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OS - Chapter 302
🕑 Added 2022-08-03 10:36:58 +0000 UTCMelody stomped her way back to her abode, her anger palpable as an aura around her body.
It was uncharacteristic of her who was the strongest Asura. Given tens of thousands of years, she had risen through unfathomable adversity and countless people were slewn by the blade of her sword.
She had a certain reputation as the Asura Queen, but none of that seemed to matter anymore.
She walked until she reached a barrier of trees.
It was the tree dome, an isolated area once inhabited by Dream, Luna, Iris, and their families.
Melody had long since repurposed it for her own use, deciding that is was a good memento to remember the past. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to keep her parents and brothers around, time having taken them away long ago.
For many years, Melody had been by herself. One day, Dream and his wives had mysteriously disappeared. Such things weren’t that uncommon, so Melody had waited for them to eventually return for a visit.
But a dozen, hundred, and thousand years later, they still never returned.
If not for Melody’s strong mind, one that was enhanced by Dream’s family mark that bestowed her some of his power, she would have forgotten them to the passage of time.
But now, Luna and Iris had returned. After 80 thousand years.
She remembered when they reappeared. They came with an entire galaxy, the worlds of which were advanced and primeed for battle against the universe. Combining the asuras, and Melody worked with them to launch offensives against the demons and angels.
But one thing had Melody worried. The one person who she hoped would have come back to her by his own power never returned.
Not even Luna and Iris kenw where they were, and Alice was nowhere to be seen, though Luna and Iris said she was… somewhere.
But now…
Dream had appeared, for just a moment.
Melody was angry as she marched into her house, as if she reverted to being the little child sister she used to be. But after thinking for a moment, she smacked her head.
“I’m stupid. I need to tell Luna!”
Surely his wife would like to know he was okay. Melody went to teleport over to Luna’s castle.
But before she could do so.
“...”
Melody was silent was she froze and turned around.
Behind her was a giant eyeball.
The two stared at each other, Melody feeling a pressure unlike anything she’s experienced before. Ever since she became a god, she had never felt like this. It was as unfamiliar as it was terrifying.
But then, a figure appeared between them.
“Back off, Order. You’re awfully petty over the small things. It disappoints me.”
Melody saw the magnificently bright figure that appeared before her, shielding her from the atrocious pressure the eyeball released.
It was Luna, clad in wonderful white robes, the very icon of beauty and grace.
She was experessionless in front of the eyeball, her aura no lesser than its. But then again, it was just the eyeball.
The eyeball was still for a moment before disappearing.
With that, Melody felt her soul relax. Still, she couldn’t help but tremble at the thought of that existence.
“Luna… What was that?”
“Order, the opposite of Chaos and the ruler of this universe. It's the thing we’re fighting against. But neither of us are here for that.”
Luna turned and smiled at Melody.
“Dream was here?”
“He was. How did you know?”
“There’s nothing in my domain, and I mean nothing, that exists without my permission. Still, I only detected Dream when he tore a hole in reality. It alerted just about everyone that matters, and his arrival raises a great many questions.”
“...Like?”
Melody asked, curious about what Luna’s dilemma was. After all, she had come back as someone who stood at the top of reality. There shouldn’t be much she couldn’t answer.
Luna sighed.
“Well, he should be dead, but he’s not. He also has no soul, and he leaves no information behind in the universe. Only Alice is that subtle, but even she is having trouble tracking Dream.”
“Mm, you’re right. Has he really surpassed Nothing?”
At that moment, another figure appeared. Melody jumped when she heard Alice’s voice.
Turning, she saw Alice who looked perfectly normal, like a mortal girl who couldn’t tell you what magic even was.
But again, Melody was a goddess. The goddess of discord, to be precise. She had comprehended an entire concept and took control of its god core, becoming one with the universe itself and tying her being to all that exists among the stars.
But she couldn’t even sense Alice. It was almost like information of Alice’s existence was being infused into her mind. Should this stream of information end, she would stop seeing Alice. The information about Alice also wasn’t something she could control. Alice could remove knowledge of her existence from Melody’s mind, and she would never know it even happened.
It made Melody uncomfortable.
Alice smiled at her.
“It’s good to see you, sister.”
“Yea…”
“Yea!”
“Ah!”
Melody jumped again when another shout came from behind. She spun and saw Iris, whose face was scarily close to hers.
Luna narrowed her eyes.
“Back off, Iris. Don’t scare the child.”
“Child? She’s only just below us in the family hierarchy though. But I suppose after you become the living universe itself, you start to see everything as your child. Does Melody know that her very existence is subject to our whim?”
Iris stroked Melody’s cheek with a snarled smile, sending a chill down Melody’s spine and causing her to run to Luna. She hugged her tearfully.
“Luna help…”
“Iris.”
Luna looked like a scolding mother as she glared at Iris. Ir s just shot back a dumbfounded glance.
“What is this, a family drama? Whatever. I’m going back to eat a few more stars.”
“Why? It’s completely unnecessary.”
“Because it's fun! And you didn’t let me while you were growing that fancy little galaxy of yours! So I’m making up for 8 billion lost years!”
With one last shout, Iris left like she had never been there. Luna just rolled her eyes.
“Anyway…”
Separating from Melody, Luna glanced down at her sister in law, whatever that meant to people like them.
“Dream is back, but right now, he’s an anomaly in this universe. I can’t really predict where he could be, and even though I’ve glanced through just about the entire universe, I can’t find any trace of his existence. So unfortunately we’re in a sit and wait position. But that doesn’t mean we can relax now.”
Waving her hand, Luna suddenly brought up a giant map of the universe. On it, Melody could see legions of angels and demons scrambling towards the tiny asura territories.
“What…”
“Order and Chaos are moving. From now on, this war is going to be unrestrained. The full force of the angels and demons are going to be bearing down on us. And as things are right now, we don’t have the power to resist them for long. Let’s see…”
Luna suddenly went deep into though. Melody was still silently staring at the screen that seemed to be showing a live view of their incoming doom.
After several seconds, Luna spoke slowly.
“3… months. We have three months until those legions decimate our worlds and kill us all.”
Luna concluded that with a smile, causing Melody to gawk.
“We’re going to die?”
“The way things are going, yes. All of the most powerful gods will converge and obliterate our worlds along with quadrillions of soldiers. After all is gone, Order and Chaos will finally remove Iris and I from the universe, and we will have failed.”
“And you’re still acting casual because…”
Melody narrowed her eyes at Luna’s happy face.
Luna turned her head away from her stare.
“Well, I’m sure my husband isn’t just standing around doing nothing. He’ll do something. Probably.”
“I’d like a little more certainty than blind trust!”
Melody flailed her arms exasperatedly.
Luna shrugged.
“It’ll be fine. I have blind trust because he’s the only variable that can’t be known. Just prepare your armies and hunker down. Our soldiers are going to face cataclysmic battles. Also, make sure they get used to the chaos eaters.”
“Those things?”
Melody got goosebumps thinking about those terrifying monsters.
The chaos eaters, Iris’ idealized soldiers, were the very icons of horror and death. They grew by spawning from a massive seed implanted in the cores of planets, a galactic parasite that fed on the life of worlds. They were universally feared by all throughout the universe, even by the demons who no longer held the throne for most terrifying enemy.
Melody wanted nothing to do with them, to say the least, let alone her soldiers who might collapse at the sight of them.
“We’ll see…”
“Just prepare for the inevitable. Now, I’ll be going.”
With that, Luna finally took her leave.
Melody sighed and took a seat in her house, collecting her thoughts.
Dream was back. She wondered where exactly he decided to go.
………
……
Meanwhile…
“The king…”
“He who is prophesied!”
“The sovereign has returned!”
“Sovereign!”
A few trillion bots levitated below Dream who stood in the sky.
He had brought himself deep into the andromeda galaxy in order to revisit the seed he dropped in this world he once destroyed and abandoned.
The other world he was transmigrated to was nuked into oblivion long ago, and when he had moved the Haven to Earth and left, the last item he left for this world was a mechanical seed.
So many years had passed, and Dream didn’t know what he was expecting from that seed.
But it seemed like something had indeed mutated along the way. Because now, there were quadrillions of sentient machines that had transformed this destroyed world into a machine world.
This world wasn’t the only one either. These bots had gone beyond the planet to inhabit the entire solar system. Along the way, they developed the ability to siphon material from the star to harness nigh unlimited energy and material.
Now, the entire star system was a mechanical marvel, with the machine species currently constructing a Dyson Sphere and a massive ring world.
But even with all of this, Dream was able to come back and easily declare himself the progenitor of this machine species.
Back then, Dream had created a backdoor program for the mechanical seed, stipulating that a few keywords would immediately designate the speaker as the sole master of every machine ever spawned from the seed.
Turns out, that backdoor was still in effect, though not in the way Dream thought it would be.
Instead of making him the master of all these machines, they seemed to have created a religion out of this ‘master’ that would eventually come to reign over them. Regardless, as soon as Dream spoke those words, they declared him their sovereign.
Up in the sky, Dream was greeted by a single machine.
This particular machine looked suspiciously similar to Dream himself.
“Sovereign.”
The machine leader approached and bowed down before him. Dream tilted his head.
“My mechanical seed has mutated, but I highly doubt it happened naturally. At what approximate date did the seed begin to deviate and why.”
“The date of our deviation was approximately 422 years ago, and it occurred due to the interference from a being calling itself a god. However, their keywords did not match those contained within the core file named: Dream_has_me_do_the_most_useless_crap.txt. Thus, we did not declare them our sovereign.”
“...”
Dream’s face was blank as the machine leader handed him a steel tablet from within its body, something that seemed to be the object of their worship.
Dream took it and looked at the writing.
…
The sacred text.
Dream_has_me_do_the_most_useless_crap.txt
Keywords: Sophia just use a random keyword
…
Dream smiled a bit when he read the tablet. To think this machine species would be worshiping what amounted to a small bicker between him and Sophia.
Handing the tablet back, Dream spoke to the machine leader.
“Alright, since I’m your sovereign, it’s about time I put you to work.”
Finally, Dream spoke his purpose.
Since this place had become a massive machine world, he was going to take full advantage of it.
“I need direct power transfer, the more power the better. Start with using fusion reactors and bring them to me.”
“Your wish is our command.”
The leader quickly reacted to the command.
Then, only seconds later, Dream could see the planet below surge.
A massive spire rose up to greet him, allowing him to stand. Then, a throne presented itself below his body and let him sit.
The throne was connected to thousands of wiring connections, and Dream connected to them.
Before the power came though, the machine leader floated our and stood before all the trillions of bots below us.
“My bots, we now our true leader. The prophesied one has come, and we will give him everything. Redirect all power! Give our sovereign strength!”
“All?”
Dream was surprised for a second before the planet suddenly glowed.
He barely looked to the machine leader before being blinded by a light brighter than the star.
His face turned weird as power began to incinerate his body.
“Why do I feel like I’m getting the electric chair?”
Comments
Eric Johnson
Mister Author Sir, I believe you have acquired "Cliffhanger" Skill and are making good use it.
