Aftermath.
The battlefield was a wasteland.
Almost every inch of the Wild Lands had been scorched and shattered under the force of the transcendent power and law energy clashes. The air reeked of burnt flesh and earth, with steam rising from the magma pools that had ford in multiple spots where the ground had been carved deep into the planet's crust.
The sky was fractured like glass, with faint grey fog filling the holes in the broken atmosphere.
Every surviving combatant moved cautiously, shaken, fully aware that the scale of what had just happened was beyond comprehension.
The fallen needed to be recovered, the injured tended to, and as for the shattered landscape and the land corrupted by the FWC's blood… what could even be done about that?
Command fell to those with authority who were still alive and ntally stable enough, the presence of the Transcendents silently pressuring those higher-ups to be on their best behaviour.
Lloris was the supre commander coordinating everything, beginning with the retrieval of the corpses of the less fortunate.
Evan's summoning of the Void Angel had consud every demon corpse left on the battlefield, and aside from the few who had surrendered and been restrained, the order was to eliminate every last one of them.
The World Isolation Barrier eventually crumbled after so ti, but by then, the majority of the rogue demons and Demonic Hand mbers had been rounded up for either execution or imprisonnt.
They were ticulous, understanding that mistakes now could allow enemy remnants to regroup.
Supplies were limited, energy reserves strained, and the survivors' morale was above average but fragile.
The battle had ended, but the consequences of the day's events were far from over.
All the National Leaders and powerhouses involved in the Tarse Defence plan understood this, so as quickly as they could, they convened, either in person or via video call, to discuss what would happen next.
Altrishia, Rathal, and Kolvar were also present, but conspicuously absent was the one boy with the most information on their enemies, the one who had masterminded the entire defence plan, the one who had coordinated everything to bring together all the forces present.
Evan was nowhere to be found.
With Evan absent, everyone in the know turned their attention to the one person most likely to know his location, Eliza.
As expected, she did know where he was, and she even had a ssage from him for when she was asked.
The ssage?
"He said he went to 'watch a movie'."
It went without saying that those who received this ssage were more than just dumbfounded.
◇ ◇ ◇
Whether they believed it or not, Evan wasn't lying.
At the ti Lloris was speaking to Eliza, he was standing in front of a cinema in the middle of a bustling city, sighing as he tossed a cap onto his head and strolled inside.
The staff and custors passed by him without so much as a glance, as if he weren't even there.
He walked down the hallways and entered the last showroom, opening the soundproof door to reveal a bright hall that was empty except for a single seat in the middle.
As he stepped in and closed the door behind him, a calm voice echoed across the hall.
"Were you trying to kill yourself?"
Evan froze montarily, chuckling as he walked down the stairs along the side of the seating area.
"I've told you before, Artemisia, I may be crazy, but I'm not suicidal," he said, addressing the goddess seated in the centre of the hall.
At this, Artemisia finally turned her gaze toward him, her eyebrow lifting while she asked, "Are you? I'm not so sure anymore, because only a suicidal person would think summoning a Void Angel from the Dead Zone would be a wise decision."
The ntion of the entity Evan had summoned using the country-wide magic circle and the place it ca from made Evan shake his head.
"It was wise, and again, I'm not suicidal. I had EOTD's help to make sure it didn't get out of hand."
"Wise? Evan, you summoned a Void Angel. A Cosmic Horror. A denizen of chaos from beyond reality itself that makes this universe's Dead Zone its ho.
There were many ways to deal with that imprisoned Race Ruler, and you chose the most potentially destructive one?
Make it make sense."
Artemisia ended by quoting Evan's own words from a few days ago, a statent that made him chuckle lightly, though he was t with an imdiate glare.
"Well, I needed sothing Ferrid wouldn't be able to predict even at full power. Sothing with no prior record of occurring on Aidos, completely out of the box, so no one could even consider the possibility."
Evan took a step down the stairwell, placing a hand on a chair as he continued, "That was my original intention when I asked EOTD about it first. But then I had my little trip to the past, and upon returning, I decided to add one more criterion to that list."
He looked down the inclined seating toward Artemisia, who was at a lower level, and spoke, "Sothing even Beatrix wouldn't be able to predict."
"…"
The goddess frowned lightly, and at this, Evan shrugged and added, "I expected her interference, you know? Besides, I wasn't the one to suggest a Void Angel. That was all EOTD.
I just wanted sothing strong from another planet."
"And you went along with a suggestion that could have killed everyone there if even a single thing had gone wrong?" Artemisia asked.
"It was either that or stop the Disaster from happening entirely, risking the law of ti turning any one of the remaining Disasters into a Nexus Event.
Everyone dies either way."
Evan had been warned after Lacertilia by 'Aidos' that stopping a Disaster before it could even occur, using his knowledge of the future, was interfering with the laws of Fate and Ti, since he was altering the fates of billions on Aidos using knowledge of a future tiline he normally wasn't supposed to know.
'She' had warned that if he attempted the sa in Tarse, he risked one of the remaining Disasters becoming a Nexus Event, an action by the law of ti to forcefully correct the changes caused by his interference.
That was why he had always planned to let the Demonic Hand successfully create the Dinsional Rift to Gozon and even summon either a Peak Rank or a legion of demons from it.
He wanted the Disaster to progress as far as possible before interfering, changing only the final outco of the event.
"My plan was successful. There's no Gozonian Outpost on Aidos, and though there were casualties, Tarse isn't in flas," Evan said. "Millions didn't die."
"How about you consider the consequences of your actions beyond Aidos?
You should know how much scrutiny is placed on the Dead Zone. Do you really think no one noticed a Void Angel leaving?
Think about the one who has to deal with the aftermath of all that."
At Artemisia's words, Evan took another step down, sliding his hands into his pockets as he said, "I don't know about all that. How about it serves as payback for all the secrets you've been keeping? Or maybe a little fee for trying to use as your hired hand to kill your bestie's son?"
Artemisia's brow twitched at that last comnt, though the rest of her expression stayed impassive, and Evan, silently admiring her poker face, jogged down the stairs to her level as he spoke.
"Speaking of secrets, I know I said I wanted answers after I was done with Tarse, but I didn't an literally right after I finished," he said.
He glanced down at Artemisia's pant suit, its deep black shade matching her hair, before raising his gaze to et her golden eyes.
Silence reigned for a few seconds before Artemisia finally looked away and turned toward the screen in front of them.
"The sooner the better. Thanks to your actions, it won't be long before I have to deal with the Old gods and the other Main Entities questioning why a Void Angel was in my territory," she said.
"Oh. Well, too bad for you," Evan remarked, shrugging as if he weren't the source of her stress.
He stepped into the row, walking toward her as he continued, "Well, I guess we'd better get started. We both have things to do, after all."
Stopping at the seat beside her, Evan turned his gaze to the screen Artemisia was facing and asked,
"So? What are we watching?"
"A story of two girls with a bond so strong they would literally die for each other," Artemisia replied, and as the room darkened and the screen lit up, she continued,
"And how that bond turned into one girl wanting the other dead."
.
.
THE END!
Reincarnated Hero System
Volu 4: False gods and Rifts in Space; FINALLY completed.
User Comments
0 comments from readers