Chapter 379 - 377:”Monkey?”
[SUPREME]:-
The Supreme Law governing the gradual deterioration of all things. It accelerates the breakdown of matter, energy, vitality, and structure, causing anything it touches to steadily weaken, deteriorate, and ultimately fall apart.
...
Looking at the description of the Supreme Law I’d acquired just now, I couldn’t help but find the details extremely familiar.
...
[SUPREME LAW]:-
The law governing inevitable disorder. It erodes structure, certainty, and stability, causing all things to gradually lose their form and order.
...
[SUPREME LAW]:-
The failure of existence to remain whole. Collapse does not destroy. It removes stability from form, structure, and continuity itself. What is affected does not break, it loses the ability to stay together as itself. When Collapse is invoked, all cohesion unravels until existence can no longer persist.
...
Looking at the descriptions of these two laws, and comparing them with that of Decay, I couldn’t help but find them extremely similar.
Where one made sure things slowly fell into a state of disarray, another accelerated that process exponentially, while the last one just made sure whatever fell apart couldn’t be put back together.
"No wonder..." It finally clicked.
That final notification made much more sense now...
...
[COSMIC]:-
The inevitable state of irreversible destruction, where structure, stability, and order deteriorate beyond recovery. Everything caught within Ruin steadily loses its integrity, collapses into disorder, and is reduced to a state from which restoration becomes impossible.
...
Ruin. The final state of those three laws.
I was slowly beginning to uncover a pattern. While laws and concepts could actively affect similar fields, they were essentially different. Laws were the building blocks of reality, whereas concepts were the final state of being of whatever existed.
Where creation and destruction could be laws, End and Beginning were an inevitable state of being. At least, from the little I could infer, that seemed to be it.
Which would mean, should one be capable of bypassing laws and comprehending a concept, they would acquire the laws that governed that state of being.
"No wonder my Laws of air, water, wind, and lightning always began at 100%." With the [COSMIC] concept of Atmosphere, it would’ve been a joke if I still had problems comprehending those laws.
"Nice..." I guess I just found another loophole.
And with Chaotic Comprehension in the mix, I was bound to have a great time.
Giving the entire thing another look, I closed the panel before me as I finally stood up. I looked around at the empty and quiet cave I had been dragged into earlier.
Seeing the empty platform where the remnant soul had been resting, a small smile tugged at the edges of my lips.
"Well, I guess that concludes the story of the oh-so-great Devourer."
I can’t lie. There was a sickening sense of satisfaction in knowing that I was the one to finally put this poser down. Yes, the world outside might still be delusional about who the true Devourer was, but as long as I knew, that was all that mattered.
Done with my thoughts, I disappeared from the spot.
...
Appearing back in the underground room I had been in earlier, I came face-to-face with a...
"What the fuck are you guys doing?" I couldn’t believe my eyes.
"Oh. Dante, you’re back. Took you long enough," Leo’s lazy voice replied as he finally stood up from his crouching posture.
"Motherfucker! Mind telling me why you guys were so casually relaxing when I was whisked away like that?" I asked in disbelief.
These bastards had actually been sitting there, doing nothing. It didn’t look like they had even bothered trying to look for me when I was taken.
"Oi! Why the fuck are you yelling? I knew you’d be okay, so why would I bother myself?" Leo, this fucking chicken-cat, had the audacity to even chastise me.
"Oi! Furball. Shulvan. Leo. Pay up. You guys lost." Salazar’s smug voice drew my attention toward him.
"What?"
"Ahhh... fuck it. Here you go!" Leo groaned.
"Master’s greatness remains unchallenged. It is merely I that was incompetent in my judgment," Shulvan added.
"Absolute. You fucking bastard! You couldn’t just come out a moment earlier?" Paku complained.
I just looked on in stunned silence.
These guys... they... they had actually...
"MOTHERFUCKERS!!"
BOOM!
The entire underground cavern shook as I delivered a much-needed beatdown to the three assholes that thought it necessary to place bets on my head instead of searching for me.
They wanted to play? Then, motherfuckers, let’s play.
...
"Urgghh...."
"Mother...."
"Haa... satisfying." I sighed in satisfaction as I looked at the wasteland before me.
Gone was the vampire castle. All that was left in its wake was carnage and the sprawled bodies of Leo, Salazar, Shulvan, and Paku.
The four fuckers had put up a decent fight, but in the end...
"I win. Hehehe." I straightened up properly before turning toward the two that had been silent all this while.
"Hey, Aegon, was it?" I asked.
"Huh? Yeah... yeah... is something the matter?" The guy seemed to still be incapable of getting over something. I wonder what.
"Well, I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news. It’s all concerning your mission directive."
"My mission? You mean the Great Devourer?"
"Yes."
"Yes! Finally! Okay, what’s the good news?" he asked, clearly excited. I was almost feeling bad for having eaten the guy...
Almost...
"Well, good news is the dean wasn’t lying. I found Dracul’s soul fragment."
"You did? Nice!"
"Hold your horses. I said I’ve got good news and bad news. That was the good news."
"Okay? So, what’s the bad news?"
"Well, bad news is, I ate him."
...
...
A sudden silence fell upon the clearing as I could feel everyone’s incredulous gazes on me.
"I’m... I’m sorry, but did you just say you..."
"You heard me right. I ate Dracul’s soul fragment. Seems the so-called Great Devourer couldn’t stop himself from being devoured, huh?" I scoffed as a shirt appeared over my bare torso.
"This..." Poor guy couldn’t even find the words to speak as he just kept opening and closing his mouth.
"Ahhh! Marvelous! As expected of Master! Your greatness truly knows no bounds. Nothing, not even the soul of a law manifestation expert, is worth more than a snack!" Shulvan, having recovered from the beating earlier, finally got back to work.
My smile widened. Once more, I couldn’t help but appreciate the brilliance of Shulvan. He truly knew how to speak.
RUMBLE!
The entire secret realm suddenly began trembling.
"What’s happening?" Aegon asked.
"The secret realm. It’s closing," Salazar replied thoughtfully. "Seems whatever it was that was holding the place together has been taken away, so now it’s forcefully shutting down."
All eyes turned toward me the moment those words were spoken.
"You guys can look all you want, the bastard ain’t coming back." I shrugged.
"Well, what do we do now? Just wait to get evicted?" Leo asked, perching atop my head.
"Well, we can do that, or..." Salazar began speaking before—
SNAP!
He snapped his fingers, and we appeared outside the secret realm.
"Show-off," I scoffed.
"Can’t let you have all the fun. Besides, swear that you weren’t about to do the same."
I used my right to remain silent.
Our attention turned toward the crimson portal that had developed multiple cracks. It wasn’t long until...
BOOM!
The whole thing exploded outward, entropy washing over our bodies in a dissipating wave.
"Well, that solves that problem. What now, Absolute?" Paku asked, floating beside me.
"Now, we’re back to adventuring. I need my name to resound through this whole place before leaving," I replied.
"Do you ever think of anything aside from your massive ego?" Salazar asked.
"My beautiful ladies. Every time. But they aren’t here, so suck it." I gave him the middle finger.
"I don’t know what that means."
"Then I guess it sucks to be you." I shrugged.
"So, where are we heading for this adventure of yours?" Leo’s lazy voice drifted over.
"We’ll leave that to that freak Salazar, but first, let me go get that monkey. The crew isn’t complete without him." Saying so, I closed my eyes as I locked onto the monkey’s energy signature.
"Alright. Found him." I covered everyone in my aura as—
SNAP!
I snapped my fingers, and we appeared before the gates of another city...
"What?" My eyes widened at the scene before me.
"Monkey?"
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A/N: Well, looks like we found our monkey. I wonder what made Dante so surprised. Anyway....
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Thanks for reading...