Chapter 401: The Cycle
God knew how many times they went back and forth, yet in the end, Neraxis was left without an eye and both of his arms.
As for Lagus, he was currently sitting on the floor, smoking a cigarette he had manifested a few moments ago.
He was just as injured as Neraxis, if not more.
He waved the cigarette, glancing in Neraxis’s direction.
“Want a smoke?”
Neraxis’s brows furrowed. “I’ll have to pass.”
“You sure? Might be the only time you can have a smoke with your biological father,” Lagus remarked with a chuckle. “But hey, I won’t force you. If you want to smoke the ashes, be my guest.”
With that, Lagus returned to smoking the cigarette, leaving Neraxis standing there in a daze.
The fight had gone on for too long, and by now, he felt a little drained.
In fact, he had used up nearly 70% of his mana by now, and that was after getting it all the way to Null rank.
Neraxis took a subtle glance back at the smoking Lagus.
He had completely run out of mana. It was to the point where he was simply surviving off the residual mana lingering in the air.
The fight was practically over, and from the looks of things, Neraxis had managed to come out on top.
And yet, despite this clear edge on victory, he didn’t feel like he had won.
Instead, it felt like he had beaten a man who was already down.
<Well, finish it, I guess? This is the reason why you trained for so long, isn’t it?> Raguel asked.
A chuckle resounded, belonging to none other than Lagus.
“You should follow what that thing is saying. He has a good point, you know?”
Neraxis raised a brow. “You can hear it?”
“Hear it? I can see it,” Lagus replied. “That annoying golden-haired brat has been chirping in your ear for God knows how long.”
Raguel grumbled but didn’t comment further.
As for Neraxis, he simply let out a sigh and approached Lagus.
He stood before him and raised his hand, ready to slay him once and for all.
However, it was almost as if something was stopping him.
It wasn’t his conscience, and definitely not a feeling of guilt.
It was rage, something he didn’t expect to feel after killing the Sovereign of Wrath.
That rage slowly boiled up with each passing moment until eventually, Neraxis let out a deranged laugh.
“Pfft… hahahaha! How have I not thought of this sooner?”
Suddenly, Neraxis put his hand over Lagus’s heart, and in the next moment, began zapping away all of his energy.
It was both life force and what was left of his mana, so after it was all absorbed, Lagus would simply cease to exist.
And yet, Lagus simply let it happen as he continued smoking.
“You really are getting desperate,” Lagus remarked. “You do know what happens when one of us dies, right? All you’re doing now is giving me a painless death.”
A faint smile appeared on Neraxis’s face.
“Death? Is that what you think?” Neraxis chuckled. “That is a bit too forgiving. For all the suffering you’ve made me go through, you should be ready for something equally as tormenting.”
Lagus’s brows twitched as he raised a single hand.
Despite not having any mana left, he was able to push Neraxis back, then slightly alter time, restoring his earlier injuries.
Neraxis followed suit and did the same.
That obviously didn’t restore their mana reserves, but at least they looked normal again.
Lagus didn’t manage to fully restore himself due to the mana in the air growing thinner and thinner until eventually, it fully vanished.
But that was because Neraxis had purposefully absorbed it all.
In the end, the two stared at each other, but there was finally a trace of emotion in Lagus’s eyes.
Fear. Very mild fear.
“My… to think that you would be afraid of the one thing you did for your own enjoyment,” Neraxis remarked. “Come on, suffering for millions of years without powers does seem fun. I can guarantee. I remember having so much fun running around with my family without knowing a thing. It’s eerily comforting when you look at it from another perspective.”
Neraxis leaned in, his smile turning crazed. “Just imagine there being someone above you, watching over every single move you make. But here’s the catch. Every single move you have made was orchestrated by that very same person! Pfft… hahahahah!”
“…?”
<Alright, you’ve officially lost your shit,> Raguel commented. <I’m going to inject your memories back into you—>
<Ding!>
<You’ve temporarily disabled the Sentient System: Raguel>
Neraxis scratched his neck violently, drawing a large amount of blood.
But soon, he calmed down, took a deep breath, and glanced back at Lagus.
Without a single word, Neraxis waved his hand, collapsing every realm he could onto Lagus, until eventually, the only thing left was a single eye belonging to Lagus.
It wriggled around, trying to reform itself into a full body.
However, nothing of the sort happened. Neraxis made sure of that by destroying every single atom that could tie Lagus to his former strength.
Now he was nothing but a shell, a single eye which, if destroyed, would likely reincarnate and come back to bite him in the ass.
But that was only the case if he didn’t oversee Lagus’s reincarnation.
After comprehending the power of Destruction, he had also become someone who brings about Death.
The God of Death and Destruction.
Naturally, he could herald Lagus’s incarnation into a body of his choosing, maybe even a body he himself had made.
Neraxis’s face beamed in ecstasy as he got all sorts of ideas, none of which Lagus had expected.
He was expecting Neraxis to simply kill him, then wallow in despair and the false sense of security.
But alas, now that Neraxis had done what he did, it was time to try another option.
Torture. The same kind Neraxis had to go through.
Neraxis placed the eyeball in his palm, and then, he focused on the energy surrounding it.
It was faint, but he could see several different threads connecting outward.
He followed one of those threads, and what he was led to was surprising.
There was a man sitting on a bench, perfectly resembling Lagus and reading through a newspaper.
But soon, the man’s head expanded before suddenly exploding into bits and pieces, scattering brain matter all over the bench and onto the person who sat beside him.
Panic ensued, but Neraxis ignored it as he moved on to another thread, then another.
And after what felt like several millennia, he was done. There weren’t any more threads except the single one currently circling the eyeball in his palm.
But that was when Neraxis crushed the eyeball, making a barely visible green substance emerge.
Before it could get too far away, he used his power of Death to snatch that green substance and shape it into a tiny marble.
Neraxis held up the green marble to his eye and saw something swirl inside.
After all, this was none other than Lagus’s soul, or rather, what was left of it after Neraxis killed all of his counterparts all across the universes.
“Hah… hahaha…” Neraxis let out a hearty laugh as he surrounded the entire space in his purple void.
There were faint traces of a civilization in one of his tiny universe cores in the far end of the realm.
He appeared in front of it in the blink of an eye, then went inside the core.
Soon, entire constellations, galaxies, and star systems emerged, gaining color bit by bit.
Eventually, Neraxis arrived at a particular world that resembled his own.
From the outside, it was a replica, but when he made his way down, he noticed it was much further back into the past. Possibly the industrial age or further.
There were carriages driving around, and people straddling along the lively streets.
The people seemed real, their conversations felt even more real.
I really did succeed in producing individual egos and life, didn’t I? Neraxis thought proudly as he glided down to the streets, fiddling with the green marble between his fingers.
He made his way to one of the local pharmacies and went into the room where people were giving birth.
“Hey! You can’t go there!” a doctor screamed. “Guards! Snatch him!”
Neraxis shot the doctor and the guards a glance before vanishing from sight.
All he had to do was trick their eyes to make himself turn invisible, and it worked like a charm.
Nevertheless, he continued on until he found a few babies crying in their cradles.
Some parents watched over them, while the others were taking their leave, regretful looks plastered on their faces.
Neraxis grinned.
Let’s see… should Lagus be an orphan, or someone with a loving family?
The choice wasn’t difficult in the slightest.
He wanted to replicate the same misfortunes he had gone through, so he walked up to the loving family carefully playing with their baby.
And then, with a snap of his fingers, Neraxis froze time.
“Well, I guess I should do this as well,” Neraxis mumbled and unfroze the time only around the parents’ ears.
He leaned in with a sadistic smile and whispered.
“The heavens bestow upon your baby the name Lagus. May he grow up and do wonderful things, just as the heavens expect he will.”
With those words, he snapped his fingers again, freezing time in the entire universe.
He gripped the green marble once more and made sure to wipe out every single memory that had ever existed, even those hidden behind multiple barriers.
It was to the point where the soul had nearly been reset to a clean slate, but even so, Neraxis approached the baby boy and gently opened his mouth.
He compressed the green marble to that of a grain of sand, and then, he tossed it down the baby’s throat.
Immediately, despite time being frozen, Neraxis was able to see the changes in real time.
The baby boy’s soul began glowing. It was formerly blue, but after eating the green marble, it turned to cyan.
Their souls had completely mixed together, and just like that, what existed of the Lagus who had tormented his life for eternity was finally gone.
Not for good, of course, since while this little soul remained, so did Lagus.
Therefore, Neraxis decided to take a few measures into his own hands.
He tapped the boy’s forehead, and in the next instant, the baby boy opened his crystal-like green eyes.
Neraxis gave the newborn a little wave, and without warning, sent a wave of mana straight into the boy’s right eye.
It was painless, but despite that, a change had occurred.
The boy’s right eye switched from green to white, then eventually, it took on a purple cover, resembling Neraxis’s eyes.
With that, Neraxis gave the baby boy a tap on the forehead, causing him to close his eyes once more.
And that was also when he snapped his fingers, unfreezing time.
The boy’s parents seemed dazed, but not even moments later, the mother mumbled a single word, one that made the grin on Neraxis’s face widen further.
“Lagus…”
“Honey?”
“We should name him Lagus,” the mother stated, turning to the husband. “I… I don’t know how to explain it, but it just feels right.”
“Hmm… I thought Thomas was a good name, but Lagus is even better,” the husband agreed.
Soon, the couple began lovingly stroking the baby’s barely existent hair and rubbing his cheeks.
“Little Lagus… Yeah, I like the ring of that.”
“…”
Neraxis took a few steps back and smiled widely.
Lagus had ruined his life. He had forced him to do things he never wanted to do.
The number of sacrifices he had made, the number of times he had wished to come back to look into Evangeline’s eyes one more time.
To feel her warmth against his skin, to hear her laugh fill the silence.
To finally start a family of his own.
To see his child grow up and to live a normal life.
Alas… spending billions of years staring at pitch-black nothingness had changed him.
“One day…” he muttered, staring at the loving family before him.
“One day… I will keep that promise to you, Evangeline. I promise.”
***
End of Volume 3: Bonds of Fate