Mr. Smiley had announced to the dominators a new member of SK Foundation, with Professor Cthulhu being the former founder of the organization, he needs to fully know who this freshman really is and how reliant can she or he is from assisting the World Termination by Mr. Smiley and his maids.
Without knowing any information from the abrupt call of Mr. Smiley, he has to attend the next meeting and postponed the other projects.
And all the necessary previous discussion is needed for Claire to understand or else she will be way behind in knowing the plans than the others.
---
In the gusty winds towards the continuous loud thud of the window shutters, Claire enters inside an empty room to rest after the events that led to her becoming powerful from the last battle she had.
Preparing to sleep, she immediately removes the mask as tears trickled from her cheeks due to the lack of courage for the deaths that she bled.
She grips her hand as if a twisted reality she bares to face as it was indeed a dreadful end for the dead people of the past and the illusion of herself getting killed numerous times.
Her mind was cluttered from all the conflation of her oracles and memories intact, thus she loses her own sanity as the oracles show unlimited deaths and failure as she progresses in this part of the trial.
She had no control over her ability without the mask.
And because of it, she became reliant on the status of the mask to survive solely.
She begins to close her eyes now as to exhale calmly.
She had countless dreams regarding her life intact in this world, meeting every mistake to exchange her own life and reset over and over.
She finally sets her a dream for her to be in but this time it was different, a large cliff that was tainted in smoke and ashes to show a dim light of the remains of what's left of the world to rot and be deceased.
Continuously walking and slowly from the frost chills of the wind, it was uncanny to see dark ashes burst through every space it gets from behind.
She had no fear as she noticed and just keep on moving forward.
She falls to her death is her decision but what stopped this occurrence was a bunch of tentacles wrapped all around her as she describe to be dark and slim, the one thing that she remembers was the dark tentacles that captivate her space, as she continues to slowly move closer by the tentacles to the immense aura coming from the dim figure from the darkness.
As her female voice was heard, she didn't recall what voice it was for but it was sure familiar.
She says,
"Is death really your answer?"
She moves Claire closer to her position.
She already knows that this world might be just a dream so she yearns to die and wake up as soon as she can get.
She sees a girl with crimson eyes and dark skin.
Suddenly, Claire strangles the female entity's neck so tightly.
And with her mask horrifyingly clouding the girl's judgement, She drops Claire from the depths of darkness to see her from afar crying to see the results for the last protagonist to be.
She wakes up and with an utter look from the ceiling, she wears the mask again as it became a bit too heavy as it closely clutches her face.
Using appraisal, she sees an enormous reported status of what has been shown in the following.
Claire Valentine
1 life available
Health: 14690/14690
Power: 21459
Speed: 18390
Agility: 19600
Defense: 5890
Dynamic vision: 4120
Wisdom: 34000
She takes the letter and went to the SK Foundation to attend the meeting an hour early than the expected time.
Entering the doors of the Skyscraper, she was greeted by an AI that guards the whole building itself.
As she says,
"Welcome to the SK Foundation, may I know your name, miss?"
"Claire Valentine."
"Oh, the last protagonist."
"I was but now I am a fellow dominator like the rest."
"I see I see.
I'll be looking forward to meeting you, Claire Valentine.
My name is Farren.
The meeting room is on the 200th floor.
Others will arrive soon."
Entering the elevator, anxiously pondering about the other dominators, are they gonna retaliate against her?
There's no telling what will happen.
As suddenly, the elevator opens on the 97th floor and sees two dominators entering, but one of them was frightened to see the new dominator known as Claire.
Slowly, he enters, the one who got frightened was named Engr. Xenakis, the Omega Artificer of Machinery.
The other one is Dr. Sneer, the Mad Scientist.
"You must be the last protagonist."
Dr. Sneer wants to introduce himself but was interrupted by Claire herself.
"Was. I am now a dominator freshman, glad to be meeting you here."
"My name is Dr. Sneer, and this scared little mouse is Engr. Xenakis."
"I'm not small!"
Engr. Xenakis raises his voice but then soon realized that Claire and her mask are gently and directly staring at him.
"Why are you looking at me like that, you're freaking me out."
"I'm sorry. I'm a little curious about you."
Checking his status with her appraisal settings.
"Interesting."
She explains the reason why he was intently being looked at.
Engr. Xenakis
Health: 14690/14690
Power: 134
Speed: 300
Agility: 250
Defense: 50
Dynamic vision: 560
Wisdom: ?
Only his wisdom stat was left unknown, it must have been too high to be measured by the appraisal.
Claire was left with a choice to gain allies from her fellow dominators.
On the way to the 200th floor, the elevator opens as then the three dominators casually walked onward to the meeting room.
Seeing a few people such as Admiral Hellbert, King Gorr, Dr. Wicked, and the founder known as Professor Cthulhu.
They were waiting for the god of domination to come.
Walking slowly towards the seat and finally sitting as one of the team, a door suddenly opens, and sees Mr. Smiley himself alongside him is Trolie, the clockwork destroyer.
"Hello everyone, I am hereby announcing our new member.
Claire stand up."
Claire stands up with great confidence.
"My name is Claire Valentine.
I may once be a protagonist that would go against you all but I am declaring that I renounce my title with a new one called..."
Crap, she needs to make a new nickname for the dominators to see.
"How about this, 'perfect devil'.
It suits you well."
"I'm fine with it, I Claire, the perfect devil, here to give of service to my fellow dominators to commit full world termination to Mr. Smile himself!"
Everyone was impacted by the words of the new dominator.
Bold words coming from the devil himself.
As they didn't know, the evil god was watching closely for Claire's improvements, chuckling from a distance.
Well except for Mr. Smiley of course, he knew that he was watching.
"I'll be making a summary of the previous discussions of our dated plan for world termination.
I'll begin it shortly.
As you can see..."
Upon explaining, Claire understood the gist of their plan.
There will be a battlefield of the city Alamus.
Each district will be the place of termination by different dominators and the maids to clash against.
There will be a roulette upon making a such decision which will bring the fate of Mr. Smiley but it will be confidential up until the battle starts, Professor Cthulhu will be an observer of the battle.
She hasn't gotten this far yet since all of her death weren't able to reach this part, so she does nothing but sit at the side of the meeting table silently.
Afterwards, the Professor's final word of the discussion has come to an end.
"In short, Claire will be further added to the plan by the next final meeting which will decide the fate of the world.
Dr. Wicked will be her instructor of Claire if you have still questions."
Professor Cthulhu looks at Claire if she has anything to share.
"Is it possible for me to pick a maid to fight against?"
"You noticed, huh?
I guess we lack one maid to fight against so I'll be forcing you to face one of the deadliest maids of Mr. Smiley, Phillia, the cursed angel."
Her last respawn from her dreams by the oracle was her all along, which will decide the fate of Claire's life and end.
After the meeting, they all leave the scene, including Professor Cthulhu.
"Too bad it wasn't like this…
We didn't have to resort to things with violence and chaos, it's just that Mr. Smiley choose this path and he just didn't give us a chance to be on friendly terms and unite for the betterment of this world or even all worlds.
And now we have to subjugate him, my very creation yet."
Professor Cthulhu ponders with great resolve upon dealing with all the obstacles that have been hindering them for so long.
Thoughts of Professor Cthulhu, pondering what could be the last resort upon accomplishing or fulfilling his greatest objective, that is to save his last hope, his non-existent brother.
To keep the cycle going, he needs appropriate measurements needed for the cycle to continue.
With the help of the members of SK Foundation, he can make it possible to reset its damnation or even save countless lives including himself.
The days of dripping rain continues, and sewers draining its fluids from the infectious disease known as SK Virus was widely shown to be severe and lethal depending on its conditions and the environment, though it has been used by SK Foundation, all younger ages were used in extreme and strict education and violent practice as the symptoms were full of violence and gory subjects to be held as a military force against the remnants of humanity.
Whereas, 9% of the army was removed due to its defect and insubordination from escaping the trials of training.
And with that, they were left in the dark alleyways, left in ruins.
Walking in the hallways Claire was worried about the fact that her dreams will continue to be the same as it was last time.
Entering her room, she lies down and takes a rest.
She closes her eyes with a relaxing feeling and softens the press of the bed as the blanket covers her with the warmth of her body and mind.
She begins to dream as darkness is at its nearest.
She had nothing left but to wait to fall asleep.
An hour has passed, and so she is finally asleep, she is in the countryside where the neighborhood is a farmer trying to work on the plains while she was hanging at the house near them.
But for some reason, her physical body was similar to a child.
Eating a baked potato, a visitor arrived at her doorstep.
The girl named Claire was about to answer the door, she finally opens it and sees a tall figure of a man with black clothing, a conical hat, and a white mask.
"Am I allowed to enter your humble home?"
The little girl named Claire answered,
"No."
Utterly, the man laughed at her abrupt answer and so he tries to explain why he is there.
"I'm here for you little girl. C'mon now we have an exciting adventure we are about to see."
"Adventure?!!! Yehey!! It's kinda boring here to stay."
The little girl was so overexcited that she even forgot her own dream-like parents to ask permission but all's well and ends well.
They embark on a journey through dreams and dreams connected as a world that overlaps with each other right up until they finally escape the consciousness of what's left of Claire Valentine.
In short, a new stage for Claire to evolve due to its rapid growth and changes in her consciousness and the mask.
The mask has finally covered 80% of her mind and thus she couldn't be able to go back to the way it was.
She isn't a protagonist, only a twisted character has formed from within her as power and invasion of the mind was overwhelming.
While on Professor Cthulhu, he finally has the results of Claire's status.
Bewildered by it, he manages to fit her to fight Phillia in the spacious white room.
The battle has been set, and all that was left was to prepare the maids and then other dominators to clash with Mr. Smiley as they went on to their last meeting.