Chapter 73: Chapter 73: World Reformation & 2nd Trial
[System Error!]
[System Error!]
[System Error!]
[Detected unauthorized interference and the presence of unregistered beings within Earth... Speeding up the planet’s evolution process...]
*RUMBLE... RUMBLE... RUMBLE...*
The ground beneath Aurelia’s feet started convulsing like a dying animal.
Not just minor tremors or earthquakes - the entire world felt like it was tearing itself apart at the seams.
*CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!*
Massive fissures split the earth in jagged lines that stretched beyond the horizon, each one revealing depths that glowed with an ominous violet light.
But that wasn’t even the most alarming part.
*WHOOSH!*
Dark energy suddenly erupted from Vex’ahlia’s decapitated corpse, the sorceress’s escaping soul fragments streaming toward a specific target like moths drawn to flame.
Directly toward Nero’s floating form.
"!!!"
Aurelia’s golden eyes widened as she watched the malevolent essence pour into her Lord’s body, his unconscious form absorbing the corruption without any resistance.
His peaceful expression didn’t change even as streams of dark power merged with whatever energy was already coursing through him.
Without hesitation, she immediately launched herself through the air.
*WHOOSH!*
Her blazing wings carried her toward Nero faster than human perception, stellar radiance trailing behind her like a comet.
She had to reach him before those dark energies could do permanent damage.
But as she flew, the world continued its violent transformation around them.
*CRACK! BOOM! CRASH!*
The very landscape was reshaping itself, mountains rising from flat ground while valleys carved themselves into the earth.
The sky above had shifted from its normal blue to an unsettling mixture of violet and deep purple, like someone had smeared bruises across the heavens.
"This is...!"
Even the air felt different now.
Thicker, charged with energy that made her divine senses tingle with warning.
... Something fundamental about Earth itself was changing.
*THUD!*
Aurelia landed beside Nero’s floating form and immediately gathered him into her arms.
Inspecting the body of her Lord, it appears nothing bad happened, and rather than the dark souls invading his body, it looks like the mysterious energy surrounding her Lord Nero was the one actively doing its absorption...
And that’s not all,
"!!!"
The moment her hands touched his body, shock rippled through her enhanced senses.
The massive hole in his chest was gone.
Not healed, but gone.
Like it had never existed in the first place.
Her trembling fingers traced where the wound should have been, finding only smooth, unmarked skin beneath his torn shirt.
Warm skin.
With a steady heartbeat pulsing beneath.
"H-How...?"
No, that wasn’t the right question.
"... Thank you for being alive."
Whatever kind of miracle it was, she was thankful her Lord Nero is still alive.
*RUMBLE...!!!*
But clearly, there was no time to process or celebrate the impossible recovery.
*CRASH! BOOM! CRACK!*
The ground beneath them split again, this time creating a chasm that revealed molten rock far below.
With a powerful flap of her wings, Aurelia launched them both into the air, her stellar radiance providing the only light in the chaos.
And then flew towards where she’d last seen the other survivors.
***
*WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!*
The scene below was pure pandemonium.
Even from her aerial perspective, Aurelia could see the camp residents who’d been under Vincent’s control stumbling around in confusion.
All of them were now free from the mind manipulation, but the constant earthquakes and environmental changes had everyone disoriented and panicking.
Jin and the other frontliners were trying to coordinate evacuation efforts while Gilbert worked to treat the injured.
The 6 former wives were helping where they could, using their abilities to stabilize crumbling structures and create temporary shelters.
But her attention immediately locked onto a specific group.
The parents.
All of them clustered around 3 still forms lying on makeshift stretchers.
"..."
Aurelia’s heart dropped as she recognized the pale, motionless figures.
Kaito, Yui, and Haru.
All 3 teenagers lay unconscious, their skin an unhealthy gray color while dark blood seeped from the corners of their mouths.
The poison was still coursing through their systems, and from the desperate expressions on their parents’ faces, it wasn’t getting better.
Yuki, Kaito’s normally cheerful mother, was sobbing openly as she held her son’s hand.
Her magical girl persona had completely crumbled, revealing a terrified parent watching her child die.
"P-Please wake up... please, Kaito..."
Haori knelt beside Yui, her motherly composure shattered as she checked her daughter’s pulse again and again.
The "ara ara" energy that usually defined her was replaced by raw maternal anguish.
But Hina was a different story entirely.
The usually tough gang mother was standing over Vincent’s restrained, unconscious form with murder in her eyes.
"WAKE UP, YOU BASTARD!"
*SLAP! SLAP! SLAP!*
She was repeatedly striking his face, trying to force him back to consciousness through sheer violence.
"Tell me where the fucking antidote is! WAKE UP!"
Ren and Genya were both holding her back, trying to prevent her from actually killing the unconscious businessman.
"Hina, stop! We need him alive!"
"If you kill him, we’ll never get the cure!"
But Jin, kneeling beside Vincent’s motionless form, looked up with desperation written across her features.
"He’s not responding to anything! I’ve tried everything - pain stimulation, mana infusion, even dumping a bucket of ice water!"
Her voice cracked with frustration and fear.
"His body is alive but his consciousness is completely gone! It’s like he’s in some kind of coma!"
*THUD!*
Aurelia landed gracefully near the group, Nero’s unconscious form still cradled in her arms.
Everyone immediately turned toward her, their expressions mixing shock at her transformed appearance with desperate hope.
Juno, who had been coordinating the civilian evacuation, approached with his characteristic analytical demeanor intact despite the chaos.
"Aurelia. What’s the current situation with the hostile entity?"
His voice was steady, but she could see the strain behind his composed facade.
"Vex’ahlia has been eliminated."
The simple statement brought visible relief to several faces, but Juno’s analytical mind was already processing the broader implications.
"And the current planetary anomalies?"
His gaze swept toward the red error messages still flooding their vision, then toward the dramatically altered landscape around them.
"The timing seems too coincidental. These changes began precisely when your battle reached its conclusion."
"..."
Aurelia’s golden eyes drifted down to Nero’s peaceful face as fragments of memory surfaced.
That unknown energy surrounding her Lord Nero and the absorption of the soul of Vex’ahlia...
And then there’s that mysterious voice she’d heard just before the chaos began.
’I won this time.’
The words had carried such smugness, such intimate familiarity with something she didn’t understand.
And now her Lord was miraculously healed from what should have been a certain death, while the world itself was transforming around them.
Too many coincidences.
Too many impossibilities.
But revealing her suspicions wouldn’t help anyone right now, especially when she wasn’t even sure what they meant.
"I don’t know."
The admission came out quietly, her usual confidence replaced by uncertainty.
Juno studied her expression for a moment, his enhanced intellect picking up on her reluctance to elaborate.
But he also recognized that pushing for information wouldn’t be productive.
Instead, his analytical gaze shifted toward the red system notifications that continued flooding their vision.
[System Error!]
[WARNING! Dimensional barriers compromised!]
[Unknown entities detected!]
[Evolution process accelerating beyond safe parameters!]
"The error messages suggest external interference rather than natural progression," he murmured while adjusting his glasses.
"Based on current data trends, this transformation will likely continue for an extended period. Possibly days or weeks."
*CRASH! RUMBLE!*
Another massive earthquake punctuated his words as a nearby mountain range suddenly doubled in height.
"We need to focus on immediate survival and evacuation protocols."
But just as Aurelia was about to nod in agreement and offer her assistance with the civilian rescue efforts...
"Wait."
Juno’s voice stopped her, carrying an unusual note of personal emotion beneath his usual analytical tone.
She turned back toward him, noting the way his gaze drifted toward the 3 dying teenagers.
"I can handle the evacuation coordination. The statistical models suggest we have sufficient personnel and time to relocate the civilians to safer ground."
His voice carried that familiar precision, but there was something else there.
Something almost vulnerable.
"Instead... could you assist with Yui, Kaito, and Haru’s condition?"
"..."
Aurelia followed his gaze toward the desperate parents still clustered around their children.
Yuki’s sobs had grown quieter but more heartbroken.
Haori was whispering prayers in Japanese, her hands glowing faintly as she tried to use whatever hidden healing abilities she possessed.
Hina had stopped hitting Vincent, but only because Ren and Genya were physically restraining her.
The raw parental anguish radiating from all of them was overwhelming.
For someone like Juno, who processed the world through logic and statistics, watching children die while being unable to calculate a solution must have been torture.
"... I’ll offer whatever assistance I can bring."
The words came out as a solemn promise rather than a casual agreement.
She gathered Nero’s unconscious form more securely in her arms and began moving toward the trio of dying teenagers.
"..."
But just as she started to leave, Juno’s voice reached her again.
Quieter this time, with his back turned toward her as he focused on coordinating the evacuation efforts.
"Thank you."
Those simple words carried more weight than any of his usual analytical observations.
The gratitude of a brilliant man who’d finally encountered a problem that couldn’t be solved through data and logic alone.
***
Meanwhile, across the entire globe, the transformation was accelerating beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.
*RUMBLE... RUMBLE... RUMBLE...*
What had been separate continents for millions of years began shifting and merging with impossible speed.
North America grounds against Europe.
South America slammed into Africa.
Asia collided with Australia while Antarctica drifted northward like a massive ice ship.
The reshaping wasn’t random though.
The surviving satellite feeds from the few remaining functional observation stations showed a pattern emerging.
The landmasses were forming a single, massive supercontinent that resembled ancient Pangaea - but with critical differences.
*CRASH! BOOM! CRACK!*
Regions with extreme climates became uninhabitable disaster zones where reality itself seemed unstable.
The Arctic transformed into a pyre frozen wasteland where blizzards raged with supernatural intensity.
Desert areas became furnaces where the sand turned to glass and the air shimmered with heat that could melt steel.
But other environments evolved in the opposite direction.
*WHOOSH! GROW! STRETCH!*
The Amazon rainforest exploded outward, its trees growing to impossible heights that scraped against the clouds.
25 meters, 50 meters, some specimens reaching over 100 meters into the air like natural skyscrapers.
More new species were emerging in real-time, creatures that seemed pulled from fantasy novels rather than Earth’s natural evolution.
The sky itself had shifted from blue to deep violet, streaked with colors that shouldn’t exist in normal atmospheric conditions.
And above it all, the LED Sun now possessed rings of glowing material that orbited around it like Saturn.
The moon had somehow split into 2 separate celestial bodies, each one showing different phases simultaneously.
*FLASH! GLIMMER! PULSE!*
Aurora-like lights danced across the sky even in broad daylight, casting everything in ethereal, otherworldly illumination.
And the transformation was still continuing, showing no signs of slowing down, just like how Juno predicted with his unique ability.
Weather patterns that had existed for millennia were dissolving into chaos.
Ocean currents reversed direction.
Mountain ranges appeared overnight while others crumbled to dust.
And throughout it all, new forms of life kept spawning.
Plants that glowed with inner light and mystical lights.
Animals with abilities that defied biological logic.
Elemental creatures made from living fire, water, earth, and air.
Spirits and souls that were considered myth spawn in desolate areas, while lesser wraiths, poltergeists, and dark spirits appeared from graves.
It was a chaotic setting with a completely new life and climate cycles.
It’s like someone had taken a fantasy world and forced it to merge with reality at an accelerated pace.
If the transformation from the Trial Invasion of the 1st Apocalypse was a beta testing of the settings, this current evolution was a major patch that was forced upon Earth due to numerous events that had transpired.
***
In the golden halls of Mount Olympus, the Olympian gods had gathered in an emergency session.
*CRASH!*
Zeus’s lightning bolt struck the marble floor as he stared at the scrying pool showing Earth’s transformation.
"This is impossible!"
His voice boomed with divine authority, but underneath the anger was unmistakable concern.
"The dimensional merger was supposed to take a single year! At most even a few years! What happened to the prophecy of the Seer?!"
"..."
Meanwhile, Athena, goddess of wisdom, studied the magical readings with her enhanced perception.
"Father, the energy signatures are beyond our initial projections. Something has accelerated the integration process."
Her usually calm expression was a bit troubled as she processed the data.
"Look at the sun! That ring... that’s not a natural phase and energy of the Sun. Someone or something is actively reshaping reality."
Apollo, radiant with solar power, gestured toward the transformed sky visible in the scrying pool.
"And the creatures appearing aren’t following normal evolutionary patterns. They’re being spawned directly from pure magical energy."
Artemis, goddess of the hunt, had been tracking the new life forms emerging across the supercontinent.
"The readings indicate both SR-tier and peak SSR-tier energy signatures," Athena continued, her voice growing more grave with each word.
"But that should be impossible. Earth’s dimensional stability can barely support A-tier manifestations, let alone SR-tier."
*RUMBLE!*
The very foundations of Olympus trembled as Zeus processed the implications.
"SSR-tier? On a newly merged world?"
His lightning eyes blazed with realization.
"Something has deliberately broken the natural progression entirely..."
And when it comes to world reformation there is one significant group that wants to usher the world into chaos...
The Obsidian Covenant.
"... Damn those dark cultist bastards!"
***
Across the dimensional divide, in the great halls of Asgard, a similar conversation was taking place.
*CRASH!*
Odin’s spear Gungnir struck the rainbow bridge as he observed the same transformations.
"The merger is proceeding too rapidly," he rumbled, his single eye reflecting the swirling energies of the changing world.
"The energy levels suggest intervention from entities we haven’t accounted for."
Frigg, the goddess of foresight, had been consulting her prophetic abilities.
But what she saw made her face pale with concern.
"The future threads are changing too rapidly to track. Whatever is causing this acceleration... it’s operating outside the normal flow of fate."
Heimdall, guardian of the rainbow bridge, could see across all Nine Realms with his enhanced vision.
"My sight cannot penetrate the source of the disturbance. There is something actively blocking my perception of the central catalyst."
*RUMBLE... RUMBLE...*
The implications hung heavy in the air as both divine courts reached the same conclusion.
Zeus and Odin, despite being separated by dimensional barriers, spoke simultaneously:
"We must accelerate our plans for Earth."
The game had changed.
Whatever timeline they’d been following for establishing divine influence on the newly merged world was now worthless.
And across countless other dimensional strongholds, similar realizations were dawning.
Every major faction that had been carefully planning their approach to the dimensional merger was now facing the same terrifying truth.
Earth was evolving far beyond anyone’s projections.
And whoever was responsible for the acceleration had just moved the entire cosmic chess game into territory none of them had prepared for.
But little did they know it was all according to the plan of both enemies and hidden allies alike.
And then,
[2nd Trial: Outlander Invasion has been sped up: 359 D, 21 hrs, 43 mins, 12 sec. → 42 D, 15 hrs, 12 mins, 09 sec.]
The 2nd Trial is about to begin soon.
***
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