"You are married to one hell of a cheapskate, you know that?" Said the grumbling 'beggar'.
"I'm quite proud of that, yes." Said the smiling ogress before taking her battle axe out of her bracelet's storage.
Aki really wanted to watch his wife's fight, but he had to immediatly teleport out of the place since there was only her fight before the magic showdown and he had one hell of a stomach ache. Reaching an area some kilometers away, Aki imediatly summoned Gobu, some monsters and some elementals.
"No time to explain, i want you all to protect me. The hobgoblin is in charge." He said and imediatly surrounded himself with barriers of magic and metal.
The confused short teenager with sharp features didn't take more than a moment to frown and put his hair in a pony-tale before marking the ground with several simbles and coordinating with his given troops to encircle the formation he just did and kill the already aproaching monsters, all coming with saliva hangging from whatever passed as a mouth because of the stupidly high amount of energy comming from the place.
Inside Aki's counciousness:
"Now now, you two old bastards have been trying to raise this fish so he can be a dragon. I imagine you lacked options, his talent is shit. Though it's obvious that with you two inside of him you were sealed together and the idiot stumbled into something he should not have. My point here is, in exchange for your freedom, i'd like you two to swear a follower's contract with me and work for benefits."
*CLANGCLANGCLANGCLANG THUNK* "Arrrrrrgh...."
"""""Stop that before i hit you.""""" Said all five incarnations of Aki present after one of them swung a big hammer into the stomach of the demonic practicioner because she kept trying to force her chains. It had some guts and blood after it was taken out, so the heavily armored golden spirit started polishing it. The chains broke, sure, but then they started closing again inside of her and closed against the bone pillar on her back.
By the way, the incarnations here are the manekin (Murder), a golden death knight (Greed), a red haired, rainbow eyed and androgenous hunter that calmly sat while reading a book (Pride), a gourgeus and tall brunete woman with jade white skin and revealing clothes (Lust, who is the only to actually have a dick out of all the incarnations mentioned), and Aki's dungeon avatar.
"Who are you? Why are you doing this?" Asked the would be wuxia Mc who was beaten bloody after trying to attack and was being used as a seat for Lust while doing a table pose.
"We are your new boss dear. Now shut it while the adults talk or you will never be one." Whispered Lust to him while holding a dagger to one of his testicles.
"I know it doesn't concern me, but would your exelency be so kind as to tell this one what we have done to offend?" Politely asked the handsome and expressionless asiatic gentleman.
"You exist. That is enough for you and that woman to reach a power level higher than ours through that boy. There are no garanties that you would not be our enemy in the future, but you two posses great knowlege of the cultivation realms, something hard to acquire in the main world." Explained Pride in a monotome while looking up from his book for a moment.
"So i think that if we make a good enough deal that cannot be broken withouth the destruction of the offending party than our worries would be sated and maybe we could trade resouces and services for knowlege in a mutually beneficial relationship."
"As if this... *Thunk*" A rain of blood and bone occured when Murder ripped her jaw off and started eating it.
"Do try to talk shit again. If your flesh and marrow have this good a texture and taste, than your liver, heart and calves must be sublime." Said the manekin while licking it's own hand off with the mouth that appeared in it's chest. More than fear, the gorgeus asian woman seemed outraged that someone had dared hurt and eat her.
""""I want the liver!"""" Said all the other four imediatly. Aki's favorite cut of meat asside, even the demonic cultivator agreed that she should keep her already regenerated mouth shut.
"Look, while I'm certainly a psycothic piece of shit, I'm also a married man that wants a good world to build his family." Said avatar, getting a nod from all the others. "But for that i need allies. A righteous man and a devilish woman couseling that still growing boy would be very good after she learns the true way of sin, though you seem to already be close to the true way of virtue."
""True way of sin/virtue?"" Both said at the same time.
"Well yes, it's when you can use all seven of each. I also cultivate the way of duality and balance, so i know both. The starting method is really simple. You just say 'fuck it' to the world and everything else and start creating intersections between the virtues and/or sins in a way as to follow what you trully believe." Said the avatar.
"Like the orphanages Charity is designing. I always wanted those" Said the husky voice of the golden armored specter.
"Or like us." Said pride with some emotion to it's voice. "I'm both humility and pride." (As in the lines of: The perception of a small person turning into the greatest person for the sake of all those who should admire it. If they all are supposed to admire it, then it would be foolish to not be someone admirable or ask for something that is already yours. Like screaming at a baby, it will do no good. There's more to it, but it's a pain to actually explain, so just leave it like that for now.)
"I'm very happy of having delicious meals and exciting encounters, but they just aren't as good as they could be if together with those i love. And sex with her is just soooo much better~." Said Lust, who is also the personification of chastity.
Murder is technically the incarnation of patience and wrath too, but he is actually quite impartial, so instead of being called "Politics", he was given the name of Murder.
"I will make some bodies for you three, though you're still bound to him because of your current state. These bodies should be even better in talent than your original bodies, since they're made specially for your souls, but they will all be bellow level 50, which would roughly translate to the the third threshold in the cultivation world. At the moment I can offer resources to even help you all break through the fourth wall (Lv 100) , but it will take some months to get to the level of the sixth wall (Lv 300). Further than that I could only offer training since I don't know where to actually get even better resources at the moment. So, do we have a deal?" The avatar asked while presenting a sheet of paper to each of the three.
*****
"Did you finish scaming whoever already?" Asked the suspiciously more handsome Gobu.
"Yeah, but why are you..." Tried to ask Aki.
"I what?" Monotomely asked the green boy.
"Why do you look like you could join a boy's band? You could pass as a normal joe before, but now you seem distinctively asian and good looking. And you just evolved once! Was this your face before? How the actual hell did you die a virgin?!" Said the outraged and jealous man.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
"Shut it, it's the face i've always had and it has nothing to do with me not having had a wife. Just get me back to the tribe, i was in the middle of teaching a class." Said the teen while clicking his tongue.
"Ok, fine, but you not being concious of your attractive features also makes you very punchable. By the way, i see you have evolved into a variant as well, so let me tell you now, but you won't be able to level up again without evolving and you will not automatically have an equal or better option, so you should try and get some skills to level six and hunt some dangerous mobs so you can unlock some better things. Tsu got the 'Queen' title in her evolution because of her age and role in the tribe, but you should try and aim for something with the title of Lord or something, but please, do contact me when you get the option to evolve next time, ok?"
"Fine." Said a more serious Gobu before being teleported back. All the monster corpses were sent to a storage cave Aki made so he could put high amounts of materials before processing then. That all made it so Aki got to the colossesum again nine minutes after he left, finding a bloody Tsu already cleaning her face with warm water.
"Sorry i couldn't watch dear, i just had to make this deal. Did you get too hurt while wining?" Worriedly said Aki with a healing spell that he'd begin to cast the moment he noticed her HP was still at 80%.
"It's fine. It was a good and exciting fight though, almost couldn't make it." Said the smiling woman while carresing her spouse's face with her clean hand.
*****
"Today was a day of great battles! After such ferocious combat, some died and some are feeling unwell, so we will have less presentations, but these fewer shows are sure to be the most expectacular!..."
"Fucking announcements, still much longer for our presentations? How many people before us again?" impatiently asked Aki in his frilly white dress.
"Dear, calm down, everyone will love your presentation, so it's natural that it is going to be the last." Soothingly said his wife.
With time the people started making their own shows. A magic sword man and his Kata, a song, fireworks, and some magic tricks later, it was Aki's turn.
Tsu, who had just danced with the four basic elements flowing around her, gave him a peck and he went to the center of the arena.
After sitting in a lotus position, various four fold magical circles appeared around him and the stone floor started to get various protusion, suddenly the sounds of bass, an electric guitar, drums and electric keyboard could be heard in conjunction and a fast and determined voice started to sing without lyrics as Aki dissapeared and a small humanoid figure with no discernible features but it's yellow glowing eyes appeared in middle of the rock forest.
Suddenly a bird made of shadows, much bigger than the little humanoid, briefly flew around the rocks.
Not lingering, the cute shadow slowly walked towards a formation of rocks. It started to snow. The formation was still far away and the small shadow started running while a red liquid started to fall from it's eyes.
From behind the formation a slightly bigger humanoid, this time white with blue eyes, came out and hurriedly entered the rock formation, just to go outside right after and soundlessly call for the black figure.
The lyrics started in a strange and melodious language, but it was translated in the minds of all the present. It questioned how it could remenber about a meaningless bird in a moment like this, in such sad night, It faulted it's weakness and while the black creature ran the last steps, it questioned what would it take to have a chance at becoming stronger.
It fell, cursing at it's cruel destiny, and was rapidly taken inside inside by the white figure. Looking at it, the small figure sung that even if for a small moment, for this moment, it could breath, so it wasn't really a problem.
A diferent voice sang for it to be strong, to be determined to overwealm it's own weakness, then the original voice said that if it was for It's swollen eyes to not shed a tear more, than it would smile. The white figure went to the door and blocked the passage, one could see it was crying the same red tears. To be that hero, it would sing this song.
There was a louder accord and the lyrics stopped for a second while the arena went back to normal, seconds before a grassland grew and a bigger shadow and white figure stood face to face.
It sadly sung that even though it said it would protect her, it knew she wasn't weak, and that even than he was weaker than her, it was just that he considered her too precious for him. It commented about having one day screamed it could live alone and said while trembling that she could very much laugh at the him who was so afraid of being alone even after changing each and every day since than.
The other voice said it didn't doubt that together they could even reach the sun while the while figure hugged the black one. A soft, bell like giggle later, and it also said that such future was very far away and they should just focus on grapping the dawn sun while they ran towards the city, all that while the white figure held the black one's hand and started running.
The black one softly sang that making or stealing a future with her certainly sounded like a better story.
Another small pause while all reformed and the roar of a dying beast was heard while the black humanoid landed a sword made of shadows into the neck of a dragon made of ice. It now had many purple scars over its body and sung about how the memories of his dificult past and hard future were livid only because of her voice, before taking out a giant crystal, the eye of the beast it had slain. It's gruff voice murmured the refrain of the song's melody while it walked with it's back to the dragon and the world dissolved around it before the ruins of houses formed aronud him and a giant pillar of jagged ice grew from the earth.
Looking at it's center, one could see the white figure.
The shadow asked how she was still so beautiful after all those years, before kneeling down and putting the crystal on the base of the ice and asking if she wouldn't take that half done dream of their's with him again. When the ice pillar shattered, the black humanoid dissapeared before holding the white figure in his arms while behind what was once her prison. It sung that if it was for her swollen eyes to not shed a tear more, than it would smile. If it was to be that hero, than it would sing this song. They both cried red tears and held each other in their arms weakly before dissapearing together with the surroundings.
First there was silence. Then Aki appeared again and bowed before there were cheers and tears for the unexpected theather play.