Chapter 479 - 477:The First Apostle

Chapter 479: Chapter 477:The First Apostle

White. That’s all it was.

There was no sound. No explosion. No shockwaves. Just a blinding, numbing white as all of reality within this region seemed to have been hit with a hard reset.

CRAAACKKK!!

A jarring cracking sound resounded in the sudden silence as the white broke apart and shattered like fragments drifting into the void, and then we were back in the real world, yet what we saw...

"Damn... Dante, your boys got very scary, didn’t they?" Elira’s voice held a note of shock as she looked at the devastation all around us.

"How... how is this even..." Nyssara gulped down a mouthful of saliva as she tried to wrap her head around the scene.

At the center of what was now an unrecognizable region of space stood Malachi and Paku.

Their figures were hunched, leaning on their knees.

Their breaths heavy and labored. Evidently, that last attack had thoroughly drained the last bit of energy from their bodies as even the furball had returned to his original cutesy form, yet his eyes stayed locked onto his opponent.

Both Malachi and Paku stared daggers at each other even in their exhaustion, as the realm around them forgot how to stay in one piece.

I had already fortified its structure by outright denying the concept of instability, yet even then, it was this horrible. I could only imagine what would’ve happened if I hadn’t taken action.

"Are you going to stop them now?" Nyssara asked, obviously worried about another fight breaking out, but I didn’t answer. I just focused on the two currently having a staredown, and just when it seemed the tension was about to snap—

"Pffft... Ahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!" They both burst into wild laughter.

"Yes!!! Finally!!! Something actually entertaining!!" Paku yelled out in pure euphoria.

"Ahhh... that was a good workout! And with none of the bitch-ass name-calling, too, damn. Those bastards have made me unable to now bother calling out my attacks, fucking pricks!" Malachi spat as a golden light washed over his body, returning him to his usual golden-haired form.

"Right!? Damn those posers. They can’t even give someone an entertaining enough battle." The chipmunk floated to sit atop Malachi’s head as he tried to settle his breathing, "but damn! Monkey, you sure pack a punch; that last attack was definitely something." The little furball mused as he slouched lazily atop the monkey’s head.

"You’re the one saying this? When all you did was get bigger and bigger and scarier? Damn you, furball, how big were you planning to get!?" Malachi asked, and I had to say, I was quite curious about that too.

Just how big could the furball get based on his wrath? Malachi’s pride manifestation had already changed my view on how to measure these guys, but Paku seemed even worse because if Malachi’s aura is the representation of my infinite ego, then wouldn’t Paku being a representation of my wrath mean that my rage had no end? Wouldn’t that mean he could get as big as he fucking ever wanted if he was angry enough?

And why the hell was I so angry? I mean, I wasn’t feeling any rage since I cleared out the demons from Terra, so why the hell was my wrath being represented as inexhaustible?

"Probably because it only takes one tiny push to actually set you off," Shaia shrugged.

"Just let someone threaten any one of us and watch the bastard lose his shit in the blink of an eye. I mean, he’s currently on his way to wiping out an entire universal powerhouse for daring to spawn someone that took Mel, so yeah. I can understand why existence would interpret your rage as inexhaustible," Sana chipped in.

Well, when they put it like that, then they weren’t wrong.

But anybody would be angry if you came after their loved ones, right? They would surely seek out the problem down to its roots and take it out completely, no?

""No. They won’t!""

"Tch!"

"You girls are still thinking too small. Husband’s rage isn’t even always loud and explosive. I mean, he’s not going into a spiral just thinking about demons anymore, but have you ladies not seen what goes on in his head whenever he thinks of the demon realm? Is that the image of a calm person?" Even Terra had decided to chip in after she, Elira, and Nyssara finally got the excited Lucien to calm down.

"Damn! Terra is right. Yes, my love, there is no redeeming your wrath, so just accept it and move on," Shaia added.

"Tch!"

I could only click my tongue and ignore the ladies, my attention turning towards the others as I could see the excited glint sparkling within Salazar’s eyes, the freaky, knowledge-obsessed man obviously wanting to have a proper fight of his own.

My thoughts couldn’t help but return to the epithets of each of them as I tried to reevaluate just what they meant.

My old man, Valen, had been dubbed the Berserker, but that would be more in tune with him than me. After all, I don’t think I have any tendencies of losing myself in battle or being so in tune with massacre that all else fails.

That should DEFINITELY be the old man, as despite his indifferent exterior, in battle, he becomes someone else entirely, so that’s that.

"..." Shaia.

"..." Sana.

"..." Terra.

"..." Elira.

Ignoring the looks I was receiving both from Shaia and Sana in my head and from Elira and Terra out here, I moved on to the next person.

Salazar, this freak himself was called "Ageless," and while that could very well be because he was a Chronari, I doubted it was all that. Chronari might live a near-immortal life barring any outside causes of death, but to be truly ageless is to transcend both time and space. To exist outside the one governing law that determined how far one could actually go.

And only beings of my nature, manifestations of chaos as Sana had called us, could truly be considered Ageless, since we had been there before even time was a thing.

That may be where Salazar’s own epithet had come from, being a part of my nature as an ageless and timeless being.

I wasn’t sure, as these deductions were being made on the fly because I was only just now trying to put in some thought into understanding just what they actually were as my apostles—something Shaia has been grilling me about for the longest time.

But who could blame me? I only ever see them as my friends, and thinking of them as some subservient apostles felt like I was taking away something precious.

"You’re not. Don’t think of them being apostles as them being servants. Just think of their apostle titles as merely another level of existence, since that’s what it is," Shaia reassured.

"I mean, look at them. Have they ever treated you any differently from before since becoming apostles? And no, I’m not talking about your little assistant; that one is a lost cause." I couldn’t help chuckling at her last words as I looked at the guys.

She was right. They hadn’t changed. Nothing had. Instead, they had just gotten even more powerful.

So, as I was saying, my deductions might have been wrong, but I believed they were more spot-on.

Now, as for Leo, this chicken-cat, he was called Bane of Hope. I really didn’t even understand how to begin translating that one, because although I had my sick tendencies, this chicken-cat seemed even worse, so that epithet really could have come from anywhere, but something told me it had more to do with Leo’s mindset and was just amplified even further after he became my apostle.

As for why he was called something as jarring as Bane of Hope despite his outward appearance as a hope-inspiring creature, that was a conversation I believe we would have when he was ready.

As for Shulvan, the dude was just called The First Apostle, nothing more.

If anything, it was the tag Apostle of Disorder that was different and eye-catching, but his was pretty straightforward, I think.

"I wonder which of them is more powerful?" The thought couldn’t help but surface as I watched them banter and argue amongst themselves, trying to pick out another fight.

"Your first apostle," Shaia answered in absolute certainty.

"What?"

"Your first apostle is more powerful than all of them combined, and it’s not even close."

"What? No. That can’t be possible. You’re talking about Shulvan here." I couldn’t believe it. Shulvan? More powerful than all of them combined? After what I’d just witnessed from Malachi and Paku? It was a hard thing to even begin considering.

"You... you don’t understand just what it means for one to bear the title ’First Apostle,’ do you?"

"Hmmm? What are you talking about, Shaia? What has the epithet got to do with him being more powerful than all of them combined?"

"It has EVERYTHING to do with that." Her voice was so certain I was beginning to get confused.

Why would that epithet matter? And why was she so sure?

"My love, let me put it to you in a context you will better understand," she began. "You remember Fear? Eldritch’s apostle?"

"...Yes." Of course I did. How could I not?

"Well, your first apostle over there could go toe-to-toe with Fear... and WIN."

...

...

"...What?"

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A/N: well, well, well, looks like shulvan here is an actual hidden boss huh? Well, these last two Chapters made me somewhat happy, anyways, I hope you enjoyed them, and as always,

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Thanks for reading...