Seducing the Guideverse With My System — Raising an Anomaly [BL]

Chapter 284: _Come Home

A Week Later

It took a whole week before the Pantheon finally accepted that the Void Entity was truly... gone. Kali couldn’t pick up even the slightest trace of it within space-time.

There were no odd reports, no sightings. Nothing at all.

And with that, they finally decided to announce it to the world.

"We’ve got breaking news this morning at the ABC," a man spoke with a bright smile on televisions worldwide, as did many other journalists from different news stations. "After weeks of putting every government in the world on edge—the Void Entity has been declared defeated."

"This was made official by the President of the United States Hunters Federation. Through the intervention of the famed, but elusive group of Hunters known as the ’Pantheon’ who still chose to keep their identities secret."

"While this is clearly a cause for celebration... It’s also a bittersweet moment. In today’s segment, we’ll look back at all the horrors this monstrosity brought. From the Chicago disaster. To the killing of some of North America’s finest S-Rank Espers—"

Devon grabbed the remote from Orion’s hands and switched the channel to something else.

"Papa?!" The boy grumbled with a pout. "I was watching that."

"Yeah, and you’re getting late for school." Devon took his wrist, pulling him off the couch. "Come on. Upsy daisy."

He hung his school bag on his shoulder as he led Orion toward the living door. Underneath the urgency in his eyes, there was a cloud of deep sadness.

One week.

One bloody week with zero signs of Ambrose. Now the world was finally moving on, no one at all knowing that the Pantheon wasn’t even behind the defeat of the Void Entity.

But a mere ’C-Rank Guide’.

Some things changed in the span of a week.

Viktor went back to Glacier Talon, taking on more raid missions than usual. He said he was trying to keep himself busy. Devon knew the Ice Prince wanted to distract himself from their shared loss.

Valentine went into solitude, cutting off contact with them. Gabriel was back in Canada.

As for Loki... the lord of chaos was finally let into the not-so-little group’s secret. Valentine was able to deduce that what they felt was a permanent link.

Made by Ambrose.

The reason the SSS-Rank was able to sense it earlier than when it was the rest of them was probably due to their rank. Perhaps Ambrose’s absence sparked something.

Whatever it was, Loki had promised not to tell the other members of the Pantheon about Ambrose’s abilities.

So in other words... every last one of them had begun to move on in their own way. They hadn’t given up. Each of them had hope that Ambrose would return.

But wasting away doing nothing while waiting for any signs that he was back wasn’t the healthiest move.

"Alright," Devon forced a smile as he and Orion stepped into the sun, heading toward his car. "You did all your homework, right?"

Orion nodded. "Mmhm."

"Even math?"

"Yes!"

"Wow. Look at you." Devon pinched his cheek playfully. "Daddy’s gonna be so proud when he gets back. Or... terrified, to be honest."

They both giggled at that.

Fortunately, bringing Ambrose up didn’t make Orion want to ask about his whereabouts. The boy seemed to be the best at handling this whole thing.

As they hopped into the car, Devon took one last look at the house. It has never felt so empty. So lonely.

He started the ignition. ’Wherever you are... please, come home.’

★★★★★

Unknown Dungeon Landscape

The desert stretched on without mercy.

Golden sand rolled endlessly beneath twin blue suns that blazed high overhead, their combined heat pressing down with enough force to make even the air shimmer violently.

Every breath Ambrose drew scraped against his throat like inhaling burning ash. The horizon refused to move no matter how long he walked, leaving him trapped inside a landscape that seemed determined to drive him mad.

[Current elapsed time in this dimension: 13 hours, 27 minutes.]

Ambrose wiped the sweat running into his eyes with the back of his arm. "Gods... you sure it hasn’t been at least a day?"

Whatever dimension he’d dragged the Void Entity into clearly obeyed different laws. Time itself seemed to flow wrong here.

His jaw clenched.

The black key.

Somewhere during his desperate attempt to shove that eldritch bastard through the portal, it’d slipped from his grasp.

He still remembered hearing something metallic strike stone before both of them had tumbled through the Rift.

After that... Nothing.

Just sand. Miles and miles of cursed sand.

He’d searched nonstop.

Whenever he wasn’t sprinting away from the occasional pulse of suffocating darkness that told him the Void Entity was still hunting him, he was searching.

Searching until his feet blistered. Searching until exhaustion blurred his vision. Searching until even Aura admitted defeat.

[I apologise, sweetie.]

[The dimensional interference is disrupting most scanning functions. I cannot accurately locate the black key from here.]

"I noticed." His reply came with a dry laugh. "If I ever get back home, remind me to file a complaint."

He abruptly stopped walking, silver eyes widening. "...Huh?"

Several hundred metres ahead... There was water.

Actual water.

An enormous crystal-clear lake shimmered beneath the twin suns, surrounded by lush green trees whose leaves danced lazily beneath a cool breeze.

An oasis.

Ambrose blinked twice. "You’re kidding."

Spatial Awareness expanded instinctively.

Nothing.

No danger, monsters or strange aether fluctuations.

Just... Water.

"Oh thank the fucking gods." He broke into a run.

Sand exploded beneath every step as relief overwhelmed every aching muscle in his body. His throat had become so dry over the past several hours that it genuinely hurt to swallow.

When he finally reached the water’s edge he didn’t even hesitate.

He collapsed to his knees, both hands plunging into the cool water before he splashed it across his face.

"Oh..." It felt heavenly.

He scooped another handful into his mouth.

For the first time since arriving, Ambrose smiled.

"This..." He drank again. "...is the best thing I’ve ever—"

The ground rumbled, making his smile vanish. The vibration intensified.

Then all of a sudden, the entire oasis began trembling violently.

Birds exploded from nearby trees. Palm trunks bent at impossible angles.

"What the hell?" Ambrose staggered backwards, Grave Keeper materialising instantly into his grip.

The lake was rising.

No—wait a minute.

His pupils shrank. "The lake isn’t rising..."

The entire oasis was!

Trees tilted. Rock split apart. Thousands of tonnes of earth lifted into the air as an impossibly gigantic shell emerged beneath the oasis.

An eye the size of a two-storey building slowly opened beneath him. Ancient and glowing with a haunting amber light.

Ambrose’s mouth slowly fell open. "You’ve got to be shitting me."

The oasis was sitting on the back of an absolutely colossal turtle-like beast.

Its neck stretched hundreds of feet into the air before another earth-shaking rumble escaped its throat.

Slowly, the creature looked down at the tiny human standing before it.