Emily POV:

A final glance with those cold, dead eyes and he disappeared through the portal, leaving the three of us staring blankly into space, too shocked to utter a word.

What… was that?

I was wary of him before, especially after he so easily defeated me last time, but now…

I can’t even begin to comprehend.

One second, he was intimidating the envoys simply with his voice, and the next he summoned a strange purple sun-like thing out of thin air.

That such a thing was under complete control and made by a single man was terrifying in and of itself, but it was just the beginning.

It then began shaking violently then, suddenly and without warning, it simply imploded, collapsing inward into an extremely small black dot hole in the middle of the huge purple star and quickly absorbing the enormous amount of Energy as if it was nothing.

Even when it was just a small black dot, I could feel its reach all the way on the ground, its pull tugging at my very soul trying to suck me in and rip me apart.

By being able to summon that small thing alone, I found out that I still had heavily underestimated him.

Then,  as if to prove that I indeed did, the small black dot suddenly increased itself in size by dozens of times every second.

Whatever it was, be it Energy or simple matter, the black hole didn’t care

It simply swallowed everything.

I saw the moon coming out from behind the earth and getting sucked into that unholy place.

After that, I could see a yellow string of fire coming from the sun and heading to the ever-growing black hole, making the sun smaller and smaller as the hole grew, until the entirety of the sun was dragged towards it and swallowed whole.

Just when our planet was about to be swallowed as well, he teleported the entire city – an amazing feat of which I wasn’t even surprised he was able to do – and settled it on a planet far, far away from the one I called home.

As he teleported us away, I could see stars being swallowed by the dozen, taking their system of planets and moons and everything on them along.

When everything was done and he turned around to look at us, the only thing visible in his eyes was the same lack of emotion he had shown me before, as if what he just did was something ordinary.

For a single man to wield such power.

There has to be something wrong with this world.

Otherwise, I don’t know how I can accept this.

For the three thousand years people still lived on earth, I’ve seen people dying because of famines,  I’ve seen families being torn apart by unnecessary wars, I’ve seen cultures purposefully being wiped out because of prejudice and racism and, in the end, saw the entire world succumb to one of lowest life forms: viruses.

And all of this time, even if I wanted to, I could do nothing about it.

But he could.

Without a doubt, a single wave of his hand he could’ve ended all the famines, prevented every war, preserved species and cultures across the world and he could’ve prevented the end of the world.

And what was he doing when all these horrors were plaguing humans and demons alike?

He was sleeping.

What man could do such a thing?

How can a living being, knowing that the world is suffering, simply allow himself to waste away?

And what devil could, simply because he was being bothered by a small group of eleven men, eradicate dozens upon dozens of solar-systems with such apathy?

Who knows how many lives, how many families, how many cultures, how many living worlds he has destroyed without even a single thought spared to them.

Unfortunately, I know why.

I clearly saw it right in front of me, during the time in the palace.

The madness that swallowed him, the nightmares that haunted him and the pain he has experienced and still remembers to this day.

I’ve seen it all during that moment of horror inside the throne room.

If anyone else had experienced even a single one of those experiences, they would’ve undoubtedly went mad and killed themselves, but since he is Immortal, he was deprived of this escape, so he simply sought another one: indifference.

Having seen all of what he went through, I know that he has done this many, many times before and can understand why he went into such a state.

Because I know what he went through, I can understand the feeling of not wanting to bother with life anymore and so, I can’t help but feel sympathetic towards him.

It was also the reason I was hesitant to bother him inside his room.

But even then…

Slaughtering billions?

Destroying stars?

Even God, cruel as He is, won’t do something as… sick as this!

No matter how much shit he went through, that doesn’t make it right to simply kill everyone that might annoy you!

If you do not want to be bothered, be my guest, but going so far as to destroy entire solar systems is the work of a fucking madman!

It should be the other way around: because you know all the pain people are able to grow through, you should be motivated to help them!

Not kill them!

He has to be stopped, and I’m the only one who has a chance to do it.

No matter how long it takes, no matter how many millions of years I will need to stop him, I will not give up.

“Mother………?”

Damien’s voice sounded far, far away.

No matter what I need to do, I will make sure it won’t happen again!

“Mother…?”

Even if I have to suffer and even if I have to commit evil to do it, I will stop him!

“Mother?”

This monster must be stopped and it is my duty to do this!

“Mother?!”

Suddenly, a voice laced with Energy filled the air and knocked me down by surprise.

“Ah, Fuck! Damien!”

I said, knowing who the voice belonged to, as I fell to the ground.

Still on the ground, I turned towards where the voice came from, ready to give Damien a lesson he won’t soon forget.

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But instead, I was greeted by my two kids throwing themselves on me and burying me underneath their bodies.

The shock forced the air out of my longs and I began to cough.

“What are you two doing? Get off of me, now!”

I said while still gasping for air.

“ “No!” ”

I heard Damien and Anna at the same time.

I focused my gaze on them, ready to give them a thrashing, but was surprised by what I saw.

Their faces were twisted with worry and in their eyes, they looked at me as with pleading eyes on the edge of crying.

The anger I felt slowly ebbed away and was replaced by a feeling that something was wrong.

On closer inspection, I could see their faces contained numerous cuts, both big and small, and bruises.

Had something happened while I was thinking?

“What happened?! Who attacked you?!”

Immediately, I expanded my Soul-sense and activated a grid of Energy around us and was shocked to see what transpired.

In the place I stood just moments before was now a crater several meters wide and a meter in depth.

The buildings all around us had either been damaged or had entirely collapsed.

Even some of the Gold-masks, immobile unless I gave them orders, had collapsed to the ground, some with large gashes on their bodies and others seemingly crushed to death.

Seeing this, I immediately looked around to see who caused this, yet could find no-one.

Had he attacked and quickly escaped while I was in deep thought?

This wasn’t the first time something escaped my attention while I was thinking, but never to such a degree…

“Who did this?!”

I stood up and controlled the Energy around me, ready to strike at whoever or whatever attacked us.

I had put this off, but we were now on another planet.

Who knows what life had transformed in on this planet?

I should have been more careful, should’ve checked the surroundings upon arriving on this world to see if there is anything dangerous around us.

But, ever since the plague long ago, I had never had a need to be wary of my surroundings and my surveillance skills dulled thanks to it.

I need to work on this later.

But, the next words they uttered shocked me.

“Please, stop!”

“Come back! Please!”

I heard them cry, half-desperate and half-pleading.

……What?

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Acedia POV:

While I was lying in bed again, my mind couldn’t help but wonder back to what happened, even if I didn’t want it to.

Am I too paranoid?

I hadn’t really thought about it during the time itself, but I might have committed a slight overkill.

But what was I supposed to do?

I know from experience that, once I get caught by these kind of ploys, I will suffer again and again until force myself to go into stasis once more.

I merely cut out the suffering and went straight to the solution.

Although I didn’t have any proof that they –  whoever they were –  were sent to prevent me from going into stasis, but I’d rather take the chance that they were than hope that they weren’t.

Really, it’s not like I wanted to do this.

Quite the opposite, in fact: it was bothersome to do this.

Sure, it isn’t that hard to pull off, only converting some matter into Energy and that’s it, but if it went wrong or was poorly timed, I would have definitely be harmed.

And not just a little.

It would have hurt so much that I would’ve gone mad again, but for a much, much longer time.

Believe me, if I could have avoided it, I would’ve.

But, I’m definitely not willing to allow someone or something to drag me back into the cycle before I at the very least had some rest.

Is that too much to ask?

A little break before continuing this horrible life?

Do, who or whatever you are, really need to torment me every single moment possible?

I won’t allow such a thing.

I will get my peace.

Even if it doesn’t last forever, I still want it.

Concoct your plans.

Plan your schemes.

Weave my destiny.

Change my fate.

I won’t let You, life, destiny, fate or whatever else wants to control me have their way with me.

I’ll just sleep and won’t bother with whatever you throw at me.

And if it bothers me, whether it be planned or a ‘coincidence’, I’ll just destroy your little plots, just like I have now.

No matter what happens, it’s not my concern.

I’ll just lay here and simply waste away until I have no choice anymore…

A wave of Energy rippled through the palace and activated some Energy, making it go wild in response, slamming into the wall, creating large holes and gashes in the process.

Of course, before it could destroy anything thoroughly, I returned the Energy to its previous state and repaired the harm done.

Another plot already?

They really won’t leave me alone, will they?

At least, so I thought, but after I did a quick search through the grid of Energy I found that the source of whatever happened had already disappeared.

Apparently, whatever caused it happened at one of the city gates – the one where I was previously – but had just as quickly disappeared as it had appeared.

The strange occurrence had only reduced some buildings into rubble and a couple of Gold-masks into corpses.

Is that it?

Is this supposed to make me care?

What a pathetic attempt.

Sure, it came out of nowhere and tried to threaten me bit, but it wasn’t even something on the scale of an annoyance.

It even sorted itself out without me interfering.

Well, whatever.

If this is the best they can do, let them.

In fact, just do this forever.

That way, I can finally get some rest.

So, please…

Whoever is doing these things...

Stop bothering me…