20, 40, 65, 82, 104…
Ning started counting until he counted 143. Every single Constellation was there. Both the ones that were trying to save the humans and the ones that were trying to hurt them.
Ning looked at the 5 that were among the 143. "You too?" he asked.
Noraxis shrugged slightly. "You should not have tried to teach them a way to fend for themselves. It makes us useless, and that is not why we do what we do."
Ning frowned. "I should have killed you when I had the chance," he said.
"Haha!" Briss laughed with his goat-like skull. "Even the man you imitate doesn't have the power to kill all of us, and you say you can do it?"
He wasn't wrong there. As Ning was currently, even with his main body and system, defeating them all was near impossible.
"Well, if you really think you can, then we will be ready for you. Whether it's you or him, we won't lose," Briss said.
'Is he bluffing?' Ning thought. These constellations were supposed to be scared of their existence, but somehow, they were very confident.
"What? Not going to kill us?" Briss asked. "Then just wait and watch, the show will begin, very, very soon."
One by one, the Constellations disappeared from right in front of him, surprising him greatly.
'Something bad is going to happen,' Ning thought. 'Ning, you have to return quickly.'
A few minutes later, as if some sort of blockade in the area had been released, people came rushing in towards him.
Ning tried to think of ways to tell them what was happening, but it didn't look like he had to. These people were already losing their minds from something else that had happened that Ning did not know about.
"What's wrong?" Ning asked. "Why are you freaking out?"
The one at the front was director Sung who was looking at him. "Are you okay? You were fighting with that terrorist? You weren't hurt, were you?" he asked.
"No, I'm fine," Ning said.
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"Thank god. You must have finished the battle before it happened," the director said. "Oh god, what are we going to do now?"
"Director? What is going on?" Ning asked.
"Huh?" the director looked at him. "Have you not sensed it yet?"
Ning frowned and used his divine sense to search around him, but he didn't find anything that immediately stood out to him. "What's wrong? I can't tell," he said.
"Your powers," the director said. "They're gone."
"What?" Ning frowned and flexed his cultivation base and mana, but they were both there. "I'm still a mage."
"Huh?" the director looked confused. "How were you spared?"
"Director, please tell me exactly what has happened," Ning asked.
"The powers, they've lost their powers," the director said.
"Who—" Ning had only just asked when he realized he knew the answer.
"The Apostles. They have all suddenly lost all of their powers," the director said. "There are no more apostles."
Ning's eyes went wide. That was it. These constellations truly had given up on this world.
'All because of my Magic circle?' Ning thought. He was starting to feel horrible. He should have stopped himself just a bit longer to wait for Ning to come back and let him do everything.
'Dammit, it would have led to the same result,' Ning thought. 'I would only be delaying the inevitable.'
However, that seemed like a much better option than losing all of the Apostles right away, right now.
'But why?' Ning wondered. He understood that they were no longer trying to help the earth, but that didn't really accomplish much with the removal of the Apostles. Sure that made it hard to do all the dungeon runs, but Ning could clear the SS-ranked dungeons easily.
And without those upgrading, no portals would form to the other universe that will send in—
Ning stopped in his thoughts. 'Those are not the only dungeons out there,' he thought.
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"Director, I need to go check on something," he said and disappeared, leaving the director dumbfounded.
The director looked around with a weird look on his face, wondering if Ning hadn't lost his Apostle's power at all.
He was about to return when Ning suddenly appeared in front of the director again.
"Dear god, young man. How are you doing this? Do you still have your Apostle powers?" the director asked.
However, Ning didn't answer. "Director, the worst possible scenario is happening around the world right now, so you need to quickly take back the prime minister and start preparing for an apocalypse," he said.
"What?" the director was surprised and scared. "What apocalypse? What's happening?"
"All the new dungeons, the new ones that had formed a week ago, they are all spewing out the people that had entered in it," Ning said.
"Huh? People are getting spit out of the dungeon?" the director asked.
"Yes, halfway through too. There is a bit of chaos around it, but that is not even our main problem," Ning said.
"What… what's worse?" the director asked.
"The worst part if that none of the dungeons are accessible anymore," Ning said.
"Not… accessible?" the director asked.
"Yeah, no one can enter it anymore," Ning said.
"And that's… bad?" the director asked.
Ning turned to look at the director with a disappointed look. "Did you forget what happened the last time there was a dungeon no one could enter at all?' he asked.
The director thought for a moment and color drained from his face as he realized what was happening. "No…" he said. He couldn't believe it.
"Yes," Ning said. "I'm afraid… this is the preparation before the dungeons break open and we are overrun by monsters in our city. The same thing from years ago will happen once more."
"No…" the director couldn't believe it still. "We will die. We don't have any apostles this time around."
"No, we won't die," Ning said. "We won't have apostles, but we have strong hunters. Besides, I just gave you the best tool for survival today."
"Tell everyone, we will have to start making the magic circles all over the world as soon as we can."
Master, what's going on?" Night asked as he and the rest came up to Ning. "I can hear many people crying out in fear. Something bad is going on."
"Yeah, I too saw a bunch of people trembling after getting some sort of news," Blue said.
"Honey, are you alright? Did they attack you?" Ely asked as she got close to check on Ning.
"No, I'm fine," Ning said. "But earth might now be."
"What do you mean?" Ely asked.
"Those bastards, they are preparing another dungeon break, this time one of a much larger proportion than before," Ning said.
Ely frowned slightly. "A dungeon break?" she asked. "Like the one that killed so many people before, including my mother?"
"I'm afraid so," Ning said.
"Should we fear that, master?" Blue asked. "Aren't we strong enough to defeat them? Even the one from the strongest dungeon was easily destroyed by sister Ely."
Ning shook his head. "The problem won't be their strength, it will be their numbers," he said. "I'm afraid there will be no chance for us to win against all with just all four. And only a few minutes ago, all the strongest fighters of the planet lost their powers."
Ely frowned slightly. "What can we do then?" she asked. "Do we migrate these people somewhere?"
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Ning shook his head. "We don't have the method to," he said. "The best we can do is evacuate them from places with dungeons and keep them somewhere safe."
Ely suddenly fell into thought as something brewed in her mind. "I might have a way to protect them," she said. "I can make some defensive artifacts that can protect many of them."
"Can you make them so that they can save billions of humans?" Ning asked.
Ely hesitated and shook her head. It was impossible for even her to make something like that, especially with the resources of the earth. They just weren't used to working with Qi.
"What else can we do though?" she asked.
Ning quickly shook his head. "You're right. We have to do what we can," he said. " Start working on that. The two of you, help her. I will go talk with the others about quickly making magic circles to defend the rest of them."
The three of them nodded and left Ning. Ning turned around and walked towards the panicking world leaders that were evacuated far away from the battle location.
He explained to them the problem that was happening and what solution they could take to avoid most of it. There was no guarantee that people wouldn't die, but he wanted to have it be as little as possible.
The Apostles, while having lost their powers, were still Hunters. So, even weak, they were stronger than average hunters. So, they too got to work despite their fear of being weak.
There were 2 things that Ning forced them to do as soon as they all could after going back.
First, they would find large, open land outside major cities and draw massive magic circles there to defend the people.
Ning's plan was to have them make magic circles in the cities themselves, but with the lack of time, they simply couldn't make enough planning to create one in the city itself.
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After all, many buildings would have to be destroyed in order for the magic circle to be drawn.
For now, a normal magic circle out in the open was the best choice in his mind.
The second thing he forced them to do was prepare the willing hunters to fight back the dungeon break.
There was no saying when the dungeons would break or how strong they would be, so they were forced to have Hunters be on guard every second starting now for the dungeon break to happen.
The last time, nearly a year had passed before the dungeon had broken. But that was only because the barely formed will of the galaxy on the other side was copying the Constellations. It had no thought of its own as of yet, so it couldn't make any changes.
However, the many constellations could make those changes and even make it very fast. Ning couldn't help but wonder if it would only be 2 or so days before the dungeons broke.
'But it doesn't make sense,' he thought to himself. There was something going on that Ning simply couldn't understand at all.
'Why the hell would all 143 of them work together?' he thought. This was the most confusing part for him. After all, the reason they had been working on the opposite side in the first place was that it would not make sense for so many of them to be working together, as the 'thought' of each human being could only be spared to so many of them.
With all 143 being involved, this would mean that after many of the humans were dead, the remaining humans' thoughts of them would have to be split among them.
Negative thought was more powerful than positive for sure, but with the lack of numbers, Ning couldn't understand just how that would benefit them.
Also, he understood why the 'good' constellations would want to switch sides if Ning was going to make their presence useless by revealing the truth about the magic circles. But he hadn't really done that, had he?
All he had done was teach them a defensive circle, and one that would help teleport them. The humans would still very much have to rely on the Apostles and hunters for a lot of things.
On top of that, why the hell would the 'bad' constellations let the 'good' ones join their rank this late into the game? Did they just accept them because their number was higher?
"Just what the hell is going on?" Ning thought. There was something happening here that he simply didn't know about. He could've learned that if he had the system, but without it, he would simply have to guess.
And Ning could not make any sensible guesses at all. At this point, he needed to wait for Ning himself to tell him the answer.
Ning stood in a space devoid of any stars for at least a few light years around him. It was mostly pitch black in his vicinity, but he could see things easily.
'That's done,' he thought, as he was finally finished with the first task he had left earth to do. It had been nearly a year for him, and in that time, something else had happened to him, something good.
He flew from there and opened a portal to a solar system that was not very far from him. On one of the planets there, a wormhole had opened to one of the other universes.
That universe had worlds with high amounts of Mana in there, and that was what Ning was looking for.
But, before he could go in there, he flew next to the sun of that system, and as he did, he opened his system information.
'Status!'
[Status
Name: Ning Ruogong
Energy: 122.66 Septillion
Separated Energy-
Heat Energy: 344 Billion
Sound Energy: 543 Billion
Kinetic Energy: 22 Billion
Electrical Energy: 0
Magnetic Energy: 0
Gravitational Energy: 8.51 Trillion
Radiant Energy: 148 Million
Qi Energy: 0
Aether Energy: 0
Mana Energy: 0
Magicules Energy: 0
Willpower Energy: 0
Spiritual Energy: 0
Lifeforce Energy: 0
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Aura Energy: 0
Essence Energy: 0
Chakra Energy: 0
Skill: …]
He had spent a lot of energy on what he had done previously, but that wasn't of much concern to him. What he was concerned with instead was the new Energy he had unlocked in the last year.
The Radiant Energy.
"What was the requirement, system? Taking in a lot of light?" Ning asked as he flew closer to the sun.
Yes
"Hmm, could I have unlocked it back in the other universe where I spent my last hundred thousand years as a hermit?" Ning asked.
No. One of the other requirements was to kill a rogue Constellation
"Oh… really?" Ning asked with a bit of surprise. "That sort of thing also plays into my requirements huh?"
yes.
By now, all hosts would have gotten strong enough to defeat any rogue constellations, so that was put there as one of the requirements
"I see," Ning said. "And what about Genesis? I killed a Galactical will. Did that not count for this before?"
Killing a Galactical Will is not the requirement for unlocking the Radiant energy. That is a requirement for another energy, which you have completed. Once you complete the other requirements, you will unlock it as well.
"Okay…" Ning said. By now, he was close enough to the sun that even metals would have started glowing red hot. However, he felt nothing and continued forward.
He needed to gather as much light energy as he could, so he continued.
"So, can you tell me what the next energy and requirements are?" Ning asked.
Yes. Your next energy is Chemical Energy. To unlock it, you will have to observe 1 million different chemical reactions, and then spend 1 Septillion energy when you are done.
Ning frowned slightly. "1 million different reactions? Do I have to actively search for them, or can I just unlock them by experiencing stuff in my daily life?"
You will have to consciously look for them.
"1 million," Ning could help but give an awkward laugh. "Sure, why not?"
He absorbed a lot of energy as he got close to the sun, of which a lot of it was light energy as well.
"Double my cap, please," Ning said. "I should be able to do all 3 in one go with this, right?"
Yes. Doubling cap
Your energy cap has been doubled from 655.36 Billion to 1.31 Trillion.
Your energy cap has been doubled from 1.31 Trillion to 2.62 Trillion.
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Your energy cap has been doubled from 2.62 Trillion to 5.24 Trillion.
Congratulations, You have bought all Radiant Energy Cap Increments
As a reward, the system has awarded the host with [Toggle -Low-Level Radiant Damage Ignorance]
You now have the ability to ignore 15% of Radiant damage your body could suffer
You can improve this skill in the shop
"Finally," Ning thought to himself and turned around. He teleported to the top of the barren planet where the wormhole was located.
The wormhole was easy to find. Like a dungeon gate, it was a portal that had formed in this location.
"I should be able to reach a high level as a mage if I do this," he thought to himself. However, before entering, he needed to do something else.
"System, gather information from my clone," Ning said.
Gathering Information
Ning closed his eyes and suddenly, he gained all the knowledge that his clone had gathered for the last 10 days.
Suddenly, Ning frowned. "What the hell? Earth is about to go through a lot of danger," he thought. "How did it come to be?"
Just like his clone, he was confused about the actions and motives of the constellations as well. Something didn't add right.
"System, what is going on? Why are they acting like this?" Ning asked.
The system didn't answer at all.
"System?" Ning asked after not hearing from it.
The system is unable to answer your question. The system could not find the answer.
"What?" Ning couldn't help but be surprised. "What do you mean you can't find the answer?"
The system can't give you an explanation at the moment.
"The hell?" Ning thought. "Then when will the dungeon break? Can you tell me that?"
Yes. The constellations are powering up the dungeons to the best of their ability, so within a day or two, the dungeon break will happen.
"And how strong will the monsters be?" Ning asked.
Between Tier 3 and tier 5.
'B-rank to S-rank,' Ning thought. That was much more than his clone had been expecting. 'That's going to be a problem. Should I return?'
However, he needed to become a stronger mage so that he could cure people of mana poisoning. Who knew what would happen after he went back?
"There are two more days," Ning thought to himself. "Pass along my memories to my clone.
Understood
"Hang on for just a little longer," Ning said softly and entered the wormhole in front of him.
Ning got all the information from the real Ning and got to work. With hopefully two days remaining, he could help them all as much as he could.
He made Ely, Night, and Blue go around the world, helping the various countries evacuate and helping them draw the magic circles to the best of their abilities.
In places that didn't have anywhere to draw the circles, for example in mountainous regions or deserts with loose soil, he helped evacuate them on large ships that Ely had made.
People from all around the world were very surprised, and many even wanted to learn what it was all about, but no one had the time to ask. They were all busy saving themselves.
Ning worked for an entire day straight, and after he was done, he stopped.
Everyone gathered in his house as they waited for the apocalypse to begin.
"We don't have to worry, right?" Jung-Hee asked. "It's only S-ranked monsters at most. We can defeat them."
"It's not the rank of the monster that's worrying here, it's the numbers," Hi-Ah said. "How many of them can you fight at once? Especially with so many dungeons all over the world."
The young man frowned. That was right.
"Here," Ely said as she brought out something. "I've had these prepared for you two."
She handed the two of them something, which they took with weird looks on their face.
For Hi-Ah, Ely had given a shield of some sort with spikes growing out on the front side.
For Jung-Hee, it was a bow. A very thin one at that, but it felt extremely sturdy.
The two siblings looked at the gifts with weird looks on their faces. "I think this is meant for you," Hi-Ah said as she handed Jung-Hee the shield.
"No," Ely said. "I made no mistake. Those are meant for you. They are the best I could make by reusing materials from other useless artifacts."
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"But, I'm not the defensive one, sister Ely," Hi-Ah said. "That's Jung-Hee. Wouldn't this fit him better?"
"These are not meant to help you improve what you are good at," Ely said. "You are already good enough for the upcoming battle. These are meant to help you address your shortcoming."
"Hi-Ah, you use long-ranged attacks, but if some monsters were to close up on you, you have no good way of defending yourself," she said. "Sure, with your new Immortal body you would most likely survive, but with how many monsters you will have to fight, you will get tired easily. This is meant to stop you from that."
"I… see," Hi-Ah said as she looked at the shield. "In that case, I must thank you, sister Ely."
Ely smiled. "As for you, Jung-Hee. Your defense is already good enough, but if you were to try and take an offensive approach, you would have to put your defense away and that is dangerous. For that reason, I made this bow for you. You can fire as many arrows as you can, and they will all hit their targets. I will teach you how to use them later."
"Thank you," Jung-Hee said as he looked at the artifact in awe.
"Also, you all. Wear these," she said as she brought out some armor. She only handed it to the two as the others had no need for it at all.
Even the weakest of the rest, Sorlus was far stronger than any average monster that would come out of the gate.
Saphandra would take Void, Terra, and Gray to fight on her own. They didn't have much power as the world was lacking spiritual energy, but they were still quite strong enough to beat the monsters that would come out.
Chase was about as strong as the two siblings, maybe a little less, and he would be fighting as well, in Paris.
Ely had already given him various artifacts to protect himself, so there was no reason to worry on that end.
His Uncle wanted to fight too, but due to the lack of experience, Ning decided to keep him in the house, along with his grandmother.
He was slowly teaching them to cultivate so that they too could become immortal, but it was taking some time. The two of them were old and thus weren't strong enough to cultivate constantly.
With time, however, they would certainly be able to.
That was if the apocalypse didn't destroy everything they wanted to protect.
"Did you give the weapons to everyone?" Ning asked.
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"As many of them as I could," Ely said.
"Keep count of that. You don't want them falling into the wrong hands once all of this is over," Ning said.
"I know," Ely said. "I've put failsafe on them. They will deactivate when targeted on a person."
"That's good," Ning said. "Were we able to save any animals?"
"I did save as many as I could," Ely said. "It's sad that we couldn't do anymore."
"It's alright," Ning said. "There are many worlds out there. I will find some with similar animals and bring them here if we do lose them."
Ely nodded.
Suddenly, the 4 of them all looked away as they all sensed the same thing.
Hi-Ah and Jung-Hee were surprised and spread their divine sense around them too. They noticed the dungeon that was closest to them had monsters coming out of them.
"So it begins," Ning said softly. "Hi-An, Jung-Hee you are in charge of South Korea. Do the best you can."
"Yes," the two of them said and moved out.
"Ely, you take care of all of Asia and Europe," Ning said.
"Consider it done," Ely said and left.
"Night, you are in charge of Africa," Ning said. "Make sure not to bring out the night. These people need to see to fight."
"Got it," Night said and left.
"Blue, you're in charge of Australia," Ning said.
"Leave it to me," Blue said and flew off.
"Come the rest of us are going to the Americas."
Ning grabbed Sorlus and the spirits from the room and vanished.
As soon as Ning arrived in front of a sprawling city somewhere in Brazil where the only sound was that of the dungeon monsters running wild through the empty city, he left Sorlus and the others and teleported again.
He arrived somewhere in the USA as that was the place with the most people for now. He could also go to Canada, Mexico, and other close locations with dungeons in it.
A spear appeared on his hand and he moved.
The monsters had yet to reach the group of human hunters that were waiting for them to come. He appeared in their midst with a massive spear domain around him as he cut many of the monsters at once.
Wolves, skeletons, Basilisk, rats, golems, goblins, orcs, and many other types of monsters all died within a few minutes.
There were a few still remaining, but Ning left. He had other places he needed to help. He appeared somewhere else and killed a bunch of the monsters again before leaving for another location.
This time around, the monsters and humans had clashed, so he couldn't instantly kill them all. Instead, he had to go for the backline to even have a bit of freedom. He killed many of the beasts there before disappearing again.
When he arrived at the next location, he paused for a second. To his surprise, there was someone very strong in this place that was already fighting someone else.
Ning looked at the person and realized that he knew her. "It's her," he thought to himself.
This was the same girl he had met a long time ago when he came to the USA to help them right after the tragedy had happened.
She was a newly formed Apostle with the power from Stryxus himself, who Ning had killed just a day later.
'Did Stryxus not take it back?' he thought. Now that he thought about it, he had killed Stryxus in his inner world, and as such, he had no way of communicating with the outside, and thus could not take back his power.
That was the reason why his girl still had her power, despite everyone else having already lost it all.
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'Well, this place is safe then,' he thought and disappeared again.
His divine sense captured a massive surface area of earth, and he used that to decide which place he needed to help the most and which place he could ignore.
Saphandra flew through the air with the other 3 spirits following her. She was able to communicate with them through her connection with Ning and could thus ask them to do a few things for her.
"Terra, block them," she said and Terra constructed a massive earthen wall to block monsters from coming forward. At the same time, giant earth walls formed all around them, putting them all in what was essentially a prison.
"Gray, kill them," she said.
Gray gave a happy laugh like jingling bells and flew through the walls appearing on the other side.
The many monsters did not even notice Gray, as they only searched for a way to get out of this place.
However, with Gray there, they no longer had to search for anything. Within seconds, their body grew old and they lost all the powers inside of them. They died of old age and fell to the ground, completely dead.
"Come back," Saphandra said and Gray came back to them. He jingled a bit, and Saphandra gave him a look of approval, making him jingle even more.
"Void, take far away in the direction," she said, and Void used his space powers to teleport them around to another location, where they quickly flew to find the next location of a battle.
Ely was far above in the atmosphere with her eyes closed. Her artifacts were flying all around the continents and she saw everything from there as if she was a god of this planet.
Her god-like sense saw the person that was being attacked by a zombie-like monster. With a single thought, a cloud that was floating in the sky shot down lightning, hitting the monster and saving the man.
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On another location, she saw a group of monsters gathered in a narrow location. She moved her hand and a massive sword appeared in the sky right above the monsters, which shot down to kill them all in one shot.
She took back the sword and looked at another location.
Her brother, Chase was fighting the monsters, but the monsters were weak so he wasn't having any trouble.
After all, these monsters were B-rank or A-rank at best. However, that wasn't any consolation at all.
After all, the monsters were still coming out of the dungeon by the minute, increasing in numbers even when many were killed. The worst part was, they were getting increasingly strong.
He thought moved and it started raining in another location. Each drop of water fell as if bullets shot from a machine gun, and they riddled the monsters below in many holes, killing even the worst of them easily.
Her thought moved again, and a cannon mounted on top of a building shot directly in front of the dungeon, causing a massive explosion that killed everything there.
She helped here, and then in another location. Her hands killed in one place and saved in another.
She was helping them all when she noticed something flying through the sky. "A nuke?" she thought.
Russia seemed to have launched a nuclear weapon, despite knowing that there were hunters there.
Ely frowned slightly. "Stop using these puny weapons," she said as he reached out.
As if transcending space and time, her hand appeared in another location that grabbed onto the nuclear missile and threw it towards the sky.
The nuke exploded somewhere outside the atmosphere, and then she went back to helping.
She continued helping for about an hour before she noticed something.
"Ning," she contacted him as concerns started brewing in her head.
Ning saw the same thing as well. "I should have expected as much," he said as he saw what had started coming out of the dungeons at this point.
Demons.
Hi-Ah flew in the sky as she swung her arms in front of her. A fiery whip attacked many of the monsters at once, killing them all.
Her divine sense wasn't as good as the other's, so she could only see what was happening in the city she was in. She flew to another location using a movement technique Ning had given her.
It was one of the fastest movement speed techniques apparently, but she had barely been given it for a week, so she didn't have the most time to train with it.
As such, she couldn't be as fast as would have hoped to be.
She arrived in another part of the city where another group of monsters was attacking the humans. She saw the hunters fight back against the monsters and they were mostly winning.
Kim Min-Soo was fighting amidst this group. She didn't have her bone necromancy powers anymore but she did still know a lot of magic spells that she had learned that were not Graves' power.
She fought with a sword using her strong and fast body while leading her guild to battle.
Hi-Ah realized she was not needed here and flew over to another place where they were fighting again. This time around, she couldn't help but stop in her tracks as she didn't know what to do.
Through her divine sense, she was seeing every single dungeon around her, and from each of them, humanoid monsters were coming out, one that was speaking in a language that her ring was translating back to her.
"Do we kill here?"
"That's what our god demands of us."
"I can't wait to drink some of their blood."
"Kill them quickly so we can leave."
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Multiple voices were translated back to her, slightly overwhelming her. At the same time, another voice entered her mind.
"Hi-Ah, you must fight those demons," Ely spoke into her head.
"Demons? Those… those are demons?" she asked.
"Yes," Ely said. "They are humans that have been corrupted by the constellations powers. They are intelligent beings, so hunters won't survive long against them."
"Also, not all of them have a mana stone in their chest, which will cause a lot of problems if they ever find the refugees," she said.
Hi-Ah was confused for a moment. Why would it be a problem if they found the refugees? They were still safe within the magic circle after all.
However, when she thought about the magic circle, her eyes went wide. "Non-human and ones with mana stones. That's who the magic circle is meant to defend against, isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes," Ely said. "There might be some amongst the newcomers that could enter the refugee camp. Besides, they use corrupted mana known as Magicule. We do not know if magic circles work against them, to begin with. So kill them all as soon as you can."
"Kill…" Hi-Ah hesitated. "But… aren't they humans?"
"Not anymore," Ely said. "If you don't kill them, they will kill you. This is not the time to be hesitating, little sister. This is when you kill first and think later."
Hi-Ah gulped and then nodded. Her resolve hardened and she went to fight the demons.
Ely and Ning spread the same information, this time to every one of the hunters. Before long, the battle was turning into a war.
Hi-Ah appeared in front of a group of demons. The moment she arrived, she attacked the demons. However, seeing the human expressions on their faces made her hesitate for just a second.
That was all they needed to know that they were being attacked and thus they managed to dodge it.
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Hi-Ah shook her head quickly, reminding herself that this was not the time to be holding back.
The group of demons, all S-rank looked toward her with nasty smiles on their face. Hi-Ah looked at the group with the demons and was disgusted by their features up close.
Black horns, black wings, black nails, crusty red skin, and eyes that looked like they belonged to a goat.
Some had tails on the ends of their back, while some had bone spurs coming out from all parts of their body.
"I want that girl for myself," one of the demons said, making Hi-Ah glare at them.
"Let's just kill her and be done with it," another one said.
"That's it!" Hi-Ah said and pointed her palm toward the group. "Die!"
A massive bolt of lightning flew from her hand and landed on the demon that called for her death. The demon turned into ash instantly, and the bolt flew to another demon to the side.
One after another, it went through the demons that were there. Some of the demons had been flying, and so they came charging at her.
Hi-Ah didn't even look as she brought out the shield in her left hand and held it there. One of the demons slammed onto the spikes on the shield, dying by himself.
The other demons stopped, but it was too late. Hi-Ah activated the shield and suddenly, the spikes flew out in every direction, flying through the crowd of demons, and piercing every single one of their heart. They returned to her shield before the demon that had landed on it had fully slid off from it.
When the demon's body landed on the ground, the rest of the demons were either dead with holes in their chest or had turned to ash entirely.
Hi-Ah looked at the pile of corpses that obviously had mana stones in them, but she didn't have the time to go through them.
The dungeon gate behind them was continuously pumping out more and more demons.
Hi-Ah killed another group of demons before they could step 5 meters away from the dungeon and flew to another location and started killing there as well.
One by one, she went to many different dungeons in her city and then outside of it as she killed as many demons as she could.
Even then, the demons just kept on coming endlessly.
Jung-Hee stood on top of a decently tall building and looked at the open land in front of him. Below him, the hunters had been fighting the monsters that had come out of the dungeons.
He had wanted to go down to help them, but apparently, his aid was needed elsewhere. He looked in the distance where the demons started coming out of the dungeon gate.
One after another, they came out like an army and quickly ended up with more than a hundred of them, with more coming out.
Jung-Hee shook his head and pulled the string on his bow. As he pulled, the bow drew out Qi from his body and it turned the energy into a glowing arrow.
Jung-Hee pointed the bow toward the demons for a second before pointing it into the sky. Even then, his eyes never left the demons at all.
Then, he let the arrow go.
The glowing arrow flew into the air, disappearing above the clouds. Jung-Hee stood up and felt the Qi in his body.
'This definitely uses quite a lot of my Qi,' he thought. At this rate, he could only shoot about 50 or so arrows before he was completely dry. He hoped that was enough for now.
He flew away, flying as quickly as he could towards the other city. After he had gone far away, the arrow finally came flying down.
This time around, there was not one arrow, but a hundred. The energy of that one single arrow had split into a hundred different splinters, each of which struck the demons out of nowhere, killing them instantly.
When Jung-Hee arrived in the other city, he once again attacked the demons before flying to another city.
He was going to have to do this over and over until he ran out of Qi. At that point, he would go back to using Mana to fight while he slowly absorbed more Qi to use.
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Blue was massive at the moment. He was a giant True dragon that was at least half a kilometer long. He flew through the ocean surrounding the continent of Australia.
His speed was incredible in water, and he only came out when his help was needed. Shots of water flew through the sky and landed on the demons with such force that their skin and muscles left their bones before they even realized something had hit them.
Blue continued flying and swimming around the continent helping both Australia and New Zealand as well as he could
Africa was perhaps the continent that needed the least amount of help.
The humans there had to fight in a sort of perpetual twilight as Night's presence caused the light everywhere to dim.
He flew high in the sky like a bird of death that looked down on all beings, humans, monsters, or demons.
His mind saw everything, and everything he didn't like burned in his fire.
Every single one of the dungeons in Africa was perpetually burning with Midnight Phoenix flames in Night's presence.
Africa didn't have that many hunters, to begin with, so they were very grateful for this.
Night continued focusing on it all as he kept the fires burning everywhere. If he were to stop focusing, there was a chance that the fire would either get snuffed out after everything was burned away, or it would propagate away from the dungeon, endangering the humans.
Even the ground burned with his fire, so he had to remain here, very careful as to not let any of it get out of hand.
"The fight is going better than we hoped," Ely said as another one of her artifacts launched somewhere in china, killing the newly arrived demons from a dungeon.
"Yes," Ning said. "But I'm afraid this might go on for much longer than we hoped."
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Ely couldn't frown at that thought. "Do you think they can handle it on their own for an hour or two?" she asked. "I don't think I can go on for more than 3 more hours."
"Let's just hope for the best," Ning said.
Ely nodded and killed another group of demons somewhere in the Czech Republic.
One of her artifacts was mounted on top of the alps, which threw out a barrage of attacks in all directions, killing every single monster that was coming out of the dungeons in a certain area.
In another place, the cloud of hers that flew in the sky was raining down lightning all around the place, killing the monsters and demons.
She was handling all of Europe and Asia all by herself. However, she didn't overestimate herself. Whether it was her mind, her body, or her Qi, something would give out in the next few hours as she had been continuously using all 3 for the past few hours.
With each country having somewhere between 50 and 500 dungeons now, it was taking a lot out of her to help the places that needed help.
Ning was the same. He couldn't let Sorlus and Saphandra handle all of South America, so he was helping there whenever he could.
Unlike Ely, his cultivation base didn't reach that far while he was in the upper USA or Canada, so he had to teleport there manually before checking on the situation.
He had been fighting nonstop for the past few hours, so he had been struggling as well. Worse of all, he had a feeling that the energy he had left himself with would run out in the next hours or so.
At that point, he would have only his cultivation base and Mana, which was nowhere near as efficient as his energy.
Still, he didn't let that stop him as he teleported everywhere, killing every demon and monster he came across.
From one place to another, he killed everything.
He teleported once again, to help somewhere else. However, just then, something struck him, sending him into the asphalt below him.
Ning's body healed itself with what little energy he had remaining and he looked up in the sky.
Standing there, Briss looked down at him with a rather angry look on his non-human face.
"Where the hell is he?"
Ning slowly got up. "I wonder who you might be talking about," he asked.
Briss did not like that sort of tone at all, so he slammed a bunch of power onto Ning, pushing him back into the crater he had formed on the road.
"You know damn well who I am talking about," Briss said. "Now tell me, where is he?"
Ning grunted to fight off the pressure that was attacking him, but he still managed to give a smirk to Briss, prompting him to get even angrier.
Briss was about to attack when another Constellation appeared out of nowhere and stopped him.
Ning looked at the constellation, whose name he didn't know, and frowned slightly. He had never interacted with this constellation at all, so why was it here?
"Young man, tell us where your doppelganger is and we will leave you," the constellation said.
"I have no reason to answer that, do I?" Ning said.
The other Constellation smiled with his eyeless face. "Then we shall give you a reason."
Suddenly, a hundred more Constellations appeared all at once, and a few of them were holding onto his friends and family.
Ely, Night, Blue, Sorlus, Hi-Ah, Jung-Hee, Saphandra, Void, Gray, and Terra had all been brought here out of nowhere.
"Let them go!" Ning shouted angrily.
"Once you tell us where he is," the Constellations said.
"What the hell do you even want with him?" Ning asked.
"That is no concern of yours," the Constellation said as it looked towards the others. "You have quite a group of individuals here. A Dragon, a Phoenix, another Dragon, A sapient Spirit, and a woman who has all but reached the pinnacle of cultivation in this world. You had quite a group helping you against the invasion, didn't you?"
Ning glared silently, not knowing what to do.
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The constellations suddenly tossed them all toward Ning. Ning caught Ely, who used her Qi to catch the rest of them.
The 142 different Constellations surrounded them, making everyone very scared for their life. Especially Hi-Ah and Jung-Hee who didn't know much about these constellations couldn't help but show clear fear in their eyes.
The constellations loved these sorts of emotions from a being with a soul. A happy soul could forget about them, but one that was afraid? They would never forget about them in their life.
Ning looked around with a confused look on his face. Something was wrong here.
'142,' he thought to himself. The number was wrong. There were supposed to be 143 after he killed Stryxus from the original 144.
"Where's the last Constellation?" Ning asked. "Did you guys fight amongst yourself and killed one of your allies?"
The constellations hesitated slightly and showed angry faces.
"Don't speak unless you want to answer about where he is," Briss said.
"I'm not speaking," Ning said.
"We will see," another Constellation said. "With how much you seem to care about these humans, once they start dying, you will answer us. That is for sure."
Ning couldn't help but frown.
"What do we do?" Ely asked. "Can you not call him?"
Ning shook his head. "I have no connection to him at all," he said. "He connects to me instead, and I don't know how long it would be before he comes back."
"You better hope he comes back then," Briss said from the side, listening to their conversation. "Because your little humans are starting to lose."
Ning let his divine sense out of the area and looked at what was happening. As he was told, the demons and humans had clashed, and the humans were not winning the fight at all.
It wasn't just Ning, everyone who could use their divine sense looked around and saw what was happening.
The hunters and demons fought each other, with neither coming out on top.
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The demons killed the hunters, tore apart their bodies, and massacred anyone else that came their way.
On the human side, the hunters also killed the demons. The hunters alone were not strong enough, but Ely's weapons that she had given them were killing a lot of demons.
It was an all-out war and unfortunately, it looked like the demons were winning.
With casualties on both sides, it would be a while before either of the sides completely won. However, as they thought that, a group of demons was circling around the cities and making their way to the human refugees.
Ning's eyes went wide and turned towards the Constellations. "You bastards! You told them about the powerless humans too?" he asked.
"We have to force his hands to return here somehow," Briss said.
"What the hell do you even want with him?" Ning asked.
"That's not something I can tell you," Briss said.
"Fine, then tell me."
A hand grabbed onto Briss's nape as another Ning appeared from a portal behind him. The system immediately activated as it started sucking away Briss's energy.
"No! No!" Briss started shouting as he felt himself dying.
The other constellations slowly backed off in fear. "Now, why don't you tell me why you are looking for me?" Ning asked.
"No, no, I wasn't," Briss said with a terrified voice. "It wasn't me. I was—"
His voice disappeared along with his body as Ning absorbed all of it.
"What the hell?" Ning couldn't help but be surprised. "What was that? I didn't even get 200 Septillion energy from him. How was he so weak? Did he spend it all on the dungeon?"
He looked towards the other Constellations who were slowly backing away, but for some reason didn't run away.
One of them attacked Ning, but Ning moved faster than the constellation and linked up to him immediately. Once again, he started consuming Constellation's energy.
"Are you guys okay?" he asked, looking at his Clone, Ely, and the others.
"Why were you so late?" the clone Ning asked.
Ning shook his head as he looked around. "I wanted to see what was going on here before I came," he said. "Something is happening here that even the system cannot answer, so I was trying to be cautious."
"But, since you guys were in danger, I had to come," he said. "And now that I'm here, you won't have to worry a thing."
Ning had come out of the wormhole within the first 2 hours of the dungeon break. As soon as he had come out, he had asked the system for information, and he had seen that things were mostly fine for now.
"Have you realized what exactly is happening back on earth?" he asked the system. "Why the Constellations are acting the way they are?"
None. The system cannot give you any information.
Ning frowned. What exactly was going on? Had the constellations realized what he was and been trying to find a way to bring him back? Was that why they had taken an active stance in all of it?
He had decided to wait for a few more hours and see, but unfortunately, it seemed the constellations couldn't wait. Now, the people had started dying because of his absence.
Since he couldn't wait any longer, he finally decided to return.
He was still grabbing onto the Constellation's neck as he looked at the other ones. The piercing screams of the constellation next to him were scaring the others from getting too close to him.
They didn't even dare attack him at all. Instead, they stood around and watched.
Ning could tell they weren't going to stand around doing nothing and would quickly attack. He needed to buy some time.
"So, it is true," one of them said.
"What is?" Ning asked. He secretly gave his clone a bit of his energy, and his clone immediately teleported away from the location with everyone.
He was going to go help the humans from the demons.
The constellations saw the others disappear, but they didn't care. They didn't even care that the dungeon break that they had perpetrated would turn out unsuccessful.
All they cared after all was for Ning to have come.
The crying constellation in his hand disappeared as Ning got another batch of energy. The remaining constellations saw that and gave an awkward smile.
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"So you really do have the Energy system," they said.
Ning immediately frowned. 'So they found out,' he thought. 'What now?'
He checked his status and realized that he still required some 800 Septillion energy. He would have to swallow a few of these constellations whole to achieve that.
"What's that?" Ning asked, trying to feign ignorance.
"No need to lie, we already had our suspicions for a few days, and now it turns out it is true," one of them said, with almost a manic expression on their face. "I hear you can't do anything while you are draining one of us."
Ning looked around as he realized that they were all trying to come after him. The crying constellation grabbed onto his hands as well.
"I got him. Save me!" he shouted.
At the same time, the rest of them charged at him. Ning dropped the constellation and disappeared from where he stood, going into the sky as far away from the planet as possible.
Since the Constellations were after him, he hoped that they were going to come after him.
Fortunately, they did.
Ning flew into outer space, but very quickly his path was blocked. The constellations appeared all around him and started locking down the space around him.
"He's mine!" one of them shouted and shot toward him.
Ning tried to dodge but there was no dodging the charge at all. It was as if space warped to bring him directly in front of the constellation.
Since he couldn't dodge, he punched.
His body was as strong as any Constellation's, perhaps even better, so when he punched it, the constellation's body broke into pieces, the skeleton his body was formed out of shattered and floated around him.
However, that didn't kill the constellation at all. It merely harmed it a little. The broken bones mixed together to form the constellation again.
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Ning couldn't watch that as he was instantly attacked by many other constellations as well.
He dodged one and attacked the other. His fist went through a constellation's head, but another grabbed him from behind.
A massive black ball of energy that seemed to warp light and space flew toward him. Ning quickly turned around, letting the constellation that was holding him take the brunt of the damage.
However, he was still hurt as even hit tough body was bleeding after that attack. His body healed itself, however, while the constellation that took the main hit could not anymore.
It had lost too much energy to reform.
'They are all very weak,' Ning thought. He was fearful about fighting all of them at once, but he was starting to understand that they weren't as strong as they were supposed to be.
At their best, he would have likely had no chance, but these people had given away most of their energy while creating the dungeons or opening a portal to the other worlds where the demons were at.
And that did not make sense to Ning at all.
They were here to live, so doing something that got them closer to death was not their way at all.
'Have they gone mad after being away from their system perhaps?' he thought.
A constellation tried to punch him behind his back, but Ning grabbed it with his hand. As soon as he grabbed it, the system connected with the constellation and started sucking away its energy.
The Constellation that had remained back on earth had died and now he could absorb some more.
Ning fought with the constellations constantly. He got hit a lot and he hit back a lot as well.
The fight was in a very confined space, but powers that could destroy earth were being hurled at each other.
Ning's punches alone could do so, not to mention the various types of attacks that were being thrown at him by the constellations.
The fight was mostly a standstill with neither side winning.
However, since it was a fight between an Immortal and beings that could die, the outcome was obvious if the fight prolonged for even more.
The Constellations realized that too. So, a few of them decided to use the underhanded way of winning.
"You're strong," one of them said. "So we won't fight you. Instead, if you don't give yourself up, we will blow up the earth."
Ning let go of the Constellation he was grabbing and smiled. "Fine, what do you want?" he asked.
The constellation he had just dropped cried out in pain as his life itself was being leeched away, but the other constellations seemed to not care at all.
They instead simply looked at Ning with a passive look on their face.
By now, about 40 of them had died already, of which only 4 or 5 had been through Ning's energy link. The rest had either been caught in the crossfire or had found themselves directly in front of Ning's fist.
"We want you to give us the Energy system," one of them said.
Ning gave them a weird look as he said, "I can't give you the system. Are you stupid? That's not how a system works."
The constellation looked around trying to learn if that was true or not. The others shrugged they weren't sure either.
"Have you ever seen how a system works in the first place?" Ning asked. "It attaches itself to a soul and cannot be taken away by the likes of you."
"No, you're lying," one of them said. "If you can't give the energy system then why would—"
The constellation stopped speaking as its face showed actual terror.
"Why would… what?" Ning asked.
The constellation quickly shook his head. "N-nothing," it said.
'That's not suspicious at all,' Ning thought as he looked at the other constellation who seemed to be afraid as well.
"You have to be lying," someone else said. "The Energy System is special. It should be able to be given away, unlike the other systems."
Ning frowned slightly. 'System, that's not true, right?' he asked.
Of course not.
'Then why do they think that?' he asked.
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The system is unable to answer that.
'You are not hiding answers from me again, are you?' Ning asked. 'This is not the time for that.'
No. The system genuinely doesn't have any answers. The answers are concealed very well.
Ning frowned. 'What does that mean?' he asked.
"GIVE ME THE SYSTEM NOW!" one of the constellations shouted suddenly, bringing Ning back his thought.
"Fine, Fine," Ning said. "Tell me how I should do it. I'm very new to the system."
The Constellations looked around, unsure what they were supposed to say next. How did one get the system from a human?
"Just do it," one of them said. "You should know how to."
Ning shrugged. "I really don't," he said. He sneaked a glance into his status and continued talking. "Please, do tell me how it is done. I will do it right now."
"Give us your soul," one of them said.
"Okay, take it away," Ning said as he let his arms wide open. "Come one, take it."
One of them moved forward slowly and used his powers to try and rip apart Ning's body. Ning felt the pressure from the force, but it was nowhere near enough to rip him apart at all.
"Let me help you," another one said and joined, but their powers were not enough either.
"I want in," another one said and walked up closer to Ning. He tried to add his force to the task, but before he could do so, Ning disappeared and grabbed him.
The constellation below him that he had been devouring all this time had disappeared, so he was forced to grab another one and start taking in that constellation's energy too.
"That's it!" one of the Constellations said. "I'm destroying Earth."
The others hesitated a little as destroying Earth would mean they were killing a lot of humans, and they could never do so directly.
They would have to force themselves to do so, which usually cost a lot of energy to do so. However, if that meant getting the Energy System, they were ready to do so.
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"You bastard!" Ning shouted and started attacking once more, but the Constellation disappeared.
"System, find him!"
Found him.
Ning quickly opened a portal directly only the surface of the earth and punched the constellation that was already there. He sent him flying into the sky, but at this point, some of the other constellations were coming in through the portal he left behind.
"Do not struggle," one of the said. "If you do, we will destroy the earth."
This time around, all the remaining 100 constellations started charging their attacks at once. The only reason they didn't let go of the attack was that they were hoping for Ning to give up the Energy system voluntarily.
Ning gave a mocking smile. "I knew you would do this," he said. "I've known this for a long time."
The constellations looked a little confused. "What do you mean?" they asked.
"Earth," Ning said. "Ever since I came back, I knew there would come a time when I would have to fight all of you. Fighting you wasn't that worrying, but having the fight take place on Earth was very worrying."
"Since you guys were so strong, I knew the Earth would get destroyed if I fought you on Earth. I needed to think of a way to get you out of here, so that even if the fight became chaotic, Earth wouldn't get caught in the crossfire," Ning said.
The constellations looked concerned, but they weren't sure where this was all going.
"In the end, I realized there was really no way to get you all out of Earth," he said. "With your abilities, you would always return no matter what."
"If you know that then quietly give us the Energy system," one of the Constellations said.
Ning ignored it and continued. "Since I couldn't get rid of you guys, I had to think of another way," he said. "And I did."
He slowly crouched down and laid both of his palms on the ground.
"If I can't get you away from Earth, then I will get Earth away from you," Ning said the exact moment he collected 1.5 Octillion Energy.
"Wha—"
"System, Transfer!" Ning ordered.
Suddenly, a massive amount of energy was spread out from Ning in an instant that covered the whole planet. In the next instant, the planet was gone.
Transferring Complete.
Earth is now in your Inner World.
The planet disappeared from right under the Constellations' feet, which scared them to no end.
"Where did it go?" they asked. "Where did Earth go?"
Ning smiled. "I have made Earth mine. It is now My World. You will never find it again," he said. "Now, then. Which one of you wants to die next? I can fight without any worry."
Seeing that they had nothing to blackmail Ning with, the constellations began running away. Ning beat a few of them, and even managed to link up to one in time before they were gone entirely.
However, he had to let them fly away in the end, as he couldn't follow everyone.
He stood where the earth existed before and sighed. He took a deep breath and looked around the vast emptiness. Now that the Earth was missing from there, there were bound to be some major changes to the solar system.
But without Earth in it, he didn't care what happened to this place.
"Finally… they're all gone," he thought and decided to rest for a bit. However, he remembered something else.
"Oh right, I need to check up on them," he thought and quickly entered his own world.
The earth floated neatly around the orbit of a star that was already in his Inner World.
To take something into his inner world, the amount of energy that cost for each item was dependent on not just the object itself, but the amount of time it would take to place it into his inner world.
A star the size of the sun would usually require him about 52 Nonillion, according to the system. However, he could reduce that number greatly by spreading the process over several days.
As such, he only had to spend around 600 Septillion in total to take in a star the size of the sun over the course of an entire year. That was why he had left all those days ago in the first place after all.
If he were to do it to something like Earth, it would cost no more than a few quintillions. However, because of how absolutely useless he would be since he had to stay in one place for an entire year, he had gone with the other approach that took it all in instantly.
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Without the humans, that amount cost him about 1.2 Octillion. However, when including the humans, he, unfortunately, had to pay 300 Septillion more energy.
However, given how much energy he had gained from the Constellations, he was more than okay with that.
As soon as he was in, the first things he searched for were the demons and monsters.
The dungeons had conveniently been destroyed from that location as the space they connected to was no longer accessible there. Instead, they were turning into pure energy that had nowhere else to go and was settling on the planet itself.
The demons didn't know what to do as they suddenly grew fearful at what had happened.
The humans were scared too. Day and Night had switched for many people, so it was understandable.
Ning snapped his fingers and the monsters died immediately. He also wanted to kill the demons, but they were being with souls, and Ning didn't want to eradicate them.
Instead, he decided to help them by restoring their corruption, as he had done with Hyesi. That would take some time, but that was something he had plenty of.
He teleported them all to the upper parts of Russia where no humans lived as they had been evacuated already. He formed a barrier to keep them there and let them know that they could not leave that place.
Once he was done with them, he used his mana to cast a magic spell known as The Divine Touch. Amplified by his energy, the Tier 10 healing spell landed on every hurt being in the world and instantly healed them.
Not only them, even the ones that were suffering from Mana poisoning or Cancer of even the smallest physical complication like a hurting knee instantly found relief.
With that done, Ning looked around at what else needed his help. He decided to ask Ely for her help with some minor decisions, but when he went to search for her, he couldn't find her at all.
He then searched for his clone, but he was missing too. So was Night, and Blue. As he continued looking, he found Sorlus, Saphandra, and the other 3 spirits were also missing.
Even Hi-Ah and Jung-Hee were missing. The only ones still there were Chase, his Uncle, and his Grandma.
"System… where are they?" he asked with a worried voice. "They should be here. Didn't I say everything except for the constellations was supposed to come in here?"
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The System did as you asked.
They were not here, to begin with.
Ning grew fearful. "Where are they then? What happened to them?" he asked.
The System does not know. The system requests the host to be careful. Someone is concealing information from the system.
Ning couldn't help but grow fearful after hearing those words. "Who the hell is this someone?" he asked.
The system does not know.
"Does that mean they were all left outside? They weren't outside," Ning said.
They were not brought here.
Ning quickly got back out. He looked at the deep space he was in, with even the closest planet nothing just a small glint in the distance.
"What am I supposed to do now?" he thought to himself. "How do I find them?"
Just then, a voice flowed into his head. "Looking for these?" someone asked.
HOST! PLEASE GET AWAY NOW!
Ning slowly turned around to find a human floating next to him with Ely and the others behind some sort of clear barrier that was cutting away his connection to them.
YOU'VE BEEN FOUND—
"Who are you?" Ning asked, trying his best to ignore the system's warnings.
"You know me," the man said. "You destroyed my system not too long ago."
YOU'VE BEEN FOUND BY A GALACTIC WILL
Ning remembered the name.
"Bayrus!"
Bayrus couldn't help but smile.
He had a long robe that was made up of… a galaxy itself now that Ning was looking at him properly. The cloth was the nebulous clouds and the gems were glowing stars.
Ning had never seen something so fascinating and so terrifying at the same time.
"So you do know who I am," he said. "So my guess wasn't wrong either. You really did destroy my system."
The system kept blaring messages, but Ning couldn't do anything right now. The warnings were useless since he was not going to leave his family and run away. He would rather die than do that.
"It was a stupid system that wasn't meant to help someone but rather use them," Ning said, remembering the system from the bamboo he swallowed. "I would destroy it each and every time."
"Oh, how righteous of you," Bayrus said, his smile never leaving his face.
Ning tried his best to come up with an idea to get out of this situation. He tried asking the system, but the system was of no use at all.
He needed to buy some time for now. "Was it because of you that these Constellations went out of their way to ruin themselves just to catch me?" he asked.
"Oh yes," Bayrus said. "I told them I was here for the Energy System and that they would be working with me to get me to it. They tried to kill you, didn't they? Idiots didn't realize that you were the system itself. Well, can't blame a measly constellation for being ignorant."
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'He knows about the system too,' Ning thought. "How did you know I had the system? I never made it obvious to anyone."
"Never made it obvious?" Bayrus suddenly laughed out loud as if he had heard the best joke in eons. "You were flaunting around your system so much that it would be impossible for anyone to not catch it."
Ning frowned. Was he doing that?
"I must say," Bayrus said. "I actually didn't come here for the system itself, but I am glad I did."
"What did you come here for then?" Ning asked. "To kill me?"
"Yes," Bayrus said. "Did you know how long it took to make a system that would continuously consume energy for the longest time before coming back to me? 2 Million years. Do you know how long that sort of time period is?"
Ning kept quiet.
"I was angry, so angry," he said. "I wanted to find the thing that destroyed my system and kill it. So, I followed the trail, which led me to this universe. However, the trail ran cold from there."
"I tried searching for some time, but in the end, I didn't even know where to begin with. The only reason I even stayed behind for so long was that there was a single planet with so many constellations gathered on it."
"I decided to watch what would happen here, how these cowards would tear themselves apart," Bayrus said. "However, imagine my surprise when suddenly, a portal opens up on this planet out of nowhere and when I followed that portal, it led to another galaxy. Now, I wondered who could be so powerful to do such a thing."
"Then, the very next day you teleport over to a Constellation's home space. Now, that's not something a human is able to do. So I dug around, and I found that you had recently killed a constellation, and that led me to the suspicion that you had the system."
"Of course, it was just a suspicion, so I had to wait for you to reveal yourself. I tried to get the constellations against you, but then you went ahead and disappeared again."
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"I couldn't follow you, or your system would let you know I was there. So, I had to wait. I realized you had created a clone, so I created an urgency to bring you back. I made the constellations all start the apocalypse early, and as expected you were back."
"Once you started killing them, I finally realized, I was going to be face to face with the fabled Energy system," Bayrus said. "Do you know how much I've studied your system over the time I've been alive? I've spent billions of years meeting and learning about you from the other galaxies. And now, it's my turn to be the one to share that information."
"I can finally get the Energy System and test it for myself," Bayrus said.
Ning suddenly teleported, arriving behind the Galactic will as he laid his hands on its back. As long as he could touch it, it would be fine.
However, when his hands did lay on its back, Ning realized that he wasn't touching the back at all.
There was a layer of space between him and the will, and that was infinitely further away than he needed to be.
"I'm up against an Energy system, did you think I would let you touch my body so easily?" Bayrus asked.
"System, what do I do?" Ning asked, begging.
But there was nothing the system could tell him at all. A fight against a Galactic Will, one that wasn't weakened as Genesis had been, was not a fight he could ever win.
"So, I am not wrong in assuming that you are a new user of the Energy system, am I?" Bayrus asked as he turned around. "How long has it been since you got it? Let me teach you how it is done."
"Put your energy onto your palm, and burn away this layer of energy around me. That's how you will get to touch my real body," Bayrus said.
Ning was confused that Bayrus was helping him at all, but the suggestion didn't sound wrong at all. So, he did what he was told to do.
He pulled out energy that was in his system and used it to drill through the defense that the Galactic will have placed on itself. However, no matter how much energy Ning used, he could not even make a dent in that defense.
"So," Bayrus spoke. "Now that you have realized that anything you do is useless against me, can we talk about your terms of surrender?"
Ning was helpless. There really was nothing he could do. Not even the system knew what to do in the situation.
So, he had no choice but to give in.
"Fine, do what you want with me, let them go," Ning said.
"Haha, of course, of course," Bayrus said. "I get the Energy system in return, so here. Have them back."
The bubble that was keeping Ely and the rest suddenly opened up to be large enough to cover Ning as well. Air flowed inside the bubble, and everyone started waking up slowly.
Even the ones that didn't sleep had fallen unconscious somehow.
Ning sent everyone but his clone and Ely back into his world immediately. Ely looked around, slightly freaking out that she was in space.
"What's going on? What's happening? Where is the earth?" she couldn't help but shout in surprise.
The clone instead just looked around and smiled slightly. "You did it?" he asked.
"Yes," Ning said. "But another trouble has come."
Both the clone and Ely turned around to look at the man standing inside the bubble with them. They slowly backed off.
"Who is that?" Clone Ning asked.
"A Galactic will," Ning said solemnly.
Ely looked surprised. "What is it doing here?" she asked.
"It is here for my system," Ning said.
Bayrus looked at them with an indifferent look. "Hurry up, I don't want to stay away from my galaxy for too long," he said.
"What does he mean?" Ely asked.
"I'm being taken away," Ning said. "I have nowhere to run."
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"What? No! Let's fight him. We can—"
Ning put his hands on her mouth to stop her from talking. "Don't worry, I won't die," he said. "I'm immortal, remember?"
Ely didn't know what to say anymore. She could only cry.
Ning instead smiled at her. "Don't worry, I'll be there with you in a minute. Go back to Earth for now," he said and sent her into his world as well.
Only the Clone Ning, the real Ning, and Bayrus remained in space.
'System, can you tell me exactly what will happen to me once I get captured? You can at least tell me that right?' Ning asked.
Once you are captured by the Galactic will, you will be experimented on.
the energy in you will be ripped off and put back into you. They will try their best to learn how the system works, so in that process, they will all but destroy the energy that you inhabit in your core.
It is most likely everything you have ever worked for will be destroyed as well. Including everything from skills to knowledge that you have received. You will even lose most, if not all of your memories.
Not that any of that would be necessary as the Galactic Will will never let you gain enough energy to make use of them in the first place.
it is likely that starting now, you will not be free for a very, very long time.
'Can you tell me if other hosts have been captured and how they managed to get free?' Ning asked.
The most common way of escape for most hosts has been only when the Galactic Will they were under was killed due to the galaxy itself disappearing. Other than that, unless another host comes to save you, there is no method of escape.
Ning was starting to feel worse and worse as he heard. So many years he would have to be away from Ely and the others, and he had only just gotten back together with everyone.
'What about the world inside of me? Will it be destroyed? Or will it remain safe?' he asked.
The space itself will remain safe, but it can't be answered whether you will still remain its owner or not.
Ning sighed in relief a little. "As long as it is safe, that's all I want," he said.
"Are you done?" Bayrus asked.
Ning looked towards him and shook his head. "Almost, I have one more thing to do," he said and turned around towards the Clone, which was now fully connected with him.
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"Well, that's it then," the clone said as he slowly took off his ring and tossed it to the real Ning.
Ning caught the ring and wore it. Then, he asked the system to create 9 more rings, each of which he wore on his other fingers.
Then, he poured as much energy as he could into those rings. With that, he should be able to use a few of the skills that were inside each of these rings.
"Oh right, one last thing," he remembered at the last second.
He asked the system to give himself the strongest bloodline out there and finally made it so that his seeds were fertile.
Ely had been asking for a baby for the longest time, so it was about time for him to fulfill her wishes. Besides, seeing how uneventful his life was going to be for a very long time starting now, he decided that he wanted to have some children himself as well.
Once he was done, he looked toward the clone, and the clone smiled back. "Just do it already," he said.
Ning transferred over to the clone, while his real body became the clone now. He quickly took the stronger body into his world and sighed.
'Make sure I have a large family to get back to when I finally get out of his clutches,' he said softly and looked toward Bayrus.
"Well, I'm ready to go, but I don't think I want to give you the satisfaction of victory here at all," Ning said.
"Hmm?" Bayrus was confused.
"System, shut down."
Are you sure?
"Yes."
Understood.
Shutting down the Energy System.
All Energy functions have been disabled.
The System will be enabled only when the host demands it to.
"There you go," Ning said. "That's my ultimate fuck you to you. I hope you like it."
Bayrus smiled. "That is barely an obstacle at all," he said. "I will get it back online in no time at all."
He grabbed Ning with his energy, who failed to remain conscious due to how weak his current body was.
"Now then, let us leave."
They flew up to a wormhole some thousand light-years away and disappeared through it, making their way to the Bayrus Galaxy.
Ning appeared on Earth, next to Ely who had been standing with eyes full of tears. The moment he returned, she jumped onto his embrace.
However, when she did embrace him, she left him immediately as a confused look appeared on her face. There was a contradiction in her expectation and reality which was making it hard for her to understand what was happening there.
"Did you manage to get away from him somehow?" Ely asked. She could tell that his cultivation base was far stronger than her own and his body was just as equally strong.
That was something that was only possible for the real Ning's body to be.
Ning shook his head. "He got me," he said. "He's probably taking me back to his world to start experimenting on me soon."
"Then…" she asked.
Ning explained what he had done in the end and how he had all but himself with him at the moment.
Ely gave him a blank stare as she asked, "Does that mean… you are a clone?"
Ning gave a sad smile. "For me, I have no clone. All of these are my own bodies," he said. "Or, in a more truthful sense… none of them are. I don't have a physical body so you can think of everything as a clone."
"I guess it all comes down to how you view it," he said.
"You have the same memories, feelings, and experiences as the real Ning right?" she asked.
"I made myself the exact copy of me intelligence-wise, so there is no difference," he said.
Ely suddenly teared up and fell into his embrace again. "Then you are real for me," she said as she hugged him as tightly as she could.
Ning hugged her back, feeling glad to be accepted at all.
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"What will happen to you now? You won't die, so will you be tortured forever?" she asked.
Ning shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "I don't feel pain as an energy, so that is something."
"You should have run away," she said. "You shouldn't have given yourself up."
"And leave you all to die?" Ning asked. "If you expected that from me, then you never knew me at all."
"I worry for you," Ely said, tearing up again.
"I worry for myself," he said. "But, let's not tell the others. Let's not have them worry for now."
"What will we tell them then? That you managed to escape?" she asked.
"Hmm, let's just tell them that I gave up my system for my freedom," he said. "I do not know when I will be returning, if ever, so that should be fine."
"Are you… are you really going to take a very long time to be free?" Ely asked.
"I asked the system how long it will take me to be free. It said that realistically, I won't be free until the Galactic will itself doesn't die," Ning said. "That being billions of years in the future."
"Billions… how far in the future is that?" Ely couldn't help but ask. The concept of billions of years was not something she was sure she understood. She wasn't even 10 thousand years old yet, not even half of it.
Even if she had an Immortal God realm cultivation base, would she still be alive by then? By the time Ning was finally free. She did not know, and that terrified her.
Ning held her tightly. "I'm here, you won't have to worry about time. No matter how long it is, I'm here to spend it all with you," he said.
Ely nodded and they finally stopped worrying about Ning and started worrying about themselves.
Ning could teleport using the skills in his ring, but he decided not to. With his system gone, he would not have the energy to do anything for a very long time.
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So, unless it was an emergency, he would not use the energy in his rings. Instead, he simply flew away. With such a high cultivation base and Mana tier, he could make the rounds of the entire planet in a matter of seconds if he wanted to.
"Hmm?" He noticed something as he flew.
Ely looked towards him. "What's wrong? What happened?" she asked.
Ning pointed towards the black sky and below him at the ocean water. "I forgot to put the moon on since I was in such a hurry," he said as he stopped.
"Oh, right," she said. "I thought it was unusually dark today. Where are the stars?"
"There is no star here," he said. "We're in my inner world where I only have the sun and the earth. There is nothing else that exists in here other than that."
"Wait… what?" Ely asked.
Ning quickly explained what he had done.
"We're in your inner world? So we do not have access to any other world?" she asked. "Wait, what happens if the moon is gone?"
"Let's see," he thought. "Planet spins stupidly fast without the moon's gravitational pull. We don't get light at night. A very strong wind will start blowing very soon that will kill anything and everything. And then… what was the last one? Oh right, marine life will start dying. Those were the important ones as far as the moon is concerned."
Ely was horrified to hear that. "What do we do then?" she asked.
"Don't worry," Ning said. "I planned it all from the start. I knew something like this would happen, so the system made something for me?"
"What did it make?" Ely asked. "A moon?"
"No, just something to replace a moon," Ning said as he fished through the storage ring before finding the artifact.
It was a small crystal ball that he suddenly threw out of the planet. "Go, do your thing."
The small crystal ball suddenly blew up to become a massive moon, surprising Ely and everyone that was on the darker half of the planet.
"You created a moon?" she asked with a surprised expression.
"Huh? No," Ning said. "Look at it. It's an illusion that gives off light. Its main job is the gravitational pull that it provides for the earth while emulating a moon. We should be fine with this."
How… how long will this fake moon last?" Ely asked.
"Forever?" Ning said. "It uses the sun's energy to work. Although I can also put a fusion reactor on it later if that turns out to be not as useful."
With a fake moon up in the sky to stop disasters from happening, Ning and Ely returned to their friends and families who were waiting for them.
"Master! Sister Ely, you're back," Blue was the first to speak.
"Brother, are you okay?" Jung-Hee asked.
"What is happening?" Saphandra asked. "The sky was black for a second and then a moon appeared out of nowhere. Are we in some sort of trouble?"
Ning smiled. "It's alright," he said. "I will explain everything later. For now, I need to go check on the demons."
"Oh right," Ely said. "I'll help you take care of the others too."
Ning nodded and let Ely go to some other part of the world to help them.
"Night, go check if the fires are still burning in Africa. Blue, go check the other side of the world and see if they still need some help."
After his orders, the two beasts flew away to go check on everything. Then, Ning flew to the cold regions of Russia where the demons were placed under a barrier.
He passed through the barrier easily and appeared in the sky for the demons to all see him.
The demons had thick skins and wings, so they weren't very cold, but the temperature was still uncomfortable for them.
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"Can you guys understand me?" he asked, speaking a language he wasn't sure if the demons knew or not.
"Who are you?" one of the demons spoke in a language that he wasn't speaking at all. Ning quickly realized which language he needed to speak and the ring translated it for him.
"You have all been captured, and will likely never see the light of day again," he said.
The demons got angry as soon as they heard that. Some of them tried to attack Ning, but a single spell activation was enough to deter them all.
When they saw a Tier 10 skill being used, their mouth shut down like someone had glued them together.
"You have 2 choices," Ning said. "I will turn you all back to human, and then you will go live with the humans peacefully. Or I will give you this region for you to live in forever, without ever being able to leave it. What do you choose?"
The demons looked around at each other, none of whom could come up with a decision immediately.
"Don't worry, I have no intention to harm you," Ning said. "If I did, you would have all been dead by now. Instead, I just want to make sure you are not a threat to the humans that live on this planet. So, I'm giving you this choice."
"I will give you a week to come up with a decision. Talk amongst yourself, but don't you dare fight each other. I will be keeping an eye on you," Ning said. "I'll see you in a week."
He flew away from the place, leaving the demons in the terrible state they were in. He was hoping to turn them all into humans, which would require him to use mana to wash out all magicules from their system. After that, everything would revert back on its own.
Ning went back to see where they needed help, but most of the things that actually needed his help didn't really exist.
There was an entire group of humans who hadn't fought or done anything. So, he didn't really have to help much at all. He still helped out here and there, and after a day of helping, he and everyone else returned back to their house where his Grandmother and Uncle were waiting for them.
Seeing everyone alive and well, his grandmother couldn't help but cry in relief. His uncle got teary-eyed and started praising them and telling them how proud he was.
With everyone back, they could finally be relieved and have some free time.
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Days slowly passed and they all hung around in that period of time. There was no work, no responsibility, nothing, so they simply stayed around, talking to each other.
Ning gave them the news that he had lost the system, and while they were all sad for him, they understood that he had to make that sacrifice to save them.
"Does that mean you will die now, master?" Night asked.
"What are you saying, Night?" Ning asked. "Even without the system, I'm still immortal, aren't I? My cultivation base is the highest of you all."
"Yes, but… you are killable now. Is that not bad?" Night asked.
"I mean… yes," Ning said. "But there isn't really anything in this world that can kill me. I can jump into the sun and that won't kill me, so I'm fine."
"Oh," Night said. "Then that's very good." He smiled a little, something that was almost impossible to see from Night.
"What do we do now?" Blue asked. "We don't have a connection to any other world right? So, we can't go to Anya and the rest."
"No," Ning said. "They are… they are living their own life now. We will live our own life."
"Okay…" Blue said. "But master, what do I do now? I thought you were going to help me find some True Dragons so I can be together too. Does this mean I won't get the chance?"
Ning hesitated a bit. "It's likely that you won't get such a chance anymore," he said. "I'm sorry."
Blue sighed a bit. "Does that mean I will have to get together with a human girl?" he asked.
"It's your choice," Ning said.
"I suppose that's my only choice," Blue said.
"Oh," Hi-Ah suddenly thought of something after hearing their talk. "Speaking of getting together with someone, since you guys have nothing to do anymore. Why don't you finally have a proper wedding?"
"A proper wedding?" Ning asked. He looked towards Ely who couldn't help but smile at the question.
"Sure," Ning said. "Once the world is back to normal, we will hold our wedding."
Ning went on to help the demons revert back their body to a human forms again. They decided to not remain as demons, mostly so they could not be trapped in the icy hell forever.
The process of sending mana through their body and slowly pushing out the magicules would take a lot of time, at least a few years or so, so Ning let them get settled in for now.
There were two ways for him to help them get rid of the magicules in their body.
The first was the method Ning used to help Hyesi. That was to have him absorb mana from a mana stone and circulate it throughout his body while trying to push it to every part of his body, including the wings, horns, and tails.
Even the red skins resulted from magicules, so he had to push it there too.
Ning could not use that method with these demons. Given the millions of them that were there, that was just an impossible task.
He had a lot of mana stones, mostly something he acquired from the other universe which he had quickly visited to reach Tier 10 as a mage while not using as much time.
However, that amount would be puny in front of what these people would be needing if he were to individually hand them the mana stones.
Thankfully, now that Ning was a tier 10 Mage, he had more ways than one to restore a demon into a human.
The easiest way was to use a spell.
He lifted his hands and a massive magic circle flashed for a few seconds as he used Tier 10 Holy spells that would hurt a demon very, very bad.
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'Holy' wasn't an elemental affinity of the spell at all. While people thought that, all 'holy' spells were usually just pure mana.
And when the pure mana entered the demons, it fought against the Magicules in their body, hurting them.
Since demons were hurt by pure mana, it came to be known as holy.
Ning saw the tortured demons on the ground. Any more of such a spell and they would most likely die. 'I will have to do it in moderation,' he thought.
"Settle down, I will come back in a month or so, and you will get treated again. We will have to do this for a long time before you get fully restored as a human," he said and left.
Ning would have to think of a place to keep the demons in the future as the snowy lands of northern Russia were not a very good place for ones that were slowly becoming humans.
Without the infrastructure, they would easily die.
Ning went around the world helping different countries recover a bit more. He taught some more about Magic circles, giving them a few more blueprints so they could use them to help themselves.
There wouldn't be much use to it in the future as mana on Earth no longer had a supply from the dungeons, but it should still be usable for the foreseeable future.
It was the same with Qi as well, so Ning had to sparingly use the Spirit stones he had as well.
At some point in the future, they were all going to be Immortals who could not use Qi, and Ning only wanted to push it as far back as he could.
Once everything was done and the world was back in order a month later, his wedding date was finally decided.
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It was to be held a week later on an island to the east where only a very small number of guests were to be invited.
Most were going to be family, but there would also be a few outsiders as well. Mostly it would be a few close family friends of his uncle's and Chase's.
Aside from asking Ning and Ely what sort of wedding they wanted to have, they were not told anything else at all.
Hi-Ah, Jung-Hee, and the rest decided to do everything by themselves from establishing a venue on a remote island to preparing a priest and everything.
Ely wanted to have a wedding similar to the ones she always saw in the movies. So, it was going to have to be a traditional Christian wedding.
The days passed by in a flash, and it was the day of the wedding.
Ely was taken away to get ready and Ning couldn't see her until the wedding itself. He went ahead and dressed in the clothes prepared for him.
He hadn't thought much of the wedding, thinking it would just pass by, but for some reason, he couldn't help but feel like it was a special day. He was feeling a little nervous now.
He arrived at the beautifully prepared wedding hall on a small island surrounded by the ocean. He waited outside for a while as his Uncle talked with him, telling him how proud he was.
He walked through the sandy floor and arrived on the small stage where the priest was already waiting. He stood on one side and looked towards the crowd.
Only his friends and families were there and they were the ones waiting for them. Only 2 people were missing from what he could see, and they were arriving right now.
Soft wedding music played as Ely walked around from the corner holding her brother's arm who seemed to be unable to hold in his tears.
Chase sniffled softly, trying to keep his tears at bay. His sister had died years ago, so he didn't even imagine the possibility of her getting married, and yet through bizarre luck, he was walking her down the aisle today to get married.
Ning looked at Ely whose face was hidden behind a thin white veil that was part of her white dress that seemed to be illusory. The bottom of her dress seemed to leave specks of light even while she stood still.
He could see a soft smile beneath her veil even while it was hidden.
Having seen a million stars and nebula, this was still the most beautiful sight he had ever seen in his entire life.
Ning Ruogong, do you take this woman to be your wife, to live together in holy matrimony, to love her, to honor her, to comfort her, and to keep her in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?" the priest asked.
Ning looked Ely in the eye and said, "I do."
The priest then turned toward Ely and asked, "Elenora Rigot, do you take this man to be your husband, to live together in holy matrimony, to love him, to honor him, to comfort him, and to keep him in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?"
Ely smiled back. "I do."
"Repeat after me," the priest said.
"I, Ning, take you Elenora, to be my wife"
"I, Elenora, take you Ning, to be my husband"
"" …to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.""
Hi-Ah and Jung-Hee brought out the rings which Ning and Ely put on each other's hands.
"I pronounce you husband and wife," the priest said. "You may now kiss the bride."
Ning leaned in and kissed Ely.
Soft claps sounded from around the crowd, some even cheered. Ning and Ely turned around to see the happy faces of their family.
Chase was a crying mess, and so was Ning's uncle. Even his Grandmother was crying a little.
They walked down from the stage and Ning's uncle walked up to congratulate him. "I wish your parents were here to see this. They would be so proud," he said as he hugged him.
The others came up to congratulate them as well. Ning's grandmother gave what was perhaps the most long-winded speech to the two newly married couple, all to just say that Ely was a part of their family.
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There was a small feast afterward where Ning and Ely cut a giant cake. They danced to a few songs and then took some photographs.
After that, the wedding was over.
It was short but memorable, just the way Ning wanted it to be.
"What do we do now?" Jung-Hee asked. "Do we just go home?"
Ning looked at him and chuckled a bit. "Well, Ely and I will be going on our honeymoon, so you guys can go back home and wait for us to come back," he said.
"Oh, where are you going?" Jung-Hee asked. "Are there any good places to go right now? I think every place is trying to recover still."
"Don't worry, I have a plan," Ning said. He turned around to an open spot on the beach and pulled out something from his storage ring.
It landed neatly on the sand and immediately got a reaction out of Chase, who couldn't help but shout "Aliens" when he saw it.
"Is that…"
"A spaceship," Ning answered. "We're going into outer space on our honeymoon."
"Can this thing really take you to the Outerspace?" Hi-Ah asked. "How does it work?"
"Fusion reactor," Ning said. "It's a technology I found in another galaxy. I might have to copy it and start having the various countries use it soon so we don't end up spending all of our natural resources. We only have one planet, quite literally, so we can't afford to have it be unlivable."
Ely looked at the spaceship. "I would've loved to go on this thing when there were still stars in the sky," she said. "I don't see the point of going out there anymore."
"Oh, you can see the stars," Ning said. "I planned it all. Come on."
Ely wasn't going to refuse now. "Sure, let's go," she said.
The stairs came down from the underside of his spaceship and the two newly married husband and wife boarded it.
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They appeared on the bridge of the spaceship a minute later and saw everyone staring at them. They waved their hands in goodbye and then the ship started flying.
Ning set the speed of the ship very low and quickly put it in orbit, from where they could see the entire planet easily.
"Wow!" Ely couldn't help but say. She had seen the entire planet with her own sense, but seeing it all at once was something different. It was an experience she didn't think was possible.
The spaceship went around the planet as Ning and Ely watched it all from the window. Then, after a while, Ning pulled her back and made her sit on the captain's seat.
Then, he spoke to the ship's AI.
"Put on the last recording," he said.
"Understood!"
Suddenly, the massive windows at the front of the screen switched from showing earth to an image of outer space, and there were hundreds of thousands of stars on the screen for Ely to see.
"That… that is so beautiful," she said, tearing up a little. She felt sad that she was never going to see such a thing ever again.
"Just let me come back," Ning said as he held her hand. "I will show you things that will put everything you've seen yet to shame."
"Thank you," she said.
Ely turned around and kissed Ning, who responded with a kiss of his own. The two remained kissing for a minute before it evolved to much more than just kissing.
The clothes came off very quickly and before either of them knew it, they were deep in passion.
The stars moved on the window screen, while Ning and Ely moved with each other.
Ning was going to fulfill her wishes now, something she had wanted for a while now. He was going to give her a baby.
As the husband and wife were lost in passion, the pictures in the window stopped them from seeing what was happening outside.
In the darkness of their world, small, bright cracks formed through which energy permeated throughout the space.
The energy seemed to be repelled by the sun, so naturally, it settled on earth.
ZSS Unity III flew through the darkness with no hint of light around it at all.
Ning had Ely sat inside, watching through the front window to see if they could find anything out here.
The world Ning had created was just around the size of Earth's solar system, so they were both curious what was beyond that.
What was at the end of space? A wall? More space? Just what would be there.
The ship continued flying until Ning was sure that they had reached the very end.
"This should be about it," he said. However, there was nothing out here at all. The ship only continued flying onwards with no sign of stopping.
"What's going on?" Ely asked. "How is there more space?"
"I… don't know," Ning said. "That should have been it. We already passed the threshold. Am I wrong?"
As they flew, suddenly they noticed something. As if appearing out of nowhere, something bright flashed in front of the window far away in the distance.
It was akin to someone having turned on the lights in the distance, which confused both Ning and Ely to no end. Even the ship's AI wasn't able to tell what it was from this far away.
Ning didn't have his vision skill, so he was as lost as anyone. So, he had to wait like everyone to figure out what he was looking at.
As they got close, he finally saw what it was.
"What? How can that be?" he couldn't help but ask.
"There's another?" Ely asked as well.
In front of them was another star that burned as brightly as their own, something that should not exist in this world at all.
"How is this possible?" Ning asked, and just then they both saw something. Another planet. One with a blue shine.
"That's…"
"Earth!" Ely said. "Wait, so this is not another sun. It is our sun."
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"Yeah," Ning said confusedly. "So… we must have somehow turned around when we reached the edge, because we were definitely going away from the sun, not toward it."
He couldn't come up with any other explanation, so he let the matter be.
"We've somehow returned without intending to," Ning said. "What do you want to do? Should we go around for a while, or should we go home?"
"We've been out here for a month, and I've seen most of the videos your ship has, so watching anymore won't help me much," Ely said. "Besides, I think I'm ready to give them the good news."
She gently lay a hand on her lower abdomen with a smile on her face. Ning couldn't help but lay his hand on top of her own.
"Alright, let's give them the news."
The ship entered the atmosphere and before long, they landed outside of their house in Korea.
Everyone who was there came out to greet them. They asked them where they went on vacation and various different things.
Ning told them most of what he could and then had them all gather inside the house. He then called over his grandmother and uncle as well, and then finally dropped the news.
"Ely and I are going to have a child."
"What?!"
"Woah!"
"I knew it!"
Various reactions sounded from around the room as well as looks of shock that said they had never expected this. Then, everyone started congratulating them.
"Are you… are you really pregnant?" Chase asked, unbelieving.
"Yes, brother," Ely said with a slight blush on her face.
Chase couldn't help but tear up when he heard that. "That's the best news I've heard in a while. This is even better than the time I walked you down the aisle. Although, isn't it a bad timing. Having it be so suddenly, the world is still—"
"Suddenly? You mean finally!" Blue said. "I was wondering when you were going to have a child, master. I was sure you were going to have one while we were in Gionia, but I suppose now is as good as ever too."
"Does… does that mean I'm going to become an uncle?" Jung-Hee asked.
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"So am I," Night said with a weird look on his face. "I am, right?"
"You are," Hi-Ah said. "And I'm… I'm going to be an aunt."
"My dear child," Ning's grandmother walked up to them and gave them both deep hugs. "I am so happy for you."
"Grandma, you're going to be a Great-Grandmother," Jung-Hee said.
"And… I'm going to be a grand-uncle," Ning's uncle said. "I suppose I'm old enough to be one now."
Everyone started talking about the child, and they even started coming up with names for the baby.
Blue and Jung-Hee were the ones that came up with the worst names, so the group quickly stopped them from coming up with suggestions.
Hi-Ah quickly started listing down names that would be good for either girls or boys.
"You don't know the gender yet, right?" she asked.
Ely shook her head. "The baby was only just conceived. It will take some time," she said.
"Alright, then we'll come up with both names," she said and worked on it.
Blue and Jung-hee wanted to join back in, but they were not allowed, so they could only go join Ning and Ely.
"Right, master. Now that you're back, I wanted to ask about the thing that apparently happened on the day of your wedding," he said. "Was that you?"
"Hmm? What are you talking about?" Ning asked.
Blue turned towards Jung-Hee. "Do you have the TV?" he asked.
"You mean the video? Yes, I do," Jung-Hee said and brought out his phone to play something.
Both Ely and Ning watched the video with a very confused look on their face. Bright spots of light in the sky appeared for a few seconds before disappearing.
People had taken video of the event from multiple direction, so Ning was sure it was not fake.
"This wasn't you?" Blue asked.
"No," Ning said. "And I have no idea what this is."
"Are we… safe?" Jung-Hee asked.
"My system said we are, so I doubt we are not," Ning said. "But still, it might be better to stay alert."
Ning observed the phenomenon with his own eyes on 5 different occasions, and through other means for a total of 12 times in the last 5 years.
Each time, the phenomenon lasted for maybe 5 seconds at most, but in those 5 seconds, it looked as though stars had suddenly formed in the sky and vanished just the same.
Ning prepared for the worst, but nothing bad really happened any of the time at all. Nothing really happened in all 5 years.
"What does it really mean, Ning?" Ely asked as she stood next to Ning. "Should we be worried?"
"I don't know," Ning said. "I have no idea why stars would form out of nowhere in the sky. Should I take the ship to go see it up clo—"
"No!" Ely said. "If it's something bad, you won't be able to survive. You are mortal now, remember? What if it's that Galactic Will Bayrus trying to force its way in."
Ning shuddered a little when he heard that. "That's what I worry about the most. I worry that the system was wrong and that the inner world can be damaged by the Galactic will."
He turned around to Ely and said, "you shouldn't be worried though. Whatever comes your way, it will have to go through me first."
"I know," she said as she grasped his hand. "But I still can't help but worry. Both about that, and… this."
Her hand softly touched her belly which hadn't protruded as much despite it being 5 years since her child was conceived.
"I'm sure our baby is fine," Ning said. "Cultivators are known to take a while to give birth to children."
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"But 5 years?" Ely asked. "I'm done my research and apparently the baby is still in a stage where it would be for the first month of any pregnancy."
"Do you know what that means? If I wasn't aware that I was pregnant back then, I still wouldn't have found out, despite it being 5 years later," she said. "At this rate, it will take nearly 50 years for our child to be born. Is that normal, Ning?"
Ning had his own fears. "No, that's not normal," he said. He knew everything Ely knew, but he had been keeping it all to himself. He did not want to worry her at all, and yet, it seemed that he couldn't stop it.
She was an intelligent woman who could do her own research. Keeping her in dark didn't work at all.
"Our child is going to be okay, isn't it?" she couldn't help but ask with a quivering voice.
"Of course," Ning said resolutely. "There is no way at all that our child will be born as anything other than a healthy baby. Hell, this is probably my fault, to begin with."
"I asked the system to give me the best bloodline and fertile seeds before I was taken away, so this is probably what it means to have the child of someone with a great bloodline. It probably takes ages to develop enough to come out of their mother's womb."
Ely relaxed a little when she heard that. "I hope you are right."
Both of them calmed down and went back to their normal life.
In the past 5 years, the world was back to normal, as normal as it could be after an apocalypse. It was normal, but problems obviously came out regardless of how one tried to transition from the phase of Dungeons and Hunters to a normal society from before it all.
The famous Hunters and Apostles were suddenly useless, making a significant portion of the population lose their job and importance out of nowhere.
While a few got jobs in military or government sections and many managed to move on, some were still held back by their view of themselves, where a world where they weren't treated as kings was not a world they wanted to live in.
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Resistance and even terrorist groups formed all around the world. Rebellions happened that tried to overthrow the government and some even tried to bring back a world where power dictated everything.
Such groups and protests were easily quelled by Ning's beasts and cousins whose single presence was enough to make everyone feel inferior.
Everywhere they went, they didn't need to fight at all. They simply needed to show what they could do, and that was enough to make every single organization shut up indefinitely.
Now, 5 years later, the world had found its groove again and functioned as well as it did all those years ago.
It was around this time Ning taught the countries about the fusion reactor technology from the Yomire galaxy. With that, people would no longer have to waste precious resources for energy and the world would soon become clean.
Ning continued helping the demons settle on earth. Their 'cleansing' was all but done. Just a few more times and they would lose almost all the traits that pointed to them being a demon beforehand.
He spent some time helping them learn about the earth, its culture, technology, as well as various language so they could transition well.
Since they were now human, they deserved as much.
As a human, the demons no longer had the same aggressiveness to their actions and no longer had the urge to fight and kill anything in their path.
They were free from the corruption of magicule and were free to live their lives without worry on earth.
Ning collaborated with multiple countries to give refuge to these demons so they could better integrate into society. With Ning's influence on the world, no country could say no at all.
Soon, the demons were all around the planet, living their lives just as the humans they were now.
More years passed and the spots of light appeared in the sky multiple times again. However, there was still no hint as to what exactly that was.
Ning was happy that nothing big happened during all these years. Until it did.
Two massive beams of energy shot out from the two sides of Earth, and after some investigation, Ning realized what they were.
Origins had finally formed on Earth as well.
Around 200 kilometers east of the Philippines lay the source of the incredible energy that flew into the sky.
The energy stopped shooting into the sky a few minutes later, but the remnant light still shined brightly on the horizon even during daytime.
Ning and the rest flew toward the light, not knowing what it was just yet. Ning was apprehensive about the situation, so he went there alone before anyone could.
He looked at the island that seemed to have formed out of nowhere and a small hole a the center where the intense energy was flowing out. The energy was so high and so dense that it looked as if it was liquid.
"That's Qi?" he realized a second later and got closer to inspect it. He already had a clue as to what it was, but he couldn't believe it at all.
"An Origin formed on Earth too!" he thought. "Now we won't have to worry about running out of Qi."
His worries faded away as a smile formed on his face. This was the best piece of news he could get right now.
Ely had been very worried about their child right now as the child was taking an extraordinarily long time to be born, and with the constant lights in the sky that should not be present, they were getting more and more anxious.
However, this was one piece of good news in what felt like years.
He went down to check how good the Qi was and was immediately surprised to find that the Qi flowing out of the Origin was very strong.
It was so strong that it was filling up Ning's sea of Qi which hadn't filled up since he came out of the other universe.
Ever since he had left the dwarf universe with the single sun, his cultivation base had been too strong for the Qi of this world, so even the best Qi that filled his sea of QI felt very weak.
However, currently, the Qi felt very strong, to the point that it could rival the Qi from the other universe.
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"Wait, so this is better than our previous universe's Qi," Ning thought. He had already reached the peak of what could be possible with the current level of Qi, but his friends and families still had a long way to go.
"What realm will they even reach?" he wondered to himself. The immortal God realm was the peak of what was possible in their original universe, but this was better than that. So, in a sense, this was a completely new system.
"I can't really judge just yet," he thought. "I will have to see how this Qi interacts with the normal people before being able to tell anything. I should give them names based on what the Qi does."
For now, he didn't need to think anymore. All he would have to do was keep away any drones or humans that would fly around this area and let this develop properly.
"Right, I should have them absorb this energy right now," he thought and called Ely and the rest who were waiting for him to say something not far away.
"It's an Origin," Ning explained. "Like the one in Kumia and Gionia. Come."
Ely, Night, and Blue arrived together and landed on the uneven, rocky ground as they slowly walked toward the center.
Night looked around curiously at the island that didn't look like it was destroyed recently, but from his understanding, islands usually had beaches or cliffs surrounding them. This one was just a hard surface with no tree or plant life that simply sank into the ocean on the edges.
"Is this an island?" he couldn't help but ask.
"Newly formed I believe," Ning said. "The energy probably created it while it escaped from the other verse."
"The… other verse?" Ely asked.
"I don't know how to explain it since the system was never really clear about it either, but the energy in any universe comes from another… universe or dimension, which the crack inside this small hole leads to," he said.
"Well, I don't think the explanation is as important as the thing itself," Ely said. She quickly brought out something from her storage and threw it into the sky.
The artifact quickly opened to form a massive dome around the island that completely concealed it.
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"It should stop unwanted visitors from gaining access to this place," she said before looking at Ning. "We do want to stop people from coming here, don't we?"
"It is a little selfish if you ask me, but why the heck not?" he asked. "We've earned it I think."
"Good, I'll make it so you three and easily come and go from this place. Then I'll have to implement it so that the rest of us that are not here can do so as well," he said.
"Alright, I will call Hi-Ah and Jung-Hee right now," Ning said. "I should explain to them what this is all about."
"Okay, I will call my brother to come here," Ely said.
The both of them released their divine sense to reach where their relatives were, but Ely's sense stopped moving before Ning's.
"Honey…" she slowly called him.
Ning reached Hi-Ah and Jung-Hee and called them over. Then, he finally responded to Ely. "Hmm? What is it?" he asked.
"Origin, there can only be one per planet right?" she asked.
"That's right," Ning said.
"Then what's that?" she asked.
Ning, Night, and Blue all released their senses at the same time, focusing on the direction where Ely was currently looking at.
Past the Pacific ocean, they reached the continent of America, and past that, near the Bermuda Triangle, they saw the same thing Ely did.
On a small island that seemed to exist there beforehand, a small pond had appeared out of nowhere with the light still faintly shining.
People were already on their way to that location, but even without going there, Ning could tell what it was.
But how could it be?
"How the hell is there another Origin?"
:)
