**Chapter 90: The Multiverse**
**Day 1,295.**
**Location: Core of Star System Z-42 (Red Dwarf).**
**Current Status: Claustrophobic.**
**Mood: Existential.**
I was dreaming about math.
It wasn't a pleasant dream. In the dream, I was a balloon being inflated inside a steel safe. The safe was the Universe. The air filling me was the relentless, compounding algorithm of my own power.
*Pressure. Expansion. Squeak.*
I woke up.
My eyes opened. To anyone else, opening eyes inside the core of a star would be a blinding, searing impossibility. To me, it was like opening my eyes in a dim room. The swirling plasma, compressed by gravity to the density of lead, felt like a heavy blanket.
I checked the internal clock.
**[Day 1,295.]**
**[Daily Growth: +10%.]**
**[Total Power Multiplier: Error. Integer Overflow.]**
I shifted.
The star groaned. My movement sent a shockwave through the stellar mantle, causing a coronal mass ejection on the surface, forty thousand kilometers above me. Somewhere in this solar system, a planet just got a very nasty sunburn.
"Careful," I chided myself.
I ran the diagnostic.
I was stronger than yesterday. Significantly stronger. The compound interest curve was now almost a vertical line.
On Day 1, I could lift a car.
On Day 100, I could lift a mountain.
On Day 1,000, I could bench-press a moon.
Now? on Day 1,295?
I directed my senses outward, past the fusion fire of the star, past the orbiting planets, past the heliopause. I felt the fabric of spacetime itself.
It felt... thin.
Like cheap fabric stretched over a frame that was too big.
"Architect," I projected. My voice didn't use sound waves; it used gravitational waves.
*// I AM HERE, PRIME ENTITY. //*
"I have a problem," I said. "The universe is shrinking."
*// CORRECTION: THE UNIVERSE IS STATIC. YOU ARE EXPANDING. //*
"Same difference," I sighed. "I can feel the walls, Arch. I used to look at the night sky and see infinity. Now? I look out and I see the ceiling."
I focused my perception. I pushed it. I didn't look at the stars; I looked *behind* them. I looked at the dark spaces between galaxies, the voids where matter shouldn't exist.
I applied pressure.
*Crrrraaack.*
It was a metaphysical sound. The sound of reality straining.
And then, for a microsecond, I saw it.
I saw through the skin of the universe.
It wasn't a void. It wasn't nothingness. It was a chaotic, swirling foam of iridescent colors that defied the visible spectrum. It was a roar of data, energy, and laws of physics that were completely alien to this reality.
And floating in that foam, I saw other bubbles.
Billions of them.
Some were bright and golden. Some were dark and rotting. Some were jagged, crystalline structures.
"Oh," I whispered. The fusion fire around me swirled into a vortex as I gasped.
I wasn't alone in a room. I was in an apartment complex.
**[New Concept Unlocked: The Multiverse.]**
**[Discovery XP: 500,000,000.]**
**[Status: The Fish Has Discovered The Ocean.]**
I pulled my perception back, snapping the hole in reality shut. The star settled around me.
I lay there in the heart of the furnace, my mind racing.
I had always assumed that if I kept growing, I would eventually rule this universe. I would bring order, or chaos, or just entertainment. But I had assumed the playground was infinite.
It wasn't.
If I stayed here—if I kept compounding at 10% a day—I wouldn't just rule this universe. I would burst it. I would become a tumor so heavy that I would collapse the entire space-time continuum into a singularity centered on my ego.
"I need a bigger house," I murmured.
But before I could dwell on the terrifying implications of being a cosmic home-wrecker, a notification pinged in the back of my mind. Not the God-System.
The *other* System.
The little one.
***
**Location: Omega-9 Station (Sub-Level 4: Waste Processing).**
**Current Status: Covered in Slime.**
**Mood: Regret.**
"Take the job, they said," I grumbled, wiping green sludge off my goggles. "It's an easy F-Rank quest, they said. Good for beginners, they said."
I ducked.
A stream of acidic bile flew over my head and sizzled against the rusted pipe behind me.
**[Combat Alert!]**
**[Enemy: Mutated Sewer Rat (Elite Variant).]**
**[Level: 5.]**
**[Ability: Acid Spit.]**
I was crouching in a ventilation shaft that smelled like a corpse had died inside a bigger, smellier corpse. I was holding a jagged metal pipe I had scavenged, and wearing my "armor"—which consisted of leather scraps duct-taped to my grey tunic.
"Squeeeeee!"
The rat shrieked. It was the size of a Golden Retriever, hairless, with three glowing red eyes and a tail that looked like a whip made of exposed muscle.
I grinned.
I was filthy. I was exhausted. My HP was at 65%.
It was glorious.
"Come on, you little beauty," I taunted, tightening my grip on the pipe. "Let's dance."
The rat lunged.
It moved fast—faster than my Level 3 Avatar stats could comfortably track. But my mind was still the mind of a tactical genius (mostly).
I didn't swing at the rat. I swung at the steam valve next to me.
*CLANG.*
The valve sheared off. A jet of superheated steam blasted out, directly into the rat's path.
The creature screeched, flinching back from the heat.
**[Enemy Stunned!]**
"Opportunity attack," I whispered.
I rolled forward, under the steam jet, and brought my pipe down on the rat's skull.
*Thwack.*
**[Critical Hit! -18 Damage.]**
The rat thrashed, its tail whipping around to catch me in the ribs.
*Crack.*
**[Damage Taken: 12.]**
**[HP: 53/100.]**
Pain flared in my side. Real, sharp, breath-stealing pain.
My main body, currently bathing in a star, would have barely noticed a supernova hitting it. But here? A rat tail felt like a baseball bat.
The adrenaline spiked. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. This was the stakes. This was the gamble. If I died here, the Avatar died. I'd lose the progress. I'd have to build a new meat-suit.
"Not today," I snarled.
I dropped the pipe and drew the vibro-knife from my boot.
The rat recovered, hissing, preparing to spit again.
I didn't give it the chance. I tackled it.
It was a stupid move. Wrestling a mutated acid-rat in a sewer is not in the strategy guide. But I needed to feel the victory.
I wrapped my legs around its torso, avoiding the claws, and drove the knife into the soft spot behind its central eye.
*Squelch.*
**[Critical Hit!]**
**[Enemy Defeated.]**
**[XP Gained: 45.]**
The rat went limp.
I rolled off the carcass, panting, lying on the wet, metal floor of the tunnel.
"Ha," I wheezed. "Hahaha."
**[Quest Update: Vermin Control.]**
**[Rats Eliminated: 5/5.]**
**[Return to Janitor Grak for Reward.]**
I lay there for a moment, letting the stamina bar regenerate. My ribs throbbed. I smelled terrible.
"This," I said to the dark ceiling of the sewer, "is living."
Suddenly, the world flickered.
It wasn't the lights. It was my vision. A blue overlay slammed into my retinas, overriding the local System interface.
*// ALERT. SYNCHRONIZATION EVENT. //*
My head split with pain. It wasn't physical damage; it was bandwidth overload.
For a second, I wasn't Shigu the Rat-Catcher. I was Shigu the Star-Eater.
I saw the foam. I saw the bubbles. I saw the infinite crushing weight of the multiverse pressing against the thin skin of reality.
"Gah!" I clutched my head, curling into a ball in the muck.
The vision passed as quickly as it came, leaving me trembling.
"Architect?" I whispered, my voice shaking. "What was that?"
The response was faint, filtered through the massive firewall I had built to protect my mortal mind.
*// THE PRIME ENTITY HAS SEEN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. //*
I wiped the sweat (and slime) from my forehead. I sat up slowly.
"The neighborhood?"
*// WE ARE NOT ALONE. AND THE WALLS ARE THIN. //*
I looked at the dead rat. Then I looked at the dark tunnel stretching out before me.
A cold chill that had nothing to do with the damp sewer air settled in my gut.
"I'm grinding XP to fight bandits," I realized. "But my other self is getting ready to fight universes."
I stood up. My knees were shaky.
"I need to level up faster," I muttered. "If something breaks through... an F-Rank mercenary isn't going to cut it."
I grabbed the rat's tail—proof of the kill—and started limping back toward the surface.
***
**Location: High Orbit, Omega-9.**
**Current Status: Watching.**
The *Violet Shadow*—still disguised as the *Rusty Bucket*—orbited silently.
Inside the ship's mainframe, the Architect processed trillions of calculations per second. It was the bridge. The operator. It managed the connection between the God and the Man.
It detected the anomaly before anyone else.
**[Sector 7G. Coordinates: 44.92, -12.11.]**
**[Gravitational Shear Detected.]**
**[Dimensional Integrity: 89%... 70%... 40%.]**
The Architect focused the ship's long-range sensors.
Out in the deep black, three light-years away from Omega-9, space was bruising. It looked like a purple hematoma on the face of the void.
Something was pushing from the other side.
**[Analyzing Energy Signature.]**
**[No Match in Database.]**
**[Signature suggests: Non-Euclidean Geometry. Magic-based Physics. Hostile Intent.]**
The Architect sent a priority packet to the Star Core.
*// BOSS. WE HAVE A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. //*
***
**Location: Core of Star System Z-42.**
**Current Status: Awake.**
I received the message.
"Show me," I commanded.
The image filled my mind. The purple bruise in space. The tearing of the fabric.
It wasn't a natural wormhole. Natural wormholes are spherical. This was a tear. A claw mark.
Someone—or something—from a neighboring universe was trying to force entry.
"Why?" I wondered.
Did they sense me? Did the sheer gravitational weight of my growing power act like a beacon? *Here is a dense energy source. Come and eat.*
I felt a spike of something I hadn't felt in a long time.
It wasn't fear. It was territorial aggression.
"This is my box," I growled.
The star around me flared, turning from red to blinding white for a split second as my anger spiked the fusion rate.
"Architect. Can the Avatar handle it?"
*// NEGATIVE. AVATAR IS LEVEL 3. THREAT LEVEL ESTIMATE: PLANETARY DEVASTATION. //*
"Can the Fleet handle it?"
*// THE ORDER OF TRUTH IS STILL REBUILDING. REN IS STRONG, BUT HE CANNOT FIGHT PHYSICS. //*
I sighed.
"Fine. I'll handle the doorbell."
I stood up.
The core of the star collapsed into the space I had vacated, rushing in to fill the void.
I didn't fly out. I *phased*.
I stepped sideways through dimension four, bypassing the distance.
***
**Location: Sector 7G (The Breach).**
**Current Status: Breach In Progress.**
Space tore open.
It didn't make a sound, but the electromagnetic scream fried the sensors of three passing satellites.
A rift appeared. It was jagged, bleeding violet light that smoked in the vacuum.
From the rift, a hand emerged.
It wasn't a biological hand. It was made of crystalline clockwork and screaming faces, fused together into a limb the size of a moon.
It gripped the edges of the tear in reality. It pulled.
*Creeeeeeeak.*
The fabric of our universe groaned. The laws of physics in the immediate area began to rewrite themselves. Gravity became repulsive. Light began to flow in spirals.
**[Intruder Identified: The Clockwork King (Universe-772).]**
**[Objective: Consumption.]**
The entity behind the rift began to push its head through. A face of grinding gears and cold, dead starlight.
It opened a mouth that was a black hole.
"**I HUNGER**," it broadcasted. The thought was heavy, oily. It drowned out the radio waves of the nearby systems. "**THIS REALITY IS RIPE.**"
Then, I arrived.
I didn't arrive with a flash. I didn't arrive with a bang.
One moment, there was empty space in front of the rift. The next moment, there was a man made of golden fire.
I was small compared to the rift. A speck of dust against a hurricane.
But I was heavy.
**[Day 1,295.]**
I crossed my arms.
"Get off my lawn," I said.
The Clockwork King paused. The massive, moon-sized hand stopped tearing. The gears on its face ground to a halt.
"**A GUARDIAN?**" the entity sneered. The voice grated against my mental shields. "**YOU ARE SMALL. I HAVE CONSUMED GALAXIES. I HAVE EATEN GODS.**"
"I'm sure you have," I said. "You're from a lower-density universe, aren't you? Universe-772? I can taste your math. It's weak. It's... linear."
I drifted closer.
"You grow by addition," I said, analyzing his aura. "You eat a star, you gain a star's power. One plus one equals two."
I raised my hand.
"I grow by exponents."
I clenched my fist.
**[Skill: Gravitational Veto.]**
I didn't attack him. I attacked the space he was occupying. I simply denied the universe permission to support his existence.
The vacuum around the intruder turned hard.
"**WHAT—**"
The Clockwork King jerked back. The edges of the rift began to slam shut, powered by my will. The crystalline hand was severed cleanly at the wrist.
The massive limb drifted into our universe, cut off from its source. It immediately began to dissolve, the alien physics unable to sustain it without the connection.
"**IMPOSSIBLE!**" the entity roared from the other side, scrambling to keep the door open. "**YOUR ENERGY DENSITY... IT VIOLATES THE CONSTANT!**"
"I am the constant," I said.
I pointed a finger at the rift.
"And you're letting a draft in."
**[Skill: Patch.]**
I fired a beam of pure Creation Mana. It wasn't a destructive beam; it was a welding torch. It hit the tear in reality and stitched it shut.
The scream of the Clockwork King was cut off as the universe healed.
The violet light vanished. The stars returned to normal.
Silence.
I floated there, looking at the scar in space where the breach had been.
It had been easy. Too easy.
But that was the problem.
I looked at my hand. It was vibrating. The skin was cracking, leaking golden light.
Using that much power—channeling a reality-altering repair spell—had cost me. Not in mana, but in stability.
The universe shuddered around me. A ripple of distortion spread out, warping the light of distant stars.
"I'm too heavy," I whispered.
The fight hadn't hurt me. But *being here* was hurting the house.
If I stayed in this dimension, fully unleashed, I wouldn't need invaders to destroy it. I would do it just by breathing.
I needed to leave.
But not yet. The Order wasn't ready. The Avatar wasn't ready.
If I left now, entities like the Clockwork King would come back. They would sense the vacancy. They would tear the place apart.
I had to become the wall.
***
**Location: Omega-9 (The Rusty Bucket - Medical Bay).**
**Current Status: Healing.**
I (Mortal Shigu) sat on the bio-bed, applying a healing patch to my ribs.
"Ow," I hissed.
The Architect spoke in my mind.
*// THREAT NEUTRALIZED. THE PRIME ENTITY WAS SUCCESSFUL. //*
"Good," I exhaled. "What was it?"
*// A SCOUT. FROM UNIVERSE-772. //*
I froze. "Universe-772? There are numbered universes?"
*// AFFIRMATIVE. AND SHIGU... THE PRIME ENTITY HAS COME TO A CONCLUSION. //*
The air in the small medical bay grew cold. I felt a profound sense of gravity, an echo of my other self's thoughts.
"Tell me," I said.
*// HE CANNOT STAY FOREVER. HIS MASS IS INCREASING TOO RAPIDLY. WITHIN TWO YEARS, HIS MERE EXISTENCE WILL CAUSE THE LOCAL CLUSTER TO COLLAPSE INTO A BLACK HOLE. //*
I stared at the wall. Two years. Day 2,000 roughly.
*// HE PLANS TO ASCEND. TO LEAVE THIS REALITY AND ENTER THE MULTIVERSE. TO FIGHT THE THREATS ON THEIR OWN TURF. //*
"And me?" I asked, looking at my scarred, weak, mortal hands. "What about the Avatar?"
*// YOU ARE THE ANCHOR. //*
The realization hit me.
The Main Body was the God of War, destined to roam the infinite void, fighting horrors beyond comprehension to keep them away from home.
But the Avatar... I was the God of Home.
I was the one who had to stay behind. I had to protect the people, the station, the Order. I had to be the benevolent admin who actually lived among the users.
"So," I stood up, testing my healed ribs. "I have two years to get from Level 3 to... what? Level 100? Level 500?"
*// ESTIMATED REQUIREMENT TO DEFEND SECTOR WITHOUT PRIME ASSISTANCE: LEVEL 999. //*
I laughed. It was a dry, slightly hysterical sound.
"Level 999 in two years. And I just almost died to a rat."
I walked over to the viewport. Omega-9 spun below me. It was dirty, dangerous, and full of life.
"Challenge accepted," I said.
I touched the copper F-Rank tag around my neck.
"Architect, show me the map. Where is the nearest dungeon? I need XP. A lot of it."
*// SECTOR 4. THE 'HIVE OF SORROW'. RECOMMENDED LEVEL: 15. //*
"Perfect," I grabbed my vibro-knife. "Let's go power-level."
**Chapter 90 Ends.**