[Note - I merged two chapters into one, Chapters 491 and 492, to lower the chapter count by 1 and make it a solid 500. And yes… the story has ended in Patreon.]
Chapter 495: The Primordial God is At the Doorstep
—
The Primordial God, even as the Cube's greatest enemy, was extremely feared and respected by its inhabitants, as well as by the Abstract Entities.
Fighting him would always end in a loss, the best they had ever done was hold him off. So when he appeared on the western side of the cosmos this time, Class 1, Buddha, sighed and went to greet him.
He wasn't accompanied by any Class Zero this time; those instances were rare. The incident with Prima was big, that's why he was seen accompanying Entropy.
This time, there was no need for that. No, he was here simply to talk, the presence of any Class Zero would rather give the Mad God the wrong idea.
He came alone, accompanied only by his Buddhist subordinates; parts of the Buddha Faction, each at Class 5 and beyond.
"O' respected Primordial," said Buddha as he made a deliberate bow. He stood a few light-years away from the Titan of Destruction, but due to their sheer size, toppling over many Megaverses, they seemed to be standing a mere few yards from one another. "May I ask what infuriated you enough to step into battle by yourself?"
"Hmm," the four-armed red giant grunted as he looked at Buddha. Beside him, his wife stood with an amused expression, and behind the two of them, a thousand spaceships worth of Gods and other Warriors floated in subspace.
"Honey, come on, there is nothing wrong with telling him. He might even help us if he knows why we're here." Eurynome said in a whisper, leaning into her husband's ear who frowned softly.
A moment later, he shrugged, "It appears that my calculation a hundred years ago was a mishap. The Northern Demon King was not the culprit behind my daughter's… situation. It's another demon king, it turns out, one with a system of his own, so you can understand why I was confused."
"Ah." Buddha blinked and revealed a wry smile, "Let me guess, is it the new guy?"
"The Demon King of Light and Darkness, yes," Eurynome said, shaking her head. That name was too popular to ignore these days. "He was immensely lucky, to have fled the scene right under my husband's nose. But his luck has dried out now that we have found the truth."
That was the reason this war began anyway, so naturally, it being a false reason greatly annoyed the Buddha.
But what could he say to this Mad God?
Buddha could guess that the Primordial God was just as angry at this situation. For the culprit of his daughter's rape to wander around for a whole century, how could he stand still knowing that?
"I understand," Buddha sighed and shook his head. "So you're in search of him? If so, I have a proposal to make. We have recently rescued Contessa Fate who joined back our ranks. She was kidnapped by Prima and spent a century with them, so she should know where they are. In that case, if… you'd like to cooperate, we can give you Prima's current location."
"What's the catch?"
"The war," Buddha replied to Eurynome. "Stop the war after you kill him. I'm sure you've been amused enough by it already."
Eurynome chuckled, "I'm not sure about that. What is stopping us from tearing you apart and making you spit the location? We-"
"It's alright, Eury," the Primordial raised a hand to stop his wife. "We agree."
His recently reignited fire of revenge will be quenched after he kills that fool. After that, a war wasn't exactly necessary.
To begin with, this wasn't a serious war. Zillions of souls died, worlds were erased and whole hyperverses gone, but for him, it was a chess game to get rid of boredom.
The Cube's remnant willpower would have been drained in a truly serious war.
So putting boredom aside, it was time to put an end to this war.
And, Prima's death will serve as a good declaration for its end.
* * *
Contrary to Buddha's expectations, though, Contessa Fate refused to reveal information about Prima's location. That gave Buddha the idea that Fate must be suffering from some cosmic-scale trauma, but later it became too obvious that she bore some feelings for Prima.
In the end, Buddha had to take her into custody and force her to cooperate.
Even though she still refused to openly admit his location after custody, Buddha managed to push his authority into the threads of destiny, since he too had some dominion over it, and managed to find his possible locations.
His most prominent place of hiding was the Dreamweaver's Fortress. That one would be greatly problematic to find, even if they knew its name since the Godmother and Director have been using it as their face for so long.
Contessa Fate was taken as a prisoner in that place and recently even teleported out of it. If this was any other location, they'd have managed to find it by reverse-tracking it. But this was the Fortress made of Dreams, the Director and Godmother had reinforced it with too many things to fall with such measly tricks.
In short, it'd take a long time to track them if they're hiding in Dreamweaver's Fortress.
Just when Buddha was about to give up, deciding to rather wait for Prima to come out himself, by using a bait to bring him out, good news came. A source who's been observing any of Prima's movements confirmed that he and his friends left the Fortress and were in search of a new place to hide in.
Buddha laughed, "They must have realized we'd find their location from Fate, and decided to switch bases." He looked at Fate, who was sitting behind a table with handcuffs on. "See, they don't even trust you to not backstab them. I'm disappointed you fell in love with your captor, but it's not a grave crime like Lady Life. Stand up, lose the cuffs, and help us in this."
He said, and walked out of the grand white interrogation hall that was several kilometers tall in height, compared to Buddha's size, and much wider in width. Fate stared down at her cuffs for a long time, before she closed her eyes and sighed.
"That's not why they're switching bases…" she muttered and stood up.
Fate freed her cuffs with a burst of Probability Storm and walked out of the room.
* * *
With Neji and his friends; understanding of this situation was entirely different. They had reestablished a base in a Hyperverse far from where the Dreamweaver's Fortress was, where they sat and were currently sipping tea calmly.
"Here it should be easier for them to find us," Neji said, putting down his cup. He wore the armor of Gilgamesh, dark purple armor, that left his chest naked. There was a crowd of a thin single plate on his head, curving upward to form three pointed horns, representing the three horns he had in his true form.
"First time seeing someone deliberately making it easier for the Primordial to find them," Godmother replied with a chuckle. "Are you sure you should be resting right now? If it were me, I'd have not let a second of training go missing, if only to get the slightest advantage of survival."
"I am training," Neji said and looked at her. With a snap of his finger, a dozen screens came to life in the air, where hundreds of Nejis were clashing with one another in their true form. "It's not bearing any fruit though. I'm too high of a Level right now to experience any growth from this."
===
[ —Status Page— ]
Name: Neji Hado
Age: 110
Level: 99,999
–
Race: Celestialdraconicsapien
Class: [Guardian of Chaos]
Sub-Class: [Monarch of Time]
Title: Celestialsapien, The Cosmic Enigma
–
HP: 638455000/638455000
SP: 638995000/638995000
MP: 641295000/641295000
–
STR: 642225
END: 638455
DEX: 638995
INT: 641295
WIS: 635495
CHA: 636540
LUC: 670495
–
HP REG: 255382000/m
SP REG: 255598000/m
MP REG: 254198000/m
Stat Points: 0
===
He was stronger than he could have wished to be when he first came here. On top of that, as a bonus, his HP and SP were 1000x his END now. In the beginning, even with his new race, it used to be only END 10x, while his Mana was INT 100x.
As Sisty had said, as a new race, Celestialdraconicsapien had weaknesses or powers that he or she wasn't aware of. So as someone with Admin privileges, he managed to chat with the other admins – Raki in this case – to get their permission to grant his race 100x END for HP and SP. After providing a compelling argument that—he received the INT 100x Mana boost, as compared to INT 10x before that, after he became a Draconic High Human, and surely a Celestial Draconic Sapien's evolution was worth more than that, as was the struggle, Raki agreed that it should receive a greater boost.
So now, his Mana was INT 1000x, and HP and SP were END 1000x.
On top of that, he argued, his Stat bonus per level should be higher too. That's why each level, he received 5-stats as compared to the 2 before. Of course, the 10-free-stats always came along too. Overall, he was far stronger than he could have been.
In retrospect, it didn't matter since as an Omnipotent Celestialsapien he should be able to generate infinite ATK Power from his punches, but against an entity of the same caliber, or above, he felt the stats should help. If not, they might as well have been represented with an infinity symbol [∞] rather than numbers.
Plus, having a higher STR removed the need to Will it to make a punch stronger, saving a precious attosecond.
"Level 99,999." He told Godmother, and the others in the room also paid attention. "I've done all I can, and I can't step into Level 100,000 until I finish this mission. So training right now would only work to relieve my stress rather than give me any real power."
Neji picked up the cup again, twisting it to transform it into a goblet, where instead of tea it was filled with red wine, and he began sipping it. The girls stared at him for a bit before they looked at Kimi.
"So," Anodi started. "What do we do? He'll be fighting the Primordial, but he is coming with an army."
"What about them?" Kimi tilted her head.
"There is Eurynome Celestine," she continued. "I think Mother will take care of her. But I hear the father of Zephyr, Fotia's fiancé whom Neji killed, is also here. Clearly, he is here for revenge, but since the target of his revenge is Neji, he'll pick a fight with anyone else. Meaning, you in this case."
"I'll take care of that guy," said Godmother, shooting Kimi a look. "It's you guys' fight, so you take care of Eury. Zephyr's father is one of the 72 Great God Emperors, he isn't weak either, so I'll focus on him, as well as any other big players there may be."
"What about us, then?" Anodi asked, pointing at herself and Life.
"Life's going to stay out of this, as well as Ra," Neji said suddenly, making everyone, including the two in question, turn to him.
"What?"
"Father…"
"It's dangerous." Neji looked at them and said, "You two are not strong enough to change a thing in this battle. You as a spectator will only be distracting."
"…." Ra stayed silent while Life glared at Neji.
"You know what this feels like? It feels like you're saying your final goodbyes to us. I don't like it." She said, "I am not going."
"That's not up to you to decide," Neji said, standing up. "We're all Class Zeroes, even Anodi, while you're Class 1. I can't make you any stronger given your nature as an Abstract Entity, and I can't make Ra stronger without turning him into a weapon. We're the fighters and we'll protect you, why would I make my dear ones risk their lives meaninglessly?"
"…." She glared at him as her eyes went watery. "Then you better survive."
"I will," he smiled, slowly raising a hand. "See you later." Then he waved his hand as the air sucked them into itself, turning into a wrap that carried them far from this place, on a distant planet in a distant Hyperverse.
A short silence filled the hall, and Neji turned to Kimi to ask something. But she walked over to him and hugged him first, pulling him into her embrace and kissing his head. "It's okay… everything will be alright if our plan works out."
"…Yeah," he smiled. "How long till they find us?"
"A couple of days," she smiled. "Let's take a bath."
"Alright," Neji nodded.
He looked at Anodi, who nodded back and smoothly flew to join them, while the Godmother walked away to stand near the window and stare out at the cosmos.
* * *
It had been two days since then. The place they were on was a small planet filled with forests of different seasons. In the center of the planet, surrounded by all the forests, was a castle of Mesopotamian origin.
It reminded Neji of his own castle back in Uruk, like Gilgamesh, except it lacked any servants or people other than themselves. Oh, and the Seven Deadly Sins.
Godmother of all Demons had many loyal subjects. Neji did too, at this point, he had many allies. He didn't want to ask them for help in this fight since it was his own, and they'd just suffer from it if they were to get involved. But then again, there were many who could help him without getting hurt.
On the top of the list would be the same Queen Quantum he had mentioned earlier. She was powerful. There was also the True Null Void Dragon and its twin brother, the Origin Creation Dragon, two of the oldest beings in the Omniverse.
They would be his left and right hand, if Neji had to say, as they have been working for him ever since he defeated them and befriended their mother—the Chaos Origin Dream Dragon Goddess of Singularity.
She could come help too if he were to ask her for it. Even against the Primordial, these entities wouldn't go down right away.
...Still, he preferred to deal with this on his own. If he won, the plan would go with ease and everything would be alright. But if he were to die, then that's that.
Godmother, on the other hand, did not think the same. She needed more hands to help her out in this battle, and so therefore she called forth her Seven Deadly Sins and all their subordinates.
So while the demons filled the palace and met with Godmother, Neji chose to instead submerge himself in the warm water of the same bath he had bathed in with Kimi and Anodi two days ago.
Today, he chose to be alone with Kimi, as she sat between his legs and he hugged her from behind.
The water was hot, warmer than the depth of hyperversal suns, stars whose size could make universes look like photon particles. Yet the heat felt like a normal hot spring to his and Kimi's skins.
"I'll miss you," Neji suddenly said in a soft, caring voice, but Kimi didn't react. A minute later, she sighed.
"Can you not say that? You won't die. I'll make sure you don't." she said.
"No, don't interfere, Kimi." He said. "Not that I think you can make a difference at all, but what if you intervene and it turns out it's actually our plan that's unfolding smoothly? So even if you think I'm dying, never step in."
"...."
His large hands were wrapped around her, rubbing against her soft, glistening skin. Her round breasts floated in the water, and she stared and turned her head to look at him.
"Fine. I'll miss you too," she said.
"Don't go on a rampage if I die," he said, "and definitely don't try to reincarnate me through the other Neji who'll be born."
"Ah yes, very funny," she shook her head, already knowing the story about the other possibility's Kimi from Neji. She turned her head forward. "I'll see."
The two possibilities were connected in a criss-cross "X" shape. It was all due to Kimi, the time traveler. In the first possibility, where Neji would have returned to the past without Icons, he'll die against the Primordial; in the hope of bringing him back, that possibility's Kimi will later torment the 2nd, aka the current Neji, and try to reincarnate the 1st Neji. Of course, that didn't work and our Neji returned to the past with Icons. But if things go wrong here and Neji dies, then the current Kimi will meet the first possibility's Neji in the future, and she too will surely try to revive the 2nd Neji through him.
Neji was telling her not to, trying his best not to convince her, but how can she ever listen?
"...And Kurai," Kimi relaxed herself into his grasp, rubbing her face against his arm as she muttered. "I have something to say."
Neji told her how SBOP contacted him twice where she happened to know what was going on here, so both he and Kimi could guess that SBOP was watching all of this unfold on some big screen. And since Kurai was with her, she might be watching too.
There was a silence in the area, only broken by the soft waves of the water and the chirping of the birds in the green forest outside the big windows until a soft voice filled the room.
[Yes, mama?]
"If both of us die," Kimi said to the empty air. "Stick with that old woman, she'll take care of you. She likes cats, and besides… you're special."
"You won't die," there was a long silence before Neji nibbled on her ear and said.
"As long as you don't," she looked back at him and said, suddenly putting double the pressure on his shoulder than he already had.
Neji sighed and pulled her into a kiss. She gave in, throwing her arms around his neck as her naked, slippery form twisted around on his lap. She kissed him and pulled his head while pushing her chest against his and grinding against his crotch.
…Their making out ended short when the sound of loud explosions filled the planet.
The Primordial God was here.
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