Laz felt himself getting hot over his own uselessness. Once the speck of the soul had descended, even he felt himself being affected. While it wasn’t nearly as bad as what everyone else was feeling, it was still enough to slow him down. That wouldn’t have been much of a problem, but with that, it would be hard to go against the shadow dragon even if it was focused on opening the door.

Still, Laz had to try.

*Use the apocalypse ring. With it in the air, it calls forth the will of those who go to death willingly, boosting their power and resistance to such things. This is the perfect sort of use for it,* Kat suggested and Laz complied.

"I refuse to be buried here by a bastard of a god and his pet worm!" Laz yelled, pulling everyone’s attention to himself.

With that, Laz released the red ring from his inner world which floated out from his back before ascending to the sky. Once there, it grew to a massive proportion and began to rotate as light filtered through it and shown upon humanities defenders. While they were previously stuck in place, now they could move and could react. Seeing this caused the apparition to be surprised.

"What kind of skill is this?" It said, about ready to drift closer when a rather loud Nagi stood up and yelled,

"Hey. Ugly bastard. Stay away from us before I kick your slimy ass back to your own world!" She yelled, causing everyone to cry out in shock while gaining the things attention.

"Stupid child. I will kill you last after taking everyone else... from... you..." It was only now that the speck of soul saw what she was and felt it’s entire being shake at it.

"Wait Master... That one... I have my eyes on her.... you can’t..."

"SHUT UP WORM," the apparition said, silencing Black Worm as it took a closer look at Nagi.

"Impossible... Your kind hasn’t roam the omniverse since hundreds of thousands of years...." The spec of soul said, trying to come to terms with it’s thoughts.

’If I can devour this beast and obtain it’s pure bloodline... I can become an independent being with a chance of becoming a chaos god of my own. If that happens, I will be free to do as I wish withing the omniverse and even my soul base will no longer be able to reabsorb me...’ it thought to itself while studying Nagi who shot scathing looks at it.

Having been detached from the the rest of the Nameless gods soul over the years caused this little bit of soul to have thoughts of it’s own. While gaining power was ok, gaining independence or thoughts of such would cause the base soul to be furious. Instead of being re-absorbed and letting the corruption spread to other parts of the soul, the base soul would rip this piece away and burn it to ash after taking every last bit of power it gathered. No harm would come to the base soul as being one of a chaos god made it both very strong and able to heal itself from injury without worry, even if it destroyed a small part of itself.

As such, the last thing this piece of soul wanted was to be reabsorbed. It also said something about the nameless god that even parts of it’s own being wished to rebel against it the first chance they got, but that was another problem in general.

While the speck of a soul was going over these things in it’s limited capacity for thought, Laz had snuck away and with the help of Kat, turned basically invisible. He was next to the door in an instant and instead of stopping the shadow dragon from opening it, he instead slowly poured in some power, causing the opening of the gate to speed up. As the shadow dragon was trying to pay attention to what was happening with it’s target and it’s ’master,’ it didn’t notice the speed change of the energy and wasn’t alerted.

"We just need to get it mostly there, then kill this thing," Kat whispered in his ear.

*As long as something doesn’t happen in the meantime,* Laz said, hoping the soul would take longer to make up it’s mind.

It didn’t take as long as Laz had hoped.

The apparition attacked without warning. While just being a small piece of the nameless god’s soul, it’s powers were far stronger than anything that could be found in the small pocket dimension.

Nagi, having headed Laz’s advice, retreated almost instantly up into the floating black castle that had been made from the body of her mother. As for the other humans and beasts, they scattered quickly, just barely retreating in time to avoid a disaster.

It lunged at Nagi, despite her being in the castle. While the apparition wasn’t solid, it’s attack seemed to be completely real as it’s fist, as large as the castle, crashed into it.

BOOM!!!

A sound like an explosion rang out, shaking the ground and making everyone nervous, even Laz.

’There’s no way the castle was still standing...’ Laz thought to himself in horror, only to watch the dust clear and a massive black silhouette appear in the air.

"YOU DARE TO TRY TO HARM MY DAUGHTER?" Came the voice from the beast as it’s body floated in the air, engulfing the whole of the castle.

Laz was shocked as he could easily tell it was the same one he had seen once he had fallen asleep in the pool, of the divine beast that was the mother of Nagi.

"Just an impression of a long dead beast. You think you can withstand my power? Offer up your daughter to me and perhaps I will leave her a corpse to be buried," the nameless god laughed as he swung his massive fist again.

Everyone was screaming as they took cover. Laz heard something click along with a laugh and turned to see the shadow dragon laugh as the door began to open.

’FUCK!" Laz said, torn. If the beast left first, the main body of the nameless god would be summoned and they would all be killed. But if he attacked the beast now, there was no telling how long it would take to even get close to killing it, much less if he could even stop it. What’s more, the apparition seemed sure that it could destroy the castle and get to Nagi even with the last remnants of her mother protecting her.

If he left now, he could maybe save some of them, but if he waited, they all might die.

*Your lack of faith in yourself is regrettable. Perhaps I chose wrong...* Came a voice in Laz’s head, one that seemed almost like a snake speaking.

*If you don’t wish to lose, then you need to be willing to give something up, even if it’s your life...* Came the voice again and Laz was suddenly drawn into himself.

Inside his inner world, a blade was stabbed into a massive stone in the very center of his world, it’s snow white blade and gleaming red hilt shinning like a star.

Laz walked up to it and looked down upon it, the stone of black obsidian reflecting the eerie light in all directions.

"Jormungandr," Laz said, seeing the blade. He knew it was somewhere, but he didn’t know where it was per say. After all, Kat had said she sealed it up, sorta, but what that meant he never found out. In fact, he had grown so much that the lands of his world seemed endless, but he was it’s creator, so not being able to locate the sword until now had almost made him think that everything that had happened was a dream.

"Not a dream, just unnecessary until now," the sword spoke out loud, now that Laz was right next to it.

"What do you want?" Laz said, sensing the crux of the issue right away.

"I wish to feed on that chaos god. That is the reason I was summoned here after all," it responded, shaking Laz.

"What do you mean?" Laz asked, still confused.

"I was brought into this world by a wish of strength, one that requested a divine weapon stronger than any in this world. Did you think something like me would be needed for that shadow beast? There were hundreds of thousands of weapons in the sealed armory where I was that could have done that. But because of the bit of soul on that beast, only I was capable of granting the wish that was made," it explained, allowing Laz to understand.

"Of course. If it was just that beast, then myself and Sever could have dealt with it, although not at that particular time. So the reason why it was you was because of the chaos god that it brought with him?"

"It seems you do not lack intelligence."

"Then what do you want to take care of it?" Laz questioned. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"It’s not about what I want. I just wish for freedom. To fight strong enemies, overcome them and see glorious battle. As a weapon, I have always dreamed of such things. But I have never gotten it. Instead, I was simply a spoil of war that traded hands, time and time again. I would either be slaying the weak, or watching as one master after another died as I was brought to bare against powers far stronger than themselves. The value of a sword does not lie in it’s ability to kill for even a stray rock by the roadside could be used to kill. It’s value lay in the hands of a master capable of wielding it. So from you I need nothing more than a chance. A chance to challenge every other divine weapon in the multiverse and defeat them, one by one. To prove myself. But that will depend on you, young warrior. For if you are unable to handle me, I shall bring you nothing but misfortune as well," it explained before lashing out, grabbing Sever with a strand of energy and devouring it until it turned to power.

"MMMmmm. It had a decent connection to you, although no much. Still, such nourishment means that I can now be used by you, or that I won’t kill you the first time you swing me," it said with a laugh that sounded like a snake hissing.

"Now if you wish to save those you care about, take me and use me. Show me battle once again. But remember, once I am in your hand, the string of fate will be woven and can’t be undone. Not until your death. And there will be those who will seek you, although it should take a while to find someone so weak," it said, laughing again.

While it seemed like minutes within Laz, it was barely a breath of time outside. Laz could sense the shadow dragon about to step through the door as another massive fist was about to strike the black castle as Nagi’s mom’s imprint had faded to almost nothing.

Without hesitation, Laz stepped forward and grabbed the hilt of the sword, pulling it free from it’s obsidian prison.