Hold over Myriad of Worlds

Nobunaga started giving commands to soldiers while Jing Yuan took care of Champions. I turned back to my human form and moved to the wall with the Chaldea group following.

-"Who of you have a problem with mana reserves?"

Ten hands were risen.

-"Now that I look at you, you are not living humans, are you?"

-"No, Lord Yue, we are Heroic Spirits. We need mana to continue existing, as we lack true living bodies."

-"Heroic spirits? Then allow me to do a little experiment on you."

-"Experiment?! You promised not to harm us!"-Shouted still-angry Kitsune.

-"It won't be harmful. It can resolve the troubles you have."

-"Ok. Lord Yue, Allow me to be the first."

-"No problem. Drop the Lord part. I don't want to be associated with you."

As Jeanne volunteered, I focused on her. Mobilizing my power of Abundance, plants started growing, surrounding her in a cocoon. A minute later, they withered, reviling Jeanne in the middle.

-"This... How is it possible? Am I alive again?"

-"Experiment was successful. It would seem that Heroic Spirits are something akin to a fusion of soul and spirit. I'll have to research it more."-I looked at Jeanne.-"How's your mana? Also, is the body right? I created it stronger than mortal humans, so try to get used to it."

-"It's all good. Mana is enough, but regenerating it on my own will take time. As for strength, it is a perfect fit to what I had possessed as a Heroic spirit."

Everybody looked surprised at us two. To them, I just did something unthinkable. Heroic Spirits are dead, yet I have given one life.

-"Wait!!! How is this even possible?! Aren't those guys dead? How can you give them life? Don't that, like, violate some kind of rules?"

-"Giving life is not a Taboo. It may be against those two gods we are fighting, but I don't care about them. Who next?"

One by one, I gave bodies to the Chaldea people. I also learned their names in the process. Adding Tamamo, Kiyohime, and Musashi, who were still living beings, a total of thirteen members joined us temporarily.

-"Ok. From now on until the end of the battle, you are under Jing Yuan's command."-I turned to the general.-"Don't let them slack."

-"Haha. Of course! Jeanne d'Arc, join Fu Xuan and help the Knights."

-"Yes."

-"Katou Danzou and Sasaki Kojiro, you head to Yelan."

Two nodded and left.

-"Minamoto-no-Raikou, Saika Magoichi, and Tomoe Gozen, Ganyu will take care of you."

-"Then, please excuse us."

-"Kiyohime and Tamamo, you remain by Yue's side."

-"Grr. As much as I want to refuse, I'll listen this time."

-"Sakamoto Ryouma, Okita Souji, Gao Changgong, Suzuka Gozen, and Miyamoto Musashi, you will come with me."

-"We will follow."

I watched as they moved to the battlefield.

-"Gudako, stay here with your guardian. You are too weak to involve yourself in that fight."-I spoke.-"Tingyun, you want to leave or stay?"

-"Of course, I want to stay with you."-She approached and stood next to me, slightly leaning on my side, she whispered.-"I heard from the boss that more people were invited to your family breakfast, and yet I seem to have misplaced my invitation."

-"Straight forward as always, huh? Well, if you wish to involve yourself, I won't stop you. Just be sure you want to do that."

-"I was from the moment Benefactor saved not only me but also Loufu."-She smiled sweetly and stepped back a step.

Focusing on the battle about to start, I took out Oath of Silence and focused my energy into it. Using it along with the power of Permanence, I hit the ground to make a quiet chime sound that echoed around the whole world.

Using my full strength to restrict two gods from taking action, I gave the field to the rest. What surprised me was that Tamamo also reacted to me restricting the powers of higher beings, meaning she also had a divine patron.

-"Yue? Are you a dragon? I can feel a familiar aura from what you just did."

-"I don't consider myself as one. I possess a similar origin to one, though."

-"I see."

I ignored the dangerous glint in the eyes of the snake lady as the battle had already started. Enemies this time were three distinctive groups. The first consisted of a giant red beast with many heads.

-"Masta! This thing is the VI Beast of Gaia, recorded as Sodom's Beast!"-Shouted Mash.

-"Beast, a fitting name."

-"Yue, shouldn't you help them? This thin can easily destroy the planet if given enough time."

-"No need to worry. We also have combatants capable of such feats."

As if called, a giant golden figure emerged in clouds, and not even a second later, the Moon also appeared in the sky. Jing Yuan's Tunder-Lord and Jingliu started a fight with the red monster.

This left only two groups of enemies. The first group was made of countless skeletal figures who shatter into salt when destroyed. While their strength was not great, the sheer amount made our Knights occupied with them.

The last opponents were Heroic Spirits. They quickly entered the combat with elites on our side. While strength-wise, they had a slight advantage, we had double their numbers, and as such, the outcome of the battle was swaying in our favor.

Having an outlook on the situation, I could see that without the support of Chaldea, it would be a hard fight. If they were our opponents, it would be hard to secure any kind of victory. Deciding to reevaluate my opinion of them after this combat, I focused again on two forces trying their best to break through my restriction.

-"Tamamo, Kiyohime, can you take care of Tingyun and Gudako?"

-"You can leave them to us, but why?"

-"Well, I'll try to keep my word given to those two gods."

-"Huh?"

I ignored them and moved toward the battlefield, where Jing Yuan and Jingli were having trouble with the Beast. Before coming to them, I passed by Fu Xuan and told her about my plan. She agreed and started laying the framework while calling for Aranyani to help.

Entering the battle, I instantly started controlling nature surrounding the Beast. It was spewing brimstone all around, so fire was the dominant element present.

Taking full control of the raging inferno. I pushed it into the ground, slowly melting the surroundings. I even chanted spells to strengthen it even more with the power of the words.

~"Fire Produces Earth."

Soul language was a little grinding on the ears of my companions, but I continued my technique. Sonn, only lava was in surrounding kilometers around Beast.

~"Earth bears Metal."

I moved all metal elements to my side. Crystals were forming behind me, creating a wall of pure, solid energy. I flew over it to not be swept away next.

~"Metal collects Water."

The instant my words fell, the whole crystal formation started flowing forward. Soon, the rest of the metal elements turned into water, and a giant tsunami moved toward Beast.

~"Water extinguishes Fire."

Changing from the Generating Cycle to the Destructive Cycle, I slammed the wave into my opponent. The power of starting the fire element was already great, but after undergoing three steps of the Generating Cycle, it became over twice as powerful.

Beast could not withstand the might of nature and quickly shattered into motes of light and dust. I dispersed the remaining water in the surroundings, which quickly changed into a swamp.

My fight was not over, as during this battle, my control over the Oath of Silence binding two gods slipped, and they were able to enter into this world. Aura of Gaia and Alaya was growing rapidly, but this was something I was waiting for.

~"Water nourishes Wood."

Everything around started quickly being covered by greenery, rapidly turning into a forest. Imbuing the path of Abundance into it made growth even wilder. Moments later, every plant started gathering and creating a giant tree.

At the same moment, Fu Xuan and Aranyani activated the sealing technique I told them to set up. The whole tree started glowing. It only stopped when the crown exceeded a hundred kilometers of height. Cooperating, we sealed Gaia inside this tree, creating a World Tree.

Moving on to the remaining Counter Force, I grabbed Oath of Silence with my two hands and focused every bit of energy I had left into it. I targeted Alaya while stabbing the Khakkhara staff into the ground, activating its 0th power for the first time.

Everything turned white. Only I and a strange blue sphere surrounded by rings of light were in view. This white plane was not alien to me, as it was my mental space.

Using the path of Permanence with the Oath of Silence created this technique, able to trap everything in my mental space. Originally, the Key of Bindig's 0th power was named Elysion Pedion by Vill-V, but as it doesn't fit such gloomy surroundings, I renamed it.

~"Limbo."

Here, nothing will interrupt me. Alaya's power is also greatly restricted, as it can't run back to other timelines to draw Heroes from there. Because Gaia is necessary for planet Earth to survive, it was only sealed by us and deprived of will, making it a tool to sustain planetary existence.

Alaya's end won't be so pleasant. Manifesting my spirit, the dragon appeared over us, and doing the same I had done to Yaoshi, I mobilized the path of Velocity and consumed the now desperate Human Principle. Absorbing its power, I have taken out the [Scroll of Mastery] to put all knowledge flowing into me directly into [Grand Library]. 

Even though its power was much smaller than Aeon, it still took me over a day to fully absorb. Luckily, it was worth it. The power I gained by absorbing Alaya was something I wished for. The Throne of Heroes.

I canceled the Limbo and awakened in reality. The first thing I noticed was a person by my side.

-"I'm back, Jingliu."

-"Welcome, Master."

-"How did everything go after I was out?"

-"Nobunaga cleared the battlefield from the fodder, while the enemy's elites were decimated after losing their power."

-"Good that everything ended well."

I moved back to camp with Jingliu telling me some more details of what happened. News of my return quickly spread. Nobunaga found me, and the first thing she did was to make me apologize for missing the breakfast.

-"I'm sorry, Nobunaga. I'll make it up to you."

-"You will. We plan to hold a party to celebrate the victory, and you will cook food for us."

-"Ok. Leave it to me."

-"Right, go and talk to that Chaldea guys. They are drilling a hole in my stomach asking about you."

-"Probably about their headquarters. I'll go and solve it quickly."

-"Go. I'll order some guys to make you a kitchen for when you return."

I shook my head and moved to the tent assigned to Chaldea. Announcing my arrival, I didn't even have time to enter when Gudako ran outside and jumped at me.

-"Yue! You must help us contact Roman and da Vinci! Please! I'm afraid they are in danger!"-She started shouting and shaking me.

-"That is my plan. Call Mash, and I'll take us there."

-"I'm already here, Lord Yue."

-"Perfect, let us go then."

I traced the timeline of Chaldea with my newly acquired power alongside the power of Finality. Finding the place, I teleported us there. When we appeared, alarms started ringing, but they went silent, replaced by an excited scream later.

-"Fujimaru! Mash! You are back! What happened?!"

-"Dr. Roman, can you take us to the control room? We will explain everything there."

-"Yes, sorry. Come here. I released the lockdown."

I walked behind the Gudako and soon arrived in the control room, where a fluffy-haired man and woman whose beauty matched the artistic ideal waited. She looked at me and was quickly surprised by my appearance, as it overshadowed even her.

-"You must be, Yue. This is the first time we have met face-to-face. I'm Romani Archaman."

-"I'm da Vinci. I never thought that someone could prove that my ideal of beauty was false."

-"As you already know, I'm Yue. Let Gudako explain what happened. I'll move you to the timaline I was in to make sure that this place won't collapse."

-"Yes, please help us with that."

I moved to CHALDEAS, which was extinguished after I absorbed Alaya. Partly mobilizing its power, I pulled this whole place from a shattering timeline to Nobunaga's one, which now was the main one as the Word tree grew there.

I decided to call Ningguang for assistance in a talk that would happen after Gudako ended her story. She quickly agreed to come, and I teleported her to my side.

-"Hello, Yue. Nobunaga already invited me to a party, but you only invited more work for me, sigh."

-"It's not my area of expertise, after all."

-"It would seem that they ended their recap. Let's go there."

We approached Roman and da Vinci, who had looks of astonishment on their faces.

-"Hello, I'm Ningguang. I'm in charge of negotiations for our organization."

-"Ah, yes. I'm Roman. Before everything, I wanted to ask Yue one thing. What happened to Alaya?"

-"It is no more. I absorbed it."

-"I see. Sigh. I'm afraid we can't do anything then, as without the authority of Alaya, we are powerless."

-"About that, while I can't use the same power as it, I can create a system similar to what you operated."

-"Truly?"

-"Well, allow me to explain a little more about us before we continue."

I gave a quick explanation of Hold and its capabilities. The nature of our organization surprised them even when they thought of themself as already numb.

-"Multiple worlds, no wonder we couldn't find any info on you."

-"Yes. What did you think I was?"

-"Some kind of archetype."

-"Allow me to return you to the right tracks."-Spoken Ningguang.-"We would like to integrate your organization into Hold. What do you think about it?"

-"We can agree, but only if you promise to save this world."

-"Explain why is this world ending?"

Roman told us about Goetia. Knowing why they tried so hard to repair all singularities, I understood why they were so hardheaded before.

-"We can agree to that, as we also don't want this word to end. For more detailed negotiations, let's wait until after the party."

-"Party?"

-"We are holding a celebratory party. Feel free to join us."

-"Then allow us to tag along."

I teleported all of us back to Nobunaga's camp, where I could see a brand-new kitchen waiting for me.

-"Sigh. I'll get going."

-"Good luck."

Entering a new battlefield called the kitchen, I wondered if this skill would one day be used by me to conquer a world. Using the power of Finality, I started cooking, and by the evening, I was able to prepare enough food for every person in camp.

While in the beginning, some were a little apprehensive about eating food made by me when they took their first bite, there was no more stopping. The party lasted long into the night. 

I decided to call it quits when a certain snake started trying to find my dragon aura I must have let out during combat. I returned to White Villa and was about to rest but was interrupted by Tingyun, who, after a few glasses of liquid courage, decided to follow me back to Hold, entered my room, and closed the door behind her.