A memory assaults me.
My mother stares at me, there's a tragedy in her eyes, I wonder if it will ever lessen.
'What do you want to be when you grow up?' A normal question that normal mothers ask their normal 6-year-old child.
But we weren't a normal family.
The look in her eyes frightened me, but I couldn't stop staring at the abyss inside of them. For a rather simple reason.
A selfish reason, I just liked my mother's eyes. I was scared by the tragedy in them, but attracted by the mix of hope and despair in them. Almost paradoxical.
My answer took no time to get out of my mouth. I didn't know what I wanted for life, but I knew what she wanted.
'A dignified person.' I said, fully sure of my answer.
She looked at me, and the hope inside her eyes slowly died.
.....
We came across some children surrounding a tree.
A little paper plane was trapped between the tree's arms.
"Do you want me to climb up to get it?" I asked the group.
They saw me with Eve, so they agreed.
I held the tree, put my foot on the base, and started climbing it.
No flight, no telekinesis, no gravity magic, not even the spider's powers that I was making a conscious effort to suppress.
I climbed like a normal human and grabbed their paper plane, before throwing it down into their extended hands.
They thanked me and ran off.
I remained in the tree for a moment, tasting the moment and savoring the tree's hug.
.....
I entered my house, slightly battered, but the make-up helped me hide some of my bruises.
My mother had left the day before, leaving the house to the legion of siblings that could barely function as a family.
With some stolen money that I got from one of my siblings, I went out to buy baking materials. While I considered it denigrating, to bake for people who dislike me and I dislike, it will eventually be worth it if I can sell it and rent an apartment far away from here in some years.*
'Just like my brother' The one who ran away, leaving us all behind.
I spent the whole day telling them how delighted I was to have met people I didn't give a damn about. But I suppose that if one has to keep living, one has to say something like that.
I so easily confess to stealing my sibling's money because they too did it. It was a tacit agreement and also a demonstration that reprehensible actions, when they are reciprocal and equivalent, create a status quo and allow for loving coexistence.
Suddenly, I decided to go to my sister's room. I didn't have a reason, I just thought about her and decided to check in on her.
A sniffle caught my attention the moment I entered the room.
My sister cried silently, she passed the pages from a book that she read with her mouth open.
While she cried, there was no feeling in her eyes. I knew that look perfectly. It was one I shared when I felt my problems become so many that I couldn't decide which one to cry for.
It was a funny thing.
To see her, and to realize that, while I was afraid, sad, cold, there were people even more afraid, colder, sadder, and most importantly, smaller.
My escape plan suddenly increased in one participant.
...
"What's up with this beach?" I ask.
"I've never been around here..." Terra comments.
"Oh yeah. People dump their deposits here. I've reported this many times, but since there are no lasting consequences, they don't care that much." Explains Eve.
We looked at a beach full of trash. Every sort of pollution plagued it. From every-day machines to random pieces of materials, like wood, stone, and steel.
It must be hard for a world with a Dryad and full consciousness to fall for contamination.
"It kinda reminds me of my workshop..." Terra lets a comment escape from her mouth.
"How do you clean it then?" Eve asks.
"Hm? With some effort." Terra answers the question.
"Alright, let's do the effort." Eve says, and raises a metal bar over her shoulder.
After enduring Terra's nagging for a moment, she too decides to start helping. Her body isn't strong for the heavy stuff, but she does her best.
Terra is constantly wearing different versions of her overalls with a jumpsuit, so she's comfortable doing this.
Eve wears the same clothing every day, as if she were an anime character at the start of their series.
While I have a lot of copies of Dante's outfit, it's fine.
We move the trash to a safe spot where I compress it all into a nice little ball and left it in the trash.
.....
'One day, I'm going to grow wings.'
My first thought when she, my older sister, said this was that she wanted to escape from here.
My second thought was that her words had been influenced by the book she had recently been reading.
I agreed with her, I too wanted to escape. I didn't reply, thinking that my answer was obvious.
That wasn't the right course of action.
Maybe if I had said something, it wouldn't have turned out like that.
Mere days after that, after extending my hope for just a moment. I found her.
In the basement, I don't even remember why I had gone down; maybe I just wanted to be alone for a moment. I found her there.
Her body, hanging from one of the beams in the ceiling.
I didn't move, I had only seen her body when it was in front of me, so I was standing still over the cold, smiling body.
Below her feet, a single book lay, looking lonely without its owner.
The cover was blue, with designs I didn't understand at the bottom left corner and the top right corner.
I was only familiarized with the title.
The Wings.
I realized something at that moment.
She had escaped.
She had grown her wings.
.....
"Hey, look at that." Terra pointed to a couple of guys surrounding some sort of carriage.
It looked decently modern, it had a motor and large wheels with a ceiling attached to the back of the seats.
We talked to them, and after a moment of banter, they agreed to let Terra look into it.
Apparently, it had something to do with the plugs?
I don't know the terms she used, I've never been a car guy. Even if I was, it probably wouldn't have mattered, since plugs probably weren't even invented by the time motor carriages still were used.
Terra took some time to analyze the motor.
Before finally figuring out the problem and using the tools that the owners of the carriage had.
She was thanked, and we kept on walking.
.....
It was his birthday.
I remember being happy, but anxious at the same time.
Some of the family was gathered in one place. With some, I mean my siblings and my mother.
'Of course, no extended family.' Although I knew no one was going to come, a little part of me still died when no one else came.
I needed no one to tell me how stupid I was.
The birthday went nicely, even with the bubbling, hidden feeling of calm before the storm that was becoming more and more prominent with every passing moment.
Finally, midnight.
Someone asked: What are you going to do after this?
I say someone because no one knew who it was; the voice of the person was completely overlooked. It could've been my mother, my sister, any of my siblings. It could've been me.
Everyone knew what he had been doing. Taking extra classes, sleeping little, working jobs... All great efforts. And no one in that house made an effort without an objective.
His mouth slowly opened.
'I'll go to college'
Nothing bad, nothing wrong with that.
Except that he chose one overseas. One is far away from us. And the cherry on top, it was in Russia.
I've never hated that place, but you can't help but feel something about it when your only parent has spoken of that place with the same hate Lucifer speaks of his father.
I didn't turn to look at my mother. I could predict her reaction. The same one that she showed me, except that I didn't know if she held hope in her eyes before he spoke.
After the usual yelling and screaming. I approached my brother alone; he was in the basement, in our only basement.
I wonder what I said for him to look at me with such eyes? I wonder why he looked at me like that? Most importantly, I wonder if it was my fault.
I have no shame in saying that I begged, for the first time in my life, I begged for him not to disappear, to not leave, to not leave me.
He agreed, appeasing me for a while. I didn't believe him for a moment, but I knew there was nothing I could do.
That night, in my bed, I slept.
I lived. Even though fate hadn't been kind to me, I lived. And I died when I lost the last person who cared about me, who I cared about. Death came to me simply, as day comes when the night has departed.
When I woke up, the night had departed.
And so had he.
.....
We were taking a break in a bench with a railing, in front of a park. It was already past midday and we had eaten at a small restaurant in the middle of the village.
While I can't say that this world is completely modern, some things have been there for all of history.
Although I called it a village, it might as well be a whole city in some years.
My mind wandered to the flashbacks I recalled while helping people.
To say that my mother abandoned me would be unjust, but that I was abandoned, and at times, like a dog, it's true.
She never took care of me, of us, in any way beyond the basic ones. She disappeared on Mother's Day, on her birthday, on most of our birthdays...
It almost sounds like I'm making it up. Wish I were.
Has this day given me new insights?
Perhaps.
I can't be fully sure of this, but this isn't something to be resolved so easily.
Actually, it could be. Sometimes I feel like I have the right answer, I just need to say it aloud, and my mind follows.
Anyways, I should get going.
Let's end this game's storyline right now.
I'll have all the time for wondering later.
.....
"Look at that, you're back. With an answer, I suppose?" Calista asks me with that smug tone of voice she uses when she's sure of something.
"Maybe... It's not what I'm here for though." Without endearing her answer, I let my intentions be clear.
"I see, are you ready? Have you settled down your mental concerns?" She says concerns not to call them ¨Mental problems.¨
"I can't say for sure, but I know that I will have a lot of time once I'm done with the Moon-Lord."
"Right, then, let's go forward with the next steps." Calista stands up and goes to a little corner of her house, from where she takes a bundle of paper grouped like scrolls.
She spreads them on the table. The scrolls were full of various notes, words, images, and such.
Pointing at them, she explained the next steps one by one in a precise and exact manner, giving me enough information to know exactly what to do.
She knew this was the end of the battle, it was today that everything came crashing down and the future gets decided.
Not too important.
First stop, Jungle Temple.
...
Let me recall the lore for this place...
Calista mentioned that the Lihzahrds were a primitive-looking race that lived in the jungle temple. All I remember was that they looked like Sillurians, from Doctor Who.
Hmm... I want a Doctor card. Maybe the tenth doctor... Although my first interaction with the series was watching the Fourth Doctor in old chapters at 2 in the morning. Well, I guess that I can't forget the tenth, the eleventh, and the twelfth.
Anyways, the point is that Lihzahrds don't really like people going into their homes. But remember, I can go invisible with my godly magic.
It's low level, I still move the air around me and the other usual invisibility issues, but I can compensate by using stealth skills from my other characters.
Traversing through the dark temple, I find myself recollecting pieces of solar tablets and such from the chests.
After a time, I arrived at the golem's main chamber.
It seemed eerily void.
There was nothing in the whole room, no traps, no torches, no decorations. Nothing but an altar with various intricate designs, but more importantly, way taller than me.
I'm not sure how tall I am, but I'm definitely taller than the majority.
So it feels odd to see something like this. Even if I have already seen things way taller than me, this one feels especially odd because I perceived it as smaller in the game.
Perception is a funny thing.
Holding a power cell in my hand, I walked to the altar, my steps steady and determined to end the god of this place.
The little bits of information I read were that the Golem was a weapon made by the Lihzahrds to kill the Moon-Lord. I don't know how they know about the Moon-Lord, but once he dies, nothing should be able to stop the cultists from summoning the Moon-Lord and his army, the celestial pillars.
A little hole is in the middle of the altar, clearly intended to place the power cell.
Once I place it, the altar suddenly brightens up, and it starts to tremble.
The parts of the altar start to move in a weird pattern. Up, left, back... As if they were forming a puzzle. Immediately, it clicked in my mind.
The altar wasn't used to summon the Golem, it is the Golem.
Actually, this gives me an idea.
What happens if I prevent an event? Do I get achievements for that? If I destroy the Golem before it gets to full power, do I get the same reward as if I defeated it at full strength?
If I did, then what about... Let's just test this before forming any questions.
Dashing straight at it, I punched it and sent it flying towards a silver sword that I summoned behind it, impaling it from behind.
Summoning another in my hand, I raised it above my head and slashed downward, amplifying the force with gravity magic, doing a large gash in the room and using my Ice power to freeze everything the slash touched.
Flying over the Golem, I saw through the large hole in the room and followed the path to find the unmoving bricks that the Golem was made from.
I froze them before checking how much progress the bar had given me.
80%
10% more than a fair fight with Plantera... But that doesn't mean much since I got 60% per mech, who I fought three on one. And I got 50% for the Wall, and 10% less for the lesser bosses until the Eye's 20%.
So whether I kill them with or without full strength it's the same... Makes sense, because sneak attacks won't work from a certain point, and if it did, then I probably could've defeated them fairly.
If you can kill Ares or Zeus with a sneak attack, then you were probably strong enough to take them one by one.
Now, what about events? What if I prevent an event?
If I open pandora's box and absorb both fear and hope to not let the gods be corrupted-even if they were already bad- would I get rewards?
Would it even make sense? Shouldn't the fact that I'm me and not the OG Kratos have already evaded a lot of events? Because I'm not going to destroy Olympus, or the world, or have a child with Lysandra, or Faye.
It all goes back to whether the Sisters of Fate are going to make my life impossible or not, although at some point, I should be able to defy fate by sheer power. Although I don't know when that may come.
Ugh, let's just go to the next location.
✺✺✺
'It's dead.'
The solar panels have gone down, and the golem's batteries have been destroyed.
There is no room left for doubt, the Golem has been brought down.
Why? We don't know, the madman that has been killing everything of major relevance in the world just killed his strongest ally, but we don't care why.
We only know that the path forward is clear, the ritual will be done, starting with my body and ending with it.
If I were to die, then it would be for the ritual to bring forth the Moon Deity or by his hands.
He has entered the dungeon, flying alone with a silver sword at his hand. After he enters, the entrance feels unsurprisingly cold.
I take off my robes and break a fallen star in my mouth. I submerge a quill in a mana potion and begin to write.
In my arms, my fingers, my shoulders, my chest...
To summon the most powerful entity in the universe, a common spell tome or magic circle won't work. Even if the old man won't go further than this, I will. I will go forward in this field!
The magic circles in my body begin to have effect, with it, the pain grows and grows, but it does not matter, it will soon be done.
My hands tremble as a I write the last part in the soles of my feet, my body burns with the pleasant ache of magic. It gives me the strength to go forward.
Raising myself, I help others.
The archers, the priests, the devotees... My brothers, whom I don't share blood with, but a goal.
A greater goal, for a better future.
Soon after finishing the preparations, the air gets colder.
Instinctively, we get a shiver down our spine, and we look back at the dungeon.
There, without a single scratch or even a piece of broken garment, slowly walked the hero.
One who has defeated every single one of his enemies in his journey, one without mercy but with resolve to stop our plans.
The world itself breaks- no, to be more accurate, he cuts through it as he walks with a steel gaze, casting it upon all of us.
Truth to be said, I can't hate him.
Strive, passion, determination, power, he is a great man, even if we leave aside his feats of power.
My mind shifted between slight admiration and great fear, but there's something ever present in my mind, excitement.
Long last, the path is completed. My purpose will be fulfilled.
We know we don't have a chance to defeat him, but we don't need one. We don't dabble in chances.
In the blink of an eye, he banishes without leaving an afterimage.
And so do all my brothers.
But they left an afterimage.
Not only that, they left their bodies along with their mana to supply the circles.
"Incredible, I could not have expected any less from you!" I say with my words trembling, from happiness, fear, and coldness.
"..." He does not speak, just looks down at the bodies of the deceased. Maybe contemplating.
"What's wrong, feeling bad?"
"Just one question." He says before disappearing and reappearing holding me by the throat, his eyes change into red and black, the magic around him cries out in anger. "Why? Honestly, I have a million ideas and theories, but it would be more accurate to hear it from your mouth."
"Of course..." I say with a struggle to get my words out. "What story is done without a... proper villain's confession?"
"..." He doesn't speak, he lets his eyes and grip talk for himself.
"I did it because..." I say straightforwardly, without shame in my voice. "... I wanted to evolve beyond. I wanted to make everything and everyone better."
"...Elaborate." A million ideas pass through his eyes.
"Heh..." A magic bolt appears in my hand. "Why don't you use the brain a little now?" I detonate it inside my body.
In such a manner, the world slowly goes dark with only the burning pain from the bolt to assure me I'm not dead yet.
His eyes stare at me, making me realize one single thing.
'I didn't ask why he was doing this...'* Although he wouldn't need a reason to oppose me, after all. I'm the villain.
✺✺✺
His body exploded from the waist down, doing a loud ¨Splat!¨ sound on the floor, I don't react or move him at all. I just continued staring him down, trying to find any falsehood in his words.
With the death of the Lunatic Cultist, the world trembles, as if trying to exert itself to stop the arrival of something.
To no avail, since in the next moment, the moon suddenly expands, no, the moon gets closer to the Earth.
Due to my continuous use of gravity magic, I'm acquainted with the normal gravity of a planet, so I can say it's shifting. Not nearly as much as it should, but it still is.
If the normal gravity of the Earth is 9.81 meters per second squared, then now it's around 9.81~9.82. A change in the millesimal. But it only remains like that because Terraria itself is rejecting the satellite's influence
Without losing much time, I flew into the sky and beyond it.
Looking at the Earth from the furthest point into space I've ever been in, I quickly located the four Celestial Pillars to destroy.
Now, I don't know how it would work in real life, but I know that there's a one-minute gap between the fall of the last pillar and Moon-Lord's arrival, so let's assume he's not going to wait for the pillars to fall and kill them all immediately.
This means I have exactly a minute to kill the four pillars.
Let's not dabble in that too much and go to the one nearest the village.
Still a few kilometers away from the village, the nebula portal floated ominously, warping the space around it and giving it an ominous violet glow over the earth below it.
Thousands of magical monsters were gathered around the pillar. Flying above the pillar, I fell without making any sort of effort, just letting gravity take effect in my body.
Once close enough, I felt the environment reek of magic, summoning strength in my hand, it started to glow and I punched the pillar from above.
Instantly, the surroundings were completely frozen, you wouldn't doubt someone if they told you they were in the middle of the North Pole.
Releasing a cold breath, I drove another punch into the great mass of ice, shattering it without a noise.
It seemed surreal, such a large structure, and it vanishes without even so much as a whisper. The only thing that remained in place was the little Nebula fragments that were suspended in the air.
With a carefully crafted singularity, I gathered them all in one place and threw them into my inventory. That done, I went to the next closest pillar.
The Stardust Pillar fell easily too, summoning uses mana so it's magic, in a crude way at the very least.
More than a minute had passed, and the Moon-Lord hadn't come. I was beginning to think nothing was going to happen.
At the same moment, the Solar Pillar exploded.
To be more accurate, a large magic blast cut through it and parted it in two, before both exploded in a large shine.
A moment later, the Vortex Pillar fell.
This one fell in a more comprehensible manner, my sight captured the image of the green pillar pierced by countless swords, bullets, spears, and every other kind of large gaps that could only be made by large weaponry.
Still, even if I could comprehend how they fell, that still didn't tell me everything about the event.
It was surprising that there were people, or groups of people, strong enough to take one of the pillars by themselves.
While a welcome addition, I was hoping to destroy all the pillars by myself; they gave me 40% each for achievements.
Well, I wasn't going to bother just for 40% or 80%
On second thought, maybe a little-
From one moment to another, my mind received a hit and went numb. Immediately after, pain overwhelmed my whole body, and I began to hear whispers of otherworldly power around me. And lastly...
Even when not a single monster was in the air now, I felt the impending doom approaching.
Without wasting even a single second, I began to ¨Buff Up¨.
Every enhancer I got, from the little potions I had bought and found in the chests to anything I saw in the Crelus machine.
I took out my Rogue Sun armor. The mirror Grimoire is a little below the level of this battle, and the crystal flashlight could break. I took out my weapons, the Scissor Blades, the Elucidator, the Grass Sword... Even if I could probably make better weapons with my silver aura, they won't do any harm out of my inventory.
Still, my guard was not lowered. I summoned dozens of silver blades around me, I slightly shifted the gravity around my body to make it lighter. Oddly enough, I couldn't access Dante's body control magic, if I could, I would've already healed the scar in my eye.
I waited...
And waited...
For a moment, I thought I was getting used to the pressure in the air.
Next, a large roar interrupted the silence.
Followed by a sudden darkness.
But not any type of darkness, the one I was in felt void.
Not the absence of something; there was simply nothing there in the first place. As if God himself had forgotten to paint it in his first seven days.
"Just my type..." I said, not noticing the slight smile on my face.
In such a way, the battle began.
...
The fight is simple.
Do not get hit.
Of course, the flying lasers, beams, and eyes around me did that hard.
The Moon-Lord moved with incredible speed, even if most of his movements consisted of large swings that covered basically everything around him and exploded with his own energy.
Yes, his own energy.
He didn't use magic, something I learned the moment my aura didn't freeze his lasers.
Lasers that I tried to bend with my gravity, but something was wrong, they didn't bend completely, only a little. As if the gravity worked different in the void he made.
With every swing he made, I could punish it with precise strikes that were aimed at the parts he left unattended.
With every strike I made, dozens of green blasts surrounded me, somehow distinguishable in this void.
He moved faster than something as large as him should, less of a monster, more of a force of nature.
The eye in his forehead opened and began to shine, just as I saw it, the laser came at me with the speed of light, maybe a little less but either way I flew away.
Moon-Lord didn't chase me; it stood there watching me go, before disappearing in a burst of light and reappearing by my side.
With a swing, very similar to the others before, he threw me 100 of meters to the side of the forest, where I destroyed a large row of trees before using a gravitational pull to to keep me in place.
Gravity can be used in many ways, not just making things heavy.
A laser came after me. A dense laser.
Concentrating on the most I could, I contorted the space that the laser followed.
It didn't work, but I kept on trying.
The surroundings were getting destroyed, but I still tried different ways to bend the laser.
Every millisecond, the laser was moving towards me and the gravity changed around it, in it, in the space that it was to travel yet.
Just 30 meters away from me, I had almost began to dodge but finally, the laser bent.
It wasn't a lot. The direction changed for no more than 10° but it was enough.
With the speed it was going, 30 meters was enough to completely change its course.
I wasn't able to rejoin in my victory too much. The Moon-Lord appeared with a shine behind me, trying to do the same that he did before.
With a kick in the air, I swiftly went outside his reach. And stopped for a moment to admire my surroundings.
The Moon-Lord hadn't thrown me to another part of the forest, we had gone completely out of it, and we were now in the edge of the Hallow.
With a flicker of my hands, I changed the gravity around us.
Once again, not too much, but all of his lasers changed trajectory, his body became more sluggish and the True Eyes of Cthulhu around us became more erratic in their movements.
I've got it. Gravity obeys me once again.
Taking advantage of its struggle, I moved.
To be more accurate, I moved into position.
Lowering myself to solid ground, I began to accumulate heavy aura in my hand.
Right hand to my left side of the waist, left hand over it, knees slightly bent, concentration to the max. Flaring my aura to the maximum, my right hand became a full blade made of light and silver.
My right hand was raised to my chest, my left hand held the blade.
The Moon-Lord was going to attack.
It's time.
When its hand was hovering over me, I unleashed the energy in a single moment.
A moment faster than the speed of lasers, sound, and most importantly, light.
The void was severed open by the shine of my twin slashes, the coldness expanded, and the body of the Moon-Lord was thrown hundreds of meters back into the air, where the slashes I had sent became an explosion that made the day brighter and completely devoured any remnants of the True Eyes of Cthulhu.
I released a breath and sat down on the ground.
"That was tiring..." My body felt incredible. In the sense that I had never made an effort as big as this one, and in the sense that I enjoyed making such an effort.
Now I understand why all of those super powerful people in fiction want to fight until they're exhausted; it's a different feeling from exerting myself in a calculated exercise that I can finish at any point that I want. It feels fresher, more real.
Although, of course, I had full control over the fight at every point. I'm not going to risk my life for a little satisfaction.
"Well, we're done here-" Just as I was saying that, a flash of light appeared in my vision.
Moon-Lord's laser.
It missed me by a large mark and went into the Hallowed Forest.
I had stood up the moment the attack had appeared, my body protested but I got into battle position again.
When the attack missed, my body relaxed, but my senses stayed sharp, trained not to let my guard down at any moment.
The sun was up, the forest was silent, no animals were around us, and I saw the skeletal remains of the Moon-Lord disappear into the forest and heard the sound it made when it hit the ground.
Moments passed, and I could hear the tickling of a clock somewhere around these parts.
I wasn't even going to begin to think that it was safe; it had already gone wrong too many times. Even if it was just this one, that was one more than too many.
My wariness was rewarded when I heard a shriek behind me. Coming from the direction the Moon-Lord had sent its laser.
I realized the bastard hadn't missed the attack, it had made the best decision it could to kill me.
Behind me stood tall and ready to fight, The Empress of Light shrieked and contorted the light around her to make it brighter, to make it a weapon.
My body began to hurt. Maybe running was the best option, but I was sure she wouldn't let me. The sun that stood high above me was the prove of that.
I took flight and stared my opponent in the eye.
Once again, the battle began.
.....
She wasn't fast.
She wasn't so strong.
She was just oppressive.
The Empress herself didn't do much beyond letting her light do the job.
Her projectiles chased me with the flexibility that such fast projectiles shouldn't have.
She stood still while she summoned swords in patterns, prismatic bolts, rainbows that seemed to last forever, lances that seemed ethereal in nature, and many other things I didn't know were possible with light.
My body wasn't in good shape after doing two consecutive light-speed attacks that basically one-shotted the Moon-Lord. I couldn't do much beyond dodging in any way I could.
I couldn't simply alter the gravity around my body and redirect all of her attacks to another place. No, it was much more complicated than that.
She wasn't just weaponizing light and using it against me, she was light herself, light followed her every command and when it didn't she bent them to her will.
This wasn't like the Moon-Lord, who just used a different type of energy that I could figure out and counteract. She was an energy herself.
I could only use my gravity magic to throw myself across the battlefield and change directions abruptly when I needed it.
With every attack that got too close to comfort, my nervousness increased, but I couldn't afford to slip up, no, to be more precise, I couldn't slip. I was incapable.
I might not be used to such situations, but my assimilations definitely were, and such, to fall into panic in the face of a desperate situation would be to deny my assimilations. And such a thing couldn't happen.
My half-panic only helped me concentrate more. My eyes were snapped open, if I could see them; I would probably see them with black sclera and red iris, my mouth was open too.
The adrenaline was building in my body, my dodges were getting better, the empress noted the change and left her gloating to look at my movements.
More refined, more precise, almost elegant. At this moment, I understood that I needed something to push me to the limits of what I thought was possible for me to grow.
While dodging, I pulled my hand to my core and sent it in the direction of the Empress, with that motion, I had thrown a large cube of rock in her direction.
She didn't dodge it in time, and it grazed her wings.
That was enough to send her into motion, she started to accompany her attacks with movements, the thousands of projectiles were accompanied by her slashes.
She had gotten close to me, and while my gravity magic couldn't directly affect her, it could affect me, and I was using myself to make myself stronger.
Heavier punches, slashes, faster dodges, little pulls to dodge where my instinct failed me...
I was truly discovering the potential of my powers beyond slashing and punching everything that I came into contact.
Even with the danger of the fight, a smile appeared, blossomed on my face. I could hear music around me, as if an omnipotent god was playing it as my theme for the fight.
I summoned a lot of swords and, imitating Pain, did a especially strong singularity with her in the middle.
Everything in the surroundings attacked her: the swords, the trees, the earth, the mountains. Her whole biome became my weapon.
As I saw her become the center of a small planet, I resisted the urge to scream "Chibaku Tensei!"
Since she knew that she couldn't escape such a prison, and when she was fully contained, she would be at my mercy to kill, her attacks became especially aggressive, even more than usual, considering the sun was still up and she was being empowered by it.
It was her last struggle.
Light began escaping the mini-planet I was making. She was exerting herself as much as she could.
The speed of her projectiles began to approach actual light, at least it looked like that to my tired body, but I kept on dodging.
My aura began to move me by itself.
It wasn't helping me move, It wasn't empowering my movement, It was moving me by my will. My body was being puppeteer by sheer raw will, aura, and unbreakable concentration.
The light began to shine even more, the small planet even looked like a mini sun by now.
The music was blasting my ears at this point.
Her attacks slowly, but surely started to land on me.
I didn't pay it any mind.
A scratch on the shoulder...
A burn in the leg...
A bruise in the chest...
The injuries slowly started to pile up.
And all of a sudden-My arm was blasted.
It burned, more than it did when I was bitten by Spazmatism.
I kept on going, waiting for the right moment to attack.
And at last, the time came.
For a little moment, the light dimmed.
But it dimmed just enough.
I flew straight into the large planet on the air, my hand was transformed into a large sword and pointed straight into the center of the floating earth cluster.
The slash I made cut through the entire planet, freezing it from the middle
At that moment, the light projectiles disappeared into the air, and I heard a soul-shaking shriek come from behind me.
The battle had ended.
I win.
.....
Using a little bit of my left over concentration, the mini planet cut in half was disbanded and the batches of stone and dirt went back to their place. Ignoring the weird displacements the ice made.
I took the time to rest against a tree. I took my shirt off and wrapped it around my battered arm.
Before I could rest, though. A shining light came from the middle of the air, my mind identified that place as the center of the planet.
Sparkling there, a sword made of light that, in vibrating and shifting rainbow color, stood tall.
I just pulled it into my hand before throwing it into my inventory.
My body wanted to do nothing but rest. To fully shut down and not do anything.
Like a dolphin, I let half my brain stay awake while the Earth was still being reconstructed. Once the reconstruction was done, I shut down.
...Only to awaken a moment later, with a weird feeling in my stomach.
I opened my eyes, and saw a small animal in my stomach, no, wait, it wasn't a small animal, it was Eleanor.
Stepping over my stomach like I owed her money, Eleanor was looking at me with the same look someone would have if their most appreciated asset failed them at the most critical of times.
Like your pen running out of ink in the middle of an exam. You would feel betrayed, surprised, angry, and after that, contempt and disappointment.
Eleanor had skipped the first three parts and jumped straight to disappointment, but left aside the contempt.
"Uh." I was surprised, to say the least. I mean, I was in a fight that I could've lost, then threw myself to sleep, then woke up to see Eleanor just looking at me with bad emotions.
So, I can deduce she's angry about something I did between the time I last saw her and this moment. Last time I saw her, we were in a group helping people, after that I went to the temple, the dungeon, the pillars, the Moon-Lord...
Is she mad because I didn't take her?
"Don't worry." I try to sit up straight, but she doesn't budge. I don't want to overpower her, so we just remain like that. "I will bring you with me next-ugh." Her foot presses down on my stomach.
It doesn't really hurt, but it sends the message across. She's not communicating anything specific through our connection either. She's just standing there, menacingly.
So, what now?
Think, think, why is she mad at me? What did I do? I fought against a monster? Oh! Maybe she doesn't like that I reminded her of her previous life...?
Unlikely, she'd be mad ever since we came here. And she has been pretty chill so far.
"I give up. I have no idea what I did wrong." I stop trying to second-guess her problems and tell to her outright.
My experience tells me to just say it and hope for the best, of course, the best never comes.
I close my eyes, tighten my chest, brace myself for impact...
And nothing comes.
Slowly, I open my eyes, I feel a bead of sweat coming down the side of my head.
Eleanor only stares at me with a mix of sadness and disappointment in her eyes.
It kinda hurts in my heart to see her stare at me like this.
"Although!" I quickly add something, anything, to excuse myself. "It doesn't mean that I can't know..." A silver of confusion appears in her gaze, I capitalize on it.
"I'm not too experienced in interpersonal relationships... Or interacting with someone who doesn't want something from me, or I want something from." I relax my shoulders, while my overall position doesn't change, I fully throw myself into the grass.
My voice takes another tone, a calm one.
"So far, it's been nice, easy, comfortable... It's been really enjoyable to make little connections to the people around me, to be influenced by them, to influence them... To make a difference in their lives..." Am I side-tracking? I still think I have a point...
"But even if I enjoy it, my inexperience shows in moments like this." Eleanor let's me stand up, I hold her under the shoulders and take her in a light hug.
"That's why I need you to tell me, I don't know how my actions affect others, I don't know how I will make mistakes, I don't know how to correct mistakes, but I know I want to learn. Help me with that, please." I said, my voice was firm, but I was slightly nervous... I guess that sharing with people has that constant nervousness
Eleanor sighed. She returned the hug and wrapped her tiny arms around my neck. Moving her behind me, we went back to the village, which wasn't too far from here.
Her problem was rather simple.
She wasn't mad that I didn't take her- She kinda was, but at most it was a slight bother- She was mad because I could've suffered a heavy injury in something like this.
I promised that such a thing wouldn't happen again, that I valued my life more than anything, and I wouldn't take any risks like this from now on. My thoughts were slightly different, though.
My first thought was ¨I knew what I was getting into, it's fine.¨ But I immediately realized such a way of thinking was too selfish.
And now that I think about it, I kinda am.
I guess that everyone is a little selfish, but if I keep repeating what happened today without paying any mind to the effect it makes in the people around me... Then I wouldn't be any different from an actual selfish person.
I want to be a little bit more selfless, then. A little bit more thoughtful about the others. A little bit more empathetic. A little bit better.
'Effect on the people around me...' This sentence remained in my head, constantly knocking in the back of it, as if begging to be thought about, as if there were more things to know about it.
But in the meantime, we finally got to the village.
Everyone was out of their houses, looking a little preoccupied, nervous, looking all around... even ready to flee at any point.
I went to the closest person to me and asked. The girl I spoke to looked between frightened and expectant. As if the slightest sound was going to scare her off
"Hey, what's going on? Why is everyone so nervous?" My voice was calm, almost contrasting the voice of the girl when she answered.
"Eh...?" That little sound came out of her mouth and took a part of her soul with it. Recomposing herself, she asked with a little laugh. "What do you mean? Haven't you heard those rumbles and sounds? The way the earth moved?"
Uh? What... Ah.
I suppose killing the evil god of this world and the empress of light wouldn't really be something that can go under everyone's notice so easily.
Now that I think about it, I ignored it because I had to fight high-level threats at the moment, but how exactly did the two other pillars fall? The Vortex and the Solar pillar weren't precisely important, but they're still dangerous.
"It's the princess!" A male voice screamed and pointed somewhere, in that direction, the princess in her pink majesty strode in over a horse, accompanied by a small army of knights, gunner, tanks, and several other archetypes for party roles.
It looked like they were ready for a WoW boss raid. Hell, there were even robed people with staff in their hands. Definitely mages.
Everyone started visibly relaxing, someone applauded a little, another accompanied him and soon enough everyone was applauding, screaming, etc, etc.
I made myself invisible and got out of there within no time.
Obviously, I noticed the gaze of a certain mage on me.
Before, I would've thought that this could be a bother.
Now, I think I'm a little interested in what this could bring.
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A/N: Hey.
I better not see any comments like ¨The MC could've done all of the helping work by himself.¨
It's kind of an odd feeling trying to write a character with bad parent and absent father. Like, that could not be me, but its a reality for various people, so I can't even say it's fantastical.
Well, the backstory has a touch of... well, I don't know what to call it. A little bit of realism, a little bit of a fantasy-like situation that feels grounded enough to make you think about it, but still a far concept from you... Yeah, it's not really specific.
It was really cool for me to write the memories, I tried writing them like a classical piece of literature, with the most coming out towards the end. I even slipped in a paraphrased reference to classical book(Is it a copy? Like, I took it out of the book and said it because it could've fit in well...Meh, maybe it's not a copy because I'm explicitly saying it's a reference.)
I liked making the cultist, even if he was only a plot device I'm going to use for the MC. I liked writing from his POV. This doesn't get across the entirety of my feelings, so let me use an example.
When he died, instead of writing, Assuring me I'm still alive, I wrote, Assuring me I'm not dead yet. It gets the message through.
By the way, soon we will have the gacha pulls... Holy shit. I've been keeping the numbers in a virtual notepad and never noticed that it became like this.
Like, EoC was 15, Brain and Eater were 20, QB 30, Skeletron 40, WoF 50... And like that, somehow we got to such a big number. I think that making the Twins 60 each was the turning point, and the fact that LC was 90 for such a small problem, but he wasn't that much of a small problem, actually, he was just really human. And he had a large part in this world's plot, so that's something
Another thing, I've been investigating The Hercules Method. I read the comic long ago, and I reread it and loved it again. I researched some sources, but for some reason, I keep encountering some people saying that Luther Strode has some sort of pheromone power. That he get with the method?
Not only have I read the comic, but I've also researched the Image Comics data base, the different powerscaling fandoms, the characters wiki... And nothing really official says that he has such an ability.
Is it just for people to give it to their OC and make them fuck every girl they throw in the setting?
Anyways, I think I've said everything I had to... this ended up a little big, huh.