Endless Path : Infinite Cosmos

(A/N: From now on, most chapters will be short-form excerpts detailing minor events and tying up loose ends. There will be actual chapters mixed in, but there are a lot of characters, perspectives, and events to show. Too many to dedicate full chapters to.)
[Responsibility]
Though they were ultimately his actions, Vahn didn't like feeling like someone else had solved all his problems. Thus, in the weeks following his 'return,' he spent considerable time ensuring the smooth operation of the Aldrnari Empire. He took breaks to spend time with his family, friends, and loved ones, but as the Empire was still in its infancy, it required much attention.
One of the very first things Vahn did, even though Loki wanted to keep it a secret for as long as possible, was inform the Divine Council about the existence of worlds beyond Eden. He had aspirations of turning the tower into a nexus linking countless worlds in the future, and to accomplish that, they needed to expand the Guild's power to serve as a proper regulatory and policing force.
With the support of Ouranos and many others, it was only a matter of time before Vahn's aspirations were made a reality. To aid in this endeavor, he introduced a system that had worked remarkably well across many of the worlds his 'past' self had ventured, introducing Companions to students of the Aldrnari Academy.
Though there were invariably some Companions that had gone astray in the Aldrnari Empire of the Nasuverse, the majority qualitatively improved the lives of those they had been partnered with. This success was later replicated in the Little Garden, so Vahn was confident that introducing the tiny, adorable, and exceptionally powerful creatures to Orario would fix a lot of the systemic issues that had nearly ruined the lives of Lili and many others.
Fortunately, with the assistance of Skoll, the Goddess of Companions, Vahn didn't need to produce Companions from scratch. The former had become an existence akin to a World Tree, but instead of simply linking various worlds, she produced a functionally infinite number of spiritual fruit that served as the larval essence of Companions. When consumed, the fruit would first nourish the body, curing diseases and other ailments, and, after a while, a Companion perfectly tailored to the consumer would take root in their Dantian, functioning much like a Tailed Beast but without the need for a seal.
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[Mischief]
A few weeks after Vahn's return, Loki was lying atop his bed, playing with the ears of the red and white wolf-like Companion he had gifted her. She had been super busy serving as the Representative of the Divine Council, so she was currently taking a break, making use of the time allotted to her to laze about.
"You about finished?" asked Loki, looking over to where Vahn was seated at an expensive-looking desk, wearing a pair of old-fashioned glasses as he finished working on what looked like a golden pocket watch.
Nodding his head, Vahn replied, "I'm amazed at how easy it was," before tossing the watch over to Loki. She managed to catch it without issue, and when she did so, she sat up, her carmine eyes glistening between the gaps of her eyelids as a mischievous grin developed across her face.
Without hesitation, Loki began to fiddle with the crown/winder of the pocket watch as if she were adjusting the time. As the second, minute, and hour hands moved backward, time outside the bedroom moved in reverse, not just on the continent of Eden but across the Record 'Vahn Prime' had modified.
Pressing the crown/winder down like the button on a stopwatch, Loki functionally stopped time, the smile on her face growing even larger as she mused, "I'm going to have a lot of fun with this."
"Just don't do anything too crazy, or I'll have to punish you," said Vahn, causing Loki to direct a cheeky smile his way. She couldn't even begin to fathom how powerful he had become, but Loki was fairly confident she could get away with just about anything so long as she didn't infringe on his bottom line.
Absorbing her Companion back into her body, Loki dangled the watch by the chain Vahn had attached to it, spinning it haphazardly as she tittered, "I suddenly have the urge to behave naughtily..."
Returning a smile of his own, Vahn arose from his impromptu workstation, returning it to his Inventory as he meandered his way over to the slender, auburn-haired Goddess. She could now change her appearance as freely as conformed to the shape of its vessel, but instead of becoming the tall, buxom beauty she imagined herself to be in her heart, she willfully chose to stay exactly the way he remembered.
"You've certainly become bolder..." remarked Loki, offering no resistance as Vahn pushed her onto the bed, burying his face into the nape of her neck. Her body shivered as a faint but pervasive pleasure spread through her like internalized goosebumps, but instead of immediately yielding to Vahn's ministrations, she said, "Let's do it on the event horizon of a black hole this time..."
Causing actual goosebumps to develop across Loki's body, Vahn brought his mouth to her ear, responding, "If that's what you want..." as the world
around them abruptly 'fractured' like glass. In the next moment, their bed was on the edge of an event horizon, unaffected by the immense gravity of a black hole devouring a blue star. The sight was both frightening and beautiful, but it soon became little more than a backdrop as Vahn cupped Loki's bubbly butt with his hands and dissolved both of their clothes with a thought...
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[Acceptance]
Contrasting the atmosphere of jubilation that had exuded from the Hearth Manor since Vahn's return, things were fairly calm, serene, and borderline melancholic in Terra's Garden, the home to Terra, Fafnir, and the former's daughter, Alexa.
Though she knew her actions were more than a little childish, Alexa had been holing herself up in her dwelling in a grumpy mood, refusing to come out even with Ina, Vana, her mother, and several others came to check on her.
Fortunately for Alexa, she didn't have to wait nearly as long as she was prepared to. Vahn didn't show up immediately, but after getting some of his other affairs in order, he materialized in the very center of her room, finding the disgruntled dragoness wrapped in a futon as she watched his adventures through the Records on a Projection Sphere. More specifically, she was replaying the scenes of his interactions with Mordred...
Sensing Vahn's appearance, Alexa turned her head toward him, wearing a deadpan glower as she asked, "What do you want...?" in a dull, monotone voice.
Exhaling through his nose, Vahn adopted a somewhat wry but discernibly sincere smile as he said, "You're such a brat."
Feeling hurt by Vahn's words, Alexa's expression immediately crumpled, her brows and chin crinkling as moisture spread across her eyes. Before she could think to lash out or start bawling, however, Vahn materialized behind her, his powerful arms enveloping her in his warm embrace as he whispered, "I'm sorry I couldn't come earlier..."
Making it clear he wasn't there to coax or pacify her, Vahn inserted his hand into Alexa's shirt from below, caressing her abdomen with a faint, rainbow-hued light emanating from his palm. The shirt she was wearing belonged to him, but Vahn had long since accepted that his clothes were as much his lovers' as they were his own.
"Haaa..."
Not expecting Vahn to suddenly cup her left breast, a faint gasp escaped Alexa's throat as her previously sickly countenance became as hearty and red as an apple. At the same time, her heart was beating so intensely that her chest began to glow, causing a shadowy outline of her ribs to become visible.
"Can you retract your wings...?" asked Vahn, causing Alexa's feathery, leaf-colored wings to immediately retract, making it much easier to hold her from behind. There was still the matter of her tail, but as Da Vinci and many others could attest, Vahn not-so-secretly had a preference for girls with thick, fluffy, and even scaly tails.
Without asking if Alexa was certain she wanted to be with him, Vahn turned her head to face him, surprising her with a kiss. Tears cascaded down her cheeks when he did, but rather than stemming from sadness, they were the result of her inability to contain the relief and happiness welling within.
Making use of his free hand, Vahn slipped his finger past the band of Alexa's panties to prepare her for what was to come. What he found was that she was more than ready to receive him, so after several minutes of kissing, he guided her onto her hands and knees, allowing her tail to rest against his chest and dangle over his shoulder. She was only wearing his shirt and a pair of soaked panties, so he slipped down the silky fabric and caused Alexa's wings to practically burst out of her as he placed his glans against her eagerly awaiting entrance and pushed forward...
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(A/N: For those that missed it, I published the first chapter of my original novel, 'Keystone, an Awesome Parallel Plane Adventure.' I also posted a poll on my Patreon, so if you want to be a part of the worldbuilding, give it a gander. If we work together, I believe we can make KAPPA just as good, if not better, than EPIC.)

As entering a Record caused irreversible damage to the flow of fate and causality, attempting to enter the same Record twice was a good way to ensure its destruction. To get around this, Vahn had two options. The first was to do what he had done with the Transcendental Path to Heaven and several other experimental Records, using Null Protocol to subsume all of Creation, becoming the Origin of everything within.
While Vahn had considerable experience subsuming Records, the weight of eternity greatly strained his mind, body, and spirit. While waiting for the Transcendental Path to Heaven to finish its 137th cycle, he had spent the better part of thirty billion years absentmindedly observing the formation and death of stars. He was in no state to return to the world of Danmachi and be the lover, father, and Emperor his family, friends, and many others needed him to be, so after discussing it with his many, many wives, they concluded that the best option was regressing to the state he had been in before his departure. More specifically, he would create a Template of his past self, superimposing his Ego into it with the majority of his power and memories sealed.
As counterintuitive as this sounded, Vahn wasn't in a hurry to link the Record of Danmachi to the ever-expanding metaversal structure of his Actualized Worlds. He would, in time, but after accumulating knowledge and information spanning tens of trillions of worlds, he desired to spend at least a few millennia watching over his firstborn children and simply enjoying the company of his original family...
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Staring up at the sky above with a melancholic smile adorning his face, Vahn steeled himself for the long journey ahead of him, a final pang of guilt and trepidation spreading through his heart as he muttered, "Eje-"
Interrupting Vahn's somber departure, a twinkle appeared in the sky above, followed by a rainbow-hued sphere impacting the center of his forehead. Its velocity seemed to exceed the speed of light, far beyond his ability to react, but when it struck him, it felt like a gentle flick to his head as it bounced off his dome and fell into his open palms.
Recognizing the object as a Memory Sphere, albeit of a much higher quality than the ones currently in his possession, Vahn briefly hesitated before inserting his consciousness into the strange object. When he did so, he was presented with a contiguous stream of memories depicting his adventures through other Records, presented in an anime format. At the same time, much of the knowledge he had accumulated was transmitted to Sis, allowing her to organize and store it for later use.
"What the hell...?" muttered Vahn, tearing his consciousness away from the memory orb after watching more than two-thousand episodes of his journey through the Nasuverse, Akamatsuverse, and the Transcendental Path to Heaven. It was a lot to take in, but a quick look at this Status was enough to verify it was the truth...
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Name: [Vahn Aldrnari Mason]
Age: Ageless
Race: Aiua's Shadow
Parameter: [Danmachi: 1-7]
-Level: 0
-Power: XXX????
-Endurance: XXX????
-Dexterity: XXX????
-Agility: XXX????
-Magic: XXX????
Total: XXX????
Soul Tier: 4(Divine Soul)(Sealed)
[Karma]: Null
[OP]: 275,831,262,345,689,346,912,542,587,943,671,839,001,923,059
[Valis]: 11,383,988,000
Skills: [Will of the Emperor: (-)], [Vessel of the Soul:(Sealed)], [Origin Terminal:(Sealed)], [Rakshasa Body: (-)], [Keeper of the Akashic Tome: (-)], [Eyes of Truth: (-)], [Universal Mind: (Sealed)], [Actualization: (Sealed)], [Archery Goddess' Blessing: (-)], [Stealth: (-)], [Chainbreaker: (-)], [Heart of the Eternal Flame: (-)], [Prometheus: (-)], [Call of the Reaper: (-)], [Yggdrasil's Champion: (-)], [Yggdrasil's Favor: (-)], [Veil of the Traveler: (-)], [Featherfoot: (-)], [Hands of Nirvana:(-)], [Metallurgy: (-)], [Fist Strike: (-)], [Friend of Spirits: (-)], [Void Ward: (-)], [Temptation: (-)]...
Magic: [Sacred Tome: (-)]
Development Skills: [Blessing of the Sage Dragon Emperor: (-)], [Blessing of Freya: (-), [Wound Nullification: (-)], [Spirit Origin: (-)], [Omniweapons Expert: (-)], [Hammer of Creation: (-)], [Alchemic Origin: (-)], [Sage's Wisdom: (-)], [Lapidary: (-)], [Grooming: (-)], [Great Sage: (-)], [Allure: (-)], [Divine Administration: (-)]
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While Vahn was feeling a little dizzy looking at the amount of OP he had, Sis broke him free from his thoughts, her voice carrying a hint of relief as she stated, (*It seems everything went well. With this, you no longer have to worry about leaving behind your unborn children, much less the Empire you just recently founded.*)
Though he felt a similar sense of relief washing over him, Vahn couldn't help smiling wryly as he scratched his head and remarked, "This doesn't feel right...it's like someone else did all the work for me..."
(*But that someone was you*) said Sis, surprising Vahn immensely by manifesting next to him in her feline form and adding, "However, if you still wish to move forward, I will support you."
Recovering from his momentary stupor, Vahn shook his head and adopted a natural smile. This situation reminded him of Ouranos's Divination Scroll. However, as it was the result of his past self working tirelessly to ensure he could live without regrets, Vahn decided to honor his decision and stay with his family. He was a little daunted by the knowledge he had dozens of wives waiting for him to seek out, summon, and make them fall in love with him all over again, but that was a matter for the future...
Before doing anything else, Vahn summoned Fenrir and Medusa from the seemingly infinite list of subordinates occupying the subdimension of his Unit Management. From his perspective, it hadn't been that long since he stowed them away, but the thought of leaving them in stasis longer than necessary made him uncomfortable.
As they had yet to receive the memories of their future/past selves, Fenrir and Medusa were momentarily confused when Vahn released them from what they expected to be a long slumber. Fortunately, he was spared the effort of having to explain things as two more beams of light materialized from the heavens, impacting the duo's heads before landing in their hands in the form of blue and silver memory orbs...
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Standing outside the gate of the Hearth Manor, Vahn felt a tightness in his throat and an almost overwhelming sensation of shame. From his point of view, it had only been a few weeks since he started focusing on his Main Quest and preparing for his departure from the Record. Now that he had no reason to leave, he felt like an idiot for causing his family, friends, and, most importantly, his children to worry...
"If you're sorry, you need only apologize," said Sis, grabbing Vahn's hand and pulling him over the gate's threshold before he could protest. Fenrir and Medusa also pushed him from behind, so Vahn had little choice but to allow himself to be dragged to the front door with a nervous but grateful smile.
As Sis opened the double doors at the front of the manor, Vahn took a deep breath to steel himself for what was to come. He couldn't blame anyone for being upset with him, but while quite a few people planned to lecture him, that wasn't what awaited Vahn on the other side of the door. Instead, he was greeted by the scene of Hestia, Hephaestus, Loki, Erika, Ina, and Vana standing side by side in a line.
Before Vahn could think to form any words, much less apologize, Hestia preempted him by adopting a heart-wrenchingly radiant smile and simply stating, "Welcome home, Vahn."
"I..."
Feeling the tightness in his throat compound, Vahn temporarily lost the ability to speak as tears welled in his eyes, quickly overflowing and rolling down his cheeks in a steady stream. He couldn't imagine how the version of him that had been separated from their family for eons felt, but seeing his family after steeling himself to part with them was too much for Vahn. He didn't want his daughters to see his weak and vulnerable side, but he immediately fell to his knees and started sobbing as the trio of goddesses and his firstborn daughters surrounded and embraced him...
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As news of Vahn's 'return' spread through the network the girls used to keep in contact with one another, everyone even remotely close to him gathered at the Hearth Manor. This included Freya and several members of the Xenos, but for obvious reasons, the former was asked to wait until Vahn sought her out before approaching and interacting with him.
Unfortunately for Ais, Tiona, Lili, Tina, Lefiya, and some of the other girls with attachment issues, they were also made to wait. Loki was worried that Vahn would be overwhelmed if he had pregnant or overly emotional girls vying for his attention, so she gathered everyone in the main dining hall for an impromptu Vahnatus while the man after which the event was named spent time with his children.
Making things easier for everyone, Sis happily introduced herself before explaining the situation and presenting a Projection Sphere containing a third-person perspective of the events that had transpired during Vahn's exceptionally long journey. There were no longer any restrictions on the information they could share about The Path and the existence of other Records, so after a viewing session lasting several days, reduced to mere hours thanks to some convenient temporal manipulation, Sis answered all of the group's questions to the best of her ability.
Unsurprisingly, most of the questions came from the group of Goddesses, consisting of Loki, Hephaestus, Anubis, Eirene, Demeter, Artemis, Fortuna, and Freya. Kali and Amaterasu had been informed of Vahn's return, but as the former was busy and the latter had yet to visit the Hearth Manor, they would have their questions answered at a later date.
Serving as the defacto spokesperson of the group, Loki grilled Sis for as much information as she could. One of the things she was most interested in was the existence of other worlds, so Sis provided the Goddesses with a series of artifacts that could preserve their Divinity before opening up a portal to one of the many worlds Vahn had linked to the Record to elevate it to Tier 7. More specifically, she permitted them to enter the multi-planar Little Garden housed within Vahn.
With time flowing much slower in Vahn's Little Garden, depending on the plane you were on, only a few thousand years had passed on the surface. In that span, the World Tree had grown to the size of a small planet, but the most prominent feature were the planets visible from its surface, the largest belonging to Silva, Krona, and Xysteria, while the others belonged to children Vahn had sired much later. The Earth Vahn had subsumed from the Nasuverse was also present, but after moving most of its inhabitants to the lower levels of the Little Garden, it had become little more than a nature preserve tended by Marlin, innumerable fae, and the descendants of Avalon.
Unsurprisingly, Loki had a keen interest in the existence of Silva, Krona, and, most notably, Xysteria, but she didn't pressure Sis into introducing them. Instead, after meeting with the inhabitants of the surface texture, she asked to see the 'Tower' Vahn had created to allow residents of the lower levels to ascend and even 'surpass' godhood. The girls that were accustomed to traversing the Tower of Babel were equally interested in it, but as quite a few of them were pregnant, their exploration of the massive tower was delayed to a later date...
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While Sis was doing most of the heavy lifting in regard to explaining things, Vahn enjoyed a long nap with all of his children. Erika initially refused the group cuddle session, but after seeing how despondent her father looked, she quickly caved, donning a pair of animal-themed PJs alongside her siblings. She felt like an idiot, but when Vahn held her, she reluctantly nestled into his embrace...
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(A/N: No alternative titles this time around. Instead, as this is the final arc, I wanted to ask you guys and gals what you wanted to see portrayed. I have a few things in mind, such as tying up loose ends with Alexa and an encounter with Nuwa/Tiamat/etc, but beyond that, I'm open to ideas. If there are none, EPIC will likely conclude in the next few chapters, as I'm eager to move on to an original project.)

Chapter 2356: EPIClogue 001