R-a - Volume 4 - Chapter 41 (Patreon)

R-a - Volume 4 - Chapter 41 (in-editing -v0)

(I'm considering moving this chapter (and the previous one) to a spot near the end of the novel instead of here!)

Ever since Micheal traveled back to the past, he lived his life in a constant, chaotic rush. He didn’t allow himself time to rest and moved forward as fast as possible, oriented on a series of goals he needed to achieve.

There were many reasons why he acted like this. The faster he moved, the more lives he could save, and the better he could use his knowledge of the future.

In particular, however, there was one reason that constantly lurked in the back of his mind. It was the reason why he wanted to grow as fast as possible, to obtain strength that would let him stand in the face of anything.

More specifically, that reason had to do with a fact about Constantine Lancaster that only Micheal was now aware of.

Over the course of all the disasters the Vile King unleashed upon humanity, throughout years and years humanity spent trying to hunt him down and kill him…

Even after gaining the title of humanity’s worst terrorist…

Despite the human race uniting with the goal of his demise…

Constantine Lancaster had never seriously retaliated.

Not even once.

No matter what he endured, the attacks he suffered, or the incursions made against him, the Vile King maintained a strictly non-targeted regime of death and danger. In his own insane way, it spoke a great deal to Constantine’s character and commitment to his own cause. At least, that was what several Behavioral Analysis Units established by Dark Void had concluded, during humanity’s final years.

‘But that was then, and this is now.’

Micheal had thwarted a number of Constantine’s plans, preventing the ones that would result in horrific disasters as humanity failed to live up to Constantine’s expectations.

Did he ruin all of the Vile King’s plans? No.

In the first place, humanity never possessed complete knowledge on all the actions Constantine took. The plans Micheal targeted were the ones known to history for their terrible consequences.

However…

‘The actions I’ve taken now, and those I will take in the future, will draw his attention. I’m actively interfering with the Vile King now.’

Constantine of the first timeline never retaliated…

‘But I can’t count on that now. No one ever interfered to the degree that I have.’

It was a fear that Micheal could never rid himself of, forcing him ever onward in a mad rush of growth.

For… what could he do if the Vile King decided to seriously target him?

Humanity only knew bits and pieces of the actions Constantine took in the first timeline. In the final days when Humanity’s Last Army was formed, however, Dark Void leaked records stolen from the Nirvana Church that helped answer Micheal’s question.

Those leaks contained the only recorded instance of what happened when Constantine Lancaster went all out.

They told a tale of a secret war that the Vile King fought on the Fifth Layer…

A story of how the Aerdu, 1 of the 12 Tribes of Deities, were annihilated in a single night.

.. .. .. .. .. ..

After he made the decision to attack the Yil, Constantine held back nothing.

He planned a meticulous, detailed ambush that utilized the full strength of the resources he possessed. He made failsafe after failsafe, preparing hundreds of backup plans that accounted for countless situations.

He spent every waking moment in the days before the main force of the Yil would arrive preparing for the absolute worst. He and his Seeds put together a mind-bogglingly deadly assault plan the likes of which even Micheal could not imagine.

And then…

That day came.

And the battle began.

Memories of exactly what happened flowed into Constantine’s mind as he sat alone, the details burned into his brain so that he could never forget.

In the early hours of dawn, the air was still and cool.

In one second, the Fourth Layer was enveloped in a zone of peace and calm. The Vile King’s control in that moment was absolute, his Seeds standing in a state of perfect readiness.

In the next second…

Hundreds of enormous, towering Yil Warriors abruptly arrived on the Fourth Layer en masse, spawning into existence as one.

At the center of those Yil stood one enormous Deity that stood above all the rest, an 8-meters-tall monstrosity whose very existence caught Constantine’s eye.

In the instant those Yil arrived…

The ambush began.

Before even a millisecond had passed, the just-arrived Deities were greeted by the activation of thousands of pre-planted explosive munitions. The land they had arrived on had been decorated with six separate, raised layers of explosives, forming an inescapable world of death.

The bombs went off simultaneously, leaving no room for error. Constantine had positioned the munitions in such a way that the explosions went off from above, flattening the arriving Yil instead of sending them flying.

Had this been a party of humans arriving, such a trap alone would have sufficed.

But this was merely the beginning.

Before the shockwaves from those explosives had barely cleared a foot, an enormous ocean of cindering magma materialized out of thin air, swallowing the entirety of the Yil army from head to toe. The molten rock burned at a temperature in excess of 2,400 °C (4,400 °F), deadly enough to immolate any human caught in it.

Milliseconds later, before the magma had even begun to settle, close to the full force of Constantine’s Shadows simultaneously activated hundreds of diverse Abilities and Artifacts, launching a veritable cornucopia of destruction at the newly-arrived Deities. These Abilities ranged from Spiritual Curses to Mental Strikes to bursts of Elemental Energies, all designed to kill.

In less than half a second, the land within a thousand-meters-wide circle, centered on the Yil, was transformed into a mire of absolute devastation.

The first part of Constantine’s ambush plan finished…

So then began the second part.

Immediately following that half second, the hellscape-like land within that circle collapsed in on itself, propelled downward by the countless, still-spreading, explosive shockwaves.

Before the Yil arrived, Constantine’s Seeds had hollowed out the ground beneath their arrival point, creating a massive hole 100 meters deep hole just beneath the surface. This preparation concentrated the forces of the Yil and the results of Constantine’s attack together, leaving no room for the Deities to escape.

At roughly 7/10ths of a second after the start of the ambush…

A ritual circle composed of 4 Shadows that possessed the Eldritch Snarer Type and 5 Shadows that possessed the Elemental Giant Transformation Ability, led by 1 Shadow that possessed the Void Ruler Ability, finished activating the ‘Void Annihilation Ritual.’

Constantine’s Shadows acted in perfect unison, their Ability loadout designed to maximize their effectiveness.

Normally, the optimized ritual required between 11.8 and 12.7 seconds to achieve activation.

Constantine circumvented this requirement by drawing upon a Shadow that had obtained the Bound Celestial Owl Type through the Mystic Variant Transformation Type Lottery, a Type that granted precognitive awareness.

7/10ths of a second after the Yil arrived, the very space in which the Deities stood ruptured.

The distorted, twisting cracks of space tore downward, guided by the Shadow Void Ruler.

The span of the shattered space fit perfectly in the collapsed hole and kept going, dragging the ocean of magma, the thousands of on-going explosions, and the huge formation of attacks from hundreds of various Abilities and Artifacts downward alongside the army of newly arrived Yil.

The hole that was 100 meters deep rapidly expanded to a length 4,000 meters deep, all in the span of a few seconds.

The second part of Constantine’s ambush was completed.

‘It was here, where everything went wrong.’

Constantine’s eyes flashed with cold light as he opened his eyes, looking up at the sky.

‘I was complacent. Arrogant. A fool who thought he knew it all.’

Over and over, he had told himself to expect the worst, to prepare for the most severe outcome, and to never make any assumptions.

‘And I did… but it was not enough.’

As the spatial tears formed by the Void Annihilation Ritual fettered out thousands of meters below the surface, Constantine prepared the third part of his ambush plan.

348 of his Shadows raised their hands forward and drew on their Spatial Rings, preparing to unleash hundreds of tons of viscous liquid ‘B-Type 94’ poison, a deadly poison his Shadows had managed to develop after several days spent dissecting Yil corpses.

A handful of drops inside an open wound was enough to shock and stun the neural system of any Yil for around ten seconds.

It didn’t sound like much, but the mere fact that he had created a poison that could harm a Deity, especially a Tribe of Deities as insanely resilient as the Yil, was an enormous achievement.

A second before the 3rd part of his ambush plan began, however…

Something that none of Constantine’s countless plans or backup plans had accounted for took place.

In the face of his massive, layered ambush and destructive onslaught…

Reality… changed.

The world as he knew it shifted.

And a loud, piercing voice blasted into Constantine’s mind.

HOW ADMIRABLE.

The deep, gaping hole in the ground vanished.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I FACED AN ATTACK THIS FIERCE?

The boiling sea of magma, the chaotic rivers of energy, the diverse multitude of Artifacts and weapons mixed together deep underground… vanished.

The Yil… vanished.

The fruits of Constantine’s ambush disappeared as if they had never existed in the first place.

WAS IT DURING THE GREAT DRAGON HUNT 24,000 YEARS AGO?

Everything was gone…

And then, it wasn’t.

Once again, in front of Constantine’s eyes, an army of Yil appeared.

PERHAPS.

This time, however, there were no thousands of pre-planted bombs to greet them.

The magma sea Constantine had prepared was no more, and was unable to materialize.

Constantine’s Shadows were unable to activate all of the Abilities and Artifacts they had activated before in time.

In that moment, on the day of the ambush, Constantine pushed aside his extreme shock and began to react.

‘Time reversion? It shouldn’t be, that’s their ultimate taboo. A temporal shift? No, that doesn’t match. None of the Yil we interrogated gave any indication their kind was capable of this.’ Constantine’s mind raced at an astronomical rate, such that time itself seemed to stand still.

‘Ashroth. He’s ruled for 80,000 years. It must be him. Black Magic? It doesn’t match. What do I know? He’s a Titled Deity with the Title Immortal. He’s physically incapable of dying, even if he is destroyed. He’ll simply regenerate-’ Constantine’s eyes widened imperceptibly.

‘Does he regenerate? What if it's not regeneration, but a form of self-contained time reversion? Casual reality warping?’ Just because all of the Yil he interrogated believed one thing didn’t mean they couldn’t be wrong.

The impossible scene before him was proof of that.

‘Can he activate his Title in a way that ties its effects to something other than himself?’

The Vile King’s gaze grew sharp as he began processing the observations, feelings, and senses of his entire army in a single moment.

‘The air is stable. All of the shockwaves had been completely erased. There is not even a hint of the magma I released, the localized temperature is entirely unchanged. Even the fabric of space itself is in a quantum-normalized state, as if the Void Annihilation Ritual was never activated.’

These observations were drawn from sensory feedback that spanned tens of thousands of meters of the area around him, relying on numerous Shadows that possessed various detection Abilities, heightened senses, or active Artifacts that were scanning the surroundings.

‘There should be clouds of disturbed air outward of several thousand meters from me. If time was reverted, my Shadows and I should be standing in slightly different locations. The supplies we used would be returned.’ Constantine’s gaze sharpened as he combined all the knowledge he had.

In a singular moment, Constantine’s mind went through a series of hypotheses, repeatedly formed shifting connections, developed formative evaluations, and processed a multitude of variable conclusions…

Thousands of them.

It was an impossible feat the Vile King accomplished by making full use of his Seeds, drawing on their mental willpower and brain capacity to form a temporary, intertwined hivemind.

For the second time ever since the timeline had reset, Constantine entered into his ‘Ascendant State.’

Constantine’s Empyrean Soul Root Ability allowed him to form a direct connection to influence other beings, but it didn’t change the fact that he was a human.

Humans, as a species, naturally found multitasking difficult. The human mind, in its normal state, possesses a singular conscious direction. Splitting that focus multi-way required incredible training and discipline.

To achieve his Ascendant State, Constantine had to make a bridge between every single one of his present Seeds and himself. The intimate connections his Seed formed allowed for passive, sweeping manipulation, but that alone couldn’t cover everything.

To make up for what was needed, for a brief moment, Constantine split his consciousness more than 700 ways at once.

Doing so caused his sense of identity to fall into confusion as his mind was ripped into an anomalous mass, his mind and Soul so completely overwhelmed he lost the ability to feel pain. It was an act tantamount to suicide, a condition that would instantly kill him if his attention lapsed even slightly. This was one of Constantine’s ultimate trump cards, one reserved for scenarios he judged to be of the utmost danger.

This incomprehensible state was made possible only because of the sheer, endless willpower that Constantine possessed… and because of the countless times he had already experienced the pain of death and loss of self-identity each time his Seeds died and returned.

‘When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ Constantine thought, his eyes piercing towards the abnormally large Deity standing at the center of the Yil Army.

‘Ashroth’s Title doesn’t activate in the form of simple regeneration or temporal reversion…’

Blood began to drip out of Constantine’s nose as his body and mind were strained to their utmost limits, his gaze growing focused as he reached a conclusion that left him dumbfounded.

‘It has to work through some form of ‘erasing’ the past.’

If Ashroth was injured, when his wounds healed just moments later, it wasn’t a form of super regeneration…

It was his Title activating and ‘erasing’ his injuries from the timeline… somehow.

Nothing else matched the observations Constantine had made.

Ashroth could not die… and his Title saw to it that anything that killed him was removed from existence itself.

Not from the present… but from the past.

It was illogical. It should not be possible. But it was, and he was forced to adapt to that.

‘Is his Title unable to ‘erase’ living things? None of my Shadows were removed. Only their attacks.’ The Vile King observed.

‘Alright, then. Shift to Plan M04. Target every Yil except Ashroth.’ Constantine exited his Ascendant State, his individual consciousness swiftly reforming as one, returning in unison along the connections his Seeds formed.

Even in the midst of disaster, Constantine reacted without panic, drawing upon one of the countless backup plans he had prepared.

Dozens of enormous laser blasts began to blast down from the sky at the same time that Constantine’s Shadows began to split off into groups, switching tactics.

The Vile King’s army began targeting individual Yil in teams, breaking off to coordinate in smaller-scale attacks that wouldn’t affect Ashroth. A third of his army formed one large group, a team of hundreds of Seeds coordinated together to simply delay Ashroth.

‘Reduce the variables and the situation will solve itself.’

OH? A SWIFT REACTION. IMPRESSIVE.

Constantine held absolute faith in himself. The plans he had made, and the preparations he had readied, could handle an upset at this level.

And…

He was almost right.

Time flowed onward like a river.

Four hours later…

The Yil army was dead.

All 308 Yil that had accompanied Ashroth had been successfully assassinated, targeted and killed in a manner that could not be reverted.

Constantine’s preparations had proven adequate for the normal Deities. The Yil army that had come with Ashroth had contained stronger variants of the Yil scouts Constantine had previously encountered, but he had accounted for that.

All of the invading Yil Warriors were now dead…

All but one.

INTRIGUING. YOU ARE THE FIRST BEING TO TRY TO BIND ME USING A STORM OF RIPPED SPACE.

‘Damn.’

Surrounded on all sides by hundreds of Constantine’s Shadows, in the midst of an enormous storm of rippling tears in the fabric of space, stood an 8-meters-tall monster.

This creature had pure, alabaster-white skin and a vaguely human-like face, with two gray eyes, a small nose, and a pale mouth. Like the rest of the Yil, its arms were disproportionately long, as were its legs.

HOW MANY DIFFERENT TACTICS HAVE YOU PREPARED JUST FOR ME?

Casually, the Titled Deity Ashroth stretched his arms to his side.

Within milliseconds, the space surrounding him returned to normal, as if the vast tears that had bombarded him had never been.

HOW AMUSING.

Four hours had passed since Constantine began his ambush.

It took his Seeds roughly 14 minutes to kill the Yil army.

As for the last 3 hours and 46 minutes…

‘Damn.’

IS THAT IT?

Constantine had spent that entire time drawing upon every contingency plan he had to stop a single being.

In the face of Constantine’s full, concentrated efforts, the regular Deities were nothing.

They died within minutes.

But a single creature, one lonesome individual, now stood in his way.

‘Damn.’

873 backup plans.

873 failures.

BEING WHO COMMANDS THIS ARMY, YOU HAVE EARNED MY RESPECT.

‘Damn.’

YOU WILL BE REMEMBERED.

Ashroth took a step forward, and the battle began once more.

Over the course of the next 4 hours, Constantine fought with everything he had.

And 8 hours after the ambush began... it ended.

22 of Constantine’s Seeds died at the hands of the 308 Yil Warriors, during the first 14 minutes of combat.

As for the remaining 687…

All of them fell to a single individual.

Ashroth. The Immortal.

.

.

.

And so ended Constantine Lancaster's first encounter with a Titled Deity.

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