Location : ???
Time : ???
One could see a man with blue hair walking alone .He wore simple clothes , a t-shirt with a brown coat on top with a black trousers . A common pice of clothing atleast before the world went crazy The man seemed to be in his early twenties but the truth was that he was older , much much older. He carried on his back a weapon which could only be described as an oversized sword. But perhaps calling the blade that split the ground and razed the earth and took the life of a true goddess a mere weapon would be nothing short of insulting. Not that he would mind of course, after all for him , a blade had only one purpose, to take lives. In particular, his weapon , The Judgement Of Shamash was forged by him for a single purpose; destruction . A perfect tool for a butcher like him .
The ground that he walked on was a deep black, just like the sky above it which was to be expected, as after the fight the entire earth was consumed in fire which lead to the ground being turned to lava, which after cooling lead to the entire world being turned into black volcanic rock giving it the appearance of a black pearl. The man looked up and sighed or rather he tried to. After all , there wasn't exactly an atmosphere to breath. He looked up at starry sky in which an extremely small and faint white dot twinkled in the distance, which was the sun or atleast it was the sun while the moon seemed to be missing, but he knew where it was , after all he was the one responsible for its disappearance . He looked at the stars with a faint smile and thought how beautiful they looked. Mukuro truly would have loved seeing them . Of course that hardly mattered now that he had lost them. He .... Had lost everyone. There was no one in the world. No animals , no humans , no nothing. Empty endless expanse as far as the eyes could see. He was the last human, the last living being on earth. And how couldn't he be , after all he was the one responsible for eradicating all life on earth. The one who brought about the end of mankind was not a world war, or hell even those goddamn polluters ; those bloody invaders , no it was a single man , a single twenty five year old man whose grief and hatred brought forth the end . Truly fate had a bad sense of humour.
He reached towards a a large stone structure, which seemed something along the lines of a large palace built entirely out of stone. It would have taken years to build even with the help of thousands of people and advanced machines but when you can create near infinite clones each capable of easily lifting multiple tonnes of weight and capable of coordinating with each other precisely, it was hardly a problem. He reached inside it and navigated him to a large room . The room was well lit with a peculiar lanterns which seemed to give off an eerie glow . On the end of the large hall was a raised platform with stairs leading upto a single large seat, a throne to be precise. The throne was made from the same black rock as everything around it.
However the throne was not unsightly , far from it. It seemed as if some great sculptor had spent his life , toiling day and night to create this masterpiece , an object of beauty and grandeur that only the greatest kings would be fit to seat on . However the truth was that the man himself had crafted the throne. For him it wasn't too big of a deal as he had only obtained the skill of sculpting some hundred years ago after devouring the soul of a man he came across while killing the inhabitants of a town after they tried to hunt him. It was one of the many perks that came with his bloodline , as long as he devoured the soul of any being he would gain all their memories and skills. He seated himself on the throne and prepared himself for immolation. Soul immolation, a technique in which a cultivator could choose to destroy their soul releasing all of the soul's energy in a blaze of glory. This would result in an explosion directly equivalent to the cultivator's level. It was the same technique that reine used to destroy the polluters and led to the chain of events that resulted in the extinction of humanity. Of course as he was something that could only be described as a ' Fake cultivator ' there was no way his explosion would be anything close to that of a true goddess like reine. A part of him still wished that there was an afterlife and he could meet all of them, but he knew it was nothing but wishful thinking on his part. After all, for a destroyed soul , thee was no reincarnation, no second chance, it was simply the end as it ceased to exist. He would be like that too. He knew it was not a sufficient punishment for his crimes but still he chose to do it.
He would let the whole cosmos know , That Shido Itsuka ; the man who slayed a god ; the man who devoured the sun and brought humanity to extinction accepted his end on his own choice and his own will and not by someone else's hands ! With that , a bright light engulfed the room as nothing but pure dazzling radiance could be seen. But as he himself said , Fate truly had a bad sense of humour and for him it seemed , Fate had other plans.
Location: ???
Time : B̵̨͚̝̳̦̥̬̽͛̀̔͗́ḙ̷̡̡̬̦̩̰̞̻͍͈̒̐̐́̌͆̀̀̓̋̆̅̾̃̃̌̐͒̿͆̋̕͘͜͝͝ÿ̵̧͚̜̦́͜ǫ̷̧̡̞̣͍̜̝͔͕̘͎̬̥̘͉̦̤͉̱͕̠̮̆̏̎͑͗̓̌̿̽̅͊̋̚ͅn̶͔̤̪͍̆́̀̂̉̎͝d̴̡̨̲͈̜̳̤̈̋̓̋͗́̎̓̈̈́̓̾̕̚̚͠͠͝ ̵͍͐̋͑́̌͂̀͊̐t̸̨̲̺͕͍̩͔̟̭̬͙̻͉̦̋̓͌̑̆̉̇͌̌̉͛̾͑̎̚͘̚͝ͅį̷̧̘̻͙̜̣̬͉̱̼̣̗̮̹̬̠̲͙͚̝͇͋̉̈̎͐̔̇̂͛͗͘͘͠ͅͅm̸̛̱͓͈̼̦̲̅̃͑͌̾͐̚͘̕̕ĕ̸̢̈̃̎͑́̓̆̍̍̿̾̽̄̕̕͠͠͝͝
This was certainly not what Shido expected his death to be like. His soul was supposed to be destroyed and he should have ceased to exist. But rather he found himself in this strange room , where everything seemed to be blue for some reason. The walls the carpet, the furniture, the bookcase with hardbound blue books in it. Whoever designed this room clearly had either an obsession with the colour blue or a fetish for it . Either way, he had no interest in meeting such a creepy person. But he quickly found out something that broke this chain of thought, he found that he had a physical body.
Eventually he thought that perhaps there was a possibility that the souls go to some previously undiscovered place after immolation and he too was in such a place but him having a physical body completely dashed this unlikely theory of his. His physical body being present here meant that he was teleported here. There are only three ways of teleporting someone. First one was to use a spell or instrument capable of warping space time and then capable of transporting the person or object in question from one place to another. However this had two glaring weaknesses; first the distance of teleportation was extremely small, so something like even going from one city to another was completely impossible. Second , in case of a spell , the Magus in question had to be atleast in the Venerable Magus stage to even attempt to do that , which was a pretty high cultivation level as the number of Venerable Maguses were only in the few thousands all over the world, atleast before the polluters invaded. As for using instruments , even if someone made a complex enough instrument capable of teleportation, it would require egregious amounts of either mana or Qi ( although mana was more preferred due to its ease of use) . This was clearly evident in the case of Fraxinus as the ship had to divert nearly 2 percent of its total energy just to transport a single individual and that bloody thing was capable of staying completely on flight and operate for many months once fuelled completely. But considering that he noticed no fluctuations in mana or even spell circles around him, it was safe to say this option was out of the window.
The second option was to use a teleportation array. An array at its simplest could be described as a large scale spell which is inscribed in a large area, required special materials from various mystical beasts and a large amount of mana or Qi to operate. Of course this was a gross, gross oversimplification as equating an array to a spell was the same as saying that since both an amoebae and a dog perform metabolic activity and are capable of reproduction, they are the same and hence he should be allowed to bring his pet amoeba to a dog competition. Those two aren't even in the same biological kingdom ! Regardless, if it was indeed an array that teleported him here it was understandable that he could not detect it as it was possible for arrays to conceal themselves as the array itself was not a physical thing but more along the lines of a a bunch of physical objects being placed in a specific pattern and supplied with a specific frequency of mana or Qi to form a large scale magic circle. However this hypothesis of his posed another problem ; that being even the simplest of arrays required hours to be properly set up. Even if there was an true God who had devoted his entire life to study array formations and was the best of the best, even he would at best be able to do it in a few minutes. But there was no way in hell someone could create a complex array like a teleportation array which required multiple months to set up instead of minutes. But he was ignoring the biggest issue here ,that being .....THERE WAS NOT A SINGLE FUCKING LIVING BEING ON EARTH ! Unless of course there was a living being capable of surviving the temperature hotter than the surface of the fucking sun in the absence of an atmosphere while simultaneously living without food for the last 100 goddamn years.
The third possiblity was , well it was certainly an interesting one. The only other option left was that he was brought here by the application of spatial law. The laws were.... well difficult to explain to say the least. The best way to define them was this ; if one could equate the entirety of the cosmos as a computer program, the laws were essentially strings of code that governed certain interactions and machinations of the cosmos. There were nine laws in total ; the five basic ( essentially the easiest laws to comprehend ) and the four higher ( the more tricky ones .) The basic laws were : The law of Fire , The law of wind , The law of land , The law of Lightning and finally The law of frost ( to be honest this name always sounded weird to him as what this law essentially did was controlling entropy in particles allowing one to change the atomic activity thus changing temperature of matter, but eh , whatever . Semantics are a strange thing ) . The four higher laws were : The law of Space , The law of Time , The law of Life and The law of Death . The four higher laws differed from the basic laws because of their interconnected nature. For example when one comprehended the law of Space, it becomes easier for that person to comprehend the law of time. Easier being the key word here as they still had to comprehend the law, but it was more like climbing sixty steps instead of climbing a hundred if they did not comprehend it's counterpart law. Upon understanding or comprehending a law one could freely manipulate that aspect of reality ( within certain limitations directly proportional to their understanding of the law ) as they pleased. For example, if someone comprehended the law of fire, one could freely control the flames as they pleased without mana or the need to use spells. Technically speaking, said person could even control an attack of a fire spell directed at them as spells use mana as energy and the spell circles and incantations act as guiding mechanisms and constraints for them . But a person with the mastery of the law could simply command the element to simply stop . Of course as the level of spell increased, the degree of mastery of law required to control it also increased. And from what information he had, most spells of the divine level that true Gods used required mastery of laws so advanced that it was pretty much impossible to control someone else's spell. He himself had the mastery over all nine laws to a fairly good degree but he didn't knew whether it was common or uncommon for one person to master multiple laws. Hell, the only reason he had mastery over them wasn't because he spent years learning them , but rather because when the first time he awakened his fool arcana , he unlocked certain parts of his memories, as if a seal that had been placed on him was broken. He suddenly gained knowledge on multiple things like nature of souls, martial spirits, sword techniques , blade force and of course the comprehension of the laws. But he was just a normal person in his past life as shinji, so this could only mean one thing, that in a life before being born as shinji takamiya , a normal human, he was a cultivator. However he had no recollection of said life.
Disregarding that, if he was truly brought here by someone manipulating spatial law, it made sense for him being unable to detect it as there are no mana fluctuations upon its use, making it virtually impossible to detect. However the law of Space was one of the higher laws. This meant that unlike the basic laws whose interactions were limited to only the physical and material world , the higher laws also interacted with the immaterial, that is the soul. The souls were essentially a trump card for someone trying to counter against the application of higher laws. For example, the law of Death , one of the most potent laws allowed one to simply impart death when used on someone. It essentially severed the connection of the soul to the physical body and force the soul to depart to the collective unconscious where it would remain for a while, before once again entering the cycle of reincarnation. However the two factors that governed whether the soul would be separated from the body were : the degree of mastery of the law of Death of the person using it and second , the strength of the soul which directly correlated to the size of the soul on whom the law was being used. ( The peculiar property of soul size being connected to soul strength also allowed one to use the souls as secondary storage spaces to store various objects like the inventory in games. The reason why souls were able to fit inside the body regardless of their size was because souls were essentially self contained worlds, almost as if they were their own dimension {although one couldn't just transport themselves into the soul of another person no matter the degree of mastery of law of Space as the word dimension here was used quite loosely } . Also since the souls were their own self contained worlds, they did not have the existence of law of time inside them , so time essentially did not exist , so the things stored in souls would never degrade ) . Provided that the difference between the soul strength of the target and the degree of mastery of law of the practitioner was large enough, one could resist or even outright negate the law of Death.
The same held true for the law of Space. If someone had to teleport him here , said person would have to overcome the resistance put by his soul by having a higher degree of mastery of space. And while he had no comparison of another person to make with his own soul size except for normal humans ( which would be extremely stupid, since the soul of a normal human was so small that it would be considered a miracle if you could force a grain of sand inside it. ) , He was pretty sure that the souls of true gods like reine would be much bigger . And this was an alarming fact , as most likely the person who summoned him here was a true God. And even though he technically killed a true goddess before, he had to power himself up with the souls of entire humanity and nearly devour the sun on top of that. Currently, he was in no position to face a true god. However his train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the noise of footsteps , clearly indicating that whoever had summoned him had finally decided to make an appearance. He seemed to be a man in his mid twenties , not old than that , but he could be very well be wrong as once someone ascended to the level of a true God from the demigod rank , they stopped aging completely . They could even change their physical appearance as they pleased but this requires them to destroy their current body and create a new one which could take months or even years to do so. The man was dressed in an elegant tuxedo with a black walking cane in his hands , even though he had no trouble walking and thus this was most likely an aesthetic choice rather than a practical one .
The man spoke in am extremely polite and welcoming tone and said " Welcome to the Velvet Room. This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter.... "
However the man's expression and tone suddenly changed to that of a more playful nature with a sly expression on his face like that of a trickster as he said ,
" Or atleast that is what I would have said if you were in the velvet room . This thing is just a copy of it I got after I pestered him nor nearly a thousand years. I mean yeah , sure I was happy that I finally got my own place like him and the velvet room attendants in the collective unconscious , but really this was the best that he could do ? A cheap copy of the velvet room ? Atleast he could have changed the colour to something better than this sickening blue . Really I sometimes think Philemon really has a fetish for blue....."
As the person in front of him kept blabbering, there was only one thought that came in Shido's mind : " What The Hell Was Happening Here ?! " First he found himself in this unknown place and now he found that he was in some sort of imitation of The Velvet Room . He knew what the velvet room was, maybe.
From the various information and skills he got during awakening his bloodline years ago, there was also the information about the Fool arcana. Every person embodied a particular arcana during a particular point in their lifetime. The arcana was susceptible to change depending upon the life , for example, a person who embodied the emperor arcana could change to the tower arcana when some tragic event happened in his life or so on. However every person could only embody one of the twenty arcanas out of the total twenty two. This was because the Fool and The World aracanas held special requirements. Only a fraction of people are born with the potential to develop the fool arcana and even less of them actually awaken it . For it to awaken one must experience either a life threatening event and face it head in with determination or be chosen directly by Philemon to manifest it. Philemon was the person who presided over the collective unconscious and he created the velvet room and it's attendants to help fools reach their destination and manifest the world arcana. When a fool was successful in saving his world from catastrophe , he would achieve the world arcana which symbolised that he had taken up the brunt of the world upon his shoulders. That he was successful in protecting the world . The fool arcana also came with some nifty perks like a complete photographic memory, the ability to learn various arts , skills and techniques faster and easier than even so called prodigies .
Before he could make any further assumptions or plans the person in front of him interrupted him in a nonchalant tone and said , " What was I saying again ?.... Ah , yes , I think I should introduce myself now. I personally am known by many names ; The Crawling Chaos , The Lord Of Darkness but the one I'm most popular is Nyarlothep..... "
This clearly distressed Shido. He internally cursed his luck as of all individuals in the cosmos, he had to come face to face with one of the strongest ones , that being nyarlothep. Nyarlothep was someone who could manipulate reality to his will . Even true god's wouldn't dare cross paths with him.
Nyarlothep most likely sensed his distress and replied on a hurried tone ,
" Whoa ! Whoa ! Calm down buddy ! I know you may not have exactly heard nice things about me but I assure you I mean no harm ! Although I guess I am partly responsible for it. Maybe I should have given it more thought when I basically created the equivalent of a self insert imaginary fanfiction and put it in Lovecraft's mind. I should have atleast portrayed myself in a positive light, but eh whatever . Regardless that's not important right now. I have an important matter to talk to you about , so please have a seat. "
He gestured Shido towards the pair of seats with a small table between them. Shido while still hesitant, still decided to play it safe atleast for the time being and seated himself. Nyarlothep then sat on the chair beside him and took out a small blue file out of nowhere and began to read it . He began to read it aloud as he said, " Let's see.... Hmmm.... Ah yes. Subject Shido Itsuka. Aliases : Shinji Takamiya, the Demon , The monster , The blood Demon , The devourer of the sun.
Relatives and associates : Sisters include Kotori Itsuka, Mana Takamiya and yoshino himekawa . All deceased.
Romantic interests : Reine murasame, tohka yatogami , origami tobichi , kaguya yamai , Yuzuru yamai , Miku izayoi , natsumi kyouno , Nia honjou , mukuro hoshimiya and Ellen Mira Mathers . Dead , dead , dead and Dead .
Notable accomplishments include ability to harness energy directly from the collective unconscious, complete mastery over the cursed bloodline abilities, slaying a true God and bring responsible for the complete extinction of humanity.
" Man , For someone's who's only 130 years old ,that is a lot of huge accomplishments ! " As nyarlothep finished speaking he had a cheerful expression on his face. The same could not be said about Shido however.
He was clenching his fists tightly , bit he somehow managed to respond in a calm manner as he spoke with a solemn tone , desperately trying to control his rage , " I know not why you are doing this , but if your intention is to aggravate me, then you are clearly successful . "
Nyarlothep raised his hands in defence and said ," Now now Rhadamanthus , I can understand your emotions but please put yourself in my place. I mean if you were an employer looking for an employee you would definitely want to atleast have a look at their resume , right ? "
Shido was shocked and he immediately got up and questioned nyarlothep with a harsh tone ," Wait a minute, how the hell do you know that name ?! And more importantly, what do you mean by this employer - employee nonsense ?! "
Nyarlothep sighed and said, " I know that you have gone through a lot of shit , but seriously man , you need to work on your temper and anger management issues. Should I suggest some therapists for you , eh ? "
Seeing that Shido still maintained his silence with a rage filled look on his face , nyarlothep sighed once again and made a serious face after his failed attempt at a joke. He said ," Well, enough jokes for now. And to answer your question, seeing your reaction to that name I assume you heard that name when you regained your skills and knowledge and most likely heard it in some sort of vision of something , correct ? " He took a glance at Shido and saw him with a wide eyed expression on his face and smirked , " Bullseye. See the thing is, Rhadamanthus , is your true name . It was the name you had during your first life , before you were born as shinji takamiya, a human. And as for the second question, I have a job offer for you. Just listen to it , if you don't want to do it then fine. You have my word , you won't be harmed in any way. "
Shido regained his composure and took a deep breath. He calmed himself and spoke , " I'm listening. "
Nyarlothep smiled and said " Excellent. Although I do have a small question for you. Do you know about the Paramount Dao ?"
Shido raised his brow in confusion . What did the paramount Dao have to do with a job offering. Regardless he knew about the paramount Dao. Every cultivator had atleast some idea about it. The paramount Dao or the will of the world was , going back to the previous example, if the laws were lines of code and reality a program, then the paramount Dao was the computer on which everything was running. The paramount Dao was all encompassing, all existing. Cultivators harnessed the power of the paramount Dao by cultivating which was a absorbing mana or Qi along with Numen to strengthen and evolve their soul to finally condense divinity and become a true God . There were multiple levels of cultivation and starting from the Foundation establishment realm for warriors and Senior Magus realm for mages , one had to face Tribulations. Tribulations appeared in the form of thunderstorms whenever someone tried to ascend beyond the above mentioned realms. They brought with them golden lightning which cultivators had to take head on and absorb as it contained Numen which was essential to advance to the next realm. This was also a way in which the paramount Dao tested whether an individual was worthy of advancing to the next level and if he wasn't, well he simply died.
Shido nodded his head silently and nodded. Nyarlothep smiled and asked him another question , " Good. Then I assume you know about the laws ? " Once again Shido's answer came in the firm of a simple nod. Nyarlothep then smirked and asked , "What if I told you there was a way to go back into the past and prevent humanity from going extinct ?..."
This statement was the breaking point for Shido as he roared loudly in anger ," Do not take me for an idiot Nyarlothep ! I know very well that the will of the world would never allow something like that ! " This was the unfortunate truth. The will of the world would never let anyone travel back in time beyond a certain limit which differed for each dimension. For his dimension, that limit was 7 years. Not a single moment more . Of you tried to do it , the paramount Dao simply erased you from existence. Even when he saved origami's parents all those years ago, he had traveled only five years in the past at that time. And even then the paramount Dao recorrected the course of events by them dying in an accident later. Hence there was no way he could travel back 130 years into the past.
Nyarlothep calmly replied to him , " True, but what if , say ; the paramount Dao agreed to let you go back ?"
Shido was shocked. He only managed to mutter out a single word ," H-How ? "
Nyarlothep spoke out and said , " Well , the thing is the guy at the top of the cosmic food chain , call him whatever you want, Philemon, izanagi, The aura guardian , Mahakala , he has many names. But what's important is , that guy cares about humanity , A lot . So he won't exactly be happy seeing humanity wiped out, even though there are multiple humanities on multiple earths , all in different dimensions throughout the cosmos. So his wife, the paramount Dao wants to send you back in time so that you can prevent humanity's destruction . We'll send you with some power ups and additional perks as payment too. So what do you say , buddy ?"
Shido was shocked to say the least. Whether it was the fact that the paramount Dao had a conciousness and was a woman who happened to be married to izanagi who also happened to be Philemon himself. Or the the fact that maybe he could go back in time, that means he had chance , right ?! He hastily asked nyarlothep , " Then what about the souls of all of humanity that I sacrificed in the ritual to kill Gaia ?! "
Nyarlothep raised a brow and said .
" Well they were merely sacrificed not absorbed by you. Sure, you did extract some energy from each soul , but you never completely digested them so to speak. They are slightly damaged, but nothing the collective unconscious can't fix ! It's just like leaving your dented car at a garage . Once we're done , you won't even know it was once damaged ."
Shido hastily asked him once again , " Then what about destroyed souls ?! "
Nyarlothep then had a sad expression on his face as he paused, then replied ,
" Well , the thing with destroyed souls is they are wiped out of existence from the cosmos. The souls no longer exists in the past or present. It would be like trying to fix a car when the entire car is blown to smithereens and not even a single metal fragment is left of it . Sure we could resurrect your sisters yoshino and kotori as they never went to the battlefield and died when the Fraxinus crashed, but the other goddesses we can't do anything about as their souls were destroyed during the battle with the polluters ."
All of Shido's hopes were shattered with nyarlothep's revelation. Of course things could never go his way. He looked down in defeat and said silently , " Then , I refuse. I will not save humanity . "
Nyarlothep tried to retort him and said in a shaky tone , " But , but think about all the humans ! All those lives ! You have a second chance to do things differently ! You could destroy the polluters without sacrificing humanity ! " However seeing that his words didnt even cause Shido to faze in the slightest, he started to panic. He knew that if he failed to restore humanity in this dimension, he would have to face the wrath of the paramount Dao, lady Maya herself and sure she may not kill him , but there were definitely fates worse than death for him if that happened. But he also knew that Rhadamanthus was bloody stubborn and once he had truly made his mind no one could change it especially when it came to matters of the heart. He had a better chance of picking up a random rock , taking it to the heavens and entering and winning the competition for strongest gods with that rock than he had a chance of changing the mind of this bastard ! He clutched his head to to think of something when he suddenly had a brilliant idea ! He was forgetting the biggest thing about Rhadamanthus , that he was no ordinary being, he was the Abhorrence of the paramount Dao !
He went towards Shido in an erratic manner and asked him hurriedly , "Wait a minute, just to confirm, when you sealed the goddesses powers , by kissing them a spiritual link was formed between you and them as your souls were connected to each other, right ?! " Shido was caught off guard from this question but he nonetheless replied with a simple Yes. Upon hearing this , nyarlothep raised his arms and started to laugh loudly and cheer as he said, " Yes ! Yes ! That means this could work ! My head is safe ! My head is safe! Oh I'm such a genius ! "
He then lifted his cane in one hand and placed his other hand on Shido's chest. He simply said ," Just don't resist , okay buddy. Oh ! And also, this might hurt a bit , so try not to faint. "
While he was still confused, he still accepted it, besides what's the worst he could do, kill him ? He was already attempting suicide before he was dragged here. Suddenly there started to emerge 9 small lights out of his chest and they floated to the centre of the room . As nyarlothep said , sure it did hurt like hell and any normal person would have passed out from the pain but when you have an experience of regenerating your entire body from just a few blood drops everyday multiple times, you get used to the pain . As such Shido only gritted his teeth and endured the pain. However when he looked at the lights he saw something that he had never imagined, they had the spiritual signature of all the goddesses. Spiritual signature was like a fingerprint unique to every soul and hence it could not be copied or imitated. Every cultivator after the Qi gathering realm for warriors and Magus realm for mages could sense someone else's spiritual signature.
Nyarlothep upon seeing Shido in shock smiled and said to him, " No you definitely aren't dreaming. They are the souls of your lovers . " Shido tried to speak but he was so shocked that the only thing that came out of his mouth were incoherent noises . Nyarlothep sensing his confusion said ," To dispel your confusion, let me explain. What you see in front of you aren't their complete souls but rather fragments of their soul. Soul fragments as their name suggests are pieces of the soul. They are commonly used by god's by breaking a small part of their soul and imbuing it within a object or a weapon, so only they can wield it. Of course a soul fragment can't regenerate into a complete soul and if the main soul dies it will just disappear. But you my friend, are a special case ! Your soul is the Abhorrence of the paramount Dao ! When your souls were connected to the others , your own soul took small fragments of their souls through the spiritual link and kept it safe. Now all we have to do is out them in the collective unconscious and they will absorb Numen and regenerate and turn into complete souls ! "
Shido asked nyarlothep in a shaky tone, " Is.... Is it true ? Can you truly resurrect them ? " Nyarlothep replied to his question in a nonchalant manner and said, " Of course. Although I'll have to harvest atleast a few million additional souls to supply the souls of multiple goddesses with Numen , so I'll have to destroy some random unlucky civilization through the cosmos, but hey , if it's an incentive for you to go back to the past and save humanity, Philemon's favourite, I think it's a fair deal , right ? It may be unfair , but guess what, life's unfair . " What nyarlothep had not told him however was he was doing this out of fear. If there was someone else in Shido's place, he would have atleast tried something else or hell, straight up give up on him. But this was Rhadamanthus we were talking about. The last time he was angry, bad things happened. Very, Very bad things. And sure he may have lost his memories and had mellowed out a bit , but no one could tell what could happen if he was enraged like last time.
Shido , took a deep breath and steadied himself. He then asked , " What do you mean by me being the Abhorrence of the paramount Dao ? " After all even though he didn't know their meaning , the words abhorrence and paramount Dao in a single sentence and being attributed to him could only mean bad news.
Nyarlothep smirked, and flashed a wicked smile as he said , " Ah , now you're asking the important questions, aren't you ? To put it simply, you are akin to a glitch in the system. You are something that was never meant to be. Of course, I would be more than happy to provide you more details, but seeing that I've solved your biggest hesitation for not returning to the past, I assume that we have a deal. Right ?......"
| ------ X ----- |
Location : Itsuka residence , Tengu City
Year : 2041
{ Author's note : I'm going to assume that the series taks place in the year 2040 and the Eurasian spacequake occurs in the early 2000's. }
Shido woke up on his bed with a startle. He looked around him . He was in his old room. In his house, where there was air to breath , where the sunlight used to disturb his beauty sleep from the sun which still shone in the sky. He still had a hard time believing it , but the truth was, he was back. He had returned to the past. He got up from his bed and tool a look around. Suddenly he heard a noise behind him . Out of pure instinct he was going to use one of his signature abilities, the ability to create weapons from his blood and try to attack the source of noise, before his enemy had a chance to engage him but before he could do anything, he instantly froze . He saw in front of him a sight that he never even dreamed that he would see. There in front of him was a beautiful girl with beautiful dark and long purple hair and a pair of equally beautiful matching purple eyes. She was in the literal sense, a goddess. Out of pure instinct, before he could control himself, he embraced her in a tight hug. Tohka worried by Shido's sudden sign of affection, asked him with a worried look ," Shido ! Are you okay ? Are you alright ? "
Shido took a few moments to compose himself. It had been more than a century since he had heard his name being called affectionately especially by one of the women he loved. He did not want tohka to worry about him , so he deprecated himself from tohka and placed his hand on her hair and gently began to headpat her. He spoke calmly and said ," I'm fine tohka. I just ...had a bad dream . "
Tohka had a sad expression as she said ," I see...." However she suddenly changed her expression to that of her usual happy go lucky self and suddenly hugged Shido as she said ," But it was just a nightmare . Now that it's ended you don't have to worry about anything ! Besides I'll protect you from anything that tries to hurt you, okay Shido ?! " Shido gave a gentle smile and replied , " Of course. Now come on,you go ahead and I'll just take a bath and join you down. Let's see.... Hmmm... How about I make pancakes for breakfast ? " Tohka excited about the pancakes replied quickly ,
" Okay ! I'll be waiting for your handmade pancakes ! "
After tohka had gone ahead , Shido sighed . He stretched his hands and suddenly blood began to gather in his palm. The blood then started to float above his palm and change shape as if it were some sort of abstract art piece. Then more blood emerged from his palm untill the blood condensed itself to firm a long , thin red blade. The sword was thin , only slightly bigger than an inch in width . The length of the blade was roughly one and half foot. The blade glistened like a gem , almost as if the blade along with its handle was carefully sculpted from a single large ruby. He swinged the blade a few times before the blade turned to blood which floated for a few moments in the air before being absorbed back into his body through his palm , though his palm was devoid of any wounds.
Shido had a devilish grin on his face as he laughed internally. If at this moment anyone saw Shido, it would send a shiver down their spine even if they were a seasoned warrior. Shido smiled because he had truly returned. And he had not just his old powers, but this time he was stronger than before. This time he would save his family. He wouldn't let them suffer. However, he was no longer merely Shido itsuka, or the blood Demon . He was Rhadamanthus . This time he had returned with a new job and a new title ; He was the Scion of Darkness . His new title given to him by the Crawling Chaos himself was , Lord Eldritch ; The Devourer Of Worlds...
This time, the debts from his past life would be paid full in blood! All those who had wronged him and his family would suffer ! And when he would be done with them , not even Death would show mercy to them.....