Galaxy's First Ruler

"From pebbles to mountains and mortals to Gods; Everything that is above and under heaven has Perception."

*

When Aldrich had created the Shadow Homunculus, he just wanted an Item that could devour other Items to save space in his Inventory.

He did not even know that its name would be changed to "Shadow Homunculus", much less the idea of it having intelligence. Why in the world did he need an Item that could think for itself? Aldrich had considerable knowledge related to AI. And as much as he was a fan, he also knew the humans weren't ready to tackle such artificially intelligent beings. But he had already invested his Experience Points to create the Item, and the result wasn't half bad.

Unknown to Aldrich, the Shadow part in the Item's name wasn't just for show. There was a reason that the Item could hide in Aldrich's shadow. Aldrich wasn't just experienced enough to know about such things.

The Devil, though, knew it.

From the memories of Aldrich and Sha, he could infer that unknowingly the Sha was mastering the Law of Shadow, with a speed that even baffled him. It was no wonder to Devil why the RECORD had labeled the entire Item as an anomaly and an unnatural life form. If it were him against the Item, he would have annihilated such a thing from growing up.

Then he saw the scene of Sha appearing in front of Aldrich as if she had even matched the speed of lightning. Aldrich had yet to ask her for an explanation as he didn't encounter a fight in the third Plaza, but the Devil needn't ask to know what that was.

In the desperate moments, compelled by the extreme emotions, Sha had mastered a technique that couldn't be obtained through RECORD. It was the Shadow Blink.

Shadow Blink wasn't a Skill like teleportation, for the devil knew that no teleportation could catch up to lightning in a short distance. The reason that Sha could reach Aldrich was innate to her and her only, and this reason was the Shadow World.

It was a world only accessible to pure Shadow elemental creatures. And the Shadow Blink was nothing but traveling through it. The shadows in the real world worked as gateways to this dimension through which an effect of teleportation could be imitated. But it had its restrictions, and they were heavy.

Not only one was needed to understand the Law of Shadow to go in and come out of the dimension, but one also needed shadows to work with. If the bolt of lightning hadn't cast Aldrich's shadow, then no matter how quick Shadow Blink was, Sha couldn't have reached him in the moonless night of the second Plaza.

*

When the Devil entered the El Cid's Plaza, the only thing in his mind was to finish things quickly and go back home. Aldrich's home, the blue and green earth.

The Devil needed to mold Aldrich's body suitable for complete possession. When Aldrich's memories came to him, he also saw Dullahan's Stats. And in those Stats, he saw a Name that he thought he would never get to see again. Though Aldrich couldn't read that Name, he could.

But when he saw the Boss Crawler using memories to call upon dead or alive beings, he couldn't stop thinking about how to use it to his advantage. From then on, all attacks, trash-talking, and provocations were nothing but an act. An act to force El Cid's hands to call all Crawlers until he chance upon what he wanted. But he didn't think it would work on the very first try.

*

Under the undead Dullahan, there were two shadows. One cast by its body, and the other by its head. Hundreds of shadow blobs churned into the little shadow of its head, and a 30 ft tall being materialized as the blobs came together.

This being was the Devil and Aldrich. And this being was also Sha.

The Skill used by El Cid had raised the Stats of various Crawlers and Dreamers to Viscount, but not even it could enhance the inherent intelligence. So when the Devil towered in front of it, instead of running away to make a gap, the undead Dullahan did the same thing he had done with Aldrich.

By this time, El Cid had again used the false One Step Shunpo to arrive at the Devil's back, aiming the swords at his neck. Time again stagnated, not because of the use of Shadow Blink, but by Dullahan's use of Will of ?#?#?#

As the sound of many threads snapping echoed in the Plaza, the Devil evilly grinned and muttered.

"See you soon, motherfuckers!!!"

The Devil couldn't find anything related to the dark space he had come to in Aldrich's memories. All he could remember was that Aldrich had used his maximum agility to slice up one of the two Dullahans. But he cared little about it, for he knew what to expect out of this emptiness.

The Devil saw an archaic altar hovering far away from him, and let out a laughing roar.

ROARRRRR!

HAHAHAHAHA!!!

"GOLDY! Old friend, I have come to save you!!!"

The Devil dashed towards the ancient altar and as he kept getting closer to it, the true size of the altar got reflected by his purple eyes. The altar was even bigger than the tens of Rosalia planets combined. But the Devil neither got fazed by its size nor by the sheer amount of devilish aura surrounding the altar.

Time didn't have any meaning in this place, and the Devil kept going and going for months or years until he reached the center of the altar. There were two massive pillars at the center covered in many runes and two chains ran down from the top of the pillar towards the altar's floor. But the shackles at the end of the chain were empty.

The moment Devil saw those empty shackles, it was like he had seen something that even he didn't want to see. A trace of bafflement came to his face, which soon turned to absolute fear.

"HE has woken up, HE has woken up… How… NO! NO! GOLDY!!!"

The Devil maniacally snapped his head all around and shouted, but couldn't find a trace of any call and presence. His heart was throbbing in pain and terror, that for a moment he didn't even want to leave this place ever. But soon rage and wrathful emotions came rushing to his place.

"HOW DARE YOU?! This wasn't the AGREEMENT. How can RECORD let this happen?"

Alas, no one could answer his questions. The Devil kept shouting until he couldn't anymore. At last, the Devil again looked at the shackles and took a deep breath. He flew down towards the shackles and felt the coarseness of the iron-like material.

"Don't worry, my friend. If you have more pieces of WILL, then I will find them. But… this sacrifice won't go to waste."

The Devil closed his raging purple eyes and sensed the massive devilish aura. At first he had thought the BANISHED GOLDEN DEVIL could guide him towards a better source of devil aura, but now he decided to use what was left of his Old friend's presence. He put his palms together and the language of LAWS came out of his mouth.

"WILL OF THE DEVIL; COME!!!"