Kokabiel's POV

  As I stood in my personal dimension in all my eldritch glory, I found myself experiencing something deeply ironic for an Outer God—uncertainty about how to proceed.

  It wasn't fear, exactly. I was physically incapable of that particular emotion in this form. But there was definitely... hesitation. The cosmic equivalent of standing at a diving board and wondering if you'd properly calculated the trajectory.

  How does one actually train to be an Outer God?

  It's not like there's a convenient guidebook. No "Being an Eldritch Horror for Dummies" sitting on some metaphysical bookshelf. No training montage where I punch reality until I get stronger. Just concepts and absurdities.

  I took a moment to examine my ever-shifting form, trying to understand exactly what I was working with.

  According to my mythos, the conceptual framework that defined my existence as Umbrazoth, I was supposed to be "perfect and beautiful beyond mortal comprehension."

  Which meant my true form couldn't be properly perceived by beings with limited dimensional awareness.

  What others saw when they looked at me, that dark silhouette with wings and stars—that was just the shape I allowed them to perceive. A translation of something incomprehensible into something vaguely comprehensible.

  But this? This writhing mass of concepts and contradictions that I actually was? This was the reality.

  I could be anything I wished to be. Form was merely a suggestion, a convenience. I think, therefore I am. Cogito ergo sum taken to its absolute extreme.

  But with that freedom came a terrifying level of responsibility.

  In this form, even a light sigh from me could become a cosmic storm capable of destroying universes. A careless thought could rewrite fundamental laws across multiple realities. An emotional outburst could accidentally erase entire species from existence.

  So the real question wasn't "how do I get stronger?" It was "how do I use this power without accidentally deleting half the omniverse?"

  That was the real challenge. Control. Precision. Making sure that when I fought Shub-Niggurath, I didn't inadvertently destroy everything I was trying to protect in the process.

  As I pondered this dilemma, my hands, or the conceptual equivalent of hands in my current state, began moving of their own accord.

  Muscle memory, perhaps, though I didn't have muscles. Soul memory? Essence memory?

  Whatever it was, I found myself shaping something.

  A small world. Held in my hand, perfect in its simplicity. More like a world seed to be fair. When it explodes and expands, a new universe would be born.

  It was made of pure darkness, an absolute void that should have been invisible. Yet countless motes of light danced within it, billions of tiny stars that made the darkness visible through contrast.

  Light and darkness existing simultaneously. Darkness trying to engulf the light, yet the light always shining through. Neither able to fully overcome the other, locked in eternal balance.

  How poetic.

  I stared at the miniature world floating in my palm, and felt something click in my mind.

  Wait. That's actually it.

  Creation and destruction at the same time. The fundamental duality that existed at the heart of all reality.

  I could apply concepts from other worlds here, other systems of power and understanding. Even if the specific principles were different across dimensions, the fundamental concepts all derived from the same source.

  The Origin.

  Any and all energy, across every possible universe and timeline, came from a single source. Then it evolved, changed, differentiated into countless forms and expressions. Mana, chakra, spiritual energy, holy power, demonic energy—all just different flavors of the same fundamental force.

  It sounded a bit weird when I tried to articulate it, even to myself. But I was supposed to be the End and the Beginning. Alpha and Omega. The First and the Last.

  So theoretically, I should have a connection to both the Origin Source and the Ultimate End.

  But it was complicated. My powers were intrinsically connected to Azathoth, the Blind Idiot God whose dreams created and maintained reality itself.

  If we were being absolutely literal about it, the Codex of Life—the metaphysical text that defined the nature of Outer Gods—stated it exactly:

  "When the Blind Idiot God awakens from his slumber, all of reality shall come crashing down, for his dreams are reality itself. Then the Foolish Eternal Night shall engulf all of it and bring the inevitable End.

  Yet Umbrazoth, for all his perfection, had one flaw: his love. And out of love and hope for a new beginning, he shall use his immeasurable life as the soil upon which new life shall begin anew.

  Thus the cycle of life shall continue, with no knowledge to the mortals about the foolish god who gave up everything for them."

  A bit grim and depressing if I said so myself.

  But I could see myself making that choice when the time came. Sacrificing everything so that life could continue, so that the people I cared about could exist in a new reality.

  What was the point of becoming a god of nothing, after all? Of ruling over an empty void with no one to protect, no one to care about, no purpose beyond mere existence?

  Better to end with meaning than continue without it.

  I shook my head forcefully, trying to dislodge those melancholic thoughts before they dragged me down further.

  The motion sent disturbing waves of energy rippling across my dimension. Reality buckled and twisted, space-time folding in on itself like origami in the hands of a drunk artist.

  At least I managed to stop the energy from escaping into the actual omniverse. That would have been embarrassing. "Sorry everyone, I accidentally destroyed three galaxies because I had sad thoughts."

  Focus, Kokabiel. There would be time for existential dread later. Right now, I needed to solve the immediate problem.

  Training. Control. Preparation.

  The solution started forming in my mind, piece by piece.

  Create a separate dimension using my powers—not this one, which was still technically connected to the DxD world's reality. Something completely isolated. Kinda like Dimension Lost.

  Then sever that dimension's connection from the omniverse entirely using my Eternal Night authority. Cut it off from the greater whole, make it a truly independent reality bubble. Thanks a certain white haired guy who gave me the idea.

  After that, create a stabilizing layer within that space using my creation-based powers to prevent the whole thing from destabilizing and imploding.

  Within that perfectly isolated space, I could wield all my powers at full capacity without any repercussions. No risk of accidentally destroying inhabited worlds. No chance of my actions rippling out and harming innocents.

  It was a sound theory. Now I just needed to put it into practice.

  My first attempt went... poorly.

  I created the dimension easily enough—that was basic reality manipulation. But when I tried to sever it from the omniverse, I accidentally severed it too completely.

  The dimension immediately began collapsing in on itself, crushed by the weight of its own isolation.

  It imploded in a spectacular display of colors that shouldn't exist and sounds that would have driven mortals insane.

  I hastily erased the whole thing from existence before it could cause any actual damage.

  Attempt number two: I managed to create and sever the dimension properly, but failed to establish the stabilizing layer quickly enough.

  The space began fragmenting, reality cracking like broken glass.

  I erased that one too.

  Attempt number three: Created, severed, stabilized... and then accidentally flooded it with too much of my essence.

  The dimension became supersaturated with my power and started mutating, developing features I hadn't intended. Strange geometries that hurt to look at. Angles that pointed in directions that didn't exist.

  Erase. Start over.

  Attempt number four: Too much stabilization. The dimension became rigid, unable to accommodate the levels of power I needed to practice with. It was like trying to have a fight in a phone booth—technically possible, but extremely inconvenient.

  Erase.

  Attempt number five: Not enough stabilization. The dimension was too fluid, responding to every stray thought.

  When I got frustrated, the space became hostile. When I tried to calm down, it became too calm, so calm that time itself nearly stopped.

  Erase.

  This was going to take a while.

  Twelve attempts later, I finally achieved something close to success.

  The dimension held. It was stable but flexible. Isolated but responsive. A perfect training ground that could withstand my full power without shattering.

  I floated there in the center of this new space, feeling oddly proud of myself despite the absurd number of failed attempts.

  If Gabriel could see me now, she'd probably laugh. Her impossibly powerful brother, struggling with cosmic architecture like a student failing basic engineering.

  Now came the actually important part: figuring out what I could do.

  My creation-based powers were still dormant, which was frustrating. According to my mythos, I would only gain access to my full creative abilities after becoming "the Eternal One"—basically, after Azathoth woke up and I inherited his role as the pillar of reality.

  But I couldn't just go poke Azathoth awake to speed up the process. That would be monumentally stupid. "Hey, let's wake up the entity whose awakening destroys all of reality! What could possibly go wrong?"

  So I had to work with what I currently possessed, which was still considerable.

  I started with the basics. Moving. Shaping. Manifesting.

  I created a star. an actual honest-to-goodness stellar body. Hydrogen fusing into helium, radiating heat and light, a miniature sun floating in my training dimension.

  Then I unmade it. Snuffed it out like a candle, erasing it from existence so completely that it was as if it had never been.

  Creation and destruction. The fundamental duality.

  I needed to become equally proficient at both.

  Next came the matter of attack moves. How did one fight another Outer God?

  Regular attacks were obviously useless. Shub-Niggurath wouldn't be harmed by something as mundane as physical force or energy beams.

  I could throw stars at her all day and she'd probably just laugh.

  No, I needed conceptual attacks. Abilities that operated on the level of fundamental reality itself.

  Thus I began developing what I would eventually call "All-Erasure"—a conceptual attack embodying the very core of my Eternal Night aspect. The inevitable End made manifest.

  The theory was elegant: With this move, I could erase any being from reality, time, space, and existence itself simultaneously.

  Not kill them—killing implied they existed and then stopped. This was different.

  It was retroactive elimination. Making it so they never were, never had been, never could be.

  The moment I used this attack, the End would already be decided. After all, the End was inevitable. That was the entire point of my existence as Umbrazoth.

  I practiced the technique on my created stars, watching them not just disappear but cease to have ever existed. The very space they'd occupied forgot they'd been there.

  It was disturbing, even for me. The ultimate denial of existence.

  I could only imagine what it would feel like to be on the receiving end. To realize, in your final moment, that you were being erased so completely that no one would remember you. No trace left behind. No legacy, no memory, no echo across time.

  Even for an entity as detached as me, that felt cruel. Necessary, perhaps, against something like Shub-Niggurath. But cruel nonetheless.

  Moving on.

  I started creating variations of my usual attacks, experimenting with different applications of the same fundamental principles.

  I made stars spin before launching them, adding rotational force that increased their penetration power. The spiraling motion created a drilling effect that could bore through dimensional barriers.

  I increased and decreased the density of matter at will, turning a pebble-sized object into something with the mass of a black hole, or making a planet light enough to float on water.

  I altered molecular structures, rearranging atoms into new configurations. Created elements that didn't exist on any periodic table. Substances that shouldn't be possible according to normal physics, but existed anyway because I willed them to.

  I experimented with my wings—those massive constructs of void and starlight that defined my angelic heritage. In this form, I had far more than the usual number. Dozens of them, perhaps hundreds, each one containing entire galaxies.

  I could reshape them into weapons, barriers, modes of transportation. Use them to slice through dimensions or fold space itself. They were surprisingly versatile when I actually bothered to explore their capabilities.

  The training continued. Time meant nothing in this isolated space. No past, no future, only the eternal present of practice and refinement.

  I could have trained here for eons in subjective time, then returned to the DxD world at the exact moment I left. Or a second later. Or a year earlier if I really wanted to mess with causality, though that would give me a headache.

  Actually, that was another thing to practice: temporal manipulation. If I was going to fight an entity that potentially existed outside normal time, I needed to understand how to operate on that level.

  I started small. Accelerating time in one area of my dimension, slowing it in another. Creating pockets where time ran backwards or sideways or in loops.

  It was disorienting. Even for an Outer God, perceiving multiple temporal streams simultaneously was like trying to watch fifty movies at once while someone kept changing the playback speed on random screens.

  But I persevered. This was necessary.

  Then came what I'd been unconsciously avoiding: full knowledge assimilation.

  As an Outer God associated with stars and the cosmos, I had the ability to access all knowledge hidden within stellar bodies. Every secret written in the light of distant suns, every mystery encoded in the radiation of dying stars.

  It was similar to Hastur's abilities, actually. The King in Yellow could know anything that had ever been observed by starlight. I could access the accumulated wisdom of the cosmos itself.

  I'd been hesitant to fully utilize this ability because, well... knowing everything was terrifying.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  But I couldn't avoid it forever. If I was going to fight Shub-Niggurath effectively, I needed every advantage I could get.

  So I opened myself up to the knowledge. Let it flow in without filter or restriction.

  And immediately regretted it.

  It was... bad.

  "Bad" doesn't really cover it. Language fails completely when trying to describe what it's like to suddenly know everything.

  Seeing it all. Knowing it all. Every secret, every truth, every lie, every possible outcome of every possible choice across infinite timelines and infinite universes.

  The knowledge didn't arrive as neat facts or organized information. It crashed into my consciousness like a tsunami, drowning me in an ocean of understanding.

  I knew what would happen to civilizations that hadn't even formed yet. Knew the names of people who wouldn't be born for millions of years. Knew secrets that beings had died to protect, truths that could shatter religions, conspiracies that would make paranoid humans feel vindicated.

  I knew where Jimmy Hoffa's body was buried. I knew who really shot JFK. I knew the truth about Area 51, the Bermuda Triangle, and every other mystery humans obsessed over.

  I knew things I wished I didn't know.

  I saw how Katie would spend the next decade, counting down the days until she could join me. Saw her commissioning statue after statue, painting portrait after portrait, slowly transforming her church into a shrine dedicated to our relationship.

  I saw what Jin Woo's "island raid" would entail and felt profound sympathy for the poor bastard. That was going to be traumatic in ways he couldn't even imagine yet. The System really didn't pull punches when it came to romantic routes, apparently.

  I saw Kazuma's future adventures, saw him narrowly avoiding death through sheer dumb luck and strategic cowardice so many times it stopped being funny and started being impressive.

  I saw Robin's world, saw the truth of the Void Century and what really happened. Saw the secrets that the World Government had killed millions to hide.

  I saw Ritsuka's battles, saw the sacrifices she would make, the friends she would lose, the impossible choices she would face.

  I saw Yoruichi's past, her betrayals and her loyalties, the weight she carried behind that playful mask.

  I saw my siblings' futures, the challenges they would face in my absence, how they would grow and change and struggle without me there to protect them.

  I saw Katie's church falling into chaos when she eventually left. Saw the schisms, the theological debates, the fundamentalists who would refuse to accept that their goddess had abandoned them for love.

  I saw the heat death of the universe. Saw stars dying, galaxies collapsing, reality slowly winding down toward its inevitable conclusion.

  I saw Azathoth's dreams, the nightmares that shaped existence itself. Saw the moment he would wake, and everything would end.

  I saw my own death. Multiple versions of it, actually, across different timelines and possibilities. Saw myself choosing erasure over existence, sacrificing everything to preserve what I loved.

  And worst of all, I saw alternatives. Timelines where I chose wrong, where I failed, where everyone I cared about died because I wasn't strong enough or smart enough or fast enough.

  It was overwhelming. Crushing. An infinite weight of knowledge pressing down on my consciousness.

  I wanted to scream, but I had no throat. Wanted to close my eyes, but I had too many to close them all. Wanted to forget, but I was incapable of forgetting anything now.

  This was the curse of omniscience. The burden of knowing everything.

  No wonder Hastur seemed so detached, so indifferent to mortal concerns. When you knew everything, it was hard to care about anything. It all became just data, just information, just facts in an infinite database.

  I floated there in my training dimension, drowning in knowledge, trying desperately to organize it all into something manageable.

  Slowly, I learned to compartmentalize. To file away the knowledge I didn't immediately need, to focus on what was relevant. It was like learning to use a computer after spending your whole life with just your brain.

  Overwhelming at first, but eventually manageable.

  I would never be free of this knowledge now. It was part of me, woven into my very existence as an Outer God. But I could at least control how much I accessed at any given moment.

  I took stock of what I'd learned—specifically about Shub-Niggurath, since that was the immediate threat.

  She was old. Older than most Outer Gods, older than many universes. She'd existed in some form since before time had meaning, since before the concept of "before" even existed.

  She'd destroyed countless realities, consumed infinite worlds, birthed horrors beyond number.

  Her spawn numbered in the thousands, maybe millions, scattered across dimensions like seeds waiting to sprout.

  The one I'd killed in Robin's world had been young, barely matured. A child, really, in Outer God terms. Killing it had been like swatting a particularly aggressive mosquito—annoying for the mosquito, barely noticeable for the person being bitten.

  But Shub-Niggurath herself? That would be different.

  She wouldn't underestimate me like her spawn had. She would come prepared, fully aware of what I was, what I could do. This would be a real fight, a genuine contest between cosmic entities.

  And the terrifying part? I wasn't entirely sure I would win.

  Oh, I'd told the chat group "nah, I'd win" with all the confidence of someone setting up a death flag. But privately, I had doubts.

  Shub-Niggurath had eons of experience. She'd fought other Outer Gods, survived conflicts that erased entire realities. She knew tricks and techniques I probably hadn't even conceived of yet.

  I was powerful, yes. Potentially more powerful than her if I fully unleashed everything I had.

  But power alone didn't guarantee victory. Experience mattered. Strategy mattered. The willingness to do absolutely anything to win mattered.

  And that's where I might have a disadvantage.

  Because I had things I wanted to protect. Shub-Niggurath? She had nothing to lose. She could afford to be reckless, to risk everything, because "everything" meant nothing to her.

  I had siblings I loved. Friends I cared about. A world I was trying to protect. Someone waiting for me with the patience of someone who'd already waited thousands of years.

  Those were weaknesses an enemy could exploit. Vulnerabilities that a truly ruthless opponent would target without hesitation.

  I needed to be ready for that. Needed contingencies, backup plans, ways to protect what I cared about even if the battle went badly.

  Which brought me back to the chat group store and that All Fiction ability I'd been eyeing.

  With that power, I could make any damage "fiction." The DxD world gets destroyed? Fiction, never happened. My siblings get killed? Fiction, they're fine actually. Katie's world suffers collateral damage? Fiction, it was all a bad dream.

  It was the perfect insurance policy against disaster.

  But I was still 400,000 points short. And I couldn't exactly grind for points when the invasion was less than a year away.

  I'd have to be creative. Maybe take on some extra missions? Ask the chat group if there were any worlds needing immediate assistance?

  Or...

  An idea occurred to me. A potentially terrible, definitely risky, but possibly brilliant idea.

  The chat group store probably valued rare items, right? Things from other dimensions, unique artifacts, conceptual treasures?

  And I, as an Outer God, could theoretically create such things. Not easily, and not without cost, but it was possible.

  What if I crafted something valuable enough to trade for the points I needed?

  I'd have to be careful not to create something dangerous, something that could be weaponized against me or others. But maybe... maybe something beautiful?

  Something that embodied concepts from my world that were rare or impossible elsewhere?

  A fragment of the original light from when Yahweh first created Heaven. A shard of the True Cross, imbued with genuine divine authority. A feather from my own wings, containing a tiny portion of my cosmic essence.

  These were things that would be priceless in certain worlds. Holy relics of genuine power, not the cheap knockoffs that most religions worked with.

  I made a mental note to explore that option after I finished training. The chat group store had a "sell" function I'd never bothered investigating. Time to see what cosmic artifacts were worth on the interdimensional market.

  But that was for later. Right now, I needed to continue practicing.

  I resumed my training with renewed focus. Creating and destroying, building and erasing, learning the precise limits of my power.

  I pushed myself harder than I'd ever pushed before. Manifested entire solar systems just to collapse them into singularities. Created life, gave it consciousness, then mercifully erased it before it could truly understand what existence meant.

  That last part was probably the most disturbing aspect of my training. I had the power to create life, but that life would be trapped in this isolated dimension with no purpose beyond being target practice for my attacks.

  It felt wrong. Even for an entity as emotionally limited as me, it felt wrong.

  So I made them happy first. Before erasing them, I gave them perfect lives in accelerated time.

  Let them experience joy, love, fulfillment. Made their brief existence meaningful, even if it was ultimately just a simulation, a temporary reality that I would erase when I was done.

  It was a small mercy, but it mattered to me. If I was going to play god, then I would at least try to be a benevolent one.

  The training continued. I lost track of how long I spent in that isolated dimension. Time was meaningless there anyway, I'd deliberately severed it from any external timeline.

  But eventually, I felt... ready. As ready as I could be, given the circumstances.

  I understood my powers now. Understood their scope, their limits, their potential applications.

  I practiced the All-Erasure technique until I could execute it perfectly. I'd tested my defensive capabilities against simulated attacks. I'd mapped out strategies for containment, for preventing collateral damage.

  I was as prepared as I was going to get.

  Now I just needed to wait for Shub-Niggurath to arrive.

  But before I returned to the DxD world properly, there was one more thing I wanted to do.

  I reached out with my senses, extending my awareness beyond my training dimension, searching through the greater omniverse for any signs of approaching threats or unusual activity.

  And I found something interesting.

  A light probe. Delicate, almost playful, like someone poking your cheek with curiosity. Not hostile, just... interested.

  I traced the energy signature back to its origin point and felt a small smile form on my incomprehensible face.

  A ruined city stretched out before my mind's eye. Two suns hung silently in the sky, neither providing warmth nor comfort, just illumination for what lay below.

  Carcosa.

  The city was a testament to fallen glory, the ruins of something magnificent that had been allowed to decay. Yet even in its destruction, it held a certain allure.

  The architecture suggested beauty beyond mortal comprehension, designs that hurt to look at but compelled attention anyway.

  And there, in the center of it all, sitting casually on a throne made of concepts I couldn't quite identify, was Hastur.

  The King in Yellow.

  I could see him clearly now, that tattered yellow robe that somehow conveyed regality despite its condition. The Pallid Mask that hid his face—or perhaps was his face, the distinction was unclear.

  I swear I could see an amused look in the darkness behind that mask. Like a theater patron who'd been waiting for the show to start and was pleased that the curtain was finally rising.

  I sighed—an action that sent ripples through several nearby dimensions, which I hastily suppressed.

  The surroundings shifted around me in a way that was and wasn't movement.

  Because I was in Carcosa now. Not because I'd traveled there, but because I'd always been there, just choosing not to be until this moment.

  The logic of Outer God existence was weird like that.

  I walked casually toward the ruined palace, my form shifting back to something more comprehensible.

  The dark silhouette with wings, the shape I wore when I wanted to approximate something humanoid.

  The streets of Carcosa were empty. Or perhaps they were full, but the inhabitants existed on wavelengths I wasn't perceiving. Either way, I saw no one as I made my way toward Hastur's throne.

  Once upon a time, this place would have been magnificent. I could see echoes of its former glory in the architecture. The designs were actually somewhat similar to Heaven's aesthetic, which was interesting.

  Made sense, in a way. Both Hastur and Yahweh had been creators, builders of beautiful things. Their sensibilities would naturally overlap in certain ways.

  But where Heaven maintained its glory, Carcosa had been allowed to fall. Not from neglect, I thought, but from deliberate choice. This ruin was intentional, a statement of some kind.

  As I approached the palace steps, I felt Hastur's attention fully focus on me. Not threatening, just... observing. Assessing what I'd become since we last spoke.

  It was about time we meet, properly this time. Hastur—the Shepherd of the Stars, the King in Yellow, the Feaster from Afar.

  The being who had given me this life, or at least facilitated my transformation into what I was now.

  He'd bestowed upon me a connection to the path of ascendance, shared some of his powers and knowledge. Made it possible for me to exist as an Outer God rather than being consumed by the transformation.

  I owed him a debt, technically. Though Outer Gods didn't really operate on concepts like gratitude or obligation. We were beyond such mortal concerns.

  Still, I was curious. Despite supposedly being all-knowing now, I had so many questions for him.

  Why had he helped me? What did he want? What was his endgame in all of this?

  And most importantly: Did he know something about my future that I didn't? Was it all fate, or just a random act of kindness?

  I reached the base of the throne and looked up at the King in Yellow, waiting to see what cosmic wisdom or cryptic nonsense he would offer.

  Because with Hastur, it could honestly go either way.