Chapter 129 - Make Someone Else Pay The Price

Waking up in the morning, Zeel floated down from to the nearby pedestal.

Truly, Zeel had been sifting through the Multiversal Currents all night. Alice and Elizabeth stirred awake shortly after, feeling that Zeel had slid from between their arms.

The atmosphere was harmonious, overtime Alice and Elizabeth had reached a sort of consensus about the distribution of Zeel's affection.

Elizabeth found it baffling when Alice told her that Zeel's affection for them was probably about 30% and that Elizabeth would be taking 10% of that.

Alice knew that Zeel was not emotionally capable as yet, but she accepted him nonetheless.

It was comical to witness the two girls discussing his affections, but the matter was an entirely serious one.

"It's been a while since we slept this good," Alice said stretching her aching limbs.

"Yeah," Elizabeth nodded "We always had to keep one eye open everywhere else, but with the energy density here we can just relax while sensing everything through it,"

"Get up. Time to work for a living. We need to get out of this Universe before the Energones change their minds," Zeel said as he remembered the incident briefly last night.

∞∞∞

While sleeping, Zeel felt as if something was attempting to invade his consciousness, Zeel's eyes snapped open as he saw a young Energone attempting to overlay itself with his body.

His first thought was, of course, to kill the child Energone but this was clearly not the child's idea.

Allowing the overlay to continue briefly, Zeel was able to probe the memory of the child.

Sadly, the person behind this all probably thought that Zeel was a human variant or something. Homo-Superior had a multi-dimensional mind, so it was impossible to destroy their consciousness.

Zeel could only shake his head at what he found within the mind of the 'child'.

The Prince of Energones, Matthew, tricking several people to steal the bodies of Zeel, Alice, and Elizabeth.

After having seen enough, Zeel allowed his body to vibrate at alternating frequencies, soon the child Energone was screeching in pain.

Zeel soon stopped and allowed the child to float down from their pedestal.

"Never do this again, okay?" Zeel chastised but his eyes held no room for leniency.

"Yes Sir," The boy answered, knowing he had been doing something wrong since the beginning.

After the boy left, Zeel could only shake his head in response, from the memories he glimpsed, it was easy to figure out that this child Energone was clearly not a child.

Instead, it was an elder who worked close to the king as an aide.

"The Father shall atone for the sins of the son," Zeel whispered as he cuddled back into the arms of Elizabeth and Alice.

∞∞∞

Alice, Zeel, and Elizabeth made their way towards the 'Great Cradle' under the gazes of nearby Energones.

When they arrived, the king Rakiel had already laid out several energy projections that consisted of tables and chairs – obviously intent of having a meeting.

By Rakiel's side were his wife, daughter, and aide; Zeel raised a brow at not seeing his son present but chose to observe matters a bit before deciding on a course of action.

Alice noticed this anomaly and did a slight probe, locating their son Matthew not so far away from their current location – Matthew seemed to be bounded by chains that kept him in place.

"The Father shall atone for the sins of the son," Zeel said making the message clear enough for all to understand.

"So what do you require in turn for your mercy?" Rakiel asked, with his face slightly grimacing.

He truly did not want to fight with the three individuals in front of him, even if he won, it would cost the majority of the remaining Energone people.

"Quasar Stellar Object, and access to your mirror dimension," Zeel replied bluntly causing the faces of all Energons nearby to grimace for a while before relaxing once more.

"Agreed, we can't offer any help sadly. Our Universe has long since recovered and has many Galactic nuclei available. Without the ability to leave the planet, we just have to swallow the bitter pill of having someone else harvest something we have been coveting since we got sealed," Rakiel said with a deep sigh.

Rakiel smartly did not explicitly grant permission to the mirror dimension, since he was unaware of the reason for Zeel's interest in the Mirror Dimension.

They were energy consuming beings, not dimension-hopping beings.

Until Rakiel found out specifically what Zeel craved in the mirror dimension, he would leave an open invitation to exploit its resources.

"I offer something in return," Zeel said as Elizabeth placed three green-balls on the table.

"Matter converter, it can convert Exotic Matter into pure, potent energy – something I am sure your people take as a delicacy since being sealed off on your planet," Zeel said.

Kella's eyes sparkled at the sight of the green-balls while Reina's face grimaced, noticing the energies she placed within the bodies of Alice and Elizabeth had disappeared.

"Thank you!" Rakiel said with genuine happiness, this was exactly what they needed as the beings made of Exotic Matter were difficult to deal with if not fully prepared.

With these green-balls, they could be more flexible when traveling between the different settlements/ floating mountains.

After gifting the small scale Matter Converter, Zeel didn't feel the need to manage the King's son.

Zeel, Alice, and Elizabeth were given a short tour of the floating mountain and a brief explanation of Planet Viveron itself.

Separating from the Energones, Elizabeth was the first to comment "So is everyone going to pretend that we didn't feel the energy surge last night?"

Of course, she was referring to when the Energone people attempted to overlay their energy forms with her and Alice's physical forms – no doubt hoping to take over their bodies.

"You saw it?" asked Zeel vaguely.

"Yeah," Elizabeth replied "They were not telling us the full story…. To think that we came here to avoid becoming gods and coincidentally find a divine spark,"

"That thing was not only a Divine Spark," Zeel said as he gazed northbound "I am not sure exactly what it was, but it felt compassionate beyond belief. And compassionate things are bad,"

Alice's face was a bit unreadable, when an Energone attempts to overlay with a physical body, their memories become visible to the person they are taking over.

The first thing Alice saw was a temple floating far above the mountains, surrounded by runes that could not be distinguished.

At the top of the temple, a man of stone, not unlike a statue, could be seen kneeling as he drove a sword into the temple below.

The statue would sometimes pulse with green light, before turning black and repeating the process at random intervals.

"What is it?" Alice asked upset with herself, each time she had a good impression of the Energone people, more mysteries were uncovered that made her realize her naivety.

'You truly never know what to expect from people,' Alice thought.

Zeel had quite the opposite feeling, he always kept an open mind, that's why when he saw the temple, nothing was assumed on his part.

"Never jump to conclusions without all the information. When I was about 16 years' old there was a famous case in the galaxy," Zeel explained.

Alice and Elizabeth turned their ears' in Zeel's direction to listen attentively.

Zeel continued "No world could be truly be built equal since everything moves from order to chaos. You just have to control the chaos within boundaries when it does come,"

Alice and Elizabeth simmered down as the memories Zeel was currently recalling were also visible inside their minds.

"In my Universe, we valued children beyond anything else… There was an incident with a father that was banished for raping his daughters.

The entire galaxy was taken by surprise; it had been eons since anyone did something as primitive as rape – it was quite easy to prove in a time like ours.

You see, the father had a son called Xen, a wonderful boy who grew up in our equivalent of the slums. Even the slums didn't go hungry or homeless in my world.

The slums in my world could be considered a luxury in your world.

I was perplexed at how rape could even occur, with our technological achievements, you couldn't even sneeze without anyone knowing right away – privacy had become a thing of the past if you were rich enough.

My family was one of the few who could still afford privacy.

I actually visited the father during his banishment in the Nether Dimension.

The father believed he raped his children which is weird right? How can you believe you did it when you clearly did it?"

Alice and Elizabeth looked confused for a moment, Alice unable to figure it out asked "That's kind of contradictory isn't it?"

"Yeah, of course, he will believe he did it because he clearly did do it," Elizabeth stated as if it was a fact.

Having access to Zeel's memories, she could also see the certainty of the case, but not the conclusion just yet.

"You hear me but you're not listening. I said he believed he did it, and he clearly did it. Yet he didn't know he did it. That is just plain confusing – the way he believed was like a fanatic would, towards religion," Zeel clarified with Alice's and Elizabeth's finally having a look of understanding.

"He was tricked, huh?" Elizabeth said as she laughed at how messed up Zeel's world was.

"No, he wasn't tricked, he definitely did it," Alice said with a look of realization "The only memories of Zeel's we can't see are those protected by the cube. And the cube houses all advanced methods of growth that would require crossing moral boundaries,"

Zeel nodded at Alice's observation skills. She was truly an impressive wife with infinite potential.

"Yes, this specific scenario evolved one of the most dangerous tech created in my Universe – Reality Warping Techniques.

You see, the father never had a son, only two daughters… Craving for a son that would not be the robot's humans had then become, he created a reality-warping technique to change reality itself – granting himself a son.

But we were not experienced with Reality Warping, it was uncharted territories – so we didn't know what laws governed a new reality? But we learned after… for a reality created to become locked into the current reality – a trauma must occur to lock it in.

The trauma must be an equal trade to the reality that is to be established,"

"So to gain a son, the father had to lose his daughters. It was an act of equal trades?" Elizabeth said as she shuddered.

If Zeel lacked all these experiences, wouldn't she get killed in the Multiverse without even a clue?

"Yeah, the son he created with a new reality wanted to stay, so the son used the tech to create a new reality, whereby the father lost both daughters – balancing the equation…

I don't think it worked though," Zeel said as he laughed, not able to see the end of the story due to interference from the cube.

Alice thought for a while "Wouldn't reality-warping come in handy sometime?"

"Yeah but everything has a cost. I try not to use things when I can't pay the price later on," Zeel said, not wanting to ever touch such pricey things.

He would prefer to make a deal with the devil and lose his soul since he would clearly know the deal and the price. But messing with forces outside his control that could take payment whatever way it chooses, was way above his paygrade.

Zeel knocked his head and concluded "So the moral of this story is – if you ever use Reality warping make someone else pay the price for you,"

*Plop*

*Plop*

The moment Alice and Elizabeth thought that Zeel was making progress on moral boundaries, Zeel always got the moral of his story completely wrong.

Alice and Elizabeth sighed in tandem, while Zeel took out a spec bomb alongside a silver ball from his storage dimension.

The spec bomb activated in his hand, taking the silver ball into the Mirror Dimension of this Universe.

"Shouldn't the spec bomb be calibrated first?" Elizabeth asked noticing Zeel's actions.

"It's an artifact, you don't need to calibrate artifacts," Zeel replied dismissively.