Universe's End

Rory stared at the black rift, frowning.

“What?” Allison asked.

“Nothing… It’s nothing.”

“It’s clearly something.”

“Some weird ass concepts,” Rory finally huffed.

It had been several years since the two of them had moved on to the next subregion of Phosphorus’s territory, time spent expanding their control of the area and doing what they did best: slaughtering monsters en masse.

But that pattern couldn’t hold forever, as Oscuro, the realm which Allison herself was responsible for the existence of, opened upon The First.

Rory was looking forward to the change of pace, as, aside from interesting battles against specific territory alphas, most of the time taking control of the surface world of The First was busywork: slaughtering hordes upon hordes of monsters that really didn’t like them.

Also, there was the factor that they needed Oscuro. To defeat Phosphorus would require power that, even as a group, the Founders, just being completely objective about it, lacked.

With the goodies they’d obtained since coming to The First, Rory knew he could make some impressive things. Yet, if the gap between Lernean and Phosphorus were significant to any degree, then ordinary gear wouldn’t cut it, at least not gear rated at only rare grade. If Rory wanted to achieve something exceptional, truly worthy of being called the creation of the foremost crafter in existence, then Oscuro and the World Crucibles weren’t just a luxury; they were mandatory.

“What do you mean by ‘weird ass concepts?’” Allison asked, crossing her arms and frowning.

“That rift is leaking pneuma that feels off. Antimatter and Matter are two equal and opposite forces that annihilate one another. It’s sort of like that, except instead of being equal opposites, it's more like… side states? Like matter and dark matter, they don’t inherently destroy one another, but dark matter is still a form of exotic matter.”

“Which will be a problem?” Allison asked.

“No, or I don’t think so,” Rory shrugged. “But it was worth noting before we entered.”

“Are you worried?” Allison followed up.

“Hah, no. Oscuro is advertised as for tier eights, so I’d assume that whatever we find ourselves in won’t immediately be much of a challenge for us unless that was what you were intending when you used a Major Law to wish it into reality. Was it?”

“No, we just needed resources and a place to test ourselves,” Allison said with a shake of her head. “Why would I want to create a place that was a glorified slaughterhouse? I’m not some psychopath.”

“There you have it then,” Rory answered.

“You say that like you weren’t the one staring at the portal, all concerned looking.”

“I’m not sure that qualifies as a portal; it’s a rift that-”

“Nerdddd,” Allison said, copying the line her older sister had loved to yell in Rory’s direction over the decades.

“Fine, let’s just get a move on. I’m sure the others will enter pretty much instantly, and I’d rather not have them get ahead of us.”

“Why is that?” Allison questioned.

“Because Zoey will never let me hear the end of it,” Rory grumbled. Taking one last look around at their base, Camp R-A —a name Rory knew Zoey would roll her eyes at—Rory sighed to himself. It had come a long way since they’d moved onto the next subregion, but in truth it didn’t have nearly the same emotional impact as Camp Null, just a functional base for the subregion. Golems were running around, digging up the ground, chopping down trees, and performing many other functions; the place was essentially autonomous at this point, meaning their absence wouldn’t even be felt.

“Alright, sentimentality over,” Allison said, tapping her head as a helmet appeared. “I’m going in first.”

“My hero,” Rory drawled as he too tapped his head, a helmet of his own appearing. It had been some time since the Tyrant Scale armor had been destroyed, and in that time Rory had burnt through six other sets of armor; none of them had nearly the same integrity as that original armor.

Probably shouldn’t have gotten so used to using my armor like it was indescribable.

Watching Allison pass through the dark rift situated at the center of Camp R-A, Rory counted down from ten before he too passed through.

“Oh,” Rory said, appearing in an entirely new environment, with no exit to be seen.

In other words, they were here for the full year, no escape possible.

“Have fun?” Rory asked as he took sight of the hundreds of tier seven monsters that were dead on the ground, looking like manta rays.

“Not particularly,” Allison said, her voice slightly distorted through the two layers of armor she wore. “May as well have been made of tofu. A lot of them, sure, but as fragile as they are, I was able to crush them with the pressure of my spear alone.”

“How dandy,” Rory said plainly. Waving his hand, Rory drew one of the corpses toward him, his fine-tuned control of pneuma practiced enough that he could be mistaken for telekinetic. “Ehh, yeah. Some sort of effect like an electric eel, put them in a large enough bunch and that could be a problem for a tier seven without proper protections.”

“Meaning?”

Rory looked around, taking a deep breath and ‘tasting’ the air.

Yeah, seems right.

“I think we entered a tutorial area,” Rory said. “The pneuma isn’t friendly, but it's also light enough that tier sevens could withstand it. Add to that, there are tier seven monsters. Oh, and this place-”

Rory gestured to the fact that it looked like they’d appeared in the center of a city from the 1800s, tossed into the air and scrambled by a giant egg whisk.

“-It’s rich with spatial concepts and contortions; in fact, I can feel exactly where you could step through and probably appear elsewhere.”

“Probably?”

“Always a chance it just erases you from reality as well,” Rory said. “But the chances of that are… ehh, three percent?”

“Three percent? Strangely specific.”

“If I said one percent, would that make you feel better?”

“No.”

“Two percent,” Rory amended, splitting the difference. Eyes glowing faintly and faintly marked by strange glyphs, Rory scanned the area with the full ocular release of Eyes of the Architect. Shaking his head a moment later, Rory spoke up once more. “Nothing too interesting here. Or rather, the interesting stuff isn’t powerful stuff. Exotic, sure, but I reckon it would be a waste of time to investigate.”

“That doesn’t sound like you, not from what I’ve seen firsthand or what my sister has said.”

“We only have a year here,” Rory said. “Our best bet is out there.”

Pointing away, Allison scrunched her eyebrows.

“Why?”

“Because that’s what my eyes tell me: anything of true value is away from here. So, let’s get a move on. We step through that spatial distortion, gauge where it lands us, find another one of these warpage points if need be, triangulate, and then move with haste.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“You’re the expert,” Allison sighed. “You think the others will have realized that?”

“Oh, no doubt,” Rory snorted. “With him there with them? Absolutely not a single doubt in my mind.”

The image of the shifty-looking Rogue briefly crossed Rory’s mind. He knew the man had a skill similar to his original Eye for potential, combined with his Primal Night affinity; the land of Oscuro probably felt like a playground tailored for the man. If anyone could breeze through this place and figure out its secrets, it would be he.

“I’d rather not have to deal with his boasting,” Allison agreed. “After you.”

Six days.

While Rory and Allison had no way of knowing, in six days they made it as far as his daughter had crossed in six months. Without needing to worry about protecting tier sevens, having figured out the secret of the spatially shredded cities in the sky as anchors through Oscuro, and the fact that they weren’t just elites, but Founders, the shallows of Oscuro may as well have been a walk in the park.

Reaching the edge of the shallows, Rory and Allison stood upon a tall hill, staring at the mountains that caged the shallows of Oscuro like the walls surrounding a city.

“Something interesting,” Allison huffed. “Took long enough.”

She was, of course, referring to the territory alpha that had sensed them but was almost cautiously waiting them out. With their eyesight, they could see the man-monster with skin like the blackest ink and covered in strange symbols, as he guarded what appeared to be a temple directly in front of the mountain pass that promised escape from the innermost portions of Oscuro.

“It’s been six days,” Rory snorted.

“Six days of monsters that cowered the moment they felt us, and the few that didn’t weren’t much of a threat,” Allison countered.

“What do you expect?” Rory asked. “Tutorial area, your intent for Oscuro shaped it, and look at that, it’s perfect for what you wanted for your people, resource-rich and a place to sharpen oneself. It’s just not perfect for us, at least not this region,” he reminded.

“The reminder isn’t necessary,” Allison sighed. “Though I can sense that I’ve been away from my people for a bit, reverting to my more… selfish attitude.”

“Ehh, you just need to balance it,” Rory shrugged. “What’s good for me is good for my people. Usually. When I don’t forget stuff.”

“You do that much?”

“No comment.”

Allison snorted before cocking her eyebrow. “Seems like it's done eyeing us up.”

Within moments, the temple guardian had appeared before them, moving at speeds that could only be expected from a territory alpha.

“Thou shalt be-”

“Oh, M’wana, fun name,” Rory said, interrupting the monster. “Oh, sorry. Continue.”

“Thou shalt be judged,” the ink-black man-monster said, somehow sounding annoyed.

“We beat you, then do we get to move on to the actual regions that matter?” Allison asked, pointing to the mountain walls.

“Thou must first-”

“Sounds like a yes,” Rory interrupted once more. “Alright, let’s get this over with, big guy. Hope you’re better at this than the last territory alpha we dealt with. Oversized porcupine did not like getting put into its back and stabbed in the stomach by a spear, ironic, I know.”

It was an attitude born from time spent on The First, where territory alphas were abundant, and battles against them were a norm rather than an epic for the ages that anyone other than the Founders might treat them as.

The monster known as M’wana moved, vanishing as it stepped through darkness, holding utterly nothing back.

It was just too bad that move wasn’t anything new to either Allison or Rory.

Having felt the shadow step the moment it occurred, Rory was already flickering out of the way, palms forward as he appeared a few steps behind where his back had been facing. Having appeared behind where he had originally been, M’wana was startled to find that he was the one receiving a backstab attack, as a blast of heavenly energy arced into his body, the territory alpha already flinching in pain.

Having understood what it was doing just as fast as he had, Allison was already on the move as her spear shot forward, aimed at its midsection. For a moment it seemed as if the darkness of the ink-black skin would repel the spear, but a flex of Allison’s physics-defying aura pushed the spear in, silver and black blood spilling free.

M’wana swung outward, now wielding a crescent-tipped spear in one hand and a shield formed of segmented plates in the other. Unfortunately, the attack went wide as the ground beneath its feet buckled, Rory flexing Earth Soul with glee.

“Oh, good fucking god, it feels good to have full usability of that again,” Rory laughed. The First, being a hostile world spirit, wasn’t exactly receptive to Rory’s attempt to manipulate the terrain, resisting as much as it was allowed to.

In Oscuro, a dimension without any world spirit or the like? Easy as pie.

With the crescent-tipped spear wildly missing Allison’s head, the woman withdrew her spear, but not before inflicting a rather long scratch down the unarmored portion of its body.

With Oscuro being a land thick with ‘miasmic shadow’ pneuma, Rory had swapped to primarily utilizing heavenly magic, far more effective against such concepts than the rest of his arsenal. Flickering into the air, Rory opened his hands so they faced one another as blue lightning began to bounce between them until there was a veritable spiderweb of it. Stretching his hands further apart, Rory suddenly flicked them downward as the blue lightning was released almost like a physical object, as a ‘net’ of the stuff swept around the ink-black man-monster.

Convulsed by the attack, Allison was free to tear into the territory alpha, her spear a vicious viper that had no desire to cease.

The ‘sticky lightning,’ as Rory had nicknamed it, borrowed concepts from Enchain, allowing it to persist for longer than was possible through ordinary physics.

You know, considering electricity or energy isn't a physical material.

Tearing free of the heavenly net a moment later, M’wana swept the crescent spear outward, a scything wave of darkness unleashed as, at the same moment, chalk-like wolves began to step free of the shadows at the corners of their vision.

Ooo, interesting, what is with those summoned wolves?

They contained aspects of concepts Rory had never felt before, intriguing him madly.

It almost feels like alchemy somehow? How the hell does that work?

Wanting to enjoy himself, Rory held back immediately, dealing with the wolves, as Allison also got the chance to begin immersing herself in the flow of the battle. One-versus-one, M’wana had the edge in raw attributes over Allison, forcing her back on many occasions; the woman struggling to overcome his defenses without Rory’s distractions.

Not that she seemed to mind; if she really wanted him to act, she would say something.

Ignoring M’wana for the time being, Rory engaged in battle against the hounds that chased after him, snapping and biting before vanishing into clouds of chalk and reforming to attempt to attack him again. Wherever their paws touched, the ground bleached and began to disintegrate, creating more of the chalk substance that formed their bodies.

That is seriously interesting.

Rory’s mind was scrambling, looking for the linkage that he knew was there. Cognition made memorizing things very easy, but it didn’t provide omniscience; you didn’t know what you didn’t know. It would be like going to the library and asking the librarian to find you a book that you didn’t know existed; there needed to be something to narrow the search.

Still thinking as he absent-mindedly played keep-away with the ever-increasing pack of wolves, Rory snorted to himself as he saw something fly through the air with a sonic boom before crashing into a nearby rock wall. Popping out of it only a moment later, Rory saw Allison shake her body, a sort of jiggle and flex that belonged more to a cartoon character than any flesh-and-blood being.

See, this is why I don’t bother getting worried.

Blunt force trauma was shockingly ineffective against Allison, as was electricity, a sort of byproduct of her weird cartone body. That wasn’t to say the damage didn’t accrue, but beating the woman down with pure force was begging her heart to really get going.

Which was exactly what was happening, the drumbeat of her heart beginning to increase in intensity like a theme song’s volume being turned up.

Oh sure, if Rory let her try to solo the territory alpha, she’d eventually be overwhelmed; the raw attribute difference meant that she’d exhaust herself at some point, but for now they were both enjoying playing around.

Swiping his hand outward, Rory snagged some loose chalk debris as a wolf reformed, isolating it within a red crystal sphere as he drew it toward himself. Leaving dodging and retaliating to the autopilot mental threads, Rory focused on the odd chalk material.

How… odd.

Within the bound space that Rory had captured, the concepts at play became that much clearer to Rory. Visually, the material seemed to convey decay motifs, given how it broke down the surrounding environment, reducing it to chalk or ash.

But within the bound space where Rory could isolate it and more easily digest what his senses were picking up, Rory felt the opposite.

It wasn’t decaying the environment.

“Purity. It’s concentrated purity,” Rory chuckled. “What the hell is that about?”

Concepts could do plenty of interesting things based on one’s interpretation of them. Someone with an affinity for fire could still easily conjure and manipulate ice if they reversed the lens, drawing the heat from things rather than adding it.

In this case, the purification concepts had taken a destructive lens, purifying any element into chalk, the utter reduction of any and every opposing element or concept.

How novel. No, how ingenious.

Rory had done things similar to that before, but the way he watched it used in real time as a weapon was simply inspiring. Now, how that then translated into a summoned wolf pack, Rory figured, was more akin to E.O.N and skill-based shenanigans, but that was always the least interesting aspect of the wolves.

“Alright, I’ve had fun,” Rory heard Allison say from further away. “We can stop playing.”

And there is my signal. Honestly, I think I lost track of time.

With her heart beating away like a war drum, the upper limit of the attribute boost she’d obtained had essentially been gained; anything further would be marginal compared to the exhaustion she’d accrue.

Having made more sense of the wolf summons, Rory suddenly held his staff as blood-red fire spewed out, blanketing the chalk wolves. Fire was already a strong choice against them; it was a strong choice against anything particle-dense, for the simple reason that it could burn each grain rapidly. Combining his blood-essence affinity with the fire magic had lowered its temperature, sure, but it had also gained the corruptive, transmutive aspects of blood itself. It was a double whammy, and, burning up like sawdust in a flame, the wolves were dealt with in short order as Rory turned all his attention to the battle between Allison and the main boss.

To say they were even now that her attributes had reached their effective max was a lie; she was still being overwhelmed from a power standpoint, but the gap was shockingly small. She managed to deliver one hit for every two or three she received. That would be a losing equation on its own, but she wasn’t alone.

Alright, time to get this over with.

As fun as the sidetrack was, they had more important things to attend to.

There was an entire other region of Oscuro to explore.