Half-Insane

First of all, sorry for the delay.

This time, there wasn't really a good reason for it. I simply couldn't write these next few chapters. I had writer's block specifically for this part. I actually ended up writing about three rough drafts for the next arc instead, which is the one I'm most excited about.

I really like Elden Ring, but I didn't realize just how much research I'd need to do.

Second: someone actually figured out why Rin was invited to the stream. I've mentioned this before, but whenever someone important shows up on the stream, there's always a reason for it—almost always connected to the current event.

For example, if something related to the moon is happening, a viewer connected to the moon might appear. Like what happened with Kaguya.

In Rin's case, one guy actually guessed the reason and sent it to me in a private message. I honestly didn't think anyone would figure it out before I revealed it. Anyway, I just wanted to mention it—it's something for the future.

I won't drag this out any longer. Have a great night, everyone, and enjoy the chapter!

(P)(A)(T)/CalleumArtori.

[...]---[...]

POV: Devas Asura.

I was in a miserable, incomplete state.

My mind was clouded, and somehow, I was trapped in a constant state of insight that kept me fully lucid even amidst the insanity and the “fog” consuming my thoughts.

It was almost like being lucid inside a fever dream.

I took a deep breath, feeling my body.

Internally, I was completely fucked. Externally, it looked less horrific, but everything was still a complete mess. Unfortunately, quite literally. I had patched myself up as best as I could, but that was all it was: a patchwork fix.

My body would eventually heal on its own, but that would take time.

Honestly, I was pretty sure that if Hardy hadn’t been expecting a reaction from me, I would’ve suffered some backlash to my soul as well.

Of course, my soul would’ve defended itself and my title would’ve protected me, but it hadn’t even come to that.

My Aura was still in shambles, not even capable of regenerating, because every bit of Aura that recovered was immediately commanded by my Semblance to devour Hardy’s underworld energy.

That energy was ridiculously stubborn and persistent. I understood why—it was similar to that strange fog that existed in the void between worlds where I had fallen before, something that devoured life itself.

The more I resisted and recovered, the more vitality I regained, but the underworld energy consumed everything all over again while growing stronger as well. It was a vicious cycle that, unfortunately, I had no way of extinguishing all at once.

I was winning, but it was slow, because I had two other problems that I considered even worse: two “voids.”

The “void” holes in my left arm and shoulder were more or less contained. But I didn’t want to take any risks, so I was keeping my attention there. Meanwhile, the “void” mist was being suppressed and devoured by the Shadowflame.

Those two problems were my priority. Once I dealt with them, my recovery would become much simpler.

Another issue was that, because of the damage to my body, using my energies had become incredibly difficult. Even though my soul itself hadn’t been damaged, the bridge connecting my body to my soul had been.

I could still use mana, spiritual energy, nightmare energy, Aura, Anima, even my growing Spirituality. But the more I forced it, the more deteriorated my condition became.

So, basically, I was stuck fighting with brute force and blood alone, since the Chalice was the one carrying the entire burden whenever I manipulated blood.

I couldn’t even move the Shadowflame freely anymore, since that thing was already working triple shifts. And the Bone Helm was damaged to the point where I could only conjure a single hand, which at the moment was more useful as my right hand.

… I wanted my right hand back!

I turned my head slightly to the northwest. Everything hurt. I was almost at the point of severing my own spinal cord just to disable sensation from the neck down and manually control myself through blood manipulation.

The only reason I hadn’t done it was because the pain was actually keeping me alert, almost fueling the “insight” I was experiencing.

To the northwest was where my right arm lay. I could still feel the sensation of my blood inside the severed limb, as well as the connection I had with the Devas Ring.

I wanted my hand back—not just because it carried three important items of mine — the Devas Ring, the Ring of the Last Slime, and the Teardrop Cleaver — nor just because reattaching it would be easier than regenerating a new one in my current state.

I wanted it back simply because it was mine. That hand belonged to me, so I wanted it back.

Something really had changed in my brain.

... Maybe I should go to hell and learn a few torture methods?

Honestly, I wasn’t even sure how it hadn’t turned into mush yet. At that very moment, I was preventing around twenty strokes and five aneurysms — and not even the same kind of aneurysm — using the Chalice.

If not for that thing, my situation would’ve been even more miserable…

I still had a few ways to keep myself alive even without the Chalice in my possession, but those methods would’ve been even more grotesquely Frankenstein-like than this.

Sighing, I observed the air around me. It glowed bright orange, covered in orange mist. It would remain that way for a while, since this was my “territory,” so to speak.

I felt safer like this.

There was something wrong with this world.

I could feel the divinity in the air of this world. There was far too much of it—so much that if the Divine Anathema weren’t fighting alongside my Anima inside my body, it would’ve been attacking the surrounding air itself.

It was like invisible golden dust, imperceptible to the naked eye, falling from that damned colossal golden tree.

That thing gave me chills…

I wanted to cut that tree down!

Keeping my artificial heart mechanically pumping, I turned toward the (CHAT). The messages were, unsurprisingly, mostly expressions of concern. Since I had been in combat mode earlier, it had been blocked.

Curiously, there weren’t that many. It seemed people had been more focused on watching than typing.

Actually, how much time had passed since I’d been attacked and fallen here?… Ten minutes, twenty?… Maybe five… I wasn’t sure.

“I’ll answer you guys in a second…” My voice was still hoarse.

I shifted the blood patching my vocal cords to normalize them a little.

“Test, test… much better.” I muttered to myself, testing my voice. It sounded close to normal again. I turned back to the (CHAT). “I’m dealing with a few things here. My body’s kind of a mess, and I’m figuring some other things out too.”

“I’m not gonna lie, I’m completely fucked up right now, not doing great at all. But I’m far from dead… or close to it. Just give me a moment here.” I raised my right hand, brushing aside several messages that had appeared in front of me.

They didn’t disappear. Instead, they seemed to move into a sort of floating “spam box” hovering a few inches away. That thing was filling up fast. It was kind of comical. I almost laughed, but my face felt oddly stiff.

At the same time, I felt one side of my body go limp and rigid simultaneously.

Another stroke, great, fix it, fix it, fix it…

I think this was my own fault. Back in my previous “instinctive-insane” state, my brain hadn’t been this utterly fucked. Well, it had, but this specific problem hadn’t existed—those had been different problems…

It was strange being conscious of the “madness.”

I knew I was in an insane state, and somehow that made everything feel even more bizarre, because if I knew I was insane, then theoretically I should’ve been sane. But the fact that I was sane amidst insanity only circled back to the reality that I truly was insane.

It was a cycle. The more I distanced myself from madness, the closer it came to me, and in the end, we were never truly separate.

It had something to do with the energy from Klein’s world. My spirituality seemed even more prone to madness than my nightmare energy.

Not that nightmare energy wasn’t prone to madness either. It was just a… different kind of madness. Similar, but different.

Basically, the number of insane whispers lingering at the edge of my hearing had increased. Some of them even felt like they were trying to tell me useful information, but I didn’t fully trust that either.

I reflected in silence for a moment.

I think I was… what had Klein called it again? Losing control.

Not exactly. I was somewhere between losing control, already having lost control, and being completely sane and stabilized.

Thinking about it now, maybe it was also because my connection to the Shadow Puppet was so weak it was practically nonexistent. Honestly, I had no idea how it hadn’t snapped completely.

Ugh… just how fucked up was I, really?

I searched within my body for the potion I had drunk. I hadn’t paid much attention to how it worked when I created the Blasphemy Card, only that it was something useful for my shitty situation.

To my surprise, after searching for a moment, I got the sensation that there was simply nothing there. In fact, once I focused a little more, the knowledge came to me instinctively: I had fully digested the potion.

Huh?…

I had learned how these things worked from Klein, so I knew about “acting.” Was this retroactive? Did that mean I had already acted enough like a Tarnished beforehand that I digested the potion the moment I drank it?

What even was a Tarnished, anyway?… That could mean a lot of things.

Someone stained, obviously, it was in the name, but stained by what? If the meaning was broader than that, then I understood why I had digested the potion. After all, ever since my birth — no, even before it — I had been “Tarnished.”

And honestly, I still was. Both by the sins I carried and by the actions I committed.

I recalled the information the Blasphemy Card had given me earlier. I barely even had to think before the text surfaced inside my fractured mind:

‘Those who were exiled from their homeland, who lost their place of belonging and their original ‘light,’ yet now feel a faint call to seek something lost. It is the initial state of desolation and the seed of ambition for a new purpose.’

Ah, right… in that case, it made sense.

Ignoring all the other possible meanings, if I used that text as the foundation, then I had been acting as a “Tarnished” from the very first moment I stepped into Terraria.

I also knew the name of my next potion.

Sequence 8: Antigen.

Maybe I’d digest that one quickly too…

For the moment, I ignored the list of materials I would need to create the potion. Those were things I didn’t have access to right now, so they didn’t matter at the moment.

What I wanted to know was: where the hell was I?

I pulled up the stream messages from the moment I had entered this world. Honestly, the sequence was pretty… curious:

-//-

[Initializing summoning protocol...]

[Defining spawn location...]

[Transmitting parameters to “The Streamer”...]

[Error! “The Streamer” unavailable for decision-making.]

[Executing probabilistic calculation...]

[Initiating random selection...]

[Determining initial circumstances...]

[Anomaly detected — selection outside standard parameters.]

[Automatic compensation initiated...]

[Rewards increased due to randomness.]

[Spawn location defined.]

[..]

[Spawn Confirmed — Upper Atmosphere]

Spawn Point:Atmosphere above The Lands Between.

Entry Bonus:

Immediate location of an Initial Quest.

[Amplified!] Quest Rank updated to: [Yellow]

[Extra Reward Granted]: Blessed Dew Talisman

-//-

Maybe it was because of my insane mental state, but the fact that being dropped from the fucking atmosphere had apparently been the result of a random choice was amusing me way more than it should have.

What a disaster…

Still, it had given me a name: The Lands Between. Not that I had any idea what that meant. No matter how much I searched my memory, nothing surfaced, which meant this was a world I didn’t know.

I’ll ask the (CHAT) and see if anyone knows anything about—

As for the [Yellow] quest, that was the highest quest rank I’d ever received. Aside from Rainbow quests, obviously. And I didn’t even need to think or speculate about where the quest was located—a massive “?” ping appeared on the minimap, pointing directly toward the enormous, absurdly golden tree radiating overwhelming divinity.

I’d need to be suffering triple the number of strokes I already had to be stupid enough not to guess where that quest was and who it probably involved, considering the plea for help I’d heard earlier.

I’m just going to ignore that.

The Blessed Dew Talisman, though, was a welcome surprise.

-//-

[Blessed Dew Talisman]

Type: AccessoryRarity: PinkPrefix: None

Durability: 5000000/5000000

[..]

Ability — [Sap of the Erdtree]:

Channels the residual sap of the Erdtree and grants passive regeneration to the bearer.

The item emits a constant pulse of Grace that continuously stitches wounds closed and suppresses bleeding, regardless of the user’s will.

[..]

Description:

Talisman depicting a drop of the Erdtree's sap, a blessed boon.

Gradually restores vitality.

It was once thought that the blessed sap of the Erdtree would drip from its boughs forever—but that age of plenty swiftly came to a close, and with time, the Erdtree became more an object of faith.

[..]

~ Grace touches all… ~

-//-

Given my current condition, my first instinct had been to throw the talisman away simply because it contained divinity.

Or bite it, probably...

Devouring it had also been an option!

After taking that hit from Hardy, part of me had entered full “exterminate with extreme prejudice” mode toward anything and everything remotely divine.

But I wasn’t an idiot either. The healing might come from something divine, but if it healed me, then I was accepting it.

I inspected the talisman while holding it in my right hand.

The Blessed Dew Talisman was a metallic pendant shaped like a droplet.

It had an ornate golden frame surrounding a translucent amber gemstone, designed to resemble a drop of crystallized sap.

The piece hung from a simple chain made of fine links.

Just holding the item allowed me to feel my vitality recovering. It wasn’t anything absurdly powerful, but it was welcome assistance.

The pulse I felt coming from the item, the moment it entered my body, had its divine component seized by the Divine Anathema and immediately devoured. It wasn’t even particularly resistant, since the divinity within the talisman was passive, while the remaining energy was separated and carried toward the areas that needed healing.

I wasn’t entirely sure how the healing still functioned while the divine aspect was being devoured, but I also wasn’t particularly interested in finding out at the moment.

I’ll see if Alalia can partially replicate the effects of this sap once I get back. If anyone could do it, it’d be her.

I spun the talisman around in my shadow-made right hand before tucking it into my “clothing” of Nightmares and nightmare energy, then commanded my energy to form tiny fingers that kept the item hidden inside.

My suit had been destroyed, hadn’t it…

I sighed. More orange mist spread around me.

… The fact that I had lost my suit genuinely bothered me.

To put things into perspective, the situation I was in was like being thrown to the ground, bleeding after getting stabbed in the back by surprise and then stomped afterward.

I was already furious because of that, obviously.

But losing my suit felt like the person who stabbed me had spat on me before leaving.

It was insignificant compared to everything else, but part of my deranged mind seemed hyperfocused on that particular fact at the moment.

For the second time in my life, I was genuinely feeling hatred toward a being I knew almost nothing about. I didn’t know what they looked like, what kind of person they were, what they did, what their story was, or what their motivations were.

I only knew one name — and that was enough for me.

I commanded all the blood around me, beneath me, and farther away through the Chalice. I made it spin before shaping it into six massive ribs that began orbiting my body.

Then I started walking toward where I could sense the Haemorrhaxe.

The axe had fused with my blood when I threw it at that lizard, so I could still feel its general direction.

“Hardy…” I muttered before running my tongue along the inside of my teeth. “A beautiful name.”

“I’ll remember that name.”

[…]

I decided to check my status later. A few things had changed, but as I walked, I turned my attention back to the (CHAT).

More specifically, I spoke to Jinn first.

“How are things going on your side?” I asked as I approached what looked like giant crabs.

And by giant, they were genuinely huge. About the size of small cars. There were seven of them, all surrounding the Haemorrhaxe and trying to eat my axe-hammer.

The Haemorrhaxe was trying to eat them too. In the end, the combined IQ of everything there was probably around eight, because none of them could actually damage — much less eat — the others.

I felt dumber just by staring at them for too long.

As I walked, Jinn’s messages started getting “spit out” from inside the “spam box.”

Her first message was… different from what I had expected.

[(MOD)JinnOfTheLamp]You thought you were going to die.

Even with my sense of taste completely fucked up, I grimaced like I had just sucked on a sour lemon.

… Crab with lemon would be good. Those things looked big and tasty.

Focusing and pushing away the random thoughts, I replied:

“No and… yes.” I sighed. “I didn’t think I was actually going to die. I’ve got a few safeguards and backup plans. But I didn’t want to take the risk either.”

I paused.

“Did Millia wake up?”

[(MOD)JinnOfTheLamp]No. They’re all asleep. The Shadow Puppet is too.

[(MOD)JinnOfTheLamp]Ozma’s fine, before you ask. I am too. We’re both just irritated. Not at you, but at the situation overall. Disappointed in our own incompetence, I’d say.

[(MOD)JinnOfTheLamp]The general called Koichiro Hazama asked what happened. The old man took it upon himself to explain a few things to keep everyone distracted.

After those three messages, the stream paused for a brief moment. Then a fourth appeared:

[(MOD)JinnOfTheLamp]… How are you?

Then a fifth:

[(MOD)JinnOfTheLamp]You hanged yourself…

I stared at the messages for a moment.

My emotions without the Shadow Puppet were… complicated. Being disconnected from a part of myself — especially the part that, in a way, stabilized my madness — was fucking with the way I reacted to things.

I needed to pause before answering, just to make sure of what words were actually going to come out of my mouth.

I used the brief moment to walk over to the Haemorrhaxe, ignoring the crabs, and grabbed the thing by the handle.

I controlled the blood from one of the ribs orbiting me to reinforce my right arm.

The first crab that tried to attack me was crushed, followed by all the others in sequence, though with strikes slower than they should’ve been.

I stuffed all of them into the inventory. I’d eat them later. I was worried that if I did it now, the food might leak through one of the half-assed patches I’d made in a hurry.

Each crab released golden “dust” just like the lizard from before, what the Blasphemy Card had called runes, though in smaller amounts. The lizard had released exactly 5000 of them. These crabs gave me 318 each, for a total of 2,226 from all seven.

But this time, instead of attaching itself to a part of my body like before — when it fused into my torn rib — the golden “dust” flew toward the center of where the Demon Slayer Mark used to be and stuck itself to the Blasphemy Card.

Another fucking thing I’d have to understand later, since those particles were tiny fragments of something divine… Problems, problems, problems…

I tossed the Haemorrhaxe into the Voidbag and finally answered my dear Jinn:

“Like I said before, I’m not exactly what I’d call ‘fine.’” I said while walking away from the lake. “But I get the feeling that’s not really what you’re asking about.”

I activated Glimpse of Light in the Abyss for a moment before deactivating it.

One of the paths, tangled with danger, opportunity, and discovery, led directly toward where I could sense my right arm.

Funny. The danger was probably me. The discovery was whoever I’d kill before reaching my arm, and the opportunity was whatever I could loot from the corpses.

“My soul’s fine. My mind’s cracked and fragmented, but I’m gluing the pieces back together,” I explained. “My energies are busy plastering over the holes in my body and expelling the underworld energy from that creature I’m going to devour once I get my hands on it…”

I blinked. I think I let something slip by accident…

“As for my shadow…” I continued calmly. “My connection to the Shadow Puppet is fragile. It’s being sustained by faith, prayers, and something vaguely related to the concept of ‘Door.’ Something new I learned because of the energy from Mr. Fool’s world.”

“The abilities over there are really cool. Kind of drive you insane, but still really cool!” I let out a slightly schizophrenic laugh. “Sorry. Got a little sidetracked.”

I commanded one of the ribs orbiting me and impaled a crab in the distance. Sent it to the inventory. More magic dust flew toward me.

Can I fly with this?...

Do I have to say I believe in fairies? Where’s the weird hundred-year-old guy who stopped aging and kidnaps children? Let me tear him into pieces!

I blinked.

“What I did with the Shadow Puppet is a contingency plan I’ve been thinking about for a while,” I went back to answering Jinn. “It wasn’t something I’d tested before. I just had a rough idea. But I had to improvise because I almost got crushed out of nowhere. Very bad situation, would not recommend. The heart’s a pretty important organ…”

I took several deep breaths, making the air around me boil for a moment as everything within five meters filled with orange mist.

I organized my thoughts before continuing.

“It’s basically an anchoring system. The Spiritual Realm mostly follows me. It still exists with the Shadow Puppet, but just like I’m the body and hold the mass, my shadow reflects the ‘mass’ of the Spiritual Realm.”

“But then I had the thought: ‘What if I suddenly die? The Spiritual Realm would just disappear, wouldn’t it?’…”

I tended to think about things like that. Paranoia was only paranoia if I wasn’t actually at risk of dying out of nowhere, like what had almost happened.

“What would happen to Ozma? His soul’s inside there, after all. Jinn also has a connection to me and could’ve been inside the Spiritual Realm when it happened.”

There was Salem too, though I hadn’t thought about her at the time.

“So I needed something that would keep the Spiritual Realm existing even if I died. My first thought was the Shadow Puppet, but my shadow would die with me. My second thought was to ‘lock’ the Spiritual Realm into the real world.”

“I had a few ideas on how to do that, but they were all far-off concepts and, like I said, still works in progress. So I improvised on the spot using the little seed I got in Remnant.”

“I’m almost certain that thing is some kind of world tree. That made it a lot easier to start making shit up out of desperation!” I raised my voice slightly, then paused.

I killed two more crabs.

“Using the idea of a ‘World Tree’ the same way I used a similar concept to create Excalibur Asura, I assigned the ‘role’ of ‘World Tree’ to the seed, the ‘world’ to my Spiritual Realm — which is already considered a ‘pseudo-world,’ the Nameless Foreign World — and assigned the role of ‘Odin’ to the Shadow Puppet.”

“Since the Shadow Puppet was acting as ‘Odin,’ I could sacrifice ‘myself’ to the ‘World Tree’ in exchange for something. Odin asked for knowledge in exchange for his eye… actually, that was at Mimir’s well.”

I sighed.

My memories were a little scrambled. Not that my knowledge of Norse mythology — or the Norse pantheon, in this case — had ever been that extensive.

“He sought knowledge through physical suffering and proximity to death. Hung himself for nine days and nine nights.”

Given the context of what Odin had done, I continued explaining.

“I did something similar. I used ‘Odin’ as a sacrifice in exchange for making the ‘World Tree’ absorb almost all of ‘Odin’s’ energy, along with every bit of energy ‘Odin’ absorbed, so that in return the ‘World Tree’ would rapidly grow and sprout, going from a seed to a sapling — which is basically just a small tree — and anchor the ‘World’ the same way Yggdrasil supports the Nine Realms.”

“Since my ‘World Tree’ is small, the ‘World’ it can sustain is also small. But it’s enough for Ozma and Jinn’s souls to have a safe place in case I kick the bucket. This small ‘World’ won’t disappear, and the Shadow Puppet won’t die with me as long as the shadow remains hanging from the tree.”

“It also helped that the Spiritual Realm can be considered an underworld, so in a way, that part is Helheim, which gave the ‘anchoring’ through my ‘Yggdrasil’ more metaphysical weight.”

“Of course, there are ways to improve the idea. It’s temporary, but it was an improvisation born out of desperation.”

After finishing the explanation, lips slightly dry, I pulled a potion from the inventory and drank it. Then another.

Using potions like beverages was nice!

Finally leaving the lake behind, I started climbing a small hill covered in damp grass. There were a few dirt paths and scattered trees, almost like a sparse grove.

Farther away, there were ruins. Destroyed houses and… zombies, I think? Things that weren’t exactly alive. They even had dogs too.

Man’s best friend even in death. Best animal!

The number of enemies on the minimap was decent, around fifty total.

There were also some giant fucking dragonflies, but I killed them before they got close using the blood ribs. Three of them total. 66 runes, 22 each.

I tossed them into the Voidbag. I’d figure out what to do with them later.

Jinn’s messages started appearing again:

[(MOD)JinnOfTheLamp]Genius and madness truly walk side by side.

A few other messages escaped the “spam box” and flooded in:

[MagicalGirlSera-Tan]Side by side? Genius is straight-up railing madness like a bitch in heat! What the fuck was all that I just heard?!(Emote of a magical girl with wide eyes)

[TohsakaHeiress]You improvised all of that while in this insane state?…

[TheRainWitch]Impressive…

“Hey, it’s the mysterious person from the (CHAT).” I pointed toward [TheRainWitch]’s message. “I know you’re pretending to be someone you’re not. Don’t want to give me a hint about your real identity?”

I actually had myself pretty under control now. But using this “half-insane” state as an excuse to say things I normally wouldn’t could be useful.

Another message appeared:

[TheRainWitch]I’m not pretending to be anyone other than myself. I am me, even while not being me.

I blinked before looking around.

“Where’s my Watson? Someone just dropped a mystery on me.” Letting out a laugh, I flicked the witch’s message away.

She was pretending to be herself? Some kind of weird shit like what Doctor Who, Rorschach, and Batman did? They were all themselves, but pretending to be themselves in “another way.”

Batman was Batman, but pretended to be Bruce Wayne, who was also himself.

Uhm… yeah, I think I’d ban Batman if I found him in the stream. The Joker too. DC was a miserable place… But Superman was cool. I’d like to meet the guy someday, if I ever got the chance.

The real Superman, obviously. Not some fucked-up, poorly written version of him.

I’m rambling again…

I pushed the thoughts about the witch’s identity to the back of my mind — something to think about later — and went back to talking to Jinn when she sent another message:

[(MOD)JinnOfTheLamp]The Shadow Puppet is in some kind of doll form in my hands. Is there a way to undo this so the old man and I can come to your side?

“… No?” I answered, sounding uncertain myself. “Probably not. I’ve mostly lost control over the Shadow Puppet, for one thing. The distance doesn’t help either.”

I coughed, kicking what looked like a zombie dog partially made of stone clear into fucking orbit. It flew impressively high. I killed the two zombies following it as well.

I tossed their bodies into the Voidbag. They were wearing some pretty nice armor, I’d check it out later. They also had swords, which were cool too.

“And even if I could, I wouldn’t do it. Sure, you could enter the Relic of Knowledge and I could pull it into my inventory before dragging the Shadow Puppet over to me.”

“But Ozma’s soul would probably turn to dust during the trip. Or maybe get lost in the void between here and there. There’s also a chance something could eat the Shadow Puppet on the way, since unlike before, when I pulled it toward me inside the Memory Image, the stream isn’t the true force responsible for the ‘separation’ this time.”

“Better not risk it.”

There was also the fact that this world gave me the creeps, and I didn’t want anyone here besides myself. Alone, I could go completely nuclear and not give a shit, but with company, I’d have to worry about said company.

Leaving Jinn and Ozma in the Amalgam World was safer. Even if something happened, it would be easier for them to defend themselves there, and Millia and the others would be better off too.

Speaking of safety…

“And Hardy can’t cross over to your side, so don’t worry about her,” I commented. “I got a small glimpse of how she works. She’s trapped in her own world. If she wants to cross over, she’ll need to possess someone, so just kill the vessel.”

“And I’m pretty sure Miguel will descend and eat her soul the moment she crosses over there. To Earth, I mean.” Usually, he was the one Big G sent to clean up the mess. “And if he doesn’t show up, throw a nuke at her. It’ll probably work.”

I actually needed a way to keep track of what was happening over there in case something went wrong.

I grabbed the stream camera and switched it into dual mode. Then I tossed one far away, where it vanished before reappearing above the Shadow Puppet.

Pulling out my phone, I was able to watch the other side. Jinn was holding the Shadow Puppet doll tightly against her chest while pacing in circles.

… Sorry about the stress. Don’t be mad, I swear this time it wasn’t even my fault!

Sorry!

I sighed. I genuinely felt bad for her. Not just Jinn, but Ozma and all my friends watching the stream who were probably stressed out or worse.

I’d need to take some time to talk to everyone. Especially Saya, Ruby, and everyone I’d had direct contact with. Saya was probably taking this really badly…

I also needed to tell Dylan my return would take longer than expected. And I needed to—

[(MOD)JackMom]Devas, Percy awakened his powers.

…

Sigh…

… What if I skinned Hardy alive with a spoon?

[...]---[...]

Well, Devas is kind of insane right now. In every possible way. It’s going to be fun writing him like this, especially since he’s currently in full “Exterminate with Extreme Prejudice” mode because of everything that happened.

This chapter is more focused on explaining things from his point of view. The next one will return to the usual pace and things will start happening again.

I won’t keep you all waiting too long here. Good night everyone, and enjoy the reading!