The World's most Overpowered Side-Character

Chapter 331 The Start of an Endless Nightmare.

"M-my punishment?" Dr'ul leapt to her feet, sobering up instantly as she flashed to the other side of her throne room standing with her hands on her cheeks and her head lowered.

"Listen, I have never been punished, I do not know how this works, do I lay across your lap and get spanked?" She asked flustered, but Sol's expression only went from seriousness to disbelief as he watched the goddess making a fuss and blushing at the thought of being spanked.

"What the fuck," Sol shook his head and pointed to the ground before himself. "Dr'ul, don't fuck around with me, I am serious here, the last thing we need right now is some kind of disunion between the Arkadians and Outerworlders, but that is exactly what your actions have caused," He sneered putting her antics to a stop as she sucked in a breath and averted her eyes.

"I know, I apologise, but to my defence, she was wrong-"

"And she has been dealt a severe punishment; Cecelia is inside of the [Nightmare Prism] serving what could end up being an entire lifetime of solitude if her perspective does not change," Sol narrowed his eyes watching the goddess shrink to an appropriate size as she walked across the giant rooom and stood before him showing regret at her actions through her inability to come up with something to counter what he had said.

"What does that leave me to do as the one responsible for you and your actions?" He queried with a deep and stressed sigh.

"If you wish to send me there as well; to the same place I mean, it weighs on my mind that she would be alone in that horrible place," Dr'ul stared at Sol seriously, balling her fist as a bead of sweat rolled down her cheek. "It is somewhere that the worst fears of those who inhabit it will manifest in wave after wave is it not?" She asked taking a knee before him.

"Sol, even if she was wrong, it is still a horrible experience to endure alone, I understood that, after what happened with Han seven years ago, it is a true prison that humbles and hardens, but it also drives you insane if you stay there too long."

"Are you serious?" Sol asked, considering it seriously. "Isn't that the worst place to be with someone you dislike?" He raised a brow. "Why would you willingly want to go into the [Nightmare Prism]?"

"I am also in the wrong, even if I claim she is, I could have set my pride aside and dissolved the situation otherwise, but my ego outweighed my critical thinking, I believe it is unfair to Cecelia that she alone endure hell, I am sure you intended on some further restriction as my punishment for causing this mess, but it is not enough, please, allow me to share this sentence with her, she has a life outside of all this, I would never forgive myself if she failed to return, I believe this to be the right choice."

"... This is exactly why someone like yourself is unfit for the [Nightmare Prism]," Sol shook his head. You have always had pure intentions, Dr'ul," Sol rested his hand on her head while she knelt there staring at the ground.

"Think about this; I have no control over what happens in there, if you share in her punishment then the consequences of failure are yours to share as well, you are giving up your seat as the Queen of the Arkadian pantheon to serve time with someone who you should rightfully consider your enemy based on her views of you and what she tried to do-"

"I will serve the same sentence if you allow me to, Sol." Dr'ul stubbornly insisted, and the man huffed and rested his hand akimbo.

"Think about what you are saying, whatever fear you have, will materialise and try everything in its power to kill you-"

"Please," She insisted seriously once more, and Sol smirked at her, huffing through his nostrils and extending his hand above her head.

"How's that?" He asked, directing his thoughts outwards and like a chime Ikaris's voice returned to him as she had an amused expression while she sat with Dina and Arla in their dining room, accompanied by Sara who had a strange gleam of pride in her eyes while holding Talia. She too had been made aware of the goddesses proposal.

"Dangerous, considering the two of them were trying to kill each other just moments ago, it is dangerous because they serve as opposites to each other and they will most likely fight to the death unless Dr'ul keeps her lust for battle conserved for the imaginary beings that will come for them, but if she is willing to sacrifice her freedom to right a wrong then it should be okay, she is stubborn, but her heart has always been in the right place when it came to the well-being of others." Ikaris confirmed the request with a nod and the others in the room glanced at each other with worried stares.

"Okay," Sol looked at the goddess before himself once more. "Will you tell the others?" He asked and she took on a thoghtful gaze.

"Did she get the opportunity to say farewell?" She rebutted, standing and looking to the floor as a cryptic mana circle appeared beneath her feet.

"She was denied any such privilege," Sol raised a brow at the question seeing the outcome before she even said anything.

"Then I will leave without word, when you announce her punishment, announce mine as well, but for the sake of equilibrium, please refrain from mentioning that I went voluntarily!"

She smiled at him before the world around her shifted upwards as she was left falling through a black canopy with a singular source of light high above the portal she had fallen through being the only source of light until she started seeing flashes on the horizon not too far away.

"They appear at night and the nights here last seventy-two hours while the day cycle is only one hour long, I have been fighting for an entire night already, the first sun will rise soon, I hope it arises soon, I miss the light, I have only been here one night and I wish nothing but to leave, they come from the ground, they fall from the skies, they manifest from the sands and the air I breathe, relentlessly..."

Cecelia heaved, with her palm on the ground, staring before her at the headless corpse of General Flint of the Emporium as it was eaten by the black sands. "I thought my greatest fear was being alone, I was prepared to pay for my actions in solitude, I was ready to face this with an open mind, to meditate on and improve my sense of self...

but why is this bastard here?" She asked, seeing another Flint corpse walk out of the sand with a sword in its hand.

"I do not fear you!" The woman screamed, pointing her hand at him.

[Pistol]

"Except... you do." The corpse spoke in a sickly tone, causing black sand to fall from its mouth when it opened it.

"You fear being left alone with me, but I am your only friend so this is unnecessary, come back to me, let's stay together forever Cecelia." It raised its hand in a gesture of welcome, and she shuddered and released her attack ripping through his body as he was unguarded, but as soon as she did this another one appeared at her side slapping her to the ground and shrieking in a shrill and deafening high pitch.

"I am the only person who ever cared for you, look at what they did, look at where they sent you!" He screamed kicking her in her abdomen when she failed to stand while guarding her ears with her eyes tightly shut. "Me, Viktor Flint; I am, and always will be your saviour!" The corpse drew its sword.

"Why are you resisting me even now when this is all that remains of the two of us, when death and desolation os all we are!?" He screamed again while another grabbed her leg preventing her from standing and dragging her knee deep into the black sand with a grotesque black slimy smile as maggots ran across its teeth.

"We will always be together, Cecelia!" Flint laughed as yet another one emerged from the darkness grabbing her arms and yanking them under her causing her to fall onto her back as more and more of them continued to appear. "This is where people like us belong!"

"No!" The woman flashed her arm free grabbing the newly arrived by it's face and blowing it away with a concentrated beam of pure mana, but as soon as she did two more grabbed her arm and pressed her palm against her abdomen. "Let go of me!" She screamed out in a panic, dragging her other hand free and forming her fingers into a gun against the chest of the corpse above her.

[Casting Pistol-]

[Cast interrupted by unstable mana]

Cecelia flailed and screamed after a sword was driven through her leg and the space occupied began expanding with the pure presence of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, they just kept appearing, forming a mountain on top of her as she struggled to free herself, emitting a constant burning mana around herself to no avail as it was not killing them fast enough.

"I can't..." She sunk further into the black sand, closing her eyes and breathing a pillar of mana like a burst of fire into the air, granting her the ability to breathe for a single second before the tsunami of corpses closed and crashed on top of her again. "If I cannot overcome this, do I deserve to be by her side?

After what I've done, am I even worthy of seeing her again?" Cecelia closed her eyes once more as the many hands around her fastened onto her and her head was all that remained above the sand.

"Maybe... dying here will properly attone..." Her thoughts froze when a brilliant pillar of crimson light ripped through the corpses like a bulled through a thin membrane of skin granting her fresh air again as a figure descended and grabbed her arm beneath the sand and dragged her free, as soon as her feet pressed against the ground a wall of bright crimson flames appeared around them.

"You?" Cecelia stared at the goddess, shocked.

"Yes, me," Dr'ul responded, flinching when one of the corpses charged through the flames and attacked her screeching.

"You do not belong here, you Imposter, weak, unworthy, infertile filth of a goddess!" The creature screamed dodging Cecelia entirely and striking at Dr'ul with the blade, but the goddess dodged the thrust and raised her fist in its belly incinerating it and several others that attempted to do the same while simultaneously throwing curses at her.

"We will speak after this is over," Dr'ul who had been shaken to her core by the insults glanced at Cecelia, conjuring a physical blade and extending the handle towards her.

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"I propose a truce, Éloén Cecelia."