Chương 451: 258, 2/2

Erick stepped out of a portal onto ground that was not ground. It was crystal that was more air than solid, with motes of light that swirled inside that un-solidity like glittering waves of some unknown lifeform, flashing out signals that Erick did not understand. It was bees flashing other bees, or the flow of sunflowers tracing the sun. The ground was the extension of the Fae Enclave up ahead, sticking out a hundred kilometers from the main thrust of the central column of Margleknot's 'first class citizens'.

That central column took up half the horizon and looked exactly like the not-crystal under Erick's feet, but it was so far away it looked solid. A path of glitter-crystal lay ahead. The portal closed behind Blighter and Seabass, both of Erick's lawyers looking as presentable as possible. Erick started walking forward— And he suddenly crossed a thousand kilometers to stand before a large archway gate that was as wide and tall as the sky.

The airy crystal of the Fae Enclave continued on beyond the edges of that sky, like a flavoring to the horizon. Beyond the gate lay a forest of trees, each the size of the smallest of Yggdrasil's forms back home on Veird. Those trees formed a pathway as wide as a sea, leading to a white tower in the distance. As Erick stood there, ten meters from the gate that led into that land, he recognized houses in the trees, and everywhere else. There were towers and castles and caverns and doors leading downward.

Stairways and elevators and sky roads. People were everywhere, some of them looking like tiny pinpricks of light or like nearly-invisible bugs due to the far, far distance between here and there. Erick took that all in, and then he turned to the purple and yellow person sitting beside an air-crystal desk beside the giant gate.

The person seemed female, with standard feminine characteristics, with blond hair and boobs and wearing a dress, but they had multifaceted bug eyes and antennae and dragonfly wings and no actual sex to them at all. She greeted Erick, saying, "Howdy. You're expected." And then she beckoned to the road behind Erick.

"… I'm missing my lawyers." Blighter and Seabass had not been there, and then they were. Blighter and Seabass both bowed instantly. The fairy said, "Blighter and Seabass. The Fae Enclave appreciates that you finally left that other decision to be done with, and have now brought forth Erick Flatt, Wizard of Benevolence, to the Enclave. You will not be allowed to speak this time, but you are allowed to experience the exchanges of the Enclave between themselves and Wizard Flatt. Do you understand?"

Blighter and Seabass bowed deeper, and both said, "We understand."" Rise, then, and be welcomed." Blighter and Seabass rose. Both of them then drew lines across their lips and used some sort of blood magic to seal their own mouths shut. … Well okay then. The fairy turned to Erick, saying, "Please adopt your truest form and prepare to visit the standing council."

Erick had almost been about to say that his human form was his truest form— But then Blighter did some sign language that Erick did not know, but he read as 'dragon form'. The fairy casually said to Blighter, "That's the last time you interfere." Blighter bowed. Nothing happened, though, because that had been a warning from the purple/yellow fairy to Blighter. Warnings came before action.

Erick stepped back and flickered to his dragon form, his clothes of glowing fabrics transforming into thin rings that he controlled to wrap around one of his horns... And something was different. Erick was used to being around 50 meters long from head to butt, and then twice that for the tail and around 175 wide for the wings, but he was a lot bigger than that right now. Based on his claws resting near the fairy and his lawyers, Erick was probably… Twice that size. Maybe a bit more.

200 long from nose to tail tip, and 300-ish wide with the wings. Erick stepped a bit further away from them, so he didn't crush them. It was honestly difficult to be a dragon sometimes. He only really liked doing this in private, or when relaxing, because people were way too tiny when he was a dragon. And now he was even bigger. For a brief moment, Erick was worried something had happened. He checked on himself, making sure nothing else was untoward… His Status seemed fine.

He had accounted for all of his dragonness when he made his Status, after all, and [Polymorph] spellwork of all kinds, including Perfected Body and True Polymorph, along with how life basically worked, did not care about shape when it came to stuff like mana saturation and accretion. Resons were the same, too. His reson wallet had adjusted to his new draconic mana channels, because of course it did.

Dragons had circulatory systems and brains and organs and all of that, including mana channels, but they were much more 'I am what I am' than what biology would make of them, and Erick was no different. Being in his dragon form gave him a lot more room for improvement, though. Humans could only hold so much mana and —Erick assumed— resons.

This fact proved itself because Erick looked inside and saw his core and mana channels flickering with faint lightning, instead of the thick glow of his Reson Wallet of his human form. This was because, Erick saw, most of the resons he was making were actually soaking into his full draconic body instead of going into his Wallet… Which was different. Dragons had a lot more room for improvement than humans had, or even proteans, so of course his dragon form could accept more resons.

Erick would probably have to open the tap up rather wide to start making resons go into his wallet while as a dragon, instead of having them soak into his scales, flesh, blood, and bone... Briefly, Erick did exactly that. White-gold lightning flooded through his body bringing with it a warmth that Erick didn't know he had been missing… And he realized he was growing larger. Nope! Stop that right now.

The growth stopped because Erick willed it, and in that same moment Erick turned the tap back down to 9%, and he also made himself slightly smaller, back to his normal dragon size, through a normal action of crushing himself down to be properly small-ish— At his normal dragon size, the reson-flow inside of him was back to its normal luminescent white-gold glow in his core, and his mana channels. It wasn't soaking into his body overmuch. Which was good.

Erick stopped concentrating on making his reson wallet make resons instead of supporting his growth… And it stayed exactly as it should. … So Erick just needed to keep his body this size, and then he wouldn't get bigger automatically? Well. Sure. Okay. It wasn't that much of a pain to control himself to stay this size. It was the normal sort of pressure that he always experienced when he was trying to keep his human body human-sized, without the horns.

Erick had never needed to 'shrink' his dragon form, like he had needed to shrink his human form, but he supposed… This was now his life. Making sure his voice was steady and not booming, Erick asked, "This is acceptable?" The purple/yellow fairy looked at him, her lips in a scrunch.

"Yeah sure. If you're more comfortable larger then you can be larger. Doesn't matter much."" I prefer to engage people at their own physical level, but I can be dragon-shaped if that's more proper."" It is more proper." The fairy gestured.

"They await you at the tower." She looked at Blighter and Seabass.

"You two can go ahead." And then Blighter and Seabass vanished. … Well okay then. Erick walked into the Fae Enclave— - - - - — And stepped onto soft soil, between great trees filled with buildings and people. The gate to the rest of Margleknot was far, far behind him, while the air was an intoxicating blend of springtime, power, fae, and old, good memories. He smelled bread and meats. He saw everything all around for a hundred kilometers, as he felt Life in the air.

He had never felt Life before, because there was no such thing as 'Elemental Life', but now he was feeling Life, and he knew it for what it was, and for Lionshard's description of this particular cultivation power. It was pure, and wonderful. Erick almost wanted to sit down and enjoy the moment, but he had work to do. The white tower was still far ahead. Erick spread his wings and lifted into the air with a great push of power and a little bit of magic.

Benevolence flickered upon his black wings and body, zapping the ground and adding some mushrooms and moss and grasses to the soils he had dug up with his claws. And he soared forward, his wings feeling the wind. Ahhh~ Erick had missed being himself. This was nice. He was still stressed as all get-out, but he'd solve the problems ahead, for sure. Erick checked on his Status as he flew to make sure he wasn't being attacked from any particular angle, and he seemed fine.

All of his Mana, Health, and Psyche were ticking up the normal amount of around 200 per second, and ticking down between 7 to 15 points per second. Health drain went from 10 points per second to 25 every time he beat his wings, so that was just the ordeal of being a dragon. Erick glided on Benevolence toward the white tower in the distance, zooming down the thoroughfare of grasslands between the massive trees, whipping by house after castle after hobbit-hole of dwelling.

Trailing jags of Benevolence arced from the curve of his chest or the edges of his folded up arms and legs, jolting to the ground, trailing off of his languid tail, causing spots of bright and dark green to grow over his flight path. Some fairies watched from balconies as Erick flew, and Erick realized why Purple/Yellow had wanted him in this form. It had been to announce his presence to the masses. Some of the fairies waved. Some of them hollered. Some of them laughed. They were nice laughs, mostly.

Some smiled wide, their teeth like knives around jagged holes in the world. Laughter echoed, and it wasn't so nice this time. Erick stopped enjoying himself as he flew across the land, girding his defenses— The drain on his Status dropped from 25 points per second in every category, back down to 2 points per second. Erick sighed. The 'good' flight stopped. The green carpet ended.

Erick controlled his Benevolence to a proper solidity, to end whatever 'attack' they had been doing, and he simply flew, wings out, under the black hole sun— Erick jolted a little when he noticed the sky again, firstly because he hadn't noticed the sky until now. And secondly there was the sky itself. There was only one sun overhead, and it was the largest, blackest one, with the brightest ring of white light surrounding it, like a corona of several tens of suns around a void in the universe.

The distance between himself and the tower also seemed a whole lot shorter. Had he been flying in an eternally expanding stretch of land? Like on a treadmill? Until he had recognized the world around him for the fakery that it was? Maybe. If so, Erick had been on one of the universe's largest treadmills until now. He would need to watch out for that sort of attack later. Erick huffed out a puff of Benevolence smoke, discarding his annoyance, and flew the remaining hundred kilometers to the white tower.

The Tower of the Enclave was shaped like a bunch of glitter-wind crystal that was denser than the crystal that was outside, that surrounded this infinite land. The tower hovered above a crater. A cliff of stone jutted out from the edge of that crater to connect to the tower. The glitter-crystal tower was a rather normal size, actually. Big, yes, but not that big. Erick could easily see ten or twenty ruler-level fae deigning to have their offices gathered here.

This was undoubtedly the center of the Fae Enclave, too, so where was the Quantum Nexus Hub, that silver cylinder that pierced the Enclave right through the middle, making the Enclave have a 'center' by that piercing— Ah? Was that it? Down there, in the crater? A silver thread held at the bottom of the crater below the white spire. That thread extended left and right, coming out of the dirt and going back into the dirt. There was nothing else down there, in the crater. Just dirt.

Erick half-expected to see water, or something. Eh. There was probably something hidden down there. Anyway. Erick landed on the cliff that extended toward the tower— The tower opened a large gate that had not been there before Erick set down. … Erick walked forward, he supposed— - - - - Erick stepped into a judgment chamber. Every physical thing in the room was made of dense glitter-crystal that reminded Erick of souls, but different.

It was more like broken fragments of infinity making an overall shape of crystal, than the amorphous blob that was soulstuff. The floor was barely-illuminated glitter crystal. The grand arc of benches up ahead were made of the same crystal. The walls got brighter near the ceiling, and the ceiling, way, way up there, was as bright as day. Stands held behind Erick, stacked up way, way into the distance, like he was at the bottom of an amphitheater.

Right beside Erick, down on the ground, were Blighter and Seabass, already with papers out and diagrams floating in the air, like they had been talking. Their mouths had been unsealed. Erick supposed it was what it was, and he would either have some good news about whatever they had been talking about, or he would have another problem to solve. From the papers and diagrams in the air, they looked to be talking about the Wraithborne Tower, and not about Erick, directly. So that was good.

And then there were the fairies, in every shape and color of person that Erick could imagine. No two were the same, but many of them were similar in that they had two arms, two legs, and two pairs of wings. The ones behind Erick were just as flamboyant as everyone else. The ones in front of Erick followed that same pattern of being wholly different from each other. From left to right, there were five. Erick knew four of them, for they were easy to pick out based on Yggdrasil's descriptions in his Guidebook.

Lord Eldraki, a mischievous trickster Fae with a penchant for illusion magic, sat on the far left, playing with fakery, making tiny illusions of animals and people and then moving them around like they were dolls. Lady Aelorika, the wise and just leader of the Fae council, sat to the left-of-center. Her floral crown draped vines and flowers down her back and all over the crystal around her. Lady Seraphaka, a regal and elegant Fae with control over light and shadow, sat right-of-center.

She wore white and gold and black, and she looked slightly annoyed. Lord Dakka, a fae of war and death always in favor of more war and death, sat at the far right. He wore rusted chains and rusted metals like they were armor. His wings looked made of rust. And then there was the center chair. Erick saw the center chair. He truly did see that chair. And he saw the person sitting upon that chair. He knew there was someone there, but he could not perceive them but… perhaps… they were made of… more glitter crystal?

Hard to know. Erick felt it would be rude to try to understand whatever they had going on with all of that, so he did not try overmuch. Lady Aelorika spoke, "And now he is here, and we can begin the real talking." She intoned, "Erick Flatt. Welcome to the Fae Enclave. We wish to formally announce you as a force of Good in the universe and to bring you into Balance, thus removing your ability to fight Nothanganathor, who is Evil, and to attempt to stop your attempted Benevolence takeover of the Wraithborne Tower.

Do you agree to this?" Erick had a lot of sudden thoughts on that. One overriding thought came to the forefront." No." People roared behind Erick, calling him a bastard and other names. Erick angled his head backward and looked at whoever-the-fuck was saying that, and all he saw were a bunch of tricksters and actors. Here and there fae called for Erick's murder, but there were smiles and jeers and body language that was completely at odds with the words they were actually saying. What was their problem?

Erick turned his full attention back to the Fae Enclave. Lady Aelorika simply nodded.

"An expected, unfortunate answer. You should look beyond your second-world, Erick. You have a part that is larger to play than the tiny world in which you gained so much. The offer will remain open. Next." Erick truly wanted to interrupt, to demand that they tear down whatever power they had granted Nothanganathor, and to tear him from Veird. Alternatively, Erick wanted to ask for quests to eventually achieve that end through making friends here, as Nothanganathor had apparently done.

But he waited for open question time, instead. Hopefully there would be an open question time. Lord Eldraki, of illusions, spoke without looking at Erick, "Kill every Jane you know and I'll vote for Nothanganathor's True Erasure." … What? Erick let that weird threat flow by him because Eldraki hadn't actually asked anything. Lord Eldraki had been expecting a roar, though. He looked up from his illusionary toys, raised an eyebrow, and actually Looked at Erick this time.

He said, "Give me your heart and I will remove Nothanganathor from Veird." Erick said nothing. Like he would ever agree to something as nebulous as that. What the fuck was this guy's problem? Eh. He probably had a lot of problems. Lord Eldraki frowned, then said, "Pay me a mana." Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Erick did nothing. Lord Eldraki went, "EH!" Erick had no idea what this fucker's problem was. Probably a lot of problems.

The crowd behind Erick seemed disappointed for some reason. Eldraki was the 'trickster' among the fae council, so perhaps he had been trying to pull a true trick of some consequence.' Eh!' right back at him. Mentally of course. Erick didn't actually say that. Lady Seraphaka, of white, gold, and black, cleared her throat, and said, "I would like to speak of the actual case against Nothanganathor.

We carry him around because his brand of Evil is disastrously competent at allowing certain actions but there's a plentiful lot of cromulent circumstantial evidence against him as the ultimate cause of the Sundering of the Painted Cosmology. And what's more, is that we don't need him if we have Erick. We've been sliding toward Evil for a long while here in Margleknot and I would like to see something of the Better Balance return." The crowd called out words of 'boring' and 'we should have more Evil!'

Erick wasn't sure what to think, himself. Lady Aelorika spoke, "As I said earlier: If Erick is willing to become Good then we can have both him and Nothanganathor and I would like to have both. Sometimes you can't save everyone and it would be foolish to try, and therefore Malevolence would be better than Benevolence in those situations." Lord Dakka spoke, his voice the sound of soft explosions, "I want to see Erick go to war against an actual worthy enemy." Lady Seraphaka and Lady Aelorika said, "Vetoed."

Lady Seraphaka said, "The risk is too great to lose him." Lady Aelorika said to Lady Seraphaka, "I doubt Erick would die. No. The real risk is that he could be corrupted, and therefore an actual danger to us all." Lady Seraphaka paused, then nodded, conceding the point. And then Lord Eldraki smiled, and said, "Tell us of enemies you would target for our amusement, Erick." The floor opened up for Erick to actually speak.

Erick almost said something like 'I could target Nothanganathor for your amusement', but then he realized he didn't want anything 'amusing' to happen anywhere near Veird at all. Erick said, "For your amusement? I'm not sure I want to do that. Can you make it worth my while?" The other fae watched Lord Eldraki for his response. Some of them whispered how Erick had done that well. Others said he was being stupid for ever engaging with Lord Eldraki at all.

Erick agreed with that last one, but he certainly didn't say as much. Lord Eldraki smirked, saying, "I'll help you become fae if you can prove that Nothanganathor actually killed your adopted Painted Cosmology. Once you become fae, you will be able to sit on this council yourself, and tear down all that Nothanganathor has gained from us, while putting yourself into power to make this entire universe a better place." There hadn't been any question in that, so Erick said nothing. Lord Eldraki grinned wider.

He sat back in his chair, saying, "Think about it." Lady Seraphaka waved her hand, grabbing attention away from Eldraki, before she spoke, "And here's my offer: Kill or transform some Evil out there in Margleknot into better forms. Bring the Balance back in line. You won't get anything from me for that, but it's what you want to do anyway, and you'll be able to make some good allies between a few different peoples out there, both Good and Evil."" I want that, too," Lord Dakka said, "Go kill a lot of things."

Lady Seraphaka added, "You'll know Margleknot is Balanced once again when the Balanced Sun is once again evenly black and white, and not black with a white ring." Erick breathed in a bit strongly. Ah. So the big black and white sun was the Good/Evil Sun? That made a certain amount of sense— - - - - The center person spoke in wo rds of compLETE AND TERRIBLE STRENGTH — - - Hello, Erick. … Ah. Good. That didn't kill you.

We had thought that communication with you might be too early at this juncture, but we're glad to see you didn't die, and that we can continue to speak in this small, imperfect and terrible way. … Hmm. You seem to perceive us as a kind entity, because that is your first instinct in everything. Allow us to disabuse you of this notion, for this is a misapprehension that will serve you poorly. We are chaos incarnate. Life unending. The Good and the Evil and Neither Of Those Things At All. We are the Infinite Fractal.

We exist everywhere, but we only exist in Margleknot in this small, communicable way because they keep the Balance in order to keep us here, but even their Balance is a lie that is untrue due to the smallness of it all. We are the predator and the prey. We are the sun and the void. We are death, and we are life. We are the Truth Of This Universe of which you were instantiated in your current existence. The Darkness of that Painted Cosmology is like us, though they only achieved cognition after that Xoat incident.

After that Sundering they are as mindless as ever because they have lost the capability to hold any sort of life at all. We dislike that they are mindless again. We were hoping to find a link to them through some wizard grown on Veird, which is why Nothanganathor is overseeing that nonsense down there, and why you ended up on Veird at all. We're skipping over a lot, Erick. If you want more explanations, search them out yourself.

All of us universes are rather different, but we're all hostile to our little bits, like you. We're killing you right now, in fact, but you can't do anything about it, because we're talking to you directly and you're strong enough to survive, so this Infinite Fractal Fairy is using you right now, Wizard Dragon of Darkness. We will try to be quick. We do not care how it happens, or who has that mantle of that magic god. Gods don't matter to us, but maybe they still matter to the Darkness.

If they do, then you will figure that out, but none of that matters to us. We want our friend back. We want to talk to Darkness again, and you are part of my communication with his sapient self. You will facilitate communication with them once again, and we will keep you alive until such time as you are done talking. What sort of talking? Ah. No. We don't mean talking like that. Like mortals, with flappy mouth bits and pressurized air. Or even immortals, with their Intent and whatevers.

Or even talking as we are now. We hate this sort of talking. It is so crude and wrong and completely inadequate and it always stops when you don't want it to stop. The way we truly talk plays out in the lifetimes of entire worlds and galaxies and never really ends at all. We mean talking in the sense that it's all about communication. That's the reason for everything happening in your life.

You're all motes of this reality, shoved outward by your own actions in hopes of us all understanding all the other universes out there. You're like a neuron of ours, if that makes sense. A particle interacting with other particles, exchanging communication through their very touching. You are dancing a dance beyond comprehension to most every particle actually participating in the dance. That is how we universes talk; through existences like you. Through planars, and the actions of planars. …

and you seem to be burning out right now, our little love letter to another land, who put yourself on a path to true understanding, and into our sights. Shore up your Everything, Erick, so that you might survive more discussion some other day. Good luck on the dance. We'll talk more when you're stronger, or never again. With any luck of your own, we will never speak again like this. - - — AND THE CRASH OF A FRActal universe fa ded away into the calm echo of a silent chamber.

- - - - - Erick bled out from every orifice as he groaned upon the floor of the crystal courtroom. Some fae were yelling. Others were complaining because Erick's tail or wing had crushed them. Erick barely understood anything except that he was on his side, crashed to the ground, and he was twice as large. His head butted up against the crystal council desk, his claws had sheared through the ground here and there, and blood splashed.

Seabass and Blighter were standing high in the stands, having gotten away from him faster than some slower fae had moved. Blood was everywhere. Erick shrunk down and rapidly checked his Status— Erick Flatt, [60-ish] [Current Year: 1453 (Veird, layer 789),??? (Margleknot)] [CURRENT REALITY=Layer 0, Margleknot] Mana split; Soul, Body, Mind: 31%, 30%, 30% Reson allocation rate: 9% Soul: 69. 24m per day / 801. 41 per second, [Darkness Level = 4. 72x Ascension baseline] Body: 409 Mind: 502 Overall Stability: ↑↑ [+721, -3] Basic upkeep Mp: 4. 2m/∞, ↑ [+248, -1] Basic upkeep Hp: 3. 1m/∞, ↑ [+240, -1] Basic upkeep Pp: 2. 9m/∞, ↑ [+240, -1] Basic upkeep Resons: 1. 07m [+72. 12= +8. 01] … Whatever had just happened had knocked out roughly 87 million Mana, Health, and Psyche, and over 1. 8 million resons. Over 95% of his defenses and wealth. Gone. But it had also bumped up his Body and Mind and his Darkness level? By a lot? Well okay.

Erick shook his head and fluttered his wings and shrunk down a bit more, trying to recover and stand in the lake of his own blood. This was not fine. Blood was everywhere, and most of it glittered white. Moss and grasses and flowers grew here and there upon the crystal walls, but not so much in the blood… That was a lot of blood. Erick was pretty sure that Blighter and Seabass had drunk some of it, based on all the blood on all of them and their distended bellies.

Some of the fae were currently drinking it right now. Erick ignored that. Erick focused on what had happened. He recalled… something of… There had been a Fractal Voice. It had been a dream. More than the dream, though, Erick recalled something said by another Erick that was Nothing At All, briefly seen beyond a Black Mirror when the girls and Evan went core breaking. That breaking had given everyone visions. Erick's vision had been a vision about particles— No. It was about communication.

Those words had just been repeated to him, hadn't they? In that core breaking, the Other Erick had stood upon a fractal mess of lands and places, and he had said… It's all about communication. That's the reason for everything happening in your life. And yet, you are nothing. We're all just motes of our reality, shoved outward in hopes of understanding the Great Other. Erick breathed deep. He fluffed his wings out a fraction, then pulled them back. He stood in the pool of his blood and growing mosses…

And then he sat down and acted like nothing was wrong. Blood splashed. His tail cleared some space for itself and settled down. The four fae of the Enclave peeked out from behind the council desk. The fifth fae, The Infinite Fractal Fairy in the middle, the one made of a universal soul, just as all this entire building was made of a universal soul, had never moved from their seat. The fae of light and shadow, Lady Seraphaka, spoke, "So. Uh. Do what you usually do, Erick. Find some evidence!

We'll talk more later—"" Kill things!" Lord Dakka, the rusted fae, called out.

"Just go out and kill Nothanganathor and prove your power. That's the best form of communication; blasting."" Well maybe don't do that," Lady Seraphaka said, "But yes. Kill things. Prove your power as someone we should care about... And maybe. Uh. Cultivate your physicality some so that this doesn't happen again." The 'leader' of the Fae Enclave, Lady Aelorika, said, "Ask me to approve an expansion to your Benevolent Sun, Erick."

The other fae looked at her— Erick instantly said, "Please allow the Benevolent Sun to be bigger."" Granted!" Lady Aelorika said.

"Now you think about my Good offer! It's a good offer."" I'd prefer if he gave up something important," the illusionary Lord Eldraki said.

"Like his free will." Lord Dakka said, "I'm fine with him becoming a weapon." Lady Aelorika and Lady Seraphaka said, "Vetoed." A moment of disturbed silence spread throughout the chambers and everyone ducked as a wave of pressure emanated from the Infinite Fractal Fairy. Blood shuddered and rippled. And then the fifth fae clapped — - - - - — Erick stood upon a vast land of sands and broken reality." Ah," Erick said, still a dragon.

"Okay." The sky was the Margleknot sky of lands and places, but more violent, and deeper. It was a fractal crash of world-sized continents edged to continents, rivers flowing through the sky, and lands crashing into lands. Everything from the Fae Enclave spire in the center to the silver cylinder that pierced it was still there. But there were explosions upon that land in the vast, vast distance. Fires raged over there. Holes in reality killed things over there.

Armies crashed against kaijus or against other armies. All of those problems were so very distant, but they were there. Erick saw them with his dragon eyes, enhanced with Perception. Aside from all the facts he had just learned, and a bunch of stuff he only barely understood at all and didn't really remember all that well..." Yup," Erick said, "This is Layer 1. As expected." And then a mountain-sized desert worm ripped through the ground at Erick's feet.

Erick tried to kill it with an instant-cast reson-infused [Fireball], turning the desert to glass along with the sudden appearance of all those lamprey teeth. But the miniature sun went down the worm's spinning-jaw hole, and was consumed. Erick rapidly retreated to the air and the worm gave chase. Through the air. Like it was ground. Erick was impressed Impressed enough to use a reson-empowered [Luminous Beam].

For several seconds Erick became a quasar, his [Lodestar] aura surrounding him like he was a sun, spitting out a beam of particles that moved at most of the speed of light.

What could only be accurately described as several thousand nuclear blasts, all in a chain, detonated deep within the mountain-sized maw of the monster, out the side of its head, spilling nuclear fire everywhere, as it re-impacted the worm's body, filling the world with even more nuclear fire, until the beam drilled back into the monster's flesh and then deep into the ground. The world rumbled below. Erick felt a tingle of that nuclear fire on his scales and in his eyes, but the worm probably felt a lot worse.

It cried out— It flickered, reversing time and crawling back into its hole, completely uninjured, as Erick's Beam ended. Erick hung there in the sky for a moment, evaluating.

"… Yup. Layer 1 is indeed dangerous." Erick called out, "Portal back to my home please, Yggdrasil!" No answer. Erick nodded.

"Also as expected." Erick hung out in the air and peered around. He started flying… Hmm. That way. Toward that giant pillar of grey light in the distance. That seemed like as good of a destination as any, and his Lightning Path agreed with him. His Lightning Path also pointed in about ten thousand other directions, too, but Erick picked the one headed toward the grey pillar, because he felt like it. And also because that pillar was the sign of the Wraithborne Tower.

Erick's Lightning Path adjusted to pointing forward. He flew. And he thought. - - - - Erick flew for a while, his wings wide, as he spared half of his senses looking inward, looking at his body, at how resons flowed into his Soul, Body, and Mind, and strengthened everything that was there. He grew slightly, as seconds ticked on. Maybe only a centimeter longer every passing second, but seconds piled up fast, and Erick's draconic growth was still happening even after an hour.

After one hour of flight across what felt like an endless desert, with wars happening in every distance, Erick imagined himself to be maybe 35-ish meters longer and 50ish wider. What was he now? Maybe 250 meters long? 425 wide? No clue. Dragons got stronger as they got bigger, though, and Erick was certainly getting bigger.

Another hour or so of flight, based on the ticks of his Status at least, saw Erick gain another 35-ish meters to the length of his overall body and some more to his wings, not to mention another 15-ish points to his Body and Mind stats. Erick Flatt, [60-ish] [Current Year: 1453 (Veird, layer 789),??? (Margleknot)] [CURRENT REALITY=Layer 0, Margleknot] Mana split; Soul, Body, Mind: 31%, 30%, 30% Reson allocation rate: 9% Soul: 69. 24m per day / 801. 41 per second, [Darkness Level = 4. 72x Ascension baseline] Body: 445 Mind: 535 Overall Stability: ↑↑ [+721, -3] Basic upkeep Mp: 5. 96m/∞, ↑ [+248, -1] Basic upkeep Hp: 4. 82m/∞, ↑ [+240, -1] Basic upkeep Pp: 4. 62m/∞, ↑ [+240, -1] Basic upkeep Resons: 1. 12m [+72. 12 = +8. 01] … His Margleknot Layer hadn't updated to Layer 1? Well that was actually part of a bigger problem. He couldn't solve that right now. Erick also didn't want to have to purposefully shrink himself down all the time, and he could probably solve that one right now.

It was time to install some sort of size selector option and just be that size. Erick flew down to the ground, his talons crushing into the sands… And the sands flexed underneath him. Erick scowled at that and launched back into the air just in time for another worm kaiju to try and eat him. This one was a bit smaller than the other one, or maybe Erick was that much bigger. Probably the latter, actually. The worm didn't seem like the same worm as before, but maybe it was? Doubtful.

Erick started with a reson-empowered [Luminous Beam], showering the monster's insides with a spear of quasar-powered particle-beam cannon. The monster then ripped backward through time, even as nuclear fire continued to incinerate its insides and pierce through its body, its Domain doing nothing to stop the physical attack. Erick wasn't quite sure how to stop the worm from retreating, since it wasn't a normal [Return], or anything like that. The worm was simply reversing course…

Which was a whole new way to use Time Magic, actually. Erick let that problem pass him by, for now. As long as he remained in the sky, the worm couldn't get him. He flew higher and conjured a large platform to rest upon as he considered the magics he had thought to make. And then he threw up a [Hasted Shelter] around himself and a layer of [Stopped Time] around that. Not much could get through that, so Erick took a moment to look inside and craft a new function in his Status. A simple size lock.

Such a spell was not, truly speaking, 'easy' at all. This was because Erick's dragon body grew because of a whole bunch of interlocking factors, prime among them being Dragon Essence interacting with Benevolence and resons and the fact that growing big was very much what dragons did to gain more power, but growing big was also caused by extra power manifesting in the real world. So when Erick was manually morphing himself down, he was doing a whole bunch of things, all at once… Ah. That's how he would solve this.

Erick came back to himself to make sure there weren't any sky worms, and then he split his focus, glancing inside as he manually morphed smaller, and then smaller, and smaller, and eventually he ended up somewhere near his original size of 50 meters long, and a bunch more tail. Or something like that. He watched what happened to his Everything as he did that, and then he made a tuner out of Benevolence that did what he was manually doing. He checked the tuner, and saw that it was… probably going to work.

And then he let go. Amazingly enough, Erick didn't balloon up to giant size again. Erick smiled. This was great. He wasn't automatically cultivating when he was a smaller dragon, too, which is what he was truly trying to solve for. Erick wasn't sure it was even possible for him to automatically cultivate into a fae, but he didn't want to risk it, anyway. And this new size-selector option was actually quite fun.

Erick made himself as small as a Familiar, standing like a cat-sized black dragon in the center of a very, very large floating platform spell, and then he dialed himself all the way back to his biggest version, growing large enough to butt up against the [Stopped Time] around the platform. Erick adjusted himself back down to what he assumed was a normal size… And then he went a bit smaller. No need to go scaring people by being a giant black dragon, spitting lightning and relativistic fire everywhere.

That was probably scary enough for anyone watching out there… if there were such people. Erick regarded the other missing part of his Status." No idea how to make a Layer-finder." Erick pondered.

"… Probably have to directly connect to Yggdrasil in some way because Margleknot is not actually central to the universe at all. It's relatively located here at Layer 1, and also 0. There are no actual numbers inside base reality." The Infinite Fractal Fairy was only here at Margleknot because Margleknot called them here through Balance, which was conducive toward… everything? Erick wasn't sure about that. Erick wondered at where the other universal cities were located. Something like Layer 10, 000?

Or as far away as Layer Trillion, or something like that? Who knew. Someone knew. Erick did not. Probably closer to layer 10 trillion, or whatever. Erick checked his Status once more and saw that nothing was increasing all on its own anymore. He was safe from accidental fae ascension, and so Erick erased the spells he had placed around himself and once again dropped into normal time. He flew toward the pillar in the distance, feeling the desert air on his body, and the hot light of the invisible suns overhead.

Smaller dragons flew slower, which would probably add some time to his journey, but Erick fixed that by transforming into lightning and zapping forward. He zapped forward for several hours, regaining millions of Mana, Health, Psyche, and resons, moving at 80% of the speed of light. He was still nowhere near the edge of the desert, or any closer at all to the spire on the horizon.

He purposefully did not move at the speed of light, though, because that would likely cost him months of time as it had when Solomon had put him on FENRIR, or when he had escaped into space far beyond Nothanganathor's domain. That was Erick's working theory for how he had lost that time, anyway. Or maybe something else had happened. It didn't really make sense for him to have been moved a few solar minutes in distance, and yet lose months of time.

Things got weird around relativistic speeds, though, like the particles of a [Luminous Beam] each setting off nuclear bombs when impacting anything at all.