Leveling Up by Seducing Milfs-Chapter 214. Victory’s Breath

"Hah... hah... hah..." Rick let out a lot of hard breathing, seeing that the battle had finally ended. "Ta-Take that..."

"...you son of tentacles." Overwhelmed by the stress coursing through his body, Rick collapsed toward the ocean.

Rick’s body hit the water with a splash that hardly registered in his tired mind.

He just floated there for a minute, arms outstretched, looking up at the sky with a confused look on his face. The storm clouds were breaking up, and he could see blue patches that he hadn’t seen since before Cthulhu woke up.

Rick asked himself in a hoarse voice, "Did we... really fucking... win?" He had been screaming during the last attack.

He couldn’t quite believe it. The Forbidden Guardian, which had seemed completely unkillable just a few minutes ago, was gone.

It broke down into small pieces of light that spread out across the horizon like stars going back to the sky.

Rick raised his right hand, the one that had thrown the last punch, and looked at it in awe. His knuckles were sore and bleeding, and his whole arm was shaking from the effort of channeling so much power, but the hand was still there.

It seems like they can still save the world after all of that hopeless encounter.

"Hah... hah... hah... damn...! Thank you... everyone... it seems our fate and luck are still on our side..." Rick can’t hide his smile at all while looking at the clear blue sky.

"And everything is surely going back to normal..." Rick glances at the ocean water around him.

The ocean around him was changing right in front of his eyes. The black, oily corruption that had polluted the water was going away.

The purifying energy that had killed Cthulhu had burned it away. The Astral Deep went back to its natural blue-green color in just a few seconds. Rick could see dozens of meters down into the depths.

Schools of fish started to swim by him, jumping and playing as if they were celebrating their freedom from corruption. Dolphins came up to the surface nearby, and their clicks and whistles sounded a lot like laughter.

The ocean was healing, and life was coming back to waters that had been corrupted.

Rick said, "It’s beautiful," as a big fish with shiny scales swam by his face.

"I never thought I’d see the ocean this way."

Then he thought back about the little girl. The little kid with white hair and eyes that were full of love. She had come at just the right time, given him that last push, and smiled at him in a way that made his chest hurt.

Who was she? What was she? Why did looking at her make him think of something important he had forgotten?

"That little girl... the hair and the green eyes... it felt like I was staring at myself... but with a weird feeling."

A familiar figure appeared next to Rick. Sebastian’s chibi form floated on a disc of magical energy, and his monocle shone in the newly revealed sunlight.

Sebastian said, "Well, well, well," and for once his voice was warm instead of sarcastic. "Look at you, you beautiful mess of a gooner."

"You did the impossible and lived to tell about it all as the Hero of Mature Hearts who’s still going back to its grind."

Rick turned to look at his system administrator, grimacing because his neck hurt. "Sebastian, did we really fucking do it...?"

"Is Cthulhu really gone?"

"Fuck yeah~! That asshole is completely and utterly obliterated," Sebastian said, bringing up a clear screen that showed different status windows.

"Let me give a quick recap..."

"Forbidden Guardian: Defeated."

"Corruption levels in Astral Deep: Dropping quickly."

"Casualty count: Heavy but not catastrophic."

"World-ending apocalypse: successfully prevented."

The chibi butler’s face got even softer. "Rick Rolland, you did it. You motherfucker...! You actually fucking did it!"

"You saved Zorathia from its world-ending conflict for the first time! I know I give you a lot of bullshit for being a gooner and making wrong choices, but right now, I can say without a hint of sarcasm that you are a worthy real hero."

"Maybe that’s why they choose you!"

Rick’s eyes were filling with tears, but he didn’t know if it was because he was exhausted, relieved, or emotional. "I couldn’t take all the credit even though I’m the hero of the main character..."

"It’s because I couldn’t have done it without everyone on my sides... my partners, the reinforcements, you, and that little girl as the clutch of it all."

The monocle on Sebastian’s face flashed. "Little girl...? The fuck you on about some little girl?"

"Don’t fucking tell me you’re tired with Milfs and decides to switch up to---"

"FUCK NO!" Rick shouted with his last strength.

Rick corrected, "It’s the one who came at the end," as he tried to sit up in the water and failed.

"She touched my hand and gave me the last push I needed to get past Cthulhu’s defenses! I can see her had white hair and lovely green eyes."

Sebastian’s face showed that he was really confused. "Rick, I was watching the whole battle through the system interface..."

"There was no girl. It was just you, Nerissa, the spirit of the New Leviathan, and all the hope from every fighter channeling power into your final attack."

"But I did see her," Rick said. "She was right there... and she smiled at me while saying something I couldn’t manage to hear."

Sebastian said, "Maybe it was a hallucination caused by too much stress and mana loss," but his voice was unsure."

"Alternatively, it could have been a temporary manifestation of collective will."

"The amount of hope energy in that moment was unlike anything else. It could have caused temporary events that the system couldn’t keep track of."

Rick wanted to argue more, but he felt several people coming closer through the bond network before he could. His partners were getting better, and their wounds were healing thanks to the residual purification energy that his last attack had sent across the whole battlefield.

Carmilla was the first to get to him. Despite her fatigue, Carmilla’s knight speed allowed her to cross the water in seconds. She grabbed Rick and hugged him tightly, shaking all over.

"You dumbass...!" Carmilla cried into his shoulder. "I felt you almost die through the Unbreakable Bond!"

"Your health dropped to zero for three seconds...! THREE GODDAMN SECONDS!!!"

"Do you have any idea what that felt like for me!?"

"I’m sorry, Carmilla," Rick said, even though he was in pain and still smiling for her. "Had to go all in for the last attack so that I can really save this world."

Next came Natasha.

Her ice magic made a platform under her feet so she could stand on the water’s surface. Her normally calm face was broken, and there were tears on her cheeks even though she tried to keep her dignity.

"The statistical probability of that last attack succeeding was 0.3 percent," Natasha said, her voice breaking. "You shouldn’t have lived..."

"None of us should have lived, but ...you did, you beautiful, foolish fool!"

Liora came down from above on wings of divine light. Her high priestess robes were torn and bloodied, but her smile was bright. "The gods were watching, my dear hero..."

"They saw how brave you were... how determined you were... and how willing you were to give up everything for others."

"You have been blessed beyond measure, maybe that’s the reason why we won this fight against the end."

Sylvia flew down in her dragon form, then changed into a human form while still in the air and landed next to the growing group. "I’ve lived for three hundred years, and that was the craziest shit I’ve ever seen for my consort!"

"You punched a god-level corruption entity in the face and won...! No one will believe that story, except if the one that does it is my consort, of course," Sylvia brags while showing her smug look.

Zara appeared in a flash of demonic energy. Her Blood Price backlash had healed enough for her to move again.

She hit Rick’s shoulder right away, but not hard enough to hurt him. "Don’t ever fucking scare me like that again, okay?!"

"When I felt you flatline through the bond, I thought I’d lost my king!"

Rick looked at each of his partners, who had fought with him and given everything they had to help him win. "Thank you for worrying about me, everyone..."

Rick smiled, and yes, it was the kind of gooner smile. "I love you all..."

"Every single one of you... and I couldn’t have done this without all of you."

"Of course you couldn’t," Zara said with a smile, even though her eyes were wet. "Don’t forget that we’re a team..."

"The Hero of Mature Hearts and his totally badass bonded partners! Gehahahaha~!" Zara laughed.

Then Rick saw someone standing away from the group, looking west toward the horizon where the last of the storm clouds were going away. Nerissa’s back was to everyone, and her Ocean Empress form was back to normal size, but her posture was different.

She didn’t look guilty or stiff with repressed feelings. She stood up straight, with her shoulders relaxed and her head held high as she watched the sun start to come out from behind the clouds.

Rick carefully pulled himself away from Carmilla’s hug and swam toward Nerissa, while his partners looked on with understanding looks.

"Yo," Rick greets softly as he gets to her.

"Are you okay?"