Wish upon the Stars (Original Superhero cultivation sci fi litrpg)

"So, where are we going next?" Elonwy said as we piled into her car. Surprisingly (or not considering what it was), the seat seemed to expand as more of us climbed in, allowing for more passengers to sit comfortably. "Are we going to pick up Dean Desmond?"

Dean Gibbons shook his head, though he didn't seem too focused. He was looking around the inside of the car with interest. "What a fascinating conceptual model. Spatiotemporal travel using fourth dimensional temporal dynamics with a space based propulsion system. I hope you're planning to submit this as a thesis. I'd love the chance to study it in detail."

"Oh," she sputtered, her urgency being overwhelmed by awe. "I mean…yeah, I was. I hadn't submitted the proposal yet because I'm still ironing out the kinks. The-"

"Sequence oscillation is uneven," he cut her off. "I noticed. It's not too big of a problem though. If you boost the raydeon capacitor to fifteen cycles you can widen the frequency on the stabilizer. Should put the whole range within the stable zone. Hell, it would probably lower the escape velocity for the fourth dimensional layer by at least five lecters. You'd shave off maybe fifteen percent of the power draw."

She froze, eyes going wide as her jaw dropped. "I…why the hell didn't I think of that? Hold on," she dove backwards over the console, hanging halfway out of the front seat to dig through one of the note piles. "Ah! Here! I was looking at this!" She shoved the paper at him.

He took it, nodding. "This would work too, but it's ludicrously expensive. Overpowering the oscillations with a force buffer doubles your power requirements. You'd be at risk of a catastrophic system failure without a cooling system overhaul. Which would require a new power supply because the cooling system you would need to run this would require about twice as much output as the whole engine uses right now."

"Look this is fascinating and also gibberish to me," I cut in, literally shoving myself between them. "But can we do this another time when we aren't all at risk of being murdered by an escaping Void entity?"

Dean Windermere smiled chidingly at her husband. "He's right, love, it's not the time. Schedule a consultation with the girl after this is over and let her get back to the drive. As for our destination, Desmond won't be at his own campus by now. He'll have already set off to warn the others. We're more likely to catch him at one of those. For now though, we're not going to be doing that. I need you to take us to these coordinates."

She scrawled a series of strangely discordant formulas in the air with icy vapor, and I winced as my head rang like a struck bell just from trying to read them. I didn't recognize literally any of it, but apparently Prof Hawkins did, because he literally flinched back from the writing. "That's REAL?" he sputtered. "I thought it was an urban legend."

"Thought what was an urban legend?" I asked with interest. His reaction was kind of fascinating.

"My husband and I have a joint research project," Dean Windermere said matter of factly. "The frozen moment. Why did you think we gave the academy such a pretentious name?"

I shrugged. "I kind of assumed it was just normal Ascendant showboating. It's pretty on brand."

"Touche," she smiled warmly. "But no. The Frozen Moment is a Cryotemporal Engine we've been experimenting with for a few millenia. It's actually the secret behind those fascinating timelock rooms we use for the entrance exams. It's a revolutionary concept, using conceptual ice to slow entropic decay on a dimensional level, theoretically infinitely expanding potential temporal pockets with zero side effects."

Dean Gibbons cut in. "Time is fairly malleable," he confirmed. "But there are certain laws that are agreed on by nearly everyone. The universality of temporal flow is one of those. Things move through time, or are moved by time depending on your construct. The point is that while ignoring those laws temporarily is fine, removing people from the timestream for long periods of time gets them hit with serious entropic recursion. And yes, I know I said entropy is atemporal, but this is the exception that proves the rule."

"So the engine lets you remove things from the timestream for longer without backlash?" I asked as I grasped the core concept. "How does that help deal with the Void Child?"

"Because there are two times of temporal bubbles," the Dean explained. "Outward facing is essentially slowed time. To give an example, if you created a chamber where one day outside is a hundred years INSIDE, that's outward facing. The opposite is inward facing temporal bubbles. Which is when-"

I sat up straight as I followed that train of thought to its logical conclusion. "Where a hundred years outside is one day in the bubble. Slow instead of fast. So you could shove the monster into a time bubble and would essentially have an almost unlimited amount of time to deal with it."

"Nothing quite so convenient I suspect," he corrected. "Void entities are…slippery, when it comes to the timestream. Temporal energies don't stick to them very well. It'll help, but I doubt it will be enough to overcome the creature on its own." Elonwy had pulled out again, but to my surprise, even though I forgot to close my eyes I wasn't feeling sick or uncomfortable. I suspected she'd already instituted whatever fix the Dean had given her and it had worked.

"I don't suppose Dean Harper has perfect his research on applying my wife's specialized flame to the problem yet?" I asked hopefully.

Dean Gibbons snorted. "Harper? Harper isn't a researcher. He isn't stupid, but he tends to just smash headfirst into problems over and over again until they solve themselves. Absolutely no flexibility in his methods. It takes him exponentially longer to perform any measurable amount of meaningful research on a new topic. Which is to say…no, there is no chance of that having happened."

The car was still moving, blurs of color flashing by the windows, but it was kind of soothing now. I was enjoying the serene flow of the colorful outdoors, but sadly it couldn't last. We pulled to a stop again, and when we climbed out of the car, we were…"Where the hell did this mountain come from?" I asked in confusion, looking around at the jagged, snow covered peak we were parked on. All around us there were other mountains, albeit much lower, and they were all covered with a thick layer of snow.

"Permafrost Peak," Dean Windermere said serenely. "One of the most secluded and most secretive locations under the control of the ice major. I'm enforcing my will on the cold around us right now, or just being here would be enough to turn you into neverthawing statues of ice."

I whistled (which sounded strange and echoey in the thin mountain air). "You can do that? Just take control of cold that extreme?"

"Yes," she responded bluntly. "But I didn't. Not exactly. Rather than control it, it's simpler to just freeze the temperature drop at a manageable level. Cryokinetic control applied on the conceptual level is substantially more useful than one might expect. One can freeze all sorts of things beyond simple physical matter."

I nodded with interest, but before I could respond, a voice rang in my head. "Shane," I almost passed out from the sheer relief of hearing my wife's voice. "I'm with Dean Desmond. I told him what happened and he's planning to look for the other Deans. Are you with yours?"

I grinned wolfishly. "It's Callie," I said, holding up a hand. "She's getting in touch through the bond. She says she's with Desmond. He's looking for you guys."

"Convenient," Dean Gibbons said approvingly. "We never had occasion to experiment with soul bonding, but I confess I haven't seen many as concrete as yours. It seems a tab more anchored than most emotional bonds I've seen."

"It's not completely emotional," I corrected. "It was, but it was altered when Callie became an angel. It sort of mutated into a hybrid between a god's bond with their messenger and the partner bond we had before. But yeah the connection is deep. We can even enter each other's Domains long distance through the soul link."

He hummed with interest. "Fascinating," he said with a nod. "A useful ability in many situations. Including this one. Give her these coordinates to pass to Desmond."

This time when he listed them out he went slow and used a different notation. It was longer and more complicated, but it was something my brain could process and something I could pass to Callie. Apparently Permafrost Peak wasn't a place Desmond had been before, which was interesting, but it didn't matter that much. Once I finished passing over the information, there was a slight ripple and suddenly Callie was there. I breathed out a sigh of relief so visceral I was worried my lungs would implode, and I surged forward to wrap my arms around my wife. "Holy shit I'm so glad you're ok," I whispered into her hair.

She clung to me, squeezing back just as hard. "I'm ok," she murmured. "It's ok, we're all ok. Everything will be fine. I talked to your sister and Benny. Bethy picked them up. Chelsea had an emergency scroll from Nat she used to get in touch. They're laying low in the trait major. Bethy's dorm is far away from the platforms."

I let out a sigh of relief. "Thank the gods. I was worried. I'm surprised she got them scooped up so fast. Remind me to thank her."

"I think she'll make fun of you if you do," she said wryly. "You know she doesn't believe in keeping score like that. Friends help each other." She smiled softly and squeezed my hand. "She's had a good example for that kind of thinking. You've got good taste in friends, and you surround yourself with good people."

"Started with you," I reminded her. I turned to regard the man who brought her. I recognized him from the exam, though I didn't know him otherwise. I gave him a respectful nod. "Thank you so much for bringing my wife back. I was worried sick."

"You should be," he said gravely. "We skipped through common on the way. The formation was still en route, but I don't think it'll be long."

Dean Gibbons nodded. "Based on the information given, I would say we should be seeing the results right about…now." As he finished talked, a blast of red light erupted off in the distance. Not like the thing pillars from before. This was a HUGE column of red light. My mouth went dry at the sheer magnitude of the power output. I'd seen some big lightshows, but this was next level.

"Oh," I said faintly. "That's…holy shit, that's crazy. Can you guys really beat that?" My mouth was dry and my throat was hoarse. My heart was thundering in my chest, because I could feel the shadow of death in that column. This light, this spear of energy, was the most dangerous thing I had ever seen in my entire life, and it wasn't close.

Dean Gibbons frowned at the light show. "I don't know," he admitted. "But I like our odds. I'm not sure which of the Deans defected, but regardless, they haven't seen all our tricks." He grinned nastily. "I don't think they have any idea what's coming for them. And they won't until the very last second."

I knew what he wasn't saying. This wasn't a one on one fight. The cultists were there. Deveskane was there. This was going to be a mess on every level, and I wasn't sure how the hell we were all going to come out of it in one piece. Looking down at my wife's hand in mine though, I felt an overwhelming surge of certainty. We WOULD come out in one piece, and stronger for it. I wouldn't accept any other outcome.

We emerged from the tear in space into a warzone. Dean Gibbons had decided we were going to miss our window if we pushed it too far and we headed for the canyon. But when we got there, we found…carnage. Bodies, flames, frozen time, curses everywhere. It was a mess.

Dean Gibbons knelt to check one of the corpses. "Resentment backlash," he said clinically. "Harper waited for them to enter and then destabilized the canyon's aura."

I perked up. "That's good, right? I mean, the canyon is huge, so they must have taken heavy losses." Of course Dean Harper would have countermeasures in place, I started to relax a bit, until I caught the Dean's head shake.

"They knew he would do that, it was the obvious move," he pushed the body with his foot. "This is a C-ranker. Most of the bodies are. They sent in a wave of fodder to soak up the damage."

"How did they get enough people?" I protested. "Did they really turn this many?"

Elonwy stepped forward, kneeling next to one of the higher ranked corpses. "I don't think so," She said grimly. "Hey, Prof, is this who I think it is?"

"Bennet Kane," Professor Hawkins said clinically. "Huh, thought he died at the Radiant Mountain Riot." He squinted around. "And that looks like Sanders Quilg. I KNOW I got a death report for him after that beast tide in the Shivering Second Canyon eight years ago. I don't know the fodder, but their high rankers are recognizable. Some of them vanished ages ago."

Dean Gibbons grimaced. "Yes, this has clearly been in motion for quite some time. Which makes it all the more certain that they had inside help."

I thought back to the stories about people vanishing, and how casually it had been brushed off. The Academy was safer than most places, but it wasn't SAFE. People died here. But knowing that was coming and intercepting them before it did, all without being noticed…they would have needed someone with a deep working knowledge of the ins and outs of Frozen Moment.

Clearly, I wasn't the only one thinking that. Dean Desmond looked grim. "That means they have someone with transport powers. And since it's not me…"

"Wendy," said Dean Gibbons sadly. "I had hoped it wouldn't be one of my few friends. I can't say I'm surprised, however. But she couldn't have done this alone. Besides the obvious, the others haven't shown up yet. Someone is delaying them. With the three of us here, Wendy involved, and Harper pinned down, that leaves seven of us unaccounted for. Someone should have shown up by now. If we assume the crafters might be keeping back to prepare, that leaves us with four."

"Theodora would never," said Dean Windermere firmly. "You know how she feels about the Void. And Corey disdains outside help in anything to an almost self destructive degree." Theodora was Jessie's Dean, the Overgod of Life called the Sister of the World Tree, and Corey Down was The Unrelenting Edge of the weapons department. "But if we assume they're each tied up, then that means they've been waylaid by-"

"Kell and Clara," grunted Dean Desmond. "Shit."

That meant that of the possible traitors, most likely all three of them had turned on us. I was beginning to feel uneasy. This felt…too balanced. They had taken too much into account. Whoever made this plan, be it the Void Child or one of the Deans, had been working on it for a long time. They had accounted for every variable so far.

"We know who they'll send to stop us then," Dean Windermere said coldly, frost beginning to gather around her.

"Of course," came a soft, airy voice. "Who else would it be?"

We all turned to find a small, delicate looking woman with a sad smile standing in the path. She was wearing loose, flowing clothes, and had a wide hood over her head. At first I thought the hood had shadowed her eyes completely, but a closer look told me she was wearing a deep black blindfold.

Dean Windermere's fingers flexed slightly. "Hello Clara," she said in a soft, dangerous voice. "Anything to say for yourself?"

The other woman shrugged. "Nothing in particular. It's only business, you know. The stars have stagnated since we established the academy. I'd reached a bottleneck. I needed momentum, celestial disruption. The Void is good at that."

"And now you're riding the power surge of tracing your path in the constellations," Dean Windermere said icily. "Do you think that's enough to take all three of us?"

"I don't think it needs to be," Dean Clara Temple, the Stargazer, said warmly. "I just need to slow you down. I've seen how this fight goes, Sela. Every detail. My victory is written in the stars. Just wait this out with me and we can all walk away safe and sound."

I had no clue what they were talking about, though from context it sounded like Dean Temple could see the future and had manipulated us into walking into a trap somehow? I didn't know what her stellar Domain could do, but it was clearly effective here. It seemed like because the Overgods were just fragments, their ability to leverage the environment played a big part in their individual strengths, hence the use of projects like the Frozen Moment.

Mentally, I tried to think of what I could do. Maybe if I pushed Kronos to the peak of A-rank I could disrupt the timestream nearby? But as soon as I had the idea I tossed it away. I wasn't an S-ranker or a god, I couldn't do anything here. Any tricks I pulled would be useless at this level. I glanced around desperately, looking for something, anything that I could do to help or even escape.

Nothing. Just trash, cursed artifacts, disrupted energy, and miscellaneous detritus. I even spotted a…street sign. I froze. 'Monday Street'. I read slowly. And it was directly to the right of Dean Temple.

Reaching into my ring, I pulled out the map that I'd gotten from Professor Saunders. As soon as it emerged, I realized something had changed. The previously normal map was glowing a bright, distracting red, just like the energy from the ritual. As I stared in disbelief, the map floated out of my hands, drifting up into the air. Each of the locations marked down was circled, and as I watched, the map burst into flames, burning away to leave only the circles hanging in the air.

There was a pulse of energy as the circles arranged themselves into the shape of a constellation, then exploded up into the sky, suspending themselves over us and creating a dome of red energy around us all.

"Oh, that little BRAT," spat Dean Temple, seemingly angered for the first time. "She SEALED the stars? And she used my own damned ritual to do it!"

"This is why she came to my department," Dean Gibbons said with a wolfish grin. "She was wasted on stargazing. Temporal mechanics are far more flexible. So…what are you going to do now, Clara? Sealing the stars has completely severed your celestial path here. Your chances of fighting the three of us to a standstill in an open match are effectively zero."

I shot my Professor a confused look, and he took pity. "Allegra Saunders used to be Dean Temple's disciple. She learned divination in her department, but left for a position in Temporal Dynamics after she completed her doctorate. It was a big scandal at the time. Changing majors happens, but Dean Temple was grooming Saunders to take over as her successor. She never quite forgave my teacher for poaching her."

"She was like a DAUGHTER to me!" she spat at him. "And he turned her against me with nonsense promises about exploring the underpinnings of reality. She had so much talent, and she threw it all away to play with equations!"

"Clearly not," said Dean Gibbons smugly. "She hijacked part of your ritual and used it to starlock you. She used the map as a connection point to absorb the power and had the kid carry it right in here under your nose. Which means she foresaw this entire confrontation and knew EXACTLY how to block you. She'd never have come up with that when she was working for you. Face it, I'm a far better mentor than you are, Clara."

I was blown away. Professor Saunders seemed so…flighty. To be able to outfox an Overgod, and her own ex mentor at that, not to mention she'd used US to do it. I got chills just thinking about that level of prescience.

In fact, it was more than that. This whole plan had been laid out to perfectly counter the Deans, it had been years in the making, and Professor Saunders had made the ONE perfect move she could to break the deadlock. She must have predicted this years ago, and had been steadily setting all this up ever since. It was staggering.

"Don't think I can't defend myself," spat Dean Temple, her face beginning to twist with panic. "I'm still an O-" her statement never finished. The frost that had been building around Dean Windermere had been quietly condensing, getting colder and colder, twisting the space nearby so subtly I'd barely noticed it. Her hands flicked up as Dean Temple spoke, and then…the other woman was frozen.

Not in ice. Or at least not only in ice. I flinched back when I tried to use Dantalion to analyze what had happened, but I managed to catch a slight scrap of information as my eyes started to bleed. Nine Layer Permafrost Prison. Time, space, soul, body, mind, Domain, heart, and fate, all frozen solid and frozen over again in a layer of indestructible permafrost.

Dean Gibbons whistled. "Wow, you took that a little personally, love. That's not going to thaw anytime soon."

"Treachery is just a part of life," said Dean Windermere coldly. "I'm less forgiving of incompetence. If you're going to stab me in the back, at least do it properly. Otherwise you're just embarrassing both of us."

"Very true," Dean Gibbons said brightly. "As for this little seal…" he lifted his fingers and snapped. The red dome around us flickered and went out. "I'll have to remember to give Allegra a contribution bonus for that. It was a flawlessly executed strategy. Now, let's go see if it was enough to turn the tide in our favor. I have a feeling the tides haven't turned completely just yet."

He turned and strode off in what seemed to me like a random direction and we all followed. I shot Callie a look, reaching out to grab her hand and sending a surge of hope and cautious optimism through it. This was a good sign. There were only two traitor deans unaccounted for, and they were most likely holding off two of the others somewhere else.

That meant our three would be able to focus on helping Dean Harper suppress the Void Child, or at least Dean Desmond would. I wasn't sure exactly how much actual attention was needed to run the Frozen Moment, especially since I didn't know what it WAS. Dean Windermere had gone in to get it alone before we left, and we'd never gotten to see what the device actually looked like, but I supposed that would change soon enough.

As we arrived at the entrance to the chamber, we all stopped to take in the scene. Dean Harper was there, standing in front of the exit, blocking off the passage with his enormous bulk. Red energy boiled around and past him from below. Around him, Void cultists attacked, ignored for the most part. Some gods, some A-rankers.

I recognized one of them as the familiar long haired man from the station. The one I now knew was Deveskane. He hadn't been able to reforge his Saga, and was apparently at the peak of A-rank still, but I could just tell it was him. When we stepped from the passage out of the row of trash, his eyes flicked to me, locking gazes, and I called my staff to my hand. I'd been waiting a long time for this.

Elonwy and the Professor spread out, obviously planning to engage with a few of the cultists. To my surprise, the two of them picked off three each, all at the same rank, and drew them off to open up the space for us. We were still outnumbered, but I was afraid of anything but numbers. I released about a dozen tier eight demons, and just to be safe, I boosted Asmodeus to tier nine and infused its power into Callie.

"Be careful," she told me solemnly as she stepped back. Callie knew that Deveskane was my responsibility. I'd been responsible for his release, and it was my job to fix it. Not to mention he'd taken a shot at my wife, and I wasn't letting that go.

I approached slowly, staff up, waiting to see what he would do before choosing my method of combat. Several cultists intervened, and I dispatched them with short, brutal strikes when they couldn't be avoided. Finally, I reached the fallen god. He shook his head ruefully. "You're gotten yourself involved in things far beyond your reach, boy. This will not end well for you."

Snorting coldly, I reached out with my Domain, wrapping it around us as I dragged us both inside. It was a little dangerous, but with the Seal and Pillar supporting my already much more durable than average Domain, his presence shouldn't be able to damage it, and it was at the very least safer to be inside than risk getting sucker punched by some insane cultist at an inopportune moment.

Deveskane didn't resist, allowing himself to be dragged inside, and we ended up in the throneroom of my castle, surrounded by the dozens of demons who didn't follow Callie into battle. He gave me a cold smile. "I suppose the tables have turned. How fortuitous for you."

"Nope," I said as I began to limber up. "I'm not going to mob you. That's too easy."

"You realize how stupid that is?" he asked dryly. "I find people like you, who allow emotion to dictate your actions rarely have a good end."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "And I'm supposed to take advice on good ends from the broken ghost of a former god who spent untold millenia trapped in an Impact meat grinder before selling yourself to an unknowable monster who isn't even from our reality. Like if you're going to betray humanity for the Void at least make it OUR Void. You're not even rooting for the home team."

"Your juvenile attempts at mockery have no effect on me," he said in a voice that was just SLIGHTLY tighter than it had been before. "If you wish to battle, proceed with the attack. But I warn you, while I may be unable to complete the step into S-rank, I possess all my old skills with my Domain, as well as a sizable boost in power from the Void Child. I am incomparable to my past self at this point. By the time I complete my breakthrough back to divinity and then from there to Overgod, I'll be beyond the reach of any other deity. I'm not the kind of enemy a B-ranker, even one like you, can compete with."

I nodded slowly. "Maybe," I said casually. "But maybe you're underestimating me." I reached for my power, for the four forms I had prepared for this exact moment. Mephistopheles, my most powerful offensive form. Life Nova, the apex of regeneration and healing. Cosmic Waltz, a powerful wielder of spatial fire, and finally, Song of Arcadia, a champion made to stand against the Void.

"Archdemon," I intoned as I connected the timepieces mentally. "Bennu." As I did, I pushed with my staff, elevating myself to A-rank, and I felt the four colored fire wash over me, rolling through my body, pushing me beyond what should be possible for me to bear. Even with my body refinement, even with my powerful soul, even with the staff and Seal to bear the weight, it was almost too much, it almost crushed me under the sheer awful power of the new form. Almost.

I grit my teeth, letting the weight crash down on me, letting it press me into the floor as my eyes squeezed shut, letting my soul groan under the stress, and all of it just sort of…solidified. Like I was being sublimated. I felt my soul, body, and heart aligning like planets in a syzygy. Under the strain, the thirty six drops of phoenix blood inside me burst to life, catching like jet fuel, and blazed up inside me, seeming to refine and meld the disparate elements of me together under the influence of the four colored flame.

When I opened my eyes, I felt lighter than air, like I had a sun burning in my veins. The four colored fire licked around me, and not just that, but behind me. I could see, out of my peripheral vision, a pair of glorious feathered wings, in black and green and white and glassy transparent flame. Behind me, the tree near my throne groaned a bit. I knew that I wouldn't be able to achieve this state outside my Domain. Only here, in the heart of my power, could I manifest this much of my strength. Four timepieces, four bloodlines, four fires of primordial power wielded against an enemy god in the center of my being.

It was insane. The risk, the recklessness. Bringing him here, doing this, it was almost more than could be logically accepted. There were so many other ways I could have done this, so many smarter, less dangerous paths to have taken. But…none of them were me. None of them were right. This was who I was. What I was. This was the purest representation of me.

I stepped forward, vanishing into the flows of space. Cosmic Waltz had gone beyond what it had once been, especially here. Every inch of this place was mine, and I could be anywhere I desired with a thought. My staff came around, the power of the Life Nova propelling the explosive end that was Ruin as I swept the staff towards Deveskane's head, aiming to cave in his skull.

His eyes widened at the speed and strength, and he dipped back, flicking up his hands. A pair of long, dark metal manacles unwound themselves from his wrists, hanging impossibly in the air as if underwater. My staff struck them head on, and they shuddered and rattled as they wrapped around it, draining off the momentum and trying to seal my attack in place.

The power leaching though the metal was staggering, and I knew it was Deveskane's Domain. Even with his body lacking a Saga and his foundation shattered, his use of his Domain was for more elegant and precise than mine.

But despite that, I realized something fundamental as I slipped my staff from the chains, retreating. Sealing. His Domain was based around sealing.

I thought back to lessons with my parents, to my lessons on using my Domain. The essence of my Domain, at its core, was Binding. I was Solomon, and I was on the path of the Demonbinder. My connection to my demons was my strength. My Bond with my wife was my conviction. My ties to my friends and family were my reason for being.

My staff flashed, thunder crashing as it tore the very air, four colored fire exploding against black implacable chains. I was winning, barely, but that wasn't enough. I knew what I had to do. What all this had been leading to. I could see it stretching out ahead of me like a shining road, leading me to this moment, preparing me for this. I pressed my attack, burning myself at both ends to push him harder and harder, until finally, with a grimace of rage, Deveskane finally stopped being cautious.

With an unearthly roar, he pulled on his Domain, forcing it into mine, manifesting the heart of his power within my realm to assert his dominion on my space. It was exactly what I'd been waiting for.

His Domain was hideous, a world of dark chains wrapping a thousand floating coffins, dark, monstrous things slithered and writhed in the blackness beyond where the chains faded from the dim light that showed them, jagged and covered in hooks and barbs. I drove my staff forward, exploding with four colored fire. Life Nova bolstered Peaceflame and purified the darkness, Ruin eroded the connections to Deveskane himself while the Cosmic Flame solidified the Domain itself.

I barely had the strength to finish it, to push over that last Domino. Because it had all been leading to this, every bit of training and innovation and growth. I'd been heading to this spot since I first set foot on the road to the chasm and I hadn't even realized it until just now.

With the last of my willpower, I triggered my staff, boosting Brad to the next tier, and bellowed "NOW!"

A hole opened beneath Deveskane. A pit of such utter, fathomless darkness that it ate my sight just to look at it. I thought of how many coincidences had needed to happen to bring me here. Discovering Brad, learning of his pit ability against the very Ascendant Deveskane was possessing, learning to create pits in people to imbue them with power, all of it for this one moment.

With the full weight of all my power, of all my demons, of all my Domain, I threw my whole soul against Deveskane, shoving him into the pit, Domain and all. After the purification, the erosion, the stabilization, and then Brad's intervention, not to mention his suitability as a material, it was almost shocking how smoothly he slipped into the pit, vanishing forever as it snapped shut behind him.

I stood frozen in shock as I stared down at the space where Deveskane had been. Just like I had used the feather for a material for Cosmic Waltz and the Lantern Shield for Song of Arcadia, I had just used Deveskane himself as a material for my Domain. His sealing capabilities had fed my Domain, shaping and changing it, and I-

My knees buckled. Power receded from my, Bennu rolling away, only for the strength to come crashing back ten times over as the enhancement from integrating Deveskane into my Domain finally hit, carried back like the returning tide as it crashed over and through me, and out into Gehenna. The castle shuddered, expanding and widening around me. Chains snaked over and through the dark stone, space expanding, and I could feel the changes to the plains outside too.

Forty two miles of Domain became fifty, then sixty, finally stopping at a full seventy two miles. An increase of thirty, almost as much Domain as I had originally started with. I felt a slight stress in the makeup of the Domain itself, but the chains bound it together despite the natural urge to fracture under such rapid expansion, and magmatic veins of Cosmic Fire erupted from the cracks, pouring around the suture like bindings and repairing it.

I checked my stats. No change to any of my core statistics, but aside from the expanded Domain space, my physical body had massively improved. My previous five thousand point per scroll cap had DOUBLED. I could faintly sense there were other effects, but I didn't have time to dig into them. I called Zagan over, having him blast me with life fire, and closed my eyes for a moment while he replenished my power. After the upgrade, my limits were far from what they had been, and all I was lacking was energy.

With that done, I stepped from my Domain, ready to rejoin the fight. I had no idea what had just happened, mostly, or what it meant, but my wife was still in danger, and that meant I was still needed. Everything else could wait until we were safe. Once I had emerged, I summoned every tier eight demon to battle, and we waded in. No rest for the wicked, after all.