Chapter 476: Begins the Age of Chaos
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Around him floated debris of shattered planets, moons, and the remnants of star clouds from ancient universes. The battle had left the cosmos in the vicinity demolished. Vision blurring, Neji squinted and rubbed at his eyelids, striving to clear his sight.
When he could see again, he blinked. He looked down at his hands that were bathed in celestial golden blood.
"Huh," A quiet sigh escaped his lips as a notification hovered before him.
[The Active Effect: Rage of Berserk has ended.]
[Berserk has returned to its Passive state.]
Behind the flickering hologram notifications, he glimpsed the torn, shredded remnants of Zephyr's once formidable body. He waved the notifications away, though his eyes lingered on two of them before they vanished.
[You have killed a Peak Tier 5 Entity.]
[You have reached Level 22,065!]
Confusion etched his face as he whispered, "What the hell happened?" and expanded his Jogan to its limits, surveying the cosmic devastation.
As he did that, he realized for some uncountable light-years around him, everything was destroyed, floating in empty space. In this area right now, the influence of Void was more prominent than the Omniverse.
Well, not everything was destroyed. Other than him, there was something else that breathed life. He looked to his side, at the red-haired woman who shivered when his eyes met hers. She was on her knees, legs trembling weakly, as a trickle of liquid escaped her, betraying her fear.
Neji began to walk toward her.
"D-don't come closer!" she stammered, her voice cracking as she raised a trembling hand in a futile attempt at defiance. "I am serious; I'll blast you with the firepower of a star! S-stay away!"
Neji was unsure how he got strong enough to beat that Zephyr guy, unsure how going crazy and berserk increased his power that much, but one thing he was sure about was that—this bitch was scared of him down to her bones. He stepped toward her, ignoring her warnings, and till the very end, she failed to release an attack.
She was scared shitless.
Neji reached out a hand, at which she stared with fear for a long minute. She gulped when she realized what he meant by that, reaching out her hand that was holding the emerald ring and placing it on his palm. "W-will you leave me alone now?"
Neji put the ring on, feeling the voices in his head that were telling him to devour this woman to die out. He heaved a breath, [I'm not a beast,] he told her, [And no, I'm not going to leave you alone.]
With anyone else, he might have relented. But with her? That was not an option.
She'd been chasing him for too long, and he knew she'd continue doing that if he let her go now. She would return again, he was sure. This spoiled bitch would hunt him down as long as she remained like this.
Neji thought with resolve, 'I'm going to break her mind,' watching her retreat with a mix of fear and defiance. His hand went inside his inventory and took out the chain collar. He threw it around her neck, she tried to dodge it, but it clung to her neck automatically. She tried to release it, but Neji had many types of void-related binding abilities to assist the collar. She choked and failed to free herself. 'That way she would rather stay away from me than search for me.'
"Y-you can't do this!" she yelled, trying hard to break the chains. "My father will destroy you, you fool! You cannot-!" Fotia paused.
As did I.
The area around us grew colder than possible, as a familiar scent touched my existence. The crumbled stars and planets around us began to whirl, black swirls of energy began to devour them, and soon, nothing remained.
Everything around us was black, dark, empty. The void had devoured the ruined part of existence, and now… we were inside the void.
– Grrghh!
– Gr##%%$hh!
– Gr%%$#rgghh!
Ghoulish sounds I could never understand before, but thanks to the Language skill bestowed on me by She Beyond Omnipotence, I could. Still, they had no meaning behind those screeches, mindless entities who didn't even 'exist' screeched from within the darkness around us, hungry to feed on our 'existence'.
"We have to run," I said and grabbed Fotia by her waist, throwing her onto my back. The ring that Lady Life gave me didn't stop my migraine and pain, but it allowed me to maneuver without losing control, so I mustered my command over the void to use a skill, [Void Portal].
A black circle with a red line around it formed before me, as I jumped into it with Fotia.
* * *
'Has it been eleven months since then?' Neji thought as he watched Fotia moan under him. 'This should suffice. It's time to leave this place – and her – behind as soon as possible.'
His Level 10,000 Quest had given him three paths. While he chose the Balanced Path, the Demon Path had revealed a piece of information to him.
[Seek out the Northern Cosmos' Demon Lord's Citadel and prove your allegiance to the shadows and darkness. If successful, you shall gain demonic abilities, and dark armor, and earn the title of "Azathoth, the God of Void."]
The Northern Cosmos' Demon Lord's Citadel, that's where he was staying currently. For the last ten months he'd been roaming the entire Omniverse, in search of the Temple of Equilibrium, and only last month did he reach this place.
While they called it a citadel, it was an entire planet, larger than the sun, inhabiting 176 septillion beings. He was inside a city on this planet, quite close to the castle of the Demon Lord.
At first, he'd wanted to try his luck against the Demon Lord. He put that idea aside when he one day got a peek at the person in question; he was an Incubus Demon at the High Tier 4 ranks. Most of all, he had a System. The [Demon Lord System]. Neji shouldn't have been shocked, since he knew the Gamer System wasn't the only System in existence – it was the only one made by the Beyond Omnipotent Beings. Heck, his own sister Nejire had one. But he was still surprised.
From the legends he heard of this demon, he could be considered the Main Character of some novel. So he might as well be one of the souls that reincarnated from Prime and was lucky enough to roll a Demon System in the Wheel of Fortune.
Against a System user seasoned with eons of experience, Neji saw no reason for a confrontation.
[We're done,] Neji pulled out and said, leaving Fotia panting with her tongue out and giggling. He got up from the bed, using a simple command from Omnipotence to clean himself up, and began to get dressed.
"Can't we," Fotia panted, "Go for one more round?"
[No,] he frowned at her. Wasn't she too comfortable around him? He hadn't raped her like how it was supposed to go with the other possibility of Neji; Neji couldn't bring himself to consciously force himself on a woman, he still remembered the promise to never rape anyone… 'Huh.'
Reflecting on it now, after all this time, the strangeness of such a specific promise dawned on him. Why had that woman made him promise this? That was a bit too specific of a promise, and it's not like he was forcing himself on people before that. So weird. Just what was his birth mother thinking…?
On that topic, when Neji became the Gamer 17 years ago and found the letter from "First Gamer", why was he encouraging Neji to rape Fotia? Neji couldn't find it himself to ever encourage his other self to rape someone.
Then again, if people learned that Neji killed his daughter's fiancé and slept with her, they'd assume he raped her. They wouldn't believe it if he said that she gave in to his charms. The Fotia he met in the future was certainly angry at the First Gamer, so it's fair to assume he actually raped her, but Neji wasn't going for that. He made her fall in love, it wasn't easy but it wasn't hard either. Unlike Lady Life, she wasn't mentally strong, and neither did she have any solid reason to not fall in love with him.
He took advantage of Stockholm Syndrome, and now she was in love. Now he'd abandon her. Since she loved him, she would stay away from him, and therefore not harm him, he hoped.
[Also,] when Neji was ready, he turned to Fotia. [This ends here.] He wanted to leave without telling her, but he had a feeling she'd search for him to abyss' depth if he did that, which would be counterproductive. [It's time we separate ways.]
Her dazed expression startled awake and she jumped up, crawling to the end of the bed, "W-wait, what, why?! D-did I do something wrong?!" She looked pitiful, but he felt no pity. The only emotion Neji had toward her was lust, and it was only directed toward hate-fucking sessions.
[We're not working out,] Neji shrugged. He wanted to say something harsh toward her, but doing that might be counterproductive. If she started to hate him and then began to chase him because of that, it would be stupid.
"But, Prima…"
[I need some personal time for myself, as do you. Don't search for me, that'd kill any emotion I have remaining of you. When the time is right, I'd approach you myself,] I lied, [So be a good girl and return to your home.]
Neji activated teleportation, vanishing out of the room. He appeared at the edge of the sun-sized planet, to decide the next direction he'd search, but he paused.
"YOU DARE?!" A voice yelled, but it wasn't directed towards him. Neji changed his appearance and even manipulated his aura in case the owner of the voice turned to look at him; though the chance of that was unlikely. "You dare kidnap my daughter, you foolish bastard?! You dare ruin her chastity?!"
Once again, the voice wasn't directed toward him. The Primordial God, the size of a truck right now, was beating up a black-haired and purple-eyed pretty boy in the distance. Neji watched only for a second before he vanished, unwilling to alert them. He already understood the situation, and things played out as he had expected.
"All of you System Users are arrogant!" yelled the Primordial God as he punched the Incubus Demon Lord, shattering his jaw while cries of shock came from the spectators. A bunch of girls were watching the scene, crying, but they had no way to interfere.
Gods from Prime and Abstract Entities from Cube appeared around the planet. Neji was lucky that he escaped when the situation was just starting, otherwise he'd have never been able to escape.
"I- I don't know what you're talking about!" yelled the Incubus, barely dodging a punch. "I don't even know your daughter; you have mistaken me for someone else!"
"Quit your lies, mortal!" the Primordial yelled, though the Incubus Demon Lord was far from the general idea of a 'mortal'. Then again, anyone who wasn't Omnipotent was mortal by his standards. "I am aware of your history, not only have you courted my daughter in the past, but you even went as far as to try your luck with the Director of the Last Act. The culprit who took my daughter matches quite a bit with how you look, so it must be you, if not some form of clone ability."
"N-no!" yelled one of the girls, a wife of the Incubus, "He is innocent, please-" the Primordial looked at her, and her body crumbled to dust.
The Incubus stared at his dead lover, his face pausing for a moment… before he just shrugged. 'Stupid bitch,' he thought and looked back at the Primordial. "That was my first wife, it hurts seeing her go like that, man. But I know I can't win against you, so I am not even thinking of attacking you. If I know that, then I should also know better than to kidnap your daughter, right? I'm not a fool! I never touched your daughter, let me go already!"
"Primordial God," said one of the Abstracts, it was Contessa Fate. "I believe he speaks the truth; it truly is a misunderstanding. You should trust my eyes that can view destiny-"
The Primordial God growled, "Are you implying my own understanding of fate and destiny is below yours, woman?!" his eyes glowed bright, and a red beam cascaded out of his irises. Contessa Fate's eyes went wide, she tried to block it and barely managed to do so.
Yet, even for the Primordial God, a direct invasion of the Cube and then attacking an Abstract Entity was a step too far. The other Abstract nearby retaliated right away, and the Gods from Prime did the same.
With this tumultuous clash, the fragile peace between the two Omniverses shattered, heralding the onset of an era of chaos.
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Author Note: Tried hard through exams and other lifely problems, but looks like we are entering another month. Happy leapyear month, we really at the end game.
Read the next chapter right away, along with an entire month's worth, ahead in my Patreon.
Link: Patreon.com/Master4thWall