Mike stared at the sword prison in front of him, feeling the weight of the challenge.
Breaking through sothing of this caliber was no easy feat. Even knowing the thod, the actual execution was riddled with difficulties.
To make matters worse, Mike had a walking disaster by his side-Afterskin.
If there was ever a definition of "dragging soone down," Afterskin embodied it perfectly.
Sitting diagonally across from Mike, Afterskin shrugged helplessly and asked,
"So, what do we do now?"
"The mont you said 'we,' things were already bad..."
Mike sighed, glancing at Afterskin.
Thor's approach to life was simple: when faced with a problem, don't panic-find a bug to exploit!
Afterskin had been sent here by Ares, and Mike needed to think about what bugs he could exploit in this situation.
But Afterskin's extre unluckiness also triggered a thought in Mike's mind.
Sothing wasn't right.
There had to be more to Afterskin than t the eye.
Regular bad luck was one thing-soone had to be unlucky, after all. But Afterskin's misfortune was too consistent.
He wasn't just unlucky; he was a walking curse.
Mike had never questioned why Afterskin was so unlucky before. But now, trapped together in the sa sword prison, he finally had the ti to think about it.
The more he thought about it, the more suspicious it seed.
Ares was famously proud of being the only person to survive a confrontation with the Supre Demon God.
But...
Shadow Nine and Afterskin had also escaped the Supre Abyssal.
For Afterskin to slip away right under the Supre Demon God's nose couldn't simply be chalked up to bad luck.
Mike considered the worst possibility:
What if Afterskin was sohow connected to the Supre Demon God?
Regardless of the truth, Mike needed to find a way to deal with their current predicant.
After half a day of contemplation, Mike stood up.
He had learned a new skill: Illusory Reality!
But now he faced a new problem: how to use the skill on himself.
It felt like a surgeon trying to operate on their own body-sothing about it just felt off. "Afterskin, I need your help..."
Mike stored energy in a scroll and handed it to Afterskin, instructing him to use it to attack him. This way, Mike could enter the dream space and continue exploiting bugs.
Afterskin tore open the scroll, but the energy went haywire, hitting him instead of Mike!
Before Mike could even react, Afterskin, who had just fallen asleep, miraculously woke up again.
Seeing Mike's astonishnt, Afterskin gave a bitter smile and said,
"I'm too unlucky. The dream kicked out."
Fair enough.
After their first failed attempt, they tried again.
Failure.
Failure.
Complete failure.
After nine consecutive failures, Afterskin finally managed to direct the energy at Mike, successfully sending him into the dream space.
The dream space was as familiar as ever.
The scenery hadn't changed much, except the child now had a few more toys.
The Fifth Demon God, however, was nowhere to be seen, much to Mike's relief.
Sensing soone's arrival, the child instinctively prepared to drive them away.
After all, Afterskin's unluckiness was unbearable.
But upon seeing Thor, the child relaxed.
"Sir, you're back to play again?"
The child's face lit up with excitent. Mike was the only one who had ever played with him.
"Sure, we can play..."
Mike's eyes glead as he asked seriously,
"Do you know that unlucky guy from before? The one nad Afterskin."
"Is that his na?"
The child blinked curiously.
"That's a strange na."
Mike pressed on.
"Do you know him?"
The child nodded.
"Yeah, I know him."
If Mike hadn't brought it up, the child wouldn't have ntioned Afterskin at all.
"When did you et him?" Mike asked.
The child thought for a mont before answering earnestly,
"During the last Apocalypse."
Mike: ???
Holy fuck.
Mike felt like he had just stumbled upon so explosive information.
Forcing himself to stay calm, he asked, his voice trembling slightly,
"Who is Afterskin?"
The child looked at Mike in surprise.
"You've been with him all this ti, and you don't know?"
"He's the chosen one for the last Apocalypse."
The chosen one?
Mike's eyes lit up. He conjured a soda, popcorn, and chips, then turned to the child and said
seriously,
"Tell more."
Mike hadn't expected Afterskin to have such a backstory.
But thinking about it, Afterskin's unluckiness did seem extraordinary.
And the timing of his breakthrough-right when Mike's generation was on the rise-seed
suspiciously coincidental.
In a way, it was as if Afterskin's unluckiness was actively interfering with Thor's ascension to
Supre Being.
The child eyed the snacks in Mike's hands, licking his lips.
"Are those tasty?"
Clearly, he recognized them as food.
Food was a rarity in this space.
The Fifth Demon God was a lunatic who only ca in to scream and shout, never bringing
anything edible.
Mike didn't hesitate. He tore open a bag of chips and handed it to the child.
The child mimicked Mike, opening his mouth wide and shoving the entire bag-chips and
packaging-into his mouth.
Mike: ...
The child chewed a few tis, swallowed, and comnted seriously,
"The crunchy part inside is good, but the outer layer has no flavor and a bad texture."
His analysis was so earnest that Mike didn't even know how to respond. Sighing, Mike opened another bag of chips and taught the child how to eat them properly.
After learning the correct way to eat chips, the child still devoured them one bag at a ti- just without eating the packaging this ti.
Once he had cleared out Mike's entire snack stash, the child finally began talking about
Afterskin.
"He's the chosen one for the Apocalypse. The Apocalypse keeps happening around him, destroying the world until it kills him. Once he's dead, the Apocalypse ends."
The child's tone was indifferent, as if he were recounting sothing unrelated to himself.
He had no concept of fear or death-he had never truly lived, so why would he fear dying?
Mike asked,
"Is Afterskin still alive?"
The events the child described were so long ago that Mike wasn't sure if the Afterskin he knew
was the sa person.
"Yeah, he's alive. I guess the Apocalypse failed."
The child continued matter-of-factly,
"If the Apocalypse didn't destroy the world, it wouldn't have killed Afterskin. After surviving,
he wasn't accepted by the world anymore. Combined with the lingering effects of the
Apocalypse, that's why he's so unlucky."
"So that's how it is..."
Mike felt like he finally understood a bit more about Afterskin.
At least now he knew the reason behind his inexplicable unluckiness.
Mike asked another question.
"How did Afterskin survive?"
Without hesitation, the child replied,
"We ate him."
Mike: ...
That answer was far more shocking than he had anticipated.
He had assud Afterskin had hidden in the Tower of Truth, like Apollo, and eventually made
his way to Earth.
He never imagined that Afterskin had been swallowed by the Supre Demon God!
But...
The Supre Demon God must have found him too unlucky to absorb and had spat him back
out.
Mike frowned, puzzled.
"If Afterskin was absorbed by the Supre Demon God, how did he escape?"
Surely it wasn't just because he was too unlucky?
The child knew the answer but found it too troubleso to explain.
"I can show you."
The child waved his hand, and a white horse appeared.
As the embodint of the Supre Demon God's good side, his mastery of SSS-level abilities
was unparalleled, second only to the human Supre Beings.
Before Mike could refuse, the scenery around him blurred. They traveled through the river of ti and arrived 300 years in the past.
A mass of black, filthy, and malevolent energy hovered in the air, radiating an aura of pure
evil.
There was no mistaking it-this was the Supre Demon God.
Mike focused intently, determined not to miss a single detail.
From within the Supre Demon God, a "person" was spat out.
The unlucky figure hit the ground with a heavy thud, utterly powerless to resist.
It was Afterskin.
The Supre Demon God's voice echoed throughout the space, resonating like a dark
symphony.
"Go... find the human potential Supre Being... bring him to ... and I shall grant you Immortality and Indestructibility..."
Covered in blood, Afterskin struggled to his feet.
Ignoring the Supre Demon God's promise, he muttered to himself,
"The Apocalypse couldn't kill ..."
Barely able to stand, he wobbled unsteadily, a faint smile on his face.
Raising a trembling middle finger to the sky, he shouted hoarsely, "Fuck you! If you've got the guts, kill today!"
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