“And… I’m here because?” I asked Crystal suspiciously.
Seriously when a noble is asking you to meet her in the middle of the night without letting anyone else know… is my suspicion really unwarranted? Even if it is in the secret base I made it is still questionable.
“You’re here because I’m in deep shit right now and I need a bail.” She huffed.
“Yeah, because asking a five year old princess for help totally makes a lot of sense” I replied blandly.
“Oh please. At the very least you know a stage thirty cultivator or are one yourself not to mention the fact that, as you just mentioned, you are a princess.” Scoffed this time? Really? Why do I get the feeling that she is looking down on me while asking for help?
“Hoh? I’m rather interested how you came to that conclusion.” I probed.
“As you told us when we first came here, for this place to have been made without anyone else knowing, it would either have to be from someone with a lot of connections or someone with a lot of strength. My great great grandma was here at the time you had this place remodelled and she is a twenty fourth-realm cultivator that has very strong sensing skills. She didn’t show any signs of noticing in between the time when you showed us the lab and refitted it so the natural conclusion is that someone powerful built it.” She explained to me arrogantly.
“While I will admit I underestimated you slightly, what’s with the superior attitude you have while asking for help? It doesn’t suit you at all and based off of your body language even you don’t like adopting such an act.” I couldn’t help but point out.
“Fine, I’ll get to the point then. You will help me whether you like it or not or I will let it slip that the world dungeon is living with the royal family.” She threatened.
“Hmm? And why would I do that. Even if anyone would accept such a rumour what makes you think they’d dare to disagree anyway? The dungeon was made by our god after all.” I asked her sceptically. This really didn’t seem well thought out on her part.
“B-because she refers to you as Master.” She seemed unsure at first but quickly regained confidence.
“Crystal, are you an idiot? You are trying to threaten me by saying that a god calls me master? That’s unimaginably stupid of you. Still, for the sake of my curiosity I will humour you. What exactly is it that you would be willing to threaten me for? And why do you think Azure is the world dungeon?” I asked, almost feeling bored with how pitiful the threat was.
In her defence though it was impressive how fast she hid the despair and composed herself again.
“My grandma has been helping me enhance my senses since I started cultivating so I was able to overhear it by accident when we where in here. I guess you didn’t think anyone else in the hideout would be strong enough to hear it so you didn’t try and hide the conversation. As for what I want… they have my sister”
She was crying. I was a little impressed that she managed to overhear us but it isn’t of consequence. Having her sister though… I didn’t even know she had a sister. Reaching up, I pat her head until she looked up at me again (yes, she was looking so far down that even my small body was above her sight). When she did though, she just started crying more. Guilt? So she didn’t want to threaten me atleast.
“Why are you trying to comfort me? I just tried to threaten you!” She yelled at me in-between tears.
“Why wouldn’t I try to comfort you? When I came here it was with the assumption that you where either going to attempt an assassination or blackmail me. Since there is nothing you can threaten me with anyway and I am stronger than you both are of little consequence. In my opinion this outcome was better than the one I had expected so comforting you holds no disadvantages. Plus you’re cute when you cry so I couldn’t resist petting you.” I answered honestly. She flinched when I told her my expectations.
“Why do you just assume I’d do that? I mean I know I did but why did you expect me to?” She asked mopingly.
“I’ve known you for a year, Crystal. Even if you told me a secret it would only be in either a secluded location or with a barrier up so no one could overhear at most and in any case it would be during the day. Night is not something you would use to tell me anything so all that is left is to assume whatever you called me out for was an action that is deemed morally wrong. Whether you where being threatened or are desperate, assassination and blackmail where the only logical conclusions to this meeting.” I answered easily.
She winced when I told her how easy to read she was but before she could protest, I continued.
“Idiot. You’re such an idiot. You should have just asked me for help in the first place, idiot. How much of an idiot do you have to be that you can be so idiotic? Generally you ask first and then resort to blackmail if they don’t agree, not the opposite way around. So tell me why you even have a sister that I’ve never heard of before and what got you willing to resort to blackmail.” I commanded her as she looked embarrassed.
“My sister… no, she’s more like my other half. We where born twins but we could always feel each other. But from the moment we where born, they’ve had her. I can feel it, her pain and fear and it hurts so much. And I know… I know that I only feel half of it. The only reason she is still alive is because she is living through me, even with all that pain and it’s horrible. I can feel how scared she is and I know that it hurts so much but I can’t do anything to help her. I just want my other half to be safe and happy but yet I can’t get to her, even when I know where she is. Please, help me” She broke down crying.
“Crystal… is she… was she taken by the shadows…?” I asked slowly.
She just nodded, not even able to form words through her breakdown.
“When is her sixteenth birthday” I asked urgently.
“I-it’s in a few hours, same time as mine” She choked out.
“Well fuck.”
----
[POV Change]
“Well fuck” I looked up in surprise as she swore. While I have heard her do it before… well, she’s never been this serious and even then it is extremely rare. But right now, the look on her face… she looked stressed, something I haven’t seen her show since the day we met but a face I recognised instantly from all the times I’ve seen it in the mirror.
“Crystal, you are going to listen to me very carefully and do exactly as I tell you or you’re sister will die and this world will explode with enough force to shred several other nearby worlds as well” She said seriously. The atmosphere she suddenly started emitting stopped me from talking and I just nodded instead.
“Several trillion years ago a child was born in the centre of a black hole. It did not have a gender or a race as its form was constantly being shredded to the point where it was impossible to form one. Usually, this child would have died but its mother bound its life force to the black hole itself in a twisted experiment. When the results where lacklustre in the mothers opinion she destroyed the black hole. What she did not expect however was that all the energy had been absorbed by the child. When she tried to kill it, the form shredded before reforming again and again, impossible to destroy.
But nothing is invulnerable. Once it was separated from the black hole it began to age by the minutes as if they where years. After ninety minutes, the child died. But that wasn’t the end. Desperate, the child reached out towards the only thing it understood, the shadows that ripped him apart endlessly while he was in the black hole. Its soul was destroyed and the shards merged into the shadows, creating an abomination that only seeks to destroy. From that moment on it has stolen children and used the power aligned with darkness to forcefully overload the soul with mana until it becomes a living super bomb.
A few billion years after that moment it had successfully destroyed trillions of worlds and stars by kidnapping children and spending eight years to overload their souls. It was a threat to every god as to find the bombs within the shadows are almost impossible so they banded together and waited at the last known place of a child’s disappearance. When the shadows came out to deposit the bomb back into the light, they used all their mana simultaneously to try and separate the shadow from the shadows. They failed. Instead, now the shadows are half inside the shadows and half outside of them.
Because of this failure, the shadow was weakened massively but it still lives. Right now, it can only take half a soul into the shadows with it while leaving the other half outside. The chance to do so only comes every few million years as for one soul to be stably divided into two bodies is extremely rare but it isn’t impossible. If the shadow really took your sister your link with her means that you are most likely sharing a soul with her and you where the half left behind. Even with it’s weakened state it only takes sixteen years to form a bomb.”
I was stunned. There’s no other way to put it. Idly I wondered why she knew so much and why her atmosphere changed in the back of my mind but my main thoughts where on my sister. I know she’s right about are soul. Once I heard it, it was as if it just clicked in my head and my connection with her became complete but that also made the pain multiply by two. I couldn’t help but scream but I refused to give in to it. She said she can help, right? I heard that didn’t I? She told me to do as she says or we would explode so she must know how to help me-no, us. She has to know. As if reading my thoughts she began to talk again.
“Show me. Use you’re soul link to feel exactly where it is and create a mana trail to it. I’ll make sure you don’t run out of mana.” I complied as soon as she said it, not even questioning the how.
“I didn’t go through so much crap to become strong just for a fucking shadow to destroy it all.”
----
[Normal POV]
I didn’t even think. I completely lost myself in my anger and said something that compromises my situation out loud without hesitation. I don’t regret it since she will see what will happen once we get there anyway but I still feel like an idiot for slipping so easily.
But was that really unwarranted? I spent so bloody long without happiness and without a reason to live other than strength. I dedicated my entire being to gaining strength. But yet, as soon as it’s finally within my grasp and as soon as I finally have a chance to be happy I find out that the abomination had somehow taken a child from my world when I wasn’t paying attention. Grandma and grandma airhead, mummy and mother, Amber, Emerald and Azure and even the world I’ve come to like, all in the range of fire to a super bomb that I didn’t even notice. The sheer amount of coincidences that led to discovering it where ridiculous and if not for even one of them I would have lost everything. Why did that disgusting creature have to appear here? It has barely been fifty years since the last magic bomb but yet another one appeared so fast.
For all the knowledge I have I couldn’t even prevent this from happening. And crystal… the amount of pain she would have been feeling through that link is massive. I’m surprised she hasn’t tried to kill herself to escape from it. But then again she seems to love her other half instead of hating it like most others do in this situation. I guess that is also the reason why another bomb came so quickly, because another person who can love their other half even with the endless pain exists, something that few can manage.
‘Direct command override: Funnel all your mana into me once the shadow has come out from hiding. When the shadow is destroyed recover your mana and go back to normal activities.’
‘Yes’
I got a reply from 190 of the gods I have on standby.
‘Direct command override: Work together to prevent any damage upon the surroundings or life forms. Once the shadow is destroyed, stop and recover your mana before going back to normal duties.’
‘Yes’
And then I had the other ten ready as well.
‘Azure. I need your help. I know you heard everything so I’ll make this short. Use your mana to connect Crystal and her sister’s soul together directly tapping into the overloaded darkness power. It will separate the power over both half’s and they will no longer be a bomb. I’ll explain to you what I know you want to ask later. We have work to do.’ I sent to her through my mind.
‘Okay Master. Be careful though. I know what happened to the last gods who tried to go against it.’
‘I know. But people say things like third time lucky, right? With my goals I am not going to let a stupid shadow kill me. Besides all the other gods who tried where morons. Just banding together with a few thousand gods won’t do shit and I bet the first out of the two groups only got lucky. I’m me though so I’ll be fine, don’t worry about it, okay?’
‘Okay Master. You better not get hurt or I’ll be mad’ She said in a worried voice before cutting off the conversation.
“Crystal… are you sure this is exactly where you sense her?” I asked her seriously.
“Yes… yes, I’m sure. I’ve always known she was somewhere in this room but then it clicked and I can feel where she is exactly.” She sounded dazed at first before her resolve strengthened.
I began to make my preparations. I don’t really have much of a choice to do anything but accept what she told me as truth so I started setting up a very special set of runes, enchantments, items and formations that I made specifically to target the shadow after I heard of it’s recent explosion. It was something to do while waiting for a chance to be born in the royal family to come up and I never thought I’d be in this universe long enough to test it but I guess now I have a chance.
First I isolated this as a separate dimension. That is a lot harder than it sounds because I literally had to take this room out as a chunk and put it somewhere else while patching up the hole over where it used to be and creating an anchor from this one to that one. The reason I had to do it is that the shadow can’t move once it starts working on a bomb so Crystals sister and the shadow are still in this room. After I did that the other two hundred and one gods joined me even if it was at a distance and Azure took Crystal a few hundred metres away. She still needed to be close to focus on the task I gave her.
The rest though… ugh, even I feel a little bitter at how much of my rare and precious resources this will take from me but I managed to set up a lot of traps for the shadow as well as channelling an unnatural amount of the light element through the formations to weaken it. It won’t have a massive effect but it will atleast weaken it and stop some of the more damaging attacks it has access to. My greatest enemy in this fight will be myself though.
Once I set up the rest of my trap I waited. I can already see the half of the shadow that is in the light but it has no power other than being an extra set of eyes to the main body. I could destroy it but there’s no real reason to and honestly it would probably just make the main body stronger if it were gone. So I waited and counted down the seconds instead.
Soon the other half of the shadows head appeared and attached to it’s powerless half, making something mimicking a human body made out of pure darkness and pure light, it’s form constantly fazing into itself. I couldn’t even tell how this half connected with the other before but now I can see it is literally a straight cut down the middle that connects the two forms into a copy of the child that died long ago. And with it came a soul. By now the body had been long erased and all that was left was a glowing ball of darkness to those with the ability to see souls.
Due to the nature of it only being half a soul I could see that it had already grown to be about three fourths the size of a full soul just like Crystals has over that time. Activating my traps as soon as they both appeared, the shadow was wrapped by pure mana and light and bound into place. I could feel the magic funnelling into me already, forcefully being converted into my own as my body burned.
It snarled, if you can call that a facial expression, and tried to escape. I knew it would hold for now but it wouldn’t last long. Waiting until the last possible second, when my body was already ashes and the weapon soul was already out of range, I channelled all my mana in one massive burst directly in to the heart of the shadow with my light element as the focus. And then… time froze.
----
‘How long?’ I asked In my mind.
‘Master! Are you awake!? Master, please tell me you’re awake!’
‘How long?’ I repeated, slightly more aggressively this time.
‘T-two months…’ Ah, I scared her.
‘I’m sorry, Azure. I know I shouldn’t take my anger out on you. These… ‘two months’ have been a little… uncomfortable. I’m sorry for leaving you for so long. What happened to Crystal and her sister?’ I asked tiredly. I can still feel the lingering migraine that has plagued me for so long now.
‘I did what you told me and merged them together but then they started rejecting each other so I froze them in the ring you gave me like you told me to if it happened. Crystals body is currently being kept alive by machines without her soul and the other nobles think that you tried an experiment that went wrong. I’ve explained what happened to you’re family and her’s though and now everyone is waiting for you to wake up. Master… what happened?’
I couldn’t help but wince at that. What happened to my family because of this decision? I know I had no choice since moving the entire world so far away isn’t something I can do on short notice but… but I don’t want to see their worried faces. I don’t want to deal with the aftermath of my decision from this event. I’m scared to see the blame in their eyes for making them go through that.
‘I died.’ I said simply.
After a small pause where she was shocked into silence I continued.
‘My body is programmed into my soul meaning as long as I have mana, I can reform it. So long as I don’t run out I will never die with my soul being impossible to shatter but once I do I will die. I have a last resort though. Something I hoped never to use due to what the user experiences in return. A name… if I had to give it one I’d say it is ‘Hell Sentence.’ What it does is instantly restore your body to optimal condition including the mana used but in return it freezes the user in time for atleast ten times what it would usually take to do so naturally. It is a side-effect ability that I created by accident when I poured so much power into my soul. You could say that I am unique, being the only one in existence to have this ability.
Once my body is destroyed and my mana has fallen below levels where I could be considered ‘alive’ it will restore me at the price of sending my spirit to hell for however long I am frozen. While the original hell most people know of is just physical torture, they where made by gods who sought to punish or indulge in their sadistic pleasures. The actual place I went to, the word hell is the only one I can use to describe it. Physical and mental torture by being bathed in the mana pits. It can be considered the law of equivalent exchange. It forcefully restored me from the absolute brink of death and in return I was forced to wish I really did die. I lost track of time after the first hour there. I… if I didn’t wish to live, I would have never activated that last resort… Azure, I can’t even describe what that place is like. The closest description would be all of the negative mana in existence gathered together in a small space that I was locked inside of.
Azure… if I ever do that again and my body is frozen after using that last resort… please just kill me. It will eject me from that place if my body dies while it’s ‘frozen’ so please just kill me. I don’t care if I have to forget everything just do not let me stay in that place again… please…’
I broke down into hysteric sobbing and crying after that. It lasted so long that I didn’t even realise I had other people around me until I was in my soul scape after crying myself to sleep. Even in there, I just kept crying. I could have went to sleep but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stop when I woke up as well so instead I made use of the week I had to cry myself into alertness again. Then and only then did I go to sleep.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
----
[POV Change]
“Master… just what happened to you that even your family is something you are willing to forget in return for never going back there…” I said softly in the empty room that only my masters shivering body and I where in.
I know better than most the effects of mana due to my nature of having a connection with it inside of me but I never knew there was a place like that. There is a reason the mass amounts of mana are called the ‘heavens’ even though they have no conscious will. It’s called that because being inside of it is supposed to be heavenly, feeling every single strand of happiness, pleasure, comfort and love through every positive strand of mana in existence. It’s supposed to be so overwhelming that coming back here almost seems like a hell. But yet, my master went to the opposite…
I can’t imagine what it feels like. I can barely even imagine what the heavens feel like and I have a link to them but if a hell exists… heavens opposite… no, I never will be able to comprehend that but I can tell that it would be overwhelmingly horrible. There is so much more pain than happiness throughout existence after all. To say that someone would rather die than go there is understandable. Even I would prefer that and I never even knew they existed.
But it’s hard to see my master as someone who would let it affect her. She desires strength so much and her family means everything to her but yet, even if I know how horrible it is supposed to be in theory… it just seems surreal to see my master be so effected by it. She always seems so strong that seeing her so weak just feels out of place, like it is something foreign. It’s selfish of me I know but I can’t help but think… is this really the same person? I know it is but… I guess I spent so long looking up to her as some ultimate being that I forgot she is a person just like everyone else.
----
[Normal POV]
“Everything has it’s advantages, huh? Ah shit I’m crying again now…”
After two months I thought I had finally gotten myself under control but just now I decided to start cultivating to take my focus off of that place. Instead I found that my mana pool had expanded massively though and when I realised why, it made me start crying again.
Even if it was only for two months I still had a temporary mana portal connected with hell opened up in my body, mimicking the affects of a dungeon. Since I am not one however it all went into expanding my own reserves instead, meaning that right now I have around ten times the mana I would have as a tenth realm if I had kept cultivating in this life. To put that into perspective if I cultivated the same way as I had been I would already have been at around ten times the size in my last life by the time I entered the tenth realm. For that base to be so much bigger is already monstrous so when the new base gets ten times bigger again… it’s ridiculous.
But for as much as I desire power, I wish I didn’t have it. What I went through to get it… I’ve always been bad at dealing with pain and this was so, so much worse than simple pain. What makes it worse is that I know if I had just one more realm added on to my strength I wouldn’t have had to activate that last resort at all. My meridians would have burned at a slower rate and I wouldn’t have lost as much mana to repair them to the point that I’d just keep myself alive instead of relying on that shitty place.
That is another reason I wanted to cultivate. I need to get stronger. Even if my family is out of my reach, I refuse to let that happen to me again. I’d much rather find a way back here than go to that place. So I’m going to cultivate up to the tenth realm and hope that I have a choice to leave after I reach the strength limit. If I do I can stay but if not… I might lose my family. But after that place, even they won’t make me avoid my desire for strength anymore. I just can’t… I can’t even leave the possibility that it could happen again existing. Once I get to the tenth realm my body will be strong enough that nothing can even hurt me with the size of my mana pool, even when I don’t use it. So as long as I remain in this plane of existence afterwards… then no one could make me go through that again. If that happens, I don’t know how long it will take me to be ready to leave this plane if I have the choice but… well, let’s just say it will take a long time.
----
“Are you sure, Master?” Azure asked me before my breakthrough to the tenth realm.
“I can’t leave the possibility for that ever happening to me again existing, no matter how slight it is” I replied to her guiltily.
After my mana pool got so much bigger, it actually took longer than I thought to get to this point. When I was five years and four months old I started my cultivation and even in a time-diluted chamber it took me another seven months normal time. Totally it was around one year a month. If not for the enchants that make sure aging is in normal time… I’d already be thirteen by now. And right now, I have weakened the wall to the limit and expanded my mana to the limit. Now I was just talking to Azure in case I couldn’t stay. My family… they already knew what was happening today but they where in denial. They refused to say goodbye in case that meant I wouldn’t come back.
“But Master… what if you don’t stay? I don’t want to lose you, master. We both know that no matter how much protection I have I’ll never reach the strength limit so if you can’t come back if you don’t have a choice about leaving, I’ll never see you again. I don’t want to lose Master.” She cried as she clung on to my clothes.
“I’m sorry” I said as I hugged her and pushed through the last block in my cultivation. I was now a tenth realm god, at the strength limit that used to plague me and the one I went through so much effort to surpass. At first, nothing happened. But then I violently flung Azure away as something ripped around me and I found myself in a small, blank white room.
[Hello. I won’t explain anything to you but know that you have two choices right now]
[1) You continue.]
[2) You go back to prepare.]
[If you choose the first option you will fight the current ruler of existence. If you choose the second option you will be stuck in the lower Realm for 1,000,000 years as payment. Even if you reform your body again, you will be stuck until that time.]
[Choose]
“Two” I said without hesitation.
[Ah, no hesitation. How interesting. You are the first challenger that chose option 2 so easily]
[Sigh, am I getting kind in my old age? Oh well. I guess I will reward you for that. I do have a like for games after all so it’s only fitting that you get rewarded for being the first. I don’t like the other guy though as well so I guess it’s a mix of both? Anyway, it’s good for you. Have fun, I’ll see you again in a million years.]
And with that, I was being tossed back out to who knows where. After what seemed like years but was probably only hours, I stopped falling and found myself in another blank room with a single book in here. Naturally I was wary but I picked it up all the same. As soon as I touched it though it burst into golden particles and imprinted directly into my head. This book… this book was a method to convert souls into power without death being used to help. This was the fucking strongest skill that I could ever see existing and the reason I chose two without hesitation.
Sure, I want to stay there to be with my family but the main reason I wanted to stay was because I wanted to repeat the ritual I did to put more power into my soul. This book however… with this I can directly channel it into me. That book was like finding a fucking fresh water sea in an infinite desert. And that was a gift that thing gave out to me on a whim? How… how ridiculous.
Ah crap. I just remembered I forgot to help crystal and her sister…
Oops.
Anyway, while crystals sister was overloaded to the point of explosion that was only because it was actual darkness and not darkness mana which was shoved into her soul. Technically it was mana which shoved it in there but it is still putting something completely incompatible into a soul in mass quantities. If it was channelled into her affinity it would have been fine but it wasn’t, it was channelled into the soul as a whole which wasn’t made to handle it. Since her soul strength is no where near a gods, let alone my ridiculous amount of soul strength, obviously it would eventually explode. If it was not used like that however it wouldn’t have happened.
Honestly I’ve known about that method for a long time but it’s simply not worth it due to the excess elemental power that spreads through the rest of the soul. The reason I made Azure merge them together was because it would be like a cup that is overflowing suddenly gets bigger. Right now, if I separated them again they would both be have their souls filled with half of their maximum capacity. It’s not dangerous for either of them but it’s still not a very good situation. I obviously can’t leave them together since they are two people and their souls are each only a quarter away from being a full souls so they aren’t compatible anymore like they would be at birth but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t benefit from the temporary merge.
Once I separate them I plan on channelling all the darkness into their affinity sections. Before I couldn’t do it but with this book… to make things simpler, with all the darkness in their souls it would slowly drain into their elemental affinities anyway in the next million years but I could do nothing about that before. Now, I can drain it all at once into their affinities now because of the book.
Hell, I can even do it for myself now. Before I wouldn’t have because I planned to mess with my soul again and putting actual elements into it would just make that harder but now, I can put them into my soul and funnel it directly into growing my affinities without making anything else harder in the process. I can also strengthen my soul and talents directly without having to do it in bursts. Oh, this is so fucking cool!!!
----
[Quick POV Change]
[Haha, take that you annoying bastard. I’ve been watching her for a while now and she is the perfect one to take you down. Daring to limit my domain to this single room… I will make you regret it. And the best thing is that you will never even know she exists until the moment she kills you and devours your soul. Ah, I can imagine it already. The sound of your soul shattering, the sweet flow of power being poured into her to never be seen again and my domain once again stretching out across all of existence. And to think… all that is only a million years away. Hahaha you fucking idiot, I told you you’d regret putting me in here.]
----
[Normal POV]
Now, how do I get out of this room? Ah crap, I’m kind of stuck here… how distasteful. Wait, I’m not going to be stuck in here for a million years am I? In this room with nothing else in it… no… I can’t stay her- oh, there’s a letter where the book used to be. Awkward.
Yo,
Have fun with this shit. I certainly will :P
Umm… okay? That’s kind of foreboding but okay…
…
…
…
Nothings happening. I’m still stuck in the room.
“Umm… can I get out?” I asked the air awkwardly after a few minutes.
Suddenly the rip opened back up and I was back where I was before, seeing Azure still flying through the air from the throw I sent her way hours ago. I went and caught her and she looked surprised and terrified but mostly happy. I think the terrified part was because of the rip that devoured me. Now that I had a chance to look at it, there was a literal tongue and teeth that came out to eat me and spit me back out. I wonder if it had a chewing effect before spitting me out in distaste? I feel like that thing in the room is way too bored to do all that. But the fact that time froze for several hours… how terrifying.
“I’m back. Did you miss me, Azure?” I teased even though it has only been a few seconds to her.
“Yes! You big idiot Master!” She screamed at me while crying.
“I’m sorry. I know I selfishly ran away from everyone I cared about because I was scared and I’m sorry.” I said to her softly but seriously as I hugged her.
Truth is… she’s not the only one who was terrified. My family… as much as I wanted to never feel that pain again, I also didn’t want to lose them so this outcome… this outcome is amazing. Although I feel like the trauma that ‘hell’ gave me will never disappear, now it’s as if it will stop making my life bad even after I escaped. I think I never let go of that place and made myself suffer instead because of it but now that I know that I can have strength without losing my happiness it’s like all the weight has disappeared. I know that in this plane of existence, even if I am stuck here for another million years… I will never feel that pain again and I can be happy with my family.
With the sheer amount of mana I have my body is practically invulnerable and even if it was destroyed I could heal it easily. So right now the only thing I am scared of is losing the people I care about. Being all-powerful has it’s perks though like extreme power, confidence, skill, knowledge, power, power and more power. Yeah my families pretty safe unless something unpredictable happens again like the shadow. Even then I think I have a good chance of protecting them providing they are not all far apart.
“You don’t get to cry, idiot. Why do you get to cry when I am the one who thought I lost you forever” She said as she was banging my chest childishly.
“I don’t know! You where crying and then I felt like crying because you where and now I can’t stop because you keep crying! Stop crying and I will stop!” I replied childishly in return. The childish part of my voice was an act but I really was crying because she was.
“Master!! Don’t ever leave me again or I won’t forgive you!” She yelled irrationally.
“Let’s go to the toilet then” I replied as I began to carry her towards the closest toilet.
“You know that’s not what I meant! Idiot master!” She said as she hit me harder and tried to struggle out of my arms.
“I’m sorry… you don’t really know this since I got a lot better at it before I created you but I’m not very good at talking. Whenever something is bothering me I can’t find ways to say it and because of that I tell people hardly anything about myself and get caught up in all my own problems constantly. I was just avoiding the topic, I know that, but yet I still couldn’t resist saying that even when I knew that. I’m sorry for worrying you, Azure.” I said seriously.
Half way through I sat down and buried my head into her chest instead so she couldn’t see my face. I knew that was still running away but I couldn’t say that and show my face at the same time, it was too much.
“Seriously… you are such an idiot master… how can you be so smart but yet so dumb…” She mumbled just loud enough for me to hear.
“Ah, the hard life of being a super genius that makes everyone else look dumber than rocks” I sighed playfully.
“Hmph, if rocks are what it takes to be able to connect with people you should become a rock, idiot master” She said arrogantly. It’s obvious she was being playful as well though.
“You know Azure… while I was gone I remembered that we haven’t fixed Crystal and her sister yet. How did I forget to do that when I wasn’t even sure if I could come back? It seems so stupid now. I was so caught up in myself that I forgot something so obvious.” I said sadly. I feel guilty for that and I should have remembered it, especially since I thought of that event so much but yet I didn’t even think of it with seven years of cultivation. Even if it was in a space like that… not once? I didn’t even consider that I still had to finish helping them.
“I… I was so focused on master that I forgot to remind master… idiot. I’m an idiot as well” She whispered to herself in a voice like it was the end of the world. She went really pale as well.
“Hey, why did you dramatize the idiot part so much?! I’m not an idiot and neither are you!” I defended heatedly.
“Master denial is bad for your mental health. I accept that we are both idiots even if you are the bigger one so you need to accept it as well or we will never make any progress” She scolded seriously.
“Okay fine, I’ll admit that you are an idiot. Happy? Good, let’s go fix this mistake.” I teased in a mock serious voice before I came back into the castle. I had the ring with the soul/souls in a draw here still so I had to come back for it.
“Can you bring Crystals body here? I need to focus for a bit” I said as she nodded and left. Barely a few seconds later she was back and I had the two/one soul in front of me (using mana to freeze their time. Costs a lot).
The first part was easy. The merge was unstable anyway so separating them again wasn’t even a problem. Next though… well, they still had a lot of darkness in them and I was new to my new power so it was a little hard to funnel the darkness that was spread evenly between the two souls into their affinities. While I succeeded, it was only afterwards that I considered that Crystals sister already has a lot in the affinity from the sheer time it was in her soul. Since she passively absorbs it her affinity for darkness was a lot higher than Crystals so now she is ahead in it. To be fair she went through a lot of pain for that boost but it still feels a little wrong.
Regardless I was able to do that after a little bit of tampering as well. No, what was hard was using my mana to grow both souls into two separate full souls from the previous three quarters full. Once they where grown it was obvious they became dual-souls. I guess it would be what most would consider following through reincarnation with each other. Since they are linked on such a basic level they are destined to always have a strong bond and follow each other through life and death. If one dies, they know and a week later they too will die in order to follow their other half. I guess it makes sense since they where originally one soul but since the shadow destroyed the links between half souls by turning one into a bomb I never had a chance to study how dual-souls where born.
The half souls I understand though. Someone loves someone massively but that person had his or her soul shattered. In their grief, the soul shards attach to the one who they loved that still had a soul and that person will die and have their soul split in the unconscious desire to do anything to repair their souls. So basically, all the half soul twins that are born are from people who loved and trusted each other so much that they where willing to die to repair the broken soul. Emotions are amazing as they can always break the limits we aren’t even aware of. It never happens to most people though since it is rare for someone to have their reason for life based on a single person and even then they will likely pursue revenge instead of dying without the one they loved.
It’s quite romantic I guess but it’s kind of useless when they lose the memories that made them love each other so much in the first place. Most of the time their instinct is to love them but when you are linked with someone who causes you so much pain constantly or the other way around, you having pain while they don’t… well, jealousy breaks instinct. Because of that shadow many of those once romantic stories ended up tragedies instead where they both hated each other. I imagine some weren’t romantic relations but instead friendships or family but for the ones who where, even if the shadow didn’t exist they would likely end up as tragedy stories since they are born as siblings constantly.
The shadow is destroyed now though and hopefully it will not reappear ever again. Since it was originally made from a genius who kept the black hole stable and gave birth to a child in the centre of it while bonding it’s soul to the thing it’s unlikely there will be a redo of the experiment that created it. For as twisted as the lady was, to be able to use soul magic to such an extent makes her a genius on my level, at least in that field. But even if the experiment was recreated (unlikely) the chances of it’s emotions once again breaking common sense and merging with the shadows are miniscule and it only gets smaller as you consider that it might not be a mass-murdering kidnapper terrorist combo. There are so many variations to the possibilities but overall I doubt there will be another bomb shadow in the future.
‘You know who I am, right?’ I asked Emeralds sister.
‘Scarlet Primrose. My sister met you and I’ve known you through her.’ She said simply.
‘Good. I can make you a body but I’ll give you a choice of what you want. Be warned though that you will have two forms, one animal and one human. It’s easier to explain you as someone who was in a coma from birth while a unique ability manifested itself rather than announcing that you where a super bomb since those coma’s really do happen to people even if it is rare and it won’t create much suspicion. I’m planning on explaining You, Crystal and my situations by making it a story of ‘two kids trying to wake up the sleeping child but ended up putting themselves in a coma as well.’ Right now, you have been missing from the day you where born and both your sister and I have been missing for the past several months.’ I summarised for her.
‘Kitten’ she didn’t even hesitate.
I was hoping she’d choose kitten! I mean there’s only like one cat girl I have seen in this nation in the last five, almost six, years and she was a fricken granny. It’s a crime, why’s the cutest race not amazingly popular? Tch, no wonder I didn’t pay enough attention to notice that damn shadow.
Anyway I started forming her body. By nature it can shape shift between two forms, a kitten and a cat girl. But past that I made it like my body with it’s innards. Since I can now bond it directly into her soul without killing her (technically she is alive since I am holding her away from the cycle of reincarnation) with the new power I have, she literally has a perfect body, just like me. While her raw talent won’t match my body she will still cultivate faster because of her body.
Next I edited how her humanoid body looks like. Cute kitty ears and tail, freely able to transform her hands into cute kitty paws and kitty eyes. Naturally, she also looks fricken cute~ as well! I still have work to do though! Hair. Naturally it will be mostly black, a really deep, dark and glossy black, but I can still make things interesting. While if I make her hair into a certain colour it will change back within a few days due to the nature of her soul, I can edit what the affinities do as a base now that I can mess with souls without dying.
So since she has fire as her second largest affinity I made the base into that black with dark red streaks in her hair occasionally. Since it aligns with her affinity it won’t disappear. And… well, it looks cool. We can use magic, of course I wouldn’t leave her with plain black hair. But now, my makeover was finished! And she was a cute cat girl that could change into a kitten at will. I’m so happy!
Still I had things to do. Firstly I broke her through with pure mana since she hadn’t cultivated till now. Then I spent the next two hours breaking her through to the tenth realm as well as bringing her sister up to the same and purifying her mana. It’s harder to bring up other peoples cultivation as compared to my own since my talent doesn’t affect them but it’s doable. I had already altered Crystals insides to be like her sisters (minus the cat) and the only major physical difference (again minus the cat) was that Crystal was more aligned with beauty than cuteness and her hair was black with blonde streaks instead since she is aligned with the light element as her secondary. Now they look quite similar (again minus the cat) to each other so people will easily be able to tell they are twins.
After that things got annoying. Naturally I had to make up a lot of bullshit stories for myself and them to keep the truth hidden from everyone else and I even had to tell my family and the sisters that I am this nations god reincarnated since the facts didn’t line up and they questioned me. It was bound to happen eventually and although my family was pretty cool about it I still think it was annoying. The amount of stuff I used my alter ego as an excuse for… it all came back to bite me and I had to explain everything. I even got grounded for keeping secrets… I mean, who finds out that you are some all-powerful god in this plane and then grounds you? So embarrassing.
The story the public knew though was that Crystal asked for my help to wake up her sister where we proceeded to knock ourselves into a coma for several months before all waking up at the same time. The sisters hair changed so it lent credit to the story but for around a week everyone was wondering why my hair didn’t change before deciding that I was already too perfect for it to affect me. Seriously, how did they even reach such a stupid conclusion? Shouldn’t they just realise it’s because they where twins and I’m not related?
Well I pulled them both into the time manipulation chamber for around a year of compacted studying and combat training during the next few months. One sister missed a heap of school and the other had only been through her sister so I needed to catch them up a lot. Thankfully atleast the twins families didn’t find out that I was the head god but they do know a slightly edited version of the story so they still know I am a god. There’s so many legends about that shadow that I couldn’t simply bluff my way out of telling them what I am (sorta).
My birthday was on the second of November so I turned six about two months before school was supposed to start. I guess I can be considered one of the youngest since even if a kid turns six in February they have to wait until the next year to attend which is kind of ironic when I’m probably older than most of them will live.
For my birthday I got a new ring with the royal families emblem on it as my main present since we only get it when we officially start cultivating. Basically it’s a ring to tell people that I’m not someone to piss off. The royalties have a ring as well and even the rich merchants have one, though it obviously signifies the ranks clearly. The rich rings are literally bought with money but I guess it still has it’s use to be able to tell people not to mess with you. It’s also like a free pass into the castle with the varying ranks signifying the amount of privileges you have inside. Guest is the lowest rank and is only temporary for when there are parties and balls but the ones above it are usually found socialising in the common room. It can be very useful to make connections after all.
As for how things are going for all of us is a little complicated but good as well. Sapphire, the cat-girl sister of Crystal, has made a habit of staying in kitten form while I carry her around. Since she is exempt from school as well due to her unique circumstances, she will be coming with me in kitten form since I am the best tutor for her and as the princess she can observe the social situations safely. I don’t mind since it was my suggestion and she is adorable but Crystal… she’s jealous. I mean, her sister is an adorable kitten, of course she is jealous when she is always in my arms. What can I say, I am always the perfect temperature… convenient, right?
But Sapphire herself is rather… odd. I guess that being a cat will have a mental effect just as being trapped in the dark for sixteen years of pain and fear would as well so it’s not odd that she’s odd but some of the things she does is just completely random. For some reason she loves rolling around in syrup but hates getting dirty for anything else. Her cultivation means she can rid her fur of it easily but… why does she even want to roll in it in the first place? I really can’t work that out. But what’s weirder is that she loves laying on her back on top of my head and playing with her paws so it looks like she’s swimming. She finds it hilarious and everyone else finds it adorable but why is she swimming of all things? She never get’s bored of it either…
Overall there is just a lot of little things like that which show in her daily actions and even if it’s adorable since she is a kitten in her second form it is also completely random. I think I’d do the swimming thing as well but eventually I’d get bored of it in comparison to how she does it everyday for atleast an hour or two. To be unique after a life like that isn’t unexpected but I’m still confused why it’s those things.
The sisters have been sleeping together. To make sure it isn’t weird I’ve been told that Sapphire uses her kitten form (not that I’d judge if she didn’t) but it comforts both of them to be with each other. I think they still fear waking up with one of them having disappeared so it’s understandable. Hopefully it never happens but making a guarantee would be stupid, instead it is just extremely unlikely. Things have been messed with so that when I go to school next year I will be living in a bigger room with Sapphire, Crystal, Azure and me instead of the usual one roommate setup since sapphire and crystal want to be close to each other but I want to be roommates with Azure. Since Sapphire needs to come to class with me we where all pre-decided to be shoved in together instead.
Besides since I messed with their bodies having them away from me could be a security risk. It’s not likely to happen but considering they are still nobles it’s possible someone will sneak in to their room while they are asleep. I’d rather not explain why they are unique after it get’s leaked, even if it is unlikely. On that note, I finally got around to purifying the rest of my families mana and I changed their bodies as well. While the raw talent and affinities are still the same they can now cultivate faster and use their mana better so it’s naturally an advantage, especially since it is purified now. In a few hundred years we will be a family of gods.
As for the other nobles things sort of stagnated. It’s obvious that my family and the twins are close now so even in our hangout we have a group involving my siblings and I, Azure and the twins so no one else has really been talking to us. I can’t really do much about that, nor am I willing to try. I know I can trust my current friends so why would I bother befriending others in half-assed relationships? It doesn’t seem worth it.
The biggest change is Azure. While I had certainly made a lot of progress with her actually achieving what I wanted (breaking down the barriers) was a lot harder and I was lost for some time. But after she saw me go through my… breakdown, for lack of better words and then almost lost me forever it shattered by itself and I was finally able to get her to lessen the whole maid personality. I am still the master she loves and respects but now she’s not so stiff and boring, instead having fun genuinely treating me like a friend.
My family didn’t take it very well when I told them I wanted to stay at school instead of coming home everyday. I mean it isn’t really necessary and my reasoning for staying was that dorms seem fun but come on, it’s literally a swords and magic word boarding school for the elite… if I didn’t attend it as a boarding school I would be offending every decent fantasy book mortals have written about such a setting. It just seems so… right, you know? I can’t not make this first time experience for me as interesting as possible, that’d just be preposterous.
When my siblings heard my explanation and decided to do the same next year as well… it got messy. I didn’t expect that to happen but for the past month Mummy has been moping and Mother has been trying to get us to change our minds. I was determined though and she had no luck. I’m still not sure if my sisters will manage to resist her but it doesn’t really matter. Even without them it will be a perfect fantast setting but I guess it would be fun if they stayed at school as well.
But my take on everything that has happened so far would be… I’m tired. Although it’s fun it is undeniably tired to do so much all the time. Especially after my visit to hell and my little breakdown afterwards it is undeniable that I am tired. I know that if I put it off it will affect my health so I will probably be actually sleeping most nights from now on but I am satisfied as well. I’m at the strength cap and I still have my family and I even have a lot more power than I used to. I’ve locked myself down here for a million years but even that doesn’t have much influence on me. That isn’t a punishment, it’s just time to grow. By being locked down here I have a million years to improve myself before I go fight this mysterious ruler of existence. And most of all… I have a million years to try and work out how to form a connection with the heavens and increase my mana pool like I did with hell.
No way am I forming another connection with that place unless I absolutely have to. But since I was able to form a temporary connection with it at all means that the same thing is possible with the heavens and if I succeed, my mana pool will expand infinitely and I won’t even have any negatives like hell would give me. I feel that there will still be a limit eventually but that limit will be a lot higher than what my current mana pool is at so it is worth looking into. Somehow I get the feeling that the ruler is an idiot since whatever that being in that room was, it was definitely trying to help me when it knew I was attempting to kill it’s master.
Seriously, who the hell would let such a being hate them? That’s like asking to have a knife stuck in your back. I may not have talked to it for long but it clearly disliked the current ruler and even helped me get strong enough to beat them. I’m not stupid enough to deny this opportunity. And the heavens are the mother of all opportunities- literally and figuratively- so naturally I will take advantage of them. Wow, somehow thinking of ways to take advantage of the heavens is weird…
Whatever. I’m going to sleep, screw the over-thinking crap. I’m tired.