The only one who didn't retreat and only grew angrier was Hookwolf. He had already grown into a chaotic mass of raging flesh, standing three meters tall, so he was almost up to my waist. I didn't want to disappoint my opponent and rushed to meet him. As soon as we collided, the werewolf's flesh caught fire, and the metal on started melting. Without holding back, I plunged my entire left claw into Hookwolf's body, burning through it with almost no resistance. My fingers then closed around his brain, encased in a bone shell.

Burning this critical organ disrupted Hookwolf's regenerative ability, and he began to die. I immediately started devouring his tough body, absorbing his soul, and coaxing my shard to consume his power. This time, my 'passenger' ate without much enthusiasm. But the ability I gained from him pleased me: I could now grow steel cables from my body, ending in harpoons. Moreover, I could not only grow them but literally shoot them, controlling their flight.

Tearing Hookwolf's remains in half, I decided to end this farce. Dozens of steel cables burst from my back, immediately piercing the bodies of the most vulnerable opponents. Purity, Victor, Krieg, Stormtiger, Fenja, and Menja -- all of them received a couple of 'gifts' through which I began to drain their souls.

Kaiser roared, groaned, and growled at that moment, but he couldn't do anything. I couldn't reach him and Night yet because the harpoons just slid off them. Finally, the 'meal' was over, and I decided to deal with the remaining trio without haste.

Out of Kaiser, Alabaster, and Night, I chose the latter because she had the potential to simply escape. But as long as Kaiser was alive, she was unlikely to do so. The next time the last werewolf of the Empire tried to attack me, I shot a dozen harpoons from my stomach, each surrounded by a fiery aura. As a result, they all pierced Night's body through. She had no way to escape, and I began slowly extracting her soul from her body. The demon resisted desperately, but it was futile, and within a minute, I managed to overpower its defense and literally rip Night's soul out of her body. She turned back into a human, and I burned her to ashes.

"And now it's your turn" - I said, addressing to Kaiser.

All this time, he tried to pierce me with steel blades, but such attacks had no effect. After absorbing Salamander, all these steel spikes simply melted upon contact with my body. By the time I finished absorbing the souls of the capes, I had fully regenerated, and even the wounds inflicted by Faultline had healed without a trace.

"Die! Die! Die!!!" - roared Kaiser, charging at me.

I didn't disappoint him and rushed forward. My hand closed on the demon's chest, melting his steel armor and burning his flesh. As his bones burned, I managed to tear his soul from his body, reducing him to ash. Now the demon was reunited with his 'slaves,' becoming part of me.

"Where are you going?" - I shouted after Alabaster, the last of the Empire's capes. He was running away as fast as he could, naively thinking he could escape me.

Today, Alabaster had been hit several times with blows that should have left severe wounds. But each time, he miraculously 'regenerated,' returning to his original state. Such an ability wouldn't hurt me, so I left him 'for dessert.'

A shot from the sniper replicator severed Alabaster's leg, and he fell to the ground, sliding about a meter on his belly. A moment later, his body healed, and he jumped up, only to have his other leg shot off. I walked leisurely toward my victim, repeatedly dismembering him, preventing him from moving.

"No! Stop! I beg you!!!" - Alabaster turned to me. - "I will swear eternal loyalty to you."

"Not interested" - I dismissed his offer. - "I wonder, if you keep regenerating in my stomach, will I feel full?"

Stolen novel; please report.

"No-o-o-o!!!"

With these words, I began to devour Alabaster, forcing my shard to consume its kin again. This time, the 'meal' went easier, and I acquired the same ability Alabaster had—to restore my body to the state it was in four seconds ago. For him, this ability was essentially useless due to its one hundred percent 'defensive' nature. But for me, it would bring me closer to being 'absolutely invulnerable,' given that I already had enough offensive capabilities.

Looking around, I returned to my human form and walked down the street to find a place where a car could arrive. We had thoroughly wrecked the surrounding landscape, turning several nearby houses into piles of construction debris.

Just as I was about to climb into my favorite minivan, my soul was once again torn from my body, and the Judge of this game appeared before me.

"What is going on?" - He stared at me worriedly. - "Your shard is too powerful again. Are you cheating? Your impact on the world is too significant. Shards have their limits and shouldn't exceed them. Here, take Kaiser's power. And beware! If you cheat, I'll strip you of all your powers."

"What did I do wrong?" - I protested at this arbitrariness.

"You dared to have a chance at victory" - Judge smirked.

With that, I found myself back in my body, but my shard was different again. Damn it! Now I was furious! Examining myself, I couldn't figure out what was wrong for a while, and then I realized that although I had lost the werewolf's power, my body still remained muscular rather than returning to the emaciated state that Danny Hebert could boast of. That was something, at least.

I climbed into the car and spent the entire trip to the replicator's underground base studying my shard's abilities. I also tried to figure out what I had done wrong for the Judge to reprimand me. It turned out that shards had limitations preventing them from 'growing in depth,' meaning they couldn't become stronger beyond a certain limit. Nevertheless, they could grow stronger by consuming each other and 'growing in width.'

I was developing my shards, bending them to my will. But closer observation of this process showed that it wasn't just willpower control, but also the influence of my psionics, which had managed to break through the suppressive seal. As a result, I wasn't just using the shard's abilities; I was making it stronger by changing its inner essence. Apparently, the Judge noticed the results of my influence but couldn't see the cause because my psionics were hidden by Shub-Niggurath himself. So now I had to learn to control the shard, displaying all the powers embedded in it without adding new ones.

Upon reaching the base, I temporarily lay low, training my shard. My battle with the Empire hadn't gone unnoticed, and someone had even managed to film part of it on a phone. A couple of hours later, I uploaded a high-quality video shot by the replicators to the internet. It showed how I had virtually stomped fifteen opponents at once without even breaking a sweat.

This level of power cooled the heads of those who called for the world to band together and overwhelm me with sheer numbers. Essentially, I was now given the same power ranking as a Endbringer. That would have been nice if I actually possessed that level. But after the shard swap, I was quite vulnerable, so I used the ensuing lull for intense training.

While I was in seclusion, the affairs of my 'empire of good' progressed. The Dockworkers gathered equipment and sold it, raking in money hand over fist. The Undersiders patrolled the city, more creating a sense of a powerful presence than actually helping. Ordinary people and weak capes could be handled by the replicators, while strong capes of both orientations didn't dare enter my city.

Another new project was real estate development. The replicators created construction equipment that leveled a decent section of the Docks and then began building new houses there using advanced Ancients technologies. I intended to first settle the families of the Dockworkers and those people who worked for the city's benefit in these houses.

Finally, about two weeks later, I could say that I had mastered my shard without making it excessively powerful. I possessed Kaiser's abilities, but with a little thought, I achieved far better results. The essence of my 'superpower' lay in two things—creating metal and dematerializing it. I couldn't control the movement of metal directly. Because of this, both the original Kaiser and the demon in his body were limited to creating various spikes and blades. But what else could you expect from dumb Nazi drug dealers? Thugs are thugs, even in Africa.

To begin with, I mastered to create not just spikes but steel cables, woven from many thin strands. I could make this construction flexible, like a regular steel cable, or rigid, fixing its current shape. This was achieved by using two types of metal. To create metal, I needed to contact a piece of real metal. I solved this problem by making myself a steel bracelet. So, I could create a cable from spring steel, making it flexible, and then instantly replace the material with high-carbon steel, making the construction rigid.