Chương 89: A Dragon and A Human

A/N: Sooo... I've been sitting on my jumbled mess of notes for a while now, just thinking about what to do for this Chapter in terms of story. There's a lot to get through and most of it has nothing to do with the 'Final Battle' between the Giants and Ruberios. The original outline only had like 200 words dedicated to that battle, as it really wasn't much of a 'fight' since Rimuru, Veldora, AND a more powerful Luminous were all there to fight Dagruel.

If the fights seem a bit rushed... that's kinda because they are. I'm also not too sure if anyone is interested in something like a Granbell redemption and reunification with his wife and Luminous. Maybe in the rewrite of my other route, I can go into more detail, as Luminous is planned to be the FMC in that one. (If I ever get around to it). So just know that all of that drama happens off-screen.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, here's the chapter.

.~.~.~.

"What did you do?" Rimuru asked me, staring intently at me.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," I said, feigning ignorance.

Rimuru's eye twitched at my response. "Why is that Angel over there trying to become my follower!?!" Rimuru yelled, pointing behind him to a prostrated Zalario on the floor behind us.

"Oh, THAT. I just told him the truth." I replied, brushing off Rimuru's concern.

Rimuru opened his mouth to speak again but was cut off when Diablo began to speak. "It is nothing to be worried about, Rimuru-sama! Zalario has simply been enlightened to the same truth everyone will one day come to." Diablo began.

Velzard rolled her eyes, interrupting him. "About our Lord and Savior Jes- I mean Rimuru Tempest?" She said, obviously sarcastically.

Diablo's eye twitched at her remark and he briefly gave her a glare before continuing on. "That's right... And since he has achieved Enlightenment, I request we accept him into our ranks as soon as possible." Diablo said, rather theatrically.

I could tell Rimuru was feeling slightly uncomfortable about all the praise heaped onto him, but decided not to add any more to the slightly uncomfortable subject and wrap it up now. "Zalario is a good guy and is extremely loyal. If you want another subordinate as powerful as Diablo but as capable as Shuna then I'd recommend him." I said.

Zalario looked up at me, a mix of emotions on his face. Shock that I gave the recommendation but also genuine gratitude that I did so. I gave him a brief and wry smile to acknowledge that I saw that before looking over to Diablo who seemed genuinely confused as to why I called Shuna more 'capable' than him.

Rimuru gave a troubled face for a few moments before sighing and giving up. "Alright then, Zalario was it?" He said, turning to the now hopeful fallen angel, whose black wings were fluttering lightly in excitement. "Since Alaster recommended you, I'll allow you to work under me."

"Thank you, Master!" Zalario yelled in a rare moment of excitement. If I were to be completely honest, I'd never seen Zalario have any expression other than his cold and calculating indifference, so seeing him genuinely excited from the bottom of his heart was a bit surprising, even with my over 2,000 years of life.

"Why are you empowering a Demon Lord again? Shouldn't you be helping out the Goddess as a 'Hero'?" Luminous complained from beside me.

I waved her off. "I'll tell you later why what you just said was so~ ironic," I said, giving Luminous a pat on the shoulder which she seemed disturbed by.

"You shall NOT touch me again!" She spat, removing my hand.

"Oof. And here I thought we were friends!" I said, pretending to have been significantly hurt and betrayed by her actions.

'I'd like to see you try to stop me!' I thought before feeling a chill run down my spine from somewhere. It obviously wasn't my wife. My beautiful, gentle, ever so kind... sexy... I mean pure snowcone would never be giving me threatening glares.

Nope. Never.

Luminous, probably sensing my change in attitude, sighed to let go of her annoyance before rolling her eyes and turning them back down to the battlefield below us. Dagruel and Fenn had both been against Veldora and Velgaia in a colossal battle that shook heaven and earth... or at least it would if I wasn't using [Space-Time Domination] to lock them in a separate sub-dimensional space that isolated them from the outside but also allowed us to view it. I really couldn't be bothered to deal with Luminous' fit after Ruberios would be destroyed in the battle between two True Dragons and two Titans, so I locked their fight away from the rest of the world. /1\

Interestingly, this technique I was using was identical to the Skill [Unlimited Imprisonment] but on a much greater scale in terms of range. The Giant Army had already been decimated for the most part and Luminous' forces were now fighting just the generals of the opposing forces.

Even with Seraphim Empowerment, Testarossa and Ultima were playing around with the other six Luminaries, who were just playing around with their power, thinking their Veldanava's gift to the world or something, talking about how 'perfect' and 'immortal' and 'infallible' they were, all the while dancing in the palm of demoness' hands. It was honestly kinda pathetic. I was the strongest being on this planet currently, if I wasn't careful, a sneeze could life-wipe the planet, and even 'I' never called myself 'perfect' outside of when I was messing with people or obviously being facetious.

Hinata was fighting with the Giant whose name was Glassord outside of the isolated space but was seemingly losing until Granbell granted her his Hero Egg. This was supposedly the 'repayment' Luminous required of him to return for her service, as no one wanted a subordinate who was as powerful as them.

Granbell had asked me to take him back to Ruberios after having some sense kicked into him by Mariabell's betrayal and the disappearance of the controlling effects of [Michael]. I didn't mind but realized why he asked me when I had to face-tank several Ultimate-Level Spells cast at him the moment we walked through the portal. Turns out he just wanted me to be his literal human shield so he could explain himself to Luminous and his wife without dying.

I'd be mad but I don't fight disabled people and no person is more disabled than Granbell. He obviously had to walk around with a wheelbarrow to carry around the massive balls it took to do that to me.

My respect for him grew a little bit for him, not going to lie. Of course, he immediately lost that respect when he prostrated himself to his wife and Luminous for forgiveness after Luminous stopped trying to kill him for more than a second and heard him out.

What kind of man fears his own wife?

That strange shiver ran down my spine again. I wonder where it keeps coming from., but my honed survival instincts are telling me to drop that line of thought, so I did.

I looked over to Leon who was staring intently at Velgaia's battle, seemingly nervous about the outcome. I smiled wryly and put my hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry. Velgaia's stronger than you know. Fenn was destined to lose the second he chose her as his opponent." I said, reassuring him.

"Plus it's not like he'd let anyone hurt his kids." Velzard quipped from beside me.

Leon turned to look at her, obviously confused, though his normally stoic face barely changed at all. Velzard, seeing this and understanding his confusion, decided to burst my bubble. "All of our kids have had [Absolute Defense] and [Infinite Regeration] secretly applied to them since the start of the Tenma War. No way this daughter-con was going to let his little babies get hurt." Velzard said giving me a nudge.

"You don't have to tell them that... it's not cool if you say it out loud." I muttered the last part to myself with a rare but light blush on my face from the embarrassment of my secret being found out.

Velzard smirked mischievously. She seems to have been annoyed about something from earlier. I wonder what I did to upset her? /2\

I decided to get back at her for this, "Well, I'm not the only one who's overprotective. You're the one who went ballistic on Mariabell for injuring Velgaia!" I shot back.

Velzard was startled by my counter-attack and took a single step back as a result before regaining her bearing and beginning her counter-counter-attack. "Well at least I didn't have multiple [Parallel Existances] hidden at each of our daughter's locations ready to arrive 'just in time' to save them if things somehow went south!"

"That was YOU'RE IDEA! YOU wanted the superhero entrance!!!" I shot back as we began to argue about which one of us were the bigger daughter-cons.

"Pfft~" We both heard a small puff of laughter escape from behind us to see Rimuru standing there looking smug. "Such doting parents~" He began to playfully mock us.

We were about to retaliate when Leon interrupted us with a smile. "You two are good parents. Thank you." He said, relaxing a little bit after witnessing our display. /3\

Velzard and I looked at Leon, then at each other for a split second before deciding to roll with it to save our reputations. I could tell Rimuru likely knew we were full of it, but he said nothing as we continued to watch the battle space below.

The fight continued on for over half an hour before both sides used their finishers. The result was... obviously the True Dragons won. Velgaia almost lost and I was about to jump in to save her but she was able to pull through on her own, even awakening her Ultimate Skill [Ubbo-Sathla: God of Primordial Force] which allowed her to temporarily use convert her magic power into Null Energy to destroy whatever target she desired, even though it did sap most of her energy converting normal magic power into Null Energy.

The Ultimate Skill was so powerful, in fact, that I honestly wanted to try to recreate it with [Abhoth] before deciding it wasn't worth it. I could simply will anything I didn't like out of existence already, so even though [Ubbo-Sathla] was absurdly overpowered, I didn't NEED to do anything right now.

'*I've already begun integrating it into [Abhoth]*' Velzard commented.

'*This is why I love you, darling. We're so~ in sync!*' I praised while giving her a head-pat in the real world.

Oh yeah, and I guess Veldora did something to defeat Dagruel too, I wasn't paying attention.

...

The party that followed the final victory in the Tenma War was... strange, to say the least. Obviously, having all of the Demon Lords and Heroes partying together was nice and all, but I couldn't help but feel as if something was wrong now that the whole thing was over. I wasn't exactly feeling 'hollow' now that the story I 'knew' was over since it was actually an anomaly that I was able to plan for the future due to remembering canon to begin with. For over 2000 years I'd forgotten and only in the last year or so did I have even a vague guess as to what would happen and was able to plan for it.

No, something was blocking that feeling of contentment for essentially beating the 'final boss' in real life, but that sense of finality. It seemed to elude me. It was hard to describe. It felt like I was forgetting something, but even after scouring my memories at hundreds of millions of times of [Thought Acceleration] and even devising up the task through various [Paralell Existances], I still couldn't figure out what it was.

This feeling of discontent washed over me for most of the party, causing me to take a break from the festivities in Tempest and break off from the party scene. I began walking into a less populated part of the town aimlessly. I didn't really have a destination in mind, but I was strangely compelled to make my way out of the city and up the side of a nearby hill just outside of town. Atop the hill stood a single, small tree providing just enough shade during the day, to be a good napping spot.

The sound of the music and celebration from the ongoing party behind me faded into the wind as the gentle breeze carried it away, leaving the two of us alone on that quiet grass hill.

"Why do I have the feeling I was called here?" I asked, no real malice or discontent in my voice.

"You weren't. It was probably just fate." He turned to me.

I raised my eyebrow, understanding everything in an instant. "I didn't think you were one to leave things to fate."

He smiled lightly. "Not normally. I like to do things myself, or leave them to my friends."

"More like you like to push your responsibilities onto them. The last job you left me took two thousand years." I replied back wittily.

He chuckled. "Thanks for that, by the way. I know it wasn't easy."

I waved it off. "It's fine."

He smirked. "Did you enjoy it? Your life?"

"I did. There were some rough patches at the beginning. Losing my parents and friends sucked too, but meeting Velzard, raising some wonderful kids, making friends with some... unique individuals. I wouldn't trade it for all the power in the world." I responded without any hesitation.

He chuckled a bit awkwardly. "Sorry, I'm not laughing at your response, it's just... You honestly don't know how relieved it makes me feel to hear you say that." He said, visibly relaxing his stiff shoulders.

We stood in quiet and comfortable silence for a few moments before he walked past me, towards Tempest, evidently not planning on continuing the conversation any longer, however, there was one last thing I wanted to know.

"Hey Rimuru, I made sure to check pretty thoroughly that you didn't have your memories from when you were Veldanava using the World System Logs. How did you reawaken them?" I asked.

Rimuru turned back to me and smiled brightly. "I'm much more experienced with this whole God business than you are. Let me know when you figure it out." He said, teasingly as he transformed into his Slime form and bounced away.

...

"It's gotta be Alaster's homeworld, right? Aren't you fascinated to see how the original world that created ours is like? We could blackmail Fuze into changing how the story goes and see how much THIS world changes." Velzard argued.

"I refuse! If we go anywhere, it should be Pokemon! I must Catch 'Em All!" Veldora shot back, slamming his fist into the meeting room table

"Hoho? Veldora, you've gotten quite ballsy, haven't you!?! Weren't we supposed to be going to Fate first? Didn't you agree to go there with me when we discussed this earlier?" Velgrynd replied, narrowing her eyes at the Storm Dragon.

Veldora flinched for a second before steeling his resolve. "Elder Sister! We can go see your Crush of Gilgamesh later! the longer we wait, the more likely it is someone will capture Mewtwo before we arrive!" Veldora shot back.

"All of you are wrong!" Luminous shouted, interrupting the argument. "We are going to Queen's Blade first so I can collect my har- I mean, meet the characters!" She argued.

"No, you-all should listen to my mast-Husband! Pokemon it is!" Ramiris said, clinging onto Veldora with a blush on her face.

"Fufufu! None of you are correct! Father is going to take us to the Dragon Ball Universe! I wanna fight Goku and Vegeta! Let's see if a Super Saiyan can defeat a Demon Lord!" Milim said with full confidence.

"See why I called you here Alaster?" Rimuru asked, showing me the conference room in disarray.

I scratched the back of my head and laughed awkwardly. It's been about a hundred years since the Final Tenma War, and the boredom was driving me out of my mind. A world 'at peace' is good and all for bookending a story, but in real life, when nothing of importance happens it gets boring FAST.

Over the last few decades, my power has grown to become nigh-omnipotent. Even Rimuru with Veldanava's memories said he was never as powerful as I became after giving up omnipotence as I have already broken the chains of the World System and am no longer bound by its rules and limitations anymore.

In cultivator terms, I'm at the half-step Omnipotence Phase right now.

And I wasn't the only one. Once the limit was broken, everyone seemed to have gotten over their plate in power and grown in strength. Even Luminous could probably have defeated Fael in his powered-up state in one shot as she was now, and the fact she was the weakest of us hadn't changed.

To keep us busy, as literally nothing was able to entertain us in this world anymore, Velzard and I have been creating a map of the Omniverse in order to visit other fictional settings. Just recently we succeeded in breaking the barrier to leave the Tensura Multiverse and enter into the greater Omniverse.

A number of nearby Multiverses were known to us, such as Pokemon, Dragonball, Marvel, etc and we were dying to check them out. When I asked Rimuru if he wanted to join us on an adventure, he decided to check out the creations of other Omnipotent Beings like himself. He let Veldora know and Veldora let EVERYONE ELSE know, leading to this debate.

I took a deep breath before sighing loudly shutting up everyone in the room. It was time to make a decision. "Alright, everyone. I get it! We can visit all of them. You all are immortal beings and its not like we have a time-limit on this, so relax." I said, calming everyone down.

I never expected to have to lecture multiple millennia-old pseudo-deities who'd solo most fictional verses about being patient, but real life truly is stranger than fiction sometimes.

"We're going to..."

.~.~.~.

A/N: I know some people are going to be confused or think the ending is rushed, but I REALLY wanted to get it finished today since it's been over a month, and ending a story is actually quite difficult.

There is technically still one more chapter left to go, which is the optional harem ending where Evelyn will be officially made into Alaster's second lover, but that is for another time.

Thank you So much for supporting this book and thank you again for forgiving the incredibly inconsistent upload schedule. Have a good night.

.~.~.~.

/1\:

Velgaia followed Alaster to Luminous' domain because she knew there was more fighting to be had and wanted to redeem herself for being defeated by Mariabell.

/2\:

Just a reminder, Velzard can read Alaster's mind as his Manas. She was a bit salty about his earlier comments (the ones which caused him to feel a shiver run up his spine).

/3\:

Leon thinks the two of them were making fools out of themselves to calm him down and not worry too much, when in reality, the two were just fooling around. Even though they were arguing, they weren't actually angry with one another and this was just part of their banter.