Rifts in Space appear all around. Some just float and fluctuate, in others presences try to connect to the World. This effect I never had thought would happen.

In my shock, a few things happened. First the runic circles exploded. The explosion broke the whole market place and left a smoking crater. The body parts of the statue are floating over the crater, as if they forgot how gravity works. Mink was blown away from the explosion. To her luck she held the sphere rather firm, and survived with only bleeding from her eyes and nose. Her Master was less lucky, as he and the other Mages are dead.

Scratch that, the robed female has survived and seems to desperately breath. Her Shield broke but seems like she had some precautions and was only mildly corrupted by the Miasma. How much damage she got, I have to look into when taking her in my Realm.

Anything else did not survive. Almost every Monster and Human got mummified in a flash. Plants got right over the process and fell into dust. Doors broke apart and cloth was destroyed. Leather fared better but that did not mean much. It was dry and brittle, nothing could be made with it.

My houses survived, albeit with explosion damage. Most windows are broken. Next time I make them thicker.

Mink ran and I could not stop her, as I am right now way too occupied. With taking the Sphere, I have to hold the space myself Miasma free, but the rifts did not vanish. This will be a horrible problem, as some things I can feel on the other side are not something, that should exist. Closing them is my main priority.

…

Sealing the rifts is hard. I still do not know how those work, but I found a way to corrode them. Slowly the most dangerous rifts get closed by using my presence to shave off the corners. The worst thing is, there are so many. Thousands of small ones, dozens of large ones.

Luckily the most soul shattering existences seem behind the smaller ones. But working hard to close all those small rifts were a test of patience. Not, that I feel annoyed, rather closing the rifts is slow and every moment the rifts exist is another moment for something to be able to invade like myself.

When the rifts get small enough they implode with extreme fury and throw all of their Miasma in every direction. Keeping it contained and leading it out my Bubble of Mana made the whole thing even more attention heavy. I have only a small part of attention to spare for other things, but I try my best to salvage everything I can.

Right now I use Red to haul Beryl into my realm. Taking Red into my Realm for safekeeping I start converting Beryl. To my surprise her Body was made of different human parts. She used some kind of Artifact near her heart to keep everything alive.

Long story short, she was already gone. Her Body was only alive, because of that thing right near her heart and spine. The most curious part is her Body has been infected with Miasma and that particular flavor is rot. My hypothesis is a curse on her.

Rather effective to just cut of the rotting parts and add new ones to circumvent the curse. By the looks of it, she was only spine and skull. Even one of her eyes got already replaced.

Now to the Artifact. A kind of golden cage holds a core with a peculiar Miasmic taste. It should be regeneration or some kind of healing. Right into the spine is a needle embedded coming from the cage. The Magic is pushed into the spine and from there into the body. The Miasma working against it gets pushed into the furthest parts of the stitched together body and wrecks only in those parts havoc. This should be interesting to experiment on.

Wait, stop! I need to focus. The Rifts are still my number one problem. With Red I take care of the rest of the corpses and clean up the battlefield. While it is hard to split my attention like that, I am able to work on a rift, when I look in the direction with Red. It helps to focus.

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…

Maggots spew out of one rift. Something wants to infect it with their children. Luckily they are heavily suppressed and easy to take over. But the mass of Maggots is horrifying. They are at least a meter long, hairy, white things, that just start gnawing the rock like it is tofu. This rift got now priority as the Maggots invade faster than I can take them over.

Taken over Maggots became food for the others, as they seem to not recognize their lost brethren anymore. To have a few for later I hover a few away from their hungry siblings.

Another disturbing presence is working like me in trying to take over the area. I am way better at it and hold it at bay for the time being, as it is not a priority right now.

Other rifts also have some strange happenings around them and get put on the list, but for now they do not have the capability to invade. I need to prioritize those, that do, to be ahead of the curve.

…

The more I close the rifts the more I understand about those phenomenons. While my Portal is a sphere, those rifts are non-euclidean shapes, bending in different kind of ways, sometimes even overlapping on themselves. Dimensions work like a framework and holds it together. Folding space like the bag I got last time uses those framework with Mana to overlay it.

Those rifts are different. Space got twisted in a way it works against it and with enough force just folds into a direction it does not have any reign over. Like a small gash into skin it bleeds in a direction where no blood vessels are and gives entry to infections. Those gashes close slowly unlike my own Portal. Sadly not fast enough to not let something dangerous in, so I have to force the healing.

The knowledge helps me to understand my own Portal better and can now see how it works. It is stable in aspect of using some kind of loophole. A piece of my Realm is in this World while a piece of the World is inside my Realm. The borders are the Portal and needs to travel through this superimposed space to get to the other side. Neat!

While understanding this new and useful Fact of dimensional travel I closed the Maggot Dimension and fighting right now against Tentacles with eyes sprouting from another. Cutting them from the Rift makes them fall into some kind of oily substance, so no new creatures for me.

…

The Mansion is back up and running. It has now a small entrance room as a kind of airlock. It was needed as Snow got bored. I did not want her to let her hover inside there forever, so I made a place for her to stay, additionally it makes a great place to store Red and even Ava for now. Sometimes I need a Body for something.

Although she is happy to run around again, she is a bit protesting to be under House arrest. Just keep up with it for a week or two, until the Rifts are all closed, little one.

While pushing back some kind of rainbow colored tumor growing out of one of the rifts, I look at the statue. Arms head and torso just float without reason at first sight, but it is different. They are dimensionally locked in place. Like the Rifts, they just stay in place and do not move. The way it works is rather strange, as the parts hold itself up. The space is made like a knot in that place and gravity works in both ways at the same time and this holds it right where it is. I can not explain it better, as it is just strange.

At least I will remember how it works, maybe I can build something impossible in the future.

…

Finally I have a respite and another problem appears. While still closing the Rifts, the Roots decided to visit in full force. Fifty soldiers wrapped in a leafy plant armor is led by Falling Leaf. Maybe she is designated for negotiations against me, or she is made a sacrifice, as this resembles a suicide attack against me.

To be fair, I have no patience anymore for them, as they not only let those People led by Mink and her Master move inside their territory, they killed Boost for the only reason I can imagine to hide the fact a small army nears my Domain.

At the same time Falling Leaf has with her a truth seeker. A self cursed elf, losing most of their senses to only have one sense, and that is to notice truth or false in said words, gestures or other ways of communications. They are not even aware of their surroundings or that they need to eat or drink. Their World is only seeing true and false. The worst part is, the curse needs to be willingly self inflicted.

By the way Mink did not escape it seems, as Falling Leaf holds the Sphere like saying they are invincible against anything I can do to them. They are so misinformed and annoying, believing them superior than anyone else.

I am so done with them and will show them what despair really means. This will be fun.