"Hurry, find me." She cried out weakly as she was dragged into the endless darkness, her form disappearing into the void. Zenryu found himself reaching out to save her for some reason he couldn't explain. It was strange... out of nowhere, he saw her as his wife. This feeling had come from nothing, completely unbidden. This wasn't the first time he had experienced this either. He had felt the same sudden bond with the World Tree, and now with Nyx as well.
"What a pain..." Zenryu said with a tired sigh while turning to leave this place. He had been devoured completely—his Source, his existence, everything about him had been consumed and erased. But he simply overcame his own destruction, his own erasure, and stepped back into reality as if nothing had happened at all.
As the embodiment of destruction through the Anos Bloodline, the closer Zenryu came to destruction, the stronger he became. Even if he was destroyed on every level, Zenryu could simply overcome his own annihilation and return. Of course, if he ever encountered something he truly couldn't overcome, and he couldn't find other means to return to life, then... well, he would truly be a goner. But that day hadn't come yet.
So, right before the Prince of Gluttony's eyes, Zenryu simply popped back into existence as if materializing from thin air. The sight shocked both the demon and Hope, who stared in disbelief. Although Zenryu was low on energy after returning to life from such a complete state of death, this wasn't the tower anymore. His infinite energy, which had seemed so impressive before, was like a mere drop of water compared to the amount of energy beings in this realm burned just by simply breathing.
By the way, Zenryu of course couldn't actually be killed by the Prince of Gluttony's devouring ability. He had already seen through it with The Almighty and knew it wouldn't be able to truly end him.
The only way around his adaptations was something like that bear from before, whose attacks held no special abilities and relied purely on raw physical capability. But even that weakness had been addressed—Zenryu had evolved and adapted since then, so it was no longer a problem for him.
"You!" The demon, which had been about to attack Hope and finish her off, was shocked beyond words. It had devoured a Source completely. So how could someone whose Source was devoured just appear out of nowhere like nothing had happened?
Zenryu was too lazy to offer any explanation. He simply looked down at his hand, which now held the still-beating heart of the demon. The demon's countless mouths widened in horror as it touched at the gaping hole in its chest where its heart had been, then looked back at Zenryu with pure terror.
"Did you think devouring my Source was enough to make me die?" Zenryu asked with a calm smile. After his very existence had been completely devoured and erased, he naturally came back stronger than ever before.
He had just received a massive Zenkai Boost from the experience. Also, thanks to the Anos Bloodline, the closer he came to destruction, the more powerful he grew... and with those two abilities fused together, well, one could only guess how overpowered Zenryu had become.
"You're a monster!" The demon screamed before it collapsed and dropped dead, no longer among the living.
'...You're nearing your limit.' Jarvis said after completing a full scan of Zenryu's current state. Indeed, Zenryu was approaching the absolute limit of his base power. A limit that, once reached, would finally allow him to transform and access even greater heights of strength.
"W-who are you?" Hope asked, her voice shaking from what she had just witnessed.
"Just someone passing by," Zenryu said with a light smile. He activated The Almighty and looked at Hope, causing her to instinctively take a step back in fear. She watched as multiple pupils grew in Zenryu's eyes.. Zenryu's eyebrow raised for a second as he observed something about her, before turning his gaze downward, towards the lower planes of existence far below.
'...Let's become gods...' Zenryu thought to himself. He went on to examine what rewards he could obtain for reaching level 100. Yeah, the past few days of battles, plus killing that demon prince, had all contributed to him finally reaching level 100. By the way, he no longer had mandatory trials blocking his progress. So, he could level up as many times as he wanted without stopping at milestone levels that required him to complete a trial first.
'...As expected. Every five levels, rewards are Extreme grade abilities. Every 10 levels grants Beyond Extreme grade rewards... and now this. Supreme Grade abilities, the highest grade that any system could offer its user.' Zenryu thought with a satisfied smile, looking at the vast sea of incredible abilities awaiting his selection.
He went on to pick The Power of the Pencil, Instant Death, the Void Shiki Bloodline, the Ajimu Najimi Bloodline, the Arceus Bloodline, and lastly, Magic of Origins.
The Power of the Pencil was Featherine's signature ability. Having long transcended the realm of Witches and accessed a higher domain from which even they were nothing but pieces on a chessboard, Featherine held the power to look down upon all of existence as the script of a tale. She could easily modify and rewrite reality according to her whims, paralyzing the narrative itself in a manner akin to a person stopping to turn the pages of a book and writing down her desired scenarios instead.
Instant Death was Yogiri's ability. This power was deceptively simple in concept—it allowed him to kill anything and everything, no matter what defenses or protections they possessed. So long as he locked onto a target, that target would die. This ability existed because Yogiri was the avatar of the End, the ultimate endpoint of all things. Naturally, there was no resistance, defense, or countermeasure that could work against this power. It even possessed an automatic defense that killed anything that aimed to harm him, and granted the user the ability to sense any intent of harm directed towards them.
The Void Shiki Bloodline came from the third personality of Shiki Ryougi, said to be connected to the root of all things. The Void Shiki could be described as an almighty wish-granting device and the source of all supernatural phenomena. This bloodline included access to all powers from that world.
The Ajimu Najimi Bloodline came with countless abilities beyond counting. Ajimu possessed an insurmountable number of skills—12,858,051,967,633,865 in total. To list just a few of her capabilities:
Alibi Block: A skill that allowed Ajimu to appear wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted. This included physical places such as locked rooms, outer space, heaven, and hell, as well as metaphysical places like dreams and the hearts of others. She could even appear in multiple locations simultaneously.
Dead Lock: One of Ajimu's abilities that granted her eternal life. She had lived for over three trillion years using this skill.
Life Zero: With Life Zero, Ajimu could nullify any skill she desired, rendering abilities useless against her.
Murder Mathematic: An ability that allowed her to win against opponents with stronger skills than her own.
Baby Planet: The ability to create an entire universe.
Spec Over: The ability to become a god.
Arceus Bloodline: Arceus is a Mythical Pokémon who is the leader and creator of the "Creation Trio" formed by Dialga (Concept of Time), Palkia (Concept Of Space), and Giratina (Concept OfAntimatter), as well as the "Lake Trio" formed by Mesprit (Concept Of Emotions), Uxie (Concept Of Knowledge), and Azelf (Concept of Willpower), making it a Trio Master, and the only one who is that of two different trios. By bringing the trios into existence, Arceus created and shaped the fabric of reality in the Pokémon multiverse, making it the single most powerful known entity in the franchise.
Magic of Origins: Maria's primary magical compendium and the one that most distinguishes her from other Witches. It is essentially the power to create something ("1") out of the Sea of Zero, making entirely new things as opposed to simply modifying already existing objects, as other types of magic do.
'...Now I have infinite energy.' Zenryu thought with satisfaction. With Origin Magic, the concept of running out of energy was completely meaningless. Then again, he now possessed every ability he could ever want. Be it abilities from countless The Fate verse, Pokémon World, or the ability to take hold of the plot itself and grant himself any power he desired, running out of energy was simply impossible for Zenryu at this point.
"Found you!" A voice boomed across the heavens, shaking the very air. The gods had finally located Zenryu. They had been searching for the mortal whose capabilities defied all common sense and natural law.
Zenryu looked up at the sky, where he saw the avatars of multiple gods gathered together, floating among the clouds. He floated up into the sky to face them directly. Amongst the assembled deities were Zeus, Ra, Odin, and many others. Even in this higher plane of existence, the true forms of the gods couldn't appear in the realm that people like Hope called home.
This was the only plane that allowed a god's avatar to step down into. Any lower, and no matter how much they tried to suppress their strength, it was simply impossible for them to descend. The world itself wouldn't allow it, rejecting their presence entirely.
In other words, just like how the dragon on the final floor of the tower was beyond anything found on Earth, the gods here transcended anything someone like Hope could ever dream of reaching... plus infinitely more on top of that. And these were only their avatars, mere fractions of their true power.
"Let's not be enemies. I know it's unlikely given the circumstances, but let's at least try and be friends." Zenryu said with a friendly smile, holding his hands up in a peaceful gesture.
He looked at Zeus, who appeared as a white-haired man wearing robes of white and gold. Zeus had a godly beard that was only rivaled by Odin's own impressive facial hair. Odin stood nearby with two crows perched on both of his shoulders, his long black hair flowing in an unseen wind, and an eye patch covering one socket.
Ra didn't have a bird-like head as Zenryu had expected from the myths. Instead, he appeared as a dark-skinned, bald man, shirtless and displaying a muscular body adorned with gold jewelry. Black robes covered his lower body, and his presence radiated heat like a miniature sun.
"Haha! You take the system we built for ourselves, and you dare stand before us spouting that nonsense?!" Zeus roared in rage, his voice crackling with barely contained lightning. That system Zenryu held was built specifically for the gods, not for mortals. This was precisely why Zenryu had grown so powerful—his system wasn't designed for a mortal like him. It was created to make gods like themselves even more overpowered than they already were.
"Yeah, but the system chose me... well, more like the former holder went out of his way to find me for some reason I still don't fully understand," Zenryu said with an easygoing smile, which only served to enrage Zeus further. The god of lightning moved to kill the insolent mortal, but just as Zeus launched his attack, he suddenly threw up a mouthful of golden blood as a hole pierced clean through his divine chest.
"You're capable of turning our killing intent against us?" Odin said with narrowed eyes, carefully studying Zeus's wound rather than helping him. Since he and Zeus were not exactly friends or allies, he didn't particularly care about Zeus's injuries. Instead, he used Zeus as a test subject to study Zenryu's capabilities and limitations.
"Yeah, it's not every day I get to face beings who transcend anything I could normally do. I have to pull out every ability I have just to fight evenly with you gods." Zenryu said with an excited grin. He could end this battle in a single instant if he wanted to. Instant Death, The Power of the Pencil, cutting the lines of death—the list of instant-win options went on and on. But those abilities were simply no fun to use. Hell, the treasures stored in his Gate of Babylon could one-shot every god present... but where was the entertainment in that?
"Child's play." Zeus sneered dismissively, using his lightning to erase the very concept of him ever being injured in the first place. The wound didn't disappear since, naturally, any damage Zenryu caused couldn't be healed... but he just willed his lightning to ignore that, which caused the injury he had to disappear as if ever existed.
"Your control over lightning is interesting," Zenryu commented after copying Zeus's power with The End... but he found that he couldn't instantly master these powers like he normally could. No one could, for a simple yet profound reason—the concept of lightning was Zeus himself. Lightning was Zeus, and Zeus was lightning. They were one and the same. Naturally, no one could ever hope to rival the level of absolute control Zeus possessed over his element.
Zeus didn't use techniques, spells, or other such methods. He simply willed his lightning to do something, and his lightning obeyed without question. If he willed his lightning to create, his lightning would have the power to create. If he willed his lightning to grant him an ability, his lightning would do exactly that. For Zeus alone decided what lightning could and couldn't do.
"You're annoying," Zeus said with growing anger, sensing how Zenryu had copied his sacred power. Willing his lightning to outright ignore Zenryu's ability to reflect killing intent and bypass any other defensive abilities, Zeus held out his palm and shot a devastating blast of lightning directly at the mortal.
But the lightning simply disappeared into nothing before it could reach him, stunning Zeus and the other gods who had been watching intently. Zenryu possessed complete immunity to lightning, and that immunity was conceptual to the point that even Zeus's absolute authority over the element couldn't overcome it.
Zenryu had accumulated countless abilities that made him immune to damage of all kinds. There were the Divine Protections he possessed. He currently had an infinite number of divine protections that made him immune specifically to lightning. Another infinite number of divine protections made him immune to all elements. Yet another infinite number of divine protections made him immune to harm in general. And the list went on endlessly.
Looking beyond just divine protections, he had Jarvis working constantly to fuse these abilities with others, birthing even stronger defensive powers. An uncountably infinite number of abilities that made him immune to lightning alone now existed within him.
After copying Zeus's lightning, Jarvis immediately went to work fusing what had been copied, buffing all of these defensive abilities to be capable of defending against even Zeus's divine power... and all of this wasn't even taking into account Endless Nine and countless other powers and abilities stacked on top.
Zeus roared in fury, feeling his pride being trampled beneath this mortal's feet. He stepped forward, closing the vast distance between them in an instant, appearing directly before Zenryu and punching forward with all his might. His lightning evolved mid-strike, bypassing all of Zenryu's defenses and immunities, forcing Zenryu to physically shield himself with crossed arms.
It was already impressive that Zenryu managed to shield himself at all, considering Zeus moved faster than time itself. The god had moved so fast that he actually traveled backward through time with his speed alone. It was so incomprehensibly fast that without Zenryu's skills that automatically moved to shield him from attacks... well, he wouldn't have even managed to cross his arms before the blow landed.
BOOM
Zenryu was sent flying, shooting through the sky like a blazing shooting star. He moved so fast through the air from the impact that time around him began flowing backward. He slammed into the ground at the exact location where Hope had been standing... but at this current moment in reversed time, it was actually hours earlier, so she and the party she traveled with were far away from this spot.
But there was someone notably missing from this earlier time period—the demon prince Zenryu had been fighting. The Prince of Gluttony was absent because... well, Zenryu had killed him. Simply going back in time wasn't enough to bring him back to life when Zenryu's destruction was involved. Although the erased land the prince had devoured was still nowhere to be found since... well, what was devoured naturally wouldn't return from simply rewinding time.