Nate felt Bordain’s aura drink in the Divine Energy of his proclamation. Collapsing face down in the dirt, he could feel weakness permeate his body as Bordain’s Supremacy Aura suppressed his Stats. His limbs refused to answer, too fragile to even lift his fingers. Through his farsight sphere of awareness, he sensed the same thing happen across the battlefield. His runic array broke, each piece shattering under the force of the aura. Bordain was indiscriminate; even his own forces looked like corpses in the mud and grass of the palace grounds. Kiri was the only one who wasn’t flat on the ground, instead keeled over on her hands and knees, arms shaking under the pressure of keeping herself up.

  Nate knew the effect would only last a few seconds, as Bordain couldn’t store Divine Energy. Not yet at least. Because, through his farsight sphere of awareness, he sensed what Bordain was doing. The monolithic Prince of Etrua had drawn out a processed mana gem and was drinking in its energies hungrily. The man had clearly achieved a Divine Skill and all that was left to do was to complete his third evolution and ascend to the strata of a Lesser Divinity. Of course, the man would find his own Class Core sealed the moment he used it against those not attacking him, but how many would know to hold back? Worse than that, Bordain himself likely didn’t know. For all Nate knew, with the ability to store Divine Energy, Bordain might simply wipe them all from existence before his Class Core was sealed. The man's subsequent death would be of little use to those he killed before The System stepped in. Nate needed to do three things. He needed to extricate himself from the battle with Topaz, he needed to distract Bordain, and then, finally, he needed something to kill a man twice his level.

  As Bordain’s aura retracted, the Divine Energy expended, everyone was slow to rejoin the battle. Some of the Nobles supporting Bordain were already fleeing, while some of the weaker Slummers had died, the aura draining them dry and leaving them as husks in the mud.

  Nate looked at Kiri, “You got this?”

  Kiri turned towards Topaz and smiled, “Yeah, I got this. Bury him, Nate.”

  Kiri dashed at Topaz, closing the distance quickly without any regard for defense or self-preservation. Topaz struck out with her wings, cutting Kiri in half. The demonic-looking creature that was Topaz smiled in victory, only for confusion to mar its dark-scaled features as Kiri reformed in mid-air and that sense of realness flooded over the battlefield for the third time. As Kiri landed in front of Topaz, the shapeshifter tried to react, only to find Kiri had a hand pressed against her chest. Then the shapeshifter started melting, drawn towards Kiri as she used a new Divine Skill. The draining lasted only a few seconds, but when it was over, nothing of Topaz remained.

  At the same time, Nate sent a mental command to Frick.

  “Okay, set it off.”

  Cackling answered him as he felt the mana pipeline beneath them divert into the secondary runes that Frick had prepared. Then fire and stone erupted, launching debris into the sky as the palace exploded. The shockwave rippled out, kicking up a powerful wind that coated the battlefield in dust as it flattened the two warring armies. Everyone was catapulted into the dirt, ears ringing and covered in dirt and blood. Where the Palace had been a moment before, only a crater remained and, within that crater resided a hovering spatial doorway that indicated the Legendary Dungeon that had been the centrepiece of the Etruan Royal family’s rule. Nate had hoped he wouldn’t need to use that particular plan, but he couldn’t have Bordain drawing on the power of a Domain, so Nate’s only option had been to destroy the Place of Power.

  Everyone stood slower this time, the battle lines being redrawn as people waited for orders or reassessed what they could do. Everyone except for Bordain, who continued to hungrily draw in processed mana. Nate used Conceptual Sight of the Runic Artist and saw the man was level one-hundred-and-twenty. They were out of time. He was about to evolve.

  Nate closed his eyes and focused, dropping all his current runes and thought processes as he bent his attention towards his robe. It had served him for almost two years and was his first Legendary item. Its dark blue silk like a night sky, covered in silver and gold stars, had marked him as a mage. It had kept him warm or cold as needed, cleaned itself, stored his runes and was a large part of who he was. He’d worn little else, as changing into lesser clothes seemed pointless. And it had grown with him, from his initial few stars for storing runes, to the twenty-five it could currently accomplish. With eyes closed, he began filling those twenty-five stars with Sigils. When he had found that the mix of Soul and Body gave rise to Life, he’d had another idea for a Conceptual mix that would result in a Concept that he had never seen a Sigil for. As Soul, Life and Drain Sigils filled his robe, the threads rewrote themselves under his command. He felt the rise of that Concept in the middle. When the Soul and Life were Drained away, all that remained was Death. In that space between he felt the dark and quiet call of the beyond, the whisper that all things end. With his discovery, Reality reacted for the fourth time in the battle, Divine Energy flowing into Nate. With the sense of realness, as though Reality was his to shape, he activated Conceptual Automated Existence, powering it with the processed mana he had taken from Amethyst’s death, and guiding what little Divine Energy he could into the Skill, he ignored the notification in his system, as his Robe of the Prepared Runecaster came to life. The chill of the grave washed over him as the dark strands of what had once been his Legendary robe sloughed off his body, as though the fabric itself was dying, ripped free.

  As his robe began slithering across the muddy blood-soaked ground, another source of Divine Energy appeared on the battlefield, this one far more potent, as Bordain began to evolve. The Prince of Etrua’s booming laughter crossed the battlefield.

  “Proof of Supremacy! Kneel before a Divine! Kneel before a god!”

  His mouth wide as he crowed his victory made him an easy target, as Nate’s robe took on the appearance of the oblivion, a black so dark that it drank the light of the moon. It slithered across the ground like a snake, a shadow on existence, and easily launched itself at Bordain’s mouth, slipping into the man like a midnight eel. Bordain began to choke, even as his aura exploded outward again, covering the battlefield and flattening everyone who hadn’t yet run. But the feeling flickered, on and off in steadily weakening pulses as Bordain’s screams covered the battlefield, the man turning greyer by the second as he shrunk, skin flaking off, devoured from the inside by a Divine representation of Death.

  Finally, Bordain’s screams were silenced as the man, now a fraction of his original size, collapsed into a pile of withered flesh and bones, bedecked in white hair with pure white eyes. Processed mana flowed out of the corpse and into Nate, though he managed to direct most of it into his processed mana gems. Silence reigned across the battlefield for a moment, before Bordain’s supporters began throwing down their weapons and surrendering.

  Nate tiredly collapsed on the ground as he took stock of the damages. His friends and family crowded around him as he sat in the mud, wearing only his silk underwear and his boots. The questions came rapid fire, and he assured everyone that he was fine. As for the rest of the combatants, the Royal Guard were being disarmed by the remaining Slummers, who had borne the brunt of their losses with less than half remaining. Thankfully, among their number, was Cutter and his grandson, and though Nate knew it was a little unfair, he was just glad that the old man and his family hadn’t joined the dead.

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  House Korinth, a Ducal House, had been decimated by Bordain, with only a few members remaining. Hildi and Morgane stood over Bordain's corpse, surrounded by Baroness Olithia, Marquess Leclair, and a few of their retainers. The rest were disarming the few remaining Nobles who had supported Bordain and their vassals. Above them, Headmaster Verian had managed to flee when the battle turned, flying for the Kirshell Mountains. Aisling promised that there would be a hunt for the man, but given the Gem-Level Mage had escaped, who knew how far he would fly. It could be years before they tracked him down. Finally, a bleeding and frostbitten Garnet approached Morgane, dragging a corpse that could only be Sapphire and flanked by her sisters.

  Throughout it all, Nate caught more than one wary glance at himself and Kiri. They had shown that they were Mythic. Worse, they had shown the extent of their Skills. While most wouldn’t be attuned enough to recognise the Divine Energy that had been in play, a couple would be. More than that, Kiri had come back from being cut in half, and he had killed a man twice his level who also held a Mythic Class. Finally, everyone was fully aware of the power that he and Kiri possessed and the threat they represented. He was sure more than a few of the Nobles present were considering whether now was a good time to strike—to finish them off while they were tired. He smiled up at Kiri as Frick appeared amongst the group. They would be in for a rude surprise if they tried.

  It was Morgane who took control of the battlefield, her voice enhanced by her sound control, booming over the battlefield.

  “We are victorious! You have all fought valiantly and won, toppling a tyrant and those who foolishly supported his misguided ideas! We have proven that no man or woman, no matter their birth, can truly be called ‘common’! Let this be the beginning of a new age in Etrua, where all are given the opportunity to rise, should they seek it!”

  There was loose cheering from the Nobles and a few of the Slummers, but more of them looked to Nate, who gave a nod of acknowledgement. With his approval, the remaining Slummers cheered. At least, those who weren’t crying. He tried to shut it out, the tears and sadness of those who remained, but even now he was unwilling to retract his sphere of awareness. So instead, he let it wash over him. The pats on the back for those who survived. The camaraderie as they took joy in their own survival, or lamented those who had been lost. Nate didn’t even realise he was being moved until he felt his sphere of awareness shift at the edges. Kiri was carrying him away from the battlefield.

  “This… is kind of demeaning,” he commented.

  “What did you call this? A princess carry?” Kiri retorted.

  “Yeah, put me down,” he replied with a laugh.

  “Whatever you want, princess,” Kiri said with a smirk as she helped Nate back to his feet.

  His boots compressed the grass as the wind tickled his bare legs, the light of Galle’s sun just starting to peak over the horizon.

  “A new day,” he remarked.

  “For everyone. Thanks to us,” Kiri replied. “I reckon, after that display, I can get a few more concessions out of the Princess.”

  “Wouldn’t it be Queen now?”

  “Guess we’ll see. Asmuisil is still coming. Think she can hold the country?”

  Nate gave the question some thought, “Probably not. Do we care?”

  Kiri tilted her head in thought, “Only if it impacts the agreements she made with us.”

  “We can probably get the same from Asmuisil, if they take over.”

  Kiri nodded, then the world faded away and Nate found himself sealed in space, with Kiri next to him, and Arikanvil standing in front of them.

  The four-eyed purple god looked them both over, taking in their states at a glance.

  “It was a risk, letting you two compete in that battle, but you have proven my faith in your abilities to accomplish my tasks… given a little time and training that is.”

  Nate frowned, “That’s not what we agreed to.”

  “No, it isn’t. And if it is your desire, I will send you to the Heartlands as soon as you ascend, and you can do your best to accomplish the tasks I have set out for you. You will, of course, be competing with Lesser Divines that are twice or more your level. Perhaps you’ll beat the odds. More likely, you will die, though death is not certain and therefore within the bounds of our agreement. That, of course, will release you from your tasks for me, but I doubt that dying is your goal. So, instead, I have another offer for you.”

  Nate looked at Kiri and his sister shrugged before turning back to Arikanvil and answering for them both, “What is this offer?”

  Arikanvil produced a tome from nowhere, “In this are the details for creating a portal gate to a Wild Realm, the true heartlands of our Reality. The universes that lie closest to the Source. They are dangerous, but in a different way. If you’re careful, and clever, both of which you have shown to be, you should be able to advance quickly in such a place. Quickly enough to catch up to your peers in the Heartlands. It is a risk, either way. The Heartlands now, or a Wild Realm… but I judge you far more likely to survive a Wild Realm. Long enough to prepare for the tasks I have for you and to raise your levels quickly to catch up to your peers.”

  “And what do you want in return?” Nate asked.

  Arikanvil opened his mouth and nothing came out. A look of fury flashed across his face before the True Divine ruthlessly suppressed it.

  “Nothing. I am giving you this to better serve me. The improvements you can make will vastly improve your chances of accomplishing the two tasks I have planned for you. Giving you this puts you at risk and serves me. Reciprocity is maintained.”

  Nate thought over the implications. There had been terms in there he didn’t truly understand, but he had strong suspicions for. Why did some universes have more mana than others? The answer was simple enough if mana was leaking into this Reality from a specific location, slowly spreading out. That would put Galle, as a backwater, on the outer edges of the current zone covered by mana, with the Heartlands being closer to the ‘Source’, Wild Realms being right next to the ‘Source’, and Dead Realms like his own universe being too far from the ‘Source’... at least for now. That meant the mana concentration of a Wild Realm would be insane. It would likely create Mythic Dungeons and give him enough mana to craft anything he wanted, at least up to Mythic. Beyond that, he would need Divine Energy. It was an opportunity. Not without risk, of course, but the opportunity couldn’t be denied.

  He looked at Kiri and saw a smile bloom on her face. His sister would never back down from a challenge, and Nate couldn’t say no to the opportunity to be given free reign to craft with more mana than he knew what to do with. They had to leave Galle anyway, and if this would also increase their chances of surviving the Heartlands, then so be it.

  His only misgiving was that he didn’t trust Arikanvil. The god had proven that he was watching them, choosing when to strike to try and get what he could out of them. The thought flitted through his mind, when the same notification flashed unbidden in front of his eyes, repeating the last time Arikanvil had made them an offer.

  Accept Arikanvils’ offer and I will assist you and Kiri Beaufoy.

  The System had a vested interest in whatever was going on, and Nate smiled, making it seem as though he was matching Kiri’s reaction to the idea of such a challenge.

  “We accept,” Nate answered out loud. A moment later the tome was in his hands.

  “You have three months to create the portal and leave Galle,” replied Arikanvil.

  Then the True Divine was gone, and they were back in Etrua, staring out towards the sun peaking over the horizon.

  “We better get to work,” Kiri replied with a smirk.

  “We?” Nate responded with a raised eyebrow.

  “We. You handle the portal. I’ll handle everything else.”

  Nate nodded his agreement and walked arm in arm with his sister back to their hideout. They’d saved a Kingdom, but that just meant there was new work to get done. There was no rest for the wicked or those blessed with talent and opportunities. Nate didn’t mind.

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