ROD - Chapter 132

The heavens shall tremble and the System shall kneel when the Prime rises…

-Jimminite Prophecy-

Starlight swims in my eyes as Mythren’s power enshrouds my soul and keeps it from being destroyed. His voice speaks in my mind.

Do not do this… do not doom the Cosmos for the sake of pride… you do not understand what this will do… if I fall with you… so too does the hope for this age…

The void embraces me gently as I siphon his strength. Weaves of purple runes act like an armor to protect my fracturing mortal vessel. I’m ready for my gambit…

Light blooms as my eyes open in reality. Everything is slow as I find the will to rise from my knees and stand. Purple lightning streaks in the sky as a body begins to form in the light that grows. Radiant purple light.

“Jimmy!” Cleo yells from behind the barrier of air that presses her back.

An ocean of blue blood coats the ground. They’ve done well holding back the horde… but now it’s my turn.

My hand slides to the back of my neck as I whisper with reverence, “Carry the torch…”

Fire roars as the torch ignites and my own interface opens before me, glittering custom commands left by the generations of Jimminites appear in glowing black boxes.

Mythren’s voice trembles…

What are you doing… that’s not allowed, don’t… don’t do that…

[ Detecting that user has absorbed a god soul and is currently tethered to a high ranked admin. Connection is determined to be stable. Remove user from the System and create a custom one? ]

[ Yes / No ]

I select the yes option… hundreds of thousands of text boxes cover my vision…

[ User has been removed from the System… Calibrating new temporary Custom System using Mythren the Enlightened One as the power source… Success ]

[ Expanding scope… Success ]

[ Transferring Admin Credentials to User Novak, Jimmy… Success ]

[ Installing CTT virus as an Admin… Success ]

[ Creating new class… Godslayer… Success ]

[ Creating new subclass… Virus… Success ]

[ Creating new subclass… Prime… Success ]

[ Creating new title… Warden of Time… Success ]

Mythren’s words about Sariel being cruel play on my mind. I won’t give him anything to use against me.

[ Creating new skill… Gate… Success ]

Light forms around me in strands as I hold my hand out, “Gate.”

Mythren’s voice threads.

Impossible…

The air howls as a System gate glitches into existence looming high above the ground.

“Set destination to Seraphine’s prime world.”

Runes appear on the side of it as purple light expands to form a portal.

Both of my hands splay outward as I summon my makeshift army in front of me. Every single one of them, even Verantha appears within ten paces of me before I close my hands and force them through it.

“Darling?” Mira calls back as she’s picked up off the ground and thrown through it.

As soon as I get the confirmation ping they’ve reached the other side, I close the portal and disintegrate the gate.

[ Creating new skill… Domain… Success ]

How are you doing this…

My legs lower as I kneel and touch the earth beneath me and feel the raw pulses of power, “Grant Domain… Seraphine… Ulana… Novak…”

Earth’s chaotic magic begins to hum as it shifts and turns, creating a pass for the three of us to be god level entities and not pay the tax. Just in case they feel like lending a helping hand. Even if they don’t though… I like my odds so far. Just in case though, my bag needs another trick or two.

[ Locating constraints placed on Abyss in Mythren’s archive… Success ]

I hear Mythren yelling in my mind, begging me not to unleash Abyss.

[ Detecting User is annoyed… Pinpointing annoyance… Silencing Mythren the Enlightened One… Success. ]

His voice disappears, this new System is intuitive to my wants as I have them… Good. I look toward the clouds, Sariel is almost here. His vessel is nearly formed. It won’t be the full amount of his power, but when Mythren destroyed Azeroc, I don’t think he did it in person.

Meaning that even from far away, Sariel hypothetically has enough power to destroy the Earth and its Solar System. Just like Mythren did to Azeroc’s Prime world. He’s a Purple Admin. This won’t be like harvesting Jaledi… this will be biblical.

[ Removing constraints on Abyss… Success. ]

Reality trembles as a shockwave like pulse emanates from the black band on my finger… it is then that I feel it. Like an old friend I feel Abyss’s presence wrap me in warmth. Just in time for the Crescendo…

I hear its excited voice in my head.

Abyss… Abyss… Abyss…

“Yes, yes, Abyss, daddy’s back, and he missed you too.”

A strange vibration rolls through my arm. Abyss is happy, and hungry… very hungry.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll find something for you to munch on soon enough.” I look down at the shimmering black band, “Before I do that though, did you happen to eat a few items from my Chaos Emporium…”

Ab… Abyss.

“Naughty. We can talk about it later.”

Abyss-byss.

“Also, do you have any idea what happened to those souls that were being refined? I didn’t get any more notifications about them… was that you too?”

Byss...

“Well, I hope you brought your appetite.”

Abyss… Abyss… Abyss…

The gales of wind suddenly pause and the air turns static, it’s time.

Thousands of blue admins march toward me in an endless horde.

[ Engage Godslaying System Crushing Juggernaut Mode? ]

[ Yes / No ]

[ Note: Current upload amount to the Grand Nexus for the CTT virus is not sufficient to survive the transformation. ]

I’m not planning on surviving this. In fact, I think death is a prerequisite for the crescendo. I’ll save that for if the next series of options don’t work. One must first play chess before they throw the board. It’s impolite otherwise.  

The horde of blue admins stops a hundred paces from me, forming a wall. They do not approach further, as though Sariel has told them to wait for him. Their faces are curious as they look at me and the arcs of purple energy that ripple from me.

Sound disappears for a moment…

Then I hear an echo, like water being dropped into a bucket and sound reappears. Floating in the air, I see the body of purple light condense into the shape of a man wearing a flowing white robe with golden patterns. A crown of gold and red rubies lined with purple gemstones.

His hair and eyes like Mythren are a deep shade of purple… yet there is something strange about him that Mythren did not have. A single streak of red hair moves through his tied up hair. On the edge of his irises is a red glow… strange.

Immediately I can tell this is in fact not his core as I suspected. Still, if the amount of mana I’m feeling from him is any indication, it doesn’t matter, what he brought would vaporize Jaledi.

My only hope is that I have Mythren’s core assimilating in a shield around me. Mythren’s full strength versus Sariel’s vessel.

I should theoretically win this…

The blue admins all kneel as his body descends to the ground. Slowly his gaze finds me. It reminds me of when Sera looked at me before, like I was an insect. Without even a flash of movement, he is upon me, less than three paces away. Standing there, inspecting me.

The air sinks back as his voice sends a chill through it.

“Do you know why you’ve lost before we’ve even begun?” he asks, the calm demeanor of his presence sends a deeper chill down my bones. He’s somehow even more placid than Mythren, like there is a void where emotion should be and he exists within it. It’s not a savage cruelty in his eyes… it’s just cold and lifeless.

“It’s a little early to call it, don’t you think?” I grin. Thousands of runes become spell circuits as I flick my fingers back and forth.   

He shakes his head slowly, not even bothering to look at me as he stares in the distance, “Unearned confidence. Much like a fledgling god.” His head turns slowly to look at the incantations that I’ve been drawing since earlier. “You are abnormal, even amongst the abnormal.”

“Do you always start your fights with compliments?”

Ignoring my remark, he paces slowly around me, inspecting what I have done, “You are not the first mortal to try and harvest a lesser god.” His head tilts, “Though you are the first to try and assimilate with an Arch Admin like Mythren.”

He moves to stand in front of me again, he waits for me to reply so I say, “I have demands.”

“Demands…” he breathes, tilting his head at me again, “Abnormal indeed.”

“I want the Earth removed from the Sarlenac games. I want the System to pack up shop and fuck off. I want the return of all those who have perished from the games. I want a no fly zone erected around Earth that will not allow any gods or admins to enter it again.”

He doesn’t flinch at what I’m saying, he doesn’t seem to even care. He lets out a slow sigh, “You are not enough to make demands, your kind never is.”

I clench my hands and the spell circuit ignites instantly. Rings of glimmering purple energy rise and begin to spin rapidly. His horde of blue admins stare at it with strange looks on their faces. Like they’ve never seen a mortal wield the power of their betters… in fairness, they probably haven’t.

Sariel doesn’t even blink as the discs of energy rip through the horde with prejudice. Vaporizing each in a cloud of blue dust. He makes no attempt to move as they come for him next.

My next circuit tries to activate, with the added benefit of Mythren’s power it should block the System on all of Earth. Leaving him trapped without reinforcements… yet something is stopping it.

“Did you really think that would work?” he asks.

Light flourishes in a beautiful array as he moves his fingers in a calm and slow tempo. My eyes blink at what they witness. Immensely complex runic styled weaves take shape in the air, ones that match my own efforts and then surpass them silently and seemingly effortlessly as they dissipate what I’ve been working on.

So… this is what a purple admin is capable of.

He’s better than me as I am now. Even enhanced he’s better. There is certainty in the way he draws his craft as well. One that tells me, he doesn’t need to move his hand to beat me, but he wants me to understand why I have been soundly beaten. He wants me to know that I am not enough, that I never would have been enough even with a thousand years.

“We were born from mana, mortal,” Sariel says cooly, shaking his head slowly, “What a pathetic attempt to usurp those above you, child of Earth.”

“Child of Earth, huh, last I checked I wasn’t.”

“It is irrelevant what your status board says. You have tainted this world for the games, regardless of the one that protects it now, I will do what I must to ensure that…”

“To ensure that you can keep cheating?” I ask, whipping up a hundred more circuits that he dismantles with ease. “You don’t want the games to be balanced, you just want the Quorum of the Nine to win even if they don’t deserve it.”

“Correct.”

I blink at him, almost surprised that he admitted it.

“Another feeble emotion. To be surprised is to admit you were unprepared for any potential outcome. Such a thing is weakness. Such a thing is…” his head tilts, “Wrong.”

“Wrong…” I grit, anger flares alongside defiance that’s tempered with worry… am I really going to let this asshole kill me?

No… I die on my own terms.

Jaledi’s essence is wild inside my body, I don’t completely understand the rhythm of it yet. Mythren’s power is complex, without the Jimminites, I wouldn’t understand any of it. I can’t process everything fast enough to ascend to use Jaledi and Mythren’s power properly, I need time.

Time…

My hands splay outwards, thoughts ebb into the flow of magic, demanding that time halts. It almost fractures when I hear his monotone voice.

“Attempting to bend time to your will, yet another infraction, mortal. Quite the list you’re collecting. You’re making this too easy for me to justify.”

His hand swipes the air and a thousand perfectly formed runes counter my spell.

Shit… he’s not just stronger than Jaledi and Azeroc. He’s faster and smarter too.

“Care to add more?” he asks with no inflexion in his expression.

Everything is so precise with him. No hairs out of place, no smudges on his stark white robe.

I hear a growl in my mind.

Abyss… Abyss… Abyss…

“Not yet. Patience.”

Sariel looks at me with the first inflection, a tinge of curiosity as he says, “Patience will not save you.”

He didn’t know that I was talking with Abyss, which means the same rule from before applies, Admins can’t perceive all of Abyss. Just like before when Sage couldn’t tell what the items it made were. Mythren even had to ask for permission to change it, was that contract he had me sign related to that?  

“You did not ask why you already lost,” he notes, weaving another thousand runes and destroying the requiem that I had been preparing.

“Hubris,” I return, swiping with both of my hands. I’m not ready to give up yet.

“No,” he looks up at me for a moment, “In the face of insurmountable odds, without motivation to fight, your kind ceases to persist with its vigor. It happens every time I take what drives them and snuff it out.”

There is plenty of reason to fight, plenty… his eyes trace my face slowly, purposefully.

“Yes,” he says in a hollowed whisper, “Yes, that’s what I said.”

He’s implying that… that he’s snuffed out everyone I love, or that he’s going to. A pit rises in my stomach. I have a soul mark on Cleo and a few of the others. I would know if they were dead, this is a bluff.

“Speak plainly,” I say, trying not to show that he has rattled me.

“There is nothing left for you to hold dear. Nothing for you to fight for.” He straightens as his eyes glow a deep and somber purple, “Now we shall watch as your light diminishes just like all the others before you have. Such is the role your kind are fated for, such is your destiny.”

Reality pulses as he draws more and more runes, each stroke dismantling my resolve. Each word he spoke tempered in a reality that I would not accept. He is trying to distract me, it’s working.

“You seem pretty confident in yourself,” I say, trying to fracture time again. He shifts the pattern and instead it moves faster, then slower until it breaks entirely, sending arcs of radiant purple lightning around us.

He stops weaving and puzzles a look at me, “Confidence, a mortal emotion.”

“I doubt we invented it.”

He squints, the first inkling of a negative emotion I’ve seen on him crawls across his face for a fraction of a second. Disgust I think. He finds being compared to a mortal disgusting then… Interesting.

“Your ability to deceive yourself is refined,” he says, moving toward me slowly, in a measured pace that does not denote worry nor confidence. It is… unnerving.

“Your ability to pretend is…” I begin, but my words catch in my throat as his fingers snap.

The chord of mana that connected me to Tran… it’s gone. Which can only mean… he’s dead.

My eyes widen as my pulse threads.

Another snap and Barlow falls…

No…

I feel the loss of Mwangi and Dorliac next…

My hands shake as I feel Mira’s give way with his next snap…

My reality crumbles as I feel her… the one I love more than life itself…

Cortez is gone.  

The crushing weight of regrets threatens to spill forth into the magic I weave… she’s gone… he killed her. Just like before, I couldn’t stop it…

Don't break... you knew this might happen... carry the torch...

Sorrow and despair breathes fire into anger and rage… mixing they become something more…

Wrath.

Losing isn't an option... I have to win.

“Did you think that I could not reach them?” he walks to be standing right in front of me, “Did you think that Seraphine would be strong enough to stop me?” He shakes his head, “Her father was formidable, an incarnation of Akronos, a man that made the heavens themselves kneel. Yet she is not privileged to such power. Nor is her sister, your goddess, Ulana.”

His words ring on hollow ears. I don’t fucking care who their father was. My eyes move upwards slowly so that he can feel the wrath that builds in them. So that he can feel his existence become threatened by a wrath that cannot be quelled.

He looks away and walks around me slowly, purposefully, there is a subtle shifting in his tone as he asks, “Why do you not kneel and accept that your reasons for existing are gone?”

The emptiness of my existence is not lost on me. But it is not the first time I have lost those I care for. This time is different though, this time I can pry them back into reality.

This time I have the means to bring them back. Will solidifies inside me as the hollowness becomes my strength.

Light blooms in my irises…  

“The people of Earth do not bow in the face of adversity.” My eyes trace into his again, giving him all the fury of the hells and the heavens as I say, “Taking from us does not take our resolve… it tempers it.”

Lightning arcs as the world spins in chaotic magic. Memories of the ones I love fuel the wrath that becomes a blaze.

My words fall slowly and purposefully as I speak, “For you who have given rise to the wrath that will rend the universe, I give not pity, for you are not worthy of it." The light in my eyes burns brighter as the air begins to shake and gravity itself quivers, "I will pay you in the only currency you understand… despair.”

My hand swipes the command…

[ Activating Juggernaut Mode ]