Outline & Closing Words


    This outline starts after thest chapter''s ending.


    After crossing the portal into Pandoria, Shroud awakens in the imperial homeworld of Concordia (or what <em>appears </em>to be Concordia), where he shares an apartment with his old crush Samantha and serves under his mother Alice as the Vice Blue Minister. He quickly realizes that he is an alternate reality, one which is limited in scope (the world glitches out past a certain perimeter) and resetting every twelve hours. He finds his scattered team there, and they realize this is an overwritten reality long destroyed; one where Mathias never became Shroud and instead joined Concordia.


    They manage to escape this realm and realize that Pandoria is actually a patchwork, cancerous multiverse made of all the alternate realities deleted by Dis over its long existence; many of them ended up there due to Wyrdes actions, as she alters history to favor her own homeworld. With each deletion, Pandorias power grows, spreading ck Flux and causing more glitches in reality.


    They track down Mammon to a nightmarish, rusted city overtaken by ck Flux and Pandorians, where the archdevil tries to harness the power of various realities to cast a mighty time-travel spell; the same one that caused the devastation of the Midnight Market. His goal is to go back thousands of years in the past, preventing the Malekings original sealing and thus creating a universe ruled by the forces of Hell.


    Obviously, a battle starts and the group manages to put Mammon down before he canunch the spell. However, this also attracts the attention of Pandorias ruler Ashmal, who reveals himself as a colossal Pandorian who went insane after realizing Dis true nature. His ultimate goal is to have Pandoria swallow Dis, before copsing all of reality into nothingness - which in his mind, is mercy.


    As they try to escape the seemingly-invincible Ashmal, the heroes are helped by what appears to be a dragon made of maggots with great magical powers, who can travel between Pandoria and normal reality at will.


    The group returns to Earth, but things get worse. The Maleking finally escapes from his prison, revealing himself to be the Beast of the Apocalypse, long ago sealed by the Dismaker. He makes his way towards Earth in a straight line, destroying every celestial object on the way, and makes his intentions clear: conquer the as his birthright, destroy Wyrde, and then create a universe where might makes right.


    In preparation for his masters arrival, the Malekings Horsemen of the Apocalypsend on Earth; the resistance and some benevolent Concordian like Kresnik and Samantha (who now works for Alice Martel) make a temporary ceasefire to focus on them. Mur and his old rival, the Horseman Graff, mutually kill each other.


    However, the arcadian hunters leader, Lord Revel (revealed to be the god Dagda, having been consumed by Dis magic during the ancient godwar) proves himself unstoppable. Unable to defeat this powerful archmage, Shroud, out of options, is convinced by an increasingly maniacal Stitch to awaken a Worldshaker before using [Network] to pilot it.


    Now in control of a gigantic alien war machine, and being able to channel his spells through it, Shroud confronts Revel and both prove to be evenly matched; however, the battle ends when ckcinders has both of them bombarded from orbit, killing Revel and disabling Shroud. As a result of his evolving Lock, Shroud is permanently fused to the Worldshaker, as he starts transforming into an Iron God; a new Dis linked to the Magik Online system. This was what Stitch had nned all along, having be obsessed with Dis technology and now desiring to see the process out of intellectual curiosity.


    Concordia captures the disabled Shroud and brings him to the White Neurotower in the arctic as Wyrde prepares tounch her nned reboot. She reveals herself to Shroud and exins that her goal is to create a perfect universe without pain or suffering, where she will be reunited with her dead cofounder Halcyon, and where Mathias himself will live a happy life; whether he wants it or not. Shroud''s mother Alice tries to convince him to go along, as sheunches the reboot.


    However, as Wyrde makes her move, so do others. The Maleking finally arrives, his Lock [Apocalypse Force] causing disasters all around the globe; Ashmal emerges from the ck Tower with an army of Pandorian and makes his way north; and mankind assaults the Neurotowers around the Earth to prevent the reboot.


    This results in a cataclysmic melee. Ashmal makes his move towards the White Neurotower, intending to corrupt Wyrdes reboot and end all existence; mankind and the old gods/sponsors try to gain control over the Neurotowers to teleport Earth back in its sr system; the Maleking fights the Concordian fleet; and Wyrde attempting tounch her universal reboot.


    Samantha, who has grown increasingly disturbed by Concordias insane ambitions, is eventually convinced by her old friend Maggie to switch sides; she epts a Magik Online offer and helps Shrouds team (helped by Ulysses) get into the White Neurotower. They confront Wyrde, while Alice continues with the reboot.


    Loctis intervenes and is revealed to be the maggot-dragon under an illusion spell. He admits that he was supplying both the human resistance and the Malebranche with information to take down Concordia, reasoning that Wyrde had be a tyrant and that their cofounder Halcyon would be ashamed of what the Empire has be. He begs Wyrde to listen to reason, but she is so set in her ways that she refuses to imagine any alternative to her n. Loctis fights his former mentor with Shrouds team, but they can only hold the mighty dragon archmage back.


    While the reboot happens, Shroud ends up having a semi-surreal experience where he is briefly connected to all of Dis at once, finally understanding the enormous size of the artificial universe. Dis turns out to be an artificial dimension growing by absorbing pieces of other universes into itself, as it abducted Earth from its original sr system, before using the souls of those it captures as Flux energy. Anton Maxwell/The Dismaker appears to him, confirming that he is Dis incarnate, lonely, and that his goal was to create another him so he could have someone to share eternity with. He offers Shroud to either proceed with the reboot, join him and rule Dis together, or let Ashmal end everything (having grown so bored with immortality, Maxwell relishes the possibility of dying).


    Instead, Shroud decides to choose no side but mankinds: preventing Wyrdes Reboot, rejecting the Dismaker, and unleashing a powerful wave of White Flux which purifies Ashmal and his Pandorian army, finally allowing them to die. Shroud then absorbs Pandorias energies into himself, fuses with Magik Onlines Administrator, and bes an Iron God; the same creature as Maxwell/Dismaker, with the power to grant magic to others, create his own neurotowers, and with total control over the Magik System.


    Wyrde realizes that due to Shroud short-circuiting the necessary systems, the Reboot is no longer possible; she mentally copses as the realization that everything she did was for nothing andpletely shuts down. Alice, meanwhile, is overwhelmed with despair at Shroud rejecting her vision, and in denial over her own esction, activates the bases self-destruct sequence. Wyrde refuses to evacuate, and Shroud loses his mother to her own madness.


    As a result of the failed reboot, the sponsors'' n seeds, and a portal starts teleporting Earth and its moon back to their original sr system, far away from Dis and its madness.


    Meanwhile, realizing that Wyrde is dead, ckcinders vows revenge. She decides to use her gravity control to pull the Moon out of orbit and crash it against the Earth before it can get away, reasoning that <em>the apes should not outlive Concordias Grandmaster.'' </em>Horrified, Loctis, the Golden Prince, and othermanders like Kresnik order the Concordian forces to stand down and leave the, causing a civil war among the Empires ranks. Meanwhile, the Maleking orders his troops to st the Concordian fleet to oblivion with ck Flux bombs, while he attempts to follow Earth into the portal and escape Dis.


    Now the incarnation of the Magik Online system with full ess to all spells, including Dot 5 and ck Flux, Shroud supercharges the surviving yers with his enhanced [Network] and allow them to push back the Concordian and Malebranche; he makes his farewell to his surviving teammates, has a brief telepathic talk with Ulysses and Perse, then goes to engage the fleets in orbit.


    The godlike Shroud devastates both groups, kills ckcinders by ramming an asteroid on her, and then pushes back the Maleking before he can enter the portal. The Earth and its Moon escape Dis, the Neurotowers detonating afterward; the is free, and mankind can rebuild alongside the old gods. Shroud, however, remains trapped behind.


    Furious, the Maleking tries to murder Shroud in a final act of spite, reasoning that he cannot stand the existence of a benevolent god. The duel takes ce over several realities as they jump through them until Shroud finally erases the almighty archfiend from existence with a Dot 6 Hack.


    Fast forward, Manah assumesmand over the Malebranche, intending to reform them into a more peaceful organization while she continues the war with Concordias remnants; while the dragon empire splinters into a reformist bloc led by Loctis, and an old guard bloc made of Wyrdes hardline followers. Shroud, now a god, decides to watch over Dis to counter the Dismakers malevolent influence, vowing to one day overthrow the mad deity. Maxwell/Dismaker responds that he wees the challenge, but has the feeling that the two of them will keep this up forever.


    The story ends yearster as Kari Matsumoto meets with her surviving teammates and the Werners in a rebuilt Japan. Finally having the chance to live a normal life, she looks at the skies and wonders if Shroud is watching somewhere. In another universe, standing over a developing, peaceful alien world, an iron god looks up at the skies too; thinking that as long as there is life, there is hope.


    The End.


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