Jacob strained against the gravity of a thousand worlds, held down beneath the gaze of a golem so tall that one foot would have been enough to crush a city. Its body was forged from white hot flame and its eyes were bloodred embers of scarlet fire.

"You should not have come here," the golem rumbled, lifting its foot to stomp on Jacob. "My vigil is eternal and inviolable. You will never claim my quarter of the Solar Forge, nor the others."

Jacob smiled. This was what he had been waiting for. Mustering his Dao, he brandished a small disk of metal emblazoned with the icon of a star. "You mean another one of these?"

"What?" the golem roared, but it was already too late. Jacob's body brightened until he was nothing more than a pillar of ruby light. A moment later he was flying through the air, aimed straight at the center of the golem's chest.

Jacob's body became a spear that pierced the heavens, lengthening until it was almost a mile like. Like a ray of sunlight it sliced through the air, before slamming into the golem's core. The frigid seas beneath evaporated before the resulting blast, a blistering sphere of heat and light expanding outwards as the solar golem's outer containment ruptured. Blood the heat and consistency of lava spilled out, before bursting into flame as the Dao enhanced heat fought against the freezing cold.

Flesh crisped and burnt as Jacob forced his way into the center of the golem, his eyes straining to see through the all enveloping light. Before him was an orb of fiery white power, about a mile in diameter. That was the golem's elemental core, and the source of its power.

Even for someone as durable as Jacob, the heat quickly became overbearing, so hot that his flesh evaporated away in layers, peeling his body apart from the outside in. His Authority expanded, a wave of transmutation fighting against the golem's ambient heat, lowering the temperature until it was at a more reasonable level. As always, the greatest weaknesses of large monsters was the lower distribution of stats and Dao energy across their bodies. Even though this golem was a D Ranker, it couldn't muster all of its power at one spot without causing the rest of its body to fall apart. While its Authority was no doubt stronger than Jacob's, his was more concentrated, and his goal was quite small, all things considered.

Jacob thrust out one hand, and a lance of energy formed within it. He curled his fingers around the shaft, the color of a bloody sunset, and whipped it through the air, straight towards the golem's core. His Dao energy was roaring like a bonfire, galvanized by the battle to new heights. Every time Jacob fought and won his Dao energy was empowered slightly, his baseline always increasing. Then, during the battle, he could reach beyond his previous limits and achieve the impossible.

"This is the end!" Jacob roared, his voice echoing across the Hyperborean Seas. "Supremacy Cannon!"

The beam doubled in size, and then doubled again, exponentially growing even as the haze of power surrounding Jacob diminished. He was a master of energy manipulation, given his lack of weapon, and was able to perfectly modulate the power he needed to both defend himself and strike.

The Supremacy Cannon struck the golem's core, by that time the size of a battleship. The immense beam of energy tore through the outer layer of the golem's core, revealing a brightness so intense that Jacob went blind. He clapped his hands together and a wave of power propelled him down towards the water below. A split second later, the golems core detonated, shortly followed by the construct itself. Jacob felt the impact like the fist of an angry god, sending him miles down into the freezing depths.

So hot was the explosion that for a moment, the seas turned to gas, allowing Jacob to escape before the cold got to him. He had thought himself above the low temperatures before, but after having a foot frozen off during his travel across the dungeon, he had tried not to touch it since.

Jacob flew out of the rapidly returning waters, spotting a tiny fragment of sunlight falling from where the golem had just stood. He teleported to it and caught the glowing chunk of metal. It quickly cooled down, revealing a copy of the Solar Forge fragment he already had. He snapped the two disks together, and put it back in his storage device. At this rate the dungeon would be over quickly.

"I wonder how Sam is doing…" Jacob muttered as he flew off towards the next guardian.

The Genesis Disc

It took Graxus almost a day to recover from his injuries, and only after Sam had withdrawn his Dao energy from the ailing Gytharki. The damage dealt by Descent of the Heavenly Judge had seared through every part of Graxus' being, leaving wounds that were incredibly difficult to heal.

Sam stood by the reclining king, carefully watched by the twelve elites who had initially challenged him. They were within Graxus' palace, in the center of the Gytharki capital. The entire building was quite austere, with a monochrome steely grey making up most of the structure's color scheme. The few bits that differed were pitch black rocks, looking similar enough to obsidian that Sam decided to think of them as such.

One of the guards shifted uneasily. "My lord, are you sure-"

Graxus glared at him, cutting the hulking Gytharki off. "For the last time, Sam Atlas is not to be harmed! Not that you could do anything to him, anyway." Graxus started coughing, even though he had no lungs.

Extreme damage had a tendency to bring higher Rank bodies back to mortal baselines, either on account of the body's resources being consumed to ensure regeneration, or as a psychosomatic effect. It was why it was possible to kill even D Rankers without having to atomize their entire body, even though there were no vital organs left that were necessary to function. It was likely different at higher Ranks, though.

Sam smiled thinly at Graxus' defence of him, though his mind was already on other things. Mainly, how to clear the dungeon. He had lucked out by emerging close to the Gytharki heartlands, but the other two races were hundreds of thousands of miles away. The D Rank dungeon was truly immense. At least he had learned their names. The snake people were called the Seshari and the avian humanoids were called the Calabrangi. None of them existed out in the open Multiverse, having been created solely for the dungeon. It was a bit surprising that they understood that, but it seemed like the System was very open with information.

Rather than despising the godlike machine that had created them, all three species worshiped the System to some degree, with the Calabrangi being by far the most devout. They believed that their innate ability to fly and their cloud kingdoms put them closest to their creator. Mixed in with a bit of good old fashioned jingoism, that made for a uniquely belligerent combination. It was why they had viciously pursued Sam earlier in the dungeon, despite his clear superiority on the field of battle.

"When are you going to be ready?" Sam asked Graxus. "I didn't hit you that hard."

Graxus forced out a pained chuckle. "Didn't hit me that hard? You punched a hole through my body while destroying the landscape for a thousand miles in every direction. What sort of hits are you taking that you don't consider that hard?"

Sam shrugged. "I've been cut in half a few times. As an E Ranker."

Graxus winced. "I guess you do have the qualifications after all." The Gytharki forced himself up and out of his seat, which looked more like an elevated parking spot than anything else. "I'll stop being a weakling. I'm strong enough to move. By the time we actually get anywhere close to the enemy, I will be sufficiently recovered. "

Sam shrugged. "Whatever works for you. We do have a lot of distance to travel, though. You said something about anti teleportation arrays around the capitals, correct?"

Graxus nodded. "Yes. We rely on our force field to stop teleportation directly into the city, but Seshari and Calabrangi prefer to leave their cities less defended while preventing teleportation into any of their territories. It suits their guerilla warfare style of fighting better, especially the Seshari."

"Well, I don't think we'll have any problems with getting past them," Sam replied. "How do you want to go about this? It's your world, so I'll defer to your judgement on tactics."

"We should go with just the two of us," Graxus declared. "My knights are strong enough to defend the city in tandem with the force field. Besides, not many invaders make it this far into our territory."

"I'm assuming you want to do… well, what I did to you?" Sam asked. "An overwhelming show of force on the leaders, to force them to surrender?"

"It might be more than overwhelming force that we need," Graxus admitted. "The Seshari will be loath to surrender and I suspect that the Calabrangi never will. They will need to be wiped out, at least their fighters. What did you say the win condition for this dungeon was?"

"I have to either force every species to surrender, or make it so that one species has a permanent advantage over the others that ensures their victory."

"Good. I might be a bit of a warmonger, but I do not have the stomach for the butchery of civilians."

"Neither do I."

***

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As it turned out, Graxus was far sneakier than one might have guessed by looking at him. Sam and his ally had traversed the realm, moving behind enemy lines without ever being detected. At least, being detected by a force large enough to give them trouble. Their first destination was Sessus, the Seshari capital, as Graxus believed that out of the two enemy species, theirs would be the most likely to listen to reason. Graxus continued to profess that the Calabrangi were incapable of surrender, so Sam decided to listen to him on that account.

Sessus was entirely underground, built in a country sized cave system under a malformed scale of Grantholar. No Gytharki had ever been inside, but they knew a bit about its layout from interrogating prisoners. It was filled with millions of low lying buildings and breeding grounds from which the Seshari emerged. They were the most numerous species, able to lay dozens of eggs every year. Had they not possessed significant demerits to their stats on account of their species, they would have swiftly overrun the entire Genesis Disc.

It took Sam and Graxus almost a week to reach the capital, having to keep their speed down to a level that was almost maddening to a D Ranker. While there was no individual fighter on the Seshari side that could take on either Sam or Graxus, they were well versed in the art of trapmaking. Graxus himself had fallen victim to some of those traps before, and informed Sam that he never wanted to be on the receiving end again. If the Seshari truly wished to stop them getting to their capital, they would never reach it.

The above ground section of the capital was hardly noteworthy, a long, angled shard of scale that jutted up into the air for about a mile. There was a large opening on the bottom of the higher end of the scale, from which thousands if not tens of thousands of Seshari marched in and out every minute.

"Where's all the traps?" Sam asked. "It just looks like a random scale."

Graxus gave Sam a look. "Do you really think you would see the traps? Why would they be out in the open?"

Sam gave Graxus a flat look. "I have a skill that lets me see the nature of everything around me. It doesn't matter if something's in the way. I still don't see anything."

"Each of the three factions of this world have their own specialties," Graxus explained. "The Gytharki are peerless melee fighters while the Seshari excel at crafting traps. They can hide them under layers of Dao shielding to prevent anything from detecting them. The Seshari also have another advantage."

"Which is?"

"Their queen, Giressa, can control them from afar through mental links. It lets them outperform the other species when it comes to battle strategy."

"Oh. That's annoying. What about the Calabrangi?"

"The Calabrangi are faster than the other species and specialize in making artillery," Graxus replied. "Their flying cities can rain down all kinds of missiles and projectiles on the people below."

"I think I ran into one of those weapons," Sam replied. "When I first came to this realm, I was targeted by one of the Calabrangi cities. There were these cannons that they fired at me."

Graxus indeed. "Exactly. The Calabrangi aren't that strong individually, but they are capable of bringing great destruction."

Sam nodded, not responding. Instead he tried to focus Worldsense, pushing through with his Dao Sapling. All he achieved was making the world seem even fuzzier than before. Seeing as the highest Rankers in this dungeon were D Rankers, that meant that whatever defensive arrays they were using to cloak the traps were also powered by Dao Saplings. Sam might have been talented with his Dao, but it wasn't much stronger than another Dao at its level.

"I give up," he said. "How do we get past the traps?"

Graxus grinned. "I was waiting for you to ask that. I trained for a few years to be able to deal with these traps. All you have to do is follow my lead."

The Gytharki left the tree cover and slunk out onto the open plain surrounding Sessus. He was incredibly quiet for how large his body was, though that could be attributed more to his Authority than anything else.

"Most of their traps are arranged in specific patterns," Graxus explained. "So that they can draw power from one another. It takes a lot to dismantle one of the traps because they all draw from a common power source."

"What pattern is being used here?" Sam asked. "Do you know?"

"Not entirely," Graxus admitted. "I've never been here in person. But I can make some assumptions. The strongest type of array is a series of concentric circles, each with the traps slightly offset. All of them are the same distance apart and draw upon a central energy battery."

"So all of this is just guesswork?" Sam replied, a bit skeptical. "Why don't we just fly over them? Seems like it would be easier and safer. Unless…"

"Yes, there are traps in the air as well. The Seshari key the trigger sequences to the species of the person approaching. This entire place looks normal enough but it's wired to blow if anyone unauthorized passes through."

"Well, shit. We'll have to go with guesswork then."

"We need to hide ourselves now. Do you know how to blend Authorities?" Graxus asked.

Sam shook his head. "Can't say that I do. Is it as simple as it sounds, though?"

"You need to extend your Authority but focus on having it overlap with mine, and not fighting with it. The closer we are to each other, the easier it will be."

"I can try," Sam replied.

He extended his Authority, feeling Graxus doing the same. Trying to combine them was far harder than Sam had expected. His Authority had a will of its own to some extent, and its whole nature was based on supremacy over a small area. It didn't want to blend with another's will.

"You need to really want it," Graxus explained. "Otherwise your Authority is going to get in your way."

Sam closed his eyes, trying to think of a way to convince his Authority to fuse with Graxus'. At its core, the problem was that Sam hadn't possessed his Authority for long enough to master it. While he had his new skill branch to help with that, all that ability did was allow him to better influence his own actions within his Authority. It did nothing to help in this scenario.

Sam could feel the fuzzy borders between his Authority and that of Graxus, but that only told him that he still thought of there being an unavoidable boundary between them. In fact, observing that made it harder, not easier, to achieve his goal.

"Let me in," Graxus cajoled. "My Authority is trying to blend with yours. You need to allow it to happen."

Sam nodded, but he wasn't seeing any progress. He could feel a tingling pressure on his awareness coming from Graxus, like thousands of tiny strands of energy were trying to reach towards him. Shuddering slightly, Sam forced aside the instinctual revulsion and reached out with his will, grabbing on. Suddenly, his control over his Authority diminished, and he had the strange sensation of sharing it with another.

"Now we can proceed," Graxus said happily, though his mouth didn't move. Instead, his Authority transmitted the message straight to Sam's mind, bypassing physical sounds. "Let's focus on blocking out enemy senses. Sight and hearing are the most important, but we need to get them all. Then we have to deal with Dao senses."

Sam nodded, and tried to figure out how to do what Graxus wanted. His control over his Domain was fine for dealing with general applications of power, but he had never tried using it like this. Simply imagining his Authority blocking out sight or hearing was a lot harder than, say, copying something already present. There was a strange lack of response when he tried to visualize it, as if something was blocking his Authority from working.

The fact that D and E Rank senses didn't function the same as those of a mortal only added to the confusion. Sam didn't merely have to stop mundane sensory organs from detecting them, he had to make sure that people who could see the eyes on a fly from a hundred miles away couldn't detect anything.

He and Graxus worked together to create a shield around them that projected the illusion of whatever it was they were standing on. The only reason it could even work was because of the localized omniscience of an Authority, letting the illusion change in real time to match whatever was needed.

"Damn it…" Graxus whispered, his eyes flicking over to a gap in the forest. "Someone's already watching us."

Sam extended his Worldsense, finding a single D Rank Seshari curled around a small tree, watching them intently. As soon as it felt his gaze upon him, the snake-person uncoiled and sped away.

"No you don't!" Sam muttered, teleported next to the Seshari. He grabbed it by the neck, hoisting the creature off its feet.

"Intruders-" the Seshari started to yell, but Sam cut him off with his Authority. The sound waves fell flat, unable to make it past the Seshari's mouth.

Graxus appeared by his side a moment later, looking down at the far smaller Seshari in Sam's grip.

"What are we going to do with him?" Sam asked. Before he could blink, Graxus' fist slammed into the side of the Seshari's head, obliterating it in an instant. The shockwave tore through the rest of his body, angled in such a way to direct the blood away from Sam.

"You can't let them live if they see you," Graxus chided. "They all communicate through an array. It only takes a few seconds for them to connect and report anything."

Sam, a little put off by the sudden and unexpected violence, simply shook his hands off and took the opportunity to scan the plain in front of him. "I guess we need to avoid them in the future as much as we can," he said after a short pause. "That's only going to get harder as time goes on."

Now that the intruder was gone, Sam suddenly realized why he had been having such trouble with closing out enemy detection. It wasn't because of his own lack of knowledge or expertise. Rather, he had been attempting to not only rewrite reality, but force a D Ranker to become part of that rewriting. It would be like if a mortal had tried to control someone's mind by staring at them harder than normal. Sam's Authority was powerful, sure, but only for his level. Authorities came in stages with concrete boundaries, and while his was a bit higher than his own level, he still was much stronger personally than anything he could do with it.

With his realization, the boundaries of his Authority became far more concrete, and Sam's goal came into sight. Merging his will with Graxus', he looked at the entire scope of their fused Authorities. Because of the way volume worked, their combined Authority wasn't twelve miles wide as one might have expected. It was significantly smaller, though still large enough to create a noticeable difference in Sam's ability to manipulate it. Some of that also came from the fact that he was sharing control. Had he been less sure of Graxus' motives and his own strength, Sam might have been worried about sharing his Authority. Given that he was perfectly capable of beating Graxus even without its aid, he was mostly unbothered.

The ground beneath them was covered in crunchy gravel, mixed in with low growing shrubbery and grass. There were no roads or paths, or any sign of civilization in the immediate vicinity. Every visible part of the Seshari society was kept in a small area around the entrance to their capital. It would be very difficult to cross that ground and escape notice at the same time.

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