Could this really be her father?
“You are Clementine right? This was the name we agreed upon.”
“...”
Her name wasn’t well known but it wasn’t unknown either. There was a chance whatever came out of the necklace wasn’t really her father and had only heard her name through it.
“Just like your mother you are. Cautious of everything she didn’t understand. I’ll stop wasting what little time I have left and tell you what you must know. There are a far greater number of worlds lurking just beyond our plane of existence. The beings there are far stronger than anything in our world. Even the weakest ones could easily kill the strongest beings we have. You have to find the one capable of consuming the world, it is the only thing that can destroy them before they destroy us. It will be in the form of a beast and have abilities of all kinds. Work with haste, time waits for no one. I will cease to exist very shortly but I must leave behind a message. I still do love your mother and I wish I could have been there for all of your life. Just remember that I will never stop loving you. Could I perhaps die while receiving a hug from my dearest daughter?”
If what he said was true then she had to quickly find the world eater. Was the man her mother called the key perhaps some kind of guide to it? Was the beast in this realm or the neighboring realm? How would she convince them to let her take away such a powerful being? A war would only cause all of them to die. Was he really even her dad? How much of what he said was the truth? Should she even believe him?
“Stop thinking so hard. Come give your dad a hug before he dies. Seriously, I have about five seconds left.”
***
“I am the remnants of the previous world destroyer. I must leave a message to my daughter to ensure her safety and the safety of our world.”
“Oh really, do you mind telling me? It’s my world too I guess.”
“This world is soon to be invaded and enslaved by another world, in order to prevent this we must destroy them before they can enslave us. The only thing in this world capable of doing that is the anomaly, a being born of this world yet capable of twisting its rules. It is the only thing capable of destroying other worlds. The one born in this world was foreseen to be capable of consuming anything. Its growth will be uncontrollably rapid and you must turn it to your side before it grows too strong to be controlled. It will be in the form of a beast and possess abilities of all kinds.”
“A beast with all kinds of abilities?”
Kinda sounds like us.
Probably is.
“Yes.”
“Okay, I can probably find that. So do I just kill you? Or will you disappear? Or can you just stay? I have extra room in here so you don’t have to leave if you don’t want to.”
“My strength wanes with every second I exist, as the next world destroyer in line I sense that your soul has been sealed. I will use what energy remains to remove as many restrictions as I can. I only wish that you assist my daughter in protecting this world.”
“Oh shit, really? I got you then. Under my protection your daughter won’t be able to die even if she wants to. Actually, your daughter will never want to die if she’s with me. Just to be clear, she’s the girl with the necklace that shot you inside of me right?”
“Yes.”
“Alright then, we have a deal. Oh yeah, do you mind if we kill you at the very last moment? It’ll be quick and painless I promise.”
“Go ahead, do make it painless if you can.”
“Yes captain!”
A red energy started radiating off of him and penetrating into the floor of my soul realm. The sounds of chains shattering echoed out from the endless abyss as I slowly regained the feeling of the boys existences. I had missed them quite dearly now that I realized they were much better tools for attacking than I was. Unfortunately I could tell I hadn’t regained my previous abilities. Imagining the boys with metal manipulation and armor nearly made me collapse with ecstasy.
“Kill me now.”
I grabbed him from behind and placed my hands on his forehead and jaw.
Crack!
I quickly took a bite of his hand and swallowed then dropped him to the floor where my buddy immediately stomped on the back of his skull. Before I was dragged back into reality I caught a glimpse of his skull splitting into a mash of blood and bones. I’d say that was a job well done. I looked up and found myself in the embrace of the woman. I fucking knew it! She was trying to steal my dignity!
“Hey, if you really want to fuck me I don’t mind. Just don’t try anything weird, I really will kill you. Even if I promised to protect you.”
Thump!
I was disintegrated for a short moment before my body rematerialized.
“That’s no way to treat the man you were just trying to fuck.”
“You have misunderstood.”
“It would seem so. Let’s get back to training then.”
“There’s no time for that.”
“Oh, that thing? Don’t worry about finding it, I already know where it is.”
“Tell me! Where is it!”
“Can’t you just read my mind?”
“Don’t toy with me.”
“You really can’t? Your dad did me a pretty big solid then.”
“How do you know my father?”
“How do I know your father? That’s a pretty good question. Weren’t you the one who shot him into me? You tell me how I know your father.”
“That’s not important. Where is it?”
“Well, as you may or may not have guessed, it's in the other realm. As for where exactly it is? Good luck. I only know its general location. Feel free to leave me alone and go find it, I’ll just stay here and be a good boy.”
“No. You are coming with me.”
“Last time I checked neither you nor me came. Unless you did and I didn’t notice, which sti-”
I was suddenly wrapped in chains and yanked away. When I was able to see my surroundings again I was laying on a giant bird and we were soaring through the sky.
“If you don’t mind, please continue to train my body. I’d be very sad if I lost out on training. I will surely reimburse you for the effort used in training me.”
My body was promptly crushed and the cycle of training continued.
…
“Sorry for toppling over like that. Minor mental issues you know?”
I got back up and continued following behind the mystery man. The next three attacks could be extremely fun, we had been saving the best for last after all. From roaming around in the outer area of the city we had slowly been moving towards the center with each attack. The buildings were slowly becoming larger and more complex, the people more well dressed and refined, and the markets larger and more crowded. This was a fantasy city if I had ever seen one.
“Can we go buy the kid some writing utensils? It’s been irking me for a while now.”
“We can do that after finishing our mission.”
“Fine. Let’s speed up a little then. Lemme ride your back, I’m not as fast in my human form.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Without giving him the opportunity to speak I ripped the kid from his back and placed him on mine then hopped onto him.
“Let us continue our journey noble carrier of people!”
He silently turned back to look ahead and began sprinting through the streets. With our new and improved pace we were able to reach the next site within minutes. This one was much bigger than the other ones and the potential for catching a large amount of fish was very high. I handed the child back to my steed and quickly transformed while forming a net. Before the net even finished enveloping my target I had already started closing it.
My large form was particularly noticeable and there had been a minor incident earlier where some fish almost escaped the net after seeing me. This new method was a little improper but it worked quite efficiently, any fish who did see me didn’t have enough time to run. I reeled in my net and used the newly formulated smoothie making method to make myself a drink. The net this time was very full and I hadn’t counted but there had to be close to a thousand people in there based on my estimations and observations. I gobbled down my little strength enhancing potion and hopped back on my ride.
“Off we go!”
***
Had she been abandoned again? She couldn’t possibly be this worthless. Perhaps he had been captured again? It was probably time for her to go find him again.
***
Crack!
The tree shattered and crumpled over as her fist broke through it. It wasn’t deniable anymore. The training was real- and so was everything else. Based on the comparisons between her family, Andrew, and herself her rate of growth was exponentially higher than normal. After a few days most people had only seen minor progress, not even enough to be considered better than the average athlete. She however, had already encroached on the line that separated humans from supers. So far crimes hadn’t risen in occurrence but it was only a matter of time before they did.
She had also heard that special powers could be unlocked as you grew stronger and every training method produced different kinds of powers. She could only hope that they were true and she wouldn’t be stuck with only superstrength. She needed a specialty if she wanted to survive in this new food chain.
***
This place was significantly larger than expected, there was however a possibility that the reason for that was because it wasn’t just one building anymore. According to captain careful the entire cluster of buildings around us were full of conspirators. I had to change my plan of approach into a more careful and less destructive one. Thankfully, I had a brain that functioned.
“You guard the outside, I’m gonna go work my magic.”
Between the last raid and now my natural strength had jumped up to a factor of ten times and my beast form now amplified my strength by a factor of twenty-four times. With a bit of luck none of them would be able to break through my wires. I sank underground and slithered beneath one of the buildings. Once in the center I began to send miniscule wires through the building's foundations and wrapped the inner walls in thin layers of metallic film. Once I had completely redecorated the inside of the building I filled the entirety of the building with small spikes and electrocuted everyone inside.
I also created a small tube and began spraying fire inside to consume any oxygen they had left. In contrast to my usual carelessness I had to delicately pull the metal film into a small container so I wouldn’t destroy the building. A small stream of blood began trickling into my throat and I slowly siphoned in as much of it as I could. After draining the building of all life and blood I moved over to the next one and started the process over again.
…
Finally! I’m fucking done! If not for the massive gain in strength I would’ve lost my mind by now. The amplification power from my beast form had increased by half and reached a solid thirty six times. Killing that wacky noble guy would be a breeze now. To make it worse for him we still had one more power up left before going to remove him from the realm of the living. This one was bound to be massive as well. I once again hopped onto my car and started driving around the city. Now we had moved up to the big leagues, the buildings in this part of the city weren’t just nice, they were exquisite.
The only thing they were missing at this point was rare metals and precious stones. If compared to our world this would be like the modern cities of their world. But even better than the buildings? The people. All the women here were beauties of the highest order, but unlike the ones in our world they possessed a level of fearsomeness and natural deterrence. They didn’t feel like art to be admired or targets of protection. If anything they would be the ones chasing after those they liked. Essentially, they were my type of girl.
You horny bastard. Don’t you dare ruin our plan for some women.
It won’t hurt them too much to give me a few of them.
It’s going to be hard enough to convince everyone to give us their blood. Don’t overcomplicate things.
Fine, you’re just upset you won’t even get to feel it.
Incorrect, I’m just smart enough to focus on our survival.
Whatever makes you sleep at night.
I don’t sleep.
…Ok I guess. We were slowing down now so it was time to gather my thoughts. My thoughts were that the place we were headed to didn’t look like a hideout for a large group of criminals. It looked more like the mansion of an extremely rich person.
“Just to be clear, who is in here? Is it a group of bigshots or a ton of lackeys?”
“...If by bigshots you mean high ranking people then yes.”
“That’s exactly what I meant. So, how strong are they? With a little bit of overestimation?”
“In the terms of people from your world they would have a power rating of two hundred to three hundred.”
“You see… There is a small problem with that. I have not learned the power system of our world.”
“...In simpler terms, they each possess the strength of two hundred to three hundred of your people combined.”
“Ah, ok. Thanks for dumbing it down. I’m not a very smart boy.”
“...”
If that was the case they would probably be able to destroy my wires fairly easily and the electricity wouldn’t be enough to stun them once it was divided among too many people. Now would be an amazing time to have the boys. Fuck it. Time to use my brain again.
“You go hide, I’ll deal with them. Actually, how were you going to deal with them without me? ”
“Just as your world has its own rules, ours does as well. The poisons that can be found here are far more potent than those of your world.”
“Oh shit, you got poison? Like magic poison right? Give me.”
“It’s reserved for use to complete the mission.”
“Just give me the poison, I need it more than you do.”
“...Use it well.”
I carefully took the container from his hands and popped off the lid before inhaling all of it.
“What are you doing!”
I was going to answer him but my body collapsed and all my functions shut off. The only thing I was still capable of doing was seeing and thinking… Suffocating was a really unpleasant feeling. I didn’t like how it induced pure instinctual panic in me despite knowing I wasn’t going to die anyways. And the muscle cramps, goddamn they’re terrible! Was poison supposed to do this? I thought I was supposed to go numb. I could feel my body fighting against the influence of this new factor within its system. A part of it was even happily consuming it.
Presumably that part was the poisonous aspect of my body. The effects were slowly chomped away and control returned to my body. I didn’t know if that had increased the potency of my poison but it was worth a shot.
“You got anymore stuff like that?”
“...None.”
“I know you do, just give it to me. I’ve done a lot of work for you, consider it my reward.”
He silently began pushing things out of his iron shell and into my hands. Either due to lower levels of potency or increased resistance the next stuff I drank barely had an effect on me. Hold on, I wasn’t horny, why was my second brain getting bigger?
“Did you give me an aphrodisiac?”
“...I gave you everything I had.”
“Were you not scared of me going insane and doing something extremely regrettable to you?”
“...I had not thought of that possibility.”
“Well, it’s not like I wanted to do it or anything anyways. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“...”
He distanced himself a few more steps away from me and continued staring while getting into a slightly more defensive position.
“I know you have one last thing for the main event, give me that as well.”
“This is the only guarantee we have of killing Zoreal.”
“Zoreal smoreal just give me the poison. He’s dead with or without it. I can get you a new better version if you want after. If I wanted to ruin your mission you would be dead already.”
“It isn’t a poison.”
“Were you really going to kill him with an aphrodisiac?”
“It’s a disease, one that should not be allowed to spread in this kingdom. It may not be able to kill you but it will disable you.”
“It can’t be that bad, trust me, I care more about these people than you do.”
“You are too reckless for me to trust you with this.”
“You’re making me want it more. For the sake of your life and the safety of this city just give me the magic disease. I really do not wish to kill you and if you leave me to my own devices I might accidentally kill everybody by accident.”
“...”
After an extended period of silence he came to the intelligent conclusion and handed a small vial to me. Inside was a rust colored sludge. Popping the top off only revealed the smell of metal and to be perfectly honest, I was having second thoughts about drinking this mysterious brown liquid that could possibly be the remains of someone's last meal. As always, drink first, suffer later. The moment the sludge touched my tongue it began to melt away along with the rest of my mouth. I would continue to voice my own thoughts but my brain was beginning to mel-
…
Holy fuck that was bad. I’m not even recovering anymore. What kind of fucked up diseases do they got in that world? What kind of fucked up diseases do we got in our world? Now that I thought about it, quite a lot must’ve been hidden in our world. For as long as humans had existed there was nothing in history recorded about special abilities and beings… Unless. Huh, that was actually pretty clever, maybe everything was just hidden in plain sight. It’d be easy to convince people that the people of the past were a bunch of braindead fools and nothing they said could be believed. Especially since there were still plenty of braindead fools in current times.
How long before other me decides to start existing again? Flying with this woman is far too stressful. Why the fuck is she so fast anyways?
“I thought you said it was in this realm?”
“I only know that it's in this realm, the problem is, I don’t know what’s in this realm and I don’t know where in this realm it is. Like do you have a map or something?”
A piece of paper materialized into her hands and floated in front of my face. Blazing Sun Empire… Dawnrise Forests… Iron Hide Kingdom… Watercrest Depths… Raging Storm Plains… Floating Islands… Sonic Caves… Valley of Myriad Lights.
“It’s here, the village of myriad lights. If the names of these places correspond to the types of powers located in them then it’s there.”
“It will pose quite a high level of difficulty finding it there, how sure are you of its location?”
“I can literally see exactly where it is, the only problem is that I don’t know how to get there. I’ll recognize it as soon as I see it though.”
We changed directions and started heading in what I believed to be the right direction. I wouldn’t know though because I had no point of reference to help me figure out where we were anyways. Choosing between sound and light had been a difficult decision but luckily I didn’t have to choose. I would just go there once other me decided it was time to start existing again. One… two… three… four… five… six… seventy-one… seventy-two… seventy-fuck yes! I can feel my body again!