Arthur would have loved to see the rest of the battle unfold. He was sure Alyssia was about to deliver a performance for the ages. Unfortunately, he had more pressing matters to worry about. Namely, the fact that reality itself was breaking down around him.

  Besides his class pinnacle skill, The Homunculus Hunts, Arthur only had one more ability that interacted with auras, the unique rare-ranked skill he'd created under Alyssia's tutelage in the Locus of Power. WhatAmIEvenDoing had sadly seen very little use since its creation; his last attempt to use it in conjunction with his domain skill against Wovan had shown him that the skills weren't compatible. No matter what he'd tried before, Arthur hadn't been able to condense his aura below its stated one-kilometre mark. That would change today.

  It stood to reason that if he could extend it, the reverse should also hold true.

  This guy again. Why's he so nosy? Every bounty hunter in the area seemed to have received the same message as they all looked at each other uneasily. Unfortunately, greed overcame their caution and they continued to battle Alyssia. It seemed that alien sapient-kind wasn't so different to humanity in that regard.

  Arthur turned his attention back to the task at hand. The ritual was still going strong, and thankfully, the ether density didn't rise any further. Arthur marshalled his domain. He focused on the parts of the skill that had allowed him to expand his domain, memorised their winding paths, their positions relative to the rest of the skill matrix. Arthur began to condense his aura. From two points three kilometres down to two. From two to one and a half. The density of his aura rapidly increased and so did the difficulty of condensing it. By the time he’d squashed it down to its usual kilometre size, Arthur was sweating buckets. This was where he’d gotten stuck last time against Wovan.

  Either he pushed through now or he could kiss his chances of ever seeing her monstrous form again goodbye. Arthur focused on the part of the matrix he’d identified as responsible for the change in his aura's size. The circuitry here had become thicker to maintain the increase in his aura and now they’d returned to normal. I just need to do the opposite.

  WhatAmIEvenDoing was a unique skill that didn’t run on ether. He still didn’t know what it ran on, only that it drained him mentally to use it. The last time he’d tried to adjust the skill's size, he’d focussed on his domain. Now he turned his attention to the skill's matrix. Using his unique general skill, Arthur pushed down on the circuitry he’d identified, trying his best to equally distribute force and squeeze it down. Immediately, Arthur was wracked by a terrible pain in his chest. This was clearly not the right way to do things, but Arthur knew he was on the right track. It would hurt like hell, but Arthur knew he had the health to survive the repercussions.

  No shit, Sherlock. I think I figured that one out already. Still, the System was being very vocal with its warnings today. Almost like it was panicking. Was Razaloth truly so frightening? Arthur hoped not, because he was about to bring himself into direct confrontation with the dimensional predator very soon. Blood began to drip from his nose and Arthur saw that his health had dropped by seven thousand points, an alarming but manageable loss.

  More importantly, his domain began to shrink. Artrhur's head was throbbing with pain, the veins at his temples looked like they were seconds from bursting. What he was doing was crazy. A person's skills existed within the inner cores of their souls, he wouldn’t be wrong in saying it was a literal part of it. And here he was trying to squeeze an upper Legendary one into shape.

  Arthur suspected anyone less durable than him would instantly drop dead on the spot. Arthur endured. His domain began to shrink. 800 metres. 500 metres. 300 metres. 250 metres. 200. 190. 180. Arthur’s ears burst, spraying blood down the side of his face. Finally, he had it down to 150 metres. The entirety of the space that was being affected by his ritual. Arthur grinned, his smile bloody. This was the strongest his aura had ever been. He could probably kill anyone below level 50 with the pressure of it alone. This cottage was his domain. His territory. He owned this space. It belonged to him and he’d be damned if he let a little something like a dimensional collapse steal it from him.

  Arthur pushed his domain deeper into reality, marking every object he could sense: the bricks that made up his cottage, the wooden laminate, the carpets, the curtains, the glass, the very gases that made the unique makeup of the air in his home. He pushed even further until he finally felt it. His domain was brushing up against the fracturing dimension, reality itself. This was the moment of truth. Would his insane plan work?

  Arthur drove his domain into the cracks of the breaking dimension. There was a moment of resistance, an eternal second where Arthur thought he'd failed, but then he was through. The pressure on his body instantly ramped up and he felt himself lose vision in his left eye as the organ began to liquify in his skull and drip down his cheeks. It was a pain unlike anything he’d ever felt before but it was like Arthur had detached from his physical form, like the pain was being experienced by someone else.

  Brushing up against the fracturing dimensional membrane was a strange experience, to say the least. It was wrong, unnatural, he felt like a raft adrift at sea; the defining traits that made him who he was becoming impermanent things before merging with the failing dimensional membrane, almost like he was becoming one with reality. He could feel things more intimately, sense exactly how much more punishment the dimensional fabric could take before it would fail catastrophically. He could also feel Razaloth Ornaklon’s gaze fall upon him.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  It told him two things: first, the System had every right to be terrified, and second, the dimensional predator was easily the strongest being he’d ever faced. Calling it a being was doing it a disservice. The entity was what Arthur imagined a black hole would feel like if given a consciousness, infinitely large and eternally hungry.

  It was so powerful that a mere sliver of its attention held a palpable weight, a creature that existed between the cracks of reality, banished from the rest of creation. What would a core from such a monster taste like? Would it even have a core? Arthur was almost salivating at the thought. A particularly large gash in the dimensional membrane opening up right over his forearm quickly pulled him out of his thoughts. The unstable space healed almost instantly, but it left a deep cut on his arm almost an inch wide. It was the most severe injury he'd suffered post-refinement from an external source and all it had taken was a collapsing dimension for him to experience it.

  It sounds crazy when I think of it like that. Are all dimensional predators as strong as Razaloth Ornaklon? Now that he was connected with the dimensional membrane, he could sense it—the damage being done here was equal parts caused by the incredibly dense ether in his basement and the mere attention of a supremely powerful being on the other side. Was that what a tier-five being felt like? Arthur wasn't sure, but he did know that the planet itself would be in jeopardy if things escalated.

  He wasn't worried about actually facing the monster, there was no way Razaloth could actually come through the breach to Earth, he was far too large and far too powerful for the planet to sustain him or even this dimension for that matter. The ritual was still going strong but it was only a matter of time before a dimensional tear would irreparably damage his runic script. The ritual exerted a slight stabilising influence on the space around it—it was the only reason it was still going strong—but his luck was bound to run out soon.

  Wovan, you've got to be the best godamn spider the world will ever see, Arthur cursed even as he felt his bones creak ominously. It was only going to get worse from here. Arthur's domain and the dimensional fabric had perfectly mixed. He could hardly tell where one ended and the other began. The tier 1 zone was too weak to survive the rigours of his ritual magic. Arthur, however, was made of sterner stuff, a bonafide Superior Lifeform. He clenched his teeth hard enough to make his gums bleed. Pushing his aura beyond his limits, Arthur did what he'd only done once before. He made it a physical force.

  He froze the very fabric of fracturing reality in place.

  Two things happened at once. The dimensional membrane halted from degrading further and the powerful forces that had formerly been acting upon it now targeted Arthur's body instead. He had over 2,500 Draconic Vitality. He was the most durable creature on the planet, in the stellar system and probably beyond. Now he had to endure the power of a collapsing dimension and the gaze of a being who could destroy the very planet he stood upon.

  His left leg disintegrated instantly; one second it was there and the next it was ash. Arthur's breath seized and for an external moment, he was possessed by the mortal need to simply breathe, before he coughed up a mouthful of blood.

  This bastard has never been so talkative, Arthur cursed. All it had taken was a world-ending catastrophe to loosen the System's lips. The room's temperature had finally stopped rising, thankfully, though that hardly mattered when it was already nearing 200°C. The sweat pouring from him wasn't caused by the extreme heat, however; it was a defence mechanism produced in response to the extreme duress his body was under. Fortunately, no more limbs were lost to disintegration, though his flesh was covered in deep lacerations and he was certain he'd broken a few ribs.

  Was this how Atlas felt holding up the sky?

  With the dimension stabilising, the dimensional membrane started to recover, though not fast enough for Arthur's taste. As if sensing his escaping prey, Razaloth began to draw closer to the impending dimensional breach. The force Arthur's body was withstanding immediately went up by an order of magnitude and his working eye burst explosively. He was blind now, sensing the world only through his aura.

  Arthur immediately cast Augmented Recovery on himself, boosting his natural health regeneration by 2,000% for the next ten minutes. He then cast the shell version of Reflective Shield on himself. Since the body and aura were mirrors of each other, he hoped the skill's defensive properties applied to his aura too.

  That was when Razaloth arrived. Arthur had no idea what the creature did- if it attacked him at all, or merely glared at him- but his body crumpled. It was like he was a polystyrene cup taken thousands of metres deep into the ocean, his chest caved inwards, his arms snapped like twigs and his skull fractured. For a brief moment, Arthur wondered if this was it, the moment he finally kicked the bucket.

  Three seconds later, Arthur's augmented regeneration kicked in and he felt himself coming back together. The dimension was fully recovered and he'd survived. A System notification was buzzing for his attention, but he ignored it as he waited for his eyes to heal. A minute later, Arthur opened his eyes and rubbed the caked blood out of them. The first notification to greet him was both a pleasant and unpleasant surprise.

  That was welcome but worrying.

  And finally, what he'd been waiting for.

  It's about bloody time.

  Etherious: Originator

  Etherious: The Locus of Power has gone live. As a self published author doing everything myself, my novels success lies entirely on my shoulders. As such, the first day of a books launch is by far the most important time that determines how well my book will do.

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