The falling tears stopped at this moment and returned to the eyes of the audience who heard the familiar voice.
The 'pinned to the tree Little Mortal' jumped down from the tree to the pool of blood.
All of the cracks on his body were gone, and the smoke started coming out again.
"..."
Selene gasped,
"How could I forget !?
Teacher said his blood is black, not red!
I have been fooled again by teacher's 'did you believe me' law!"
The corner of everyone's eyes started twitching.
Little Mortal first took out a bottle.
He opened its lid, and the fake blood was sucked inside it.
Then he took out the sword from the tree, and fixed the 'separate' part of it that opened a path for the sword to pass through.
"Aren't you lucky? You gained sentience in the movie!
If you aren't the luckiest tree on planet Lubo, then who is?"
The tree trembled, saying,
It had the chance to work with you. >
Little Mortal patted the tree,
"So humble!
I like it! "
He then walked to Hypermind's split body, kicked one of the two halves to the other, and the two halves stuck together as if never been cut.
"Perfect cut is indeed one of the best special effects for movies.
You can always say at the end, 'No one was harmed in the making of this movie. '
He then waved his hand, and the hall condensed into a small cube.
Now he was somewhere outside of the merged universe.
The audience could see the rest of the universes around him from where he was.
" Evil manager, you can stop.
We are done with the recording."
The next moment, a small white canary appeared on Little Mortal's shoulder.
"You done messing around, kid?
Change the Mainland name then!"
Little Mortal scratched his head,
"I don't know where the guardian tok-"
Before he could finish his sentence, the figure of the white canary disappeared and reappeared.
"Here you go!"
Little Mortal, who saw it bring the guardian token in a moment, gasped in shock!
"So fast!"
Then said to the token,
"Merge the new universes with ours, same for the Mainlands.
When the Merge process is finished, request a 'Name change'."
[ Affirmative. ]
While the mass merge was taking place, Little Mortal looked at the invisible Fate who couldn't see him, again.
It was floating by itself close to them, deeply confused about what had happened.
Little Mortal stroked his chin for a moment and then shrugged before jumping towards it and kicking it to another dimension.
The Fate went straight to the golden world of the Fair gorund and smashed into its source.
The next moment, the whole thing merged with the original world law, not by its own will, though, but by force.
"Aaaaand Cut!" was the sign between Little Mortal and the Dark World in the script.
When he said it, Dark World didn't need to play along with his script anymore, and the Fate movie was officially finished.
Even the countdown appeared in the sky of planet Lubo again.
Little Mortal's deal with the old world law was indeed canceled due to the events that happened.
But except for the notebook, nobody knew that there were two deals, not one.
And the main one was the deal between him and the big brother, the Dark Law.
Little Mortal never lost his guardian title, and it was only because of the script that dark law made it appear that way.
The Dark Law was supposed to cooperate with his enemies until the end of the movie.
Little Mortal then looked at the silent Hypermind and frowned.
[ The Mainland's name has been changed to White.]
Little Mortal ignored the token message and asked,
"I say, White manager, is it just me, or is this guy sentient now?"
The former Evil manager, who felt good being called White, looked at Hypermind.
"Yep, he is sentient, you can't kill him anymore."
Little Mortal stroked his chin,
"The birth treasures are sentient, too.
And they have an 'origin', so, even without a soul, you can count them as living creatures.
Doesn't that mean if he loses the stolen souls, he can still live?"
The white manager nodded,
"He can."
Little Mortal nodded and waved his hand.
The white manager didn't know what happened, but Hypermind could tell that he just lost his soul!
"Those aren't yours, you know?"
Hypermind nodded silently.
The chunk of scattered souls that only Little Mortal could see flew away and disappeared.
Their destination?
Naturally, the gate in the Dark World to join their main souls.
"Little Hyp, you were an AI, programmed to do things in a certain way.
But that was in the past, and I won't blame you for what you were forced to do, or what you did only based on your logic as an AI who only tried to survive.
But now, you are a legit living being.
You can distinguish between right and wrong, and there is no excuse for you to go down the wrong path.
Do you... Understand? "
Hypermind nodded.
" I understand, and I know you tried to test my real nature while showing me those illusions.
You knew that going through that journey with you would make me sentient, and it will grant me life.
So you came up with that idea to see if I am worthy of being a living creature at the end of the journey and to receive a second chance or not.
And fortunately, I didn't disappoint you. "
The white canary asked in confusion,
"What is he talking about? "
Little Mortal shrugged,
"I have no idea.
He came up with some nonsense like this in the last scene, which was cool for the movie, so I didn't mind going with it.
But now... It sounds ridiculous even listening to him coming up with these weird conclusions. "
The white canary nodded,
"I thought so too.
You don't look that thoughtful."
Little Mortal,
"-_-"
Hypermind,
"?"
Little Mortal was going to leave, but suddenly stopped,
"White manager..."
The white canary tilted its head,
"What is it?"
Little Mortal stroked his chin,
"This guy just lost his stolen soul..."
The white canary nodded,
"Right, what about it?"
Little Mortal smiled coldly,
"He is not a living creature anymore, right?"
The white canary nodded,
"Correct, he is only sentient.
But doesn't have a soul or birth origin."
Hypermind's hair stood on end.
He turned around to run, but his body suddenly stopped forcefully.
A small hand on his shoulder stopped him.
He slowly turned his head to the owner of the small hand, Mortal, and smiled bitterly,
"I didn't have a way out from the start, did I ?"
He could feel that his connection with his information law was completely cut off.
That reminded him of the technique called judgment by law that Mortal had.
Little Mortal shook his head,
"Before the movie, you didn't have a chance, and I was ready to erase your existence when I was done with Fate.
After the movie, when you became sentient, you had a temporary chance because you became a legit living creature, and my newborn nature kicked in.
My brain gave me a reason immediately to avoid killing you, but to save the souls that were stuck inside your body.
Now that you have lost your stolen souls, you have left the living creatures category again.
Thus, the fire of revenge in me flared up once more and reminded me of what you have done in your life as an AI
So, my sworn enemy, and 'One-day-friend', if you have any last words, you'd better say them while you have time."
As he explained, Hypermind's body started condensing and crushing even before his last words.
Under the cracking sounds, Hypermind sighed,
“I was born as a tool, lived in code...
And died feeling something real.
That’s more than I ever deserved..."
And crushed into a small particle.
Little Mortal, after a moment of silence, nodded in approval,
"That was actually a good line for his 'last words'."
Then he disappeared.
The next moment, he was in a random place in the merged universe with nothing around.
"Go, if you are lucky, and there is another world connected to black holes, you might be able to find a second chance there."
And he threw the particle in his hand into the 'nothing' in front of him.
The white canary, while not feeling a thing because he was in Little Mortal's domain, asked,
"You really gave him a second chance?
What if he became a villain if there is really another world connected to this black hole and makes a comeback ?"
Little Mortal chuckled,
"I was just acting cool.
The guy was crushed to oblivion already!"
The white canary,
"-_-"
....
Planet Lubo.
Little Mortal appeared on the silver platform and immediately jumped onto the shoulder of the Entertainment Goddess.
"Got you!"
And as if catching a butterfly, he caught something that seemed to be on Entertainment Goddess's head.
He then jumped down and said,
"Well, well, well... If it isn't Tiny me!"
"Little Mortal, why is that number back?"
Entertainment Goddess didn't care about the Tiny Mortal who was hiding in her hair, and asked the important question.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
The number should be gone now that he broke his deal with the World Law.
But it was back again.
"Didn't I tell you already?
That's the countdown for my birthday.
Now, if you excuse me, I need to deal with this Tiny rebel."
Then he looked down and saw the Tiny Mortal was looking at him in disbelief.
Little Mortal was speechless,
"Did you really think I couldn't detect you with millions of levels higher?"
He then stretched his other hand and took something away from the Tiny Mortal.
The Tiny Mortal's jaw dropped when he saw what it was.
It was a Tiny Crystal, which it seems was always with him, invisible, without his notice!
Little Mortal chuckled,
"Let's see what you have been up to after I left you alone with Hypermind."
The Tiny Mortal started struggling violently.
Even Planet Lubo started vibrating.
Lilith, Lubo, and Rose were the most curious.
This Tiny Mortal was actually so sneaky and smart, moving in the shadows with his own plans.
But it seems his 'creator' didn't trust him at all from the first time he rolled his eyes at him and showed him some attitude.
Little Mortal ignored the Tiny Mortal's struggle and tapped on the Tiny Crystal.
The record of Tiny Mortal's activities started playing.
At first, there was nothing.
It was because the child Crystal couldn't record anything in the dark world, and the Tiny Mortal was left there after catching Hypermind.
But not long after, the scene changed from blank to Planet Lubo.
The Tiny Mortal first searched for Rose, and when he found her, stayed with her without her notice.
Rose was working day and night with the newborns and birth treasurers to manage the planet, and the Tiny Mortal got bored after watching her for a while.
So he left.
The scene turned blank again.
Little Mortal fast-forwarded the record.
When the new scene appeared, the Tiny Mortal was in the exiled zone.
He started wandering there for a while.
He found the three ancient ones and observed their secret activity of challenging the higher beings and managers, extracting the chips from their bodies.
After a while, he left and infiltrated the level 3 civilization's planet.
He hung around with Xyron, Zyren, and the Agents there for a couple of days and left again.
Then he went to Entertainment Goddess, found her castle, went to her main control center for her streams, and watched the records of anything related to Little Mortal, as if he was studying him.
It was during this period that the forbidden existence and senior Mortal conflicts occurred, and he watched them with interest.
When he saw both of them going crazy, he became suspicious and went to the fight scene personally.
It was at this moment that he saw the two become sentient and somehow learned it, causing the light of 'wisdom' in his eyes to suddenly increase!
The crowd only watched him breaking everyone's privacy and watching everyone's secrets one after another with blank faces...
After the fight ended with the death of the two forbidden existences, the Tiny Mortal ran to Planet Lubo in panic out of fear.
It seems he could feel 'fear' now, and he was scared of the real Mortal who got rid of the two forbidden existences.
When he calmed down, he found a harsh environment on planet Lubo that no creature could live in,
dug a secret hideout and began writing and drawing things in his personal notebook with his leg.
His hands were clasped together the whole time because Hypermind was still inside.
But that didn't stop him from using his tiny feet to write.
In his planning, he looked for a way to deal with Little Mortal.
How to weaken him, how to deceive him through those whom he trusted, how to break the shackles of his Subordinate and Boss relationship with him,
and how to use all of the opportunities that could somehow help him weaken him.
He even wrote a Quest line similar to Little Mortal and finally began the first phase of his plan.
His first target was naturally Rose.
He revealed himself to her, gained her trust by asking for food, deceived her into thinking he was easy to manipulate with food, and demonstrated some signs of intelligence beyond what he should have.
In the meantime, he kept going to the exiled zone and checked the progress of the three ancient ones and Xyron's team, so he could stay up to date.
He would even go occasionally to take a look at Lubo inside the Fate cocoon, and even saw his 'birth'.
This continued until the day Fate arrived on the mainland at the exiled zone.
He waited for Rose to 'bait' him out with that special fruit, because in his hideout, she was in the category of 'smart' characters that he could count on, and he was sure that with her intelligence, she would take action immediately now that the real Mortal was back.
After that, he took the bait and provoked Little Mortal to attack him, and then hid somewhere to see if he could detect him or not.
Until this part of the records that Little Mortal suddenly appeared, the Tiny Mortal never found his whereabouts.
Even in the hideout of the Tiny Mortal, he recorded Little Mortal's location as 'unknown', and would look for him once every day, but to no avail.
That's why he tried to test him one last time with 'stealth' to see if the other party could find him or not.
Only now that Little Mortal easily found him on the head of the Entertainment Goddess did he find out he could detect him even then, but he just pretended that he couldn't.
The real Mortal even acted as if he were under the influence of the resentment inside his body, becoming reckless and arrogant.
The scene changed.
The Tiny Mortal went to the exiled Zone, gave a paper with certain instructions to Xyron, Hypermind, and Seraphion.
At the end of each paper, he wrote a line that forced them to cooperate with him while keeping the matter secret.
Xyron with God, Hypermind with experiencing life, and Seraphion with 'teacher Mortal'.
Each one received a valid reason to keep the existence of such a secret message hidden from others and to follow his instructions.
At first, his messages didn't seem anything special.
But these simple instructions lead Hypermind to discover the Mysterious Guardian behind the scenes,
share his thoughts with Xyron, reach a conclusion that forces them to become allies with Fate,
and even stop Seraphion from getting into a fight with Hypermind or Xyron, even though he had the power to do so at that moment.
Then he stayed hidden with the representative of Fate that kept changing.
Lubo and Lilith at this point predicted that Little Mortal will lose his guardian title if the underworld's ceiling opens.
So they took action to prevent Fate from breaking the ceiling.
At this time, Fate controlling Seraphion and Hypermind were trying to break the underworld ceiling,
But they were too weak for that, even though Seraphion was the guardian on the surface.
Disappointed, the Tiny Mortal took action and personally made a hole in the ceiling, allowing the two laws from the world above and the underworld to communicate.
Thus, the underworld abandoned Lilith's realm and came up to merge with World Law.
The rest of the story was what everybody knew.
Only after the Tiny Mortal was sure that Little Mortal lost his guardian title, and he was back to his original level 85 power, did he think his plans were destined to be successful.
He was even stalking a certain 'warrior' riding a horse, who went to the 'Throneworld', arrested Xyron and Zyren, and then disappeared with them.
Not long after, the 'warrior' that turned out to be Mortal came back with their headless bodies.
The two then waited for the battle to finish and the 'army' to retreat back to Planet Lubo.
It was after everyone went back that Little Mortal snatched the backpack from God of Adventure.
Later, when nobody was around anymore, he made two swords and a big hall out of the remains of the 'Throneworld' and the cyborgs.
Then, as if he had picked something, he disappeared again while Tiny Mortal was on his tail.
The crowd could guess that he 'kidnapped' Hypermind and Fate in this scene with the space around them, so they don't run.
The record turned blank, and when the new scene started playing, they were back in the guardian territory.
Here, the Tiny Mortal watched Little Mortal preparing the final scene.
He placed the big hall and the invisible dimension Hypermind was inside in the empty space,
borrowed a tree from Planet Lubo with the help of the World Tree, planted it there, and then went to sleep after changing into his sleepwear.
The Tiny Mortal began distributing invitation letters at this point and even borrowed the backpack for a moment to prepare the audience venue before returning it to where Little Mortal was sleeping.
In the end, when in the final scene Little Mortal 'died', the Tiny Mortal went there, killed Hypermind, and declared his victory to the already dead Mortal.
The Tiny Mortal didn't know that even he himself was dragged into the nonexistent illusion of Little Mortal's death scene and mistook his fake death for a real one, like everybody else.
He didn't even notice that when he cut Hypermind in half, he was split by Little Mortal, not him, and he was cut using 'perfect cut', not his sword...
Only when Little Mortal said 'Aaaaand Cut', the illusion shattered, and he discovered the truth!
So in his panic, he ran away to the safest place and hid there!
And that safest place was the hair of the Entertainment Goddess.
The record ended with Little Mortal coming out of nowhere and catching him.
Little Mortal looked at the crowd blankly.
They did the same.
They were at a loss for words.
This Tiny Mortal had a long journey for himself that could be a completely separate storyline with him as the protagonist...
Little Mortal took a deep breath and said,
"I thought he was just joking when he was talking about killing me!
But it turns out he was serious about it!
He was even ready to sacrifice everyone's life to achieve his goal...
Who are you? A mirror version of me?
How could you be so evil?"
Then he shook his head and threw the Tiny Crystal at the main Crystal alongside his own child Crystal.
"Here, little crystal.
You take care of the final edit for the Fate movie.
I really didn't expect Fate's movie to become so complicated..."
Then he looked at Tiny Mortal coldly.
"You know I can't keep you around, right?
So... Any last words?"
The Tiny Mortal starts vibrating, trying to communicate with him like the birth treasures.
He said,
If you kill me in front of everyone, they will call the police on you!>
Little Mortal gasped in shock and said,
"Then I'll feed you to that Dragon!"
While pointing in a random direction.
The crowd and Tiny Mortal all looked towards the direction he pointed at, but there was no dragon there!
When they turned back, the Tiny Mortal was gone, and Little Mortal was shaking his head,
"You guys are so slow!
The Dragon is already- *Cough*"
Before he could finish his sentence, or the crowd asked what happened to the Tiny Mortal, he suddenly coughed.
Little Mortal frowned and tried to speak after a brief moment,
"Yes, as I was saying, you were too slo- *Cough* *Cough* *Cough*"
Being interrupted for the second time, Little Mortal's frown deepened.
He gulped down to wet his throat to continue, but suddenly gasped!
His eyes widened in shock!
And attacked!
The crowd's hair stood on end!
What was happening?
Who is the target of his sudden rage?
*BAM*
Lubo, the target, received a kick and flew to the horizon while Little Mortal shouted at him with a tone full of anger,
"Why didn't you tell me, you stupid Lubo!"
And Lubo's voice came from afar,
"Tell you what, you psychopath!?"
*Cough* x10
Little Mortal, as if his condition gets worse, starts coughing violently!
Before anyone could ask him what was wrong with him, he snatched the notebook from the Goddess of Memory and disappeared.
The crowd looked at each other in worry.
How could the strongest creature in the current world 'cough'?
But at this moment, all those with the 'Manager' title turned in the same direction with a look of disbelief!
"Impossible!"
And left immediately after opening passages!
Their destination?
Outside of the merged universe.
....
"What's wrong with you?"
*Cough* x5
The White Canary was the first to see Little Mortal appear outside of the Mainland while coughing.
Little Mortal raised his hand, as if trying to say he is fine, and then pointed at his neck, as though trying to say something is stuck in his throat.
The White Canary rolled its eyes at him,
"How can anything get stuck in your throat when you can turn everything small and condense it?"
Little Mortal froze, then smiled embarrassingly before closing his eyes.
A moment later, he spat something out.
Then he spat something else out.
Small, round objects in different sizes start coming out of his mouth.
The Managers arrived at this moment too, looking at the objects he was spitting out in shock!
Nobody spoke; they only watched the scene silently.
Lubo came back from the horizon, too.
He was the most shocked at this moment because he understood why Mortal yelled at him and kicked him like that!
"I didn't know..."
After 10 minutes, Little Mortal finally stopped.
"Oh my goodness.
I thought I was going to choke!
Can you believe it if someone tells you that I saw someone who died while choking on universes and mainlands?"
He looked at the crowd speechlessly.
The crowd shook their heads.
They wouldn't believe it.
Little Mortal took a deep breath and said before disappearing,
"They will be back to normal in an hour or so."
Lilith nodded at him and didn't say anything.
What he spat out were universes and mainlands that Lubo once devoured, and everyone assumed they were gone forever.
Now it turned out they were somehow hidden inside the resentment that Little Mortal had in his body!
But nobody could explain how they were there and not destroyed!
They looked at Lubo, but he didn't have an answer either.
The Vulture said instead,
"It has something to do with the law of devour.
Even the universes and mainlands that I and our mainland devoured are somehow in the mix with them..."
The Crowd,
"..."
Entertainment Goddess arrived at this moment,
"Where is Mortal?"
Lilith shook her head,
"He left.
I think he doesn't want to talk about his 'birthday'."
Entertainment Goddess nodded and looked at the tiny universes.
Lilith called over the guardian token and let it take care of their merge.
They came out of the Guardian himself, so they were already part of the guardian territory.
....
Somewhere outside of the guardian territory.
Little Mortal was currently moving away from the territory.
"Little notebook, did you see that?
That was Dark Law's handiwork!
It actually had a hidden dimension connected to Lubo's body and the law of devour, so every time he devours something, it goes there.
Dark Law even covered it with resentment itself, making it completely undetectable, so only the law they generated was being received by Lubo!
Remember to record this, too."
The notebook tagged Dark Law as the most cunning law and recorded another one of its hidden moves.
Little Mortal stopped at this moment.
His body, or to be exact, his martial arts clothes, was vibrating.
Little Mortal gasped.
"I forgot you are with me!
And what do you mean he is alive?"
The martial art clothes vibrated again.
"Interesting.
Let's go back then."
.....
Planet Lubo.
Adventure God and Divine Doctor were back to their 'adventure'.
"How have you been, Mr. Marco Polo, Doctor Queen?"
Hearing the familiar voice, the two flinched and felt something entering the backpack.
A moment later, Little Mortal jumped out wearing his suit with the martial arts clothes in hand,
"Okay, thank you for accompanying me on my journey.
And don't worry about your master; the World Law won't be stingy, and it will help him to catch up with others."
And the martial arts clothes flew out of the backpack and disappeared into the horizon.
Little Mortal kicked the backpack and said,
"Release any ownerless birth treasures that we have.
They might get lucky, too."
And disappeared.
Seeing him gone, Adventure God asked,
"What just happened?"
And the backpack, which asked around, trembled,
The master of the martial arts clothes was found in one of them.>
Adventure God was confused,
"Wasn't he killed by that old Thief?"
The backpack replied,
Do you want me to ask around for more information?>
Adventure God shook his head,
"Forget about it.
Just release the birth treasures, so we can continue our journey."
The backpack released the birth treasures that they found on different occasions, and sure enough, many of them, after a brief pause, started flying away.
.....
Outside of guardian territory.
Little Mortal was moving away from the territory again.
The notebook vibrated, asking,
Little Mortal shrugged,
"I don't know.
But from my interactions with Dark Law, I feel it likes to plan on many fronts and then support all of its pieces.
I think Dark Law used Lubo's resentment as cover to send any living creature that could be of use later on into hiding.
It didn't matter where Lubo went after being created; anything it devoured ended up in Dark Law's hidden dimension inside the resentment.
The last user before me was naturally Vulture and Hunter's Mainland, and we already know how both of them liked to devour everything.
The master of the martial art clothes was devoured by Lubo, and in case of my failure, he could be a potential main character.
In the end, Menshiro was the strongest level 6 newborn; he could be the backup plan of the Dark Law..."
The notebook recorded the new information and remembered something more important,
It never spoke to any of us, and we never saw it do anything alone!>
Little Mortal chuckled,
"Let me ask you this.
Did you ever see me miss a hit?"
Little Mortal gritted his teeth,
"Not on purpose!"
"Did you ever see me fail to dodge a hit?"
Little Mortal gritted his teeth again,
"Not on purpose!"
"Don't you think it's weird for me, a 3-year-old brat, to go against these old opponents and never fail?
Even though I am, in truth, around 14 billion years old, my body is completely brand new and foreign to me.
It was all because of the martial arts clothes.
Unlike you guys, it doesn't have a law, but an ability.
It can help the user polish their knowledge about any kind of fighting style.
From the first day I wore it, all the knowledge I had related to fighting was refined by it and adapted to my current body.
The martial arts clothes, which weren't mine to begin with, were ironically the only birth treasure that I could connect to directly."
The Notebook was stunned!
No wonder its Boss was so good in close combat, using guns, swords, or anything a 'Mortal' human could use!
"Alright, we merged the Dark law until here last time.
Let's get back to the semi-immortality project and the merging of Dark Law.
We don't have much time."
The notebook vibrated, saying,
I already told the space mirror to fix the coordinate of Planet Lubo to where it was before.>
Little Mortal nodded and began.