I tore my eyes away from the screen after watching the record finish playing out. That moment had been two full days prior to my victory against BloodBrother. Even when they had been turned into a memetic entity, they had managed to maintain their consciousness together as sentient stars for two full days. That may not sound like a lot, but to me… it was remarkable.

“Wow…” Aurivy muttered softly from next to me. “Now I feel really bad for us having sent them off for that.”

“They… still have their Virtual selves here.” I reminded her, causing Aurivy to nod her head. In truth, I felt terrible for it as well. After all, they had been trained just to throw their lives away together. Not only did they do so willingly, knowing fully what they were getting into, they accomplished their mission together while embracing each other with a smile.

It was clear that there was no longer any life left in any of these worlds that we would have any intention of salvaging. Even if they were alive, I wouldn’t have been able to bring them back safely. The best that I would have been able to do was send them a brief message through the system to thank them.

Without hesitation, I sold all eight of the worlds that I had acquired from BloodBrother. In doing so, I learned just why it was so hard to shake him from his position.

You have chosen to refund the defeated and shackled worlds - Lorana, Savith, Kinsra, Tora, Saren, Yao, Jutt, and Kron. Please confirm your choice.

The reason that he had been able to stay at his rank while dominating in both attack and defense, and why he was never able to cover his weakness. In order to prevent himself from advancing, he had used the World Shackles perk to keep his world at the top of the third tier. I was willing to bet that some of those worlds had likely come from other Keepers that he had defeated in the past.

Your refund has been processed!

Total points refunded: 782,943

My eyes went wide as I saw that message. If I combined that with the points that I received from killing Grudge, I would have earned over a million in total. However, there was more. In the corner of my vision, there was another notification waiting for me to notice it.

Congratulations, you have earned an achievement!

For emerging victorious in consecutive attacks, you have earned the Killing Spree achievement. +5000 points, Bloodthirsty perk.

“Terra?” I called back to the catgirl standing behind me, who shook her head. “That bad, huh?”

“It’s… an incentive. One that, personally, I hate. It increases your rewards for a successful attack by twenty percent. It’s the reason why tyrants and such have still not been subdued after all this time, because the system is rewarding their behavior. If the Keeper community were larger, tyrants would be a far bigger threat. Thankfully, the small community ensures that there are enough people willing to band together.”

I gave a small nod at that, grimacing at the perk. The five thousand points were nice, but I had no intention of becoming a tyrant, even if the rewards did increase that much. “Anyways… Ashley? What would it take to be able to turn the Virtual world into its own, real world?”

Now that we had all of these points, I figured that the best thing to do was to give a reward to the people that won this for me. However, to my surprise, Ashley shook her head. “I looked into it before when I was just setting up Virtual. In order to get the information to custom-design worlds like that in the void, it takes a little over ten million points.”

…Okay, my jaw hung open for a good few seconds at that, until Aurivy reached over to lift it back up. “Are you serious? Ten million just for something like that?”

Behind me, Terra simply chuckled. “You’re talking about the knowledge to completely subvert the market, keep in mind. Being able to freely design worlds like that would mean that you could modify the laws of physics as you saw fit within any newly created world, and not have to spend a single point.”

“You’re right, but that doesn’t make me any happier about it.” I grumbled, shaking my head. “Alright… four hundred thousand points. That’s nearly half of what we won this time in total. Make sure the others know, and discuss what we want to get for our worlds. The rest, I’m saving for whatever else we may need down the line.”

The others looked somewhat surprised at that, but nodded their heads and began thinking about it seriously. In the meantime, I began to stand, before my sleeve was caught by Scarlet. “Are you going to see them?” She asked softly, to which I smiled and nodded.

“They deserve to know."

“Geoff? Luca wants to know if we want to play together in Natural Seed later, any plans?” Hanya called out from the bedroom, opening the door and walking down the stairs with a smile. Downstairs, Geoff was in the living room, watching a projection on the wall, but turned his head to face her.

“I don’t think we had any plans, did we?” He chuckled. “It’s been really quiet here.”

“Well, we could always train our other skills more.” She pointed out, sitting across his lap and smiling down at him. “There’s more to life than being a Fallen God, especially now.”

Geoff nodded his head, hands holding her waist. “That’s true. It’d feel weird just sitting around and doing nothing. Maybe I should sign up for Darkflame’s Virtual debugging team? I’m pretty sure that they’d accept me.”

Hanya chuckled at that, about to say something else when there was a knock on their door. She blinked, looking up and tilting her head. “Strange. Luca said they wouldn’t be here for at least another hour or so. Were you expecting anyone?”

Geoff shook his head, his brows furrowed. He was confident that whoever it was, they wouldn’t be a danger. The house that they had was provided specifically by Darkflame with the highest level of security. Anyone who entered, regardless of who it was, would be stripped of any special abilities.

Hanya stood up from Geoff’s lap, moving over to answer the door. Upon opening it, she gasped in shock, causing Geoff to rise to his feet as well. Standing outside their door was none other than the Keeper himself. “Is this a bad time?” The Keeper asked with a smile, looking at the two.

“No, no, please come in.” Geoff answered politely, and Hanya immediately moved aside to let the Keeper in. If this was a fake, the transformation or illusion would be dispelled the moment he stepped inside. Otherwise, it was truly the real Keeper.

Sure enough, the man stepped inside without the slightest concern, his appearance and aura remaining fully intact. “How are the two of you enjoying things? Is there anything that I can do to make you more comfortable?”

Hanya smiled, closing the door once he was fully inside. “No, really, you and the Greater Pantheon have already done so much more than we imagined. Just being able to live like this, even though we already… well, it’s more than we ever hoped for.”

Geoff nodded his head, gesturing for the Keeper to sit down in the living room. “She’s right. By all rights, the two of us should be gone. The fact that you’re letting us live like this is wondrous. But… you didn’t just come here for that, did you?” He asked, seeming to sense an almost melancholic air surrounding the Keeper.

“That’s right.” The Keeper said. “I just got word back. The real selves of the two of you have finished their mission. Because of their sacrifice, we will be able to prevent any others from being harmed by this threat.”

Hanya’s eyes went wide, her hand squeezing Geoff’s. “So… they’re gone? Truly, I mean..? They always told us that we’d never come back from this mission, one way or another.” It was clearly shocking for the two of them to hear about the deaths of their other selves, Hanya’s voice trembling while Geoff struggled to process it.

“That’s right. I came here to tell you what happened, because I thought that you deserved to know. There are some details that I can’t reveal to protect this world, but I’ll share what I can.”

The Keeper took a deep breath. “In order to defeat the enemy, we needed to modify stars with the power of the void, as both of you had guessed prior to leaving. The enemy was weak against void powers, so this should have been finished over a week ago. However, we underestimated the tenaciousness of their infections. Even your great gifts couldn’t fully block it out, Hanya.”

“The two of you performed splendidly, fighting off the opponents while protecting one another. But… eventually, Geoff fell prey to an infection neither of you could remove. In order to complete the mission and preserve the safety of the world, he chose to merge his consciousness with the final star he converted. And you, Hanya--”

Hanya smiled sadly, interrupting the Keeper. “I told him that I didn’t want to live without him, right..? That if he sacrificed himself, I wanted to go with him.” Geoff blinked, his hand gripping Hanya’s just a bit tighter.

“That’s right.” The Keeper confirmed. “This was over forty-eight hours ago. For more than two days, the pair of you preserved your consciousness within the star you had merged with. I can’t begin to imagine how hard it must have been to hold on and maintain your sense of self.”

“You’re wrong about something, sir Keeper.” Hanya shook her head, turning to face the human beside her. “Nothing in the world could be easier than staying with Geoff. And… I’d like to make another correction. There… there is one thing I’d like if you could do for us.” As she said that, Geoff stared back into her eyes, seeing only endless warmth and affection.

The Keeper smiled at that, nodding his head. “Of course. As long as it is within my power to do so, I promise to see it through.”

“Would you be willing to preside over our wedding?” She asked, never turning to look at the Keeper, her eyes fixed straight on Geoff, his own eyes growing wide as saucers. “We knew that we’d live and die together. Now… we’ve died together. I want to keep the other part of that agreement, and live together. Geoff, will you give me that pleasure?”

Geoff blinked at that, before letting out a choked laugh. “You’re doing this all wrong, Han. I’m the one supposed to be asking you, you know?”

“Since when have I been one for tradition?” She asked with a giddy grin. Hearing the fates of their real selves, that they had chosen to stay together in the very end and faced death in each other’s arms, it only seemed to make Hanya want to hold on to what she still had even more. “So again… will you marry me, Geoff?”

“Of course I will, Han. You really know how to spring it on a guy, don’t you…” He nodded his head, the Keeper offering a small applause to celebrate their union.

“I’d be happy to do that for you. Though you’ll probably have to fight Aurivy if you try to get anyone else to be your maid of honor.” When I pointed that out, Hanya let out a light, joyful laugh.

“I’d be happy to have the Goddess of Love with me for this.” She said, bringing a hand up to wipe her eyes, joyful tears falling down her face. I stood, nodding my head. From the look of things, they had quite a lot that they needed to get planned out now.

“In that case, let me know when you’ve made your plans, and I’ll be sure to clear my schedule.” I told them, making my way to the door and leaving the happy couple alone.