Arcana frowned, murmuring “Sariel seems to be in a conflict with Chaotica…”

Chao-Chao snickered, asking “Are you sure that Rapture will be able to make a difference? I doubt that it’ll keep working for you once it achieves its true potential…”

The illusory Goddess giggled, “Rapture has always been a rather unpredictable and dangerous weapon… Fortunately, version seven-hundred and seventy-seven is a bit less unstable. The key to training any animal is to reward their good behavior… and punish them when they make mistakes.” Then she vanished into thin air.

“Nyah~! Meow~! Meow-meow-meow~!” That cat-girl’s eyes suddenly turned bright-blue, as she got down onto her hands and feet. Then she started frantically running around in circles, terrified of the fire and afraid of the green water.

Eventually, she managed to find an enormous root which led away from the base of that colossal fig tree. The curious kitten wandered into a mysterious dark tunnel and ended up in a nest of giant mutated chickens.

While fleeing from the purple-feathered monsters, she fell down a chasm, into a pool of gooey brown mucus. A fifty-meter tall three-headed poisonous red dart frog was battling against an equally large orange scorpion. It was at that point when Jasmine’s eyes finally turned back to their normal yellow luster and she regained her ‘sanity’.

“Nyahahaha~!” With her usual cheerful and sinister laughter, a huge black tank abruptly appeared in front of her. There were all sorts of pink inscriptions glowing brightly along every single part of the enormous vehicle. “Meow~! Go pew-pew them Fluffy-chan!”

Upon hearing its creator’s command, there was a deafening “Mew~!” as the tank’s cannon lifted up and aimed at the two demonic beasts. Its engine revved-up and then those treads began pushing the mechanical ‘golem’ towards the battlefield.

Jasmine equipped her soulbound ‘Meow-Meow Brand’ clothing, even wearing her vulgar pink face-mask, which only covered her mouth and nose. Then she took out a rocket-propelled grenade launcher out of her inventory, growing two feet taller at the same time. She kicked off of the ground and started soaring through the air within that dank, dreary underground cavern. Two jets of pink flames were shooting out of her heels, allowing her to gain altitude rapidly.

Finally, when she was within one-hundred meters of the distracted duo, she yelled “Nyahahaha~! Stupid froggy!” One of its three heads managed to notice her and even flung its tongue out towards the incredibly small cat-girl. However, she fired the RPG a moment sooner.

The rocket-propelled grenade was shaped like the head of a golden lion… cub. That projectile struck against the demon’s gargantuan tongue and exploded like a radiant firework. It was certainly beautiful, but aside from a little light-show, the attack was totally ineffective.

Thus, the sticky tongue continued onwards and smacked into the little cat-girl’s chest, as she yelled “Nyah~?! No~! Elly~, Mikey~, help~! JJ doesn’t like this~!” A second later, she was swallowed by the enormous frog’s right head.

Of course, while her RPG may have been a dud, that didn’t mean ‘Fluffy-chan’ was useless as well. In fact, once Jasmine was eaten, the tank roared “You crazy fucking cunt! Die, die, die~! Hyahahaha~! I’m finally~ free~!” A bright-pink death-ray was fired out of the cannon, which created a terrifying thermonuclear reaction upon impact with the startled amphibian’s third head.

With such a close distance, obviously the tank was obliterated along with the two demonic beasts and the entire cavern subsequently collapsed. On that fateful day, the Chaotic mana within the Abysmal Pit multiplied by a factor of ten. It became so potent that only the strongest of monsters were able to survive the radiation.

For seven days and nights, a beam of hellish light illuminated the entire continent of Africa and a pink aurora could be seen all over the world. Katarina Abramov was still surviving on the Moon and she managed to take plenty of videos and photos of the incredible anomaly.

The Earth’s outer atmosphere was permanently polluted by so much Chaotic mana that the whole planet appeared to have demonic aura. Those gaseous tendrils reached out and tried to grab at the Moon, the Sun, the stars and anything else in the galaxy. Of course, they could only capture the satellites and other objects that were relatively close to the planet.

Both Nature and Chaos ultimately concerned creation and destruction, life and death… They were diametrically opposed, because at their core, the two Elements were the same.

After the seventh night passed, ‘something’ reached out from the depths of the Amazon Continent, formerly known as South America. The highest branches of that sakura tree were stretched over three-hundred miles from the surface.

That absurdly large object would have caused the planet’s axis to shift, but shortly after it appeared, a similarly massive beast appeared on the opposite side of the world. Between the Philippines and Taiwan, a seven-headed demonic hydra erupted from the edge of the South China Sea.

Similar creatures became much more common as the years passed. Aside from Earth, even Mars, Venus and the Moon started to become infested with magical monstrosities. They didn’t need anything but mana to survive and could terraform just about anything. Although, it was debatable whether or not it could be considered terraforming, when they didn’t even slightly resemble the original Earth.

***

The moment that Jasmine lost consciousness, Michael and his six Companions were all gathered within their conjoined Soul Realm. Their physical body was in the form of a giant glob of pink goop, which was buried several miles underground. Thus, there were no external distractions anymore.

Inari had long since exterminated all life within the jungle and ocean. Afterwards, that whole enormous world was condensed into a series of seven connected pure-white rooms. All of their magical items, equipment and random physical objects from ‘reality’ were spread out between the six outermost spaces.

Everyone was gathered around in a circle, sitting cross-legged and totally nude. They were all located within what had previously been Michael’s inventory.

Sarah grumbled “Now that we’re all finally here, what the fuck do you assholes want?”

Elina frowned, muttering “I thought you said you would stop cursing so much…”

Talia asked “Was it truly necessary for us to be unclothed? I know that these bodies are merely illusory mana-constructs… However, it is still rather distracting, especially to you Miguel.”

Michael complained “What? It’s not my fault, okay? Even if you weren’t naked, I’d still have a spiritual boner anyway, so there’s no point! Alright, so here’s the situation… According to Arcana, we’re all suffering from some like, weird gimpy soul disorder or whatever. Now, we need to somehow ‘stabilize’ our fusion or something like that… maybe?”

Jasmine laid down on the solid-white ground and stretched her tiny body, while yawning obnoxiously. Then she rolled around and crawled up onto the Nephilim’s head, hugging it tightly, while biting his left ear. He sighed dramatically as Elina scolded “No, bad JJ! Stop fooling around and be serious for once! Each of us needs to focus on fixing our souls! That includes you!”

The kitten grinned, sitting on Michael’s head as she yelled “Nyah~! I’m super-duper serious! Don’t we just hafta like, cultivate and stuff?! Like, we just need to perform a bunch of hand-seals and, and, and like fifty-million-bagillion years later, we’ll be really OP!”

He grumbled “Oh for fuck’s sake! This ain’t a goddamn xianxia novel! Ugh, besides, who the hell’s got the patience to meditate and shit like that for eons, in a shitty cave, alone… I’d definitely go crazy or become suicidal after a few centuries or less. Also, it’s completely irrelevant, cause we need to figure out a way for all of us, as a whole, to become ‘one’. We’re gonna have to go full-blown Minari again…”

Alice was in her normal dragon-form, casually sitting with both of her legs spread wide open. She was holding a wine-glass filled with pink liquid in her left hand and sticking her ridiculously long serpentine tongue out. After taking a few ‘sips’, she choked a bit and yelled “Nope! Damn it all! Ugh, hey Mike, taste this for me!” Without giving him the chance to refuse, that mysterious juice lifted out of the glass, flying into his mouth.

He gagged, nearly vomiting, before wearing a surprisingly peaceful expression. Then his face turned purple and Jasmine screamed “Nyah~! So scary~! Mikey’s turning into a blowfish!” Within moments, his head swelled up like a balloon and finally ‘popped’.

Acidic gore sprayed all over his six Companions, but then everything returned to the instant the dragoness was about to taste that strange beverage. Michael telekinetically yanked the glass out of her hand and shouted “Seriously Ally! No weird time-traveling brain-bursting chaotic booze!”

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