PHASE 29 - I WAS NEVER TOLD THAT I’M IN A CROSSOVER

“No… No… No… Tiara…”

I made a few steps back as my knees could no longer balance my weight. I'm feeling dizzy. This sudden realization of me not being able to go back to my original time has made me lose all my strength.

“Hahaha! We won, Lord Aeternos. There is nothing you can do right now.” Leon Frembell laughed.

“SHUT UP!!!”

My right fist rocketed towards the jaw of the provoking Cursed Guardian. The power of my punch shattered the space between my fist and the Cursed Guardian’s cheek, making a powerful blast. There was a loud Kaboom followed by the countless clanking of ice shards.

“Gwah!"

The ice that has been sealing the Cursed Guardian has been shattered, which makes him fall to the ground. The powerful punch was enough to fade his consciousness away, so I need not worry to seal him with ice again. He won’t be going anywhere.

But the ultimate question still survives.

What should I do with him? Should I take God Core and let him die?

“Damn it…” I clenched my fists. “DAMN IIIIIT!!!”

Suddenly, a dark Time Gate opened just beside me. The silver-haired man with a black jacket and red scarf made his appearance, and he immediately talked.

“It’s happening. The Phoenix Incident is at its climax.” Yohan said.

As soon as the Outsider finished his sentence, a powerful shockwave breeze echoed towards our location. Dirt and rocks flew away from the epicenter, together with the dead bodies of Cursed and Gate Guardians around. This wasteland is more like a sandstorm but there’s no wind. The shockwave breeze is more like a psychic in property, and not in physical or magical form.

About three hundred meters from me is a tall platform that contains a stake. There is this blueberry-haired girl who was tied up on the said stake, and she’s unleashing this raging white-flamed phoenix wings that are as big as a bungalow. The psychic energy readings from my Aether Armor tells that the sealed girl is the source of this shockwave.

I looked around the place and realized that both Gate Guardians and Cursed Guardians who got exposed by the psychic shockwave immediately lost consciousness as if their brains have been turned off temporarily. Only me and the Outsider remained standing in this battlefield wasteland.

“Behold, the beauty of the Phoenix!” The Outsider cried. “This event, the Phoenix Incident, is the nexus and the pinnacle of the multiversal wars. Not even the Gods, the Archons, and the Vesryn Pulse compare to it.”

“Stop referencing the other novels.” I gritted my teeth. “I have a real problem here.”

The Outsider completely ignored me. He locked gaze at the far northwestern part of the wasteland. I got curious too, so I looked at the thing he’s watching.

There is this scrawny man with a below-medium build that has these glowing green circuits all around his skin. For some reason, he’s resisting the psychic shockwave the White Phoenix girl is emitting. He’s shouting someone’s name out loud, but the shockwave offsets the sound of his voice. He’s struggling in trying to get close to the sealed lady.

Somehow, I can remember a familiar scene.

That’s what I looked like when I struggled to reach Tiara when we were fighting the Brightmore Witch Eidolon, Shirayuki. I remember that hopeless time when I need to reach her hand, hug her body and kiss her lips. It’s all fresh to my brain.

I was about to jump and assist the poor man, but the Outsider talked.

“Don’t bother helping. This is not a destiny for you to fulfill. The White Phoenix does not have the power to return you back to your time anyway.”

“But-”

“Don’t you have better things to do? Like going back to your own time.”

“Stop screwing with me!” I cried out loud. “If I take the God Core of Chronos, I will have to kill somebody! I’ll become Aeternos!”

“Hahaha!” The Outsider laughed as if this is some kind of a sick joke. “Hahahaha! I love it, Alaric! I love the hopeless face you’re giving me!”

The psychic breeze became much more powerful, and the crater from the epicenter of this mess became much wider and deeper. I can see the man still not giving up on reaching the White Phoenix’s hand, as he’s about five meters away. I’d say that guy has more willpower than expected.

Because of the psychic shockwave, the techy pocket watch that Key has given me started to hang and sway outside my armor. I immediately remembered the promise I made to that white-haired poker face homunculus. I promised her that she will have a longer life.

But now that I’m stuck here in this timeline, I can no longer fulfill that promise. Maybe I can leave everything now to Tiara and that future Alaric Eisenhower that took my place.

I looked at the Outsider, and I saw him having a shocked face the moment he saw the techy pocket watch. After that, he made a smile.

“Oh, I see how it is,” Yohan muttered. “It looks like Alaric Eisenhower has yet to run out of luck.”

“What are you talking about?”

The psychic shockwaves are getting stronger, and there are already spacial explosions in the air.

“The place is getting noisy,” Yohan said as he magically created his Heavenly Blade . He slashed the thin air with such a sword, and a golden gate opened. “Come, Alaric. You have places to be.”

In an instant, the Gate flashed a blinding light. And in an instant, we finally left the grim battlefield of the Phoenix Incident.

I just hope that the man who is trying hard to reach for his loved one succeed in calming the White Phoenix.

<>

When I opened my eyes, I realized that I’m already in some kind of underground facility. There are huge test tubes everywhere that contain deformed fetuses and other horrible things. I have been in hell so I’m already immune to such horrifying sight. Besides, it feels like I have been in this place before.

We’re still in the place where the Phoenix Incident happened, but instead, we’re in the Underground Facility. That Gate the Outsider created was just a convenient shortcut to go back underground.

I can still hear the loud roaring of the debris at the surface. The Underground Facility itself is slightly trembling, and it makes the electric lines faulty. Now we have blinking fluorescent bulbs every time the ground shakes.

“Why did you take me here?” I asked Yohan. As I talked, I disabled my Aether Armor and went back to my base form. I don’t think I’ll be battling around here, so I removed as of the moment.

“Because I want you to go back to your time.” Yohan smiled. Then he shifted gaze towards the giant stasis chamber that contains a naked white-haired homunculus. Her size is about the same as a two-year-old infant, and she is really cute while she sleeps on her fetal position.

The stasis chamber has a name.

Key.

“This is…” I immediately touched the glass tube and felt the warmth coming from the green liquid and the body of an artificial Gate Guardian that is yet to be born.

“She is the Key for your Time Gate.” The Fake Outsider smiled.

I took out the pocket watch that seemed to be glowing and vibrating. When I pointed it out to the fetus homunculus, the pocket watch immediately transformed into hundreds of metal shards that hovered around the glass chamber.

The metallic shards rotated and then forced itself to install towards the homunculus, making the glass chamber explode! The green liquid oozed out and the glass shards clanked on the floor. There was a blinding flash of light yet again for a second only.

When the band of light faded, the homunculus revealed herself as a flying baby angel, except that this angel has cybernetic wings and mechanical arms and feet. Her private parts are also covered in machine bikini of some sort, and there are these robotic cat-ears as her headband.

“You are…”

“Welcome, Alaric Eisenhower. My name is Key.” The white-haired homunculus smiled, which is contrary to her original poker-face expression.