“Gah!” Lakshman exclaimed, and he stumbled backwards in a spotlight while everything outside it was shrouded in darkness.

“Lucky!” Called several voices, and they rushed forward to catch him as he stumbled back and almost fell backwards.

“Hey! Are you okay?” Vikram asked with concern.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” Martin asked anxiously.

“Rest a little,” said Maxwell in a quiet voice.

They gently lowered him to the ground while he clutched his stomach, where the God of Calamity had stomped down on his host body. Since he was in control of the body, his Astral Form also took damage to the gut and it hurt quite a bit.

“Man! That was one hell of a stomping that he did on you!” Vikram exclaimed, looking worried. “How are you still awake? I thought you’d get knocked out for sure!”

“My thoughts exactly,” said William, sharing his thoughts as he watched Lakshman with concern.

Lakshman winced and looked up at them before saying, “Uh. Actually, I used Magna Block at the last second and blocked much of the attack, but the impact was still heavy. I didn’t expect him to get so angry like that.”

“Yeah! What was he thinking?!” Vikram exclaimed, looking angry. “Also, what the hell did he say about fairness?”

“The crafty one lives in denial that whatever he does is not fair according to his own beliefs. What a bastard,” said Gram, folding his arms and grimacing irritably. “What a pain that person is!”

“Yes. I quite agree with that,” said Asura from the side, looking angry as he clenched his fists tightly. “He’s the type of God who would do whatever necessary to get what he wants regardless of it being fair or not. He’s just a bad liar and a bastard that needs to be put down!”

Lakshman looked at his past-self and coughed before saying, “I don’t think he is that kind of person, Asura.”

“What?!” Asura exclaimed, looking at him in shock while others did the same. “What do you mean?! Are you telling me he’s actually ‘good’?!”

“Not necessarily ‘good’, but I know he’s the type that doesn’t resort to underhanded methods to get what he wants,” said Lakshman, defending Climax much to everyone’s surprise.

Asura was rendered speechless for a moment before he exclaimed, “I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you of all people! Did you forget what he had done to our family?!”

Lakshman shook his head and said, “No. I didn’t forget.”

“Then—?!” Asura began to exclaim, but Lakshman shot him a glare that made him instantly shut up.

“I’ll prove what I mean later, but first, we need to focus on defeating him,” said Lakshman in a firm voice.

“Defeating him?!” Vikram exclaimed, looking at him as if he was crazy. “You’ve seen what he’s done! He looked like he corrupted your magic circle and summoned a frigging meteor on the planet, and he did it looking cool and everything! How do you fight that kind of enemy?!”

“Yes. It feels as though he’s capable of summoning over a hundred meteors if he wanted to, but is unwilling to as if he was holding back for our sake,” admitted Natsu, looking thoughtful.

“Damn, that burns!” William said, looking angry. “Even after chucking that rock at him and using Magna Bomb on him, he appeared unscathed! Is there no way to fight this guy?!”

“Is it really our destiny to perish a second time without leading a fulfilling life?” Martin asked in a disappointed voice, looking down at the ground beneath him. He clutched his head with his hands on both sides and asked in a quietly, “Is this… the end?”

There was a stretch of silence between everyone upon hearing his words, which caused them to feel depressed about their situation. Only Gram and Asura appeared to be indifferent to it all, but sadness could be seen on their faces by the frowns they were making while looking away.

Lakshman glanced around at everyone as the mood became heavy and sad before he looked down at the ground.

“Is this the end?”

All of them heard a voice echo around them, between them, and inside of them. They recognised that the voice belonged to Lakshman, causing them to look at him. In the next moment, they felt a sudden rush of something flowing into them and they began to see visions, scenes twisting and changing.

“W-What’s going on?!” Vikram exclaimed, looking shocked. “S-Something is… flooding into my head!”

“T-These are… visions…?” Gram asked quietly, clutching head and looking alarmed.

“No. These are memories,” muttered Natsu, realising quickly what the visions all of them were seeing.

“During my first life, my parents were assassinated, and my brother nearly died.”

As he spoke, the vision changed and a scene of the death of Asura’s parents and the near-death experience he had during that time. Fred, Martin, Ward, and Vikram winced while the others grimaced at the disastrous scene they saw of his parents’ deaths and his brutality in killing the attackers.

“Brutal,” muttered Vikram in a quiet voice while the rest of them remained silent as the scene unfolded in their minds.

Then they watched the scene move forward to Asura clutching hold of the bundle of wrappings of his brother, whom his mother protected with all of her might.

“I swore I would never let this repeat and create a world where he could live in peace.”

When they heard that, they looked up and turned to face towards Asura, who was looking at an angle at the ground. Then he looked at them and shrugged his shoulders with a small smile that was filled with sadness.

“I started training, challenged the gods, gained their favour and received unwanted Divine Protection.”

They were amazed when the scene shifted to Asura challenging the Gods and losing grandly against a tall figure, who was actually the God of Justice.

“From there, I challenged the world and began my world conquest.”

The scene shifted to Asura and his army charging into battle against numerous unknown forces, fighting fiercely, many soldiers losing their lives and finally, Asura and his army triumphing over them.

“I continued to rampage on the battlefield. I destroyed whoever opposed me, killed many people that got in my way, and caused suffering on a massive scale to those that incurred my wrath.”

They saw the scene move onto showing them the acts of violence, chaos, and destruction that Asura had carried out in the ancient times. He ordered the slaughter of enemies without a shred of mercy, demanded entire clans and kingdoms to bow down to him, and went on a warpath to destroy them all. He even killed children, who were unfortunate enough to get caught up in the path of his onslaught.

“Along the way, many tried preserving their individual kingdoms by offering me their princesses.”

Everyone was presented with the scene of nine beautiful women kneeling before him in a large throne room, with Asura seated on his throne looking angrily at what was presented to him.

“I was angry at them treating me as if I was a demon—”

“You were, no matter how you look at what you’ve done,” commented Gram, which caused Asura to chuckle.

“—but my wives pleaded me not to destroy their kingdoms and their people, and my brother also requested it, so I let them go.”

“Wow. Brother-complex is dangerous,” remarked Vikram, then he flinched when he sensed Asura glaring at him.

“I went on and on, fighting and fighting, killing and killing - that took me to my final confrontation with the angels.”

“Seriously?! Angels?!” Vikram exclaimed in shock.

“After a fierce battle, I finally won and expelled the angels onto their floating continent. With that, the world was mine and was finally at peace.”

“That’s a nice happy ending,” said Vikram with a smile, feeling happy that it was a happy ending.

However, Natsu sensed something and said, “I don’t think it was a happy ending.”

“The world was at peace and all threats were gone. My brother decided to move out of the kingdom with his wife and explore the world, and I let him; a decision I regret to this day because, the next time we met, it was as enemies.”

“Oh no…” said Vikram shortly, looking scared.

“He was turned to darkness. He had become a demon and led the demonic army against my world.”

No one said anything and remained completely silent as the scenes moved to depict Asura’s brother, Chandra, walking forward while leading a mass of demons behind him.

“Not willing to watch us brothers fight, especially after everything I did was for my brother, my wives decided to meet him in private to convince him to turn back without my knowing.”

“Oh god! Oh… god…!” Vikram said with a thunder struck look on his face, which was reflected similarly in everyone else.

“I got wind of their plan, and I arrived on the spot only to watch them get destroyed right before my eyes.”

Fred clapped her hands over her mouth while tears formed in her eyes while everyone looked very sad.

“I couldn’t do anything for them. Ever since they became my wives, I never once showed them any kind of affection a normal husband would, and I even didn’t accept them as my wives for a long time. Yet, they put their lives on the line just to stop us brothers from fighting, out of the pure affection they had for me, an affection I came too late to realise. Thus, I flew into a rage, and not caring what happened, I went into battle against my brother and his army.”

“I don’t like where this is going,” muttered Martin anxiously while Vikram and the others nodding in agreement from beside him.

“In the end, I killed my brother… with the same hands that I raised him with… the same hands that… that had killed so many before for a world that he could live peacefully in…”

A heavy mood fell over them upon seeing the scene of Asura utterly destroying his brother, and then upon realising what had happened, he fell to his knees and began screaming into the sky as rain poured down on top of him, a reflection of the great heavy depression that he was filled with.

“Unwilling to face the world, I abandoned my kingdom and began wandering around the world aimlessly waiting for my time to come. It came much sooner than expected when an ancient threat attempted to destroy the world, and I felt it was my change to pay for my sins, and I sacrificed my life to cause the monster immense damage before finally dying. However, that did not mark my end because, I did not know that the Gods, with the addition of granting me Divine Protection, had also granted me the ability to reincarnate after each death.”

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“Wow. That’s… quite shady of the Gods,” muttered William, looking unimpressed.

“As expected of the Gods, I guess,” muttered Maxwell with a sigh.

“After many reincarnations, I was finally born now to my new parents, who named me Lakshman with the nickname Lucky, with the intentions of giving me all the luck in the world that they didn’t have during their time.”

Thus, the scene moved onto showing them of Lakshman, as a baby, being held by his mother, Lakshmi, and watched over by his father, Indra, and assisted with by the housemaid, Mariana. This happy scene made everyone automatically smile and feel how fortunate the baby was to be born in such a wonderful environment. They did not know that this part of the memory was the memory that the Ex-God of Wisdom Whamana, also known as the Decisive Player, had when he lived deep inside of Lakshman’s mind upon successful reincarnation.

“My parents were wonderful, but very overprotective. They taught me stuff from home, and didn’t let me go out much on my own to explore other than with them from time to time. It seemed that they feared that I would get tainted by the rubbish of the culture of the people that we were surrounded by because of the cruelty and mercilessness of the world that we live in.”

“I guess that’s what happens when parents are overprotective with their kids due to various reasons which only they’ve experienced throughout their lives,” said Vikram with a wry smile, thinking back to how strict his parents were when they were still alive. “You know, stuff like casualties, losses, suffering, failing, being bullied, and so on forth.”

“Yeah. You can say that again,” said Maxwell with a laugh, thinking of how he treated his daughter and scared the boys away.

Gram grunted and commented, “Heh. I can’t really say much about my upbringing except that it was tough.”

“You were a prince, so that’s to be expected,” said Vikram with a laugh, and Gram eyed him coldly.

“I didn’t have friends, and I was practically studying most of the time, but I never felt I was alone. Mariana was always there, and so were my parents when they didn’t have work. I felt happy with that lifestyle. And then, I finally made a friend named Stuart, and we began exploring the surroundings without supervision from my family.”

“Isn’t that… dangerous to send children to explore the neighbourhood on their own?” Martin asked anxiously.

“Why? Kids love to explore stuff,” replied Vikram.

“I know, but thinking about Lucky’s world, aren’t there monsters that supposedly roam around in the wilderness?”

“Oh. Oh yeah. There was that, wasn’t there?” Vikram asked, realising and blinking in surprise.

“And then, as if fate was making its move on me, I met a woman that would be my home tutor to teach me magic.”

The scene moved on to showed everyone of the first meeting between Lakshman and Sumara, and everyone reacted in surprise.

“Hey!”

“Isn’t that?”

“No way!”

“One of his wives from the past?!” They exclaimed altogether.

“From there, as if we were meant to meet, I began meeting my lifelong partners one by one in different circumstances.”

As such, the scenes quickly shifted, one by one, showing them of Lakshman’s meeting with his wives. The meeting with:

* Ondine in the forest when she came out while guarding the Water Spirits, thinking he will harm them

* Tetra while fighting the Two-Headed Cerberus and activating the Phoenix Blade after a long time

* Emilia in the dungeon during his visit to the Floria Kingdom

* Venezuela at the battle arena to claim ownership of Felix Phoron’s sword called the Legendary Sword of Justice and later when she confessed to wanting to marry him during his enrolment at the Astral Academy

* Cantia, whom he found sleeping in his bed after he returned home from his visit to the Floria Kingdom

* Erza when he was captured by the Shadow Dragon King, Razzel

* Silvera when she lost control and attempted to kill herself when she lost all hope in living and acquired the Demon Slayer after its predecessor, Spectra, died and finally passes on

* Sonia the angel when she visited his home after his visit to the Heaven Continent to attend a trial regarding the destruction of the Demon Continent

“Wow…! That’s… quite the fated meetings, to be honest,” remarked William in amazement.

“Yeah, not to mention how beautiful or cute they all are,” commented Vikram with a wry smile.

“Hey!” Maxwell said, looking at him sternly, and Vikram smiled sheepishly and said, “I’m only praising them. That’s all.” He coughed and asked, “Also, is it just me, or did we just see Erza as being one of his wives?”

“You’re not the only one,” said Maxwell with a wry smile.

“Huh?” Vikram asked, blinking and looking confused. “Isn’t that strange? Isn’t it?”

“It is,” said Natsu, and then he smiled wryly at him, “but then again, a lot of strange things are occurring around us, so… I’m not sure what to think of it.”

“Huh?” Vikram asked, raising an eyebrow in bewilderment while everyone else chuckled.

“Along them, I met incredible people that helped me grow and change into the man I am right now.”

When those words were spoken, the scene shifted to showing the images of each and every person that helped him along the way, people like Felix, Ronald, Rumble, Sevedant, and many more that once fought him but then changed and became good acquittances with him.

“I was able to grow thanks to my parents, I was able to change thanks to Ronald and Rumble, I was able to improve when I met Sevedant, and I was able to grow when I trained under Felix. It was because of them that I am strong now.”

There was a quick movement of scenes flickering by that depicted the kind of intense training he underwent over the months that soon turned into years. Everyone was happy to see this happening, but the mood slowly shifted to sadness, and they instantly felt something was wrong about it.

“Yet, despite all of my strength, I and my wives were almost destroyed.”

“What?!” Vikram, Martin, William, and Maxwell exclaimed in shock.

The scene played out of the time when Lakshman and his wives were about to face certain destruction at the hands of the Calamity Titan, whom he had not known was his brother. However, the image of Calamity Titan was not played and only the part where the multiple black balls of energy falling down on them before the group were warped out of there to a remote secluded forest before they were frozen solid inside a strange substance for the next ten years.

Ward narrowed his eyes and muttered, “This is unfair.”

“I found out how powerless I was at that time against my enemy, and then later, I was horrified that he had carried out his agenda and destroyed an entire kingdom, killing many people… including my parents.”

“No…!” Vikram groaned in horror.

“It can’t be…!” Fred whispered, her hands slightly over her mouth as she looked at him.

Then the scene of Lakshman finding out about the death of his parents from Felix and then being blamed for not being around to protect them by one of his twin sisters, Priya. They watched as the horrified Lakshman stepped back into the courtyard and flew into a rage of sorrow while losing control over his powers.

“Stop it!” Fred shouted and tried extending her hand out, forgetting it was just a vision.

If his powers went rampaging like that, he would have lost full control of himself and would have self-destructed. Luckily, his wives quickly arrived on the scene and risking injury to themselves from his lashing out powers, but managed to reach him and calm him down.

“It was because of them that I lived on that day and managed to recover from the shock. Even when Felix went out and sacrificed himself in vain, it were my wives who calmed me down and brought me back to normal again.”

The scene played out where Lakshman chased after Felix, who had used the self-destruct spell known as the Light Wiper, only that it failed to kill the Calamity Titan. Once again, the Calamity Titan’s face did not make appearance in the scene presented to them.

“Again, and again, as people that helped me in my life died for the cause to either protect or defend me, it were my wives that comforted me each and every time. Even when my enemy was none other than my reincarnated brother, Chandra, they continued to support me to turn him back to normal.”

This shocked everyone, and they finally got to see the Calamity Titan in full picture, who stood beside Serabella, the Demon King, who was also the reincarnation of his wife from the past.

“In my first life as Asura, I never showered them with love, affection, or the remotest feeling of caring. I never acknowledged them as someone close to me as I treated them simply that they are married to me via political marriage.”

They saw the scene unfold with the nine girls trying to do whatever they could to get Asura’s affection by doing things like cooking, cleaning, providing moral support to the troops, and assisting in Asura’s military affairs.

“In this lifetime as well, I was an ignorant brat that never noticed their feelings for me, and treated them just as I would treat my mother, with love, respect, and reverence until later I started realising my own feelings for them and come to realise their feelings for me.”

Everyone was either surprised, amused, or bewildered when the scene of all the girls of this lifetime clashing with one another as they fought over who got to aim for Lakshman. It was not until that the Decisive Player, and people around Lakshman, began pointing it out that he started to recognise their attempts to woo him, and it was if a whole new world opened in him, he finally registered his own special feelings just for them; his lifelong partners.

“That probably took a bloody long time to happen,” commented Vikram wryly.

“Give him a break. He grew up in a secluded environment with just his parents and housemaid as company, and the most opposite gender experience he had was probably with Sumara, but then again, she was only teaching him magic and that didn’t involve any romantic interactions either,” said Fred, defending Lakshman while facing Vikram.

“Alright. Alright. I didn’t mean it in any bad way,” replied Vikram, raising his hands in surrender with a wry smile.

“Calm down, you two,” chuckled Natsu with a smile as they heard Lakshman continue speaking in their minds.

“Even when it was my brother who killed them in our past lives, they forgave him and wanted him to become good again for my sake as they did not wish to watch the brothers fight and kill each other in this lifetime as well.”

They saw as a rage filled Lakshman, who was being fuelled by Asura’s feelings, trying his hardest to not kill his brother. At that time, his wives continued to support him and encouraged him to turn Chandra back to normal and break free from whatever hold the dark forces had over him.

Vikram widened his eyes in amazement and turned to Asura before asking, “Man, you’re one hell of a dude, aren’t you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Asura asked coldly.

“I mean, you were prepared to kill your brother a second time!” Vikram said, looking seriously at him.

Asura did not immediately answer but stalled for a few seconds before replying, “I didn’t know what else do.”

As Vikram raised an eyebrow incredulously, Fred smiled and said, “It’s a good thing you had your wives by your side this time to stop a repeat of last time.”

“Even though I never gave them anything, they continue to shower me with love, respect, and hold a deep sense of admiration towards me that goes beyond time and space. It was because of them that I was able to spare my brother and tap into myself, accepting my faults, accepting my fate, and accepting my past selves to truly become one of the mightiest warriors in all of existence.”

“Stop gloating. It’s annoying to hear it in my head like that,” commented Gram scornfully.

“Oh? You’re jealous, aren’t you?” Vikram asked playfully, and Gram glared at him before he looked away with a scoff.

“That is why, I must return home… to my wives. They are waiting for me.”

And with that, the visions came to an end, but an even more amazing thing happened that startled everyone. Glowing figures of his wives materialised inside the spotlight and surrounded the spot where their husband sat at. The others backed away as his glowing wives lowered themselves to gently get hold of their husband and gently raise him into a standing position.

“What the heck?!” Vikram exclaimed in shock.

“Are they… ghosts?!” Martin asked apprehensively while looking scared.

“Ghosts?! Are you serious?!” William scoffed, looking as if he heard something distasteful.

“No. They’re not ghosts,” corrected Maxwell, narrowing his eyes as he sensed something strange about them.

“Spiritual projections, I think,” said Ward, and everyone was surprised to hear it.

“Yes. They’re the spiritual projections of his wives,” said Natsu, nodding in understanding as it made sense. “His strong feelings for his wives materialised a spiritual projection of them, and using their support to keep himself up.”

“Wow…! That’s… amazing!” Vikram said in awe.

Gram snorted, but he looked a little jealous and sad at the fact that he did not feel so strongly about his family after what they did to him. Everyone else was amazed as Lakshman stood up and heaved a huge sigh before wearing a determined look on his face as if he was ready to continue the fight.

As Lakshman took a few steps forward, Ward asked him, “Just one question. How can you keep going despite all the pain, all the suffering, all the loneliness, and the sadness you’ve surely experienced?” He paused for a moment before saying firmly, “I want to know.”

At his words, Lakshman came to a stop and turned around sideways to glance at him and smiled with glimmering hope in his face.

“You can’t destroy what can’t be destroyed.”

It was a simple statement, but it spoke volumes of the level of power he held in his will, mind, and spirit. There was no backing down for this warrior; there was only one route and it was to take it head on no matter the cost. As such, they watched him walk forward and disappear to retake control over the fusion body while the projections of his wives also disappeared into thin air.

On the outside, the fusion warrior woke up and felt a tremendous pain in his stomach, where the God of Calamity had stomped down on. Even with the deployment of Magna Block to decrease much of its impact, the remaining force was enough to break every bone in his body and knock them into a comma.

Grunting with pain, he slowly pushed himself up into a kneeling position, which caused Climax to hear him and turn around. The God of Calamity had walked away from him and was gazing at the setting sun while sighing deeply in a strange manner.

“Oh? You’re up already after receiving my attack?” He asked him curiously.

“I’m not the type to be kept down forever,” replied Lakshman in a firm voice.

Climax looked momentarily surprised before he let out a loud laughter before calming down and saying, “Really? Such bravado, even after you got knocked out from my storming kicks to the gut! Impressive to say the least, but that alone isn’t enough to fight me, fool. You should realise that already.”

Lakshman nodded and said, “Yes. It was my mistake to think that I could keep up with you in my base form. I made a mistake, but that all changes now!”

With that, he clenched his fists tightly and began screaming, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”

He surged with immense power and was enveloped in a brilliant glowing light that was blinding to see. The power he was releasing caused the entire planet to shake, causing great cracks to appear all over the place and scared the populace of the world. Even the God of Calamity, who was relaxed moments before, was impressed by the amount of power he was releasing.

“Oh! That’s much better! I can actually feel it!” He remarked in anticipation, looking excited for the battle as he braced against the wind that buffeted him.

The release of power lasted for several seconds before everything slowly settled and calmed down. The wind slowed down and blew smoothly, the ground stopped shaking and became still and silent. Climax stood in his spot as before and looked on with interest as the smoke slowly cleared to reveal the view of the transformed form of the fusion warrior.

The fusion warrior was radiating a golden-red aura that surrounded him, and his black hair had become long and had a mix of golden-red colour in it. He was exerting an impressive amount of pressure in the surrounding area as he looked at his enemy through eyes that had changed from the colour black to that of orange crown shaped eyes similar to his final transformation in his original body.

“Alright,” he said in a deep resonating voice and raised his left hand to extended two fingers out while keeping the rest closed and showed them to his enemy as he finished by saying, “time to begin round two.”