"Haaaah," I sighed deeply, setting my hands akimbo and tilting my head upward toward the glittering crystalline ceiling of the cavern, frustration radiating from every pore of my being.
The moment Yddra had introduced herself, the gears in my mind began turning at unprecedented speeds. If previously I had meticulously crafted plans for my protection and survival, this being appearing so early in the game had thrown a cosmic-sized monkey wrench into everything.
During those 17,990 years I spent evolving within the time-dilated aegis barrier, I had absorbed countless lessons from my variants—those other versions of myself who were, in the simplest terms, me. And one thing we all shared in common was an almost pathological distrust of anyone and anything besides ourselves and the capabilities we personally developed.
The rare exceptions to this ironclad rule were beings we truly loved with our entire hearts or those who raised us. But even then, certain outliers existed that inevitably reinstated our fundamental distrust. In the rare cases where my variants had experienced betrayal from these trusted few, they exacted their hollow, empty revenge and moved on, the wounds never truly healing.
The ethereal light from the magnificent tree bathed the cavern in shifting patterns of purple and pink, casting strange, elongated shadows across the stone floor. These shadows seemed to dance and pulse with each subtle movement of Yddra's vine-like hair, creating the unsettling impression that the entire chamber was alive and breathing around us. Above, the crystal formations embedded in the cavern ceiling refracted the bioluminescent glow, creating a private galaxy of artificial stars that seemed to witness our meeting with cold, distant interest.
I was thrust into a situation I neither wanted nor desired. My life on Earth, despite its mundane nature, had been peaceful. I had mapped out my existence with appropriate actions for a normal human life. But this? This cosmic chess game where I was apparently a critical piece?
"Fuck this shit..." I muttered, turning my attention back to the beings before me, who had all grown visibly nervous—even Yddra herself. The slight pressure I had unconsciously released while contemplating my next move had set them on edge, the ambient energy in the cavern growing thick and oppressive like the air before a thunderstorm.
The alpha male Guardian's antler crown dimmed noticeably, the tiny buds at each tip closing like flowers at dusk. His mate pulled their injured child closer to her chest in a protective gesture, her eyes never leaving me, pupils contracted to pinpoints of hostile vigilance. The vines connecting the young Guardian to the great tree pulsed more rapidly, as if the healing process had accelerated in response to perceived threat.
"L-lord Guardian, is anythi—" Yddra began, her melodious voice tinged with uncertainty.
I raised my hand sharply, cutting her off mid-sentence as a migraine began forming behind my eyes. The cosmic implications were too much, too fast, and my reality was shifting beneath my feet like quicksand.
After being introduced to the inner, outer, and hidden workings of practically everything by my variants, I had realized one vital truth: I was in a far worse "dog-eat-dog" world than Earth, where my biggest concern had been finding a decent job. Now I faced problems of cosmic scale, and one of those problems stood directly before me, wearing a living dress of leaves and flowers.
Yddra, as she had introduced herself, was indeed what my senses confirmed—a fragment of an even more powerful being named Yggdrasil who, based on the information from my variants, was the only true ally I had in this multiverse of threats.
Confusing? Absolutely. Mind-numbingly so.
Why was she my only ally? What about Codex, the dictionary bound to me?
Simply put, I trusted Yggdrasil rather than the object bound to me by necessity—by existence itself. This trust wasn't blind; it was calculated, based on the collective experiences of my variants across countless timelines.
There was one trait that defined my variants and me—our inherent selfishness. It wasn't a flaw so much as a survival mechanism, a fundamental characteristic that had kept us alive through cosmic catastrophes. During their planning, with pooled resources and thoughts forming the perfect strategy they had unwillingly left for me to inherit, my variants had realized that beyond surviving against the Proteras, another obstacle remained.
And that obstacle was existence itself—the very thing they were trying to save.
The only viable plan, risky as it was, hinged on me being the last true remnant of spacetime, that one tiny piece in the greater cosmic machinery of time, space, continuity, being, life, and all the numerous concepts of simply existing. I was, effectively, the password needed to fracture and cause deviations of everything as the Proteras desired, thus their relentless hunt for me.
In simple terms, you cannot create infinity out of what is already broken and in a state of infinity. Those were the immutable rules.
My mere existence was already an insurmountable problem for the Proteras. Sometimes I could almost feel their frustration, imagining them pulling their hair out wondering what crucial element they were missing. Though that was likely just my imagination working overtime.
The light from the tree flickered momentarily, causing the shadows in the cavern to leap and dance across the walls like spirits performing some ancient, forgotten ritual. A subtle tremor ran through the ground beneath my feet—not an earthquake, but rather the tree responding to the tension building in the chamber.
The unfortunate reality for me and my variants was that existence itself is also a form of being. Getting into the intricate details would be mentally exhausting, but in simpler terms, no one in their right mind would place their lifeline in another's hands in this cosmic competition for survival. This was especially true for an entity as complex, contradictory, and vast as existence itself.
Because of this fundamental truth, certain failsafes—which I had been subtly implementing from the beginning—were necessary. Initially, when gradually learning everything, I had thought my variants were blockheads who had missed obvious contingencies. But then I discovered the hidden Plans B and C alongside Plan A.
Plan A was straightforward: once part of me died and I was made whole with my other half on a world with mana, Codex would awaken and bind with me as arranged by my variants. I would then simply need to live, hide, and properly grow. Plan B, however, was never meant to be implemented or even spoken of, triggered only after specific conditions occurred.
And to my utter horror, despite my best efforts to hide my thoughts and feelings from Codex, Plan B was unfolding now in this timeline.
Plan B only came into effect if Codex and existence itself reneged on the deal that had been made. Unfortunately for me, both had done exactly this, and since I was aware of the broken agreement, I was now free to act as I pleased—for better or worse.
Which brought us to our current situation.
According to the original Plan A, I was meant to meet Yggdrasil's fragment only after ascending to the immortal plane of whatever universe I had reincarnated into. Meeting her this early was a dangerous deviation, a sign that forces beyond my control were accelerating events toward an unknown conclusion.
"Listen here..." I began, as the plans in my mind restructured and rewrote themselves. I addressed Yddra directly, my voice steady despite the chaos of my thoughts. "I know who you are, and I know what to do. As much as you're in a desperate situation now, sadly for us, we're all in one with the number of enemies after us."
My expression remained neutral, but my eyes conveyed the gravity of our shared predicament. Yddra's face transformed quickly from wary caution to naked fear—an emotion that looked unsettlingly human on her otherworldly features. The galaxy-like pupils of her eyes expanded and contracted rapidly, like actual celestial bodies responding to cosmic disturbances.
Even as a mere fragment, she clearly understood what was at stake. Her decision to make contact this early in the game revealed a desperation I hadn't anticipated.
"Lord Guardian... I... I was promised... to live... to grow... to be whole again..." she began, her face contorting with pain so profound it transcended her partially divine nature. The vines that connected her to the great tree trembled visibly, and several of the glowing blossoms in her hair closed suddenly, as if wilting under the weight of her distress.
Yggdrasil's situation was even more dire than mine. As the only Nova Primordial who embodied the aspect of life to the extreme in the whole of spacetime, she was theoretically unkillable by any means. Even the concept of heat death that many cosmic entities feared posed no threat to her.
Unfortunately for her, this extreme embodiment came with significant downsides. Without these limitations, she would have reigned as the absolute ruler of all existences everywhere. And by "everywhere," I mean literally everywhere across all dimensions and realities.
If mortals and immortals believed gods represented the pinnacle of a being's journey, then the gods themselves (at least those in the know) understood this to be a futile delusion. Novas were beings of absolute power and authority. Challenging them was equivalent to challenging existence itself, and no lesser entity could dare such an action unless they were prepared for eternal erasure. The attempt alone would cause them to cease existing, period.
For Yggdrasil, a being with the potential to overpower such ridiculous entities if not for her glaring weaknesses, her power demonstrated exactly why she sought useful allies. And if my understanding was correct, then for countless iterations, she had remained with me—with my variants—until our very ends, where my variants died, and she was enslaved (rendered partially dead) by the Proteras, who used her remnants to become what they were now.
In essence, besides me being their unknown headache, Yggdrasil was their arch-enemy and antithesis. Having conquered her, despite being unable to kill her completely, was a significant achievement for them.
And now, this fragment of hers approaching me so early in the game could trigger unintended karma and causality on a scale I couldn't even comprehend, as the possibilities were literally endless.
"I know... I understand..." I replied to her pained expression, my voice softening slightly despite my wariness. "You of all beings should know properly and very well that I never stray from a promise."
The pain she exhibited stemmed from her half-dead state—but importantly, only half-dead. The better part of her consciousness had been split into countless fragments and scattered throughout the ever-expanding multiverse, sustained by her conceptual nature to increase the chances of meeting me and enacting parts of the numerous plans my variants had devised.
One might wonder how a Nova Primordial as powerful as her could possess information about a future that technically shouldn't exist. The answer was twofold.
The secondary reason lay in the nature of what made primordials who they were. Primordials were partially complete beings in terms of their souls. The ultimate goal of any evolving entity was to achieve a complete soul, and primordials had reached approximately 99.9999% completion, with that tiny remaining portion sacrificed to attain their absolute status.
Simple in theory, but practically impossible to achieve. When a soul comes into being, it splits by an enormous factor to accommodate the ever-expanding and contracting multiverse. In short, a single soul could have split versions in trillions of universes within the multiverse.
For a god to become a primordial, they needed to locate ALL of their split souls and merge them back into a singular entity. This meant searching through an inconceivably vast number of universes, demanding resources beyond imagination. And even then, each split soul, despite being fundamentally the same, had different experiences and might resist assimilation. Once assimilated, only the dominant split soul would inherit everything and continue existing, guaranteeing epic battles between different versions of oneself.
Consequently, less than 1% of gods in any universe could progress beyond their current state to become primordials. Most didn't even know this path existed unless they were ancient gods with access to forbidden knowledge.
This brings us to the primary reason Yggdrasil possessed such information: her aspect of life. Because this concept pervaded all forms of spacetime, Yggdrasil had inherited information from her variant or future self—a self that would never exist now. Armed with this knowledge, her current self had taken a risk that was clearly never meant to be taken, meeting me far earlier than planned.
"There... there was a reason I split... but... I cannot remember... this fragment of me cannot remember..." she interjected, confusion mingling with her pain. The vines connecting her to the great tree pulsed erratically, creating discordant patterns of light throughout the cavern.
"Cannot or won't?" I asked, needing clarification before proceeding.
"When I try to remember, I'm drawing a blank and straying from said thought process of trying to even remember," she explained, frustration evident in the way her vine-like hair writhed with agitation.
"Then that means your original is preventing it, probably as a safety measure," I sighed in resignation. More complications, more unknown variables in an already impossible equation.
"Th-then... will... will you help me? Can you help me?" she asked with surprising resolve, her galaxy eyes fixed on mine with an intensity that would have unsettled anyone else.
"Now? No, I cannot," I answered honestly. "Even though you might not be able to sense it, I'm currently at EX rank while wielding primordial mana." I gestured vaguely at myself, indicating the power contained within my custom-built form. "For me to even attempt to resurrect you while evading the gazes of the Proteras, I will need to be at a lesser god rank level, minimum. I need better control of space, time, and life to even locate and sense where your main body is, let alone retrieve your core, which I'm pretty sure they've locked up to fuel something..."
At my words, I watched hope drain from her features, replaced by the return of that profound pain—the agony of existing while being split into many versions without the complete support of her original self. It was like experiencing a universe-level headache constantly, knowing the cure but never being able to reach it. A perpetual cycle of suffering that made the agonizing formation of my mana reactor core with primordial mana seem trivial by comparison.
"How long?" she asked simply, her voice barely above a whisper. The tree behind her dimmed noticeably, its bioluminescent glow fading to match her dejection.
"I do not know," I replied, running a hand through my hair in frustration. "You know how primordial mana is. It's unreliable without proper control, yet the best tool for growth and development when mastered. Even though I've been taught how, I need to practice constantly..."
"I see..." she said, crestfallen. The magnificent being before me—a fragment of one of the most powerful entities in existence—suddenly looked small and vulnerable, a shadow of what she should have been.
The Guardian family watched our exchange with wide, disbelieving eyes. The alpha male's posture had shifted from protective aggression to stunned bewilderment. His mate still held their child close, but her hostile glare had given way to confused wariness. The injured young Guardian, semi-conscious in its mother's arms, blinked slowly, its star-pupiled eyes struggling to focus on the unprecedented scene unfolding before it.
"What I can do..." I offered after a moment of contemplation, "is induce you—and possibly any other fragments nearby—into sleep." I recalled portions of Plans B and C that my variants had devised for just such a contingency.
"How?" she asked, hope rekindling in her otherworldly eyes.
"You don't need to know how," I replied firmly. "You only need to trust me."
Her response was immediate—not even a millisecond of consideration before she nodded in agreement. Such blind trust was either incredibly touching or deeply concerning, depending on how you looked at it.
"Before that... please take care of them..." she requested, turning toward the family of Groove Guardians who were still processing the shocking revelation that their goddess was so deeply acquainted with a mere mortal human like me.
From their expressions, it was clear they couldn't reconcile the being they worshipped having such a familiar relationship with someone they considered inferior. I almost felt sorry for them—almost. Their worldview was crumbling before their eyes, and they had no framework to process what was happening.
"Fine," I agreed reluctantly, "but I won't tolerate beings who show hostility at the first sign of seeing me. I know I'm human, and others of my species have harmed them, despite having no relation to me beyond sharing a species. But relying on me while expecting my support is counterintuitive, isn't it? It won't be worth the effort..."
I fixed the Guardian family with a level stare, letting them absorb the implications. Their fate now hinged on me—the very human they had been ready to tear apart hours earlier. The irony wasn't lost on any of us.
The alpha male was the first to respond, his internal struggle visible as pride battled with pragmatism across his wooden features. Finally, he inclined his antlered head in a gesture that wasn't quite submission but acknowledged the new reality.
"We will... adjust our perspective," he stated carefully, each word chosen with deliberate precision.
His mate looked less convinced, her eyes still wary, but she gave a curt nod of agreement. The young Guardian in her arms stirred slightly, its innocent gaze moving between its parents and me with confusion.
Having settled that matter, I turned my attention back to Yddra, whose vine-like hair had grown still, waiting for my next move.
"Are you ready?" I asked, raising my hands slightly.
She closed her galaxy eyes, a serene acceptance washing over her features. "Yes."
The time had come to implement a plan never meant to be activated—to set in motion events that would either save us all or doom us entirely. As I focused my will and prepared to perform the ancient technique my variants had left encoded in my soul, one thought persisted:
The game had changed. The rules had shifted. And I was improvising on a cosmic scale.
God help us all.