All that was left on Earth was to create the "Land Between"s in Agartha and set up a deal where all Elites struggling to contain their affinities would be allowed to use them, that way there wouldn't be people going mad from their affinities anymore.

Alternatively, such as with the Void users he'd created, they could travel to neighboring dimensions and potentially adjust to those laws of physics to let their mana out. Boris seemed to do something along those lines with what he'd said to Jean, something about unfathomable sights or whatever.

If, for example, Minerali was not toxic, it would be a trivial task to go there to expel all the mana in your soul once you figured out how to stop the physics from killing you; that hurdle would, admittedly, be quite something to get over, but it was possible.

Those could wait until after his time in the bubble though. He wasn't sure what kind of spells he would make, but he wanted to use his time well. With hints from both The Champion and Void, he was positive he could finish the spell early and use the rest of his time as training for all the things he really had to do.

Not seeing any reason to delay, he went to The Champion and told him it was time to start, then headed to Minerali

* * *

Standing outside at night, Dei looked up to the sky, watching and waiting for the time dilation to take effect. Perumah had decided to spend the couple days he'd be in here with his family instead because, in her words, "It is a desert and I will be sitting around for six months. I would rather spend two more days getting lessons on etiquette."

The Champion said it would consume the stars across the entire universe to power itself, and he kind of wanted to see one wink out.

True, the light would take years to reach this planet, but Dei had a thought: if it was consuming a star for power, wouldn't it take everything about it? Including all the light it produced? Which meant it would disappear from Minerali's night sky at the same time.

He had no way to verify his theory, he was just hoping to see it happen.

The moment The Champion did whatever was necessary to kick off the process, Dei felt it. A chilling sensation, deep in his bones, told him that this universe was dying. In his periphery, he saw a force at the edge of the universe encroach inwards, grabbing at all life-giving light and snuffing it out.

As quickly as the vision arrived, it was gone, and a shiver went down Dei's spine. He'd intended to have a brief conversation with Jacob before attempting anything, but he suddenly felt anxious to start.

He flew towards the north pole, finding the seam and looking through, but not entering.

As expected, off in the distance, he could see the different planets, one of which was Earth. He'd briefly scouted out the other two planets, both called Avium, and decided which was better based on its compatibility to Earth physics. The one chosen was similar to Earth physics-wise, but they were capable of channeling their magic into rituals that would consume it and cause it to dissipate. With this, they never suffered from overload at all, and Dei was sure Earth would appreciate such a technique, even if it was not usable on Earth itself.

Despite both Earth and the chosen-Avium looking like they were close to each other, Dei knew it was an optical illusion of sorts. If he approached one or the other, new planets would be shown in the mirror-maze that was the raw fabric of reality.

Using his karmic connection to both Earth and Avium, he reached out and began trying to shrink the connection between them and Minerali.

* * *

After a solid day or so of trying, Dei had to give up and realize he was going about this wrong. They could be drawn closer, but it was an effort and a half, with the end result looking "Not good enough."

It was exponentially harder to shrink the distance between them as time went on, meaning he'd never be able to reach that final goal.

He went with another analogy, the hinge one that The Champion had used. With Minerali as the fulcrum, he tried pressing the two worlds closer to one another.

It was gruelingly difficult, but it worked. Something within him felt that the universe began to compress, and distance became wonky. Outside of that, though, the white void responded as well.

The Champion had called this dimension the "Raw fabric," and it was how Dei traveled from one to another. Normally, distance was an illusion that didn't exist. To travel from one world to another, you needed something to manipulate that space, such as his Void affinity.

When he did that, though, he changed himself, not the fabric. What he was doing now? It sent ripples, shaking everything that held the physical world together.

Behind it, Dei saw the inner workings. Underneath the physical reality, he saw a beautiful, familiar clockwork. He saw it now, the Fabric affinity, one set above the Cosmic affinity.

Then, even deeper, he saw the one above that- Reality. There was no reality affinity, this he knew. Above Fabric was Manipulation, something he knew was the top, meaning he was almost at the most basic of concepts.

But below the raw fabric he did not see Manipulation, he saw the Realm of Reality. He'd finally located it, as well as a path for him to break into it, should he so desire.

Without the shielding of a spell though, the knowledge weighed on him heavily, and he struggled to understand just what he was seeing.

A large portion of his mind shut down.

* * *

Dei decided to take a break and let Divine Balance build up a resistance to… aneurysms? Whatever he'd done with the fabric had allowed him to look beyond it, if just barely, and it dealt significant damage.

Everything in him wanted to let the information slide off, and Dei was pretty sure it was supposed to, but the chaos portion of Overmind was strong enough to hold some crazy stuff. If his mind were any weaker, and glimpsing past the fabric would simply lead to his death, Dei was sure his it would just give up and let it all pass by without pondering on it too hard. Right now though? He wanted to let it do its thing, because he smelled another Achievement

Either way, Divine Balance would need prep time. One of his evolutions gave it the ability to adjust to things predictively, even if it was slower than normal.

During the time away from the fabric, he went to visit Jacob and Thadria.

* * *

Walking in, he found them chatting away happily once more at her table. Dei felt no intrusion into his mind, meaning that her Madness had further abated.

When Jacob noticed him, he waved at Dei, and Thadria turned to face him as well, looking a bit unfocused.

"He's the one with white hair and skin, one red eye the other pink. His name is Dei, and he is real," Jacob informed her without missing a beat, nor letting his smile slip. He didn't seem to mind her mental state all that much.

Thadria narrowed her eyes at Dei, asking "Are you sure?"

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"Positive."

"Okay…" she accepted quietly.

"You know, I am curious about how you're unaffected," Dei said to Jacob, slowly drawing closer to them. "Not even I am, and I have some insane defenses and Rights."

Jacob just shrugged, "Maybe something with Earth? I don't know if you ever realized, but people who aren't Elites would reject mana pretty hard. It's one of the reasons why those on death row were never used as mana dumps before they died."

Dei shook his head, "That can't be right. If it was a physics thing, you'd be ripped to shreds by now. I felt it when I entered Minerali for the first time, which begs the question of how you're here at all. How does Minerali not kill you? You seem utterly unbothered by… everything. Physics, toxic titan mana, madness domains, nothing's even leaving a mark."

Jacob rubbed the scruff on his chin for a while, thinking about Dei's words before asking "Any idea why?"

"I was hoping you'd help me out. After you disappeared from Earth, I couldn't even find you through karma. Would it be possible to get the full story out of you?"

Jacob shrugged, "Sure, pull up a chair cause it might be a bit long."

* * *

It took a while, true, but that was mostly because Dei tried getting Jacob to describe what he saw once he passed through the white portal in the sun. it seemed there were some natural defenses there, that would normally vaporize someone, but Jacob's karmic curse acted, and he was taken through the only possible path where he lived.

Thinking about it, "Karmic curse" wasn't really accurate anymore. It was more of a "Karmic blessing." The original Karma user must've seen everything that Jacob did for both Earth and Caps, and hated the original ending- the one where he died.

Instead, the Karmic user glimpsed into the future, and locked in some sort of infinitesimally unlikely scenario where Jacob survived past everything, no matter where he ended up after.

It was endearing, knowing that someone who was on the brink of madness saw all the visions and wanted nothing more than for a good person to survive. Dei would have to tell The Church of The Champion about this, because they would surely reward the Karma Elite for their generosity.

That also brought his attention back to the karmic bridge within him, woven from his lines of Meditation. When he was curing the Elite, the Karma mana wanted to do some stuff with Meditation, and he'd let it. Now, there was a powerful path off to somewhere else, but it'd been completely dormant since that day. He used to be uncomfortable with it, but if it was made with the best intentions in mind from both the Elite and his Meditation, it couldn't be anything bad.

"Any idea why I'm now immortal?" Jacob asked, referencing his body getting destroyed repeatedly and regenerating just as fast.

Dei rubbed his chin, "If you were an Elite or had any affinity, I'd say it was a spell. Barring that, you must have earned some absurd Achievements from your time in the sun, which I can understand. You did something utterly impossible, and went somewhere you were never supposed to The Champion himself told me I'd be vaporized if I approached the sun, and I can see now why he said that. I don't think I'd be able to do what you just did. Not only that, but the Realm you visited after entering the portal in the sun is far different from the raw fabric that I see. My best guess? It's some kind of administrative Realm that The Champion uses to manipulate everything about the Physical Realm, with maybe some controls built into the sun itself. I'm just wondering where the Titans slot in…"

Jacob shrugged, and Thadria still just looked at Dei suspiciously. Throughout their conversation, she'd slowly scooted her chair closer to Jacob, and he held her hand under the table.

'Cute.'

"Would you mind if I scan you to see what sort of Achievements mark your soul?" Dei asked, and Thadria tensed.

"I don't know…" Jacob said hesitantly.

"You don't have to," Dei assured, "But my Identify is very easy to resist. It asks permission for every single thing it wants to look at, and it won't scan a single thing more. There was an Elite, Loretta, who consented to it looking into Earth's language, and that's the only thing it sent to me in information."

"Maybe… Can I see what it feels like first?"

"Of course. Here, let me just send a mental handshake over…"

It reached out to Jacob and… missed.

"Hm?" Dei wondered aloud, trying again.

No matter what he did though, it was like Jacob just wasn't there when it came to magic. There wasn't even a Jacob-shaped hole where he was supposed to be, he just didn't really exist.

"Anything wrong?" Jacob asked a little nervously, and Dei shook his head.

"No, but I think I understand now why you're unbothered by everything. My magic just… doesn't process that you exist. I can't touch you with any spells."

"So it is something to do with Earth's non-Elite" Jacob said smugly about being right, and he could only laugh.

"Maybe it's closer to the truth than I gave it credit for at first," he concedes, "But that can't be all. There's definitely some magical fuckery going on."

"Eh, I can figure that much. I haven't had to eat, use the bathroom or even breathe since I got here. Speaking of, any timeline on when we're going home?"

Dei noted that he said "We" and not "I."

"Maybe… but I don't think Earth is for you anymore. You're too integrated with the elves now, and I think you should stay with Thadria, wherever she ends up."

"Uh? Elves?" he asked, but also clearly did not want to be rude and say 'Thadria is the ONLY elf.'

"Yes, about that… Buckle up, because there's a lot more 'survivors' than it seems."

* * *

By the time he was done, Thadria went through every range of emotion, but Jacob was only excited.

"That's amazing!" he said, not yet noticing the war going on with her.

"I'd say so, yes. The process will be done in six months at the latest, sooner if I can manage it, then we'll set out and find a new homeland for the remaining elves after giving them some bodies."

"How…?" Thadria asked, "It can't be real… that would mean anyone whose soul continues to serve can be… resurrected?"

"Yes," Dei assured.

"That would include five of the generals, most of the queens, and even the eighth king!"

Dei nodded, but he wasn't sure she was really asking anymore.

She turned to Jacob with tears in her eyes, "Are you sure? Is this real? Am I mad again?"

"No," he said, holding her hands tightly, "It's true, all of them can be resurrected."

She started crying into his shoulder again, and he quickly excused himself, mumbling something about "getting back to work," before leaving.

He really had to get better at comforting people… but maybe not Thadria. She looked like she would take off his hand if he gave her a pat on the shoulder.

* * *

He breathed deeply, wishing that the air here was as crisp as it was back on Earth. Instead, it was stale, dusty, and toxic.

'Eh,' he shrugged, and opened the portal again, shaking the fabric, and getting a good look at the Realm of Reality.

Each time he did, it took him hours to recover, but the way it all clicked together was imperative for his study. He had every intention to create a System-like construct so he could look at his Interface, even when he wasn't in System space, but he was still missing something. Something with the Realm of Reality spoke to him about what the final piece may be, but didn't lose sight of the goal.

Creating an Interface wasn't required, but helpful. His main focus still sat with completing the job, pulling everything closer together, crushing it all down.

* * *

Despite The Champion's words, it didn't take him six months to figure out. Merely five weeks into the dilation, he was close to the answer, and now simply observing what the process meant.

It was bringing the dimension closer to raw nature, removing what it meant to exist as a dimension. If it was infinitely small, with everything infinitely close or merged together, everything in the reality would join concepts and return to the primordial soup it was supposed to be, which would then be snuffed out by the multiverse, which supposedly did not like chaos existing all that much.

It was like taking a billion tonnes of dynamite, crushing it down into a single point to create the most dangerous bomb to ever exist, then having some higher power treat you like a toddler holding a knife, removing it from your hands before you can hurt anyone with it.

He'd only seen it on a micro-scale, but it felt like such a waste! To have all that potential just be destroyed?!

He could do better.

That was why, with his rapid pace, he decided to change things up a bit. True, he could delete the universe right around now and finalize his spell…

Orrrr…

He could live up to his Class' namesake! He was a Slaughterer of the Sundered Realm! He was "the screams that echo across fractured timelines, the blade that sunders the seams of creation," as his Class described him.

He was drawing the entire universe closer to him, but it kept snapping back into place when he let go. With each try, he got better, but did he not have something that was supposed to apply to every possible situation? A beautiful spell called Connection?

The next time he compressed the universe down, he would reach out in all directions with his tendrils and take hold of the universal material. He didn't expect it to be easy, but if he succeeded?

Who knew what would happen!?

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