Infinite Mana In The Apocalypse novel Chapter 4496

Chapter 4496: At The Darkest Hour I

The concept of pain is, at its core, a gift wrapped in barbed wire.

It is the body’s desperate scream, the soul’s frantic alarm bell ringing in the void. To feel pain is to know with absolute certainty that something is wrong. It is the heat that snaps the hand back from the flame before the flesh is charred. It is the sharp reminder that you are mortal and fragile and currently under siege.

Without pain, we would wander into fire and feel nothing until we were ash. Pain is guidance, and pain is survival.

But then there is the other kind.

The excruciating relentless unending symphony of agony that serves no purpose, teaches no lesson, and offers no escape. It is the torture of a nerve ending singing a high piercing note that never resolves. It is the constant grinding pressure that turns bone to dust and will to water.

Many have argued about this duality for eons across civilizations.

Some say that pain is the ultimate test, that Existence in its infinite cruelty uses agony as a sieve to separate the weak from the worthy. To endure is to prove one’s right to exist. To break is to admit that you were never truly meant to be here at all. In this view, every second of suffering is a coin paid into the bank of one’s own potential.

Another perspective sees pain as a flaw in the design, a glitch in the matrix of existence. Why should growth require suffering? Why must strength be forged in fire? They argue that Existence should allow for elevation without agony, that the equation of pain equals gain is a lie told by tyrants to justify their cruelty. To them, pain is simply noise, a distraction from the true work of living.

And then there is the third view. The rarest and coldest perspective.

To these few, pain is neither a test nor a flaw. It simply is. It is a condition of reality as fundamental as gravity or time. You do not fight gravity but build structures to withstand it. You do not argue with time but learn to move within its flow.

So too with pain. You do not seek to escape it, nor do you glorify it. You simply exist within it, expanding your capacity to endure until the pain becomes background radiation, a constant hum that proves you are still alive.

For those who can reach this state, for those who can look into the abyss of excruciating constant agony and refuse to blink, their endurance will undoubtedly be paid off. Not in comfort perhaps, but in power.

And power, in the end, is the only currency that matters.

The pain Noah felt was something he truly could not accurately describe.

It was not a sensation but an environment. He was drowning in it. Every atom of his being was screaming, a trillion voices raised in a chorus of absolute unadulterated misery. The worst part was the lack of adaptation. There was no numbness, no dulling of the senses over time. Every second was as fresh and sharp as the first.

It was the sensation of being dipped in acid, then frozen, then burned again, over and over, with no rhythm or reprieve.

Doing anything in this state, under the brand of THE Immolation Of The Sacrilegious Savage, was unbearable.

Even the act of thinking required a titanic effort of will. He knew that this effort was being harvested, that every moment of torture was translating into exponential growth for his Civilization. But his existence truly did not wish to do it. Every instinct he possessed was screaming at him to stop, to fold, to simply let go and allow the darkness to take him.

That was how excruciating it was.

So he floated in the space of The Injunction Sanctuary of Law, his body a trembling statue of crimson-gold fire. He watched the blurry distance where his forces swarmed the Civilization Legions of Emotives, including Aethon and those under him, but the images were fractured and distorted by the haze of his own suffering.

Beside him, Alexander Asmodeus neared with cautious steps.

Further back, the Living Laws and Dukes of Law watched from a safe distance. They were ashen and terrified, still trembling from the pressure of THE Living Elemental that had briefly flashed into existence. They were useless. Utterly and completely useless.

Alexander stopped a respectful distance away, his silver-white aura flickering with genuine concern. He looked at Noah, at the flames that did not burn clothing but devoured concepts, and he asked the only question that mattered.

"How can I help?"

He did not ask if Noah was okay. That answer was written in every tremor of Noah’s frame, in the way the air around him hissed and boiled with residual heat.

Noah almost wanted to laugh at the question, but the thought of the physical effort stopped him cold. He almost wanted to say that nobody talking to him right now would be of great help, that even listening was an agony he didn’t want to endure.

But he had to find a way to adapt. He had to get used to this new reality.

"Nothing can be done," Noah said, his voice a sound like grinding stones dragged across broken glass as his throat was fucking dry. "Apart from enduring."

Alexander’s expression tightened. "I’m sorry," he said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. "I did not expect for things to play out like this. I did not foresee... this."

Noah managed a smile though it cost him dearly. It was a small tight thing, a grimace masquerading as amusement.

"This is just existence," he whispered through the burning. "Existence is grand. Existence is unfair. Existence is unpredictable. It is what it is."

After this, Alexander turned silent. He simply looked at Noah with an expression that was difficult to read.

Even though he showed a smile, Noah’s figure, wreathed in angrily scorching crimson-gold flames, still couldn’t help but tremble with constant rhythmic shaking. The tremors were a physical manifestation of the war being fought in every cell of his body.

Noah felt the eyes of Alexander remain on him with steady focus. They were the eyes of someone younger looking up to someone older, as if they found his actions unfathomably grand. As if his suffering was a monument to be admired rather than a torture to be pitied.

He shook his head excruciatingly at this perception. The scorching blurry prompts continued to flow over his eyes every now and then, a ticker tape of his own torture converted to power.

|+100 Sextillion Complexity and Purity gained from an unsurpassable effort...|

They were unfathomably immense gains that came from this excruciating effort, numbers that would have taken days and weeks for him to accumulate through normal means.

Noah felt it all washing over him. He tried to focus his scattered attention on his other self, on Ozymandias, who should be wrapping up a battle soon. Because THE Immolation Of The Sacrilegious Savage was a curse as much as a weapon.

But he endured!

What does that make me?

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