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Chapter 132 - Heaven and Hell, Let's Rock
🕑 Added 2019-09-22 16:00:03 +0000 UTC
I may have seemed quite enthusiastic about encountering these two Old Humans away from anything they could threaten me with but their own abilities, but their gloves are off as well. They don't run the risk of exposing themselves before witnesses that may question their divinity here.
Zenlith still hasn't shown himself, but he makes his presence known through the invisible lasers cutting up my body at specific intervals. It seems that he has a cooldown, so at least I can work around it even when I have no way of knowing what angle it's coming from.
Well, I do know that it's coming from above, but that doesn't help me much when I can't see anything through the thunderclouds that have begun gathering again. And going up there isn't an option when I have an opponent before me.
Serent is still keeping up with his roleplaying of a psychopomp, so all he does is swing his scythe whenever I'm inconvenienced. Although he's easily three meters tall, his movements are nimble; every single spirit spear has missed its mark, and he even seems to be getting better at dodging them.
I shoot up into the air, acting as if I'm trying to break through the clouds. The Liberator of the Dead obviously won't let that pass, as he swings his immaterial scythe by the very back of the handle to cut where I'm going to be rather than where I am.
In an instant, I reverse my momentum and disregard all the g-forces that act on my body by virtue of being a Crawling Chaos. At the same time, I also reverse my form, turning my back to the front and the front to the back so that I don't have to turn around physically. Creating a spirit spear in my hand to wield it as a physical weapon, I catch Serent off-guard and make his wide swing miss.
But he seems to be an experienced fighter - unlike most of the other Old Humans - and immediately regains his composure. Raising a massive skeletal hand, he grabs my torso while pulling back his weapon to decapitate me from behind.
Opening my hand around the spirit spear, I let it fly straight at his chest while abandoning my head by spreading the seat of my consciousness across my entire body. It's a strange feeling, and I don't like doing it, as I can now see from every inch of my body at the same time - it overloads the vestiges of my human understanding.
Serent opens his mouth and angles his head, letting the spirit spear fly through the gaps of his jaw where there wouldn't have been any in a regular human head. At the same time, his scythe cuts straight through my shield and takes off the head where my consciousness used to be concentrated in. It scatters into ash before it hits the ground.
I'd love to make them think that they killed me, but I doubt the Old Human still grabbing me by the torso would fall for it. Dropping me like a dirty rag, he nimbly spins his scythe around his body to cut me in two. But I suddenly charge straight at him with one spirit spear forming in each of my hands.
That's when an invisible laser comes down and splits me down the middle. In fact, it's my momentum that takes me through the stationary laser rather than it moving through me. As seems to be the case whenever a Crawling Chaos is burned, the surface bubbles rather than get cauterized, as if hurrying to repair the damage. It allows me to grow tendrils between the separated pieces and reconnect them quickly.
However, this time is different. My consciousness resides in both parts at the same time, and I forget to reconnect because of this alien feeling. This couldn't be what happened when Asoko was created, right?
I fall past the surprised Serent, who doesn't seem to be communicating with Zenlith directly and misses the opportunity to cut me up further. As I drop toward the ground, my reflexes tell me to form a viable human shape again, and so I do - creating two of me at the same time. The sensation of disconnect between body and mind grows as I see myself falling as if I'm looking into a mirror, but from both sides of it at the same time.
Serent realizes that something is up and follows me to finish the job in midair. However, I focus my mind and overcome the nausea that this strange sensation causes by seeing through where my eyes should be again. It's much more manageable if it's just controlling two bodies, kind of like I do in the Chaos jet. But there, I was still connected through the body of the plane; these two aren't physically linked at all. I don't know where my mind is located, so I have to concentrate with all my being to control both.
I fly sideways to dodge the scythe coming for the left split body, but it causes my right one to fly in the exact same direction and straight into the path of Serent's swing. Did I say control? I'm just fumbling about with these new settings.
"What?!" Luckily for me, the Old Human didn't see that coming and stops his attack to retreat. Maybe it's because both of me are still holding one spirit spear in one hand each. His surprised ethereal voice vibrates through the air and reaches both my split bodies' ears, one of me hearing it with a split-second delay.
This is nothing like my anime Sh*dow Clone technique! I should come back together as quickly as possible before one of me decides that it wants to remain an individual. But since I'm controlling both through one mind, that shouldn't happen, unlike with Asoko who gained a separate consciousness the moment we split.
"I'll deal with this later." I make both of me create another spirit spear in my empty hands and attack Serent from two sides. Even if my mass is split in half, the very fact that this is happening right now seems to confuse my opponent sufficiently and cause him to freeze up. Unsure of what to do, he flies into the air to avoid getting into melee range with me and stares at me with the two red dots in his empty eye sockets.
"What have you done?" It would seem that he isn't asking me but Zenlith.
"Is that monster an amoeba?" The Lord of the Sky's voice booms across the sky, sounding just as confused as Serent appears to be. That reminds me of a quip Senka made a long time ago, something about me being named after an amoeba.
"What's the matter? Scared now that there are two of me?" I bluff by speaking with one and finishing the sentence with the other. Concentrating hard, I make one charge forward while the other throws both spirit spears at Serent just to make it seem like they're separate individuals each with the power to fight on their own.
He flies up into the sky to avoid both, but my control isn't good enough to follow him right away. To hide that fact, I taunt them further.
"So two men ganging up on a lone girl is alright, but when the situation is turned around, you chicken out?" I make it seem like I'm deliberately not following him rather than because I can't.
"Do not use the Helios Cannon anymore. She will only split further." The Liberator of the Dead calls out to the Lord of the Sky, either because they really don't have any way to communicate without letting me hear it, or he's trying to lull me into a false sense of security.
Whatever the case, they're becoming cautious of me now. As long as Zenlith doesn't show himself, all I can do is concentrate on Serent. He's quite troublesome with that scythe that seems to be able to annihilate the smaller part of whatever it cuts through. The issue is when he decides to use whatever it was that killed my mother while her body was still whole.
But something tells me it might have conditions attached that he can't invoke whenever he wants to. Otherwise, he would have used it already instead of engaging in close combat with me even when he fears the spirit spears.
A thought occurs to me: What if I try this like in a computer game? Switching off the sense of sight in the forward body, I turn it into third-person view from the me in the back, which remains in first-person. With this, I can play a third-person action game as well as a first-person shooter game - although it still requires significant skill to control both at the same time. I don't have parallel processing brains after all.
The first-person shooter game me grows a minigun on the right arm. It's a portable version of the plasma rotary cannon I created on my G*ndam transformation in the attack on Kairaki. At the same time, the third-person action game me creates a layered shield of light over the left arm and a spirit spear in the right hand.
Unleashing a barrage of plasma, I aim to make Serent go back down to ground level. But of course, he doesn't feel the need to dodge and only swings around his cloak of darkness to block the pellets. However, that was part of my plan, as disguised within the storm of bullets were tiny spirit spears that are practically indistinguishable from the plasma.
Several of them fly straight through his inky black cloak and impact his real body underneath it all. Letting out a scream of pain, he quickly flies down to avoid getting hit anymore. But there, I switch my focus to the melee me and stab upward with the regular-sized spirit spear.
He swings his scythe at me in hopes to make me get out of the way on my own volition, but I raise the shield even though I know that it won't be able to block the blade. Instead, I extend my arm and stop the pole of his weapon before the blade can slash through my upper body. In the same motion, the spirit spear goes straight for Serent's face.
In the last moment, he reflexively raises a skeletal hand to capture it, but the light magic pierces through his palm and impacts the left side of his face, where it explodes on contact. Just then, heat cuts through my body, causing it to split down the middle. Both parts regenerate and grow into full bodies immediately.
For a moment, seeing everything from three different angles causes my mind to snap a little. But it only feels like a rubber band being accidentally let go in the wrong direction. This is the first time I've seen myself see myself so my brain is turning to mush and flowing out of the duck into the squirrel-
"Stop!" I shout at myself and all three of me freeze on the spot. Looking at each other for a moment, I scratch all of my heads at the same time and then smile vacantly. "Why, this is a funny feeling..."
"My face!" The Liberator of the Dead roars as he rights himself after the explosion to the side of his face, then pulls aside his cloak to reveal a multitude of skulls in place of his ribcage. He doesn't have any legs, and the body ends in a dangling spine. Several of the heads have also been damaged by the spirit spears fired from the minigun earlier, but he takes out an unscathed one and replaces the head on his shoulders with it, dropping the skull to the ground carelessly.
Then he notices that there are three of me now, and his new jaw opens with an audible clatter. That just looks so funny that I burst out laughing, but one of me has to dodge quickly as he angrily swings his scythe at me.
"I told you not to split her further!" Serent shouts up into the sky.
"She was going to kill you!" Zenlith's angry voice echoes across the area in reply. I don't understand what's wrong with that. In fact, why did he stop me from doing it?
No no no, my mind is getting messed up. I'm forgetting who is what and what is the name of that animal I feel over there?
"I do not die! I AM DEATH!" Serent's thunderous announcement pulls me back a little before I almost fall down the mental rabbit hole. I really have to pull myself together right now. Maybe in the literal sense too.
"Spoken like a teenager in that phase of their life!" The first-person shooter me points at the floating skeleton with a pitying expression, which causes the other two of me to burst out laughing. "Hey, what's so fu-huhuhu hahaha!"
Then the first-person me starts laughing too, infected by the general feeling overcoming my mind. If there was something important we had to do, I already forgot.
"Wait, pull yourself together!" I suddenly shout out to myself, and all three of me freeze while staring at Serent.
"What is going on?!" Zenlith's voice echoes across the area, clearly wondering about my strange behavior.
"Why don't you come down here and find out?" The three of me speak in unison. At least in this case, my mind is made up of butterflies instead of bubbles. No, my mind is in harmony when it comes to its response to one of the Old Humans responsible for the death of my mother.
"Know who else is responsible?" The new me asks the third-person action game me.
"This one!" The first-person me raises the minigun and unloads a volley straight at Serent without regard for the new me standing in its path.
"Woah there!" She rolls out of the way just in time to avoid it. With a nimble sideway gliding motion, the skeletal Old Human does the same.
"I'll have to pin him down before I can shove this long and thick thing down his throat." I say to myself, prompting me to rush at Serent from both sides while the first-person me aims the minigun once again.
But then the invisible laser comes down again and splits that one down the middle. Regenerating the lost half from all the mass I have, I find myself quartered.
"Whee!" The new me makes with a blank grin while pointing at the me still holding a minigun.
"Am I getting dumber with each split?" I ask myself, but realize that all four of me have the same blank smile. "But this feels really good."
"More!" Two of me shout up into the sky, asking Zenlith to split me further.
"What are you?!" But he instead just booms across the sky in a mixture of anger and confusion.
"I'm Chaos!" All four of me announce in unison, each in a different intonation. The first sounds determined, the second angry, the third somber, and the fourth has the voice of a happy little girl. But they're all me hahaha~
"We have to hurry! She is coming!" Serent makes his scythe disappear into the blackness of his cloak and raises both his arms. Darkness begins to swirl around him; so maybe he's going to use whatever he did to my mother.
"Why did we stop calling her Maou-mama, I wonder?" The innocent fourth me asks all of a sudden. It causes me to stop dead in my tracks before the first me answers. "Because it didn't feel appropriate to call her that after her death."
"Girls, we have bigger things to worry about." The somber third points at Serent gathering his powers.
But to me, that looks like useless visuals to impress an audience instead of having any practical reasons. I'll use that opportunity to attack him while he's standing - or floating - in place and doing the male counterpart of the magical girl transformation sequence. The villains could always attack them at that time, but they don't do it, seemingly out of courtesy. Or simply because the plot demands it.
I'm neither a villain nor courteous, and there is no plot to follow. I'm four. No wait, there are four of me, of whom one seems to be four years old.
"Stop thinking, start doing!" The angry second me shouts out and splits my arms into their individual tentacles. Then a spirit spear appears at the tip of each, with which I run at Serent.
At the same time, I lift both of the determined first's arms, grow a minigun on the one that doesn't have one, and unleash a storm of plasma pellets at him from another angle. The somber third summons two light barriers on the Liberator of the Dead's sides and motions them to squeeze him in.
The fourth me giggles like crazy while pointing at our more or less coordinated effort.
But a lake of darkness suddenly spreads out underneath Serent, into which he disappears right as the light barriers created by the somber me are about to lock him in place. The angry me just barely misses the top of his head with the closest tentacle before he disappears, and all the spirit spears and plasma pellets fly through empty space.
That's when the innocent me notices a giant face forming in the clouds, which is definitely Zenlith's doing. Serent's lake suddenly shoots upward as if something exploded inside it, and the darkness flies straight into the cloud face like a burst of-
"Ahahahaha!" All four of me point and laugh at this unintentional comedy. But then there's a break in the clouds, and a beam of light comes straight down onto the fourth me. All sensation disappears from that area of my body, and I watch in horror as the split body turns into dust.
"You took my innocence!" The angry me shouts up into the sky, only to receive the next beam of light. Once again, I feel a part of me disappear and turn to nothingness. This weapon doesn't seem to have a cooldown and instantly erases my mass without any way to counter it. Is this the end?
"Ahhh! I don't want to die!" The somber me cries out, but then I realize that it came from both of my remaining bodies.
"I won't let you die, senpai!" Suddenly, the clouds in the sky disperse in an instant, revealing a massive triangular vessel floating in place. There's a gigantic dome-shaped structure attached to the bottom, as well as what appears to be an antenna on a swivel. The former is doubtlessly the weapon that destroyed my split bodies, and the latter is the Helios cannon.
"Exla!" Both of me shout at the same time, and I feel relief washing over me when I see the cloud girl above me. "Wait, are you-"
"Yes." She replies with a confident grin without waiting for my actual question.
"Wait!" Zenlith's voice appears to come from a speaker system in the flying vessel rather than because he's dispersed in the atmosphere or something like that. So that was his trick all along? "If you attack, I'll destroy this continent before you can reach me."
"No, you won't." Exla raises a hand, then brings it down on the ship in a chop of rebuttal.
"Misleading perspective, oi!!!" I point at her and shout in surprise. It looked like she was much smaller and somewhere between me and that thing in the sky, but she was actually massive and far behind it. Her voice was echoing anyway, so I couldn't tell the distance that way.
"Nooo, stooop!" The Lord of the Sky's voice sounds desperate, but it's too late to plead for mercy. The cloud girl's hand breaks straight through the hull of the ship and snaps it in half. A massive explosion occurs as something important was hit and detonates. I spot an escape pod separating from the hull just before that place bursts out in flames as well.
"Oh no, you don't!" The determined first grows in size and turns into a smaller version of the Godslayer Cannon - all that my mass can achieve right now. Never has its name been as appropriate as in this very moment, as I'll kill the real body of a self-proclaimed god with it.
But before I can fire, Exla's hand comes around and grabs the pod out of the air.
At the same time, the remaining other me notices that among the falling rubble, Serent is coming toward me. The damage to the skulls making up his chest has been healed, and he brings out his scythe from inside his cloak in a last-ditch effort to kill me. However, he has to decide between the two bodies first.
And not like getting cut by him instantly kills me as long as I can spread my consciousness evenly across them. I'll only lose mass, and he'll have to repeat that process many times until I'm too small to hold my current consciousness. But before that can happen, I'll have destroyed him first.
"Do it! Come on! Kill me now! I'm here!" I raise my determined half's arms and mock him by undoing the minigun transformation. It unexpectedly has the intended effect, as he flies forward straight at that me while ignoring the other me.
At this point, my control over the split bodies has become impeccable. After all, getting a taste of four separate bodies with one consciousness seems to have unlocked my potential or something.
The body being attacked splits down the middle while the other one comes flying forward at speeds faster than that of sound - with an array of spirit spears angled and focused into a point like a ramming spike. The surprise of seeing me split causes Serent to waver for a moment even though he knows that the Helios cannon was destroyed.
That causes him to not notice the deadly missile flying toward him from behind. The light pierces his head and disintegrates his skull from behind.
Then the sonic boom hits my split parts and sweeps them away from each other even though I intended to put them back together right away. Now my mind rubberbands once again as the world around me twist for a split second.
The headless torso of the Old Human falls to the ground, causing my mind to return to reality. Through my Chaos senses, I can tell that it's not over yet; he still has a life signature. There are a dozen more skulls to replace the one he lost, and one is slowly creeping up his chest toward the stump of his neck. That might be his fantasy of immortality.
Instead of smashing them one by one, the closest me grabs the body by the dangling spine.
"W-wait! What are you-" All skulls speak at the same time. His arms are unmoving, so before the missing head is replaced, he seems unable to move. That means he's utterly at my mercy. And I have none to spare right now.
I swallow Serent whole before he can regain control over his body. Transforming my unfathomable insides into a grinder made from dragon armor, I begin to move on him from all sides. He realizes that there's no escape this time, as one skull after another is shattered and ground into dust.
"Stop! I don't want to die!" A multitude of voices screams inside me, but I speed up the process before he can attach the replacement head to the neck and regain his freedom of movement.
Before long, he's ground down to dust disappearing in my depths as nutrients. His life signature within my Chaos senses fades as nothing remains of him.
With this, Serent is dead.
"Is he..." Exla comes down in her giant form, her hand still closed around the escape pod in which Zenlith is doubtlessly pissing his real body's pants.
"Yes." The part of me that ate him replies. Then I walk forward with my other two thirds, causing the cloud girl to blink in surprise. "And yeah, that happened. Guess I can split now."
As I say this, I rejoin the three pieces to form a full me again. My mind still feels wonky, so I hit the side of my head as if that will put the loose screw back in. Then I look up at Exla with all the determination I can muster.
"Now for Zenlith." I extend a hand as if asking her to give him to me. She stares at me for a moment, then looks down at her balled fist before opening it - to my surprise.
But suddenly, a lightning bolt shoots out from her hand. She furrows her brow, and just a few dozen meters away, a figure drops out of the sky, crashes through some trees, and impacts the ground.
She just denied his fantasy with a simple thought, just as she blocked him from turning his threat of destroying this continent if she were to attack him into a reality earlier. I fly over to where he fell and find a naked boy looking like a younger Zenlith trying to get back up. It seems that she didn't fully turn him into a simple human and let him retain at least a modicum of power that allowed him to survive that fall.
"Exla, how could y-?!" He turns around and shouts, but then sees me still in my Crawling Chaos form and shrinks back. His eyes are round, and his mouth moves without making a sound. That's an expression of fear, and I revel in the thought that this is an Old Human.
"Are you going to kill him?" The cloud girl asks behind me, though her voice makes it clear that she has no intention to stop me if that were the case. It seems that she has already given up on her brother's life.
"No." To both their surprises, I reply in the negative. One part of me really wanted to until I saw him like this, and a big part still wants to even now. It's not that I have any pity for him in this powerless state, but that I think death is too quick. After all, it wasn't from Serent's power alone, but with the help of Zenlith's war machine that my mother was killed. "Not yet."
"What do you mean?" Exla sounds concerned as if expecting that I'm going to torture Zenlith for a long time before finally ending his life. It's a tempting prospect, and he certainly deserves it for all the things he's done. But Serent deserved it all the same, and he got a quick way out because I didn't want to take any chances.
"Death is too light a punishment. I will take away all that's precious to him." I cross my arms and look down on the boy. The fact that he isn't glancing past me to his sister tells me that she isn't one of those things. He's an arrogant little kid whose game and reputation are more important to him than family and morals. That's what he'll suffer to lose then.
"W-what do you intend to do to me?" His voice is a mix of fear and indignation, but I don't sense a hint of regret or repentance in it. It's hard to be humble when one hasn't had the need to do so for however many thousand years he has been alive.
"You'll see." I extend a hand toward him and state with a cold smile.
Comments
T.Tandstad
Thx for the chapter
