Draco's heart dropped to his anus at this moment. If he could, he would never have started this procedure, because he was digging a grave for himself. Not to mention this grave had cost him 10,000,000 platinum!
Half of the reason he was so overpowered was thanks to his bloodline and reincarnated skills, while the other half was occupied by the Divine Eyes of Caelo.
It was these very same eyes that had unblocked his seal in the real world while he was in a digital one. From then on, Draco had suspected that the Eyes of Caelo and its owner were something more than just a digital character in a game.
Combine this with his cryptic talk about universes and Origin Essence, Draco was sure that there was something about Caelo that transcended a mere Origin God.
And now, he had to fight the owner of these eyes, these very same eyes that even gave him the right to try for this Divine Class. He had to fight the original being...
Caelo didn't have HP, he was indestructible and unkillable. An infinity symbol represented an absolute. Even if you gathered all the Origin Gods to use their strongest attacks, he would never die.
His level was infinite, meaning that his power was limitless. He was basically Superman, an entity that was as strong as the situation needed him to be. He could have the strength of a normal man or that of the most powerful entity at his own whim.
And Draco wasn't supposed to defeat him, because no matter how special he was, it was something he would never be able to do. He didn't even dare to dream that he had something on him, that could limit his opponent like a cosmic green rock, or claim their mothers shared a name.
All Draco had to do was survive a mere 10 second against Caelo's onslaught and he would be home free with a heaven-defying class to boot. However, those 10 seconds read like 10 million years to Draco.
Caelo smirked slightly. "I like you. You're certainly special. I'm sure that you will go on to achieve great things as long as you find your other half and fuse."
"Though, I have no idea why you waste your time in this digital world." Caelo flexed his arms and observed himself. "Still, this world is exemplary, for it is able to recreate my image sufficiently well."
"Consider these 3 seconds as a small token as I foresee you will become a brother of mine one day. Think of it as a gift. Now, let's begin." Caelo announced while folding his arms casually.
Draco didn't waste time. He activated every single one of his skills at the same time, his Control, his subjective magic, and his bloodline's three forms.
At this time, Draco had burst out with 100% of his power. He held literally nothing back in his bid to survive just 7 seconds.
Absolute Void!
Necrotic Hands!
Evil Curse!
Life Steal!
Nature's Call!
Warmonger!
Lugh's Might!
Black Flame!
Destruction Barrier!
Rapid Hands!
Rapid Legs!
Black Dragon's Roar!
Once he activated Absolute Void, it paired with his Rapid Hands and Rapid Legs to increase his movement and attack speed to the max.
Necrotic Hands tied Caelo down and Evil Curse inflicted him with the <immobilized> status. Life Steal left a mark on him that allowed Draco to gain HP from damage he dealt unto him.
Lugh's Might sent a huge wave of sword energy over the whole area that was boosted by all his activated skills as well as his desperation.
With Black Flame coating his sword, the originally potent 1000% sword damage was augmented with fire and destruction energy!
With Black Dragon's Roar added to the fray, Draco was truly going all out! Should he have been in the midst of war, everything below Rank 2 would have been slaughtered immediately.
He wasn't doing this to harm Caelo, but simply to bide time! He needed to do all he could to survive this bout!
Caelo didn't even blink. A portal simply opened in front of him, out of which a giant black arm came out and slapped everything Draco did away.
Not only that, but the Army of Camelot led by Arthur, as well as the Wood Monster Army were grabbed by that hand and flung back to where they came from, cancelling the skill.
The hand then pointed at Draco and jabbed. Draco paled as he saw this, and he threw up as many mana shields as his mind could handle, as well as the Destruction Barrier from earlier.
The index finger simply broke through all the shields, and a sound like glass breaking echoed out with each shield that was broken.
Draco screamed in pain as he clutched his head. Even with his increased mental faculties, having so many mana shields destroyed at once was like someone using a power drill on your skull while you were awake.
His eyes, nose and ears bled as the finger shattered his Destruction Barrier with ease. Draco managed to gather his wits enough to blink away with the help of the herald's cloak.
The finger paused for a split second and leisurely turned towards Draco's new spot before jabbing again.
Draco did everything he could. He first transformed into his Horned Demon form which gave him the strongest physical might he could possess, and he forcefully used his Control and State of Being to create more mana shields, despite his brain feeling like it would overheat if he continued.
The finger that was made of Destruction Energy simply flicked Draco like how a middle schooler would a pencil on their desk. Whatever defense he mustered was shattered once again and his eyes almost went blank.
Draco let go, and activated his General Aspect. A strand of pleasant surprise emerged in Caelo's eyes, but the finger did not stop.
It collided with Draco, and his body was blasted apart with ease. The timer for the objective read '5 seconds left'. In other words, Draco did not last 2 seconds against Caelo despite the handicap the Supreme God had blessed him with.
After Draco was ejected, Caelo shook his head. "He is only at the beginning of his journey, he will one day reach our level. I sincerely look forward to that day when he can join us against Origo."
Caelo turned to the environment and smiled. "Trying to dissipate this body once this little event is over? That's fine, but you have to pay a price."
This time, Caelo himself poked at the world around him, and it was like a water droplet that had fallen into a bowl of water.
Ripples appeared from the point of contact that went outwards, reaching the corner of this realm and beyond. The whole world shook, and every player as well as NPC felt it.
Before anyone could cry out, the world went black and players were forcibly ejected from the game. It was sudden and unpredicted, so no one was ready when they saw their offices, living rooms etc appear before them.
Eva climbed out of her prototype gaming pod to see Draco lying in his without moving. Through their bond, she immediately sensed that something was terribly wrong and she hurriedly carried him out of his own pod.
Draco's face was locked into a mask of pain that made Eva's heart clench. She took him to their bed and placed him down carefully.
When she touched his forehead, she noticed that he was burning up. This shocked her, as their rebuilt bodies were free from any ailment that could befall a normal person.
Since the heat originated from his cranium, Eva understood that Draco must have overtaxed himself somehow, and it might be why the game world was shut down so abruptly.
She quickly channelled her General Aspect, which also forced Draco to transform. The moment he did, his eyes snapped open and he gasped deeply
Eva sighed with relief and deactivated her true form, dispelling Draco's as well. He continued gasping while feeling his body like he couldn't believe that he was still alive.
Eva waited for him to gather his bearings silently, the worry in her eyes never dissipating. Soon enough, Draco was able to pull himself together and he sighed lightly.
He pulled Eva into his embrace gently and stroked her hair to calm her down. She might have seemed calm, but her inner mind was in utter chaos right now after seeing Draco in such dire straits.
As such, he dedicated the next few minutes to gently soothe her back into a state of emotional and mental tranquility before sharing all he saw and heard.
When Eva heard it all, she was flabbergasted. Nothing she or Draco knew or had been told could even process this. Gods and whatnot could not exist in the real universe because it was a single instance!
Heaven, hell, higher realms and whatnot should not exist based on what Lucifer and Amaterasu had shared. However, there was something here that seemed off.
What if the multiverse theory was true? What if there were parallel universes in time and space that were similar to theirs but different in certain ways?
So then, there was no higher or lower world, just many equal universes side by side to infinitum. If it was before, these two reincarnators would scoff, but being reincarnators alone was the first sign!
The second was the origin of their true selves!
And the third was the words and actions of this Caelo fellow!
"However… it doesn't really change much, does it? We still have to follow our plan and ensure that our foundation is set." Draco said with a shake of his head.
Eva nodded. "It honestly changes nothing. If we are right, the multiverse existed long before us even without our cognition, and our awareness of it won't affect it in anyway."
Draco agreed. It was like when humans discovered other galaxies and planets. All it did was broaden our knowledge of our universe and draw a better map of our surroundings in space.
However, it changed very little on the ground because humanity was too weak to even travel past Earth's moon, much less outside our galaxy. As such, most people just took this knowledge and lived with it casually precisely because of that fact.
"Still, for the game to shutdown like this…" Draco said with uncertainty.
"We could head down to the GloryGore Labs and check up on the AI there." Eva suggested.
Draco was about to agree when he saw the light on their pods return to green, revealing that the system was back online. It seemed that the outage was short.
Draco and Eva checked up on the Castle and made sure everything was set before restocking their pods with the purchased 1st Grade NuSmoothies. After doing so, they re-entered the game world.
The first thing they saw was that everyone was back to where they were just before the outage. Everything had been reset to just a few seconds before it, so it was clear that the system had performed a rollback.
Eva saw that Roma, Zaine and Hikari were as they were before, without even noticing a change occurred. This made Eva sigh, as she was slapped in the face by the fact that they were digital no matter what.
Draco was also back in the Training Hall, and the screen for the Class Up Procedures was open before him. Draco checked and smiled wryly when he noticed that 'Paragon of Destruction' had been removed from the list.
Clearly, once bitten, twice shy. A small matter no one thought would change anything had escalated into something huge. Though it was swiftly resolved, neither Draco nor the AI were willing to play around anymore.
Before Draco could continue, an alert popped up before him and every other player who had logged back into Boundless. After all, the outage only lasted less than a minute.
｢System to All Players Announcement
Due to a fluctuation in service, the game had to be rebooted and was rerolled back to a backup made approximately 0.00000001 seconds before the outage. All players who have suffered due to this will be compensated by the system based on the damages caused. Thank you for your understanding!｣
.........…
Author's Note: Some of you might have a slack expression wondering what the hell went on with this chapter that made it seem like it was from a whole different book altogether.
Truth be told, that is not too far off the mark. I have revealed before to certain people in the comments that Caelo is not an entity unique to this novel, but is the… erm… how to describe it?
He is basically the 'Nine-tailed Fox' of an MC from my first ever story, and is one of the binding elements of the multiverse of stories I have created.
Treat this chapter as a 'crossover' episode. It will play out in different perspectives in future and past stories, so please take it with a grain of salt. Thank you.