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Luka's Story-Paradox	By : Ditmag Category: +M through R > Monster Girl Quest Views: 2709 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Monster Girl Quest Paradox is the intellectual property of Tortorro Restistance. I make no money from this.

Chapter List
- 66
- 67
- 68
“So you’ve arrived here at last,” The White Rabbit greeted us at the entrance of the Ilias Temple. “Now then, I shall lead you to the answer.”
We’d made it to the temple with no problems, the advantage of traveling on a continent with nothing but angels and harmless polar bear girls. I’d asked Alice why the polar bear girls didn’t attack me on sight, given that they never saw any males and had to be starving for semen. Alice explained that while they were indeed semen starved, they had probably never even tasted semen and had simply learned to do without. Introducing them to it would probably do more harm than good given that there would be no opportunities to get more of it as long as the Snow Continent remained cut off from the rest of the world. I felt bad for the polar bear girls. While monsters could survive without semen, it wasn’t great for their health. It was probably part of the reason the girls were so cold all the time, and I also knew that underneath their heavy coverings they probably weren’t very pretty. Lack of semen tended to make monster girls’ looks degrade over time, causing premature aging, and if deprived from childhood, stunting their growth. Once our mission was over, Alice would have to find a solution for the polar bear girls.
“Hold on a moment, there’s a wave approaching,” the White Rabbit warned us, breaking me out of my thoughts.
I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but it became all too clear a moment later. It felt like the world was turning into static, like snow on an old broadcast television, before refocusing again once you adjusted the antenna. It was a very uncomfortable feeling that I didn’t care to repeat.
“The erosion of chaos has finally entered our world!” Promestein exclaimed. “and it’s so large, too!”
“Now you understand why I kept a barrier around this place,” Eden said. “I was keeping THAT inside.”
“Once the barrier was lifted, the chaos started to move again from the time it had stopped,” White Rabbit explained. “the erosion of chaos has spread up to near the entrance. Eden might be foolish, but her power is genuine. She kept time frozen to hold back the erosion.”
“Then if the erosion of chaos continues to spread,” Sonya said with alarm. “This world will be swallowed by chaos!”
“Exactly. So let’s end this conversation quickly. I’ll let you meet what’s causing the flow of mana to be distorted.”
“Meet it?” Alice asked. “What do you…. Hey, stop hopping away!”
“I guess we follow as we always do,” I said.
“Kyu!” Nuruko exclaimed. Nuruko? Where had she come from? Had she exited the castle on her own?
“Nuruko, this is super dangerous!” I said. “Go back to the castle. Go!”
“Kyu!” she replied, folding two of her tentacles in refusal.
“She knows that it’s super dangerous, but she also says that it’s critical for her to be present for this,” Sonya translated.
“Don’t worry about Nuruko, Luka!” Sylph piped up In my heart. “There’s something about her I can’t quite put my finger on, but I think she’ll be fine.”
“You noticed too?” Salamander asked. “I wonder….”
We raced after the White Rabbit. As usual, we only caught up with her when she wanted us to catch up with her. In this case, she was in a small bedroom tucked into an archway on the temple’s bottom floor.
“Keep up!” White Rabbit ordered. “It might be too late if you don’t hurry up!”
I had an idea what she meant and it was confirmed by another sickening wave of chaos, plunging our senses into static before refocusing once again.
“How do we stop it?!” I asked desperately. “I know you want us to see, not just be told, but do we have time for this anymore?”
“You need to see ‘that’. ‘That’ itself is now becoming a paradox. If you can manage to do something about ‘that’, you might be able to halt the spread.”
“’That’?” Alice asked. “Are you referring to some kind of evil being?”
“On the contrary. ‘That’ is what’s held back the chaozisation inside the temple. From the outside it was Eden, and from the inside it was ‘that’… Unaware of each other, they had combined their power in suppressing the chaosization. But as you are aware, Eden has lifted the barrier.”
“Perhaps we should leave and I should put it back up!?” Eden asked, starting to sound as desperate as me.
“At this point, it would do no good,” the White Rabbit said. “Your power was no longer sufficient to hold it back. That dam was going to break soon regardless of your efforts. Likewise, ‘that’ is near the end as well.”
“It’s true,” Eden confirmed. “I was on the brink of despair, and then Ilias appeared before me. I assumed it was destiny, part of the Goddess’ plan.”
“So we have to defeat ‘that’, right?” Ilias asked. “Then let’s go and destroy it!”
“It’s useless to simply head towards ‘that’,” White Rabbit replied. “you’ll have to listen to the full story before you can recognize it. Well then, let’s move on!”
Unhelpfully, the White Rabbit leaped up to a balcony on the second level. The angels in our party took flight to pursue, while those of us limited to the ground went around to the stairs. The White Rabbit led us on a long, merry chase up stairs and through passageways. Eventually we arrived in a small cathedral. The White Rabbit waited for us behind a table. Another wave of chaos spread over us. Sonya vomited, then cursed her weakness. I may have had power, but I was as human as her. My own stomach was turning cartwheels. One more wave and I’d lose my breakfast as well.
“As you probably have figured out by now, this world is just another parallel world,” White Rabbit explained. “There is one true world, the original. The best way for a world and those adjacent to it to survive is to follow the true history as closely as possible. You’ve done your best in that regard, have you not?”
Not really. I’d gotten the four spirits, as Marcellus had urged me, and been to most of the same places, but so much had been different. And in some cases I had purposely chosen to do things differently. Had my choices contributed to this?
“So which world is the true world?” I asked. “I know that mine wasn’t. You said it was close, but not really the true history. We know this one isn’t.”
“Before I get to that,” White Rabbit said. “You need to know that in the past there were no parallel worlds. There was only a single world, the world of true history. But an error occurred in the world of the true history. The world branched off from there, and gave rise to paralle worlds. This world is one of those, of course, but unlike many of those other worlds, this is a singularity world.”
“Singularity world?” Ilias asked. “You’ll have to explain that one to me in terms my truncated brain can understand.”
“This world was the first to branch off from the true world’s history. Therefore, it holds the greatest importance of all the parallel worlds. It’s a world that holds a strategic position, which is why other entities from other worlds want to gain advantage here.”
“Was sending me here part of that strategic advantage?” I asked.
“Remember that Ilias and I also come from other worlds,” Promestein reminded me. “I wonder if the same entity that brought you here brought us here.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that,” White Rabbit said. “But I do know, as well as you do, that there are beings from at least three other worlds messing around here trying to influence events. Now then, let’s continue!”
We raced after her once again. Deep inside the temple, there was evidence of degradation due to chaos. Lava covered the floor in places. Fortunately, White Rabbit wasn’t leading us there. Instead, she beckoned us to follow her through a small forest. I’d seen this phenomenon before, in Tartarus rifts. White Rabbit awaited us next to the tallest tree in the small forest.
“This is the last floor,” White Rabbit explained. “Just go along with the story a little longer. As I said before, this world was the first to branch off from the true history’s world. The cause of the branching was a paradox. Before you can understand what that means…”
“I know what a paradox is,” I said, getting impatient.
“Do you also know that the original world’s space time continuum has deteriorated, smarty pants?”
“Deteriorated?” Promestein asked. “What kind of event would cause that? Was the paradox what caused the deterioriation, or was it a symptom?”
“The cause was a certain goddess who repeatedly looped it too often,” White Rabbit said, looking meaningfully at Ilias. “Whenever a certain someone died, she rewound the world every time. This loop was repeated a hundred times in a short interval, damaging the time axis.”
“Wait, you don’t mean…?!” Ilias exclaimed. “Impossible! I know everything there is to know about time! I’m a master of time magic! I have a goddess’ omniscience! I would have noticed if I was putting stress on time itself!”
“No, I’m the master of time,” White Rabbit corrected the goddess. “Omniscience is overrated. You’ve already learned that knowing things and understanding things are not the same thing. In fact, your omniscience got in the way of true knowledge. You rewound time whenever Luka failed in his adventure. By doing that over and over in a short period of time, the space time continuum of your world became worn down.”
“Ilias?!” I exclaimed. “You’re from the original world?! You’re the original Ilias?!”
“More importantly, she did this!” Alice yelled. “How many times did you rewind time whenever Luka lost? Is he burdened with hundreds of awful memories that will just spring up one day and drive him mad!?”
“I’m not the original Luka,” I said quickly, getting between Alice and Ilias. “I succeeded. Ilias never had to rewind time for me.”
“Oh, and you know that how?!” Alice countered.
“She’s right, Luka,” Ilias conceded. “In my world, Luka often ran into opponents he was too weak to face. He would lose, and so I’d give him what I called an Evaluation Meeting. I’d teach him how to beat his opponent, taking advantage of her weaknesses so that he could prevail even though he was weaker. Other times, he was a pervert like you and surrendered quickly. But since he WAS Luka, his spirit always prevailed over his dirty mind eventually. Traveling with you tells me that you probably did your share of surrendering during your very similar adventure. Your world’s Ilias would have given you another chance, because you were crucial to her plans.”
No, it couldn’t be! I’d risked death countless times, resisted temptations that would have made any normal man succumb, even been defeated but not killed or enslaved. I’d EARNED my victories! Hadn’t I? Was I even earning my victories now? White Rabbit’s revelation was not a big confidence booster.
“But I didn’t cause the branching!” Ilias insisted. “I would have known! Such a thing couldn’t possibly have been kept from my sight! Even if I didn’t understand it, I would still fucking NOTICE IT! I would be aware of something amiss!”
“True,” White Rabbit replied. “Space time is resilient. I could repair itself even with your meddling. You did understand its limits well enough. But the damage was present, even if you couldn’t see it. It doesn’t take huge rips in the space time continuum to allow in a major disaster, just as a tiny crack in a nuclear reactor’s cooling system can cause a disaster.”
“Okay, so she made a small crack,” Alice said. “So what happened that turned it into a disaster?”
“Follow me to the innermost room of the temple,” White Rabbit answered. “The answer will be there, right before your eyes. Are you ready to see it for yourselves?”
“That’s why we’re here,” I said impatiently.
“Then it’s time. Follow me!”
I couldn’t believe how big the Ilias Temple was. It dwarfed the one in San Ilia which I’d always thought was the largest building ever erected in Ilias’ honor, but it made some sense that Ilias would order her angels to build an even larger one for her in Heaven. That explained why her cloud castle was so small by comparison. But it was clear that we were entering the deepest part of the temple. There we found the White Rabbit once again waiting for us.
“If you look over there,” the White Rabbit said, pointing. “you’ll see ‘that’.”
“How dare you call me ‘that’?!” a very familiar voice said. Lightning came down from the heavens, even though we were indoors, and burned the White Rabbit into cinders.
All of us looked past the charred body of the White Rabbit to the being that had struck her down. It was none other than Ilias. Not our Ilias, but the Goddess Ilias herself, in all her glory.
“That’s… me?!” Ilias said, astonished.
Awestruck by her majesty, I slowly approached the Goddess. I knew instinctively that she was the Ilias of this world. I’d seen the Ilias on my world in all her glory a couple of times, but I’d grown used to weaker versions of the goddess. First, the version I had weakened to reduce the threat she posed to the world, and most recently the child goddess that had been traveling with me. Behind me, I could tell that the Seraphs were equally astonished. I was sure Eden especially had questions, but she couldn’t find her voice. The Goddess, however, had something to say.
“You have finally come,” the Goddess Ilias said. “I have been waiting for your arrival.”
“Ilias? You’re not my Ilias, are you?” I asked.
“I am not,” the Goddess replied. “As I am at the center of chaos, I receive more signals and memories than other beings on this world. I was aware of your identity and spoke to you as your Ilias once did. I am sorry if that gave you the wrong impression.”
“So… did you bring me here?”
“I cannot claim credit for that, either. I had already intended to reach out to the Luka of this world, but you arrived in his place. You have done well, brave Luka.”
“Oh, cut the shit!” Ilias exclaimed. “Okay, so you’re the Ilias of this world! Why am I here?”
“You don’t remember?” the Goddess asked. “Do you not remember the Six Ancestors’ Seal being placed upon you?”
“I… I do!” Ilias said with sudden realization. “It was Black Alice and Promestein! Luka, did you know about this?!”
“No!” I answered. “At least not specifically. In my world, I just knew that Black Alice ate you and you emerged from her, having holy, dark, and my power.”
When I’d told Ilias most of what I knew near the beginning of our adventure, that was one of the things I’d chosen not to tell her. I still didn’t know how much I could trust her and didn’t want to let her know that it was possible. But apparently, she’d already lived through a similar event.
“And then…. Argh, it’s so hard to recall!” Ilias continued. “I emerged from Black Alice after her death with fused holy and dark energy! I’d become the ultimate being! But then… Luka defeated me! Luka and Alice!”
“Fufufu…” Alicetroemeria laughed. “It appears I may have gotten a bit too ambitious.”
“But if I’m dead….” Ilias continued. “How did I end up here?! I thought that if I was destroyed I would simply reform eventually! Holy energy can’t be created or destroyed! Eventually it evolves sentience again!”
“And one day it will,” the Goddess confirmed. “But a tiny fragment of that world’s Ilias was shunted into this world. But of greater import is what happened to the rest of you. When the hero Luka defeated you, holy energy exploded throughout that world. Since the space time continuum had been weakened, the explosion of that much power further destabilized it. The aftermath distorted the past and the future of the true history over time. And then, the worst happened. You know of it as the Great Disaster. This catastrophe resulted in the collapse of the space time continuum thirty years ago.”
“The Great Disaster gave birth to this world only thirty years ago?” Promestein asked in wonder. “But the Angel World is ancient! I lived centuries there! Are those memories false?”
“No,” the Goddess answered. “Nothing in any parallel world is false. Each world has its own space time continuum. So thousands of years could pass on one world, whereas only decades passed on another.”
“I don’t understand,” I said plaintively. “Promestein, pleae tell me that you can make sense of all this.”
“I can’t,” Promestein said in wonder and fear.
“That is because I am merely telling you,” the Goddess said. “The White Rabbit has been guiding you so that you can see, and experience, and therefore understand. I have reached the limits of the spoken word. Now you must see. White Rabbit, show yourself.”
“Ta daah!” the White Rabbit said as she popped back into existence. I was relieved to see that she wasn’t actually dead. She did say she was a force of nature. Perhaps the spirit of Time? “Now I’m going to take you to the day it happened. Thirty years ago, in Remina….”
The temple vanished and we were in a building. The building looked quite modern. I always did find the technological disparities on these worlds to be jarring. But this lab was on another level. It looks much more modern than anything I would have found on Earth.
“This is the Remina research lab,” Ilias breathed.
“That’s right,” White Rabbit confirmed. “This is the Remina research institute from thirty years ago. It was on this day that the experiment was conducted.”
“The experiment?” I asked.
“Uh oh,” Promestein muttered. “I think I see where this is going. Humans were messing with things they didn’t comprehend, weren’t they?”
“I’ll let you see for yourself,” White Rabbit said. “Explanations would take a thousand times longer than just showing you. If you don’t understand what you’re seeing, your angel scientist buddy can explain it as you watch. After all, she was behind this research. This institute was kept secret from the rest of the world.”
“I did this?!” Promestein exclaimed. “Did I become more reckless as I matured?”
“I… may have had something to do with your dark turn,” Ilias said. “I fear I might have warped your mind by mistreating you.”
“On this day, Promestein was conducting forbidden research,” White Rabbit continued. “You can see the results with your own eyes. The experiment is about to begin. Just walk through that door. I’m sure Ilias already understands this, but for the benefit of the rest of you. This is only a vision of time. We cannot intervene or change things. The solution is not to be found here. Only the answer.”
We followed the White Rabbit to the room where the experiment was being conducted. A dozen researchers were gathered around a large platform. At the center of the platform was a sword that I recognized immediately. It was Angel Halo. Heinrich had used that sword to kill Black Alice. What in the world were they up to?
“What is this?” Sonya asked. “Why do they have your sword, Luka?”
“That was once Heinrich’s sword,” Alice explained. “If I’m not mistaken, they are attempting a soul summoning ritual. For someone who has been dead as long as Heinrich, it would take more than a mere séance. The power necessary to do this would be stupendous.”
“Absolutely,” Ilias agreed. “of all the things they could have used dark/holy fusion for, they chose this. I never did find out why Promestein approved this. It couldn’t have been her idea.”
“She always did indulge the humans,” Eden said bitterly. “This was probably exactly what they wanted. She would have agreed to it to keep them happy and motivated.”
“I destroyed them for this,” Ilias said quietly.
“Yes,” White Rabbit confirmed. “The Slaughter of Remina in the true history.”
“Ilias, I’d been taught that you did it because humans and monsters coexisted in Remina,” I said.
“That made me angry, but humans and monsters have coexixted in many places and times,” Ilias replied. “I deal with those sinners individually. This, though… this justified collective punishment. This had to be eradicated so that it would never be repeated. The only reason I didn’t throw Promestein back into the dungeon was because I needed her at this point. But I sharply curtailed her activities after this. Which I’m sure is when she began to plot against me.”
“But on this world, Remina was never destroyed by Ilias,” Alice said. “So the experiment happened. But how did it cause the Disaster? Promestein, weren’t you working with holy/dark fusion when you got pulled into another world?”
“Yes, but… as Ilias said, it can’t cause a huge disaster,” Promestein replied. “Maybe I could have blown up my lab, but that’s all.”
“Initiating countdown,” A voice over the loudspeaker said. “Three, two, one…”
The sword began to glow. I realized why the sword was so useful for this experiment. Angel Halo could hold dark and holy energy, and a lot more. I’d used it for that purpose myself more than once.
“Charge ratio is sufficient!” a scientist exclaimed. “Summoning procedure, activate!”
I’d never seen a real summoning before. Rather than a teleportation, which usually featured the subject blinking into existence out of nowhere, or sometimes a small warp effect, depending on how the magic was used, what looked like a gate from another plane of existence opened.
“How are they supposed to get Heinrich?” I asked Ilias. “Didn’t you seal his soul away?”
“They weren’t,” Ilias answered. “The experiment should fail.”
“Mass detected in the summoning gate!” a researcher at a console yelled in surprise.
“A mass?!” another scientist asked. “As in a physical mass? Not spiritual?”
“Definitely physical!” the researcher replied.
“Close the gate! Close it now!”
The researcher began pressing buttons. He shook his head. “Nothing! The gate’s being held open from the other side!”
“Destroy it then!”
“Idiots,” Promestein said, shaking her head. “You can’t just destroy a summoning gate. It has to be gracefully closed.”
The mass began to emerge. Tentacles grabbed onto the sides of the gate. One scientist who was apparently smarter than the rest dropped his clipboard and ran from the room. Others simply stared in horror. It was just a mass of tentacles at first, but then the torso of the being emerged. Oh, God…
“Oh my!” Alicetroemeria said next to me. “I’ve definitely looked better.”
It was Black Alice, as she had been when I’d last seen her, just before my companions and I had destroyed her. She was missing an eye, courtesy of a rather dirty Alma Elma eye gouge. It had not been a pleasant fight. There had been no one moment of victory, not one critical, heroic act that had ended the threat Black Alice posed to the world. She had died by a thousand cuts. We had simply worn her down until she’d collapsed into a puddle of goo and tentacles, that torso being the only thing recognizable of the once beautiful woman. A piece of tentacle fell off and splashed onto the platform.
“Ew….” Alicetroemeria said. “I really left myself go.”
Black Alice started blankly at the assembled scientists, who stared just as blankly back.
“I ate Ilias,” Black Alice said in confusion. “And her holy power… is in my body… But I lost to the hero. My life came to an end.”
“It was not the hero Heinrich who had been summoned,” White Rabbit narrated. “It was the blood of Black Alice that still stained that sword.”
“That thing is REALLY hard to keep clean,” I observed.
“What’s more,” White Rabbit continued. “It wasn’t the Black Alice from five hundred years ago who was summoned, but the Black Alice from the future. Three decades later.”
“Black Alice with holy AND dark power?” Alice asked, shuddering. “How did you ever defeat her, Luka?”
“It took Eden plus four Heavenly Knights on my world,” I answered.
“In the true history, as in your world, she hadn’t mastered the power,” White Rabbit explained. “She was much like you, Luka, possessing tremendous power that she didn’t know how to use. Thus she was destroyed.”
“The irony is that she probably would have won had she not become the ultimate being,” Alicetromeria said. “She had so many weapons, but didn’t know how to use them.”
“This is the power of chaos,” Black Alice said, her confusion clearing up quickly. “When there was neither time nor space, this was the power that existed… In the beginning there was chaos. The chaos divided into light and darkness…. From the light was born the Goddess… From the darkness was born the Dark God… Each of them was born with divinity… Spirits of their respective elements… Their abilities were distinct from one another… But I…. I am the power that existed before them….Fu… Fufufu…”
Black Alice’s low chuckling turned into an evil laugh. The laugh steadily grew in strength and confidence as she realized that she was not actually destroyed, but quite alive, and more powerful than ever. And then suddenly, Black Alice transformed again. Her laugh became deafening. It seemed to sunder reality. But most striking was her new form. Her beauty had returned. She was no longer a mass of tentacles and orifices, but a lovely winged creature dressed in a white robe. One of her wings was a succubus wing. The other an angel wing. The hair on one side o fher head was dark. On the other side, light blonde, like Ilias. She had not entirely given up on her beloved tentacles. One dainty tentacle, if that’s a permissible word to use to describe a deadly tentacle, wrapped around her right leg.
“And thus,” White Rabbit said with finality. “A third god was born.”
Everyone began screaming as apoptosis appeared all around the lab, attacking the scientists. The man who had left the room had bought himself a little time. Of the ones who remained, none escaped. Some were ripped apart by the apoptosis. Others were fused into the walls as a mass of chaos overwhelmed the room, bending and warping reality. Still others were transformed into apoptosis themselves, and joined in the attack.
“I like the ultimate form, but killing them that way….” Alicetroemeria said. “So inartful.”
“Thus, Remina became the center of the Great Disaster,” White Rabbit narrated. “It was swallowed by chaos, and its fragments had taken the form of Tartarus. However, the damage was not limited to Remina. Black Alice’s power unleashed a torrent of chaos. The overflowing chaos opened holes in space time and tore up the world. Heaven was struck directly, and Ilias suffered fatal damage. Because the death of Ilias was confirmed in the true history, Heaven was dragged down with the causality. Parallel worlds were born. The rupture in space time became Tartarus, a tunnel connecting the worlds.
We were taken into subspace, where Black Alice had teleported herself after slaughtering the researchers. We witnessed the new goddess gazing upon the world.
“This world is now my delightful toy box,” Black Alice said to herself. “Now what shall I play? Ah, I see other worlds.”
I was familiar with this terrain in a way Black Alice was not. From subspace, one could see astral representations of all the parallel worlds. Black Alice had set her gaze on one of the adjacent worlds.
“A world of darkness,” the new goddess breathed. “I approve! But your world is also mine now. And a world of light? This might be fun. I sense that they want my new world. That’s fine, because I want theirs. This is going to be quite the fun tea party!”
“And so that’s what happened,” White Rabbit finished. “It is time to return-“
“Please wait, Miss Rabbit,” Black Alice said, turning and looking at us directly. If this was just a vision, how was that possible?! “Hello, travelers. You’re not going to leave without saying hello to me, are you?”
“She’s aware of us!” White Rabbit yelled. “We have to go back!”
I didn’t even wait for White Rabbit to take us back. I simply wished myself back into the chamber along with my companions, and I was there.
“You have returned,” the Goddess Ilias said upon seeing us back in the temple. “White Rabbit, your duty is complete.”
“Waaah!!” White Rabbit cried as another lightning bolt struck her down. Ilias, next to me, looked distinctly uncomfortable at her casual brutality, even if it didn’t actually kill White Rabbit. It was a reminder of what Ilias used to be.
“Now then, let us continue,” the Goddess said nonchalantly. “Thus, many parallel worlds were born. The number of worlds kept increasing, as if bubbles on the surface of turbulent water…. When the water’s surface is filled with bubbles, they begin to pop one by one. The parallel worlds that grew too rapidly began to annihilate each other with their reciprocal importance.”
“Promestein, can you explain that to me later in English?” I whispered.
“What’s English?” Promestein whispered back.
“In terms I can understand.”
“I’m not sure I fully understand it. I’m not sure she does either.”
“In the end,” the Goddess continued. “what awaits is the disappearance of all parallel worlds. Everything will be swallowed by chaos and turned into complete nothingness.”
“That I understood,” I whispered.
“There’s got to be some way to stop it!” Sonya protested.
“There are those who believe as you do,” the Goddess replied to Sonya. “The most important are two worlds that have followed very unique histories. These two worlds knew of the existence of parallel worlds. For the sake of self preservation, they began to interfere with the other worlds. Assassins from those two worlds had already infiltrated this one. Black Alice had sensed that.”
“If they want to prevent the destruction of everything, is there a chance we could work with them?” I asked.
“That would be impossible,” the Goddess answered. “They come from two completely different worlds. Their goals are not aligned. Unless…. Luka, you must….”
Before the Goddess could finish, the three succubus sisters warped into the temple.
“That’s enough out of you!” Lilith cut in. “Let the Goddess who has finished her role step down from the stage.”
“Luka, only you can save everyon-!” the Goddess barely got out before her eyes widened in shock. Then her form simply disintegrated into diffuse holy energy.
“You killed her!” I yelled, my power rising up, ready to lash out in rage. The three Seraphs were also ready to draw blood.
“Calm yourself, hero,” Astaroth said. “Ilias had transformed into the core of chaos. There was no other way to stop the erosion of chaos except to erase it.”
“So we did it instead!” Morrigan said happily. “You should thank us!”
I was barely paying attention. My gaze was fixed on the holy energy floating around, seemingly randomly, where the Goddess of this world used to be. But the movements weren’t random. They were only meant to appear that way. The larger remnants were clearly moving towards Ilias.
“What are you even doing here?!” I shouted. “How does any of your actions contribute to your goals?!”
“Who would explain every little detail?!” Morrigan shot back.
“Patience, young Morrigan,” Lilith admonished. “Given what he’s seen and experienced, he has earned the right to know. Astaroth, would you please take care of that?”
“Take care of what?” Astaroth asked in confusion. Then she noticed that some of the remnants of the Goddess were clearly getting close to Ilias, who was surreptitiously trying to draw them towards here. I anticipated Astaroth’s next move and put a shield in front of Ilias. Astaroth’s deadly wind gust was dissipated by my shield. I retaliated against Astaroth with a bolt of my own power, knocking her flat. Morrigan pointed at me and hit me with a bolt of her own energy before I could shield myself. I was lucky that it wasn’t wind. It might have cut me in two. Rather, it was Morrigan’s powerful electrical pleasure attack. It sent shockwaves of pleasure through my body. I didn’t orgasm.
Ilias, behind me, was transfixed in mid air, bucking wildly as the holy energy that had formerly been a part of the Goddess of this world infused her. She began to grow, to transform. I kept my shield around her, neglecting myself, to allow her to complete the transformation without further interference. The Seraphs, noticing the same process, put their bodies between their goddess and the succubi.
“Enough,” Lilith ordered. “I would have preferred to prevent that, but clearly we can do no more and still avoid an unnecessary fight.”
“What exactly is happening to Ilias?” Sonya asked.
“In the true history,” Lilith explained. “Ilias was destroyed by the hero Luka and the Monster Lord. But she did not fade away immediately. Her remnants retained some consciousness for a few moments after, and she used those precious few moments to do something uncharacteristic of her. She healed the one who destroyed her so that he would not be consumed by the holy energy within him. It appears that this Ilias has also used her remaining moments of consciousness in a selfless fashion.”
“Not entirely,” Ilias said, lightly returning to the ground.
I stared. Ilias, at least to outward appearances, was herself once again. The child was gone, replaced by the Goddess I’d always known. But she was so much more than the crude form that I’d been returning to her through my own power. That had been a form from my memory, something my human mind could comprehend. There had been some subtle things missing from that form. Things that would be difficult to point out, but which clearly made Ilias more than human. The most noticeable change was her glow. Even without the wings, that glow would have marked her as a holy being. Less noticeable in detail, but very noticeable as a whole, was how much more beautiful she was.
“Oh yeah! I’m back, bitches!” Ilias exclaimed.
“Shall we destroy these obscenities who dared to assault you, Goddess?” Eden asked eagerly.
“Hold your horses, Eden,” Ilias ordered. “A fight would do us no good right now. I may have absorbed enough holy energy to maintain a complete human form, but I’m still only a fraction of what I should be. None of you are anywhere close to what you should be either. The Lilith Sisters on the other hand….”
“Yes,” Lilith confirmed. “We are more powerful than you by far. And you are still vulnerable to pleasure attacks.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Ilias chuckled. “If you’re gonna go, what a way to go, right? But I don’t want to fight right now any more than you do. So start talking. What is your agenda here, anyway?”
“I want to hear this as well,” Alice said. “Why is my mother waging war against the humans? My mother always wanted peace with humanity!”
“We came from a world where the Dark God triumphed in the Great Monster Wars,” Lilith explained. “A world freed from the oppression of the Goddess by the hands of the Dark God and the Six Ancestors. It is a world of complete freedom. There exists no ruler like the Goddess Ilias suppressing the people.”
“So like the Angel world, except the Dark God rules it instead of a version of me?” Ilias asked. “I suspected as much. And I know what your ‘freedom’ really is. But do go on with your bullshit.”
“The freedom everyone enjoys is real!” Astaroth argued. “The Dark God doesn’t oppress as you do!”
“Our world has complete freedom!” Morrigan agreed. “It was released from the rule of a narrow-minded deity like yourself!”
“Ilias can certainly be narrow-minded,” I conceded. “But I’ve seen what a world ruled by monsters looks like. I’ve also read more than my fair share of history books, as well as heard the truth straight from the fox’s mouth. The same so-called freedom you have in your world, you’ve imported to this one! Indiscriminate killing, manipulating kingdoms, provoking war…!”
“We are trying to save this world, as well as our own,” Lilith explained patiently. “We are accomplishing it by releasing every soul from their bodies and uniting them with our world.”
“Wait, how does that work?!” I asked.
“You’re using a magical network to return every soul?” Ilias asked.
“You understand this?” I asked Ilias.
“I understand it perfectly!” Ilias replied. “It’s a very ambitious plan. And an abomination! What you are attempting to do is an act which makes a mockery of all life!”
“Do you have any better ideas?” Astaroth asked pointedly.
“Yeah, what would you do!?” Morrigan echoed.
“Admittedly, I don’t have any other ideas,” Ilias conceded. “Yet. I believe that I was brought here with Luka to find a better way. We arrived in this world on the same day. There has to be a reason for that!”
“There was a reason for that, but if you think the ones who brought you here are any wiser than we, you are making an incorrect assumption,” Lilith said.
“Wait, you know who brought us here?” I asked.
“Did they also bring me here?” Promestein asked.
“Why yes,” Lilith chuckled. “There are more factions and agendas involved than you can possibly comprehend. Well, maybe not you, young scientist. I’m sure they’ll reach out to you when they are ready.”
“Lilith, we’ve got company!” Morrigan warned.
“I’m not surprised,” Lilith said calmly. “They’re awfully slow.”
“What are they talking about, Ilias?” I asked.
“This is…. A holy power is approaching….” Ilias answered.
“Approaching?” I asked, confused. “Are they going to break in here or teleport?”
“Even teleportation signatures can be detected,” Alice explained. “It doesn’t actually happen instantaneously except from the perspective of the one teleporting. It actually takes a few seconds, longer depending on the dis-”
There was a gust of wind as the air in the temple was displaced violently by the appearance of three more Seraphs. I recognized them immediately. Zion, Gnosis, and a variant of Eden that I hadn’t seen before. At least she was dressed.
“Foul minions of the Dark God!” the new Eden declared. “We’ll slay you here!”
“You’ve murdered enough innocents!” Zion exclaimed. “We’ll finish you off right here, in this holiest of places!”
“Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!” was all Gnosis had to say.
“This is absurd!” our Eden exclaimed. “There is another me?”
“I’m sure there are a lot of yous,” I surmised.
“This… is not good!” Sonya said, getting to the heart of the matter.
“Eden!” Ilias shouted. Our Eden turned to her. “Not you! Other Eden! You come from a world where the Goddess triumphed over the Dark God?”
“Yes,” the clothed Eden confirmed. “It is as you describe. We came from a world ruled by the magnificent Goddess Ilias. The Dark God was completely destroyed, and the world is governed by the Seven Archangels. For everyone living there, it is a paradise where there is no end to the voices praising Ilias. But we have little time to speak. Come, lesser Ilias, let us vanquish the minions of the Dark God!”
Our weaker three Seraphs moved to join their otherworldly counterparts, but Ilias gestured for them to halt.
“No,” she said flatly. “We’re not taking sides here. At least not yet.”
“Here our words, servants of the Goddess Ilias!” Lilith shouted. “You will die here!”
There was a lot more trash talking before the two sides actually clashed, as if they weren’t sure they wanted to commit to a battle without knowing where the third force, that being us, stood. Morrigan and Gnosis on each side couldn’t wait to get it on, but then they seemed to be the least mentally stable of the assembled monsters and angels. Lilith and Eden kept their respective sides disciplined, knowing that in a battle to the death, they could not afford mistakes.
But Ilias’ declaration of neutrality, along with my obvious uncertainty about what to do, finally caused the dam to break. It began with Gnosis transforming one arm into an automatic rifle and firing a burst at Morrigan. Morrigan had already invoked her wind power. Gnosis’ bullets found nothing but the walls of the sacred temple, causing Ilias to gasp at the desecration. Morrigan was on Gnosis before the bullets even hit the opposite wall. Using an electrical attack, she caused Gnosis to go haywire, losing control of her mechanical appendages. My party scattered as bullets, lasers, and who knew what else began firing in all directions. Except for Sonya.
“Not good….” Sonya said. “Stop…”
No one heard her, and if they did, they wouldn’t have cared. Lilith had already slammed Eden into a wall and had exposed one of the Seraph’s nipples, which she began to suck on. While Eden couldn’t feel pleasure the way a human could, and so would not succumb, I knew that Lilith’s energy draining ability would work on the Seraph just as it did a human. Perhaps even moreso, since Eden had far more energy to drain, energy which would increase Lilith’s own powers.
Astaroth and Zion were using neither weapons, pleasure attacks, nor magic. They were blasting each other with hammer blows from their fists. Zion was clearly getting the better of it, absorbing Astaroth’s more numerous and faster blows as if they were annoyances. Zion’s much more powerful blows connected less often, but took a greater toll on the succubus. Astaroth was already missing teeth and her left eye was swelling up.
“I told you, this is not good!” Sonya said louder. “Stop it! Stop it now!”
All of this happened in the space of five seconds. I had dove for cover along with everyone else, then peeked out from my cover(one of many statues of Ilias) to find that Sonya was just standing there. I was on my way to grab Sonya and carry her to safety when it happened.
Morrigan, despite her seeming insanity, was the first to notice something was wrong. She gave Gnosis another dose of electricity, this time using it to disable her weapons, then faster than the eye could see, she was at Sonya’s side.
“What’s wrong, girl?” Morrigan asked. “Are you okay?”
It seemed so odd that Morrigan of all people would suddenly show concern for Sonya. I was just glad that bullets weren’t flying anymore. I needed to get to my childhood friend. I needed to keep her safe. At that moment, nothing else seemed important. I saw Sonya slowly turn to look at Morrigan, her face expressionless.
“Class Three Cross World Contact detected,” Sonya said, her voice taking on a mechanical quality. “Fighting between individuals from parallel worlds is prohibited.”
“What the-?” Morrigan managed to get out.
As usual, I was basically blind beyond my five human senses. For all my power, my human limitations meant that I had no way of anticipating what happened next. The combatants did, however. They stopped fighting and stared at Sonya.
“This is bad,” Angel World Eden breathed.
“We have made a grave error,” Lilith agreed.
“Prohibited act of fighting between Cross World Individual F02767 and Cross World Individual F00793 in regards to F00001. Apoptosis XX00002 starting up. Commence behavior check.”
“An XX class apoptosis!” Astaroth exclaimed. “The highest class we know of! And it was mixed in with the hero’s party!?”
I stopped in my tracks as Sonya began to transform. Mechanical parts sprouted out of her, combined with organic monstrosities such as wings, weapons, and a draining tail that looked far scarier and also far more effective than a succubus’ tail. In the space of a few seconds, she had gone from a mere human to a juggernaut, Frankenstein creation that seemed to have a weapon for every kind of opponent. Morrigan was already gone. I, on the other hand, was standing only feet away, stunned into inaction. A giant tongue emerged from Sonya’s draining tail and darted towards my groin. That woke me up. I’d been reacting to such attacks for a long time. Getting out of the way was second nature. I dove to the side and rolled.
Sonya was already focused on other opponents. Eden’s flaming sword flashed down.
“No!” I yelled, for the first time in my life attacking Eden. I knew she was strong, so I gave her a large blast of my power. It flung her into a column, which buckled from the impact. Morrigan hit Sonya with an electrical attack. It had some effect, but unlike Gnosis, this apoptosis version of Sonya did not rely solely on mechanical limbs. Sonya reached out and snatched Morrigan out of the air.
“Ack! Let go!” Morrigan cried, in obvious pain due to Sonya’s powerful grip. I could have sworn I saw Sonya smile sadistically as she pulled Morrigan towards her. Sonya’s jaw unhinged and her mouth opened as if she was a lamia swallowing prey, her pretty pearly whites replaced by ghastly fangs, ready to presumably bite Morrigan’s face off. Morrigan drew a sword and sliced her own arm off to get away. . Sonya absorbed Morrigan’s arm and began to sprout even more monster parts.
Sonya had already recovered from Morrigan’s electrical attack. Gnosis dove in and the clash of steel could be hard as their mechanical parts collided. Gnosis was a Seraph. Sonya was stronger than a Seraph. With contemptous ease, she crumpled Gnosis’ main weapon in her mechanical hand. Gnosis pulled free, her mangled arm sparking. Sonya absorbed that as well. More metallic weapons and armor sprouted. I could barely even tell anymore that she was Sonya.
Ilias was done with neutrality. She ordered her Seraphs into action against the new threat, uncharacteristically leading the charge. The angels surrounded Sonya, not wishing to engage her in melee combat given what had happened to Morrigan and Gnosis. They blasted her with holy energy. Sonya buckled under the assault. Seeing that such a tactic could work, Angel World Eden and Zion joined in. Lilith and Astaroth began hitting Sonya as well, with dark magic.
“Luka!” Alice yelled, grabbing me. “I don’t know what’s happened to her, but I do know that the only chance you have to save her is to defeat her! She’s strong, Luka! Her physical prowess is bad enough, but her magic…! I’ve only seen that kind of power once in my life! And she hasn’t even deployed it yet!”
“Strong magic?” I asked dumbly. “How strong?”
“As strong as yours!” Alice yelled. “That’s the last time I saw magical potential like that! If she figures out how to use that power, we’re all dead! Everyone! You have to use your power!”
“I can’t!” I protested. “That’s still Sonya! I don’t know how much she can take! I won’t risk killing her!”
“Moron!” Alicetroemeria exclaimed, striding past us. “Sixteen, if he won’t do what’s necessary, it’s up to us. Do you know a little spell called Monster Lord’s Cruelty?”
“Y-Yes,” Alice stammered.
“I know how we can triple its power! While that apopto-whatever is distracted, let’s whip this up!”
Alice turned back to me, her eyes watering. “I’m sorry, Luka! I know how much she means to you, but all our lives are at stake!”
Alice joined hands with Alicetroemeria and a dark ball of energy formed between them. The dark energy began to spark and a few seconds later, burst into flame. Alice winced as the flames licked at her body. Alicetroemeria only smiled in glee. But Alice was brave. She did not break the spell prematurely.
I had to do something. Alice was right. If I didn’t try something, Sonya would kill everyone I cared about or die herself at their hands. I drew my sword, summoned all four spirits, and charged at Sonya. Maybe Angel Halo would return Sonya to normal. It had worked before. At the very least, it shouldn’t kill her.
Sonya hadn’t used her magic yet, but her weapons were bad enough. All ten of her opponents had already been dropped. It was just me and her now.
The enhanced Monster Lord’s Cruelty arrived just before I did. The scream that came from Sonya was surprisingly human, although it was mixed in with sounds I can’t even describe, as alien as they sounded. But as horrible as her screams were, it told me that Sonya was still there. Taking advantage of the two Monster Lords’ attack that had driven Sonya to her knees, I drove my sword into her chest.
The sword never even penetrated. It nicked off of her armor as if I’d tried to attack a knight in full plate with a plastic knife. Angel Halo was a magical weapon. Even against the strongest magical armor, it had always at least penetrated a little bit. I started dumbly at my sword as Sonya rose up. She stared at me.
“Sonya?” I said plaintively. “Sonya, if you’re still you, please stop this! I’m your friend, Luka!”
Sonya’s head tilted slightly. Just as I was beginning to hope, she grabbed my arm. Inhuman eyes glowed bright white upon contact and a wide smile spread across her once pretty face. I felt her drawing my power out.
But my power was mine, and mine alone. No one could take it without my consent. I’d learned that a long time ago. That’s because, as Promestein had explained it once, my power wasn’t just something I had. It was me. It was part of my very soul. I began drawing it back.
It didn’t come back. Sonya’s smile grew wider as the pulling at my power, at my soul, intensified. I pulled back harder. Sonya grimaced as she put in more effort to draw my power out. She was stronger. Even in this way, she was stronger.
I cried out in dismay and hit her with a powerful blast. That broke her hold on me and sent her tumbling and rolling along the ground. I saw that she had taken a small amount from me. I called it back to myself and it came back readily. Whew. That would have been bad. Although from what Alice said, I wasn’t sure if she even needed my power.
“Any ideas?” Ilias asked, appearing next to me.
“I have no idea,” I said. “I hit her with quite a bit and she’s still looking pretty strong.”
“I wasn’t asking you,” Ilias said. I noticed Alice on the other side of me.
“We need to regroup,” Alice said. “If we can all keep our distance and hit her with different kinds of attacks, we might be able to overwhelm her defenses.”
“We’ll need to heal our fallen comrades enough to get them standing again,” Ilias said, gesturing towards the fallen angels and succubi.
“I’ll buy you the time you need,” I said with grim determination.
“Don’t be a fool,” Alicetroemeria said. “We’ll take her on together. We’re the two most powerful people still standing.”
“All right then.”
Drawing my sword again, I charged towards Sonya. I wasn’t worried about her trying to draw out my power again. I was confident that I could counter it, or at least make it so that it delayed Sonya, giving my allies a chance to gather their strength.
Lightning, fire, ice, and dark magic sliced around me, hitting Sonya hard, preventing her from focusing enough on me to attack me. I had a shield up, although I knew that would only protect me from energy or magical attacks. If she fired real bullets…. Best not to think about that. Combat carries the risk of dying. And I was a veteran. Sometimes you just have to charge in guns blazing, so to speak. This was one of those times.
This time I made sure to pay attention to the flow. It showed me where to strike. The options were pitifully few. And none of them promised to even come close to sealing her. Alicetroemeria’s attacks were so distracting that I didn’t even need to dodge and of Sonya’s attacks. Since Sonya was close to a column, I jumped, sprang off the column, and performed a Demon Skull Beheading.
I knew from looking into the flow that the blow wouldn’t do much, but it had even less effect than I had hoped. Sonya’s head snapped back. With a whir and a clicking sound she recentered it. A metal fist struck me in the jaw, dropping me instantly.
A simple attack like that should have been impossible to hit me with while I was in the flow. The only reason it did hit me was because I was more focused on the other attack she was executing. Since I wasn’t the only threat, she was also powering up an attack on Alicetroemeria to stop her irritating elemental and dark magic attacks. Irritating. Alicetroemeria was hitting her with magic powerful enough to obliterate anything short of a Heavenly Knight. At best, it was making Sonya angry.
That anger took the form of a combined magical and laser attack that was targeted at several points on Alicetroemeria’s body. I could also tell through the flow that those attacks were calibrated to pass through my normal shield. Somehow Sonya must have analyzed my power in the brief time she had access to it. My only chance to save Alicetroemeria was to try something I’d never succeded in doing before.
You see, while I was adept at putting up shields, and had gotten very fast with them, what I’d always really wanted to do was give myself a permanent suit of magical armor, so to speak. To basically “wear” my shield so that it would always protect me, at least as long as I concentrated on having it. But I’d never been able to make it work. I would literally trip over it if I tried to walk, or bust my nose running into it, because it wouldn’t move with me. It was invisible and made of energy, yet felt solid as a rock when I ran into it, even though it did nothing to stop melee attacks.
But I didn’t need to move much for this use of it. I imagined myself in a suit of magical armor, as I had tried many times before. Summoning it was the easy part. Getting it to move with me was much harder. All of Sonya’s weaponry trained on Alicetroemeria. Since the flow slowed down time for me, I could see them take aim. I could see Alicetroemeria’s look of alarm. I could see Alicetroemeria hurriedly try to construct her own shield. She was not fast enough.
The guns recoiled as projectiles shot out of them. They were aimed at the center of the target, Alicetroemeria’s torso. Oh no. I couldn’t stop those. Unidentifiable magic the likes of which I’d never seen before exploded from Sonya’s eyes, aimed directly at Alicetroemeria’s head.
I sprang into the air to intercept Sonya’s attacks. The bullets went right through my armor, as expected, hitting me like hammer blows. The magic that followed a split second after was only deflected somewhat. It shattered my armor as if it was glass and seemed to burn right through me. Had I even succeeded in shielding Alicetroemeria? I wasn’t sure if I’d ever know. I was never even aware of hitting the ground.
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Luka's Story-Paradox