Chapter 138

No Rest for the Weary

As soon as I awoke, I found Día and Jess both standing over top of me.

“You’re awake?” Día said, a note of concern evident in her voice.

“Yeah, yeah, relax. Your cash cow has returned.” I say, trying to come across as charming.

Smack.

“You are not just a cash cow. You are my…friend.” Día says, trailing off her words as she bites her bottom lip in a cute pouty sort of way.

Apparently, I am not as charming as I would have thought, who could have guessed. Still, I pause as I try to take in the situation around me. My head is still spinning.

I have a notification that my class levels have all increased by 200 levels each. Putting me at 766, 766, and 763 respectively. That is enough for 200 Free Attributes which I immediately push all towards increasing my Spirit to its new maximum of 478, which leaves me with 80 Free Attributes all of which go to Power. Which when added to everything else puts me at over 2,000 for that single attribute. Why do I do this? I want to think it is overkill, but I just realize it all goes back to that old mantra of you can never have enough gun.

I pause, as I realize that is a lot of power. But just before my mind becomes cognizant enough to understand the implications of what it all means, I feel another spiritual tug on my body.

“What? What is happening.” Alternate Jess calls out.

I was sort of expecting this, another call to arms. I wasn’t quite expecting the second one to happen I am being pulled to another dimension, that much is apparent, but what isn’t apparent or at least what isn’t easily understandable is this time, unlike the last few times, I have a hitchhiker with me.

When I land, I am surrounded once again by yet another Jess, though this time I am also in the room, along with an Astra. Seeing Astra I nod, as I realize she was likely the one who held the hero summoning celestial ability. It is oddly sad how much I know about all of this.

“What? Where are we?” Día asks, a note of awe and confusion to her voice.

Standing up, I realize some introductions are likely in order. “Día, this is alternate me and alternate Jess. This is also an alternate Astra. I am not certain if you two met in your dimension.”

Then not missing a beat, I do have a time line to keep after all, I turn to the others. “Hello Alternate Jess and Alternate me. You no doubt used a summoning ritual orchestrated by her?” I say the last part as a question, but it is really a statement, as I point to Astra.

Everyone looks around at each other in confusion for a moment, then back to me. “Good I have not missed my guess in this whole thing,” I say, once again adding special emphasis to the word thing, as I don’t quite know what to call these, recursive logic points? Time Loop origination vectors? I really don’t know and they are all getting to be super annoying.

There is a moment of seeming confusion as everyone looks around with wide eyed amazement at what is happening, as I have apparently taken over this whole show, which is good.

“All right. I want to make sure I understand this process. Behemoth, galaxy devouring super giant is here. He has Heralds that are out wreaking havoc in their wake, minimizing any and all resistance efforts making it so you had to out source a victory component? Is that right?” I ask.

Blink.

They all blink wildly at me.

Finally, Astra is the one who speaks first. “Yes, that is about right.”

I pause then ask Astra directly, “well good. With you here, I assume the plan is to just teleport me to the right spot and then let me come back on my own?”

“Yeah, that is the plan.” Astra says.

“Good. So with everything else going on, do I need to wait, or can we get down to business?” I ask.

“I guess you can go out right now if you wish, but there is no need to…” Astra answers.

“No, I insist.”

“Hopefully I am not that much of an asshole.” Alternate me quips to Jess.

Seeing them, a pang of pain pulses in my heart at their sight.

“Look. I get it, you summon me from my busy schedule of saving universe after universe. I come in here, with an agenda to get as many of these stupid things done as quickly as possible, knowing that after I save this universe there is still one more after this. Never mind the fact that I already saved four universes. Never mind the fact that I am doing this by myself, to save you two from the heartbreak of having to rip your own souls apart to defeat this behemoth because I so happened to find a way to allow my own soul to regenerate while the soul that my Jess selflessly sacrificed cannot. Meaning I am stuck in an existence without all of this.” I say, waving my hand at the two of them. “So yeah, after I save your ungrateful selves, I am going to go back to an alternate universe waiting until I am finally summoned again, all so I can repeat this process one last time and finally be granted a way to heal my Jess. Sorry if that makes me come across as a bitter asshole. But why don’t you just shut your mouth and let me take care of the big boy business, so that you can sleep soundly at night. How about that?”

Silence.

I am staring me down, and I have to admit the me from here looks like a wimp, noodle arms, scrawny frame. Only after a few seconds do I realize this was likely how I would look like right now without the benefit of strength training in Día’s universe.

“You know, you don’t have to be so mean to them. They are likely very scared right now.” Día says, a bit placatingly.

“Scared? They know nothing of fear. They don’t have to go out there, they don’t have to face the monster. They don’t have to rip their souls apart for the chance of trying to save a universe they don’t know, and don’t care about. A universe that will quickly forget them and their contributions after they are gone.”

At that Día pauses, I have told her about what happens after the loops are over. Sadly while I have told her about that, she will likely forget all of this here after I restart this timeline once more and end back up in the 14th universe with her again.

“I’ll remember.” Alternate Jess says.

Scoff.

“Yeah right. It’s okay, it’s the curse of this stupid thing. You go, you push yourself to do something great, so that no one else will ever have to go through it again, only to never be remembered for your actions. Going home to find yourself penniless and without any family or friends, then the only person who could help give your life any meaning is dying while you search the universes for any form of a cure.”

Silence.

“Are we done here?” I ask.

With that Alternate Jess, Alternate Kyle, and Día all look away with sadness in their eyes. I likely went too far, but I don’t really care, they won’t remember this, no one will remember this sacrifice.

“Good.” I say, then I click my space suits visor to come down, as I had never taken it off from the last space jump apparently. Then turning to Astra I say, “I’m ready whenever you are.”

Hearing my words Astra began to cry slight tears but she managed to start the portal. A process that normally was near instantaneous took close to a minute, I paused taking out long calming breaths.

“You aren’t going to go in a plane?” Alternate me asks.

“A plane, what is this World War II? They are called spaceships, and no they would only be a huge waste of time.”

“What if you die because you can’t move away in time?” Día asks, a note of sadness in her voice.

I just smile. “Well, that will suck for you all and the next universe waiting after this one, right? They might have to figure things out on their own.”

Then with that my portal is created and I step through. Instantly I see the giant monster before me, rather than making many long slow attacks that wear down the Behemoth, I focus my mind and just rip away chunk after chunk of my soul. It feels like acid is being poured all over my body, followed by searing hot sottering irons to fuse together the open wounds. After the first full chunk is ripped away I tremble slightly at the pain, as a tear forms in my eye, this shit hurts. But I force myself through it, knowing that I only have to go through this twice more.

As much as this hurts, it is nothing compared to the guilt I’ve been feeling these last few months. Guilt I have had for being the one last survivor of our trio. I almost wished I had died then, but now I was so close I could taste it. So close that relief was just around the corner. I didn’t care how this went. There was no point to try to be civil, even though I could come back to this universe, there would be no point to, no one would remember me, no one would be grateful for what I had done. In the end all I had was myself and my own memories, that and the fact that I would be able to bring back both Jesses from the verge of death.

With their memories in mind, I took a deep breath, and then scraped away another huge portion of my soul.

White hot pain.

This time I tore away more, and the parts I tore away were fresh and raw to begin with. “Fuck.” I scream, as that one hurt. Fortunately, I am in space, where no one, and nothing can hear you scream. This is good, as I am crying at this point, tears are rolling down my cheeks at the pain I am going through at the self-induced pain I am going through.

Breathing in through tightly clenched teeth, I pause and wait, letting out slow breath after slow breath, until finally I am ready to pull another chunk again.

Seven times.

I pull away patches of my soul seven times. In between each pause I pause only long enough for the previous portion to heal, then I pull it away again and again. Each time hurting more than the last. Finally the wad of super charged energy that I have is almost too much to move, but I force my mind to wield it anyways. It feels like I am trying to throw a haymaker with an overstuffed weighted boxing glove, one that throws off the balance and trajectory of your strike immediately. Fortunately, the target I am aiming at is both exceptionally large and standing still, meaning that even with a wild throw I still connect, if barely.

Soul Infused Mind Rend.

I grab hold of the alien mind and begin squeezing tightly, shredding away patch after patch, chunk after chunk until finally the entire piece is nothing but pieces of confetti on the ground. Then once the main piece is obliterated, I turn my focus and still burning energy source to the larger chunks that fell off and rip those to shreds as well. Then finally I stop to realize the beast is dead, their consciousness is long gone, and I am finished with yet another task. The fifth time still feels both the same and different than all the others.

I try to go back, but then wonder if I cast anything here. Logically speaking my Healing Aura should leave enough of a resonance trace that it would be easy to find something to cling to, but the person that shines brightest of all to my senses is Día.

Focusing on her, and the person who was an ill-advised passenger on this trip, I direct my fading consciousness to her then teleport.

Poof.

Within a second I am away from the wriggling mass of giant squid like tentacles and back to the place where I was originally summoned.

Seeing Día, I see her and let out a smile.

Upon seeing me, she rushes over, tears in her eyes. It was clear she had been crying for a while.

“It’s okay, you knew I was coming back. I have stuff to do.” I say, though I would be lying if I didn’t let my body collapse at least a little bit in her embrace.

“You idiot. You asshole.” She said, she hit me and began crying. “You never said it was that painful.”

“What?” I ask.

“Your comms. They were on the entire time.” Alternate me states, before continuing, “we heard you. What you put yourself through.”

“We even saw your vitals fluctuate, you almost flatlined a few times.” This Alternate Jess states.

“Wow, that probably didn’t sound nearly as manly as I had intended.” I say, a bit embarrassed.

“You idiot. You did that four times?” Día asked, hitting me again, though between my attributes and the space suit I don’t really feal anything.

“Well five now.” I say, not wanting to shortchange myself.

“You can’t do that again. I won’t let you.” Día says a tone of defiance in her voice.

“Sadly, you won’t even remember.” I say, and I mean it too. Would almost be nice for someone to remember my sacrifices. Before I can get too caught up in this emotional rollercoaster I turn to Astra. “So we doing this thing?”

Astra nods in agreement.

Focus on her, I use my ultimate power Revelation Sight.

Then slowly time begins to unwind. Día is in the tiny pocket of space with me. Sadly it feels nice to do this with someone, even if they will straight up Notebook style forget within five seconds. For this moment, it is great and I can sort of rest, while I mentally reach out and extinguish the minds of the different Heralds from existence. Finding their oily black minds, I extinguish them one by one until nothing else exists except for me and Día.

Then we see the moment we are summoned, then the moment I was pulled out of the 14th universe along with Día. Then we are back in my room.

“You are not just a cash cow. You are my…friend.” Día says, trailing off her words as she bites her bottom lip in a cute pouty sort of way. There is a moment as she pauses, then looks around.

“Everything okay?” I ask. Seeing her like that, I almost feel a moment of hope swell up inside me, particularly when she looks like she is trying to remember something but cannot.

“I…” She begins but trails off. Finally, after a few moments she continues. “I just thought I had a moment of Déjà vu.”

Seeing the sudden spark diminish in her eyes, I can’t help but let out a long sigh. “It happens from time to time.”