Amazon Apocalypse 7: Chapter 83 (Epilogue) (Patreon)

Jade, while fixing the planet

It was clear now that Carter had a bigger role to play in fate than Jade had ever dared to think before.

She had missed his initial plea for aid due to an emergency meeting in the Eternal Spring Sect. All of the sect's fate readers had set off alarms at once and began warning of an imminent dimensional breach in System space.

The birth of a Transcendent monster was supposed to be the start. It would be followed by dozens more, and eventually begin an apocalyptic battle that would see the galaxy embroiled in endless war for centuries. Thousands of planets would be destroyed, both among cultivators and in System space.

Things had seemed practically set in stone, and all the major sects were scrambling their defenses in preparation for an existential war. Even the battlefronts with the Architect Houses had been put on hold, since they'd scarcely matter in the face of a Transcendent-level threat.

And yet that fate had been washed away like morning fog before the sun. Not even a trace of that terrifying future remained.

The Eternal Spring Sect's fate readers were already declaring it a false alarm caused by an abnormal fluctuation in the Kindling Dimension. But Jade knew better.

The Transcendent monster that was supposed to get things started had been the one to be born on Carter's world. And despite all odds to the contrary, he had killed it in its infancy.

To manage such a feat was impressive on its own. But to do so shrouded from fate from start to finish? That was downright scary.

Truthfully, her work carving dragon veins for Carter's world was completed in a matter of hours. The rest of her time was spent hiding this world and what happened during the battle.

If he had not so thoroughly shrouded himself in fate somehow, his raw potential would have seen him scooped up by some Transcendent powerhouse long ago. And they'd either kill him or make him a disciple and take him outside of this realm, both of which would put him out of Jade's reach.

No, Carter must remain a secret, even from the sects. So Jade made sure to lay a false trail that would obscure Carter's true, fateless nature.

With her power and connections, she was certain she could take care of the relevant loose ends. Well, all except one. She still needed to do something about that troublesome woman.

Despite Carter's strange absence in fate readings, Jade was increasingly certain that keeping him close would lead her to Transcendents sooner or later. The favor he owed her would be sufficient to bring him back to the Eternal Spring Sect.

Or rather, it would be, if it wasn't for the one loose end not even Jade could tie up. And her name was Seraphyne.

***

Seraphyne, while fixing the planet.

Seraphyne's ability to reverse time only went so far, though she could stretch it further for weak F-Grades, whose impact on fate was minimal regardless of whether they lived or died.

Thanks to her work, nearly a billion lost souls had been restored to life. Mostly in the more isolated and poorer urban centers that hadn't bothered evacuating into pocket realms, as was standard procedure in situations such as this.

She looked to the skies. Even now, no aid ships had arrived. Nor anyone offering to aid in resurrections or planetary remediation.

Just what had happened to everyone in the centuries she'd been sleeping?

What happened to their great dream? Where the System would bring never-ending prosperity to everyone? The dream where all could benefit from long life and good health regardless of the quality of some obscure extra-dimensional spiritual organs that only some of them possessed? Where everyone could learn skills and knowledge freely given by the System?

The Architect Houses of the modern era were little more than squabbling children fighting over scraps left behind by their ancestors, and utterly lacking in the selfless sacrifice that had put them in their positions in the first place.

Even in Seraphyne's time, there had been occasional problems now and again. But in just a few thousand years those problems had turned into rot that poisoned the entirety of the Arcadia Multiverse. What remained was only a slightly better deal than what the cultivators offered the average person. No wonder that fringe breakaway group had left. Though from what Seraphyne had heard said of the so-called Heretics, they too had fallen to barbarism.

The more cities she restored on her own, the more certain Seraphyne was that she was alone, at least among her own people. There was at least one other person who shared her sensibilities.

His world was prosperous, and the records from before the integration showed a thriving metropolis that could have rivaled some of the worlds she knew, save for the complete lack of magic of any sort.

That was the System's fault, she knew. If the System hadn't been harvesting the extra Kindling Dimension energy before it could spill over into the world of Earth, the inhabitants there might have already built an interplanetary civilization that could have rivaled the worlds of her ancestors.

Back in her day, administrative oversight would have caught the problem centuries in advance and reduced System activity so as not to limit Earth's growth. Modern automated procedures couldn't make such distinctions though, so Earth had been forced to develop without access to mana. What they had built in its absence was incredibly impressive.

Importantly, it was the right kind of impressive. That kind of industrial spirit that could blossom into a new beginning and relight the embers her people had left smoldering and ignored.

And, in exchange for reviving the forgotten dream of her people, it wouldn't be too much to reignite the spark, starting with her home, right? She wasn't doing this for personal benefits, it was merely logical she make use of Carter and his skills to rebuild her fallen house before reviving the rest of System space.

He'd practically volunteered for the job already, considering he owed her two big favors now.

The only thing standing in her way was that cultivator. Surely there was a way to get rid of the one called Jade.

<Note>

Alright, so this is the provisional epilogue. It's a bit vague and will probably get a third part added by the end of it once my outline for book 8 is done, but I wanted to have something done that alludes to the content in book 8, which will involve time with both Jade and Seraphyne.

It will also hopefully involve finishing off the Chaos Gods once and for all, and dealing with the three major factions we've come to know throughout the story. (The Architect Houses, the Cultivators, and the Heretics.)

Anyway, I'm going to be editing and outlining for a bit! Expect random content for a while until I am underway on book 8. I will post a new version of this epilogue if it ends up needing major revisions, but this is what I've got for now.