Chapter 4330: MANA! II Noah’s existence buzzed as waves of information crossed through his eyes rapidly. He stood as a silent, colossal titan wreathed in a sea of his own Mana, the six spectral manifestations of his Arcana a pantheon of azure gods at his back. Before him, Tatiana, the Ashen Dream Queen of the Prime Dead, had just completed her own impossible transformation. |Target Analysis Initiated.| |Subject: [Tatiana – The Ashen Dream Queen].| |A Grand Principle has been activated: [The Principle of the Waking Dream].| |Analysis: This Principle allows the wielder to superimpose their ’ideal’ or ’dreamed’ self upon their current reality. It is an act of forcing a potential future into an absolute present. The cost is immense, but the amplification of power is... considerable.| |Power Fluctuation Detected: The subject’s Complexity has surged from a baseline of 4.1 Quintillion to a new, terrifying plateau.| |Current Complexity: 8,500,000,000,000,000,000 (8.5 Quintillion).| |Threat Assessment: Critical. The subject’s power now significantly exceeds your defensive thresholds.| Noah looked at the new number. It was mightier. It was heavier. It was a declaration of absolute, overwhelming superiority. One of the core power that Early Creatures had wss the fact that they had been utilizing Principles for a long time, and what they could do with them was utterly terrifying. Even now, Noah only had Seeds of Principles! Mind you...he had the Seed of the Principle of Perpetual Harvest for a few days, and the Seed of the Cheating Architect for a few hours. Hours. They had yet to mature, even though in his own tyrannical perspective, it was taking too long! Even though others waited years for their Seeds of Principles to mature. He was not others! So even if Tatiana now stood at 8 Quintillion in power... So what?! BOOM! The moment was a masterpiece of silent, terrible, and beautiful violence. Time did not slow; it was simply forced to accommodate an action that was too fast for it. Tatiana’s hand, now wreathed in the shimmering, obsidian light of her Principle, flashed towards his neck. It was not a physical strike; it was a conceptual one. It was the very idea of ’capture’ given form, an absolute, unyielding law that sought to bypass every defense, every barrier, every last shred of his glorious, tyrannical will, and lock him down. She knew this with a certainty that was its own form of power. She had dreamed this. Noah could feel it, a wave of pure, confident intent washing over him. He could feel the cold, logical calculus of his own defenses being exceeded, the Badger’s Barrier and the Mountain’s Heart groaning under a weight they were not designed to bear. That hand, a thing of dreams and death, would reach him. But... He had his Way. His Way of Existence. And he had told his people to watch. So... Towards the coming hand, the hand that was now inches away, a blur of absolute, inevitable finality... he closed his eyes. HUUM! ...! In the distance, Schrodinger and Leonore Rureaux’s expressions changed. They had thought, for a fleeting, hopeful moment, that The Early Creature, Osmont, might just exceed their every expectation. But to close his eyes at such a moment? When an unstoppable force was coming? And yet, Noah smiled. A grand, glorious, and utterly serene smile. An unstoppable force, yes. But what happened when an unstoppable force met an immovable object? His Way of Existence... was immovable. In the quiet, internal sanctum of his own being, he called out. Not a shout, not a command, but a tender, almost loving whisper. "Fireball." ...! Fireball. Not a Mana Arcana Glyph. Not a complex Weave of his new Artifice. Just... Fireball. Of course, this was the [Mana Glyph of the Primordial Fireball]. It had no cooldown. Its base damage, a paltry half-Quintillion, was negligible against the might of the Ashen Dream Queen. But after the empowerment of his Mana Arcana Glyphs, its power was no longer negligible. Its base damage now exceeded five Quintillion. A glorious, beautiful, and utterly terrifying bloom of blue and crimson light appeared in the space between them! It was not just a ball of fire; it was a miniature, captured sun fold, a newborn sun fold, a concept of annihilation given a simple, nostalgic name. The heat it contained was not a temperature; it was a memory of the birth and death of Omniverses, of the screaming, final moments of a billion Wheels of Existence! It... was a thing that could have scorched a Minor Fold, and it bloomed in the infinitesimal space between his neck and her hand. It smashed into Tatiana’s hand, and the impact was shockingly... silent. Contained. Her tyrannical power, her Principle, the very dream of her own invincibility, absorbed it. She continued on. A pause. This was all a single Primordial Fireball did. But... Noah’s smile became wider. "Fireball. Fireball. Fireball." Three repeating words, spoken in the same instant. And in that same instant, three more Primordial Fireballs appeared, a rapid, stuttering pulse of pure, conceptual destruction. They smashed into her advancing hand. BOOM! BOOM! The first two struck, and she faltered. The silent, effortless absorption was gone, replaced by a visible, shuddering strain. Her advance halted. BOOM! The third one struck. And the battlefield, which had been a silent, terrible tableau, erupted. A scorching heatwave, a physical, tangible thing, washed over the entire region of Collapse. The very space around them began to boil, to sizzle! HUUM! In the distance, Schrodinger and Leonore’s expressions turned stern. Schrodinger waved a hand, and a shimmering, paradoxical light, the authority of an unknown Principle, covered them. This temperature, this raw, untamed power... it could have scorched a being of one Quintillion or below into conceptual ash! Only at this time did Noah open his eyes. Tatiana... was no longer inches away from him. She had been pushed back, her form still pulsing with a terrible, beautiful power, but on her face was a look of pure, unadulterated surprise. She was looking at her hand. It was smoking! She looked up, her obsidian-gold eye blazing with a new, more profound, and utterly furious light. Noah cracked his neck, a slow, deliberate, and utterly arrogant gesture, as if he were merely stretching after a light warm-up. "Little Dream of THE Creature," he said, his voice a low, dangerous purr that was more terrifying than any roar. "Get ready." HUUM! "I’m coming." ...! Oh!