209. Broken but Determined

“Fuck yes!” Jay roared, feeling a euphoric joy like no other. He didn’t care about getting the kill, even if it was a worthy achievement. All that mattered was avenging their dead.

Once the euphoria passed, reality set back in, and Jay felt the hollowness in his chest returning. Kleo wouldn’t be coming out for a while. Hailey’s death hit her the hardest. Every death hit Jay hard.

“Sorry, I didn’t kill her like I should’ve,” Casey said. “Maybe a body shot was needed or something.”

Jay shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It’s done. She’s dead. Finally.”

Casey’s gaze shifted from the archangel corpse to Jay, her blue eyes seeing through him. “What did you do to me, by the way? Why does it feel like I can just reach out and…”

“End me?” Jay yanked the fairy axe out of the corpse and put away his weapons. “That’s because you can. Congrats on getting your affinity. I didn’t see that one coming. I thought it’ll have something to do with defiance.”

Casey turned to look into the distance. The Mighty YoEeka was on its way to pick them up and bring them home. “It’s a little cheesy, but the answer was for me to be true to myself and stop seeking excellence from others.”

“Because you are the standard of excellence.”

“Yeah, I am.”

Jay smiled and checked the notifications prior to Casey making an appearance.

Casey acquired the Excellence Affinity!

Casey lost her [Tiger Boon II]!

Casey acquired an Affinity Spirit (Tiger)!

Casey replaced a Talent! [Catgirl Shifter] → [Tigeress Shifter].

Jay searched for any signs of Casey’s changes, but she remained mostly human. No spiritual aura. No animalistic shifts. She had probably thought her regular self was enough, which was an absurd level of confidence. But this new version of Casey had a subtle outlandish attitude that Jay found interesting.

“Hey, Jay.”

“Yeah, Casey?”

“Can we, um, be friends?” Casey looked earnestly into his eyes.

Jay cocked his head to the side. “A change of heart now?”

A blush crept across Casey’s cheeks. “I’m trying to follow the list of things I need to work on. Hailey made it. It’s… back home. And, uh, I don’t really have friends. I don’t know what friendship is like, honestly. And I feel like people just tolerate me. And, and, the whole flirty thing before was me being a mess.”

Casey looked away. “Gosh, I feel like shit now. If I’m not the essence of excellence, my affinity can be a bitch.” She chuckled a little. “Like me.”

Jay patted her arm. “If it’s Hailey, she’s gonna have a huge list, I bet.”

“It’s pretty big.”

“Then let’s help cross one off together. I’ll be glad to be your first friend.”

Casey inhaled sharply, her blush growing. She looked away. “If Rick saw this, he would have a stupid joke flying out of his mouth.”

“Yeah.”

Casey rubbed her shoulder. “Jay?”

“Go on.”

“I don’t know how to feel. I have this weird power tied to you and YoAnna. And a part of me wants to unleash it, especially on YoAnna. But Rick’s dead. And my sister’s dead. And everything about them being dead while I am alive with more power is wrong. What’s going on?”

As the Mighty YoEeka hovered over them, opening a door for Jay to gravity lift himself and Casey toward it, he thought hard about Casey’s question. It was not easy to answer, but it was his duty to speak as the leader.

“The end of an arc,” Jay said. “You are a blade of excellence, Casey, christened by blood and sacrifice. Throughout your journey, it was always known you were meant for greatness. YoAnna and I tried to nurture it the best we could, for our own selfish desires and for the good of the pantheon. And during the greatest battle our young pantheon has seen yet, your greatness came to light, and what consequences this would create is yet to fully play out.”

They reached the door and settled on solid flooring. “What do you mean by all that?” Casey asked before she was wrapped up in hugs from her remaining sisters with other Champions near.

Jay dropped the archangel’s corpse on the floor for pickup. Using a wormhole to Casey’s ear, he whispered, “We’ve lost Champions, but we now have a godkiller for the future villains of the Multiverse.”

It took special circumstances for this to happen, but a combination of factors had played into Casey becoming the blade of excellence. The Excellence Affinity and tiger spirit fitted her perfectly under a thematic view point, pushing Casey’s ability to achieve perfection to the zenith. Even without the affinity and spirit, Casey by herself was close to perfection personified in a [Fighter].

Additionally, Casey had a genius level of control with anima. The six punches she’d struck on the archangel was the entirety of her Stamina Status condensed into each individual blow without a point of Stamina being wasted. Nobody Jay knew could do that except for Casey who’d developed the brilliant anima control to keep up with everyone having affinities.

But the last piece of Casey being a godkiller was her Chance fluctuations. All [Fighters] had an inherent cheat where they had an easier time acquiring more Chance Modifiers beyond their base limit. With Casey, this could be taken to the extreme.

Each of her six punches had her Chance skyrocketing into unfathomable numbers Jay hadn’t thought were possible. Her Chance was in the four digits when she landed the sixth punch and obliterated the archangel’s head.

Casey probably should’ve aimed for the body if she wanted the kill. Apparently, headshots did not guarantee kills in the higher Ranks.

Of course, this had required extreme setup to pay off. Jay playing damsel in distress had been part of that setup. Confirming Jessica had enslaved herself to the 777th and couldn’t run away not only solidified her role as a narrative obstacle to Casey, but made it easier to goad Jessica into a battle she should’ve handled better when Jay was acting fishy.

Lastly, Casey had to both accept being Jay and YoAnna’s potential executioner and utilize that narrative weight to get in the way of would-be killers. Without most of the setup, she would be an Excellence [Fighter], but not a godkilling blade. In the future, she would have to angle herself sharply to continue using that godkilling narrative by herself.

As everyone tried to console themselves over the losses, Jay slipped away with his thoughts. He should be there to help, but he needed some time to himself, honestly.

As soon as he found a corner in one of the storages, he sat on a crate, pulled a bottle of rum from a spatial pocket, and popped off the top. He promised himself to pour some for Rick and Hailey later, but for now, he took slow and small sips for himself.

Two Champions were dead.

And one Champion held Jay and YoAnna’s deaths in her claws. And there was no predicting what would happen next, hence why Casey was the best choice. Her unpredictability, her defiant attitude, her strive for excellence, all of that made her the perfect person to hold Jay and YoAnna accountable for their wrongdoings.

Jay could imagine there were plenty of areas where they’d failed. Two Champions were dead, and maybe Jay and YoAnna should be put to the blade for that failure.

“Huh,” Jay said. “It’s kind of comforting knowing if we’re to die, it’s by our design.”

Kleo squirmed inside of his chest in agitation. He would have to implement commands for Kleo not to sabotage Casey.

YoAnna’s presence slowly appeared to wrap around him. Losing Champions was like YoAnna losing her own children. The loss cut deep for the [Godling]. It cut deep for the entire pantheon and broke the magic of invincibility for the Champions.

The losses would break them further as the ramifications of Rick and Hailey’s deaths continued to be felt. And at any moment, Casey could kill the two authorities in charge in a fit of rage or sorrow or whatever. Regardless of them becoming friends, Casey was still Casey.

“Man, oh, man, oh, man.” Jay scratched his chin with his tail. “I got a lot of work ahead of me.”

Somehow, he found a reason to smile. “Fine then. I’ll bear the weight of it all. But guess what, System. You will never stop me from being a hero of comedy now.”

Jessica Walters would forever leave her mark on the Protectorates. She had killed two irreplaceable Champions, and she had taught them the simple truths of the Multiverse. There was a shit ton of evil.

There were people out there who wanted to hurt others just because they could, especially if they saw others doing well for themselves. There were monsters who would burn worlds for power, reveling in the destruction and torment of innocent people. The villains of the Multiverse System would never stop, unless they were rooted out completely, because to stop would risk dismantling the horror and wickedness and lies they built their empires on.

No wonder the original Protectorates had been genocided. They tried to live idealistically as guardians while surrounded by villains who were plain evil like the Uk-Guk-Gara or completely vindictive like the 777th Heavenly Realms Dungeon. The Protectorates had been too dangerous for anyone to try to attack them alone until a reason for the Multiverse to band against them came up, YoAnna Sainte-Luckrun.

Even if the original Protectorates would’ve taught YoAnna to be a just and fair ruler of the Multiverse, the people in charge wouldn’t want that to come to pass. Tyrants were greedy to their core, and Jay would bet an arm and leg that the [System Master] and bunch of his cronies had pulled strings behind the genocide in an attempt to get YoAnna and keep her future power for themselves.

Fucking dicks, one and all. And Jessica had been riding on the tip of the villainous iceberg. She was pure scum, but she had gotten too much Multiverse support to get this far. She was only a symptom of the disease.

Jay took another sip of rum, feeling himself burn with different emotions. But most of his feelings centered on his determination, which was both old and new.

His ideals were shifting. His gaze saw farther than before. He could feel his inner self aging beyond his years, and he could feel the presence of his wife holding him tighter and tighter, supporting the changes despite the challenging pain.

There was something she wanted to say. Something important. Something big. But she held back. Whatever it was, Jay figured he was not yet ready. That was okay. He needed time to learn from his mistakes and improve.

He had a lot to make up for if Casey decided to let him live. Every second was precious, for he would forever remain mortal. Jay would not be an exception while his Champions suffered their deaths. A leader must set an example.

Even while under the haze of alcohol, Jay found the motivation to get ahead of his System paperwork. Part of his motivation was implementing a change he should have done a while ago, cutting through verbose System shenanigans and getting to the heart of the messages.

The feats of you and your pantheon are impressive and worthy of bonus AP to all participants of the USA War. Another earning of bonus AP is awarded to the major contributors in the defeat of the archangel.

You’ve earned 80 Free AP.

“I feel like we deserve more Free AP than that,” Jay said. At least the message was slimmer. Cutting out the System fat was especially important for his System profile. Rank 5 was coming up, and he wanted to do another review of his powers and start relearning himself from scratch.

For many reasons, he felt like the Rank 6 monster should have died faster. Or the Champion deaths should have been avoided.

Maybe he was reaching, but Jay was going to double and triple check his profile to be sure. And he could do without the admin-tainted commentary from the System. After today, the admins and every asshole in the Multiverse would find a less patient Jay.

Hell, at this point, he would welcome YoAnna being the end of the Multiverse. The only problem was figuring out his own role in the grand scheme of things.

Unless…

“Jay?” Brit called, wandering into the storage space. “Is it okay if I join you?”

“Want some rum?” He held the bottle out to her.

She took it for a swig and paused to acknowledge YoAnna’s presence wrapped tightly around Jay. She hesitated slightly before she hopped on the crate with Jay and snuggled in close.

Right now wasn’t the time for hierarchy issues among wives or whatever. Brit took a longer pull from the bottle before handing the drink back to Jay and wrapping her arms around him, her head on his shoulder. Seconds later, she was shaking and crying.

Jay patted her thigh as he continued to work on things as Pantheon Leader. He should probably rest and grieve like the others, but he didn’t want to right now.

***

Days later, Jay was sitting in his office at the pantheon mansion. YoAnna had ordered for everyone to take a break before having a gathering today to honor their dead.

His wives had barred him from work, which aggravated him, but he accepted it and spent time staring into the lake until today. Kleo was still inside of his chest, unwilling to come out. That was fine. He could focus on some administrative stuff on his own.

Your pantheon has slaughtered multiple Rank 4 lairs in a short period of time. However, there will now be more lairs of Rank 4 status growing around your world. Due to the environment, Rank 5 lairs might appear as well.

Each Champion and a large number of your military have acquired the Title [Delver of Lairs].

[Delver of Lairs]: The rise of lairs on any world can bring fortune or misfortune. Delving into their depths is now a part of your nature. With this Title, see your Resilience and Poise rise moderately the deeper you delve into a lair.

Not bad, Jay thought. The soft buff bonuses to their Health stats was a worthy boon while in a lair. This would be especially helpful for the military. The Champions have bigger concerns than dealing with lairs at the moment.

“The description is so streamline, it’s almost hard to believe it’s a Title,” Jay murmured.

He was glad to have implemented the change to cut out fat. That made it a breeze for him to see the updated change for his Champions replacing [Prodigy of Monster Slaying] to [Experts of Monster Slaying]. In the wake of that, most of the military now had [Prodigy of Monster Slaying]. The Protectorates were going to massacre way more monsters in their future.

But there were more to the updates than just hunting lairs and slaughtering monsters.

Your pantheon has assisted millions of refugees during a rapidly growing apocalyptic scenario of a unique nature. While there is no saving the larger population of your world, you now hold the largest bastion for the remainder of humanity which is estimated to be 100 million. Your nation holds 35 million of these remaining humans.

Each Champion and a large number of your military and Citizens have gained the Title [Rescuer of the End Times].

[Rescuer of the End Times]: Doom cometh across all areas in the Multiverse and most creatures resort to protecting their own interests. Yet, you’ve faced extraordinary levels of misfortune and made sacrifices to help others in need. With this Title, accumulate more Experience faster while under apocalyptic pressure and doing the most good.

Jay didn’t know how to feel about this one. Billions of people were dead. And in the middle of a destroyed world, a relocated Florida remained as the last bastion of safety. A glance outside of his window revealed sunlight, birds flying freely through the air, and people trying to go about their day.

Additionally, this made no mention of the monster population living here which had become mostly friendly at this point. Even the neutral monsters were leaning toward being Pro-Protectorates. Just like the humans, none of the monsters wanted to leave the safety and security. Everyone was on their best behavior as if the Champions would evict them into the hellscape outside.

Jay rubbed his forehead. “I’m the Pantheon Leader of this, huh?”

He glanced to the side. There was a box there labeled for missives from around the universe. Additionally, he had an enormous stack of blue box messages from the System Admins trying to annoy him.

They wanted him to set up a Multiversal Scry Network call, and Jay was trying to delay that as much as possible. He had better things to do than to stand in a glitchy magic video call with a bunch of oldsters loaded with snide remarks, passive-aggressive comments, and gaslighting antics.

Your pantheon has demolished all major obstacles opposing your rule upon this world. Your Titles [Mightiest of Earth] have evolved into [Master of Earth] or [Mistress of Earth], disregarding power displacement.

[Master of Earth]: You are one of fifteen rulers who hold true sovereignty over Earth. With this Title, your command over other Earthlings is unquestionable. If another Earthling tries to disobey you, they will suffer an extreme debuff to Conviction and Discovery. Your Attributes have a natural 50% bonus. With extra willpower, you will have a 100% bonus to your Attributes. These bonuses are additive and only work while on Earth.

“Ridiculous,” Jay said, shaking his head. With Kleo beside him, he now had a maximum hard buff of 525% added to all Attributes. His current [2,159 Applied AP] would amount to an estimated [13,494 Applied AP] at max effort. “If only I had this power while fighting Jessica.”

And it wouldn’t help much while crawling dungeons or visiting other worlds. Jay felt a little cheated, but he wouldn’t say no to extra power despite the mockery of the Champions being kings and queens of a dead world and the last remnants of humanity.

“Note to self, bring your enemies to Earth for a lovely visit.”

You’ve slain an archangel of the 777th Heavenly Realms Dungeon, which is worth repeating. Regardless of the human consciousness residing in the copy of a 777th dungeon monster, this is a highly sacrilegious offense to the holy powers of the Multiverse System. The ramifications of you and your pantheon’s actions will bear everlasting consequences.

“Ah, no new Title? Not even a Talent? Boo!”

Jay shook his head and wished he could repeat Jessica’s death a few more times. But the effort to kill her had been too much. He needed more power for the next archangel or whatever horrid monsters the Multiverse had to serve him next.

Then again, the next couple of issues were already right at home. The Protectorate government was in shambles. The Uk-Guk-Gara were going to open their doorways around Earth. And they had some unhappy aliens on the other side of the universe.

Your government is in disarray without a Chancellor. You have lost your governmental bonus. Do you have plans to reorganize your structure?

Jay looked up at a wall bearing trophies from the 6th Hell Circle crawl. Lots of big teeth from monsters that had nearly eaten him served as decorations now. Back then, Jay, Brit, and Frank were going from conflict to conflict, adventure to adventure. They had built-up a crew that supported their gallivanting and cavalier time in the Sea of Death before bringing it to an end by befriending the boss monster, Bondyr. They were fast, fierce, and flexible back then.

“Fast, fierce, and flexible.”

Normally, reorganizing their empire should bring together a meeting. But nobody other than Jay was in the mood to work. So, Jay pushed his changes through since he was the Chair-Leader of the Protectorates.

You’ve dissolved the state branch. You’ve combined the military and church branches and remaining leadership. You’ve promoted Emily Allen to Chancellor. You are less a government and now a religious military order with an emphasis on war. You will gain small bonuses to utility and support elements, but you will gain larger bonuses for military actions paired with your religious doctrines.

“Look at us, we’re the modern day templars,” Jay said. “I probably should’ve waited to discuss this with everybody.”

But they were mourning, and he was trying to set things up for the future. At the very least, Jay’s decision felt sound. They weren’t necessarily taking a step backward. They were readapting to their losses, especially in the case of Hailey.

On YoAnna’s wicked scar, Hailey was an allstar of an administrator and a political genius. And Rick was a savvy hustler of a Crime Chair.

Emily wouldn’t be able to fill Hailey’s shoes, but Jay wasn’t counting on that. Emily would have to transform the Chancellor role to fit her and hopefully combine the lessons departed from Hailey and Rick. The only position left empty now was Vice-Chair.

“I’ll wait and see,” Jay murmured, moving on to a message from Xos, the Grandmaster Arbiter.

Prepare your pantheon for the Uk-Guk-Gara Incursion in the next two weeks. You will be faced with twelve Rank 5 dungeons. Once this incursion is complete, we will settle matters with the 13th Nemesis Program and the judgment of your pantheon’s activities during a Pre System Apocalypse Test.

Jay grimaced. Twelve Rank 5 dungeons. But they only had ten of the original Champions, and Jay refused to separate familiars from their owners during major crawls like these. The only option was to have the highest level pantheon members crawl the remaining two dungeons and kill the bosses before the dungeons’ break. Unfortunately, the tests were made for Champions, so anyone else beating those dungeons wouldn’t award YoAnna her points. But this was better than two Rank 5s breaking out.

Setting Xos’s message aside, Jay reached over into the box of missives and pulled out a silver oblong object. It melted like liquid silver before reshaping into a tablet. From the tablet, an alien script in green yellow colors glowed on the surface for Jay to read. His [Hungry Bounty Lord] translated everything since this was information he could use for future bounties.

This missive is to inform you that the Imperial Adviser to the Caath Empire of the AY-314 Nebulae and other dignitaries have finished funding and forming a committee with their allies of space faring civilizations. They are planning to pass motions to grow their budget, gather more allies, and present a combined multi-galactic operation to attack your pantheon. They call themselves the God Devourer Committee, and are eager to conduct war with you unless you meet their demands.

Jay frowned at their demands which detailed wanting to have their way with YoAnna and eat her babies. Apparently, this really was a common thing in their universe, which was sounding more like a threat than an insult. So, Jay replied in kind, using his Talent to help translate English to Caathish with the most eloquent words he could use.

Fuck around and find out.

He dismissed the missive, the tablet reshaping into a silver oblong device before it winked away. “I think I handled that pretty well.”

A knock sounded from his door.

The corners of his mouth curled up. “Come in.”

His new friend bumped the door open with her hip and swaggered into his office. Her aviator glasses gleamed when caught by the sunlight from the office windows. Under her shades was a wide smile.

“Hey, man, you promised you’ll be out fifteen minutes ago.” Casey hopped over and took a seat on the desk corner. In her hand was a bottle of Sangria she tipped to her mouth for a gulp. “Come on, come on, you’re being all boring and dark. I can feel you brooding from outside the mansion.”

“I have things to keep track of. Responsibilities on my shoulders.” Jay moved from behind his desk and stopped when Casey tipped the sangria his way. He took a sip and passed it back. “And I saw you this morning, loitering outside of my house.”

“You have the lakeside view. I’m jealous.”

“You can come into the house, you know.”

“No, I can’t. One of your wives kinda wants to murder me. And I still have issues with the other one.”

Jay chuckled. He stopped at the doorway and looked back, reflecting at all he’d done and reviewed. New Titles, new powers, new responsibilities, and a new organizational structure similar to a religious military order. Yet, there was still a pile of more work waiting for him.

There were the issues of Victor and Jhara’s whereabouts. And whether the Protectorates should go searching for Enkidu, since many of the [Apostles] believe him to be alive still.

It would be easier for Jay to distract himself with the mountain of problems to solve. But there was no ignoring today’s challenges. Honoring their fallen. And evolving to Rank 5.

“Well, let’s get going, [Mistress of Earth]. We have tears to shed and memories to immortalize,” Jay said.

“I’m right behind you, [Master of Earth].” Of course she would be, for there were few places better for his blade.