Chapter 75: Man vs Reality

The light of Plato’s sword repelled Leroy.

“Argh!” The living shadow cowered from the blade’s divine radiance as if he were physically hurt by it. “Stay away!”

Leroy materialized a shadowy sphere in the palm of his hand and threw it at Plato. The feline saw the attack coming, but instead of dodging, he simply sliced the projectile in midair. His sword dissipated the darkness like the sun repelled the night away in the morning. Leroy’s eyes widened in shock at this new development.

Sensing an opportunity, Basil tossed his halberd at his foe like a javelin. Leroy didn’t recover from his surprise in time and the Soulbound weapon sliced through one of his shadowy wings. It cut through the false god’s incorporeal substance as if it were flesh, Leroy’s screams echoing across the false world. Croque-Mordeuse’s new ability allowed it to drain SP from its victims, and Basil watched on with satisfaction as his weapon’s blade consumed some of Leroy’s shadowy energies.

Supereffective hit! You have shaved off a fifth of [Pluto, Lord of the Netherworld]’s SP!

Basil’s halberd continued its course in the sky. Leroy, believing he could seize an opportunity, materialized in front of Basil. “Thanatos Ray!” he snarled, his eyes shining with malice.

There was no way to dodge the attack at this distance… so Basil didn’t. Gritting his teeth, he powered through the beams as they hit him in the chest, damaging his armor and burning the flesh underneath. The pain was indescribable, but Leroy didn’t maintain the pressure for long. His eyes soon returned to normal, filled with confusion.

Only when Basil teleported his Soulbound weapon back to his hand, as his Perk allowed him, did the false god realize his mistake.

“Ah!” Leroy screamed in pain as Basil swung his halberd through his chest once, then twice. The Deathknight repaid each wound he had received back in full. His blows drained Leroy of life and magic.

Supereffective hit! Supereffective hit.

Leroy teleported a few feet away and formed a sphere of dark energy to retaliate, only for Plato to get the jump on him by striking from behind. The tiger cub’s light blade cut through the shadow like paper and forced Leroy to teleport away.

“Run, run like a bird!” Plato taunted as he chased after the false god. Leroy teleported in short bursts while vainly trying to snipe the feline with his eye beams. “It makes no difference to me!”

Basil raised his halberd to join the chase, only to wince in pain. He glanced at his fuming, hole-covered chest and covered his wounds with one hand. The battle had taken its toll on him. His SP was too low to sustain more long-range attacks and magical suppression fire.

A miracle fell from the sky, as if answering his prayer.

A flying broomstick descended from the heavens and landed peacefully on the sand near Basil. A bundle was attached to the tip. Immediately recognizing Vasi’s broom, Basil rushed to open the package.

Two potions fell out of it and into the sand.

Relief supplies!

Basil immediately drank them while Plato kept Leroy occupied, not even bothering to check their effects. The pain in his chest dissipated and a few of his wounds closed on their own.

You have recovered 120 SP and 200 HP!

120 SP. That was enough to keep Death’s Banner up for longer without sacrificing his defense.

Promising himself to make it up to his girlfriend if he managed to survive, Basil joined the fray. While Leroy was occupied keeping Plato at bay with lasers and shadowy spheres, Basil threw an elemental orb of water at him. The false god failed to teleport in time and was hit head on.

Basil expected Leroy to vanish once more. Instead, the false god’s body started to undergo a strange mutation. The ethereal darkness making up his substance solidified. The creature of darkness became one of flesh, a demonic humanoid with batlike wings and elongated, clawed arms. Leroy’s body appeared melded with armor of blackened steel, with metal spikes on the shoulders and a horned helmet making up the upper half of the face. The only human part of him was his pallid jaw and his unchanged eyes.

“What…” The false god rasped in incomprehension as he stumbled on the sand. “I can’t… my flesh…”

“What’s happening to him?” Plato asked. Wind swirled around his sword for a new counterattack.

“His incorporeal state isn’t a natural thing,” Basil guessed. “He needs SP to maintain it, and my halberd blows cut down his reserves.”

Leroy had relentlessly pummeled the duo with powerful magical attacks for minutes on end. No matter how large the SP reserves he could call upon, they weren’t limitless. He had forgotten to pace himself in his wrath and now paid the price for it.

Still, Leroy didn’t admit defeat. He let out a bestial snarl and flung his elongated arms like whips. Basil and Plato separated, each of them avoided a clawed hand by moving in one direction. Guided by battle experience won over many months of constant battling, the duo moved as one and flanked Leroy from both sides.

Seeing the danger, the false god extended his wings and took flight. A cloud of sand swallowed the Bohens, obscuring their sight. Clawed hands closed on Basil’s shoulders and suddenly dragged him into the sky.

“You can’t win this, Benjamin!” Basil shouted at Leroy before impaling him with his halberd’s spike. The false god hissed in pain as the weapon pierced his flesh, yet he refused to relinquish his quarry and gained altitude. “No more than you can bring her back!”

“What have you built, Bohen?” Leroy snarled angrily. “What have you created?! All your kind does is destroy!”

“I didn’t break the world!” Basil shouted back. Leroy opened his mouth wide, revealing rows of sharpened fangs. Basil raised a palm and shoved it between the false god’s lips. “Elemental Orb: Water!”

His projectile exploded in Leroy’s mouth, blowing off his fangs and lips alike. The false god released his quarry and Basil began to fall off more than twenty meters.

“I got you, Basil!” Plato raised his sword, channeled wind through it, and ran circles on the beach. His actions whirled a whirlwind into existence which softened Basil’s fall. He still crashed into the sand, but got off with a few bruises rather than broken bones.

Leroy let out a hellish screech and dived down upon the duo. Quickly rushing back to his feet, Basil raised his halberd horizontally. “Plato!”

His tiger cub jumped on the flat side of his halberd’s blade. Using his weapon like a lever, Basil threw his companion at their enemy like a projectile. Leroy extended his hands to catch Plato in midair, but the crafty feline swirled on himself and dodge. He hit the false god in the chest, impaling him.

The holy light burned Leroy until he lost control of his flight. Plato jumped off him right before he crashed into the sand next to Vasi’s broomstick.

“Give up,” Basil said coldly as he and Plato flanked Leroy from both sides. Even when covered in wounds and without power to fuel his spells, the false god refused to yield. “We don’t want to kill you.”

“We don’t?” Plato asked in confusion.

“If we can help it,” Basil replied. He locked eyes with Leroy, who had managed to rise back to his feet, his hands covering his chest wound. “Do you think your daughter would want you to throw your life away for nothing?”

“I’m doing this for her,” Leroy shouted back, spitting blood. “I hear her! I hear her voice, spurring me on!”

“Oh, for the love of…” Basil planted his halberd in the sand like a flag. “Plato, stay back.”

“Wait, what are you doing?” his best friend asked, his eyes squinting in worry.

“Beating some sense into him,” Basil replied as he took a step forward. “Like Samson with the Philistines!”

Leroy swung his left arm at Basil in a vain attempt to keep him at bay. He missed. Basil lowered himself to dodge the attack and then punched his foe in the chest, right where Plato wounded him beforehand. The false god let out a hiss of pain on impact.

“Your daughter isn’t speaking to you,” Basil said, his voice brimming with pity. “That voice you hear? It’s your loneliness trying to fill the silence.”

“Shut up,” Leroy hissed as he held his bleeding chest. “I know… I know the truth.”

“Yes, you do.” Basil snorted. “And that’s why it hurts so much.”

He punched Leroy in the face with enough force to knock out a tooth.

“I want René to come back to life,” Basil said, before following with an uppercut. “I want Orcine to pull herself back together and Kuikui to return. I even want that old French Major back, so we can settle our differences once for all. I want my father to come back from the dead and stop being a raging alcoholic who threw his life away the first time around.”

Leroy stumbled back on the sand and fell to one knee. Plato watched on, silent as a tomb.

“And I’m never going to get any of this.” Basil shook his head. “Because they’re all dead and they can’t come back. I can’t turn back the clock, Leroy, and neither can you. They’re gone.”

“You’re wrong.” Leroy stubbornly rose to his feet. “I can bring them back. I can bring her back! I just need more time, more data!”

“All you’ve created are phantoms trapped in a snowglobe while the world crumbles to dust,” Basil replied. “Half of whom you murdered in the first place.”

“If I can revive them, then it’ll be alright in the end.” Leroy raised his hands and tightened them into fists. “Once you’re gone, I’ll make everything right.”

“You can’t.” Basil dodged a punch, then another. Dismaker Labs’ former programmer had no experience in hand to hand combat, nor the strength left to present a challenge. “Even if you somehow manage to trap every soul on earth in this place, it won’t return their old life back to them. The Apocalypse Force, the Unity, your colleagues… they’ll keep killing. Keep hurting. One day they’ll find their way to this place and destroy it.”

Sensing an opportunity, Basil backhanded Leroy and forced him back. The false god touched his bleeding jaw, whimpering in pain.

“You can’t run away forever, Benjamin.” Basil had learned this lesson the hard way. “Think. Do you think that’s truly what your daughter would want for you? To hole up in a pyramid for the rest of your days? To waste your time running after an illusion?”

“You know nothing!” Leroy snarled back. Tears rained down his bloodied cheeks. “You don’t understand! If I fail… if I fail, it would have been all for nothing! The things I’ve done, the lives I’ve destroyed…”

He let out a screech of pain and despair.

“There’s no coming back!” Leroy exhaled. “No coming back from that…”

“That’s true,” Basil agreed. “You can’t ever fully make up for what you’ve done. That’s harsh, but it’s true.”

His words hit Leroy harder than his fists. The false god stood still, staring at the ground. Had Basil finally gotten through the walls he had built around himself?

“If you truly feel sorry for your crimes, then you must atone for them,” Basil said. “Truly atone. Not by covering up your mistakes as if you had never fucked up, but by making up for them in the real world. You’re going to get out of this pyramid and help us fix your shit.”

“No.” Leroy shook his head in denial. “No, no, you’re wrong. I just have to bring them back. Yes, that’s right.”

“You can’t.” Basil inhaled sharply. “Summon her.”

“Summon…” Leroy looked up at Basil in incomprehension. “Summon her?”

“Your daughter,” Basil said, his voice sharper than a knife. “If you are so powerful, if that’s truly her voice you hear in your head, then surely you can compel her to appear. If you’re truly a god, then you will succeed.”

“I…” Leroy’s eyes widened in dread at the impossible task. “I… no, she’s shy, she…”

“Drag her here if you must,” Basil ordered, before losing patience. “Summon her!”

Leroy expanded his wings and attempted to take flight. He tried to run, to the sky, to nowhere. Basil didn’t let him. He grabbed the false god by the leg and dragged him back to earth.

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“Summon her!” Basil snarled. Leroy struggled to escape, but he lacked the strength to. “Summon her! Bring her back!”

“I…” Leroy cried, his voice weakening. “I… can’t.”

The words were so weak, barely a whisper. Yet they carried the crushing weight of defeat.

Basil released Leroy. The false god didn’t try to run away this time. The fight had gone out of him, snuffed out like a candle.

“I can’t…” Leroy admitted, burying his face in the sand. “I can’t… Celia…”

The wind blew between them, and the fake world collapsed in its wake. The crimson sky cracked open like an egg. The illusory sea washed away the beach into nothingness. The lies Benjamin Leroy had built around his heart collapsed one after the other.

“That’s all there is,” Basil said sadly, Plato standing at his side. “I’m sorry, Benjamin. But you’ll have to live with it. As I did. As we must all do.”

Basil saw pictures of people flashing before his eyes. René, Aya, Orcine, Kuikui, and so many others. They appeared to him in a blink, and then they were gone without a sound.

The reaper was an impatient force; it rarely waited for last words.

The world was swallowed by light, and Basil was no longer on a beach when he regained his sense of sight. Instead he sat on the cold hard floor of an art gallery, with his girlfriend kneeling at his side.

“Good to see you again, handsome.” Vasi moved to embrace him and he welcomed her with open arms. Basil almost wondered if she was yet another illusion, but the way she held him tightly told him otherwise. It was her, entirely her. “So good…”

“Were you worried for me?” Basil asked with a thin smile, before kissing her on the cheek. “I received my lady’s favor.”

“I would have sent you a handkerchief to wear in battle, but I was strapped for time,” Vasi mused with a smile as she broke the hug. “I hope it helped.”

“It did.” Vasi helped Basil rise back to his feet and he scanned the area with a glance. Shellgirl was pouring a healing potion down Plato’s throat under the gaze of the Mona Lisa painting. Basil’s halberd lay on the ground, next to Vasi’s broom and Plato’s newfound holy weapon. Rosemarine was nowhere to be seen, as for Bugsy…

“I got him, Boss!” The centimagma’s tail had coiled around a defeated Leroy. The false god’s chest showed multiple bloody wounds. “He won’t run away!”

Basil doubted Leroy wanted to. The false god’s gaze was as hollow as his body was limp. He looked dead while alive, breathing yet crushed within. Smacking him back to reality had just been the final nail in his coffin.

Although Benjamin Leroy only deserved scorn for destroying the world, Basil couldn’t suppress a pang of pity at his sight.

“Where’s Rosemarine?” Basil asked, worried for his tropidrake.

“Keeping an eye on Kalki in the basement,” Vasi explained.

This comment earned Basil's full attention. “You’ve found him?”

“He’s trapped in the neurotower’s forcefield,” Vasi confirmed. “We had to leave him behind for now.”

“We were so worried for you and Plato,” Shellgirl admitted. “You can’t fathom how many treasures we had to leave behind!”

“I can imagine,” Basil said as he finally took the time to examine Plato’s new sword. He immediately recognized Charlemagne’s sword, Joyeuse. “Nice catch.”

“A shame you didn’t choose to wield it yourself,” Vasi said with a smile. “You would look dashing with it.”

“Not as much as me,” Plato said before offering the sword to Basil. “Yo dog, wanna try it?”

Although Basil struggled with the idea of cheating on his halberd with a sword, he couldn’t resist the urge to touch the holy blade’s pommel. His fingers burned when they brushed against the golden sword, forcing him to pull his hand back. “Argh!”

“Ah, saddening.” Vasi sighed. “Only those of royal blood can use Joyeuse in battle. And here I hoped you were a secret prince in shining armor.”

“Sorry,” Basil replied with a thin smile. “I’m the proud heir of a long line of dirt-poor peasants.”

“Why can Mr. Plato wield the sword then?” Bugsy asked in confusion.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Plato asked back. “Look at me. I am the very picture of royalty.”

Vasi grinned ear to ear. “Well, he is the king of cats.”

“Meow, that’s right,” Plato replied with unbearable pride. “The tiger is king of the jungle, it is known!”

“I have my doubts,” Basil mused. “But we can check that later.”

They would need to settle Leroy’s fate first.

The group gathered around the false god. Bugsy dropped Leroy on the ground, with Plato and Shellgirl pointing their weapons at him. Basil didn’t bother to threaten him with his halberd. The board member had clearly given up on life.

“How do we return the world to normal?” Basil asked sharply. “You helped design the neurotowers, didn’t you? How can we use them to subvert the System?”

“You… you can’t,” Leroy replied, his voice brimming with guilt. “Once the Trimurti System initialized… the situation escaped our control. The Neurotowers summoned it to Earth and provided it with energy, but they do not control anything.”

Basil had expected as much, but he didn’t like hearing this information either.

“Your particular neurotower harvests souls from all over the world,” Vasi pointed out. “If we destroy it, it will be a blow to the system.”

Leroy shook his head in denial. “Destroying Naraka won’t solve anything,” he said. “Redundant neurotowers will take over to keep processing souls. The network will adapt to any unforeseen scenario. And if you destroy them all, the cosmic egg will crumble on itself.”

“An egg?” Bugsy squinted in confusion. “What egg?”

“When we activated the Trimurti System, our planet was trapped inside the seed of a new universe,” Leroy explained. “This egg’s shell… it acts as a Level barrier regulating who can get in.”

“So the barrier is not a sphere,” Basil whispered as he remembered the ISS’ last transmission. “Shiva isn’t holding a sphere in its palm, but an egg.”

“Shiva... yes, that's an appropriate metaphor.” Leroy chuckled weakly, as if laughing at a joke only he could understand. “Once an Overgod is selected, the cosmic egg will hatch to unleash them on the cosmos.”

“But… What about the world?” Shellgirl chewed her lip. “Once the egg hatches, what will happen to it?”

“Depends,” Leroy whispered back.

“On what?” Basil asked sharply.

“On the Overgod, I suppose.” Leroy looked down at the ground. “We didn’t plan for the aftermath. Either you win or you run. That was what Maxwell said. I didn’t care about either… so long as I had her… and now…”

Leroy cried while Basil clenched his fists in anger. Whoever won, there was a chance the world wouldn’t survive it.

“How do we halt the process?” Vasi asked with a frown. “How can we stop the competition?”

“I already told you, you can’t.” Benjamin Leroy looked up and stared at the witch with weeping eyes. “Don’t you understand? There is no escape. The Trimurti System won’t stop the competition until an Overgod is selected. It’s the only way out. The wheel of death will keep spinning, one way or another.”

Plato pointed his sword at Leroy. “All I hear is that you’re useless to us.”

Leroy showed no fear; only quiet acceptance of his fate. He kneeled and waited for death. “Send me to Celia,” he said, closing his eyes. He looked almost pleading. “Send me to her.”

Plato lowered the sword for the killing blow.

Steel clashed against steel, as Basil’s halberd stopped his best friend’s blade within an inch of Leroy’s throat.

“Why?” Plato asked in confusion as he removed his blade. “He deserves death. You know that.”

“You’re wrong.” Basil scowled. “He deserves worse.”

Basil grabbed Leroy by the throat with one hand and lifted him above the ground. His high Strength stat showed its worth again.

“You think death will be your salvation?” Basil locked eyes with his enemy. Leroy was a broken soul, all but pleading for death. “I deny you this mercy. One way or another, you’re going to help us fix the mess you’ve made. It’s going to be a hard, thankless job, but you will do it; even if I have to drag you all the way through.”

Leroy didn’t answer, so Basil threw him on the cold hard floor.

“Don’t expect applause or handclaps,” Basil said with a scowl. “No angel is going to come down from heaven to tell you that you’ve been punished enough. Some people will never forgive you for what you’ve done, no matter how hard you try to make up for your sins. You’ll have to bear this cross for the rest of your miserable life. But maybe, just maybe… one day you’ll be able to look at yourself in the mirror, and forgive the person staring back at you. That’s the best you can hope for, but that’s already more than you deserve.”

Leroy lay on the floor, defeated and silent. But he was listening. That was all that mattered.

“Let’s go free Kalki,” Basil said, before turning his back on Leroy. “We’ll see how we proceed from there.”

In spite of all his crimes, Benjamin Leroy had destroyed the world not out of greed or ambition, but parental love. Even in the depths of his madness, he tried to make up for his mistakes in a perverted, twisted way.

It earned him a little sympathy from Basil; but just enough to buy himself a second chance.

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