The Change

A/N: This is going to be the FINAL character powerup of the story and it is going to be a BIG one. Some of you may think I'm jumping the Shark with how powerful Alaster gets, but I'm not. I have been planning for this for a while and will explain exactly WHY he's got so much world-breaking power in the future.

.~.~.~.

<<Just relax. This isn't going to hurt... much>> Velzard teased.

"Yeah... right. Just hurry it up. I wanna snuggle!" I complained as I lay down in my bed at home in Amrita.

<<When I'm done I'll snuggle with you forever afterward, but for now, let's let you reach your new peak.>> Velzard said warmly.

I sighed and closed my eyes. The process wasn't exactly painful, but I was going to be using all of the magic power in my body for it, and afterward, I'd apparently be a whole new being according to Velzard. She said she discovered the reason it took her so long to transform herself into a proper Manas. Apparently, a huge part of the processing power of [Solomon] was being used to Analyze something, and because of the fact the process had been ongoing for about 2,000 years.

It was like I was just continually operating at 90% of my Skills load capacity for the last two millennia and the process was finally nearing completion. The reason why Velzard had begun trying to transform into a Manas NOW of all times, was because the fragment of her soul used to create [Solomon] was calling to her to re-join it now that the process was mostly complete. I didn't really feel any difference, but according to Velzard, whatever it was that the fragment of hers was going was so important it was refusing to reunite with its original self until it was complete, however, it wasn't prepared for Velzard to go at it so aggressively.

It HAD been 2,000 years since the separation of that fragment, after all, so it misjudged quite how eagerly she'd jump on a proposal like becoming a Manas. It had to slow her down while making up the finishing touches, so it gave Velzard the equivalent of a digital runaround; offloading background processes onto her to give the 'illusion of progress' until it was finished, which was why it took so long, when at best it should have only taken a few moments in reality.

Just moments ago, the process was completed and Velzard's Soul Fragment re-merged with her being, converting Velzard entirely into a Manas instantly. It took her a few moments to collect herself now that she was once again 'whole' but with two sets of memories, but once she did, she realized the massive opportunity I had in front of me.

Just the right combination of Skills and abilities to make something absolutely broken and just the right amount of spite to use it.

"Why are you spiteful?" I asked when she was explaining it to me.

<<Did you know that both [Gabriel] and [Metatron] had control circuits in them!?!>> She almost shouted at me.

I was shocked. Of course, in the back of my mind, I always knew [Michael] had some power to control the angelic system of skills, however somewhere along the lines, I forgot about that. After all, Veldanava was a close friend of mine, so I knew he'd never actually USE that power to control us, but it was still a shocker that they existed.

It was an even bigger shock when she told me that [Shiva] actually STILL had the circuit inside of it, despite the fact we'd grown so close and that he didn't even HAVE [Michael] at the time, though he probably still had control over the circuit after sublimating [Michae].

My heart sank when realizing that, even though he said he trusted me, he really didn't.

I understood WHY he did that, but it didn't make the hurt feeling go away.

Velzard was the same, and so was her fragment when she found it. So, out of spite, she began doing something drastic.

She gathered information from the time I was thrown outside the Universe and had to travel back through all of time-space with {Rift Walk} with Obera. At that time I had an almost psychedelic experience, being able to see all of creation simultaneously due to the interactions with [Clairvoyance] and the World Barrier. [Solomon] was able to gather a vast amount of information about the nature of reality from it, though actually going through all the gathered data and information took 2,000 years, even at a million times Thought Acceleration.

Then, using the information gathered and using Primitive Magic as a base, Velzard was able to make a new Ultimate Skill, or I guess THE Ultimate Ultimate Skill.

[Abhoth: God of Corruption]

Its essence was that it can corrupt, bend and twist any aspect of the world to suit its user's whims. In other words, complete Reality Manipulation.

If I was drinking, I may have spit out my drink. Velzard, out of spite, essentially gave me Omnipotence-lite. The way she explain it was that she had back-doored the World System using this skill, so now I was able to make direct changes to the System itself.

Velzard was all smug as she began explaining it to me, but was feeling light-headed the longer I listened to her talk but to put it simply, I now had the same power as Veldanava had before creating the world but after giving up his Omnipotence and Omniscience.

Velzard had also made some changes to her own Skill, getting rid of [Gabriel] for its direct upgrade [Cthulu: Lord fo Divine Frost] by combining it with the data she had on [Envy], which, as my Manas, became MY Ultimate Skill. /1\

I wasn't quite in-tunned with the 'Essence' of Frost like Velzard was, so my use of the Skill would be limited, but to her, it was incredibly liberating, as practically anything she could imagine doing with her frost powers was now possible while also destroying her control circuit.

She didn't say it out loud, but this was also out of spite for the brother she now said she 'hated', though I didn't think was completely true.

(Final Status)

...

"I missed you so much!" I said, giving Velzard dozens of kisses in rapid succession.

"Stop~! Kyaaa~" Velzard 'resisted' my onslaught while wiggling about on the couch, but was unsuccessful.

"I haven't gotten to embrace you in over a year!" I said, continuing to kiss her while holding her close.

"It was only 5 months." Velzard weakly argued.

"Well, it was 151 days too long!" I declared.

"You can't be away from me for more than a day?" Velzard said with a bit of shock in her voice.

"I'm a yandere like that." I declared without hesitation.

Velzard sighed before smiling widely. She then pulled me down onto the bed. As she lay down, back against the cushions and arms wrapped around my neck, hanging closely from it as I loomed over her, she stared lovingly into my eyes. I looked down on her beautiful golden orbs, completely mesmerized by them.

"You know, I don't think I'll ever get tired of looking at your eyes," I said softly.

Velzard smiled and blinked, changing them to the light blue she usually uses in her petite form, which was good for cuddling. "Both pairs?" She asked.

"Both pairs," I confirmed, slowly lowering myself to reach her luscious pink lips.

Velzard closed her eyes and shifted slightly, awaiting my arrival, but just before our lips met, our home shook as the sound of a large explosion was heard. Velzard and I, who were mere inches away from embracing one another, both flinched and clenched our fingers before sighing deeply. We then opened our eyes and looked at the awkward expression on the other's faces. I chuckled a bit while Velzard giggled.

Velzard smiled lightly before slowly disintegrating into light particles and floating into my body as she re-absorbed her other self to free up processing power just in case. I quickly stretched, summoned my coat, then headed outside our mansion and looked toward the source of the explosion. It was coming from Evelyn's castle, and in a panic, I used [Clairvoyance] to check if she was alright.

The sight before my eyes shocked me. She was currently engaged in a battle to the death with a handsome young man wearing some kind of uniform like an officer would wear in a modern military. He raised a handgun and fired several shots at Evelyn point blank, who was able to evade some of them, though one of the shots tore off her arm.

She fell to one knee before touching the floor, which began to glow brightly as she activated some sort of magic spell. The Military Man immediately jumped backward just in time for a ray of light to strike where he once stood. There didn't appear to be any damage, but even I felt a slight chill when it came to that light.

<< It's an instant-death magic spell, though it seems to have been brought to the Ultimate Level.>> Velzard said, sounding somewhat impressed.

"Would it work on me?" I asked.

<<Probably before your recent upgrade if you were actually hit by it, but now...>>

'[Absolute Defence] for the win.' I cheered, teleporting myself to the battlefield.

I quickly flicked my wrist and fired off several light beams that struck the military uniformed man, causing hm to spit out blood and be thrown back. I intentionally didn't kill him, as Evelyn would probably want to either question him or kill him herself, so I held back.

I turned to look at Evelyn and ensure she was alright and noticed her arm had already regenerated by some means unknown to me. It didn't feel like Healing Magic or a Regeneration Skill but I decided not to bother with it for now. It also sounded like Velzard was on it by the fact she had told me she was on it.

"Darling!" Evelyn said as she ran toward me.

"Darling...?" I asked, confused.

<<Dodge!!!>> Velzard yelled and I did so. Leaning backward as fast as possible, just to see a small golden bullet pass over me.

My perception was accelerated to over a hundred million times, and even 'I' had trouble seeing the bullet due to its immense speed. It passed over me and struck the castle wall behind me. The castle walls of Amrita are old and magically enchanted to withstand attacks from Ivarage, especially after all the destruction caused by last time. I even layered it with Primitive Magic defenses, so nothing short of a sustained barrage from someone on Guys level should be able to penetrate it, which was why I was so astonished when it instantly vanished from existence.

It wasn't consumed or disintegrated into atoms or magicules, it simply ceased to exist.

I turned to look at my opponent now who clicked his tongue in disappointment. I narrowed my eyes at him. Even Guy wouldn't be able to survive that, and I'd only get out of it by jumping into a Parallel Body.

<<Now that it has been Analyzed, it won't affect you anymore, even if you took a direct hit.>> Velzard mentioned.

"What was that?" I asked aloud, though the man in front of me didn't look too keen to answer.

<<My guess was it was the Ultimate Offensive power of the Angelic Series... the [Judgement] from the Ultimate Skill [Sanalphon].>> Velzard said somberly.

'Can he keep firing those bullets?' I asked. If so, then the collateral damage would be immeasurable.

<<I think it was once-per-day, so don't worry about it too much.>> She explained.

I silently thanked my attentive wife before pulling out Excaliber. From what I'd seen whoever this guy is is rather strong to be able to acquire an Ultimate Skill, though physically he was far inferior to me if he couldn't dodge my casual and nameless light attack earlier.

The man across from me saw this and his eye twitched.

<<Intercepting encrypted [Thought Communication]>> She said, playing it for me.

'*The plan failed. He dodged [Judgement].*' The Military man communicated.

'*I see he hasn't gotten any weaker... you're going to have to sacrifice that body. I doubt you'll be able to escape his sight with it.*' The other voice ordered.

I narrowed my eyes when I heard that.

'*At once!*' The military man said before charging straight at me.

<Look out his body->> Velzard tried to warn me but I already knew the answer.

I quickly spun around faster than the eye could see and jumped back, scooping up Evelyn as I did so. We instantly disappeared from that location and appeared in a safe place nearby. I turned to look behind me, only to see that the man was still there, having followed us well outside the bounds of the city via teleportation.

I was momentarily surprised as the man's body began to blow as though about to explode with the force of a nuclear blast.

"Yeah~ let's not," I said, freezing time.

<<See! I told you the training would pay off one day.>> Velzard's smug voice rang in my ears.

She'd had me train how to pause time about 500 years ago after remembering how she was out of practice during our initial fight with Ivarage and was seriously wounded. We weren't doing anything that century, so she taught me how it was done and we trained together so that we could pause time reflexively. As a matter of fact, I could have dodged the bullet earlier with it, but Velzard yelled to dodge it, so I did so on instinct.

As I 'looked' at the man about to explode I let out a mental sigh. 'It's been a while since someone's tried to kill me. Looks like this is a Parallel Body too, or at least something similar to it.'

<<Its either Rudra or Guy.>> Velzard said darkly.

That's right. Rain had an ability called Mist which was basically the same as Velgrynd's Parallel Existence. And since he used an Ultimate Skill, it couldn't have been a Body Double or Clone.

I shook my head and smiled lightly before slapping the time-stopped man hard. 'This is going to be fun.' I finished, carrying a time-frozen Evelyn to another location before releasing time-stop.

The man's body instantly imploded from my strike in time-stop where defense didn't exist, and then immediately exploded with a force great enough to level a small town. I wouldn't have been harmed by it, but there was a good chance it'd kill Evelyn at point-blank range, which was why I ran.

"Wheew~," I said, pretending to be winded as I looked over at Evelyn. "That was clo-" I didn't get to finish as she kissed me.

I instantly pulled away because I didn't want to cheat on Velzard, but the damage was already done.

"Hehehe. My knight in shining armor has come for me once again." She giggled a bit to herself.

I paused. Something wasn't right, and I think Velzard agreed, considering she hadn't come out and murdered Eveyln yet. /2\

.~.~.~.

/1\:

There is some precedence for this, as Rimuru's [Shub-Niggurath] was created by Ciel to help her keep Rimuru's Skills organized, so it was more of an Ultimate Skill for her than him, as evidenced by the fact he never once used it himself.

The same thing is happening but with Velzard, as she created it to use herself when her Parallel Body isn't residing inside Alaster, so she can still fight at the Ultimate Skill Level.

/2\:

SPOILERS!!! DO NOT READ if you don't want to know the twist.

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I know if I didn't write something, people will think I was going for the Harem ending, but I'm not. Evelyn isn't being herself here. She loves Alaster, but wouldn't go after him like that, especially since she knows Velzard would be after her and he'd reject her feelings if she were to confess them.

The person who attacked her was a Parallel Existence of Tatsuya Kondou. Rudra (Michael) wanted Alaster to be eliminated, so he attacked Evelyn, knowing Alaster has a soft-spot in his heart for her and that Kandou actually has a chance of beating her, unlike Yumina and Milim. The plan was to press her until Alaster showed up then eliminate him with a [Judgement] bullet if possible.

However, as a backup, they had Kondou hit her with a [Dominion Bullet] (when her arm was blown off) to manipulate her. This was SUPPOSED to be discovered, as Evelyn currently has [Sariel] and they don't need [Dominion Bullet] to control her, but they are going to use both so that Alaster lets down his guard after dispelling the first one, that way they'd have a spy inside their camp when the time comes for them to fight for Veldora and Velzard.

Since they'd need Velzard's Dragon Factor, they will eventually have to take her away from him (they don't know she is now a Manas), so she can't work as a spy either.

They did something similar to Clayman as he was supposed to be a rational, cunning, and kind individual but turned into a power-hungry and crazed narcissist after being manipulated by Kondou, which was why he kept doing stupid things, like trying to mind control Milim, which he normally wouldn't have done.

In THIS, they amplified her feelings towards Alaster so she'd be more clingy to him while also weakening the defense of her nation, which borders the eastern Empire. (Remember Amrita is where Jistav was supposed to be on the map.)