Code Collector

Allen watched as Corry and Ash cleaned their blades. He felt too conflicted as to what to feel after witnessing them stab someone with their swords, their movements too swift to be seen by the eyes or felt by the skin.

"Y-You…" Allen trailed off. "Who are you two?"

"The debauchery duo of the Zodiac. Ashtor and Corrux, or Ash and Corry for short," Ash introduced. 

Corry and Ash were the supposed couple that Allen saved from the black bear a while back. While they did flee the scene, they saw Allen again after a few weeks and that's when they gave him good quality Codes that he first used to get by.

Corry nodded, "We found out what Leo wanted to do to you, so we decided to just abandon him and his lousy plans. He wanted power all to himself, that's why he didn't want you to exist any longer."

"But what does that mean?" Allen asked. "I'm not doing anything to him or to anyone outside of our world."

"For now," Ash sighed. "You're not doing anything for now, but what would happen five or ten years from now, once you fully awaken your pweres? Who's to say that you're not going to destroy all the other worlds altogether."

"I'm not doing to do that," Allen chuckled, shaking his head in complete disagreement. "I only want to stop the corruption of this world, not the others."

"We weren't really supposed to say this but…" Corry trailed off, looking at his sister to find confirmation. "Your powers are just too much for your own good. You're too strong to be ignored. And this world isn't the only one that's corrupt and rotten to the core. There are currently four worlds outside yours and each one of them have tyrant rulers."

"Why do you know all of these stuff?" Jeremy asked. "You seem to know a lot more than we do."

"Let me tell you everything," Ash said, waving her hand in the air and creating black mist around them. "Let's start with the worlds and how they take turns seeking the Otherworlds."

Based on Ash and Corry, the Otherworlds was an entity of its own. It had its own thoughts and can act based on its own will. The Otherworlds would select a world from a random galaxy and create portals that connected it and the world.

Every world has their time limit to explore the Otherworlds and that was twenty five years. After that twenty five years, all the beings that existed outside of the Othworlds would perish because the worlds would reset.

Some of these things that was left behind would be immuned to the reset based on certain conditions. The first condition was that tbe thing left behind had created a huge shift in the overall structure of the world that the reset power would not fully revert it.

The symbols on the gates, the Great Gem underground cave, and the tracker from the Soul Burners' hideout were examples of this. They carried too different impact on the world that it could not be reset, so the world let it stay the same.

The second and final condition was that the final world is achieved and the final boss is defeated. Currently, there hasn't been a single race that had completed this, thus the reset would still go on. The Zodiacs had learned that once the final beast is defeated, the Otherworlds would have its satisfaction and would not reset. No one knows what would happen next.

"So, it's basically a never ending cycle?" Allen asked, scoffing by how pathetic he found the Otherworlds was. "This Otherworlds wants its own fun so it brought different species inside it to complete everything. We can just tell this to the higher ups and pack up. We don't need this. Everything is pointless if you ask me."

"That's where you're wrong," Ash said. This time, her voice was serious. "When you failed the twenty five years, your world will perish and only those who have the Celestums will survive."

This made them pause and look at each other. That was the reason why the Zodiacs only has only twelve of their members and the Great Gem race went extinct. The Otherworlds would punish them when they could not complete it.

"But there are a lot of Lycans," Allen pointed out. "I don't think all of them have Celestums, haven't they?"

"The Lycans does not participate in this game," Ash replied. "The Lycans are only Serratas that has special cases because they're not hostile. But they're essentially not a participating world."

"This is all just a game," Allen chuckled bitterly. "This is not how I expected things to go. I thought we would have something at the end of this road. Turns out, we have none."

"Wait," Gwen hummed. "Why would the Zodiacs intefere if Allen has crazy powers? If he does, then we can complete thid so-called game and go home."

"After losing every single one you love, you tend to either wish others away from that fate or wish everyone would suffer the same," Ash said. "Out of the thirteen members of the Zodiac, only my brother and I share the former, the rest wanted everything to end."

"That's just pathetic," Allen scoffed. "They're childish. Too childish for their own good. I don't get why they wish peril for others."

"Easy to say when you haven't experienced it," Corry said, looking at Allen straight in his face. "Us too, before wanted to just let everyone else suffer the same. It wasn't until the destruction of the Great Gem race that we saw how much chaotic it was that we didn't want it anymore. We just want to help you as much as we can."

Allen looked down, ashamed of what he just said. "I'm sorry. What I said was too shallow."

"It was," Ash said. "But if we dwell too much on that, we're not going anywhere."

She offered her hand and smiled, "Let's do this, okay?"