chapter 4334: KNEEL I
A terrifying change bloomed as the Sadistic Dreamer, The Dream of THE Creature, Tatiana, had her existence put under pressure!
Noah’s existence buzzed as waves of information crossed through his eyes rapidly.
He watched as Tatiana’s power, which had already doubled, began to flicker. It was no longer a stable 8.5 Quintillion. It was a chaotic, unpredictable storm.
|Current Complexity: 8.5 Quintillion... 16.2 Quintillion... 4.1 Quintillion...|
It was as if her power could not decide what it was. As if it was all... a dream.
She floated amidst his continuing, relentless onslaught of flames, her sadistic smile remaining even as her forces were being pushed back.
The Prime Dead Early Creatures were now struggling, their own Principles flaring as they desperately tried to hold against the endless, non-cooldown-having tide of his Mana Arcana!
Tatiana opened her eyes, and the golden, pupilless orbs fixed on him. She spoke, her voice now a high, theatrical, almost olden cadence that cut through the roar of his flames.
"Hark, unruly child," she began, her voice a melody of cold, ancient judgment. "In the Earliest Folds, when Early Creatures, in their boundless, chaotic youth, gained true power and began building their Civilizations, some... needed to be disciplined. They were petulant, arrogant, blind to the true, ordered beauty of existence. And that discipline... it was delivered by The Goad of THE Creature."
Her voice grew stronger, more resonant, a declaration of an ancient, terrible law.
"Unruly creatures like thee need discipline. Need Order. So... a glimpse of THE Creature shall descend to discipline you and show you Order!"
...!
As she spoke, Noah watched. Her golden eyes, which held no pupils, began to blaze with a light so bright it froze the molten heat all around.
And behind her, the very fabric of Collapse began to weave itself into a new, impossible form.
An illusory image, hazy and indistinct, yet radiating a power that made Noah’s very existence tremble, began to form. It was a massive, humanoid entity, its form a swirling, chaotic fusion of obsidian, gold, and white light.
It was a ghost, a memory, an echo of something that should not, could not, be summoned.
The moment its outline began to solidify, everything ceased to move.
The atoms themselves. The raging, crimson-blue flames. The soaring, nine-headed Mana-Flame Wyrms. The very thoughts in Noah’s mind... all of it, frozen. Halted. A perfect, terrible, and absolute stasis.
The illusory outline of THE Creature was now clear. It held in its hand a radiant, obsidian-gold stick surrounded with a white light of Order... The Goad.
Its eyes, two pinpricks of pure, absolute gold, shone from the hazy, indistinct void of its face. Its expression was not discernible, but its posture... its posture was that of a teacher about to knock some sense into a defiant, unruly student.
That was why everything had ceased to move.
But...
HUUM!
A new light, a verdant, golden brilliance, erupted from Noah’s frozen form.
|The Principle of Perpetual Harvest has detected an external conceptual weaving attempting to impose a state of [Absolute Stillness].|
|This is a ’Lesson’ from [The Principle of the Waking Dream].|
|Analyzing...|
|Your [Principle of Perpetual Harvest] dictates that any effort to impose upon your existence must be... sufficient.|
|Calculating the ’effort’ of this [Lesson]...|
|Effort Calculation: INSUFFICIENT.|
|The Lesson has been nullified.|
BOOM!
Noah’s body buzzed, and he could move again. He looked at the colossal, terrifying illusion, at its raised Goad, and he laughed.
A deep, resonant, and utterly, profoundly, tyrannical laugh.
"Merely an illusion of THE Creature!" he roared, his voice a thunderclap that shattered the imposed silence.𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖
"Merely a Dream! You think you can cease my movements with this?!"
BOOM!
Dozens of Primordial Mana-Flame Wyrms and Primordial Fireballs erupted around him, not as a chaotic storm, but as perfect, ordered, concentric rings of glorious, crimson-blue!
And in his hand, his own Goad appeared.
It was not a hazy, illusory thing of gold and obsidian.
It was a simple, white stick, and at this moment, it was blazing with a terrifying and endlessly blue light.
He stood there, a small, defiant figure against a colossal, hazy, and silent illusory titan. He raised his Goad, a tiny, azure spark against a primordial, golden sun, and the battle of wills, the battle of Ways, was about to truly begin.
Tatiana’s golden, pupilless eyes snapped even more open. She stared, her sadistic smile faltering for the first time, replaced by a look of profound, almost comical, disbelief.
"A stick?" she whispered, the sound a soft, incredulous hiss. "Thou dare raise a twig? A mere shepherd’s staff against the very visage of thy Ancestor? Oh, the sheer, beautiful, and utterly doomed arrogance of it!"
HUUM!
She began to laugh, a high, musical sound that was sharp as shattering glass. "You are a fool, a glorious, shining fool! Thy defiance reminds me of another!"
She floated back, the spectral, colossal form of THE Creature looming behind her like a judgment waiting to fall.
"There was once an Elderborn," she began, her voice taking on the rich, theatrical cadence.
"One blessed, or cursed, as Existence would have it, with a fragment of THE Creature’s own essence. He held within his being the Everything of... Pride. Not the simple vanity of lesser creatures, but Pride as a fundamental force. A deep, burning, and absolute conviction that his existence was the only one that truly mattered."
"This Elderborn, Superbius, was a being of grand ambition. He saw the scattered Shores of his kin, their small, provincial gardens, and he deemed them... inefficient. Lacking. He believed that only under his singular, glorious vision could existence achieve its true potential. And so, he began to gather. He did not build a Civilization; he consumed them. He hunted his fellow Early Creatures, not for sustenance, but for their very homes. He collapsed their Shores and, with a terrible, artistic skill, wove their shattered remnants into his own, creating a monstrous, chaotic domain, a patchwork quilt of a thousand stolen dreams."
...!