The Harvest
Phasing back into normal time the entirety of the battle around me returned to its chaotic nature. Explosions rocked the sky as entire swathes of angels and demons were murdered, the Primordials having summoned subordinates to combat the angelic threat. The largest threat was the warp taint that began to ooze over the entire sky of Tempestus, the roaring flames of pinkish chaos pissing down onto soldiers and civilians.
Rimuru halted in his treks, noticing my current wakeful state and the power exuding from me. My magicule amount was through the roof, to the level of Paradox himself as my very presence caused the laws of this universe to start careening around me in a whirlpool. Infons coalesced around me before shooting towards Rimuru and wrapping around him like small chain-links of DNA strands. He did not react to the chains of infons as he took a step back in shock.
Yuna continued to swoop for a while until she couldn't see me falling anymore and looked up, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. Red had consumed much of the bags under her eyes as her red-blue hair crested around her head like a lion's mane. Wings flapping in mid-air she looked at me like a grief-stricken little sister, her mood entirely in the dumps despite my current state.
"Little sister. I heard you."
Tears slipped fully from her eyes now as she rocketed towards me, her body slamming into mine as we were sent on an arc through the air. At the same time my powers exploded outwards, my cultivation clinging to the shadows of Mammon Morgoth Millenia. Angels that were once cloaked in the light of 'heaven' and the Warp were covered by an all consuming darkness. Light merged into darkness and became one, the lifeforce of spiritual entities being sucked through a straw of raw celestial power. Hundreds of thousands of Angels were immediately eaten, their souls sucked through myself and then pushed into Yuna as she tightly hugged me in what I believed to be a combination between relief and amazement.
"I thought you'd died...!" Her words were muffled as she spoke into my dress, her face hidden from my perspective given the lack of room between it and the shoulder she was attached to.
"So did I, for a second there. But here I am!"
She broke off our contact and through a punch at my shoulder, finding within moments of throwing it, that a white shimmering light akin to the one went through whilst ascending was being injected into her body. Blinking several times until she glared into my eyes.
All of the shadows across the city pulsed like they were living entities. Tendrils slipping out from the gooping movements of the shadows as enemy soldiers and tanks were ripped apart. More souls were syphoned away into Yuna, life force being chugged like it was merely meed at the end of a hard day at work. Very soon her form began to glimmer excessively and wrapped itself in a cacoon of unfiltered infons. The Voice of the World was certainly maintaining her job until the final days...
'Morgan, I think it is time to bring as many people as we can and then save the rest from the warp...'
[You mean killing the left overs yes?]
'... I hate to say it, because it sickens me to the bone, but yes. We have to take as many as we can and then leave.'
[Can't you create larger spaces for people to inhabit?]
'Largening space like a bag of holding? Yes, I can, but I could only fit ten million comfortably. The population of this continent is far above 800 Million, let alone this world.'
[Hmmm... Is there a way to create a large portal gateway that could be affixed until the last possible moment?]
'The cost of energy would be monumental and beyond what we could do. My brothers and Sisters on the other side may be able to do it, but they cannot come over here without a severe risk of being severed from their power base.'
[So we have to instantly teleport?]
'Yes.'
[Then let's make this as painless as possible...]
'I will smother the world in shadows and place all of their souls within Rimuru... They can stay there peacefully until we can recreate their bodies for them.'
[This... Could work quite well. How are you going to return life to so many beings though?]
'Future me will figure it out...!'
[Sure...]
"Rimuru, I have a burden to place on you..."
The man's eyes narrowed as he watched me float over to him slowly, my efforts to not exude power failing somewhat in the face of the sheer quantity of power. Raistlin would still absolutely kill me in a fight, beyond measure, but I would now at least be capable of fleeing in a minor way. This was especially the case now as I could sense the pillars of what made my cultivation's foundation now pulse through my soul dutifully. All of the basic essences, time, consumption, magic... It was all at my fingertips in a more resounding way than when I wasn't a planeswalker.
"What is it?"
"I need you to house the souls of this world until we can revive them."
Horror washed over his expression as his right eye twitched. Stoicism cloaked his mannerisms and his minor body language was completely shielded from my analysis. He was an enigma at the current moment and it made me feel, odd. The emotion couldn't be described, but there was something different about him that caused my mind to flinch just a tiny bit. Based upon his original fate, which was to be a god of all of this universe, this wasn't surprising to me... But it was directed just a tiny bit towards myself, that is what set me on edge.
"Let me get this straight... We are going to slaughter the entire world?"
"Slaughter is a rather blunt term, but yes. We are saving their souls from the Warp."
"There must be another way!"
He bit his lips with some force as his eyes pierced into mine with their dedication and wish to save the world. Every bit of realism was thrown out of the door by him at this moment and it was obvious that he did not wish to kill this many people all for a 'supposed' victory over the warp.
"There is."
"Then we'll do it!"
"Okay then. I will feed all of their souls to every member of our nation that deserves to become a Demon Lord. They will know no peace and never have the chance to be reborn again in the future, so long as they all live..."
His aura flared and his katana came to his right hand, the blade launching towards me before being met with Michael's shield; my new sub-skill of Abyssal Primogenitor. Ciel broke off from Rimuru and looked at him with frustration as she sympathetically glanced at me every now and then.
This only further proved that my own calculations were correct and this was the best way to avoid the torture of these souls. With that answer fully given conviction within my own mind, the hope of some other 'out' coming to save the day fading, I pushed against his Katana and pulled my own.
"Rimuru. I do not deny that what you are feeling is correct, but with Chaos there is no other choice! There is only survival... And in the end, at our level of power, that is all we can aim for."
"WE CAN FIND A BETTER WAY!"
He slashed downwards towards me, black lightning sheathing the magi-steel blade of his weapon. Ozone drifted amidst his swings as he made rapid slashes, my body dodging off to the side or jumping backwards to avoid each one.
"Think of the amount of people you can save... The amount of people that will not be tortured for all of time. Children will be saved from being playthings for demons, women will never have to please depraved madmen. They will be saved from slavery!"
"T-THERE MUST BE SOME OTHER WAY...!"
"Rimuru-sama... There is no other other way."
Shizu jumped up next to Ciel. Her eyes were completely clear, her lips tightly pressed together as she watched Rimuru's attack glance off of the straight panel of shield I created in the way of it, the lightning hitting a nearby alleyway and setting several crates alight.
"Sh-Shizu!? You too...?"
"Rimuru-sama, Silviana is correct. There is only so much we can do and at this point our options are limited."
"B-but, i don't want to listen to all of their stories... Not of people we intentionally killed..."
Memories of my last life flashed into mind, of sitting on an ice-encrusted throne of pure frigidity. Listening endlessly to stories and lives of mortals who were constantly being ground into the dirt by fate and life. Negative emotions like a tsunami amidst the fragile waves of positivity. An entire existence entombed in the depravity of life and death. And yet, here I was requesting one of my friends to potentially be subjected to this fate, for the foreseeable future. Disgust welled within me, at my own need for survival, for the necessity of this action...
'Should I try to store them?'
Just as the thought began to percolate my mind a small implosion of green gaseous substance emerged from seemingly nowhere as Paradox emerged, his mask still keeping back my vision. The gasses spread around him like a cape as his white clothing shone like it was the first time he had ever worn it. A sucking noise shot out before the slightly muffled, electronic voice of Paradox began to echo into the space, grasping all of our attentions.
"Silviana. Now is the moment. Either you collect the entire world's souls, or the Warp consumes them..."
"Now...? Right now!?"
"Yes. Make your choice now."
"We've barely received a million survivors..."
"I cannot hold back the warp any longer. My flame is choking on the limits placed upon me. You can understand... no?"
I turned to Rimuru trepidatiously, the queasiness of making this decision by myself submerging my stomach in butterflies. Shizu and Ciel stayed out of the conversation, their trust being placed in me and Rimuru at this time. Yuna was unfortunately out for this conversation as she was slowly breaking out of the ascension cacoon that wrapped her up.
"Silviana. I-I dislike this..."
"I know Rimuru. But, you either wish to take up the burden of their survival or I plunge them all into darkness for the foreseeable future."
Paradox turned his mask in the direction of Rimuru, tilting his head incrementally. He awaited to hear the fate of this world. The fate of our civilisation and the blood that we would place in our hands.
"Paradox, don't you have a way to save them?"
"No Rimuru-san, I do not have that power. Only you two do at this current time."
Rimuru turned to me before nodding deeply.
"Let's do it!"
I didn't even wait to give him an nod of the head, my body floating up into the sky as the ember that was inside me flared up into a forest fire a few moments later. Shadow seeped from said flame, the darkness acting like light from within before the entire sky above Tempestus was filled with tempestuous storm clouds of pure darkness, shadow and greed. The wind whipped into a frenzy as the clouds of pure shadow were swept away on the winds of death.
From outside of the planet a rapid umbral darkness began to creep along the entire continent that Tempestus sat on. This umber cascaded through the stratosphere, being dragged through the atmosphere deeply as the previously crystalline ball of beauty became another dark spot amidst the onyx painting of space. Blue peaked out for minutes until all that was noticeable was the enormous slash across the blackness... A pink puncture wound in the fabric of reality, a concaved tear in the very existence of this universe itself. The most ominous thing about this was the hands of pure red, blue, purple and green that continued to grip at the edges of this fracture. One thing held them back, snapping at these limbs like live snakes. A green gas of almost star-like substance.
Opening my eyes I felt the entire world cloaked in my shadow, the darkness reaching down from the skies in dull golden chains that slithered through the sky. I reached out my left hand towards Rimuru, a golden chain puncturing his stomach as the others wrapped him in place. Skyscraper sized chains that were sat above a couple other continents on the planet all plunged down from high orbit, crashing down onto said continent at a speed influenced heavily by time... 10% of the speed of light was achieved as gravity was pushed to the limit within the areas just before the chains...
Earthquakes shook the entire planet as Tsunamis began to explode all over. Hundreds of millions were killed in an instant. All of the souls being sucked up by the still intact chains that used the clouds above as a conduit of transference. The rest of the chains killed off the survivors, peacefully killing them in one shot before transmitting them too. Animals' souls were collected too, their lives being worth saving also as they had small souls as well. Revulsion washed through me as I was not just the observer this time, I was the instigator, the one who sentenced the world's population to die.
"I have become death... The Destroyer of worlds... An apt line really."
loneliness and sorrow infected my soul as I watched, omnisciently, as children, women and men were killed effortlessly by me. Their peaceful lives vanquished by my own hands. I had an excuse, the warp, but it felt totally rotten and off to me... Only someone who was incapable of emotion could watch this happen and not feel wretched, demonic and evil. Morals were thrown to the side all so we could avoid the Warp getting more souls and torturing them. No attempt at beating the Warp was made, but I knew that it was impossible to win, even if I were the god of death still. I was rolling amongst tumultuous thoughts as hundreds of millions were funnelled into Rimuru, who looked like he was suffering just as much as me.
Then came this continent that we were on. Every kingdom other than Tempest and Dwargon was consumed in shadow. Eurazania's population and the Harpy population had already been sent over into the Jura forest, thanks to Milim's efforts... Now all there was left other than our nation was ash and stone. All animals and people dead. Life eradicated enmasse. Vomit fought to reach the top of my mouth but was rejected by me who was barely holding back tears. Coldness entered into me once again, my spirit hiding behind the walls I had made in my past lives.
"I am sorry... We, will try to bring you all back..." I whispered into the dry and death-filled wind as my chains receded back into the sky, the shadows rescinding back into myself at a speed equivalent to that of the dropping of my chains.
"And thus it begins. The exodus of Tensura! EVERYONE! To the circle!!!"
Paradox boomed his voice over the entire city as every person who had not yet found out what had happened began to run to the centre of the city. Soldiers rushed to their posts once more, their pace hurried and worried. Benimaru, Shuna and several other important figures rushed to the city square. My mind began to replay all of the scenes I had just seen at the same time. Of beautiful cities, people and nations all dying in fire and brimstone.
"Silviana, you are the key to this..."
["Shut it gas man"]
Morgan spoke aloud through my powers as I stared off into the distance, all of the negative emotions of my godly life and now this one washing over me as self hatred filled me.
'I am a bad person...'
[You are necessary.]
'Not good enough.'
[But you are good enough. Now, stop being an emo and go save your wives!]
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