[Zero] (4)

Somewhere in the celestials.

After a few more years in seconds got added to Ivan's count.

SLASH-!

The evigheden [1] slaughter of the [Sin] holders continued on, as the eye gazed at Ivan in a crudêl [2] manner, while later continued on in tyyneys [3].

Ivan was also seen [Devouring] the demons in the middle of the battle while he fought like a juggernaut, who crushed everything in his way with a massive inexorable force. Even though he seemed to occupied by the evigheden fight against the demons, he still kept an eye on the eye.

"!!!" And abruptly, the eye's eyelids flickered as it shut itself for a 0.000000001 second, but

Like a stretched rubber band waiting to be released, Ivan's body shot out towards a certain direction, involuntarily.

The eye, who gazed at everything in existence in search of the pest that had abruptly disappeared, but it couldn't find him no matter what, its gaze soon landed on the group of demons after flitting around everything ever existed, but it couldn't figure out what was going on as the [Sin] holding demons, whose wills had been dominated by the eye, began to kill each other and feed on the dead, making the eye confused whether they were eating the pest or themselves.

'' The eye thought, no matter what was happening and no matter how strong a being was, he/she was bound to get tired at a certain point of time, and it wasn't anything different for the pest too....

Or so, it concluded inwardly as it erased the existence of the platform and the demons with a subtle dilation of itself.

'' It had finally destroyed the Taboo existence, so nothing more would ever be problematic to the [System], which also meant that it could continue to exist, without being under its radar.

[Everything would, no, should be on track, as our purpose of giving life to the new Gods would be unhindered.]

[And finally, the purpose of our existences being "revealed" to the worlds would be fulfilled, all that's left is to wait for the [Time] which was supposed to nurture the [Final God Candidates] to be completed, after the destruction of millions of worlds!] With these delightful thoughts swimming in the eye's consciousness, it returned back to its [Duty] of looking after the laws of the universe.

*

Meanwhile.

The being that had abruptly disappeared in front of the eye, who assumed him to be dead, was being dragged somewhere faster than the speed of light, if the phenomenon of him becoming one with his mind, body, and soul hadn't happened, then the above mentioned parts of an existence's consciousness would have been separated and shredded out of existence due to the extreme pull.

Of course, who else could the being be other than Ivan, whose eyes were able to capture the mesmerizing phenomenon-s happening all-over the universe, as he was being dragged somewhere.

'This certainly feels familiar.' He thought, because he had felt the same kind of pull when he jumped into the portal, trying to make his way back to [Earth].

With a violent flicker of Ivan's consciousness, he found himself in front of cluster of planets in a single orbit, in the solar system with a single sun.

This cluster of planets had many moons, which were uniquely sized accordingly to their specified planet, this cluster had five planets, at least from what Ivan could see. Only the middle planet, or the third planet from both sides had the majority of greens and blues, the first planet on right and left had greens, but majority of the world was brown with large patches of blue, while the white dense clouds blocked most of what Ivan could see. But he could tell that none of the three was Earth.

How are they not attracting to the centre planet while within the gravitational pull?

Because they, all five planets, were shielded with multi-layered magic circles, that had many circles circling in their own unique path, these magic circles held their distances between each other, so that they won't hinder or clash against each other.

Looking at the sight of which was once thought to be impossible, a single, specific thought flashed in Ivan's consciousness,

'The view from the middle would be a sight to see....' Ivan thought, as the aura which Ivan unconsciously oozed when his greed reached its limits, oozed again, as Ivan thought he wanted it again.

He had gotten a hold of everything he ever thought he wanted; Drayce, the beauty of an exploding star, which he made a part of himself in his consciousness, now this, and the things in future too wouldn't differ by much.

As his avarice dyed thoughts continued, Ivan saw a bird-like something flying amidst of the clouds that covered most of the middle planet of the clustered planets. Since, it seemed like a bird from where Ivan was gazing at, he assumed that it was colossal; like 'COLOSSAL' colossal.

And due to his strong emotions being directed at the [Protected] worlds, a strand of the multi-layered magic circles flickered crimson for a split second and Ivan's gaze shifted.

By the next instance, Ivan was teleported in front of another existence that made him tremble, as if life was giving him a reality check, making him realise that he still wasn't strong enough.

That realisation struck hard as most of his despairing, bottled up, emotions burst forth, his already raging avarice drove his emotions in a different way than they were intended to and his greed for strength began to eat him from within, as he gazed at the crystallized dome-like----futuristic and sophisticatedly placed mechanical decors and massive, wall integrated circuits, that made everything seem alive----room was lit in baby blue light, defining the terrain he was pulled to.

At the middle of this dome, thousands of magic circles surrounding a fragile orb-like powerhouse was seen, floating. In that, nearly fist-sized or a bit bigger, floating----golden rings surrounded----orb, a dense miniature magic circle was seen, in the middle of which a even smaller, crystallized, prism was seen revolving.

He reached out towards the orb with his face displaying ever-changing expressions of rage, greed, despair, depression, anxiety, fear, annoyance, frustration, and grief. He was so immersed in those emotions of his that he hadn't even realised what he was doing, let alone understand what was happening around him.

His [Authority Of The Mana Parasite] had activated on its own, habitually, morphing his fingers into, slightly extended, claws that dug through the thousands of shield-type magic circles surrounding the orb with absolute ease. His hand was passing through without a shred resistance posed by the magic circles, which were counted to thousands!

But, one had to notice that the divine shackles that bound him were also darkening, as if a strange kind [Authority] was devouring the foreign [Divine Authorities].

The more his hand neared the orb, the more brighter and violently the previously baby blue lights glimmered crimson in the dome, indicating the level of threat it was "feeling" from the approaching hand.

Soon, strings of dense magic power or a mixture of magic power enveloped Ivan's hand, forcing him to bleed reddish black blood, which was being [Devoured] by the [Authority] that was already active, but it still was a futile attempt from the orb since his hand reached the orb.

His long claws creakingly slid atop the orb, leaving behind scratches on it in the process, but he cared for nothing except for either obtaining the power he felt inferior to, or destroying it. His "caress" had halted an instant later, as his claws hand clenched the orb to destroy it completely, but

He stopped.

'..... Ivan.....' A sweet woman's voice which he longed to hear for the past 0.2 million years resounded in his consciousness. He needed but a mere thought to recall every sentence, every single word, and even in the level of breath which she spoke at, but there were moments when they would resurface on their own, one of those moments was now, and a single flash of her echo was enough for all of his raging emotions to die down, replaced by his calm, "normal" emotions.

Due to which, he snapped back to reality, felt the tremble of the orb in his hand, strangely stiffened as if the man from before was different and current man was different, and he slowly, gently retracted his hand and flashed a small smile at the gradually healing, almost, shattered orb, flexed his wrist and retreated by a few steps.

[ERROR!]

[WARNING!]

[WARNING!]

[WARNING!]

[ERROR!]

[WARNING!]

[ERROR!]

....

.....

The dome glimmered in crimson as some holographic game-like interfaces surrounded the orb, which was reconstructing the magic circles with a more potent one, while also reinforcing itself with attack-type magic circles too, at an extremely fast pace, that if the one gazing at the phenomenon take place wasn't Ivan, they wouldn't even have been able to notice a magic circle being created, programmed, and added, until at least a hundred more was added, which could still only be seen as a "slight change."

[EMERGENCY!]

[SYSTEM HYPERDRIVE INITIATED!]

...

....

A few more holographic interfaces flashed across the orb, gazing at the number of interfaces displaying [EMERGENCY!] on them, Ivan understood what was going to happen next, to which he put up no resistance, mumbling "I ought to be punished for what I just did....."

With a smile on his face.

At that instance, a fluffy, white blob of what seemed to be made of clouds, floated towards him and neared his head,

While in that state, "You are beautiful." He, for whatever reason, mumbled out the thought that flashed in his consciousness, complimenting the orb which he had tried to destroy previously, and noticed the fluffy blob of cloud flatter for a split second before finally landing on Ivan's forehead, which soon after dyed his world with blinding white light, that allowed him to look ahead, at nothing.

‡‡‡

[Evigheden] [1]: Forever; never-ending; eternity.

[Crudêl] [2]: Being without mercy or compassion.

[Tyyneys] [3]: The state of peacefulness; absent of worry and fear.