First Demonic Dragon

Abaddon blinked and suddenly he was in more familiar settings than his own backyard.

He and everyone else stood outside of Asherah's humble wooden home.

The mother goddess herself soon emerged with her standard white dress and veil covering her beautiful face.

"Welcome... I do hope that the trip here was not too disorienting."

The sound of Darius' retching noises was all the answer that she needed to hear to get her answer.

"Don't mind him, he's just not used to being pulled outside of space and time by anyone who isn't his wife." Valerie rolled her eyes.

Darius was again too dizzy to retort properly, so he settled for a mere middle finger as he buried his head in the ground.

"Asherah…" Abaddon began. "Is what I'm feeling-"

"Yes, your intuition is correct…" She said grimly.

"Ten unique universes are being forcefully welded together."

The silence that followed in the wake of this bombshell was new even for the nexus of creation.

It is difficult to overestimate the jeopardy associated with universes colliding into each other.

Most of the danger lies in the overlap. If two stars are in the exact same place in opposing universes, universal fusion means that they must collide.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

There is a 50% chance for them to grow into a bigger, single star. And another possibility that they will become black holes that feed on anything they can to grow bigger.

The same applies to planets, but on a worse scale.

Oceans spill over to the point of causing natural disasters. Entire landmasses can be ruined from smashing into one another; creating a nightmarish scenario for animals and mortals alike.

But there are other issues.

Imagine you are living your life. You just finished cranking one out to the latest questionable doujin on an ungodly website that you must take to your grave.

In the midst of cleaning your history, you develop a splitting headache.

This headache comes with memories of a life that is still very much yours, but also not at the same time.

In this new set of memories, you have a partner. A child. Maybe even a better job with paid vacations and your own parking spot!

But as soon as you get your memories, you realize that your reality hasn't changed at all. And those things were almost like a fiction of your imagination.

Wouldn't that drive you insane?

Mortals and deities native to the afflicted universes will feel that discomfort and anger ten times over. Anarchy will spread like a plague as mortals fight to cherry pick the best parts of their multiple lives for themselves.

If a man decides he wants his wife from his fifth life, he'll go to find her.

But if he finds her with another man who she has deemed better for herself, his fractured mind will not allow him to simply walk away.

Bloodshed will be imminent.

Gods and beings of magical origin will be affected slightly differently. Like stars, they will either burn more brightly or go boom- shimmering out of existence. But the likelihood of the latter is much lower for them.

This was the reason the primordials went down at Courtney's dinner.

They are beings who are but a step away from perfection. They are more finely in tuned with themselves than any human could ever hope to imitate.

They felt their alternate selves be forcefully pushed together as if to fit a mold.

It was a specific brand of pain that is far from torture, but you aren't exactly eager to ever feel anything like it ever again either.

Abaddon, Mira, and Ayaana were the only ones unaffected because of their status as singularities; single, unique copies of entities designed to never see replication.

Save for Sif that is. But her current iteration is so far removed from her alternate selves that she can barely hear them at all- even when she puts her mind to it.

But as they were still embodiments of whole concepts, they were uniquely in tune with creation, and thus were aware of such a monumental shift as this one.

"How does something like this even happen? I thought that there were supposed to be safeguards in place to prevent this kind of catastrophe." Shin asked.

Asherah's permenant somber mood broke suddenly for slight amusement.

"…Cherished leader of the Shining Order of Sacred Mercy… You are adjusting to this situation remarkably quickly for your first time here."

*Ahem!* "W-Well it's not as if the order is unaware of your existence… and we don't exactly have time for me to sit around and be starstruck, do we?"

"No… I suppose we do not." Asherah agreed. "As for your question- it seems that certain nefarious forces have started to move more drastically as of late. Melding the universes together seems to be part of a larger plot."

Abaddon's eyes narrowed.

He wondered if after all these years, those two were finally rearing their heads again. Perhaps they were the enemies that Yog-Sothoth taunted him with.

But the brothers didn't have enough power to do this kind of thing on this grand a scale. Not even if they channeled each other.

Even if they were being aided by Yog-Sothoth, they could maybe fuse two universes together. Not ten at once.

The amount of beings who actually could do something that incredibly powerful and dangerous was small enough to fit in a bathroom stall.

Abaddon wouldn't dare- no matter the circumstances.

Brahma would need serious motivation before deciding to make that kind of mess. And he would have certainly consulted with the other three trimurti and Asherah.

Yesh was still sleeping.

So that only left…

"Where's my dad..?"

It was rare to hear Valerie's voice sound meek and small.

She was a powerful, larger than life woman with a penchant for strong liquor and crude humor.

But in times like this, she could easily remind everyone that she was also a daughter. To a father whom she loved very much.

Her worry was almost a palpable thing.

Asherah fell silent as if she were dreading this moment of the conversation. Perhaps she was never going to mention it at all.

"…Gulban was the last safeguard between the layers of reality. If universes are being welded together then it stands to reason that…"

"No…"

"He still has his life. And fusing ten universes together will most certainly take time, so there is still a chance to make things right."

Valerie wiped her running tears hard, as if she couldn't stand to display a modicum of weakness.

"We'll get him back. We will take every legion if we have to."

Behind her, the Nyasir bowed without even taking a moment to dawdle.

Asherah smiled bitterly. "I am not unaware of your family's current constraints, Valerie. You can ill afford to deploy every soldier you have when the dark ones are circling you overhead. That may very well be what they want."

Valerie opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.

She felt a soft hand land on her shoulder. Without even looking back to see who it was, she gave it a firm squeeze. Somehow it felt like this was her only tether to the world right now.

"I know you want to bring your whole army for your father. But there is another way here that I don't believe you've taken the time to look at."

Though Asherah's face was covered, Valerie could still follow her gaze.

She, and everyone else here, slowly turned their eyes to stare at the only human present.

"…What?" Shin folded his arms.

"I understand it may be a monumental ask." Asherah began. "But will you lend your order's aid to this family so that they might bring a loved one home and avert catastrophe?"

Abaddon and Shin looked equally displeased.

"We don't need them."

"My order hunts horrors, it doesn't help them."

Both men glared each other like the hated adversaries that they were.

"… The order will be taking part in fixing the anomaly, but only because it spells misfortune for the rest of creation." Shin huffed.

Ten universes pressing together would have an effect on more than just them.

Once they were fully fused, their combined weight will start impacting surrounding universes- smashing into them just the same.

It will become one big, brutal demonstration of the snowball effect.

"I do have just one question though..." Shin looked at Asherah.

"Yes?"

"Surely this is something that should fall in the jurisdiction of you and your husband. Can you not pull apart the universes yourself?"

Asherah briefly faltered a bit before she kneeled down into the grass and started playing with the flowers.

"My control over creation is not quite as… all encompassing as my husband's. I fear I wouldn't fare much better than Gulban if I went now."

Abaddon's eyes narrowed but he said nothing.

Shin grumbled. "Then I don't know what my little outfit can do if even the mother of creation has to hold up her hands."

"That is why you need to work together with Ayaana and Abaddon.

The only way to pull apart the universes safely is if your forces are armed with their magic and your technology.

You don't have to be best friends. You just have to work together for the greater good of all."

Shin glanced at Abaddon out of the corner of his eye.

But this time, the dragon wasn't looking at him.

His gaze was thoroughly trained on Asherah; his expression deeply contemplative.

But he didn't seem to be concerning himself with the subject being discussed at present.

His mind was almost somewhere else entirely.

What is it that she's not telling us..?