Music for today:
Epic Slow Build Up Music - I am the Shadow (šššššššš ššššššš)
https://youtu.be/_YQkWEwqNJo
Chapter 472: The Ultimate Gamble
11:03 AM - February 1st, 2026 : Arlington, Virginia | United States
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In the endless silence of what seemed like an isolated corner of the void, I waited, clinging to the end of a long thread of divinity tethering two worlds together while trying to isolate my mind from the unrelenting gnaw of space mana.
It was a rather curious thing... Why were the worlds connected? Where did the divinity come from? And who was maintaining it, given the worlds were moving away from one another?
The questions I had regarding it were simply unrelenting.. but in that place, I couldn't spare it the thought.
Unlike my physical body that had resistance to the void thanks to the space mana that was woven into my flesh, my soul was open and exposed, giving food to an abyss of invisible piranhas.
Using undesirable pieces of Bahamut's soul as an outer shell, the pain was negligible and the damage was manageable, but with how unbelievably devoid of color that stretch of void was, the space mana was especially starved, and led to my form radiating color like a lone star in an empty night sky.
Despite having not seen any void creatures anywhere near it, it had me on edge. That stretch of void was a desert, and if anything chose to cross it, it would grow thirsty and hungry like any other.
And to them, the color I was radiating was like the glimmer of an oasis.
If something spotted me before I spotted it, I was going to get hunted.
But truthfully, it was hard to keep my focus from wavering. Even with my endless years within the void, travelling and studying, I had never seen a place to empty.. so colorless...
Having spoken to Bahamut about the world rather extensively, I was prepared for a world largely devoid of mana, but to see its 'presence' or glow within the void barely rivalling the weakest moon I had come across, it was both fascinating, and terrifying.
Even with the trust I had in the memory of my vision.. I felt doubt and unease compound with every moment.. questioning if this was truly the right place. -Every world has a presence of some kind... The gravity or warp it makes in the fabric of space energizes the space mana in the void.- Leading to the mana changing states, and releasing a visible glow.
But that place was almost entirely devoid of it... Almost artificially so. -Its almost like it was cleaned...-
Perhaps by an anomaly...
Or perhaps by a monster...
With every new thought or theory, my worries continued to compound.
But nonetheless, I waitedāremaining as alert as I could, scanning the distant colors of other star systems hundreds of light-years away looking for movementāuntil finally...
...A sound.
*KREEEEEEEE* After not hearing anything beyond ripple in eons, the void screamed, quaked, and cavitated. From within the endless abyss, a violent star erupted with a spark, and a tear opened between realms never meant to clash.
Somehow, a world that should have never known of mana, managed to tear a gape in space.
But I didn't have time to think about it.
With Delphi's unreasonable time dilation, I had a few seconds at mostābut with the surge of space mana through the crack, rushing forth to seal it, I had even less.
*Woosh* Moving through, space sputtered, rippled, and screamed. *RUMBLEEEEEEE* The world, nearly entirely devoid of mana, quaked as the crack sealed with a thunderous ripple.
But the damage had only just begun to spread.
With hardly a single present particle reinforced with mana, the void that had leaked through the momentary crack consumed everything it touched without mercy. Advanced devices at the pinnacle of Earthen technology were reduced to slagāthe complex containment room made from what could only be the strongest materials on the planet, disintegrated without resistance.
To the group of humans beyond the glass, it was the descent of the unknown...
The visualization of fear...
"AHHHHH!!!" As the space mana reached them and began consuming their flesh no differently from the metal walls, screams and panic erupted.
"R-RUUNN!!" Trying to escape, they flocked to the large door opposite of the containment.. pitifully.. and fruitlessly.
*Crackle* It was locked.. not by their systems, but by the wave of mana from the feeding of the void. -Everyone here will die.- It wasn't much mana at all.. but to a world entirely devoid of it, it was a wash of devastation. Calibrations ruined.. electronics fried.. neurons crystallized.
Flesh peeled.. blood curdled.. and screams muffled.
Nothing. Was. Spared.
From the air they breathed, to the light they saw.. nothing survived.
But while panic encompassed the room.. there were a select few that remained... "That must be our GOD."
Looking at the man standing over the group, my gaze thinned and time twisted to a halt.
Almost immediately, countless presences revealed themselves to me. The world, despite being devoid of mana, was buried in gods. Most weaker than I thought possible, but a select few strong enough to give some of the Aesir a match.
But their strength wasn't what shocked me... It was the number.
Around me, thousands, if not tens of thousands of presences rippled in response to my own... A number of gods that could have never sprouted naturally even in the most optimal conditions.
Rather, they all seemed.. artificial... -Seems this world wasn't as simple as Bahamut made it sound...- Looking back at where the crack once was, recalling the thread of divinity beyond it, I squinted for a moment.
But the questions that formed were never meant to be answered.
-At least by me...-
Relinquishing my questions, I pushed everything aside to focus on the humans beneath me.
It was finally time to make the gamble. -I need to find myself...- I needed to find the one who was fated to become me... The one who would lead me to the distant future I saw all those years ago...
The vision I had all those years ago never exposed who I needed to select. Without a physical brain or eyes, I had to go off sensation and instinct.
But it wasn't as difficult as it sounded.
The first on the chopping block were the crowd at the door. -I don't just need knowledge... I need talent...- And those who lost themselves to panic so easily weren't fit.
""AAAHHHH!!!"" Their screams grew louder as their flesh and bones were consumed, screaming for another god to save them as the thousands nearby remained still.. watching in silence from a great distance...
"This is our Savior! Our Salvation!" *Woom*
-You are similarly unfit.-
"IT IS- ACK-" His voice cut as his throat dissolved and flooded with curdling, boiling bloodāthe sound of his screams suffocated and consumed by the starved flesh of the void.
There were only a few left after him. A handful of folk paralyzed from fear.
But among them all.. only one caught my eye.
Looking down at the young boy, frozen from fear, I had a moment of pause.
He was terrifiedāno different from the others beside him...
But in his eyes, I saw something different...
Beneath his fear.. beneath his gut wrenching acknowledgement of the imminence of his death.. his eyes were.. troubled...
In that moment, he was.. curious... He wasn't questioning why fate decided his life was to end like the others, or questioning what was going to happen after everything faded to black...
He was asking what the infinite darkness above him was...
In the face of death.. he was infatuated.
-You...- His name was Jack, a frail human never graced with the touch of manaāa being that was physically the epitome of everything I wasn't.
And yet.. as I stared into him, I found a reflection of my younger self... In his small, nearly nonexistent soul, I saw the endlessly fascinated little pup I used to be.. watching washes of destruction rip across battlefields with wonder rather than fear...
Perhaps it was fate.
He was going to be me.. and I was going to be him...
Yet while we were still separate in that moment, we were of the same feather.
He was a human. I was a fenrir.
He was a mortal. I was a god.
He was a being of science. I was a being of magic.
Yet deeper down.. beyond his flesh, and beyond my scars.. we had the same, central flame...
Unbridled curiosity...
Allowing the void to claim the other few that remained, I used my soul to take control of some of the space mana still thick in the air, and twisted it into a gate around us. *Vwoop*
But his challenge had only just begun. Having to absorb, yet keep his soul's core isolated from my own, the void ate at him the entire journey back, leaving him to twist and churn trying to escape the pain.
But eventually.. we made it.
*Vwoop* Returning to Delphi with a gate made from the ambient mana of the void, we returned...
Thousands of years had passed in the seconds I was on Earth.. and Delphi was entirely changed...
But it was all within expectation.
Taking a century to stabilize the boy's soul with pieces of my own, being careful not to affect the thought processes programmed into his soul, it was time to lay the final piece of the foundation.
Everything else was in place. The placement of artifacts.. the angel with a young hero from Earth beneath her wing.. and the locations of my future allies, all laid across the world like a pregenerated dungeon... -Hardship.. pain.. and love...-
Looking toward the great scar that rose from my strike countless years prior, and to the decomposing corpse in a ruined facility on its peak, I couldn't help but wince, and lower my gaze with guilt...
But it was the only way...
After that, only one piece was left to lay before the chess game, played across time, would begin.
It was time to speak to the parents I'd come to love as my own in the future...
*Woom* Returning to the ground, I made my way to a colossal estate in the center of the draconic continent, layered with wealth, and decorated with power, before moving into a grand, warmly lit bedroom.
Inside, two young dragons, frost-white and faintly silver laid intertwined.
Zachari and Osto... Two names that were fated to carry the burden of countless...
Though they didn't know, their fate was going to be laden with struggle and loss.. and their actions were going to be what decided not just the fate of their lives.. but the fate of Delphi as a whole.
I wanted to tell them... I wanted to them to know the weight they were set to carry.
But I couldn't. At most, I could merely.. lay a seed...
Floating down into their room as they wove together in a clash of warmth and frost, I pulled a string of divinity from my chest.. the final piece I had.. and connected it to the one named Zachari, my future mother.
Caught in a moment of passion, an echo of contained desire echoed through the tether almost instantly, but this could not be done at a different time...
"~Zachari...~" I spoke slowly and smoothly. "~What would you be willing to give for the blessing of your young?~"
Almost immediately, she frozeāthe slightly predatory smile aimed at her mate warping with a deep, motherly warmth. "~I'd give everything.~"
She wasn't surprised.. almost like she was expecting me... "~Blessings can sometimes be seen as a curse... What is it you wish for?~"
Her body tightened before speaking without thought. "~Strength and talent that can let them chase their desires, unbound by the shackles of duty that have bound me.~"
I felt my chest tighten, gaze fall, and breath freeze as I looked down one final time. "~The cost will be great...~"
Her expression darkened as her attention turned.
"~A stillborn, and a fate burdened by the world.~"
She froze.
"~If you do not take my blessing, you will have a clutch of three. Their lives will be short, perhaps calm, and easy... But none will survive beyond their early years...~"
Her claws dug into the cushions.
"~However, if you take my hand, you will have a clutch of two.. a boy and a girl.. who will write their own fates... You will be able to bathe in wealth and power you couldn't imagine-~"
"~I don't care about wealth or power...~" She paused. "~Those things don't tempt me...~"
But I continued regardless, "~If you take my hand, your young will be able to bend reality to your wishes... Even if your wish is to have a second clutch...~"
Her eyes shot open instantlyāprimal desire clashing with burdened reasoning. "~How.. can I trust you...~"
"~You must decide that on your own.~" I spoke softly, hushing myself despite wishing to reveal more.
"~Who are you...~"
"~I can't say...~"
"~Why me?~"
"~Because that is what the future has chosen.~"
Time twisted with the flow of her thoughts as her gaze fellāher eyes moving over her lover, and down her own body before stopping on a small symbol on the wall... A reminder of legacy. "~What.. must I do..?~"
"~You must bear the children that come from this moment.. and forget this discussion ever happened.~" I meant it literally.
And she knew it.
Closing her eyes in a moment of pause, her mind was so suddenly burdened with thought that the fiery passion she had when I first arrived had completely vanished.. and struggled to return.
But in the end, she chose to agree, and the final puzzle piece was laid in place.
Though it took years for the eggs to fully form and be laid, in that time, I spoke with Osto, my future father, to ensure the main artifact I used the Acardi to create was in place, prepared to to reshape the flesh of my future body, and separate my soul from it with a tether of divinity.
It was going to be a long struggle... But the time was coming.
With every passing month, the time of my reincarnation grew nearer.. and nearer.
Until finally.. the day arrived.
Connecting the small, still isolated and in-tact soul core of the human to the vessel of my future flesh, a small bead of divinity dissolved into him with an injection of basic knowledgeāa dragon inheritance...
And at last.. I cut my consciousness entirely, allowing the tiny speck of a soul I had absorbed to drag along a mountainous cloud of knowledge and power it had no ability to control or access.
But that was set to change.
With the disconnection of my consciousness, his soul was rapidly absorbed.. his memories faded.. and his personality was written anew with new memories, experiences, and knowledge.
With the passage of time, that little human spark took in more and more of the hulking mass that composed my soul, rewiring the foundation of everything I knew as it dug into the truth of what it was.. the truth of what we were.. and the truth of the predetermined nature of every step I made...
We had blended.. becoming one after endless challenges.
But it wasn't until the moment Delphi pushed me into the mana core of one of Jormungandr's young, that our soul cores combined.. not as two mixing fluids, but as one combined.
It was the moment my consciousness fully returned... The moment my scars carved themselves back into me with clarity, and the moment my unsettled, ancient burdens tried to crush the new being I had formed of myself.
But it wasn't enough.
I was finally born anew... Weathering the recollection of memories, burdens, and pains, I found balance within myself.. and separated consciousnesses blended seamlessly into one.
The chess game I had started countless millennia ago had finally reached its last, predetermined move.
From now on, I was on my own.
Still far beneath the heights I had fallen from, I had a long way to climb.. so much so it was almost crushing...
But as my eyes opened in that intoxicating bath of mana, a familiar, indescribable warmth returned and steadied my grip.
It was a chess game I had to predict over eighty thousands years of moves on.. but I did it...
I hadn't won yet.. but the greatest gamble was over...
I had survived the gauntlet.
I had predicted every move reality made on its grand chess board and threaded every needle I was never meant to...
But that racing.. that surge of energy and warmth I was feeling in that moment.. was only possible because that was where my vision all those years ago ended. I hadn't seen any farther ahead.
It felt like I had reached the end of a road.. it felt like I had won...
But it was only beginning.
...And if I knew what was coming, the excitement I felt then never would have lasted...
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