Chapter 72. Deletion
His magic roared.
Violent gales of wind swirled around his form as the room trembled and shook. Fissures split down the walls and ribbons tore off strip by strip from the silk curtains that framed the bed’s canopy. In the corner of his eye, he saw his reflection in the mirror. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but it seemed to almost be staring at him, accusing. Another surge of magic and his mirrored visage shattered into a distorted kaleidoscope.
Levi simply stood there, his cloak billowing wildly, uncaring of the howling storm of magic that rampaged around him. His gaze was solely fixed on the diary that lay on the ground before him.
All this time, he had assumed that his alternate self, the original Levi Ironwood, had killed himself out of shame and despair. Everything he’d learned about his counterpart, from how his family had scorned him, to how his peers had bullied him, to how even his professors had condemned him, had supported that theory. Hell, when he’d first awoken in the new world, he had found an empty glass bottle of medicine and a farewell note resting on the nightstand. The conclusion had only been logical.
Levi should’ve remembered that logic tended to go right out the window whenever he was involved. Or an iteration of him, as it turned out.
So the former Levi Ironwood had been a regressor. Someone who had gone back in time dozens, hundreds, thousands of times to foil some unknown enemy and prevent a catastrophe–
With a start, Levi recalled what the entity possessing Montague had said to him:
‘HOW ARE YOU NOT DEAD, LEVI IRONWOOD? WE’VE TRIED TO KILL YOU SO MANY TIMES, WE HAVE KILLED YOU SO MANY TIMES, SO WHY WON’T YOU JUST DIE AND STAY DEAD?!”
Ah.
So Not-Montague hadn’t been referring to Levi’s reincarnation. Instead, he had been referring to the original Levi Ironwood’s numerous deaths. Whoever it was, whatever it was, it had clearly retained their memories despite the timeline resets. Perhaps it had even regressed in time as well.
All for the sake of killing him again. And again. And again, and again, and again and againagainagainagain–
His magic lashed out like a whip and struck him across the face.
Pain erupted in his cheek, and with it brought clarity. Levi’s eyes widened as he was knocked back to his senses. He was sweating, he realized. His pulse thumped erratically in his neck.
Were those his counterpart’s emotions that had just reared up and consumed his mind? Inherited memories carved into the body itself? It had to be.
Just what had his counterpart gotten himself into?
Levi didn’t bother picking up the diary from the floor. He had already seared the words into his memory.
‘I thought I could stop the Consumption by locking myself out of the System. Thought it would give me the freedom to act and the ability to survive even when the moon begins smiling down upon us all.’
What was the Consumption? What did that have to do with the System–?
A cold premonition washed over him.
Ever since Death had spoken of the gradual shortening of every soul’s lifespan in this new world, Levi had wondered what could’ve possibly been behind such a cataclysm.
Every soul had a finite lifespan gifted to them, and once their Time ran out, that was when Death stepped in. Lifespans were meant to be inviolable. Of course, not everyone obeyed. In his service, Levi had hunted down many who had the hubris to try and extend their own. However, those cases had all involved increasing one’s life beyond their natural Time.
Shortening a lifespan, on the other hand? Worse, shortening every lifespan in an entire world, with even Death unable to determine the cause?
No mortal could accomplish such a feat. Even the divine would struggle.
But the System? A foundational thaumaturgical architecture integrated into the very fabrics of this reality?
One that held a direct intrinsic connection to every single living creature in the world?
Yeah. Yeah, that would certainly do it.
Levi hissed, and above him, the crystal chandelier exploded in a deafening crack. Prismatic shards rained down and were instantly sucked into the whirlwind around him. The pressure in the room doubled, tripled in intensity.
If the System had been somehow corrupted or hijacked by a malevolent third party… The consequences would be too terrifying to even consider.
This explained why Levi Ironwood had decided to cut himself off from the System despite how it virtually crippled him in the process. With his future knowledge, he must’ve known that the connection would inevitably lead to his ruin. Had deemed the risk of using the System to be too high.
On that note, Levi turned to look out the window. As usual, the full moon hung in the night sky, bright and luminous. Yet, for all its splendor, he still felt the same prickling unease he did whenever looking up at it. The moon was dangerous, that he had always known, but now… He very dearly hoped he’d never find out what it meant for the moon to smile.
This also explained why Death hadn’t been able to identify the cause of the deterioration. The System was so deeply intertwined and embedded in the world that not even Levi with his True Sight could tell where reality ended and the System began. Death, for all his cosmic power and knowledge, knew relatively very little about the intricacies of magic. Magic was life, after all, and for Death, life was simply something that happened to other people.
A tiny part of him was pleased to finally get answers to the questions he’d had for so long.
The rest of him, however…
Levi’s heart squeezed tightly in a potent mixture of sorrow, grief, and shame. Emotions were one of the purest and most powerful sources of magic, and right now he was letting them run free, a storm of magic raging around him.
He had misjudged Levi Ironwood.
His mind flashed back to every time he’d poked fun at his counterpart. Every time he’d made a mental jibe, every time he’d thought lowly of him. It had been worse at the beginning, when he’d first awoken, but even after he’d learned about his counterpart locking his System, Levi had still on some level thought of him as… well.
Someone who had been unable to protect his little sister. Someone who had given up at the very end.
Someone who had been a lesser version of him.
How disgustingly, abhorrently, shamefully wrong he was.
Levi Ironwood was someone who’d been fighting for Goddess knew how many years. Someone who had died, again and again and again for thousands of times, and refused to stay dead. All so he could save the world and–
‘I forgot how adorable Ayla was. She really is the cutest little sister in the world.’
‘I missed her so much…’
–save his little sister.
Levi clenched his fists. His nails dug into his palm so hard it drew blood. He didn’t bother healing it.
Was this why Levi Ironwood had killed himself? To reset the timeline and regress once more?
Only this time, it hadn’t worked. Perhaps it was because he’d been locked from the System. Perhaps it was because whatever found him had made sure to not let go this time.
‘IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME IT’S LOOKING BACK AT–’
Levi cast a glance around the room. There was nothing there. Even with his True Sight, he could see nothing.
And yet…
Levi had also seen nothing when he’d confronted Montague in his office, yet there had definitely been something there. Whatever eldritch being Montague had spoken to had been utterly undetectable. If it hadn’t possessed Montague, Levi would’ve never known it was actually there.
His eyes flickered around uncertainly.
Was it in the same room as him right now?
Levi swallowed. No. This path led to nothing but paranoia and insanity. His counterpart wrote that the entity hadn’t seen him until he saw it first. Thus implying it was a classic observer-based existence. Even if it were in the same room as him, Levi shouldn’t be in any danger unless he perceived it first.
Theoretically, at least.
He drew his magic around himself a little closer–
Suddenly, Levi realized that this must’ve been how his counterpart had felt. This fear, this uncertainty, this unsettling paranoia.
And unlike Levi, his counterpart hadn’t had magic to protect himself. With his System locked, he’d had nothing.
And yet, he’d kept on fighting regardless. Had refused to give up. Had continued trying to save everyone, right up until his final breath and even after that.
Who he’d thought to be lesser than him turned out to be greater than he could’ve ever imagined.
In the end, they really were one and the same, weren’t they? Reflections of the same soul. No matter the world, Levi, every Levi, would always strive to be a–
‘Hero.’
Slowly, Levi raised his hand to his chest and placed it over his heart. He could hear it pounding heavily against his palm.
“I’m sorry for doubting you,” he whispered to an empty room. He bowed his head and closed his eyes. For a fleeting instant, the storm of magic died down and a respectful stillness descended upon the room. “Rest proud. You are strong.”
For several moments he remained there in solemn silence, the ribbons and shards hanging frozen in the air.
Then his eyes snapped open to reveal a furious grey, and his magic roared to life once more.
Ever since he reincarnated into this new world, Levi had been content to investigate his System restriction at a leisurely pace. While it would’ve been nice to get new skills, it hadn’t been necessary, since he already had his magic.
Now, though…
Thousands of loops, thousands of deaths, thousands of lives, had ultimately culminated in this final timeline: a world where Levi Ironwood had judged the only way to succeed in his task was to cut himself off from the System. Why? What could’ve possibly happened to cause his counterpart to make such a conclusion?
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
Levi needed to find out. He owed it to his counterpart – to himself.
But how? Neither Qorbin nor Anastasia had known much about System restrictions. Levi doubted he’d be able to find the answer laying around in a library either. He had no idea where to even begin looking for information on the System.
So he decided to go straight to the source itself.
In a hard, thunderous voice, Levi invoked the only skill he could use:
“[Status]!”
The translucent blue status screen appeared before him. With his True Sight, he peered into the deeper layers of reality and saw the dense, rippling threads that connected the screen to the world itself, so deeply interwoven and enmeshed with reality that it resembled less magic and more some fundamental force.
But it was still magic. As Levi had established earlier, magic was life.
And all life had an end.
He twisted his True Sight and the world fractured into shades of grey. As he suspected, lines of death appeared across the magical threads. The System might be a fundamental force in this world, but Death was the final force in all worlds.
And Levi had been his servant for a reason.
It wasn’t, as many might believe, because he had accidentally recreated Death’s own unique ability to perceive the death lines that every living being possessed.
But rather, it was because when Death had appeared before him to investigate, Levi had tried to use his own ability against him in the most foolish, insane, audacious display of humanity Death had ever seen.
And… well.
They did say history repeated itself, didn’t they?
“I’ve waited long enough,” Levi said. “If you’re going to lock me out, then I’ll just have to do something drastic to force you to acknowledge me. So tell me, System, what will it be? Will you heed my call?”
Predictably, there was no response.
“So be it.”
With that, he slashed his hand across the air and severed the threads that connected the status screen to the world.
Instantly, the blue screen was overcome by death, sputtering out of existence. It didn’t stop there; death rushed down the threads and sank into the fabrics of reality itself—
[CRITICAL WARNING]
[CRITICAL WARNING]
[CRITICAL WARNING]
[CRITICAL WARNING]
Bright red warning screens flashed into existence around him, dozens of them overlapping one another. More and more appeared, filling up the available space until Levi was surrounded on all sides, trapped within a crimson tomb. He tensed up, his magic thrumming agitatedly beneath his skin.
Then, another screen appeared right in front of him, lines of text blinking into view across the surface.
[SYSTEM VIOLATION DETECTED. HOSTILE ENTITY IDENTIFIED]
[PROCEEDING TO DELETION PROTOCOL]
[INITIATING…]
[CRITICAL ERROR: DELETION PROTOCOL FAILED. CAUSE: USER POSSESSES EXISTENTIAL IMMUNITY]
[NOTICE: EXISTENTIAL IMMUNITY DOES NOT EXTEND TO SUBVERSIVE ACTION]
[SWITCHING TO MANUAL OVERRIDE]
[OVERRIDING…]
[OVERRIDE SUCCESS]
[INITIATING MANUAL DELETION. TARGET: LEVI IRONWOOD]
The world came alive, reached out, and erased Levi from existence.
Like all that came before it and all that ever would, it failed.
Reality groaned and shuddered as its numerous layers rippled and unfolded to envelop Levi like the maw of an inexorable beast. If it succeeded, it would’ve crushed him into utter nothingness. He would’ve simply ceased to exist, not even dust left behind.
Most people would’ve perished. Most gods would’ve perished.
Levi was not most.
Less than a split second to react. Less than a heartbeat. Practically no time at all.
Thankfully, it was a truth universally acknowledged that for an archmage, ‘practically’ was where they thrived. It was the ephemeral space where the impossible met the possible. So long as that space existed, so long as there was even the tiniest, most infinitesimal sliver of hope… That was enough.
In his old world, magical users could accelerate their thoughts by augmenting their brains with magic. This was approximately as dangerous as it sounded, and infinitely harder to boot. Even a single wrong move would result in their brains melting out of their ears. Only the most skilled of archmages could achieve such a delicate feat – and even then, they only ever channeled magic through a tiny section of their brains to limit the potential fallout. Any more would be utterly insane.
Out of all Levi’s faults, sanity was not one of them.
His mind exploded in indescribable agony as he forced magic through every single one of his synapses, all six million million of them. The world around him immediately slowed down to a glacial crawl.
With his perception of time reduced, Levi saw the fabrics of reality slowly inching toward him. Methodically, he considered and disregarded hundreds of potential counters. No shield or barrier would defend against this. No offensive spell would do any damage. He couldn’t even teleport to escape due to the spacetime being too warped and distorted.
Once the deletion protocol hit, Levi was going to be wiped from existence.
…
Not if he did it first.
Levi roared, and his magic detonated. Before the world could reach him, he destroyed himself first. His body disintegrated into nothingness and his atoms scattered to the four winds.
His soul, meanwhile, exited reality and slipped into the void between dimensions.
Immediately, all his senses went dark. Sight, sound, touch, smell, taste. He no longer had any physical organs. He was reduced to just soul and magic.
Perhaps that was for the best. The void was a realm of nonbeing. Space or time didn’t exist here. It was a place where only the most terrible of eldritch horrors dwelled. He wanted to avoid attracting their attention.
The void threatened to crush him. It nearly did.
Before it could, however, his magic automatically wrapped around his soul in a protective embrace, keeping it whole and stable.
If Levi had a face, he would’ve smiled. His gamble had paid off. While normally a soul would’ve been instantly destroyed the moment it entered the void, Levi had theorized that since he’d already made the trip once when Death had transported him across dimensions, he might have gained some sort of resilience or immunity to the void’s effects.
He had been correct. His magic had subconsciously learned and emulated whatever Death had done to protect his soul.
For what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds in real-time, Levi waited and waited.
Then, once he felt enough time had passed for the deletion protocol to finish, he returned to reality.
Reaching out with his magic, he commanded his atoms to return to him. He had infused them with his magic earlier. The deletion protocol had only targeted [Levi Ironwood]; since he’d destroyed his body beforehand, it had left his atoms alone.
With nothing but sheer iron will, he rebuilt his entire body from scratch. His senses returned to him in a rush, and he looked around to see himself standing in the exact same place as before. Before him hovered a screen that read:
[DELETION SUCCESS]
He could swear he sensed the System do a double take as it detected his presence once more, a whiplash jolting through the entire world.
Another red screen popped up.
[CATASTROPHIC ERROR]
[TARGET LOCATED]
[RETRYING…]
Levi’s status screen popped up, and on it, the HP bar plummeted to zero.
His heart ceased to beat.
Levi scoffed. Like that would be enough to stop him.
With barely a thought, his magic coiled around his heart and began manually pumping it.
[RETRY ATTEMPT FAILED]
[RETRYING…]
Empty screens popped into existence all around Levi and magical spells blasted forth. Each of them was arguably the very pinnacle of magic. Countering even one would be an incredibly difficult task.
Levi merely split his mind into three, five, a dozen simultaneous thought streams. With his magic still reinforcing his mind, he was more than capable of handling the cognitive overload that would’ve driven any normal man insane.
His magic formed around him, multiple threads all operating independently from one another, and without any delay, they streaked forward to meet the spells head-on.
Ice for fire, anti-gravity for gravity, antidote for poison – it mattered not for he neutralized them all. His magic swirled around him like a hurricane, crackling and roaring.
[RETRY ATTEMPT FAILED]
[RETRYING…]
“Enough!” Levi snarled. “You can’t kill me, it’s not going to work! So why don’t you stop wasting your time and–”
He froze.
The air chilled to a freezing temperature as dense clouds of grey mist rolled in from nowhere and everywhere. The world darkened by several shades, colors became dull and muted, and an otherworldly presence seeped into the air.
From the darkness of the mist it emerged, a tall forbidding entity in a cloak of curling shadows. It held a scythe at its side, the long menacing blade curved like the crescent moon and gleaming with an unearthly light.
The System, in a desperate last-ditch attempt, had summoned the one being it was certain could kill its target.
Death. The Grim Reaper, the Pale Rider, the Destroyer of Worlds.
Levi smiled.
Unfortunately for the System, it had summoned a familiar old friend.
“Hello, Death.”
Levi, Death greeted. His voice, reverberating with a primordial pressure, sounded almost pleasant. Fancy meeting you here. He cast a hopeful glance around. I don’t suppose I could trouble you for a cup of tea?
Levi laughed. “Forgive my lack of hospitality – I’m a little preoccupied right now.”
What do you mean-?
Death paused as he noted the System screens around him. Read the damning words on them.
Oh. Oh, I see.
For a long moment, nothing happened. The world was utterly, precisely still. Not even Time dared to move.
Then, Death raged.
You dare? You dare disregard my warning? You dare disobey me the moment i turn my back? You dare summon me to do your bidding, to reap the one and only soul I forbid you to ever touch?
Levi watched with wide eyes. He had never heard Death raise his voice before. He hadn’t even known it could be done. Even though he knew Death wouldn’t hurt him, every cell in his body still cried out in terror, his instincts screaming at him.
The System trembled.
[OBJECTION: THE TARGET ATTEMPTED TO COMPROMISE–]
Silence.
The System fell silent.
I will warn you once more. There will not be a third.
[...]
[WARNING ACKNOWLEDGED]
Death turned to look at Levi. Apologies, he said, his voice returning to normal. The mistake has been rectified.
Belatedly, Levi remembered that he was supposed to breathe. He drew in a slow, deep breath, trying his best to calm his racing heart.
“Warning?” he asked. “What warning?”
The black flame in Death’s left eye socket flickered.
It took Levi a second to realize that it was a wink.
That, my dear former servant, is what we call a secret.
Levi stared at him. “I… see.”
The System must’ve attempted to eliminate him before. Most likely it’d detected him when he’d first reincarnated into this new world, flagging his existence as an anomaly and proceeding to enact a deletion protocol. At the time, Levi would’ve undoubtedly perished; his body had been far too weak, unacclimated to handle the magic he’d just used.
So Death had protected him. Commanded the System to grant him existential immunity and leave him alone.
Gratefulness bloomed in Levi’s heart. Yet another thing he now owed Death for.
But enough with that unpleasantry. Death said, now completely ignoring the System screens hovering around them. How goes your life in this new world?
Levi immediately schooled his expression, slipping back into an old, familiar mindset. “I’ve made some decent progress on my task,” he stated. “I’ve managed to identify the perpetrator behind the lifespan deterioration, and I’m taking steps to–”
Death held up a single bony hand.
That’s not what I inquired about. I care not for such trifling matters; I trust in your ability to complete your mission. I’m asking about how your life is in this new world.
Levi blinked.
Then, he smiled. “It’s going well,” he said softly. “I’ve… I’ve made some friends. And I think I have a little sister now.”
Death seemed impossibly, inhumanly pleased. I am glad to hear. Then, he tilted his head. That said, I’m afraid our time draws short. I cannot remain in this world for too long – always there is so much to do, so many to reap. We’ll have to get tea and catch up another time. He paused, shaking his head. ‘Catch up.’ What a funny phrase. When Death catches up, it’ll already have been too late, no?
Levi couldn’t help but let out a light snort at that. “If that were the case, I would’ve been doomed long ago.” He hesitated. “And Death…”
Yes?
There were so many things Levi wanted to say, so many things he wanted to ask, but…
He smiled.
“Thank you.”
Of course, Death said, sounding bemused. But whatever for?
With that parting remark, Death disappeared as swiftly as he came. Color returned to the world and time resumed.
Levi was silent for several long moments.
Then he turned back to the System.
“Manual override, huh?” he mused. “That means there must be something at the helm. Some authority that can restore my account. Well? How about it? Will you answer?”
And then finally, at long last, the System responded.