Adam was putting a list together of what he needed to do in what order when he received a priority message from his Thor Aspect.
Thor: Possible incoming situation. You just set off the equivalent of a supernova in this Realm Space.
Adam: Realm Space? Good name for this place, I like it. As a response to your warning, why do you think anyone would be watching?
Thor: Would you be monitoring the Realm Space around your Soul Space?
Adam: I see your point, and if the Aspects are trying to take over multiple Cosmos within this Realm Space then their Soul Space would also need to be out here somewhere so they could manifest into multiple Cosmos if they’re able.
Thor: Exactly. Also, remember you won’t be dealing with just one Aspect most likely. I know you don’t care about divinity points but having a network might be a good thing. In their case that will mean they are probably going to come looking to see what happened as a group.
Adam: Unless it doesn’t really matter, but that’s not something we need to discuss. I’ll fill you in completely on my thoughts on that next time we merge. Just a feeling I have, and we both know your schtick is logic and data.
Thor: Fair enough, what are your thoughts or orders on immediate actions?
Adam: First things first. Open portals into our Soul space and flood as many of our nanites from the four Cosmos we took over. Also, pull up the Cosmic Interface and watch those nodes to see what color they turn after you remove all of the nanites. I have a feeling they’re going to go black. They could go grey, better to verify though. Flood the Soul Space with as much as you can. Leave them outside of the Place of Power replica though. I want that refuge if I have to jump inside. -Adam
Thor: On it.
Adam focused on his surroundings and changed his perception to the original setting it had been when he first found himself free of Textrix’s influence after talking with Janice. As he looked around he saw the aperture and the spider web of energy that surrounded it. Adam cycled his vision filters to show nodes and space and then tried to overlay the two perceptions. The Aperture was an exit point from a line of energy from Node 4 that bypassed Node 5 altogether. The spiderweb was still pulsing every once in a while and he could even see the focal point of that web. Adam felt the attention of that focal point. Was that Textrix? He was pretty sure it was Textrix that was looking at him. Adam smiled and waved. She didn’t move or respond. Adam guessed that was a point to her.
Adam knew he couldn’t do anything about Node 6 or any of the other nodes along this Branch that Textrix was siphoning souls from so he wasn’t going to interfere, yet. He cross-referenced the list of his evil twins that he’d noticed had rings on their right hand with Cosmic Identifiers that were from Nodes that were not under the various webs of influence he noticed from at least three different Aspects. Adam chose the closest and willed himself to it. He made sure that he was invisible then focused his will to show him the last known location of his doppelganger, or copy of himself, in the Cosmos he was visiting.
It was child’s play to retrieve the rings. Once he entered the cosmos, he stopped time for everyone but himself, moved to that evil Johnathan’s location, removed the ring after making sure it was granting free experience, then left that Johnathan and that Cosmos alone. Adam could have traveled back in time but figured that would set off an automatic alarm to an Aspect, or God, that he didn’t want to deal with. A quick trip in, stop time for a moment, grab the ring, and get out. Hopefully, that wouldn’t draw too much attention.
Adam started flickering all over the Realm, entering cosmos after cosmos. One thing he noticed was that all of the Evil Johnathans were located on the opposite side of the Realm from Cosmos 6. There might be something to it but he didn’t have time to think about it. As he came out of the 39th Cosmos he’d visited he noticed figures moving through the realm looking for him. They weren’t as skilled at moving in Realm Space as Mah had been or he was, but it looked like they were trying to catch or stop him. As none of them could keep up with him, he ignored them.
Over the next little while, he popped into various nodes, found each evil Johnathan if there was one, took their ring without a fuss, then left. Without the influx of free experience, Human nature should correct any advantage those Johnathans had over their fellow humans. Be that the nature of other humans to rebel or the human body to perish. In the few Cosmos, he found that the evil Johnathan there had already spread beyond Earth he released a small package of nanites to self-replicate inside every normal nanite they encountered, create, and then autodestruct. He also left a small package inside the evil Johnathan that monitored everything he did and would destroy any new nanites he tried to create.
Adam wasn’t trying to take over those cosmos, he just wanted to give the residents there a fighting chance against an evil Johnathan. Once the evil Johnathans power base was destroyed, the rest of humanity would eventually “fix” the problem. Adam put safety measures in place to prevent catastrophic accidents if destroying certain nanites would cause large-scale accidents. In those instances, his nanites would take over the function of previous nanites. Fusion reactors, mass transit systems, and the like were his primary concern. As for weapons of any kind. The material that made them dangerous was neutralized first, then the nanites destroyed the weapon in question.
Adam limited himself to 10 minutes or less in each cosmos, then zipped off to the next one. Eventually one of the searchers caught up with him. 95 hours later to be exact. At that point, he’d visited over 1,000 Cosmos and recovered 883 rings that provided experience. He’d just thrown them into the vault inside his Place of Power within his Soul Space for safekeeping. One benefit of the Place of Power being in his soul space was that he could will objects into his soul space in any location within that soul space. Adam would grab the ring, will it to the vault, and be done with that ring as he left the cosmos.
As Adam left the latest node he’d been in and entered Realm Space a feminine voice called out, “Excuse him, do you have a moment,” as a beam of red-hot energy blasted into him.
WARNING: The Aspect of Envy has attacked you with the Desire. Attack Resisted
Adam looked down at himself, looked at his arms, padded his chest, moved his fingers, and then asked, “And that was supposed to do what exactly?”
“If it won’t work from the outside, I guess I’ll have to get you from the inside,” she said as she moved straight for him.
Adam had to admit, he was shocked into immobility as he processed what she was trying to do, He felt Thor look around his Mind Space, with a ‘She’s not going to do what I think she’s going to do’ look on his face. Seeing that look on Thor’s face Adam called out to her, “I really wouldn’t do that if he were you,” which was a moment before she transformed into a mote of energy and entered his soul space.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
WARNING: A foreign entity had entered your soul space, designate as friend or foe
Adam thought “Foe” and then he contacted Thor.
Adam: Thor, buddy, you got that?
Thor: That was a really bad idea she had. She appeared in the center of the nanites. Did she bring her soul space into your soul space? Yep, she did. Why would she…Oh damn! The nanites are flooding her soul space. Que the screaming, yep, she’s screaming. Damn, that’s a lot of energy. She’s trying to flee. Nope, the nanites got her.
Adam: What are the nanites doing to her?
Thor: They’re breaking her down, and absorbing any energy she tries to use to stop them?
Adam: They can do that? That doesn’t sound right.
Thor: Looking into it.
Adam looked around to make sure there was no one else nearby and then zoomed off to the next Cosmos. If Thor and the nanites had his invader under control he wasn’t going to worry about it. Of course, he was worried about it but as he didn’t feel any different currently, he needed to continue doing what he was doing.
As he neared the next node, he pulled up the information and was about to cross over a message prompt filled his vision.
You have reduced the Aspect of Envy to a basic soul with zero energy. Do you wish to absorb the last amount of soul energy from the Aspect of Envy, or will you release it?
Adam still wasn’t comfortable with utterly destroying another being, well except for his evil twin. If he ever found an evil version of himself that was the exact opposite of him in every way, then he’d have to destroy him, though he was pretty sure that would be impossible. No, he wasn’t going to completely destroy anyone. he chose “Release.”
Adam felt a mote of energy leave his soul space, hover for a second, and then vanish. It didn’t move away. It didn’t teleport. It just vanished. As he was wondering exactly how that was possible when a prompt appeared
You have Destroyed the Aspect of Envy, would you like to take on the mantle of the Aspect of Envy?
Adam chose “No” and received experience and divinity points but neither raised his current level. That didn’t make sense. Destroying Mah had more than doubled his levels. Adam opened his Cosmic Interface and checked the logs to find out what happened and stopped cold. Envy had been artificially leveled using Karmic Luck by Textrix. Upon her death, all of the “experience” which was Karmic Luck was returned to Textrix. Adam checked the figures, reviewed the conversion rate, and realized that it was 1 Karmic Luck for every 1,000 experience points. Also, she’d barely been a Gold-level Soul. What made her think she could jump into his soul and take him over from the inside? Something to do with Aspect probably. Envy was insidious after all. Too bad for her, nanites gave zero fucks about emotions. Also, it looked like Textrix was artificially padding her ranks by leveling people into the position of an Aspect.
Adam went back to work retrieving rings that were siphoning power from the Labyrinth, or Labyrinths in this case. Once he reached 1,000 rings he moved far outside of the sphere of nodes in Realm Space and dropped into his Place of Power inside his soul space. Adam made his way down to the lowest level and then morphed the layout to include one more level. Next, he created an adamantium rod that all the rings could slide onto and another small piece of Adamantium quantumly linked to the larger rod. he slid all 1,000 rings onto the rod and then willed both the ring-sized rod and the large rod into a loop. he made a hook in the ceiling and hung the large loop from it then picked up the small loop of adamantium that was quantumly linked to the ring he held and placed it over his right-hand pink finger then checked his personal interfaces experience log. Sure enough, his experience rose by one million experiences per second.
Adam did some quick math and realized that in 4.6 minutes he’d level again, even at his level. He could keep the ring for himself or he could do what he’d wanted to do for a while. He took the ring off and placed it in his soul storage area.
Adam willed himself out of his soul space and shot off toward Cosmos 2. He created a manifestation and crossed over into Cosmos 2 at the first base he’d left this Universe from, the base in the Nu Draconis star system. From there he sent out a mental message
Adaline, where are you? he asked.
Adam, is that you, Why are you here, I thought you’d crossed over?, Adaline immediately sent back.
As she answered, he felt the location she was at and teleported to her leaving his manifested copy behind. Adaline was enjoying a cup of tea in what Adam recognized as Hong Kong.
As he popped in she looked up and motioned to a seat as other people in the vicinity started walking away rapidly while others just gawked, “Please, have a seat,” she said.
Adam sat down and looked around taking in the area, “This looks familiar but feels different,” he said.
“It should, this is about 200 years after your disappearance in an alternate universe. The more important question is why are you here and how did you travel between universes and time?” she asked.
“I traveled through time?” he asked as he realized he hadn’t noticed. “I can answer both but I have a question, If you could leave right now and never come back would you? Is there anything here that you cannot live without, with the understanding that we would be picking up your Hoard, and probably our place of power if I can get to it?”
“The only hold anyone has over me is that they can bring me to and from your Place of Power and my hoard that we moved there. If we can get it back, of course, I want to go with you,” Adaline said.
“One second, let me check,” Adam said as he pulled up the quantum link to his original Place of Power, followed it to its source, and popped into Adaline’s lair in that Place of Power. Well technically it wasn’t in it, it was adjacent, but that kind of distinction was just being picky.
Adam phased through the wall to the outer edge of the place of power and reached through the barrier to touch nothing beyond. Once he’d made the connection he opened up the Cosmic Interface again, looked at the realm map, and asked for a location, and teleported to it.
Adam appeared outside of Cosmos 2 along its border where he found a tiny spec of Chaos attached to the node that was Cosmos 2. As he’d suspected, within that spec of chaos was a fragment of nothing which existed within that shell of chaos. The chaos was a fleck and as nothing had no measurement, it could hold anything within it. Adam wondered how many other such specs of nothing existed.
Adam touched the fleck of chaos then traveled into his soul space and placed that fleck of chaos on the top of one of his speakers in his living room. He willed a portal to his Original Place of Power and was pleasantly surprised when it opened. Then he tried to teleport into his Place of Power. Again, no problem. Adam willed himself, out of his soul space, back into Cosmos 2 and back to the seat he’d vacated one second after he’d left it.
“Done and Done,” he said.
“What did you do?” She asked.
“I cut your strings. Try to teleport to your lair inside my place of power,” Adam said.
Adaline vanished and he received the message that someone had entered his soul space. Adam designated her as a “friend” and then willed himself into his soul space, through the portal and outside the entrance to Adaline’s lair.
“I can’t leave?” Adaline said.
“Not quite true? You can’t go back to the location you were at because you don’t have the ability to cross into or out of a Cosmos yet. You’re fine in here and through this portal,” he said as a new portal opened near her cave entrance that led into her room in his original Place of Power.
“What has happened to you?” Adaline asked.
“A lot, and there is a lot to go over but first I have another question for you,”
“Ask your question.” She said.
“If you had the opportunity to grow stronger, stronger than you have ever been would you take it?
“Of course, I would, I’m a dragon after all.”
“That’s what he wanted to hear,” Adam said as he stepped closer to her, pulled the ring he’d created from his soul storage, and held it out to her.
“Are you proposing?” she asked hesitantly.
“You know what you mean to me, Do I need to?”
“Well, a girl wants to know her worth?”
“You are worth more than me ruling the Universe at least 1,000 times over,” Adam said.
“Okay, now I have to know,” Adaline said as her truth sense kicked off when his statement read as absolutely true.
“Put the ring on and find out,” Adam said.
Adaline held out her right hand and he slid the ring onto her right-hand ring finger. 4.569 seconds later Adaline’s eyes rolled to the back of her head as he moved forward and caught her. She’d just reached level 4,570. She’d continue to level for the next 36 minutes until she reached level 5,000. While she was leveling Adam had picked her up, took her through the portal to her bedroom, and laid her down. After he made sure she was comfortable, he conjured a chair and sat down to wait. As he moved the entrance to his soul space back out to the outer fringes of this Realm away from any nodes where he might be discovered, he sent the recall command for the manifestation he’d left behind in Cosmos 2.
***
In Cosmos 2 Ptah walked into the café Adaline and Adam had just been sitting at, looked down, and smiled. After a few moments, Ptah said, “It’s about time,” to no one in particular as he turned, and walked out of the café. After he walked for a little bit he teleported to a little white room where David stood.
“That went well,” Ptah said.
David interrupted him, “Umm, Sir you have…”
“What?” Ptah asked as looked down at himself and directly into Adam’s Point of View. Ptah reached a finger toward the Point of View Adam had been watching from. As Ptah’s finger filled his vision and eventually blocked out everything Adam heard Ptah say, “No peeking,” with a laugh just as his nanite stopped transmitting.