Rimuru Tempest POV - Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken Universe, Central World, Magic Continent, Great Jura Forest, Tempest - 2013 AMB
I feel an unbelievable fear overtake me before I glare at Benimaru and say, "Hey, what are you doing! No way I could respond, 'It's horrible,' you know! You purposefully trapped me, didn't you, Benimaru!"
In response, Benimaru laughs and says with a distant, reminiscing gaze, "Hahaha, I have no idea what you're talking about. Well, shouldn't you have a taste after so long? Thanks to the constant taste testing that I do, I've recently acquired Poison Resistance..."
Hearing that, I can't help but wonder in fear and shock, 'A-A… Are you kidding me!? Poison Resistance... Didn't you just equate her cooking to poison?! What a tragedy. To find myself in it right after awakening. Just after enduring one peril, to find myself in another?'
Shortly after that, many of the evolved monsters came to greet me, and though their aura has slightly changed, their personalities seem to be the same, so most likely there is nothing to worry about.
After each one offered their greeting, they all returned to work on the festival.
Whether to celebrate their newfound power or what, they decided to hold a festival.
But, when they started coming up with hilarious names for it, like "Demon Lord's Birthday Party" or "Let's Worship Rimuru-sama Party," for example, I sincerely wanted to stop them.
However, in the end, I decide that it's fine while thinking, 'They can have all the fun they want today. After all, they are in a very festive mood already.'
For a festival-loving Japanese that I am, any reason is good enough.
Since coming up with a random reason to drink heavily is in every adult's nature.
I had offered to help, but with grand reverence, they rejected my offer.
Well, I can't boast in my ability to prepare festivals anyway, so I'll rest up as requested.
Then, a person I have been seeing around here a lot and that I've actually forgotten about until now, runs up to me, bows deeply, and says, "Your awakening fills me with endless joy. Allow me to congratulate you from the bottom of my heart for your rebirth as a Demon Lord."
I focus on the handsome, unfamiliar man in front of me and start to wonder, 'Who's that? Seems like a very high-ranked demon, but I don't know…'
While I'm thinking that, the high-ranked demon continues, "And please pardon the rudeness, but regarding my earlier request to become your humble servant… How shall you respond? Have you made your decision?"
Hearing that, my mind finally starts to catch up as I start to remember, 'Becoming my servant… he says? Umm, I do remember summoning one Archdaemon and two Greater Daemons following Jayr-san's suggestion… But no matter how I look at him, he's clearly beyond a regular Archdaemon, isn't he? I was kinda in a hurry back then and couldn't look at them very well, so could he be the one who was interested in me that Jayr-san was talking about...?'
With that thought in my mind, I calmly ask the high-ranked daemon in front of me for confirmation, "Are you the one I summoned using the cube of soul energy created by Jayr-san?"
In response to my question, the Archdaemon nods and says, "As you say. It was truly a delicious meal. As a result, I was successfully able to materialize."
This makes me casually say, "... Ah, is that so. Good for you." While another question emerges in my mind, 'What about the other two?'
Immediately, Raphael answers, [Solution. The two Greater Daemons decided to sacrifice themselves to further empower some of the weaker subjects whose wishes required more energy than the Harvest Festival could offer. Thus, according to their wish, they have been used to empower your people and erased.]
Making me internally exclaim, 'Wow. Raphael is saying such terrifying things with such a happy tone. It's even more heartless than Great Sage, and just showing off that wicked personality. And though I thought it was useless a little bit ago, it has been supporting me from the shadows this whole time. Sorry for thinking that you are useless. However, to use up those demons that wanted only to be of use to me is just sad...'
At this point, I came to a decision on what to do about this Archdaemon's request and said, "Alright, got it. From now on, you are one of my comrades. What's your name?"
The Archdaemon quickly replies in a moved tone, "Oh! You are too kind. But one such as I am a mere nameless demon." Making me ponder, 'Hmm? A high-ranked existence but nameless, huh. Can't be helped. Let's give him a name. But what name would be good? Demons that I know of... There's the one that became humanity's ally. There won't be any copyright violations if I use it, right? But, since this is a different world, I probably won't be sued… But since the Omniverse is a thing, maybe there are Omniversal Lawyers... Ah, whatever.'
At this point, I decide not to think about it too much and say, "Alright. In that case, you won't mind if I give you a name, will you?"
His handsome face curves into a delighted smile as he exclaims, "Will you truly? This is the greatest reward imaginable!!!" Making me praise myself in my mind, 'Yep, I really am predisposed to be loved by monsters. Time to get serious. This time, I won't mess up. Was it...'
Then, with conviction, I declare, "Your name shall be Diablo. Receive that name, and become my guardian deity!"
The moment I named him, a considerable amount of energy escaped me, making me almost wince, 'I've really gotten used to feeling this. But hey, he took only half of my energy, at most. I mean, I was worried that being a high-ranked daemon and all he'd take all of my energy, but nope… If I remember correctly, when I named the Benimaru and the others, I was left with basically nothing to the point that I entered my low-activity/sleep-mode state; I guess a Greater Demon is also a high-ranked existence. This is curious...'
Once more, Raphael immediately replies to my mental query by saying, [Solution. Individual: Diablo was a powerful Archdaemon to begin with. As a result of the evolution, Master's total magical energy amount has greatly increased. Compared to the original amount of time Master named Benimaru and the others, it is now twenty times as large.]
Hearing that, I quickly understand, 'Y-yeah. Did Raphael just randomly decide to offer the advice… But I seem to have said something inexcusable. I mean, I'm happy that it is now twenty times larger, but he took half of that?! This is… that, right? "Oops, I did it again," feeling? Won't he become some absurdly powerful daemon?'
The demon in front of me, kneeling, stopped moving, and soon after, a black cocoon enveloped his body, creating a perfect evolution posture, making me fully realize, 'Yep, I've done it again. No cure for stupidity, so nothing I can do about this now. Let's just hope that should it decide to rampage, that I'll be able to stop it without the need of Jayr-san making a move...'
Since the evolution does not look like it is going to end soon, I just leave him there while promising myself, 'From now on: let's be careful about naming monsters!'
However, I am confident that I wouldn't be able to keep this promise for one reason or another.
Having completely forgotten about Diablo for the time being, I spent the time watching the festival preparations.
While everyone is merrily fulfilling their tasks, I am dreading the meal prepared by Shion, and then it came.
The feared, Shion's Cooking, also known as the most lethal weapon of this universe, arrived.
Shion walks in with a bright, happy smile on her face as she brings me the suspicious-looking meal, while I think, 'The time to say my prayers. It's here.'
Beholding the steaming dish, I can't help but exclaim out loud, "W-waaaaaait~! What is this? What the hell is this?"
At the same time, I scream in my mind, 'That's not food, I shall not permit anyone to recognize this abomination as cooking. A bunch of things flowing in the broth? Was she trying to make… Stew? Listen, girl, when someone questions your food, you've already lost. If I ever survive this, I'll ask Jayr-san to cook me one of his mythical pizzas...'
Then I look at the happy and satisfied Shion and ask, "Hey, hey! Shion, wait. I have something I need to ask. Have you ever heard the phrase 'prepare the ingredients'?" Which makes her happily reply, "Of course, Rimuru-sama! How does it look? Doesn't it look delicious?"
Unable to hold myself back, I scream, "You fool! Why are carrots, potatoes, peppers, onions, and the other ingredients floating whole in there?! So that you can tell them apart by looking or something? You have to peel and cut them first!"
And when I see Benimaru walking by, I loudly ask, "What's this all about? There's clearly been no improvement?"
Dodging my words like holy water, Benimaru shrugs his shoulder and states while scooting away, "Nope, this is impossible for me. I have hit a wall. A wall called reality. I had never thought that something could be impossible, but this time I tasted defeat."
Hearing that, I continue to panic while thinking, 'What's with "a wall called reality" crap. Stop screwing with me. I have to eat it, huh…?'
Then, when I look at Shion, her eyes are full of tears and she's trembling, making me realize that I have no choice, so opening my heart to the unknown like a monk, I decided to take the first step towards nirvana, and say, "Got it, I'll eat it. But, next time, please at least prepare the ingredients..."
At this point, Shion shyly explains, "Umm, about that. I did try, but I ended up cutting the building..." Which makes me gasp, "Huh?"
Meanwhile, Shion continues to explain while pointing at the odachi on her back, "No, the Divine Gorikimaru is plenty sharp, but it's a little long..."
She was cooking, no... trying to cook with that?!
When I look at Benimaru, he holds up his arms as if giving up, making my opinion of him quickly fall, 'What an unreliable guy.' Before I say, "A sword is not a tool for cooking. You get it? Surely there's a knife around or something?"
However, Shion shakes her head and declares, "No, I am one with the Divine Gorikimaru, so cheating on it is a bit..."
I immediately try to make her change her mind by saying, "Ah, is that so. I thought of giving you a knife as a present soon, but I guess there's no need for that now."
This works perfectly as Shion quickly corrects herself, "I was wrong! Divine Goorikimaru is perfectly fine with me cheating on it, it said!"
With a smile, I nod and say, "I see… I'll give you a knife sometime soon, so please use that to cook." At the same time, thinking, 'What a good person. That should do it. At least, the ingredients shouldn't come out like that anymore.'
After that, I focus back on the plate in front of me, shudder a little, and wonder, 'If I eat this food… no, I refuse to recognize it as food...! If I eat this thing, I should acquire Poison Resistance, I guess. It'll probably be useful from now on. No choice, I have evolved into a True Demon Lord. I won't die from eating some food.'
While thinking that, I change into my human form and commit myself to eating it.
Steeling myself, I "welcome" some unknown substance into my mouth and, without chewing, I swallow when I suddenly realize, 'Huh? Something's wrong. It's pretty damn delicious. N-no way! Though it looks completely inedible.'
I open my eyes and, with utmost care, eat another spoonful.
Delicious...
Benimaru is looking at me, as if praying, his eyes are asking me whether I am alright, which means that when Benimaru tasted it, it was really bad.
Meanwhile, Shion has a triumphant smile on her face, and that does annoy me a bit, but I look at her and ask, 'Shion, what is this… Why, unlike how it looks, it tastes great?"
In response, Shion chuckles and begins to explain, "Fufufu, the thing is…"
In short, in the middle of the evolution, when she needed to express her dearest wishes, she wished for her cooking to be delicious.
I bet only she made such a wish during my gift-granting ceremony.
What was she thinking, seriously?
But, I guess that's just like her; no, this is just who Shion is.
At some point, Shion finishes her story, "Ehehe. Thus, I obtained this skill. The name, Unique Skill Cook!"
I'm so amazed, I have nothing to say.
To obtain a unique skill in order to cook, just how persistent was she?
When I asked about it, apparently, no matter what she uses, it turns out delicious.
When Shuna found out about this, her eyes were full of tears of despair and hatred.
Quite understandably so, because for someone who strives hard to succeed, such a skill is unforgivable.
But Shion has completely gone off course trying to improve.
Well, that is just like her, I guess.
The day was thus in preparation for the festival, and we partied deep into the night.
Completely erasing the air of tension of a few days ago, the city with filled with smiling faces.
Youm and Ellen also participated in the festival and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
There are a lot of loose ends to fix tomorrow, and we need to discuss the future, but not now. Wow, let's enjoy our lives to the fullest.
That's just our way of life.
Jayr POV - Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken Universe, Central World, Magic Continent, Great Jura Forest, Tempest - 2013 AMB
After the conclusion of the festival organizated to celebrate the successful evolution of Rimuru into a True Demon Lord and the gifts that his Harvest Festival spread to all the monsters connected to him giving them new Skills and allowing them to further evolve, I now stand alone on the summit of a random, isolated mountain away from the city, where even the stars seem to hold their breath.
Below, the rest of the world seems to sleep, oblivious, fragile, but by straining my Cosmic Awareness to its limits, I feel the tremor that has yet to happen, the thunder before the lightning, 'It's coming. He's coming. The Champion of Power... and with him...' I finish what I was thinking by lowly mutter, "... Unicron."
At the same time, the Omniverse bleeds when the name of such a powerful entity is spoken out loud, especially when the entity itself has its gaze already fixed on this multiverse.
And I can feel the cut already forming, then I close my eyes and step away from the moment before I grasp the silver core drill wound around my neck and softly call out the name of my most trusted partner, "Crateris."
In an instant, my Cloth responds to my call and appears before me in its Constellation Form, already understanding my intent.
Then, with a casual movement, I fill my Cloth in the form of an ornate silver footed cup with water and infuse my Spiral Cosmo into the Cloth to activate one of its most useful abilities, the ability to peer into the future.
When Crateris was only a "simple" Silver Cloth, it was only allowed to shyly peek at a few instances of a possible future, but the more powerful we grew together, the more powerful this ability became.
To the point that for us, Time wasn't a river any longer; it became a glass sphere in the palm of our hands, infinitely layered, infinitely fragile.
With a breath, I press my will into the water and crack open that glass sphere that it is Time as countless images appear within the seemingly simple still water contained in the Crateris Cloth.
The present peels back like skin, seconds unravel into decades, and I peer into the lines of causality with barefoot ease.
In front of me, time shifts, like wind on water, like fire flickering backward.
Civilizations rise and fall in the blink of an eye, moons and planets are born and shattered, the stars dance their cold ballet across the dark, but I'm not here to sightsee the chaotic kaleidoscopic vision of Time; I hunt for the future.
It tries to resist me at first, there's turbulence, sharp and strange, not natural.
Something massive has disturbed the timeline, a cosmic force strong enough to ripple forward and backward even across seemingly infinite distances, which alone tells me what I need to know.
Unicron's not just coming, it has already made contact, subtly, indirectly.
Somewhere, a key decision has already been influenced, and I know perfectly well when it happened, when Aletha recklessly tried to divine more information about the Champion of Power.
At this point, I narrow my focus, and time quickly accelerates, centuries shoot past, then decades, then I see it.
The Central World, or what's left of it, a horizon scorched to glass, the sky choked in metal dust, and something massive eclipsing... everything.
Unicron, no longer one of those weak planet-sized avatars it often uses, but a universe-sized horror, grinding nearby super galaxies and even entire universes to fuel.
Its army, cloaked in the jagged armor of a thousand harvested universes, descends like locusts.
Not just Cybertronians, something worse, mechanized abominations, fused with dark energon and twisted physics, they don't just destroy, they erase.
And what is worse, it's not alone; there are four other entities almost on par with it, but clearly subject to its will, that will also invade this multiverse with it.
I stare into the wound-like tear in the space that bleeds madness, where they and their unfamiliar but very famous armies pour out of it.
I saw a thousand planetfalls at once, black ships trailing smoke and screams.
Machines and mostrosities howling as they touched down on the ground.
The banners of Chaos undulated in the wind, slick with blood and ichor, the much-famous Eightfold Star etched into the sky in lines of fire.
The legions of Khorne trampled oceans into steam, brass feet crushed mountain ranges.
I saw titans of muscle and rage, endless armies screaming war-cries with tongues that split into axes mid-sentence.
The air ignited around them, not from flame, but from hate given form.
The plague caravans of Nurgle, carried on the backs of rotting angels.
I felt the sickness before I saw it, a slow boil under my skin, the weight of despair pressing down on every breath.
They didn't conquer with speed; they settled, roots of corruption cracked cities from beneath, the ground writhed with joy as it was infected.
Slaanesh danced, beauty and horror intertwined until I couldn't tell where my awe ended and revulsion began.
I heard music that should have been impossible, a melody that played directly on the nerves, plucking agony and pleasure in equal measure, and cities flayed themselves to welcome them.
And Tzeentch, I watched empires and kingdoms rewritten in a blink.
Entire armies turned against themselves mid-charge, uniforms bleeding into new sigils.
Sorcerers with eyes where their mouths should be, commanding warp-storms like conductors of an orchestra of screams.
Reality twisted. Causality bent. Hope became betrayal.
I let the vision play. Let the pain of it sear into memory.
Cities screaming, oceans boiled dry, my allies dying in battles they were never meant to win, as they were completely outnumbered, wholly unprepared for what was to come.
I see one of them, Iggy, split apart by a singularity bomb, another, Nellika, crumples under the gravity cannon of a war-titan ten miles wide, Paul ripped apart in despair, unable to achieve his revenge, and even my own death, despite all my powers and preparations to ensure my own survival, as I'm assaulted by five terrifying entities that are my equal or close.
This is the price of ignorance; this is what happens if I wait too long to act.
I rewind, not the whole thing, just enough, just until I see the first breach, a point of entry nearby in this massive planet's orbit.
A flash, a distortion that screams against time's fabric, that's when the timeline splits, 'There. That's my marker. Forty-six days. That's all we have left.'
I freeze the moment, burn it into my mind, the exact coordinates, the angle of the incursion, the frequency of its quantum echo, I make sure that not even a little detail escapes.
The timeline tries to resist me now. Unicron's influence is viral, sentient.
As if even looking into this future risks contamination, but I'm no foolish mortal trying to face a force bigger than himself, I am Jayr, the God of Healing, Justice, and Dragons, and I do not blink.
With a silent roar of my Spilar Cosmo exploding, I crush the frozen future within the Crateris Cloth and drag myself back to the now, to the present.
The summit of the unknown mountain reforms around me, back to the silent tranquillity of this moment of peace, as if what I saw was only a bad nightmare, but I know perfectly well that what I saw was a glimpse of what could have happened if I didn't do what I just did.
I open my eyes, the stars still shine, the world still turns, but I know better now, I know that the countdown has already begun.
I look at my hand and see that it is shaking a little as I realize that I'm shaken by what I just witnessed, 'I have to admit that I've underestimated my opponent a little too much. To think that the Champion of Power would bring not only Unicron but also the freaking Chaos Gods and their armies from the Warhammer 40k Universe. How the hell was he able to pull this absurd stunt off!? It's absolutely crazy!'
But soon, I calmed down a little and fully analyzed this issue, 'It is likely the result of Unicron's influence. The Chaos Gods of the Warhammer 40k Universe are undoubtedly very powerful and fearsome entities that can wield immense power within the Warp; however, they can only influence the material universe through daemons and other manifestations. On top of that, the Chaos Gods are heavily reliant on the "Great Game" within the Warp and struggle to project their full power into the material universe. Their power is also divided among themselves, and they are constantly vying for dominance. On the other hand, Unicron is a whole other beast altogether. Unicron is a multiversal singularity, meaning his power and influence extend across multiple universes. On top of that, it can easily manipulate the reality of the entire universe. Then its pure physical power is out of the chart thanks to its immense size. In the end, even if they set aside their conflict and fought together, the Chaos Gods still wouldn't be a match for the full power of Unicron... The obvious result is a landslide victory for Unicron, who likely decided to subjucate the Chaos Gods to its will.'
At this point, I fully calm down as I remember all the battle I've experienced until now, all the imposssible odds I've overcome before, and more importantly what is going to happen if I fail and fall making the image of my kids, my wives, and all other people I care for appear in my mind, something that fully ignites my fighting spirt and makes the Spiral Cosmo within my body churn ready to be activated.
Then, as the world shakes under the pressure of my power, I close my hand into a fist and restrain my Spiral Cosmo as I realize what it was doing.
After that, with a confident smile on my face, I mutter, "In the vision I just saw, the Champion of Power and his armies came too fast, as none of the allies I wanted to gather were present, and we got overwhelmed by their absolutely obscene numbers way too fast to do anything else but try to resist with all our powers. However, this time... They'll come. Forty-six days. And then Hell arrives. But this time, we'll be there waiting for them. We'll be ready. And we will win!"