Dimension Lost SI - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

A/N - A snippet I wrote and then discarded because the plot didn’t really make much sense.

Anyway, enjoy.

Disclaimer - I don’t own anything.

Ajuka’s Lab,New Lilith

–Sirzechs Gremory–

He sighed, eyeing the never ending stack of paperwork and desperately hoped that something, something would come up to take him away from this never sending pile of useless paper. Half of the stuff he signed did not even need to be looked at, by anyone let alone him.

But nope. It was the style of governance they had set up and as such, they had to follow it. He had to follow it. Crimson Satan or not, Satan Lucifer, or not, he was the one who brought about this change, this revolution, successfully overthrew the Satan Descendants, and as such, it was his responsibility to make sure that he stayed true to his word, that they, as Satans did not abuse their powers, did not do the same thing their predecessors did and bring ruin to the Underworld.

After all, he might be far more powerful than any other Devil alive, he had a responsibility towards his race and power alone was not going to take him far, not towards his goal of peace anyway. Violence begets Violence, he fully believed that and he had his quota of violence for his entire life.

In the face of having to erase people he used to call his friends, he would gladly take some extra paperwork.

A thud signalled the arrival of even more paperwork by the incredibly efficient method of transportation that was teleportation, and because of that, he didn’t even know who was sending him all this paperwork.

A pained groan escaped his lips as he stared mournfully at the now vanished stack of paperwork that he had completed, replaced by a new stack that was yet to be done.

Despite facing the horrors of war, and knowing that he would never want those days to come back, he found himself tempted to just erase the stack of paperwork in front  of him.

But he couldn't do that, now, could he? 

So, with yet another mental complaint, he reached for the stack of paperwork, only to be stopped by a ping from Ajuka himself.

“Oh, Thank you!” He said, gratefully, uncaring of the message as he quickly pressed the button that would tell his staff that he had an urgent meeting with the Satans before teleporting away to Ajuka’s Labs’ entrance. Powerful as he might be, even he had to be careful when venturing into Ajuka’s home of eldritch monstrosities.

Everyone thought that one of Ajuka’s greatest invention was the Evil Pieces and the concept of Rating Games that was in the process of changing their entire society, but he knew that it was just a trinket that was the mistaken byproduct that came from an entirely different experiment with the material found in Agreas island.

Shaking his head, he kept his magical circle manifested beneath his feet, waiting for Ajuka to grant him clearance, as the circle was still read. After a few seconds, it finally turned green and whisked him away to Ajuka, wherever he was in his lab. That was the thing when it came to teleporting directly into Ajuka’s office.

You could never go to any section in his lab without triggering something that might be entirely harmless or be capable of harming even him, so the spell was not designed to travel to a predetermined location but directly to Ajuka so that no accidents happened. They did not want a repeat of the Siren situation.

One time was one too many, when it came to that. Serafall still did not let him forget about that.

When his vision cleared, he was standing in front of Ajuka who himself was standing in front of a massive screen, showing the ruins of the former capital of Underworld, Lucifaad. 

A place they had worked hard to not just destroy from reality but also from people’s memories. It was a bad place all around and the memories associated with that place and the people that came from that place. It would be better for the Underworld as a whole if that whole place was forgotten and left out of their history.

All four of them agreed to that, and even made sure that nothing would happen to Lucifaad. No restoration, no historical significance attached, no funds, no tourism. Nothing. They were going to leave that place to rot and over the course of time, it had worked. No one even thought of that place and the time they might have spent there, even the Devils who saw the entire thing, as it was just plain easier to ignore its existence.

“Why are we looking at the old capital, Ajuka?” He asked the man who was busy staring into the Kankara Formula, a magic that to this day, he did not fully understand. He understood that it was some kind of reality warp magic that used math instead of raw power to do everything but beyond that, his head began to hurt as Ajuka tried to explain everything to him. 

Before Ajuka could answer, he felt two incoming teleports behind him and understood why Ajuka had remained silent upon his arrival. It was one of Ajuka’s quirks. He did not like repeating the same thing over and over. So, he was likely waiting for–

Yup. They were both here, with Sera being as loud and boisterous as ever.

"✨ Ta-daaaaa! ✨ Levia-tan is here to save you from your boring science, A-ju-tan! 💖 Did you miss me? Hehehe~! ⭐"

As expected, there was nothing beyond a nod from Falbium who looked sleepy. So, the usual then.

He smiled at both of them before turning around to face Ajuka, in a good mood as he was always happy when all four of them met, as their meetings had only gone down in frequency ever since they took these jobs, ready to ask the reason for this meeting.

“Lucifaad is gone.”

“Eh!” “What?!”

The smile remained frozen on his face as the view on the massive screen in front of them changed to show a hole in the ground, shocking everyone so much that even Falbium spoke up in a normal tone. 

He too was the same, his smile remaining on his face as he looked at the hotel that looked suspiciously familiar to him before he snapped out of it and marched up to the screen, taking control and looking over all the data that Ajuak had undoubtedly gathered before turning to the Devil in question.

“Tell me this does not look like what I think it does.”

Falbium spoke up this time, indicating the seriousness of the entire situation, "Unfortunately, it does look like the work of the Destroyer Mk. II. Ajuka,” Falbium walked up to the Satan in charge of Research, “I thought that it couldn't be activated without all four keys, one that each one of us have.”

All this time, Ajuka hadn’t looked up even once from his Kankara Formula, which was usually fine since it was just another one of Ajuka’s quirks they had learned to accept, but this was not the time for that. As the seconds passed without Ajuka answering Falbium’s question, he could feel the tension rising in the room until finally Ajuka spoke up, “It is not the Destroyer Mk.I or Mk. II. I checked. It is something else.”

“But how is that possible?” He found himself asking, as using anything other than pure Power of Destruction to destroy the entire city in one go would have raised so much ruckus, half of the Underworld would have been at the site in minutes. Even he, without entering his True Form, would not be able to do that much damage in such a precise manner. Whoever they were, they had targeted just the city and nothing more. 

Ajuka’s sensors clearly told him that the circle of destruction, the hole, ended at the boundary lines of Lucifaad, as was recorded in their Archives. To direct the Power of Destruction so precisely was impossible to do so without the Destroyer, at least not at such a scale. 

If he didn’t do it, and Ajuka was sure that the Destroyer was not used, then it would mean..Serafall spoke up, her voice strained, likely realising the same thing he did, “Ajuka, please tell me that the Hindu God of Destruction, Shiva is not the one responsible.”

Her left eye was twitching, which was expected since Shiva moving anywhere publicly was a big thing in the supernatural world, let alone inside the Underworld and for what? To destroy an already ruined city with no population around the city.

Ajuka still remained ingrained in his Kankara Formula and this time, even he was getting annoyed, despite knowing that Ajuka was probably working on getting them answered as soon as he could but at this rate, they would probably be faster if they just went to the site and looked for clues themselves.

Something he was seriously considering when Ajuka, finally, spoke up.

“That was not the Power of Destruction, or Shiva. It was something else. The only reason I even picked up the destruction was because of the change in landmass and wind flow around that place that triggered some of my weather related alarms. I have instituted a lockdown on all our important installations as well as convened a meeting here to decide on the next step.”“What does your Formula tell you?” He asked Ajuka, noting the slight signs of frustration that someone else might have missed.

“Nothing useful. I know that space magic was used, but to do so in such a manner…” Ajuka’s voice trailed off before he flicked his wrist, expanding the Kankara Formula for them to see. Though, none of them could understand it but they could tell. Ajuka’s formula trying to get past a purple veil, only for the formula to break apart when it tried. Ajuka repeated it but in the end, it resulted the same. “I can ascertain that it was done by someone inside the Underworld, and that it was a Devil. Nothing more. Nothing less. It is as if a veil surrounds my target and unless I can come face to face with the Devil in question, I don;t think I can track them down.”

“Maybe it was Dimension Lost?” Serafall suggested and Ajuka looked as if he had just swallowed a particular sour lemon, making him chuckle a bit despite the tension.

“I have accounted for that and the markers just don’t match. Also, for someone to pull off spatial manipulation of this level, even with a Sacred Gear, they would have to be as strong as you, Serafall or perhaps even more.”

“Maybe them being a half devil could help? I don’t think we’ve ever heard of a  Half Devil Dimension Lost user before. The boost from devil physique could explain the boost in power?” He suggested and Ajuka just looked at him like he was stupid.

He sighed internally, for a long, long meeting. Either way, it was clear that someone had declared war on the Underworld and needed to be dealt with, no matter how glad he was that someone finally took care of that ugly mug of a city.

____xx___

He huffed and puffed, ignoring the blood coming out of his nose, ears and basically every orifice in his body, as the purple mist receded and dropped his sorry ass into one of the many abandoned alternate dimensions connected to the main world, and were being used as temporary stops before he could finally build something for himself.

It was the biggest undertaking of his current life and while he would have loved to brag that it was some intricate plot and that he planned on everything happening, but it would just be a big pile of bullshit. 

The truth was that, one night he went to bed, worrying about going to work tomorrow morning, and what he would eat for breakfast since food was the only joy left in his life, the next morning, he was being awakened violently by the light piercing through his eyes and a rather sharp whip that made him puke his guts out, in the middle of a jeering people who just laughed and pointed at his plight instead of helping him out.

At the moment, he had labelled them as Devils in his mind, not knowing that they really were Devils from a certain ecchi universe, and so was he. Well, he was a half devil, but the point still stands.

He woke up to find himself being tortured and for what? For being unable to lift a cart, with three people standing on top of the already heavy sacks, jumping on top of the cart to make his life even harder.

The end result? His failure, and the owner’s pleasure as he was whipped mercilessly.

Confused, delirious, in pain, hurt, angry, hungry, despaired and more were involved in the cocktail of volatile emotions that eventually resulted in him feeling some sort of heat bursting out of his chest, revealing his Sacred Gear to him.

It wasn’t clear to him at first as he was just busy enjoying the blissful silence and the lack of whips and mocking jeers that followed every painful scream on his part, but eventually, he fought the urge to just go to sleep as he felt that it might just turn into a permanent sleep, and found out that he was inside some kind of Sacred Gear space. 

The purple mist was the thing that clued him in as to what he had. Dimension lost.

The best Sacred Gear when it came to manipulating space and barriers. In fact, if he was not wrong, this was the best Sacred Gear when it came to barriers. He supposed that it was rather ironic that in the middle of being whipped, in the middle of feeling the most helpless he had ever felt in his life, he would manifest a Sacred Gear that would turn out to be the best at barriers.

Sighing, he stumbled to his feet, before willing the mist to recede but not completely, trying to see if he could somehow check on the outside stuff without actually leaving this safe space. While he had done this plenty of times before, it would be the first time he would be trying this while being in an area that definitely had the attention of one of the scariest motherfuckers in the verse.

Hopefully, he does not kill himself immediately with this stupid stunt of his.

It was irrational, but he just had to check for himself. If he succeeded in slipping through this, he could probably travel most of the world without any issue.