Pain lanced through Sam's mind as his understanding of his Authority broadened. Whereas before he had control over everything within six miles of himself, now he could sense it all on a fundamental level. It was just as well he had triggered the upgrade in the void of space. Had he done so on Earth, his mind would have been overwhelmed.

Sam could feel every particle within his Authority, every cosmic ray and iota of energy within six miles. He could peer into the hearts of atoms, seeing the subatomic particles dancing around their nuclei. More than that, Sam had a much greater understanding of how his reality warping abilities worked. When he used his Authority to summon a rock in front of him he could feel the raw power of his Dao seep into the fabric of reality, altering the matter there.

The few atoms present served as the core of his control, growing and shifting until they were the right type of atom for what he wanted. Summoning a diamond, Sam watched as the atoms turned into carbon, shifting until they interlocked into a crystalline structure. As he looked at it, Sam could see that the stone, while visually flawless, was far from a real diamond. For lack of a better explanation, the fundamental concept that made a diamond a diamond was only marginally present. The eons of pressure and heat that had forced the gem together had been synthesized blindly by Sam. He wasn't especially knowledgeable about the workings of the inner Earth, beyond a basic level at least. That impacted the workings of his Authority.

Almost afraid to see what sort of monstrosity he would create, Sam summoned a clone of himself. He almost retched as his mind was blasted with pure disgust. The… thing in front of him was a monster. It was completely without any of the core aspects that made him Sam Atlas. Hell, it lacked anything that made it human at all. It was like someone had taken a chunk of raw meat and grown a statue out of it, before animating it with the careless abandon of a novice puppetmaster. The clone was completely without substance, made out of a uniform lattice of carbon atoms and silica, in a combination not unlike clay.

Upon seeing this, Sam sent the clone to the edge of his Authority, a sudden idea coming to his mind. He commanded it to leave the boundaries of his control. As the clone floated away from his Authority, it started to crumble apart into nothingness. There was nothing holding it together anymore. Sam hadn't created life. He had created a model of a man out of clay and called it a human. It was anything but. While many of the mythologies of Earth had begun with the shaping of humanity out of clay, Sam was no god. He was just a man who did not even know himself. How could he hope to forge reality itself when he didn't even know how a human body functioned?

Sam retracted mind, not wanting to look at his Authority anymore. It was quite distracting, even when he wasn't looking at his own artless constructs. He considered the ramifications of his new skill. It seemed that it had let him see into the inner workings of his Authority, showing him everything there was to know about local reality. It did not actually improve his ability to work with it. Sam would need to conduct his own research to do so.

"Sam?" Jeffrey said through their mental link. "There's something you need to see. Come back to Earth as quickly as you can."

The connection was scratchy and warped at the distance Sam was from Earth. He didn't bother responding. Instead he opened a portal to Sanctum. Stepping out in front of the city hall, cast in shadow by the titanic building, Sam froze. A grey skinned man sat on a golden throne in the center of the plaza, one leg draped insouciantly over an armrest. He wore ornate crimson robes. On his chest was a black hole, embroidered in shining purple and black thread.

"Tantalos," Sam ground out. "Why are you here?"

Tantalos laughed, the noise like the tinkling of a bell. "Do I need a reason to check in on my most prized possession? I wanted to see your progress for myself. While I do own this universe, it is hard for even me to pinpoint the exact advancement of an individual."

Sam froze. The reaction did not go unnoticed by Tantalos.

"Worried?" the warlord asked mockingly. "Afraid I will find something distasteful within you? What do you have to hide from me?"

"He has nothing to hide," Jeffrey's voice said from the archway that led into the city hall.

Behind him were Talnor, Edurado, and half a dozen other captains. All of them were wary, some visibly fearful of the C Ranker. While Tantalos was only using an avatar to enter the universe, bound by the initialization rules, he was still its owner. He could manifest a far higher level of power than any other outsider could. Rather than being a peak C Ranker on the verge of B Rank, he was just an average C Ranker. All that meant was that it might take him a small amount of effort to wipe out the Solar System, rather than none at all. Sam also had a suspicion that the alien was purposefully limiting his own power so as to not tear a hole in reality where he sat.

The golden throne glowed faintly, and as Sam used Worldsense to peer into its workings, he watched a blinding current of transcendent light sinking into it from Tantalos, and vanishing from existence. Had it not been there, Earth would have been a cloud of ash floating in the void.

"Go ahead," Tantalos said lightly. "Observe my power. See how much higher it is than your own. But that is not the reason I came here. I wish to judge you, Sam, and judge your faction."

"How?" Sam asked. His voice was a bit too aggressive, and Tantalos' composure darkened slightly. A tiny bit of his aura leaked out. The entire courtyard buckled, stone cracking apart. The city hall shuddered like an earthquake had just hit it, the front wall nearly falling. Everyone except for Sam fell to their knees, and he only managed to to resist by using Dao Juggernaut. The force pressing down on him was the weight of a continent, some ancient, inexorable power beyond his ken.

"I am your lord," Tantalos intoned, his voice both calm and powerful. "Do not presume to speak to me in that manner. We are worlds apart. You will not forget that."

"I apologize," Sam ground out. "What is it that you want to judge?"

As if nothing had happened, Tantalos leaned back slightly, a smile on his face. "Most universes I have consumed are useless. Filled with weaklings. But yours is different. Its power is absurd. Its potential, even more so. There are three beings with C Rank strength within its boundaries. And then, there is you."

"What about me?" Sam asked cautiously. "Is there something you want me to do?"

"I want conflict!" Tantalos bellowed without warning, his eyes flashing. "I want war! I want slaughter! My Dao aches for the sanguine honey of bloodshed. There has been all too little of that so far. I want you to forge an empire. Conquer this solar system, and then the neighboring ones."

Sam stared at Tantalos, not sure how to respond.

"You want entertainment, then?" Jeffrey said, his voice shaky. He was only now getting off his knees.

Tantalos grinned, and tilted his head towards Jeffrey. "He understands. Your people have such a curious expression for what I want. What is it again? Ah… dinner and a show."

"So you want to watch us fool around before you devour us?" Talnor questioned, his voice trembling slightly.

Tantalos sighed. "I find it curious how many aliens you allow to flock to your banner, Sam. Why do you let them speak for you? Do you not believe in the supremacy of your own species?"

A wave of his aura slammed into Talnor, carrying him off his feet and tossing him against the city hall. One of the support pillars holding up the arch broke, and the entrance came tumbling down.

Sam took a breath to calm himself. "I don't. They're just people. Just like me. But if you wouldn't mind, can we talk about what you're looking for? I'm happy to carry out your requests, if they are reasonable."

"Reasonable?" Tantalos asked, his lip twitching. "Who are you to determine what is reasonable? If not for the many, many offers the great factions have offered for you, I would kill you for that."

"So you want us to take over the solar system?" Sam continued, realizing that he was safer than he had thought. "What next? Are there aliens near us? I hardly think conquering a few empty planets and dwarf stars is what you want as entertainment."

"You are correct. Five star systems away are the Selvans. They are fusions of human and spider. Their webs stretch not just through space, but through dimensions. They own colonies all across this galaxy, but only fifteen star systems in total. If you can take one of their web nexuses, you can conquer them all."

Tantalos stood, and the throne beneath him fell away. Space warped around him, but for a moment Sam felt his true aura. Even suppressed as he was, Sam couldn't stand before it. His knees buckled and he collapsed, blood streaming out of his eyes. Everyone else fell unconscious, even though the brunt of the pressure had been directed at Sam. The ground rumbled and a ragged tunnel sliced into the ground beneath Sam, extending all the way to the other side of the world. For a moment Sam felt the heat of the world's core drifting up, before the tunnel collapsed.

A notification appeared in front of him, but it took a few moments for his vision to clear. Groaning, Sam rubbed his eyes, and looked the message over.

You have gained a new quest!

Dinner and a Show: S

Your supreme overlord Tantalos Veruvax wishes for you to please him. Do so by conquering the Selvan Empire in its entirety, before the Universal Tournament.

Current Goal: Claim each of the Selvan Empire's Metropolis Cores.

Rewards: Survival

*Note. To claim the territory of other factions, you must first claim ten uncontested planets of your own, or your entire Solar System, whichever is smaller.

Sam was sure that at least some of that message had been penned directly by Tantalos, especially the name of the quest. As he closed it, he shook his head. He might have beaten the Tower, but he was still a far cry from how strong he needed to be. The Multiverse was filled with beings so much higher than him that he couldn't even understand where their power began.

"What happened?" Jeffrey said groggily, the first to rise. His eyes were bloodshot, all of the veins ruptured by Tantalos' aura. He staggered for a bit, but his regeneration kicked in eventually.

"Tantalos being Tantalos," Sam explained bitterly. "Did you get the quest notification too?"

A sonic boom rang out over the city as Jacob flew through the shield, landing in front of Sam. The ground cracked beneath his feet. He tossed an insectoid head aside, presumably of an invader he had just killed. It bounced across the cracked stone, leaving patches of blue blood.

"What the hell is going on here?" Jacob asked, looking wide-eyed at the devastation. "I felt a terrifying aura coming from the city a minute ago. Was that you?"

"No. Tantalos paid us a visit a few minutes ago. There was a notification you should have gotten."

Jacob's eyes went glassy for a second as he opened his System interface. "I see. Not the worst thing to have to do. We were going to need to expand anyway. We might be a powerful faction, but compared to all those galactic empires out there, we're kind of a joke."

"That's easier said than done," Sam countered. "Do you even know how to claim a planet?"

"I vaguely remember learning about that," Jeffrey interrupted. "Unclaimed planets condense mana and elemental energy to form World Dungeons. Clearing a World Dungeon allows for the creation of a Planetary Core. Most of the Mortal Tier worlds are two Ranks higher than that of the planet."

"So D Rank for this system?" Sam asked. "Should be doable."

By this point the others were waking up, but as Sam used his Authority to inspect the damage, he realized that a good few G Rankers were lying on the ground at the edge of the plaza, either in comas or dead. Almost a hundred had died under the force of Tantalos' aura. For a brief moment, Sam lost control. His fists tightened and his aura lashed out. Bolts of lightning struck the ground around him, turning the stone to glass. Then he calmed himself, breathing heavily. Jacob had a similar reaction once he saw what had happened.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"Damn it…" Sam whispered as he looked at the dead. "Does Tantalos truly care so little about mortals?"

"What do you think?" Jacob replied, laughing bitterly. "He wants to consume us all. A hundred lives is probably of no consequence to him at all."

"He'll pay-" Sam began, before cutting himself off. Although Tantalos seemed reluctant to harm him directly, he was more than willing to kill anyone else. If Sam caused more unnessery deaths by mouthing off, he would never forgive himself. "We need to get started on this quest, then," he continued, after a short pause. "What way should we go? Inner to outer planets? The other way around?"

"Why not start from both sides?" Jeffrey suggested. "In a solar system like this, the World Dungeons won't be that powerful. You've already shown that you can take on low D Rankers with ease. Mid D Rankers won't be that difficult."

"That's a good idea," Sam acknowledged. "Jacob?"

"I agree. How about you start with the inner planets, and I with the outer ones? You'll be closer to Earth, and your portal ability will be able to reach it in case anyone attacks."

"What's happening?" Eduardo asked groggily as he tottered towards them.

"Check your notifications," Sam and Jeffrey said at the same time.

Eduardo nodded, and his face fell slightly. "This looks difficult."

"It is," Sam and Jeffrey replied, once more in unison. Looking at one another in surprise, they laughed. Perhaps the only good thing to come from Tantalos' visit.

Kabras, Homeworld of the Selvans

Tantalos basked in the adoration of the Selvans as he towered over them, in the form of a god from their mythology. His body was that of a titanic spider, almost a hundred feet tall. Unlike the Selvans, he had no humanoid aspects. Though he pretended to be like them, in truth, he found them to be disgusting creatures. Then again, he hardly cared for any who were beneath him. It was like comparing a worm to a slug. Both were ultimately disgusting, and both were ultimately worthless.

The world of Kabras was covered in canyons, some of which extended thousands of miles towards its core. Vast cities of webs were built within the canyons, in which billions of Selvans lived. They were about the height and width of an adult human, but had the lower body of a spider, and the upper body of a human. Or at least, something human-adjacent. The thick grey bristles that covered their lower halves extended up onto their humanoid parts, and long fangs extended from their mouths. As hordes of them cavorted in front of Tantalos, covering the layered highways of steel-like silk that formed the world's largest city, Tantalos inwardly cringed.

"My words are law!" Tantalos screamed, his voice a rasping hiss as he copied the Selvans' own voices. With his Authority, it was child's play to alter his body this way. "Sam Atlas and his faction are heretics! You will destroy them, and earn my favor!"

"Yes!" a massed hiss erupted from the crowd of millions, made up of the highest level Selvans. During the early days of the System, the species had turned on itself, butchering each other for levels. Luckily they reproduced quickly, or else these would be the only ones left.

Fifty of them had foregone conventional advancement, fusing with others of their kind to become monsters without the limitations of System cultivators, but without their strengths. They had ascended to the peak of E Rank without any issues, but now were stuck on the cusp of D Rank.

One of those beings stood before Tantalos, looming over its brethren. It was almost half his size, but even it bowed before his might.

"Your will be done, master," it hissed, venomous slobber dripping from between its sword sized fangs. "Your enemies will be erased from this universe. We swear it."

Tantalos almost smiled, thinking about the apocalypse about to descend upon the Selvans. He had gauged Sam's strength for himself during his brief visit to Earth. The boy was a good way into D Rank in absolute power, though his level was still E Rank. Even some of his captains were E Rank in strength, and his father, Jacob Atlas, was another true monster among men. Just those two alone could have conquered the entire Selvan civilization.

With a flash of light, Tantalos disappeared, his consciousness returning to his real body outside the universe. It flashed through the Void, and rejoined his true self, sitting on his golden throne. Tantalos stood, stretching slightly. Using his avatars always left him with a foul taste in his mouth. Limiting his strength in any way was like drinking raw sewage to a man who had clawed his way to the peak of C Rank.

Mercury, One Day Later

Sam came to a halt, starting to get a bit annoyed. He had surveyed the entire planet's surface for the last hour, but hadn't found any trace of a dungeon there. The grey planet beneath him was incredibly boring to look at, even worse to travel across.

I should have left earlier, Sam thought, before instantly feeling a pang of guilt. He'd waited in the city to help with rebuilding, and to see off the dead. Jacob had done the same, surprisingly enough. If my father could muster the compassion to do that, I can most certainly do the same.

Jacob had left for the other side of the Solar System, starting with Pluto. Neither were sure whether it was counted as a planet or not by the System, given its history of flipping between the two, but it was better to be safe than sorry. They had plenty of time.

After a brief moment of indecision, Sam used Worldsense, condescending it into a tight beam. In E Rank he could reach a few miles with the ability, but in D Rank he could reach thousands. His Dao Cores allowed for a far greater level of Dao manipulation, given their proximity to the material world. It cut the costs of using his Dao Energy down a thousandfold, and allowed him to increase the power of some of his skills by a similar amount.

His vision sliced through the entire planet, with no initial result. The beam was only about ten feet wide, giving him a very small cross section to study. Fortunately for Sam, his speed was so far beyond human at this point that it hardly made a difference. Swiveling his head thousands of times a second, Sam scanned the entire planet in an hour. He quickly found the dungeon, hidden in the world's core. He understood now why the Rank of the dungeon was so much higher than the world's. All of the energy, unused by its inhabitants, drained down towards the center. Also, it would have been almost impossible for anyone short of a powerful E Ranker to even reach a planet's core without specialized equipment. That was already an added layer of difficulty.

Sam gathered his Authority and started to systematically erase the ground beneath him, carving out a tunnel. Gravity was too slow for him so he pushed himself down with his elemental energy, increasing the pull of the earth upon himself. Soon he was traveling at tens of thousands of miles per hour, reaching the planet's core in a bit over a minute. He could have teleported, but he wasn't sure what was waiting for him down there.

The stone around Sam started to glow the closer he got to the core. The heat grew and grew, but it never became an issue for him. At his current level of durability he could have gone for a swim in the sun without suffering more than a few burns.

Reality started to hum as Sam neared the core, and pressure built, no doubt coming from the dungeon. Before Sam could react, he passed through the outer layer of the planet's core, suddenly finding himself floating in a vast, empty space. Before him was a flickering orb of rainbow light, suspended in the exact center of the planet.

Sam teleported over to it, feeling a strong pull that vastly eclipsed the planet's normal gravity.

Do you wish to enter Mercury's World Dungeon?

Yes/No

Sam quickly selected yes, and the pull increased until even he couldn't resist it. He shot through space and plunged into the rainbow light. His vision whited out for a moment, and then he was falling from the sky, like a meteor hurtling towards Earth. All around him was starlight and frigid cold, indicating that he was in the vacuum of the void.

A vast disc of rock lay beneath him, stretching out for what seemed like infinity. It was covered in mountains, forests, deserts and oceans, along with seemingly every biome that Sam could imagine.

You have entered Mercury's World Dungeon!

Genesis Disc: Mid D Rank

Formed from the shell of Grantholar, an Astral Turtle who once drifted through the Void near your universe, the Genesis Disc is populated by three warring species. This dungeon has two win conditions. Firstly, you may wipe out every combatant member of the aforementioned species, or ensure their surrender. Secondly, you may attempt to ensure one species' victory over the other by permanently shifting the balance of power. Choosing the second option, or accepting surrender, will require you to deal with the winning species after the end of the dungeon.

Note: All of the beings in this dungeon are real and not created by the System in any way. They have lived for thousands of years in the Genesis Disc. However, they do not know any world beyond this one. Take caution in your interactions.

Additional Note: Due to the immense size of this dungeon and the difficult of the win condition, time has been sped up to 25 times that of the outside world.

As Sam continued to study the dungeon, he started to see its resemblance to a turtle shell. What he had previously thought to be mountain ranges were actually ridges of scales, covered in layers of earth and calcified sheddings. The canyons were gaps between scales.

It took him a few minutes to reach the ground, and he spent that time committing as many landmarks as he could to memory.

The Genesis Disc was one of the largest things Sam had ever seen. It was easily dozens of times larger than the earth. Even for him, memorizing it was impossible. While his D Rank status should have granted him perfect memory, there were still limits. His capacity was only as high as his Intelligence stat, meaning that he focused on the ground directly beneath him,

As Sam watched the world, he came close enough to start seeing some of the Genesis Disc's inhabitants. As the System message had told him, there were three main species, intelligent ones at least, that made Grantholar's shell home. The first looked like humanoid rhinos, their skin a mottled grey. Massive horns protruded from their foreheads. They were the least numerous, but were the strongest overall. Sam didn't see a single one under E Rank, and many of them were D Rankers.

The second species, engaged in open battle with the rhino-people were a motley assortment of birds the size of humans. They were covered in plumage in colors that Sam had never seen before, and flew through the skies at speeds that would have made a rocket jealous. As they flew, orbs of energy grew between their talons, patterned after different elements. Then they fell towards the rhinos below. Most were caught by return fire from the ground, but the few that made it through detonated with such force that Sam could feel the air buckling around him.

As for the final species, it took him a bit to find them. Serpent-folk slithered through the undergrowth of the forests, and across the gravely scree of the mountain ranges. They came in all shapes and colors, usually adapted to blend in with their environment. Whenever they could, the launched ambushes on their foes, sinking fangs into vulnerable ankles or on one memorable occasion, propelled themselves up into the air to snag low flying birds.

Further afield, cities and villages vied for Sam's attention. It was quite easy to tell which ones belonged to which species. The rhino men dwelt in cyclopean citadels of bronze and iron, towering over the land. Floating cities affixed to the undersides of clouds produced endless hordes of the bird people, while the snakes came from holes in the ground that, upon Sam using Worldsense, were revealed to be tunnels to vast underground caverns. The scope of it all took his breath away.

As Sam passed through the highest cloud layers, he was finally spotted. A ground of avian scouts, about a dozen miles to the east, wheeled around towards him. They were mostly E Rankers, but their leader, a majestic eagle with feathers the color of the night sky, was a D Ranker. They opened their beaks in unison and screeched. Waves of force hurtled across the sky. Sam snatched Worldbreaker from his back and held the hammer out in front of him. The hammer glinted in the light of the stars above. Sam poured his power into it, and with the sound of thunder, it expanded until it was almost a mile wide. The weapon vibrated slightly as the attacks hit it, but was ultimately unmoved.

Sam teleported to the other side of his hammer, watching as the bird people milled about in confusion. He held one hand to the sky, and as currents of radiant light curled around his arm, Worldbreaker flipped around midair, the haft landing squarely in his palm. The white light contained within his arm surged into the weapon and with a crackling pulse of lightning that formed a sheath around the weapon, Sam swung it down.

The birds tried to teleport away, but as soon as Sam saw space begin to twist around them, he locked it down. His Dao Cores blazed within his chest, fighting mainly against the D Rank leader. Then he drew upon his Dao Seed of Travel, and infused his will into the fabric of space and time. The birds flew through suddenly empty patches of sky as their portals disappeared. All the while, Worldbreaker continued to fall.

As Sam watched his monolithic weapon descend, he realized he had a choice to make. While these creatures had already attacked him, that didn't mean that their entire species was hostile. Was it worth going for a preemptive strike at the cost of future tensions, or restraining himself so as to simply destroy those who had attacked him? It was a moral dilemma that Sam hadn't been prepared for. The System's revelation that every creature in this dungeon was a real, living being made him hesitate. His Dao Sapling quivered uneasily within him. Karmic Retribution was certainly warranted against this group of bird people, but not necessarily against all of them.

Then, with a brilliant flash of light from the nearest of the birdmen cities, Sam's choice was made for him. A cannon larger than a small mountain blazed like the sun as a vast fireball erupted out, heading straight for Sam. A quick scan of the city revealed that every last one of the bird people there were high E Rank warriors or above.

"Fine," he muttered. "You brought this upon yourselves."

A primal roar erupted from Sam's lips as he used Manifestation of Vengeance, only this time a Dao Sapling was empowering it. The entirety of Worldbreaker burned brighter than a star and as it impacted the troupe of birdmen, Sam let it keep going. Their bodies turned to ash in an instant, but that was only the beginning of the apocalyptic judgement that was to come.

The sky split in half as Sam's attack began in earnest. Worldbreaker served as the conduit for a veritable ocean of Dao Energy, mana and elemental power. The hammer lost its glow as it loosed its energy charge into the sky. Everything was still for a moment before the last thread connecting Worldbreaker to an orb of power the size of a lake broke. With that tiny snap, Armageddon was unleashed.

Sam flew backwards as the world before him turned to plasma, every last air molecule burning up in the inferno. From the city, all the defenders could see was a new sun, streaking across the sky towards them. It moved so quickly that it struck before its afterimage could even be burned into the eyes of its beholders. One moment the city was there, and the next, it was gone. Even then, the technique was not sated.

For a thousand miles the heavens broke. Reality stretched and tore, and the very world seemed to weep. A wailing cry rose up from the sundered atoms on the edge of the destruction, just before they were torn from their resting spots by the sudden vacuum left behind. As Sam tumbled through the air he watched Manifestation of Vengeance finally dissipate. All that was left in its wake was a minefield of spatial aberrations, ash and a few scraps of D Rank flesh that had survived the barrage.

"Holy shit..." Sam whispered as he finally came to a stop. Had he really just done that? A profound sense of gratitude for his restraint filled him as he thought about what could have happened had he unleashed this on Earth. It was two Ranks below that of the dungeon. It would have been about as substantial as the air before him in terms of stopping such a strike.

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