Chương 215: The World of Ruins (9)

Of course Agrat had encoded her notebook. Undoing its protection spells had taken some time, but Simon eventually succeeded. He guessed that being alone by the campfire with only his dracozombie and a handful of summoned watchers to keep watch was as close to a productive study environment he would find this broken world. It had taken them a while to leave his Edict's area of effect and return to a part of the Darkwood that wasn't ablaze.

Agrat had accumulated quite the collection of spells and research notes, especially on the matter of mind-manipulation, emotional control, and runes. It would take a lifetime to study it all, but Simon's Abyssal Chronicle would let him record the pages he had memorized and recreate them later. The information within should help him in his quest to reverse-engineer Carbuncle's ability to read his target's truest desires and convert it into a spell of his own. How ironic.

Agrat sought so hard to experience the feelings and emotions of mortals, and she would help one of them better understand his fellows. Simon hoped she appreciated it, wherever demons went after death. He had otherwise used the journey to further study the bunker's recordings of the Zodiac Parade. From what he had seen, Asterion attempted to shoot down Abraxas, failed, and then traveled north to parts unknown after casting down any mountains in his way.

Valravn's and Lotan's time in the spotlight made little impact, at least when it came to Magvolia. The Darkwood simply continued its expansion and mutated the local wildlife. However, things changed drastically once Abraxas entered the Lion constellation. Vouivre's dragons had mostly come to dominate the countryside until then, but more organized monsters swiftly began to push them back around that time.

Simon already knew Mithras was the Dominators' commander-in-chief, but the War Lion clearly had the ability to command lesser demons on a grand scale and press them into an army. He was definitely one of the most dangerous Zodiac Fiends. Afterwards, Abraxas passed onto the Maiden constellation, but Simon already knew Helel wouldn't escape the Light Megalith. He skipped straight to the time when the comet entered the Scales constellation, by which time Vouivre's dragonkin had long abandoned the Darkwood to demons.

Interferences began to disrupt the recordings in the Exodeos era, with the visuals growing ever poorer in quality. What's that thing? Simon wondered as he spotted a dark sphere in the sky above the bunker; a pitch black hole in the fabric of reality that bent space itself at the edge. A void? The cube's projection turned into a jumbled mess of colors and broken shapes at this point, likely due to something powerful interfering with the magic. This annoyed Simon to his core.

Was there a way to restore this recording?

"The dark elves are coming, Your Majesty," one of the watchers warned him through telepathy.

"They are moving to encircle us." Simon stored the recording cube and Agrat's spellbook in his Inventory, then walked up to the camp's edge in his Overlord armor. The Darkwood's trees stretched ominously around the camp in a barrier of wooden branches under the obscured moonlight.

"I come in peace," Simon warned them. It probably sounded hollow after he set their home ablaze for seventy miles, but it was the truth.

"I, however, will not hesitate to defend myself. Send forward a messenger or begone." The dark elves slithered out of the woods in response. He had only seen one of their scouts before, but now dozens walked out of the darkness to greet him. Archers with poisoned arrows and crossbows, warrior-women in thick armor wielding miasma-empowered shields and maces, alchemists carrying flasks of poisons and other bombs… these were troops ready to take on demons or any other kind of foe.

They were never normal elves in the first place. Simon was certain of it now. Their features were too different for mere adaptation. Their skin had never seen sunlight, and their lilac eyes were devoid of any empathy. The muses must have created them from raw miasma.

"I wish to meet with your leader, Asterion." Simon opened his pouch and took out the Archer's crystal.

"I bring him a gift." The elves stepped aside to let a woman pass through. A metal crown held that dark elf's white hair in two braids akin to a minotaur's horns, and her enchanted robes were a rich shade of dyed red worthy of a noble. She carried a scepter topped by a small miasma crystal which identified her as some kind of priestess or spellcaster.

"We know, Overlord Magnos," their leader said, her voice sharp and melodious like a song.

"Lord Asterion sent us to fetch you."

"Did he?" Simon was a bit suspicious, but then Asterion should have regained some memories of prior reigns, including their quality time together. He could have plausibly sent his minions to fetch him…

"I thought the Great Chasm was quite far away."

"There are faster ways than feet and flight." The woman invited him to follow her into the woods.

"Come with me." Simon briefly hesitated, but knew better than to show fear. He stepped after the priestess with his demons and dracozombie in tow. The very trees appeared to move away to grant them passage.

"I hope the forest fire I started did not create many grudges," Simon said.

"It was necessary for victory."

"It is the fate of all things in this corrupt world to return to nothingness," the priestess replied with an uncaring shrug.

"Your presence is a sign that the end has finally come." Simon didn't like the sound of that at all, but kept his mouth shut. There was no point in arguing with madmen and nihilists. They marched for half an hour or so in near-complete silence until they reached a familiar sight: a fairy ring of runestones, ready to be activated. It didn't surprise Simon to see one. No doubt the dark elves had taken a leaf out of their ancestors' books and used them to teleport troops quickly across their land.

The priestess touched the runes with her staff, and the stones glowed with otherworldly power.

"Lord Asterion awaits you on the other side." Simon dismissed his dracozombie and watchers, then stepped into the fairy ring. There was a chance this would teleport him straight into an ambush—having pulled a similar stunt on Alphonse's party in the past—but he would welcome another battle. Experience was plentiful in this era. The fairy ring twisted space the moment he stepped inside, warping the very fabric of the universe. The Darkwood, the elves, and the runestones were all swallowed up by darkness.

The already thick haze of miasma hanging in the air grew so potent that Simon thought himself back in the Abyss. The place he had teleported in didn't look so different. He stood atop a massive piece of rock floating in the air by the will of corrupted manalith, under a sky of purple aurora lights illuminating the heavens above with their baleful radiance. Broken pillars of stone jutted out of paved ground with defaced elven designs. Had he landed in some sort of temple? This place felt like… home.

Simon couldn't quite explain it, but he sensed energies similar to those of Frightwall coursing through him. It fueled his miasma reserves and strengthened him. This was a den of evil. The platform led to an ascending slope of rubble that no doubt used to be a flight of stairs centuries ago. Simon ascended its steps and dared to peek at his surroundings. The platform appeared to float above an enormous hole in the ground that stretched for miles on end.

The edge was so far away that Simon had to squint to spot the silhouette of trees in the distance. Other structures and buildings floated above the void like a mini-Sanctuary. Those questions faded from Simon's mind as he reached the top of the slope. The stench of rot and death hung in the air like an open grave. He arrived on a great platform where stood a colossal throne of stone taller than most castles' towers. A massive frame occupied it, with an orange Zodiac crystal for a crown.

"You have come, my other half." Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Asterion the Minotaur had indeed been waiting for him, his head resting on his fist. He was a great colossus in his true form, a mighty demon king whose mere appearance would inspire fear and hopelessness in the weak of heart.

He resembled a true minotaur the way a dragon might resemble a lizard, with two great horns reaching for the sky and bone hooves for feet, but he also had batlike wings covered in bloody runes carved in their membranes and a mighty crocodilian tail. His hands ended in skeletal fingers and claws, and yellow veins pulsated on his mighty muscles. An enormous golden pendant shaped like a skull with gemstone teeth hung from his ox-like shoulders. Instadeath negated by Unyielding Essence.

Asterion's mere presence sent thousands upon thousands of notifications. His aura worked similarly to that of Elios Magnos, forcing death upon anyone who dared to be in his presence. And he was so immense. He had to be at least ninety feet tall upright, maybe pushing a hundred. Vouivre's Beast-powered form was still bigger, but Asterion towered over her normal self and his siblings alike. His overwhelming power rivaled that of Helel herself. The great demon king leaned forward to get a better look at Simon.

"How many times have we met?" Simon's heart skipped a beat in his chest. He had already expected as much, but seeing the glint of recognition in the minotaur's eyes confirmed it. Asterion had seen the truth hidden from all, and which he could only glimpse in his dreams. He could finally get answers. Simon opened his mouth to speak, when he sensed icy fingers on his neck, threatening him not to say anything that could violate the sanctity of the reigns to another.

"I see phantom hands on your throat," Asterion noted, squinting.

"You cannot answer me, although you wish to." Whose hands are there? Simon could warrant a guess. It has to be them. They can see everything and give me Titles, so they might be capable of affecting me in other ways.

"How much do you remember?" Simon managed to ask. At least the failsafe didn't prevent him from asking questions.

"Not everything. The other times are like echoes of a dream, and I can tell a part of me is locked away beyond my reach. The ghosts haunting your step have seen to that." Asterion gave Simon a look akin to pity.

"They are always with you. I cannot see them without great Abraxas' blessing, but I sense their presence still. And once your time comes, you shall share their fate." Simon still had over seventy lifetimes before having to worry about that.

"Is this…" he waved his hand at the floating stones, the auroras, everything.

"Is this real? All of it?"

"Yes, it is. This is no waking dream or mummery, no detailed divination of the future or a false world. This is reality, and you do travel back in time." Asterion grunted in disdain.

"A curse on us all."

"A curse on us all?"

"You still do not understand what Mardok and that lich did, do you? You are not cursed, Simon." Asterion raised a claw at him." We are cursed with you. The Overlord is a bane upon life itself, for daring to imagine a world free of fear." The words sank into Simon's heart, and only then did he finally understand the depths of Mardok's malice and megalomania. He and Elios had committed a sin so great and so absolute, its scale boggled the mind.

"They used Abraxas to curse the entire universe," Simon muttered in horror and disbelief.

"Yes, and the Abyss was witness to their crime. This world will be ruled by the Overlord, or it will cease to be." Asterion shook his immense head in disgust.

"That is why your demise spins the wheel of time again. It is our punishment for not submitting to the Overlord's rule."

"Why… Why would you do such a horrible thing?" Belzemine had once asked, and Mardok answered,"Because the thought that someone, somewhere, could live happily and free of fear… is unbearable to me." The people of Brimir would never experience a future without an Overlord tormenting them. Such would be their punishment for the crime of living without fear, and the Librarian's revenge on an Oracle who sacrificed so much for a prized future. It had to be an Edict.

An Edict using Abraxas as the focus, the same way Simon could use his own miasma crystals as lynchpins. But if so, then it would mean—"You couldn't destroy the comet," Simon realized.

"You tried to break it with your vast power, but you couldn't."

"I could not," Asterion confirmed with a hint of frustration.

"Much like we have failed to destroy the Noble Crestones again and again. They have become mere conduits for fundamental archetypes." As Simon suspected. Abraxas had become the nexus through which the Overlord archetype materialized itself in reality. The former would recreate itself so long as the latter existed. And this meant whatever Edict-like magic sustained the reigns wouldn't end with the comet's destruction in turn. Abraxas fueled the curse, and the curse would recreate it in an endless cycle.

Still, Asterion remained optimistic on the matter.

"There has to be a way to lift this curse. They must include an escape clause, so we may yet end this wretched cycle once and for all. I thought our ancient foe, the Mana Goddess, might hold the answer, but all I found in this place were ruins and the rift." Simon frowned.

"The rift?"

"Take a look for yourself." Asterion glanced at the void.

"Gaze into the Abyss." He meant it literally. Simon stepped up to the edge and gazed into the deepest pit he had ever seen, a wall of darkness so thick no light could ever pierce it. There was no bottom, no end, only a flow of miasma rising from the familiar depths. They were floating atop a canyon-sized portal to the Abyss. Moreover, the walls of the chasm were paved with corrupted manaliths in astronomical quantities. The strains were shaped like roots and filled great tunnels dug into the earth.

It reminded him so much of the Sanctuary.

"This place…" The truth hit Simon like cold water.

"It used to be Illusea."

"Yes. The Worldtree used to fill this Great Chasm, until the elves took it into the sky. Its departure tore open a rift into the Abyss itself from which we demons poured out." Simon's hands clenched into fists in his anger.

"Another crime to lay at the Oracle's feet."

"I am told she died trying to close this rift." This took Simon aback.

"What?"

"Not all the Noble Heroes and dryads abandoned this cursed earth," Asterion replied.

"The Paladin, the Adventurer, and a few others chose to remain. The Oracle was among them."

"She… didn't run away with the rest of them?" This didn't earn her any of Simon's sympathy.

"What, did she feel guilty for leaving the planet to die?"

"I do not know. I assume she wished to close the rift before leaving." Asterion let out a noise akin to a mix between a dismissive grunt and a shrug.

"She might have, had your ancestor not intervened. I heard they destroyed each other over the rift." Of course Elios Magnos wouldn't let the elves leave to a lunar paradise without a fight.

"Destruction means little to a lich."

"I tried to hunt him down, but I have yet to find a whiff of his soul. Your presence should help us locate him, since blood calls to blood." Asterion nodded slowly.

"We can hopefully end the cycle at long last." Simon hesitated a moment before daring to ask, " Must we?" Asterion stared at him for a very long moment, his gaze undecipherable.

"Do you wish to be trapped on that cursed seat, forced to witness this world and everyone you cared for stuck in an endless cycle of life, death, and suffering? Is that truly what you wish for, Simon Magnos?"

"No, no, of course not." Simon had no interest in spending eternity sharing a room with his father, a genocidal dragon, and a maniacal fiend, or even allowing his Class to risk passing on to the likes of Louis or Vouivre.

"But I can't let things end here. I can't end things on this note." Destroying the Overlord Class meant the end of the reigns, and thus would leave the current future set in stone. He couldn't let this demon-haunted wasteland become a permanent reality. Moreover, Brimir was simply doomed without time-travel. The War of the Triad would tear the world apart when it needed to unite against the Zodiac Parade, and the fiends would run rampant in the chaos.

Mankind—nay, the entire planet—could only hope for a happy ending if the Overlord Class stayed on the board to steer it towards a better future. Simon knew he had it in him to find a better outcome than to evacuate the surface to the moons like a coward. The Overlord's power to change fate was worth its cost. Simon had already unraveled over twenty timelines when turning back the clock and ensured they could never be. What was one more?

"I have so many—" Simon felt a pressure on his throat when he threatened to say 'reigns,' forcing him to change his tune.

"I have time. I have so much time left to create a better future than this one. I cannot let all this destruction and pain stick."

"You misunderstand, Simon." Asterion waved his hand at the chasm.

"All this pain and destruction was for the sake of ending the cycle." Simon's blood ran cold.

"What are you talking about?"

"The Overlord is an archetype like any other. It is fueled by mortals' belief that someone out there is responsible for their ills and suffering." Asterion matched his gaze with utter detachment.

"No belief, no Overlord." And no mortals, no belief. Simon had forgotten that for all of his affability towards him, Asterion remained both a demon embodying the fear of the inevitable and the Destroyers' leader. Reality's utter annihilation had always been his goal.

"Yes, Simon. Once we have cleared this world of life, we will move on to the sky and wipe the moons clean." The creepiest part was the undercurrent of pity in his voice, as if he was doing the world a favor.

"Death will free life from this cycle of suffering."

"That is insane." And it might not even work either. Simon could call upon his dark eidolons despite there being no one left to remember them. The Abyss itself could bear witness to contracts that violated causality.

"Besides, you know about the Overlord Class too! You would have to destroy yourself as well!"

"An outcome that we will all relish." We? Simon didn't have long to wonder what he meant. Two other dreadful presences made themselves known soon enough, one floating down from the aurora above and the other emerging from the right. The first of them was Exodeos, but he was no longer the broken knight who had sacrificed much power to escape his seal. His armor was pale and pristine steel rather than rusted, his tattered cloak restored, and his might absolute. But the other…

"It has been a long while, Your Majesty." He had kept so much of his mortal self and the trappings of the Church of Light, to the point Simon believed he might have kept his Class outfit until he paid closer attention. Black streaks marred the white, and two wings of toxic, purple water carried him like one of Helel's angels. His staff was now topped by an urn filled with baleful liquid, and the mirror mask he still wore had become like smooth obsidian.

A certain bluish Zodiac Crystal shone encrusted in the middle, merged with flesh and glass alike. Mastemo lived.

"But now that you are here…" Asterion rose from his throne, his massive frame casting Simon in his massive shadow.

"We have other options."