It was finally time. The core’s perception had covered the surface of the planet, and it only lacked a small bit at the center to fully encompass the entire planet.

This would also mean that Yur would be fully consumed by the core.

She had endured for decades, despite losing her grasp of her Concepts of life and growth. She had maintained a stubborn, tenuous grip on the Concept of death, and it seemed possible that her grasp had been strengthened by her own dying condition.

With a final push, the core felt confident that it would be able to wrest full control of the Concept of death, driving out both Ixel and Yur at the same time, while also enveloping the entire planet within its perception.

There was a growing sense of anticipation, as the core’s “treasure” was finally about to become complete.

After checking to ensure that nothing had been missed and that it had enough power for one last push across both the Concept and the physical planet itself, the core pushed with its full might-

And metaphorically tripped. The last push had not been needed at all. There was practically a snap as the core and planet became one, and the core gained total mastery of all of the Concepts it had touched upon.

As the years had passed, only Yur and Ixel had not submitted to the core, either consciously or unconsciously. Ixel had held an innate disgust towards the core, and refused to submit to any power that had created undead abominations.

As for Yur, she had always been the planet itself, so; how could she submit to something that had grown from herself?

At that moment, the core’s dominion was fully established over both the planet and the Concepts of life, death, growth, conflict, stability, destruction, order, and chaos, and the instant that the Concept of death was torn from Ixel and Yur, both gods were instantly affected.

Ixel, in losing his only Concept, and having refused to submit to a higher Authority, ceased to exist.

Gods were beings created by a fusion of belief, Authority, and Concepts. In losing any one of those three pillars of their existence, gods simply ceased to exist. There was no body, and so there was no death. In fact, there was not even a soul, as gods were beings of a singular nature, as opposed to the tripartite nature of physical beings with their mind, body, and soul.

The end of Ixel was so quiet that the core only noticed that a god was missing much later on, after it had finished processing the other changes that had occurred after its completion.

As for Yur, something very different took place. For her, she lost her Concepts, just the same as Ixel, but unlike all of the other gods, Yur had a physical body, which was the planet itself. When the core usurped Yur’s physical form, her existence shifted.

She still lacked a mortal’s soul, just like all of the gods, but there was something more substantial to Yur, and that allowed her to persist.

The core almost immediately sensed the existence of some other being present within its perception, but that being was somehow untethered and drifting. It seemed to be seeking something to anchor to, and it was seemingly being pulled towards the core’s sub-cores.

Curious, the core gave a bit of a push. It could touch the entity, but could not truly interact with it. It seemed to be insubstantial in some manner, and yet the core could direct it around.

It was an odd, disorienting sensation.

As the presence moved closer to a sub-core, the two touched. They merged, but the presence overwhelmed the sub-core and overflowed from it. It was much like pouring water into a bucket that was already full.

The presence moved on, leaving nothing behind in the sub-core as it continued on. Already seeing that a larger sub-core was necessary, the core pushed the presence to one that was more than double the size of the first, which looked to be about the right size.

This time, the entity did not overflow from the sub-core, but merged with it perfectly. As it did, something curious happened.

The core no longer needed to oversee the dungeon associated with that sub-core. The system that the core had been testing out persisted, and the entire dungeon and sub-core remained under the core’s control, but it needed to deliberately interfere with the being which had taken over the sub-core and the dungeon.

There was a noticeable increase in the core’s processing abilities, as simply giving up just one of thousands of dungeons had freed the core from handling countless decisions at any given moment, even if the majority of such decisions were handled by the system.

This was an incredible development, as it meant that the core could create whatever system it wanted to govern a given dungeon, and then hand it over to another…

Actually, what was it that had taken over the sub-core?

Intrigued, the core merged into the sub-core, much like when it had previously merged with the senses of its creatures…

***

She was Yur. She knew that, just as she knew that she was a-

…

She was Yur. She knew that, though that seemed to be all that she knew.

Her shape was familiar. Something about being a sphere just felt right to her, though she could not say why.

What did not feel right or familiar was that her perception was not limited to just her own form. She could stretch out her mind and her senses, and could see all of her domain.

When she tried to examine why this felt wrong, she found a hole in her being, as though a massive part of her had been ripped away. Something about her was missing, though she had no idea what it might be.

Since having anything around her to perceive just felt wrong, Yur quickly started looking at where she was.

She was in a cave of some kind, but it was filled with plants and animals. Yur could feel that she could control both, though it was difficult to understand how she was supposed to do that. After all, there had been no direct control over any creatures when she had been a-

What had she been?

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

She was suddenly distracted by an invasion. She could instinctively feel that something had invaded her domain. They felt other and wrong. They were not of her, and they were there to take her treasure!

…Wait, what treasure?

Despite being confused by a surge of protective instincts that had manifested the moment the invaders had appeared, Yur suppressed those urges and observed the invaders. Her perception was limited to mana instead of-

When Yur came to again, she saw that the invaders were halfway across the first chamber, and they were fighting against some odd creature that looked like a man and a horse had been fused together. Despite the unnaturalness of the combined creature, there was a beauty and an elegance to how it moved and fought against the invaders.

As she looked more closely, information suddenly appeared:

Centaur.

Level 3

After that, more information appeared in Yur’s mind, so long as she remained focused on the creature. She knew how strong it was, how fast it could move or attack. Its mana affinities, as well as the fact that it would never have enough mana to use any magic.

She peered deeper, and could see the centaur’s history in the dungeon. She peered deeper and deeper, learning the creature’s name was Anfyndral, and he was the youngest warrior of his herd. He had been sent upwards in the dungeon to earn his place by defending their home against the human invaders.

She could see his childhood, and how he had trained with bows and with pikes, both of which took advantage of the centaurs’ power and speed, while adding to their reach, which was limited, given that it was nearly impossible for them to touch the ground with their hands.

It was fascinating to see Anfyndral’s past and learn everything about him, but just as Yur was peering into the budding warrior’s burgeoning romance with Galindral, the images were cut off.

Startled, Yur looked to see what had happened, only to discover that the invading humans had cut Anfyndral down.

Heartbroken and startled by the unexpected loss, Yur did not even notice that while she received the centaur’s mana and vitality, his soul and memories went elsewhere, along with a tithe of mana and vitality.

As Yur mentally wept the loss of Anfyndral, the creatures of the dungeon acted on her emotions, and before she realized anything had happened, the invaders had been cut down.

She steeled her resolve, as she understood what needed to be done; her people needed to be protected from these invaders!

***

The core was fascinated by what it had just observed, though it also realized how close things had come to going wrong. If the core had not merged with Yur’s consciousness when it had and then taken her memories for its own, the fallen goddess would have remembered her past, and there was no telling what might have come of that.

As it was, the former goddess would handle the dungeon well. She wanted to protect the dungeon’s inhabitants, which perfectly aligned with the core’s goals.

Satisfied that things were well in hand, the core turned its attention to the goddess’s stolen memories and other changes that had occurred.

The increase in thought capacity was already showing itself, and the core was eager to assign more consciousnesses to oversee its dungeons. How much could it improve itself in this manner? What would it be capable of after it found minds to take over all of the dungeons?

Its excitement abruptly stalled; how would it be able to find other minds like Yur’s? From the memories the core had already observed, it knew just how unique the goddess had been. How could it get more beings of the same sort?

A portion of the core’s mind sorted through Yur’s memories, learning more and more about the history of the world, the arrival of the dragons, the wars between pantheons of gods, gods and dragons, and the petty disputes of the various races that had once populated the planet.

It learned more details of the dead races and the dead gods of the old pantheons. It learned of Authorities and how they related to Concepts.

This was the core’s first time accessing the memories of any of the gods. While several gods had submitted to the core’s Authority, gods were non-physical beings, and the core had not yet found any way of accessing their minds or senses, though Yur’s memories might hold the key to that possibility.

As that was happening, the core was also exploring what had changed after it had fully mastered all of the Concepts. With all of them complete, it could sense how they complemented each other and became far, far more than the sum of their parts. The only way that the transformation made sense was how a pile of stone was only that, but once they were assembled with thatch and wood, a house could be assembled. With everything in place, there was simply more to what the core had mastered.

It continued to probe and explore its new abilities when the core abruptly froze in shock.

Details from two different lines of attention suddenly converged, and for the first time in its existence, the core was stunned.

This was the moment that the core discovered Yur’s memories of conversations with eldar dragons who had mentioned kaiser dragons. At the moment that had happened, the core had been toying with the tower that had been constructed from all of its combined Concepts to see what had become possible for it.

There was a moment of enlightenment as the core understood that it had reached the same level of power as kaiser dragons, but it was at this same moment that the core finally had a conscious realization of the fact that there were other planets and worlds to discover.

It may have mastered its original planet, but in doing so, the core had learned of the existence of the rest of the universe. The only other time the core had been so amazed in its entire existence had been when it had first been taken from Grthak’s lair and had realized that there was more to the world than a single cave.

The only question was how to reach those worlds.

The core continued with both explorations, but the memories held no further insights. Instead, it was the tower of Concepts that held the next moment of wonder for the core.

It already understood that when a Concept was fully mastered, more things became possible.

As the gods had fallen under the core’s sway and it had seized their Concepts, the core had slowly been able to wield its Authority outside of the dungeons, at least within the bounds of the subservient gods’ Authorities.

The core had found it could very, very slowly and gradually make alterations to the gods’ believers, no matter where they were, and this ability grew exponentially stronger if those same people entered a dungeon.

This was how the core had started to push entire regions of humans to change. It understood the importance of a large group of test subjects, as well as the importance of diversity, after several breeding experiments had gone horribly wrong.

This was why the core was pushing to see what new things might be possible with its Concepts, and while there certainly seemed to be greater possibilities related to life, death, and souls that would need to be explored, there was a hint of something else, something tantalizing.

It was a familiar sensation, though also new, and it took the core a moment to understand what it was feeling.

There were two more Concepts that had become accessible with its mastery of the planet’s Concepts.

At that moment, the core made the connection and understood that this was the power of the kaiser dragons. This was how those creatures were able to send their underlings between planets.

This was the path forward.

All that was needed was that initial push to access the Concepts, but what did the core need to do to get there? In the past, it had needed to accomplish something exceptional related to the Concept, and that had worked as a breakthrough and given the core access.

The problem was, what were these two Concepts?

As its thoughts raced and whirled, the core was also examining the completed planet. It could feel the slightly greater gravity at the center, as well as high above to the limits of the atmosphere.

In fact, it could almost reach the planet’s moon with its perception, though it needed a bit more distance. If it could just stretch-

And as simple as that, the core had its breakthrough and touched upon the Concept of space.