Several days later.
Amidst the endless cycle of death and rebirth...
The devastating power inflicted by a mere glance from Mazloth had finally begun to weaken.
Two months passed.
The land where Orsaga stood had been transformed into a massive crater—150,000 kilometers wide and over 800,000 kilometers deep.
Countless magma-like substances bubbled and churned within, their molten surfaces ceaselessly boiling.
Above them, crimson bloodflames roared violently, their fiery tongues stretching tens of thousands of meters into the sky.
This hellish landscape was formed from the residual energy that erupted from Orsaga's body at the moment of death—an automatic combustion of power released in his final moments.
Standing amidst the searing blaze, Orsaga raised his head and gazed into the sky above.
He took a slow, deliberate breath.
With that single motion, layer after layer of shattered flesh and broken armor sloughed off his body, revealing freshly regenerated muscle and skin beneath.
Over the span of two months, he had died more than three thousand times.
From the earliest instant deaths, to gradually gaining time to react, to eventually suffering only the slow dissolution of body and soul...
In the face of relentless death, his strength had become like a container shattered by pressure—its boundaries broken, its capacity increasing with each passing moment.
Now, after purging the lingering remnants of harmful energy from his body and confirming that no further attacks were forthcoming...
Orsaga slowly sank into the molten substance beneath him—an otherworldly liquid, resembling lava, but with temperatures exceeding several million degrees Celsius.
"Seems my fate is tougher than expected... Time to begin the next evolution."
With that thought, the eight wings on his back slowly folded inward, wrapping around him like a protective shield and forming a colossal, egg-like cocoon.
The instinct to evolve—suppressed until now—was finally set free!
At that very moment, the Will of the Abyss reached across time and space, bestowing a divine reward to aid his ascension.
This reward was the result of his service as a demon of the Abyss.
Slaughter. Plunder. Annihilation.
So long as one carried out these acts, it was considered merit in the eyes of the Abyss—whether the victims were outsiders or fellow demons was of no concern. The Abyss cared not for such trivialities.
And in the business of murder and mayhem, Orsaga had always been diligent.
The reward he received was one that most greater Demons could never hope to attain during their own evolution.
It wasn't quite so earth-shaking that a Demon Lord would look on in disbelief, nor would a Demon Prince weep in quiet envy...
But it absolutely belonged to the highest echelon.
At least, in the eyes of Ignarok, who sat within his palace watching it all unfold.
From his perspective, the reward Orsaga was receiving was the most significant blessing the Lava Wasteland had seen in the past million years.
"Looks like quite the ruthless talent… Might be worth drawing into my fold..."
Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, Ignarok entertained the idea.
Then he withdrew his gaze.
What truly interested him had only been whether Orsaga could survive that earlier attack.
As for Orsaga himself? Ignarok didn't think much of him.
Having ascended to Demon Lord status billions of years ago, Ignarok—the Flame Demon—viewed a Archdemon as neither rare nor particularly valuable.
He could easily summon tens of thousands under his command if needed.
Across the vast stretches of the Lava Wasteland, there were roughly 400,000 beings at the Archdemon level.
It only seemed sparse because the Lava Wasteland was incomprehensibly vast.
After all, this land had been forged from the ashes of tens of thousands of annihilated universes, built atop the corpses of uncountable lives by Ignarok himself.
If the place only housed a few "cats and dogs," wouldn't that be a joke among demons?
And while Orsaga began his evolution and Ignarok looked away...
Far across the realms—in the multiverse of the Dark Tower...
Mazloth also became aware that Orsaga had survived.
But he couldn't be bothered to care.
To him, what had happened was nothing more than a flicker of idle hostility.
As for the so-called "damage" he dealt to Orsaga?
It was merely a trace of instinctive disgust toward an evil lifeform from another multiverse.
Not even worth calling an attack.
It was nothing more than a stray thought—an afterthought in a life that had endured for countless eons.
In his mind, what had just happened wasn't even a footnote in the grand story of his existence.
So naturally, he gave it no further thought.
But unlike Mazloth's indifference...
In another world entirely—
Pennywise was laughing wildly.
"You really didn't disappoint me... You actually survived…"
From the very moment he laid eyes on Orsaga, he sensed something unusual—some kind of fate or karmic bond linking the demon to the entire Multiverse of the Dark Tower.
And that could only mean one thing—
That Orsaga, in the future, was highly likely to become entangled in something of monumental importance to this realm.
That was why Pennywise had deliberately spared him after destroying the Matrix Purgatory—to guide him here, to his presence.
What he wanted... was to observe.
To witness firsthand what kind of impact this demon might have on the future.
Would it be blood and fire? Progress? Regression?
He was deeply intrigued.
And the little "game" earlier?
Merely a trivial test to see whether Orsaga even had a future.
After all, those with brittle fates don't live long enough to matter.
"Still curious... Why not just peek into the future and see for myself...?"
Standing in the grass, Pennywise muttered to himself, then casually waved a finger.
In response, the entire town of Derry, along with its residents, compressed into a small ball of flesh.
This place was, after all, simply an extension of his being.
As a being that transcended fate, space-time, and causality...
His avatars roamed countless worlds within the Dark Tower Multiverse, taking on all manner of forms.
In this particular world, his avatar was a monstrous entity of alien origin—
One that had landed here millions of years ago and never left.
As for the residents of Derry? They were merely livestock.
He would devour a portion of them at regular intervals, then erase the memories of the survivors, allowing them to repopulate—readying the stock for the next harvest.
But when the Matrix Purgatory appeared in this world, his true self instantly sensed the disturbance through the avatar—
And promptly took full control of it.
As he channeled a portion of his true power into this body, the fleshy orb in his hand began to grow and morph—
Like a lump of self-shaping clay.
Though... its sickly color and vein-covered surface gave it an indescribably disturbing aura.
At last, a circular gate of flesh appeared before him.
"Let's just pick a random future to look into…"
For beings like him—unbound by worldly laws—there were infinite pasts, and infinite futures.
He planned to casually glance at one possible timeline of Orsaga's future, to see what the demon might become.
Just as he stepped toward the gate, about to cross its threshold...
A slender arm, inscribed with deathly sigils and accompanied by countless Graham-number halos, burst forth from the portal—
And punched Pennywise square in the face.
In an instant, the strike—so powerful it transcended comprehension—rippled across the entire universe.
Under that ultimate violence, the laws of physics disintegrated.
Electromagnetic force. Gravity. Strong and weak nuclear forces.
All of it—instantly reduced to zero.
There wasn't even an explosion.
The universe simply ceased to exist—as if a candle flame had been snuffed out.
And that punch wasn't the end.
Every point along Pennywise's timeline—
From June 8th, 2001, 10:22:33 PM…
All the way back to the moment his alien avatar was first born millions of years ago—
In every microsecond, every nanosecond...
In every infinitesimal sliver of time—he was struck with that same fist!
Countless universes shattered simultaneously.
Pennywise's entire timeline was utterly destroyed!
The unbearable agony of losing countless avatars in a single instant surged into his true body like a tidal wave.
A piercing, rage-filled scream echoed through the entire Multiverse of the Dark Tower.
Worlds crumbled beneath the force of the sound alone.
And Pennywise's true form—a bizarre core radiating twisted light—manifested from the void...
Only to be immediately blasted back through the fleshy gate by another punch.
From within that portal, a red figure bathed in countless halos stepped forth—crossing time and space, arriving from the future.
It seized Pennywise and dragged him into the river of time, slamming him headfirst into a primordial singularity from the Big Bang billions of years ago—
And then shattered that singularity with a single blow.
Watching it all unfold, Mazloth, who bore the burden of the entire Dark Tower multiverse, was instantly enraged.
He threw both combatants out of the multiverse...
And quickly fled the scene—wanting no part in their cosmic clash.
At the same time, he was inwardly startled.
He hadn't expected that the strange creature he encountered earlier...
Would grow so powerful in the future—powerful enough to go head-to-head with his own eternal rival.
As for regretting not killing Orsaga earlier?
Not at all.
For beings like them, time was just another thread to pull.
A future powerhouse... is a current powerhouse... is a past powerhouse.
So long as one becomes, at any point along the timeline...
Then erasing them in the cradle is impossible.
Strength is not a chance occurrence—
It is Fate.
___
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