Chapter 175: The End

Many years and battles later, Outside of Time and Space,  in the Well of The Multiverse - 

BB and I pressed our backs up against each other, buster swords in our hands and crackling with bolts of arcane energy. 

The reapers, combined forces of the Maw, swirled around us warily. Not yet ready to dive toward us, but building up their own powers all the same. 

"This is it, BB," I called out over the howling of the creatures before us, "What we've been working for all these years. We're finally going to fulfil our destiny! Save the multiverse!" 

"It's about damn time…" BB grunted in response, "We're gonna take the Maw down, get revenge for Yr'Arl, Akash and all the other souls it's consumed." 

Yr'arl. 

Akash. 

Friends I'd lost years ago. Akash to the Mordekash, Yr'Arl to Lara when she had betrayed me again. 

Their souls had been ferried down to the Maw to be consumed so long ago, and yet each of their losses still burned in my heart.

I couldn't even blame Lara, not considering how much she had been twisted and manipulated by the shade that had attached itself to her mind, blackening her soul from the moment she had been born. 

I was going to get revenge for all of them. 

"You ready?" I called out over the noise of the battlefield. 

"As I'll ever be!" BB called back, shifting into a battle stance. 

In unison we thrust our identical swords up into the air, the blades splitting apart into twin points, mimicking the flagship of the humans that it had been designed after. 

We both channelled our overwhelming manna into the blades, and just like on that capital ship twin balls of plasma formed between the tips, held in place by interlocking fields of power to keep them stable. 

We levelled our swords to chest height, pointing outward at the hordes who still hadn't made a move to try and stop us. I thought that perhaps they knew that they couldn't stop us at this point. 

"You don't have to do this, Jacob Lyre," A voice resonated from all around us as a new, ginormous reaper loomed above us both. I recognised the presence. It was one of the two that had sent me to my new universe in the first place. 

"Yes," I snarled, "I really do!" 

BB and I both thrust our free hands into the air, once again completely in synch, and started chanting words of arcane power under our breaths. 

Around us, concentric rings of runes flared into life, one after the other, crisscrossing each other until we were entombed in the glowing script. 

They were magnifiers. Magnifiers of power. With this many, the twin blasts that we were preparing to unleash would stretch to the end of creation itself, and would hopefully be more than enough to obliterate The Maw and all of its followers. 

Oh… and us too. 

"It was good knowing you, BB!" I yelled, the howl of our enemies had been replaced by the steadily growing roar of our power, "Of all the AI for me to be paired with, even if we bickered from time to time, I'm glad I was paired with you!" 

"I… I'm glad I met you too, Jacob," BB yelled back, "And that's why I'm sorry about this!" 

Sorry? Why would he be sor-

I flew through the air as BB pushed me as hard as he could, hard enough to shatter the divide between the nowhere and the somewhere, sending me straight through the walls of creation into a new universe. 

"Can't let you die, not like this, so let me do one thing for you to thank you for this body," He said, somehow I could hear him perfectly. 

His fingers flexed wide open and I felt something grasp onto the very core of my being, sucking energy out at a pace so fast I couldn't even think about retaliating. As my energy was drained I collapsed to the grassy ground of whatever world I'd been pushed out onto, and my sword was drawn back through the portal as if it were magnetized. 

"Goodbye, Jacob Lyre," BB said, and suddenly he was consumed by an explosion of apocalyptic levels. 

The tear in reality closed itself, just before the wave of energy could trickle through it. 

Silence. 

Broken only by my guttural sobs. 

"Why!" I screamed, "Why do I always have to be the one to lose? The one to survive? Alone?" 

I flopped onto my back, staring at the sky above me, stars twinkling and preserved thanks to the sacrifice that BB had made. 

The crazy fool had done it. 

Reality wasn't collapsing under the strain of Null Space any longer. 

The multiverse… could continue. 

Many more years later -

I had lived a long and fruitful life. 

I hadn't realised it in those final moments after BB had sacrificed himself, but he had dropped me off right back in my original universe, my magical powers completely stripped away. 

I had a new identity. 

I had a brand new beginning, in the world I thought I'd lost forever. 

And… I used it to the fullest. 

On my death bed, I was surrounded by my children, and my children's children. Their were tears in their eyes, but I had told them not to worry because… because I knew the truth. 

I was going to a better place. 

We would all be reunited again. 

As I closed my eyes for the last time and gave my last shuddering final breath, I felt all of it fall away. 

The aches and pains of my body, the weight of the Earth's gravity on my old bones, as my soul slipped from one world to the next. 

And then… I opened my eyes once more. 

"About time you made it here," came a voice I recognised… my voice, but somehow younger. "Come on old man, some people have been waiting for you." 

I turned and fell to my knees as joy crept its way up my throat in what would have been a choked sob if I had still been alive. 

My family from before I had reincarnated. 

Akash, Yr'Arl, Lara. 

BB. 

They were all there, smiling, waiting. 

Finally… I could rest.

Authors Note:

Okay so

After advice from many people in the Webnovel discord, it's time that I with a sad heart close this book down. 

Spaceships & Magic was an idea I had many years ago, and I genuinely thought it could have done well on this site. But I messed up along the way. A month and a half's break. Never having a consistent upload schedule. Missing days time after time. A really bad filler tournament arc. In the end, this story didn't live up to my expectations and never grew enough to be profitable. 

This final chapter has been posted so that the story has an actual resolution, so you all knew what I would have been building toward. One day I might come back to the SAM universe, rewrite it from the ground up. Until then... thank you for reading. For everyone that did support me along the way... I truly truly appreciate it.