Chapter 203: Golden Tether.

"They are coming because of you." Sol repeated Ikaris's words. "But they're all dying by my hand, I don't want a single one of you to lift a finger this time... It doesn't matter what happens, you stay out of sight and by Ikaris's side no matter what you see hear or feel." He ground his teeth holding Dina's head against himself while she slowly calmed down.

"Alpha."

"At your service." She appeared without a moment's hesitance kneeling next to him.

"I'm going to use the old version with full point and reward measures, make it so."

"Master that would mean that earth-"

"Earth will cease to exist if I can't protect it, from Lumi's words I'm assuming the worst outcome is the complete destruction of everything we know and have ever beheld, I don't care about something as trivial and insignificant as a few humans gaining powers at a time like this."

"If anything, I should have done so from the start so we could all live more comfortably instead of hiding all the time, let them fight, let them wage their wars, order doesn't mean a thing if there's no world or universe for it to exist in; this is an executive order, give them a power system and keep them distracted, I want to be able to freely roam about, but exempt the point perks to just us, if anyone dangerous emerges you all have my permission to cut them down without mercy, enstate the rules of the wild, that will be your order."

"Sir, that will cause anarchy..." Sara looked at him, watching his sanity slowly deteriorate as his words became less and less coherent from a rasp in the back of his throat. "You do remember who the enemy is, right?" She asked, and Sol let go of Dina and looked to Alpha again.

"Do it now."

"Understood." Alpha closed her eyes and vanished, and a second later a system window appeared before everyone explaining how simple repeated tasks of different types could possibly allow them to gain special abilities that would evolve overtime.

"Sol." Ikaris took his hand. "Calm yourself, do not haste to-"

"I need some time to focus, Ikaris, I need to be aware of the edges of the collective as soon as possible that way I can intercept a breach as soon as it happens, don't worry, within a few hours to sunset today everything will be as it was this morning." He stopped her from dissuading him and looked at Arla. "Get Usami and her family here now and let them know what's happening."

"Understood." Arla stood and looked at Ikaris concerned, gaining a second nod of approval from her as well before she waved her hand and vanished in a flash of crimson light leaving the scorch marks of her teleportation runes in the cracked and half-dismantled floor.

"Are you sure this is what you wish, and it is not being driven by any sense of misplaced urgency?" Ikaris looked at Sol again worriedly and he hummed and gave her a small smile, but in her mind she felt his thethers had snapped and thrust him back on Atla all over again, from the way he spoke to his body language and his nigh nonchalance towards Dina's clear trauma as she sat on the floor looking up at him he reminded her of the version of himself that fought the demon-god.

"There's all the urgency you can imagine, Ikaris, there's a fight coming, enemies we know nothing about, and by the sounds of it there will be less than a handful of us that can stand against them, specifically myself, Dr'ul, Adonai, and possibly S'mael; in the various dimensions across my range only those three are at the peak of power."

"What about -"

"I absolutely will not let you fight in your current state." He looked at her disturbed that she would even think of it. "Ikaris, you're pregnant, think as a mother and not as a hero or warrior, factor everything and everyone else as a second priority, our child comes first; they want her just as much as they want you." He held her shoulders and stared her in her eyes.

"I'll destroy every living being that dares to approach you, even at the cost of my life, understand this and do not dwell on it, you heard her, it is the Godslayer's duty; it is my duty to protect you."

"Love..." Ikaris watched Dina stand on her own and brush her knees off. "I forbid you to die on mine or anyone else's behalf." She glared at him and then softened when he kissed her forehead and joined hers and Dina's hands together. "A life without you is no life at all."

"Let me work." Sol waved his finger slightly and the entire house began rebuilding itself bit by bit causing the neighbours and workers that had tried getting through the rubble to stop and take cover, some running from terror especially after seeing the system window a few minutes earlier. "Make sure everyone else leaves as well."

"Right away." Sara bowed and left before them.

"Now then..." He crackled his fingers and neck-joints as soon as he room was finished renovating and Dina had left with Ikaris.

He vanished in a clap of thunder causing a mess again as books and scrolls were displaced by the gust that exploded in his wake.

He indeed had been going about the collective all wrong, he was scanning individual universe clusters and trying to expand that times infinity, but infinity was a number even he couldn't attain, doing it like that would ensire he never found the edges, so he thought of a simpler way to deal with something that was impossible to catch, and that was to utilise the one power which already existed within him and outside of him in everything and everywhere.

The Beginning.

The vast grey space he teleported to could house anything his imagination could conjure, and as his power itself was nigh limitless in his domain all he needed was the imagination to pull it off and that was as easy as pretending to be a child holding everything in the palm of his hand.

Sol grew, spreading the roots of his power across every galaxy, every universe and every system, simultaneously causing great golden veins to appear across all realities, the reforming Atla, Arkadia, even origin that had gone black suddenly had a flash of gold stretching across its massive expanse as infinity became his reality, he was unsure of how long it was taking but as he grasped complete control over The Beginning his reach halted and he opened his eyes.

"There you are."

With everything now before him Sol visualised the multiverse with his reach tethering it all together, and what he found was a great golden tree with so many veins it looked like cotton, each vein branching into another segway as a new universe was explosively born and each vein glowing when another reality was created.

"You figured it out in one short sitting, I am utterly impressed, Godslayer." Lumi appeared in his peripheral.

"Why are you here?" Sol asked, and she chuckled and moved to his other peripheral staying out of his sight.

"I am interested to see what the Godslayer can accomplish, I am after all only an observer, and advocate of fate." She answered honestly.

"Thus far, I have viewed all you have accomplished and suffered through, and I am indeed a fan of your accomplishments, many others would simply have given up, but whenever you are backed into a corner you lash out at the constructs of reason and reality themselves, an indestructible cockroach." She laughed.

"That's the second time someone's called me that." Sol paid her no heed as the beginning continued to shrink until he was outside of it and standing in a black starless void.

"I mean no ill by it, as I said I am quite the fan." Lumi cooed from one ear to the next.

"As a fan why don't you help your idol out?" He huffed, watching the roots of the beginning sink into his skin collecting his vision back on earth where to his surprise the sun was about to set on his home.

"Fate cannot be tampered with, the will of fate must remain clad and unsullied by personal preference and individual tampering, your failure and success is judged by your own effort."

"Of course you'd say that, you know, if you don't have the will necessary to defy your own fate, then you should never boast power, it can be easily taken from you, strength is only as useful as your willingness to use it the lack of will is the greatest weakness." Sol scoffed and vanished from her sight, leaving her staring out at the great tree he had created to map the progress and expansion of the multiverse. seaʀᴄh thё nôvelFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

"... Weak hm? How long has it been since someone accomplished this, let alone accomplishing it within a few units of time and not agonise over it for billions of years?" Lumi watched Sol reappearing in his study as violently as he'd left.

"Master!" Arla nearly burst down the door as she barged in and grabbed him in a hug, and then after her Ikaris arrived and then Dina, Usami and Sara and then Uriyu poked his head in and slipped through the closing door as well. "You returned."

"You succeed." Ikaris stated, and Sol raised his hand creating a projection of the tree in his palm and giving them all a small smile while she did the same using a system window to show him a large golden vine that appeared across the skies hours ago. "What is it?"

"The Beginning, manifest as a divine tether from one universe to the next, every new branch is recorded."

With the collective now observable at any time I have the means to detect a breach even while I'm asleep." He sighed and closed his eyes taking a deep breath and then smiling for real this time.

"What's for dinner? I smell Sara's cooking."