Beyond SSS-Rank After Getting The God System-Chapter 252 - 251: Non-Existent Enemies
"No idea what you're talking about, but you two should get a move on and go squid-dragon hunting. Raziel has barely left Ki-ko's side and I'm a little worried that she isn't eating much, the sooner we're all together and she can grieve properly, the better."
Kyubi and Klaire nodded, then told Tiamutael it was time to go home and be a big brother, then they opened a gate.
The moment it opened, the portal acted like a black hole pulling everything towards it. The implication was clear, the battle was one being waged in space, which wouldn't be a problem to Carl but Kyubi was another story.
"Sorry Carl, I'm not well suited for this one. Klaire, I'll take a turn with the children, you help Carl and make sure he doesn't go for the kill."
Klaire shook her head, then said that she trusted him to have learned his lesson, then asked Carl if he was okay going alone. The way she was acting appeared on the surface very uncharacteristic, but they could see her attention was divided, which they knew probably meant she was doing something important.
"I'm good, my mergers gave me great mental resistance to invasion and manipulation, I didn't even feel Margo's usually terrorising aura. I wish I was as strong as Levi though, that girl is so fearless she did stood up to him like it was nothing."
Carl gave a curt wave to them, then stepped through.
Kyubi decided to have all the Elder-gods present there join the others who were preparing and planning for the attack on the infernal realms, then went to check on Raziel.
The moment she appeared, one of the duplicates the Aegis-legion left to act as a doorman, fulfilled their duty and opened the door to Kitsunoko's secure room.
She could immediately see what Klaire meant. their little angel's body of solid light was thrumming like the heartbeat of one steeling themselves to do something reckless and they were Carl's children so that was a strong possibility. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦
"You know, before your dad made you, Lasael warned us you would be fiercely protective of anything you were charged with guarding. Can I assume you have chosen to protect your siblings?"
Kyubi rested against the doorway rather than enter fully and was speaking to her far less softly than they normally did, not wanting to risk her thinking she was being babied if she was trying to grow-up in someway.
Raziel nodded. "Mum, it's too quiet. I'm nervous and the most childish, I get scared when there's lots of noise and fighting... I don't like it.
I used to get upset when Ki-ko was causing trouble and scared when Tiamutael was jumping around like the people in his shows.
Now I'm scared of how quiet and still they both are. I'm scared when they're noisy but I'm more scared when they're quiet and I want to get them both back to normal so we can all cuddle, eat cookies and play games.
It's not so much I want to protect them, that would mean disregarding how strong and outgoing they are, which I always admired. Instead, I want to protect their peace of mind."
Kyubi listened carefully, trying to figure out what was going through their youngest's head, but the problem with beings as quiet and reserved as her is that they are so very easy to misunderstand and so very often fail to communicate properly.
Kyubi walked over and kissed the crown of her head, then gently suggested that not eating properly will only run counter to that belief, but gave her leave to do whatever she thought would be necessary in order to achieve her goal. It was a hard call to make, but it seemed to her that shaking the confidence Raziel was trying to cement would be worse in the long run.
Klaire meanwhile had returned to the palace, a room Allyse had created just for her over the last few days, filled with hundreds of monitors being watched intently by banshee who could feed everything they observed back to Klaire.
Even Faylorna was present, but she was concerned by the all to familiar obsessiveness that Klaire was demonstrating.
"Klaire. Go enjoy your mistress' company. We can feel you as much as you can feel us and quite frankly it's unsettling how focused you are. At this rate we will miss whatever it is you are looking for because the weight of your authority distracted us."
Klaire groaned, she knew it was true, but it wasn't in her nature to lead in absentia. In the end, she forced herself away, but refused to enjoy herself and instead went to check on how the others were getting on with the oversight of the human society reconstruction project that was being monitored by Equinox, Tiamat, Bahamut, Gaia and Luthwynne.
It was a brutally complex task, even though Alysse and Sis had analysed and processed all the data they had acquired before the latter sacrificed herself to keep Carl from falling apart.
There was still incoming information, which was being provided by the subjugated variants, Saboteur and Majesty who had countless drones implanted with nanites collecting live data readings.
Processed information was filtered down to one of those designated as project managers, who planned and put together the itinerary for each planet and facility, which was in turn entrusted to one of those on the new committee to implement by way of a combined force of altered soldiers, Elves and Majesty's offspring.
Every step was completed with the kind of painstaking meticulousness that Leanna demanded and they learned early on that she didn't tolerate corners being cut.
The variants suddenly had it rubbed in their faces how entirely outmatched they were in kingdomcraft, even Mercurian was left feeling entirely inadequate despite the fact he had actually built a kingdom on Earth at a time when civilisation was still young.
It suddenly made sense to them why those who left the SATS she had been directing skyrocketed from one year to the next.
It also made them see exactly how blind their disregard of impure bloodlines had made them to the talents of those they so arbitrarily deemed inferior and the fact that they were without doubt doing more harm to the development of the species by hindering such individuals.
"Klaire, please tell me Carl was brought to his senses." Leanna half shouted through the mountain of data slates she had stacked in front of her.
"He did. Kyubi done a great job as usual and then Carl created something for Infinity to claim as a representative and then Mobius was defeated."
A sigh of relief escaped from behind the glowing stack of slates, then Leanna asked how she could help.
"I'm getting in the Banshees' way, so I got told to get out of their hair."
"If you're really that concerned about the twist and betrayal Klaire, why don't you think about it like someone trying to create drama and strike from a blind spot? You were pretty good at those yourself before you became all-powerful and let yourself forget."
Leanna's critiquing hit her as hard as it used to when she was a student and Leanna the director.
Despite the sting however, it was enlightening and as sound as advice came.
Given the way everything was unfolding, the most likely twist she could think of, was that Margo wasn't the real final boss of the game. It was cliché and as tired a gimmick of the games that Carl used to play as it got, but then all of it was pretty tropey.
As for the "Strike from a blind spot" bit, that was not as helpful. They had eyes everywhere, they had allies spread all over but none were alone, everyone deployed was aware of the potential betrayal and under orders to prioritise relaying information as and when it did happen to limit damage.
"We have eyes everywhere! I just don't see anyone sneaking up on us, Tiamu-..."
"There we go. Seems you finally realised something that means I can get back to work." Leanna stood up from behind the slates to enjoy the sight of someone she had advised solving a problem that had left them stuck.
As an educator it had been her favourite part of the job, but since leaving it had become something to miss sorely, but as she rose and saw Klaire's foot disappearing through a portal, she realised it was something she would have to miss a while longer at the very least.
She slumped back in her chair and sighed, then groaned as several of the slates beeped to notify her of messages.
When Klaire arrived at where she sensed Tiamutael, she slid to a stop on her knees as she hurriedly asked him to find who he couldn't see.
"...Err, Mum, did you go to help Dad and go mad?"
Klaire scowled, then explained what she was trying to achieve, emphasising the plurals on Margo's phrasing "Twists and betrayals, multiple of each, it's only immortal thinking that they wouldn't be made a fool of more than once. Now, of everyone we know other than Margo himself, who can't you follow?"
"Me, pretty sure that's it..." A little concerned about the look in Klaire's eyes and the unhinged energy she was demonstrating, he decided to humour her and double check, whilst also asking his other Mum to come and rescue him.
When Kyubi finally appeared, Klaire guessed what had happened and tried to assure her that she wasn't crazy, but then Tiamutael shouted. "...I can't find Ishtar! Wait, but if she has gone to hold off Margo, that might be why."
Klaire shook her head, then told him to scour every inch of earth if he had to send them there to inspect something blocked from his sight.
As for Carl, he found himself surrounded by beings he couldn't even begin to fathom, though that incomprehensibility seemed to be their nature.
They were toying with the Elder-gods, twisting their minds and bodies. It made no sense, but they seemed to be doing it for no reason beyond entertaining themselves, as though breaking down dolls to reconfigure them in different combinations.
Carl wanted to focus on the mad prophet, but he couldn't bring himself to ignore what the other creatures were doing to their allies and more importantly, they were more powerful.
His appearance on Pluto let Carl gauge his strength as brief as their contact was, but these creatures were on a level altogether different to anything he had encountered before.
"Your mind is strong stranger, but do not underestimate these beings."
"Who are you?"
"I am Beiwe, I was sent here by Ishtar, to help fend off the mental assault we would come under. Unfortunately, we never dreamed the mad prophet would actually be able to allow the outer gods free passage to Thingness."
Carl looked at the monstrous non euclidean beings around them, it wasn't a term he had heard before, but it was clear that they didn't play by the same rules as what he supposed then were inner gods and beings.
He asked to explain in greater detail as fast as possible, listening to her summarised lore dump as intently as possible to try and force an idea of how to get rid of them and undo all the things they had done since arriving.
The key points from what Carl could tell were that they were the necessary equal and opposing force to existence, until they appeared they were considered nonsense that the mad prophet used to preach about and anything they came into contact with was forced to play by the outer realm's rules.
It was nice to have the information, but the fact it meant nothing from the inner realms could do anything against them was not comforting in the slightest.
"...I get it, so in other words, our best hope is to destroy the bridge between inner and outer?"
"That is correct, the mad prophet must be the gate that brought them here."
As they spoke Beiwe's disembodied voice screamed in Carl's head before fading out completely, he then noticed that all of the so-called outer gods' attentions were focused solely on him.
He had very little in the way of choices, fewer still in the way of allies that would be able to cope with the situation and assist in a way other than becoming fodder.
"Tenko, Nergal, I need you two here and I need one of the revived Elder-gods that has affinity with Nothingness and Life."
A few seconds after Carl asked, the portals opened and Tenko, Nergal and his revived wife Izanami stepped out to see Carl as a bird of black flame that surrounded them in aura and pulled them away at top speed.
The moment they laid their eyes upon the vile abominations, they realised what they were, they'd all heard their share of the mad prophet's ravings about the outer gods.
"Carl, I will do anything you ask, but there is absolutely nothing we can do against them." Carl was expecting as much from one as keen-eyed as Nergal, but couldn't help but be a little disappointed by hearing it said out loud.
"Relax, I know. I need Tenko to give me as much divinity as he can that is imbued with Mind's structure. Not sure who you are lady, but I need as much as you can spare of Life and Nothingness mixed together in equal parts."
"And what about me?" Nergal asked, not too proud to admit he was too scared to try and keep them occupied.
"Relax, I don't hate you enough to use you as bait..." The words were awkward and the phrasing harsh, but Nergal found them touching in a strange way. "...I need you to give me the chant to the true gate in writing."
"Don't know why, but you got it! I need about five minutes, I'll share my divinity with these two to boost what they can offer you."
As Tenko and Izanami began producing the requested divinity, Nergal began hectically scribing the chant upon paper as he pulled a stack through from the black city. All of whom acted as extra eyes for Carl to help him evade seemingly random limbs that came out of nowhere.
It wasn't that they were as fast as the creature Carl had created, they were simply everywhere at once, existing wherever they hadn't existed before.
"Flowers and gravy is a terrible meal!"
The sudden exclamation left everyone a little stunned, Tenko, Izanami and Nergal looking between themselves, before Nergal looked back to Carl and said he thought Carl had gotten a grips on his inversion.
Carl was more than a little embarrassed, but glad it wasn't anything as disturbing as the stuff he said when it flared because he was scared or angry, he just shook his head while he continued to try keep evading the Outer-gods' thankfully playful pursuit and tried to figure out how to reestablish his ability to think straight.
Then the three being dragged around in his aura were blinded for a moment as his soul and second mind separated and flew off in its own direction.
Nergal tried to warn him against it, explaining that if his soul and second mind got caught the consequences could be fatal. "I don't have a choice! There was too much going on and we were arguing. I trust myself to scrape by somehow, but consider this the time to dig deep an-"
Carl suddenly lurched to the side as what appeared to be a dozen arms of a woman ending in a crocodile's feet, that in turn ended in the hooves of a horse, large enough to span a solar system suddenly blipped into existence and he had to meander between them like a slalom.
He didn't need to finish, they could see that without his other self, he was stretched thin just flying at the speed, the massive scale of the obstacles had made it escape their notice that Carl was flying at speeds that defied logic as he used the gravitational fields of worlds.
The amount of calculations he was apparently doing on the fly suddenly gave them a headache to think about, mixing physics and powers that break them simultaneously.
Suddenly Tenko reached his limit and alerted Carl, who in turn alerted his other self, who in turn snatched it before opening a portal and disappearing through it to analyse it.
Carl suddenly stalled as his other self disappeared, but it actually paid off as it allowed him to accidentally dodge the next nonsensical obstacle to appear randomly and in doing so, renew the delight the Outer-gods were taking in a game that had started to wear a bit thin as Carl tired.
Realising that heaped more pressure on to him, it wasn't simply a game of chase, but one where the chased had to do things to keep the game exciting for a chaser that could catch them whenever they grew bored.
"Tenko, time to be a fox and try entertaining them!" Nergal roared as he wrote several pages worth at once by simply creating the ink on the paper.
Tenko looked at him, wishing he had been asked that before he used up all his divinity on his previously assigned task.
Nergal realised what was wrong and switched back to pen before giving as much divinity as he could spare over to Tenko, who then used it to create a hundred illusions of their group appear and break off in different directions.
It was a cheap trick, one that shouldn't have worked against such powerful beings, but for some reason they seemed to delight in the development as they started chasing after all of the illusions as much as they were the real group.
It was confusing, but then Carl saw the truth of the matter.
