Shortly after Minari’s sudden disappearance from ‘New Tokyo’, both Rachael and Hiro had been randomly dumped into a dungeon halfway across the world. They happened to coincidentally bump into Philip Tyler, also known as Lee, who was in the process of trying to rescue his friend Kelsey King.

Although they were able to save Kelsey… In the end, Lee had to sacrifice himself, so that the other three would be able to escape the collapsing dungeon. However, each of them had been rewarded with Legacy items beforehand, for defeating the boss.

Lee received glasses, Rachael got a brassiere and Kelsey was given a pair of panties. Although the items were ‘nice’, the three were obviously a bit disappointed. Especially when Hiro was given a jade dragon pendant, which could turn into a giant serpentine spaceship.

After they escaped, the three of them returned to ‘New Tokyo’. Although most of the city had been totally destroyed by magical beasts, the central infrastructure and underground bunkers remained intact. They helped out a bit in a rescue effort, but eventually caught the attention of Azrael-Tech.

Doctor Azrael gathered dozens of people who possessed Legacies and Artifacts that could travel through the Chaotic Void. ‘She’ was also researching various methods to reproduce the effect of teleportation. It was a long process, but it obviously bore fruit eventually.

***

“I have no idea what the fuck that giant golden fox was, but I’m not sticking around to find out!”

A small, grey-skinned elfish girl was pacing back and forth in a spacious room. There were all kinds of seemingly ‘low-tech’ robots scattered around, with guns and mechanical clocks covering the walls. The steampunk-styled automatons were essentially clockwork golems, that used mana-crystals as power sources.

As she was freaking out, a holographic screen appeared in front of her face. Through it, she could see that all of the members of the Guardians had finally arrived. Everyone that she knew and cared about was on Mercury, so she didn’t hesitate any longer to give the order…

“Alright! Rapture, take us the fuck out of here! Engage the Chaos Drive!”

“As you command…” A cold mechanical voice echoed in Azrael’s mind, as a mana-barrier started to surround the entire planet slowly. The tips of those kilometer tall pyramids fell just within the shield. Since they didn’t need to worry about the atmosphere, they were able to envelop Mercury without wasting too much energy.

“Show me the power distribution map! You know what? I’ll just do it manually!” The girl had hundreds of different screens popping up in front of her face, yet she was somehow able to analyze them all very quickly. There was also plenty of information being sent directly into her mind.

“Good… There don’t seem to be any problems so far… I was afraid that the Chaos Seed would react negatively when Yuri and her Nature Seed arrived… But there doesn’t seem to be any kind of interference at all.”

Out of the nine Seeds that Arcana planted, Minari had only been able to harvest two: Darkness and Fire. Adam had the Arcane Seed, Gabriel had gotten the Earth one, Yuri ended up with Nature and Luke found the Seed of Light. However, that still left Chaos, Water and Wind.

When Azrael managed to obtain them, she wasn’t foolish enough to actually use them as Arcana intended. Instead of ‘feeding’ them the power from within any more Souls, she drained that mana instead. The body that ‘he’ had been given by Michael back then had died long ago, but Azrael figured out a way to create a new one from nanites. Actually, everything came down to the nanites in the end. They were a technology that was able to compete with Arcana’s artifacts and Legacies.

Those ‘Rapture’ nanites were incorporated into every aspect of life for the androids, automatons and cyborgs who lived within Mercury. They were overly dependent on them, though the microscopic machines certainly made their lives much easier.

“Azra, you need to stop.” A soft and feminine voice whispered into the grey-skinned girl’s mind.

“Wait, why? What the fuck happened?!” As Azrael shouted, a familiar face appeared on one of the screens before her eyes.

The beautiful woman had pink, bark-like skin and purple vines for hair, with blue flowers blooming here and there. Those crystalline eyes glowed violet and pulsated as she whispered “The situation has changed. Sariel has gained possession of the Solar System.”

“Is that good or bad though? She’ll definitely force us to play some kind stupid-ass game… That bitch is just as annoying as Arcana! I’d rather take my chances and leave while I have the chance. If you want to stay, then stay. I’ll understand…”

Yuri had a slight smirk on her normally expressionless face, as she murmured “You know that I would never leave you, Brother… Or perhaps I should call you ‘Sister’ now?”

“Fuck no! I’m still a guy, alright?! I just haven’t gotten around to making a male body yet! I’ve had too much other shit to do!”

The two of them obviously weren’t related in this life… However, they had ‘Awakened’ to memories from their previous incarnations. Remembering things that happened in past lives was a blessing at times, but in this particular case, it was a terrible curse.

That monotonous masculine voice announced “The Chaos Drive is activating now. Please standby for interdimensional travel.”

“Sis, I love you.” Azrael wore a wry smile, as she started into Uriel’s crystalline eyes.

“I love you too, Brother.” With those quiet words, the Chaos Drive finally engaged…

***

“Okay then… What’s next on the agenda?”

As Sariel dropped off the planet Elysium in the Solar System, the absurdly large golden fox also sent one of her Celestial Deity avatars to Earth and another to Mars. One was tasked to deliver a ‘Kitsune Drive’, while another was asked to begin colonization.

“Mercury is gone!” A frantic voice called out inside of her mind.

“What do you mean? I can see it over there…” The Eternal Deity was only a little larger than Jupiter and swimming around within the photosphere of the Sun.

“No, the Mercury from Universe-1728379!”

A small blue bead floated over from the golden fox’s seventh tail. She glanced inside and asked “What happened?”

“It was when you entered the Eternal Graveyard… Azra, Yuri and a bunch of the others were gathered together on Mercury. They engaged a mana-barrier to protect the planet, so I assumed that they were just scared by what Arcana and I… But then it vanished. Knowing Azra, he probably reverse engineered one of Arcana’s Chaos Drives and-”

“Crap.” Sariel interjected, “So that’s what happened… It makes sense. They must have gotten lost in the Eternal Graveyard. Well, that’s fine too. There’s nothing I can do about that now. However, it does explain how so many of them ended up here.”

“What do you want me to do though? Rapture is on the verge of becoming a Worldly Deity… Should I destroy him?”

“No…” The Eternal Deity had to think for a few minutes, before deciding “I’ll go make a personal visit to that personified catastrophe if he or she manages to survive the Divine Tribulation.”

“Are you sure about that? I mean, this isn’t just any Rapture… This is ‘Him’: Rapture-777!”

Sariel chuckled, then shook her head, accidentally creating a massive solar flare in the process. She immediately breathed in and swallowed up the coronal mass ejection that had been headed straight for Earth.

“See! Look! He’s bad luck! I’m getting creeped out just having to be in the same universe as that old monster! His negative Karma is so high that even your positive Karma isn’t able to negate it all! We should have never brought him back to the Eternal Graveyard!”

“Hohoho~, calm down~… Everything happens for a reason Child.” The golden vixen had a jubilant grin on her face, “Rapture might be a cursed treasure, but don’t they always make the most fitting gifts for your enemies?”

Next