[A/N]: The Fic is Finally Over!! You guys can go check it out on my P@treon - Max_Striker.
[John POV]
Saying it had been a tiring day would be a gross understatement.
And deservedly so. One second I was dead asleep in Nakime's plush arms, and the next, everything simply ceased to exist.
I was standing in an endless and suffocating white void.
I was too tired to even panic. I mean can you blame a guy who went on a survival spree across the multiverse and then came home to find war between the two most powerful factions in the universe, only to be thrown in an even worse situation by dealing with a cosmic entity of time, hellbent on erasing him?
And suddenly I recognized this terrifying nothingness. I'd only been here twice before, back in my first life, right after I put a bullet in my own head in Viktor's warehouse and then after my second death at the hands of Conquest.
This was the waiting room.
Before I could even open my mouth to ask why I had been summoned, the silence shattered.
It started as a low, metallic hum. Then, it violently exploded into a deafening yet chaotic cacophony. The shrill ringing of digital sirens, the heavy clinking of coins hitting metal trays, and the frantic, cascading rattle of millions of silver steel balls bouncing off brass pins.
The white void dissolved, bleeding into the neon-drenched reality of RNGesus's Domain.
I was standing in the middle of a pachinko parlour the size of a star system.
Endless rows of flashing pachinko machines stretched out in every conceivable direction, defying logic. The aisles looped upside down and spiraled into infinity like an Escher painting drawn in neon lights. The air smelled of cheap cigarette smoke, and the intoxicating, scent of pure probability.
'Don't ask me how I know it. It's just a Gambler thing, or a former Gambler thing in my case.'
Sitting at the stools in front of the machines were ever shifting and unidentifiable silhouettes. Some looked vaguely humanoid; others were just mass tangles of tentacles, cosmic static, or pulsing geometric shapes.
They were gambling. Cheering, cursing, slamming their fists against the glass, and aggressively pulling levers.
I knew exactly what I was looking at.
ROBs. Random Omnipotent Beings. The cosmic degenerates who treated entire realities, timelines, and mortal lives like cheap poker chips.
And then, the deafening noise of the machines abruptly stopped as a presence appeared behind me.
I turned around.
And as expected standing right behind me was RNGesus. The chaotic personification of Gambling looked exactly the same as the day he threw me back into the world of the living. He wore a spotless, white robe with a shawl that shifted colors under the neon lights and instead of a human head, a sleek casino screen rested on his shoulders, with three digital slots constantly scrolling across the glass.
He raised his hands and started a slow clap.
The sound echoed through the parlour. Slowly, the shifting silhouettes at the machines turned to look at me and they joined in.
Hundreds, then thousands and finally millions of ROBs began to clap.
It wasn't a mocking applause or the sarcastic sneer of gods looking down on an ant. It was a genuine, thunderous standing ovation that physically rattled my bones and shook the floorboards of the infinite casino.
"You cleared the board, kid," RNGesus grinned, walking up and clapping a heavy hand on my shoulder. The weight of his touch felt like a collapsing star.
'Ouch!'
"You actually did it. You survived the meat grinder."
I just stared at him, my expression deadpan.
"So many died," I said, my voice cutting through the applause. "Satoru had to become a cursed-abomination just to save Sebas. The love of my lives almost got burned to ashes and I had to let a Wishing Dragon rewrite reality because the Moon was literally cracked in half. It wasn't exactly a clean sweep."
"Details, details," RNGesus waved his hand dismissively, the slots on his face spinning to show three smiling emojis. "It's been a hell of a ride! I'll admit, watching you actively abandon your gambling trait for months on end was personally offensive to me. You're sitting on a goldmine of RNG and you barely pulled the lever! It was a tragedy!"
RNGesus let out a booming laugh that shook the nearest row of pachinko machines.
"But I can't stay mad," the First Gambler continued. "Watching you go on a multiversal joyride, LARPing as a Kamen Rider and bullying cynics across dimensions? Absolute cinema. You took a setting infamous for chewing up protagonists and you bent it over your knee."
RNGesus snapped his fingers.
Three glowing, holographic playing cards materialized in the air in front of him.
And I recognized them instantly.
Inside the borders of the cards, I could see three distinct, shadowy figures frantically pounding their fists against the glass, screaming in silent rage. One was a towering figure with a head made entirely of roaring, cosmic flame. The second was an entity woven from uncountable raw elements. The third was a shifting yet impossible polygon.
"I called you here to congratulate you for the entertainment," RNGesus chuckled, tapping the glass of the flame entity's card and the cosmic being inside flinched violently. "And to thank you for letting me win big time."
"Your bets," I muttered, remembering the day I died against Conquest.
"Exactly!" RNGesus beamed as he pocketed the cards with a smug smirk.
"Maybe next time I get an itch, I'll hand the Chaos Gacha to someone who enjoys travel," RNGesus hinted, his digital voice taking on a chaotic glint. "Let us enjoy a real multi-cross series for entertainment next? But we can talk about that later. Right now, I'm just the warm-up act. A few people wanted to meet you."
He stepped aside, gesturing toward the endless aisle of pachinko machines.
Two figures stepped out of the neon haze.
The first woman walked out of a cloud of suffocating purple smoke. She was striking, with hair split perfectly down the middle, half black and half pristine white. Her skin was alabaster, and a distinct black mark covered her left eye like a tattoo. She wore black leather pants, a heavy black overcoat, and a wide-brimmed cowboy hat with a Colt holstered at her waist.
I recognized her immediately.
'Domino?'
The mutant mercenary from Marvel and now the new Lady Death I had met last time I was here.
The second woman stepped out of a warm column of golden-white light. She had dark hair, warm brown skin, and wore a simple, elegant white dress that seemed to radiate the scent of blooming jasmine and fresh rain.
The moment the two of them stepped within ten feet of me, my soul violently rebelled.
The new Divinity Necromancy I had rolled, flared to life. It screamed in my head like a blaring air raid siren. For the first time since I acquired it, my divinity allowed me to actually perceive the unfathomable gap between myself and the entities standing in front of me.
I commanded the dead. I could raise corpses, manipulate souls, and command shadow soldiers.
But the woman in the purple smoke was Death. She was the concept of the inevitable rest.
And the woman in white was her exact, conceptual opposite. The start of life and joyous living.
The combined and on top of that unfiltered pressure of Life and Death standing in the same room forced me straight to my knees. The cosmic weight cracked the floorboards beneath me as I found it difficult to breathe. My infinite mana reserves felt like a puddle trying to push back against a tidal wave.
Domino and the woman in white exchanged a glance.
"Sorry, John," Domino said, her voice echoing with the sound of a closing casket.
They both finally dialled back their auras.
The crushing pressure evaporated into thin air. I stayed on one knee for a second, gasping for breath, before slowly forcing myself back to my feet, wiping a line of cold sweat from my forehead, staring warily at the two cosmic heavyweights.
"John Kaisen," the woman in white said. Her voice was like a perfectly tuned chord, warm and incredibly gentle. "I am Kiran. The new Life Entity of the DC multiverse."
"Life and Death," I rasped, my throat still tight. "Is RNGesus throwing a mixer in a cosmic casino?"
Kiran offered a warm smile. "We came to deliver a message and a gift. Raj and I have been watching your journey since the very start."
"Raj?" I frowned. The name didn't ring a bell in all my nerdy knowledge.
"He guards the Source Wall," Kiran explained gently. "He is tied to his post and thus cannot leave to speak with you himself. Raj wanted you to know that, initially, he did not like you. He viewed you as a degenerate gambler, a mortal playing with forces he didn't respect."
I glanced at RNGesus, who just shrugged proudly unapologetic.
"But," Kiran continued, her golden eyes softening. "Raj watched you overcome your inner demons. He watched you reject the easy paths of Gambling. We watched you rise, bleed, and break yourself to become the man your found family needed."
Kiran took a step forward, the light around her washing away the neon glare of the casino.
"Raj knows what it means to be a Transmigrator," Kiran said, her voice carrying a nostalgic weight. "He knows what it costs and respects the fact that you chose family over endless power. And because he cannot leave his post at the edge of the Omniverse, he asked me to deliver his gift to you."
I crossed my arms, deeply suspicious. Life had taught me that nothing in this multiverse was free.
"Me? A gift from the guy guarding the Source Wall as in the border of DC?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "What's the catch?"
"Don't hurt your tiny, mortal brain with all the cosmic complications, kid," RNGesus interrupted, practically rolling his eyes as his screen flashed an exasperated emoticon. "Just take the damn gift. You're holding up the slot machines."
Kiran held out her open palm. "You have one final Platinum ticket in your inventory, do you not?"
I hesitated but pulled out the shimmering Platinum ticket. It was the only Platinum ticket I had left from the loot.
Kiran stepped close and gently placed her glowing hand over mine.
A surge of pure Life energy enveloped the ticket. The ticket practically vibrated in my grip, humming with a frequency that made my teeth ache.
"Rip it, maybe you'll get what you want the most?" Kiran instructed softly.
Under the watchful eyes of the God of Gambling, the physical embodiment of Life, and the literal concept of Death, I grabbed the edge of the blessed Platinum ticket and tore it in half.
The system wheel didn't even spin and instantly resolved into a blinding white light that burned itself directly into my retinas.
The system text materialized in front of me, floating in crisp blue boxes.
[Resurrection]
|Epic Ability|
D&D - Allows you to revive an entity that hasn't been dead for longer than you have been alive for. To revive a target you have to make appropriate sacrifices like money, valuables or artefacts. The stronger the target the more sacrifices need to be made, an unwilling target needs to double the sacrifice.
I stared at the glowing blue text as my brow furrowed in confusion.
I looked up at Kiran, then at RNGesus.
"I don't get it," I said, waving a hand at the prompt. "Don't get me wrong, it's a great utility ability, but it requires a massive price in exchange with great limitations. And more importantly... I don't need it. I have Super Shenron, remember? I already resurrected everyone on Earth. The death toll from the Viltrumite war is literally zero. Who am I supposed to use this on?"
Domino stepped out of the purple smoke, her dark eyes locking onto mine.
"Shenron restores what was lost in his specific domain," Domino said quietly. "He can fix the physical reality of his own universe. He can pull souls back from the local afterlife if they were recently severed. But some souls, John... some souls very dear to us have already moved on. They sit outside the dragon's jurisdiction."
My breath hitched.
The blood roared in my ears, completely deafening the sound of the pachinko machines.
'She was the one who told me Angy had moved on… maybe.'
My hands started to shake as I looked at Domino. The imposing concept of Lady Death suddenly looked incredibly empathetic.
"Angy?"
[A/N]:
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