Chapter 140: 140
"Aiya, look at the time. I’ve completely lost track of time gossiping. My kingdom is likely throwing a fit waiting for my return. Catch you on the flip side~" With a final, mocking salute, his form dissolved out of reality.
The Emperor continued to stare intensely at the vacant space where the demon Emperor had stood.
He let out a slow, heavy exhalation.
"Grand Chancellor. Secure the immortal anomaly and every single individual tied to his immediate network. Bring them to the inner sanctum. As for my son Khan... find him and initiate Phase Two."
Valerian took a single, deliberate step forward into the open sky. "To the populace of Aureth: you shall permanently expunge every single memory concerning the events of this afternoon, archiving only the decree regarding your subsidized drinks. Disperse."
The sky instantaneously erupted into a cataclysmic roar of thunder.
"You are overstepping the boundaries, boy," Nox sighed heavily. "The forced mass memory alteration of an entire capital populace... combined with the sheer volume of reality-warping energy you’ve exerted today... you have vastly exceeded the system’s threshold for tolerance."
"Who gives a flying damn?" the Emperor replied, his voice colder than the void as he stared directly up at the gathering cosmic tribulation clouds.
"Does the Tower genuinely believe a few localized lightning bolts can instill fear in my soul? Do I look like an entity that bows to automated systemic feedback? I am Valerian Zenith. I stand as the absolute Zenith of the First World. If I determine that my operational output requires breaking the capped parameters of this floor, the Tower will simply have to adjust its allowed limits to accommodate my presence. My sovereign will is the foundational will of the First World."
Fixing his gaze on the raging celestial vortex above, he launched himself straight into the heart of the storm.
"Have them thoroughly prepared for my return," his final directive echoed back to Nox.
...
To think the Emperor would resort to a global memory wipe right out of the gate.
{It is structurally the most logical resolution. You cannot honestly expect a mass populace of low-tier civilians to maintain psychological stability after processing the tier of cosmic data dropped in this arena today. It would trigger widespread societal collapse. The Emperor executed the correct tactical choice.}
I never claimed his decision lacked merit, Zero. I simply didn’t anticipate him being that aggressive with his authority.
{Whatever helps you sleep at night.}
You analyzed Ruarc’s parting statements, right? The widespread distribution of my Nirvana pills, the systematic elimination of that angelic asset, the rapid growth curve of my Class of Weirdos... they’re all compounding into a historical anomaly far greater than the standard scenario configuration.
{Are you experiencing a sudden onset of fear?}
Why on earth would I be afraid? Isn’t this chaotic escalation exactly the kind of environment I wanted to cultivate? My only minor grievance is the lingering realization that the widespread tragedies scheduled to follow will technically be partially attributed to my systemic ripples.
{What exactly did the system algorithms and the watching deities anticipate from your arrival? Did they honestly expect you to sit idly by and permit your companions to slowly wither in mediocrity?}
Hah. Do you honestly believe I haven’t already run through every single cognitive rationalization to convince myself that my hands were tied? I had zero alternative options. If presented with the exact same crossroad tomorrow, I would execute the exact same strategy without a shred of hesitation. The simple reality that this path promises to be significantly more entertaining is more than enough justification to press the button again. But at the end of the day, a spade is a spade. And besides, it’s not even my fault. Did I personally request Nox—and apparently the Emperor—to anchor the Class of Weirdos to this specific server? There are literally countless other servers they could have selected for deployment. Who told the Emperor to be so absurdly overpowered? I am quite literally a victim of my immediate environmental variables.
Zeke offered a casual, guilt-free shrug.
{Predictable as always.}
Zeke shifted his attention back to his immediate party. The Emperor’s mass-scale psychic rewrite had pointedly bypassed their coordinates. Judging by the intensely troubled expressions painting the faces of the Class of Weirdos, their memories remained entirely intact. Sam was currently drilling a hole through him with his eyes.
Did he glimpse this exact sequence during his precognitive visions? I explicitly deferred our scheduled discussion precisely because I wanted to avoid tracking the map of the future. But it seems the universe isn’t going to let me procrastinate much longer. I am technically responsible for their development in this realm, after all.
{It heavily implies that whatever catastrophic future he is witnessing is actively tracking to manifest within this specific server timeline.}
Absolute, unchecked chaos with a delicate slice of profound tragedy. My absolute favorite genre of narrative.
Zeke took a casual step forward to approach his class. The exact moment his boot made contact with the stone, the scenery violently shattered.
He found himself standing inside a vast, ancient gothic hall.
Glancing around the perimeter, he noted that his immediate party and the entire Class of Weirdos had been pulled along with him. The students were currently spinning around in circles, completely disoriented as they tried to decipher the sudden environment shift.
Zeke let out a long, weary sigh. "Alright, old man. Out with it." The only entity on this entire floor capable of executing a spatial displacement of this magnitude without triggering his passive counters was Nox.
"Hohoho. It appears my signature grand entrances no longer possess the capability to rattle your composure, young man," Nox chuckled warmly, stepping through a heavy oak door while slowly stroking his silver beard.
"Dean!" the students shouted in unison, instantly recognizing the figure.
"Wait, what? Why are you guys screaming my name?" Dean blinked, looking around at his classmates in utter confusion. "I’m literally standing right here."
"You absolute idiot," the entire class deadpanned, facepalming in unison.
"That is the Dean. It’s a high-ranking academic title denoting the absolute authority of the institution, not your literal first name," Aelric explained slowly, using the exact tone one might reserve for a particularly slow toddler.
"Oh." / "OH!" Dean laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head. He finally mapped the old man’s face back to the VIP judges’ balcony from earlier. He had honestly assumed the senior citizen was just some eccentric aristocrat who had facilitated their cross-world migration.
Zeke shook his head, focusing his gaze entirely on the Administrator. "Why have you pulled us into this chamber?"
"Every soul present within this room managed to overhear the Demon Emperor’s statements during his secondary manifestation," Nox replied, his grandfatherly warmth instantly evaporating into a heavy, dead-serious solemnity.
The atmosphere in the hall instantly turned suffocatingly somber.
"Hey, old man, let’s dial back the doom-and-gloom act; there’s absolutely zero reason to sour the mood of my students. Did they actively petition you to drag them into this damn Tower? And even if you chose to migrate them here, is it their fault their corporate pursuers are willing to warp the tower parameters just to hunt them down?" Zeke cut in, his voice dripping with pure annoyance. He could see exactly what the old man was trying to pull—manipulating their innate sense of guilt to forge them into better soldiers.
Hearing those words, the crushing weight lifting off the students’ chests was visible, with Sam’s expression showing the most dramatic relief. Not to diminish the importance of his classmates, but Sam knew with absolute certainty that only his and his brother’s specific corporate lineage possessed the reality-warping capital required to influence the Tower’s baseline metrics. He wasn’t operating on guesswork; he had personally witnessed the telemetry in his visions. And the fact that his professor had already mapped out the entire corporate equation without Sam even uttering a single word of explanation was deeply reassuring.
He still harbored a lingering, heavy guilt that an entire native world was scheduled to endure a catastrophic war partly due to his family’s corporate footprint, but he would simply have to redouble his efforts to forcefully rewrite those visions. That was the fundamental purpose of possessing the talent in the first place.
Watching the rapid emotional shift play out across Sam’s features, Zeke couldn’t help but let out a soft chuckle. What on earth is that kid overthinking now? Doesn’t he comprehend the basic rule of the universe? If the literal sky decides to collapse, there will always be a towering monster standing around willing to hold it up. I am standing right here. And on the off chance my output falls short, this ancient relic and the Emperor are perfectly positioned to catch the fallout.
"I did not summon your collective to this chamber to impose a psychological burden upon your shoulders. None of these variables are a result of your personal choices. I could have easily abandoned your souls to your respective fates back in your origin zones, but I chose to anchor you here—and rest assured, it was certainly not out of a sense of pure benevolence," Nox’s voice remained perfectly steady, echoing off the stone walls. "Every single individual in this room has a vital, hard-coded blueprint to execute in the upcoming conflict. And you can take comfort in this reality: so long as The Emperor draws breath, this exact war phase would have triggered regardless of your arrival. Your presence simply forced the tower to raise the difficulty slider. Fortunately for the Emperor, he now has your unique profiles on the board to clean up the minor variables."
"Fortunately for who, exactly?"
The heavy iron doors at the end of the hall swung open, and the Emperor strolled into the room.
Curiously, his traditional royal footwear was completely missing. With a single, space-compressing stride, his figure appeared directly before the high throne. He dropped into the seat with absolute, lazy irreverence, resting his jaw firmly against his clasped knuckles. His piercing gaze swept across the assembled students like a scanning laser, pausing for a fraction of a second to scrutinize Michael before indifferently moving on. Finally, those golden irises locked directly onto Zeke.
"Immortal. You have thoroughly disrupted the balance of my world."
