283. Godly Duels, Genocides, and The End (Patreon)

The path from one multiverse to another multiverse was barely an inconvenience. Jay only knew a little about the powers governing the Ultraverse and could clearly tell they were superior. He popped into the edge of the old multiverse with his wife next to him. An orange and milky white planet floated beneath them. It was occupied by Stage 3 [Gods] and high-leveled Rankers in defensive bastions. Jay paid them no mind as he expanded his Perception.

An instant sweep of the enemy multiverse brought up an interesting factor of note. Beyond the hundreds of universes in Jay’s way, he found two of his Champions. They were being withheld in the heart of the Duelist Pantheon. The moment Jay peeped, Wonor was onto him. The old man was rallying his best Duelists now as Jay informed YoAnna.

“Are they healthy?” YoAnna asked.

“Looks like it.” Jay looked again and noticed the bindings hidden on their robes. “They’re getting treated well enough. More like guests than prisoners. But they’re bound by scripts that’s dampening their powers.”

YoAnna pursed her lips, thinking of her own approach. By now, the little orange and creamy planet was sending a response unit. Dozens of [Gods] followed by many more Rankers flew up using their own power or while riding simple-looking vessels with runes engraved on their hulls.

“Who goes there?” shouted the leading [God], a man with red skin and ram-like horns. He puffed up his muscular chest, while making every inch of his armor-clad body seem more imposing for a ten-foot being.

YoAnna completely ignored him and his entourage like the tiniest of insects. To be fair, they would be having a hard time getting close to YoAnna if Jay wasn’t actively containing her surging power with a cloak of gravity and mysticism of his own design. It was so subtle, none of the [Gods] could pick up on it. Nor could they see Jay and YoAnna’s information. All they would feel was a subtle power to them and that they existed in the first place.

When the troop leader received no response, he moved forward more aggressively. “Beware, I have the power of the [System Master] vested in me to defend this outpost! Now announce yourselves or pay the consequence!”

“It’s best I stay inactive for now,” YoAnna finally said, confusing the outpost leader. “Let me know when it’s safer for me to unleash myself, Jay.”

“Will do.” Jay cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders as he prepared to cross off someone on his kill list. He glanced over at the outraged outpost leader and his followers and gave them all a cheeky smile. That royally pissed them off, and the leader urged all of his people to attack. They wielded melee weapons, elemental abilities that could cut through the cold of space nearly in an instance, and more esoteric powers that would stun most creatures of their multiverse.

From the perspective of the outpost leader… he was unleashing absolute hell to ensure whatever mad fiends had entered this lonesome space was destroyed. It was a great risk facing an unknown enemy, especially a pair like these that completely ignored his [Gods] and high-leveled Rankers. It was almost unnerving for the outpost leader, but he had faith his training and magic would win out in the end.

Until he realized none of his actions and the actions of his people were having an effect. Every melee weapon swing bounced off. Every magical blast splashed against their forms like water droplets on a duck’s backside. The outpost leader was wielding his family’s heirloom of a sword, The King Cyclops Eye Stinger, a long needle of a sword. He struck each of these strangers’ eyes with the legendary weapon! He still had no effect!

The point of view of the outpost leader… was an amusing headtrip for Jay. He was only entertaining it while waiting on Wonor to have his people gathered. He had more fun looking at YoAnna, because all of these attacks went completely unnoticed. She even started yawning as she waited on Jay. She wasn’t doing this on purpose to mess with the outpost defenders. They were simply too unimportant to draw her attention. They might as well not be there.

“We’ll be out of your hair in the next ten seconds,” Jay told the haggard and shocked outpost leader.

“Who are you monsters?!” the poor [God] shouted.

Jay gave him a dimmed smile. “The end of your multiverse.”

They renewed their efforts to stop Jay and YoAnna. Many of the outpost guards attacked YoAnna specifically, outraged by her indifference. They used their best attacks, supers, powerful incantations backed by divine energy, and even a few divine techniques. Nothing worked. Then Jay and YoAnna were gone out of their space, leaving them with nothing to show for their efforts.

Jay landed on a planet made for [Gods] and [Goddesses]. It was many times the size of planets most mortals would live on. The gravity here would crush low Rankers.

He picked a tall hill overlooking deep emerald forests that shone like jewels under their multiple suns. The forests merged with an elven city of tall wooden temples, giant pagodas, and mighty palaces. Everything was in harmony here even if it was not completely brown and green. There were wide fields of gravel and dirt where [Godlings] practiced some peculiar earthy elemental martial art. There were fields of magical fire and fields of water. Up above, [Godlings] stopped their aerial martial practices to look down from the clouds.

Jay had given Wonor plenty of time to summon his best warriors, but not enough time to warn his personal city of what was to come. Perhaps the old deity had no real idea what sort of monsters Jay and YoAnna had become. He might get a better inkling as Jay led his wife down the hillside and toward the entrance of the Duelist Pantheon’s capital city. There were Stage 4 [Gods] gathering to meet them. No Rankers.

For this occasion, Jay decided to reveal a little more of himself and his wife. The Duelists would see them as the Rank 10 [Apocalypse Champion King] and Rank 10 [Apocalypse Goddess Queen]. The guards’ eyes widened with shocks before narrowing with suspicion. A few noticed the long and busy monkey tail behind Jay’s back and started preparing themselves for battle.

“Wonor!” Jay shouted, his voice resonating across the entire planet. “I see that my Champions are well and unharmed. That is kind of you. In return, I won’t kill your people. I’m only after your life, old man.”

Wonor didn’t move from his spot in a grand courtyard on his palace grounds. Like a true martial art boss, he waited for the invaders to come to him. Spatial barriers and all sorts of defensive spells were erected in hopes of stopping Jay from teleporting in at his leisure. None of which were truly strong enough to stop him. However, Jay was willing to play his part as the challenger. It was good for his [You Are the Main Character] Skill and his [The Hero of Apocalypse Comedy] Title.

He whirled his mystical bo staff around and sauntered ahead of his inactive wife. At the very least, she was paying more keen attention. She even talked as Jay received his first attackers.

“In the journals of my mother, she described how much she enjoyed her friendship with the Duelists. Protectorates and Duelists had been allies for so long, helping each other through difficult times, sharpening each other to become among the best pantheons of this multiverse.” YoAnna’s tone sounded sad. “Here I am, my feet touching the capital grounds of former friends. Betrayers they are in the end.”

“You want me to hand over Wonor’s life to you?” Jay asked, leaning against his bo staff. By the time YoAnna had finished speaking, he finished smacking each of the initial guard force with his bo staff. One swing. One forehead. One knockout. It seemed simple, but the explosive impacts of each knockout had resonated far across the area. A few of the [Gods] were bleeding profusely from their heads, their life in jeopardy unless they received help. A [Goddess] of the healing arts froze at the gate entrance, looking at all the injured before refocusing on Jay and YoAnna’s approaching forms.

“I will let you decide,” YoAnna said. “He is on your list.”

“As a means to an end, but not as something strictly personal. Defeating him is more important than the kill itself.” Jay and YoAnna passed the [Goddess] without giving her any grief and entered the city properly. More Stage 4 citizens attacked from the alleyways or the windows, using ranged abilities or weapons. Explosive arrows, torrents of fire, lightning strikes, and more concentrated attacks they’d trained for longer than humanity had existed on Jay’s homeworld. The capital defenders were all older and wiser. They all had hundreds of thousands to millions to perhaps even billions of years of experience. Each of them could destroy mortal worlds like Earth with ease.

Jay smacked aside their attacks like a grown man flicking away flies. These attacks would actually sting a little. Only a little. Since YoAnna was being inactive, Jay took it upon himself to defend them both. He moved actively, using a minimum of magic and relying more on his physical abilities. Each swing of his bo staff deflected or outright crushed every strike raining down upon the two. For YoAnna, it was like having a tour through the central city of her family’s betrayers. Both pleasant and dramatic. For Jay, it was a casual warmup for the real fight.

“Nothing works on them!” shouted a frustrated [Goddess].

“Put more vigor into your technique! Show the patriarch you aren’t useless peons!” shouted a berserk [God], crashing down in front of Jay. He was twenty feet tall, which was about the average height for some of the stronger denizens of the city. He tried to thrust down a large palm to crush Jay into the ground.

Jay grabbed the man’s pinkie and broke it, making him squeal like a swing and fall to his knees. Both defeated and thoroughly embarrassed, the Duelist lowered his head as Jay and YoAnna walked by. The attacks petered out at this point. A few Duelists tried to jump in and attack Jay head on. Some of the more opportunistic Duelists tried to strike YoAnna from behind. Jay smacked them all down.

Jay and YoAnna reached the palace gate. The door was Divine Quality. It even had history, which YoAnna voiced. Once upon a time, the Duelists had been on the verge of destruction from a terrible foe. They’d fought their enemies to a standstill at this gate. If the gate was lost, the Duelists would’ve been destroyed. Right when it had seemed like defeat was inevitable, YoAnna’s ancestors in the Protectorates arrived to answer the Duelists’ call for aid.

“How are you holding up, YoAnna?” Jay asked as he kicked in the doors with his prosthetic foot.

“I am bothered,” she said honestly. “Saddened, even. But I am holding it in. Like a good girl.” She smirked slightly.

“You are a very good girl. I’m proud of you.” Jay was speaking in jest, but YoAnna perked up brightly anyway.

They entered the palace courtyard. The scene fitted Jay’s imagination. The mood lighting could be darker.

Before Wonor said a word, Jay’s wishes became a reality. The sky darkened. The torches lit up around the courtyard. The atmosphere grew tenser.

YoAnna looked around and nodded in approval before turning to look out the way they’d come. Part of being inactive also meant she would avoid things that would trigger her. When the doorway stopped serving as an adequate distraction, she walked over to the side and stooped down to watch some high level koi fish swimming in a divinely made pond.

“Don’t mind her,” Jay said, bringing all attention from YoAnna to himself. “Being here is emotional for her. She’s trying to hold it together.”

One of Wonor’s best men sneered.

“It wouldn’t be satisfying for me if she became active and wiped out your universe.” Jay propped his bo staff down and leaned against it. “Try not to trigger her. She’s not as good as me when it comes to holding back.”

The sneers on their faces disappeared. Wonor himself looked like an ancient man, patient and grandfatherly. He sat on a mundane-looking stool that was as ancient as him. Twelve [Gods] and [Goddesses] stood behind him. These were the strongest Duelists of their pantheon and his direct descendents. Behind them was their palace, and inside the guest room that also served as a prison were two of Jay and YoAnna’s champions.

“Do you know why the use of Champions is an outdated ideal,” Wonor said. “There was a time when duels between [Gods] were too destructive. Thus, the Champion program was created. Bringing up Rankers to stand above the masses. Almost as if they were demi-gods. But in the end, they still cannot stand to the full might of a true [God] or [Goddess].”

“I sense there is a but,” Jay commented.

“Your Champions are unique,” Wonor admitted. “Casey Allen and Britney Luckrun fought boldly against our legion of Rankers down in the Hell Circles. Defeating many of them before being brought down. They impressed me.”

Wonor slowly stood. “I will end you, Jay Luckrun, and take from you these gifted young ones. And make them true Duelists and brides to be for my descendants.”

“That’s mighty kind of you,” Jay said, with a smile. “I mean the attempt to get me all riled up. Not the actual threat of turning my Champions into trophy-wives. I’m not that easily triggered.”

Jay sauntered forward. Wonor’s greatest descendants tensed and prepared themselves for battle. Jay gave them nothing to form opinions on. All they saw was a relaxed man with a strange tag deeming him as [Apocalypse Champion King]. A Ranker standing against [Gods] and [Goddesses] of their multiverse.

“You’ve grown,” Wonor said.

“Indeed,” Jay commented as he entered ten feet of Wonor.

The fight between Wonor and Jay started and ended within a short span of time. It happened faster than Wonor’s descendants could react. In fact, the fight would’ve killed them, destroyed this entire planet, and obliterated their central universe and go further beyond. Wonor had lived for a long time. Long enough to master all the divine magic he had stored up from endless prayers sent his way. He used up everything all at once, turning the world harsh silvers and blacks as his shining hand chopped down at Jay’s head. It was a hand chop that would split this corner of the cosmos in two, bearing the weight of every defeat, victory, lesson the old man harbored over the course of his long life. It was a technique bearing the weight of his idealism, to strive upward forever for there was no end on the martial path of excellence. Hence him being the [God] of the Silver Flame Hands.

Jay caught his ultimate divine technique with his bare hand and stopped it. He contained all of its destructive power within a small sphere that encapsulated only him and Wonor. He entrapped it so none of it leaked out and harmed the people Jay intended to remain alive. His Champions remain none the wiser to the divine exchange between godly monsters, and how the old man with an abundance of experience was forced to watch in horror as his own constantly perfected technique was thwarted. Barehanded.

It was a waste of all the small magic he’d gathered over the years, leaving Wonor completely feeble. The moment came and passed. Jay remained unharmed, Health-wise. His Mana Points suffered considerably for that show of power. He could probably pull that off a few more without recovering his Mana, which was regenerating rapidly.

Wonor dropped to his knees, surprising his descendants.

“Patriarch!”

“What just happened?”

“Fiend! Release our patriarch from your foul spell!”

Wonor was too stunned to call off his descendants. They were not thinking clearly and running on emotion and false bravado. Instead of backing off from the man who defeated their best [God], they lunged at Jay. No worries. He was going to handle them gently. But the real trouble came from YoAnna as her annoyance spiked. Jay switched his response from stunning his foes to protecting them, the palace staff, and his Champions, and everyone beyond the palace.

“You shouldn’t speak of Jay like that,” YoAnna muttered.

The palace exploded into fine pieces and dust particles. Every building behind the divine structure was completely leveled and tossed to the wind like toothpicks. The divine forests, mountains, and highly magical landscapes were smeared off the face of the planet. The only thing that survived were the most sentient creatures Jay covered in a blanket of gravity and protection.

“YoAnna,” Jay said gently. “Do you need a hug?”

“Yes, please.”

Jay left the stupefied Duelists and their supporting staff to take in the casual destruction of their home. Wonor looked like it was going to turn to dust from the mere shock. He would know how much power YoAnna had exuded without trying. It would’ve harmed them. It was nothing cosmic level, but Wonor would know the effort needed to achieve the same results without stored up small magic.

After Jay gave YoAnna a much needed hug and pat to the back, he walked past Wonor and his people. He found Brit and Casey standing in shock in the spot where their room was turned to particles. It had been an impossible prison to escape for them. It had been nothing to YoAnna.

“Hey, ladies,” Jay said cheerily, ignoring the confused and delirious staff wandering aimlessly nearby. “It’s time to head home.”

Brit opened and closed her mouth. She was still in shock, which redoubled from seeing Jay eye to eye. Casey was still substantially taller, but she was stunned by the sight of the muscular and powerful man in front of her. Her attention drifted over toward Wonor’s stunned people and YoAnna crouched over the edge of the koi fish pond.

Casey sighed. “I’m never catching up.”

“Probably not,” Jay replied truthfully.

Casey looked into his eyes. She searched his face. She found something that broke her heart. “Goodbye, buddy.”

Jay nodded before looking kindly toward Brit. She was getting past her shock now. But she was afraid to speak. She glanced from Jay to YoAnna and back. Minutes of silence passed between them before Brit’s Conviction shattered and she fell to her knees, crying. In the end, she couldn’t say a word. Now that they were reunited, she could see for herself how much had changed.

“Am I… am I still a Luckrun?” Brit managed to blurt out.

“Yes,” Jay said.

“Why won’t YoAnna look at us?” Casey asked.

Jay sighed. “It’s a little dangerous with YoAnna right now.”

“I don’t feel the link anymore,” Casey admitted, shaking her head. “I lost the title as Killer, too. What do we even do?”

“Live.” Jay extended his hand and waited on them.

Casey stared at his hand before glancing down at Brit’s tearful form. She reached down and gently helped Brit to her feet, holding her close. With a regretful frown, she reached forward and grasped Jay’s hand. She looked him in the face again, searching desperately for something that wasn’t there.

“You are a heartbreaker, Jay,” Casey said with a forced smile. “You two are perfect for each other.”

“We are.” Jay sent them home.

YoAnna looked up from the koi fish pond and let out a relieved sigh. Maybe it was unfair of her to ignore her Champions like that, but there were too many factors involved that could send YoAnna into a spiral. It was an interesting trait. To be powerful but emotional. Jay was more level-headed in comparison, and powerful in his own way. Wonor was made certain of this as Jay went back to the old man to retrieve him. He grabbed him by the cuff of his robe and dragged him over to YoAnna.

“Wait, no,” cried out a [Goddess], much less confident than before.

“Patriarch!” cried a [God].

The others shouted out as well. But none of them moved to stop Jay as he deposited Wonor beside YoAnna. They knew they were defeated and had no hopes of stopping Jay.

“I am the weakest of them,” Wonor moaned. “You will find harder challenges against the other three patriarchs and the [System Master].”

“Good with us,” Jay said, taking a few steps back.

Wonor looked from Jay to YoAnna. The man aged even further, but this time with unadulterated fear. It trembled like a leaf in a storm as YoAnna stood tall and loomed over him.

“I’m sorry,” Wonor said.

“I know.” YoAnna stepped on his head and killed him with a grisly stomp. The area was silent like a grave after the crunch reverberated far and wide. Wonor’s descendants watched on, petrified and unable to muster any will to fight or avenge the undignified death of their patriarch. YoAnna wiped her foot off casually on a stone before turning to Jay.

“I feel a little better now. Thank you, Jay.”

Jay smiled, happy to have a name crossed off his list and improve YoAnna’s mood. “Onto the 6th Hell Circle, then?”

“Yes. I would like to be more active there.”

“Nice. You’re always cute when you go berserk.”

With no further trouble, Jay performed the ritual to open an aperture to the 6th Hell Circle Dungeon. It wasn’t too hard, even if it was to the Rank 10 section. The aperture did want sacrifices. Wonor’s body sufficed. Even as a lifeless shell, it had once belonged to a man who had once stood at the summit.

They entered the Crypt of the 6th Freak of Freaks. To Jay’s surprise, it was… small. Every Hell Circle served as the prison of a failed Freak of Freaks, beings who were unable to overcome their personal dungeon trials set up by Multiverse Y. Jay’s journey through the Precursor Dungeon had included his Freak of Freaks trial, so he had faced the apex of trials. By extending his awareness, he could tell that a place like this would’ve taken normal crawlers thousands of years to crawl. To Jay and YoAnna, it would probably take about a day.

YoAnna grew to a comfortable size of eight thousand miles. Which was about twenty times the size of Jupiter. Or two hundred times the size of Earth. Or twice the size of the sun. The Rank 10 section was large enough to encompass that.

YoAnna’s cloth-wrapped feet crashed down on massive cities, pyramids, ziggurats, cemeteries, and more blended together in an endless jungle of death and undeath. Her landing set a shockwave that obliterated the nearest structures and undead swarms. Like a true gargantuan, she left destruction in her wake as she stepped forward. She moved casually at first before picking up speed. Her stride lengthened. Then she started running. Eventually, she entered a sprint. Nobody on this section would go unaware of the titanic woman crossing through as she moved faster and ran harder. More of  her crushing power leaked out. Her hair shone brighter as it fanned behind her like a golden flag. Destructive flames sparked into existence around her, turning whatever remained into ash. Countless creatures that would’ve posed as great challenges to most Rankers were destroyed without garnering an ounce of YoAnna’s attention. Her focus was a razor’s edge, narrowed to moving forward and reaching the end of the section. Everything else that was obliterated as a consequence of getting in her way were like grains of sand walked over by beachgoers.

Jay was paying more attention, however. Because there were innocent crawlers risking their lives here to gain a new level or rare item. He moved ahead of YoAnna’s steps and teleported crawlers out of the danger zone. At first. But the more active YoAnna became, the more her enthusiasm rose, and the more enthusiastic she became, the more destructive YoAnna ended up being. While there weren’t any true challenges, YoAnna was equally opportunistic in having her fun trampling the weak. So it didn’t take long for the threat of a barreling YoAnna to extend further and further and start to turn up the heat on places from farther away. While her footfalls would be easily felt, some crawlers and dungeon monsters would have no idea why they were burning up when YoAnna hadn’t reached them yet.

Regardless of that, Jay saved each and every crawler in danger. There were a surprising number of them. The population dwindled the further to the section’s end Jay went. Which was good. Because Jay had to glitch the System and force-eject Rankers out of the dungeon at this point. Simply moving them to the side wouldn’t do it anymore. His wife’s excitement was advancing into the realm of damaging greater reaches of the section.

Jay cleared the way to the boss door. He had three minutes before YoAnna arrived. He stood on a tall spire made for wretched undead that stood a thousand miles tall. Despite being so massive, the monsters were deft and quick. Their skeletal heads gaped up at Jay with eye sockets spiraling with green hellfire. A few of them were climbing the massive spire overlooking their undead city. It was a fortress that could hold a multitude of worlds. The scope of its size would’ve been mind boggling to a weaker Jay. But at the Precursor Dungeon, it was more of an amusing sight. Like a tourist destination.

It was even more fun for Jay while he stayed at mortal height. He was a literal speck in the grand design of this mini-boss city standing in the shadow of the even bigger boss door. No wonder nobody was able to defeat a Hell Circle and claim its true power, these things were made nearly impossible for Rankers to defeat. [Gods] weren’t normally allowed here. Jay and YoAnna wouldn’t be trying to clear this section if it wasn’t for the dungeon actively stopping them from reaching a lower section. Lilith and Macy were down in the Rank 7 section. Jay couldn’t find Joyce and Bondye for some reason.

“Little life. Small and feetling. Become one with the rot of my flesh.” One of the thousand mile monsters reached Jay’s spot on the edge of the spire. It loomed over him with a rotten skeletal hand. It was covered in black and mucky gore, and the fused bodies of failed crawlers that had been crushed in the titan’s hand.

Jay chuckled. “Trust me, man. You don’t want to get handsy with me. My wife is the jealous type.”

The monster reached for Jay anyway. It didn’t get far as it, the other undead titans that followed it, the entire spire, and the nearest buildings, were nuked under YoAnna’s furious attention. Jay slipped out peachy fine as the entire area became smolder and flying debris. At this point, the undead titans were less focused on Jay and paying more attention to their oncoming doom. In comparison to YoAnna, they were still bugs. Heck. The boss door only reached up to YoAnna’s ankle. As she reached the end of the Rank 10 section, YoAnna lunged forward and swung her leg forward. She wiped away the city, kicked in the door, and obliterated half of the section, most of the section below, and portions of the second below that.

No worries.

Jay force-rejected every poor Ranker who would’ve been destroyed in the crossfire. His Title as the [13th Freak of Freaks: Gravity] was paying dividends on breaking the rules to save every innocent life in range of his destructive wife. As the top portions of the 6th Hell Circle burned in challenging flames that devoured every scrap of hellfire and hell material, YoAnna stood in the glow and smoke of her destructive outlet like an apocalyptic paragon. She had a big smile on her face.

“You are like an overactive kid released on a little city of sand,” Jay said, floating next to her eye.

She blinked rapidly before schooling her face. “You should’ve reined me back.”

“Oh, you’re blaming me!”

YoAnna thought about it. “Yes. You are the man. Per the patriarchal traditions of your homeworld, I am your responsibility.”

“Our homeworld.”

“My point stands.”

Jay chuckled before lowering down to the big gaping hole YoAnna created, ripping open multiple sections of the 6th Hell Circle. She effectively killed the Rank 10 boss and the Rank 9 boss. Only the former mattered, granting Jay access to something he was interested in and power over the entire Hell Circle. The six cores in charge of the Hell Circle appeared in front of him. Without wasting much time on formalities, Jay gave them orders. They could only grant him half of his wishes.

They could relocate and transfer Lilith and Macy to YoAnna. But Joyce and Bondye weren’t here. Joyce had defeated Bondye and taken her core. It had happened while Casey and Brit were fending off Rankers sent by the Duelist Pantheon, giving Lilith and Macy time to escape and hide away. Jay chewed on that news for a while, wondering if Joyce was still hidden from his Perception because of the story. That shouldn’t be possible. Jay was too strong. Something else had to be interfering unless Joyce was hiding in another Hell Circle or dungeon. Those were harder to spy on from the outside.

“What will you do with the prisoner?” asked Core Six-Point-Two. “If you remove him, the Hell Circle will have no purpose. This dungeon… will die.”

“Say your final goodbyes, then.”

Jay reached the end of his wife’s destructive results and settled on a marble platform. In front of him was a heavy steel door set into a square building floating in a void. The only thing linking it to the rest of the Hell Circle was a foul energy draining through the bottom. Something akin to death. The most curious part was the quality of the prison. Primordial. That confirmed some things for Jay.

The [System Master] might have primordial instruments of his own. Nonetheless, Jay and YoAnna’s success here granted him access to the prison of the 6th Freak of Freaks. The heavy door slid out of the way and revealed a mostly bare room. In the center of the room was a desiccated corpse with large stakes bolted through each of the limbs, the chest, and the neck. The corpse was pinned to a black marble slab with ancient runes that glowed with a greenish light. The slab was draining the power of the prisoner even though it seemed like a corpse.

Then the 6th Freak of Freaks opened its eyes and looked at Jay, stunning him. There was something familiar in the gaze of the 6th Freak of Freaks. Worse yet, the corpse somehow formed a smile with its rictus of a jaw. It tried to speak without a voice, and yet, Jay could understand its words. Its last request.

Jay walked over and placed his hand on the 6th’s forehead. “There are more of us. Eleven others. I’ll rescue them, too.”

The 6th nodded and closed its eyes. Jay used a pulse of gravity to slay the 6th Freak of Freaks, ending its torment once and for all. The slab draining its power from the 6th flickered off. The cores in charge of the 6th Hell Circle bumbled in the air before falling to the floor. When Jay exited the prison, it was already falling into the void. He floated out toward the bright flaming field of destruction where his wife stood with her palm raised. He could already see signs of the dungeon falling apart.

The spark of energy keeping the monsters going ran out. Many fell over and became inert. Instead of breaking up into motes of Mana, the dungeon seemed to decay and die. This place only functioned by absorbing power from its prisoner, a different subset of rules compared to other dungeons. Instead of adding to the multiverse, it would fall away and die. It would most likely become a part of the abyss, leaving unrecognizable ruins to be explored in the far future.

Jay landed on YoAnna’s world-sized palm and found Lilith and Macy. They didn’t look too bad for Rankers who’d spent a considerable stretch of time in a violent dungeon. Macy’s entire body was reforged with legendary and mythical hellmetal. She looked like a model for a heavy metal band cover with her feminine metal shell and dangerous spikes colored black and hot pink. Her face plate was smooth as she examined Jay in return.

“It’s not fair,” she said with a cackling voice. “You aren’t supposed to get more handsome. And now you’re tall.”

“Relatively,” Lilith said dryly.

She was the most changed. While dressed in a casual tunic and short legging, her body had become an amalgamation of scales, fur, feathers, and more. She was a chimera of sorts, merging a variety of beastly designs while maintaining her more serpentine roots. She had not grown at all, though. So she was still a cute five foot flat, which Jay welcomed with a hug. Just as he hoped, he felt no jealousy from YoAnna. Lilith had firmly placed herself as a sister to Jay.

Macy on the other hand… Jay dodged her attempt for a hug.

The Industrial [Crafter] paused to consider her response. Then she looked at YoAnna’s distant face and glowing eyes. Macy made clicking and whirring sounds of understanding.

“Things have changed,” Jay said, petting Lilith’s fuzzy head. “Considerably.”

“This will break Casey’s heart,” Macy said.

“It’s already broken.” Jay smiled grimly. “We rescued Casey and Brit and dealt with Wonor.”

Macy stared at him. “I’m sensing the changes aren’t just for Casey.”

“No. They’re not.”

“Brit will survive. She has Casey.” Lilith moved away from Jay and looked up at YoAnna. “You look happier, YoAnna.”

As YoAnna smirked down at Lilith, Jay was turning over the statement involving Brit having Casey. Jay gave Lilith a questionable raise of his brow.

Macy interjected. “You were too involved to see it. But as much of a catch as you are Jay, you are… well… very hard to get at. Which is more so true now than ever. With that said, not all romance revolves around you. And since the time we’ve been down here together, Lilith and I noticed something with potential budding.”

“Ah,” Jay said, catching up quickly. He should probably feel a certain way. All that came up was relief. The situation with Casey was simple. The situation with Brit was more complex even if it was based on a technicality. During their thousand year crawl through the Precursor Dungeon, Jay and YoAnna had divorced each other and came together multiple times. The first annulment had included Brit. Now that they were back as a couple, Jay had seen signs that YoAnna was more prone to jealousy and keeping Jay to herself. And what did Jay have to say to that?

“I can live a billion years with YoAnna,” he said, looking up at his wife. “And she’ll be more than I can handle. This is for the best.”

YoAnna slowly looked away to hide her blush.

Macy made more excited whirring sounds. “Good. I can now focus on making my sister happier with a more plausible relationship. Gosh, you have no idea how tiring your whole situation is!”

“Enough romance talk,” Lilith declared. “It’s obvious things have gone wrong. We couldn’t exit the Hell Circle to make it home. And it looks like you’ve done us the favor of rescuing us. What’s next?”

“You go home and receive an explanation on things from there,” Jay said. “We’re heading to the 777th to get the others. Then we’ll settle the score.”

Lilith nodded in approval. “Good, good. Congrats on becoming so powerful, Jay, YoAnna. I’ve been rooting for the both of you for too long.”

Jay couldn’t help but give Lilith another hug, which he felt was more for YoAnna’s sake. He gave Macy a friendly shoulder pat and ignored the feeling of disappointment emanating from her metallic shell. It was more obvious now that Lilith had a more favorable position with YoAnna since she was strictly platonic with Jay. They traded farewells before Lilith and Macy were shipped back home.

YoAnna shrank down to her mortal height, becoming more inactive. This time, Jay was more concerned with cloaking them. The entire multiverse would act like a hive of angry hornets after the death of Wonor and the 6th Hell Circle. Jay and YoAnna exited out into open space with nothing significant nearby. He scanned the multiverse for anything particular. This time, he examined every dungeon he came across, which were pocket dimensions that maintained their own realities. Not so different from being a whole universe of itself. Obviously, it took longer to scan an entire multiverse thoroughly than doing a mere surface scan. It was fortunate Jay had chosen to raise his Intellect along with his Perception.

“I can’t find Joyce or Bondye,” Jay admitted. “However, the area surrounding the [System Master’s] stronghold is cloaked. It’s the only place strong enough to block even my Perception.”

“What of the 777th?” YoAnna asked.

“It’s lodged close to the [System Master’s] area. It benefits from the same protections, but not as much.” Jay peered closely and caught what he was looking for. His tone, however, was low and heavy. “I found Team Give Them Hell. But…”

“They’ve been slain,” YoAnna said. “I am… aware.”

Jay wondered for how long YoAnna knew half of their Champions had been wiped out and held it inside. Then again, maybe she didn’t want to give voice to bad news that hadn’t been observed. There was no denying it now.

Not only was Rick and Hailey dead, but so was Frank, Dennis, Mike, Tim, and Emily. All of their souls were trapped within the confines of the 777th Heavenly Realms Dungeon. If the younger Jay was here, he would’ve lost himself to rage or horror and entered a downward mental spiral.

The current Jay nodded solemnly and considered the threat that the 777th held as the greatest concentration of holy power across this multiverse. Enough to be direct partners of the [System Master] and have a reach greater than its dungeon’s parameters. It was strong enough to divert some of Jay’s godly observations and hide some of its features.

From what Jay could tell, the 777th was dangling the seven souls of his Champions as bait. How fitting. Jay could feel the levels in [You Are the Main Character] rising. The only issue was deciding YoAnna’s role in this. Should she be more active or inactive?

“YoAnna.” Jay reached over to grab her hand. “Let’s try working on this one together. Dungeon Crawler style.”

“I’ll follow you lead, Husband,” YoAnna said, squeezing his hand. “Please forgive me if I don’t keep myself controlled at all times.”

Jay squeezed her hand back. “Don’t worry about it. I’m strong enough for the both of us.”

After receiving an intense look from YoAnna, Jay released her hand and raised it toward the 777th. There was a large gulf of distance filled with other universes and dungeons. But Jay was the 13th Freak of Freaks and had a Skill called [He Whose Gravity Reaches Beyond the Edge]. Instead of using a proper ritual to open a gate to the 777th, a brute forced it. Reality shrieked around them as the System was bent to comply with his will. An aperture leading to the 777th popped into existence. Jay and YoAnna took it.

There was no need to concern themselves with innocent dungeon crawlers. The entire space was crawling with enemies lying in wait for them. They entered the seventh plane of the seven-section dungeon. It was a city of white walls and white buildings that stretched for seemingly forever. The holy pressure bearing down would’ve stopped many a Demon Lord of the past. Jay moved ahead unbothered with YoAnna following him. From the windows, doorways, and wall arches of the immaculate city, angelic monsters crept out to greet them with claws and holy blades. In a courtyard ahead was an army of Rank 10 Rankers, decked in divine armors while wielding various weapons of planetary destructive power. There were many more of them gathered throughout the city, ready to converge upon the [Apocalypse Champion King] and [Apocalypse Goddess Queen].

“Ah,” Jay said. “I guess you’ll make me sweat a little.”

No banter. The enemy Rankers raised their arms and prepared their magic. Their angelic allies crept closer. Others circled in the sky. Some were the size of continents from back on Earth. This place was mightier than a single Hell Circle.

It was a great place to level up [Abyssal Cape]. He activated the Skill, covering his head in an eldritch hood while a similar cape flowed down from behind his back. It was a demented black with wolfish purple and sickly green edges. Wherever the cape passed, the world became corrupted by an abyssal touch that distorted and ruined. At the same time, Jay released a cloud of abyssal energy from his body. His Chance plummeted rapidly, inviting the universe to cast upon him a fate of doom. The nearest enemies fled backward from the abyssal mist. The only person who remained by his side breathed in the abyssal energy, accepting its dark embrace. YoAnna found solace next to Jay’s side, leaning into her abyssal side. The moment Jay’s Chance hit x1 CM, he got to work, YoAnna following him.

The nearest structures erupted in a series of explosions. Corruption spread far and wide, tearing down the holy reality of the dungeon’s designs. Jay and YoAnna became a dark streak thrusting forward from a bird’s eye view. No wall. No group of Rankers. None of the entrance angels could stop them. The holy pressure bearing down and trying to suppress their power waned in efficiency. Jay’s [Abyssal Cape] grew stronger as he dominated enemies and obstacles alike.

The strongest section of the 777th offered a galore of challenges. Floating white ships shot down holy beams that could out-burn a thousand suns. Continent size avians dove down and raked their claws over the paths Jay and YoAnna darted through. Multi-headed dragons with glistening rainbow-colored scales and fierce holy breaths razed the grounds around them with torrents. The strongest concentration of holy might threw itself at Jay and YoAnna. And some of it gave them a little pause. With the holy side having the greater Chance, all of their efforts were multiplied considerably. Their tactics slowed Jay and YoAnna, punching through the abyssal storm Jay had conjured. When it seemed like they were slowing further, the 777th poured in more attacks.

They struck with living storms that blasted hundreds of miles with each thunderstrike. Mighty angelic statues hurled their javelins with enough force that they strike like doomsday meteorites. Millions of these statues were throwing their javelins at a rapid pace to keep up the consistent damage. The surviving Rankers, who were possibly the multiverse’s entire collection of Rank 10s, hurled every conceivable spell and weapon they could at Jay and YoAnna’s way. Their feats seemed to be working since the apocalyptic duo had come to a complete stop, encouraging the 777th defenders to keep attacking, attacking, and attacking. Until a ceasefire was called.

When the dust settled, what the 777th defenders saw scared them. YoAnna stood unharmed except for a small cut on her cheek. She exuded barely contained and condensed power under her flesh, as if all of the attacks she’d received had only made her stronger. Then there was Jay, who remained completely untouched while holding a tiny black hole above his palm. Every observer looking upon the black hole would feel a tugging sensation. Their energy was getting drained even from a distance. All of their attacks had been consumed by the anomaly Jay held like it was mere pet.

“Batter up!” Jay said, lobbing the black hole lighty. He swung his bo staff like a bat and smacked the dark orb into the distance. At the same time, YoAnna sprinted forward like an unstoppable juggernaut even while maintaining a mortal height. The current army of defenders didn’t stand a chance.

Half of them were wiped out as Jay’s black hole flew by, sucking up victims into its crushing embrace. It scoured obstacles and enemies alike, from the ground and from the sky. YoAnna bulldozed through the rest, snapping out punches and shockwaves that obliterated everything and everyone in her way.

They shattered pockets of resistances one after another, rarely slowing down unless the 777th could gather an adequate force. Most of them died instantly when Jay and YoAnna put up an offensive, granting the holy dungeon no time to even heal their forces. It was a worse massacre than what the 6th Hell Circle suffered. This was supposed to be the most powerful dungeon of Multiverse Y, and it couldn’t stand the test against Jay and YoAnna.

At the very least, they served as the perfect fodder for leveling up and testing new abilities. YoAnna had a more ravenous appetite because of her abyssal side. So she would sometimes turn her aura into a devouring power, consuming enemies alive. Jay mixed up his abyssal abilities with his gravity powers and practiced how far he could push it under controlled settings.

They did everything without ‘breaking’ the dungeon completely. It was their attempt to walk a fine line to ensure the 777th played by some subset of rules that kept the seven Champion souls safeguarded as bait. If Jay and YoAnna pushed a little too hard, the 777th might overthrow the board and try something even more heinous with the souls of their friends. Which meant Jay had to keep himself and his wife in check, reining themselves back when they picked up too much momentum that would lead to dungeon-breaking results. At least it gave him more practice on reining back a Rank 10 [Apocalypse Goddess Queen], which was no easy feat. Jay was being truthful by saying he would be strong enough for the both of them.

Eventually, in a record time nobody had achieved crawling the 777th, Jay and YoAnna reached the foot of the boss temple. Behind them was destruction, death, and suffering. The temple defenders were currently twisting in agony as Jay’s abyssal aura and YoAnna’s hungry aura ate them alive.

The apocalyptic duo climbed the white marble steps calmly before reaching the main atrium of the temple. Sitting alone on a white block was the boss and master of this place. He was a pale-skinned and beautiful man with graceful and golden wings. Behind him were seven cores. In front of him were seven marble-sized orbs filled with familiar essences. These were the souls of the Champions.

“The Spirit Creatures,” the last angel said, “weren’t yours to have.”

“Not my problem,” Jay said. “You involved yourselves when you shouldn’t have.”

“It is our duty to stop the eldritch at every opportunity.” The last angel looked from Jay to the souls in his grasp. “Even when all hope seems lost, we will abide by our duty.”

In a race between Jay and YoAnna, Jay would win magically while YoAnna would win physically. But by combining their powers, they could cross thresholds inconceivable to even the oldest and most experienced of minds. Jay helped slingshot his wife forward as she became a missile of might. Her target was not the dungeon master. With everything she could muster, YoAnna snatched up the souls of her Champions and took a blow from the last angel that sent her through the temple floor and further down until she was flying into the next section down.

Jay whistled in surprise at the last angel’s power to hide his relief. YoAnna had secured the souls. He could go all out against the Rank 10 Dungeon Boss, The Last Angel, Level 763.

“This dungeon will die with me,” the last angel said, extending his wings. “The Holy Affinity will become weak, leaving mortals without its guidance. Do you not feel concerned for the damage you wrought?”

“Amigo, the Holy Affinity losing juice is the least of your concerns,” Jay said, whirling his staff around.

The two struck at each other, and to Jay’s pleasant surprise, the last angel could hold his own. He used no weapons other than his limbs and wings. He sang out incantations that empowered him and gave each of his hits some respectable weight. Jay held his ground from up close, meeting the last angel’s fist strikes with a swing of his bo staff. The powerful impacts shattered the nearby surroundings, which were looking dimmer and duskier now that Jay was paying attention. Meanwhile, the last angel was growing stronger and brighter. It didn’t take long for Jay to understand the last angel was drawing his power from the 777th dungeon and concentrating everything into himself.

Jay stopped fighting and backed off, landing in an empty square. His [Abyssal Cape] hissed and snapped while Jay pulled back to hood to reveal his face.

“What matter of technique is this, foul one?” the last angel asked, hovering in the sky.

“I want to fight you at full power,” Jay admitted. “It’s almost tempting to take you out now while you’re still powering up.”

“I will destroy you at the height of my power,” the last angel said. “Then the 777th will be no more.”

“Cool. I’ll kill a bunch of birds that way.”

“So be it. Have at my death. As long as you villains are acquainted with your end for good.” The last angel began powering up faster. The dungeon dimmed further. Its bright colors and mostly white landscapes grayed and turned dull. The areas that went untouched by Jay and YoAnna’s destructive advance crumpled. Parts of the sky fell in like shattered pieces of a glass roof. The dungeon’s reality pulled apart at the seams. At the same time, the last angel grew stronger and stronger. His normally slim body buffed up. His wings expanded in size. His beauty sharpened until it circled around to being hideous and terrible.

Then a final result was achieved with an explosive of angelic power that forced Jay to stumble back. The last angel achieved his final form and touched down in front of Jay as a monster. Jay scanned the area and saw mostly everything was inert or dead except for one dungeon core remaining to help run the dungeon. It, too, would die once the last angel was done.

“Look at you,” Jay said. “Achieving your strongest possibility. Isn’t it nice?”

The last angel stared coldly at Jay before crushing the space and throwing a whopper of a punch. Jay deflected it with his bo staff and stumbled backward. Their surroundings scattered away from the shockwave, leaving them on a barren and gray wasteland. The last angel struck again with the power of the strongest dungeon this multiverse offered, all packed into one body. Jay couldn’t deny he wasn’t feeling it. His Health was dropping with each blow he deflected or blocked with his staff.

He tried to get a swing in and missed. The last angel took the opportunity to swing in for Jay’s torso. He barely managed to block in time and got knocked off his feet. The angel followed up with a kick that Jay blocked with his bo staff only to be forced into another tumble. Again and again the last angel attacked and sent Jay rolling around like a pinball. But no matter what the last angel did, it couldn’t land a decisive hit on the [Champion King]. It was successful in chipping at Jay’s Health and slashing up his Stamina, but nothing more than that.

“Why won’t you fall?” the angel roared.

“I’m still thinking on if I should kill you or let YoAnna have the honors,” Jay said, using the momentary respite to lean against his staff. “I have a personal vendetta with you. But YoAnna’s anger with you might eclipse mine.”

The last angel tried to attack again, but this time Jay rolled out of the way and counterattack with a swing to the midsection. His staff landed and sent the last angel flying quite far. Jay didn’t let him catch his breath, teleporting in to strike again and again, smashing the angel around. When they landed, they broke through the floor and reached the next section below. Jay used the falling debris to bounce off of as he smacked the last angel around, giving him the pinball treatment. The pummeling continued as they broke through the sixth section and fell into the fifth and the fourth after that. They didn’t stop until they reached the bottom of the dungeon, blocked by the pocket space’s border.

For now.

“Hey! Want to see what happens when a dungeon cracks?” Jay raised his staff and gathered the power of his abyssal gravity and bonuses. “Since you’re stronger than your own dungeon, you can serve as the nail.”

“No!” The last angel lunged to stop Jay.

But it was too late.

Jay leaned into his magic and moved at a faster speed the last angel had seen from him. He swung his staff around like a hammer and slammed it down on the dungeon master’s head. The last angel drove through the boundaries of the dungeon and shattered its reality. What waited out there was the abyss, the true death of the 777th. It flooded the space, ready to eat it from the inside out. At the same time, the force ejection from his own dungeon would turn the last angel inert and lost to the abyss. It was a fucked up way to go.

Which was perfect for Jay’s revenge. YoAnna would no doubt be happy with it even if she didn’t get to slay this dungeon personally. After soaking in the satisfying moment, Jay teleported to his wife where she sat cuddling the sevens souls of their dearly departed. She looked up at Jay with a smile.

“I can revive them,” she said. “There will be some changes. They’ll have to start as Level 1s again. But I can revive them.”

“The dungeon’s crumbling. Let’s find a safe spot.” Jay took one of YoAnna’s hands while she carefully held the seven marble-sized souls with her other arm. Like holding a baby. They exited the crumbling remains of the 777th right before it imploded and was left as ruins floating through the abyss.

The danger awaiting them on the other side didn’t surprise Jay whatsoever. True to his old tricks, the [System Master] set a domain as a trap extending from the 777th. The death of the dungeon didn’t kill off the trap. It looked like a killing cage, and might’ve worked if Jay was a weaker man. With one arm holding onto his distracted wife, Jay swung his bo staff and brought to bear more power than he’d shown so far. He broke through the cage and moved them to the edge of the multiverse. They landed on a small green planet habited by friendly gnomes. It was a weak place. Normally, Jay would’ve looked for a stronger planet, but YoAnna was showing more power discipline than ever since her Rank 10 evolution.

Nobody died, and the planet remained whole as they set foot on it. YoAnna lowered down into a seat and returned to cuddling the seven souls. Jay watched with rapt attention. Each marble contained the soul of a fallen and something more. When he looked at Frank, he saw a spark of fire, determination, and the face of a dragon. He also saw the link connecting them to YoAnna.

“So, this revival,” Jay drawled. “Can you just poof them back to life?”

“Yes,” YoAnna said plainly. “With some concentration.”

“Okay, good. Because the other option would be weird.”

YoAnna blinked up at Jay before letting out a snort and a titter of laughter. Some nearby gnome-folks heard the laughter and wandered by. They were only knee high, so Jay and YoAnna’s height and foreignness scared off the observers when Jay turned to look at them. They were going to get the guard force of a nearby village to come out. Jay supposed a few gravity pranks would slow them down and keep them distracted.

Meanwhile, YoAnna shifted onto her knees and sat back on her ankles. She extended her hands, the marbles containing the souls of her Champions moved from her bosom to the air between her slender fingers. It was sometimes mystifying to see how delicate and feminine YoAnna could act at times while also knowing she could be an absolute monster, a physical juggernaut without equals.

Jay liked both sides of her, so he watched intently as YoAnna closed her eyes and whispered an incantation that was born from her heart. The Champion souls glimmered with their personal lights and spiraled around, responding to YoAnna’s efforts. The grassy knoll they were set on rippled as the revival ceremony kicked up strong but pleasant gusts. The clouds swirled above their heads.

Jay breathed in the magic as reality bent to his wife’s will. It would’ve been nice if there weren’t people trying to interrupt the divine moment. With a heavy heart, Jay turned away from his wife and teleported out far into space. He had to be in the next universe to intercept the thing that had the back of his hair standing and keep YoAnna from getting interrupted. Jay didn’t truly comprehend the danger until it was nearly upon him. He instantly transformed the space in front of him into the maw of a massive black hole. It was barely strong enough to eat a multiverse crossing beam with Jay and YoAnna’s name on it.

When it seemed like Jay was in time to stop one, he noticed several others flowing in. Jay matched them with more black holes. Jay furrowed his brow and started to sweat as more attacks rained from one end of the multiverse to the other, destroying everything in their path. But each beam was met with an equivalent defense, stretching Jay thinner than he liked. When he felt his grip on everything was becoming shaky, the attacks came to an end. Jay waited to see if there were any more, facing the torn-up void and mass-apocalyptic destruction of a desperate enemy. No more multiverse crossing beams came out. Weary, but victorious, Jay returned to his wife and found a pleasant surprise.

“Jay, we have children,” YoAnna said with a straight face. “Look at what you’ve made me do. You must take responsibility.”

Jay opened and closed his mouth as he looked down at the revived seven. They were all… kids! Monster kids! Reborn through magic and their spiritual connections to YoAnna, each one assumed a body of a preteen fused with their creature.

“Wooo! I’m alive, nerds!” Rick cawed, running circles around them with a great red mane of feathers flowing behind his head. A rooster’s tail fluttered behind him as he jumped around and crashed into Hailey’s body of pale skin and black crow feathers. “We’re alive, we’re alive, we’re alive!”

“Ugh, get off of me! I can tell we’re alive.” Hailey and Rick rolled across the grass together until Hailey gave him a kick to his midsection and sent him flying back. She cawed angrily and raised up her talon-like nails. “Don’t just jump me like that. We’re…”

“Naked,” Mike said while sitting with his knees hugged tight, his owlish feathers trembling. “And dumb. My mind is slow. My entire body is weak. What is this?”

“I think you know what this is Mike, but you’re in too much shock to admit it,” Emily said while hiding behind YoAnna. She looked around at the other revived Champions before turning her reflective bat eyes up at a smiling YoAnna. “Did it have to be this way?”

“I mean, it could be worse,” Dennis said as he flicked at his baby ox horns. “We could’ve stayed dead.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Frank muttered, breathing a stream of dragon fire. He glanced irritably up at Jay’s face. All the way up. “Who told you to get taller?”

Before Jay could answer, Tim crossed through the group, his tail wagging frantically and smacking at anyone who didn’t get out of the way in time. He stopped in front of his brother.

“Hey, Tim-o-boy. Missed me?” Rick said smugly.

“Fuck you for leaving me!” Tim raged and punched Rick in the face.

The two erupted into a cock fight. Or was it a dog fight? The other revived champions gathered to watch and throw bets at each other. Hailey sneaked around the back and wrapped Emily in a hug as they watched the commotion. Eventually, Jay walked into the fray and gently pushed the twins apart.

“Yeah, this is them. We’ve got back our Champions, YoAnna,” Jay said.

“Thank goodness,” YoAnna said softly, doing everything she could to contain all of her power. She was straining to do so, but nothing but absolute control would do or she would crush her Champions. “I wish we could spend more time together, but we must send you back home.”

“The others are waiting for you,” Jay added. “In our own multiverse.”

“Our own multiverse, aye?” Rick said. “Would you look at that? They gone on and did incredible things without needing you, Hailey.”

“They didn’t need you either!”

“Of course they needed me.” Rick waved up at Jay and Hailey. “They’d been too serious. Jay’s grown into a full man without my wonderful self to keep him a kid forever. Whelp, I suppose I’ll get back to work.”

“Nothing says Protectorates than child labor,” Mike muttered.

Even with their more pubescent voices, the dark and mature chuckles that came out warmed Jay’s heart. There was a lot to talk about. So much to explain. Hell, they would need guidance to navigate what they’d become. They were something akin to Joyce, a fusion of humanity, divinity, and concepts. Jay tried not to look at them as his kids. They weren’t. But YoAnna looked like she was going to burst with the giddiness of a mother.

One by one, Jay sent them off, giving each revived Champion a personal farewell and a few promises. Dennis ended up being the last one, and before he was sent off, he stopped Jay.

“I remembered how we died. It was a hell of a fight. Some of the greatest action we’ve seen.” Dennis folded his arms across his chest. Even as a preteen, he looked like he would grow to be big and strong. “But knowing that you two smashed the 777th and are on your way to defeat the end bosses kind of puts a damper on our achievements.”

YoAnna couldn’t talk anymore. All of her focus was on keeping herself contained. But she was listening. Jay talked for himself and her.

“Is that going to stop you?” Jay asked.

Dennis looked long and hard at Jay’s eyes. Then he smiled a little. “No. Not me, at least. All I care about is repaying the wrong we suffer. Beyond that, I’m game for a new life adventuring with my best pals.”

“That’s good to hear, Dennis.” Jay patted him on the shoulder. “Look out for the others, would you? Frank’s got both arms back and he’s looking a bit lost. Mike will have Lilith looking after him, but I’ll–”

“Relax, relax, you make it sound like we won’t be seeing you two for a while.” Dennis watched Jay with a glint in his eyes. “I’ll keep a lookout. Just don’t wait too long, okay? It wouldn’t be the Protectorates without our two star players.”

Jay sent Dennis home. He grabbed YoAnna and found an empty space where it was safer for her to exist. She expanded quickly, becoming the size of two suns stacked on top of each other. She floated aimlessly in space, pulling random space debris and empty planets into her orbit. Jay settled on the tip of her nose and concentrated on recovering his Mana. He used up a lot to protect them.

“They tried to attack us while you were reviving them,” Jay said.

“And you stopped their attacks,” YoAnna said windily. “I imagine Goldteeth used up his his great armaments in hopes to affect you.”

“Yeah, well, they kind of pushed me there.” Jay shook his head. “Good grief. I felt like a man defending his wife while…”

“Oh, why did you stop?” YoAnna asked, sounding curious.

“Nope. Not going there. Just let me know when you finish recovering.”

“Mm.” YoAnna entered a meditative state.

Jay recovered Mana and kept a lookout for danger. He also thought back to all of what they’d achieved so far. Wonor had been slain while rescuing Casey and Brit. The 6th Hell Circle had been put to an end while rescuing Lilith and Macy. Now Jay planned to end all of the Hell Circles and free all the Freak of Freaks later down the road. The 777th had been cracked from the inside out and left to rot in the abyss. All of their Champions had been revived and sent back home.

“Joyce, Bondye, Taco,” Jay said. “And the last four bosses.”

Seven heroic objectives. Though, they might not be the most vital objective. In the end, for everything to come full circle, YoAnna must take the throne and judge the multiverse. They had long moved from the thought that YoAnna would sacrifice herself to achieve vengeance and leave something for Jay to inherit. At their power, YoAnna could easily wipe out all of Multiverse Y once she had access to the seat of the [System Master]. They had talked about it extensively. They both knew each other’s ideals on the subject.

Jay was against the multiverse genocide. YoAnna was for it. The exciting part was whether YoAnna would actually go through wholesale destruction, and if she did, what would Jay do in the meanwhile? It made him wonder why he should do anything. He didn’t owe these people anything. They were not his concern. In the grand scheme of things, it was probably smarter for YoAnna to wipe the slate clean and leave nothing behind. Breaking all Chances of fate reviving an unforeseen enemy that would cause havoc in the future.

“Yet, I don’t know if I can do nothing,” Jay said.

YoAnna was listening in, of course. Her mouth quirked up at the corners. She knew her role in all of this. She would live up to being the apocalyptic villainess the [System Master] had created. She was just as curious about what Jay would do as he was if she went through with the multiverse genocide. The darkness ebbing from her scar said plenty about the evil YoAnna could harbor.

“Whatever happens, we’ll face it together,” YoAnna said, awakening from her meditation.

“Damn straight,” Jay said, floating out into open space. He rested his bo staff on his shoulder and glanced over at the stronghold of the [System Master]. “They’d prepared for us.”

They had broken dungeons spewing their guts of dungeon monsters. They had the best [Gods] and [Goddesses] of dozens of pantheons sworn directly to the [System Master]. At the center of it all, the [System Master] erected a fortress of magic and high quality materials. Jay nodded in confirmation as the walls being assembled were using primordial quality. That hadn’t been there earlier, which meant the [System Master] was using his best stuff.

“Yeah, this is it, YoAnna,” Jay said.

“Can I go all out now, my love?” she asked.

“You can. Kill whatever is in your way.” Jay whirled his staff around. “Even if they’re on my list. At this point, I can’t get too greedy. Joyce and Bondye come first. Taco, too, if she’s still alive.”

YoAnna tilted her head. “I wish to say I’ll reserve them for you. But if the opportunity comes, I will kill them myself.”

Jay grinned. “I know. So it’ll be a race.”

YoAnna’s eyes lit up. “A challenge? It wouldn’t be fair. You are both trying to save and destroy when I only have to destroy.”

She wasn’t being fair to herself. It was her body she used to save the souls of their Champions last time. Jay supposed he could handle the challenge.

“You can use the head start,” he teased. “I’ll get two saves and two kills before you can get a third big kill.”

“Then so be it,” YoAnna said with full determination. “I will win this challenge.”

Jay felt the gravity of the contest locked in place. He had no idea what would be the consequence of winning or losing, but that was beside the point. YoAnna’s massive body was now gaining more power before they even got started. The nature of the challenge was a divine one, so YoAnna got the appropriate powerup. Unfortunately, it was up to Jay to help transfer her while she remained at her current size. The distance was too great for her to effectively challenge on top of piercing the [System Master’s] defenses.

It was worth it though. Popping in on the enemy’s greatest defensive hold while bypassing their barriers and walls with his massive wife gave Jay a bunch of stunned faces to burn to memory. At least the core world was plenty large enough for YoAnna’s cosmic size. They even had cosmic titans for her to wrestle with as Jay flew and teleported around defensive encampments and pantheon armies.

YoAnna’s entrance served as the opening salvo that kicked everything into a frenzy, distracting most of the enemy and concentrating their attacks on her. It was a risky gambit. She grew stronger as she was attacked, but if she wasn’t strong enough, something hard hitting could blast her down. Jay found one of those hard-hitting primordial weapons in the form of a cannon being operated by Goldteeth himself.

“You!” snarled the dragon behind the cannon. It was an almost comical sight, but Jay’s objectives required him to be serious.

“Where’s Joyce?” Jay asked.

The dragon sneered and turned the cannon at Jay. With a flick of his hand, Jay threw the bo staff and bonked Goldteeth between the eyes and sent him careening backwards. The bo staff returned to his hand followed by something that was larger than he could grasp fully at this size. When the dragon shook off the hard strike, he was now staring down the barrel of his own cannon.

“You can’t use it! It’s bound to me!” shouted the dragon.

“No. It’s bound to me,” Jay said, as his race as Eldritch Monkey Ruler employed an interesting power. Absolute Ownership broke the spell binding it to the dragon and forced it to bind to Jay. The cannon was way too large for someone like Jay, but it began to shine with inherent power ready to go off anyway.

The dragon’s eyes widened. He looked over to see YoAnna ripped a cosmic titan in half and tossed the two pieces down at field armies and dungeon monsters working together to attack her ankles. Somewhere out there, the Ukkara was roaring with rage as he threw himself at YoAnna’s massive form. He had grown to his largest size but was still a tiny mite in comparison. But unlike the many attackers at YoAnna’s feet, the Uk-Guk-Gara [God] didn’t go unnoticed by YoAnna. Her hand smacked him down. Then she proceeded to stomp on him, fully abusing her size and might to shake the entire realm and rattle all of its warriors.

“If you want to escape this hopeless battle, you better tell me,” Jay said.

“The prince! He has her!” Goldteeth admitted. “Now let me go! Please!”

They both knew Jay wouldn’t let him go. The wealthiest dragon was only saying that to bide himself time to implement an escape plan. He could probably slip away fine from the cannon’s emission. But Jay wasn’t planning on using it.

“Prison of Gravity,” Jay chanted, trapping the dragon in a heavy gravity cage. All spatial attempts would be warped into breaking, keeping Goldteeth from absconding. Jay left him howling and begging for release. To be fair, Jay didn’t have as deep of an animosity toward Goldteeth as he did for the others. If he could trade the dragon for Ukkara, that would be worth it. But YoAnna was finishing that match. Leaving the dragon as bait should distract her long enough for Jay to get to the real prizes.

In the end, he did use the cannon to help break down the doors to the [System Master’s] palace. The primordial blast erased the nearest defenders and left nothing but melted stone, burning wood, and lots of smoke. Jay kicked his way through and walked over the smoldering door. Inside, he found a sturdy domain and the heavily armored mansion guardians. They were Rankers in the Level 700s. It was clear to Jay that specific people got the benefit of breaking past the 550 leveling cap as long as they worked with the [System Master].

Jay held nothing back and deleted each one from reality. The last one had their system corrupted before having their body imploded. The domain collapsed with the last guardian dying. It was quiet inside. All the noise from the battle was kept outside. The foyer led to a long hallway filled with elemental art. He’d crossed this same hallway back when he first met the bosses a while ago. It wasn’t surprising when his journey led him to the garden. This time, instead of a pagoda at the end, there was a marble arena. In the middle was the master of this mess. He was dressed in a tunic and leggings while wielding a rapier. Primordial Quality.

“I’ve looked ahead, searching for answers,” the master said. “All I found was death and suffering.”

Jay hopped up onto the stage and moved to stand beside the man. “I don’t really have much to say.”

“No gloats? Witty comebacks? Nothing?” The master sounded disappointed.

Jay opened and closed his mouth and thought about it. “Honestly, I just want to head home. Strange, isn’t it? I’m right here where I’ve wanted to be for a long time. Finally achieving vengeance. And now that I’m here, it’s kind of empty.”

“How so?”

“I’m too overpowered.” Jay turned to leave the arena. “Goodbye.”

By the time he got down, the former System Master’s head rolled off his shoulders, already slain by Jay’s hand before he realized it. For all his power as king of the multiverse, he was an unimpressive combatant. Which left a bitter taste in Jay’s mouth. There could only be one reason for a weak king to hold the throne like that. He was a puppet to someone stronger.

Jay focused on the one area that he was blind to and couldn’t pierce. The noise outside of YoAnna’s rampage was reaching him now that the old system master was dead. The mansion looked more lifeless, too. Without their master, the magic supporting it was fading rapidly. In fact, Jay could feel the system was suffering without its master. The throne was up for grabs, which Jay spotted as a simple looking garden chair. He left it alone and headed toward the dark void in his Perception.

He opened a door leading into the hallways, passing through the threshold of the domain. Immediately, he was set upon by an entropic curse. Jay grimaced at the curse’s power. It was… stronger than Jay expected. Still, it was not enough to stop him. He walked through it, leaning on his heroic tropes to raise his Chance. There was only a strip of floor remaining in this domain. Everything else led to an empty husk of a void. Stranger yet was Jay’s Perception. It was throttled heavily, blinding him to what was evidently in front of him.

He wasn’t fully prepared for a person to appear on his path, but he responded appropriately to the attacks. He used his staff to deflect the incoming punches and kicks before smacking the back of the attacker’s leg and sending them down to the floor. He pressed the end of his staff against the attacker’s chest, stopping her.

“Taco, it’s me, Jay,” he called.

Taco continued to struggle, unable to recognize him. Her eyes were gone. Her voice was gone. Her hearing was gone, too. Jay grimaced at her horrible condition as she pushed up to her feet and attacked him again. This time he grabbed her arm with his tail and wrestled with her until she recognized the feeling of an eldritch monkey’s tail. She rubbed her hand over it, her face stricken with grief and hope.

“I can’t send you back like this,” Jay said. She could destroy Earth in her confusion. Carefully, he grabbed Taco’s hand and guided her to keep a hold of his tail as he moved past her. She learned quickly to trust him and follow. He could only imagine how long she spent being like this and left to wander aimlessly with nobody around.

Jay found a black door and pushed it open with his staff. Inside, was a living room and dining/kitchen setup reminiscent of his old home. On the sofa was Joyce, her knees up with her taloned toes hanging off the edge. She was Rank 8 now, and clearly strong enough to gobble most beings of the Multiverse. She was far from Jay or YoAnna’s equal, though. He was both glad and troubled to see her. All of her attention was on the TV while clutching a dungeon monster core.

Bondye’s core.

Jay’s attention lingered on his family for too long. He didn’t react in time to the punch hitting the side of his head and knocking him into the door edge. His head rattled in a way that reminded him of mortality, before he could react, two hands grabbed him by the front of his top and yanked him off his feet. Taco staggered inside with him before Jay released her from his tail. Then he was tossed across the room and smashing against the wall.

“Look who it is! Look who it is! It’s the copycat!” sang the Prince of Entropy. He walked around Taco’s frantically searching form and slammed the door behind him with a kick of his heel. “Oh my, my, you’ve gotten strong.”

Jay shook his head. “Clearly, you’ve been hiding your true power for a while, prince.”

“Never let them know what you’re really capable of.” The prince laughed. “Shame you killed Charles, though. He was a good pawn.”

Jay glanced from the prince to his daughter. “Joyce, you okay?”

She didn’t respond. She kept watching the TV, which was on, but showed nothing but a black screen. A void of digitals. She was absorbed by it.

“She has a lot of YoAnna in her,” the prince said with a sigh. “But she’s not the real thing. Far from it really. Still, it’ll be good to have her as a starter daughter for when YoAnna and I finally tie the knot.”

Jay swung his staff and clashed with the prince’s black and crooked knife, a constant edge slicing against reality that appeared from nowhere. The bo staff held up as Jay swung and lashed out, choosing melee to avoid hurting the hostages. The place itself was of top tier Primordial Quality, so it didn’t fall apart as the two godly combatants swung and clanged against each other.

The prince’s knife hand held strong even when Jay put a lot of force and some weighty magic into his swings. Jay had no choice but to give some ground when the prince flicked out his knife and aimed at Jay’s fingers, dodging the counter strokes. They broke apart in the tight space with Jay’s back to the hostages, reexamining everything he knew about the prince.

Apparently, he didn’t know enough. The Prince of Entropy was standing casually after taking hits that would put down most if not all of the warriors this multiverse had to offer. The smile on the mask the prince wore was there for a reason, both mocking at others for their weakness and smiling at his own might.

“Maybe you should sit back and wait for your wife,” the prince said. “You’re clearly not strong enough by yourself.”

Jay narrowed his eyes, feeling his anger cloud over his thoughts. His grip became tense on his staff, and when it seemed like he was going to swing, he took a deep breath instead. He remembered the last time he lost his cool in front of the Prince of Entropy. He lost his legs.

“I still have your legs,” the prince said, reaching behind him. He tossed the pair onto the floor in front of Jay. They looked like the legs of a boy. They weren’t fitting for Jay anymore. He stepped over them and approached the prince carefully.

“Wow, that’s ice cold. I like your style!” The prince flipped his knife from hand to hand, squaring up against Jay. After a tense few seconds, they erupted into violence. This time, Jay struck with explosive force while also covering the hostages with a fusion of his gravity and [Unstoppable Heroism]. He burned through more Mana this way, but he was giving the prince a harder fight that placed him on the back foot. Jay struck again and again, each of his hits growing with more weight and destructiveness that rattled down the prince’s knife arm. The entropic power bled away some of Jay’s magic, thwarting a portion of his efforts, but not all. Not when Jay was both calm, focused, and giving it all that he’d got.

The prince’s back slammed into the kitchen counter. He missed a deflective swing with his knife and took a resounding smack to the face. The mocking mask ripped off and before Jay could capitalize, he saw something that turned his blood cold. He saw his own face. The Prince of Entropy was him.

He was brought back to horrible reality and a horrible pain pierced through his side. The prince’s knife. Jay shouted with rage and pain, his concentration nearly slipping until he refocused on his double objectives. He kept up the gravity shields protecting the hostages while bashing the prince’s nose in with his forehead. The two separated, dripping blood, Jay leaking out more.

Jay gasped in pain as the entropic curse dug its hooks deep inside of him. He was on wobbly legs, which were already unstable since they were prosthetics. He was almost angry at the prince being so strong, but that paled in comparison to his true identity.

“Why do you have my face?” Jay spat.

“What do you mean?” the prince laughed. “You have my face. You all do. Each and every damn Freak of Freaks.”

“What?”

“Come now. Don’t you know anything about the multiverse theory?” the prince asked. “There’s more than just the revival part. There’s versions of you out there. Some are slightly different. Some are slightly the same. And when it comes to us Jays, we all tend to have a weird reaction to the [Freak] Class.”

Jay thought about it. “Did you have a near death experience?”

“Yup! Right before the apocalypse came for my universe.” The prince shook his head. “Good times, that. My climb was epic. I was knifing all sorts of [Godlings], [Gods] and [Goddesses]. I was on a roll to destroy the multiverse. And go beyond to the–”

“Ultraverse,” Jay added.

“Bingo bango–”

“You get a mango.”

“Hahaha! See! It’s almost as if the designer of all this kept copying over the same code. The same Jay Killjoy.”

“Luckrun,” Jay said. “I’m Jay Luckrun.”

“Doesn’t matter. We’re all Jays.”

“It does matter.” Jay nodded. “Because there aren’t many Luckruns. And it takes something special to be a Luckrun.”

Killjoy’s mirthful face transitioned into a dark scowl. “Count me as a critic. You took my love. The only girl who fits me. We’re supposed to break out of this place. Hit up the Ultraverse and break that, too. Then keep going and going and going until… there’s nothing but the two of us.”

Jay stared at his multiverse copy and saw the caricature of what he could’ve been. He had no idea what turned this version of him into an insane and creepy villain, but seeing it in the flesh was horrifying. He was almost happy that Joyce, Taco, and Bondye were unaware. Nobody could see this. It had to end here.

“There it is. That look of desperate self-hate.” Killjoy smiled. “Don’t you get it. If I win, we all win.”

“Then why won’t you accept YoAnna being with me.”

“Because she’s mine!” Killjoy roared, throwing himself at Jay. The bo staff had stopped being a good weapon in this confined space. Jay used it as a distraction before binding Killjoy’s knife arm and smashing it against the countertops. He kept striking the arm down until he released his knife. Killjoy readapted by hooking his fingers into Jay’s cheek and yanking his head around to slam into the fridge. Everything here was Primordial Quality and refused to break. In this little house setting, the amount of power both were using could’ve ended countless lives across the cosmos. But it didn’t seem like it as the two fought like rabid animals, slipping in Jay’s blood as it puddled on the floor. Bursts of their affinities came out, mostly canceling each other. Even with Jay combining gravity and the abyss, the 1st Freak of Freaks was more than prepared for it. They crashed back and forth across the kitchen before collapsing in the living room. Jay took a second to recollect himself. Killjoy tackled him and slammed into the wall, his fingers digging into Jay’s knife wound. Jay held in the scream that wanted to come out and wrapped his tail around Killjoy’s neck. The muscular appendage pulled the crazed many backward until his face was raised up high enough for Jay to swing in his fists and pummel him. Jay ignored the burning knife wound and his life seeping out of him. He ignored the horrible implications that all of the prisoners in the Hell Circles were versions of him that failed to become Freak of Freaks. He ignored that he was a copy of the insane and monstrous Jay in front of him, that there wasn’t anything original to his soul, that he was either meant to die or become something designed by a greater power outside of his reach. He just kept punching and punching, cutting his knuckles on Killjoy’s fractured teeth, pummeling the life out of him even as Killjoy stopped fighting, punching and punching. Then Jay stopped right before he landed the finishing blow.

“Why aren’t you fighting back?” Jay asked.

Killjoy gargled on blood and saliva. He shifted his face aside and spat globs out with his broken feet. Then he smiled. “That knife to your liver. That had all of my killing power and some.”

Jay blinked down in surprise. He was certainly weak and losing his Health fast, but he was not exactly dead.

“I want YoAnna,” Killjoy said. “Ever since I’ve had a glimpse of her in the future. She was everything. But if this me isn’t strong enough…”

He reached up and patted a blood hand on Jay’s face. “At least there’s a me out there who is.”

Jay finished the job and slain the Prince of Entropy. As Joyce snapped awake from her trance, Jay yanked the prince’s mask into his hand with gravity. He was about to put the thing on but stopped himself. With a painful sigh, he tossed the mask aside, and lifted the prince’s body with a grunt. The knife wound in his side wasn’t going to heal any time soon.

“Dad,” Joyce called. Amanda’s pale form flitted out from Joyce’s body and entered Taco’s. Thankfully, Amanda could communicate with the poor eldritch monkey directly without needing extra magic. Maybe Jay could conjure a spell to better communicate, but he was occupied. With the prince dead, his domain was falling apart.

Jay pulled everyone close with gravity and helped them transition back into a more stable reality. Of course, the breaking of Killjoy’s domain would’ve led to an entropic death. It was as if the bastard couldn’t help but try to get one last laugh over his enemies.

Jay didn’t look back at the legs he left behind and kept walking toward the garden entrance.

“Dad, uh, I don’t know what’s going on?” Joyce asked. “I was leaving the 6th Hell Circle while getting attacked by a bunch of weirdos. Then I ran into a scary guy. The guy on your shoulder. Is he dead? Oh, he’s dead.”

Joyce stopped talking as she followed in Jay’s shadow. Any urges to hunt him died down as she stole peaks at his beat up and bleeding form. Taco followed behind them, guided by Amanda’s urges. They made it outside to a dying garden and didn’t venture far until they found YoAnna.

She was covered in dried blood and soot. Her robes were in tatters. Jay could sense the many lives, small and significant, she’d taken. Two of those lives happened to be Ukkara and Goldteeth. She was standing with her back to them, looking down at the empty wrought iron throne of the former system master.

Jay dropped Killjoy’s body beside her. The corpse landed face up, revealing his face. Joyce sucked in air sharply as Jay looked away in shame.

“This is the man who cursed us?” YoAnna asked. “The one who caused the destruction of the Protectorates?”

“Yes,” Jay said.

“This man… has your face.”

“You can say that he’s me from another universe.” It took immense Conviction to keep talking. Jay’s Chance was plummeting hard. “All the Freak of Freaks are a similar or different version of me. We’re all copies. Duplicated with a purpose by the Precursor System. And it doesn’t start unless we have a–”

“Near death experience?” YoAnna tilted her head. “Is that why I was drawn to you? It wasn’t that you were fateless. But you were a part of something so large, it was impossible to see.”

Jay felt sickened. He was still bleeding and losing Health. He couldn’t even look at YoAnna now. This entire journey had revealed an ugly truth that was almost too much to bear. He wanted to say something to make everything better. But he couldn’t muster a thing. Even worse, YoAnna wasn’t giving him a clear clue of her thoughts. She was innate. Almost like an unreadable statue.

Jay crumpled to the ground as the blood loss became less bearable. He felt cold. Maybe Killjoy would get the last laugh after all.

He didn’t stay down on the ground for long. Joyce knelt beside him and placed her hand gently on Jay’s side. She couldn’t heal him. But she stopped his descent into death.

“You’re not that man,” Joyce said. “He was wrong, twisted, and evil. And you’re good and amazing and loving.”

Jay chuckled. “That doesn’t sound like the talk of someone who’s supposed to hunt me.”

Joyce furrowed her brow. “What’s the point if it’s not a challenge? For you or me. I still have growing to do. And… you’re supposed to help me grow!”

Jay felt a little better hearing that. Maybe if the only salvageable thing was the relationship with his adopted daughter, he might find a way to live with that.

Then YoAnna bent down next to him and pressed her hand over Joyce’s hand. With a pop of power, YoAnna fought against the knife wound and the entropic curse. Entropy’s killing intent couldn’t outlast YoAnna’s divinity with its master dead. YoAnna won out and healed Jay, leaving a scar where the knife had landed.

Wound healed, Jay supposed YoAnna would refocus on the throne. Instead of that, her hand pressed to the side of his face. She turned his head and met his lips with her supply and kissed him fully. Jay lost himself in that kiss, riding high and feeling at ease even after the kiss ended. Blinking away his daze, he found his wife’s face inches away from him.

“You’re the one and only Jay Luckrun,” she said, leaning her forehead against his. “My beloved, and the ender of my lifetime foe and curse.”

Jay sighed in relief and leaned into his wife. He could’ve left Killjoy’s body in his collapsing domain. He could’ve hid this secret and never faced the consequences. But it wouldn’t be right. This was too big to just hide. YoAnna had the right to know.

For a good while, Jay and YoAnna sat on the gravel floor, leaning against each other. She did most of the comforting, combing her fingers through his dreadlocks. When Jay felt more put together, he stood up with YoAnna in hand. Killjoy was an afterthought now. All that mattered now was the throne.

“You’ve rescued the hostages and killed the most important two before I could get three,” YoAnna announced. “And I can barely count my second when he was prepared for me to step on. It is clear you are the winner of our challenge.”

“I feel like I missed out on a lot,” Joyce piped up while standing next to Taco and Amanda.

“Maybe if you don’t run away from home, you would be kept informed,” YoAnna said.

“Ouch. But fair.” Joyce lowered her head, falling to the background.

YoAnna chuckled as she refocused on Jay. “This is your reward. A decision for you to make. Do I sit on the throne? Or do we leave?”

“Sit on the throne,” Jay said automatically.

YoAnna’s eyes widened, stunned. “But I will not be angry with you if you decide for us to leave now. You know what I will do if I take the throne.”

Jay shook his head. “I know. But I want you to decide not to genocide an entire multiverse.”

“But you will not favor the decision. You are a hero.”

“A hero of apocalypse comedy. I do what I can, take my licks, and keep moving forward. If I’m going to be married to a villainess, then I’ll have to learn to live with those atrocities of hers.” Jay sighed. “But that won’t mean I’ll stay silent. I’ll want her to know that we can have our vengeance and  let the innocent live.”

“Dearest husband, to accomplish a task as great as wholesale destruction does not leave room for half measures. If I stop halfway, what I leave is chaos that will be worse than clean death. And from the chaos can arise greater monsters.”

“Or capable heroes that’ll transition the fall of command toward a better tomorrow,” Jay said. “It’s in the muck and chaos that the best of men and women can be born.”

“It’s in that mess that the worst of monsters can be born, dear.”

“Yeah, well. That’s where I stand. And I’m not going to take your right to sit on the throne or not from you.” Jay reached down and tossed Killjoy’s body out of the area. It was becoming a real eyesore. Smacking his hands, he took a few steps back and left YoAnna with the throne.

She stared at it for a long time, her fingers strumming the air. Her toes clenched the gravel underneath. All she had to do was sit down and take over the Multiverse System. Then spread her influence and utterly destroy everyone and everything here. Or destroy the [Gods] and [Goddesses] and their pantheons and leave the peons be. Or she could walk away from the throne altogether.

YoAnna turned to look at Jay, their eyes meeting. Jay nodded his head in approval of whatever decision she made. They were going to be together for a long time. No matter what she decided.

YoAnna took the seat of the throne. It transformed into something more fitting. Black, gold, white, and lavish. YoAnna leaned back against the rest, closing her eyes, savoring the power she held over an entire multiverse. For a moment, Jay figured she was going to choose the wholesale slaughter route and leave nothing left. He prepared to harden his heart and wait and see what remained. He might have to spend time crawling each Hell Circle to ensure all of their Freak of Freaks were put out of their misery.

“This is YoAnna Sainte-Luckrun, the remaining Matriarch of the Protectorates,” she said, her voice reaching all across the multiverse. “I am the doom you’ve all feared, fated to destroy this multiverse. And because of your fear, you’ve turned upon the Protectorates and massacred my people. Now here I am. I have been fully realized thanks to the support of my newly revived Protectorates and my husband, Jay Luckrun, the former Demon Lord.”

YoAnna paused, letting her words sink in. She rested her elbow on the arm rest, propping her chin on her hand. It was a striking image made even bolder as she shifted from her golden radiance to a man-eating back. Her hair became dark. Her eyes black as black as the void. The scar on the left side of her face became more prominent. For a split-second, Jay could hear Killjoy laughing, as if he was enjoying himself from the beyond.

“I remember my mother briefly. In the moments I was born, I remember her touch. Then I was ripped away from her. Forever. I was sent far away. Forced to learn all I know about the Protectorates through journals and tutors. All for what? To control me? To use my great power? If I was given a Chance, supported instead of feared, we could’ve built your multiverse to be a greater place. But now all I want to do is wipe it all away. And leave nothing left.”

YoAnna sighed. “And yet. I won’t. I’ll leave you with this warning. Do not cross me again.”

She stood up from the throne and moved over to Jay, grabbing his hand and marching him out. He was practically dragged after her until he picked up his prosthetic feet and matched her lengthy stride. Joyce helped Taco to follow quickly behind them. They stopped outside the smashed front of the mansion. From here Jay could fully appreciate the damage YoAnna wrought.

“Ah,” Jay nodded. “You’ve killed them all.”

Jay had an estimated headcount of all the enemies gathered to defend the central stronghold. None of them escaped. Mostly everyone was crushed to paste either directly or from YoAnna’s growing aura.

Joyce gaped at all of the bloody and flaming damage. Then she blurted, “Mother, Dad, which one of you is stronger?”

“Your mother,” Jay said.

“You dad,” YoAnna said.

Joyce looked between them in confusion, but the two didn’t bother explaining. Jay was finishing up his observation of YoAnna’s work before coming to an interesting realization. “You’ve killed the heads of all the most important pantheons beholden to the old system master.”

“Without them, the smaller pantheons will fight over the vacuum that remained,” YoAnna said. “While I was sitting on the throne, I sought out all revival mechanisms in this multiverse and destroyed them all. I’ve also destroyed the system master’s lineage and all of his experiments and notes. I made it as blank slate as I could.”

Jay looked up at his wife thoughtfully. “There’s more.”

YoAnna sighed. “There are… Protectorates. From the older generation. They are in hiding. I know where they are.”

“How come the system master didn’t find them?” Joyce asked.

“He was a weak system master,” Jay said.

“Ah.”

Carefully, Jay pried his hand out of YoAnna’s grip. She relented after a while. Jay turned to Joyce and the others. “Hey, kiddo, you dad and mother got some business to take care of still. House cleaning, in fact. I’m going to send you to our new multiverse.”

Joyce blinked at him. “I’m never leaving again. I missed out on a lot.”

Jay chuckled and patted the young girl on the head. “Well, if you do want to go out and explore, we’ll plan for that, too. You’re your own hero, okay?”

She nodded before tilting her head to the side. “Dad, you’re different.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re… more mature. And wiser. And old. Way, way old.” The cheeky girl smiled before throwing herself into a hug. “I like it.”

Once she peeled off. She shuffled slowly up to YoAnna, who she regarded as more of a [Goddess] than a Mother. “I’m sorry, I, uh–”

YoAnna reached over and gently hugged the girl. “I forgive you, my first of many.”

“Huh?” Jay and Joyce said at the same time.

Without explanation, YoAnna sent Joyce, Taco, and Amanda back home, the latter waving goodbye for disappearing. With their exit, Jay felt like the weight on his shoulders that he hadn’t known were there was lifted. YoAnna was back at his side, entwining her fingers through his.

“There is a place,” YoAnna said. “It is reserved for my bloodline. And those we hold special. I found it while sitting on the throne.”

“What’s so special about this place?” Jay asked, curious.

YoAnna challenged the space between her and a mysterious location Jay’s Perception hadn’t noticed. They landed on an island in the middle of a bluish and starry corner of the cosmos. Salmon pink sand. Purple ocean waves. Large tropical trees covering the entire mountain side.

YoAnna waved her hand and changed them both into comfortable beach-going clothing. Jay got some decent trunks. YoAnna’s bikini choice was eye-catching. Was it him or had YoAnna gotten prettier lately? Jay’s head felt fuzzy and his heart was racing. Without a word, she stepped onto a trail winding through the tropical jungle, Jay following.

Their journey stopped beneath a comfy looking treehouse cabin. Large enough to be a three story home. Jay could see it was filled with furniture and provisions. And a cooler already stocked with drinks.

“It’s all preserved,” YoAnna explained. “And restocked after every visit.” YoAnna turned to him and grabbed his hand again. “Jay Luckrun, will you spend an evening with me getting more physically acquainted?”

“Don’t we have old Protectorates to find, Hell Circles to kill off, and Ultraverse lessons with Kleo?” Jay asked. “There’s a lot on our plate.”

“There is,” YoAnna said. “Yet, I can’t wait any longer. I’ve been wanting this… for a long time.”

YoAnna released him and went up into the tree house alone. Jay remained down below, staring up. He’d gone through so much to be here. From being a bullied guy called Rooftop Weirdo to becoming the most powerful man in two multiverses. Now right above him was the woman who he’d sacrificed his sanity for. And in return, she sacrificed her complete vengeance for him. He could see her preparing the drinks for them. They were of high quality stuff. Primordial, in fact.

Jay took the mundane ladder up into the tree house. Once he was through the hatch in the floor, he closed it behind him. When he looked up, YoAnna was already naked. There wasn’t much else that needed to be said. They had a much needed break and a happy ending in this chapter of their long and historic story.

The End.