The more Tetsu wondered, the stronger the system seemed.
"If you've finished wasting my time, bye-bye! I don't have an eternity yet, so once I do, we can talk forever." Tetsu attempted to incite the goddess further without pushing too far; he didn't wish for a powerhouse to descend upon him.
"With such arrogance, I highly doubt you can traverse the second threshold."
Tetsu's smile widened. Finally being able to extract some information from the goddess.
The goddess delves into his thoughts and sighs. "You were destined to learn it soon."
"Hey," Tetsu shrugs. "These little moments make my day, kiddo, and nothing you say will change that."
"Not even if your arrogance affects your loved ones?"
Tetsu laughs heartily, recalling Kile's words. Without missing a beat, he relives and repeats the words.
"The worst you can do is kill me, and the best will be eternal torture, but all I have to do is smile and I win." Tetsu spreads his hands wide, his toothy grin challenging the goddess to her best. "I might not understand why new universes are integrated and what's with the deal with the bonds, but now I am going to get stronger, join hands with the system if I have to, but I will change things around." He eyes the goddess. "On a multiversal scale."
"A mortal speaking of eternal torture." The goddess scoffs.
"Choose death or learn to live with the pain. Doesn't seem so hard." Tetsu shrugs.
She frowns and changes the topic. "What is the system?"
"Oh, I call the screen hovering around 'The' system, like the strongest."
The goddess smiles, causing his heart to skip a beat. It wasn't even a skill; her beauty alone was enough to entice him. With such a smile, he would sign hundreds of documents without a second thought.
Tetsu compelled himself to remain true to his core, summoning the same grit that kept him loyal to his crush and subdued his famished fangs.
"We are positioned above the system," she confesses.
"Huh-huh." Tetsu's grin overcomes his eyes, nearly closing them shut.
"Stop standing in your own way and accept the offer."
"If a bow is all you want, I can kiss the floor, but can you promise that my journey will always be mine alone?" Tetsu looks at the goddess hesitating and discerns the answer. "Also, hire a better investigator. I am an overthinker, every part of me contradicts the other. Hypocrisy is in my mind if you listen to my thoughts and not me."
"You truly are a peculiar mortal," the goddess's words resonate as she disappears with a wisp of light.
"Gorg-fucking-eous," Tetsu whistled, anticipating the chance to see her again or encounter her Order where he might be able to create a small harem.
"Ah!" He sighs, adding another impossible dream to his bucket list. "Now! Which one is next?"
Not long after, another supreme aura descended, though noticeably weaker than the others. The substitute goddess's aura held more pressure than this god, who claimed to be the head of his Order.
"Adam Elstine Praise."
"Huh-huh!" Tetsu stuck to his routine of vexing, bowing, and being baffled.
"Even immortals are divided by levels, ranks, power, and wealth." Adam explained.
"No kidding, but why haven't they conquered your Order then, and what is an Order?"
"Order is a home for one's people, and why does a boot bother with an ant?"
"Wow! Simple, but degrading."
"Lies are meant for others, not yourself." Adam shrugged.
"Smart! How come others aren't so composed?"
"Emotions hold a unique power. It does not change due to level. Devoiding oneself from emotions leads to stagnation."
"I wanted to be rude but as you're being so helpful can I ask a few doubts?"
"Ask away."
"What's with the recruiting?"
"Take it as a stock market from Earth."
"You are..."
"THE first human. And no!" Adam read Tetsu's mind and answered all of his god-related questions with one word.
"Uni... Multiverse?"
"Beyond my pay grade."
"Ah!" Tetsu was disappointed. "Interesting way. You can finish a complex explanation with such easy and minimum words."
"One has to understand the concept themselves to explain it to others. The deeper one's knowledge, the simpler their explanation."
"One last one."
"I can see a million more questions in there." Adam points at Tetsu's head.
"Half of the fun is figuring things out, right?"
Adam sensed it was less of a question and more of a statement, choosing not to probe further.
"The other half?" Adam asks with a raised brow.
"Wondering if the answer is right and accepting it." Tetsu smiled.
"You seem older than me."
Both of them share a laugh before Adam turns serious. "You still refuse?"
"Yeah... I dislike debts. Especially the ones that take eons to pay back."
They share another laugh and Adam forces a gift onto Tetsu.
"Hey!" Tetsu glares, his fangs descending the next second.
Adam timed the gift perfectly, sending it between Tetsu's fluctuating emotions, and he accepted it on reflex.
"Now, do you owe me, or will you shrug it off?" Adam smiles, revealing a perfect set of teeth.
The smile carried a soothing effect, attempting to diffuse the situation, but Tetsu's grin only grew more sinister. He shrugged off the calming influence, controlling the inclination to break a few teeth.
"No wonder our race sucks. The first one is a dick."
Adam was caught off guard. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. The karmic thread he was weaving slipped from his grasp, ruining his plans.
"Common, I am just having some fun." Adam's persona flipped from being an arc angle to Lucifer.
"We are done."
"Don't be so edgy, I could have done worse, instead you received a gift." Adam retorted.
"Gifts aren't forced, and I highly doubt you were intending it as an genuine gift."
"Yeah, yeah," Adam waves, weary of attempting the sweet approach. "But doesn't your core rule object to revenge?" A devious smile creeps onto his face. "Now, let's talk business."
Tetsu's smile puffs his chest out, and his shoulders roll back, making him look down at Adam. "Sure, where is your champion located?"
A fractal grew over Tetsu's fang, and Adam's supreme aura scrambled to safety like a scared animal. He hid his emotions and waved his head nonchalantly. "Break a rule you created, and the system will snatch away the title," he smiled, but this time, his smile paled in comparison to the mortal's.
Tetsu guessed Adam meant the title of [My Way]. He didn't know how he found out about his title; he must have a similar one, he guessed. Either way, this only fueled his rage, curving the smile in a more cynical way. "If you only had such a title." Snickers Tetsu. "I wouldn't have to explain."
Not wanting to indulge with the human god any further, Tetsu shuts off all of his senses and steps forward.
Adam's instinct forces him to take a step back.
"Pray my Order doesn't fall close to yours," Tetsu said, continuing to walk through Adam as if he were a hologram.
Adam knew he wouldn't make any headway now. All the threads dissipated somehow, and there was no way of reconnecting with the mortal. Was it the system or something else? He ignored Tetsu and took a step forward, his surroundings blurring as his step landed inside a grand castle made of golden clouds.
An angel eagerly anticipated Adam's return; upon spotting him, her heart swelled with pride and honor. She bowed as low as her posture permitted, despite her lord's instruction never to do so. He was consistently kind, and she occasionally pondered how he had endured the merciless trials to reach the [Noor].
"Splendidly done, my lord," she smiled, but her expression faded into a frown as she witnessed a similar expression on her lord's face. Having served under him for over a thousand years, she had never seen her lord frown before.
"Kill him," commanded Adam, walking past her, his frown deepening with each passing second.
"Yes, sire," she responded instinctively before her mind fully processed the information. "Who?" Before she could turn to seek clarification, Adam had once again disappeared, leaving only a voice echoing in the empty hall. "The mortal!"
---- ---- ---- ----
"Fantastic job dingus," Tetsu yelled at himself. "Why wouldn't you piss off a god? Say what, while you're at it, why don't you shove your head into the larva and see if it's hot?" Tetsu kicked a rock and yelped in pain.
"Hmm... He doesn't seem so special to me!" a voice echoed within the void.
"But sire you asked for a meeting, and we already paid the price. A massive price." A Titan repeated, hoping master would comprehend the cost.
Whenever he was summoned, the Titan compared himself to [Void], a futile endeavor akin to comparing oneself to a star, yet his Titan lineage demanded supremacy.
After devouring his solar system's star and casting it into utter darkness, a serene warmth enveloped his consciousness. He had never concerned himself with the repercussions until the void came knocking.
A reckless display of power obliterated his galaxy, sending ripples into [Void's] territory. The Titan, considering himself the mightiest and grandest of all beings, faced a reckoning when confronted by the Void. He comprehended the true essence of power in its presence and realized how far he was from grasping its truth.
He succumbed to the struggle upon sensing its presence, and now, a Titan was reduced to a mere servant. Though he never looked at his master within the void, whenever the master moved, the void moved in tandem.
"I did? For him?" Void tried to recall. "Sure, call him over."
"We have to go to him, sire!"
"Why would we go to him?"
"When I asked the same thing, sire said, why would he come to us?"
"Me?"
"Yes, sire," the Titan nodded. Through years of servitude, he had understood his master's forgetful nature and recurring dilemmas very well. He caught every fluctuation within the void, anticipating and preparing answers in advance.
"Sire must have taken the restrictions into account and desired to amuse oneself with a walk," the Titan said, feigning assumption, but in reality, he repeated his master's words precisely. "The mortal is quite weird and amusing." He concluded.
"Hmm." The void shook with power.
"Sire!" The Titan shuttered and knelt. "Only a fraction of this presence can a newly integrating world handle, sire." He tried to remind [Void].
"Oh!" Void grunted, cracking space in two.
'That universe is done for.' Titan sighed and sent a message warning the system engineer about the impending doom, who still wondered why he wanted to meet a mortal.
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