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Chapter 373: A God Reborn
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It was a large file of [memories]. It’s like trying to compress a 64GB sized HD-movie into a “.zip file” so it could be saved on a 2GB flash drive.
Processing that chunk of memory needed energy and behind the veil of his mask, his eyes were rolled up, eyelashes trembling, and his mind on the verge of being fried by the large amounts of information that’s suddenly being [unsealed] in it.
And through the bits and pieces of information he could process, he finally —suddenly— knew why Gabriel was so angry at him.
……why Janus begged him…
………why the Oracle needed him to protect her.
Like a drop of water in a tranquil lake, the process of absorption of the [memories] stopped and Siva held his breath unknowingly. All sounds around him also vanished in but an instant.
“I am Siva.” He whispered helplessly.
Through the pain in his head as if it was being split open, he finally found the reason why all of these things are connected to him.
—this is the very reason why!
Unwittingly, he began to mutter, “Gabriel’s actually correct… I will be the reason why everything will end. It’s because I am [Siva], and he knew what being [Siva] represents.”
“You are Rex!” Scion exclaimed from behind him and seemingly has escaped from the Elf. “You are also the son of the Kingsley Doctors. And… and y-you’re my boyfriend…. but… but more than anything else, you are also Baron’s only family!”
Scion meant that he wasn’t the so called “God of Destruction” that killed the Gods and Devil without caring who is who for the sake of his revenge.
Hearing her, tears started flowing on his eyes as the [memories] in his mind unraveled all the things that had happened after the events concerning “Ragnarok” back then.
There was him, after the war, surrounded by the corpses of the Gods and the Devil Gods. He had killed indiscriminately, denying the chance for the ‘people’ he killed to be reborn again, to go back to the caring folds of The Cycle, to get the chance to start again as mortals ——no.
He denied them that.
Now, he remembered them all. After they died by his own hands, the souls of those Gods, Devils, and Immortals are all [deleted] from the [memory] of this world. Who knows what happened to their True Souls —or what he can technically interpret as the Source Code— unique to every individual that has a sentient personality?
After the Ragnarok, Siva had become the God of Destruction... he represented The End.
He was then lined up beside Terra and Janus, finalizing what history knew as the [Trinity Gods] —the Gods that represented the core of the apex of power above anything in the Terran Universe.
(AN: people asked me where the third God in the passage in Vol_4 Chapter_01 is… well, there is your answer. Though I think that it’s already been given away from Vol_1, at least now we have a deeper explanation regarding how it works.)
He was the absolute terror… he was the killer of countless men and women, and the bringer of the absolute fear that could threaten all existences.
—whether it was God or Devil or Immortal…
In the last vestiges of his sanity, he decided to be alone, sealed himself on an island, and tortured himself from not being able to stop his mother’s death… and for not being able to forget the sight of his mother dying in front of his eyes.
He hated the Gods…
He loathed the Devils…
But more than that, he despised being weak and unable to stop everything from happening earlier.
During that time, he never cared for everything but now, he finally understands what these [memories] were trying to tell him. Why it was told to him in bits and pieces.
From the beginning, to its sustenance, and finally to the end of this world... as Siva realized what his role was, as he finally understood when —no— who it was that’s going to end everything... Siva recalled what he heard from Janus and Gabriel:
“Everything that has a beginning has an end.”
Siva finally understood what Janus talked about in regards to this phrase. And yet… now that he had understood it, another question popped up in his mind.
—Janus is the creator of destinies but he wasn’t the beginning of everything.
—Terra is the mother of all living things and could be said to be the beginning but in reality, she was nothing more than the preserver of the worlds… her role was to sustain life and let it propagate and multiply. She wasn’t the person who represents the beginning but she was there and she knew its details.
Siva understood: she merely wanted to preserve her original role as an overseer of the lives she’s originally tasked to watch over and protect.
—and I represent The End.
That was Siva’s supposed role. But then, if that is the case….
—so then who started everything?
A sense of dysphoria hugged him as a warm and yet cool feeling draped his mind and body.
[Synchronization Adjustment Complete]
A message that shouldn’t appear on his vision had actually appeared and along with it was a sense of [something] being “unsealed” somewhere in him.
The [memories] fully synched in his mind and he forgot where he was; only his recollection of the [memories] was occupying his train of thoughts.
Setting aside “who started everything”, his mind wandered on the events that happened right after Ragnarok, the War of the Gods.
Like a panorama scene in front of him, he turned his head towards another direction and the world around him shifted; a view of the quickly passing times around a normal modern western house in a seashore-rock that withstood countless cycles of storms, tides, meteor showers, and seasons.
By now, Siva’s mind disappeared from the facility and he was solely focused on watching the scene with a sense of importance.
WHOOSH!!!
WHOOOOOOOSH!!!
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!
Seasons, no, the world around it changed so fast that it could make one feel nauseous with how fast the shift of years was happening.
The house’s location wasn’t too far from the shore yet it wasn’t too close to it either.
It was an ideal distance to enjoy the blue of the waves of the sea. Many years were represented by the shifting of the continents around it, as well as the changing of vegetation and elevation of the land along the house.
One season after another passed by in but mere seconds; while the scene of everything around it changed with the years and seasons, the house remained strong and untouched by time.
Not once did the house’s occupant go outside its lodging ever since he entered it.
Millions of years of eons spent, he never cared for anything else and only focused on trying to forget it all and tried to find a way home to his real world… and yet even that as well brought about the pain which became the reason why he was also here.
Outside the house, Siva watched like a zombie; he stood there like an apparition, untouched and unblemished by the ravaging changes of times.
He was unmoving yet his eyes never darted even an atom away from this sight.
And finally, the scene changed and the hastened time slowed into a crawl that it could be seen in the naked eye until——–
——until it stopped on a certain day, on a certain time that had a certain beautiful weather.
From the changing of the blue sea into a dessert, a mountainous region, a frozen wasteland, a lava-filled environment, a forested valley, and finally into a seashore-location once again…
A tree beside the house sheds a nursing shadow as a bed of lush green grass radiantly thrives over the fine white grains of this beach proliferates by the shade.
On the window that faced the blue sea, you could see the house’s occupant writing something on a notebook on the table beside a neatly tidied bed.
Siva……. was looking at his tear-laden self and winced at the sight of that foreigner that had the same face as the man in front of his own mirror.
And yet, as stranger that man in that room was, Siva still understood the reason why he was in it.
Who wouldn’t lament the sight of your mother dying in the middle of the battlefield?
“Ah!”
But then, as if like a ghost, a drifter knocked on the door of that house and gave that person with the same face as Siva another reason to live on.
Siva knew who that drifter was and this one scene signaled the end of this long dreamy recollection.
He now remembers everything.
*****
Back in Terroa right now, the tears in Siva’s eyes meant a different feeling. It was something that he ought to have never forgotten.
“Samantha…” the tears in his eyes flowed like the river on his face. “Why did I forget about you?”
This sudden utterance of Siva startled Scion who was behind him.
To hear him call another girl’s name hurts, but she also understood it… she had seen it with her own eyes. ‘Has he remembered her?’
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Janus showed Scion Siva’s suffering up when he went on a rampage and branded what history had called [Ragnarok] and how, with the last vestiges of his sanity, [Siva] decided to isolate himself from the rest of the universe.
—and until the day that [Rex] is sealed by Terra during that war, 56 years ago, Scion also saw how a second [drifter] of the same origin and nature as [Rex] appeared and pulled him out of that wall that he made himself.
Scion saw their reunion, the love between them, how [Rex] was so into her… and how [Rex] was once again stirred by a supposedly long-forgotten memory of his real world life.
Sensing the change in the atmosphere on her plaything, Gaia gently embraced a cold and sad baby-Scion.
[You are jealous, little one?]
Scion blushed, lowering her head, not saying any word to defend herself from the claim.
Everyone in this chamber seemed to vanish. Even the very irritated Maki who yapped endlessly with a helplessly following Higginson Bollard vanished in Siva’s perspective.
There was only the three of them —Scion, him, and Gaia— in this place.
Considering that Maki and he had just sworn an oath of mutual benefit in the middle of a very hot and putrid situation, it is really an awkward scene where an imposing Siva suddenly started to cry as if he was a baby.
Good thing that his face was covered by a helm.
The sight of a full metal-clad man howling like a wolf that had just lost his pack to a tiger, it was a sight of and on itself.
—his cries didn’t have any pretenses in it.
And although it was really awkward where he was continuously floating like that, it would seem that Siva didn’t care as he went on.
Maki thought, ‘Is the [Memory Crystal] something emotionally important to him?’
He had no answer to that and so he could only frown and continue with how they are right now.
Now, it felt like Siva was merely releasing his pent up stress but on the other hand, Siva’s crying din sounded as if he was a kid that’s being bullied.
The Humans, hearing him earlier about “his last family member”, his little brother, a boy who they imagined wasn’t even 5 years old, could somehow understand the agony that could be felt in that cry of deep sorrow. To the Humans who survived the war against the Demon Armada back then, these kinds of noises could be heard for at least a year longer with no signs of stopping.
—but they didn’t know that Siva was crying for a different reason.
It was for Samantha and his heartfelt regret at not being able to remember her and most especially, for letting her die…. once again…
The sadness, the agony, the guilt, the millions of years inside an unfamiliar world where he was forced to endure the continuous cycles of scuffle and warfare, and the battles for blood and survival over and over; until he became accustomed to it that the sounds of metal slashing over flesh was his breakfast and a noise akin to an explosion of a volcano was his dinner and snacks.
He remembered how he fell from the sky and saw the world beneath him —it’s the first day he had been transferred into this world.
Rex had known about it; stories of reincarnation into another world and/or the stories about being transferred into another world for some unknown reason... it happened to him and he understood it, even until the day he came back and learned of Samantha’s passing in that hospital.
Then he woke up from that nightmare after that one particular war, and found out that Samantha have really died even in the real world —it broke his heart so much that he had even decided to ultimately forget everything and start a new life all over again—
——leading him to create this new persona…
Siva
……an innocent individual who was supposed to be his chance at a new life…
But now, he was back in Terroa.
And because of the [memories]… he was able to recall everything.
He now understood…!!
Everything wasn’t over yet.
The invasion 56 years ago is just an interlude. He, as [Rex Kingsley], is now sure that someone was pulling the strings behind the veil of these events.
Siva then recalled Pistareen’s words that Volt and Thorn had told him: a storm was coming and that he, Siva, is the eye of this storm!
He, now, wholeheartedly believes it.
Everything that had happened back then was just the beginning of it all. Until now, he can also feel that he, going back to Terroa, wasn’t a mere bout of coincidences nor was it a twist of fate.
Someone had designed all of this to happen!
……and that’s why it was even more painful.
He wanted to forget everything and start a brand new life, but whoever it was just had to make him remember everything again and hurt him.
And what more, he even included a sinless 3-year old boy, in addition to killing off his family.
That’s why he can’t help but cry. He was really so emotionally disturbed it was frightening to Scion behind him who somehow had a bad premonition of his psychological state.
“Huuuuuuu….”
This howling cry of pain was also painful to hear to those around him.
And yet… he awkwardly… just..... floats away…
Even Maki who’s at least 99% adept at knowing how to distinguish an actor from a real emotionally disturbed individual was wholly convinced by his cries of anguish.
Supposedly, Siva wanted to just cry silently but now, he inadvertently let it slip past his emotional cage.
Within his cries are all the sufferings and the pain he had endured for countless millions of years…
Yet, as soon as the [memories] came back to Siva, everything became clear to him.
Because he saw that [vision] of Terra’s sacrifice in another angle, and because he now understood what [Janus] did back then… it was even more painful to accept that one of the reason why Terra sacrificed herself to save [Siva] was also because of himself…..no one else.
He remembers everything.
EVERYTHING!!!
Siva felt guilty for Samantha, for his parents, for the actions he did… and for the things he’d said back in that little town in The North.
“I should’ve remembered her! Uaaaaahhh…”
He howled at the top of his lungs.
The Humans have seen their secret archives and Maki himself had seen it during the War for Earth.
(Please Read: [1])
It was the type of pain that they were familiar with.
Even though these dignitaries only heard and had read those stories back then from the archives, it was right to say that they somehow understood the feeling of losing someone.
And yet, as misunderstood as he was, Scion who understood him most didn’t care to explain any of it for she knew that she had to give Rex some time to vent his supposedly forgotten emotions.
“Uuuuuuu….” Siva was crying like a child.
He recalled how Samantha died in that village in The North during his rush to get to Alexandria. He also remembered how hurt she was when he said that he doesn’t know her.
Scion wasn’t able to endure it and hugged him from behind. Although there was his hard armour that separated the two of them, Siva still felt her undying love for him and her will to never leave him… no matter what happens.
As much as it hurts to remember his relationship with Samantha, Amanda was still his girlfriend and his feelings for her weren’t much lesser than what he felt about his beloved Sam.
To put it simply, Siva… no, Rex Kingsley….. loves them both on the same level —he would choose to risk his life, but not die, in order to save both of them at the same time.
Was it the greed of all men? Was it a pretentious matter to love two women at the same time? Was it an impious and sardonic hypocrisy to feel this kind of emotion on two women?
No.
It was simply [Rex Kingsley] and Rex Kingsley, as one and whole; it was simply [Siva] and Siva, as a person in two different yet connected worlds that loved the two women in different times of his life.
He simply loved them both the same way the two of them loved him back. Alas, Samantha is still lost somewhere in the records of [time] inside RPG: Terroa.
That’s one reason that makes him pathetically sad.
As such, Siva found solace in Scion’s embrace.
They never cared about the Humans around them and only cared about the here and now, and the implications of their respective missions.
From this day forth… the episodes of [memories] will be no more.
(AN: please read [2])
The [memories] have fully synchronized with his current memories and the Siva of old had finally remembered who he really was and what he had once become.
“It’s okay, Mandy, I’m alright.” Siva tapped her arm and she shyly released her embrace on him.
“Rex, are you really okay now?”
There was a sense of dignity to this Siva and for some reason this dignified calmness after his fit of emotions was on a whole other level than what he had been showing for time to time.
“I’m alright.” he smiled at Scion. “I’m finally back.”
*****
In the real world, Rex was in his bed, eyes closed and with his hands on his stomach —a relaxed posture for sleeping.
A smile broke on his lips, a tear drop rolling on his cheeks as he finally decided…
He then released his hold on the [memories].
This happened at the same time that Siva was in the moment of recollecting everything.
At the same time, the [label] was also unsealed because right now, the [God] went back to sleep, waking up only when it is the right time.
“Was everything really plotted by someone?” He left this question hanging in the air. “Whatever…”
While Siva in the game-world was in the process of realigning all the memories of his life together, [Rex] gave a mental command and all his pending arrangements were written in a note and a file is also created somewhere with access to Cortana.
“My work here is done.”
These files included all the things he had done in this short two days of being awake.
And upon the last bit of information that synched between [Rex] and Siva, the normal Rex Kingsley finally came back as the light of the NLD on his head blinked green.
The room, then, became normally silent.
*****
At the same time, outside the Genesis Chamber…
Cold Janus watched the events on a blurry view of a floating screen. When Scion hugged Siva, it was also the time when the blurry static screen seemed to have been covered by a dark hand.
“So now he remembers everything.” He pressed a button on his own panel board and sighed as he picked up a cup of blend on his holographic table.
Panel screens popped up and arranged in a pile of cascading panel screens in front of him.
There was even one eye-catching screen on his direct left hand side.
On this screen is the complex firewall of a secret facility owned by the UNICORN.
And not only that, there are also eight more that were all, for some reason or another, connected to the UNICORN and their military facilities by the label indicated on their panel screens.
“Now then…” he whispers and put down the cup.
One particular facility had coordinates that was a lot different from the rest of the list.
Its location……. was the dark side of the moon!
“Even if it kills me, I will make sure Terroa lives.”
Cold Janus wasn’t as life-loving and benevolently soft as the other side of his divinity. He was a cold and heartless individual.
But while he had a different personality algorithm, he shared the same mission as the other Janus.
“This is all for Terroa…” he murmured and began to crack the firewall and invaded the facility in the base in the moon. “Even if you delete me, I will still finish this one last mission.”
*****
[Eh? Boss, the [Label] has been released. I finally have access to that missing time frame just before we were locked in Terroa.]
“I know. Thanks, Cortana. Having you here is a real lifesaver for me.”
[Eh?]
Cortana suddenly flinched. Just now, she read his thoughts and if she was capable of more shocked expression, she would have bounced off the wall of her confinement and yelled: [Eeeehhhhh???!!!]
But no, she did ‘show’ a surprised expression but it was only for a microscopic moment.
[Then I will play the video file.]
BLINK!!
{If you’re seeing this, then you remember. I know I don’t have to tell you this but I still have to… the things we left in Chronos shouldn’t be taken away by the Demons. You’re weak right now since your powers and even your [authority] were all already discarded and sealed by mother that’s why you had to restart all over again as a reincarnated soul in Terroa.}
It was a video where [Rex] was looking at the long mirror in their room.
{The enemies are stronger than the last time we have fought them. Mefisto is dead but because of some unknown reason, the Mefisto we saw had a few traces of Lucifer’s [authority] and so he’s able to absorb even Janus who had a higher level of Source Code than him. Naturally, because of this, since you have once been corrupted by Mefisto in that battle… you and Mefisto will share a similar kind of Source Code, although it’s only superficial and does not affect your [authority], this layer of superficial similarity will become troublesome if he gets his hands on those items. So no matter what happens, please, get to Chronos as fast as you can possibly can.}
Although Siva had the memory of this video in his head right now, it was still a reminder to him to see this and it also serves as a renewal of his own motivations and drive to continue.
{You are me and many things have happened. But even if the enemies are stronger and they amount the same way they did the last time we remember them, a more important and pressing mission is in your plate right now so you must persevere. Also, although I do think I don’t have to tell you this, but Samantha is alive and I have a theory that Janus had managed to use a completed [Memory Spell] to pull her off from the Memory Archive of Mana, or, he had used a relic from Hestia. Perhaps this is the reason why the Demons’, although they are leaderless and defeated, had still increased their activities and even came back to Terroa. So I will leave you my sincerest prayers. Please save our brother… save Samantha… save mom and dad… and save Terroa. You don’t have to be a hero to do this. I know you will know what to do since if you could see this video, I know you have already recalled who you are.}
“…”
It was somewhat a lengthy message but as soon as the video finished, Siva closed his eyes and he could tell that his motivations have been renewed.
A surging heat of resolve was in his chest and he could tell that the ‘storm’ was indeed centered in him.
‘Cortana.’
[Yes sir.]
Upon given a mental command, Cortana pulled up a few files from the unlocked area on her archive.
These were the things [Rex] left behind that also included the results of his playing around in the stocks-market and the things he had arranged for his ‘winnings’ to be allocated for.
Although he already ‘knew’ of it since all of their memories are now connected, he still had to give time to check on it.
Included as well was a written message.
“I see.”
“Rex?” Scion, tugged his left pinky from behind.
He turned at her and saw the Humans behind her, looking at their direction with an ostensive hate directed solely at him above their calm gaze.
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The [God] has awakened.
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[1]: okay, let me just clear this up now. I think I’ve made a confusing reference here…. the War of the Gods is called “Ragnarok” while the War for Earth is called “Great War”… including as well the “War of the Braves” which was the war for Terroa that happened 56years ago; then, I also used this term in the past before using “Ragnarok” to refer to the God War… that’s why it will become a bit confusing. So, although the context of those are still respective to their own paragraphs and that they refer to their specific events are rather cleanly stated, I still want to make the references clear starting this chapter, that: (1) Ragnarok = War of the Gods; (2) The War of the Braves = War for Terroa; and (3) Battle for Earth = Earth invasion. I’ll be using these three distinctive usages from now on so I apologize for not using them in the first place. Corrections will be made for the past chapters that have already been published.
[2]: Well, this chapter was supposedly epilogue to the original Volume 6 which the half I put in Vol.5 and the other half here. As you can see, it took me 100+ chapters just to convey all the content to the original blueprint. But since the content of Vol 6, 7, and 8 are almost all the same, I will try to compress them all in this volume so there will be longer chapters with more content on them on every release. You’re welcome.
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Next Chapter: Maki’s mistake
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