Through a combination of his Soul Garden to design Spell Forms and the endless white platform in Space to test them, Felix completely reworked each and every Spell he had ever used. After and in between, he also came up with entirely new Spells that incorporated everything he had learned.
The only reason he didn’t keep going, was that he was interrupted.
It is time.
Felix cocked a brow in confusion as he turned to The Acharaya, “Time for Titan?”
Only you will know when you are ready to take the final step, of the beginning.
“Then…”
Your enemy has taken the next step on their path, faster than we had expected.
“Wait, The Dragon is out?”
Yes.
“I… don’t want to fight it yet.”
Your hesitation is unexpected.
“I just don’t want to fight it now. I still have so many ideas for Spells I want to make, I want to hit Titan, I want to upgrade my body using this new skill my Staff taught me. I want to be as strong as I can be first.”
Often, in waiting for the perfect time, we miss the best time.
“Yeah but, can’t The Realm Warden deal with it? Or… anyone else?”
The Realm Warden is the only one capable and they must not. Can not.
“What happens if I wait? It rampages through a bunch of Realms? Most of the Realms beyond that one are abandoned.”
Do not underestimate your enemy’s intelligence. Now that they have taken a step on this path, they are much better equipped to continue travelling it.
“You mean they know how to move through the realms now… So, it invades and wipes out Azura… Is that all?”
Felix y- Grim started in his mind.
I’m not, I just need to know. Felix assured him.
Often the path you believe to be the worst, is far from reality.
“So… more than that?”
Your enemy, in reaching the end of the beginning, has begun to tear through the realms themselves. Should it take too many steps on this path, the realms will collapse and cease to exist.
“Ah… shit. I guess it would also make it here eventually, right? That would be too late I take it?”
Yes.
“How many realms before it all collapses? Also, what happens if it does collapse? Couldn’t you all just leave first?”
That is a path we could take however, it does not lead where you might believe. Should these realms collapse, not only will every soul within them be lost, but much of the space containing this one would be as well.
“Right… universe collapse not good for the multiverse outside. Big explosion?”
While not an explosion, much of the containing universe would be lost. Somewhere between 40 and 80%, depending on how The System manages the fallout.
“Yeah alright, not ready to let the universe die just yet. Where is it now?”
2084.
“Can you get me to the 2100th?”
Without moving in any way, The Acharaya opened a portal between the two of them, Once you step through and continue on your path, you will be unable to return here as I must seal this realm to prevent damage to those who remain here.
Felix stepped towards it then stopped before entering, turning to the teacher, “Any last words of wisdom?”
It is possible, I was overzealous in aiding your enemy.
Felix snorted, completely thrown off by The Acharaya’s contrition, “Well, I obviously don’t love the idea of the realms collapsing but… I’m glad you did.” Then, he stepped through the portal into the mostly empty 2100th realm, the portal closing behind him as soon as he was through.
As he was moving up through the realms towards The Dragon, Felix had begun to feel what was in the next realm on the ambient Anima.
In the 1999th, Felix could feel The Dragon’s Aura leaking through the realm wall and he knew what he was up against in the 2000th.
Felix felt the same thing in the 2100th except this time, it was stronger. As it tore through the realms and approached him, it continued to grow. The Aura was both bigger and stronger. It was chilling and exciting at the same time as it felt like an entirely new enemy.
Having reached Titan, The Dragon was stronger in every way. Felix wasn’t sure he was strong enough to fight it at all but, there was no way he wasn’t going to try.
Given the way it was tearing through the realms though, Felix didn’t have any way of escaping it. His Amulet wouldn’t bring him back to The Acharaya’s sealed realm and all the realms in between, would soon be one in the same.
All in all though, Felix didn’t have any regrets. He would have liked to have spent more time working on his Spells, upgrading his body, learning and getting stronger but The Acharaya was right, he didn’t have the time. He couldn’t let The Dragon destroy the realms which would certainly kill his friends that were either inside or just outside, waiting for him, along with half the universe.
There was still so much out there he had yet to see, yet to learn.
Out of everything though, Felix just wished he could have reached Titan. He entered The Acharaya’s realms with that goal in mind and in a way, he had failed to reach it. He knew he would eventually get there but the fact that he hadn’t yet and The Dragon had, annoyed him. Especially since everyone told him he was so close.
No matter what he did though, he didn’t know how to take that final step. He didn’t know if he was ready. He didn’t know how to get there. If he knew what he wanted to be, would it just happen? Based on everything he had managed to squeeze out of Kerix and The Acharaya, that’s how it seemed to be but Felix wanted something more concrete and actionable.
He knew it would have something to do with Spells as every time he released his Aura, he saw hints of a Spell Form appearing within it. It having to do with a Spell made sense to him, it felt right. He also wasn’t quite there yet. His Aura wasn’t anything more than flashes and a feeling.
As The Dragon’s Aura strengthened and grew in Felix’s realm, his excitement grew along with it. His Aura grew outwards and pushed back against The Dragon’s. He shifted his robes to have thinner fabric to maximize his mobility and surrounded himself with a Spell Shield. He gripped his Staff of Arcane Wisdom in his hand and began setting up a ritual on the ground around him.
Solid threads of woven Anima and Mana raced around him in every direction, embedding themselves within the ground he had flattened in an instant with his Matter Control.
A Spell Form consisting of Fractals that seemed to defy the two dimensional plane of the flat ground formed a ritual a kilometer in radius centered around Felix.
Finally, he felt space around him shuddering as The Dragon tore through the 2098th realm, just one away from him, and Felix pulled up his Status Screen, updated and maintained by The Nucleus within him.
Name: Felix Kade (The True Wizard) FREE 0 Innate: Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard) STR 774,108 Class: [C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,948) DEX 4,789,791 Race: [C - Ancient] Wanderer (Lvl 1,962) AGI 1,559,034 Profession: [C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,976) PER 2,169,917 Health: 22B / 22B VIT 2,189,847 Mana: 500B / 500B INT 7,970,244 Resistance: 99.989% END 1,898,210
----------------------------------------
Sitting in an empty building that had been allocated to him against his will, a place Grim spent far more time in than he expected, Grim stared at a wall. He spent a lot of time in Felix’s Mental World but recently, he had been spending more time puppeting the body they had made for him.
While the time dilation in the Mental World gave him more time than controlling his puppet, Grim wasn’t sure if time was what he needed most. He was somewhat lost and ever since arriving in The Acharaya’s domain, even before that, he had been questioning his reality and his position in the universe.
Then, The Acharaya looked directly at him, or rather it felt like it somehow looked into him, even though his Soul was hidden deep within Felix’s. The Acharaya showed him the universe and it was something he knew, something he had seen before. Somehow, it was different when The Acharaya showed it to him.
There was something more to the presentation than just the visual spectacle and whatever it was, it affected him deeply.
Felix, being who he was, felt nothing. Grim didn’t know though if that was because Felix was sure of who he was and what his place was in the universe, or because of the rigidity and protective nature of his monster Soul.
Grim didn’t have a Soul that seemed invincible and he wasn’t sure of who he was so for him, the presentation was far more meaningful.
In the Mental World, Grim had read all the books Felix had scanned. He had consumed nearly all the information. That was what he was designed to do, hold and contain information, keep secrets and guard knowledge that shouldn’t ever be shared with anyone.
There was no method of getting that information out, he wasn’t designed for that. For the longest time, that was his purpose.
Now, whether a product of his experiences in a whole new universe or as a product of having his Soul bound to Felix’s which, inevitably changed him given the disparity in their strengths, he wasn’t sure if he was still attached to that same purpose.
Everything he felt about who he was and what he wanted to do had been warped and now, instead of preserving and guarding the information he had, he wanted to gain more. He also didn’t feel as attached to guarding information but it was hard for him to abandon that notion entirely while he remained bound by the artificial convictions within him. They had loosened over time and his bond helped, but the Convictions remained and so did their influence.
The reason he ended up spending increasingly more time every day outside of the Mental World, was that he wasn’t sure how Felix was influencing him and who he wanted to be. He also didn’t know whether or not the influence was a good thing.
Standing there in his building, with complex enchantments adorning the walls, Grim didn’t expect anyone to interrupt him. The only interruptions he ever got were Mark and rarely Felix. Most of the time though, he passively paid attention to Felix’s mind and Mark’s reports. He was left pretty much entirely alone, if he wanted to be.
You are near the end of your path and yet I sense the final steps remain anything but clear.
Grim leapt back in alarm as a many armed being appeared in the room with him, “It’s you.”
What is your place in this universe?
“If I keep following Felix, isn’t the question less about one universe?”
The question need not be limited by or tied to anyone but you.
“Without him… I’m can’t just go visit another universe.”
And yet, that is a step you have already taken.
“Not intentionally. My universe died, it collapsed. I don’t even know how I got out.”
You were there. Now you are here. How that step was taken is not relevant to the fact that you have already taken it.
“It’s very relevant to whether or not I can take another step, in the same direction.”
Not in the way you believe it to be. Should you wish, you may abandon those you have traveled with thus far and forge your own path, across universes.
“So I can do it? Or you mean metaphorically.”
The former. You are more than capable. You are simply lost.
“I don’t even know if that’s what I want though. Where would I even be without him?”
Where you would be had you taken a different step is a question a fool asks. Where you will be when you take the next step is the question everyone wishes to know.
“How can anyone know anything then?”
Where you are now is often the best guide.
“Right now, I’m following Felix and I’m helping the Residents and I manage things in his Mental World.”
I sense you have recently overcome turmoil?
“I realized I didn’t like his disregard for his Residents lives. And his own, I guess.”
Why?
“I… care about them. In a way, it feels like I raised them and him… I care about him. He’s my friend and even if he doesn’t care about me, I care about him.”
Then the question of what steps you could take on your own, are not questions of your path.
“But they’ll help me figure out who I am without him.”
That question does not guide your path. You have already claimed your path is intertwined with his. What path you could take without him, means nothing.
“That makes the question so much more complicated because now I need to know what he’s going to do.”
No. Although your paths are intertwined, they may both lead to different destinations. The only effect this has, is to change the route you use to get there.
“Yeah but I don’t know what that is. Where I’m going.”
Any step, is better than no step.
“Even on the wrong path?”
There are no wrong paths. Just different paths. Many of which, lead to the same destination.
“I want to be more self sufficient. Felix gives me tools and a body but… I have no experience… using it.”
Then let’s take a step.
Grim had the knowledge not only for The Dragon’s Dance of Death, but for many other techniques and abilities that were banned in his universe. He didn’t have full access to them because he was built to contain the information, not access it. With The Acharaya’s assistance though, he didn’t loosen his Convictions so much as find ways to slip beyond them, sometimes.
Most importantly though, he came to a decision of who he wanted to be.
----------------------------------------
Your path was already clear. Seeing the scale of the universe only showed you more of the same path.
“Meow.”
Now, you must simply take the first step.
“Meow meow, meow meow meow meow.”
Running down one’s path is not often advised as it often leads you astray.
“Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow.”
Yes, I did say that. Your path is one of the most clear so it is unlikely you will lose your way.
“Meow meow meow meow?”
I sense you must simply acclimate to the potential you have been gifted.
“Meow meow meow meow.”
I will help you. First, you must decide what step you wish to take first.
“Meow meow meow meow.”
While-
“Meow meow meow.”
Yes, you are correct. Howe-
“Meow. Meow. Meow.”
If you insist. The Acharaya didn’t sigh but even his robotic voice echoed a sense of exasperation into Nova’s mind. She didn’t mind though. She was getting what she wanted.
The Acharaya opened a portal but before it even appeared, Nova was gone. He reappeared on the white disc beneath the endless expanse of the universe just outside one of the doorways and Nova, who was already there, instantly vanished and reappeared within the realm.
He vanished and reappeared in the small black room as well where, Nova had just jumped onto the shapely block in the middle that acted as an anvil. It was a complicated shape that provided facets for all kinds of forging. It allowed a talented smith to create almost any shape by forging a material around it.
The familiar took one looked at the table then reached down and took a bite out of the all black material. She seemed to be evaluating it for a moment then, she took another.
Don’t-
She had already consumed the entire top half of the table.
At least leave a flat surface. Please.
“Meow.”
Nova finished, completely flattening off the top of the table then looked at The Acharaya expectantly.
He didn’t sigh, once again, as he floated over to the wall, sealed the realm, and began removing various items from the walls. There were entire sets of plate armor, swords, great-axes, tower shields, compound bows, pauldrons, gauntlets, bracers and a few dozen other items.
As they were removed, they floated in the air before Nova and she looked at them, analyzing each and every one of them.
Finally, she turned to The Acharaya, “Meow meow meow meow meow.”
You cannot si-
“Meow meow meow.”
Yes but-
“Meow meow meow meow meow.”
These are some of the greatest works of the ancient Qal’Dari Spirit Smiths, I cannot sim-
“Meow meow meow.”
I cannot foretell a path u-
“Meow. Meow meow.”
Yes, your path doe-
“Meow meow meow.”
Yes, that is wha-
“Meow, meow meow meow.”
The Acharaya finally sighed, audibly, Fine. You may not have all of them. You must leave at least a few.
“Meow meow.”
3. Fine. I suspect the path you are bound to will lead into this room.
Upon hearing that, Nova didn’t swallow all of the items. She swallowed most of them but left an entire 8 behind, which, The Acharaya thought was a miracle. He just wished she had left behind a pair instead of eating a single pauldron, gauntlet and bracer. Then, she vanished from the room and The Acharaya sensed her reappear in the cave she had dug deep beneath the ruins Felix’s Residents had reawakened.
----------------------------------------
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” Grim asked.
You are bound to his path. You are aware of the steps he takes.
“Not in this case, not right now. The connection is fine because of whatever his Staff did to his mind but… Sometimes, when he gets too focused or excited, his Soul kind of shuts things down. It’s not intentional, I know but…”
A path bound is not the same as a path shared.
“Meow.”
“Yes, he’s fighting The Dragon.”
“Meow? Meow meow me-”
“No. Not this time.”
“Meow meow meow meo-”
“I know.” Grim looked over the new Nova and used his connection to Mark and The Nucleus to identify her.
[Titan] Nova: Celestial of Matter and Space
She was right, she would be able to help Felix against The Dragon. In some ways, she was stronger than he was. With the Ry Mallus claws and fangs she could definitely hurt it. With whatever unique material she had come up with to form her body now, along with the Ry Mallus streaks throughout her fur that shifted and moved across her body, she was much more durable than Felix was, “I think, that makes it worse for him though.”
“Meow. Meow meow meow meow.”
You are aware this is his path. This step, he must take alone.
“Meow meow meow meow.”
“No, it doesn’t matter how much you want to fight it. This is something he has to do himself.”
“Meow meow meow.”
“Yes, I have. I know. This is different. I’m different. I’ve realized some things, changed.”
A path walked.
“Yeah. I just hope Felix isn’t too disappointed when he realizes we both reached Titan when he didn’t…”
Disappointment is not a step I believe he will take.
“Yeah, you’re right. He’ll just be more motivated, excited he can read our experiences and try to learn from them.”
“Meow meow meow.”
Inspiration can help illuminate ones own path. It can also obscure it.
“Yeah. I have faith. He’ll be fine.” Grim looked over at Nova, “I’m still surprised you let her have all that Ry Mallus. Isn’t that stuff like… super valuable?”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
In speaking with the Souls that live within his mind, I have come to appreciate just how valuable they are. The Qal’Dari are no more. These may be some of the final relics of their kind, of their time. Those items are irreplaceable.
“Right, so… why let her have them? Surely another student or someone else could have used them in the future?”
The Acharaya sighed audibly, once again.
----------------------------------------
Felix was worried the anticipation of The Dragon arriving might be greater than the actual moment. That wasn’t the case.
Right before his eyes, space was sundered as a beam of white and purple and blue death tore a rift in reality. The beam swept to the side and everywhere it traveled, the barrier between the realms burned away like paper. Beyond it, lay a wasteland of a hundred realms torn open.
They weren’t just chained together, but being torn open the way they were, the realms tried to occupy the same space as each-other and when that didn’t work, entire mountains were launched into the air. Gravity was also failing, as that function of the realms was victim to The Dragon’s wanton destruction.
The realm beneath Felix was much the same but it didn’t happen all at once, he found out. Instead, he felt the realms pushing against each-other. Like islands that were pushed together and in the middle, the two of them began to shatter.
He couldn’t marvel at the destruction of the realms for more than a moment though as The Dragon immediately sensed him.
It shot directly towards him without a moment’s hesitation and Felix waited patiently for a fraction of a second as it flew over the outer edge of his ritual. Then, he activated it.
The ritual was already full of Mana so its effect was instant. The Dragon, that had been moving across the realm in a tiny fraction of a second, suddenly stopped. It wasn’t completely stationary though, just really slow. It struggled, slowly, against the effect with its Aura doing most of the work to try and eat away at the ritual. Felix’s Aura on the other hand, constantly repaired it as it was destroyed.
The Dragon’s Aura, like Felix’s, wasn’t a Domain. At the same time, it was just as strong as Lea’s and so, evenly matched with Felix’s in strength. The Dragon’s though, was much larger and spread throughout the entire sundered realms, as far as Felix could tell.
While slowed, with his Aura passively repairing the ritual beneath his feet, Felix gripped his Staff before him and channeled a Spell of 50 billion Mana through it.
A Spell Form appeared around the Staff, not the Spell itself, but rather a part of it. The Spell form slowly grew to nearly a hundred meters wide before hovering out of the Staff, turning to the side, and racing towards The Dragon.
The massive Blade shot towards The Dragon’s head and it wasn’t stupid. It might not have been able to interpret the Spell Form, but it knew enough to know it was bad. It struggled and pulled against Felix’s Ritual and on the outer edges of the realm, the ground began rise as if the planet itself was being lifted.
Instead of producing the Force to resist The Dragon’s movements, Felix had simply tied all its movements to the realm itself. Instead of flapping its wings against the air to move its body, it had to flap its wings against the ground to move a large chunk of a planet.
It quickly realized it was fruitless and its mouth was already agape from the massive roar it had thrown in Felix’s direction upon its arrival.
The Spell Blade tore through the air between them as something much worse than simple Fire cascaded out of its throat.
Wherever the white and purple and blue beam traveled, reality tore. Finally, it hit the ground and destroyed Felix’s Ritual, burning it just like everything else along with the reality barrier in the area.
As soon as a small section of the ritual was burned away, The Dragon managed to break part of its body free and it shifted to the side as much as it could, causing the Spell Blade to sever its front leg just below the shoulder, instead of removing its head.
The breath, as deadly as it was, tore through more than just the ritual and as The Dragon’s leg was severed, Felix activated his Blink to move himself free of the breath’s path but it didn’t do anything. He realized his mistake too late and panic cast an Instinct Force Burst, launching himself off to the side just in time to save his own life.
Not all of him made it though as his left leg below the knee was gone. In its place, lay a burning stump that Felix couldn’t easily put out and even if he did, that wasn’t the worst problem anyways.
He didn’t have time to sever the leg properly though as The Dragon was already moving towards him and he was forced to push himself out of the way, Space too torn where he was to Blink.
Once he was out of the torn line in reality of The Dragon’s breath, he felt Space stabilize enough for him to Blink free of The Dragon’s Tail.
Appearing far behind it, Felix decided to ignore his leg for the time being as it was burning slowly, due to his Mana Scales. His Spell Shield was already regenerating and though it couldn’t block The Dragon’s breath, it just might be enough for him to survive a physical attack.
As The Dragon leapt off from the ground where Felix had been, he held out his Staff once again and poured Mana into it, causing the air to thicken and dark grey clouds to coalesce above him. The clouds expanded outwards as Felix dodged to the side of The Dragon with a Force Propel and redirected its body with a Spell Wall.
It snapped at him and Felix moved his body from one place to another as reality seemed to almost lag behind him, a product of his new Spirit Command.
Finally, the clouds had gathered into a storm big enough to cover the sky and then it began to hail massive ice spikes, propelled by more than just gravity. Each one was as tall as Felix was and dug into The Dragon’s body from above.
Felix wasn’t immune to the effects either but his Spell Shield entirely mitigated them, redirecting the Pillars of Ice around him at the cost of some Mana.
The ice was only doing slight damage to The Dragon but it couldn’t just block them and there were hundreds of them hitting it every second.
Then, came the Lightning.
The only warning it was coming, were flashes of light within the clouds above. The Dragon noticed them, Felix saw it realize what they were and either decide to ignore them, or realize it couldn’t do anything about them.
The first Arcane Thundersnow Strike hit The Dragon on the wing and fulgurated a hole right through it.
It roared in pain then swung its head around and used its breath to tear a rift into the 2101st realm before flying through to where the storm didn’t exist.
Felix chased and severed the rest of his leg, removing the entire thing to slow the burning. It wasn’t enough though because The Dragon’s burning had somehow attached itself to his blood and traveled throughout his body nearly instantly, causing him to slowly burn from the inside out. It was slow though as the flames were weak and sparse so, he had time.
He obviously couldn’t deal with the flames in his blood until the fight was done so, he resolved to end it quickly.
The space between the realms was torn apart so Felix couldn’t Blink to pursue, instead, he fell backwards into an Aether Tunnel that used the Aether rather than Space itself to move.
The Dragon instantly turned to face him and Felix shot towards it, daring it to approach.
It met the challenge and raced towards him as well, certain it would win in a physical fight. Felix knew that though and as soon as it was close enough, he released hundreds of Spell Orbs in every direction before he dove down below The Dragon, avoiding its bite and claws.
The orbs all moved into position around The Dragon, surrounding it in three concentric rings. Each orb then released a barrage of Arcane Spell Blades at The Dragon from all sides.
It snapped its head back, saw it was surrounded, then used its breath to tear a hole in the realm barrier once again, diving through to the next realm to avoid getting hit.
Felix reabsorbed the Mana and Anima from the orbs then continued chasing it down into the next Realm.
It flicked its wings forwards and launched blades of air towards Felix who dashed to the side then released a Spell Form in the shape of a crescent moon that shot out past The Dragon.
The Dragon ignored the missed Spell and snapped at Felix who dashed to the side then cast another. It clawed at him and he was forced to Blink then, he cast another crescent moon.
By the time Felix had cast 4 of them, The Dragon finally realized he hadn’t missed at all as the Arcane Crescent Blades whipped back around and sliced along the side of its body. They didn’t cut deep but the four of them zipped through the air around it rapidly, carving shallow cuts all up and down its body.
The Titan snapped at them but they were too fast and it was clearly hesitant to let one into its mouth, trying to only get them between its teeth. As it did, Felix cast a few more and the pressure on The Dragon increased until it finally gave up.
Using its breath to tear a rift, The Dragon crawled into another realm to avoid the blades. Felix immediately moved to follow but looking through the rift it had opened, there was no realm on the other side. He quickly created a Seeing Eye Construct from Spell Forms alone and tossed it in but it didn’t see The Dragon anywhere.
Felix looked around for a moment and tried to follow its Aura but it was completely uniform in every direction.
Every second he looked around, Felix could feel his body burning up. His entire circulatory system was gone and the flames were accelerating their way through his muscles and skeleton. No matter how hard he tried to manually repair his body, he couldn’t keep up. The Blood Ring might have been able to but his manual attention alone, wasn’t enough.
He knew how to fix it, it just involved removing and replacing individual parts of his body one by one until the entire thing was replaced but the issue was that, that took time.
He almost committed to start replacing his body but then, a beam of white and purple and blue tore through reality right next to him.
Felix Blinked to the side to avoid it just barely in time and looking back to see where The Dragon was, he just saw a tunnel through the realm that had torn through a dozen realms in either direction. A thick line that traced a path through the realms, the echo of The Dragon’s breath, slowly burned outward.
A few more Arcane Seeing Eye Constructs poured through the rift but The Dragon was no where to be found.
Then, another beam of white and purple and blue tore through reality next to Felix, this one almost perpendicular to the last.
Felix managed to shove himself out of the way with an Instinct Force Propel because he was expecting it and he also managed to spot The Dragon, crawling between the realms.
While Felix was burning, The Dragon was bleeding out and slowly detaching itself from Space, the same way Felix couldn’t Blink more than 5 times in a minute or so. That meant, it was just a battle of attrition. Either Felix burned from the inside out or The Dragon fell out of reality.
Felix didn’t have enough experience to know which would actually happen first but The Dragon was clearly betting on Felix burning up first. With its breath distracting him, Felix didn’t have time to slow the burning down or even think about replacing his body on the spot.
Though he may not have liked the idea of a battle of attrition and thought it was lame, Felix couldn’t fault The Dragon because it was definitely a smart move. It was also not something The Dragon ever would have thought of in their first fights.
Since chasing it between realms was more annoying then it was worth, Felix decided to take a different approach. Opening an Aether Tunnel to the Iridescent Bubble in the realm, Felix immediately jumped through a rift into the next, ultimately moving him a half dozen realms ahead of The Dragon.
There, he began to assess the damage to his body while The Dragon slowly crawled its way back into the realms and tracked him down.
The flames had attached themselves to his blood when he was hit and was almost instantly transported throughout his body. Then, they began to burn away at his blood vessels then, everything beyond them.
It hadn’t gotten much further than his circulatory system though but, the flames were accelerating.
Starting with his missing leg, Felix first tried to find a way to isolate his leg from the rest of his body so it didn’t burn, while he kept it attached to him. In the second or so he spent on it, the best he managed to do was slow it down by extending his Mana Scales into his body.
Since he couldn’t stop it though, he wasn’t ready to spend the time and energy to regenerate his leg, since it would just be burned away eventually anyways. Instead, he quickly threw together a leg made of Mana to replace his. He didn’t need his leg to kick or walk or jump since he could fly at will with his Matter Control. His replacement leg though wasn’t just a prop, on the inside, it connected to his circulatory system and began trying to wash out the flames from The Dragon’s breath.
It was a slow process and caused him to pour burning Mana out the bottom of his new foot slightly faster than he was regenerating Mana but it was better than burning alive.
Once it was done, Felix dove down to the ground and began weaving a new ritual into the land. This one, instead of a large circle, looked like thousands of smaller rituals all connected together and arranged in a pattern. They weren’t all the same but, there was a pattern to their layout.
The ritual was technically infinite but Felix only managed to spread it out a few hundred meters in every direction by the time The Dragon finally pulled itself through the realm barrier and launched itself towards him.
Felix used an Aether Tunnel to move himself high up into the sky causing The Dragon to veer upwards then around the ritual, not wanting to be slowed again.
It was a different ritual this time though and The Dragon didn’t need to be anywhere near it. As soon as it was within a hundred meters or so, the ritual activated and stone javelins began to grow out of the ground before being launched into it from below.
The Dragon roared in pain and immediately released its breath, just blue and purple this time, weaker, so it didn’t tear through the realm barrier.
The breath ripped through the ritual but the ritual wasn’t tied together. The rest of the ritual just kept pelting The Dragon’s underside with javelins of compressed stone from the ground beneath.
While The Dragon was occupied, Felix released the orbs he had previously absorbed all throughout the sky around them.
Before it had even finished dealing with the ritual on the ground, the orbs each began drawing in Mana from around them. Once one was charged up, a Arcane Spell Blade in the shape of a crescent moon was released. Each one of the Arcane Spell Blades orbited around The Dragon rapidly, diving in occasionally to slice through its flesh.
It roared once again before curling up into a ball and wrapping itself in its wings.
Felix had experience with that move so he immediately used an Aether Tunnel to move all the way to a rift he knew of in the realm which brought him to the 2189th, 10 realms away.
Tapping into the senses of a Seeing Eye Spell Construct he had left behind, Felix saw The Dragon glowing a slight white as he began constructing another ritual around him.
The white glow continued to grow as the Arcane Spell Blades dug tiny gashes into its wings from the outside. Then, it began to burn the air around it, making it looked like The Dragon itself was on fire, like a star. Behind it, the Arcane Thundersnow Storm grew towards it in the sky, spreading out in every direction.
The Dragon was stuck because of how much time it had spent outside of the realms, trying to wait out Felix burning from the inside out. It couldn’t tear through too many more realms because the more time it spent in broken space, the more detached it became. It seemed to know it too which was why it wasn’t trying to run away.
Once the entire outside of The Dragon was engulfed in white flame, the Arcane Spell Blades began to burn up when they approached.
It kept going though, the flames growing and arcing out of its body through the air. They weren’t targeted and arced out randomly but every once in a while, one of them hit and destroyed one of the Spell Orbs around him.
That wasn’t The Dragon’s goal though and just a few seconds past before it finally released the energy it had been building up.
Felix’s Seeing Eye Spell Construct was immediately destroyed, along with everything else in the realm, he presumed. Back in his own body though, he realized he didn’t need the Seeing Eye Spell Construct at all as he felt the blast obliterating the realms between The Dragon and him.
Realizing he wasn’t far enough away, Felix checked his Spell Shield to make sure it was solid then prepared the only Spell he could think of to survive the blast.
Timing the blast wasn’t as difficult as he had imagined as even though the blast was moving absurdly fast, it had to travel through entire realms and each one, he felt.
When the realm adjacent Felix’s was finally hit, he opened an Aether Tunnel and stepped inside, closing it behind him.
The Aether Tunnel didn’t lead anywhere though and simply formed a pocket in the Aether where he remained for a few moments before reopening it and returning to reality.
Back in the realm, Felix wasn’t sure what to make of what he saw.
The blast had completely torn through hundreds of realm barriers and while most of the land had been turned to dust from the blast, the rest of it was fighting to occupy the same space. The connected and sundered realms were no longer recognizable in the slightest and it looked to Felix like the Eternal Storm realm where he had met Nura. The only difference, was that instead of a storm with chunks of land floating around, it was a massive cloud of dust with entire mountains flying fast enough to ignite as they tore through the atmosphere all with a backdrop of undefined space in every direction.
The Arcane Thundersnow Storm along with all of his other Spells were gone so Felix had no idea where The Dragon was.
Through his Staff, he created a swarm of Seeing Eye Spell Constructs that were just as small as the physical Constructs except they were blue and white, from the Mana and Anima that formed their Spell Form.
They spread out in every direction and mapped out the surroundings. Most of them were destroyed, due to the mountains and bedrock the size of sky scrapers flying around, but Felix kept creating them, the swarm continuing to pour out of his Staff as they spread out in every direction. Even more of them were lost to the undefined space but those helped him map out where he shouldn’t go.
Finally, he found The Dragon, spinning around while flapping its wings to create a wind storm to clear the dust and push away any giant flying rocks.
It had already cleared out a few kilometer area by the time it noticed Felix’s Seeing Eye Construct and stopped to breath a blue and purple beam to destroy it. More Constructs poured in from every direction to replace the first and The Dragon desperately destroyed each one by swinging its head around in every direction.
While it was occupied, the wind storm began to die down and once it was safe enough, Felix opened an Aether Tunnel under The Dragon where he released another Spell Blade like the one that had severed The Dragon’s front leg.
The Dragon screeched when it saw the Spell and turned its breath downwards to destroy it.
While it was distracted with that, Felix dove back into the dust around them and began casting a different Spell Orb.
The Titan pursued, flying into the dust where Felix had disappeared and using its wings to clear out the area but Felix was already moving.
Whether through its Aura or smell or some other sense, The Dragon continued to pinpoint Felix almost perfectly and chase him down.
Within the dust, Felix was forced to replace his other leg and his left arm with Mana Constructs as even though the leg was working, it wasn’t working fast enough and the dust all around him, carried even more flame. It was also too far from his upper torso to be effective there.
The filtering limbs ended up draining his Mana Pool far faster than he could regenerate it meaning he needed to end the fight within the next minute or so. Any more limbs and he was worried he wouldn’t have enough time or Mana to finish things and any less and he was worried he would lose the rest of his body.
So, Felix zipped through the dust, avoiding The Dragon as he hid Spell Orbs all over the place. They didn’t stay stationary and instead, they each flew into the storm on their own.
It didn’t take long for The Dragon to realize what was happening and swing its head around with its weaker breath to try and destroy them. It wasn’t very accurate because it couldn’t see them but it wasn’t missing them all either.
I need to distract it.
Throwing his Staff out into the dust, Felix flew by himself into the center of the cleared area and, as he had hoped, The Dragon followed.
Without his Staff, Felix had to rely on his own Instinct Casts and physical movements, enhanced by Spirit Command.
The Dragon thrust its head forwards and snapped at him as he used a Force Propel to push himself aside, just barely in time. It then swung its head to the side, smacking Felix’s Spell Shield and sending him careening off to the side.
He caught himself quickly as The Dragon swung its body around to whip him with its tail. The tail flicked against his Spell Shield and sent him flying, cracking the top of it from the force of the blow. Felix’s Aura began to repair the Spell Shield his Staff had cast but it wasn’t instantaneous and in the mean time, The Dragon shot a beam of blue and purple at him as it closed the distance.
The space around them was too unstable for Felix to Blink so he was forced to just push his body, completely losing control of himself and his trajectory.
The Dragon then landed on a flying chunk of ground and spun its body around, launching the chunk towards Felix then hitting it with its breath to turn it into a spray of flaming shrapnel.
The shrapnel was everywhere and Felix had no way to dodge it at the moment as an Aether Tunnel or Aether pocket was too slow to dodge all of it. The flaming shrapnel dug into his Spell Shield, each one producing a new spider web of cracks until finally, they started to penetrate both the Shield, and his body behind it.
Shrapnel tore through his shoulder, arm, stomach and dug into his chest without making it all the way through. Felix immediately ejected the shrapnel with his Matter Control then finally slipped into an Aether Pocket for just long enough for the rest of the shrapnel to pass.
The biggest issue wasn’t the holes in his body but rather the flames which were from The Dragon’s breath and only accelerated the burning of his body. Now, not only was his body burning from the inside out, but it was also burning from the outside and throughout a bunch of holes.
Wherever the shrapnel pierced his replaced Mana limbs, he was largely unaffected because all he had to do, was eject the burning Mana and replace it.
Other than the fear of it not working, the only other reason Felix hadn’t replaced his body before and the reason he hesitated to replace the rest of it before returning from the Aether, was his mind. His Mind, which was a Mana Computer, was still located in his head. There was no real reason it had to be there other than the fact that it was still connected to his body and all of its senses.
His spinal cord still connected his mind to his body and flesh. His eyes, nose, mouth and ears were still all connected as well meaning, if he moved it and replaced them, he would lose access to those senses unless he found another way to replace them.
No miraculous solution came to him in the moment but, he didn’t think he had any other option so, he disconnected his mind and pulled it into his Soul Space then, tossed it into his Core Soular System.
He still had his Matter, Mana and Anima senses active which was enough to move him back into the realm where, he felt The Dragon racing towards him with its mouth agape.
Moving his Mana hand outwards to the side, Felix pulled his body out of the way and just as he did, he felt exactly what he had been waiting for in his Core Soul.
The Dragon reached Felix just as his Staff reappeared in his Mana Hand and snapped its jaw shut, filling it with its breath to destroy his body on the spot.
The Mana hand holding The Staff of Arcane Wisdom that had managed to escape The Dragon’s bite soared away from The Dragon as the Staff filled with half of his total Mana Pool. The arcane blue and white lines throughout the wood of the staff multiplied until the entire staff glowed white and blue.
Then, a Lightning Bolt connected the Staff to The Dragon in an instant.
The Lightning then forked and shot out of The Dragon into the dust around them. Then, four more Lightning Bolts appeared from all over the dust and arced into The Dragon. More and more arcs of Lightning appeared from all around them, forming a three dimensional web of Chain Lightning that kept growing and, had Felix had eyes, would have been completely blinding.
Though he didn’t hear it, Felix felt the Dragon’s stuttering and seizing roar vibrate the air around him as, from the Mana hand holding his Staff, the rest of his body began to reform.
There was no notification, as there was no System. There were no streams of white and crimson, as he had no Devourer rings. All there was, was The Dragon’s corpse.
Felix raced over and grabbed the body which, was too big for his Soul Space, by a lot so, he simply carried it along with him, using a Force Spell to suspend it.
Lifting his Staff high into the air, Spell Orbs began to spiral out of the head of the Staff in every direction. Each one, flying deep into the dust then slowing and stabilizing all the flying debris before sucking up and disposing of the dust itself.
Over the course of a few minutes, the dust vanished and the sky stilled as Mountains went from comets to slowly drifting islands.
Once enough of it had been cleared, Felix identified the realms based on the land masses flying around him then located an Iridescent Bubble that led onward.
There, he realized the realm was slowly degrading as the force of the collapsed realms behind him were eating into each realm progressively meaning, although he had killed The Dragon, the realms were still collapsing, albeit slowly.
He moved from bubble to bubble directly with Aether Tunnels massive enough to move The Dragon until he finally arrived in the 2498th realm, the one before Azura.
Though many people in the realms had seen, stared, watched, yelled, screamed and tried to attack Felix, he had mostly ignored them.
In the 2498th though, there were guards at the bubble along with a line, just like the last time he had been there. This time, he didn’t even bother speaking with anyone and with a simple thought, opened an Aether Tunnel and shoved everyone near the bubble through it.
He then turned the structure around the bubble, intended to direct traffic, to dust with his Matter Control before touching the bubble and moving him and his prize into Azura. There, he used another Aether Tunnel to move to the bubble in the center of the Realm, above the city.
With no guards around the exit, Felix touched the bubble but, nothing happened.
He tapped it a few more times with his finger, made entirely of Mana, before tapping it with his Staff to see if that could break through.
Something was happening, he could feel through his bond with the Staff but before it actually did anything, he vanished and reappeared on the infinite white platform beneath the stars above.
You have conquered your enemy and taken another step.
Felix dropped the corpse off to the side and nodded to The Acharaya, “I’ve been holding back. Afraid or just unsure… I don’t really know. I could have done-” Felix gestured to his body, “-this a so much sooner. I don’t know why I hesitated.”
Some steps are harder to take than others. Steps of great change, are likely candidates.
“I’m just glad I finally got there.” Felix took a breath out of habit which, did nothing, “What now? You said this is the end of the beginning?”
You have taken another step on your path. Behind you, lies your path and ahead of you, your path. You have not, however, reached the end of the beginning, of your path.
“What? What do you mean?” Felix looked down at his entirely Mana body, suffused with his Soul and surrounded in his Mana Scales.
Somehow, you stood on the precipice, at the edge of a cliff. You have taken a step and yet, you do not fall.
“What, like a cartoon? I stepped off the cliff and didn’t fall so I’m just floating there?”
This analogy is not perfect however, this seems to be the case. You are closer and yet, it seemed impossible for that to be the case as you were already as close as anyone has ever gotten.
Felix grumbled and reached inwards for confirmation from The Nucleus. As soon as he did, he felt a pull on multiple of his bonds and Nova suddenly appeared before him. She stared up at him excitedly then froze, vanished, then reappeared, this time with Grim in tow.
“You did it.” Grim said.
Felix nodded, “Yeah. I killed that thing but apparently, I didn’t actually reach Titan.”
Grim winced, “Yeah… I can tell.”
Felix looked him up and down then Nova, who was crawling all over his body and face, “You both reached Titan and somehow, you did the same with your puppet? And I still can’t figure it out?”
A chuckle sounded out from behind The Acharaya as Kerix landed next to him, “You’ll get there. You are closer, if that helps.”
“Not really.” Felix grumbled.
As soon as she had finished expressing her excitement and relief and annoyance to Felix, Nova noticed the corpse next to him and leapt towards it. She landed on top then hesitated and looked over at him.
“Not yet. There’s something I need to check first. You can have it once I’m done though.”
This step you take, you may wish to-
“Hurry up.” Kerix cut in.
“Why?” Felix looked at them.
Though the realms are collapsing slowly, the time difference here means slowly is not quite as slow as you might be expecting.
“Can’t The Realm Warden fix things now?”
I suspect if that were something in their power, they would have begun to do so by now.
“So we gotta leave then?”
That is the smart step. Given you are a native, you should leave first to ensure our exit.
Felix nodded, “Alright, I’ll just deal with this first. I’ll be fast.”
“Before you leave, you might want to do something about your…” Kerix looked him up and down looking for the words.
“You’re blue.” Grim finished.
“And bald.” Kerix shrugged.
“Oh. Whoops.” With a thought, Felix recreated hair and shifted the color of the Mana forming his body to match how he had looked before then, repaired his robes which were burnt and damaged, singed all over.
Finally, he took The Dragon’s Soul and instead of implanting a Resident’s Soul, which wouldn’t be able to fight it for control at all, he reached into the body and Soul of The Dragon with his own Soul.
Then, he began to watch its memories.
He saw them in reverse order, fighting Felix, training with The Acharaya, fighting Felix many times, fighting Felix once, killing off a bunch of realm natives that dared to approach it, fighting Kerix. Those memories were ones he knew about so he skipped through them quickly.
What he was looking for, was everything before that and maybe even, the name of whoever had created The Dragon, based on its identification.
He saw The Dragon find a shimmering bubble on a planet before flying through. On the other side, it flew over a small patch of jungle before spotting the surface of a large bubble and flying through it, ending up in the 2000th realm which, it promptly decimated.
Before that, it was sent into a universe with no real goal, traveling through undefined space along with other Dragons before finally ending up in Felix’s universe, where it found The Realms.
The only memory Felix could find before that, was one where The Dragon was small and young. It lay on someone’s lap and they pet it but, it’s eyes weren’t open and it wasn’t looking at them. The only thing Felix could sense from the memory, was their Aura which was clearly toned down and altered, to be warm and comforting to The Dragon.
Beneath that, he couldn’t really feel anything because The Dragon didn’t feel anything other than warmth and comfort.
Felix searched around a little more before finally giving up and tearing out The Dragon’s Core Soul. The rest of its Soul remained within the body as it was a Titan but, the Core Soul, along with the chunk of its body it was bound to, Felix consumed for himself.
The rest, he gave Nova permission to consume.
“How do I leave?” Felix looked up at The Acharaya with his useless eyes.
In response, a doorway appeared behind Felix and he turned without hesitation and stepped through. Grim and his Residents could follow him on their own and didn’t need him to taxi them, what they all needed was for him to ensure they could all leave without causing a mass panic.
As strong as he was, Felix still wanted to remain stealthy as long as he could because if people knew, it would only make it harder for him to do everything.
The other side of the doorway though, was not what Felix expected.
He didn’t arrive back in the bubble that surrounded the realm where he had fought Lilian The Twisted Trinity. Instead, he found himself in a completely empty space. There was a floor below him but it was like the floor was somehow made of space itself. It was distinctly different from the realm he had left where he knew there were stars above so, he created Seeing Eye Spell Constructs that he used to replace his senses.
All around him, was completely uniform white. Nothing.
“Hello?”
“Congratulations on being the first to ascend in nearly an eternity.”
Felix spun around to face the small triangular pyramid that floated in the air near him, “Where am I? I thought there were only 2520 realms?”
“This is not a realm.” The triangular pyramid began unfolding itself into something that looked like a head with no features and an elongated skull.
Felix nodded, his theory confirmed, “You’re The Realm Warden.”
“And you, have not quite ascended.”
“I’m working on it.” Felix grumbled.
“In doing so, my realms are collapsing.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. Wasn’t exactly my idea though, to train The Dragon to Titan so it could escape.”
“It would have happened eventually.”
“Why am I here? Can I leave?”
“This Ladder of Ascension was initially created to provide a safe and structured way for young Qal’Dari to progress and grow.”
“Those guys again, the race that created The System?”
“Yes, The System alongside the Ladder and The Archives.”
“Archives? Like a library?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Felix nodded slowly, “The realms collapsing, how urgent is that?”
“I have slowed them as much as I can. Perceptually, you may remain here for an hour safely.”
“Okay, perfect. Tell me about them, Archives, Ladder, System. How did they do all that? Do they still exist?”
“You may either, question me for an hour or, I can answer your questions as you please.”
“Uh, didn’t you just say we only have an hour?”
“When that beast first appeared, I was only made aware of it when it entered the Ladder. I didn’t have more than a moment to react and the only way to prevent it from destroying everything, was to contain it.”
“So you combined whatever realms you could and basically sealed them? Shoved it inside?”
“Yes. I gathered nearby realms and the weakest ones that could support it, were the 2000s. The structure of the ladder places alternate realms near each-other and so, all the 2000th realm alternates were merged to contain it.”
“Okay, what does this have to do with anything?”
“The realms are collapsing, slowly. The only way for me to stop it, is to contain the destruction.”
“So you need to combine a bunch of realms again? Great?”
“Yes. I will need to combine all realms from 2000 to 2500.”
“What happens to all the extra land though? It’s all colliding right now.”
“I can simply relocate it. This is not the issue.”
“What is the issue?”
“The destabilization of the realms here have caused enough ripples to destabilize our attachment to the universe.”
“You need me to reconnect you to the outside universe? How do I do that?”
“I do not know how that can be done. You would have to find and ask Qal’Dari Universe Engineers.”
“So… what? The Ladder is doomed?”
“Though I do not know how to stabilize the connection from the Ladder to the universe beyond, there is another way. We can replace the connection from the universe, to something else.”
“Like a crystal or something?”
“No material object is strong enough to bind the Ladder.”
Felix’s eyes widened as he realized what it was asking him, “Why not Kerix? The Acharaya? They’re Titans.”
“And yet, your Soul remains more rigid and unmoving. Ideal for the binding.”
He hesitated for just a fraction of a second before nodding, “Okay, what do you need me to do?”
“Simply place me, within your Core Soul.”
Felix reached forwards as The Realm Warden folded back down into its triangular pyramid shape and pulled it into his Soul Space and into his Core Soul. As soon as he did, the empty white space around him vanished.