Everyone Else Has a System

"(Just… what happened after I died in the previous timeline?")

"(Well… You really have no idea?)" She questioned as her anger slowly subsided and she observed my face with an analytical gaze. Only after confirming that I really did not know what happened, she closed her eyes, with a crease forming on her forehead.

"(Well… It would be better if I tell you the whole thing at my palace)" she spoke as she transferred all of us to a different location.

All my party members, and the two blue skinned human-like monsters, also came along with us. Compared to the sandy desert location, this place was more like an abandoned forest. There were black trees with black leaves and the grass was brownish with grey-coloured ground.

It had an eerie feel which actually suited the atmosphere of Netherrealm. The fact that we couldn't see, hear or feel even a single living soul miles away from our location made things more 'charming' than it already was.

"(Where should I start?)" Theia asked, and I recalled the bits of information I had about what I just heard from Theia. Then, after pondering over it for a few more seconds, I turned at the blue-skinned duo and charmed them to sleep.

"(Start with Netherrealm and reach to the point where you got to know about my death. Also, tell me how both Netherrealm and Planet Vermillion got destroyed,)" I spoke as I turned to Theia, who nodded before she started narrating her tale.

It was a long story, and it took about 2 hours to fully finish it in detail.

The gist of it was as follows:

Theia was looking after Netherrealm as usual and one day, out of nowhere, a bunch of Parasites started coming through the wall of the living. The wall of living is a wall through which monsters pass from Netherrealm and are reborn in the Planet Vermillion as weaker versions of themselves.

When someone from the other side came, it made Theia really curious about who he or she was, but before she could even meet them; they started attacking all the monsters here. At first, it was just a bunch of Parasites, but not even a day later, more and more Parasites appeared. Both their numbers and strength increased progressively, and they didn't even come to negotiate but pure destruction.

Strangely enough, they can kill the monsters here for real… and that ensued the destruction to another level as the wall of the living began breaking before it completely shattered. Many monsters tried escaping to Planet Vermillion, and even Theia escaped there only to find a cruel three way battle between the Intergalactic King Alulim, The Light Bearer Lucas and the Parasite King.

The battle, as she had heard before, had been going on for the past few weeks. Exactly the same time when the Wall of the Living was crumbling down.

Theia was flabbergasted when she saw the horrific battle, and at the scale it was taking place. She tried asking around to see what exactly was going on and what she had heard was that all the 12 rulers except Lucas were dead and killed by Alulim, the Intergalactic King. Since he had nothing left behind, Lucas used all of his energy and began fighting against the Intergalactic King on his own without holding back, and the result was what she saw in front of her.

She then recalled about me and asked around if they had heard about anyone named Reaper, to which everyone reacted really awkwardly before they asked how Theia came to know about Reaper.

She explained her side of the story before they told her theirs. Accordingly, once I died, my body vanished into thin air as if it never existed. There was a Plantheora Monster sitting nearby, and some thought it ate my body or something.

Lucas and Lucia then went back to the council of the strongest and talked about what to do next from here. Though as the conversation went on… Lucia stood up and spoke,"this is getting boring. I'm out. You guys can handle this on your own," before she moved out.

The next thing was that she was never seen again, no matter how hard they searched for her.

People then cursed Lucia all throughout the decade for the f*ckery she committed. Not only she left, chickening out at such a crucial moment, because of her Planet Vermillion lost a strong member of theirs.

After Theia looked more into it, she heard rumours about how Reaper could have escaped all that, but since he has lost everything, he actually decided to end his life in that battle. In other words, he was kind of backed into a corner to make such a decision, which Theia actually agreed to.

Theia actually believed that the cockroach bastard who could give her such a hard time couldn't be killed unless he himself wanted to die. But then, since his body wasn't found, she kept the possibility of him being alive somewhere in the universe and began searching for him.

Too bad before she could leave the planet, Lucas died along with the Intergalactic King, and the Parasite King, simply killing everyone on the planet, destroyed the planet Vermillion and Netherrealm at once.

The next thing she knew was that she woke up back in time where she was still working in the Netherrealm. She had no idea what was going on and neither she had known about anything that was happening.

She actually regressed 24 years back and after she thought of all the possibilities of how things are going to play out, she decided to use all her cards to save Netherrealm. Though, she needed someone to help her… someone who can help her from outside… and that's where my name came up in her mind again.

That's when she created an artefact, at the cost of half of her powers, that can open the Gate to Netherrealm from Planet Vermillion, before she used the help of an enchantress monster to put a strange curse on it.

That is that it will kill the one after binding with the one it was named after. It will find the one whom it has been named after, even if it takes decades and soon binds with him before killing him in the process.

She did that because she knew that this was the strongest curse that could find me. Also, about that killing part, it was because she knew that the curse, or perhaps any curse, will not work on me. Even last time this curse was placed on me only to be nullified by me without an effort.

All that was left was for me to find that artefact by fate and with the way I was before, I was sure to use it however I can. Interestingly enough, I came here in my Reaper form, which I only learned here and not something that I had before coming here in the previous timeline.

Which actually gave her a clue that perhaps even I had regressed through time just like her.