A cold, predatory satisfaction settled deep in Rex's chest. It wasn't the simple pleasure of winning a fight; it was something far more complex: the intoxicating euphoria of a grandmaster who had executed a multi-layered gambit.
His plan hadn't just succeeded; it had succeeded on three simultaneous planes: he had secured power, he had eliminated a threat, and he had erased the evidence. A single-purpose plan was a hammer; this was a scalpel made of starlight.
He turned his back on the crumbling god and stepped through the domain's boundary.
FWOOSH.
The transition was violent. The pressurized, divine atmosphere of the domain shattered as the standard physical plane rushed in to fill the vacuum.
The sudden return of gravity and normal air pressure made his muscles tense, but Rex didn't stumble. He had become accustomed to walking between worlds.
But before he allowed himself to simply walk away, he had one final debt to settle with reality.
