A Nephalem's Impossible Path

Seeing his arm going up in orange flames, Julian remained unperturbed.

Lifting his remaining one, he made the magic circle answer to his sacrifice. And it burned even brighter, trippling in intensity.

Then, he began the tug of war with the closest thing akin to a God in this world. His figure appearing as nothing less than the personification of dawn.

The actual struggle was a blur of efforts and spent willpower. It was like he was an ant trying to steal something from the grasp of a child. It was nothing but an impossible struggle, foolish in its attempt.

Fortunately, impossibility was his element. His sole ability as having a fragment of it worked wonder here. It greased the fingers of the child with the most potent anti frictional oil of the world and made its hold weaken over Rem's soul.

And so, he fought with all his force. Twisting, pushing back and forth with his methaphorical mandibules that represented his mind.

With time, he learned how to efficiently fight in such a battle and leveraged correctly his strength. Using to its fullest potential his herculean body to weight lifting ratio as an ant the sacrifice granted.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity to Julian's numb mind. Rem's soul budged, and then directly slipped from Od Laguna grasp.

And snapped back to her body instantly. EC rewinding her being to a time where she was alive. A simple change to reality that made all the difference.

Letting go of the ritual, Julian swept away the sweat in his eyes just in time to see Rem opening her eyes and Ram throwing herself at her sister bawling in disbelief, joy and cushing relief.

At that moment, like divine intervention. A ray of sunlight passed through the window to illuminate the scene and the two sisters. Making the reunion so heavy in emotion looking like something coming straight out of a painting.

His gaze on them, Julian couldn't help but smile tiredly. For once, he had done something undoubtly right.

The instant after, he looked down at the back of his hands. And promptly realized that what he had swept out of his eyes wasn't sweat, but blood. A bout of extreme dizziness, like he had never felt before, suddenly struck him. And despite his struggle to keep awake, his knees almost immediently buckled under him. And his world promptly faded to black.

—————

~ Somewhere and nowhere

An unbelievably beautiful woman with pink hair witnessed it all, pride and sadness fighting to be the predominent emotion in her heart.

Swirling a glass of starry black liquid in her hand, she waited for a friend she hadn't seen in a millenia of her perceived time to arrive.

Thus, she wasn't surprised when a woman with vibrant green hair, in every points matching her unreachable beauty, suddenly materialized sitting on the chair across from her at the stone table she always created for this sort of events.

For several seconds, the new arrival scrutinized Kass in silence. While the goddess of Death simply sipped at her drink, unbothered by the attention.

"You look weak." After seemingly having her fill, the green haired woman said, turning her full attention to the same place her pink haired companion was.

Kass smiled, amused. "You don't look great yourself, Zoi."

"I wonder whose fault is that?" The woman couldn't help but smile in return, her short hair pulsing once with green light in responce. That smile alone healed a countless people from sickness overnight.

"Everything points at Devourer, but he wouldn't make the mistake of sending 5D beings to feed my power to such degree. He know the difference between someone who has dominated their natural concept counterpart and someone that assimilated it. He wouldn't risk it." Kass said lightly, she still wasn't sure about the identity of the bold fool who chose to upset so radically the status quo.

Zoi, or otherwise said. Life at its highest level of conceptual concept existing, rose a perfect eyebrow at Kass and she widened her eyes a bit. "You really assimilated your other half?"

Kass chuckled. "Of course not, you silly air head. If I had, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Though I'm quite close."

Life averted her bright green eyes from Kass ever changing ones and decided to gloss over her own mistaken assumption. Focusing her attention on Julian, a bit of sadness flashed on he perfect face. "So? That's the boy you are nurturing? Poor child, struggling to keep his feeble will to live..."

She frowned as she swept through his past. "No wonder he is like this... He had two chance at childhood, yet one was wasted because of clueless parents and the other by his kept memories and already developped independence."

Kass stayed silent at Zoi words, because there was nothing to be said. Her words were statements, and they were true. Nonetheless, it was because his state of mind was so bad that he had the potential for something truly great.

"Impossibility is like the shadow of everything real and impossible. It neither has a will nor it is supposed to be alive. The paradox the concept represent, like it was proven from the beggining of time, is that should it be unviolable, yet it is not. Because like every other concept existing, it's precise meaning can be bended to a point. Even then, If you try too strongly to bend it, the concept will not be the one to break..."

" Overall, I think that Julian may very well be the perfect candidate to incarnate it. After all, having nothing to lose and everything to gain is the needed first step to the path. That's what I think, at least." Kass said, replaying in her mind the exact instant when Julian wrenched the girl's soul from Od Laguna. And when something she couldn't even identify granted him his second shard of impossibility. Since there were only a few things she couldn't truly understand in the Supraverse, she simply assumed that it was existence itself that had granted him the shard. More because she was wary of any other answer than anything else.

She may have known about some of the factors granting those shards, because some individuals had done them before in the history of the Supraverse. But it didn't mean that she understood truly why impossibility didn't work like other concepts — simple comprehension and direct exposure.

"Well, I cannot possibly argue against such a theory when the results are directly presented before me ." Zoi sighed, looking resigned.

"To the risk of sounding redundant since you clearly know of it, are you truly certain that you want to let him ride this path further? If he really become successful and survive where everyone else didn't. Existence itself will send its agents to cull him eventually, and some of the others are likely to either do the same in the hope of some leniancy or exploit his concept. The later is even more probable considering the current situation."

Kass, for the first time since the conversation began, became serious and gazed straight into her sister's eyes. "Like you said, I know. But I am becoming tired of my own stagnancy, of this endless cycle of locking away my memories and experiences like everyone else. And I think I'm not the only one who are. That's why I'm asking your help, Zoi. But that's not important, no. What truly matter right now is this question: Will you help me in this endeavor?.. or will you not?.."

...

A tense silence settled and seem to stretch for what seemed like eternity as the two women held each other gaze. Until finally, one of them gave with a rather loud sigh of annoyance.

"Ah... How I despise you when you do this. Why in Existence wouldn't I help you? Isn't it always been that way since the beggining? Us against the world? Why would it be different this time?" Zoi shoulders slouched forward and she reached to rub her hands against her face.

Kass hid her mouth behind one hand, trying very hard to hide her grin. But nonetheless, she smoothed her expression and asked cluelessly. "So... Is that a yes or a no?.."

"Fuck off, you will not get any answer from me before you apologise..."

1...

2...

3...

"Okay, this is a waste of time. You win, yes, I'll help you."

Straightening, Zoi sighed. throwing a glance through realities to look at Julian, she sighed again. "I can't do much, but I guess I can still give him a push in motivation more natural than Greed did. Though filling a crack like with it is not really the most healthiest way to go about it. Wanting to reproduce and create new lifes is perfectly natural, and so it is to love and be loved." Saying that, she waved her hand. Sending an imperceptible surge of vibrant green and pink energy through dimensions instantly only for it to congregrate around Julian's unconscious form and fuse with him.

"Not what I had in mind, and he will not appreciate being influenced in such a manner. On the other hand, he didn't really change his proactivity on actually fulfilling his desires despite the change in his way of thinking about his wants. More activeness on that side wouldn't hurt. And besides, it'll for a make for some good future shows." Kass mused in response to Zoi rather particular kind of help.

"Well, he is one uniquely attractive mortal. It would be a shame for his genes to not be spread far and wide after all." Zoi smiled softly, elegently crossing her hands under her chin.

Pursing her lips, she squinted and decided to add. "Even then, it's not like he'll know the culprit for this, right?"

Kass brought a finger to her lower lips, seemingly seriously thinking about the question before answering with a simple: "No promise."

Zoi's expression turned sour for an instant, much to Kass happiness, before she brought it back under control and shrugged. "It's not like he can do something about it anyway."

Kass didn't answer, opting to take another sip of her glass instead.

—————

~Back to Roswaal' mansion

Normally, when Julian slept. He always kept a certain awareness of his surounding at all time, call it his magical sixth sense. It had always been like such since the start of his new life.

This time, though. This awareness wasn't present, he was purely confined to his own comatose body and mind. And despite not being very conscious of anything in his unconsciousness, he clearly remembered a lightning bolt like feeling zapping through his being just before he passed out.

And later, after recovering much of his strained mind and spent body. He also clearly remember, and would probably not forget anytime soon, when that time a warm current also akin to static passed through his body and invigorated him like a shot of adrenaline. Making him wake up with a start, a headache, and with a rock hard tent pitching in his pants.

These things wouldn't have been any kind of notable event normally, but in this case. With three girls standing at his bedside...

It kind of was.

[End of volume 2: A Nephalem's Impossible Path]