The World's most Overpowered Side-Character

The descending Makka Beast grunted, flapping its wings wildly and adjusting its accelerating descent towards Umbra, but he was too focused on the ones attacking him on the ground to even heed its approach.

Swerving and weaving out of the way of slashes and chomps, Umbra, feeling overwhelmed by just how durable these creatures were held out his hand and caught one by the tail using it like a bat and swatting several through the air before leaping out of the growing horde of them.

"This is- Ghnn!!"

He dodged the one that had been descending, suffering a slash across his back when the creature reached out while passing him. "This fucker!" The man snapped, enraged at his apparent shortcoming, the closest he'd come to any encounter like this was Atla but even the demons aside from the demon-god hadn't exerted this specific kind of pressure.

These weren't mindless, everything they did felt thought out and elaborate, it showed when after the tear in his back the same beast grabbed his foot and swung him downwards into a pit full of razor-sharp teeth.

"I won't underestimate you any longer!" He roared out, landing on the teeth meant to tear into his flesh and grabbing the tongue that stuck out beneath him. "Fuck this!"

With a single yank, Umbra ripped the creature's stomach through its mouth simultaneously spinning to evade several dozen attacks and then spreading his hands with a wave of noir flames rushing from his palms creating an incineration dome, vapourising everything on the inside.

Left in the epicentre of a charred field the size of a stadium, Umbra clasped his hands again when he started feeling the ground shaking once more.

He had expected the second wave to be replacements of the first, but when he caught sight of the same winged Makka beast that had first attacked him he realised that a majority of them had escaped his flames underground, much to his displeasure.

"As I suspected," Giza shook her head, though she was smiling even while watching Umbra's terrible display of power. "He is strong, but relies too heavily on overwhelming power, much like Sol once did after leaving Atla, he lacks a certain... finesse that I have witnessed from the Golden Godslayer."

Mentioning Sol, Giza shook her head and rested her palm against her cheek where he had struck her and left his light. "My lord has a long way to go before he is ready for consumption, otherwise this will all have been for nothing and I will be left at the first phase once more, without a strong enough catalyst, I have no choice but to stay within my realm..."

She looked at the waitress slowly approaching with a small serving of a gell-like delicacy, it was agreed upon by their entire species to be the best and most delicious meal they had created across time, if this didn't satisfy the being before her, then they were doomed.

"You took your sweet time,"

"A-apologies, I was in consult with the leaders of my homeworld," The waitress carefully placed the meal before Giza and took several steps backwards when the woman seated frowned at her. "Please, if you are dissatisfied-" She pulled out a small knife and held it to her throat, "I will pay the price, punish me rather than my people."

"No need to do anything you will regret just yet, though, I am curious about your people now," Giza chuckled and picked up the curved spoon presented to her. "Until I was passing by towards Makka, I was totally unaware of your existences, a planet of pure beings, no wars in your entire history, not even as much as temptation, as far as Utopia goes, this is it."

"M-my people live harmoniously your excellence..." The woman sucked in a breath when she saw Giza take a spoonful of the food and not even bat an eye at the flavour. "We have never had a reason to fight, thanks to our abilities and power of perception our ancestors forbade any arguments, we live an open and carefree life free of greed, strife and the other diseases that plague the Grand Collective."

"You call them diseases?" Giza looked up at her, amused.

"We regard them as such, we have knowledge of other beings' greed, their ability to fight and take life without meaning or purpose, to covet and lust after what is not theirs, here on Uon there is no such illness affecting our minds, if someone needs help we help," She rested her hand on her chest.

"If everyone gets along there exists a peace like no other, we do not bore, nor do we tire of each other, life can be beautiful without the sins of the flesh."

"That is quite the story coming from the mouth of a being that was about to kill herself, is this why your kind do not fear death?"

"Death is merely a passage between one life and another it is not permanent, an inevitable means to another beginning, there is nothing to fear, If my demise ensures the continued existence of my people, I would gladly trade my soul, as would any other individual amongst my people."

"Worldwide selflessness, I have never seen or heard of that before." Giza hummed, taking another spoonful and then looking at the woman again. "But I see you are not above lying to my face."

"!!?" The woman stiffened.

"If you do not fear death, then why are you afraid of me, why are you trying so hard to appease me?" She asked. "What about that nonsense about living again after dying?"

"If I may speak crudely-"

"Feel free, I do not like formalities." Giza waved her hand, humming after eating another bite.

"The death you offer is one that destroys our only treasure."

"Which is?"

"Our soul, without a soul we will cease to exist, the death you offer is one that is accompanied by no reincarnation, no heaven, no hell, just emptiness without existence, we fear such a demise, because it is the opposite of our belief that death is not the end of life, only a trial."

"Hm, I suppose you were being honest before then," Giza rested her spoon in the empty plate with a smile. "My darkness consumes, it devours, it leaves the universe as it was before the cursed first light washed me away." She confirmed the woman's words with a grin.

"Then I would propose a small deviation," Giza crossed her legs again. "If I were to destroy your people and leave only you alive ...keep you within myself as my slave or vessel, would you accept that existence when it is a state that is neither living nor dead?"

"I... would not, without my people I would be alone forever, even in the company of one as esteemed as yourself, even if I lived with all their memories forever with you, I would be a mere shell, without my people I am nothing, I would lose my capacity to love and become diseased with emotional affliction." She replied honestly to which the Dark Emissary nodded and gestured to the empty seat next to herself.

"I would like to continue eating for the time being, take a seat and converse with me while someone else prepares the food."

"Of course," The waitress gestured to the doors of her restaurant and a young man approached quickly, touching antennae with her for a brief second and then leaving with the empty dish. "I will accommodate anything you wish to converse-"

"I want to hear more about your ideologies, your people hold strange concepts of peace that I have never heard of before, even more strange than those which Sol Vestic aim for, a total peace I have no doubt he would hold on to with his everything."

"Sol Vestic, the man who threatened the Grand Emperor Zan'el and will set to end the Emporium's rule... also the being who poses the greatest threat to one such as yourself and your companion, Umbra." The woman rested her hands in her lap with a sad expression. "He seeks an admirable end by the standards of the flesh-loving, but we believe that at the end of his quest lies misery, death he will fail to accept and loss, even if he is victorious."

"Oh?" Giza leaned onto the table and chuckled, amused at how much these people knew from merely taking a peek into her thoughts for a dish. "Go on, explain to me what flaw you have found in his quest."

"It is less about the quest he has taken upon himself and more about how he desires to execute it; death to all his current enemies will only breed more enemies, killing stains one's soul, he is full of love and light, from your perspective he is a nauseatingly beautiful existence much like our people, but he is flawed with the desire for violence that we have rejected."

"Overcoming your enemies is not how you win a war, only unity through mutual-"

"The people Sol Vestic face are all evil, pure evil, if he approaches his enemies with rationality he will die, his friends will die, his family and loved ones, his collective, everything under his light will be slaughtered." Giza almost burst out laughing.

"Do not be naive."

"I am not-"

"Then I will task you with a job, when your spouse returns, I want you to take your knife and slit his throat."

"What?"

"You heard me, I will prove to you that Sol's decision to crush his enemies is a sound one, he is in the right, but I am also in the right, life and light are fleeting; only darkness should exist, at the end of time only darkness will exist, and to prove both our points, when your man returns you will kill him and experience emotion like never before."

"You comply, or your homeworld will vanish within my Void."