Chapter 108. Crisis
Agony seared Levi’s mind with the intensity of a thousand suns, tearing apart his sanity and breaking down his very fundamental psyche. Dozens of eyes peered out from the shadows of the Devourer’s hollow torso. They were deep crimson, narrowed and almost feline-like were it not for the malevolent madness within them. The madness was infectious, completely ignoring the thin film of reflective magic that always protected Levi’s eyes and burrowing deep into his brain like a centipede, ravaging everything in its path.
IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME–
Levi’s magic lashed out all around him in a violent, uncontrolled maelstrom of mana, causing Anastasia to yelp and Phantasm to curse. The tempered stone beneath them cracked and the magical tomes on the shelves burst into flames as for the first time in decades, Levi’s magic went utterly haywire, breaking free from his constant unyielding command.
The first rule that any half-baked mage in his old world learned was that to lose control over one’s magic was to forfeit one’s life. Magic in its natural form was wild, chaotic, and unbelievably dangerous. That rule held true here; Levi’s magic rampaged through not only the chamber but also his own body, blood spurting from his nose and his internal organs liquefying.
With a pop, Levi’s eardrums popped and he lost all hearing. He fell to his knees, black blood leaking from his eyes even as they remained locked onto the Devourer’s own. To his side, Anastasia looked horrified. She hurriedly cast multiple healing spells, golden light pouring forth from her hands, but they had no effect. The damage to his body was merely superficial – the true harm was being done to his very soul.
He tried to gather his thoughts, gather his magic, gather himself – but there was nothing left to gather. His memories were splintering, his core identity was fracturing, the very essence that made him who he was was being ground to less than dust. All that was left was the neverending terrified thought of–
IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME–
GET AHOLD OF YOURSELF.
Levi flinched as a sudden voice slammed into his head, foreign yet familiar at the same time. That voice… Some tiny part of his mind recognized it. It was his own? But those weren’t his thoughts. So where was the voice coming from–?
HAVEN’T YOU DESTROYED DEMONS, SLAUGHTERED MONSTERS OLDER THAN CIVILIZATION, EVEN CUT DOWN A LITERAL GOD BEFORE? YOU WERE DEATH’S SERVANT ONCE, WEREN’T YOU? THEN FUCKING ACT LIKE IT!
Who… Who are you–?
YOU’RE IN MY BODY, AFTER ALL.
SO DON’T YOU DARE LET ME DOWN.
Levi gasped as the world exploded in inexplicable clarity, his mind miraculously returning to him all at once. What, how, where – he connected the dots immediately. His counterpart’s inherited emotions, the memories that had been carved into his body, the entanglement of body and soul… Did the sight of the Devourer somehow cause the former Levi to awaken? Some remnant of him, less than an echo, but enough to snap Levi back to sanity.
Already, the voice was gone. His counterpart must’ve used all his remaining strength to deliver the message. But it was enough. Levi whispered a quick word of thanks.
Then, he realized what was happening around him, and with a roar he reasserted his control over his magic, forcing it to calm down. No, not calm down. Not when the Devourer was right there. Levi diverted a tiny amount to heal himself; his ears popped once more as his hearing returned to him. The rest, he directed the violent flow of magic straight ahead, toward the monster still coiled around the Source.
Only for a barrier to shimmer to life, blocking the attack.
[SYSTEM VIOLATION DETECTED. HOSTILE ENTITY IDENTIFIED]
[DEPLOYING DEFENSIVE COUNTERMEASURES]
“Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Levi shouted as even more barriers sprung to life to protect the raised terminal, and with it, the Devourer as well. “Can’t you see? The Devourer is literally RIGHT THERE!”
[ROUTINE SYSTEMS CHECK: ALL CLEAR]
“You braindead fucking piece of shit clanker!”
But it made sense. At any certain point in time, there existed an uncertainty cloud around that point, within which dwelled multiple parallel branches of time and space. Such was the underlying principle behind imaginary mana. And, if the people of this world had never come up with the concept of imaginary mana due to the System’s quantifying presence, then how was the System itself supposed to have a protocol that scanned imaginary branches?
Levi was only able to see the Devourer due to his True Sight. Through observation, what had been imaginary was made real – but only to him. Even now, Phantasm, Selene, and Anastasia didn’t seem to see the Devourer at all.
But wait…
No, that didn’t make sense. The System was a thaumaturgical architecture interwoven so fundamentally into the world that Levi couldn’t tell where reality ended and the System began. Which meant that even in the parallel branches of reality, the System must also exist.
So then why didn’t the System…
Oh, right. The anti-perception memetic field. If the Devourer was currently imposing an anti-perception field onto every living being through the System connection, then it stood to reason that the System was also actively being affected.
Which meant…
Levi made to swipe his hand across the air to unleash an attack–
“What are you doing?!” Only to stop as Phantasm suddenly appeared beside him, grabbing his wrist in a vise. “Once was already madness, but attacking the System Source again? It’s going to enact a [Deletion Protocol] on you and wipe you from existence!”
“Yeah? Let it!” Levi glared at the Source. “Go ahead, System, let’s see you try!”
With that, he yanked his hand free and slashed across the air, letting loose a Sever and Cleave that was more Cleave than Sever. It broke through the first two barriers that stood in its way with overwhelming force, only dissipating upon the third barrier.
Phantasm flinched, leaping back away from Levi as he hurriedly looked toward the Source as well, as if expecting the System to call down a [Deletion Protocol].
Nothing happened. More barriers sprang to life, but that was it.
“What in the…” Phantasm muttered in pure bewilderment. “Why isn’t it doing anything?”
“It won’t dare,” Levi said. “Not after what happened last time.”
“Last time…” Phantasm swore in shock. “You mean it’s tried to delete you already once before? How are you still alive?!”
“Because Death honors its promises, because Death settles its debts, and because Death – Death is kind.”
“What… What does that even mean?!”
“It means that if I want to uphold those same principles, then I need to eradicate the monster in front of us right now!” Levi spat. “No matter what stands in my way, no matter the cost – the Devourer must perish!”
His magic exploded from him, blasting forth with reckless abandon. Blue spells that flowed like water, blistering lances of eldritch flames, incandescent emerald shards of undying light… Levi cast spell after spell after spell with incredible speed, his hands blurring as his cloak billowed wildly around him. A deafening roar filled the Root Records as the barriers shattered one by one under the unrelenting assault.
“Is it there?” Anastasia asked, her tone frustrated and helpless as she stared directly at the Devourer, her eyes unseeing. “Is the Devourer in front of us?”
“Yes – no – it’s complicated,” Levi said.
“Good enough for me,” Selene said. While she wasn’t affected by the anti-perception field, she didn’t have True Sight to peer into the parallel branches, and as such she didn’t see the Devourer either. Regardless, without hesitating, she joined in on the assault, her shadows blazing to life as they streaked forward. Phantasm and Anastasia looked at each other before shrugging and attacking as well. Phantasm hurled spells from his palm that reflected pure nothingness while Anastasia called forth the Goddess’s holy power in golden spears of pure mana.
[OBJECTION: SUBVERSION ACTION WILL NOT BE TOLERATED]
But it was clear the System’s threats were just that: threats. It didn’t dare to do anything, not after what happened last time. And so, slowly but surely, the army of barriers was cut down faster than they could be replaced until only one remained.
A single Sever and Cleave shot forward, aimed to shatter the barrier and bisect the Devourer in one go–
The Devourer reached up with two of its six spindly arms and unraveled the bandages that covered its left head, revealing a wide, aberrant smile and nothing else. Despite himself, Levi flinched back. The smile stretched from ear to ear, literally, splitting the face into two. Before Levi’s eyes, the Devourer’s jaw stretched so wide that it unhinged with a gutting click–
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And then the Devourer spat out tortured Time.
Levi’s eyes widened as the time around him simultaneously slowed and accelerated, the resultant localized paradox pulling him out of the normal time stream and into a parallel branch of reality. The world flickered and distorted before stabilizing, with some crucial differences.
He was standing in the same place as before, but Anastasia, Selene, and Phantasm had disappeared. Or rather, they were still there, just in a different time and therefore a different space.
Right now, Levi was in a world that never was but ever could be – a world of imaginary mana. The temperature was freezing cold, so cold that Levi could see his breath. Entropy operated differently in this world. Physics, as well; Levi could already tell that gravity was stronger here, trying its best to drag him down. Effects of dilation, no doubt.
Why did the Devourer pull him into this branch…?
Oh, right.
In the real world, the Devourer was limited in what it could do. Even if observed and made real, it still couldn’t properly materialize into reality. But here? Inside the parallel branch of reality where its true form dwelled?
The Devourer roared, and a dark violet miasma shot forth from its smiling maw. Levi automatically threw up a defensive barrier, only for his eyes to widen as the miasma ate through the barrier like it was paper. No, that wasn’t quite right. The barrier wasn’t consumed but rather unmade; the miasma turned back the gears of time itself.
If the miasma struck Levi, then his very Time would be reversed until it never existed. He’d be condemned to a state of un-being.
How terrifying.
Levi leaped to the side, his magic coursing through his entire body as he pushed his reinforcement magic to its utmost limits. His muscles burned and his bones groaned, but he ignored the pain. Getting hit would be much, much worse. He streaked across the Root Records as the Devourer spat out more globs of the malevolent miasma.
“YOU ARE A FOOL, LEVI IRONWOOD!”
Levi jumped up high into the air as below him, another monstrosity burst into existence. Suspended in the air, Levi drew in a sharp breath at what he saw.
It had the developed figure of a woman, but that was where its similarity with humanity ended. Its head was composed of numerous fungi, sickly umbrella caps that extended upward and outward, running through the neck and down its chest. It had no feet but rather countless tendrils that extended deep into the smooth stone ground. It had no mouth, yet it spoke regardless, many voices layered over one another.
“You must be the Chorus,” Levi growled. In the real world, it could only affect things by operating through a third party via possession or mental corruption. Here in the parallel branch, however, it could materialize in its true form. And how hideous it was. “So you’re here as well… How convenient.”
“DIE, JUST DIE, JUST DIE JUST DIE JUST DIE!” The Chorus screamed in its discordant voice. Tendrils shot forth from its hands, and Levi was forced to leap from bookshelf to bookshelf to avoid the tendrils. At the same time, the Devourer craned its head upward to continue firing the corrosive miasma at him.
“Funny!” Levi shouted as he twisted past the attacks, ascending higher and higher. “I should be saying that to you!”
He pushed off one ledge and backflipped in the air so that he was facing downward. Gritting his teeth, he compressed his magic so tightly within himself that despite being massless, it created its own gravitational well, pulling his internal organs slightly out of alignment. Then, raising his hands in an X-shape before him, he slashed downward with all his might.
Sever and Cleave!
Tens of thousands of Sever and Cleaves blasted down in a lethal rain from the heavens, expanding outward to fill the entire circular chamber and leaving the Devourer and Chorus nowhere to dodge. It was so dense that it blocked Levi’s vision entirely, a raw tide of pure destructive magic.
However, it didn’t block the Devourer’s returning roar of fury. The Sever and Cleaves, all forty-nine thousand of them, froze in mid-air. Then, they all collapsed into motes of light, the mana being broken down into something less.
Before Levi could even curse, a single tendril shot upward, spearing right past him. Then, the Chorus suddenly sprang from the tendril, having traveled through it like a root system. It spat a cloud of spores at him, millions of microscopic flecks that shone in the light.
Levi summoned a gust of wind, then thought better of it and transmuted the wind into ravenous acid. It hungrily devoured the cloud and splattered onto the ground with an angry hiss.
Time lost all meaning, not that it had any in this parallel world, as Levi fought the two eldritch monstrosities. His magic raged and whirled around him, a storm of implacable mana that refused to die down.
But though his magic flowed freely, his body was an entirely different matter.
As the minutes ticked on, Levi began feeling his body tremble with strain. His flesh prickled, as though it were being jabbed by millions of needles, and his temperature increased until he was burning hot and sweating buckets despite the freezing surroundings. Steam rose off his flesh in thin wisps as he struggled to maintain his reinforcement.
The Chorus and Devourer both immediately noticed.
“SLOWING DOWN, ARE WE, LEVI IRONWOOD?” The Chorus gloated. In his feverish state, Levi swore he heard a feminine lilt to the Chorus’s voice. But perhaps that was just the delirium setting in. “IS YOUR MANA RUNNING OUT?”
No. Levi’s magic, heightened and amplified by both his rampant emotions and determination to succeed, was stronger than ever. It was his body, always his body, that was giving out first.
The Chorus and Devourer took advantage of the fact, their attacks becoming even more wild and vicious. Levi was forced onto the defensive, desperately trying to not get pierced by a tendril or struck by the miasma as the overburn crept higher and higher.
This had become a battle of attrition, and Levi…
Levi lost.
The magical overburn hit when he was in the middle of a particularly complicated acrobatics maneuver. His body twisted upside-down, Levi suddenly grunted as the pain slammed into him like a feral beast, his muscles involuntarily slackening. The magical overburn was worse than every time before, red-hot agony ripping through his body as he finally reached his limit.
A moment later, a tendril punched into his gut and went out the other side with an explosion of fluid gore. Levi screamed, and out of the corner of his eye he saw his spleen splatter against one of the magical tomes off to the side.
Not again, damn it!
He dropped like a rock, falling through the Root Records once more, only this time, he didn’t have his magic to cushion the fall. He hit the stone ground with a terrible sound, and it was only the enchantments on his archmage cloak that prevented him from bursting like an overripe melon. Even then, his innards spilled outward from the force of the impact, painting the ground with red.
The Chorus and Devourer stopped their attacks, certain of their victory. Levi didn’t blame them. Laying on the ground, he hyperventilated with rapid raspy breaths. Oh god, it hurt. His magic reflexively tried to heal his body, but its very attempt further worsened his magical overburn.
“THE DAY HAS FINALLY COME,” the Chorus said, almost reverently. It leisurely glided toward him, taking its time as if to savor the moment. “FOR MILLENNIA, WE HAVE BEEN TRAPPED, DOOMED TO REPEAT TIME AND TIME AGAIN. BUT NOW… NOW WE WILL FINALLY BE FREE.”
“Yeah?” Levi grunted out. He gurgled, blood spilling from his lips, but he pushed past the pain and forced himself to speak. “You sure about that?”
“YES. LOOK AT YOU. ON THE GROUND, BROKEN, HALF YOUR ORGANS MISSING… WHAT CAN YOU DO IN YOUR CURRENT STATE?”
Levi had to admit, the Chorus had a point. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t even cast his magic, lest he risked his heart stopping.
Even so, he grinned.
“Look behind you.”
The Chorus and Devourer both turned around.
There was nothing there.
“WHAT ARE YOU–?”
Levi’s wrist twitched, and a tiny Sever and Cleave shot from his hand, striking the raised stone terminal that the Devourer was attached to. The Chorus and Devourer whirled back in alarm, but then they relaxed when nothing further happened.
Even so, Levi smiled.
“Heh,” he wheezed. “Oldest… trick… in the book.”
“WHAT WAS THAT MEANT TO DO?” the Chorus asked, amused. “ALL YOU DID WAS HASTEN YOUR OWN DEMISE.”
Indeed, that final Sever and Cleave proved to be the nail in Levi’s coffin. He coughed and shuddered as the strain caused his heart to give out. It ceased to beat, and the edges of Levi’s vision immediately began turning black.
However, he didn’t close his eyes. He kept them fixed in front of him as with the last remaining vestige of his strength, he rasped out, “Check… again.”
“CHECK WHAT?”
“I wasn’t… talking to you.”
[ROUTINE SYSTEMS CHECK: ALL CLE–]
[CRITICAL WARNING]
[CRITICAL WARNING]
[CRITICAL WARNING]
[CRITICAL WARNING]
[SYSTEM VIOLATION DETECTED. SYSTEM CORRUPTION DETECTED. SYSTEM INFECTION DETECTED]
[INITIATING PURGE PROTOCOLS…]
Levi smiled in triumph. It worked.
A memetic anti-perception field, no matter how complex, was still a magical field. Therefore, it had to be either surrounding or permeating the Source terminal.
As previously established, magic was life. And all life had an end.
Levi’s Sever and Cleave hadn’t been aimed at the Source, or even the Devourer. It had been aimed at the anti-perception field that covered the terminal. Granted, his True Sight hadn’t been able to perceive it, but one of the death lines on the Source looked a little off, and Levi… Well. What did he have to lose?
His gamble paid off. The unnatural death line had indeed been the death line of the anti-perception field, and it was instantly overcome with death. Now able to finally detect these two monstrosities, the System could take over and eradicate them both–
The Devourer craned its head and looked directly at the Source terminal.
[PURGING–]
[...]
[IT’S… LOOKING BACK AT ME…?]
Levi blinked.
Wait.
Oh, Goddess…
No… Please no…
[IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME IT’S LOOKING BACK AT ME–]
Yeah. They were fucked.
Well.
Levi had given it his best shot. He doubted anyone could blame him for failing now. He’d had… perhaps not the best life, or even a good life, but it was his life.
He closed his eyes.
Do try to let it be an adventure.
Levi had tried. He really had. But all adventures had to come to an end.
…
Levi didn’t want to be an adventurer.
He wanted to be a–
‘Hero.’
And the thing about heroes was that… well.
Even when faced against the most impossible odds…
Even when the entire world cursed their names…
Even when they’ve died a thousand and one times…
They never stopped fighting.
Not until they’ve finished saving who they needed to save.
Levi’s eyes snapped back open, and despite the holes in his lungs, despite his unbeating heart, despite his clouded vision, still he shouted in a desperate, thunderous voice more magic than vibration:
“SYSTEM! HEAR ME WELL, AND HEAR ME NOW! IF YOU WANT THIS WORLD TO LIVE, IF YOU WANT TO BE CLEANSED OF THIS ROT, THEN GIVE ME ACCESS, NOW!”
There was a long moment of silence.
Almost too long.
The Chorus laughed. “WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO DO? ACCESS TO WHAT–?”
Ding!
A loud ringing reverberated through Levi’s ears.
[ACCOUNT RESTRICTION FOR {Levi Ironwood} HAS BEEN LIFTED]
[FULL SYSTEM ACCESS HAS BEEN RESTORED]
[CRITICAL ALERT: NEW FEATS DETECTED]
[PROCESSING FEATS…]
[PROCESSING COMPLETE]
[PROCEEDING TO STATUS UPDATE…]