Ball of Nothing

Chapter 197 Four-Way Inner Battles

Olaf was sipping his Poxie tea in bliss after sending his friend Bob away. The Academy’s problem wasn’t really any of his business. Whatever the trouble is, he had faith that their dean Lord Lucifer would resolve it.

As a librarian, Olaf was perfectly content with guarding the building and caring for the books. Occasionally, there would be a nasty visitor or two that he would send away with a spanking but Olaf was a lazy dragon demon in general. If he is not poked, he would not retaliate. People usually tend to keep their distance from him just the way he liked it.

Hence, the librarian was perplexed and enraged when someone decided to teleport something that smelled like an abused toilet right into his sacred sanctuary. Everyone knew that dragons were filthy rich and hoarded the things they loved. No sane person or creature would challenge a dragon to give up on their possessions. For other dragon demons, that would be gold or gems. For Olaf, that would be books.

Unable to retain his human form, Olaf transformed into a mighty blue-eyed frost dragon. His roar shook the library building and encased everything in a sheen of ice. With his heightened dragon senses, Olaf wrinkled his nose. It wasn’t very prominent but the librarian spent enough time with this bastard to know whose scent that was. It might smell several hundred times worse now due to his sharper sense of smell but at least Olaf now knew the one responsible for this violation.

"That blasted spider! Why couldn’t he stop causing nuisance even after he is dead! The dead should just learn to stay dead!"

Now that he was in his dragon form, Olaf no longer cared about manners. He smashed through the roof and soared to the only other building in the Academy that was grander than his library.

"I demand a damned pay raise!" Olaf roared. "How can you call yourself the headmaster of the Academy when you can’t take care of a single punk! My sanctuary now smells like a toilet, I demand some form of expla- An angel?"

"A former archangel," Lucifer stated calmly, completely ignoring how his beautiful architecture had been smashed to rubble with Olaf’s outburst. At this moment, there was simply too many things to deal with. Olaf’s whims could wait.

Uriel trembled and collapsed to the ground, his knees failed to support his weight. No, it wasn’t Olaf’s dramatic entrance that caused such a reaction. The prophecy of the destroyer he had seen only moments ago was now standing in the middle of the room with a tiny flower fairy in his shirt pocket.

"What did I miss?" Zero asked. Without much time to coordinate the location of his teleport, Zero missed the mark to his room in the dormitory and ended up in Lucifer’s office. A lot has transpired while he was gone. The most obvious difference was Lucifer’s new fashion statement and guest before Olaf’s grand entrance.

Nobody answered Zero so the spy on mission decided to report everything that he discovered.

Olaf stood there dumbly as Zero gave his verbal report. Lucifer didn’t say anything about that and pretended as if everything was normal. The one thing that made the dean react was Zero pulling Baal out from his void dimension.

Seeing his treasured student in such a vulnerable state made Lucifer bristle. Rhinestone had gone too far this time, there would be no mercy for that delusional spider. The ex-archangel walked over to Baal and cast a blessing of recovery and protection. Then he turned to Olaf with the most serious look.

"The gate has opened in the library. Olaf, how long can you stall it for?"

The dragon wasn’t expecting for Lucifer to be so serious about requesting his help. As the keeper of the library, Olaf had complete control of that space. Keeping the gate trapped in his territory would be child’s play to him.

"How long do you need me to keep the spider occupied? As long as you promise to clean out that foul smell after everything and restore my sanctuary to its former glory, I can break a few bookshelves too."

Lucifer looked down at the curse on his arm that Gabriel was working on earlier. The messenger left to retrieve Raphael and Michael with the appearance of the young doctor from the prophecy. The curse was tricky and not even the highest tier of Holy magic was able to dispel it. Lucifer had to wait for Merlin to come over. The other Demon Lords were already getting into position to activate the final magic in case the plane’s balance was destroyed by Zero. Currently, Lucifer worried about Baal and Beel’s territory. With two Demon Lords out of commission and himself being unable to support the burden with his curse, will the other Demon Lords be able to shoulder the weight of the abyss’ fate?

"I’m counting on you to keep him there until the reinforcements from Heaven arrives. Zero, I need you to guard Baal and Beelzebub. If possible, find a way to wake them up. We need them to support the fall of the abyss plane and maintain the balance if something goes out of control. You’ve done well, please leave the rest to us."

The young doctor blinked at that. Was it part of imagination or was Lucifer telling him to wash his hands from this matter? He’s already sunken so deep into the mess and two of his friends were nearly killed by the traitor. How could he back off so easily?

"I refuse."

Uriel was unhealthily pale when he heard that. The resolution in Zero’s eyes didn’t make the bad feeling he had ease up. If anything, the stress of watching the abyss’ unavoidable fate spiral out of control before him made the Archangel sick. The image of Zero losing control of his powers and absorbing friend and foe alike into the void made Uriel tremble in fear.

Lucifer’s eyes hardened. He felt Uriel’s fear through their bond and tried his best to keep that under control. He could feel Michael and Gabriel’s urgency through their soul connection. Help was on the way but it wasn’t fast enough.

"Zero, listen to me..."

"No," the young doctor growled. "They hurt Baal and Beel, they tried to kill them!"

"Young master...’ Bob tried to calm the teenager but was promptly cut off from the connection. Zero’s emotions affected the Eternal Dragon and the strawcherry assistant in Zero’s mindscape. The air became suffocating under the intensity of the dark hatred poisoning the young doctor’s heart. Mii saw how a certain book containing Venn’s memories became thicker as Zero’s fury peaked. She thought that after retrieving Baal back safely, Zero would forget about his earlier fury. She’d been sorely mistaken. The distraction merely postponed Zero’s fall into the darkness. Mii didn’t know if involving Truen at this point would pull Zero out of this but it was the last ray hope she had.

Mii was about to reach out to Truen from Zero’s party but an invisible force stopped her.

[System restriction: Error Code 001.]

The strawcherry stared at the invisible system message window with disbelief. Why was the Great One interfering now of all times? She couldn’t understand it. Error Code 001 was the error of interfering with Zero’s path. In the early beginning, the system would often decide what was good for Zero’s development and create a series of events leading up to it. Mii was often encouraged to steer the direction and prompted to take necessary actions behind the scenes. Never once had the system stopped her from doing so. Why was it acting up now of all times? Zero was obviously falling down the same path the Great One did. Wasn’t the system meant to prevent that from happening?

Mii was about to contact the system again when she was locked into placed and replaced with a system clone.

!!!

Bob didn’t seem to notice the difference and continued trying to reach out to Zero. Mii could only watch in horror as the system clone of herself took over and rearranged the books on the shelves so that Venn’s book could continue expanding.

[Unknown interference detected, performing isolation of irregularity found. System test initiated.]

The strawcherry fairy felt the system pulling her memories apart and froze up. Why was the system doing this to her? Couldn’t it see that Zero would walk the path of a destroyer if he kept it up? Wasn’t that the complete opposite of what the Great One wanted?

[Correction, Great One intends for Zero to complete his mission. Nothing about preventing Zero from walking the path of a Destroyer was indicated. Agent’s conclusion and actions are in violation of Code 001.]

Mii blinked. "I am Zero’s guardian, Zero has chosen the path of a healer. He has lost rationality to his emotions, he has to be stopped!"

[Correction, Zero’s actions and emotions are his independent choice after analysing and understanding the consequences of it. Agent has no right to interfere with Zero’s decision.]

The strawcherry fairy was in disbelief. She could only watch from the background as Zero fell to the darker thoughts.

"Zero," Lucifer was tired. Nothing he was saying was working. The curse wasn’t helping either. The more he tried to convince the teenager with his heartfelt emotions, the more twisted the words became. In truth, He wanted Zero to help take down the gate. However, the curse continued to misconstrue his intentions and pushing Zero from the edge.

"Don’t believe me" was what Lucifer wanted to say but Zero was too blinded by emotions that he could no longer read the subtler hints from Lucifer’s eyes.

"I’m sorry, Luci. They are my friends and I am going to protect them. This may be your Academy but seeing how none of your plans is working out, I will be doing it my way. I’m taking down the gate and the traitor. As promised, I will leave the judgement of the traitor to you but only after I am done with them."

Olaf offered to give Zero a lift back to the library and Lucifer didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing that Zero was going to destroy the gate as he wanted him to. The only problem was how Zero seemed to remember his promise about not interfering with how Hell would punish its traitors. He wanted very much to tell Zero that he should disregard that agreement and annihilate the slippery Arachne descendant when he could. The curse in place stopped him from doing so and he could only punch the remaining furniture in frustration.

Collapsed on the ground, Uriel was locked in a neverending loop of the future. He had never seen such a confusing future that flickered from minute to minute. One moment, Zero was the destroyer of the abyss. The next moment, Zero was the saviour, In another second, Rhinestone would escape and succeed with his plan. The visions locked him in place and whatever conversation Lucifer had with Zero was lost on him.

Back in Zero’s mindscape, Mii was fighting another intense battle. Mind’s Eye was holding her captive from taking any actions. Mii saw how Zero’s inner battles progressed. The conflicting opinions of what he should do continued to duke it out with neither side gaining the upper hand. Zero wanted to annihilate the traitor but his principles about breaking promises held its ground. Truen and Hua Tuo’s education were steadfast and deeply ingrained into Zero’s soul. He still hasn’t completely lost the healer in him despite the tainted memory fragments of the different Divine Entities.

Perhaps there was still hope after all!

While Lucifer struggled against the curse awaiting Merlin’s arrival with the reinforcements, Uriel fought his mental battles and wavering faith at the flickering visions. Zero fought with his personal beliefs and emotions on Olaf’s back. As he drew nearer to the gate that would change the fate of the abyss, Mii fought against the logic of the system that she was created from. In the four-way Inner Battle, each individual shared the same dream of triumphing over their prewritten fates.

Far away in another multiverse, a certain unregistered god felt prickling at the back of his neck. His depleted power was slowly restored by the unknown believers not belonging to the eradicated human race of the old world.

A creepy grin grew and his life returned to his insane eyes. The wheel of fate that has been broken and frozen was finally mended and starting to spin again. Things were becoming interesting again. He wondered what the other Gods will think when he makes his reappearance again. Maybe this time, he will sell his powers to a different species. The humans were great but they were weak.

The fallen God licked his lips as he dreamt about the unknown future and all of its possibilities.