Chapter 2345: The Big Five

Amaterasu set a glass mug on the counter and filled it to the brim with Black Blood Wine, and Tiamat sat down to take a sip. "Tastes nice, but could do with something on the side." She smiled, and Amaterasu waved her hand back at the kitchen. "Get her something! I don’t know what would go nicely with it."

"Yes!" Inside the kitchen, the Mother of All Life was busy preparing snacks, and Maharaja was on the kitchen counter munching on a piece of raw meat. She looked at Maharaja for a second and then walked past her to get the salt.

Back at the counter in the tavern, Asmodeus appeared from the darkness and sat beside Tiamat, taking a sip of her glass. "We can’t catch a break." She sighed, and Tiamat nodded. "Yeah, first Hell’s rampage down there, and now this here." She looked up toward where Pin’s room should be and shook her head.

"That’s why I said we should slow him down." Amaterasu jumped on the counter and sat there, crossing her legs as she looked down at everyone. "At the rate Arad is growing, he’ll eventually collapse into a singularity, and that would be the end of the universe as we know it. AO isn’t a god; he is an existence that many cannot even comprehend."

She poured a glass for herself. "The Outer Void, the space outside the universe, is timeless. Time and space don’t exist there, and so, everything exists everywhere and indefinitely. To AO, there isn’t a difference between the moment the Universe was created and when it collapses. Even Nyar and his abominations stick close to the universe so they can latch onto space and time."

Yog appeared sitting upside down on the ceiling. "The catch here is that there aren’t that many who can survive outside the time and space that AO made." She lifted her foot and started counting with her toes. "AO himself, Nyar himself, Amaterasu, Hades, and lastly me." She smiled. "Only the five of us can survive there and create our own space and time."

"If Nyar can do it, why doesn’t he just leave?" Tiamat asked, and Yog fell down, landing on her lap. "Simple. He can do it, but can’t sustain or expand it enough. His range is small, and he won’t be able to maintain it."

She took Tiamat’s mug and gulped it down. "I can create a small universe, but it’s as small as what Nyar could make, so it won’t fit that much. I gave it to Merlin, so I’ll try making another one." She then pointed at Amaterasu with her foot. "She can create a bigger space-time network than both Nyar and I combined and even maintain it. She has been maintaining the universe all those eons after all."

Amaterasu smiled as she pushed Yog’s foot aside. "I don’t mean to brag, but I’m second only to my father." She then shrugged. "Also, my universe won’t be livable, just a galactic cloud of gas and stars."

"Then... what about Hades? We haven’t heard from him for eons, since he fought Father-in-law." Tiamat sighed, and Asmodeus looked at her. "Leave him alone. He feels like a Hermit."

"Hades won’t need time and space to survive outside the universe; he’ll be fine. He can’t create time and space or a universe, but he won’t die." Yog smiled and leaned back on Tiamat’s chest. She then looked around at the dust still hanging in the air. "By the way, who of you stopped time? It’s quite sloppy."

"That was me." Amaterasu replied. "I can’t have devils listening to us." She then pointed up. "Also, I had to be careful. Otherwise some devils here would’ve picked up that someone cast time magic."

Tiamat sighed. "So? How do you even make space and time if it doesn’t already exist? I can understand using magic, but out of nothing, that’s just impossible." She shook her head, and Amaterasu smiled.

"It’s easy; you just need to be... big, heavy, and humongous. Like me." She shook her chest. "Massive objects with a lot of mass can bend space and time, but if there is no space and time around, they’ll start creating their own. So I who have the weight of countless stars, can form my own field. The same way a planet can form an atmosphere."

"At the start of existence, there was nothingness. That was AO, and from his nothingness he created the universe, an infinitely dense point that burst into existence." Yog jumped from Tiamat’s lap and landed on Amaterasu’s lap. "Arad can already touch that, so we need to be careful from now on. We need to keep him as far away from trouble as we can so he can stay calm and take enough time to acclimate to his power."

Amaterasu looked at them. "She is not talking about him learning how to use his powers. But about him learning to be responsible with them. There is a great difference between teaching someone how to swing a sword and making sure they don’t hurt themselves or everyone else."

Asmodeus sighed. "I hope he learns that soon. The universe isn’t indestructible, and every tiny bit of it is connected to everyone else. If Hell gets destroyed, then the souls of sinners would either be routed to the Abyss or the Wall of Souls. But that would also result in cursed souls invading the mortal worlds to haunt the people there." She threw a sharp glance at Tiamat. "You too don’t seem to understand that... or you just don’t care."

"Hell is more durable than you think." Tiamat sighed and then stood. "I need to head back to Pin, and I’ll keep an eye on her and on the Lord’s Left Forearm to make sure they don’t cause a disaster while we’re not looking."

"Where are you going? I just fried some chips and crispy bacon." The Mother of All Life called from inside the kitchen, and Tiamat looked back at her. "I guess I can stay a bit longer."

****

Upstairs, Pin was frozen in time while trying to reach into her bag, and suddenly, an eye emerged on her left forearm and looked around frantically. Someone had stopped time, and the Lord’s Left Forearm had woken up inside it. For a second, it was about to blow the entire place to pieces, but then chose to link back to Arad instead.

Sparks of the void traveled up Pin’s arm and shoulders, quickly reaching her mind, and her eyes flashed purple. She then moved silently in the stopped time, looked around, and put her bag down. She wasn’t herself anymore.

Finding himself inside an unfamiliar room in hell with time stopped, Arad looked down at himself and noticed that he was in Pin’s body. Two things immediately became clear to him at that moment.

He is now timeless and spaceless, being able to be nearly anywhere and at any time he wishs, but it’s only his consciousness that can travel, not himself. This means that if someone is far weaker than him, and if he is aware of their location and existence, Arad can turn them into his avatar and transfer his consciousness to them. It was the same exact thing that Nyar does with his avatars, except that while Nyar relied on nightmares, to Arad, it’s pure dreams.

Looking down at his feet, he could see through the floor and spot the horrifying divines drinking down in the tavern. With their senses, he is certain that if he took a single breath or step, they’d immediately notice him and rush up.