Chương 220: Null & Void

Mardok's warning rang true. Simon had not yet been invincible. He was hurled back into the void between time after the veil of death. He plummeted into the Abyss under the gaze of great and terrible eyes. He felt his spirit untangling from that of his predecessors as the one became many again, and the Overlord Undivided fragmented into the tetrarchy of the Archdemon, the Dragonlord, the Father, and the Son.

Simon's spirit screamed as his divine power was stripped away from him and he landed in Frightwall's time-displaced ruins. He shivered on the cold, hard floor of his empty castle, his muscles twitching, his hands shaking. He felt nauseous, weak, and small… everything he hated. He had been so great, so almighty, and he had now shrunk back to something far lesser than the god he had been. A man. This is the twenty-sixth of your Hundred Reigns. You have earned the title of Simon the Ruinwalker.

The Ruinwalker: You have walked through the ruins of a destroyed world. Your Abyssal Chronicle can now generate a map of any area you've visited.

"Uh… uh…" Simon breathed miasma into his lungs, every inch of his body shaking.

"Uh…" He had spent enough time near the Cobweb's dreamshade-peddling operations to identify with drug victims. His high had reached the heavens, and the following crash had sent him plummeting straight into hell. Part of him was happy not to have the ideal of tyranny overriding his thoughts and influencing his mind, but the truth was, he missed the power. His body wanted it back, to have the might of a god infused into his veins. It didn't matter if he had to share it with his father or anyone else.

Those cursed elves… those cowardly moonwalkers would pay for this. Striking him down when he was within minutes of slaying Asterion and Helel both, harvesting their experience and finally freeing Brimir from their grasp! They had denied him his triumph for the last time. As soon as he returned, he would wait for the power to come again and bask in Abraxas' glow until—"No…" Simon told himself, trying to regain a measure of control and sanity.

"I've… I've still so much to do…" But his mind couldn't stop thinking about the rush, the thrill, the power. His soul craved it like an addict or a hungry animal. Simon wasn't sure he could even trust his own thoughts. He had shared them with the Overlord archetype itself, and it rewrote them on the fly to suit its appetite for brutal tyranny. Perhaps that influence would linger in some way.

"I'm… no slave…" Simon repeated, to himself and the Class alike.

"I'm… I'm more than this power…" No one controlled him, not even the Overlord Class itself. He couldn't allow this… archetype—he struggled to think of the entity as anything so simple after sharing a body with it—to own him the way he held sway over his branded minions. He couldn't… he shouldn't seek that power out. The things he had done and thought while under its influence…

Simon had considered destroying the world an acceptable answer to the planet not bowing down to him, and picked a fight with multiple archfiends because they wouldn't kneel fast enough. Becoming the Serpent-Bearer meant transforming into an ideal, and ideals were terrible and uncompromising things. Not to mention that the Wicked God passively turned the entire planet into Frightwall with its mere emergence. Simon might live through the Zodiac Parade and end up destroying Brimir himself. There's…

There's still time to figure something out. Simon had to ensure the planet survived the twelve other archfiends that would come before him and would leave Brimir in ruin. And I can't count on that treacherous Oracle to help with it either. It all fell to him to save the world. Those who could have done it had either failed, or worse, bailed out. And things would get much harder now that Asterion had seen what he could become.

The Minotaur had warned him he would never allow him to reach the Wicked God state ever again, and he would inevitably remember once Abraxas graced his constellation. He was unlikely to meet Simon on friendly terms, not to mention his mind remained set on destroying the world in order to starve the Overlord archetype of believers. Asterion's attempt at purifying the Class with the Megaliths' power had failed, so he was likely to fall back on his first plan and exterminate mortalkind.

Simon couldn't allow him to do so, or to disrupt the reigns' mechanism for that matter. He might have to destroy the Class eventually to ensure it couldn't fall into the wrong hands, but it remained the only option available at the moment to prevent the Zodiac Parade and Brimir's collapse into a demon-infested hellhole. He wouldn't allow the elves and their allies to flee to their lunar paradise either, so they could leave the rest of the world to die. The Overlord's mastery of time could create an optimal future.

Simon knew he could build a world better than the miasma-infested dump the Oracle would let him inherit. He could save Lauriane, Eole, his empire, everyone. Nay, he was the only one who could. Are those my thoughts, or the Overlord whispering in my ear? Simon wasn't sure, but he couldn't afford to keep doubting himself all the time either. He forced himself to his feet to find that his throne room was as empty as usual in a broken reign, devoid of life and movement. I have to see this through… hmmm?

His eyes spotted something near him. A familiar gold-bound grimoire of beaten copper pages. It can't be… Simon struggled to believe his eyes when he read the title.

'The Scream of the Soul.' Nodens' book. What was it doing here? Simon hadn't interacted with it for a few reigns, nor put it in his Inventory. Could it be… could it be the version he had accidentally dropped into the Abyss many reigns earlier? That was impossible. Five timelines or so had gone by since, and how would it even find its way to his throne room? Curiosity overwhelmed Simon as he checked the book. It was indeed the very same horrifically detailed study of mortal brains penned by Nodens.

Simon powered through his disgust as he searched for any hint of alteration, until he found one. A ghastly drawing awaited him on the back cover. It was a crude picture of… of something that defied description. A creature of broken angles with a single eye at its center and a thousand limbs that twisted in ways that defied the laws of biology and physics. A shiver traveled down Simon's spine, and a headache seized his skull as he recognized the entity which had pursued him in the void earlier.

Merely staring at a representation of it hurt his brain. A line of abyssal runes too complex for a human hand to draw was written beneath the picture. Simon's All-Seeing Perk swiftly translated those concepts into an intelligible sentence. YOU DROPPED THIS. Simon stared at the picture and sentence for a very, very long time as he struggled to make sense of it.

"It… brought the book back to me?" The mere idea sounded utterly absurd to Simon, and yet strangely possible.

"Did that creature pursue me earlier simply to return the book?" Vayan told him once that abyssal entities weren't necessarily hostile, nor interested in interacting with the material plane, but the idea that one of them would travel across the void to return a book Simon accidentally dropped near them appeared so utterly… mundane. And that wasn't even the strangest part. If this was indeed the same book from multiple reigns back, then this could only mean one thing.

"Something remains." Asterion said that the Abyss devoured the past and reset the timeline whenever the Overlord died; a process which likely didn't happen instantaneously, considering how items still appeared in Simon's Inventory for a few hours after a reign started. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Pieces of land covered by his Dungeon and even a creature like Gourmand managed to endure in the void after the transition, as did this book.

They sank into the Abyss' timeless depths, but survived. Was this void some sort of cosmic trashcan? A place where debris from erased pasts lingered? Simon decided to put this to the test by summoning his Abyssal Chronicle and checking his new Title. Its pages produced a map of the castle as advertised, including a caption. Frightwall, Throne Room. This place indeed appeared to be Frightwall rather than a mere copy… Wait…

Since Frightwall had engulfed all of Brimir in the last reign, then was this version floating in the void larger than usual? Simon stored the Scream of the Soul in his Inventory and then walked outside to the castle walls to check. A sea of floating debris greeted him outside. This strange void indeed carried quite a few things from the late Brimir; lakes of toxic water encircled inside brick moats, floating stillborn watchtowers, hill-walls, and stairways of rising windows.

Each piece of debris counted as Simon's castle well enough for him to teleport around, even if they were separated from the original Frightwall.

"Is there someone here?" Simon called out into the ruins and the void alike for many minutes until he realized the gesture's futility. This sea of nothingness was utterly devoid of life. No demons nor Zodiac Fiends were present to harass him, nor the eye entity which had so kindly left the Scream of the Soul behind. Not even the Keeper would answer his calls.

He did find things from the previous reign among the debris though, like the filtering boiler meant to help his castle's refugees drink the poisoned water outside. His guess seemed to be correct. Items trapped in Frightwall endured for some time inside this void, even after the Overlord's power erased the past. Could Simon make use of this mechanism? Simon had never managed to bring any item from this place to a new reign, but maybe he could ensure they remained in the void.

Having a stockpile of rare items collected across multiple timelines might prove useful. And what had happened to Elios Magnos? It struck him as odd that the lich never showed up to greet Mardok nor make waves in four hundred years. Had the Oracle somehow managed to neutralize him before she died? He might actually have been sealed away, now that I think of it… It was usually the best solution to deal with liches when their phylacteries couldn't be located. Or thrown into a dimensional rift.

Since Frightwall had engulfed the world, Simon tried to teleport to the Berwick Islands and check Elios' crypt for himself, only to fail. He guessed that the place had avoided assimilation before Simon's demise or been destroyed long before he awoke. Teleporting to the Great Chasm only led to pieces of rock floating in nothingness. That moonblast had done quite a bit of damage.

Simon was almost certain it had been an improved version of the Goddess' Judgment spell the Oracle used to bombard Frightwall with, and teleporting across the debris suggested the presence of at least four craters, which meant every moon had fired simultaneously to cleanse the surface of life. They must have acted rashly upon seeing Frightwall engulf Brimir. Of course the elves wouldn't spend four centuries staring down at a demon infested land without making preparations.

He would never give them time to prepare ever again. Simon did another test by flying away from Frightwall's debris and into the void, then opening his Abyssal Chronicle's map. As he feared, it wouldn't create a map of the nothingness around him… but it did provide it with a caption name. Abyss, Timeless Depths. At least this confirmed it. The Abyss' deepest areas did exist beyond time, and allowed for the Overlord's Edict to travel back to the past.

Could he use those properties to return to a point earlier than his reign's usual start, as Maximilien Nocte once tried to? Simon somehow doubted it since one of his Perks only allowed him to move the starting date forward, but he couldn't be sure. Simon didn't immediately return to the Crimson Throne to restart the reign and instead attempted to raise a workshop in Frightwall to further study his environment, alongside the Scream of the Soul.

He confirmed the newly made drawing had been created through magic rather than ink or any known substance, but he had little way of contacting whatever creature it referenced; and he wasn't sure if he would be wise to do so. At least he was certain he could recognize the entity's miasma signature should he meet it again in the future. Simon was determined to investigate further.

He wasn't yet sure whether that creature's ability to transfer an object from one voided reign to the next was a result of the Timeless Depths themselves or an innate ability, but it could prove a precious game changer either way. Simon also realized he should invest in information-gathering spells or tools in the future.

He had no way of confirming how long objects remained in the void after their timeline came to an end—Gourmand at least seemed to have spent enough time there to starve—or if they continued to decay once he awakened there again. He should learn a few, considering how likely he was to return to his place should he cross paths with the Oracle and her kind again. For now, Simon carved a coded message on a wall of the throne room in case it somehow lingered in the void should he find himself stuck here again.

He had to check whether this was indeed the same castle each time, or a different variant. He also placed the Scream of the Soul in a hidden cavity in case he could recover it later. There was still so much he didn't understand about the reigns in spite of receiving Asterion's guidance. Ensuring he could save Brimir from destruction came first, but he would need to find time to study it further. Gathering his predecessors' Abyssal Chronicles should at least enlighten him.

His father at least provided a hint to his own book's location, though Simon hoped he had been lied to on that front. He could only think of one book Balzam Magnos left to his son that he felt too sick to finish. First things first, Simon thought as he ascended on the Crimson Throne. Safety, and revenge. Everything would be so much easier when all of his enemies were dead. Then he would have peace of mind. The Crimson Throne greeted him again with a new title.

He could feel his predecessors' contentment through the cursed chair. No doubt they had enjoyed this rare occasion to let loose and rampage across the world. This is the twenty-seventh of your Hundred Reigns. You have earned the title of Simon the Bookkeeper. The Bookkeeper: You were a poor librarian, leaving your books in the wrong place. Your Abyssal Chronicle can permanently record and transform into any book that you touch, mimicking their features and properties. Interesting.

This sounded quite niche, but Simon didn't understand Libromancy well enough to tell if it was related to it. It would also let him disguise his Abyssal Chronicle. Wait, was that what happened with his father's own memoir? Did he receive a similar Title? Those thoughts faded away from Simon's mind as he woke up back in his room. The joy he felt upon rising from his bed to find an intact Marthrone looming beyond his window was indescribable.

He had feared he would wake up centuries out of sync again, but it appeared the reign mechanism had finally recovered from the damage the Oracle inflicted. Things were back to normal, and he could get back to work. Now that he had sobered up a bit, Simon realized that missing out on killing Asterion and Helel in his Wicked God form might have been a blessing in disguise, since he was apparently sharing experience with the other Overlords.

He could destroy them on his own in the future when finding worthy foes would become a rarity. This also begged the question of why the Overlords could inherit a share of the experience, since they were already dead. Would a future Perk allow Simon to interact with them somehow? Either way, he was wary of strengthening his predecessors' ghosts in any way, in case it might allow them to affect him. Simon had many, many things to focus on for now, but one priority topped all the others.

The one foe which had vexed him at every turn, and ruined so many of his reigns; the one enemy he still had to completely defang by any means necessary. It was time to blind the Oracle. Only then could he create a peaceful and secure world worth living in. Simon had tried to take the high road, to abide by the rules of diplomacy and discussion, only to be rejected and spat upon. He had waited in vain for heroes to save Brimir, but found himself disappointed time and time again.

He had gazed into the future to find this planet awash with death and chaos. No more. It was time for a change of direction. Simon teleported into Louis' solar without wasting time. He found his sibling calmly reading his Commerce Emperor volume, facing a window showcasing the sleeping Marthrone in the distance.

"Brother." If Louis was afraid of Simon teleporting into his private sanctuary without warning right after he murdered their father, he didn't show any hint of it.

"You have the power, don't you? Was all this somehow your plan from the start?"

"Yes," Simon confirmed as he put on his Overlord armor. It didn't surprise him that Louis would assume he had plotted their father's demise, considering how he had reached the same conclusion back when he allied with Euphemia and he played into that assumption for all it was worth.

"You have fulfilled your purpose admirably, Louis. You have my thanks for clearing the path to my ascension."

"I always suspected father had a good reason to keep you down." Louis assessed his visitor and set his book aside.

"What then? Are you planning to dispose of me like a loose end?"

"Not at all. In fact, I was hoping we could start on new terms." Simon turned his back on Louis in a supreme show of confidence to better stare at Marthrone.

"You, me, Dassein, Lauriane… even Euphemia and her side, once we've brought them into the fold." He could tell he had Louis' undivided attention.

"What fold, Simon?"

"Mine. The fold of victory." He put his hands behind his back and looked at the horizon.

"It is time for Illusea's sun to set, and House Magnos' to rise. A new dawn nears for Brimir." Simon would have to be careful to keep this mad dog on a tight leash and avoid losing himself fully to the Overlord Class' impulses, but he would need Louis' strength and an iron hand to prevail. Illusea would simply never let him act without hindering or fighting him. He could purge House Magnos of its rogue elements and reform it from within once he had dealt with all outside threats.

If the world wouldn't accept a peaceful and prosperous future by its own free will, then Simon would force it to. Such was his duty. And woe to anyone who stood in the Overlord's way. End of Act 2