Overpowered Wizard-Chapter Ch63: Zarian Versus Ariana

The rest of Foara’s words were lost when Ariana roared.

Zarian’s physical and metaphysical eardrums ruptured. He couldn’t even hear messages that were placed by telepathy into his head. It was like being stuck in a silent zone, bringing all of his attention to Ariana’s opened jaws that seemed to cover all the visible universe.

There was no end to it in physical sight and with his senses. She might’ve grown bigger for this one moment to ensure her prey didn’t escape. If any part of her was disgusted about the crime she was going to commit, her hatred for him was too great for her to stop now.

Zarian’s heart thumped with horror. He just needed a little more time. Just a little more!

“I told your ass a long time ago I was gonna spank it,” Naomi said, her voice breaking through the silence. “Well, congrats are in order. You made a liar of me. Your big ass is too far out of reach.”

She appeared in front of Zarian and Gilbert. A calm flame covered her body, the color of a dark sunset, red-purple. The Fifth Stage of Aura Ignition.

“I’ll take a tooth instead.”

Zarian, Gilbert, and the entire universe held their collective breath as Naomi raised a single fist. She cocked it back and punched forward.

An impact that could be heard throughout the entire universe and the neighboring universes resounded very far and very wide. Ariana’s incoming, impossibly wide maw jerked to a stop. A massive break, like the shattering of reality, cracked through space. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Zarian’s jaw suddenly hurt before he spotted a single immense tooth flung free from Ariana’s gums and sent down her throat. The Dragoness flinched back, choking, her moment of weakness making her seem far, far smaller and a bit more distant.

Naomi remained in front of Zarian and Gilbert. The deep sunset aura wavering over her body dimmed and became faint. Despite the enormity of her achievement, Zarian could tell that was the best she could give. And she knew it as well.

Yet, Naomi didn’t wallow. She looked back and blew a kiss at Zarian.

“You gonna let me show you up? ME? A mortal? The lowest grade of mortal?!” She sneered. “And here I thought you Ultra Gods were supposed to be the best or something.”

Zarian laughed at her cheesy attempt to goad him. He loved it because it worked. “Watch this, little one.”

All that sacrifice was the most amount of good Zarian could imagine in this situation. So much so that his new free good sub alignment had crossed over to +100. With a smile, he sacrificed all of that good energy as the cherry on top and finally achieved the impossible.

ONE HUNDRED AND ONE DARKNESS.

After swallowing her own tooth, Ariana bounced back from the punch that had been heard across multiple universes. She exerted all of her will to move far faster than before. In a blink, her jaws were closing over them. She nearly had them, nearly.

Her jaws stopped closing. Thick cosmic strands of darkness wormed between her teeth and outside of her jaws. More stands appeared, thickening, intertwining together, becoming massive tendrils that were gradually challenging her own bulk and power.

Ariana opened and snapped her jaws shut again. But more tendrils appeared from the cosmos, anchored to the darkest spaces, binding her jaws open from the top and the bottom. More and more appeared, wrapping around her body, her limbs, her wings. They caught her from every direction, no matter how staggeringly massive her form was. Ariana thrashed, and the universe rocked. From the heavens to the hells, from the nearest universes outside of Infinita, Ariana’s refusal to be bound could be felt with every wriggle and jerk.

Zarian didn’t care.

One Hundred And One Darkness was by far his strongest version of the skill ever. As he leaned on the power of his soul and all that he’d sacrificed, he kept binding up Ariana more and more. He even went as far as using Half Ignition, becoming even more obsessed with tying Ariana up. Nothing could break his focus on this one task. That was until Bianca’s voice suddenly appeared right next to his ear.

“Remember,” she whispered.

Something deep in his soul unlocked. If he hadn’t been so broken and stretched out, it wouldn’t have been so easily reachable. But this was the best time to get at it – all the memories from the past lives. It came to him in a deluge. Every loop. Every existence he’d lived. Every version of him, the good, the bad, the monstrous, the righteous, and all the ones in between. Each version had messed up in some way. Each version of him had lost people. And throughout it all, Ariana had been there.

Ariana had been at his side in each loop.

When he traced back to the earliest loops, he saw how bubbly and loving and true she had been as a sister. Then, as more loops occurred, with each mistake on their part, she’d slowly become more jaded. She’d tried explaining the loops to him, but that would either make things worse, or she’d get in big trouble with the Ultra System. It had gotten to where their family had to intervene more and more.

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Ariana’s jadedness had grown as the loops kept failing, and in the last few loops, she’d become more of an antagonist to Zarian. Her jadedness had become hatred. Her love had become resentment. Now she was willing to do anything to end it all. And she wouldn’t just stop at eating Zarian. She wanted to make it all come crashing down. All the universes and multiverses. All the Ultraverse. She’d eat their entire Dynasty, all of their friends and family, from the lowest to the highest, until there was nobody left.

“This needs to end,” Zarian said.

Bianca said nothing else. She’d done her part.

As the endless strands bound Ariana’s entire form, Zarian switched to a new tactic. He grasped Gilbert’s shoulder for support, and his friend held him like a brother. As Zarian twisted and carved up his soul, he manipulated his darkness into a new form.

Ariana couldn’t thrash any further. But she made her displeasure known by roaring and chewing on the strands that caught her mouth. Yet, she still couldn’t break free as she became engulfed completely in a sphere of total darkness.

With the last remnants of all the magic Zarian had studied and stamped into his existence, he reduced the cosmic sphere in size along with the monstrous entity inside. It was an undertaking nobody else in the universe could pull off but him. Not even the System.

“Mother of God,” Gilbert said.

“Yeah, I’m in love with an Ultra God,” Naomi said proudly.

“Okay, I’m driving back. I want to see with my own eyes,” Hannah said.

She had plenty of time to return with the others as Zarian continued reducing the dark sphere. Instead of waiting in space, they settled down in a wide and cleared area on God Land.

With his profile guttered, Zarian was a sneeze away from being annihilated. Hannah and Gilbert worked together to protect him with system magic and powerful buffs. Naomi stayed in Fifth Ignition and hovered over him like a protective mama bear. Bianca stayed close, and Foara kept looking up with Reiki and Lucy at the incoming object that was still shrinking down to proper size.

It took days of work.

Zarian kept at it even when he wanted to fade off.

Finally, a dark orb the size of a golf ball landed in his palm. Shakily, Zarian held it up to his eye.

A ghostly apparition flashed onto the surface, her mouth wide as screamed a silent scream, fists striking from the inside, unable to break through. There was no escape.

“So, can I eat it?” Naomi pointed.

Zarian slowly turned away from his trapped sister and blinked up at his mad lover. Everybody slowly turned and looked at her.

She shrugged. “What? She could have a taste of her own medicine.” She hummed. “Or I would have a taste of her medicine.” As they stared longer, she shrugged again. “Alright, fine, I just thought it would be funny if she got eaten by the lowest grade mortal soul. The irony makes it sweeter.”

She licked her lips and smiled.

Zarian laughed as he slowly got to his feet. He felt weak and broken and all sorts of messed up. He should be dead with his profile being so gutted, but he kept enough stats and traits to help him persist at the bare minimum. And he had powerful friends who looked at him with a hint of worship.

“You can try eating this, but you wouldn’t be able to break it open for the goodie inside.” Zarian waved his hand over his sister’s prison. “This is the One Hundred And One Darkrun Prison. This is all of Overwhelming Darkness and more.”

“All of Overwhelming Darkness?” Hannah raised an eyebrow.

“It’s nice to meet you, by the way,” Bianca chimed in.

That confused the others until Foara suddenly approached faster than Zarian’s eyes could track. It was like she blinked into appearance in front of him.

“Who are you?” they asked. “Where’s our father? You’re not … our Zarian.”

“Uh, what’s going on?” Gilbert asked.

“Hm, interesting,” Lucy said, crouching over them while at a much smaller height. Only as big as a hill now. “I suppose it is a pleasure to meet you as well, new Zarian.”

Before the confusion lasted any longer, Zarian bowed with a flourish of his free hand. “Hey, it’s a pleasure to meet you all as well. The name’s Zarian Saintrun. And, well, I’m what remained after the ultimate sacrifice of Zarian Darkrun.”

He held up the prison. “This isn’t just Ariana. This is the old Zarian as well. So, if you do eat this and try to absorb everything, you’re taking what he left behind to atone for all that happened.”

Gilbert shook at hearing that. “Are you…”

Zarian shrugged. “I’m me. I was there for everything. But this is also me.” He rolled the sphere around. “The best way to describe it is I split myself up a little. I poured most of my mistakes, many of my failures, and lots of regrets with my darkness to make this. This way, Ariana won’t be alone. And once it’s time for her to move on, this version of me will be hers to consume so she can be complete.”

“Once she moves on?” Reiki questioned.

Zarian nodded. “Whether or not you approve, my sister is still family. And I think with enough time and effort, she’ll not only come back stronger, but be a force for good. With that said, she definitely needs to be imprisoned for a while. Like a long while. And while inside the One Hundred And One Darkrun Prison, the former me will be there with her to help her until it’s her time to arise anew.”

Zarian looked down at his trapped sister. “The Ultraverse needs us both. Our family needs us. So, this is what I decided.”

“A multi-part martyrdom with new beginnings,” Bianca said faintly. “It’s kind of beautiful and poetic in a way.”

“Wow,” Gilbert said. “I, uh, wow. Okay. Fine then. You are Zombie Jesus. I’m not even going to deny it anymore. You won.”

“Eh. I got my own thing now.” Zarian turned toward Naomi. “I hope–”

She cut him off by grabbing his shoulders and pulling him into a kiss. Zarian’s mind went blank, his heart hammering in his ears, before he found himself released and left swaying on his feet. He slowly shook off his daze and saw the way Naomi looked at him hungrily.

“Yeah, we can make it work. You taste more like a goodie-two-shoes, but you were always that deep down.” She stroked a finger under his chin. “Ruvaria and I are going to have so much fun with you. After you regress and regrow your profile from scratch.”

“Oh, yes, that’s true. Your profile is in shambles. You have to regress permanently. Huh. How would that work?” Hannah asked.

Lucy had the answer to that as the Adventurer Queen. Though listening to her was hard for Zarian. He was in an environment that would annihilate his mortal shell if it weren’t for his powerful friends keeping him safe with their magic.

It was strange being a royal cosmic entity called an Ultra God while also feeling incredibly weak, too. Granted, if he had to start over from scratch, would he even go for the caster build again?

Maybe he would try something different.