Chapter 633 - Bet Against Eternity (epilogue Of The Prologue, Part 2, END)

For the people appearing from all over the universe on this planet, the situation had to be quite eerie. Even though for the most part, they didn't have even a shred of an idea of what was going on, under the influence of the magic that infused every particle on this planet, they could only sit down directly on the grass and wait for me to free them from this compulsion.

Doing something like that posed no challenge to me, even though most of those people were rather good at using magic themselves. From the witches, through mages, cultivators, wizards and spellcasters, all kinds of quirky personalities continued to appear one by one on the vast plain that I designed for the starting location.

Only when the last of the scheduled heroes finally arrived, did I break the silence.

"Welcome, everyone."

Standing up gently from the stone that I was sitting at, I looked over the nearly endless crowd of people. When gathering them one by one, each of my copies responsible for the task only had to deal with a single individual. Only now could I finally see the scale of my project from just how many different heroes heeded my call.

Yes, heroes. Right on this plain, I summoned the greatest figures from all the words brimming with life. Those who passed away ages and aeons ago were brought to life with just a small touch of the godly magic of mine. Those who were fortunate to still live, stood at the peak of their words, with no ancestor behind them capable of challenging their achievements.

Right now, right on this place, the absolute cream of the top out of all the lives that existed in this boundless universe gathered.

"Since something like this commonly appeared in all of your worlds, let me use an example. Usually, when summoned to another world, you would be given a task before you could return to your loved ones, isn't that right?"

The genesis of the bloodline of all those heroes was quite complicated. Starting with at least a hint of my own blood somewhere down their ancestry line, at least one of their predecessors had to reincarnate to another world.

Given the nature of the problem that plagued me, only those who had the quirk of moving between worlds in blood would be capable of potentially solving it. And only those who fulfilled those criteria would ever be taken into consideration when choosing the population for this heaven-like planet.

"Sadly, this time it's gonna be a little different. This time, your task is to find a way to return to your homes on your own. And no, just with the science, you won't be able to achieve it. That's the task that will rest on your shoulders from now on for the generations to come."

Even though I suddenly turned silent, no one could say even a single word. To them, I had to appear like some kind of god. Capable of forcing his will on such an endless sea of powerful experts to the point where they couldn't even open their mouths to speak.

But that was to be expected. How could life be born only partially out of the natural occurrences alone stand against the one who willed for it to appear in the first place?

"But fear not. Those of you with families will be able to get them to this place. Once I will scatter you across this entire planet, you will all receive the assistance of my many appearances. Be it wealth, family or just magical power, you will get everything that you wish for. But you won't be able to escape this life before at least one of you manages to fulfil my task."

Calmly walking on the soft grass of the plain, I gently looked at the masses of people all sitting and watching every step of mine.

"Everyone…"

After my entire life filled with acting, even after becoming a godlike being, I couldn't stop myself from honing my habits. With the pause of mine stretching into infinity, the smile on my lips only continued to deepen.

"Do your best."

Finally finishing my sentence, I raised my hand and snapped my fingers. Under the influence of my absolute wish, the space across the entirety of the planet's surface distorted, throwing the heroes all over the place. Even with the insane number of my pupils, this planet was more than large enough to accommodate everyone with a fair piece of land.

At this point, there was no need for my central self to keep explaining everything to those chosen heroes of mine. Each of them would be assigned with a copy of mine, capable of using the nearly endless fluxes of mana to fulfil all and any wish that the heroes would have.

Taking one last look at the vast plain, now fully free of others, I took a deep breath of the local, fresh air. Filling my lungs for a moment to experience this simple pleasure of having a physical body…

I breathed out, tearing my body apart and turning it back into nothing more but a cloud of mana. With that done, the last step of the plan was about to commence.

Relocating my central self to one of my copies outside of an extremely huge vortex of mana, I looked down the fissure of the space that my actions created. Located comfortably right at its bottom, was the very planet that I prepared for the heroes.

Surrounding the vortex, a gentle mist of my energy. It would serve as an alarm clock for my consciousness once somebody would manage to break through the barrier of the worlds that I was about to erect.

Because in the end, if I just moved everyone across the universe, at most, they would invent spatial travel. And that was something so simple that I didn't even need to think about it while moving through space fissures.

What I needed, was a method to cross through the barrier of the universe, the same that separated me from Eve. The same barrier that used the unrelenting forces of time and force to bar me from entering the paradise of my own.

Shaking my ephemeral head, I looked down on this paradise planet for the last time, before activating yet another vortex of mana. Creating both of those space fissures sapped my strength to the point that the communication with the further copies of mine ceased for a moment when I was doing so.

But ultimately, my objective was accomplished. With just a gentle push, I slightly realigned the space, pushing both of the fissures on top of each other. Leaving that paradise planet right in the middle of the greatest congregation of mana that ever existed in this universe… I let all the constructs go from my hands. With both fissures merging, that paradise planet was effectively outside of my entire universe, all the while being bathed with the greatest stream of energy that would be ever possible.

Soon, my copies started to disintegrate. Deprived of the source of energy to power them, they would use their last bits of meaning to push the last set of data forward, only to disappear from the system right after that.

Bit by bit, this process continued to accelerate. As all the magic in the entire universe continued to sink into this monstrous vortex of mine, what used to be a universe filled with my copies, nothingness and only then the matter, was now turning into a universe where no magic or copies of mine could survive.

A small distance away from the main vortex, another, smaller one continued to grow at a slow pace. By every galaxy worth of magic that its big brother would suck, it would grow by a grain worth of it. But as the ages continued to pass in this world, as the magic started to recede even from the regions of the universe that I was pretty familiar with, it contained enough energy to establish a net positive flow.

This was the last countermeasure and the trump card in the bet I was making. Not only it would serve as a small engine endlessly producing energy to sustain the bigger fissure, but it would also fulfil its role as my grave.

By the time the last galaxies were stripped of their magic, my consciousness already lost all of its insane potential. Under the burden of the information greater than what a quantum computer could ever store, I felt extremely sluggish.

Once even the magic that made up my semi-physical appearance in this universe lost itself to the vortex-oriented flow, I felt as if I was falling into a long-deserved slumber.

The magic in the smaller vortex where my true core was stored was more than enough to sustain my life for basically eternity. Even more so for the magic within that merged vortex, now slowly rotating in the very middle of the entire universe.

I would wake up only once something or someone would infringe of the slight mist of materialised magical energy would be disturbed. Only then would it instantly activate, pulling on whatever was coming out from the paradise planet, waking me up from my slumber at the same time.

Only once this would happen, would I break the vortex, releasing the magic back to the universe.

But then, rather than letting it get wasted by the empty worlds, I would simply use it to finally obtain my greatest wish. The wish that I couldn't fulfil by myself.

That was my bet against eternity.

And so I fell asleep.