Chapter 4304: This is MY Way! III

​Anaximander’s logic was a chilling, perfect echo of the very paths Noah had been forced to consider.

The Fold Dweller stopped pacing and looked at Noah, his expression now one of profound, philosophical contemplation.

​"And if all else fails," he said, his voice dropping to a low, almost reverent whisper, "if the cause cannot be stopped, if no shelter can be built, and if there is nowhere left to hide... there is only one, final, and most arrogant solution left."

​He met Noah’s gaze, and in his eyes, there was a brilliant, almost manic, light.

​"You must become the storm. You must cease to be the thing that is in the storm, and become the thing that is the storm. You would have to elevate your own existence to a Scale where the Fallout is no longer an apocalypse, but simply... weather. You would have to become a being for whom the cessation of existence is not an ending, but simply...a Monday."

​BOOM!

​Noah stared, his expression unreadable.

This powerless, manaless Fold Dweller had, in the span of a few minutes, perfectly and independently deduced four impossible, desperate paths to survival that he thought of and others acted on.

​Anaximander, seeing Noah’s heavy silence, seemed to mistake it for disappointment.

He sighed, the brilliant energy fading from him, replaced by a humble, almost apologetic, shrug.

​"But those are just grand, impossible theories, of course," he said, sitting back down on his glacial stone. "Just the ramblings of a man who has seen too much and understands too little. It seems existence is more complicated the more you scratch the surface and peel the layers. I am sorry that I was not able to be of much help to you."

​He poked at the diagrams on the ground with his stick. "But if I can say one last thing... it is about your Way. If I am to be considered an anomaly, it is because my Way is related to what makes me an anomaly. That I can ignore the rules that bind others. What is it about you that is anomalous? Your Way would be easiest to open up and guide your existence from there."

​...!

​Noah smiled, a genuine, almost warm expression. What made him an anomaly? He knew the answer to that. It was the very first truth of his existence!

​It was the foundation upon which his Heart, his Atlas, his Principles, his very Tyranny was built.

Anaximander’s words were not a new revelation, but a profound, timely reminder.

​"Thank you for the words, Anaximander," Noah said. "You helped by expanding my point of view somewhat. More than you know."

​At his words, Anaximander brightened. He stood, brushing the sparkling frost from his simple robes, his task here seemingly complete.

He smiled, a genuine expression of a scholar who has just had a truly fascinating exchange of ideas.

​"Existence is a laboratory, friend Osmont," he said, his voice filled with a new, vibrant energy.

"We are all just experiments, running our own hypothesis against the unyielding wall of reality. Some of us choose to build a Civilization, a grand, collective experiment. It is a noble path. They seek to find the answers together, to build a tower of shared knowledge tall enough to see over the next horizon."

​He gestured to the vast, empty, and beautiful expanse around them.

​"But I... I am a field researcher. I must walk, I must see, I must ask. The best data is not found in the lab, but in the wild, untamed wilderness of the unknown. A civilization is a beautiful, warm, and comfortable place... but it is also a cage, a bubble that limits one’s perception to only what is inside."

​He bowed, a final, respectful gesture from one anomaly to another.

​"I will add another Guideline to my existence," he declared, his voice ringing with the light of a new, forged law. "If ever I hear an existence I deem... a friend call out the words, ’Anaximander, come!’, then I will be able to sense wherever you are. And so long as I am not busy being dissected by a curious star or something of the sort, I will come. As for now...I like to get answers directly. I must continue exploring existence!"

​...!

​Noah nodded, a silent acknowledgment of the offer.

He watched, his gaze sharp and analytical, as Anaximander, the brilliant, impossible Fold Dweller, turned.

​He took a single step.

​And disappeared!

HUUM!

​He was gone, leaving Noah alone in the vast, silent, and glittering expanse of the frozen First Folds, with a head full of new, terrible, and glorious possibilities.

​Existence, as Noah had already come to understand it, was a brutal and relentless series of escalations.

​One achieved a new, unimaginable height of power, only to look up and see a mountain range of beings whose casual footsteps were the very power he had just attained!

​He had felt it multiple times before.

​And now, as he stood in the First Folds and gazed at the distant ideas of existences with the distinctions of THE, he felt it again, but on a scale that made all previous escalations seem like minor, introductory Chapters!

What he had to do amidst these series of escalations of existence...was forge something that even those who had already forged their grand civilization would be envious of!

Noah stood in the field of endless snow and cold as he breathed out.

These last few hours, after taking on the form of different life forms to observe and carry out their Way of existence, after learning and observing the Way of existence of a terrifying anomaly that had no mana or any authority in his body... after all of these experiences, he was now ready to take a heavy and irreversible step forward.

What his Way of Existence could be was never a question!

From the words of the brilliant Fold Dweller that had just left, what made him an anomaly? If everything about him was stripped away, what did he have? And where did everything begin?

If he said that his Way of existence was Quintessence, he would not be wrong, but he would not be entirely correct.

If he said his Way of existence was Tyranny, it would once more be correct, but he would also be wrong!

He could say the same for the Ways of Existence of Cheats, Infinity, Apocalypse, Ruination, Veritarch, Kuklos, Megalos... you could list countless Ways of Existence that would fit him, but they wouldn’t entirely encapsulate and get to the root cause of who, and what he was!

Before Tyranny, what did he have?

Because in the beginning, he did not have Tyranny, nor did he have Quintessence or Cheats.

What did he have in the very beginning?!

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