Leveling up the World

Chapter 945: A Final Option

All of Dallion’s top awakened were gathered in the center of Alliance. It had taken them less than a second from Dallion’s order to do so. Veil, Gloria, and the other overseers had combined their efforts, transporting them as much as they could within their own minor domains of influence. The rest of the awakened had done as well.

All the furies in Alliance formed a wide circle around the archbishop. On rooftops below, five times as many gorgons, some of them with rocket crossbows, had taken aim at the intruder. Hannah, March, and the rest of the former Icepicker elite were also present, as were Vihrogon and Pan. The only two missing were those that Dallion had explicitly forbidden to be there. While Di’s growth had been impressive under Adzorg’s tutelage, she had no chance against a domain ruler, especially one of such power.

So much for my rest. Dallion summoned all his weapons and gear. Simultaneously, he also removed the roof and ceiling above him, allowing him to get a good look at Simon. The boy seemed more or less like before, wearing the white attire he had been with on his island. His eyes had become baggy, as if he hadn’t slept for months. Given his traits, that wasn’t supposed to be the case.

“Just the welcome I expected.” Slowly, the archbishop floated lower. The flight spell he was using was so old and inefficient that even the Learning Hall history tomes had more recent versions. Still it did its job. “Hello, Aklaff,” he addressed Pan, who had floated up, magic symbols covering his body.

“I go by Pan now,” the copyette said.

“Pan. The one who got away. I spent millennia trying to catch you, and you always managed to sneak away.”

Knowing he needed to make an appearance, Dallion split into instances and flew up with one of them.

“Why are you here?” he asked, holding the harpsisword tightly in his right hand.

“I told you already.” The archbishop didn’t blink. “I’m here to surrender.”

Dallion waited.

“Your push made it clear that I was the least threat. I have enough strength to keep any of them from going at me directly, but I’m in no position to attack. The Order was never built that way.”

“Right. You built it to control.”

“It was the most efficient method, and for a while it worked. Sadly, everything static has a bell curve.”

The archbishop and Dallion were at the same level now, standing ten feet from one another. Even so, if it came to a fight, there was no telling who would win. Dallion’s condition was pretty bad, but even if it wasn’t the archbishop had the uncanny ability to withstand any attack.

“You know the irony of it?” he asked, glancing north for a moment. “My original plan was to hand over the reins to Jeremy. He’d become the new archbishop—a shining beacon for the world to aspire to.”

“And you would have been the one controlling him behind the scene,” Dallion finished the sentence.

“Why does everyone assume I want to control everything?” Simon sighed. “You, Jeremy, Tiallia, even dear Aklaff… I mean Pan was certain my true intention was to assume control.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No, it was to make sure that no one does.”

While talking, the two kept on slowly floating towards the ground. At present, they were a few hundred feet from Dallion’s bedroom. Euryale was standing there, now wearing her sun gold armor. Should anything suspicious happen, she could easily leap up and turn the archbishop into a pincushion; or at least try to.

“How did you find me?” Dallion switched to a more practical question.

“I can see the future, remember?” The tone was dead serious. “I used a lot to determine when would be a good time to approach you and where you’ll be.” He looked at Dallion’s feet. All the world saw his trousers continuing to a fancy pair of boots. The archbishop wasn’t just anyone, though. “That looks quite serious. I can help heal it if you want. I can also remove your bleeding wounds. I know how annoying those could be.”

Dallion had no intention of trusting the archbishop. If he had sensed the slightest excuse to attack, he would have done so on the spot. Yet, there didn’t seem to be anything but sincerity coming from the boy.

“I vow that I have come here with the intent to help you and don’t plan to harm you or anything or one in your domain,” the archbishop proclaimed.

It took a lot of conviction to make an unrestricted Moon vow. Dallion had seen the consequences should it be broken. On the other hand, Simon was capable of many things that no one else was. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that he knew of a way to break a Moon vow and remain unharmed.

“You don’t expect me to trust you, right?” Dallion concentrated. Attack and ranged markers appeared on the archbishop’s neck.

“You don’t have a choice not to. When I said I determined the perfect moment, I meant it. You’re a lot weaker than usual. You’re blocked from entering any realm, and all your assorted subjects and familiars don’t have the power to kill me. And that includes the dragons, doesn’t it Aquilequia?”

Intense dread emanated from within Dallion’s realm.

“Hear me out and you’ll understand what’s really going on,” the archbishop continued. “If you’re not convinced after that, I’ll go back to my ivory tower and never meddle with you again.”

“Alright. I’m listening.”

“No.” The archbishop shook his head. “No one else can hear. No item, no ally, not Aklaff, not even your wife.”

Interesting request and definitely not something that Dallion would agree to. It wasn’t so much that he was afraid the archbishop might try to kill him, but rather that he found it useless. The only reason someone would want to discuss something in private was to offer a deal that didn’t include anything else. If Dallion was to guess, it would be to form a permanent alliance: Dallion would receive support and potentially the world, but only as long as he didn’t take the final step of becoming a Moon. Or maybe it was the opposite? It was possible for Simon to have changed his mind. The only way to stop anyone else from becoming a Moon was for him to be one. In exchange he’d owe a debt of eternal gratitude, supporting Dallion in anything he did as world emperor.

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“Nice try.” Dallion remained firm. “Say it here or—”

“Are you sure you want what happened to your grandfather to happen to everyone else?”

The question felt like an ice shard piercing Dallion’s chest and stomach.

“We’ll have a chat,” Dallion said loudly as he slid on the blocker ring given to him by Pierce from the Order of the Twelve Suns. “Watch for surprises.”

Before anyone could react, Dallion cast a series of aether spheres around them. A moment later, he turned them opaque.

“This wasn’t what I had in mind,” the archbishop said after a while. “But I guess it’ll do.”

“Just make your offer.” Dallion narrowed his eyes.

“That’s it? No questions, nothing you’re curious about?”

“You’re the one with all the prophecies. You tell me.”

Simon kept staring at Dallion for several seconds, after which he broke out laughing.

“You really are one in a million,” he said, floating closer to the center of the aether sphere. “I know I’m aware of my situation. It took Jeremy centuries, but he finally succeeded. I’m out of Moonstones. You, on the other hand, aren’t.”

“You came here for that?” Dallion had to think it over several times just to make sure that this wasn’t a trick. “You really are a Moonstone addict.”

“Call it what you want. It takes Moonstones to see the future. When things were calmer, I could do with one for years, decades, once even over a century. Now that you triggered the endgame, I need to focus a lot more.”

Disgust mixed with pity. Was this really the oldest awakened in the world—the one whose name had been feared and revered for millennia? He didn’t look like a wreck, but he didn’t have to be. How else could someone describe someone who had surrendered everything for just a few shards of Moonstone?

“You’re doing it again, aren’t you?” Simon shrugged. “Coming to the wrong conclusions. I know what it looks like, but unlike you and everyone else, I know it doesn’t matter. Frankly, if it was just about the rush of power, I would have stopped ages ago. Even the visions are a means and not the goal.”

“Sure.” Dallion kept his distance. “You can stop anytime you want.”

“Anyone can, because all this is a game.”

A torrent of fear emanated from Simon. It was the strongest emotion that Dallion had ever felt coming from the archbishop, though there was no reason for it to be.

“Yeah, we are just pawns moving about for the Moon’s amusement,” Dallion began.

“No. Not their game. It’s a game game.”

This made even less sense.

“What’s a game game?” Dallion asked after several seconds of hesitation.

“An actual game. Maybe it’s a video game, maybe it’s more metaphysical, maybe it’s just a dream. Bottom line is that it isn’t real.”

“Yeah, right. And when we die, we just restart?”

“Isn’t it funny how you’ve instantly accepted the whole concept of awakened realms, living items, magic, and talking deities, but can’t even consider my suggestion seriously?”

“Because it’s bullshit.”

Thinking about it, there were a number of similarities. The rectangles, the whole concept of leveling up, the awakening trials, the achievements, the skills and skill markers. But did that prove anything? Otherworlders who weren’t familiar with Earth-based video games wouldn’t make the comparison. Yet in the back of Dallion’s mind, a grain of doubt had sprouted. There had been many instances of awakening trials that had pretended to be a reflection of reality. When it came down to it, he only had the Moon’s word that any of the non-human races were actually otherworlders. It was only their word that any non-human was actually real. Would that mean that all of Dallion’s memories in this world were a fabrication? Was his entire relationship and marriage to a make-belief entity that didn’t exist? The thought alone tightened his heart to the point it hurt.

“Prove it,” he said.

“Gladly.” There was no smile on Simon’s face. Clearly, he too wasn’t pleased with the situation. “Rectangles should only be visible in the awakened realms, right?”

“Except when magic is involved,” Dallion said on instinct. “Or you’re a domain ruler.”

“Alright, so a low level awakened without the magic trait shouldn’t see them in the real world, right?”

Dallion nodded, already fearful of what the next question might be.

“And still, you have, haven’t you?”

There it was—exactly what he feared it would be. In the last few months, there had been more and more such instances—rectangles and markers appearing where they shouldn’t have. With everything else going on, Dallion had taken it in stride. The occurrences had easily been explained away: due to magic, or his domain ruler nature, or even the Moonstones he was keeping within his realm. Yet, there was one instance that couldn’t be explained away: the red rectangle that had appeared during his first chainling hunt. Back then, Dallion wasn’t even a double digit awakened. There was no way it should have appeared in the real world… but it had.

“You did, didn’t you?” Simon pushed on. “When it happened to me, I thought the world would end. I was a lot younger than you at the time. The realization made me fear that everything would go dark, and I’d find myself alone in the darkness. It didn’t, of course. Life continued as normal, and I continued along with it, but all the time I kept on thinking about it.”

“You’re telling me that all this is fake?”

“No. I’m telling you that it’s real and fake at the same time.”

The dread that had held Dallion loosened its grip, replaced by confusion.

“What the hell does that mean?!”

“Somehow, we became part of the game. While we’re here, everything’s real. The rules are perfect and nearly unbreakable. We’re players, but we’re also characters. As long as we remain alive, we can continue living a calm and peaceful life and enjoy it for as long as we wish.”

“Until someone finishes the game.”

“Until someone finishes the game,” Simon nodded. “Or the void brings everything to an end.”

“You’re insane.”

He had to be. This had to be a delusion that Simon had. It would definitely explain his behavior: his detachment from anything, the low value he put on lives, and his desire to prevent anyone from passing the sixth game, regardless of the cost. After all, if this was a game—as he claimed—the people in the world weren’t real.

“Jeremy reacted the way you did. I think that was the reason he betrayed me. After all, if this was a game, there could be only one winner, and he was going to make sure that the winner was him.”

In Dallion’s mind, every concept he had of reality kept crumbling down. He kept on thinking back to his first days in this world, trying to find anything that would disprove the notion of a game. Yet just as one could explain everything in the world with the powers of the Moons, there was just as much evidence to prove it was a game.

I don’t need this! Dallion felt warm sweat cover his face and neck. He liked his life! It had been full of joy and sadness, loss, and pain, but also wonder and achievement. He had done things he never believed possible, even in the confines of this world. He had found companions, friends… he had even gotten married to someone he loved more than his own life. There was no way he’d let anyone take that away from him.

Scenes passed before his mind’s eye: everyone he met, the awakening trials he went through, the companions he had saved, the conversations with the Green Moon, the fights, the shrines within the aura sword—

Dallion’s train of thought suddenly came to a complete halt, like a car spotting a dog crossing the road. He had managed to find a flaw—possibly two—in the archbishop’s logic. The emperor must have found it as well, which had led to him splitting off to do his own thing. If this whole world was nothing but a game, why would it end one gate early? A different Moon guided Dallion each time. Since there were seven Moons, there had to be seven gates, yet conquering the world would only lead past the sixth.

You almost had me. He let out an internal sigh of relief.

“Alright.” he said, using his music skills to maintain the perception of dread coming from him. “How do we stop him?” If the archbishop was offering his help, Dallion planned to take advantage of it.

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