Chapter 204 Gaining Her
"Will it be really fine? I don't want to jump into a pool of blood only to burn myself completely? My goals aren't that grand, you know?" I asked genuinely. Saving my family and friends was all that was on my mind right now. I wanted to live peacefully, die peacefully. That's all.
It was Klotho who answered my question this time,"You should use it, actually. What didn't happen before, won't happen again? Though if things are going to revert as Aether spoke, you should try to use this time to learn something that you might need to use in your next run? Or maybe something else all together? But I don't see the need for you not using the powers since you had already been using till now."
I was a bit sad when I heard that… to lose everything that I had done up till now…
"Aren't you a little worrywart? Hmmm… All right, I will give you a little bit of something before you go. Something that will help you in your journey going ahead… but first let me deal with things here," Aether spoke as he took notice of my concerns before moving towards Ais who was listening to the whole conversation with a silent expression.
"I guess killing you right now is the best thing that we can do for now. As for you coming back into the future, all I could say is a few words," Aether's expression changed to quite scary… as he continued his words,"I would dare you to do anything funny when you return."
Klotho took a step back as she prepared a barrier. I could see sweat trickling down Klotho's forehead while that Lord of Darkness, Ais, looked down with his eyes planted at the ground and his body shaking tremendously. He didn't speak any words as he nodded at that.
"Man! I guess even after all this, I am still lacking if I can't completely kill a being. Anyway, guess that is fate too," he spoke as he touched the head of that being before…
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!" Shouted Ais as I saw him being engulfed in a white flame. His entire being was withering away in front of me. It wasn't just him burning right now. I could feel it, his past, his future life he could have lived, his entire existence was burning within that white flame.
It continued for another few minutes before that guy complete vanished, leaving a small ring on the ground. Aether observed that ring before picking it up and then using another flame, this time golden, and began melting it into minute particles. I saw that ring tuning into golden ashes in front of me before Aether looked at me and…
"Here.." he blew the ashes towards me, and they flew at me before getting implanted inside of me and all I could do was look at Aether who was smiling at me.
"Bear the responsibility and face upcoming dangers…. This will give you a chance to change the future… in a bit more legal way," he spoke before stretching a little as he looked at Klotho, who was shaking her head.
"The creators won't be happy with this," Klotho remarked as she looked at Aether with a deep sigh and Aether answered with a bored expression,"the creators can just go f*ck themselves."
Aether then turned towards me and asked,"Michael. Before you go, can I ask you a question?"
I had a thousand questions right now about what he did. I wanted to know what he just planted inside me? Was it the remains of Ais? Isn't that a bit reckless?
"I can see a lot of questions in your eyes, but all I can say is that you will get the answers in due time during your journey. Me telling you here will spoil a lot of things, so wait for the time to get those questions answered. It's time we are talking about after all," he spoke as he observed me before continuing,
"Now to my question. Michael, what are your plans for the future? I looked through your eyes, but I didn't see any ambition in there. You know, normally I would just see through people easily and figure out what they want and what they don't want, but let's just say that I was curious, so I decided to ask you first about it."
His words echoed in my mind for a few moments before I decided to answer it with slight honesty,
"I would say live peacefully and die peacefully, but I doubt that it is what you are asking for. I… kinda lost my ambitions after losing my best friend. For now, I am just looking forward to having one?"
"Well, you are lucky then," Aether smiled with a slight chuckle making me turn curiously at him as he began explaining,
"The moment you got your System, you were chosen for a task. It won't be a meager task that anyone can do, I believe. As for why you were chosen? I wouldn't really be bothered about it, if it were me. Maybe your lineage provides you with that power, or maybe you were just a lucky, random person? Who knows? But what matters in the end is that you got your powers.
Other than that, you also have the blessing of the Universe, plus you transitioned into an Ethereal from a human, so I guess even the Universe has some plans for you. If I were to comment, it's more like a snowball effect."
"Snowball effect?" I asked as I observed the pondering face of Aether and he nodded,
"You know how a snowball just keeps getting bigger and bigger as it falls down the slope? Something like that. You might have done something, or maybe you were lucky to receive the System? Then, with this System of yours, you might have done something impossible that might have caught the attention of the Universe. Because you got the attention of the Universe, maybe you got that Ethereal class as an evolution option? Something along those lines," he spoke as he tried explaining things to me and it made a few things clear all right.
I got the beyond SSSS-Grade grading from the first dungeon, which gave me the [Time Shatter] God Power. Then that might have been the trigger for the [Ethereal] class? And it was because of that class that I was able to reach the Voltaire Dungeon without much problem?
'Plus me getting abruptly powerful helped me level up and get all those skills pretty fast too,' I thought as many things made sense now. It wasn't like I couldn't have reached this conclusion, but me not knowing anything about Systems and stuff would have hindered my line of logic before.
"But it's also a sad thing to be honest," Aether sighed as he looked at me and I grew tense as I looked at him,
"What do you mean by that-" before I could speak Aether started another topic related to this one,
"All right. I will help you a little. Consider this a gift from me. I have also solved a bit of your problems, so you won't be feeling sad after returning. The gift I am giving you is really an important part of me, so don't misuse it. I don't really like this, but I guess I can make an exception for you, perhaps? All right. Take care Michael, maybe we will meet again? Hopefully not."
And then I saw the scene vanishing from there as I just stood there stupidly doing nothing but standing motionless. My eyes questioned a lot of things as my vision returned and I was back where Angela was. Her eyes observed me with a careful look, but then soon… that look changed to stupefaction…
Her eyes widened as she gazed at me with shock. Her mouth opened. She wanted to speak something, but words failed to come out. She looked kinda cute there.
Turning to my System, the first thing that I noticed was the cooldown of the Skill that I just used. It turned out to be quite long… and I wondered if I did the right thing to use this Skill here, or not?
[The Defier(Unique)]
[Allows the User to reject or defy anything in existence. As long as the user is in contact with the person/thing/being, he or she can defy it. Not limited to death and life, but the more the strings of fates and destiny are involved, the heavier the impact will be on the user
Cooldown: 1 year 4 months 12 days]
But all that vanished when I looked at my status screen… another bar had appeared… something I wanted to happen but didn't really expect to see…
[Name: Michael Aroa
Race: Ethereal
Title: God Hunter ; Gaia's Savior ; The Slumbered One ; WorldWalker
Class: Child of the Universe
[All Stats permanently increased by 1,000%]
[Whenever the user fights against an enemy, the world shall fight with him, and fight against the enemy. All Stats will be doubled and the enemies Stats will be halved]
Level: 18 (48,620,112/50,000,000 Exp)
Status: Healthy
Slaves: Angela Reas*
Enchantments:
Breath of the Night: All abilities have their power increased by 25% during absence of light.
Blessings:
(1) Blessing of the World: After the death of the Last Ethereals, you are the first being that has taken its step to become an Ethereal. Energy will never be a problem for you.
(2) Blessing of the Gaia's Spirit: When around a plant or vegetation, the energy restoration increases by 50%.
(3) Blessing of the Charybdis: You have gained the ability to see or hear things that are otherwise not possible.
(4) Blessing of the ONE: All hidden paths will be opened to you when you make a choice regarding your existence(Only works under certain conditions).
Health Points: 160000/160000
Time Points: Infinite
Strength: 20(+200)
Constitution: 20(+200)
Dexterity: 20(+150)
Intelligence: 18(+150)
Wisdom: 20(+150)
Charisma: 20(+150)
Stat Points: 35
Total Cronas: 2,564,001
Total Dungeons Under Control: 1
Total Portal Under Control: 0]