Chapter 40: Thief, Betrayer, Liar, Worm

The fact that I was feeling down did not stop the passage of time nor the fact that I had yet to wish for my Daily Dose of Catastrophe to no longer exist. Eventually, I would be forced into the nearly Mythical Extinction Scenario.

I had three options I could take: Use Hogyoku's Wish to be rid of the Curse, stall by accepting Summer's Ruin, or cut directly through the bullshit and take the Extinction Scenario willingly.

For as devastating as my fight against Yamamoto had been, beating him at the very least had proven to be a feat worthy of being rewarded with a Divine Gacha Coin. Putting aside what that said about my strength, I also had Salem's Curse and both Trick Vanish along with my Bankai as potent silencing abilities to defend myself against all kinds of instant death abilities or certain-win conditions for whatever I might come across.

Ignoring all of that, I was currently sitting on two Divine Gacha Coins, two Mythical Gacha Coins, and over a dozen Legendaries. I was honestly kind of scared to accept them at this point considering that just the one Mythical Gacha that had been useful in a fight — my Resurrección — had apparently propped me up to the Divine Level.

If before then, I'd been capable of continental destruction potential, then either I had long since surpassed the planetary level due to classifying as having transcendental power or I was damn close. It might not have seemed like it during my fight with Yamamoto, but that was because the collateral damage we caused was due to the pitances of the energy we didn't absorb into each other with every blocked blade or successful strike.

Should I, for whatever god-forsaken reason, decide I wanted to throw a full-powered attack and have it land anywhere on Remnant, chances were I'd either penetrate deep into the planet's Mantle or maybe even the Core, or… something equally as devastating would be spread across a multi-continental scale, at best.

Now back at my apartment, after my walk back to clear my head, I could roll all the Gacha I had stockpiled before deciding on my course of action. Then again, maybe it wasn't the brightest idea to risk potentially getting knocked out while I was still on an unpredictable countdown toward being forced into the most extreme Scenario I had access to.

It wouldn't matter if I was already in a Scenario or Mission since time did not pass in the real world, but if I got knocked out now, I would risk confronting at least one near-Mythical Grade threat somewhere along the Scenario while I was at my most vulnerable.

Having Aizens' memories and experience had taught me just how insane Legendary and Mythical abilities could get through his knowledge of dozens of Bankai and Shikai abilities of the many Captains and Lieutenants in the long history of the Soul Society. So, I didn't want to try my luck so soon after striking the jackpot by landing the Hogyoku's Wish Perk.

The safest course of action would be to either take on Summer's Ruin and buy myself more time, or better yet, take the Labyrinth Crystalarium Scenario and accept all my Gacha within it. Surely, if I did so while within a positive Scenario, it'd be safer than trying my luck with, at best, less than two full days to recover if I just so happened to be struck unconscious by whatever rewards I got.

Reality shifted as I found myself surrounded by an army of humans who were in the middle of shooting at two massive dragons with arrows and blasts of energy.

What had I just been saying about my luck? Of course, I'd be dragged into this mess before I could make up my mind…

The arrows that were shot, harmlessly bounced off the purple western dragon while all the magic was attracted and compacted into a sphere that it was effortlessly controlling and maintaining. Clearly, the purple dragon dwarfed the strength of everyone on the same scale that my base state compared to the average Auraless civilian, if not even worse.

"My own gift to them… Used against me?" The western dragon said.

As it began to crush the ball of energy in its grasp I went through my Directives and balked. The way to resolve this Scenario was to simply "Survive until the Gods of Light and Darkness leave Remnant."

My focus changed back to the purple western dragon I now recognized to be the God of Darkness as the magic in its hand collapsed in on itself like a dying star would before going supernova and erupting into a massive wave of energy that approached at sonic speeds.

I had been close, but not close enough at the speed that the wave approached to not be able to bring out my synergized Aura and Spiritual Power as well as my Hierro. The magic wave washed over me like water without so much as ruffling my clothes. It also left the environment utterly untouched as a show of absolute mastery over the energy by the God of Darkness. Everyone else… Well, everyone aside from one woman who looked kind of like Salem was reduced to dust.

[Congratulations! For surviving the God of Darkness' extinction event, you have earned a Locked Legendary Gacha Coin!]

Now, when I say everyone, I meant that I could not find a trace of human life for hundreds of miles in the effective range for my Pesquisa while in my base state. I imagined the range of the magic wave covered the entire planet given the name of the Mission. Even if it didn't, the ease with which the God of Darkness cast the spell showed he likely could genocide humanity without much of a challenge.

"Curious, another remains besides the cursed one?" The God of Light, the golden eastern dragon, spoke.

"This is not deserving of mercy. He revolted just like the rest," the God of Darkness sneered as it charged up a new spell of purple energy.

"Perhaps, but if you recall he did not contribute to the attack," the God of Light said.

The God of Darkness kept charging his attack before saying, "I might consider championing him as a symbol of strength and sparing him along with her if he manages to survive a targeted attack."

"And I'd consider him an equal in that case, but we both know that's impossible. Have you not a shred of mercy in your heart for the only one of my creations that has managed to survive on his own merit? It aligns with my understanding of you to value power and domination."

"Enough. Either he lives through my attack or he does not," the God of Darkness said.

He fired a beam not unlike my Cero, but even if it was concentrated and directed at just me, it was still kind of disappointingly slow. I decided to meet its beam with one of mine and while the shockwave was pretty brutal, the power was more or less evenly matched as I raised my Spiritual Power until my Cero stopped being pushed back.

"What was that most foul energy?" The God of Light asked.

"Hollow spiritual power. Also, don't be rude, that's my soul you're talking about," I said, feeling my confidence rise by how well I was doing with just my base state. I wasn't even at full power yet and I was matching one of these supposed Gods.

It was as depressing as it was comforting that I might just be able to get through this Mission just fine. If only I'd known that before unwittingly committing war crimes in the Final Release Scenario. It would have saved me a lot of heartache.

"I did not create that and yet I sense power that originates from me in him," the God of light said.

"I too sense my power in the depths of his soul, brother. Power I did not bestow. Power… identical to the one she possesses," The God of Darkness said as he turned his head to the human-looking Salem. Or, I guess from the context of everything else going on, she probably was Salem.

"Tell me, human, how did our powers come to be in your possession," The God of Light asked.

"I'm from the future," I said, skipping past the whole simulated reality part, "where I stole them from her to kill her. I wasn't the one to actually land the killing blow, but I would have because she was literally asking for it."

"So, you're a thief, then? Be it a blessing or a curse that you took from her, it was not your decision to make, mortal," the God of Darkness said as he pointed a claw at me and siphoned off something out of my body.

"Welp, there goes our baseline invincibility. We're no longer immortal nor regenerate absolutely," Katayoki whined from within my Inner World.

"See, now you've pissed me off," I glared at the western dragon.

All I'd done so far is defend myself against him and he takes away one of my most prized cheatsy abilities? I had backups I'd never needed to use that could substitute for the effect but now it was going to cost me resources and energy!

"You still dare to challenge me without my power?" the God of Darkness asked.

"At this point, I need something to make up for the loss," I said as I changed into my Arrancar Form and completely let go of holding back any of my Spiritual Power or Spiritual Pressure.

Just the act of flexing my power leveled everything around me for miles including Salem who had been crushed into a meat and bone paste, but was still understandably alive. My mood slightly improved at the realization that even if the Curse I stole from the real Salem was taken back, there was still this simulated Salem to use my Bankai on.

"Resurrección: Segunda Etapa," I went all out before either of the Gods could run the same strategy I had conducted against Aizen. Now that I couldn't rely on absolute regeneration, I had to be considerably more careful with each of my actions lest I risk an unexpected instantaneous death.

"Brother, help me be rid of this abomination," the God of Light hissed. "It is clearly neither human nor Grimm yet it makes a mockery of both. This pilfer of our powers, who claims to be from the future. This usurper!"

"End The Madness, Katayoki," I materialized my throwing knife before flipping it and catching it by the blade.

Every boost I could make use of propped me up to the state I was in when I fought Yamamoto, except, of course, for having the backup of my Zanpakuto Spirit made manifest. It didn't matter that I didn't have a slightly less powerful copy of myself to even the odds to two versus two, I was currently reacting and capable of moving faster than either of the dragons as I threw my knife towards the God of Light and barely saw him move an inch before my blade punched right through him.

It didn't matter though, as the massive hole in his serpent-like body instantly reformed even faster than my stolen Curse of Salem would have. A moment later, both dragons began to pick up speed even under my accelerated perspective.

The God of Darkness opened his mouth and out of it came a mostly blackish beam with purple edges to it that burnt through my hybrid Spiritual Power-Aura energy as quickly as an open flame would to a civilian's hands. That is until I started making use of the many rewards I'd gotten from killing the simulated Titans.

What I was being hit with was a much more refined and concentrated version of the Dark Force Skill I'd not used yet. There hadn't been a use case for it against any of the Captains of the Gotei 13, but against the God of Darkness, I could use it to weaken his own Dark Magic and make the flame analogy more like being hit with a blow dryer set to max.

Black Hearted had already been in effect passively as a Perk as all it did was raise my resistance and the potency of anything related to Darkness to near-perfect levels. I doubt my Level 1 Dark Force Skill would be capable of helping me resist the God of Darkness's power over his own domain without the Perk.

Intrinsic Reconstitution was used to substitute my lost absolute regeneration, though it only worked on souls. It worked just as quickly to restore the soul while I expended droves of my energy and, wouldn't you know it, as a Shinigami, Arrancar, or transformed counterpart, my body adopted a Pure Soul physique.

I charged my knife with Monochrome Endowment and Stolen Valor and nearly cut the God of Darkness in half. Just like his brother god, he reformed immediately afterward, but that was fine as I'd gotten his experiences and knowledge, which had always been the plan.

With the understanding of his own abilities, weaknesses as well as those that he knew of, of his brother, I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth as I considered everything I was quickly parsing through as I dodged and weaved through the brother gods' attacks.

The good news was, it was definitely possible to kill both of them. The bad news was, it would be a nightmarishly complicated endeavor to achieve it with only the current resources I had. These beings were legit, capital "G" Gods. As in universal constants for the world of Remnant. They didn't have the power to literally reshape the universe, end it or start a new one, but they could play around with the fundamental laws and underlying physics of their respective domains.

To kill them, I'd need to kill their domain and unfortunately for as strong as I was now, neither my Bankai nor Trick Vanish could handle destroying the concept of Light and Darkness as energy sources from the rest of the inner workings of the universe. Both my Bankai and Trick Vanish worked by pulling off feats of silencing or stealing so long as they were relative to my power level and classifying as planetary was a long ways away from being comparable to universal.

Fortunately, I didn't need to kill them. A simple defeat that rewarded me with likely Mythical or above Grade Gacha Coins would suffice before I retreated out of the Mission. I could actually see myself pulling that off if I played my cards right.

To start, I went apocalyptic in my approach as I teleported dozens of miles away from the raging dragons and aimed a full-powered knife throw at the ground below me. I knew roughly what I should have been expecting, but seeing the endless hole that darkened into an abyss before brightening back up with the light of the planet's molten inner layers glowing off in the distance was definitely an unforgettable experience.

Fractions of a second later, while my knife was still in the middle of flying down to the center of the planet, both Dragons appeared beside me. The God of Darkness lashed out with his claws while the God of Light sought to capture and crush me to death if his brother failed. When I parried the God of Darkness' claws, it didn't have the time nor space to dodge the God of Light.

His constricting grip was crushing the life out of me slowly but surely, until I brought out my upgraded Semblance. The Heart Death Field descended on the world, draining it of all its hues before the evolved variant took away even the previously leftover white of any light that cross into the domain.

Much like when I unlocked my Semblance the first time, I had absolutely no idea what this evolved True Death Field's new effect was, but it was definitely weakening the God of Light rapidly as I soon managed to break out of its grip. Before I got away from him, I grabbed onto his rapidly recovering body and teleported the both of us over to my knife, thousands of miles into Core layers of the planet.

I wasn't sure if it was my True Death Field or the fact that we were surrounded by several thousand-degree molten earth all around us, but the God of Light could not recover as quickly as he previously did. I took this opportunity to bring out my Bankai and after my materialized Zanpakuto Spirit came out to play, he immediately stole the God of Light's aspect of Vitality.

Through Stolen Valor I judged that to be the best aspect of his abilities to steal, not only to defeat him, where killing him would have been next to impossible, but also to replace Salem's Curse as it was better in every way. It was pretty much the same effect, only he couldn't take it back because I had stolen it from him directly and it worked on a universal level instead of being vulnerable to destruction should I face subatomic annihilation.

With his ability to instantly regenerate gone, I used a Cero to destroy every part of his body before leaving the planet's core. I would do the same to the God of Darkness when I got my hands on—

I appeared back in my apartment.

That bastard had run away!

[Congratulations! For defeating Remnant's God of Light, you have earned a Locked Divine Gacha Coin!]

[Congratulations! For driving away Remnant's God of Darkness, you have earned a Locked Mythical Gacha Coin!]

The moment I realized I was out of the Mission, I instantly undid my transformation and suppressed all of my power. Fortunately, being exposed to it for fractions of a microsecond did not instantly snuff out all the life around me for dozens or hundreds of miles. It seemed that the experience was like touching lava, if the exposure was short enough, it would be like nothing happened.

I sat down on my luxurious couch and steeped in my annoyance at being denied a second Divine Gacha Coin. All that heartache and trouble… And I hadn't even managed to get the best results possible?!

It was bullshit! Bullshit I say!

Then again, maybe I should take a step back, calm down and cool off. My thoughts and emotions were all over the place and I couldn't help but blame myself for kickstarting this whole mess. This had all started right after resolving the whole Salem issue because I'd been bored after sleeping for a couple hours and couldn't resist accepting my first Mythical Grade Gacha Coin even if it was a Cursed variant.

Maybe it'd help my slipping sanity if I laid off the Gacha for a little while? And by that, I meant, by not thinking of accepting the Coins for a little while. Being the addict I was, I had the self-awareness to know I would never be able to swear off getting even Common or Uncommon Gacha Coins if the opportunity to get them just so happened to befall me. But, in all seriousness, maybe I should lay off the power-tripping and constant fighting.

I remembered the promises I made to myself on the day I awakened and discovered my Gacha powers, and I couldn't help but sigh over how badly I was breaking those vows. The only one of the three rules that I'd adopted for my lifestyle that I had been following was the third one and it was arguably for the worst.

Sure, from a power-based perspective, I had been following Rule One; of not being a pathetic pushover. But subjectively, I could not deny that I was being a sniveling failure who couldn't say no to his shitty vice and addiction. I was constantly feeling bad and sorry for myself exactly like those dumb stereotypical main characters I had set out with the precise intention to avoid mimicking.

Rule Two was even worse, as my life had been a constant pursuit of power and safety the moment it became even a remote chance that there appeared someone who I couldn't permanently deal with, who might also want to go after me. Right after Salem's threat ended, I'd idiotically given myself something new to worry about, another insurmountable and existential horror that I needed to prepare myself for in the form of my Gacha-given Mythical Curse.

What good was following Rule Three and not following common sense when all that had done is land me in more and more trouble? Avoiding the obvious pitfall of being given isekai cheat powers had been to plan and yet the opposite had come to pass.

Maybe the only way to win in this shitty game was to put down the controller and not play at all. At least, for a time, I should refrain from continuing the trend of escalation that doubtlessly followed the moment I accepted the highest Gachas I had access to. That power would always be there and barring inconceivably insurmountable odds should I happen to land myself in the crosshairs of some omnipotent being in another Scenario, I should be fine with all the powers and abilities I had right now.

I had already cleared a near-Mythical Negative Mission. As long as I didn't accept any more Gacha, the worst thing I could possibly face was an unrelated godlike being in the Brockton Bay Scenario. Summer's Ruin didn't count because I'd already proved to myself that I could deal with the highest powers present in Remnant's universe.

I knew I couldn't swear off Gacha forever, even if I wanted to. But, I didn't have to if I could just use the power responsibly and not just drown in my addiction like a deadbeat alcoholic or an idiot who ruined his life by spamming the slot machine. Just like a drink or two a day wouldn't cause one's life to spiral out of control, neither would systematic gambling if I could mitigate the chances of an outcome backfiring on my spectacularly.

Right now, thought, I felt like I was in the middle of becoming that deadbeat alcoholic who would down a bottle of vodka a day before washing it down with a six-pack of beers. It'd be hard to give it up if I tried to ween myself off and give myself the slightest leeway to fuel my growing addiction. So, maybe I'd be for the best if I quit accepting Gacha cold turkey for a while.

I was thinking, maybe a month? Maybe longer, if my human nature and powers of adaptability allowed me to make it a habit to not rely on Gacha as my main source of entertainment. It's not like I'd really even tried to cure my boredom with other methods. Maybe if I finally got around to doing all the things I'd thought about instead of just defaulting to "More Gacha!" I'd get my life back to where I originally planned it to be.

There were so many things I could do to entertain myself if I didn't rely on Shadow Clones to complete any task I wanted done in a matter of minutes. There was so much more I could consider doing if I didn't worry about whether or not I would be getting more or high-quality Gacha from how I spent my time.

I looked around my apartment and sighed. There were a lot of things I could think of to spend my attention on, but unfortunately, none of the most appealing options were possible with the stark lack of equipment present. I thought about trying to make use of my music-related or Drawing Skills, but to do so immediately, I would have to accept certain Uncommon or Rare rewards I had stockpiled.

I shook my head and made to walk out of my apartment and take the elevator down instead of flying or teleporting out of the window. If I was going to go visit a supply store to entertain myself like a normal person, I might as adopt the role wholeheartedly. That would probably go a long way in stabilizing myself, at least, that's what the cheated psychology knowledge I'd gained from my Shadow Clones suggested.

I wouldn't feel normal as I so desperately wanted if I continued to exert my godlike abilities for every inconvenience and the slightest excuse I could find. It was either that, or I was taking the whole quitting cold turkey thing way too seriously.

Still, it was better to be safe than sorry.