That story seemed a bit weird, but Luke decided to just hear it for the time being. He planned to kill the woman and the shadow, anyway, so it wouldn’t change a thing if the shadow lied and told him some stupid lie.

"The worlds where people live in, they are living creatures as well, but they sleep most of the time. They only wake up when they begin to face certain threats," the shadow explained. "The threats of invasion and total destruction. To prevent that, the worlds help people awaken to the abilities that suit them, giving them access to skill books that will help them reach their true potential. Some worlds help their inhabitants learn some types of magic in times of peace, but they are rare since it is a natural process."

"I thought the system was the one helping us with that," Luke said.

"Anyone with enough power and knowledge can use the system as they see fit. Thus, the world can interfere that much," the shadow added. "Back to the topic, when a world awakens, they take some measures to ensure that itself and its inhabitants will survive. Helping people obtain the skills more appropriate to them is one of those, but that is something basic. There are other things more radical. One of them is selecting someone that is burdened with their fate and giving them as much support as possible. Thus, the world split itself into parts, dividing the light and the shadow. I am the shadow of my world, and this woman is the chosen one burdened with the fate of that world."

"...What kind of support can you give to her?" Luke asked.

"Using myself and a relic as a medium, she can access all the mana and most of the skills and knowledge that our world has stored," the shadow replied. "We can make her get stronger much faster than usual as well in order to help her survive, but that is just half of the reason we do that." 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

That was probably one of the final pieces of the puzzle that Luke needed. That confirmed why some overlords had so much mana and were stupidly powerful. However, other things didn’t add up.

"You say that, but the other shadow was pretty hostile towards me," Luke said. "Also, the other guy didn’t have access to so much mana. What is the reason you are talking about?"

"The shadows don’t act like one. They act based on their experience. If you weren’t chosen by one and that was hostile towards you, it means that they saw you as a problem instead of someone who could help your world," the shadow replied. "The one you met probably assumed that his partner wouldn’t need the mana of the world so soon, so that also means that the world would be able to help the other survivors for longer."

The help of the world wasn’t that impressive, considering that the human race was reduced to less than one million. Still, perhaps Luke couldn’t say that since humans were too weak and had a hard time even against the most stupid, slow, and weaker monsters. Putting that aside, he finally learned who or what gave him Weapon Augmentation. If what that shadow said was true, then Luke wasn’t dancing in the palm of someone else’s hands... Or perhaps he was on Aivern hands.

"As for the reason why we help and protect those individuals, it is because we need them to stay alive until the very end. Suppose we fail to prevent the destruction of the universe. In that case, they need to be right at the core of the problem in order for them to become our final preparation... If we fail at preventing it, we reset everything," The shadow said.

"Reset?" Luke asked while frowning.

"We use all the mana available to us. All the worlds available with their chosen ones will launch one attack at the core of the problem and then restart another big bang. The bullets will be the planets themselves," The shadow said. "After the final attack, the universe will start over, but that is just delaying the problem since most things are going to repeat themselves."

Luke had a hard time trying to understand that... Big bang... Reset... Final attack. That was all too insane... But that also made Luke wonder about what Aivern said. He said that he had the knowledge of multiple universes that ended, but could that asshole be wrong about his own powers?

"If you guys know what will happen, then why have you failed at solving the problem so many times?" Luke asked.

"We know that something will happen, but we don’t know how or what," the shadow said. "After every reset, we die and start over, so we don’t carry out memories, but we have this continuous sense of deja vu, and sometimes we even predict things that will happen. That is why we know for sure that the universe is in danger."

That still doesn’t explain how Aivern still has the memories before of the previous resets. Still, to think that something like that had happened, who knows how many times and things keep happening the way they were supposed to be. It was also weird that the same people were continuing to be born over and over again for the same periods of time. In any case, if one considers the universe to be a single organism, then it wouldn’t be that hard. Those who were preparing for the destruction were some kinds of virus, the planets and their wills were the antibodies, and the living beings were the first countermeasures against the diseases.

Luke didn’t know if he was supposed to feel good or bad about that. It wasn’t like his life was being predetermined by someone, but it also felt like he didn’t have that much individuality. The story made sense, so Luke began to feel quite troubled.