69 - demon lord part 4

Reappearing in front of them, I held my right hand out as I detonated the are with 'pride', mana was collapsing into the same space, creating a miniature version of the big bang that eradicated large amounts of space. 'Truth' could only divert unwanted events from happening but what if an explosion covered everything in sight? That would be an unavoidable death.

Now the only issue was 'lust', tendrils of unknown material rose into the air before flying towards me. Usually said tendrils were distorted fabrics of reality that would send anyone into insanity, sadly for 'lust', [reality displacement] could negate it by casting an illusion on myself.

What makes something an illusion? When somethings is observed to be there but not actually there. By that logic I could make things look normal on the surface but are actually different under. But all of that becomes meaningless before [reality displacement], I can turn things into illusions and illusions into things. In conclusion I can just remove that gap in his defense.

Why didn't I think of this before? I had collapsed back into the lifestyle of my previous life, that was the worst thing that could happen in this world, lacking any ambition I stopped grinding levels and was just idling away until my time of death, the demon lord. In a way, the demon lord accurately embodied the symbol of death. How vile and displeasing.

Removing his defense for an instant was enough for the trap to reactivate and send a shadow stake into his brain. Picking up 'lust', I gave it to Kogami. In my memories that I have gained from the future, it seemed that it was previously on Yuuki, so I thought doing something different would help. Having wiped out the remaining enemies and getting to roughly level 3100,I distributed the 5 new commandments and 'lust' among my subordinates.

Teleporting back to camp, everyone was awake and James was busy dealing with the mosnter horde. Since I wasn't there this time, Fez was the one helping to take care of the remaining monsters that were attacking the camp. As usual, I casually walked over to the side of the camp where they prepared food. Taking my share of the provision, I ate the bread as I thought about my next move. It had been about 6 months and a lead was only founf last week. Kurisu's class was calculation lord, she had specialised in tactics, prediction and planning. So naturally she had to be adept at analysis.

Just a week before, she had finally imprinted the king's mana signature into one of her magic tools. Now we just needed to scan the whole continent without getting into trouble. But that wasn't the only feature, the tool would track multiple locations with the highest movement of mana to tell if the king was there. As a level 6000, he should be holding an abnormal amount of mana, as he walks around the mana in the atmosphere itself would shift around due to the pressure exerted subconciously.

If he could control said aura of pressure, that would just make things more difficult to track him, we would have to resort to the mana signature that didn't exactly have a 100% accuracy. The most impressive feat was Kurisu's ability to obtain mana signature just from footage of the king, that was the first time in a while that got me shocked. A few subordinates are sent out to track the king while I continued to look for methods to level faster.

In the end, it was better to travel back in time and somehow fuse with my past self while retaining my level and basically farm the previous holder of 'lust'. I was back in my base, a common looking mansion in the district of minor nobles. The actual important facilities were held in a deep basement that was further covered by a labyrinth. As authorised owners, we didn't have to go through the labyrinth and could just use the teleportation pad that recognised our mana before activating.

*BOOOOOooom*

It was lucky I was the only person there, Kurisu was at the top floor of the mansion where her office was located. "So what brings you here? Demon lord."

"So, I was right. You were looping time. That seems unfortunate, I'll have to eliminate you here and now." (demon lord)

"Assuming you have some sort of clairvoyance skill, you would have to be awakened recently right? Demon lord Vengradios."

"Kuhaha! I have no need for such skill with the help of [death]" (Vengradios)

[Death] can peer into the time and space axes?! How troublesome, he could cast [death] on dimensional axes and peer into fate. Tch, even if I go back it would take 6 months for Kurisu to track the King's mana signature again, at this point it would be better bet on grinding Veilcry's experience. If I steal the kill from my past self, I would cease to exist. I would be even weaker and less prepared to face the demon lord. So I needed to form the fusion spell as fast as I can.

Using 'wrath', I went back to the time I was about to head outside and hunt down the enemies. Meeting my past self, she had the same look of seriousness. If that was so, it should be easier to inform of future events. Even though I had only come from a few days into the future, it felt like forever since I saw myself at the camp. Was this Deja vu? Well it didn't matter. Going closer, I was ambushed. Strangely, past me had rushed in for a hug.

"Sorry to ruin the moment, but the demon lord hasn't been defeated. The silver lining is that there was finally a method to do it, and for it to happen I need you to trust me." (Present)

With a cute face that conveyed her perplexity, she gathered her resolve before agreeing. Was this a trap by the demon lord? That was a reasonable assumption. But time was of the essence.

" Use [Reality displacement], we'll have to do it at the same time and run into each other. With out agility, our max speed should make this doable." (present)

"Mhmm! Let's do it." (past)

Offsetting the time and space axis, we ran into each other. At the moment of collision, I realised the only way to fuse. No, I already knew before the demon lord arrived, I just didn't want to believe it. If the demon lord could cast [death] and make the axis of time meaningless, why didn't he just follow me back in time?

It was simple, we don't belong in the past. The world itself, even without the world system's support would try to remove us, but since there was no way to get rid of extra atoms in the universe, we would eventually collapse on ourselves and cause a black hole. That was where the world system came in and could send the black hole to another dimension, keeping the world safe.

I had already known about it but subconciously ignored it, [reality displacement] was used to delay my collapse and so it became a gamble when travelling back into the past. Would I make it? Or would I not? Casting [true death] on myself, I used [abyss control] to transfer my memories by tempering with both our brains with mana.

I was about to disappear from this world, but the moment I went back, it was just meant to be. I could only accept it while giving past me a bright smile, even if I had to do it through the tears.

"Good luck, you can do it. " (Present)