Chapter 18: Timeskip, Awakening & Back on the Road

A/N:

" " : Dialogue,

' ' : Thought,

[ ] : System, ???,

"Italicized text" : Telepathy,

{ }: Parallel Wills,

« » : Artificial Intelligence,

< >: Majutsu/Conjuring usage.(Using MA energy for skills, spells, etc.)

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D POV

It seems my little sister is finally evolving and I'm all for it. But I hadn't expected her to evolve so quickly. All of her life has only been about 7 months in total. I guess she's just that talented. Now to see how she's doing.

'What is this? Why has my connection to her disappeared? What the hell is going on here?' I think in alarm as I feel my connection to the nameless spider get erased, but right before it was erased, I saw something I didn't expect. A name. She'd been named by someone else without my knowledge, which should be impossible within the system.

I would have asked Güli-Güli, but I already know for a fact that he wasn't the one who named her since there was no trace of a connection between his soul and hers. "If it wasn't Güli-Güli, then who was it. It can't be Meido, because I know she won't ever involve herself so strongly in someone like this, not to mention, if she knew of Shiraori, she would have already gotten to me."

Güliedistosiez POV

To think that someone who I had such animosity towards was trying to help me regardless. I really should learn to judge people better. The 'bomb' that he had given me was anything but. Sure, it destroyed what it touched, but depending on whose energy it came in contact with last, it would create a decoy that could be used for different things. In my case, I could very well have escaped D's gaze if I had trusted him and used it.

He gave me more than enough reason to trust him, but I foolishly kept my prejudices toward him and the white spider. He protected the wyrms and dragons and destroyed every single bit of machine technology that was there, even made sure that neither the bomb nor the G-Fleet were in a state where they could possibly be used or repaired.

Now they have been in that cocoon of theirs for over 9 months and I have been stewing in my own thoughts and regrets, for the most part. The other part of that time has been spent taking care of the vampires that were traveling with them. It might not be enough to atone for my previous behavior, but I'll still do this honestly.

Ariel POV

She told me a while, but it's been almost a freaking year. Make no mistake, I can wait patiently for a while, especially since I noticed that Potimas hasn't been able to leave the elf village, not to mention how small a year is compared to how long I've lived. But when she said a while, I expected it to take 4 months at the most, now I've been here with Sophia, Merazophis, Güliedistosiez and my daughters for almost a year.

I'd have torn open that cocoon if I could, but I know I can't. Seriously, that thing is far stronger than it has any right to be. It was able to rebound Güliedistosiez with enough force to send him through a few mountains. "Demon King. Do you know when they would come out of there?" Sophia says as she walks up to me and I shake my head.

About Sophia, she's grown quite a lot for a baby that's at most 2 years old. She's as tall as a healthy 10 year old kid. Maybe Dante did something to her that makes her grow faster than normal. After all, if what Shiro told me wasn't a lie, he already had control over time, so I don't see why he couldn't just accelerate someone's growth "Hah, you two better get out of there soon, cause my patience is wearing thin." I say before heading back to what used to be a weapon production room, but is now our living space until those two are out.

*2 weeks later*

It's happening. They're finally getting out of that godforsaken cocoon. As for how they are, they feel scary. Dante was already scary, but now even Shiro's joined him. They had better explain themselves otherwise I won't forgive them for making me wait for so long.

Upon reaching the cocoon, I notice that the runes that were on it have vanished and it is now shifting, as if something or rather someone is trying to break out of it. And as one would expect, a dark skinned arm breaks out from it and rips it open, wide enough for them to come out with ease. But I notice something unexpected, the girl in Dante's arms. She looks exactly like Shiro if she had human legs. "Dante, is that Shiro?" I ask and they look at me.

Dante POV

*A few minutes before awakening*

Where am I? I haven't woken up yet. So why do I feel... something? I look around me and see darkness or rather nothingness. It reminds me of the Abyss, not to mention, there's this reddish purple hue in the environment.

Looking at myself, I notice that I am just a soul, but the changes that have happened to me are unlike anything before. The limbs of my soul have blackened, but not as if corrupted or contaminated. It's as if it's meant to be that way and my chest area has also adopted the reddish purple color. Somehow all of these are starting to mix and fuse, as if trying to change me from being myself to something else.

Quickly entering a state of meditation, I go into introspection, checking every part of my soul and I find chains, tightly locked over something that looks like a wheel of colors, trying and failing to intermingle with each other. Touching the chains, I feel a slight suppression on my power. Perhaps this was a challenge for me to face before true completion of my evolution.

Tugging on the chains however, ended differently than I expected, as they broke apart almost instantly and the colors changed from a wheel into a vortex that at its center and edges turned black and white respectively. The power exploded forth within me.

My Soul Marble had started changing drastically. I had gained additional elemental singularities and all of them started to spiral, eventually enlarging from singularities to galaxies, the hyperplanet had changed as well, with my main mind being its core and every single one of my infinite parallel wills being a person living there. It had expanded, easily becoming as large as a galactic supercluster.

But the final part that made me understand that this change was far greater than what it showed, was what I saw within the bodies of my parallel wills as well as what enveloped every single thing in my mind. A functional universe was within each will and runes covered each and every single thing within my soul, even the elements had runes moving through them. Then a final surge of power hit and I lost consciousness, only to wake up shortly after.

Noticing that we were still in the cocoon, I jabbed out my arm and tore through its walls while holding Shiro in my other arm. As I came out of the cocoon, I heard Ariel's voice. "Dante, is that Shiro?" I look in her direction and feel Shiro's head shift in her direction as well, then we both open our eyes, causing Ariel to flinch, as if seeing something scary or unnatural.

Fully stepping out of the cocoon, I look at my and Shiro's naked bodies, then cover our bodies in darkness. "Hey, Ariel. Glad to see you're still all right." I say to her as I create clothes for myself. Shiro walks over to her and hugs her, thanking her for being patient enough to stay here in the G-Fleet for the entirety of our evolution.

"Now that I think about it, how long were we in there for?" I ask her as I wear my clothes. "As of today, a whole year." She says, causing both of us to flinch in surprise. "A year? But wasn't that too long? I know it said Transcendent Evolution, but I didn't think it'd take so long. Especially since we had gotten as strong as we had." Shiro says. "I'm honestly surprised it took so little time for that." I reply, shocking her.

"A year is a little time?" She asks and I nod. "The thing about the Transcendent Evolution is that it increases the very quality of your existence by multiple levels. This extends beyond your body, it also affects your soul, and your possible capabilities. So us having all that happen to us in only a year is actually quite short." I tell her after I finish wearing my clothes. (A/N: The same appearance as the cover, just slightly more muscular.)

Shiro looks at me and utters a small "Ah.", before walking up to me and gently holding my face in her palms. "Your eyes have changed." She says, and I tell her the same has happened to her, then I create a mirror large enough for us to see ourselves.

Shiro's eyes were similar to how they were in the original timeline, an iris with a human pupil in the center and spider pupils, each at a square corner of the iris, only this time there were two spider pupils per corner in her irises. As for mine, my eyes were still the same blue as they have always been, but my pupil had changed, becoming a reptilian slit pupil, while strangely having the same spider pupils as Shiro.

"Wanna put on some clothes?" I say, and she makes the same dress she wore in the original timeline and smiles. "So pretty." We hear someone say behind us and we turn to see a toddler with red slitted eyes and small fangs. "Sophia?" Shiro says and bends to hug her. "I see you have kept up with your training. That's good." She says while hugging her.

"Hmm, looks like my spell's effect still worked during the time we were in there." I say, patting Sophia on the head. "Your spell?" Ariel asks with a raised brow. "It's a spell that combines Life and Time magic. It basically helps her grow and physically develop faster than normal until, she reaches her physical peak. It was meant to help her increase her stats and size, so she can get into proper training faster." I explain to her.

Taking a few seconds out, I look at my status and see just how powerful I have become and it is unlike anything I had imagined. So many of my abilities had evolved, some had been synthesized to create far more powerful skills. Very few remained the same, but there was one skill that had received more than just a boost in power. It was Raphael, or rather my new unnamed Manas.

[Glad to see, you still remember me boss.] It says, some emotion in its voice. "Don't worry. We both know I couldn't forget you." I say out loud, causing everyone to look at me weirdly. "Ah, I'm communicating with my skill, or I guess I should say my Manas. She's been helping me out from the get go, so now, I want to give it a name." I say, causing everyone to pause, before they rush to me and start asking questions about it.

"Okay, calm down, I'll answer your questions." I say and they thankfully, calm down. "First off, the skill was originally known as Raphael, Lord of Wisdom. It was basically Shiro's Wisdom skill if it wasn't so limited. It offered many subskills with it, one of those being thought acceleration that went up to a million times, a far better appraisal skill, a probability calculation skill that always have you the best answer for your situation, amongst others. You got that, right?" I say and they nod.

"Another unique feature the skill had, was that it was basically a high functioning artificial intelligence in your own brain that is fully loyal to you, which also has a considerable sliver of emotion within it." I say and Ariel's brow scrunch up. "Don't go comparing it to any artificial intelligence you've seen anywhere. It's really smart and its loyalty is unlike anything most people have ever seen."

"Now about the Manas and naming part. A Manas is created when someone names a skill like this, giving it an identity and a sense of being. Naming also empowers the skill, making it multiple times more powerful than it was before." I say, causing Ariel and Shiro to nod in agreement as they are familiar with the concept of naming.

"So do you have a name for it?" Ariel asks me with a bit of sass, causing me to roll my eyes. "Of course I do. I might've been unconscious in the cocoon, but I've been thinking of a name I would give it for a while. So you ready?" I say, punctuating the end of my sentence with a simple question towards my Manas.

[Ready as I'll ever be.] It says with determination seeping into it. Taking a deep breath, I say the words that would permanently change it for the better. "I name you, Akasha." Immediately after I say those words, a great amount of energy begins circulating in me and in the environment before abruptly stopping.

[Hey boss, I'm alright, thanks for asking.] I hear after some seconds of silence, causing me to chuckle lightly. 'Good to know you're doing alright, Akasha.' I think, replying to her sass. 'By the way, I've been thinking about the connection I have with Shiro and her Wisdom fragment. Will it be possible to evolve hers?' I ask her and her response somewhat surprises me.

[Yeah, I can, but I won't need to since it's already evolved to Raphael. You see, her Wisdom skill was exactly what you called it, a fragment. The evolution firstly completed it, making it reach the power of an amped Great Sage, then evolved it, making it reach the level of an Ultimate Skill like Raphael. But due to the fact that I was Raphael, hers isn't named Raphael.] She explains, making me wonder just what exactly had happened to Shiro in the cocoon.

"Babe, can you check your status real quick?" I ask her, as I know she is now connected to my Game System. "Sure. Status." I check her skills and see that there are some that have been removed, due to them being skills that only work within the system.

For example, her Pride, Gluttony, Perseverance, Anger, Charity, Sloth had been erased. Also Abyss Magic, Immortality, and of course, the n%I = W skills have been erased, as well as most of her titles, except her slayer titles. Those stayed. She had also gained the 'Transcendent (True)' title as well, which I understood as she also underwent Transcendent Evolution.

"Well, at least you don't have to start from scratch." I tell her with a smile on my face. "Yeah. But you are going to help me get back at her." She says while looking me in the eyes. "Of course. She's had it coming and I wouldn't miss it for the world." I say, then plant a soft kiss on her lips.

"Okay, then. Let's all get together so I can deal with this safely." I say, then snap my fingers, teleporting all the puppet taratects, Merazophis and Güliedistosiez from their positions on the G-Fleet to this room. When they appeared, they turned to us in alarm, then came to us, thanking us and hugging us, except for Güliedistosiez, he just looked at us with shaking hands.

"Okay, calm down. We'll have more than enough time for that, but first, let me take care of all this." I say, then release a large cloud of nanomachines made by my magic, that consumed and replaced the material of the G-Fleet before reforming the G-Fleet with much higher performance and a better AI at the helm, turning the already large G-Fleet into a black behemoth of destruction.

While this was going on, I put my left hand on my chest to feel my new heart, that was creating extreme amounts of energy, Cosmic energy, that would saturate my body and enhance it even further. This same energy would still be combined with every other form of energy that flows through me, pushing their quality higher and higher while making them harmonize and resonate with each other passively. 'I guess transcendent beings are expected to have cosmic power by default.' I think to myself as I transmit the full information of the skill to Shiro.

"What did you just do?" Güliedistosiez asks me, this time clearly shaking. "What, this?" I say, pointing around us. "I just used my magic to destroy then remake the G-Fleet, but unlike before, its power source is a solid core created from my energy and the AI in it was made purely by me and is far better than anything Potimas could possibly make." I say nonchalantly.

"Basically, you don't have to worry about it taking MA energy from the any planet Not to mention, it will be a powerful weapon for our side." I tell him, my tone dismissive of his worries. «All systems are a go, boss.» The new AI says, causing Güliedistosiez to look at me with widened eyes.

Ignoring his thoughts and worries, I turn to Shiro who is still hugging Sophia like a plushie with one arm while swirling a ball of darkness in the other. "So, how's it treating you?" I ask her, referring to the Game System. "Quite well, actually. However, I didn't expect for us to have reverted to level 1 while keeping or rather, improving our abilities." She says and I nod in agreement.

"So are we going to stay here in the UFO, or are we going to keep moving on land?" She asks, dispelling the darkness in her hand. "We'll keep moving on land for now. Aurora, keep the Domina in outer space under the energy shield and cloaking field." I tell the AI while referring to the UFO-like machine formerly known as the G-Fleet. «You got it, boss.» It responds and begins lifting the ship off the ground.

Snapping my fingers, I teleport all of us out of the ship, to a hill not far from the Domina. Aurora deployed the cloaking field, energy shield and all thrusters that had been added to the ship and blasted off into space, faster than any dragon could get to it. "I know that you've taken control of the UFO and all, but what about the dragons?" Shiro asks me, after finally letting Sophia down. I nod, then look at Güliedistosiez with a clear message in my eyes.

"Boss! That ship just up and went out of here all of a sudden." A familiar voice says, being punctuated by the arrival of a wind dragon. "There's no cause for alarm, Hyuvan. Our friends here just took care of it for us." Güliedistosiez says, causing Hyuvan to look at us, only for his eyes to widen in surprise.

"Young miss, Destroyer! You're both okay." He says as he bounds towards us. Shiro hearing the nickname he gave me, looks at me with a questioning gaze. "It's from when I took out the planes and tanks using the huge laser." I inform and she nods in understanding.

Patting Hyuvan on the head when he reached us, I turned to Güliedistosiez who was looking up with his hands in fists and a grimace on his face. "Thank you." I say to him and he turns to me. "What?" "Thank you for taking care of them while we were in there. I know things haven't been particularly pleasant between us, but I hope that at least we can keep peace with each other." I say and extend my hand for a handshake, which he accepts.

"Still, to think you became a freaking god." I hear Ariel say to Shiro, to which she just chuckles. Ariel responds by sending a light punch towards her head, but she just caught the fist. "Stop chuckling. I thought something had happened to you guys." Ariel says in annoyance. "Well, don't worry. Better yet, you will never have to worry about the two of us ever again." Shiro tells her, calming her down.

"Okay, everyone. The reunion has been nice. We're all glad to see each other again. So, let's get back on the road." I say as I use my Nanomancy to create a vehicle that looks like the Armored Personnel Carrier used by Providence in Generator Rex, only all black.

"Yeah, you're right. We should get going. Bye-bye Hyuvan. Take care of yourself, 'kay." Shiro says as she walks into the APC. "Aye-aye, ma'am." He responds with an exaggerated salute,, as Ariel, Sophia, Merazophis, Güliedistosiez and the puppet taratects all load up into the APC. "Well, we're back on the road. The road to Demon Country."

Chapter End.

A/N: Hey everyone. So it seems that I'm probably back to the one chapter per week schedule, so I'll try to keep it up. About their stats, I'm currently working on an aux chapter with their entire status, showing past and present skills, titles and other things. Thanks for reading and have a nice day.