Tales of the Old World Demon Lord

Chapter 53 – Providence of Immortals

[Eternum Calendar 1972]

Connecting by a massive pillar of light, the skies literally fell towards the lands below. This purifying pylon ‘cleansed’ anything that was unfortunate enough to be caught up in its wrath, leaving not even a single trace behind. Observing this near world ending phenomenon from a close but safe distance away was a single humanoid figure. Adorned in an elegant white militaristic uniform, various badges and medals lined up against his left breast pockets, he stood tall with his arms behind his back- Errick Rommel. Through his singular red lens he focused intently into the white void, waiting patiently for everything to finally be over.

“Dagda… you were simply too powerful for your own good.”

He spoke in an authoritative yet slightly melancholic tone. He shook his head, almost in a manner to suggest he was retracting that prior statement.

“While ‘power’ itself is not evil, the threat it presents is vast and is therefore necessary to… ‘weed’ out before it becomes too troublesome.”

He lowered his white hat just enough to cover half of his large red eye. ‘You don’t have to understand; this is just how we do things,’ he thought to himself. A sense of relief hovered around him as he bid his final farewell towards the one problematic yet entertaining constant in his immortal life. Indeed this was how the Confederacy had operated; weeding out future threats before they had a chance to bloom.

Their overall outwards arrogance and domineering attitude was merely a show; planning, plotting, scheming, weaving contingencies and proper cultivation, that was how the Confederacy had ascended to their techno godhood. It was not through any effortless feat of luck or coincidence that they were able to grasp the future of mankind in their hands.

Errick quietly gazed at the god of destruction, the light pillar. ‘It’s over…’ a final thought crossed his mind. By his own estimations it should have been impossible for the enemy to avoid fate this time around. He let out a metaphorical sigh as he slowly turned his back to leave, yet it was only for a brief millisecond that an ominous thought crept into the deepest recesses of his mind. He felt that something wasn’t right, that something at the back of his head was telling him that nothing was truly over. His intuition, born from countless centuries and millennium of experiences, such a finely honed skill was not something to be taken lightly.

Errick waited…

Seconds passed, though they felt like hours…

Minutes passed, yet it seemed like they were days…

He watched as the light of Gungnir began to dwindle a little more with each passing second. He waited… then some more, until finally the bridge connecting the heavens to the earth had vanished in its entirety. Yet nothing was revealed, a thick layer of dust and smoke smothered the entire area.

When the smoke finally settled, the revelation of the impact was much grander than what he had initially anticipated. A large gaping chasm about fifty to sixty meters in diameter drilled through the crust by the heavenly orbital laser. The hole seemed to stretch deep into infinity as even when Errick peered down with the most enhanced optical equipment the bottom was still covered by an impenetrable darkness.

‘This kind of damage… there’s no way he would have survived,’ Errick told himself. Even he would not stood a chance against that kind of direct impact. While his opponent, Dagda, was recognized as the strongest deity to grace this world and even held the power of infinite regeneration, destruction on a molecular level was not something anyone could easily escape. He breathed out once more a metaphorical sigh as he confirmed in his heart that the enemy was destroyed beyond recovery.

Although there was still one lingering curiosity that plagued him as he stared down towards the unending abyss, an intrinsic one. As fellow immortals, this situation had rather piqued Errick’s curiosity, about what it felt like to ‘die’ as an immortal. It was a question that ailed almost every sentient being, even after being immortalized as an eternal machine, this curse did not escape him.

In his vast period of existence he had not come close to death. With regular maintenance and the fact that there wasn’t an opponent that came close to making him taste defeat, there was just no chance to. Even in the unlikely event that he was damaged beyond the recovery capabilities of his natural repair programming, he could instantly summon more spare parts from his [inventory] to replace ones too heavily damaged.

All in all, he was severely over prepared to actually die; he would not die and he would not be able to satiate the curiosity of mortality today. He shook his head, nothing was going to come out from the chasm and the fight was over. The immortal ‘deity’ that wreaked havoc across the world, claiming to be its ‘strongest’ was dead. His only regret about this was not having the chance to ask Dagda before he died, ‘how it felt to be dying’.

It was too late now.

Or so how wonderful it would have been for the rest of the world if that had truly been the case. No, fate was not to be. At that moment a fearsome presence echoed through the bottomless chasm. He shifted his sights, focusing intently once more, anticipating and bracing himself for what was about to come.

‘It’s coming!’ he shouted in his mind as he felt a dreadful and malicious pressure erupting from the abyss. An incredible rush of translucent force burst out at breakneck speeds, ascending towards the skies and ripping apart the clouds. He witnessed as this mysterious power froze him in place, a chill ran down his non-existent organic spine. Just from that brief display, he had already figured out the nature of what this unnatural phenomenon was… or rather there was only one thing it could have actually been.

Knowing this fact did nothing to alleviate his petrified state. His mind, as highly advanced as it was from being mechanized, was still limited by a lot of its human comprehensions. ‘Psionic residue…?!’ that rush of force was no doubt the residue left behind by a psychokinetic power, however that shouldn’t have been possible. This entire world, much less Dagda, wasn’t aware of even its existence. Yet it could not be denied that in that instant what Errick observed exploding from the chasm was indeed a trace of psychic power.

“Haaa…haa haa~ Getting distracted now, are we?”

A low and demonic voice spoke to him from behind. In his brief moment of distraction and contemplation due to the prior mystery, Errick had completely forgotten to take into consideration Dagda’s location. Errick tried to turn back to retaliate as he activated his ‘overload’ ability, however it was already too late. Dagda was in perfect position, and even in the midst of striking without delay. Claws darker than the blackest night skies and tougher than time tested steel, Dagda slashed down with everything his body allowed him.

Errick only barely managed to avoid the complete destruction of his body, yet the price in doing so was losing his left arm and balance. Taking advantage of the momentum, Dagda continued his assaults. A powerful shockwave repulsed from Errick’s abdomen as Dagda smashed through his defenses with a kick.

Errick was hurled back several dozen meters, sliding through the charcoal desert and towards the direction of the bottom chasm. Just as he was on the verge of falling right in, he managed to grab a hold of the edge with his right arm. With no real ability to fly his only option was back up. Yet upon attempting to do so was resisted by Dagda.

The situation had reversed almost instantaneously. Summoning more weapons, using skills, jumping away… everything had a slight delay; the moment he tried to do anything was the moment Dagda would retaliate.

Dagda crept closer, violently stomping on Errick’s hand in an attempt to make him fall. Looking up a large and exhilarated grin, both Errick and Dagda knew what the outcome of the next few seconds would be. He could see it now, the surge of victorious liberty flowing through Dagda’s very core. Why wouldn’t he be? Who else could claim to have survived an orbital bombardment head on?

“Haa… that last attack of yours… I’m not sure what it was but a little more and you might have actually been successful. Unfortunately for you it seems that the heavens are on my side.”

“Hmph, you think you can kill me with just this?”

“Who knows? To me, all I hear are the meaningless ramblings of a loser. However I will be generous enough to allow you your final words… speak so I may savor them for all of eternity.”

Dagda grinned further, bearing his sharp, jagged teeth.

“… House.”

At his words Dagda stopped for a brief moment, confused as to why those were Errick’s chosen final words. Yet the confusion would have been instantly solved from Errick’s perspective, from the skies a large object flew towards them on a crash course trajectory. The speed, so intense that it managed to create a ripple of sound and space behind it as it breached the sound barrier. A rogue house, flying towards them at mach speeds, an unsual sight but not at all ineffective if it coming at that kind of speeds.

Even with Dagda’s speed adaptation and Errick’s overload ability, the house surpassed their reaction times. It soared through at breakneck speeds only to erupt into a sea of dust and explosions as it reached the intended target. Dagda who had his back turned didn’t even register it as everything exploded into darkness around him- he wasn’t able to because he couldn’t hear it coming.

Only when the already decimated battlefields was blown to smithereens, with dust clouds reaching the skies themselves, the ground plates contorting upwards and mangled in the mess of an explosion, a true earth shattering quake rippled in the area and nothing resembled its former state anymore did Dagda truly feel the impact.

In a last ditch attempt Errick decided to jump off the ledge to avoid the attack. He’d fall in and slowly climb up later, but something peculiar happened instead. Not only was he unharmed, he did not even fall into the chasm, floating gently off within the smoke filled devastation zone.

“What…?”

He could not fly, not with his own strength anyway. It also didn’t feel like it was any kind of magic that was helping him levitate, that wouldn’t have made much sense either. It was a familiar sensation that encapsulated his body, a feeling that he had felt long ago.

“[What are you doing, Grand Admiral?]”

A small, feminine and slightly childish voice spoken in adult-like intonations came from behind him. ‘Old world language?’ he thought to himself, turning his eye to the owner of the voice. He understood the words but did not recognize the voice, it wasn’t anyone who he knew but clearly they recognized him.

He came face to face with a small female child. Long black hair, clear and piercing blue eyes, an arrogant yet vain posture with her hands on her waist and chest puffed up as though she were some kind of actual authority. He did not know this child but this power and mannerisms, ‘psychokinesis… and’…

“[Could it be… are you perhaps Nemesis?]”

The small child nodded, the corners of her mouth perking up to form a smirk. If he could, he too would have smiled at this reunion, however it was cut short by a violent interruption. A large stone pillar flew straight towards them, blowing apart the clouds of dust to reveal the perpetrator, Dagda. Angered by the appearance of a new player, not to mention one strong enough to cause actual damage to himself; Errick Rommel was hard enough but someone of this caliber was a death sentence even to the immortal body he possessed.

The pillar surfed over the brown clouds. If it had hit then any average being they would have been instantly eviscerated. However the members gathered here were no normal people, they were beings that exceeded gods… they were ‘humans’- humans of vastly superior the Old World.

The pillar was instantly halted mid air by Nemesis’s vast psychokinetic capabilities, squashed into a size no bigger than a bug and then dropped down into the bottomless chasm. What proceeded next was a counter attack, a large shadowy silhouette brewed just behind the thin veil of the dust clouds- a second house. Dragging behind all of the dust with it the house flew almost incomprehensibly fast towards Dagda, crashing into him directly once more.

“[He didn’t die after the first hit… what is he? Another one of Testament’s experiments?]”

Nemesis tuned back to him for answers. If she didn’t even know the name of this world’s pivotal deity, it became clear to Errick that something must have happened to her. Well, his first hint was her shrunken and de-aged body.

“[Ah… no, he’s something like this world’s ‘god’.]”

Nemesis twisted her face, confusion mixed with concern for Errick’s mental health. He could tell what she was thinking, ‘Gods’, the kind of mystical beings with super powers that could distort destiny; in the eyes of the Confederacy they were nothing more than superstition. Or rather, even if they had actually existed, the principle of the Confederacy was that man should guide his own destiny and the will of a ‘divine’ entity was entirely irrelevant.

“[I can see that you’re having some doubts about my mental state but I assure you, in this situation it’s a lot more literal than you think. Even if he isn’t truly a god in the technical sense, he’s still a being hailed as one by the residents of this world.]”

“[This world… just what is-]”

“BASTARD!”

As she was about to ask a question, Dagda flew with vengeful fury and maddening dissatisfaction. His two large, black wings violently flapping away the dust clouds as he traversed the air towards his sole target of revenge. His fists erupted with a bright and devastating blue flame, headed straight for the small face a female child without hesitation. Yet it wasn’t quite able to land the hit.

A spear that could only be seen as a translucent silhouette shot up from below, penetrating through Dagda’s abdomen as though it was tissue paper. Caught off of his guard, an intense pain dispersed through his entire body and momentarily stunning him.

Dagda’s high speed regeneration kicked in, covering over the hole in his stomach at a disgustingly visible pace. Nemesis soured her face as she hurled more of her [Psionic Javelins] through him from below. His arms, legs, wings, shoulders, a portion of his face, they were riddled in holes like cheese. For the final touch Nemesis activated her [Black Orb] ability with a dense, dark fog enveloping around him in a suffocating manner.

Errick stared, frozen in awe from the overwhelming brutality and power of her abilities. Their destructive capabilities were on an entirely different plane of existence. Errick himself was only a strategist; he was never a frontline unit and his main duty in the Confederacy was to lead the soldiers under his command. However Nemesis was different, she was a true fighter; the nemesis to all enemies of the Confederacy.

Yet Dagda was no slouch in battles either, in a spectacular feat of pure willpower, Dagda’s right arm burst through the heavy black gasses eating away at him. He was trying and almost succeeded in breaking out of the black orb prison.

Nemesis responded by exerting even more power in the crushing capabilities of her black orb. For a while the battle seemed to be swaying side to side. Dagda’s sheer will power was enough to fight against Nemesis’s psychic powers. Most likely, even for the Confederate super soldier, an incredibly tenacious opponent like Dagda was a first.

“[Hmph.]”

Nemesis frowned. Instead of continuing with this suppressive tug of war, she opted to change tactics. Instead of trying to crush him, she simple tossed him away as though he were a piece of garbage. Unfortunately this also meant that the direction that the hostile deity was thrown towards was the vulnerable village under Errick Rommel’s protection.

“[Ah!]”

Shouted Errick.

“[Something wrong?]”

Nemesis wasn’t oblivious to the fact that there was a village full of hapless inhabitants there, she just didn’t care that much. Errick could see this in her eyes, the lack of sympathy and yet he couldn’t really blame her for thinking this. He too had similar thoughts when he first came into contact with the beings of the new world. Nemesis did not have a lengthy experience of co-existence with them- of course she wouldn’t feel much for them.

“[Nemesis, it’s best if you killed Dagda right away instead of playing with him. He’s a lot more trouble than he’s worth and could potentially become a threat in the future.]”

“[I didn’t have any plans on letting anyone who touches USSC allied forces live.]”