DID YOU KNOW? YOU CAN NOW READ THREE TO SIX CHAPTERS AHEAD. CHECK MY PROFILE FOR THE LINK.
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"Rimuru is right," Luminous finally spoke up, her voice regaining its sharp, commanding tone as she dusted off her dress. "We cannot afford to rush in recklessly, regardless of how much sheer firepower we possess. After all, if that entity is truly a future incarnation of Kaede, then even you are helpless against her, aren't you, Guy?"
Guy turned his head to look at her. Although his expression remained completely relaxed, everyone present could feel a wave of genuine amusement rolling off his aura in thick, heavy waves. "It does sting just a little that you doubt my capabilities this much, Luminous."
"I seem to distinctly recall you telling us of your defeat at Kaede's hands during Walpurgis," Luminous countered, not backing down an inch from his dangerous gaze.
Guy merely chuckled, acknowledging the jab with a subtle tilt of his head.
"She's not entirely wrong," Kaede cut in, stepping between them while keeping her focus glued to the dark duplicate hovering in the sky. "Even if my future self isn't necessarily stronger than all of us combined, and I really don't think she is, she's at least far stronger than I currently am. She doesn't even need to actively fight us. All she has to do is stay rooted right where she is and defend. We simply don't have a reliable way to break past that barrier of Excess. She's far tankier than me; even if Hell itself is completely erased from existence, she'll probably survive the aftermath without so much as a scratch..."
"So is that her grand plan then?" Rimuru groaned, burying his face in his hands as a heavy sigh escaped him. "To just sit back, hang out in this void until Hell is totally obliterated, tank the death of an entire realm, and then call it a day? Seriously, how on earth is this my life right now?"
"Hahahaha! This is truly thrilling, isn't it, slime?" Guy threw his head back and laughed, his red eyes flashing with excitement. "Things haven't been quite this interesting in millennia!"
"Dude, keep your weird fetishes in check!" Rimuru snapped right back at the crimson Lord of Darkness. "I don't have time to be thrilled, we have to find a way out of here and get back to Tempest!"
"Calm yourself," Guy advised smoothly, making a subtle pressing motion with his hand. "There is no reason to be so excessively anxious. My beloved is currently residing in Tempest at this very moment. Since she hasn't forced her way in here to join us, it simply means that even she cannot easily break through the massive Anti-Skill field wrapping around Hell. She will remain in Tempest to safeguard things until we return."
He paused, leaving the silent implication—or until she grows desperate enough to tear a hole through dimensions—hanging heavily in the air.
"Wait, who's 'your beloved'?" Rimuru asked, blinking in confusion.
"Ah, that would be Velzard," Guy explained casually, as if talking about the local weather. "Veldora's elder sister. She also happens to be a True Dragon."
"Oh. Right, right. Got it." Rimuru nodded automatically, his mind short-circuiting for a second. He was definitely not mentally prepared to unpack that right now.
"So what do we actually do then?" Kaede asked, bringing the focus firmly back to the immediate crisis.
"Well, for one, she isn't actively pressing an attack against us right now," Guy gestured vaguely toward the sky.
Down in the void, the future Kaede had disengaged her cannon arm, her flower-like shield folding back into a tight, dark orbit around her body as she simply watched them with listless, empty eyes.
"Since brute force has proven to be a rather loud failure," Guy smiled faintly, "perhaps a civil discussion can be had instead."
"Yes yes, civil discussion." Millim nodded.
Rimuru raised a brow. "What're you going on about?"
Millim smiled. "We're civilized people here after all, Rimuru."
"Civilized, huh?" Rimuru muttered under his breath, shooting a dubious look at the pink-haired Demon Lord.
Still, no one had a better idea. With the dark duplicate showing no immediate intention of resuming her bombardment, Guy stepped forward, taking the lead as they drifted upward through the oppressive, violet-threaded sky. Kaede fell into formation right beside him, her shield raised to guard their front just in case the entity's temperament shifted without warning.
The future Kaede remained suspended. As they drew nearer, her listless, hollow gaze locked onto them, or more specifically, onto Guy. The intensity behind those crimson eyes was almost suffocating, dripping with a cold, absolute malice that felt personal.
Guy slowed his pace slightly, raising an eyebrow at the overwhelming hostility focused entirely on his person. 'Intriguing,' he thought, a quiet curiosity stirring beneath his calm facade. 'She isn't looking at them with hatred. That murderous intent is directed solely at me. Did we end up at each other's throats somewhere down the line?'
Before Guy could open his mouth to offer his pleasantries, the future Kaede's lips parted.
"We did," her voice echoed out, flat, icy, and resonant with a thousands-fold conceptual layer that made the very air vibrate, as she replied to his very thought. "And then I killed you."
Silence fell over the sub-realm, heavy and absolute.
She offered no further elaboration. Her jaw snapped shut, her hollow eyes continuing to fixate on the Lord of Darkness as if simply stating a trivial, historically established fact.
The declaration sent a wave of starkly different reactions through the assembled group.
Rimuru felt a cold lump form in the back of his throat, his mind spiraling into absolute panic. 'She killed Guy?!' The reality of the situation crashed over him like a tidal wave. This wasn't just some rogue clone or a runaway magical anomaly, this was genuinely a nightmare version of Kaede from a dark timeline where she had slaughtered the strongest Demon Lord in existence and ascended to the role of a world-ending final boss. How the hell did things go this badly off the rails in the future?!
Guy himself didn't flinch, nor did his confident composure break, but the red glare in his eyes sharpened into dangerous vertical slits. He wasn't distraught over the mention of his own demise, but the sheer weight of its implications forced him to reevaluate the entire board. For someone of his caliber to be slain, it meant the entire balance of the world had completely collapsed. If Kaede had killed him, then she had inevitably faced the full, unbridled wrath of Velzard. She would have had to deal with Rudra, the Western Nations, and the rest of the Octagram. Yet here she stood, alive for that matter.
Luminous tightened her grip on her rapier, her crimson eyes flickering between Guy and the dark duplicate. Unlike Rimuru, her alarm was rooted in pure tactical dread. Guy Crimson was the immovable anchor of the world's hierarchy. If the anchor was cut, the supreme order that kept humankind and the world in check was utterly shattered. To hear it spoken so casually proved that the entity before them was a walking apocalypse.
It was Milim who finally broke the suffocating quiet, stepping past Kaede's shield and crossing her arms over her chest. She didn't look terrified or panicked; instead, her brows were knitted together in genuine, blunt confusion.
"Hey," Milim called out, pointing her single-edged blade directly at the dark entity. "Why'd you kill Guy? Why were you two even fighting in the first place? And... what happened to the me in your time?"
[xxx]
"I know Kaede-san can be ridiculous sometimes, but this really takes the cake," Kanade sighed, stepping out of the glowing light of the teleportation array.
"So you do know what's going on, Uncle."
"Say something already!"
Kanade sighed a second time, running a hand through his hair. Standing directly behind him were two high-ranking officials of Maple Tree, as well as core members of his now undeniably odd, extended family: Ari, Kaede's brilliant daughter, and Kirara, Kaede's... fiancée?
The three of them stood silently right at the main threshold leading into the Federation of Tempest.
Why they were here was painfully obvious. Even if Kanade chose to ignore the utterly staggering amounts of magicules that had been tossed around like child's play moments prior, or the colossal, three-headed dragon construct that had briefly blotted out the entire sky, he certainly couldn't ignore the grotesque, spider-webbed crack in space that was still slowly mending itself high above the city.
"Trying to explain Kaede is the exact same thing as trying to understand her," Kanade offered, giving a helpless shrug. "Nigh impossible."
Oddly enough, there were no guards posted anywhere near the main entrance, a surreal sight, considering Rimuru had made an absolute point of ensuring Tempest would never be caught flat-footed again, treating state security with utmost seriousness.
Still, even without physical guards stationed at the gate, an ordinary intruder wouldn't have stood a chance of slipping inside.
Kanade reached out, gently pressing his open palm against the invisible barrier encapsulating the entire capital. Even though it was completely transparent to the naked eye, he knew its exact physical boundaries down to the millimeter.
The moment his skin grazed the defensive field, he felt the heavy, suffocating weight of several intense gazes instantly lock onto his position. This was precisely why he hadn't attempted to crack open the barrier himself, much as his analytical mind would have relished the technical challenge.
Of those sharp gazes, he easily recognized two of the signatures, though he couldn't quite place the origin of the third.
A moment later, the barrier hummed softly, parting just enough to form a narrow vertical slit big enough for one person to pass through at a time.
Kanade, Kirara, and Ari slipped inside one after another, their boots clicking against the smooth cobblestone.
Inside, Tempest looked utterly abandoned. The houses were completely dark, devoid of their usual bustling inhabitants, and the wide avenues were eerily silent.
The three of them continued walking down the central street in silence until they were finally greeted.
"Lord Kanade, Lady Ari, Lady Kirara," Hachi greeted them, offering a prompt, respectful bow.
"Hachi, report..." Ari began, her tone sharp and decisive.
"...How are things progressing here?" Kanade interrupted smoothly, stepping forward to take the lead.
Ari's eyebrows furrowed, and she shot him a sharp frown, though she refrained from voicing her irritation.
Hachi seemed to instantly pick up on the subtle spike in tension between them, prudently keeping her eyes lowered toward the ground as she reported. "Lord Benimaru has ordered the entire civilian population evacuated into the underground emergency bunkers."
Kanade subtly noted the slight shifting of darkness pooling along the nearby alleys. "Alright then, lead us directly to him. It only makes sense for us to be actively involved in whatever planning is taking place."
Soei and his Shadow Squad, Kanade registered inwardly as another shadow stretched ever so slightly against a brick wall, a motion so microscopic he nearly missed it entirely. 'Extreme distrust? It makes sense, I suppose. After all, they were just blindsided by... well, by Maple. But still...'
Hachi turned and led the way, with the trio following closely behind her.
As Kanade had silently deduced, Ari was already fully aware of Soei's covert presence as well as his hidden subordinates, though her composure remained entirely masked.
Kirara, however, wasn't quite as discrete. Her eyes darted left and right a few times, her sharp instincts occasionally catching the faint, flickering outlines of Soei's agents as they glided effortlessly through the shadows alongside them.