Dei continued to nag at The Champion as to what his real name was, but the old Dragon refused to tell him, insisting it was Dave, and then telling Dei that he was lying over and over again.

'The bastard…'

When Dei had all his answers, he decided to wait out the rest of his time in Caps, working on something he now had a clue towards: getting his System working.

To do that, he started to observe his inner world carefully. It had limitless potential, which he just wasn't taking advantage of.

Within him were at least two sources of limitless energy: Entropy and the stars within. If Dragons could use stars to move and attack, Dei figured he could at least tap into it; he could absolutely be wrong, but there was no point in not considering it as an option. When it came to stars and utilizing them, he might just not have the proper equipment to utilize it as an energy source- after all, Celestial Parasites were antithetical to Earth Primordial descendants, was there perhaps a Sun Primordial version of power structure? One only useable by Dragons, as they were the last of its people?

'Ah, but there is Sun Spawn, so it can't be exactly the same. Those things aren't actually genetically related to Dragons.'

The important part was that an energy source sat within him, one he couldn't see. He didn't think it was just the stars created by other Dragons, because The Champion openly said he used the native stars in Minerali to power time-acceleration: he used stars, not just a random energy, nor did he consume matter. The Champion used stars, so there was some relation between stars and the boundless energy of Dragons.

Further, The Champion said that the Power spell was a remnant of the Sun Primordial's kiss upon them, a remnant of its power. Even if the Sun Primordial was dead, it'd likely still left its mark, the energy of The Sun, or stars.

That implied there was an energy of The Moon as well- was that the entropic energy Dei used? It'd certainly fit within the Moon Primordial's theme but… no, that couldn't be right, could it? The Moon Primordial was antithetical to life, yes? If that were true, how would Dei use mana to power the spells…

'WAIT! I CAN'T use mana to power Entropic Touch! That's one of the drawbacks! The only way I can is by feeding mana to Starved Bastion, converting it to entropic energy, and using it that way…

'Oh my God, entropic energy is absolutely the thing the Moon Primordial was using to power its spells.'

He didn't know what this implied. He supposed that, outside of the Celestial Parasites, the Moon Primordial must've had some kind of power system, but he'd just never thought about it. Celestial Parasites were the only thing useable to the majority of people; the only reason Dei could tap into the power was because the System made some kind of construct to do so.

Still, he couldn't do much with it- just destroy everything. His kneejerk reaction was to say that's all the energy could do, with it being the Moon Primordial's domain and all, but again Celestial Parasites disproved him.

However… they were midpoints between the Earth and Moon Primordials. Maybe the Moon Primordial was limited to just breaking things, and had to hijack the Earth Primordial's control to get anything done.

Was that why the Earth Primordial beat the other two, despite being outnumbered? The other two had power… but the Earth Primordial had control?

'It probably also had power with how explosive chaos is, but maybe just less than the others.'

If that were true, Dei was looking in the wrong place. Right now, he was trying to find the place where Starved Bastion created entropic energy so he could repurpose it into mana instead, but the process wouldn't work. Entropic energy loved destroying stuff, mana was different.

No, instead he started the slow process of searching through Entropic Touch instead: if he wanted to use the Sun Primordial's energy, he needed the piece which allowed him to utilize another Primordial's power. True, it likely wouldn't be applicable to the Sun Primordial, but if he could redirect the entropic energy into a new shape, into one of his System… he'd give shape to the destruction in the same way that Celestial Parasites did.

Entropic Touch was unstructured Moon Primordial energy, and he briefly wondered why the System would give him something like that, but perhaps this was always its intention? It knew he had Knowledge, and perhaps it was limited in how much help it could give him in this endeavor. Whatever the reason, the ability was easy to sift through because he knew where to look: right at the beginning of the process- its link to Starved Bastion.

With calculated delicacy, Dei gently copied the piece needed, and approached his curated System spell, one of his own design and an amalgam of pieces stolen from many of his others.

'Let's see what you can do…' he said, observing the tiny metaphorical nozzle which fit comfortably in the palm of his mental hand.

* * *

Fitting the entropy into his spell had somewhat… catastrophic effects. The whole thing melted, and he had to expend more of his Presence to undo the changes. He was glad he'd figured out all the tricks to altering spells in his first go-around when creating the Living Barrier spell, otherwise he might've started crying when it was all destroyed.

Next, he had to find whatever insulating parts the System gave Entropic Touch to prevent entropy from destroying it all.

* * *

'Okay so this just isn't working at all,' Dei thought with a sigh.

Now that he was really looking into each, he started noting the different… styles that each spell had, and their purpose. Wrath spells were angular, Kindness were more flowing, Soul was measured and symmetrical. When he put them together, what did he get?

Gibberish.

Entropy brought attention to this by melting through all the weak points- the places where he merged the spells. If he wanted to successfully create a System, he'd have to build the entire thing from scratch, theoretically.

In practice, he thought he could turn this to his advantage. What did he have here, if not several opposing parts that hated each other? The clash between them could become the warzones he needed to input his own style. He would create some pieces alright, but instead of starting over, he would create warzones the entropy had to pass through of each part, where the different spells intentionally ripped at each other for some end-goal he didn't see yet. Would it be to help smooth them out? Would it calm entropy down? He had no fuckin clue.

He'd get there.

* * *

Despite his internal musings, Dei did not reach the spot he wanted to before the day of Jacob's funeral finally came. He'd started, but it would take more time still.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Jacob finally decided on how he'd make his entrance as well. Dei wanted for him to sneak in and interrupt the speech from the crowd halfway through, but Jacob said it'd be embarrassing.

'Well yea, that's the point, I want to make fun of you afterwards,' Dei thought but didn't say.

Thadria on the other hand wanted Dei and Jacob to descend from the heavens together like angels, as apparently Dei was now also known to the population as a savior- they'd apparently received shockingly clear images of the fight because of all the powerful signals being emitted by the battle.

Dei didn't like that because it'd involve talking and giving a speech. He wouldn't mind making an appearance, but he didn't want to talk.

It was decided that if Dei wouldn't speak though, it'd be better he didn't go at all or he'd just scare people.

When Jacob saw the symbolic casket they gave him though, he had a better idea and he chose what he wanted to say.

The day came, and with a bit of help from Thadria's Kinetic affinity, Jacob decided to appear right at the start so they wouldn't waste too much time on speeches. And because Yalda was one of the first talking.

There was a great wooden stage in the center of the crater, with almost twenty million dwarves sitting at the stadium-seats around it, most watching the projection overhead of a holographic image which provided a live feed strangely reminiscent of the modern stadiums on Earth.

* * *

POV: Yalda Boneseeker

Yalda looked out over the crowd of deathly silent dwarves. There were so many… yet so few.

Twenty million dwarves. That was all that was left of their great race, and almost everyone showed now to the funeral of Jacob Smith, the only human to ever exist in their world. It was a strange thing, to have multiverse theory confirmed by a fictional species, and one that wasn't even in their myths or belief system. Just a random pop-culture reference that turned out to be real…

There were new theories now, that the writer of this was actually some kind of world hopper that'd decided to publish his works, but that was irrelevant.

Twenty million dwarves, all of which would've likely been extinguished if Jacob hadn't redirected the ship into the sun and bought them time- time which hadn't gone to waste.

The battle between the infected dragon and whatever other deep-space creature that was had already become public knowledge. It'd calmed the masses immensely, knowing that they were not in danger anymore, but there were more than a few asking just who or what that ghastly being was.

Yalda was here to both speak of Jacob though, and whoever else was out there could wait.

The crowd held their breath in deathly silence. She'd already taken several breaths to center herself before speaking, and now it was time.

Opening her mouth, she leaned closer to the microphone and-

Was immediately cut off by a raising murmur through the dwarves in the outer stadium.

She bit back a venomous remark for those going out of their way to talk over her. In those few moments, she realized the noise rose as the seconds did, and finally realized something else was happening.

Guards rushed the stage, quickly moving her away while keeping their eyes locked onto something in the sky, and she finally looked up to see what the fuss was about.

A glowing speck in the sky, barely visible to her, sat on a collision course for the central stage. If not for others having seen it first, she would've never noticed. The camera's around changed from focusing on her to zooming up, enlarging the picture they had of the object.

Flames scoured it, whatever it was, obscuring the clear image they might've otherwise gotten. It moved too quickly, far past the terminal velocity of any dwarf, implying it was either incredibly dense or propulsed by some unseen force.

The military didn't waste time, several railguns extending over the lip of the crater, pointing at the descending form.

A series of repeating whump's filled her ears, and the metal bars clashed into the crashing meteorite.

They did nothing.

The metal exploded against the figure, not even slowing it down. The shots became more frantic, every machine they had available hitting it with everything they had- but nothing even registered against the mass.

They attempted to usher her underground, but she fought back. "Whatever this is, it's clear we can't kill it. If our apocalypse has come delayed, I want to see it with my own two eyes" she insisted, and her guards reluctantly agreed.

If it was the end of the world, they wanted to be here as well.

People were quietly evacuated in an orderly fashion, those that tried to push their way through were tranquilized immediately to prevent a stampede.

They barely got a few thousand out by the time the center of the stage blew up, fragments of wood flying everywhere. The military had to stop using its larger weapons as well, for fear of hitting civilians.

The stone dust and woodchips obscured vision, and all was silent again as several hundred lasers indicated just how many snipers aimed at the unknown entity that'd interrupted their funeral.

Most stopped moving when the shadow became defined, and Yalda's breath caught when she recognized what climbed free of the crater. The cameras enhanced the image of a familiar human, and the dwarves could only watch in stunned silence.

Walking up to the place Yalda had vacated, Jacob tapped the microphone to ensure it was on, and spoke.

"The casket looked expensive," he said, glancing at the Tomb of the Hero, a symbolic artifact made of pure gold inlaid with countless gems. It was made specifically for him. "I hated to leave it empty."

Countless dots were still trained on the man, but most of them trembled in time with the snipers arms.

Before anyone could say anything, the mountain of spent bullets and melted bars that'd bounced off Jacob before fell on him now, crushing him.

Yalda felt the progress made by her therapist be undone in seconds.

* * *

Minutes after Dei left Caps, in the remnant battlefield.

The remaining five unions were left with nothing. Their bodies could not withstand the reality around them, and they broke down- yet still, they did not give up, for they simply knew nothing but hunger.

Even as they died, all five ripped at each other, and as they did something new happened- the survivors were blessed with intelligence.

Dei had taken hits during the battle, leaving some mass behind that blessed them with a complex ancestral memory, rather than what was left to them by their fellow unions and spirits.

When only one union was left, the one with all remains of Dei's memories, an echo of a psyche was born- one that vaguely knew the name Dei, yet felt utterly lacking.

It had nothing to eat, so it merely starved in the vastness of space, feeling itself be ripped apart.

At least, for a moment.

Right after its final brothers demise, a new figure stepped into frame.

When Perumah obliterated reality with a final blast of chaos in all directions, she could not remove everything she didn't want. Chaos could not truly be tamed, and all she wanted to do was weaken the barrier enough to let Dei take control of it.

What she left was, in fact, a point of weakened reality- yet it was so much more to someone else. A gateway. An entrance, a chance.

The fake Dei, the false self of the timeline found himself in the Physical world now, looking around. His real self, however, was gone.

That was fine, that's not why he was here.

He'd sensed another life, one slowly dying, and felt what it was.

Approaching the dying union, it tried to attack him but failed to deal any damage- at least, not until he let it do so, feeding it memories of Dei and who he was, flushing out its identity.

Not enough for him to suffer true soul damage, but enough to grant the duplication spirit something to work from.

"You know," the fake Dei whispered to the tiny draconic figure, "I realize something now. I've- well, Dei is- I've always been careless. Despite having once been weak, I forgot how determined someone can become when all other options are gone. It wasn't so long ago that I was the one hiding in that little cave, struggling to even make a fire to cook with, relying on hard-tack and a mossy stream of water. It sounds insane, but it's true: Dei has forgotten what it means to be weak, and has gotten careless against just how strong they can be when backed into a corner.

"It's why I will win. It's why I will find a way to kill him and take back my past… it's why I see into his future, even now, that Iora will deal a horrible, crippling strike to him. Because he will intentionally back her into a corner, make her suffer, and torture her for his own satisfaction. Because he has forgotten how hateful the 'Weak' can get when it's not his turn to be it. A short sightedness on his and my part… one I will not make again."

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