A beam of light hit me in the shoulder, the heat reaching my skin.

  Second, Lillith. I soulstepped up to where the light came from. I overshot by a hundred yards. So, I soulstepped to her projection’s side, grabbed its head, and released a pulse of power from my palm.

  The projection vanished, and its power headed toward its creator. I followed the energy with my detection field. At the same time, I formed a black hole in each of my palms.

  The energy flew up further into the sky.

  Now, how high was she?

  Since she could close any gap in a split second, her fighting from a maximum viable distance made sense.

  So, I had to reach her before the energy from the projection to catch her off guard.

  Breathable air stopped at twenty thousand feet, and while she didn’t need to breathe, she wasn’t used to fighting without breathing.

  So, she was at the edge.

  How high was I?

  Alaska’s elevation was about two thousand feet, we were in mountains, so three thousand, and I was now falling toward the ground from about five hundred feet above that.

  I soulstepped sixteen and a half thousand feet upward and almost bumped into Lillith, who flew in the air on wings made of pure light.

  I released a swift pulse of pure power to disable her ability to dematerialize and then had the two black holes I held explode.

  In an instant, I soulstepped back down to the ground, shifted my weight on the back leg, and focused.

  My detection field caught Linn moving toward my back.

  I soulstepped two feet forward, and in a way that made me pivot one hundred and eighty degrees. Now, Linn charged to my front.

  I stepped toward her, and punched, just as her charge reached my original position.

  My fist hit her in the face, shattered her nose, snapped her head back, and sent her flying away from me.

  Two more black holes had yet to explode toward Lucielle, so I had a few seconds. I formed two black holes in my palms, one smaller, and one a lot larger than all the others.

  I soulstepped in front of Gilgamesh, aimed the smaller black hole at his feet, and discharged.

  No one made shields equivalently around their body, naturally prioritizing head and torso over limbs. So, me attacking his ankles forced him to move the shields there, and thus weaken them overall.

  A second later, I raised my other arm, had the larger black hole implode, and aimed the explosion at his face. The world around me shook, and dust surrounded me.

  Power burst from in front of me.

  The dust cleared in an instant, revealing Gilgamesh standing ten feet in front of me. He looked like a statue made of silver, gold, and gems. That black hole didn’t even dent this form.

  Three more large power releases thundered through the air.

  I drew breath and nothing moved, the air so thick it became unbreathable.

  These were the supernova releases, so the warmup was over.

  Time to pop my own… supernova release.

  Horns grew out from my head, straight through the holes in the helmet, my eyes turned black, and a tail slid out from my behind.

  I looked around, vision filled with magic. Gilgamesh stood in place, his hammer in his hands, still in the statue-like form.

  Linn stood up on her feet, fifty feet away, half-covered in scales, eyes lizard-like.

  Lillith floated high up in the sky, her halo and wings of light making her look like a second sun.

  Lucielle floated in the air, eyes black, horns grown out from her forehead. A blizzard erupted from her, the snow blinding me, drowning out the sunlight.

  I pushed my shields up. They were going to attack. A wave of cold froze me to the spot. Simultaneously, a concentrated beam of light hit me in the face, Linn bolted forward, and Gilgamesh charged.

  The light blinded me and seared my face, but I needn’t see.

  I stretched out a time-dilation field between myself and Linn and summoned my sword from the soul chamber. When she got close enough, I moved through the time-dilation field and pointed my sword between us.

  Linn’s fist reached me and hit me in the throat. That hurt, but she impaled herself on the sword, straight through her gut.

  Gilgamesh hit me in the back with the hammer. That further rattled my rib cage, pain shooting through me.

  Ignite.

  My sword turned into a hand-held sun. Half of Linn’s body disintegrated, the entire blizzard evaporated, the heat pressing against my shields even through the armor.

  I soulstepped behind Linn and slashed her head. The impact released a blast of heat so intense that it dissolved the molecular bonds of atoms. Her head vanished and the blast tore a line into Gilgamesh’s armor.

  The rock around him disintegrated. As all the snow had vanished, the grass and vegetation hid underneath now burned, the entire valley suddenly on fire.

  I raised my blade, soulstepped to Gilgamesh, and swung. The impact blew the armor apart, revealing it to be a hollow shell. I focused on my detection field and found him moving underneath the ground, running away.

  We had a deal that once, that when I could kill him, I wouldn’t.

  I considered that fulfilled and let him be.

  An intense beam of light hit my back, slid off my armor, and pierced my thigh.

  I soulstepped to Lucielle, released a short burst of pure energy to stop her from dematerializing, and swung. She raised her staff to block.

  I moved my left hand from the hilt, and while letting the sword swing by the momentum, I formed a black hole in my left palm.

  My blade clashed with her staff, and the released heat blast pressed against her shields. I soulstepped to her other side, aimed the black hole at the direct opposite of where the heat blast hit her from, and had the black hole collapse.

  After a swift implosion, the spell exploded into a shockwave. The shockwave blasted Lucielle away.

  Pain shot out from my gut.

  A thin, ice-made blade stuck through my gut, exiting through my back. But it missed the spine.

  A blast of light hit me in the back. Not strong enough though.

  I straightened and focused on the detection field.

  More blasts of light descended on me, bombarding me with a ring of miniature suns that now decorated the sky. I found Lillith’s projection up above the rings, and the real Lillith flew another five hundred feet higher.

  The blasts of light started accumulating, my skin burning, pain building up.

  I needed both hands for this, so I tossed my sword into my soul chamber.

  I only had about twenty seconds of the supernova release left, but I doubted Lillith’s would last much longer.

  So, I pulled on my power and started creating a black hole chain. The first one was straight above me, so the rings of light stopped hitting me, and the others, higher up into a column that surrounded the area.

  At the same time, I started spreading out the time dilation field. I built that all around me.

  As I understood Lillith, she was going to use the explosion to strike, both with the projection and herself. The first strike was going to be the projection, and the second one would be a time-dilation-based strike at my head or heart.

  But my time-dilation field was going to cancel out hers, and with that, I was going to catch her.

  The black holes grew up, and I let the entire chain explode. The entire world shook, and from a ray of light that slipped through, Lillith formed behind me, instantly moving in with a spear stab.

  I whirled, parried the spear with my hand, created a miniature black hole in my free palm, and blasted the projection apart.

  A time-dilation field clashed with mine, straight behind me.

  Lillith, spear aimed at my heart from behind, was almost at me.

  Got her.

  I spun, pulled my sword from my soul chamber, and swung. Air boomed as my slash instantly pierced the sound barrier.

  Mid-swing, I realized my sword was still ignited.

  Seal.

  In a flash of violet light, Elsha appeared between us, arms spread wide, shielding Lillith.

  My sword hit her on the head, and the released blast of heat disintegrated her and tore apart the Lillith’s shields. Lillith was still charging behind her.

  I pulled on the swing. Not enough to stop it, but it slowed the move.

  My sword cooled off, and at the same time, Lillith stabbed me in the chest, and I hit her shoulder with the sword. Since I turned, her spear missed my heart, only stabbing my lung.

  My blade crushed her armor, shattered her collarbone, and struck Lillith down to the ground. But thanks to Elsha, the heat was gone, and I managed to pull the strike enough to not cut Lillith in half.

  I owed Elsha for this.

  Lillith fell on the ground, the spear remaining stuck inside me.

  She tried to jump to her feet but only got up to all fours before her face twisted in pain, blood frothing at her mouth.

  I put a bit of power into my hand and flicked her head with my finger.

  Her head jerked backward, and she collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

  I focused on my detection field and found Lucielle hiding inside a shadow nearby. Linn was dead, Gilgamesh escaped, and no one else was around.

  “You can come out,” I said and pulled Lillith’s spear from my chest. “Unless you want to go for another round.”

  Darkness swelled about thirty feet away from me, and Lucielle formed. No horns and blood trickled from her nose, the corners of her mouth, and her ears. “I accept your previous deal.”

  “All right.” I withdrew my horns, took off my helmet, and hung it by my belt. I smiled. “It was fun knowing you.” I headed into the complex.

  Lucielle nodded and rushed to Lillith to start healing her.

  I hung the sword over my back and entered the military complex.

  Corpses littered the floor, always stacked by the far wall.

  My warning shot apparently translated into a shockwave that wiped out the base’s staff. Hmph. Not my greatest moment.

  It also made some ceilings collapse, so debris now blocked half of the staircases.

  To progress, I had to help myself by blasting debris that blocked stairs a few times, but I could manage that.

  Not much more though. I now bled through at least a dozen wounds, the ones in my gut and chest bleeding profusely. With the blood, my strength swiftly faded.

  I had to soulstep back to Tokyo Tower to have my demons heal me. Or, alternatively, I could go to Hell to recover there.

  But I did none of those things. Instead, I pushed forward.

  This shouldn’t take much more time.

  Since all military bases were built the same, it didn’t take me long to find the main laboratory, and within it, my relic.

  The casket lay stuck by a wall. In two tubes of some heavily reinforced glass lay two dead alien creatures, smashed by the shockwave like the base’s staff.

  What the hell were these things?

  I walked to one tube and scanned the creature with my magic-empowered gaze. No organs, no orifices, but they had to get energy to move somehow.

  I tweaked my vision a bit. No magic, but their chitin shell had a specific, residual pattern of blank spots.

  Evelyn had those. Her body had a dark matter engine, which powered her. So, these insects probably had a variation of that. A smirk spread over my face.

  Lucielle must have realized that about three seconds into examining them. But she didn’t tell anyone, and they got all stuck here because of that.

  I looked over the laboratory and found a large whiteboard with a complex chemical formula on it, including a bunch of descriptors and a production process written in bullet points.

  Ah, good old whiteboards.

  Even I understood the process, and it clearly was the method of how to replicate the metal from the relic.

  Perfect.

  I reached into the inner pocket of my pants and pulled out my phone. The damn thing still worked.

  I took a picture of the whiteboard, and then two more to make sure I got everything into the picture, including the properties and the production process.

  I opened my email app and started typing out an email. To recipients, I put the Hand of God email. But to BCC, I put everyone.

  In particular, I loaded the full address list of every Secret Societies member my organization had in the database, every business owner and politician we had, and every loosely connected organization, like all universities and research institutes, and even freelancers.

  I also added all contacts from the Hand of God email database, and from my intelligence.

  Four hundred and seventeen million recipients.

  All right.

  Subject: ‘Welcome to the space age.’

  Email body: ‘Enclosed is the molecular structure, and the replication process of an alien metal that can be used to make space elevators, spaceships, and everything else.

  Have fun,

  Lucas Johnson, the second Lucifer’

  I attached the pictures of the whiteboard and hit send.

  Sure, most people were going to ignore it. But many weren’t, and they were going to find the attachment was exactly what the email body said.

  I waited for the email to be sent. The whole process would probably take a day or two, but once it got on the server at my headquarters, no one could stop it.

  The email appeared in sent.

  Good.

  I wasn’t going to need that metal. But I wasn’t going to allow the Hand of God to hog it for themselves.

  Now, I guess I was done.

  I flew out with my spirit from my body, letting it die.

  For a moment, I watched my corpse. So ended my third life. And quite a life it was. Especially the body, I was going to miss.

  I soulstepped to Tokyo Tower.

  There, I possessed my new body and hopped off the table.

  Time to start my fourth life.

  While I knocked Lillith out cold, she was going to awaken sooner, rather than later.

  So, I had to vanish.

  I picked up the backpack with my suits, soulstepped to the portal to Hell, and entered.

  For one last time, the portal’s energies dragged me to Hell.

  Once I popped in there, I instantly soulstepped to the portal network power core.

  I withdrew Xanaya’s dagger from my soul chamber and dropped it on the floor.

  Afterward, I pulled on the settings of the power core. First, I disabled all safeties, especially all emergency shutdowns, safety discharges, and overload preventions.

  I set the power core to withdraw all energy from the portal networks to itself.

  Without my assistance, that would take about an hour, and then the core was going to explode into a supernova that was going to disintegrate most of Hell.

  If I wasn’t running the place, then I was going to turn it into a ruin, especially the portal network infrastructure.

  I waited for a minute to ensure the process kept working, and then, I moved myself to Xanaya.

  She floated in the Void, the energy pool I made for her gone.

  “Ready to go home?” I asked.

  “I suppose.”

  “Now, for the stories we tell,” I said. “The story I want to go with is that you snuck into this realm, met me; I helped you heal your arm, and then you overloaded Lucifer’s portal network power core, which annihilated most of Hell, shutting off the portal network and ending the war for good. Any objections?”

  She formed an awkward smile. “That would make me a hero for something I completely failed at.”

  “Yeah, well, prepare to lie a lot. I’m keeping my identity secret, and I’ve already set the portal power core to blow up. I’m not undoing that.”

  “All right, I guess.”

  I nodded. “Follow me. My human self can’t move around at will, so we will have to fly normally.” I headed in the direction of the portal toward Mirrorrealm.

  She flew at my side and spread around a cloaking field. For a moment, we flew in silence. “How long would it take you to make a new power core like the old one?”

  “A few hours, depending on how motivated I was, and how secure I needed it.”

  She said nothing, but I knew where that led. She was thinking about betraying me, again, and weighing the costs. With a bit of luck, she was going to be smart about this.

  While I did help her heal, she was at maybe twenty percent of her power now.

  Yes, she could arrange with the other gods of the Mirrorrealm to ambush me after the war ended.

  In that case, they would kill me with almost certainty.

  But I trusted Palai and Alnil. As absurd as the thought sounded, I trusted they wouldn’t betray me like that.

  We flew into the portal and got sucked in by the current. The tunnel had weakened, but still had enough strength to move us through.

  Once we exited, we flew straight up through the Tower, together with the never-ending swarm of demons.

  Except that the cloaking spell took a second to reform after the portal exit.

  I glanced over my shoulder, and indeed, Kallisto stood on her glider already, glaring in our direction.

  Of course, she paid attention.

  “I might need to ask you to cover me,” I said and motioned with my hand behind me toward Kallisto. “I can’t fight much in this form.”

  Xanaya smiled, and for the first time, the motion seemed to be genuine. “Just keep flying.” She slowed down.

  I maintained my speed.

  A pulse of power beat from Kallisto, and the demons made way for her.

  We had about thirty seconds to reach the exit.

  Kallisto’s glider sped up, and she reached Xanaya.

  Kallisto led with a spear stab, which Xanaya avoided. The Mirrorrealm goddess slipped forward for a stab. Kallisto stepped back on the glider, withdrew her spear in an instant, and stabbed three times in quick succession.

  She pierced Xanaya’s shoulder, side, and thigh.

  Kallisto kicked the glider, and sped up after me, ignoring the Mirrorrealm goddess.

  Still, twenty seconds left.

  I wasn’t going to make it, so while I kept flying, I turned and glared at Kallisto.

  She flew straight for me, ducking down on the glider for her signature charging stab.

 

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