“Tenko, keep it up! They are beings of non-existence, which means they know as much about existence as we do about them, they don’t know what an illusion is!” Carl’s hurried explanation, didn’t sink in immediately, hitting almost as ludicrously as the enemies themselves.

Then they saw one of the illusions phase through one of the Outer-gods and leave it paralysed for a second. It was hard to tell exactly what was happening, to discern whether it was thinking, confused or even adversely effected by the interaction would require clarity.

Nergal told Tenko to focus on evaluating that situation, if it showed any sign of agitation or lashing out in anger, they could be destroyed and turned into toys in an instant. Tenko wasn’t about to argue either, he was at the limits of his practical abilities so the least he could do was observe, report and hypothesise.

Carl was just relieved that the other Outer-gods seemed to be distracted by the individual’s reaction to being touched, at least enough to slow their obstructions.

While they seized the opportunity to conserve their wits and stamina for whatever happened next, Carl’s soul-form found itself on Lugaria frantically trying to decipher and memorise the structure and map the base divinity to isolate the Mind attributed to the sample Tenko donated.

Before his allegiance changed, he was the ten-star of his species, but after multiple defections, that had changed despite his power growing.

As a result, much of it was partially transmuted divinity offered by Nergal that was unfortunately making it more difficult than a smaller sample of pure investment would have been.

Luckily Carl’s two mind-forms still absorbed information simultaneously regardless of the distance, but it stopped both minds from focusing and combining their efforts, which meant the they were both doing tasks with a single human’s brain capacity.

Frustration struck and just as had happened when Carl attacked the Elder-god that spoke out, his soul form acted on instinct and destroyed the confusing impurities on instinct, panicking briefly until it realised it was a good thing.

Removing the impurities left the rest of the donation much simpler to decipher and understand, like a dot-to-dot drawing with a few different images to complete.

When it was finished, it informed Carl and waited on standby until Izanami’s donation was ready.

The moment Izanami hit her limit, Carl portaled her divinity over to his other self, which just left Nergal to finish his task. whilst it was being analysed.

“Carl! Which version do you want!? I started writing Ki-ko’s without thinking!”

“You mean there’s more than one!? Fuck it, both!” Nergal immediately looked to his wife and asked if she still remembered Mesopotamian, when she confirmed, he passed her a stack of paper and told her to write what he dictated.

Then something changed in the outer gods and all at once they swung at dozens of illusions, which in turn clarified that they were deliberating the nature of an intangible existence, a concept which was alien to them in way beyond what they had ever considered.

It was both good and bad, the good thing was that it meant their entertainment was unlikely to yield any time soon, but on the other hand it made them want play even more.

Carl’s flames burned more more intensely as he began to use them to create directional force and increase his agility, but it wasn’t free, he was burning through his own life force and mana to do so and in the situation had devolved into a gamble based on time.

Nergal was far from ignorant, he could sense life being converted to death, but he knew Carl didn’t have a choice. The overeager Outer-gods were an unpredictable, kill-on-contact obstacle and Carl needed to use every tool at his disposal to buy enough time to bring his plan to fruition.

When he finally finished the more complex version that Kitsunoko created, he continued dictating the original to Izanami from start to finish, but also started writing the original in reverse to meet her part way.

Carl sensed that his other-self had finished the analysis of the second donation and the pieces were coming together gradually, but his head was starting to throb.

“This is too close, as soon as you’re done, evacuate.”

“Carl, if you say that again I’ll tell your wife and fiancé you tried to throw your life away. I’m done leaving you lot to clear up our mess, I’m done living in disgrace and acting like I don’t care about the way everyone despises me. If it comes to it, I will make sure you make it to the battle against Samael.”

“Seriously, what happened to your arm? If you had both you could have finished by now.”

“Shut up the kid’s probably listening! I got nothing more than what I deserve!”

Carl was beginning to wonder exactly what was going on with Nergal, something between enlightenment and self-improvement, but there was something driving him that Carl couldn’t work out.

“Barra xul, dingir anna kanpa!.. Carl! We’re done, do whatever you’re going to do.”

A portal suddenly opened as Carl changed to his demon-form, the papers flew to his hands, as his other self rejoined him and he took the divinities in two others. “Law of non-existence! You no longer escape notice, now I grant you a body to represent you, one that may guard the passage between the inner and outer.”

Carl smashed the two divinities and the two gate incantations together and then his three companions felt the presence of the unknown law he had called out, but it clearly wasn’t impressed with the gathered ingredients for its potential embodiment.

“Carl, I don’t think it will be able to inhabit anything in existence, can you copy their divinity?”

“I tried, they don’t… Maybe I don’t need to, but you guys need to trust me and get back for a bit.” They immediately fell back and Carl produced another kind of divinity to add to the mix, that of the Horobi-star.

Suddenly the way the Law’s presence felt changed and as the merger finally reached completion a being of non-existence came into being. It was as imperceptible and entire absent, the creation based on a quote he had seen on one of the exhibits that once decorated the Pluto facility.

“I think, therefore I am.”

For some reason, as Carl tried to comprehend the idea of non-existence being a parallel kind of existence rather than a lack of it, that quote kept plaguing his thoughts.

In that same line of thought, the gates didn’t exist until they were summoned and to go between existence and nonexistence in such a way, Carl figured there must be some manner of commonality even if he didn’t know what it was.

“You have broken my law, children.” The words were spoken with terrible wrath, then the beings trembled, flinched and popped in and out of existence in forms and postures twisted with pain and fear.

The unmistakable fury of a father confronted with his children’s wrongdoings that he now needed to make amends for.

Whilst it all happened, Nergal and the others reunited with Carl, seeing that he had burnt through most of his vital resources. However, more than wanting to assist him, they wanted to know how he figured it out.

“Sometimes you just have to tell yourself it tastes like chicken to swallow it.”

“Sorry, should have guessed that your inversion was still acting up.”

“It’s not, that was the answer. If there was a simple answer, Nonexistence would have been known about before now. I didn’t even know for sure, just kinda guessed and hoped we didn’t die.”

After a few moments, they realised that the Elder-gods that had been “reconfigured” were in the process of being restored, meanwhile Carl was almost entirely depleted and they still had to track down the mad prophet which Nergal, Tenko and Izanami hadn’t forgotten.

“Don’t worry, he is gone. He sacrificed his physical form to allow Nonexistence to occupy the same space as existence, by becoming a passage between them. Carl made me so I could clean up my own mess and ensure that passage is sealed at both ends.”

They breathed a collective sigh of relief, but the truth was, they were just as concerned deep down about what would happen if this unknown Law changed its mind and turned on them.

“Don’t worry guys, I got a feeling they tried to fight back the first time they encountered something stronger and they know that fact future versions are coming back means they failed to eliminate the threat. If I had to guess, they were scared of Kitsunoko because they already knew her.”

The weight of being trembling could be felt through their instincts, but what they didn’t know, is what the hell happened to make them so scared of her…

In the end, it became clear that the battle there was done, but they were all so drained they couldn’t even open a portal back and were stuck watching the Outer-gods undo their horrific work.

It was grim to watch, but also spoke of a power that Carl knew he would need to find a proper counter measure against to avoid potential tragedies later.

“Hey Space, can you hear me? Sorry to be a bother but we’re too exhausted to open a portal on our own, it seems the Elder-gods were burning through their divinity to stay alive as well.”

When his summons was answered, Carl was a little overwhelmed with how excitable the usually placid Space was, at least until he explained that with every defeated villain his body was abused less by random incursions.

As much as Carl wanted to celebrate his acquaintance’s improvement, Space could see that he was struggling to stay conscious and got to sending them all back to where he could feel Tiamutael’s presence.

His thinking was that the talented traveller could then forward them to more specific locations, unfortunately for all of them, Space was unaware that Tiamutael was currently watching his mothers assist with a briefing regarding the battle with Samael to a room of on edge commanders in a meeting that was running into its seventh hour.

This meant that they didn’t receive the warm reception warriors returning from battle expected and found themselves at the end of blades, claws and Klaire’s handheld weapons of mass destruction.

“We come in pieces…” Were the last words Carl managed before passing out.

None of them were in particularly good shape, only a scant few were able to retain consciousness and none of them could appease their interrogator’s questions, which made the weary decide better safe than sorry and held everyone in containment until the ones they knew were awake and able to.

It was far from ideal, with only Aegis-legion duplicates allowed to enter and provide triage and basic nutrition to help recovery as little as possible.

Carl, Tenko, Izanami and Nergal all lost consciousness at the same time, but because Izanami was an unknown, she was left behind as the other three were extracted to a room where they could rest and recuperate.

The process spoke volumes about what they had gone through. Each received divinity infusions, Kyubi’s healing flames empowered by Raziel working on both their minds and bodies and still required several hours of rest before they began to recover.

The first to do so was Tenko, which made Kyubi glad since she could exert her influence to get the truth no matter what.

As he told the tale, they could scarcely believe what they were hearing, creatures so powerful and otherworldly that simply spending a few hours trying to stay out of their grip left one of the most powerful Elder-gods completely drained and Carl on the verge of Death.

“…If there’s one silver-lining, I think we can be sure we have followed the intended order so far.”

“Agreed, the difficulty level has increased pretty consistently. Would have been a different story if the schedule hadn’t been messed up. I’m sure Amaterasu would have had a much better grip on her powers by that point.”

Klaire agreed that the fight was too easy, they were clearly preparing but those seven years made a massive difference. If Amaterasu had been able to use the Horobi-star and wasn’t sleeping when they arrived, Carl wouldn’t have had the flame that could burn the sun or known about their similar divinity.

When Nergal finally stirred, Kyubi began to welcome him back to the waking world when she trailed off as Tiamutael stood in front of him, his fists were clenched at his side but Kyubi and Klaire decided to watch and wait since they sensed no hostility.

“I’m sorry I tried to kill you and that future me took your arm. I thought it was justified, but it wasn’t, I was wrong and just lashing out because I was upset.” He then held a hand out flat down and swiped it as it changed to that of dragon, causing the seal of Nothingness to fall apart and reveal his arm.

Nergal stared at his hand in disbelief clenching and unclenching it. “You’re wrong, I deserved everything you dealt me and more. Seriously though, to think my arm was there the whole time, no wonder no healing worked.”

“How exactly did you know how you did it young man?”

The moment Klaire spoke, the heavy gulp and drained complexion were all any of them needed to know. He had effectively admitted to going to see one of the enemy they were now in active conflict against.

He explained that he suddenly felt a burst of Ki-ko’s aura, hard to sense and would have been completely missed if it hadn’t hit him directly, when he looked in a panic and saw his future self he couldn’t not go speak to him.

“Sweetie, we know all of you kids are going through hell because of us, so we aren’t going to punish you for trying to cope however you decide… We can’t overlook you doing something so reckless without telling us first though, even your sister knew to ask first and just say she couldn’t explain.”

They knew they had done something awful, their kids only even existed because they had need of them, so they didn’t want to try and take high ground they had no rights to but at the same time they wanted to do what they could to be half-decent parents.

“Can you all stop acting like you aren’t good enough please… Mums, we know you feel guilty, but that’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you two thinking you were somehow doing a bad job, it makes it hard to say what I want sometimes and like wanting to do things myself will prove you right so I can’t win.”

The pair were truly speechless, Tiamutael was quiet but had always been direct when he did speak, that seemed to take it to a whole different level though. Being called out on their unspoken thoughts by their child left them a little embarrassed, Nergal and Tenko however, simply wanted to disappear.

They were stuck however, unable to leave until they knew what was required of them next and too scared to interrupt discussion of such a tender subject, family was sacred ground to them and violation was lethal.

Tenko of course was about to, but when he saw Nergal clench, he stopped.

Which twisted their vision of Carl into that of a truly glorious saviour as he rose. “Hey, this is private stuff guys, maybe that’s a chat we have in private. I think it’s pointless though, Tiamutael was right, we need to stop being self-pitying parents and just focus on finishing this.”

Kyubi and Klaire looked at each other sheepishly, then apologised to their audience and Tiamutael, who in turn apologised for not being more direct and made everyone realise they may have just messed up.

Luckily, Carl was too exhausted to really care about saving face and called Tiamutael over to where he was laying down. He then placed a hand on each of his son’s shoulders and told him flatly that if he was any more direct his mums would have cried.

“…You need to talk to us sooner, not more directly. Open up, if not to us then someone easier, but if we are making it difficult we want to know. Anyway, I’m being hypocritical, do what feels right to you and we’ll do what feels right to us and when those two conflict we’ll sort it out.”

Tiamutael developed a glazed-over look in his eye, as did Klaire and Kyubi, which is when Carl stood up and stretched before heading out with a gesture to Nergal and Tenko to follow.

As they walked through the halls, they found Alysse not far away with Omedra, who they had lead them to where the others were being held.

It was only a short walk and when they arrived, they had the Aegis-Legion focus on getting everyone back up to full health, not just to be a good host but because they would all be needed for the next step.

As tough as the last battle had been on those taking part, the battle up next would be the worst to date for everyone going against the villains.

They would quite literally be walking into hell and quite literally be knocking on the devil’s door, something that had only been attempted once before with an army outnumbering them ten to one and only able to force it into a stalemate.

“Carl, you’re being an idiot. Your family is worried about how much you’re rushing.” Alysse said as they oversaw the distribution of supplies.

“I’m not, don’t worry. I needed to push, I think Grandma was actually encouraging me with her plan. Now I’m taking a break though.

Pushing to look like we were building up momentum to carry us to the gates of hell will have its denizens on high alert, wearing themselves down and getting jumpy. Now we sit back and recover to go in fresh.”

“Dad, just tell me if you need me there with you.” Omedra chimed in.

“Omy, you and your siblings are and always will be free to fight any battle you wish to. Of course if you pick a bad one you’ll be punished, but other than that you can make your own choices.

That said, I will never ask anyone to fight, especially not my kids.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep