Chapter 747: Interlude 7 – 1: Destruction’s Aftermath
Unnamed High-Level World
Unnamed Star System
DANGER ZONE: Abyss Labyrinth
January 7th
Year 1055 of 50th G.C (Valmone)
Seven days ago, three Grade 7 Singularity Existences had wreaked havoc upon this unfortunate planet in the name of ’training.’
Granted, they were training, but given the nature of the powers they wielded, it was only natural that the destruction left in their wake was immense.
Where once a continent had stood, now there was only a sea of magma, bleeding from shattered tectonic plates, while the skies above bore lingering spatial distortions—great rents in the fabric of space that shimmered faintly where normality had yet to stitch itself back together.
Fragments of broken landmass floated weightlessly across the space the planet’s atmosphere once occupied, suspended by its distorted gravitational field, while the surging tides of the ocean crashed against invisible walls, trapped within fractured spaces.
All around, the residue of immense cosmic activity filled the air, intertwined with traces of destructive energy and higher-dimensional cutting lines that could split one’s existence into pieces with the slightest graze.
And amid this cataclysm stood a tall, handsome, and muscular middle-aged man, his glowing red reptilian eyes calmly surveying the devastation around him.
His hair, the same shade of vivid red, was long and neatly kept, matched by a well-trimmed beard.
He was dressed formally, as if attending a party or some important function, wearing a crisp suit, though notably, without a tie.
Beside him was a young woman with a slender yet curvaceous build and fair skin. Like the man, she had long crimson hair, but hers gradually shifted into a deep purple towards the tips that brushed against her calves.
Framing her beautiful face were straight fringes and a pair of short, purple gemmed earrings that caught the light, while a small beauty mark beneath her left eye added a distinctive charm to her features.
She wore a two-piece dress: a short-sleeved, off-the-shoulder top in red, revealing black straps underneath, with puffed black sleeves ending in white cuffs and a darker neckline hinting at a turtleneck beneath.
The lower half of her outfit was a lovely purple skirt matching the tips of her hair, flaring outward with a black ruffled hem, and a wide black sash tied into a neat bow at the waist.
She tapped her simple light-brown boots against the ground, the crunching sound of the charred earth reaching her ears with each tap.
"The destruction energy in this place is so thick it’s suffocating," she muttered, furrowing her brows as she lifted her palm to cover her nose, as if that would somehow block out the overwhelming stench of destruction filling the air.
The man gave her a brief glance before raising his own hand, cosmic energy bending to his will as he prepared to activate his Authority and uncover the cause of the ruin around them.
But before he could issue his command to the laws of the universe, the world was suddenly plunged into darkness as an immense shadow fell over it.
The young woman beside him instinctively looked up, a decision she regretted almost instantly. Her eyes widened in shock, sweat breaking across her brow as her heart pounded violently in her chest.
Looking back at her was a creature, no—a nightmare given form. It was a mass of writhing black tentacles, that seemed to sprout from a central amorphous body. Within this mass, several grotesque maws with sharp teeth dripping green goo could be seen, with glowing yellow eyes that seemed to look through her very existence.
And that feeling wasn’t wrong. It was indeed looking through her existence. However, it was incapable of doing the same to the man standing beside her.
The entity stared at the man in silence before lowering its head—if it could even be called a head—along with its massive tentacles, in a gesture that resembled a bow.
Then, without a word or a sound, it pulled back its body and vanished into the darkness of space.
Once it was gone, the young woman collapsed to her knees, her breathing heavy, and her clothes drenched in sweat.
Seeing this, the man tapped her shoulder and used magic to forcefully calm her mental state.
Her reaction didn’t surprise him. In fact, he was quietly impressed she had lasted as long as she did—exactly 24 seconds—staring at that entity without succumbing to madness.
Even some Cosmic Beings were unable to maintain their sanity in the presence of such entities.
And no, it wasn’t because of their nightmarish appearance. It was because entities like that radiated an aura that drove others into madness, and fully resisting it required a level of power the young woman’s brain couldn’t even compute.
Having been forcefully calmed, the young woman placed a hand over her pounding heart and asked,
"...what...the hell...was that?!"
"Something called a ’Dark Young’," the man replied.
"To think that ’Black Goat’ has already stretched its contaminating tentacles into this universe as well," he added with a sigh.
The young woman’s mind, however, only latched onto four particular words he had spoken.
’Dark Young? Black Goat?’
"...could it be...?"
"It’s exactly what you’re thinking," the man answered. "One of that Cosmic Horror’s offspring. It was still quite young, though." (Pun very much intended.)
"!"
The woman could hardly believe what she was hearing. She had heard tales of a Cosmic Horror said to have a ’Thousand Young’, but after encountering just one of them first-hand, she realized those tales hadn’t even captured a fraction of how truly terrifying they were.
While she was still grappling with the shock, the man’s gaze shifted toward another point in space, the opposite direction from where the Dark Young had appeared.
A few moments later, space itself split open, parting like a curtain to allow another existence to step through.
"Dragon boy! What’re you doing in this mess of a planet?"
The newcomer, a woman with red hair like the man’s and pitch-black eyes, wore a cheerful smile as she called out to him.
She was dressed in a sleeveless black dress with a sweetheart neckline, flaring out into a skirt edged with a distinct white trim. Gold button-like embellishments lined the front of her bodice, and around her neck was a red choker adorned with a black rose at its centre.
A long red stole draped loosely around her arms, paired with black gloves trimmed with white at the cuffs, mirroring the detail on her skirt.
Her gothic-inspired outfit was striking enough, but even more striking was the audacity with which she addressed this man as ’Dragon boy’—fully aware of who he was.
Fully aware that he was Aleksas Weiss, the First and Most Powerful Dragon in all of existence.
Of course, her boldness came naturally, given that she herself was also one of the First and Most Powerful of one of the Cosmos’ strongest races.
"I should be asking you the same. What are you doing here, Quinn?"
Aleksas tossed Quinn’s question back at her with a raised eyebrow, and the Progenitor Devil merely shrugged and answered casually.
"Nash came over and told me that apparently, Akasha and Ranus were up to something fishy in this Universe, and Lucifer’s grandkid was involved."
Her response earned a nod of understanding from Aleksas. If it had only involved Ranus and Akasha, Quinn would have likely ignored it.
But the moment Lucifer’s Descendant became part of the equation, there was no way she would ignore it.
Quinn’s fondness for Lucifer was common knowledge, after all.
More importantly, this was one of the situations Ranus had told Arthur he was hoping to avoid.
Ranus had mentioned that there was an Ancient-Breed Drifter in Valmone, someone even worse than Larry, who resided in Hell.
It had been just over a month, and already, the news of Cruotis Prime’s Apocalypse had reached the ears of the Progenitor Drifter, Nash, who, for the record, was in the Origin Multiverse.
The immense distance between the Drifter Universe in the Origin Multiverse and Valmone was beyond even a Monarch Realm Existence’s ability to calculate, yet the information had still reached Nash in just a little over a month.
Being the nasty individual he was, Nash immediately passed that information on to Quinn, along with the coordinates for the Valmone Universe.
And thus, here she was.
As for Aleksas, his reason for being here was similar, but with its own differences.
"I was closing in on the location of those six fools when I noticed a Multiversal Bridge open. When I looked at it, I discovered it was that Immortal Anomaly who created it.
Tracing the source, I sensed Ranus’ presence and came over to see what he was doing here."
"Immortal Anomaly?" Quinn repeated, tilting her head slightly in confusion.
But a moment later, realisation flashed in her eyes and she spoke.
"Ah, you mean Westley."
Aleksas gave a silent nod, but a moment later, a hint of suspicion crept into his expression as he asked.
"So Westley, Ranus, and Akasha were here? Doing what?"
The answer to his question came from Quinn.
"I did some digging over the past few days. Turns out Westley was posing as a Demon King in this universe for some reason."
"??"
Aleksas gave her a look that clearly asked Why?, but Quinn just shrugged and said.
"Don’t ask me. Westley’s always been a crazy bastard. Don’t forget that he’s the guy who challenged an Eternal when he was just an Inferior Zenith Haven."
Quinn rolled her eyes and shook her head, brushing away thoughts of Jamie’s antics before continuing.
"But besides Westley’s madness, whatever Ranus and Akasha did in this universe is related to this planet we’re on, and the destruction of some Prime World called ’Cruotis.’ From what I discovered, Lucifer’s grandkid and Westley were both involved.
The whole story just sounds crazy."
Quinn paused for a moment before beginning her narration.
"Apparently, a Planet’s Consciousness went rogue, somehow became a Candidate of Destruction, and then kidnapped Lucifer’s grandkid along with a bunch of other kids from another planet because of their special powers.
But Lucifer’s grandkid, Westley, and another guy they’re calling the ’Masked Hero’ ended up defeating it, and destroyed the entire planet in the process."
