Chapter Text
Level: 223
Strength: 659 (+40) *3
Vitality: 579 (+80) *2
Agility: 661 (+60) *3
Intelligence: 602 *2
Sense: 670 (+120) *2
Available Points: 0
[Mana: 323,765/323,765]
[HP: 75,765/75,765]
[Shadow Limit: 13,443/15,936]
*******
“Death is not the end!” The roar echoed across the dark matter plains of the planet. Shadows washed over the hordes of Chaos Inhabitants, creating a fearsome frontline.
Unlike the last battle, the Chaotics were holding their own. Without Izuku’s Vestige, the Shadows weren’t quite as overwhelming. Of course, that didn’t mean they’d ever lose.
Izuku floated high above the battlefield, alongside Terra, who created a pillar of stone to gain the same vantage point. “They… don’t have a limit on their regeneration?”
Even the strongest Healing Magic couldn’t bring back the brain of a human being, but the Shadows got turned to ash by the Solar Dragons and came back perfectly fine.
“Some beings can limit their regen, or stop it, but for the most part… it’s limitless.” He was, of course, referring to Quaresha’s attacks during the Russian-Japanese war. “Which is part of the reason you don’t trust me,” He added. “You think I’m too powerful, and that scares you.”
“Yeah, it does.”
Izuku shrugged. “I can’t really do anything else to convince you otherwise.” Realizing the futility, he changed the subject. “So what’s with the whole, ‘reuniting the colonies’ thing? You don’t actually think anyone would go for that, right?”
“Shouldn’t we be focusing on the battle?” She asked.
“Beru is in my Shadow watching. I doubt anything will even get close to us. And…” He swatted a Solar Dragon out of the air with Gravity Magic, slamming it so hard into the ground that it made the other Chaotics stumble. “Don’t try to change the subject like I did!” He bantered with a smile.
Mia made her own display, causing a great golem of rock and stone as big as Behemoth, to rise from the ground and stomp on their enemies. “I miss my old life,” She put simply. “I want to go back to working from home, right on the beach, surfing and watching the waves go by. I hate this…” She gestured broadly at the fighting.
“So the colony thing is… what?”
“If the world unites under one banner, and all the Heroes are shared between continents, I’m not as important anymore. Maybe I’ll get some of that quietness back. I’m just… not that great at politics.”
“You were bartering with the others during the Summit pretty well.”
Terra shook her head. “It’s easy to offer bribes for materials. It’s not easy to try and barter for a country.”
“Fair point.”
“I’m not a coward like Jonas,” She clarified, to which Izuku nodded in agreement.
“I understand where you’re coming from. You do good work. You’ve taken on S-Rank Gates, and you don’t try to interfere with policy or the will of the people. You just don’t like your job.”
When she heard him describe it, she had to wonder, “Do you like your job? I know people like Thomas love it cause they throw around their weight. You don’t as much, like me.”
Izuku smirked. “On the contrary… I love this. Er… I don’t love killing,” He quickly added. “But fighting for something? And I may seem to be a clear character, but you heard me back there. I basically declared I’d invade America. That’s throwing around my weight.”
“Eh, you did it to save people. I don’t think of that the same way I think of Thomas or Liu.”
“It’s basically the same thing, just different motives,” He argued. “As special as National-Ranks are in the public eye, we’re just people. We’re not as complicated as others like to imagine.” He paused to kill a few Rogue Warriors that were poised to make a strike against the National-Ranks fighting below them. “I’ve got everything I could ask for, all because of this job. I want for very little. Just because I like peace and want to spare as many lives as possible doesn’t mean I hate being a Hero. I’m not some monk, I’m not afraid to indulge when the opportunity presents itself. I’ve gotten to experience a lot of different things thanks to this job, and my family will never worry about money ever again.”
“Oh…”
“You’re always going to be a National-Rank,” He said. “Even if my Shadows completely overtake the world’s defensive measures, you’re still gonna be remembered as a National-Rank. Unfortunately, that’s part of your life.”
“I know that,” She snapped. “I’d just rather my job not be about the end of the world.”
Izuku sighed. “Me too…”
“My Liege!” Astra announced as she emerged from his Shadow. “In order to break through and fully encircle some of the enemy divisions, we require directed fire to that position.” She gave Izuku the location and he raised his hand. He increased the gravity of that area to such a degree that everything, no matter what position it was in, became a flattened sheet of material. It cost him a decent amount of Mana, compared to the pennies he was paying for the Shadows’ regeneration. It was the reason he wasn’t going all-out. The Planet had a lot more to offer according to Astra. They needed to be prepared and conserve resources when possible.
The Shadows swarmed into the gap in enemy lines, further dividing the monsters from each other. And in a battle of attrition, the Shadows would always win. They could hold lines like no other army in the universe. And an enemy that couldn’t break through an encirclement would lose.
Most of the actual humans present were just doing whatever they could to keep the flying enemies contained, and allow the Shadows to wear down the mass of forces on the ground.
Terra, Christopher, Kaina, and Liu were working hard on the air defense with Izuku, and they all impressed him with their raw strength. So far, he regarded Christopher as one of the strongest, as he had the Mana to go nuclear and then continue frying things. Granted, his fire wasn’t super effective in a Dungeon with enemies forged from stars, but he was at least distracting or slowing things down. He made Izuku put up a significant effort to block the atomic blast for sure.
Thomas, Setsuna, and Rumi were in the thick of the battle with the Shadows. Setsuna wasn’t strong enough to kill any of the Chaos Inhabitants, but she could add to the mass of bodies with her endless clones. Siddarth was backing them all up with healing and buffs.
Meanwhile Star… wasn’t doing much of anything. She was just floating there above the battle, watching. She was still being secretive, still being unhelpful.
“We really got to her, didn’t we?” Izuku wondered, realizing that Rumi’s outcry earlier of what was really going on at Area 51 got Star nervous. “She’s not analyzing our enemy… she’s analyzing my Shadows. There’s always something sneaky going on with this group…”
It was steady progress, even without Star, however. The group had generally been left alone for the past 3 days, with only minimal skirmishes here and there. But apparently, the off-world forces had arrived. They were facing down an army 50,000 strong.
One thing about incredibly powerful beings was that their reproductive cycle was either slow, or it produced relatively weak children. So despite the Rogue Warriors having forces across the galaxy, there weren’t as many of them as you would think.
There were another 500,000 off-world that Astra was unsure about. They might show up, or they might realize the futility and hold their positions.
“We’re starting to close more of the pockets,” Terra noted, seeing bubbles of Chaos Inhabitants form, surrounded by darkness. Those bubbles were beginning to burst.
Izuku had tried to kill everything with his Apex Skill, but these were some pretty serious warriors. Izuku couldn’t freeze them and then kill them, but by constantly outputting the Aura in bursts, he could throw them off-balance and make things easier for his Shadows.
“So… uhh… are you really dating all of them?”
Izuku barked out a laugh. “I’m practically already married to two of ‘em.”
“And things are… fine?”
Izuku didn’t even have to think. “Yeah, things are great, why?” He took one look at her and saw heartbreak. “Ah… nevermind.”
“Going through a rough patch with my fiance. Might not get married.”
“Heard you were getting married. Didn’t hear about the rough patch.”
Terra scowled. “Yeah well I’m not telling the world that.”
“But you’re telling me? The guy you don’t trust?”
“I don’t… have anyone else…”
“Yeah. I know what that’s like.” He smirked, reminiscing with a bittersweet smile about ‘the old days.’ “What’s the issue?”
“He wants kids, I don’t. I don’t wanna be tied down. I didn’t realize how much we hated the opposing ideas.”
Izuku nodded. “I’m not exactly ready, myself.”
“I forget that you’re still only 19…” She responded. Pretty much everyone else there was in their late 20s or early 30s. Siddarth was in his 40s.
“I’m not going to lie here, I have zero advice,” He responded. “Cause it’s a bad situation. And kids are a huge commitment, comprising here for the sake of your relationship could create a lot of problems down the line.”
“What do you think I should do?”
Izuku couldn’t contain his mirth for a second time. “I’m not taking responsibility for that. If you listen to me and you end up regretting your choice, you’re not gonna be happy with me.”
“Just tell me.”
Izuku scoffed. “I don’t believe you’re ever going to change your mind about not wanting kids. You’re too much of a free spirit. Which means if he can’t change his mind about it either, you either accept that as a negative of your relationship and try to move past it, or you separate. Comes down to how stubborn he is.”
“You have to deal with something like that?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh sure. Rumi will want a kid, but we’re nowhere close to ready for the first kid, let alone a second. So she’s kinda forced to wait and watch Momo get what she wishes for. Kaina’s pretty… not possessive… okay, she’s kind of possessive. Tends to try to hog my attention. Doesn’t realize she’s doing it half the time. The others don’t like that. But we all talk it out. Try to compromise for each other.”
Terra scoffed and shook her head. “And I can’t even make one thing in my life work… Let alone four.”
“Don’t opt-in to bullying,” Izuku responded. “Some things in life don’t work out. People don’t get what they deserve, they just get what they get, and sometimes it sucks. Don’t compare yourself to others because of that.” He paused. “Hold on… Is this your test? To see if you can trust me?”
“Yep!” Terra lied.
“Huh… And?”
“You pass… for now.” She crushed another pocket of enemies beneath her rocky heel.
Izuku shook his head in disbelief. “Okay then…” He lost concentration for a moment and the Void Mages took the opportunity.
See, the entire time, Izuku had been doing more than he let on. The Void Mages were capable of all forms of Dark Magic, including Gravity Magic. Izuku was the only one who could directly counter that, so he’d been finely adjusting Gravity all over the battlefield.
But as soon as he lost control, they acted on Mia’s giant. Instantly, the stone giant crumbled under its own weight, the Gravity on it increasing ten-fold. Izuku quickly took back control, squashing the resistance, but its effects were telling.
“If I hadn’t been here. How long would they have lasted?”
It wasn’t even a question anymore. Without Izuku, the National-Ranks would’ve been slaughtered, and Earth would’ve lost an immense amount of its total power. Even Kaina would’ve had some trouble. The only one he could see tearing through this Gate was Rumi thanks to her gargantuan physical strength and armor’s protection against the elements.
David Shield’s predictions had been wrong. Humanity wouldn’t have survived another five years. They would’ve lost the war within the year had the Shadow Monarch not chosen to side with the mortals.
They would’ve killed the National-Ranks, then once the Gate broke open, they would spill out onto I-Island and kill a majority of the S and XS-Ranks, further depriving humanity of strength. From there, even if this Gate couldn’t reach the mainland, the damage would be done. Gates on the mainland would begin to snowball and without the proper S-Ranks and beyond, everything would crumble. It was a depressing thought.
However, it was calming to know that Izuku was going to be the one snowballing. He was already one of, if not the strongest, human on the planet before the Gate. Now… the only thing he really got nervous about was Star and the governments of the world.
Try as he might, Izuku couldn’t convince everyone towards peace, especially not through strength and force. He’d still be cleaning up humanity’s messes. He unintentionally sighed.
[You have gained 37 Levels!]
“And here I thought the Level boost was over!” The massive number of Chaos Inhabitants had furthered the System even more than he expected.
“My Liege, the remnants have been disposed of. They await your call.”
“One moment,” Izuku told Astra.
[You have reached Level 250!]
[The Player now has the ability to create Gates]
The following messages were a list of mathematical equations so long and complex that Izuku wasn’t sure where one started and another ended.
“Oh boy… I’m gonna need a lot of tutoring…”
“Right, now… Arise!”
The ground became a floor of liquid smoke.
“Whether or not I trust you,” Terra said, her insides turning at the display. “I don’t think it really matters anymore. Because us National-Ranks just became fodder.”
[25,000 Rogue Warriors]
[10,000 Planetoids]
[5,000 Meteor Dolls]
[7,500 Solar Dragons]
[2,500 Void Mages]
*******
Level: 260
Strength: 770 (+40) *3
Vitality: 653 (+80) *2
Agility: 772 (+60) *3
Intelligence: 676 *2
Sense: 744 (+120) *2
Available Points: 0
[Mana: 541,265/541,265]
[HP: 92,435/92,435]
[Shadow Limit: 13,443/43,322]
*******
Izuku’s Shadow Limit had increased dramatically, but it still wasn’t big enough to hold such hordes. So he took the 25,000 Rogue Warriors, recognizing their infantry potential; the 2,500 Void Mages, due to their Dark Magic power; and he left the rest in his Soul List.
[Shadow Limit: 40,943/43,322]
40,000 strong, with a good portion of the army being capable of taking on a National-Rank in single combat. It was the point where he unequivocally surpassed humanity in all aspects. There could be no doubt. He was the strongest in the world.
Terra was right. Most of the National-Rank Heroes were little more than fodder at this point.
“My Liege, I have received word from our newest Shadows,” Astra reported, having debriefed the new Shadows. “The off-world forces will not be returning.”
Izuku nodded. “Good for them. They know when to quit.”
The Rogue’s were extremely devoted to combat, and many of them were willing to die in a blaze of glory. They just weren’t willing to die with little more than a whimper. Even they knew that there was no chance of victory. Death for a purpose was acceptable, but there was no purpose here.
“And our Lady’s forces have completed their scouting duties. I truly look forward to meeting the Empress.”
“So it’s just the boss fight left, huh?”
“We believe the chamber rests in the center of the planet.”
Izuku scratched his head. “Okay, how did you even figure that out?”
“We found some sort of mega-flora sprinkled across the surface of the planet. They’re like hollow roots that seemingly originate from inside the planet. Our fastest scouts were sent down to the deepest level, where they found the Boss Chamber waiting.”
“Alright, let’s go…”
Izuku let himself fall down to the ground, joining the other Heroes. “Maybe you should all just wait here. The boss is no doubt going to be even stronger than these things.”
“Fuck you!” Was Thomas’s immediate response to that proposal. “I’m not sitting out of anything!”
“Fine, but if you die, I’m bringing you back as a Shadow.” He gestured to Terra to indicate he wouldn’t do it to her.
“You’d better! I’ll be an unkillable badass for eternity!”
Izuku winced. “Okay, maybe I won't bring you back.”
As the two continued to banter back and forth, Izuku realized with startling clarity that Andre was probably one of the nicer National-Ranks, behind someone like Terra or Siddarth.
He was sexist, crude, and stubborn. But he had a decent sense of humor when you got to know him, he took his job as a Hero seriously, and didn’t hide things for the sake of scheming. And as long as you didn’t annoy him, he’d act rather friendly.
“I think my bar for ‘niceness’ is being lowered just by being around these people,” Izuku internally bemoaned.
*******
“This is absurd!” Terra said, having dropped down several thousand feet.
“Well… it is the center of a planet,” Rumi replied, bouncing around. She stood in stark contrast to the others, feeling like she was on a real adventure, something you only saw in movies.
But the jovial nature was prevented from spreading to others by an ethereal voice.
“What do you fear?!”
“Was that you?” Terra said to Izuku.
“Me?” He gave her a sideways glance. “The only person here stupid enough to make a fake scary voice like that is Thomas.” He turned to the Shadow following him. “Astra, did your scouts experience this before?”
“No, my Liege.”
“Well I don’t sense anything so-” A realization dawned on Izuku. “The roots. We’re inside a giant living organism. That must be the voice.”
Izuku attempted to move forwards and ignore the voice, but he suddenly found the way impassable by an invisible Barrier.
“Seriously?” He muttered.
“Oh oh!” Rumi shouted. “I know this one! We need to voice our fears in order to proceed, and by revealing our fears we destabilize the cohesion of the group!” She looked at Thomas. “Or some are too proud to admit it and get left behind.”
“Hey I admitted we’re all a little scared going into a Raid. I’m not that proud. I’m personally terrified of centipedes. Weird little shits.” He then walked right past Izuku. “Hah! See! If I can admit my fears I can overcome them anytime! That’s proof of a badass!”
“Can’t you just break it?” Liu asked, ignoring Thomas.
“Hmm… it’s not a standard barrier… Some sort of unique Skill” Izuku probed it with intense Gravity Magic, but when he found no give in the wall he shrugged. “I’m afraid that my notion of saving people is a farce and that humanity will always have its self-destructive tendencies, making my work and fight meaningless.” He moved through the barrier, joining Thomas. “It’s easier to just get on with it.”
“I’m not telling a plant my fears!” Terra protested.
“Oh come on!” Rumi replied. “If it tries to use your own fears against you, you’ll know that it’s some sort of hallucination or debuff. You can just tell yourself it’s fake.”
“Maybe you can!”
As Terra balked, Kaina thought out loud. “Well… my biggest fear for a while was that I was crazy about remembering my past lives, but that was resolved. I… I can’t think of anything right now…” Not expecting to be let through, she gingerly held a hand up… and it passed right through.
“That just isn’t fair!” Terra bemoaned.
“Hmm…” Star thought for a moment. “Cathleen Bate is immune to fear.” She then passed right through the barrier as well.
“What is with this thing?!”
“Apparently it can be subverted quite easily… Not much of a defense mechanism,” Izuku remarked. “I wonder what its real purpose is…” He also made note of Star’s statement.
“Can she buff herself just by speaking it into existence? Or does it have a broader scope… Definitely dangerous.”
Siddarth went next, saying something about losing his island, then Christopher mentioned his pride, and Rumi’s was losing someone close to her. It all came down to Terra and Liu. So of course, Liu had to do something weird and leave Terra by herself.
Instead of making himself immune to fear, exposing his inner thoughts, or anything even remotely logical… he just crashed head-first into the barrier.
His entire body became cloaked in a reddish-orange energy, like the barrier was bending around him. After a brief struggle, he passed right through it.
The entire Raid Party stared at him in shock, prompting him to look at Izuku and say, “You’re not the only one with tricks.”
Terra groaned and blurted out: “I’m afraid that all the pain and suffering in my life is my own fault and that I’m totally worthless as a person!” She passed through and raised her index finger. “Not. One. Word.”
“Heard…” Izuku responded as she stormed off, deeper into the roots.
“I think that was the desired effect,” Thomas remarked. “You feel it too, right?”
Izuku begrudgingly smiled. “Yeah, the plant is annoyed.”
It seemed that, rather uncreatively, the tactic was an attempt to disrupt their teamwork or turn them against one another. It was crude, and relied heavily on the unstable nature of humanity.
Only Terra seemed vulnerable to the intended effect, and she was a professional. After another fifteen minutes of travel, she had cooled off, though she still seemed embarrassed by her own outburst.
“I’ve exterminated countless humanities,” The voice tolled once more.
“Humanities? Plural?” Siddarth noted.
“Pests no matter the universe.”
The voice became louder as they reached a large oblong entrance. The cavity resting behind it was the size of a city, with a golden tree spreading its roots from the center.
[Cosmic Presence, Yggdrasil.]
“And in every universe, I must be the culling force. You taint my existence.”
“I’m sorry… is a tree really trying to talk down to me?” Thomas asked.
“A multiversal being!” It spat back. “Who's seen more than you could possibly imagine! My vastness permeates every dimension! Most Higher Beings Monarchs inhabit just this one universe, and even then, they cannot eradicate you!” For ‘just a tree’ it certainly held a great deal of rage. “Now I must clean up this universe as well!”
[Celestial Knight, Ashtaroth]
[Celestial Kitsune, Gamma]
[Celestial Kraken, Barren]
[Celestial Phoenix, Nova]
The four Bosses appeared from twisting knots in Yggdrasil, their power each comparable to Raia, the Synthetic Lord.
[Warning! Incapable of deflecting Apex Skill!]
[Celestial Knight, Ashtaroth is using Apex Skill: Apocalypse Machine.]
*******
[Apex Skill: Apocalypse Machine]
- Active Apex Skill
- Cost: The user is vulnerable to their own Skill
- Description: The user’s and his target’s Soul are intertwined. In this state, the two can only fight each other. No one else can interfere. If the user wins, they get a permanent +1 boost to all Stats
- The User acquires the Skills: [Immortality]
*******
Izuku chuckled as he felt his Soul be pulled into the Apex Skill. He shrugged off his business jacket. “Igris, why don’t you and the Shadows handle the other three?”
“As you say, my Liege.”
Izuku rolled his shoulders, embracing the effects of the Skill. “I don’t think you understand. When I voiced my fears earlier, about my dreams, you neglected to account for my will to enact them.”
His Mana ballooned, and for just a moment, Ashtaroth saw the being underneath the human appearance.
“I’ve killed immortals before.”
The knight was frozen in place. Not by an Apex Skill, or any other Magical means. It was the confidence with which Izuku approached him. Countless beings had approached him with the belief they could win, that they were superior. Izuku was different.
It was not arrogance that drove his confidence. It was intelligence, it was vulnerability. He knew himself so well that he did not fear the being who had taken countless lives.
“You dismiss us because we’re soft, we’re flesh. Because we’re small. But out of all the Souls in the universe, weakened by longevity and the resetting of timelines… humanity retains the strongest Souls of all.”
Ashtaroth, knowing he was in danger, shot forwards with all his might, swinging a catastrophic downwards stroke with his sword. He could’ve cleaved a small moon in twain.
Izuku merely stepped to the side, and condensed everything into a fine point. His right fist became so dense with gravity that his surroundings began to warp and bend like putty.
He didn’t just spend the past three months studying science, he’d spent the past three months preparing for beings like this. Beings who could get back up time and time again, Monarchs, Rulers, Lords, and whatever else they brought to bear. He needed to be the visage of death that Ashborn trusted him to be. Death that kindly guided the universe to the next plane, and Death that ended the universe’s greatest threats in a single stroke of its scythe.
He named this move after his favorite Hero, and a certain country’s propensity for destruction.
“United States of…” The world seemed to freeze in place as the last word whispered from his lips. “Annihilation.”
Izuku’s fist slammed into Ashtaroth’s torso and the gravity was unbearable.
Every single particle in Ashtaroth’s body was forced together with such gargantuan pressure… that they fused.
The Celestial Knight’s very being turned into a thermonuclear burst, contained within a gravity shield of Izuku’s design. Under such power, such physical reactions, Izuku didn’t need Soul Magic to erase Ashtaroth’s from existence. The Absolute Particles that made up a Soul, a purely physics based construct, were torn asunder by the fusion reaction.
It was a strategy that perhaps no other being could pull off. Even Christopher’s Atomic Magic couldn’t cause a target to become the fuel for its own annihilation. No atomic bomb would ever be able to break through the durable flesh of a Chaotic and destroy its Soul. Only Izuku, with his Gravity Magic, could turn their own flesh against them.
Quaresha, watching through Setsuna’s eyes, was both enraptured by the power of her desire, and horrified by its capabilities. This was God-killing Magic. This was power befitting Death, the reaper who stood above all.
For the first time, Quaresha looked at Izuku alone and saw something more than even Ashborn.
“Synthetic Lord… Ashborn… What have you created?”
She got the sense that there was another power at play, something so ancient that even the Primordials feared it.
“Are you… Did she… pass on something… just as Ashborn did?”
The only thing that remained of Ashtaroth was the heat leftover from the atomic reaction, and his spoils of war.
[You have acquired Apex Skill: Apocalypse Machine.]
[Apex Skill: Apocalypse Machine is combining with Quirks: Exponential, Stone Body, and IQ.]
[You have acquired Apex Quirk: One For All]
Izuku turned to Yggdrasil, presiding over the battle. “Eradicate humanity? Well, give it your best shot. It won’t be enough.”