THE CURSED GAMER

Chapter 496: The Prima and the Primordial

—

The space around the Mesopotamian planet was surrounded by figures of extreme powers. Each was an entity capable of destroying multiverses, rising higher enough to challenge the stability of the omniverse.

No Abstract Entities were present here, nobody from the Cube was in this army. It was only the Primordial, his wife, and a hundred spaceships under him that were filled with Gods as they circled the planet. However, a thousand invisible eyes from different sources watched this scene from all around the cosmos, hoping to secure a glance at this historical fight.

The Primordial could have stopped them from peeking, but he liked an audience, so he let them be as long as they didn’t get too bold.

The Titanic God of Destruction stood with two of his arms crossed, and two other arms hanging behind him in the air. Beside him was his wife, though unlike his titanic size, she retained a normal size, taking his shoulder for her seat.

“We should call for his attention,” she said, kissing the side of his face, before she snapped her finger and stars exploded in the distance. Sound shouldn’t be possible here, yet the explosion resounded and sent waves into this star system. A strong wind blew inside the planet, which Eurynome hoped was enough to wake up the weaklings inside.

A minute passed, yet nobody came to greet them. She raised an eyebrow, “Well, that’s a bit rude. How long do they expect us to wait?” she raised a finger next, a purple ball of energy spun on the tips, and she tossed it ahead. “Let me poke them a bit harder.”

That ball of destruction could wipe out parts of a Hyperverse with ease; even if this planet was enforced by Prima’s will, it couldn’t take a direct hit without direct intervention.

The ball of destruction energy rushed at the planet, and it hit a blue barrier that shimmered into existence out of nowhere. Just as it touched the barrier, the ball burst into particles.

“Oh,” Eurynome blinked, while her husband frowned.

A translucent blue, circular dome bloomed around the planet, like a barrier, and a second later, a game-window-like message popped over the planet.

[You and your army have been invited to the Gamer’s Domain as an Enemy. If you accept the Game invitation, you’ll be pitted against one another in a fair war. Would you like to accept?]

[Yes/No]

“A Game?” the Primordial wondered. “Isn’t his power called ‘The Gamer’? Seems like he is inviting us to fight in a way he’s good at.”

“Reject it. Let’s just destroy the barrier and invade the planet,” Eurynome suggested, but her husband shook his head in disagreement.

“No, Eury. If that is what I wanted, I could have erased the planet with a Fire Breath. I wish to see him suffer and beg for what he did to my daughter. Fine, we’ll play his game and defeat him in his own terrain.” He said and focused his will on the ‘Yes’ option.

[Ding! You will be pulled into the planet now. Good luck to all players!]

* * *

Entities around the cosmos watched as the Primordial and his group were devoured into a vortex, and thrown into the planet. Spaceships that dwarfed the planet with ease, as well the size of the Primordial himself, who could have grabbed the planet like a basketball, all shrunk in size.

The large spaceships became a mere few kilometers in size, while the Primordial looked like a titan reaching only 30 feet in height, barely towering over the trees of the forest he was standing over.

“What is this? I don’t like being this small.” The Primordial frowned and said, focusing his willpower to enlarge himself, but instead of that happening, he saw a System prompt instead.

[To minimize collateral damage, you are not allowed to grow too large. The highest power level has been capped to a mere Tier 6, City-Level. All Class Zero are at that level, while those who are weaker are even weaker. You can’t break the rule.]

[Do keep in mind that this is a fair game, and so Prima and his team face the same restrictions. If any of you are strong enough to break it or even try, you will be tossed out of the planet and into a distant Hyperverse.]

“….” The Primordial scowled at the message. Especially the last part, it was clearly meant for him. If he was tossed to another Hyperverse, it’ll at least take him a bit of time to return, many things can change within that time.

As for him trying to simply overpower the commands and all these stupid rules, he was unsure—the rules of the Game were quite… powerful.

“The Beyond Omnipotents,” he said, and Eurynome turned to him in shock. “This Game is designed by them; I can feel traces of their energy in the air. I can’t overpower it. Not easily, anyway. Let’s abide by the rules, for now. Plus, the Game did say it’s a ‘fair war’ and since it’s a game by them, we should trust it to be true.”

Her husband sounded sure, but Eurynome looked around in uncertainty. ‘Just what is the Beyond Omnipotents’ relationship with Prima that they gave him such a power?’

“This isn’t good…” Eurynome shivered. For a mere second, she felt fear.

Then she shook her head. It's alright. Even if their personal strength was capped till the City Level, they had spaceships by their side. They could nuke that city with ease.

“That direction,” Eurynome pointed ahead. “I can sense their city, or castle, whatever it is. All spaceships,” her voice was transmitted to the pilots now. “Go obliterate the fortress with missiles and bombs.”

She didn’t wait for replies, the sound of plasma guns charging up was enough to answer. She looked up at a hundred spaceships, from the size of school buses to the sizes of cities, all charging their weapons and pointing them at the city.

Then, all of a sudden, the weapons turned and twisted. They faced each other and fired.

Weapons that could wipe out universes, were still not weak when downgraded to mere city level. The sky roared as the beam from one spaceship hit another, and screams of the Gods on board filled the sky. Destruction raged in the sky as explosions filled it, debris went flying everywhere, chunks of spaceships raining down at the earth.

The Primordial waved a hand to shove away pieces that rained toward him, while his four eyes were locked at the incident in a deep frown.

From all the spaceships, a similar-looking head peeked out. The Primordial and Eurynome recognized them as Galvanic Mechamorphs, a species of weak aliens, who can overpower and take over technology with ease. The aliens shone as explosions churned around them, and their forms changed to that of a humanoid, a human with black hair and red eyes.

Prima, the First Gamer.

He smiled at them, while all his clones from different spaceships flew back to him and merged. He gave the Primordial a last look before teleporting out of his position.

“How troublesome,” the Primordial grumbled. “Even with powers suppressed, his abilities are too versatile as a Celestialsapien. Additionally, it appears that he’s used to this mundane level of wars and fights.”

The Primordial clenched his jaw, realizing this situation was quite a lot more annoying than he had hoped it would be.

* * *

Neji reappeared in his fortress castle and merged into the real him who was sitting on a throne all this time.

“Haah,” he breathed out. This was going smoothly; having Admin perms had incredible perks of its own. How else could he have balanced powers with the Primordial?

Godmother’s demonic subordinates were outside the fortress, ready to fight off minions who might rush here. Godmother herself, as well as Kimi and Anodi, stood near the big windows and watched the spaceships crash down to earth.

Neji got up from his throne and joined them, a small smile on his lips, “They’re born in the peak of power, more used to using stars and galaxies as their weapons rather than fists and mortal strategies. Even if our power levels have been balanced, we have a far greater advantage.” Plus, they didn’t have a stronghold like the fortress.

“So do we have them on a vice grip?” Anodi asked, a little nervous.

“Far from it,” the Godmother shook her head. “If it was anyone else, then maybe.”

“But it’s the Primordial. He’d have thought of the only solution to this already.” Kimi added, raising her head a little to let her old Six Eyes focus on the distance. Her current eyes were too powerful to be used here, so it had been suppressed to the Six Eyes that he got from killing Gojo back in the day. 

She observed and said, “I can sense four particular presences rushing at us already, as well as an army behind them. They know playing the waiting game wouldn’t be advantageous to them, rushing is the best choice.”

“Four, huh,” Neji said. There were four strong entities in his team too, so it was a match. He could use clones, but they won’t be particularly useful against the Primordial.

-

There was a short silence as they observed the Primordial run through the forest toward the fortress until Kimi’s chanting broke it. “Azarath Metrion….” She muttered more words as her hands weaved through the air, summoning magic circles, intricate and numerous, that manifested over the forest with an ethereal glow. 

“Amber of a Raging Sun!” She shouted, with a masterful flick of her wrist, and called forth the very essence of destruction, summoning a tempest of flames that roared down from the sky.

The once tranquil sky turned into a canvas of fury, painted with magic circles that spewed vibrant oranges and reds of unbridled fire. Ancient and intricate magic circles served as conduits for the inferno that was unleashed in the forest. The calm woods that surrounded the fortress, a mosaic of life and nature, transformed into a hellish inferno in an instant.

– Screachhhh!

Animals and birds screamed in pain, monsters roared, and the forest burned like the sun. Like the animals, the crackling of the fire mingled with the cries of those Prime Gods caught in its wrath.

But not all screamed. Even within this flurry of fire and fury, the Primordial God ran with his direct subordinates with his jaws clenched; no fire could hurt this colossus amidst the chaos.

“I heard rumors you used to be a mortal,” he roared at the fortress as he ran, “Seeing these cheap mortal tricks, it’s believable now. Foolish tricks!”

His divine self remained unshaken, the flames that sought to consume all in their path mere whispers against his indomitable form. With a voice older than time, he commanded his cohort forward, his presence alone a declaration of war against the fortress's defenses.

Neji watched with arms crossed, with the girls beside him, as the Primordial tapped into the abyssal depths of his void powers, touching barely the tip of it in this suppression field, but it was more than enough. The wall of the fortress, reinforced by magic and willpower, stood no chance against his shoulders he slammed into it. Such raw destruction, his void powers reached out to the very fabric of reality itself, tearing it asunder.

– Shinggg!

The white walls obliterated upon contact, dissipating into nothingness and fading away like a pencil drawing against an eraser, as the Primordial slipped through the breach with the ease of a shadow stalking its prey.

“Attack him! Fire the cannons!” the minion demons placed behind the walls of the fortress shouted and pointed attacks at the Primordial. But how could bugs hurt a God?

“Grrgh…!” with a primal growl, the Primordial widened his jaw and let out a breath of fire and destruction that swept through the interior, eating away at the demons.

From their vantage point, Neji and his allies observed the initial onslaught, an anticipatory silence hanging heavy between them. His lips curved up slightly as the sky let out a chime and a song followed.

The [Dragon Icon] shone in the sky, and the music ‘af1’ followed.

Then, as one, Neji leaped into the fray with the girls, the air crackling with the energy of their descent.

Kimi transformed into a White Tiger Hybrid, and clashed kicks with Eurynome, while her wand moved to weave spells in the air. Their confrontation was a dazzling display of magic and otherworldly strength. Spells woven from the very fabric of the omniverse clashed, as did legs that could crush dimensions, illuminating the area with sparks of fire from each clash.

"We meet again. Your movements are sluggish." Kimi taunted with a small grin, even as she parried a vicious aura strike with a shield conjured from cosmic energy.

“Surely I am,” Eury scoffed and cleaved at Kimi with claws made of red energy.

Elsewhere, the Godmother engaged Orin, her form a blur of motion as she danced around his attacks, her own strikes a demonstration of her millennia of martial arts experience. "Your grief blinds you, Orin," she chided, her voice a low murmur amidst the cacophony of battle. "Why are you so eager to follow your son to the grave? It won't lead you to victory today."

Anodi faced Margnas, her youthful purple-pink visage blurring against the Lord of Qi from the Prime Omniverse. The air around them hummed with the force of their attacks, Anodi's mastery over her Mana abilities clashing with Margnas's godly Qi prowess.

At the heart of the conflict, Neji stood toe-to-toe with the Primordial, their forearms locked in a test of strength. The very air around them seemed to explode with the force of their collision, a microcosm of the larger battle raging throughout the fortress. They grinned at each other, both out of amusement and as warriors acknowledging their strength.

“I’m looking forward to what the chosen of those Beyond Omnipotents can do,” said the Voidborn, while Neji scoffed.

"And I’m disappointed by the strength of the omniversal overlord," Neji mused aloud, pushing back with all his might. "Let's see how long you can hold on."

The Primordial responded with a growl even as he chuckled, his voice resonant with the power that had shaped the omniverse. "This battle will end with your skull dancing against my foot."

And with that, the castle became the arena for a clash of titans, each pair locked in their duels, their fates intertwined in the outcome of this epic confrontation. The outcome of this battle, no matter the winner, will leave the omniversal history changed forever.

* * *

Not all who were in the spaceship were dead. They joined the battle, and the Seven Deadly Sins entered to stop them. The main four battles were left uninterrupted and continued for days to come.

A smarter, less arrogant deity would not have entered this planet after seeing the System Prompt. They'd have rather baited Neji into the Prime Omniverse, in their home base, to corner him with an army or trillions.

However, the Primordial God was arrogant to his bones. He did not care that this might have been a mistake, he fought like a bull and destroyed each part of the planet and the fight happened.

If it was the planet that was the arena and he couldn't leave it by force, he just had to destroy the planet over time through this fighting. Once he's outside, he'll end the fight in seconds.

Putting aside Neji and the Primordial, the other six fighters were a close enough matchup for one another. Except for Godmother, who was more powerful than Orin by a considerate margin. Even so, Orin held on for as long as he could, using any means necessary, since otherwise, she would join Neji against the Primordial.

Anodi and Margnas were an equal match, while Kimi and Eurynome was a spiral of ups and downs depending on which technique was used first by whom.

All of these big fours caused destruction around the planet. Any good game would have had an auto-repair feature, but this one did not. Over days that turned weeks, touching months, chunks of the planet began to go missing. Lakes turned into craters, and mountains vanished.

A whole month of fighting later, the planet lost its status as a planet. It was a floating debri across the cosmos, only kilometers long. It was still considered a stage, so the game was ongoing. But the moment this block of land ceases to exist, the area will be gone too.

Outside the planet, time had spun slowly. It had been only three hours to all spectators who watched this war go on from around the cosmos.

The sky around them, once filled with spaceships, was now clean. The only parties remaining were the four main fighters. 

– Bang!

– Boom!

– Dddudddh~!

Anodi and Margnas were the least injured, being the closest in power, as well as entities with extreme control over energies. They healed and fought, so their injuries were minor.

The Godmother had almost torn apart Orin into pieces, the man was a skeleton continuing to fight with her perfect form.

Kimi and Eurynome were both injured, bleeding, and bruised. Eurynome lacked a leg, one of her legs was vaporized, and Kimi’s left hand hung from her shoulder motionlessly. Yet everyone continued fighting.

Neji and the Primordial were similar to Anodi and Margnas. Due to their power being similar in scale, as the power cap was Tier 5 and both of them were at the peak of it, their regeneration, as well as attack power, was not lacking. 

Neji had realized midway through that this would end in a draw no matter what. Neither of their power could kill the other in this restrained area.

That wouldn't have mattered if Godmother was able to join and help the battle after defeating her enemy, but the probability of that happening before the arena would cease to exist was impossible.

“This ends here,” the muscular tank grinned, and his white teeth were shining from behind as a fire breath was brewing in his throat. 

Neji sighed and prepared to block it. He would have replied with a breath of his own, but the collision of two beams would surely end the arena. Then again, he was sure this one beam would cause the same.

In the end, Neji growled, his throat burning with heat, as he widened his jaws just when the Primordial did.

[The Void Dragon's Breath]

[Primordial Genesis Stream]

Two beams of pure destruction and nonexistence fired out of two entities and slammed into one another in a catastrophic display of power. 

The ground under them turned into dust, and distant stars in the cosmos twinkled out. Their power has suddenly reached a scale high enough to erase stars.

A system prompt announced the reason why.

[The arena of the Game has been destroyed. It ended with no clear winner.]

[The restrictions have been lifted.]

The messages floated on the last chunk of the planet until the Primordial shot a laser from his eyes to decimate it.

He shrugged his shoulders as his body grew in size, “Ah, that wasn't too bad. But it's time to truly put an end to this.” 

With a snap of his finger, his allies recovered. He was never a healer, let alone having the power to heal such grave injuries caused by omniversal entities, but Void worked in wonderful ways. He could always ‘erase’ the injuries and in that manner heal them. The regrowth of limbs and flesh was left up to the injured ones, and they were capable enough to do so.

“I feel like that was a waste of time,” Neji replied, and with a snap of his fingers, he healed his allies instantly. He didn't need to rely on the void's tricks for it, he fully healed them with a thought. 

Kimi recovered instantly and attacked Eurynome who was busy for a millisecond in regrowing her leg.

Orin took a lot longer to regrow his flesh compared to Eury, and the full-powered Godmother of All Demons took that chance to cleave his head off with a single wave of her hand.

“You're on the wrong side, Lili,” said the Primordial as he shot his sister a look. “Do not blame me if I hunt you for the rest of your reincarnations.”

“The threat sounds funny as it implies how you can't kill me, brother,” the Godmother chuckled. “Good luck.”

She said and turned her head to the side where a shimmer of light went on, and a gang of Abstract Entities formed. From Buddha to Death, and even Fate, all living Class 1s were there, all but Lady Life.

“Give up, criminals,” said Buddha, “According to Rule #563 of Order C-1, you all are to be executed. Now-”

“You guys,” Godmother turned to Neji and Kimi with a soft, bored smile on her lips. “I shall take care of these clowns. You finish your mission in calmness.”

Then, she leaped at Buddha and yanked a finger off his huge form.

The important fighters turned to one another—Kimi as the Director faced Eurynome, Anodi was going all out against Margnas, and lastly, the main two players, Neji and the titanic Primordial God shared a silent stare down.

[Voidborne Wai'ghulax – The Primordial God – Class 0 (???) ]

Then, the two of them leaped at one another.

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