Bab 92: Chapter 92: Hit the 'randomize name' button instead
Lady Phenix wobbled a bit on the spot.
She lifted a porcelain cup to her lips and took a small sip.
On the opposite side of a kitchen table Miki Hyoudou did the same.
"..." Lady Phenix let out a small sound that was like sigh and sob in one.
Miki Hyoudou closed her eyes, thought about something, shook her head, and put the porcelain cup down. "Hubby, dear, get up from the floor…"
Gorou Hyoudou was currently squatting on the floor of the kitchen, under a kitchen counter in what was the optimal place for staying safe during an earthquake, considering the sturdiness of the stone-made counter and the fact that the rest of the house was more or less leveled and thus ill-suited as cover. The man's eyes were glazed over and his face was pale, and it didn't seem that he had heard his wife.
Lady Phenix took another sip from her tea which had a thin layer of dust on it thanks to the explosions that had wracked the house and broken the ceiling's plaster. The woman didn't seem to notice any of it though.
Miki sighed, slapped her cheeks to bring herself to focus, and put her cup of tea down. "So… You're responsible for kidnapping our child, having him change his name, and then have him engage your daughter?"
"...I suppose." Lady Phenix's eyes were glazed over and lifeless.
"...I'd like to remind you that kidnapping is against the law."
"Not against Underworld's law, when it is done to non-devils…" Lady Phenix kept looking out of the partially shattered window and at the battle raging outside, although how much of it she saw was another matter entirely as she seemed to look solidly past the fighting and war.
"But against Japanese law!" Miki put her finger down against the table. "Moreover, if you somehow forcibly adopted our son and had him marry your daughter, that'd be incest! And-"
Lady Phenix tuned out of Miki's annoyed and outraged explanation on how exactly her actions were against the law, common sense, honourable behaviour and so forth.
A body flew against the partially broken window and punched through, leaving a bloody mess on the floor of the kitchen and causing white, rabid foam to form from the corners of Gorou's mouth as the japanese salaryman was starting to break under the onslaught of horror and gore.
Miki glanced at the dead body, although her eyes had become as glazed as Lady Phenix's. "Please take your shoes off when you enter a building."
The dead body couldn't quite comply, so Miki sighed. "Young people these days… Oh?"
The door to the kitchen opened, or rather a maid lifted the door from it's cracked frame and put the wooden door to the side.
"Please excuse me, madam Hyoudou." A white-haired, tall maid with a number 'three' tattooed to the side of her head curtsied a bit towards the room's occupants before she walked to the dead body, produced a dustpan and broom, and swiped the gorey mess into the dustpan before retreating from the room and placing the broken door back to it's hinges.
"Ah, those girls are growing so cute…" Miki nodded, proud of the growth of the odd maids that she had been tutoring. "Soon they will be graduating as proper housewives…"
"...You're teaching angels to be housewives?" Lady Phenix asked halfheartedly while distractedly sipping the tea from the cup that had run out of it and was full of plaster dust instead.
"It's quite an unfortunate mutation to have wings like that, but I suppose some people might be into them. I'm sure they'd be quite happy if they heard you calling them angels, because they are sweet enough to be those!" Miki nodded. "Nonetheless they are quite the dearies, and cute to boot."
Some things seemed to click in Lady Phenix's head, like rusty gears rearranging themselves. "...You know, I'm not certain your plan is going to work… I don't see Momon-san ditching my daughter in order to chase the skirts of his own maids…"
"You're severely underestimating the sex appeal of proper japanese housewives!" Miki put one of her legs on the table as she stood on her chair, pointing at the Phenix woman like a conqueror ordering someone's head to be lopped off. "My 'perfect housewife harem project' will re-capture Issei and bring him back to me!"
"...Alright." Lady Phenix turned her attention away from the human woman and back towards the battlefield. It seemed that the flat answer destabilized Miki a bit, however. '...Were it so easy…'
Lady Phenix sipped from the cup of plaster-dust again.
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"D-daddy?" The young child looked directly at Momonga, and the latter felt quite… conflicted.
'...I seriously don't need this right now…' Momonga was feeling indifferent and resigned as the girl seemed to draw some odd conclusions for some reason, and latched onto Momonga's neck after jumping up as if she was spring-loaded.
The girl's nine tails were slinked solidly between her legs, and she seemed to shiver like a forest critter that had been separated from her mother during winter.
"D-daddy, you came back…" The girl's eyes were wide with fear, horror and insanity as she looked directly into Momonga's eyes, seemingly finding something within his indifferent expression as she hugged him hard.
Momonga considered just using [Negative Energy Touch] to bring the annoying critter down from him, but was stopped by his rational self as it'd undo the whole point of the resurrection by turning Shinto against him, while Suzuki Satoru was… acting illogically, to say the least.
That is to say, the 'human' within the Overlord hugged the oddly-acting girl back in what Suzuki felt to be a fatherly way, as far as he had memories of his own father doing so to him anyway. '...If my child was born… Would she have been like her?'
The part of him that was 'Momonga' covered his skeletal face with its bony hand in exasperation as it realized that Suzuki Satoru was projecting to cope with his loss and grief.
The tengus around Momonga froze, clearly indecisive on how they should interped the girl's words and her actions.
Momonga merely turned his head towards the tengu who had bartered for the girl's resurrection, since the 'Overlord' had managed to take control of the body over the grief-struck human part of his psyche. "You. Honor your bond, and take your forces and ensure Odin is exhausted. I care little if you all die in the process. He is our greatest enemy right now. I'll ensure the little one's survival. This I swear."
The tengu flinched from the emotionless voice and from the cruel order, but for some reason the bird-like creature looked almost… glad?
"As you order, lord." The tengu nodded at it's comrades, who had gained quite odd expressions as well.
It somehow reminded Momonga of old tales of ancient Japan he had heard about, at least in Neo-Japan, and how the honour of samurais and other noble retainers was unbreakable, to the point they'd sacrifice their lives at the slightest order or at equal slight towards their master.
Momonga felt that there was more to that than just honor though as the tengu's took flight in unison towards the lightning-struck sky where four figures were still fighting- Or rather, standing fifty or so feet apart and seemingly conversing.
Momonga realized the source of the tengu's relief as he connected the similarity of the nine-tailed fox in the sky to the nine-tailed girl that had curled around his neck and shoulders like a fuzzy, cuddly scarf. 'I see. They're going to inform that fox about this one's resurrection… Haa… I really don't feel like dealing with this, right now...'
He glanced at the battle-line where the united front of the defected Three Factions were 'fighting' side-by-side with Momonga's summoned angels against the tide of death that Momonga's summoned Elder Lich-slash-Overlord General had brought up, and noted that the Necroswarm Giant had become somewhat diminished as the pair of Dominion Authorities kept reviving the dead bodies that made the undead creature's mass.
On the other side of the battle Gasper had gone into some sort of blood-rage and was devouring the Norse faction in a ravenous frenzy, and his form seemed to flicker from place to place as the boy used [Forbidden Balor View] to stop and start time like a curious child flicking a light-switch.
Momonga guessed that either the distance or the intention counted for his anti-time-stop countermeasures, as the countermeasures weren't activating in response to the flickering time in the distance.
A burly dwarf with bald head and short stubble swung his runic axe at Gasper's 'leg', and the enhanced weapon bit deep, causing the dark draconic creature's shin to splinter like log and split in two vertically.
The split wound instantly grew long saw-like teeth and the dwarf was pulled into the shin-mouth by a swarm of tongue-like tentacles that exploded forth from the wound and dragged the short creature to its doom- Even though the dwarf kept valiantly and stubbornly swinging his axe all the way through until the 'wound' closed with a wet crunch.
A phalanx of spears that elves had made was uprooted and smashed aside like grass in front of a farmer's scythe as Gasper's form flickered to one with long, tubular and teeth-streaked arms that whipped the formation, breaking them apart and then sliding into the survivors's ranks like anteater's tongue into a pile of ants.
Screams and shouts filled the air in the distance as the mythical occupants of Ydggdrasil's many realms were dragged into their doom in Gasper's dragon-formed mouth that lacked a lower jaw but had long, tubular tentacles flowing down from the upper jaw like feeding tendrils.
A elf girl gained vacant expression as one of the tentacles pierced the top of her head, before the woman turned into a shriveled corpse, almost as if Gasper's nightmarish form had sucked her insides out through the straw-like tendril.
Rias, who was otherwise busy tying up the Valkyrie-hostages Momonga had captured, seemed quite shocked by the normally gentle and violence-abhorring half-vampire boy's transformation into a horrifying, relentless and merciless beast… And Momonga could guess the reason for the change- After all, he had seen such carnage before, in memories that were not his. '...[Control Amnesia] tends to leave it's mark on the behaviour of those it alters… I suppose 'Balor's memories have cropped up in Gasper's head, since I used [Control Amnesia] to help him get control over his [Forbidden Balor View] by taking Balor's memories and putting them ot Gasper's head, and those memories of slaughter must have taken over his behaviour once the wounds started to pile up…'
Suzuki Satoru merely shrugged indifferently while 'Momonga' analyzed the battle-scape, looking for a way to salvage the situation while mentally blocking off the presence of the Outer God which was quickly approaching shore.
'...How exactly did it end up here anyway?' Simply put, Momonga had no clue what to do with, or more importantly, about the tentacled star-god. 'It took entire guilds to take him down in YGGDRASIL … And I'm effectively alone. My Peerage has absolutely no chance to take down a single 'Player' much less a raid boss... [Boosted Gear] could help level the field somewhat, but even then I can't just boost my way to victory since Super-tier spells have their uses consumed by it in equal measure, while the boosted spells consume my mana at similar rate.'
Ddraig seemed to recover somewhat and decided to brave himself to speak and potentially invoke Momonga's ire. "Um, I don't mean to presume, but… Are you saying you have killed that one, or rather, one of that one's kind in the past, somehow? I… um…"
Momonga thought about the raid-fight in question half-heartedly, showing the city of R'lyeth that had been crafted in the virtual space and which was 'risen' into the sea of one of the instances within YGGDRASIL. The boss-fight had started below the sea, and then gradually moved to the surface as 'Cthulhu awakened' during the fight.
The sight of the 'sunken city' being above the surface and in sunlight caused Ddraig to freeze up, then gain a horrified expression (as far as the creature's draconic face could anyway), and it finally slumped to the red-dusted 'ground' of Momonga's mind-scape, completely unconscious.
'Fat load of help you were, peeping dragon…' Momonga felt quite exasperated by the dragon as he turned to look at the Outer Being in the distance.
The star-god's eyes turned towards him, causing Rias to scream in horror and pass out as the gaze briefly passed over her, the Valkyries to start crying in abject misery like children despite their warrior-upbringing, and the Fallen and the Angels to stumble and shake as if their whole being was torn like leaves of a tree in a hurricane
And the Outer Being looked into Momonga with it's milky and unseeing eyes, meeting Momonga's host body's uncaring and indifferent eyes directly-
.
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Momonga would never know how lucky he was that undead were immune to external mental ailments.
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The Awakened Outer Being's movement was like a vacuum that swept up the dust in it's passing, or rather, souls of the dead and the living that strayed too close.
The entire existence and being of Him was anathema to the world, an unknown factor that defied and defiled all that was into what it was never meant to be.
When Cthulhu came to shore, the time itself corroded as prophecies both old and new came true, the horrific tales that had been screamed to the air by madmen and prophets, both equally terrifyingly right in their foretellings.
The Umbra Mortalis, the Shadow of Death, descended upon the world in a marsh-like rise of dark fire that ignited through the crust of the world when Cthulhu stood ashore, like ink permeating through the foundations of a poorly-built building- And in that moment, the lost city of R'lyeh crumbled to dust within the deepest ocean trench of Pacific Ocean, in an alternative dimension of deep dark where the unknown and unchartable rift led.
The First City's last High-priest, Cthulhu, had finally abandoned its ancient abode in favor of taking his place above the sea, as the True Star God of the world... And as the last of it's kind within all the worlds, the sole survivor and winner of a terrible and ancient war..
The dark, tar-like flames spread like a droplets of ink in purest water and consumed all reality in its passing. The unfortunate souls caught in its wake ceased to be, as the Great Entropy reached to return all that was into what it once had been, to undo all what had been made since the birth of the universe.
Great cities built by humans toppled over like anthills in a flood as the dark web spread through the earth, and millions died in seconds as the shadow crept forth, indifferent like the sun's eventual death, and equally unavoidable.
Cthulhu did not notice any of it, none of the cries of despair, fear, terror, or the millions of lives it had extinguished already, and thousands of lives of mythical creatures that had been consumed in Cthulhu's arrival through the Norse fleet which had stood between it and the shore.
Insects buzzed in the air, and Cthulu moved its gaze over them as one of them invoked the name that the ancient being had used in the distant past, a tiny part of it's true and incomprehensible name.
The ancient star-god's milky-dim eyes then turned towards the faintly familiar scent that had been caught by it's senses, and which had insulted it so in it's very home.
The star-god saw an empty puppet, a rudimentary being of fragile flesh that wore a warm body of a mewling insect around it's top, and the Outer Being saw that the puppet was moving like an anglerfish would bob it's bioluminescent trap.
Unlike the insects that buzzed in the air, the Outer Being's gaze did not pierce the puppet's being, which told Cthulhu enough of the puppet's nature- That it was but a lure, a marsh-light in a dark forest.
The unmistakable scent of a horny dark goat that permeated from the puppet's direction and from the scarf the rudimentary creature made everything clear to Cthulhu.
The Outer Being took a step forward, shaking the reality of the world as the dark flames spread like spider's web through the crust of the planet.
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A dark void consumed the sky above Kuoh, above the entire Japan and part of China, and a flood of ancient darkness older than the collection of stellar dust that made 'the world' itself invaded the reality of men, breaking the feeble barriers the world's red-scaled 'guardian' had made like a flood would break through a wall made of rice-paper.
Shub-Niggurath arrived to the reality, and saw-
A fist that approached the massive tree's bark at rapid velocity.
A thunderous crack echoed in the stratosphere that shook from the impact and caused hundreds of human-made skyscrapers to collapse instantly all around the world from the resulting earthquakes.
Shub-Niggurath realized what had happened as it's eighteen pairs of goat-like eyes opened, and it saw Cthulhu, the damnable high priest of the ancient lost city, consuming what was Shub-Niggurath's by right.
Moreover, the mewling, young and foolish Star-God had punched Shub-Niggurath, driving the Outer Being further to insatiable rage from the fact that her revolting, unruly grandchild would dare strike at her.
It was the Grandmother's duty to discipline the foolish wayward child.
A long screech echoed in the noosphere of the world as Shub-Niggurath tied her roots around Cthulu's tentacled beard, drawing the young Star-God's face into the water that the Mother with Thousand Young knew would cause the awakened Dreamer to become drowsy while it invigorated her roots.
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Momonga watched blandly and emotionlessly as the skies vomited darkness in the form of a gigantic leafless tree that bore vague semblance to the second-hardest boss fight of the Outer Gods expansion of YGGDRASIL. The one that practically required copious amounts of crowd control due to the amount of 'adds' that the boss could spawn.
[Emotion Suppression] hadn't restarted, and Momonga had a feeling that it wouldn't truly recover. But the emotionless state he felt right now was not due to magically induced effects, but rather because he was so far done with everything happening in front of him that he couldn't care less.
Momonga watched blandly as Cthulu's molluscoid temple throbbed with pulsating veins, and the Star God punched the Mother of the Dark Young, which had fallen from the sky.
Momonga glanced blandly to the side to see that the forest around Kuoh had stood up on it's hooves, and the hundreds if not thousands of Dark Young were bleating in abject anger.
Serafall's rampage in Kuoh a week prior had effectively cleared Momonga's mansion's vicinity of trees, however, and the nearest hostile Dark Young was quite far away- Which was lucky to the defectors who stood to defend the mansion, as they hadn't been flattened instantly..
Momonga glanced to the other side equally blandly to see that the Norse were in full retreat, or rather what was left of them were scrambling to flee towards Kuoh City, likely trying to seek refuge from the concrete jungle as the forest had turned veryhostile.
Momonga sighed while reaching to pet the fluffy tail of the girl that was curled around his shoulders, and who had frozen absolutely still when the ancient star god in the distance had looked at Momonga for a brief while. 'Why does this keep happening to me…'
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The Overlord General cackled in absolute joy, as fleeting as it was due to [Emotion Suppression], as it watched the grand plan of the Supreme Being unfold in all its glory- While the Overlord General's feeble plan had the Three Factions fight each other, His plan united the Three Factions under his rule without him needing to strike a single blow, and drive ancient and powerful enemies at each other's throats in a single move, with the slightest misdirection and the tiniest nudge.
In other words, everything was going as the Supreme Being had planned.
The remnants of Khaos Brigade shook like leaves as they looked at the sight, glad that they had set their camp so high on the mountain overlooking Kuoh that the treeline didn't reach that far- And when the trees turned to monsters, they hadn't been caught in the middle of it..
Vali Lucifer was staring at the happening with his eyes wide open, while Albion was looking through his eyes and was as horrified as an ancient white dragon emperor could be.
Ophis, who had come to take a look at what was happening, blinked and rubbed her eyes. "Uwah. Baka-red let them through. Not good..."
Katarina Leviathan merely hugged herself as she stood a bit behind and to the side of the Overlord General, as was fitting for a servant of her nature.
Nonetheless Katarina felt as if there was something odd about her behaviour, something that didn't quite fit, but the sight of two star-gods squabbling like apocalyptic children was enough to quell the uneasiness she felt inside and replace it with terror that was only held back by the faith she had in her true master, the Supreme Being… Even if the thought somehow annoyed her..
"Um, I don't mean to presume the intention of our lord, but should we seek to withdraw?" Katarina asked, feeling oddly annoyed at herself for her subservient words, and the Overlord General glanced at her with it's burning-red dots in it's empty eye-sockets.
"Our play has not yet reached its conclusion, and you wish to withdraw? Disgraceful." The undead creature's words caused Katarina to flinch from shame, while she felt oddly enraged on the inside from the insinuation of cowardice.
Nonetheless, she followed the undead creature as it seemed to pick a direction after waving its bony hand in the air and muttering something about detecting life.
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"Dammit, dammit… Khaha…" Loki growled as he plucked yet another maggot from his now-horrifyingly consumed eye-socket that had rows upon rows of fly-eggs sticking out of it. "Take that, Odin, you rat bastard…"
The Trickster of Norse had intended to follow Odin's order in letter, if not in spirit, but he had not expected Hastur to react as quickly as he had. Perhaps in retrospect it was expected of the King in Yellow to react as fast as he had, but Loki had counted on the ancient Outer Being's lethargic nature to slow it down until Loki could have offered the dagger to Odin, and direct the Being's anger towards the old man.
That way Loki would both gain his rightful seat in the throne of Norse, and also dispose of Odin at the same time- And in doing so, could properly start Ragnarok.
Looking around, however, it was clear that the apocalypse had come nonetheless. It was clad in darkness and insanity, and not in storm and shrouded by frost like Loki would have preferred. But it was the beginning of the End, which was enough for Loki.
Spite had been all that had kept him going for the last hundreds of years, and the constant judging, belittling and arrogance of the 'nobler' 'heroes' of Yggdrasil had stroked Loki's flame of spiteful anger until it had turned from a candle into a pyre.
Nonetheless, while the end was coming, it was unlikely that Loki would see the end of it. Eons of entropy had left Ygddrasil a shadow of what it had once been, and as it withered, so did the power of the lords that reigned it's people.
In his ancient youth Loki could have shrugged off a venom and plague like the one that ailed him now, but as it was… He was an ancient stranger in a strange land, and the poison bit deep.
"Kha… khahaha… Hng…" Loki doubled over as his stomach lurched from the plague that mauled his insides, and his maniacal laughter hadn't helped. "So… You are the one to finish me? Who are you, skeleton?"
The skeletal figure that was cloaked in cloth-made armor and emitted an aura of death in an obsidian radiance stepped forwards after exiting a swirling portal, flanked by a gaggle of misfits.
Loki's eyes narrowed as he spotted a petite young girl behind the skeletal avatar of death.
"Well then, if it isn't Lady Ophis!" Loki stumbled to his feet and flashed his best charming smile, which turned quite disturbing thanks to the condition of his body.. "I am glad that you-"
"You have played your part well in our hidden master's grand performance." The skeleton spoke while Ophis tilted her head in confusion both towards Loki and towards the skeletal creature. "Truly, his mastery is unrivaled that even 'divine' creatures such as you dance upon his strings, without you even realizing that you are but an actor with as much self-awareness as a doll."
"Oh, I am overjoyed to hear that." Loki jested while bowing in a stumbling manner- He was no stranger to putting up faces or swallowing his pride when it suited him, and right now he was weakened to a great degree. "Might I ask your name, then?"
"It is unnecessary for you to know that- After all, your part in the play has reached it's end. My master's grudge towards you, as planned and methodical as it may be, must nonetheless be resolved." The undead thing nodded thoughtfully. "So I give you two options: Join us, the Khaos Brigade, or die."
Something flashed past Loki's head from the now-blind side, and he felt as pair of long-fingered hands tied themselves around Loki's wrists and pulled them back so that he stood up straight
"Lady Ophis! I'm sure that you know that if I were to die, then the Norse faction would-" Loki tried to object towards the timeless Infinite Ouroboros Dragon as it became clear that the skeleton was not interested in talking.
However, the dragon seemed distracted by the two dueling Star-Gods in the distance, which Loki honestly couldn't fault her for. Specifically as Shub-Niggurath was waterboarding Cthulhu.
"Pfft. Fine. I'll join your treehouse club." Loki sighed as he realized that he was trapped with no way out but one- And so, he leaned back on the shape that was keeping his hands behind his back. "Hey, you're pretty hot with that 'milf teacher' aesthetic."
The woman with glasses seemed quite disturbed by Loki's words, before the skeleton lifted his hand towards Loki, who realized that he had been betrayed.
But before Loki managed to do anything about it, the skeleton spoke about death, and Loki knew no more.
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The Overlord General walked forward as Loki's dead body flopped down to the ground and Katarina Leviathan returned to his side after restraining the severely weakened godling.
The Overlord nodded at the woman who seemed to have become quite an asset, much better than the mewling and pathetic cat that the Overlord had sought to train to be his asset. '...I am quite ashamed that Master saw my failure, as the cat both fled me and proved to be quite pathetic… Yet, he took pity and gave from his very own vault in order to grant me a sufficiently powerful pawn. I can only hope that the cat I trained serves him well, for I swear I will hunt it to the ends of the earth if it so much as mewls the wrong way towards Him...'
The skeletal creature then turned it's attention to the dead body on the ground.
'Hm, indeed… I felt that Master was quite upset with the performance of this one, as expected of the worthless stock of actors in this world, but I know that he would have killed this mewling insect if he desired his death by his own hand. Instead he weakened and tormented it so that it would be sufficiently pre-chewed for me to digest it…' The Overlord General felt a bit ashamed that its glorious master would feel the need to weaken an opponent to such a degree before he'd allow one to face the General, but on the other side the almost doting worry and concern that the Supreme Being directed at his servants as causing Overlord General's not-quite-heart swell with warmth.
'Tch...' The Emotion Suppression ruined the feeling, and so the General grabbed the dead body of the godling. 'Hm… I was only supposed to consume souls from the ranks of the Khaos Brigade, so that song and dance was necessary for this..' "[Sacrifice]"
The body of the godling disintegrated, flooding the Overlord General with newfound power…
'Ah… So this is what it feels to reach level 'hundred'...'
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