Universe's End

It turns out that arming a Founder-tier combatant, and arguably the strongest of them –at least in direct combat– with aberrant-grade armor that was damn close to being custom-fit just for her was quite the power increase.

Sure, it wasn’t a true custom-fit item; the ‘Will of the Spear’ Akashic Record was a general classification, but that was neither here nor there, and not something the Founders themselves would truly understand for some time anyway.

But that was neither here nor there. Before the armor, a theoretical matchup between any given set of Founders would have been close enough that in a best-of-ten, either party could probably snatch a few wins. But with the new armor? Ten out of ten times, she would have won.

Against any of them.

It was simply that massive of a power cliff. The gulf between tiers was growing ever larger with each grade rank, meaning that the difference between going from a rare-grade item to an aberrant-grade item was more significant than going from a poor-grade item to a rare-grade item.

“This really isn’t fair,” Allison had half laughed, half sighed one day as they’d watched her all but solo a territory alpha; a single shadow-step assist from Eric had been all she’d needed to finish the job.

“It’s not,” Zoey answered. “Which is why it’s pretty much useless outside of here, outside of hunting high-tier-eights solo, or territory alphas.”

It was an explanation –well, more of a lecture– Zoey had gotten from Rory endlessly. If defeating a monster was essentially riskless or effortless, then it was no more significant an act than picking up a pencil or drinking a coffee, neither of which was known to be an effective method of pushing one’s ascension.

“I still want one for myself,” Eric said.

“Find me more World Crucibles,” Rory said with a frown. Apparently, after having completed his work at the initial World Crucible, the ‘path’ down had become impossible to pass through, as if signifying that the privilege of capitalizing upon the ‘Sublime Wonder,’ a name they had apparently been classified with after Rory’s foray into one, had been a one-and-done.

“Yeah, going to need more of those shadows first,” Eric answered. “So, uhh, give it roughly eight years? Assuming we can get any more of those natural treasures back in Oscuro.”

Which was the core of the problem: an item crafted by the likes of the Architect in a World Crucible was truly peerless within the universe’s current stage of development, but they weren’t exactly easily replicable moments.

With that understanding laid out, there wasn’t much else to do but work on clearing out ‘the rabble’ from Phosphorus’s personally claimed territories. While it still wasn’t a ‘fast’ process given how large the landmass they were clearing was, the years quickly bled by, six years in nearly the blink of an eye.

One thing that had changed was how they’d organized the ‘squads.’ It had been decided that the best course was to split Allison and Rory up. Not because of any fallout, but because Allison’s improvements were so vast that speed was the best possible partner for her, and none could travel around quite like Eric.

The second factor was that, while none of them had seen the same sheer power increase as Allison, it was undeniable that Rory had been the next-best off: a legendary skill and two Testament Enshrinements. The Legendary skill still hadn’t proven that significantly overpowered; he wasn’t suddenly shooting instant-kill lasers from his eyes, but he had noticed a significantly reduced effectiveness of hostile auras against him.

More important were the enshrinements. First had been the obvious choice of Enchain, given it was rather plug-and-play, no need for tampering or skill alterations or fusions.