“Is everyone okay?” I asked our group. I had been so focused on my own encounters that I wasn’t paying much attention to my comrades. Besides knowing they were all alive, their exact statuses were unknown to me.

“I’ve been better,” Bryan coughed. The fatigue he was experiencing must have been immense. Recovering HP only meant you wouldn’t die. The fatigue of battle still accumulated; rest was still required to recover.

Looking at the gouges in his shield and armor and the dried blood in the gashes of his clothes, Bryan had taken an insane beating, and probably had been healed to for several times what his HP value actually was. The fact he could even climb the ladder was a miracle.

“I’m all out of MP,” Luther said. His eyes were sunken and red, he also had expended more MP than he could bear.

I pulled the remaining thirty blue potions from my inventory and passed them to Luther, “Start drinking these, I can survive without them.” My MP was low as a percent, but its value was still incredibly high in absolute terms.

I allocated the 3 stat points I had received into AGI and noted that the Devil Fox had given me 100 HP and 100 MP for being harvested. This proved that the monster was much more dangerous than I had originally anticipated, as no previous creature had ever given me over 50 HP or MP from Harvest Soul.

Luther started to chug MP potions as quick as he could while the rest of us took this minute or two to calm our hearts and catch our breath. The Adventurer’s Guild Master was looking at me from his post nearby and he seemed to understand we needed a moment of reprieve from battle because he issued no orders.

The beasts below had shown hesitation when that large gravity barrier appeared around the encampment. I felt that their hesitation wouldn’t last long though. As soon as one beast tested the flowing air and found that while it weighed them down, it didn’t deal damage, they would continue rushing at us in hordes.

“We work together again until overrun,” Bryan said. “Kill as fast as possible. I will concentrate on defense so Luther can better recover.” I couldn’t help but look around at the other groups that had retreated back into the camp around us.

The discrepancy between the numbers of Adventurers we had when we started and those present now was clearly visible. At least half of our numbers had vanished and this was most likely only the beginning of the battle. “There is a plan to retreat in place. When the order is given, do not hesitate to fall back.” I looked at my party. “We will be overrun.”

“What about you?” Briele suddenly asked. Perhaps my tone when speaking had indicated to her I wasn’t going to be a part of that retreat.

“I will be going with the Adventurer’s Guild Master. We have plans,” I lied.

“We should be joining you then,” Zachary said.

“I’ve always wanted to meet the Adventurer’s Guild Master,” Rot suddenly added. He had been quiet this entire time, but it seemed like he was doing okay. It was harder to tell since his body was already quite thin and malnourished. His skin was white and sickly, but that was the norm for him.

“Absolutely not. You must retreat when it’s called, all of you.” I looked to Briele, Bryan and Luther specifically, “If you don’t retreat I won’t forgive you.”

“That’s not fa—” Briele started but was cut off.

“It’s starting!” Vichi yelled. Beasts began coming over the walls once again. This time, because of the gravity shield they would be fighting with lower action speed, but we would still be overrun.

Bryan struggled to his feet and I could see the difficulty in which he raised his shield. “Let’s get to it.” He slapped his sword against his shield once and a loud metallic chime rang out. We all stood and prepared to fight.

There was only one encounter we could fight as a team. After the first beasts breached the wall, the fearlessness of the tide returned again and we were being over-run quickly. There was no wall behind our back this time.

Only our comrades were behind us, and to our sides. All around us were beasts surrounding us and hungering to devour us. The short two minutes of rest we had just experienced were not enough to recover us for the scale of this assault.

I wanted us to retreat now, but the call had not been made. Every swing of Mana Scythe caused my muscles to tear and scream in agony. Bryan could barely manage to hold up his shield with both hands and deflect blows. Zachary was doing the same with his swords crossed. Luther’s MP was basically depleted and there were more heals for any of us. The end was coming.

As if my thoughts had been heard, there was a dragon’s cry in the sky. It echoed from a distance and rapidly grew louder: a beautiful azure drake that blotted out the sky from above and dominated the skies.

Was he friend or foe? That was my only thought in that moment. The fire from his maw that raced across the horde of enemies breaching our walls answered me in the next: a flame so hot that it burned blue and scalded the eyes.

The dragon circled again and then blasted his flames over and over. The outskirts of our encampment lit up in vivid flames and the horde of beasts breaching our walls was momentarily halted. A new-found strength based on hope filled my limbs as I dispatched the foes in front of us.

Faces I’d never seen before screamed by my side as we worked together to dissect every foe piece by piece. Those ranged beasts that had been assaulting us were now focusing everything on the dragon above. Smoke billowed over me, burning my eyes and assaulting my senses and covered the entire camp.

Congratulations! You have reached level 60. As a reward for leveling up, you have been granted three stat points!

My group moved as one unit, slaughtering those beasts that had no backup from reinforcements. Levels began to pour in as the world around me became a fuzz.

Congratulations! You have reached level 61. As a reward for leveling up, you have been granted three stat points!

Congratulations! You have reached level 62. As a reward for leveling up, you have been granted three stat points!

Only the despair of the dragon’s cry could awake me from my murderous stupor, followed by a crash so loud that the earth shook. Our ally in the sky had fallen and was quickly devoured by the tide of beasts, using his body as a ramp from which to launch themselves at our fort.

Our burst of strength was gone, and the enemies were more numerous than ever. A horn sounded, “RETREAT! RETREAT!” It was over. We had lost.

Bryan was so immobile that I had to grab him and jerk him away from the foe he was fighting. “Go!” I said. Briele and Vichi both grabbed him and started to pull him back. Treants created a momentary wall to block the advance of our foes as we moved back as a group.

The best time to retreat would have been when the dragon had halted their advance for those brief few minutes. Now it was nearly impossible to get out unscathed. “GET GOING!” A yell came behind us. It was Corbin and his group.

They had fared well as a higher-level party than us, and were now blocking the path of enemy advance so others could retreat. My hopes were high for them, and then those hopes disappeared quickly. Even they were exhausted beyond belief.

The tide of beasts quickly swallowed them up in moments. There were no allies to protect their sides or back as every other Adventurer was running away as fast as possible. When I glanced over my shoulder, there was no longer a Corbin or his party.

“Keep going!” I yelled at my group before turning back. I had no intention of trying to stop this tide myself, but instead needed to rendezvous with the Adventurer’s Guild Master. He wasn’t expecting my arrival, but that didn’t matter to me.

I could feel his soul signature towards the front wall section. He was no doubt doing what Corbin had done: trying to divert the army of monsters for long enough to allow the others to escape. I used what little strength I had remaining to make my way to him unscathed.

The entire evacuation took merely two minutes, as our numbers were deathly thin. By some miracle my party didn’t have a single casualty. I watched as they disappeared beyond the far wall, leaving just me, the Adventurer’s Guild Master, and those he had enlisted to stay and search for the seed.

“What are you waiting for Joseph?” He asked me. “Get going.” The defiant look in my eyes showed my answer, and yet he didn’t reprimand me. “Don’t hold us back,” he said, “and be prepared to die.”

We raced into the jungle around us and away from the now decimated encampment.

Our search for the seed did not begin at once as everyone was thoroughly exhausted. Instead, we searched for a place to give ourselves a day’s rest. Staying ahead of the monsters, we reached the west coast of the continent and took refuge in a cave that had already been searched.

From the safety of the known cave, we cleared the other unexplored caves beside it, and checked those off a map the Adventurer’s Guild Master carried. As a result of those battles, I learned about the members of the group more clearly.

There were ten Adventurers, so our mini-raid consisted of eleven including me. Some faces I recognized from the day we took down Dominik and the Tyrant guild. A good many of them were part of the Adventurer’s Hall. A few held the emblems of other guilds.

There was a person missing, someone that I was sure would be here, “Where is Rhea?” I asked. She wouldn’t miss this unless it was impossible for her to come. Suddenly, I had a terrible feeling wash over me.

The Adventurer’s Guild Master paused for a moment and then looked me straight in the eyes, “She didn’t make it.”

Rhea had been part of the front wall defense. Surely the battles there had been even more intense than our own? A motherly figure had been taken from me, just like that.

“I see.” These were the only words I could muster. My mind was fading to blank as a dark emotion filled me. I didn’t want to speak to anyone. This cave would be our resting place, so I curled on my side and tried my best to fall asleep.

It was the Adventurer’s Guild Master who woke me in the early morning. The sun was still hidden below the horizon and insects hummed in the dark night. “We are moving, you can join us or stay here. Your choice,” he said without the slightest emotion.

The Adventurer’s Guild Master was a man I admired, but his ability to cut off his emotions and become so cold and detached scared me. That trait though, made him the perfect person to lead this expedition.

“I’ll come.”

No one knew if we would be fighting or not. What the tide of monsters were doing now, after wiping out our camp, was unknown. Perhaps they were searching for our survivors? Or returning east? Or perhaps their army was breaking apart and they were individually going back to their normal behavior? All these were possible.

We moved like silent assassins through the night and checked each marker on the map. By mid-day we were down to the last few destinations. Before us was a shallow cave that ended abruptly.

The Adventurer’s Guild Master checked it off his map and turned to leave when I stopped him, “Wait,” I said. “There’s something here, something more.” I could feel two signatures, large signatures underground in the distance. The oddity of these was that nothing else appeared around them in my search. Usually, such powerful signatures would have smaller ones nearby if they were part of some natural ecosystem or community of monsters.

He looked at me curiously for a moment and asked me to explain.

“Below us some ways I can feel… something. Two strong beings,” I said. His eyes grew excited at the notion and he beckoned with his hands.

Several people came forward to join him as they destroyed the cave wall, despite it being several meters thick. A small hole appeared for us to crawl through that opened up into a gigantic cavity hundreds of meters wide and disappearing at least the same distance to the ground far below.

We could see right to the bottom of the giant hole. The walls were coated in glowing and shiny ores that lit the entire cave up. Circular tunnels bored each and every direction into the walls. There must have been hundreds of these. It looked as if a worm had burrowed through here: a gigantic worm.

Slow Fall was cast and we all floated to the cave floor. It was a solid and dry rock despite the humidity of the area. The Adventurer’s Guild Master turned to me again, urging me to indicate the direction we needed to travel. I spun around several times to hone that feeling.

“It’s this way,” I said when I was sure. We were heading deeper under the continent, and the signatures were even lower than we were currently. Five tunnels presented themselves to us, but only one of them clearly headed down. It was the path we ended up choosing.

Because they were so strong, I expected them to be close by, but as we walked and walked, their presence grew larger and larger. These beings had to have been hundreds of meters underground when I first noticed them, and yet I had managed to feel them despite all the rock and dirt. They were powerful. The Adventurer’s Guild Master grew even more excited as I relayed that information to him.

It took us more than thirty minutes of travel before the signatures ceased to become any stronger. By now, I was sweating bullets. This was like nothing I’d ever felt before, not even the dragon, and, worst of all, there were two of them.

One of the signatures was like the shining sun, and I felt like I would burn up just focusing on the direction of the being. The other was large, but clearly eclipsed by the sheer strength of the other.

Eventually, the tunnel we were traveling came to a drop off into a chamber. “We’re here.” I said. The signatures were just inside the chamber in front of us, whatever they were.

“Prepare for battle,” the Adventurer’s Guild Master said in a low whisper. I felt a tremble of excitement as well as anxiety. It was possible that this was about to be the final fight for Yetera.

We carefully descended into the chamber and my eyes immediately traveled to the scorching signature that made me weak in the knees. It was a gigantic cocoon hanging from the ceiling in the corner of the room.

There was shiny ore and metals illuminated throughout the cocoon and the being inside could be seen through the thin skin. A larvae as big as a minivan rested inside. The heartbeat thrummed and pulsed, causing the entire thing to change colors repeatedly.

“That’s it…” The Adventurer’s Guild Master said in awe. He had nearly lost his composure as had everyone else: they were all staring at the seed in amazement.

“There’s something more,” I said, “in the middle of the room.” There was a film-like material covering a tunnel in the ground similar to the one we had descended. The second signature was coming from there, below the film.

We moved carefully in a battle-ready formation until we could look through the skin atop the shaft. “We pull whatever it is up to us,” The Adventurer’s Guild Master said. It wasn’t impossible to go down, but I felt to break the skin and jump would be a dumb idea.

“Can we dispatch the Seed now instead?” I asked urgently. If they had felt what I felt about its strength, they might not be too interested in starting a fight with the second signature.

The Adventurer’s Guild Master looked at of his fellow guild members and sent two of them towards the Seed. They reached it and then began bombarding it with spells and attacks that had almost no effect.

A roar came from below that caused me to quiver. The entire cave seemed to rattle in response. “Return immediately!” The Adventurer’s Guild Master said. He cast his Gravity Bubble around the entire cave in preparation for slowing whatever it was coming from the depths.

The foe was racing from below at incredible speeds. We waited in anticipation for only a few seconds before the film in front of us burst, and the creature showed itself in all its glory.

Eater of Worlds*** LEVEL: ?? Unknown

HP: ?? MP: ??

STR: ??

AGI: ??

DEX: ??

VIT: ??

INT: ??

A creature of legends. It survives by devouring the essences of planets and the souls of its inhabitants.

The monster was a gigantic worm, absolutely enormous. Sharp spikes jutted out from its carapace-like skin and the face was a circular mouth filled with jagged teeth. There must have been dozens of eyes all around its ‘head’ that I could see.

The lower part of its body remained in the tunnel, but the upper part still towered over us. It was a gigantic enemy that we didn’t have much information on. As soon as it appeared, everyone quickly spread out and into a circle around it.

No one knew how to proceed, but that didn’t matter. Everyone here was ready to sacrifice their lives for success. “Attack! HOLD NOTHING BACK!” the Adventurer’s Guild Master yelled. It was an all-out brawl from here on.

The two tanks of the group rushed forward valiantly, while two casters and two archers started their bombardment from a distance. I had not been included in any planning for battle by this group and felt it was up to me to decide how I could best contribute. I opted to chuck spells from the outskirts.

Our foe had no arms and a single mouth, but it obviously wasn’t a pushover in terms of strength. Its lacking of appendages meant the monster would have other means of defending and attacking, and that was I found myself worrying about.

I started casting multiple spells in tandem, as the exact effectiveness of each was unknown. Which of fire, ice, lightning, earth, or even arcane magic would be most effective? I worked through my options in order to find out. As my spells continued to pelt into the thick carapace without causing any noticeable damage, I worried about just how strong the Eater’s defenses were, and if all of my offensive spells were going to be completely ineffective.

As I watched the arrows fly, and swords stab from below I grew more worried. Each attack was like attacking into a thick and sturdy muscle. No one was dealing anything more than superficial damage. Whether spells or physical attacks, neither were doing more than barely scratching the surface of the creature’s hide. The Eater continued to writhe and squirm without offering retaliation.

Suddenly, its open maw aimed directly above one of the tanks and a greenish goop began to pour from within. Our tank’s shield was placed in front to block the liquid, but something unexpected occurred. The jet of liquid touched the shield and then melted directly through it, and then even worse, directly through the holder’s arm.

His shield arm melted clean off his body as our tank screamed in agony. Heals were cast that immediately halted the bleeding and turned his now detached arm into a stump. He didn’t retreat, though. Instead, he screamed a battle cry and began plunging his sword harder and faster into the beast’s underbelly.

This fanaticism inspired me and fueled in me the fire to win. Everyone else too rallied: special abilities that manifested auras appeared behind several people. Arrows that bent space and spells that shattered light bombarded the Eater.

Its roar grew more agitated and its writhing more frantic. By now, it was clear that it couldn’t leave the tunnel it had burrowed itself into. My mind made a connection, a sudden epiphany: it was injured. The voice I had heard, that had urged me to hurry. The Eater was injured.

Somehow or another, it wasn’t as strong as the signature suggested. I couldn’t sit back any longer and pulled out Mana Scythe before rushing in. My slashes across the carapace were sharp and deep.

No blood was drawn though, as all I was cutting was a thick layer of muscle. Every attack caused the skin and area to pulse and bubble disgustingly. The Eater writhed even faster, and then its maw began to spray that greenish goop again.

This time, however, it was like a fountain as it shot it around the room, doing its best to cake anyone and anything that would be touched by it. Barrier was cast, and then cast a second time. Those close enough to the spell sheltered beneath it and prayed.

There was nowhere for me to run, so I Phase Stepped three times in succession while rushing back to the opening we had entered from. I barely managed to get away into the corridor when the spray splattered against the cave walls where I had been.

Putrid smoke rose from the sizzling rock that only stopped after holes five or six inches deep had been bored by the acidic liquid. My eyes shifted to our magical barrier and I realized that the first barrier had been nullified quickly, and the second barely managed to hold up against the strong acid.

Two people were unfortunate enough to have had no avenue of escape, and had been covered by a mist of acid. Their skin sloshed from their bodies and they lay in a heap on the floor. I did not have the time to mourn for them.

Everyone pushed forward again with renewed vigor and hardened determination. We didn’t have another answer for an attack like that if it could be launched again. This needed to end, and soon.

My focus returned to the singular slash I had made previously. I would compound my damage as much as possible and began slashing into that cut harder and deeper. The muscle was harder than the trees in the forest above, and my arms burned with each attack.

I was peeling back layer by layer, and even the carapace on the outside seemed to be releasing itself and pulling back. Finally, after a dozen slashes or more, I heard a ripping sound. By sheer force, I pulled back the last layer of muscle and the monster split open.

A greenish brown liquid burst from within and started to pour out of the Eater’s underbelly. A screech so high pitched my ears nearly popped echoed through the cave. The monster was in real pain now, and I didn’t let up.

At first I was fearful the liquid was the same acidic goop, but it was not. It landed on the cave floor and didn’t sizzle or burn. Mana Scythe entered into the cavity and began mincing whatever I could find.

Others noticed the change and could see the gaping hole forming in the side of the Eater. “Focus on the wound!” The Adventurer’s Guild Master yelled. The circle formation broke as everyone shifted to my side and we bombarded it with everything we could muster.

The screams became more frequent, and then the Eater stopped. Its body became deathly still, and for a moment we all imagined it had died. Then suddenly, it started to vibrate. It vibrated faster and faster until the air was humming.

We had no barriers to protect us, and no one knew what was happening. I felt death was coming and instinctively distanced myself from the Eater. The vibrating stopped, and then there was an explosive sound, dozens of explosions that sounded like gun fire.

Stones the size of human heads began flying from within the carapace like cannonballs. So fast that seeing them with the naked eye was nearly impossible. I casted Phase Step instinctively but all that managed to do was allow me to watch as five comrades of my comrades were cut down.

The stones that launched from within the Eater had shot through their bodies, tearing off limbs or completely bisecting them. I felt Energy Shield flicker for a moment and then my body went flying.

My side was on fire, and when I looked down realized that a chunk of the side of my leg was now gone. Of the original 11 of us, only three of us were still alive.

There was the Adventurer’s Guild Master, myself, and a single priest who seemed to be on death’s door. The priest looked around ashen at the pile of dead bodies, and then to the Adventurer’s Guild Master and I. I felt the warmth of a heal that sealed the wound on my leg. Our eyes met, and then he collapsed.

“It seems this is the end for us,” the Adventurer’s Guild Master looked into my eyes with fierce determination. “I can give you one last chance. Do your best to grasp it.” His words and his expression held conviction that I trusted. “Don’t miss the chance.”

He suddenly sat down and crossed his hands in front of his face… I knew what this was. He was about to cast Mind Link against the Eater. “Don’t miss it,” he said once more. I steadied myself despite the low mobility in my leg and started hobbling forward.

There were only the two of us, but the Eater was also at death’s door. Shooting those stones from within had come at a terrible price for the monster, as numerous spots all over were now leaking brownish goop. Its high screeches were now few and far between.

“GO!” The Adventurer’s Guild Master yelled. It was at that moment that I felt the air change: the aura of the room change. The Eater’s entire body twitched for a moment and I knew the spell had been cast.

Time was of the essence, as I had no idea how long the Adventurer’s Guild Master could lock such a foe down. I rushed forward without caring about my physical status. Every step on my right leg sent racing pain through my body that told me I was still alive: I desperately wanted to live.

Despite my body screaming at me to not, I cast Phase Step and jumped into the air. Mana Scythe was placed directly inside the open wound as I started to rend deep into the monster with all my might. Fifty-percent of my MP wasn’t enough for the blade, so I pushed it higher, and higher.

My mind started to grow fuzzy as I reached 95% of my MP: the scythe rising through the thick layer of muscle and steadily cutting deep. I was making progress but it still wasn’t enough. I urged myself to use every ounce of my strength, and started to frantically push any element I could into my weapon.

Fire, ice, lightning, and earth were now twirling and intermixing with Mana Scythe as all my magic raced upward and towards the blade. Something I had never tried, nor thought possible was happening in front of my eyes. A scream of agony and despair escaped my mouth as my muscles were rent along with the Eater’s interior.

A screech shook me to my core, a death wail that told me the end was near. The Eater had broken free from Mind Link and the maw faced at me. It was going to spit acid on me, end my life in one attack.

There was a moment of realization that this was the end. A thought crossed my mind: at least it would die along with me. I pushed backwards off its carapace in a last attempt to survive and raced for the cave entrance.

I didn’t dare look back, as even a second of delay would mean the end. I was counting down in my head as best I could, and just as the final moment was about to arrive—when the goop would rain down on me and turn me to mush—I heard a crash. The Eater had fallen sideways, its guts and blood and previous meals pooling out of the gaping cavity and spilling over the floor below.

System messages began flooding me endlessly without stop. My level was skyrocketing and yet I didn’t care to look at all. Nothing around me seemed to matter in that moment as I desperately needed the strength to move.

My feet couldn’t hold me up even a second longer. There was no doubt I had done permanent damage to my body. I didn’t look at the Eater again and instead looked to the Adventurer’s Guild Master. His body was still in his Mind Link casting position, but it had slouched to the side somewhat. I crawled with every hope he was still alive.

My hand grasped his arm and then his neck when I reached him. I felt nothing… There was no air coming from his lungs at all. He had given his life to create that single chance: a true hero and someone I greatly respected. Everyone in this room had died a hero.

A throbbing sound entered my ears and synchronized with my heart. My head turned in fear as I realized the previously still cocoon was now quivering. The larvae inside was now squirming and its heart was beating even faster than before. Each thump caused a pulse of fluid to travel that could be seen through the illumination.

In that moment it occurred to me that maybe the Eater was wounded: was nurturing this offspring. It would take its place once it perished, and now that it had, was ready to appear in the world. My mind was fuzzy and my vision was growing dark.

My body crawled instinctively towards the corpse of the Eater and I raised a hand before casting Harvest Soul. The sensation that followed was nothing like I had ever felt before. An explosion of energy raced through my body and didn’t show any signs of stopping.

The clarity I was lacking returned, the pain and aches that were nearly causing me to faint disappeared. I opened my stats for a moment to see exactly what was happening.

Current EXP: 22320/171000 LEVEL: 99 Soul Harvester Eternal

HP: 99999/99999 MP: 99999/99999

STR: 60+5

AGI: 63+18

DEX: 40 +5

VIT: 30 +6

INT: 55 +21

Available: 185

Harvest Soul: ?? HP: ?? MP: ??

The feeling I had was one of absolute power, absolute control. I felt invincible and… full. Level 99… was this the end of the journey for leveling? I couldn’t be sure and my attention was pulled again to that cocoon.

It was pulsing and throbbing over and over, and yet the fear I had before wasn’t there. It was no longer the shining sun I dare not look at, and for a moment I thought it would be fun to fight the creature within. I shook that stupid thought from my head almost immediately. Everything needed to end now.

The cocoon was made of almost impenetrable material, I’d seen that earlier, but I did have a spell that would deal with it. I moved closer and crossed both my hands in front of me. World Cutter was what I needed and I allowed it to take as much MP as it needed.

Even with 99,999 MP, I felt the giddy weakness of being emptied at an extreme rate. The usually crystal-clear crescent now glowed like the moon. But I had made it strong enough and I released the cutter with my will and dissected the cocoon and larvae inside in half.

The seed died instantly. I expected more system messages of leveling to come, but they did not. It seemed 99 really was the end of my leveling journey. The seed had been a living thing though, and I moved to cast Harvest Soul.

My hand rose above the collapsed cocoon and I cast Harvest Soul. This time a feeling even more extreme than when I had absorbed the Eater flooded through me. A power surged within and I suddenly realized it was no longer a good one.

It felt like my body was going to burst into pieces. I contemplated casting World Cutter once more, but even the dissipating force of that would not be enough to counter how fast my MP was rising.

My skin began to turn purple and the flesh underneath dark. Remember the stone. Those words echoed through my head for a mere moment. Immediately, I grasped that mysterious god sphere in my hand tightly.

My MP began to rapidly dissipate at a rate equal to the gain, and then the loss was accelerating faster than the gain. Suddenly, an ephemeral figure appeared before me that I recognized from the realm in the Hidden Jungle. “You are…”

“I am the guarding deity of this planet. I am the one who has been showing you visions and speaking to you.”

“The one who turned those people in the jungle into frogs?” To me, that was who he was, I remembered the images of him on the carvings. There he seemed more like a cruel sorcerer than a guardian god.

“That was me.” The ghostly man spoke with a wry smile. “There was good reason for my action, since they were responsible for this entire crisis and nearly for a disaster that would have engulfed two planets.” He looked at the Eater and then the dissected larvae.

I needed to understand, and I felt I had time to understand now. Holding his eyes, I wanted this god to see how important it was for me to understand. To know why so many good people had died. “Tell me.”

“Well, before I was aware of what he was doing, the son of that foolish king sacrificed three-hundred people in a blood-ritual of forbidden magic. He paused. “The strength of that ritual was so strong that it broke a hole between our worlds.”

“Our?”

“I am the guardian deity of not only Yetera, but also Earth.” He stopped for a moment as if in contemplation of how to explain, “You see, Yetera and Earth are like two sides of the same sheet of paper. It is a closed system and each is usually unattainable to the other. Any being on one side is in what feels like an entire universe to that being. You cannot go from Yetera to Earth or Earth to Yetera without the equivalent of crossing an entire universe. Not normally, but the magic of the ritual entwined the two, tearing the paper, if you like, and this resulted in some people from Earth being pulled to Yetera.”

“So is that how we got here?”

“Not you and your generation. You and everyone else who survived on Earth are here because I brought you here. But a few people from an earlier time on Earth came because of the rupture. That was not the main problem with the unholy spell. The real problem, for both worlds, is that there are monsters in the metaverse who seek out and thrive on such ruptures. The creature you have just fought and killed is known as a World Eater. It finds vulnerable worlds, travels to them, plants a seed and then growing strong from the twisted energy of a rupture, slowly devours the very essence of the twin planets. It feeds off the energy being lost between them and produces offspring.” His eyes traveled to the larvae on the floor.

“The only reason it could find our twin worlds…” He started again.

“Is because the ritual magic created a rupture it could detect?” I interjected, wanting to hear the explanation in my own voice, to be sure I understood.

“Exactly, it discovered the twist between our worlds, the energy that was leaking as a result, and it came to Yetera, to the place of the ritual. When it arrived, I did battle with the World Eater, and that was several hundred years ago. We were both gravely wounded, and my only way of surviving was to retreat into the item you call a ‘God sphere’.

“The effects of Yetera and Earth being connected with that rupture were not symmetrical. Small numbers of Earthlings traveled to Yetera by coincidence, but the entire Adventurer system of Yetera poured through into Earth. That is why this all began on Earth.

“When I saw that happening, I realized it was a chance—a chance to bring the two worlds together to fight a common enemy. Earth became a tutorial and those who passed were brought here, in the hopes that some of them would become strong enough to aid the world in its final battle.”

It was starting to make sense. A closed system had been broken which allowed the World Eater to attack and it had also caused the apocalypse for us. “Couldn’t you have stopped it? What happened on Earth?”

The deity paused for a moment to think, “Yes… I could have stopped it. But once Yetera fell, Earth would have fallen along with it. They are connected, and one cannot exist without the other. Natural disasters would have befallen the Earth regardless, and eventually your planet would have died along with Yetera.”

“What would have happened if we had not able to defeat the World Eater?” I asked.

“I was hopeful for you. I knew it had been weakened by our battle.” He looked at me and gave me a smile that made my heart pound. “And you were adept at mastering your unique class. More than that, you opened your mind to my visions. The orb that protected me and allowed me to recover from my battle with the World Eater also cut me off from you all, the people I am assigned to protect. I was fortunate that you at least did not shut yourself off from me.”

“Now the World Eater is dead, can I help the people of Earth recover?” I wondered.

“You can. And it is important you do so,” the deity replied earnestly. “You must close the rupture before another World Eater detects it. And with the power of the defeated monster, you can do so. You are unique in that you can harness the powers of your fallen foes. That is not something even I can do. The energy and essence stolen by the World Eater is lost to me, but to you? Even this very second you are drawing it back.”

He wasn’t wrong. I could still feel the sphere fighting against my insane MP and HP growth. I was still harvesting the larvae.

“What are you saying then?” I asked. “What must I do?”

“If you allow me… I can close the rupture, with your help.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Sacrifice your life,” came his immediate response. “If you allow me to use your life as a sacrifice—with the power you have harnessed, I can fix Yetera by turning back time to before the ritual and this time, forewarned, I can intervene to prevent it. This event will have never happened.”

“What about Earth? Can you fix that too?” I asked.

“Earth… maybe. Because time exists differently in each universe, I have no guarantee that turning back time for Yetera will do the same for Earth. But they are closely connected and it might be that my solution will also restore Earth. Even if it does not, no further harm will come to the planet.”

“So I must die?”

“Correct.”

“Can you tell me something before we do this? Are my parents alive here? My brother?”

The figure’s eyes glazed over for a moment as if searching. A quiet ten seconds passed. “Your parents perished on Earth. Your brother made it to Yetera, he was killed by bandits over a year ago though.” His words stung, but they weren’t outside of my expectations. There was really nothing holding me here.

I wanted both my parents back, and my brother back. If I believed what the deity said, there was a chance they could be saved, both of them—that all of this could be fixed. “I’ll do it.”

As soon as I said the words the sphere in my hand began suctioning power even faster than before. My MP was rapidly heading towards 0 and so was my HP. I could feel the life being sucked out of me at an incredible pace.

Curtains began closing around my eyes as my thinking became fuzzy. I was dying in real time, and yet I wasn’t afraid. I was hopeful for the small chance this could all be salvaged.

“Thank you Joseph, for everything. I hope this works, for your sake…” The deity spoke one final time before my vision fully went black.