(AN: the maid, Camellia's name has been changed to Nu)
***
A handsome golden-blonde-haired man walked in the dimly lit large corridor with another man walking a few steps behind him, wearing a formal and upright butler-like outfit. While the golden-blonde-haired handsome man wore an extremely luxurious yet modest set of clothes, wearing a blazer-like luxurious cloth without anything beneath it, revealing his well-built, Greek god-like body.
His name was "Xod," the fourth son of his father, Ivan Lane, who was no less than the being that's called God. The person next to Xod was the butler, whose name was Psi.
Reaching the end of the corridor, Xod squinted his eyes due to the slightly bright light coming from the other side of the corridor and walked out of the corridor, into the humongous coliseum, in the middle of which stood Xod's God, Ivan.
Ivan was seen shadow boxing, swinging his ever-changing weapon. He would swing down a massive war axe with his left hand and swing a broad sword horizontally with his right hand, before his broad sword morphed into a hammer as another pair of translucent black hands popped out from his serratus anterior, with which he swung down his axe before clenching the hammer with both of his real arms, which he used to slam the back of the war axe.
Causing a strong gust of circular wind pressure to shoot out, but even though Ivan was making such heavy and strong moments and strikes, not once had his weapons touch the ground, as not even a crack had appeared on the ground.
Puffing his chest out in pride, he stood similarly to Nu, who stood a few steps behind Ivan, unmoving.
"Father!" Xod called out with a bright smile, and noticing his fourth son calling him out, Ivan turned to face Xod with a small smile on his face. But it wasn't long until his gaze turned sharp, and his expression turned stern.
Ivan took a step towards Xod and disappeared from the spot where he had previously stood. "What is it?" Ivan asked, appearing in front of Xod and Psi.
"Your majesty." With a 90-degree bow, Psi handed a towel to Ivan, who took it and wiped off the hint of sweat that had appeared on his body.
"Father..." Xod called out, and the sadness in his previously cheery tone could be perceived quite easily.
"....." Ivan simply stared at his son, not even looking for his disappeared maid.
"What are the calculated chances of success?" Ivan glanced at Psi and asked in a stern tone.
"Yes! It's estimated to be 100%." Psi replied, and even though Psi hid it extremely well, Ivan could tell that he too was sad.
"D-dad," Xod called out with an audible gulp, and Ivan flinched slightly, feeling a chill run around his heart.
"D-do you really have to go-" Xod asked, but was cut off by Ivan before he completed his sentence.
"Where is your mother?" Ivan asked in a pained tone, as his gaze turned dead for a split second.
"On the other side of the world." Xod replied with his head down.
"Is that right? Alright, summon your brothers and sisters to the ruin." He commanded and walked towards Xod, patted his shoulder, and continued to walk, but before he disappeared into the corridor, a voice sounded behind him, halting him.
"Do you really have to go? Can't you stay here? With us?" Xod asked loudly.
"Xod." Ivan gazed at Xod over his shoulder; just his gaze was enough to make Psi and Xod tremble and turn pale in fear.
"We have already discussed this, I..." Ivan said, taking a deep breath as his brows and lips began to tremble.
"I-I can't do this anymore." He mumbled while looking down at his palms, then disappeared from the spot, leaving behind Xod and Psi, who were drowning in sadness and holding back their tears.
*
After a few minutes, Ivan teleported out of his underground, tower-like castle and glanced to his right, where a Viking-style city could be seen, filled with humanoid monsters with the differentiating traits of spiders, wolves, and snakes.
The city was bustling and lively, as monsters chatted amongst themselves with smiles on their faces, a few carrying their monster kids in their arms, backs, and heads, that had curiosity-filled round eyes that were looking at everything around. Seeing this, Ivan couldn't help but smile with a throbbing heart.
"I'm such a monster, hahaha." He chuckled, mumbling to himself.
"Fuuu.... I...." Ivan mumbled and bit his lower lip, painfully.
"I... need to leave before she gets back." He mumbled to himself and glanced to his left, where he could see a broken, humongous structure that was as big as a few massive mountains combined, with two rune-filled circles floating with an edge planted into the ground. Around 35% of the structure was in ruins, with a gigantic, floating bull's skull in mid-air in the middle of the ruined runes that filled circles around it.
With a throbbing heart, Ivan waved his left arm, and a five-layered magic circle materialised right beneath his palm and around his forearm. With a snap of his fingers, he disappeared from the spot where he stood.
*
ZOOOM!
"Father...."
"You're really leaving...."
SNIFFLE
Ivan appeared in front of the humongous structure, in front of which he seemed like a person standing in front of a towering skyscraper even though the structure was kilometres away from the spot he stood. He gazed at twelve of his kids, six of whom were standing to his right and the other six on his left, crying.
"Don't cry like that; you guys seriously think I want to leave, leaving all of you and your mother behind? It's just that all of my pent-up emotions will burst out if I stay here, even for a few years or months more, and the consequences of that would be too much." Ivan explained himself with a smile, a smile that hid away all his grief and sadness.
"C-can't you stay here?" Xod spoke up, asking the same question for the zenith time.
"We have already discussed this, and you know that I.... I'll have to kill your mother in a month, again. Staining myself with the blood of my loved one, again. If I don't leave right now, I don't know if I'll be able to stay the same...."
"I have been holding everything in, so that I won't burden you kids with all these things, for all these years. You don't know how painful it is for me to hold everything in....."
"Even now, I desperately want to live here, for you guys and for her, but I can't, and I don't have enough courage to kill her and act as if nothing happened..."
"Haaa, look at what you did; I can't believe I'm speaking of this nonsense with my kids. Don't worry too much; your father is too strong!" He said with a smile and hit his chest, puffing it up in pride.
"W-we can fight the war; you won't have to kill mother; we'll do it with our hands-" Freyr, a handsome white-haired man with hazel, lizard-like eyes, spoke up. He was Ivan's second son, and he was wearing a luxurious formal set of clothes that seemed luxurious yet modest compared to the others.
"You think I'll let that happen?" Ivan asked with his brows raised, staring at Freyr straight in the eyes.
"...." Pressing his lips together, Freyr looked down.
"You don't remember what happened to Ingvar?" Ivan asked, his tone filled with anger and sadness.
"Your mother is not as weak as you think she is; she either rivals me or is even stronger than me with each and every reset. Do you think you have a chance against her? You won't be able to defeat her even if you all fight against her together." Ivan spoke with profound pride in each of his words about his wife.
"Alright then, let's begin." Ivan roared.
"Authority of the seed!"
KEEEEEIIIIIIIIII!!!!
With a loud demonic, horrifying screech, a thumb-sized reddish, black-coloured seed planted itself into the ground right behind him and began to grow into a tree coloured reddish black, becoming almost the size of the structure in front of him. There was a suffocating amount of magic power oozing out of Ivan at that moment, and in his trance, he wasn't able to notice his surroundings that were growing reddish, blood-dyed grass.
Complying with Ivan's will, the ring of his finger morphed into a 9-foot-long katana, which was two feet longer than Ivan.
Clenching the sword in his hands, Ivan concentrated all the magic power onto his sword, which currently had a humongous reddish-black coloured aura surrounding it.
{Rune of combinations}
[Space manipulation + Shadow cut]
[Dimensional cut]
Speaking out a strange train of indescribable words, Ivan roared as he swung down his sword, which stopped soon after hitting something. As soon as those words left Ivan's mouth, all four of his hands turned pitch-black, rising in the form of smoke, before hand-like threads formed from Ivan's dense magic power that began to clench and climb up his sword before turning the entire sword into a pitch-black, light-devouring weapon, no, an object.
Ivan exerted all of his strength, even using his pair of magical arms, as he forced the sword to cut through.
RI-P
With a sound of something ripping, the sword slowly but surely moved down. Ivan's mind began to break down, as his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears began to bleed, only to be stopped by the next instance. Seeing how hard their father was struggling, the kids thought of helping and began to release their pure magic power, almost exhausting their cores, while Ivan absorbed every bit of the magic power oozing out of his kids very own reservoir.
All the released magic power coiled around the humongous, demonic tree behind him before turning the magic power into its own,
BOOOOOMMM!
SHING!
With a loud explosion, the sword was shot downward, completing the swing, but before the sword hit the ground,
Ivan stopped it.
BOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!
All the force behind the sword swing came crashing down towards the red-coloured ground, depressing the ground and destroying the surrounding area up to a few kilometres away.
WHOOOOIIINNNNNGGGHHH!
"?" Ivan gazed up at the ruin following the strange sound and noticed the gigantic ruin being lit up, while the destroyed part of the ruin was being covered up by the threads of Ivan's magic power, lighting it entirely.
CRA-CRACK
'I didn't know that the ruin would light up.' Ivan thought. Over the past thousands of years, Ivan had been trying to open up or cut through time and space, trying to find a way to get back to Earth, so that he could stop killing his loved one with his own hands, but he failed every time and had to kill without an option. He had tried to die without fighting back many times, but his involuntary practise, which he had developed with extreme difficulty, would act up and he would involuntarily kill anything that harmed him.
'I could tell that I definitely cut something, but the space created in front of me is formed due to the magic power the ruin sucked from me, so what exactly did I cut?' Ivan questioned himself inwardly.
Due to his knowledge and experiences with space magic, Ivan could tell that the cracked space in front of him led somewhere, and it definitely wasn't a dud this time.
With a deep breath and a heavy, throbbing heart, "Freyr, Ove, Xod, Oscar, and Loki, look after your sisters. Ylva, Edda, Freya, Vigdis, Ingrid, and Hjordis, look after your brothers. Daghishat, look after both of your brothers and sisters in my stead." Ivan said, saying all the names of his crying kids with a gentle smile on his face.
"Freyr, stop your mother; you are the oldest here, so it's your responsibility." Ivan said, walked towards the crack majestically and halted in his steps.
"I'll summon you guys, our castle, and your mother once I reach Earth, my birthplace. Before that, you guys recover all of your strength, get more stronger, set up the teleportation spell on the entire castle, and do your best to hold back your mother." Ivan said this in a saddened tone and jumped in without turning back with a tear-filled gaze.
WHOOOOMMM!
After Ivan disappeared, nothing but sobbing sounded for a few minutes as the kids left behind, didn't even realise that the crack that opened up in the space in front of them had closed.
WHOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!
FLAP-!
THUMP!
"Where is your father?" A sweet yet cold voice sounded next to the kids, making them flinch.
'Freyr, stop your mother; you are the oldest here, so it's your responsibility.' Ivan's, his father's, voice sounded in his head, and Freyr stood up, wiped off tears, and glanced to his right, where his mother stood.
Nara stood in the spot where Ivan had stood previously with a deep, ominous frown on her face. She had bright, blood-red eyes; pitch-black hair; a twisted pair of black coloured horns on her forehead with red magma-filled twisted patterns on them; and another few sets of pitch-black small horns protruded out from her head, making it look like there was a small crown adorned on her head. The back of her forearms, biceps, serratus anterior, calves, and the sides of her thighs were covered in pitch-black, light-devouring scales, with flame-patterned scales covering her body.
"Mothe-" Freyr called out, but
"Where. Is. Your. Father?" Nara asked, repeating herself slowly so that they understood that she wanted answers, not excuses. It was a tone that she used whenever she was not ready to hear what the other had to say, except for wanting to hear the answer she wanted to hear.
'Father.... you are too cruel.'